Touch of a Thief (20 page)

“Beautiful,” he murmured, running his fingertips over her silky skin and teasing the shadowed hollow between her breasts.

She bit her lip, but didn’t make any effort to shield herself from his gaze.

He steadied her on his lap, lavishing kisses on her breasts and gently tugging at the top of the corset with his free hand. He exposed a taut pink nipple, and settled her breast on the stiff lip of the corset. Then he did the same for the other one till they were framed by the blue serge of her traveling ensemble.

“There you are.” He leaned back to survey his handiwork. He pinched one of the pink buds. She gasped. The little nub puckered above its darker rose areola as if begging for more impudent play. His cock throbbed and he imagined rubbing it in the soft hollow between her breasts. “You have, without doubt, the loveliest bosom in England.”

“We’re not in England,” she said, her tone breathy.

“I’d have said the world, but I feared you’d think I was exaggerating so you’d allow me to take more liberties.” He bent to take a nipple between his teeth and bit down lightly.

An involuntary moan escaped her.

“Take all the liberties you like, Quinn.”

H
er whole body hummed with anticipation. Her nipples ached and when Quinn plucked them, she jerked at the zing of longing that streaked through her. She no longer cared that she was behaving in a shockingly fast manner.

Wanton, really.

All that mattered was Quinn’s mouth on her skin, his breath raising the small hairs on her nape, his skillful hands playing her body like the finest virtuoso.

Her corset’s boning jabbed under her breasts in a tender spot. The slight pain was buried under the torrent of sensations that washed over her simply because her breasts were exposed and Quinn was fairly worshipping them.

How perfectly wicked to imagine running about with them out like this all the time.

Quinn had put the idea in her head, but she found going about her normal life bare-breasted was a tantalizing prospect to consider while he suckled and licked at them.

“What would it be like to ride a horse with my breasts bared?” she murmured.

“You’d be dazzling. A charging Amazon”—Quinn released her nipple long enough to say—“with sunlight kissing your bouncing bosom and wind whipping past your nipples.”

He whorled his tongue over the tight bud and blew his warm breath across her charged flesh to demonstrate. She shivered with delight.

“What if I were to stroll along Hyde Park with my charms thus displayed?”

“You’d cause a sensation in short order.” He laughed. “There’d be a surge in traffic of all sorts. Who knows? You might start a new fashion, but you’d have to arrange your parasol to keep your bosom shaded lest it freckle unbecomingly.”

“You dislike freckles?”

“I misspoke.” He kissed her neck and nuzzled her earlobe while he rolled a nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Warm moisture gathered between her legs. “If
your
breasts were freckled, I’m certain they’d be entirely fetching. Soon all the best Society would wear their bosoms with spots even if they had to be drawn on each morning with a stick of charcoal.”

She giggled at that. “How perfectly scandalized my modiste will be if I ask her to alter my wardrobe to bare my breasts at all times.”

“Seek out a French seamstress,” he advised soberly. “The French are, in all matters of the flesh, far more worldly and less easily shocked.”

He bent his head to lavish attention on her breasts once more. Viola fought the downward pull in her groin. If Quinn had taught her anything, it was that delay meant delight and she was enjoying their nonsensical lovetalk.

“But perhaps it need not be my whole breast on display,” she suggested as she arched into his mouth. He suckled till she made a helpless little moan.

“Speaking for the male of the species, I cannot support anything less than baring your entire bosom.” He cupped her breast in his palm and thrummed her nipple, taunting and teasing it into an aching peak. “I’m growing exceedingly fond of the fashion concept of an open bodice.”

The hard ridge of him pressing against her bum was solid proof of his fondness.

“What if the neckline of my gown were simply cut a bit lower?” She drew a thumb across her bosom beneath both nipples. “Just low enough to make sure my nipples were visible above a froth of lace?”

Quinn met her gaze and his storm-gray eyes glinted with dark fire. “What a little minx you’re becoming.”

“And do you like minxes?”

“More than breathing.” He dipped his head and suckled her again. A low drumbeat throbbed between her legs.

“Or perhaps my nipples might only be visible at certain angles so I might pretend I’m unaware of the sensation I’m causing.”

“How considerate, milady,” Quinn said, as he reached under her skirts and rifled through the layers of her petticoats. “It’s kind of you to forewarn me of your innate wickedness.”

His hand found her knee and slid up her thigh. Her legs parted slightly of their own accord. She pressed her lips to the crown of his head since he’d bent to cover her breasts with kisses once more.

“My wickedness is not innate. You must take credit for some of it,” she said breathlessly when his fingers found the slit in the crotch of her all-in-one. “You make me . . .”

Quinn lifted his head and watched her intently as he began playing a lover’s game on her hot mound. She was so slick and wet, his fingers slid between her legs with languid ease.

“I make you what?” he prompted.

“Feel outrageous things,” she admitted as her head fell back with a sigh. He trailed a row of kisses along her neck and delight shivered over her whole body while his fingertips teased along her intimate folds. “Think outrageous things.”

“Like what?” He circled her little sensitive spot, which had risen to his touch, with maddening slowness.

She forced her mouth to form words, but his stroking was making conscious thought more difficult by the moment. “I picture myself in a formal assembly. I dip a low curtsy to the ambassador with the rosy tips of my breasts winking at him, bold as brass.”

Quinn’s fingers moved with more speed and increased pressure right where she needed him. Her insides tightened, coiling for release.

“His monocle will no doubt slip from his rheumy eye in surprise, but I won’t even blush.”

“Jezebel,” he murmured as if it were an endearment. Quinn slipped a finger inside her to stroke her slick inner walls while his thumb continued to rub her spot.

“My nipples will do the blushing for me,” she said, rocking her pelvis into his questing hand. She cried out when Quinn bit down on one of her tight pink buds. Viola dissolved in heat and friction and blinding need. She spiraled downward, nearly there, nearly incoherent with need, but he seemed to enjoy her naughty thoughts, so she went on. “I throb under the appalled, . . . roused, . . . unblinking gaze . . . of everyone . . . in the room.”

“Everyone,” he repeated. Quinn’s hand stopped and he sat up straight. His face was stone. “Everyone like Beauchamp, you mean.”

She suppressed a sob. She’d been so close. “No, I didn’t . . . Quinn, there’s nothing . . . I was just . . .”

Her body screamed at him, begging him to finish her, but she knew he couldn’t hear it. She teetered on the ledge of a precipice, unable to stay as she was, unable to tumble over. A tear of frustration slid down her cheek and she tasted salt when it found the corner of her mouth. He pressed a kiss on that juncture of smooth skin and moist intimacy.

Then he cupped her sex with his whole hand and the firm pressure was all she needed to push her over the edge. She pulsed into his palm as her insides unraveled. He cradled her head against his chest with his free hand, crooning urgent endearments in some language she couldn’t understand, while her body shuddered with the force of her release.

When she settled, he continued to hold her, rocking her in time with the movement of the coach. Their breathing fell into rhythm with each other.

“I’m an ass,” he finally said, breaking the silence.

She lifted her head so she could look at him squarely. “Not that I’m contradicting you, but why do
you
think so?”

“You were having a harmless little fantasy and I ruined it for you.”

She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug and her lips twitched in a smile. “It wasn’t completely ruined.”

“I don’t share well, love. I can’t bear the thought of anyone else seeing you like this, anyone else holding you while you—”

She palmed his cheeks. “No one else has ever made me feel the things you do, Quinn.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

The coach slowed. Viola slid off Quinn’s lap and peeked out a slit in the curtains at the sleepy little village of Celle. Their coach lumbered through the narrow lanes, barely able to squeeze through in spots. Viola could have snatched a posy from the window boxes as they passed if she’d wished.

A blindingly white lime-washed castle loomed over the cluster of thatch-roofed homes.

“We’re nearly there,” she said covering his bulging groin with her palm. “I’m sorry to leave you so dissatisfied.”

“Not dissatisfied. I prefer to think of my current state as hopeful.”

He was lying, of course, but he did it with such charm she couldn’t help smiling at him.

“Hope is a good quality in a man.”

“Then I shall try to remain hopeful,” he said with a wicked grin. “But if we are nearly there, we need to put you back together. However delicious it may be for me to enjoy your bare breasts, I don’t want to extend that pleasure to others.”

He wanted her only for himself. It wasn’t a declaration of undying love, but her heart warmed to his words.

He eased her breasts back beneath her corset and tied up her chemise. She was just fastening the last button at her neck and retying the bow of her bonnet when the coach rumbled to a stop.

Quinn opened the door and handed her down from the coach. The moat had been filled in so there was no drawbridge to cross. They had already entered the central courtyard and were stopped in the center of the bailey, a broad parade ground surrounded by the outer castle walls. A fair complement of Hessian soldiers patrolled the top of the curtain wall and manned the turrets at each of the four corners. A loud thud told Viola the portcullis had been lowered behind them.

“There you are!” Neville emerged from one of the many doors opening onto the bailey and hurried toward them with a pair of liveried footmen flanking him. He snapped his fingers and the servants unloaded Viola and Quinn’s baggage from the carriage boot. “Welcome to Celle.”

Viola smiled and nodded her thanks. After Quinn’s display of jealousy, she didn’t want to add fuel to that fire with a more effusive display of gratitude.

“You didn’t bring your Indian servant?” Neville asked Viola.

“Sanjay is in Hanover, waiting for a telegram from one of my regimental friends,” Quinn said, yanking away from her the opportunity to answer Neville.

She stifled her irritation at his high-handedness.

“The telegram is late and we nearly delayed our trip to Celle on account of it,” she told Neville. “But we’re glad to be here now.”

Every third day or so, Quinn received a
tar
from a Lt. Worthington with news about developments in India. The lieutenant had missed the last designated day for a missive and Viola suspected Quinn worried over it, though he said little about it beyond making excuses for his distant friend.

“My servant will rejoin us once he collects the telegram coming from Delhi,” Quinn explained.

Neville curled his lip slightly. “Still reliving your glory days in the Gorgeous East? Well, it may interest you to know we’re expecting a fellow who’s come directly from India any day now. Perhaps Mr. Chesterton can sate your need for news of the exotic.”

Viola and Quinn exchanged a quick glance. Based on her vision from the ruby in the ambassador’s office, she’d been certain the diamond would come through Hanover. Now Quinn was, too.

“In the meantime, I’m sure we can scare up a valet for you, milord,” Neville said. “And an abigail for you, Lady Ashford. This way, if you please, and I’ll show you to your rooms.”

“Rooms?” Quinn said. “The lady and I are on our honeymoon, Beauchamp. One room will suffice.”

“Your recent nuptials notwithstanding, it’s not at all the done thing for a husband and wife to share the same quarters in Celle,” Neville said with a frown.

Quinn placed a proprietary hand on Viola’s waist and pulled her close. “Do I look as if I give a tinker’s damn whether it’s the done thing?”

Viola flashed Neville a look of entreaty. The last thing they needed was another brawl to break out.

“As you wish,” Neville said stonily. “This way, if you please.”

The interior corridors of the castle stored cold better than an ice house. Chill leached from the bare stone walls and floors. It slipped beneath Viola’s hem and crept indecently up her shins. Her teeth threatened to start chattering by the time they mounted the third set of stairs that led up to the guest rooms.

“This is your chamber, milady,” Neville said as he opened one of the heavy plank doors leading off the frigid corridor.

The room was sun-splashed since the shutters had been thrown open onto the bailey below. The bed was built into the wall in Teutonic fashion with curtains to enclose it against nighttime chills. The footmen carried their luggage into the space and left them for the abigail and valet to unload later. There were half a dozen hat boxes, along with her valises and a good sized trunk. Those held only her wardrobe. Viola was mildly surprised by how much she’d accumulated in the way of worldly goods since joining forces with Quinn.

“The chamber is a bit small. It was designed with one guest in mind, and at a time when people seemed to be a good deal shorter. Many of the private chambers are snug like this.” Neville shot a look at Quinn. “The room I’d chosen for you had higher ceilings, Ashford, if you’d care to change your mind about sharing.”

“Not bloody likely.” Quinn bared his teeth in a feral smile.

“This room is lovely. Thank you,” Viola said, untying her bonnet. “We’ll be quite cozy here.”

Fortunately, a blue tiled stove squatted in one corner of their accommodations. Someone had banked a small fire in it and the room was a comfortable temperature compared to the hallway. An overstuffed chair bathed in the shaft of sunlight streaming through the window. Beside it on a small table, fresh cut tulips nodded in a Delft vase.