A Midsummer Night's Sin (17 page)

“Christ, no,” he said, getting to his feet and holding his hands down to her, to help her rise. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry, Regina. I’ll go now.”

She rolled her eyes. Actually rolled her eyes. “If only I had Grandmother Hackett here to appeal to her for advice. I had no idea it would be so difficult to be rid of my virginity. Are all men so stupid, Robin Goodfellow, or just you? You’ve made it clear that you want me. Haven’t you? Or were you only flirting, being gallant, saying what you thought you should say?”

He was rather wishing for the grandmother, himself. Because he was totally at a loss at the moment. Anything he said, he felt certain, would be wrong. “Regina—”

“‘Come away with me now, sweet tease, and we will pleasure each other all the night long. We will strip off these masks, and with them rid ourselves of all inhibition. You do not yet know me, but I will soon know your every delectable inch, taste your nectar, explore
your most intimate womanly secrets. I will take you where you have never been, touch you in ways—’”

“Sweet God,” Puck interrupted in shock, taking her by the shoulders. “It sounded much more romantic in French, didn’t it? You committed that trash to memory?”

“Trash?” She tried to pull free of him again, but this time he held her in place.

“Yes, damn it. Trash. Said to a woman I thought to be something she was not. A woman of the world, not a—damn it, Regina, not a
virgin.
”

She stilled, no longer struggling. “Oh? So what do you say to virgins?”

She was going to drive him insane. “I don’t know. I’ve never bedded a virgin. Frankly, you scare the hell out of me. There. Happy now?”

She blinked twice, bit her bottom lip for a moment, and then—damn it—she smiled. “So that would mean that I am asking you—for I am asking you, Puck, make no mistake about that—to debauch your first virgin? That, in a way, you are as new to this as I am?”

Puck looked to his left, to his right.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

“Searching for my dignity. It’s got to be around here somewhere.”

“Oh, Puck…” she said and slid her arms up and around his neck. She took hold of one end of his riband and pulled open the bow, then threaded her fingers into his hair. “I’m so sorry. But I’m afraid it’s gone off somewhere with mine.”

He laughed softly and scooped her up into his arms to carry her over to the bed. “Good. Let’s see what sort of trouble we can get into before they both find their way back.”

This time, his hands were sure and certain. This time, she was naked in his arms. This time he wasn’t choking on either his tied cravat or his good intentions.

They touched. They sighed. They laughed. Her kisses enflamed him, her touch went from tentative to certain in the space of a few heartbeats.

The whole world would wish to be him, if they only knew the glory that was Regina Hackett. All woman, from her head to her toes. Every inch of her kissable…and kissed. Her every curve explored, some with exacting detail, even as she stroked him, learned him, seemed to glory in the feel of him.

She sighed her pleasure, moaned with each new ecstasy, allowed her lush woman’s body to dictate to her, give to him, welcome each new intimacy. And all while taking liberties of her own. She was on a journey of discovery, and making the most of every step along the way.

And he was learning, as well. He, who thought he’d experienced everything, known everything there was to know about this business of men and women, knew himself to be on his own voyage of discovery. Because this was more than mere sensation. Simple physical pleasure.

What he felt now was earthshakingly intense. Each touch had meaning. He’d never thought himself to be a
selfish lover but never before had giving pleasure been more important than taking it for himself. His heart soared when she sighed, it thrilled to the way she lifted her hips to grant him greater access to her secrets…and it shattered into a million pieces when at last he pushed inside her and broke through the final barrier keeping them two people rather than one.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he breathed against her ear as she went very still, her fingernails digging into his back. “But now it gets better. I promise.”

“Show me,” she whispered. “There’s more. I know there’s more. I still feel so…so— Oh. Oh, Puck, yes. That’s…oh.”

He moved slowly, withdrawing slightly before sinking into her again, counting silently—in Italian, not his most proficient language—in order to keep himself from exploding now that he was enveloped in the tight heat of her. But soon her small cries of pleasure turned slightly desperate, and she was pulling at him, her fingernails once again digging into his back, her hips rising up each time he withdrew, drawing him back.

He had to see her face. Had to see what was in her eyes. Needed it as he needed air to breathe. He pushed himself up, pressing his palms against the pillows, straightening his elbows, his long legs between her thighs, their lower bodies joined.

“Now?” he asked her, grinding himself against her, looking down into her beautiful face in the candlelight.

She put her hands on his arms, lifting herself to him,
her breasts creamy perfection, her chin tipped up as she strained for every last bit of pleasure he could give her.

This time when he moved, it was with the sight of her pleasure feeding his desire, the heat of her urging him on. He buried himself in her, again and again and again, until her body took her past mere desire and lifted her beyond the confines of the earth for those few fleeting moments of purest physical joy that made the rest of life worthwhile.

And then Puck did something he’d never done before in his life. He withdrew and gave in to his own pleasure only after collapsing on top of her, his release hitting hard against her lower belly in a climax so intense he briefly wondered if he might die with it.

R
EGINA LOOKED INTO
the mirror at the reflection of her maid. “Nothing?”

Hanks pushed another pin into the mass of hair she’d wrapped tightly around Regina’s head, in preparation for the black wig waiting its turn on the top of the dressing table. “Nary a drop, miss, not since we got here. Seems almost unnatural, it does. Only time I see her hands shake is when she talks about having to go back. Poor mite. Breaks my heart, seeing her like that.”

Having her own mother referred to as a poor mite, and by a servant who one would think would envy her much loftier position in life, was difficult to hear. But in many ways, it was true that Leticia Hackett was a woman to be pitied.

“I should go see her before I leave, but how would I explain this?” Regina asked, touching her hands to the bodice of her gown.

“She’s napping yet again,” Hanks told her. “Doing a lot of that. Napping. And the poor countess? I don’t think she’s slept a wink since she got here.”

Regina nodded, then winced as yet another long pin was twisted into her mass of hair. “I spoke with her this morning, and told her we think we’re making prog
ress. I hope that wasn’t a lie. It’s unnerving that she’s so grateful, when we haven’t really
done
anything.”

“Yes, miss. You’re not to know, but Mr. Puck spoke with her ladyship this morning, as well, and he all but promised her Lady Miranda would be home safe and dry very soon.”

Several hairs came out by their roots, Regina was certain of it, as she abruptly swiveled about on her chair. “He
what?
How could he do that?”

Hanks was a practical woman of small imagination. She merely shrugged and said, “I suppose by opening his mouth and saying the words, miss. He made her that happy.”

“He gave her false hope, that’s what he did.” Regina was incensed.

Again, the maid shrugged. “Crying could be false fears, just as easy. Even if we don’t know nothing, ain’t it better to be hoping than fearing? Time enough for either one once we know what’s true. And her ladyship ate up all her breakfast this morning, and that ain’t too terrible, I’m thinking, miss.”

Regina relented. “No, I suppose it’s not. How many more pins are you going to stab into me, Hanks? I feel now as if there are hundreds of them.”

“I think that about does it, miss. Now, to figure out how this thing works,” Hanks said, picking up the wig and looking at it critically. “Ah, there’s the front, don’t you think? Now hold still, miss, and we’ll get this done.”

A few minutes and several small adjustments later,
Regina was ready to take on her role of widow in mourning.

She was dressed top to bottom in unremitting black, her skirts rather full—the product of a bygone age, bits of black ribbon here and there, the buttons made of jet. Her gloves were really black lace mitts with her fingers left free. Her black boots laced to her knees and were not only cracked with age but two sizes too large. Her now coal-black hair was covered by a long, black veil that also effectively hid her face. She carried a large reticule, also black, with a posie of black roses pinned to it, and Hanks handed her a large black umbrella with a brown wooden handle.

“I wouldn’t recognize myself,” Regina said as she inspected her reflection in the long mirror in the dressing room. “I think I’d also cut a wide berth around me. Everything stinks of camphor.”

“Yes, miss, it does that. That’s what comes from people not dying every day, things gets put away. Here’s the last thing, sent up by Mr. Puck himself.” So saying, she took hold of Regina’s left hand and slipped a heavy gold ring on her finger, the center of the ring bearing an emerald nearly as large as her knuckle.

Regina held out her hand to admire the thing but then frowned. “Why on earth would he want me to wear anything like this? Everyone will notice it and remember it. I know I would.”

“You’d have to be asking Mr. Puck that, I suppose,” Hanks said as she hastened to the doorway that led
straight onto the hallway and opened it. “He’s waiting on you now.”

Regina gave her reflection one last look, accepted the black, lace-edged handkerchief Hanks pressed into her hand, and headed for the doorway, stopping only to ask, “You like him, don’t you? Mr. Puck.”

Hanks blushed to the roots of her hair. “I’m not so old as to not know pretty when I sees it,” she said quietly. “And he says ‘thank you, Hanks’ when I do something for him, like fetching up that there ring for him. Knows my name. And thanks me.”

“And he’s pretty,” Regina repeated, trying not to smile.

“Prettier than most, yes, miss. Maybe just not this morning.”

Her interest piqued, Regina hastened downstairs to the drawing room, where Puck was standing with his back to her, looking down at something in his hand.

He, too, was dressed all in black, the full cut of his coat also out of fashion for at least a decade or more, his pantaloons rather baggy and his white hose yellowed with age. She could see the mourning band pinned to his left arm…and smell the camphor from where she was standing.

“Are you sure we’re supposed to be the mourners and not a pair of corpses?” she asked him and then gasped as he turned to face her. “What is
that!
”

Puck raised a hand to the
thing
on the side of his nose. “This? You don’t like it? It doesn’t make me look distinguished?”

She walked closer—although the
thing
could be seen very well enough from a distance—and inspected him. His hair was hanging loose to nearly his shoulders, and it seemed somehow gray rather than blond. Looking closely, she could see it had been liberally powdered. And his complexion was darker, as if stained with tea or something. But it was the
thing
that caught and held her interest. “It’s a wart. Isn’t it? Oh, Puck, that’s ugly. Truly ugly.”

He grinned in what appeared to be extreme pleasure. The wart didn’t move. “Yes, you’ve gotten the better end of it, with that ring. Don’t lose it, pet, it cost a good ten shillings.”

She looked down at her hand. “It’s not real?”

“It’s the best glass money can buy,” he admitted readily. “And memorable.”

At last she thought she understood. “Like that
thing
on your nose.”

“Precisely. People will look at us, and if asked to remember something about us, they will remember that we were mourners and that you wore a lovely, whacking great emerald ring and I had a wart on the side of my nose big as a baby’s thumb. Oh, and the coffin.”

“There’s going to be a coffin, as well? And who will be in it?”

“Us, if we don’t play our cards exactly right. Are you ready to go? You look wonderful in that wig, by the way. The black suits you. You’d look wonderful without any hair at all, I wager. I’d kiss you, but my wart might fall off.”

She shook her head, seeing how clearly Puck was enjoying himself. “You know, I was quite nervous this morning, wondering how I could face you after…after last night. And now I’m wondering why I was so concerned. You make life so
easy
for people, do you know that? We can’t help but join in your games.”

“Not entirely my game, puss. I must make my bow to my sister-in-law, Chelsea, who first pointed out the brilliance of parading death in front of people, people whose first instinct is to look away from it. I’ll tell you the whole story one day.”

“I look forward to hearing it. Now tell me exactly what we’re going to be doing, please, as I must admit to not having considered a corpse. Just the two of us in mourning.”

“On the way,” he said, stuffing the note he’d been reading into his pocket and taking her hand. “The hearse is waiting in the mews.”

“The— Oh, Puck, you do nothing by half measures, do you?”

He leered at her, still looking young and wonderful, even with the wart, or in spite of it. “In all things, madam. In all things.”

“Wretch,” she grumbled as he led her to the rear of the house, feeling a blush stealing into her cheeks.

They passed by a few servants, who variously goggled or giggled, the cook dropped her stirring spoon when the two of them entered the kitchens, and the next thing Regina knew, she was sitting up on the wide plank seat alongside Puck and the driver of the hearse,
a man with a faint resemblance to Gaston. If Gaston had a belly big as a house, that is, and bright red hair beneath his large black top hat.

She looked about the equipage as they headed out onto the street. “The black ostrich plumes are a lovely touch,” she remarked, looking at the enormous feathers sticking up from the heads of the two black horses in the shafts and from each of the four top corners of the hearse. Then she turned about as best she could to peer in through the dusty windows of the hearse. “That’s an actual coffin, isn’t it? Is…is there an actual
body
in it?”

Puck kept his face free of expression. “Our cousin Yorick, yes.”

Regina chuckled softly beneath her dark veil. “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well.”

“Ah, but that is incorrect, pet. Still, a common error. The correct speech by our good friend Hamlet goes rather differently, with no
well
about it. ‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times.’ Etcetera. Thanks to my mother, I’ve got a head full of Shakespeare. And can’t seem to
shake
it.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “That was rather pathetic,” she teased. “Now tell me why we’re dragging Yorick with us.”

“That’s simple enough. We’re having him crated up and sent by sea to Minster-In-Sheppey for burial.”

“Minster-In-Sheppey? Sounds a lovely place.”

“I have no idea. I merely thought the name intrigu
ing. It’s located on and named after the Isle of Sheppey, in case you’re of a geographical bent of mind. One of England’s oldest churches is located there, along with a nunnery founded over one thousand years ago, although it’s no longer active.”

Regina looked at him, her jaw dropped. “You did more than simply pick out a name, didn’t you? Why?”

“One never knows when one will be taken to school and asked questions. A convincing lie is a well-prepared lie.” He turned a bright smile on her. “And now you’re looking at me as if you might be slightly afraid of me, wondering just what sort of man I am.”

“Not really. I think you’re a very clever man. I’m only wondering why you’ve found the need to be so clever.”

Beside her, Gaston sniggered.

“That had an ominous sound to it, Gaston,” Puck said, looking across at his valet. “Would you care to enlarge on it?”

“
Non, m’sieur,
I think not. I prefer to hold my tongue inside my head rather than in my hand,
oui?
”

Regina looked from valet to employer and back again. “You think you’re very amusing, the pair of you. Don’t you?”

“Ah, you hear that, Gaston? Miss Hackett is made of stern stuff. Didn’t I tell you she is magnificent?”

“Repeatedly,
m’sieur.
”

“You told him that?” Regina asked, feeling rather pleased. Extraordinarily pleased, as a matter of fact.

“Indeed. I also informed him that you are intelligent,
obedient and trustworthy, all of which you will be as we reconnoiter the London Docks.”

“Like a faithful hound,” Regina muttered, suddenly not so flattered as she’d been a moment earlier. “Thank you so very much.”

“You’re so very welcome, Miss Claridge—you are Miss Marianna Claridge for the duration, should anyone ask. I don’t expect that you’ll have to speak to anyone, but it’s always, again, best to be prepared. And now for the obedient part, if you don’t mind. I will be leaving you in Gaston’s capable hands as I make inquiries about the transport of Cousin Yorick, and you will hold your handkerchief to your face—beneath the veil, if you please—while keeping your ears and eyes open for anything or anyone who seems to be even slightly out of the ordinary. Can you do that?”

“I believe I will able to manage, yes,” Regina said, losing charity with Puck by the moment. “I seriously doubt, however, that one of my father’s captains will be willing to take a coffin onboard or make a stop to
deliver
it to the Isle of Sheppey.”

Puck’s grin grew annoyingly wide. “You don’t think I look impressive enough to sway one of his captains? Don’t spare my feelings, madam. It’s the wart, isn’t it? It puts you off.”

“Puck, please be serious. I know you’re trying to put me at my ease, but I won’t be that until Miranda is home safe and dry, so just tell me what you plan to do.”

He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Very well. What I plan to do is reconnoiter the area, hopefully
be invited inside one of the buildings, preferably the office, and to see and hear whatever I can. That, and to pocket a key if I can manage it so that I might return later to inspect the building at my leisure. I’m proficient enough, aren’t I, Gaston?”

“Not so fine as me,
m’sieur,
but not a bumbler, either,” Gaston admitted.

“Oh,” Regina said, rather nonplussed. “Am I in the company of thieves?”

“One reformed thief and one very bright pupil, I would say,” Puck told her as Gaston threaded the hearse through the ever-increasing traffic of drays and open wagons clogging the streets around the London Docks.

The three fell silent, as the shouts and cries and general noise would have meant that any conversation take place at a near bellow, and merely looked about at the daunting task they’d set themselves.

London Docks was a city in itself, it seemed, just as large and imposing now as it had been when Regina was much smaller and everything had seemed enormous.

They were close enough to see the masts of the trading ships that were tied up at the wharves or anchored in the river, so many of them that it would not have surprised her if a sailor could walk from one deck to the other for a mile without ever getting his feet wet.

“It’s impossible,” she said to no one in particular, her spirits plummeting all the way to the toes of her too-large boots.

“What?” Puck asked her, putting his mouth near her ear.

“I said, it’s impossible. You could hide an entire herd of elephants here, with no one the wiser.”