A Wild Night's Bride (12 page)

His lips twitched. “Then I came very close to granting your wish. But that is not what
I
want.”

“No?” she asked. “I thought it was what all men most desired.”

“I’ve told you before, Kitty. I am not like other men.”

“I know you aren’t,” she agreed in a whisper. “But then what do you most want?”

The image from DeVere’s book, the shocking illustration that had fascinated him, flashed vividly before his eyes. “You really wish to know?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Then I will tell you my darkest fantasy, and if you will only grant me this, I promise you heaven in return.”

“I meant what I said. I will do anything to please you.”

“My deepest desire is to explore your most intimate places with my hands, lips, teeth, and tongue. I want to taste you and bury my face in your luscious quim and make your body rack with uncontrollable spasms of pleasure...and I want to be in your mouth when you do.”

***

Phoebe was breathless, thoughtless, stunned. At the same time, her body thrummed with erotic excitement. He lifted her onto the edge of the bed, kissing her hungrily while she tore at his remaining clothes. His hands and mouth explored, licking and plying hot, biting kisses to her throat, shoulders, and softly molded breasts. He pulled her nipple into his mouth, sucking, teasing, and gently nibbling, sending sublime shocks of sensation straight to her womb. She threw her head back with a cry, but he only continued the tantalizing torture until she was wet and writhing.

“Lie back,” he commanded, pressing her backward, a subtle smile hovering over his face. He knelt between her legs, his broad shoulders nudging at her knees, spreading her wide open to his hungry gaze. He grazed the top of her mons, his fingers stroking the downy mass, causing her to shudder, to gasp.

He slid his fingers into her slickened folds, stroking, teasing, tormenting, until she undulated against him. He answered her cry to penetrate her flesh with two fingers plunging into her quivering passage. His clever thumb worked her clitoris until she mewled her need for release. “Shh.” He lowered his mouth to her mons, blowing hot breath against her inflamed flesh, dipping his tongue into the hidden place. His mouth teased her with his mastery.

“I know what
you
want—what you need,” his voice, low and hoarse, echoed her earlier words. “But not yet.” He pulled back with a devilish grin.

“Please,” she cried, panting and bereft with unsated need. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything at all.” She shut her eyes in fervent surrender.

The mattress at her head sank under his weight. He was kneeling beside her. She gazed into his face, questioning. “Trust me, Kitty,” he said and lowered his face to kiss her, deep and hot, her own erotic essence and juices still lingering on his tongue. Head first, he worked his way down her body, lavishing a sweet torment of licking, kissing, sucking, and biting, creating a tumult of sensation, a hungry throb in her belly until it became a wild and white-hot famine.

When she thought she would expire from his sweet torture, his fingers slid into the dewy folds of her vulva, his tongue darting warm and wet and delicious into her hidden place, finding her most sensitive nub. Her blood coursed like liquid fire in her veins as his tongue and fingers worked their magic, circling and suckling her into a dark descent of desire. Her vision blurred. The first tremors began. She clutched his head and bucked against his mouth, reaching blindly for that exquisite release. During this fevered frenzy, he placed her hand around his sex and straddled her. “Take me between those luscious lips now, Kitty. I want to feel your release while I worship you. I want to experience your scream of rapture with my cock in your mouth.”

With this wicked promise, he buried his face in her mound. Kitty drew him into her mouth, enveloping him in her wet heat and slick, sweet friction just as he took her clit between his lips and sucked. In only seconds, she shattered. The vibration of her muffled scream was his undoing. His sac contracted, and he exploded with a shuddering groan.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

“Ned, you must wake up.” The frantic whisper and tickle of silky hair pleasantly penetrated the periphery of Sir Edward Chambers’ drink-induced, sexually sated, and fog-enshrouded consciousness. “Come, Neddie,” the soft voice implored. “You must wake, or there will be the devil to pay.”

He groaned, rolling onto his side to the simultaneous awareness of a pounding head and the soft, warm presence beside him. He groped blindly, defining a shapely feminine backside that tauntingly wriggled against his groin, stirring quite another part of him to a wakeful and throbbing state. He nuzzled her neck while his burgeoning erection sought the warmth betwixt her thighs. “Annalee, my sweet Annalee,” he murmured into her hair.

The warm, welcoming body became cold stone. “Phoebe,” a voice intoned.

Ned’s bleary eyes popped open, his attention immediately riveted to the massive bed, the heavy velvet curtains of rich crimson and gold, and the towering hand-carved posts of mahogany. He jerked upright as if doused with ice water, his gaze settling on the voluptuous, blue-eyed blonde lying amidst the tangle of luxurious linens. “Kitty?”

“No.
Phoebe,
” she answered. “My name. It’s Phoe-be.”

“Phoebe?” He frowned in puzzlement. His vision darted from his thoroughly tumbled bedfellow to the opulent room. He frantically scrubbed his face and looked wildly about the room, eager to light upon something,
anything
, to assure himself he wasn’t going mad. The vision of his surroundings sent him scrambling to his knees, entangling him in the bed sheets, and tumbling him to the floor. Lying stunned on the thick Turkish carpet, his confused conscience absorbed the soaring twenty-foot, shadow-boxed ceiling depicting classical heroes.

“Kitty, Phoebe, or whoever-the-devil-you-are,” he spoke through clenched teeth. “This isn’t Carlton House, is it?”

“No,” she answered.

His heart beating apace, Ned willed himself first to breathe and then to modulate a tone verging on panic. “I was with DeVere last night.
Where
is DeVere?”

“DeVere is locked safely in the linen closet.” She hugged her breasts, her expression suddenly wary. “Don’t you remember anything?”

He vigorously shook his pounding head, only to bring forth a chaotic kaleidoscope of last night’s events, and the impossible truth persisted to push its way to the surface.

His gaze glued to the bed, Ned made a mechanical backward retreat to the center of the room where he had a clearer prospect of its crowning glory. His vision rose to the top of the headboard, to the heraldic shield seated betwixt the carved figures of a lion and a unicorn. His gaze slid with dread to the engraved scroll beneath.
Dieu Et Mon Droit.
God and my right, the motto of the king. His chest seized. The room began to spin. He looked to Phoebe, the blood draining from his face, his voice emerging as a strangled sound. “May the same God save me...for I’m going to be hung, drawn, and quartered for spending last night rutting in the King of England’s bed!”

Bile churned in his stomach. Ned staggered blindly, clutching for the support of the bedpost. Phoebe leaped into action to meet him, chamber pot in hand, holding back his loose hair while he retched. She retrieved a basin and damp cloth to bathe his face.

Thank you,” he said. He stood and raked a hand through his hair with a groan, meeting her blue gaze straight on and trying with growing discomfiture, to ignore her nakedness.

“’Tis nothing.” She met his stare with an unabashed shrug.

The gesture drew his attention to her full, perfectly shaped, pink-tipped breasts.
Ah, those I remember surprisingly well.
His stare swept lower, and another vivid memory shocked him with explicit detail. “Dear God in Heaven, what happened last night?”

She turned away to locate the scattered pieces of discarded clothing that littered the room. His eyes tracked her every movement, especially her round, shapely arse. As she bent to retrieve her discarded shift and stays, the vision jolted his brain and stiffened his prick with an amazing ferocity.

“Here, let me help you.” Ned snatched up her gown along with his breeches and shirt, embarrassed by his nudity and even more by his erection, but her sidelong glance said she was already well-aware. He handed her the gown, opened his mouth to speak, and shut it again, clueless as to the proper protocol following a night of wild abandon in a stranger’s arms.

Ignoring him altogether, Phoebe took the gown, yanked it over her head, and began stuffing her errant tangle of pale blond hair into the white cap. He watched her mechanical movements as she pulled the soiled sheet from the bed, stuffed it into a pillowcase, and threw the bedcovers back into place. The black gown. The mobcap. His brain jolted again.

“A maid? I’ve ravished a chambermaid?” He was astounded by the depths of sheer depravity to which he’d sunk.

Phoebe turned to face him with a full-bodied chortle of mirth. “You truly don’t remember a thing!”

Heat suffused his face. “No, damn it all! Only bits and pieces that make no sense. Except for the part where we—you and I...” He gesticulated wildly to the bed and grappled with the jumbled events in his head. The night had begun in the brothel. He remembered that much. And the kava kava too. His stomach roiled anew at the remembrance of the foul brew. “There was a masked woman.” His gaze flew to Phoebe’s face. “Who are you?”

All trace of humor disappeared from her face. “Are you daft? I’ve already told you thrice! I’m Phoebe.”

A rapid click of footfalls and clattering sounds in the outer passage interrupted his confused ramblings, followed by a key rattling in the lock of the antechamber. The tumblers turned. Ned froze.

“Away with you! Under the bed!” Phoebe urged in a frantic whisper. Ned dove underneath with a muffled cry as a shoe she kicked after him hit him squarely in the head.

***

“You!” cried the shrill voice from last night. The large ring of keys dangling about her waist identified the wizened woman as the palace housekeeper. She pierced Phoebe with steely gray, close-set eyes. “Who the devil are you? And what are you doing here?”

Phoebe dropped her gaze and bobbed. “Betsy, mum. Sent by the laundress to air the sheets.”

“Air the sheets? But these are fresh sheets. The king has not slept here in a for’night.” She advanced with a menacing look. Phoebe cried out as the housekeeper grabbed her by the ear. “You don’t fool me for a minute! I knew there was sommat amiss here last night! You can confess now, or I’ll see you flayed!”

“Please, mum,” Phoebe whimpered. “’Twasn’t me! ‘Tis the new footman.”

“What? Who? Tell me!” the termagant demanded with a yank.

“Have pity, mum!” Phoebe cried.

“What footman? Where is the scoundrel?”

“Through the dressing room. Passed out in the closet. I found him when I got the fresh sheets. I’ve already called for the Yeoman.”

The housekeeper released Phoebe with a shove and barreled into the adjoining chamber. “Quick! Out the door,” Phoebe whispered. “I’ll see what can be done with DeVere.”

“The devil you will,” Ned said, straightening his tunic and donning his hat. “I’m the Yeoman, aren’t I?” He smiled a devious smile. “I’ll take care of DeVere.”

Her brows furrowed with uncertainty, Phoebe, nevertheless, followed Ned into the dressing room. They arrived just in time to witness the housekeeper unleashing her invective on the unwary and gaping victim.

“So, here you are at last, you ill-begotten rogue! Caught in the very act! Not only did you filch the king’s brandy, but I now find you trespassing in his private quarters? You are not only dismissed, you vile and feckless scoundrel, but I’ll see you in Newgate!”

DeVere gave a thunderous look, first to the housekeeper, then to Phoebe and Ned whose broad shoulders filled the doorway behind the two women. He opened his mouth to speak, but Ned stifled him with a warning look.

“So here be the blackguard!” Ned declared. “Stand you back, ladies.” Entering the closet with a much-exaggerated swagger, he hauled DeVere unceremoniously to his feet. The would-be footman swayed unsteadily. His face blanched. His lids fluttered, and then his knees buckled. Ned caught him just in time. “Looks like ‘e’s yet to sleep it all off.”

“Sleep? Devil take him first!” the housekeeper roared. “Convey him to the stable yard at once!”

With a grunt, Ned heaved DeVere over his shoulder.

DeVere groaned. “What the bloody hell are you doing? Put me down, you damnable lout!” The air nearly turned blue with the rest of his muffled curses.

“Now. Now. You’d best be watching your tongue. There be ladies present.” Ned winked at Phoebe. While DeVere continued in impotent protest, Ned and Phoebe followed the enraged housekeeper through the Royal Apartments, down the servants’ stairs, through the west courtyard, and into the stable yard.

“There!” She pointed. “That’ll wake ‘im, sure enough!”

“The hell you do!” DeVere cried.