Black Silk (18 page)

A
lone in her bedchamber, Maryanne reread Georgiana’s letter. The butler had given it to her as she’d snuck back to this room.

It had been so embarrassing. And she’d almost ignored Henshaw when he’d called out, “My lady.”

Sighing, she set down the new pages of Tillie Plimpton’s manuscript and skimmed over Georgiana’s plea for money.

Dear partner, I am dire straits. You must help. I am almost mad with worry—I know I must be discreet, but I am so worried about money I could become careless. If you could pay the debts and loan me two thousand pounds—enough to ease my fears, and it would ease yours, too….

It wouldn’t stop with two thousand pounds! Maryanne read on, and the last paragraph of Georgiana’s letter sent her dropping to the gilt and ivory stool in front of the escritoire.

And if you wish to entrance a gentleman such as Viscount Swansborough, you must play upon your naiveté and your qualities as a well-bred lady. It will arouse him beyond reason if your language in his bed is base and erotic. Admire his cock—tell him his prick is most magnificent. His blood will be aflame with desire. When he thrusts deeply inside you, hook your legs about his hips and beg him to fuck you. Repeat the word over and over, cry, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me hard,” or some such thing. Be shy in bed and use these phrases while demurely watching him beneath lowered lashes, and I vow you will capture his soul.

Her legs trembled even as her pulse leaped to a crescendo like harp strings. Did Georgiana know this from specific experience with Dash?

“Good afternoon, dear wife.”

Startled, Maryanne craned her neck to find Dash lounging in the doorway—the one that connected through a parlor to his bedchamber.

Hurriedly rolling the letter and manuscript pages, she thrust the roll into a docket, where it jammed. With the smooth, effortless gait of an elegant cat, he strolled toward her.

She must tell him the truth and ask him for almost five thousand pounds.

But what would he do when he learned the truth?

Would he throw her out in the snow?

Would he be less angry to learn that she didn’t create the books, that she had only fixed the spelling and added commas? Or would he be disappointed to discover his wife was a grand resource of proper grammar and not of inventive sex?

He reached her and stroked his knuckles along her neck. Electricity prickled over her. Goose bumps rose to greet his roughened skin.

“We must go down and join Anne and Moredon in the drawing room,” he said. “Anne is bubbling with excitement to meet you.”

Guilt washed over her. “I was…upstairs when they arrived. In the nursery.”

“Ah. But before we go down, we have some time…for fun.”

She almost fell off the stool in surprise. She’d expected him to be disappointed that she’d hidden away. Instead he bent until his warm breath coasted by her ear.

“What is your most secret fantasy, love?”

“I…” Georgiana’s words rang in her head.
When he thrusts deeply inside you, hook your legs about his hips and beg him to fuck you.

“Th—the midwife,” she stammered. “I meant to ask about the midwife. To find out about harm to the baby—”

He glanced to the pages jammed in the slot. “A letter? I hope the news was not bad.”

“N—no. It’s from my mother,” she lied. “Praising the shopping in London.”

How had she not thought to ask Mrs. Long the name of the local midwife? She could have had the midwife summoned and found out if they could make love. But she’d been too obsessed with her own awkwardness to even think.

“I spoke with Anne,” Dash murmured. “It should be safe to do whatever we want.”

Strangely that angered her. One word from his sister and all was right and they could make love. Yet when she had told him she thought there was no risk, he hadn’t listened.

What did she expect?

“Your fantasy, love. What is it?”

Should she do what Georgiana had suggested—use lewd talk to excite him? A dozen books flashed through her mind as her breathing sped. She could talk of sharing him with another women—men adored those stories. She could marvel at his cock. She could…

Tell him her true fantasy.

She turned to face him, trapped between his tall, hard body and the edge of the escritoire. “You. This. Us. This is what I fantasized about.”

Maryanne marveled at her courage and waited breathlessly for his response. Dash grinned, a slow grin that set her heart pounding as fast as it did when he undid his trousers.

He cupped her cheek.

Dash could see his wife had revealed a secret. Her chest lifted with her labored breaths, a blush swept across her cheeks, and she quickly averted her gaze from his face.

They rocked him. Her words. She knew exactly what to say to leave him feeling as if the ground had dropped out from underneath him.

“Indulge me,” Dash whispered. “What would be your wildest fantasy?”

Her brown eyes were wide and as dark and tempting as chocolate. “Do you…want me to make something up? Something erotic?”

The movement of her full lips over the word
erotic
sent blood surging from his brain. His cock, trapped in his trousers, lifted, determined to straighten.

He laughed. “Sweet lass. How do you understand me so well?”

“I don’t know what you want me to imagine. What is your fantasy? That intrigues me.”

Clever wench, gazing innocently into his eyes and turning his question onto him.

“You have done everything,” she murmured, her words sultry and sweet. “What is secret and forbidden to you?”

His brain ran riot. Tying up his wife in dozens of leather straps, watching her sweet honey pool between her nether lips as he did? Paddling her with a riding crop in playful dominance? Burying his face into her quim and coating his mouth with her feminine juices?

He had to admit he couldn’t think of an answer. “This. Discussing forbidden fantasies with you. And thinking of a quick fuck. Before we go downstairs.”

Cocking her head to the side, she slipped away from him and strolled toward her bed. “Do you always fantasize? Do you make up stories in your head? Do you pretend you are somewhere else or with someone else?”

He trailed after her like a puppy on a lead. Even while tied up by a woman, he had never felt truly on a leash. “I never would pretend with you.”

Her finger demurely pressed to her lower lip. “With me, you are just fucking
me?
”

“Yes.” He hissed it through his tight throat. Was it the right answer? He couldn’t think. He yanked his trouser buttons open, took a shuddering breath at the relief of pressure on his cock. Then he fished the beast out of his small clothes and prowled toward his wife.

The post of her bed was at her back. But he knew she wasn’t going to retreat.

She glanced down where his prick jutted ahead of him. Full of blood and painfully stiff, it felt heavy as lead.

“It’s huge,” she said. “Magnificent. You have a magnificent…cock. I’m…I’m trembling at the thought of such an enormous…prick inside me.”

He had to laugh. Her cheek twitched as she spoke, and her hands were clenched into fists. Worry wrinkled her forehead as she waited for his reaction.

“My prick is delighted to hear such compliments.”

She gave a soft smile. “And are you?”

“Sweetheart, lift your skirts.”

Hand on his cock, he guided it to the juncture between her thighs, beneath her dangling white petticoats, and he groaned at her pretty moan as the tip touched her lush, brunette nether curls. He braced his right forearm against the fluted column and stroked the taut head of his cock between her sticky nether lips.

“Are you going to tie me to the column?”

“Not now, love.” He shifted his hips forward, pushing his cock into her tight, creamy passage. He couldn’t wait long enough to get rope.

Couldn’t wait.

Her leg slung up around his hamstrings. “Please…please fuck me.”

Reaching down, he held her thigh—smooth and plump and soft, bare above her stockings. A thrust of his hips drove his cock deeper into a silken grip that almost stopped his heart.

Slowly he worked his cock inside her until her juices bubbled against his furry pubis and they were joined as deeply as possible. His balls were tight and hard against his body, and sensation thundered through his cock to his brain.

So hot. So tight.

His groin held her skirts up, and he caught her wrists. Lifted her hands above her head. She let him do it.

Trusting him.

He licked the rim of her ear, felt her squirm. “I want to make you come,” he groaned, and he gave long, agonizingly relaxed thrusts. Drew his cock out to the tip until his brain screamed for more heat and he surged back in to the hilt.

She rocked against him. “Fuck me.”

His thrusts quickened. Sweat beaded on his brow. His nipples stood proud against his shirt. He plunged his cock as deep as he could, his groin colliding with her body, punishing them both.

“Fuck me,” she urged.

Gentle.
He heard the voice in his head. Distant.
Be gentle with her.

But she was banging hard against him. “Fuck me hard,” she implored.

He reached down and slid his fingers between his cock and her clit.

“Yes!” She ground against him.

He found her nipple with his mouth, sucked it through her gown. He brushed his teeth over it, rubbed her clit, and pounded his cock into her.

She screamed—the scream of a woman falling into a climax that could set her on fire. Her sweet pussy pulsed around him, and she rocked wildly against him.

He drove deep and let her climaxing cunny take him over the edge. He exploded.

Pinned to the column, her arms held above her head, Maryanne kissed Dash’s strong jaw. Her tongue rasped over the dark stubble now sprouting there.

He drew back, grinning. “I didn’t make too much of a mess of you, dear wife.”

Maryanne frowned, glancing down at crumpled skirts. “Are you certain?”

“No—I’m lying, dear love. I think you will have to change your dress.”

She felt his seed dribble onto her thighs.

Georgiana had been correct—he enjoyed the naughty words. She’d feared she’d hurt him when he climaxed so hard and for so long. She had moved, to thrust again, and he’d cried out in anguish at the sensation. He’d pressed her back against the column to stop her.

And he’d still pulsed into her. For a while, she thought he’d never stop.

Did that mean he’d enjoyed it very much? Had she been as good as a courtesan?

She didn’t dare ask.

He was buttoning up his trousers, and he shared a wicked smile. His tousled hair fell over his brow, and his dark eyes flashed fire.

She slid to the side of the column and sank to the bed. Her legs felt boneless.

She had Georgiana to worry about. And acquiring money. And her husband believed someone wanted him dead yet seemed utterly cavalier about the prospect.

“All right, love?” he asked.

Of course not! She wanted to ask him about kidnappings and murdered women—but how could she broach it without revealing she had eavesdropped on his conversation? She hadn’t meant to overhear….

No. It was too embarrassing. And he’d never trust her if he knew.

“Yes,” she lied. “I’m fine.”

He bowed in front of her. She let him kiss her hand, her shy smile fixed on her face; her cheeks hurt with it, and she felt her lips might cramp.

“Can you be ready to go to the drawing room in half an hour?”

She nodded and watched him turn. His scent was all over her—the rich aroma of his cum between her legs, the scent of his skin on her neck and face, the masculine smells of male clothing and smoke on her dress.

In half an hour, she couldn’t bathe those scents away. Not bathe and change her gown and redress her hair. But she smiled again, even waggled her fingertips at him like a twit when he paused at the door.

As soon as he closed the connecting door behind him, Maryanne went to the bellpull to ring for her maid but stopped with her hand on the silken cord.

His sister knew she was pregnant—he must have revealed that while asking about risk to the baby. Heavens, how had he broached such a thing?

What must his sister think? The reason for their hasty marriage was clear, and Dash’s relationship with his sister was obviously close.

Did Lady Moredon hate her for snaring Dash in a forced marriage?

Maryanne saw Dash’s fond smile for his sister light his handsome face the instant they walked into the drawing room. He turned that smile to her, and she knew he expected her and Lady Moredon to be friends at once.

She gulped. No matter what, she must make it appear to be so.

But before she’d left the threshold, the slender woman launched forward with a hand outstretched. “Dear sister!” Lady Moredon cried. “How delightful to meet you.”

Lady Moredon possessed bewitching beauty—though what else could she have expected from Dash’s sister? His sister’s hair was a startling blue-black against a peach-toned complexion, whereas Dash’s skin was darker, tanned by exposure to the outdoors. His eyes were fathomless black, and his sister’s were a fey green.

Maryanne saw Dash’s pleased grin out of the corner of her eye and advanced forward. She’d never excelled in social situations. In Maidenswode, they’d learned to discount her. In London, she’d relied on her dowry to speak for her.

“Thank you.” Did she curtsy? She must, for Lady Moredon did outrank her. But she found herself enveloped in a hug before she could.

“Come sit here by the fire with me and tell me all. How you met, how he proposed. On one knee, I hope, but he can be dashed thoughtless.”

Maryanne let Lady Moredon take her hand and draw her to the settee. Her ladyship wore a burgundy velvet dress—simple but beautifully cut. Petite but voluptuous, Dash’s sister seemed to fill the room with her charm.

Maryanne swallowed hard. She should have invented a story. She should have asked Dash what he’d told his family.