Her Gilded Prison (Daughters of Sin Book 1) (2 page)

“Oh God,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He thought he’d explode, his need for instant sexual gratification now greater than it had ever been with the Spanish whores and French camp followers who’d been his usual sparse bedroom fare until now. Indeed, Stephen Cranbourne was rising in the world in all respects.

Never had he ever been so desired. The lovely Lady Julia wanted him.

He closed his eyes and moaned softly as she took him deep into her mouth. There was no need to answer. He was no longer of this world. Nothing mattered except his sensory gratification at the hands of this exquisite woman.

Slowly she slid him deeper until his hilt was buried deep down her throat while her hands played lightly with his balls.

Every nerve ending quivered as she slid him out then in, the friction of each thrust nearly driving him to distraction. He was going to come any second and he’d die of pleasure.

She must have sensed he was on the edge and wanted to prolong their lovemaking, for still gripping him, she rose to her feet so that her head rested just beneath his.

Her arms went around him and she wriggled her body tight and hard against his almost painful erection, whispering, “Lift me onto the table, Mr. Cranbourne, and let’s see what you’re really made of.”

He did not need to be invited twice. He hoisted her onto the ledge, then rucked up her skirts, his hands skimming her smooth, shapely thighs. The candle flickered perilously.

“Careful, Mr. Cranbourne, or you’ll engulf us both in the fires of Hell.” She gave a throaty chuckle.

Wasn’t that where he was going for taking his fill with another man’s wife?

The thought was not enough to stop him. If the exquisite Lady Julia wanted him, he’d take her anywhere.

He stepped back, preparing himself, her parted legs offering a tantalizing view of glistening folds.

And all his for the taking.

“Come, Mr. Cranbourne.” Her voice was hoarse and rough with desire. “Show me how a real man satisfies a woman. I get little enough pleasure in the marital bed. No, don’t be afraid. Archie is already so befuddled he won’t know if we’ve been gone five minutes or an hour.”

A flicker of concern over his wager made him hesitate but was banished when her hand closed over his cock to guide him into her.

The rapture in her expression was too much to resist. She was gorging herself on him and after so many years in hellholes across the continent, fighting for king and country, it was rare to feel such a prize with the ladies.

“Oh God,” he croaked again as the tip of his cock touched her sex.

“That’s right, my lovely,” she crooned as her tight opening closed around him. “Oh, my, but you’re so much bigger than my Archie. Why, I want to eat you all up.”

Something in her words sparked a momentary alarm but as she jerked her body forward, plunging him into her hidden depths, her legs closing around his waist, his thoughts were consumed by one thing only.

Release.

God, it had been a long time since he’d not had to pay a woman for sex. This one wanted him. Lady Julia wanted him.

And she had a body to drown in.

Tucking his hands beneath her bottom, he squeezed, pulling her against him, as he plunged into her.

“Touch me.” Her soft breath against his cheek curdled his soul. What had he been thinking? Only of himself, clearly, for she had done all the taking and he’d been happy to be led. “Yes, oh, yes, there.”

With his thumb and forefinger he pleasured the glistening folds of her sex, the slick juices testament to her pleasure. Her eyes were glazed and her movements jerky as she threw her head back and offered her body up to him.

For the first time, Mr. Stephen Cranbourne made love as a gentleman of the ton in a poky closet off the corridor of a home grander than he was used to gracing and not as grand as he was about to inherit.

The world was at his fingertips and he’d never felt so on top.

“Oh yes, Mr. Cranbourne!” With a cry fit to bring the roof—and Sir Archie’s fury— crashing down upon them, Lady Julia convulsed in a final outpouring of pleasure. There was no mistaking the force of her orgasm, which fueled the ferocity of his, the pulsing of her silken canal in which he was so gloriously sheathed, sending the blood roaring to his extremities.

“Oh God, Lady Julia!” he gasped, spilling himself into her, clasping her to him and clinging on for dear life so they didn’t both tumble dangerously to the stone-flagged floor.

It’s where they ended up, regardless, in a tumble of petticoats and half-buttoned breeches, exhausted, spent and unable to move.

In the silence all he could hear was their ragged breathing. It was a full few minutes before she struggled out from under him to lie against his side and whisper languidly, “Oh, Mr. Cranbourne, you are so much more the athlete than my frogspawn, Archie. You can be my houseguest anytime.”

Sir Archibald. Stephen froze. Sir Archie was in the next room, or as near as made no difference. How long had they been gone? How long before he’d come searching for his missing wife...who’d disappeared in the wake of his missing houseguest?

“Don’t trouble yourself, Mr. Cranbourne,” she whispered silkily, as if reading his thoughts. “Archie will be snoring by now. He can’t stay awake beyond midnight. Not much sport for poor me. Won’t you stay another day?” Her tone was cajoling. “Perhaps we could do this again tomorrow.”

His pulse skittered like a nervous schoolboy’s. He’d like to do it again tomorrow. He’d like to do it again every day. He gazed down at her with desperate fondness. No woman had ever wanted him like Lady Julia. In that moment they were as star-crossed lovers. Impulsively, he said, “You must come away with me.”

She cocked her head. “Come away with you? Where to?”

The ludicrousness of his words was brought home to him—he had no home. The army had been home for years. His father had departed this mortal coil when he’d been a boy. His mother had died when he was eighteen. In the time since then he’d drifted, making do on his paltry allowance of four hundred pounds a year. Good fortune had favored him on a few occasions at the horse races but he’d been burned and he’d learned his lesson.

Oh God, his wager!

She must have seen his panic. Leisurely she extended her hand, fondling his balls so that he hardened instantly, despite himself.

He closed his eyes, hardly able to believe that this lovely woman wanted to do this all over again with him.

After years as a young boy spent dodging his mother’s creditors while their well- connected friends dwindled, followed by a series of unexceptional liaisons while in the army, Stephen had been conscious of his shaky foothold on society’s ladder.

Tonight in the arms of Lady Julia, he’d been admired as a man and embraced by quality. One day he would be a viscount. In two short weeks his world had expanded, offering him unlimited horizons.

In a burst of adolescent daydreaming, he imagined pulling her up in front of him on his  white  charger  as  Sir  Archie  grasped  ineffectually  for  its  mane.  Stephen  the conqueror had claimed Lady Julia as his woman.

He was conscious of her reaching down to adjust her garter.

He glanced at her. She did not wear the love-limpid look he’d expected.

“Let’s see what that spider’s up to, shall we?” Her tone was matter-of-fact, her smile bright before she tickled him playfully under the chin. “If you’ve won the wager, I think I deserve a present, don’t you?”

He blinked, his throat dry. This was not how it was supposed to be in the aftermath of grand passion.

“Come, Mr. Cranbourne, let me smooth your hair and put you in order. That’s right, now... Goodness, we were awfully near the drawing room, I hadn’t realized. I hope Archie doesn’t mind. You’re right—if he suspects he’ll be awfully cross with me.” She put her finger to her lips. “Our secret, eh, Mr. Cranbourne?” Her eyes danced with seductive allure but this time Stephen didn’t respond. Couldn’t. He had no idea what to think.

Archie turned as Stephen entered the drawing room. “Ah, Cranbourne... Sorry, old fellow, but you owe me rather a few monkeys.” He beckoned to him from the escritoire.

“There’s the old chap, still loyally by her side.” He pointed. “Admittedly, she tried to best  him.”  There  was  gloating  in  his  tone.  “But  he  soon  had  her  in  order.  As  I maintained before, the male is the superior species, in every sphere.”

From his chair by the fire, the earl of Barston nodded gloomily as he corroborated his host’s pronouncement. “Sorry, old chap.”

It took a few seconds for the meaning of his words to sink into Stephen’s fuddled brain. He shook his head as if to clear it, picturing the mismatched spider couple. “But...I’ve seen it time and again. A male that tiny always becomes prey to its mate. I saw the way she moved. She was preparing to attack just as I was leaving.”

“You were gone quite some time,” Archie said, pointedly before resuming his mournful expression. “So unless you want to watch the two of them smelling of April and May until the morning?” He indicated the apparently honeymooning arachnid couple, yawning.

Barston was already snoring gently, his head rising and falling on his chest from each breath.

Lady Julia stroked Stephen’s arm, murmuring words of comfort. “Poor Mr. Cranbourne. Still, you’ll probably win that and more as soon as you take up residence with  your  rich  relations.  Perhaps you can  ask  your  uncle  for  an  advance  on  your inheritance.”

Stephen looked down at her face, pert with bright assurance. His stomach flip- flopped. He truly was all at sea. “I...I don’t see what choice I have but to ask Lord Partington,” he muttered, assessing the parlous state of his finances. His new coat was, literally, the most he’d outlayed on anything.

Sir  Archie  raised  his  half-drunk  whisky.  “Or  perhaps  you’ll  find  yourself  in parson’s mousetrap allied to Lord Partington’s lovely daughter, Miss Araminta. She comes with a sizeable dowry. You could be wed before the season’s over and then it won’t matter how long His Lordship kicks around on this mortal coil.”

Lady Julia gave a snide laugh and said under her breath, “Designing little minx, that one.” When Stephen turned startled eyes upon her, she added unrepentantly, “I’m surprised you look at me like that. Miss Araminta caused quite a scandal last season. Had to be shipped home early, though it’s not my place to gossip about what crimes she may or may not have been guilty of.”

“Indeed not, my dear,” her husband cut in dryly, “in view of your own clever ploy in getting me to the altar.”

Lady Julia dismissed this with a toss of her head. “I’d say you are a marked man, Mr. Cranbourne. Why, Miss Araminta told me with her own lips that she intends to be mistress of the Grange, the home she grew up in.”  She tittered. “At the time, her cabbage-headed cousin Edgar was her father’s heir, so of course her wish was implicit upon marrying him, and you never met a greater ninnyhammer.”

“Oh, Edgar wasn’t that bad,” drawled Sir Archie. “I won a few wagers against him.”

“Edgar was utterly bacon-brained. Do you remember how you gammoned him over that story you told him of your pointer, Benny, disappearing during a shoot and being discovered, turned to stone, in the woods a year later?”

Sir Archie sniggered. “Oh yes. I told him the story at my club and he demanded to see the evidence. Said he’d wager two hundred I was lying. It only cost me a couple of guineas to have a stone mason craft me a reputable copy of Benny, which we positioned by the river.” He grinned. “Well, he said he couldn’t refute the evidence when I took him to see it. Paid me on the spot, in fact.”

Stephen didn’t share in the hilarity at the expense of poor distant cousin Edgar. He was beginning to suspect he’d been set up the same way.

Lady Julia laughed. “A good thing for the whole family that poor Edgar took a bullet at Corunna. You must be awfully pleased too, Stephen. Otherwise you’d not be next in line for the title and chances are we’d never have had such a jolly time this evening.”

Her dancing green eyes searched his. In that moment her look seemed assessing, her pretty white teeth bared in a smile.

And Stephen did not respond with the rush of adrenaline to the groin he had earlier in the evening when she’d bestowed her attentions upon him.

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S
ybil, Lady Partington, clasped her hands in her rabbit-fur muff as she watched the congregation file into their pews.

With  her  fortieth  birthday  looming,  she  felt  old,  as  she  watched  proceedings through clouds of frosted breath. Particularly today. Old and superfluous. A failed wife. A failed mother.

Araminta had been dismissive of her well-meaning attempts to reassure her that the disgrace of her curtailed London season would not dash her chances of a good match. No, Araminta already had her mind up in that regard. She knew exactly who she was going to marry, and had done since she was twelve.

There’d been an exchange of words before they’d walked to church. Or rather, Araminta had flounced off ahead while good-natured Hetty had stayed back to keep her mother company.

Sybil slanted a sideways look at the two girls now, neatly turned out in the family pew beside her. Araminta looked proud. Expectant. Sybil repressed a sigh. That’s all she’d been doing lately. But perhaps everything would all work out.

Beside her, Hetty smiled at several new arrivals. Nobody noticed her.

On her other side, her husband made a remark about the floral arrangement. Too flamboyant, he thought.

Sybil nodded distractedly. Nothing seemed to please Humphry unless he was with his beloved mistress, she thought bitterly, slanting a surreptitious glance across the aisle to see if Mrs. Hazlett and her family had arrived yet.

They had. She snapped her attention back to her neat rabbit-fur muff.

At least Humphry had pledged to play the dutiful host and mentor when Cousin Stephen arrived.

The heir apparent.

Not that young Mr. Stephen Cranbourne’s imminent arrival was anything to get excited over. It merely reinforced Sybil’s sense of superfluity through her failure to provide Humphry with an heir. Or rather, a spare, since the death of their darling boy, George, from the measles four years ago.