Pleasuring the Lady (The Pleasure Wars) (9 page)

“She is…not well, I’m afraid,” she stammered, using the same terms she had been using for years to describe her mother’s problems. “I’m sure she would have loved to join us were she able, but she rarely leaves the house.”

Tennille’s expression softened. “Well, if your mother will not be able to help you plan the wedding, perhaps I can be of assistance in her stead. You have begun having your dress made?”

Portia shot Miles a desperate look in the hopes she might find an ally. He still had his gaze firmly on his plate.

“With everything happening so quickly, I fear I hadn’t thought of it,” she explained, hoping she wouldn’t have to add she had no funds for such things.

“But you must!” Tennille said with a laugh. “I will send my own seamstress to you immediately!”

Portia clutched her napkin. “You are too kind, but I couldn’t put you out in any way.”

Tennille seemed confused. “To share my seamstress’s name with you? It does nothing to put me out at all. A pretty silk, perhaps in gray, would look lovely on you.”

Portia caught her breath. How many times had she pictured a happy wedding? This was not it.
 

“You are so very kind, but I can’t. I will…I will have to make due with something I have already.”

Tennille stopped speaking and stared at her. In that horrible moment, Portia realized her future sister-in-law had realized the problem. Funds, or lack of them.

“It is something you and my brother will decide, I’m sure,” she said after an awkward moment had passed.
 

“Yes,” Miles finally said, joining the conversation at last with a brief glance for her. “Portia and I do have a great deal to discuss. I will escort you back to your home after our luncheon, Portia, and we can talk about the details of our wedding.”

Portia nodded, but inside she wondered when they would discuss the details of their
marriage
. What did Miles expect from her? How would he treat her? Would he ever touch her again now that he knew who she was?

Or had his desire for her died the moment her mask was removed?

Miles looked across the carriage to Portia as they took the trip across London back to her tiny hovel of a home. She didn’t seem to notice his regard as she stared out the carriage window with a faraway expression.

He wanted her.

It was a strange thing, to see the young woman he had known and spoken to and even pitied over the years and now feel a driving, powerful passion to possess her body. But he did. It kept him up at night. It made him ache with desire.

And yet he had not acted on that impulse since they were caught together at the masquerade. There were so many questions, so many plans to make, that he had been able to avoid his need.

Until now when he sat in a quiet vehicle with her with at least half an hour of privacy stretched out before them.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

She glanced over to him in surprise. “Miles?”

The way she said his name undid him. He moved to her side of the carriage with aching slowness and took a deep breath of her scent. How he hadn’t made the connection between his mystery woman and Portia, he couldn’t be sure now. They both smelled of fresh lemon and lilac. He should have known.

Perhaps he did know, on some level. Perhaps that was why he had been so driven to say hello to her at that ball the night following their first heated encounter at the masquerade. Perhaps his body had been leading him to Portia all along.

He pressed his palm to the angle of her jawline and spread his fingers open. She gasped at the contact, but didn’t pull away. She merely stared up at him, dark eyes wide, body shaking.

“Miles,” she said again, her voice broken and filled with need he couldn’t deny.

He tilted her face and kissed her. Immediately, he was struck with a feeling of coming home that was quickly replaced by a raging desire that boiled his blood and inspired fantasies of hiking her skirts and rutting with her here and now.

Somehow he controlled that and instead dove into the pleasures of her mouth. He stroked his tongue along hers, reveling in the tiny moan that escaped her lips into his mouth. He wrapped an arm around her back and drew her closer, closer.

She shuddered and her hands lifted to clutch at his lapels. He was utterly undone and he knew he could no longer control himself. He dragged his mouth to her throat, sucking at the slender column even as he began to inch her skirts up around her thighs. She gasped, and for a moment she tensed, but as he cupped her knee and began to glide his hand upward, she fell back against the carriage seat with a sigh of surrender that rocked him to his very core.

He would not take her. But he would have her in some way.

He found the slit in her flimsy drawers and parted it to press him palm flat against her sex. She was already wet and his cock swelled against the uncomfortable tightness of his trousers.

“Miles,” she whispered as he ground his palm down against her body, creating pressure against just the right spot. Her breath caught, and she turned her face into his neck, shuddering as he increased the stroke of his hand. When she was trembling he slid a finger into her sheath and held back a low, possessive groan.

She was slick and hot and oh, so very tight around him. He pressed a thumb to her clitoris and began to circle the nub as he rocked his finger in and out, in and out. Her back arched and she gave a little squeal as her body began to convulse from release. He continued to stroke her through the crisis and only stopped when she went limp against the carriage seat.

He pressed another kiss to her parted lips before he glided her skirts back into place and moved to his original position in the carriage, just as the vehicle came to a stop at her doorstep.

She stared at him in disbelief. “I never imagined it could be so powerful.”
 

He arched a brow at that unexpected observation and could not help wondering how much she knew about the pleasures of the flesh. But he did not ask as his footman opened the door and held it for their exit. Miles stepped from the carriage and held out a hand to her. The same hand that had touched her so intimately not a moment before. She stared at the outstretched fingers for too long before she took them and allowed his assistance.

Mrs. Potts opened the door and her face reflected surprise at Miles being there. “Good afternoon, my lady, my lord.”

“Potts, isn’t it?” Miles asked, handing over his greatcoat to the blinking housekeeper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. Will you bring us tea in that little parlor? And then Lady Portia and I will require a bit of privacy.” He looked at his apparent fiancée closely. “We have a great deal to discuss.”

Portia trembled as Potts poured the tea and then stepped to the door. “Will you require anything further?”

“No,” Miles answered for her. “Close the door.”

Potts shot Portia a look but did as she was told. As the click of the door shutting all but echoed in the room, Portia shifted with discomfort.
 

“You should not be ordering my servants about.”

He arched a brow. “That is what you are worried about in this moment?”

She stared at him. “What am I worried about in this moment could fill a room in itself, one far bigger than this one.”

He motioned to the settee and took his own place on the chair. She tried not to think about what her twinge of disappointment meant, not when her body still tingled from his intimate touch in the carriage.

What he had done to her body was far more intense than any pleasure she had ever brought to herself.
 

“I think we have established that this marriage is not something either of us would have chosen. Certainly not in this matter that is thrust upon us?” Miles said.

Her warmer thoughts faded. “I thought you wished to accuse me of entrapping you.”

He frowned, and the lingering doubt on his face made her turn her gaze from him. He didn’t trust her, and she supposed she deserved it. But she had little choice but to trust
him
.

“Miles, I realize I don’t deserve it, but I need your help,” she whispered. She looked up and he was staring at her intently.
 

“My help?” he repeated. “With what?”

She drew in a breath. The idea of explaining the full horror of her life was so painful she could hardly take it. More to the point, she wasn’t sure she could fully explain her plight.

“Will you come with me?” she asked, getting to her feet. “Please.”

He hesitated, then motioned toward the door. “Lead the way.”

As she exited, Potts poked her head out of the dining room. When she saw Portia going upstairs, she stumbled into the foyer. “Where are you going, miss?”

“Is my mother…is my mother dressed?” Portia whispered.

Potts recoiled. “Lady Portia…”

Portia sucked in a breath. “I know. I know it is a vile intrusion, but I need Miles to see. It is the only way to ensure her future.”

Potts squeezed her eyes shut and Portia could see the housekeeper struggling. Miles remained silent through their exchange, only watching Portia carefully.

Finally, Potts nodded. “She is dressed. In her chamber.”

Portia swallowed and started up the stairs again. “Showing you is the only way,” she murmured, more to herself than to Miles.
 

And it was possibly the way she would send the man screaming away from her, despite the ruination that would follow for them both. But it was a risk she would have to take…for her mother.

She hesitated outside her mother’s door, staring at the barrier that separated her from something she dreaded deeply. She turned.

“People speak of my mother and her…her outbursts, I know,” she began with as much dignity as she could muster. “But no one knows the full extent of her pain. I want you to see, but Miles, I haven’t told her yet about our engagement.”

He stared at her in surprise. “You haven’t?”

“No.” She shifted.
 

“You must tell her at some point,” he said with a shake of his head.

“It is complicated,” she pleaded. “And I will tell her. I will.”

Drawing a deep breath, she lightly knocked and turned the knob to let herself into her mother’s room. As the light from the hall joined the low light from her mother’s lamp, she heard Miles gasp.

And why wouldn’t he? She tried to forget it when she came into this chamber, but she knew what he saw.

The room was sparsely furnished with only a chair and a bed, and the walls had padding on them. The windows had been barred and there was a crack in the glass from a time when her mother had thrown something at an intruder who did not exist. The cheap wallpaper was torn and hung in strips from where her mother had pawed at it.
 

Her mother sat on the lone chair, blond hair uncombed around her face. She was softly singing as she stared off into nothingness.

Portia swallowed at tears that choked her and stepped into the room. “Mama?”

Her mother did not respond, but continued her empty crooning beneath her breath.

“Mama,” Portia repeated, setting her hand down on her mother’s shoulder.

Her mother jolted and looked up at Portia with pure terror on her face. When a moment passed and she finally recognized her daughter, the high emotion faded, if only slightly.

“Hello, my dear,” her mother said, almost sounding normal.

“Good afternoon, Mama. How are you feeling?” Portia asked with a false smile. She refused to look at Miles. Not now.

Her mother blinked. “I-I am well enough.”

The hesitation made Portia’s heart sink. There were sometimes voices in her mother’s head. She wondered what they were saying now.

“Mama, we have a guest,” she said softly.

Her mother jerked her face toward the door and stared at Miles. “Who is he? Another man from the madhouse like your brother sent?”

Portia finally looked at Miles herself. His face was so unreadable, she couldn’t tell if he felt horror or pity or disgust or nothing at all.

“No, my lady,” he finally said, moving closer slowly. “I am Miles. I was a friend of your son and daughter when they were young. I visited your old house where Hammond now lives while you were still in residence there.”

Her mother wrinkled her brow, and Portia could see her trying to remember. But memories of that house brought her pain and she had developed the ability to cut them off. Portia watched her do just that as her face went blank again.

“I’m sorry. I don’t recall.”

Portia smiled. “It—it’s all right, Mama. I have news. Miles and I are to be married.”

Her mother paused for a moment as the words sunk in, then looked at Miles, then back to her. “Married?” she repeated on the barest of whispers.

Portia nodded. “Yes. And soon.” She swallowed. “Before the week’s end.”

There was a very long silence. Long enough that Portia leaned toward her mother.

“Am I invited to the wedding?” her mother whispered.