The Wild Marquis (21 page)

It was the way of the world, most men, even most women, would say. A few lone voices of dissent, like Mary Wollstonecraft, who’d written a book on the subject, could do nothing to defeat the overwhelming weight of law and custom that put men “in charge.” Cain realized he came down firmly on the side of the revolutionaries. From his own mother and sister to the meanest whore in the London stews, he’d known too many women oppressed or destroyed by the rule of men.

It was a discussion he’d have with Juliana another day, one he’d look forward to. Meanwhile, he must ensure she got the gratification she deserved in the way she wanted.

“Whatever is your pleasure,” he said. “Might I humbly request that my lady withdraw her prohibition on touching?”

Tucked against Cain’s chest, Juliana nodded. While she rejected a purely passive role, her every nerve was taut with yearning for her own climax, but she wanted it to be a shared one.

“Yes,” she said, “touch me.” And rubbed her cheek on the rough hair of his chest, breathing in the earthy scent of male sweat.

“Touch me,” she repeated, finding the tight nub of his nipple and flicking it back and forth with her tongue.

“Oh yes!” She gave a little cry, more than a gasp, less than a shriek, when he reached between them and
found her entrance, slipping a finger through curls and soft folds toward the hot, damp, aching core.

She feared she might explode before he was ready to join her. “Too soon,” she whispered, and, understanding, he withdrew. Instead he turned his attention to her breasts, stomach, and the tender skin of her inner thighs, his caresses driving her to the edge of ecstasy yet keeping the fires banked. Fingers and palms, mouth and lips, teeth and tongue, all were applied with consummate skill and accompanied by sweet words of praise for her loveliness.

Without knowing how, she was on her back against the velvet, relishing the friction of her torso and limbs against the skin, hair, and hard muscle of his. Before long, one particular hard muscle was back in business, demanding entrance.

She gave him a shove. “I want to be on top.” She’d never done it that way.

“Of course you do,” he said with a snort of amusement, and rolled over.

Clinging to each other with shrieks of mirth, they landed on the floor of the carriage, wedged between the seats, their fall broken by the piles of clothing accumulated there. The amazed thought flashed through her head that lovemaking could be hilarious as well as blissful.

She struggled to rise but the carriage floor was narrow and they were laughing too hard to sort out their limbs sensibly.

“I can’t get up,” she moaned.

“You’re in command.” Cain stopped moving and she sensed all his muscles relax. Most of his body,
save an entangled limb or two, lay limp beneath her.

Except for one part that, far from limp, nudged her stomach. She thought about it but there really wasn’t room on the floor. She couldn’t see where she’d put her knees.

With some effort she managed to get back onto the seat. She knelt on the bench and leaned over to look at him. Lying on his back with a giant erection, laughing his head off, Cain looked so delectable she almost went back to join him. But there still wasn’t enough room down there.

“Come on up,” she said.

With easy grace he pulled himself upright and knelt on the seat, facing her. And she knew what she wanted, what to do.

Once again she straddled his knees. When he placed his arms around her waist she made no objection.

“That’s it,” he whispered, sitting back. “Face to face and equal.” Without being told, he understood her. Neither of them would play a passive role.

Her restrained desire would no longer be denied. All mental lucidity vanished as her hands found and steadied his shaft and she impaled herself on the hot, thick length of him. With a sigh of relief she began to ride.

Mouth to mouth, chest to chest, their arms surrounding each other, they moved in perfect rhythm. The mutual friction of skin, the taste of his mouth, the spicy perfume of sex and sweat, the slight chill of air against her buttocks, her lover’s pleasurable groans. Every sense enhanced the spiraling ecstasy where Cain filled and stretched her. Their movements—his,
hers, both—roused her to a peak of tension. Control shattered at last as every muscle reacted without her volition. Her arms and legs convulsively gripped him and her inner passage clenched around his cock. She felt his climax shake him and a hot gush flood her core, just as her own release spilled over in wave after wave of joyful fulfillment.

J
uliana couldn’t sleep.

She lay on her side in a perfectly comfortable inn bed, huddled against “Mr. Johnson’s” chest. One arm curved around her, one hand cupped her breast, one leg, careless and possessive, was flung over hers.

Despite a long, eventful day they’d made love again, slow and lazy. Afterward Cain had fallen asleep at once. Juliana, though equally exhausted, could not. She lay in the dark and reveled in his physical closeness. The texture of his skin, the rough kiss of his chest rising almost imperceptibly under her cheek. The heat of his body. His scent.

Her wakefulness wasn’t just the consequence of her busy thoughts. She didn’t want to miss a moment of this night with Cain. The last night she’d ever spend in his arms.

Cain, Juliana suspected, hadn’t quite faced the fact they had no future together. Until they reached London, neither would she.

She indulged in a little fantasy in which he was, indeed, Mr. Johnson, as the Chippenham innkeeper
had been told. She’d happily spend the rest of life as Mrs. Johnson, the wife of a man of no great material wealth or worldly distinction, but rich in intelligence, spirit, and compassion.

She forgot the fact that he was a marquis, one of England’s most important men by reason of his inheritance. And one who could live up to his rank now that he was ready to accept his responsibilities and return to the world of his birthright.

She forgot everything except that she lay in his arms and she loved him.

Such happiness was fleeting and she refused to waste a minute in sleep.

Since they’d elected to make the journey in a single day, it was well past dusk by the time the chaise passed through Hammersmith.

Juliana had slept much of the journey. Her size was a great advantage in a traveling companion confined in a small carriage. He would happily have shared one seat with her all the way, but once he discovered she could stretch full length on the opposite side, he’d tucked her under a blanket and watched her succumb to deep slumber. He liked taking care of her.

“Cain,” she said. She’d been sitting upright for the past hour or so. They’d exchanged desultory comments on the progress of the journey. What they’d do when they reached the city hadn’t been mentioned.

“Yes.”

“I want to thank you.”

“What for?”

“For this journey. For helping me. Even though we
didn’t really find anything, I shall always be glad I tried, thanks to you. What the world says about you is completely unfair and unfounded.”

“
Everything
the world says? You wound me.” Unaccustomed to praise of his character, he deflected the compliment with flippant words and a suggestive leer.

“In the future,” she continued, “if anyone ever says a word against you in my presence, I shall tell them you are a true gentleman and worthy of respect.”

“You speak as though we are going to part,” he objected.

“We
are
going to part. You know what you need to do, what kind of woman you need to marry.”

He moved over to sit beside her and cradled her face in his hands. “You are the kind of woman I need to marry,” he said, and kissed her.

For a few moments her lips clung to his, then she drew back and shifted to the opposite seat, where he’d been a minute before.

“No, I’m not. Get it into your head. I am a bastard. Under any circumstances I would be an improbable wife for a marquis. For you I am impossible.”

“I’m not giving up,” he said, crossing the carriage in pursuit. “Tomorrow I shall set old Robinson to track down Cassandra’s marriage.” He laid his arm about her to put an end to the seat-swapping back-and-forth.

She relaxed against him with a sigh. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Don’t. Think about
our
marriage instead.”

“I’ve been thinking about it and I can’t see how the
marriage can have happened without my grandfather knowing it.”

“Let’s not start this argument again, just when we are getting along so well.”

“I’m not going to quarrel with you. I understand why you might think he suppressed the marriage to inherit Cassandra’s fortune. But you didn’t know my grandfather. It doesn’t suit his character. Such a deception would never occur to him. He simply didn’t care about money.”

“By all accounts he spent plenty of it.”

“Yes, but he spent without thought. If he found a book he wanted, he bought it and worried about paying for it later. He had to have it, and he had to have it immediately. The only time he became truly angry was when he lost a book to another collector.”

“Tarleton?”

“Especially Tarleton,” she agreed. “But he didn’t intend to ruin his estate. He just ended up doing so. And I’m certain he didn’t intend to spend Cassandra’s fortune. If he thought about it at all he probably meant to save it for me. My grandfather knew what was right, he just didn’t always do it. If booksellers were dunning him and refusing him further credit, he’d take any money he could lay his hands on to pay them. Ten thousand pounds no doubt melted away without him noticing.”

“Ten thousand pounds would buy a lot of books.”

“He had a vast collection. Only a fraction the size of Tarleton’s, but the library you saw yesterday was full to overflowing.”

“From what I’ve seen, and I’ll grant you I’m new to
this business, most books don’t cost more than a few shillings, a few pounds at most.”

“My grandfather pursued true rarities. And he never cared about price. Late in his life I often tried to argue that he was overpaying for a title and he would become annoyed. Some booksellers took advantage of him. They knew he wouldn’t quibble if they had books he wanted.”

Unfortunately Juliana’s argument was too logical to be easily dismissed. He tried a new tack. “Perhaps Cassandra died without telling him she was wed.”

“You are so stubborn. Can’t you admit it’s hopeless? I am a bastard and will remain so. You should be doing what is necessary to become your sister’s guardian. Go to St. James’s or Almack’s or wherever your kind gathers, and find yourself a true lady.”

Cain found the bitterness in her voice encouraging, because he didn’t think it resulted only from her base birth. She wasn’t relinquishing him without regret.

And he wasn’t relinquishing her at all.

He’d made the mistake in the past of giving in too easily, of taking the easy road of mindless pleasure away from both his wishes and his responsibilities.

He should have at least tried to fight his father and that insane accusation. And he should have refused to let his mother prolong his exile because she remained dominated by her husband, even after his death.

He should have fought for her and for Esther. And he would. He wasn’t giving up until he had everything he wanted.

And that included Juliana Merton, no matter what her birth, as his marchioness.

“I shall return to St. Martin’s Lane and the life I have,” Juliana said, a little wobble in her voice. “I am a good bookseller and I shall become a successful one.”

Go right on thinking that, my lady. I have a better plan.

“What about the
Romeo and Juliet
?” he asked. “The fact remains, someone hid it in your shop and made sure it would be discovered.”

She shrugged. “An unpleasant jest, perhaps.” Her face darkened. “I’d suspect Mr. Iverley if I could fathom how he put it there, but he hasn’t been in my shop in weeks.”

Cain considered the idea. It was possible, he supposed.

He didn’t believe it for a moment.

C
ain was unhappy to leave Juliana in St. Martin’s Lane. Not alone, of course. Mel had departed for her new quarters but Tom and Peter remained.

“Until we get to the bottom of this,” he’d told Juliana, “I want you to keep my footmen with you at all times, day and night. As well as that dog.”

He hoped he could trust her to obey. He’d have preferred to stay with her himself, or better yet bring her to Berkeley Square. But his stratagems to protect both their reputations would be for nothing if they openly spent the night together in London. So far they’d been lucky, but he couldn’t expect that to last.

Before returning home he walked up to Holborn. Mel had left a message requiring his presence, urgently. Some complaint about the renovations to the house that she should take to Robinson, he guessed. Still, if he couldn’t spend the evening with Juliana it might as well be with Mel. Better her than his new servants.

The minute he arrived at the shabby house it became clear this was no housekeeping crisis. “There’s
someone you need to see,” Mel told him the minute he walked into the hall. “A girl from Mrs. Tudor’s in Pimlico.”

“I don’t believe I’ve heard of the place.”

“It’s a flogging house.”

Cain knew what that meant. “How is she?” he asked, feeling nauseated.

“About what you’d expect after years as a receiver.”

“My God!” He didn’t need to tell Mel what to do. She’d call a doctor if the victim of a thousand flagellations needed one. If it would still do any good. “I don’t understand why you sent for me.”

“She says she’d have come before but she wouldn’t come to Berkeley Square. Couldn’t come to Lord Chase’s house because he was a customer.”

“Good Lord, Mel! You know me better than that.”

“I think you’d better see her, Cain.”

Mel led him into a room where a woman cowered in a chair. “This is Lucy,” she said.

The woman raised a head of crudely dyed red hair to reveal a listless, gray-tinged face with dark rings around her eyes. She looked forty or more and was likely half that age.

Though it had never been to Cain’s taste, he knew of half a dozen houses where a gentleman might submit himself to discipline if such were his inclination. Houses that catered to men who liked to hand out pain were less plentiful and far more squalid. The whores that serviced those establishments rarely lasted long.

“You ain’t Lord Chase,” she said, and a measure of
fear faded from the dull complexion, leaving indifference or despair.

“I am, Lucy,” Cain said gently. “But don’t be afraid, you are safe here.”

She shook her head. “Chase was an old cully.”

“Was?” Cain asked.

“He was my first. And a wicked hand with the switch.”

In years of consorting with a variety of London’s fallen sisterhood, Cain had never heard his father mentioned as a customer. The late Lord Chase had been well-known among London’s whores, but only for his speeches in Parliament. He’d raged against vice, and his recommended remedy always included severe, usually physical, punishment for the female involved. Apparently he’d liked to attend to it personally.

“When was this?” he asked.

Through gentle questioning, with Mel’s help, Cain tried to establish a chronology of his father’s involvement with Mrs. Tudor’s brothel. Lucy had little sense of time. Such episodes as the change of governments, the assassination of a prime minister, even the Battle of Waterloo, meant little or nothing to her. Luckily she remembered sporting events: wagering on boxing was a popular activity. The first Cribb-Molineaux prizefight happened not long after her arrival at Mrs. Tudor’s.

Lucy, it turned out, had been at Mrs. Tudor’s for about nine years. She knew she’d been a fourteen-year-old girl when Lord Chase, already a regular customer for some years, introduced her to the birch.

Cain had heard many tales of the miseries endured
by fallen women. Lucy’s was as horrible as any. He was amazed she’d survived so long. Again he assured her Mel would make sure she was cared for and could find a healthier livelihood. He only hoped it wasn’t too late.

“Did you ever hear of a man named Sir Thomas Tarleton?” he asked.

Lucy nodded. “Peephole cull. Ain’t seen him for a while.”

So Tarleton paid whorehouses for the privilege of watching his fellow men in action, doubtless furnishing him with ample blackmail material.

“And how long since you saw this Chase?” he asked.

“He ain’t been round for years. But the girls all know about him. And ’ope he’ll never come back. He only did me the once but I was the lucky one. He killed a girl not long after, beat her to death. Ma Tudor wouldn’t let him back in.”