Vexing The Viscount (12 page)

Lucian was gazing down at her. His snapping dark eyes were now hooded and hungry. He was having difficulty controlling his breathing.

“Will you play another hand?” she asked. “Or do you yield the next round to me?”

“I yield,” he whispered. “God help me, I can do nothing else.”

Daisy accepted his surrender with a smile and turned her
attention back to his groin. She slowly unfastened his last remaining button and let the cotton flap fall.

“Mon Dieu!”

“You’re not seeing anything that surprises you?” A bit of worry crept into his tone.

“Not at all,” she assured him. Daisy reminded herself she was supposed to be Blanche La Tour, courtesan. She should be quite familiar with the amazing mysteries of a man, but it was hard not to be impressed by him. “A woman is allowed to appreciate male beauty when she sees it, isn’t she?”

He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and grinned down at her. “You are a wonder.”

She stroked his full length, reveling in the smoothness and warmth of his skin. She cupped his bag, fondling the twin lumps hidden inside. His breath hissed over his teeth.

“I haven’t hurt you?” she asked.

“No, but you drive a man to his knees.” He suited the action to the words and dropped before her.

He leaned in and kissed her again, but this time, the kiss was tinged with urgency. His hands once again found her breasts.

“Will you yield the next hand to me?” He breathed into her ear between kisses.

“I yield.” She palmed his cheeks and brought his mouth back for another kiss. “I can do nothing else.”

He pulled at the next ribbon, but the satin fouled into a hard knot. He gave the front of the camisole a good yank, completely freeing both her breasts, setting them on the camisole’s padded shelf.

He pulled back to look at her. “You’re so beautiful.”

Daisy’s flesh glowed under his unabashed approval.

Then he flashed her a grin. “According to the rules set down, what we can see, we can touch. But we didn’t say it had to be with our hands, did we?”

Her nipples drew tight. She wondered if the touch of his
mouth would still the ache or make it worse.

“No,” she said in a breathless whisper, “we didn’t say it had to be with our hands.”

His kisses started at the base of her throat and moved south.

Daisy gasped when his mouth closed over her nipple. Blanche’s journal had mentioned the pleasure to be found in having a lover suckle and tease one’s nipples, but the courtesan had woefully understated the case. Bliss spread over Daisy’s entire body, but she fought the downward pull in her groin.

She ran her hands over Lucian’s head, wishing he hadn’t lashed his dark locks back in such a neat queue. If he’d let it fly free, his wonderful thick hair would curl around her fingers.

Lucian kissed his way through the valley that separated her breasts and nibbled up to the other stiff peak. This time he bit down just hard enough to make her cry out.

His head jerked up. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No.” She gasped, clutching his shoulders for support. The ache between her legs was fast becoming unbearable. Lucian’s little love bite sent a streak of pleasure to the region that was so sharp, it was a knife’s edge from pain. “But that was positively wicked.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said with a smile. “I enjoyed it immensely. Are you certain you’ve no experience with this sort of thing?”

“Well, one hears things, of course, and I confess to having seen a few French postcards from time to time,” he admitted.

Daisy had heard rumors of those explicit pictures that no legitimate post would ever carry. Like the anatomically detailed ancient Roman art, a wealth of sensual information was said to be conveyed on those little cards.

“But no words, no pictures can come close to actual experience.” He held her close and rested his forehead against hers.

“Do it again,” she urged.

He didn’t need to be told twice. His mouth found her nipple again. The little nip sent the same jolt of white-hot urgency streaking through her. Daisy wondered if she’d missed the passage in Blanche’s journal about love bites or if her experience had surpassed the courtesan’s in this instance.

Lucian straightened to kiss her lips again, and she suddenly remembered his open fly. Her hands wandered from his shoulders, caressing his chest, his flat belly, and found his hot shaft waiting for her touch.

“Life-size is ever so much better than the pale imitations,” Daisy said when he released her mouth for moment.

He jerked back and stared at her. “Why did you say that?”

Jupiter!
She bit her lower lip. Even though she still spoke in French, Daisy had accidentally let something she’d say as herself slip out in the heat of the moment. She forced what she hoped was a gay, courtesan-style laugh.

“My dear Lucian! Miss Drake told me of the very naughty way you baited her about her interest in the Roman phallic lamp.” She stroked his full length in an attempt to distract him. It seemed to work, for his dark eyes glazed over as she teased his taut skin with one hand and cupped his scrotum with the other. “It really was too bad of you.”

“I think you like bad, Blanche.” With a feral male growl, Lucian scooped her up and carried her to the bed. “You certainly bring out the wickedness in me.”

He dropped her on the thick feather tick, and Daisy sank into the soft mattress. Lucian followed her, covering her body with his. His weight felt wonderful, as if he were claiming her. Somehow, her legs separated of their own accord
and his hips settled between them. Only the thin fabric of her skirt shielded her throbbing mound. Propped on his elbows, he laved her nipples, suckling, licking and tugging till Daisy nearly cried out.

The wanting was so keen. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye to slide beneath the half mask and disappear into her wig.

Why hadn’t Blanche’s journal warned how powerful these urges were? Even Aunt Isabella’s caution was far too tame for the wildness that surged through her. Daisy was stretched on a rack, but she didn’t want the torment to stop.

Lucian kissed her lips again and then her cheeks. He ran the tip of his tongue along the bottom of her mask.

“Take it off, Blanche,” he whispered. “Let me see your face.”

That would never do. “No, Lucian. No man ever sees my face.”

He raised himself higher on his elbows. “Never?”

She shook her head.

“Even your lovers?”

“Especially my lovers,” she affirmed. “A woman must retain a part of herself, you know.”

“You haven’t a scar or some other disfigurement, have you?”

“Of course not.”

“No carbuncle on your nose?”

She swatted his chest.

“Then why must you hide?”

“I’m not hiding,” she said with indignation.

He traced her jawline with his fingertips. “Your skin is like satin. Surely the part under the mask must be starved for air and sunlight.”

“My skin is fine just as it is,” she said stiffly.

“Is it this soft all over?”

She smiled at him, thankful for the distraction that let her regain a bit of control. “I would leave that to you to discover, but we have well exceeded the bounds of our arrangement already. Our agreement was an exchange of naughty art for kissing lessons.”

“Practice makes perfect.” He descended for a deep kiss. Daisy followed him willingly to that hot, dark place where pleasure was the only law. When he pulled back up, she laced her fingers behind his nape.

“You are a master of the kiss, Lucian Beaumont,” she said breathlessly. “I believe my work is done.”

“Surely there is more to be learned about pleasing a woman.” He nuzzled her breasts.

“Undoubtedly.” The ache between her legs kept advancing and retreating. Now it was on the march again with a vengeance. Where had he learned how to torment a woman so thoroughly?

“I’ve heard it said that there is a place on a woman’s body that, if touched, drives her wild,” Lucian said. “Is this true?”

Daisy didn’t see how she could feel any wilder than she did at the moment, but she allowed that it might be possible. She really needed to finish reading Blanche’s journal. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

“A t the clubs. Men talk, you know. Sometimes, it’s all bluster, but you never know when they’ve dropped in a nugget of truth,” he admitted. “Please, Blanche, is there such a place?”

She pushed against his chest and he rolled of her.

“There is, isn’t there?”

“If there were, it would give a man more power over me than I wish him to have,” she said, trying to sound as Blanche-like as possible. “Why should I tell you?”

“Tell me? I was hoping you’d show me.” Lucian reached down and slid a hand under her hem. His palm moved steadily up her leg.

Daisy started when his hand left her thigh and settled over her sensitive, hairless mound. She fought the urge to arch into his touch.

“I’m close, aren’t I?” he asked.

Daisy heard the blood rushing through her ears. Her head, her heart and her core were pulsing, throbbing in tandem. She had to regain control. How could she continue to masquerade as Blanche if she let him overwhelm her senses with nothing more than his warm hand?

“This was not part of our agreement,” she said, willing her voice to sound even. “Kindly remove your hand.”

He was still as stone for several heartbeats. Then he withdrew his hand and climbed out of the bed, tucking his shirttail back into his breeches. He strode over to the table, stiff-legged as a dog with his ruff up. Lucian retrieved his tricorn and cocked it on his head.

“Lucian—”

He turned to face her. “Is that all it ever is to you? Agreements? Trades? Goods received for goods delivered? Is there a heart beneath your lovely breasts, mademoiselle, or merely a ledger?”

“You know nothing of my heart.” Daisy adjusted her camisole so her breasts were once again covered.

“Then it does exist,” he said with a cutting tone. “I had begun to suspect it was as mysteriously missing as the Roman treasure I seek.”

She wished suddenly that she weren’t wearing a mask so he could see her dark frown. “Why are you so angry?”

“If you have to ask, you know far less about men than a woman in your line of work ought.”

Jupiter!
If Lucian didn’t believe her ruse, he’d figure out her true identity in short order. There was only one other young lady in residence in Lady Wexford’s home. Lucian would not take kindly to being deceived.

“And you know nothing of women if you fail to see the
chase as the highlight of the game,” she said, calling up some of Blanche’s very words. “A woman, even one in my line of work, enjoys being wooed. Once again, you rush in, Lord Rutland. If you would learn to please a woman, you must learn patience.”

He studied the thick Persian rug beneath his feet for a moment. Then he looked back up at her and made a courtly leg in her direction.

“My apologies,” he said. “You are a free spirit, Blanche. You own yourself. I understand that. I know I have no claim upon you.”

He strode to the door and stopped with a hand on the crystal knob.

“But I wish I did.”

He closed the door softly behind him.

The girl was there, just as Caius had hoped. He’d watched her surreptitiously for weeks. Each full moon, she sneaked out of her tiny cell of a chamber to perform some pagan ritual in the garden. He knew it was wrong to spy on her while she performed this rite.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t bear not to.

She crouched for a moment, her head tucked nearly to her knees. Then she stood suddenly, raising her slender arms in the silver light. He thought he caught a whispered Gaelic chant.

Deirdre’s back was turned to him, but he knew what was coming. Anticipation made sweat pop on his forehead. Languidly, she gathered most of her long hair up and twisted it into a knot on top of her head. The short curling hairs that escaped along her nape made Caius’s soft palate ache. He longed to claim that tender skin with his lips.

The girl put a hand to the neckline of her simple shift and slid the coarse material off, baring first one smooth shoulder and then the other. A gray shadow along the indentation of her spine divided the perfect, moon-silvered skin of her tapering back. Her slender waist was revealed as the homespun continued its downward course. She eased the fabric over the flare of her hips.

Caius’s palms burned to hold her inverted heart-shaped buttocks. His breath hissed over his teeth when she bent over to step out of her shift. For a blinding moment, he caught sight of the mysterious folds of her womanhood and the dusting of hair between her legs.

He touched himself, trying to still the ache. Nothing helped. He wanted the Celtic girl more than he wanted his next breath.

Then she began to dance. Moving to music he could not hear, she raised her arms and praised the moon with her whole body. Sinuous and slow, she circled the splashing fountain, turning gracefully on her toes, arching her back so her bare breasts were bathed in liquid silver.

Then the tempo changed and the dance became a frenzy. Her hips undulated as if she rose to meet an invisible lover’s thrusts.

Caius thought he might die of wanting. The gardeners would find his body in the morning amid the lavender and rosemary, his member stiff and swollen with unfulfilled need.

Then Deirdre’s dance stopped suddenly as she collapsed in a heap. She was so still, Caius wondered if she yet breathed. He stepped from the shadows.

And she raised her head to meet his gaze. A flash of knowing sparked between them.

Deirdre had danced for him. Not the moon.

He strode toward her, pulling his short tunic over his head and dropping it in the cool grass. She stood to meet him, but when he was an arm’s length from her, she raised a forbidding hand.

“Do you love me, Caius?” she asked in her own tongue.

“Gods help me, yes,” he whispered in the same language. “I do.”

“Then I will have you,” she said simply, and molded herself against him.