Dangerous Gentlemen Read online

  A moment’s indecision made her pause but soon Hetty was crouching on the floor, closing clammy fingers around the box. Might it contain secrets? Ones that would reveal, conclusively, what Cousin Stephen claimed was true?

  Alternatively, proof that would exonerate Sir Aubrey?

  Hetty fumbled for the catch. Dear Lord, this was too exciting for words. Perhaps Sir Aubrey was a secret agent working for the English, and Stephen had no idea.

  Perhaps he was—

  Protesting door hinges made her squeal as the door was flung wide. Hetty let the lid of the box fall and retreated into the shadows as Sir Aubrey strode into the room.

  He was breathing heavily as he shrugged off his jacket with a curse, raindrops spattering into the hissing fire as he raked his fingers through his hair. A curious stillness overtook him and he froze, obviously sensing all was not as he left it.

  He sniffed the air. “Orange flower water,” he muttered, stepping closer to the fire, fumbling for the tinderbox on the mantelpiece to light a candle.

  Immediately he was thrown into sharp relief and as he stared at Hetty, it was not his look of shock and suspicion that made her scream—but the copious amounts of blood that stained his shirtsleeves and once-snowy linen cravat.

  “God Almighty, who are you?” he demanded as his gaze raked her finery. “You’re no parlor maid, that’s for certain.”

  Gaping, unable to formulate a sensible answer, Hetty finally managed, “What happened to your arm, Sir Aubrey? Are you injured?”

  “Sir Aubrey, is it? So you know who I am but you still haven’t told me who you are?” He grunted as he looked down at his arm, the bloodied linen shredded over the long graze. “It’s not as bad as it looks and I assure you, I gave a good account of myself.” His laugh was more a sneer. “Indeed, my assailant lies dead in the gutter.”

  Hetty gasped. “Dueling?” Myriad questions crowded her mind. Could this be to do with Araminta? Had Sir Aubrey left Araminta in the middle of the ball to fight some other contender for her affections?

  “Dueling?” he repeated. He shook his head and Hetty drew back at the coldness in his eyes. “There was nothing noble about my activities this evening. I was set upon in a dark alley. A short scuffle ensued, I drew my knife, then…” With his hand, he made a gesture like the slitting of his throat, adding, “I am slightly wounded but as I said, my attacker does not live to repeat the insult.”

  Her horror clearly amused him, for his eyes narrowed while his generous mouth quirked. He looked like an incarnation of the most handsome demon she’d ever seen depicted in the fairy stories she loved to read.

  “We all have enemies, madam. Enemies who must be eliminated if we are to breathe freely.”

  Chapter Three

  Aubrey was enjoying the girl’s wide-eyed terror. No doubt she imagined he’d sliced the throat of a footpad, not the snarling, mangy cur who had leapt upon him as he’d been returning from his brief assignation to settle a gaming debt incurred by his favorite reprobate nephew.

  Taking pity on her, he said reassuringly, “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” Her wide-eyed look as he removed first his jacket, then the bloodied shirt he tossed upon the bed before he rose to his full height, bare chested, afforded him the most amusement he’d had in a long time. “So, you’re the girl Madame Chambon sent?”

  She simply stared at him and he nodded appraisingly as he sat on the bed and pulled off his boots. “You had me fooled for a moment. I thought you really were some innocent who’d lost her way in these catacombs.” Had he not been so jaded he might have been ashamed at the assessment in his tone when he added, “My faithful procuress threatened to one day surprise me—and that I’d not be able to tell the difference.” He chuckled and put out his hand. “Well, come into the light so I can see you better. After the god-awful night I’ve had, you might be just what I need. The retiring sort—for I’m sick to death of women who like to play games.”

  Like that Miss Araminta Partington, he thought. Now didn’t she like to play games, with her speaking looks and half-whispered promises? Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t enjoyed his brief assignation with her in an antechamber behind the supper room. He’d been on his way out to settle his nephew’s wager when Miss Partington had waylaid him before proving extremely amenable to a kiss and a fondle. But of course that was as far as it could go and the throbbing of his engorged cock after that little encounter had been one good reason to slip unnoticed out of Lady Knox’s townhouse.

  Unsatisfied desire had made him restless in every sense, and while he’d imagined a feisty coupling with whichever ladybird sent to him, this young lady’s contrived innocence was having a curious effect upon him. It would seem Madame Chambon had read him correctly, for even he hadn’t realized how tired he was of worldly sophistication.

  “Yes, here.” He patted his knees. “No need to carry the pretense to quite such extremes. That’s right. I want you to sit on my lap so I can…observe you better.”

  “Sit on your lap?” she squeaked as he tugged at her hand and her rounded bottom landed on his thighs.

  He ran his hands over her contours appreciatively. She was rather a nice little thing with a familiarity that tugged at his memory. Plump and almost pretty. Not quite, but with that slightly gawkish look about her that indicated she was in transition to womanhood and might go either way—turn into a swan. Or not.

  He rather fancied she had the makings of a beauty, though that didn’t concern him now since he had her only for one night. Madame Chambon would have sent her on approval. She seemed vaguely familiar. It was quite possible he’d seen the chit at the brothel and unconsciously dismissed her on account of the very reasons Madame Chambon had sent her—for her innocence and youth.

  He ran his fingers through her fine light-brown curls and contoured her neck appreciatively, amused that she tensed as if this had never happened to her before. Well, if he liked her, he’d see her as often as he wished over the following month. By the time the abbess presented him with one of her exorbitant accounts, he’d know whether the girl gave value enough to continue the arrangement.

  If she pleased him as much as his former mistress Jezebel had, Aubrey would indeed be seeing more of her. The next hour or so would tell.

  “Oh sir!” she cried, jumping up as his hand came into contact with her breast. “What are you doing?”

  He grinned as he tugged her back down and resettled her across his knees. “Madame Chambon has trained you well. Now I suppose you’ll tell me you’re a virgin.”

  She nodded vigorously. “I am, sir. Indeed I am and—”

  His scowl made her stiffen with apparent terror. Oh, she was good.

  “Really?” He reached for the cutlass that had fallen from his belt and now lay at his feet. Idly he stroked the blade, stained with the dead dog’s blood, while he contemplated her. She was indulging in the charade perhaps a little too enthusiastically but then, as he narrowed his gaze and saw how frightened she really seemed, it occurred to him that every whore had to be broken in sometime and perhaps Madame Chambon had decided to play a little trick on him.

  She’d told him he needed softening. That the effects of the opprobrium directed at him since poor Margaret’s death had stripped him of his humanity. Perhaps tonight was the time to cultivate his more tender side.

  “A virgin?” Before, he’d spoken with blatant skepticism. Now he would allow that she could be telling the truth.

  She nodded, her eyes riveted on the blade he was now using to clean his fingernails.

  “So this will be your first time with a man?”

  She drew in a trembling breath and repeated stupidly, “First time with a man?”

  He tried not to sound irritated. There was only so much of the playacting he could take. “Madame Chambon obviously selected you on account of your innocence. She knows my proclivities and that experience is my preference but I can be gentle. I won’t hurt you.” He grinned as he was struck by the responsibility of breaking
in a virgin. One who would always remember her first time with him, no matter how many paying customers she serviced in her working life.

  He licked his lips as he watched understanding dawn, adding as he traced the edge of her décolletage with his right forefinger, “In fact, I promise that you’ll quite enjoy the experience. God knows, you’re going to endure enough during your career, so you might as well start off on a good note. Now, shall we begin?”

  “Oh sir, I don’t know what to do!” She twisted in his lap and stared frantically at the door.

  Chuckling, he whisked her into his arms and tossed her, not roughly, onto the bed, caging her body with his and staring down into her frightened face.

  Poor child, he thought, wondering briefly what had brought her to this. But then, it was her choice. She might not have desired this life but she’d chosen it in preference to honest toil, and she was lucky her procuress hadn’t given her to any number of brutes he knew of who would initiate her in far less gentle fashion than he intended.

  In what he hoped was a sufficiently reassuring tone, he murmured, “Just do as I say and I won’t hurt you.”

  She gasped, nodding, her terrified gaze following his hand, which reached down to grasp the hem of her gown.

  Madame Chambon spared no expense on her girls and this one was dressed in finery to equal that of any daughter of the peerage. No doubt she’d been taught to speak like a duke’s daughter. And to behave with fitting grace and decorum if required. Aubrey recalled with amusement the occasion he’d taken Jezebel—renamed Lady Anne for the occasion—to visit his mother when the dowager had been hell-bent on allying Aubrey with some horsey-looking cousin, saying his twelve-month mourning period was over and it was hardly as though Margaret had been a good wife. That the time had come to sire an heir.

  Jezebel, though she’d been born in the gutter, had given as good an account of herself as any peeress.

  He sent the girl beneath him another appreciative glance. He needed diversion and a pair of arms to sink into. Someone who’d at least pretend softness and comfort at the end of a difficult day. A difficult day? Every day was a battle. Almost convulsively his mind was drawn back to the difficulties pressing upon him with regard to his blackened reputation, before he returned his mind to the task at hand, and his hand to the girl’s warm, soft thighs, which yielded at his gentle pressure to part them.

  “That’s right,” he murmured. “Slow and steady. Just let your knees go slack and I’ll start off doing what’s required to break you in, my sweetheart, just like I promised. I want you to give a good report of me to your madam when you return.”

  “Sir, I—”

  But when he frowned in answer to her possible objection, her words died on her lips. She must have understood she was overstepping the mark though she certainly didn’t disappoint when she jerked into awareness as he probed the folds of her sex. She was damp but not wet as she needed to be when he breached her defenses, so to speak.

  He stifled a sigh. He’d have to work harder. No doubt Madame Chambon believed he’d pay a premium for the privilege of breaking in a virgin when, if given a choice, he’d have balked at the notion.

  Lowering his head, he gently touched his lips to hers, tracing her upper lip with the tip of his tongue before breaching the seam, roaming over her teeth, exploring her mouth.

  He was surprised by her drawn-out sigh and the way her body went slack so quickly. As if she truly relished the kiss. He was surprised, too, by the extent to which he was affected. He drew back to study her more closely.

  She couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. So young, but the age at which respectable girls were married off. Had she been born into more fortunate circumstances she would be mixing with the throng downstairs, not closeted in a gentleman’s bedroom learning how to pleasure a whole lineup of them.

  The poor child was destined for a hard life but the least he could do in exchange for taking her virginity was to show her what pleasure could be had. He’d only broken in one virgin, his beautiful wife Margaret, and she, who’d been terrified, had come to relish the act. Well, until that bastard Debenham, as he now was, had returned to haunt her. Sir Aubrey forced the thought from his mind. It would drive him mad if he let it.

  He licked his finger before finding the swollen nub between her legs, massaging her rhythmically, gently, in her most intimate parts, enjoying her sudden breathlessness and the changes in the feel of her body. She was growing wetter by the minute.

  “Oh…my lord,” she breathed, gripping him more tightly.

  It was nice to feel in charge of a woman’s pleasure once more. By the end of his liaison with Jezebel, the attainment of sexual gratification had become an unspoken contest between them as they’d writhed, panting, almost combative, in one another’s arms.

  “Oh!” She jerked when he slowly pushed a finger inside her, preparing her. He could almost imagine she’d never even touched herself before, her reaction was so genuinely startled.

  “You like it?” he asked in a low growl as he rucked her skirt up over her hips using one hand before attending to his own buttons with his usual speed and efficiency. He was a man of strong sexual impulses and part of the game Jezebel had played with him was to appear when he’d least expected it. As if she—or perhaps Madame Chambon—had access to his private diary. Once Aubrey had paid his great-aunt a visit at the convent in Lincoln where she’d offered her devotions for the previous fifty years. As he was leaving, he’d been accosted by a nun and drawn into the shrubbery behind the high walls. It had been Jezebel, let loose from one priory, so to speak, to seek him out in another for some fast and furious rutting. Highly irreverent, of course, and all the more entertaining for the fact.

  Now this little creature was all his for the breaking in and his ministrations would stay with her for the rest of her life.

  “Just lie back and enjoy it. I said I wouldn’t hurt you.” The roughness of his voice and his deep scowl were a cover for a sudden concern completely out of character. Whores were for pleasuring him. They did it for financial gain. He was an experienced lover, he did not engage in gross and violent acts, and beyond that their feelings were of no account.

  He was amused by her wide-eyed look and her stifled gasp when he tossed off his breeches and his member sprang free.

  “More than you were expecting, sweetheart?” He chuckled as he rolled her onto her stomach and quickly undid the buttons on the back of her dress. “Let’s remove this, shall we? Madame Chambon will not thank me for spoiling her wares—though I pay her well enough for the privilege.” As he hauled her up beneath her arms into a sitting position, he reconsidered his strategy.

  “Sit on the edge of the bed,” he ordered as he stood. “That’s right. Now grasp me. That’s right. Never felt a man’s member before? Well, you’re in for a treat. We’re about to become great friends.” He shuddered, closing his eyes in rapture as her little hands closed around him. This was just what he needed after the evening he’d had. A sweet, pliant creature he could tutor and whose inexperience required him to be gentle.

  “Now stand up, turn around and put out your hands to support yourself on the bed. I’m going to enter you from behind, but from this angle I can pleasure you until you are screaming with desire. Believe me, you’ll feel nothing but a burst of rapture as I break your hymen.” He chuckled again. “I hope that was a gasp of anticipation.”

  He leaned over her, covering her small body with his large one, reaching around so he could continue to fondle her. Her short, jerky movements indicated her growing excitement and it pleased him. Her thighs and lovely rounded bottom were moist with sweat as her breathing escalated. Meanwhile he curbed his own desire to thrust into her. He had to time this just right. She was tensing, releasing, tensing, even though she’d obviously never done this before, playing the game like the pro she was on the way to becoming and he was enjoying it as much as she.

  When he felt her suck in her breath and hold it, as if she bal
anced on the edge of the precipice and didn’t know what else to do, he entered her gently, increasing the rhythmic pressure of his fingers upon the swollen nub nestled within the folds of her sex. With a gasp, she bucked against him, crying out as she reared again and again, her unbridled pleasure igniting his own so that his own climax occurred shortly afterward.

  Instantly he withdrew, spilling his seed, which trickled down her leg. With a rapidly beating heart, he held her close to his chest, idly toying with her soft, full breasts beneath her chemise before he scooped her up and tossed her onto the bed, crawling up beside her.

  “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” he asked, tucking her beneath the covers and lying with one arm loosely over her. “I’m sure Madame Chambon reassured you that you’d be in expert hands. There are plenty of other ways we can do this and you gave every indication you’re eager to learn more.”

  He glanced over at her. She looked dazed but not terrified as she had earlier. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

  She swallowed and her voice was faint. “I don’t really know what to say, sir?”

  “Well, I didn’t like the idea before but enjoying the exclusive services of the virgin I broke in has its benefits. For one thing I needn’t worry about the pox, eh?” He chuckled. “No cundums, though of course there’s still the need for coitus interruptus. I’ll not foist a brat on you. Only my wife will have my children. Come here.”

  He pulled her closer against him. She was a nicely rounded little thing and he felt protective of her in a way he had not with his other experienced whores or mistresses.

  “Do you have a wife?” She appeared to be gaining assurance.

  “I did…once.” God, but the memory still tore at him. He stared at the ceiling. “A dear, sweet creature when I married her—until she was enticed into the arms of another.” He gave a harsh laugh at her murmured commiserations. “In the eighteen months since I’ve lost her I’ve more than compensated, though in truth, no rutting has come close to what I experienced in the arms of my dear Margaret. I’m a sentimental fool at heart.”