she really want to marry you?”
“According to my mother, the father is panting for it. Wants to get his hands on an earl’s estate.” Devin picked up Leona’s discarded drink from the small table beside the chair and drank from it. “They are, apparently, swimming in money. They could save Darkwater.”
“Oh, Darkwater.” Leona dismissed the estate with a wave of her hand. “They could save us.”
“Save us?” Devin looked at her, a trifle taken aback by her words.
“Yes. From financial ruin.” Leona stretched, arching her back so that her breasts thrust even more boldly against the sheer material of her dress. Then she slipped her hand inside Devin’s shirt and let her hand roam freely over his chest as she talked. “Vesey says he refuses to pay any more of my gambling debts. He says Croesus himself could not keep up with my spending habits.” Her fingers settled on his nipple, caressing and squeezing it, circling it teasingly. “I reminded him that I scarcely married him for his charming manner. He was to supply the funds, and I would provide the veil for his, uh, true sexual proclivities. But he said that no amount of behavior on his part could possibly be worth the amount of money I waste.”
Leona’s full mouth settled into a luscious pout. “Do you think this dress is a waste?” She stroked her fingertips across the neckline of her dress.
“Not on you,” he replied, his eyes following the movement of her fingers. His hand slid up her body to cup her breast and caress it, his eyes glittering with desire as he watched her nipple tighten in response to his touch.
“But, then, nothing over fourteen attracts Vesey’s notice,” Leona added with a shrug. “I mean, really…I find a schoolboy exciting now and then—there is something quite stimulating about that wide-eyed eagerness. But as a steady diet?” She shook her head. “But I am straying from the subject.” She stretched up to brush her lips against his. “We were talking about your American heiress.”
“I told you, she’s not my American heiress,” Devin responded. “I have no desire to marry her.”
“Of course you don’t. Don’t be silly. Who would want to marry some boring little chit from the back of beyond? But…needs must.”
“’Needs must?’” Devin repeated in some astonishment. His hand went up to cup her chin, tilting her face so that she had to look into his eyes. “Are you saying you think I should marry this girl?”
“Of course,” Leona replied reasonably. “What else are you going to do? What else are we going to do? Much as I love the taste of you, my pet, we cannot live on it. We need money to survive. You haven’t a cent. You told me what your uncle said the last time you asked about the estate. It loses money and has for years. Your funds have long since been depleted. What are you going to do—take up clerking?”
“I know how little money I have,” Devin growled. “Everyone has been kind enough to remind me of it. Certainly marriage would solve that problem. But then I would have a wife.”
“A minor inconvenience, surely.” Leona waved her hand airily, dismissing the problem. “Many men have wives, and one would scarcely know it. Send the boring little colonial off to Darkwater and let her live there. No doubt she will be quite happy living there—she’s spent her whole life in a backwater, after all. She wants to be Lady Ravenscar, and she will have that. She will have her little ‘domain,’ and the poor naive creature will probably think she is living the life of the Ton. Heavens, Dev, I doubt she would be able to live anywhere except immured at Darkwater. She probably can’t keep up a minute’s conversation on any topic but housekeeping or some such thing, and she would be lost trying to determine what to do with an oyster fork. Can you imagine taking the chit out into Society? Let your mother take her to Darkwater and oversee her education.”
“Perhaps that is not the life she imagines,” Devin pointed out. He stood up abruptly, setting Leona aside. “What if she wants to live in London and foist herself on Society in all her rustic glory?” Devin asked. “Am I to endure my wife making a laughingstock of the Aincourt name?”
“Don’t be absurd. What will it matter what she wants? Once you are married to her, her money is yours. You are her husband, her lord and master. She will do as you say.”
“Mmm. No doubt just as you do what your lord and master says.”
“How absurd—to compare me with a fur trapper’s daughter.” Leona laughed, her rather short upper lip pulling back charmingly over white, even teeth. “Really, Dev, you make me laugh.”
“I am glad you find it so amusing,” Devin replied sourly. “I thought you, of all people, would not urge me to marry this chit. Does it bother you not at all to think of my having a wife? Of my bedding her and producing heirs?”
“Really, Dev, don’t be so plebian. Your getting a few puling brats on some insipid cow has nothing to do with us. What could it possibly matter?” She went to him, sliding her arms about his waist and leaning her head upon his chest. “I can remember more than once when you have had another woman…even at the same time. As I remember, we both found that rather stimulating.”
“It was a different matter altogether,” he said gruffly, his mind involuntarily going back to the debauched evening she had mentioned. His loins stirred at the memory. “I did not marry the other woman. I had no obligation to her, no ties beyond money.”
“And what binds you to this one besides money?” Leona returned. She slid her hands down the small of his back and onto his buttocks, digging in with her fingertips. “Come, enough talk. I think it is time for my surprise, don’t you?”
He bent and kissed her in agreement. Leona slipped out of his arms and went to the door. She opened it and stuck her head out, then came back in. A moment later, a figure wrapped in a hooded cloak entered the room. The person was small; he assumed from the stature that it was a woman. The only other noticeable thing about her was that her dainty feet were small, tanned and bare.
As he was taking in this unusual fact, Leona closed and locked the door into the hall and came back to Devin. She took his hand and led him to the bed. Taking off their shoes, they climbed onto the high bed, where Leona directed him to lie on his side. She snuggled up behind him, propping herself up on her elbow so that she could see.
The cloaked woman padded over to the side of the bed, taking up a place a few feet away from them. She untied the cloak and pulled it off, revealing herself as a small dark woman dressed in a brief top that covered only her breasts and loose trousers made of gauzy material that gathered at her ankles. Slender gold chains hung at her bare waist and around her neck, and looped across the narrow top. Tiny bells hung in a row around the hem of the top and across the waistband of her trousers. They dangled from a ribbon braided into her thick black hair, and on bracelets and anklets. With every movement they tinkled musically. Over her flimsy garments were wrapped a multitude of colorful scarves, all of the same flimsy material. Just looking at her sent a jolt of desire through Devin’s loins.
She looked downward almost shyly as she raised her arms above her head and began to click her fingers together, making a rhythmic metallic sound with tiny cymbals. Then her hips began to move in an undulating motion, setting up the jangle of the bells. She began to dance, her feet and hips moving rhythmically. She moved in a small space, swaying and writhing and twisting.
“Stirring, isn’t she?” Leona whispered into his ear, her breath sending shivers through him. She took the edge of his ear between her teeth and worried at it gently. While the girl danced, Leona’s
