nodded, then realized that in the dark it was no answer. Desire made her voice thick, the consonants sibilant. “Yes. Please, yes.”
Between her thighs, he stroked her. Heat and wetness made her receptive. Just when his touch was so insistent as to make pleasure teeter on the edge of pain, he eased back, rubbing the hood of her clitoris and not the uncovered nub. She felt him gauge her breathing and her movement, marking when she was controlled and when she was on the cusp of having none.
How well he knew her body, but no better than she knew his. She was aware of even the small changes that had occurred in his absence. The weight of him was perhaps a stone heavier. The breadth of his shoulders was wider by a fraction, the muscles of his upper arms more taut. He did indeed work too hard. His labors had reshaped his frame, roughened the pads of his fingers and the heels of his hands. He still fit her exactly as she remembered, or mayhap it was that she fit him.
She had come to learn her own body in contrast to the planes and angles of his. She was not so curvaceous except when his palms were cupping her breasts or bottom, or when his hands were resting lightly on her hips. When he embraced her it seemed that her shoulders were no more broad than they should be, nor her waist too narrow. Her head fit snugly under his chin.
Elsewhere, it was he that was fit snugly. A faint smile touched her lips. She was rocked forward, then she did the rocking, this time backward, pressing into him with the full roundness of her bottom.
She felt changes in her body, a tightness under her skin, a ripple across her belly. Her eyelids fluttered closed, though she fought to keep them open. Her lips remained slightly parted. There was fierce heat where there had been only warmth and the first crests of pleasure where there had been only unhurried, rolling waves.
She cried out, though she wished she had not. He liked her to be silent, and she did not wish to be indifferent to what pleased him. She sucked in her lower lip and bit down hard enough to taste blood.
“No,” he said. His mouth was against her ear, and he was spilling his seed into her. His hard frame spasmed, and his neck arched. “No,” he said again.
She did not know what he said no to. Was he cautioning her not to cry or not to stop her cries? Or did he mean it as a warning to himself, a last effort not to have this pleasure end?
“No!”
This last shout shook her. It echoed painfully in her ears, each repetition louder, not softer, than the last. She clapped her hands over her ears and felt the weight of him leave her. The blankets were torn from her, and she understood that she was once again alone in the bed.
The shouting in her head stopped abruptly. The silence startled her. What frightened her was that she could no longer bring the sound of his voice to mind. How could that be? How could she have forgotten the sound of her husband’s voice as if she’d never known it?
Her eyelids fluttered open in the same manner they had closed just a short time ago. The candle in the dish on her bedside table still flickered.
She had never been in the dark, only in her dreams.
The bedcovers were in disarray around her. Her night-shift was crumpled about her hips. One of her hands lay cupped under her breast, the other was tucked between her thighs. She removed it slowly, conscious of the dampness of her fingertips. The small friction of withdrawal was enough to prompt a contraction and a residual ripple of pleasure. Her hips moved once in helpless response. She jerked her other hand from under her naked breast and turned away from the candlelight, pressing her face into the pillow.
Tears welled in her eyes. She bit her lip and tasted blood quickly. So that part of her dream had been real, too.
Only he was not real. Her husband. She had betrayed him, she knew that now, for it was not her husband who had come to her bed. She had been alone, yet not. She had wanted it to be Nicholas who was with her, but how could he be? Nicholas was dead, and she had betrayed him with a stranger. She understood that it had happened only in her mind, that what pleasure she’d felt had been by her own hand, yet it still seemed like the worst sort of betrayal for even her dreams to have turned on her.
Five years ago today she had exchanged vows with Nicholas Caldwell. So it was on the anniversary of her marriage, not on the anniversary of his death, that she had allowed herself to entertain another lover.
At her sides her fists bunched and she wept in earnest. At last.
Chapter One
London, November 1817
If it was possible to die of boredom, Ferrin was of the opinion he was not long for this earth. Only minutes ago he had been contemplating murder. Not seriously, of course. Perhaps if he had been contemplating the murder of someone other than his own mother, he reasoned, he might have been able to think the deed through to completion. But murder his mother? No, it was just not done. Not even in his own mind, no matter the provocation.
He could, however, cheerfully throttle Wynetta. The masquerade had been her idea and everyone—save him—had pronounced it a splendid notion. He would have pronounced it corkbrained, but since his views on such things were well known, no one considered it necessary to consult him.
There was never any doubt but that he would throw in his lot with the rest of them. He was ever the easy touch when it came to matters of family, though he knew this would surprise his society and many of his acquaintances. That was just as it should be, else what was the point of cultivating a reputation for not suffering fools?
“I say, Ferrin, you’re a dark one, right enough. Are you going to make your play or merely scowl at your cards?”
One of Ferrin’s dark eyebrows lifted in a perfect arch; the scowl remained unchanged. “Why cannot I do both?” He tossed a four of spades toward the other cards at the center of the table and took the trick with trump.
Across from Ferrin, Mr. Porter Wellsley returned to the contemplation of his own cards. “Don’t know how you manage to do that,” he said idly, rearranging his hand. “Damned if you do not always make the right play.”
Ferrin led the next round with an ace of hearts. “Then count yourself fortunate that you are my partner.”
“Oh, I wasn’t complaining. Just don’t know how you do it.”
To the left of Ferrin, Mr. William Allworthy flicked his cards with the buffed nail of his index finger before choosing one. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “Enough chatter, Wellsley. This ain’t the ladies’ table.”
Wellsley was about to respond, but he caught Ferrin’s deepening scowl and thought better of it. He threw off a card and sat back, waiting for their fourth to make his play.
Mr. Bennet Allworthy folded his cards, tapped one corner of the slim deck on the table, then fanned them out again. He studied them as carefully now as he had upon receiving them. He glanced repeatedly at the cards already thrown down as though they might have changed their spots while his attention was on his hand. He never looked at his cousin.
Ferrin placed two fingers on Bennet’s wrist just as he was about to make his play. “Not the spade, Allworthy. Not when you still have a heart in your hand. You do not want to renege, do you? Wellsley might not be so generous of a nature as I and consider it a cardsharp’s trick.”
Bennet froze. Just above his carefully crafted neckcloth the first evidence of a flush could
