five days a week, at the mercy of your clients’ whims, when you needn’t work at all, dear Colette. I made more in an hour at the tables today than your dress shop earned all week. And you don’t see me looking pale or upset over what someone implied about my work or talent—or the lack of it.”
Camille pressed her lips together. He might be a stallion in the bedroom, but Heath was an ass about knowing when to speak and when to keep his mouth shut. She and her sister had worked very hard since they were girls, helping to put food on the table after their vagabond father abandoned Mama, and it would never set well that the English aristocracy played all day—or all their lives, as in Heath Bentley’s case. “I don’t work to see how much money I can make,” she insisted, sitting up straighter. “I work because my life must have a direction. A purpose.”
“Making babies. Producing heirs,” the dark-haired rake across the table replied pointedly. “Now there’s a purpose!”
Camille bristled, but before she took his bait her sister replied, “Let’s not forget that any child of Camille’s will be in line for some of your inheritance, dear Heath. Meanwhile, the night is young and the full moon’s shining through the bedroom window. What do you propose we do about that?”
Heath’s expression changed immediately. He studied his wife from beneath a dark, rakish fetlock that fell across one brow, and Camille saw her sister’s hand slip surreptitiously beneath the table. Heath shifted in his seat then, his eyes narrowing.
She sighed. Colette had led the conversation toward their bedroom on her behalf, to stop this conversation before it ended as it always did: their men didn’t understand why she and her sister spent so much time working, even though Rutledge and Heath followed their own pursuits in London most days. Lord Bentley often spent weeks overseeing his shipyards and textile mills, here and abroad, and thought nothing about how she would fill her days were it not for designing innovative gowns at LeChaud Soeurs.
Heath rose quickly to pull out his wife’s chair. Colette gazed up at him adoringly, and moments later, in the wake of their escape, their amorous laughter drifted back into the dining room.
And what an opulent room it was: mahogany paneling and gilt mirrors, two huge chandeliers glistening with hundreds of crystal prisms above a massive mahogany table that stretched fifteen feet beyond where the four of them sat. Camille smiled politely at her husband. She knew without daring to ask that he’d never once coaxed a lover to the top of this staid table…never thrown a woman’s skirts up and ravished her on the spur of a passionate moment, oblivious to the goblets and china that would shatter around them. The thought made her prickle, down where her drawers bunched between her legs, for by now Heath had relieved Colette of her corset and drawers—
“You look so very lovely in that gown, Camille. Is it one of your own designs?”
She blinked. “Why, yes it is, thank you. I made it as a sample, to determine how the pattern and fabric would complement each other, before completing a similar gown for Lady Gody.”
“That shade of pink puts roses in your cheeks.” Rutledge observed her through half-closed eyes as he drew a teasing finger along the crease of her cleavage. “I’m glad you didn’t change before dinner, my dear. When I saw this dress at breakfast, I felt sadly inadequate…desperately sorry I couldn’t act upon my inclinations. You think me terribly old, I know, but inside me beats the heart of the randy young swain I once was. A man might outlive his abilities to perform, but he never loses the desire.”
Camille swallowed, speechless, as his fingertip continued to tease her exposed skin. She sensed the butler—and probably half the staff—waited to clear the table, knowing better than to intrude upon this rare moment…watching every move and nuance from the breaks between the Chinese screen’s panels. Three years here at Briarcliffe hadn’t accustomed her to having domestic help, and to knowing they saw everything, and then gossiped about it among themselves.
“Sit on the table in front of me. I’m going to lift your breasts and kiss them…bury my face in their softness.”
Her cheeks burned. What was this he demanded of her?
Rutledge scooted back from the table and flung his soiled plate off to one side. The china shattered and then his flatware clattered on top of it, which brought a maid scurrying from the kitchen. “Get out!” he rasped, pointing imperiously at the girl. “You and the others are dismissed for the evening! Do not interrupt me again!”
The poor girl fled, wide-eyed, and Camille almost felt sorry for her. Whatever fantasy had inspired Lord Bentley would most certainly become her reality, as well.
A cataclysmic change…a hurricane of passion…a volcano of sensations and delights! As Rubio Palladino’s prediction came to mind, Camille realized that everything he’d foretold seemed to be coming true. There was no talking her way out of this: the expression on her husband’s creased face brooked no arguments. So she rose from her chair to step between his knees and the table that stretched the length of the mirrored room. She felt dwarfed and quite plain, in comparison to this ornate salon where Bentleys had dined for generations. Her squeal rang out as her husband lifted her unceremoniously to the tabletop.
Rutledge slipped his fingers into the bodice of her gown and scooped out her breasts as though he intended to devour them. He was panting as he gazed at her exposed flesh. His thumbs teased her nipples into hard, aching buds. He suckled her then, and when his coarse mustache tickled her skin she giggled like a little girl.
He rose up, his gaze riveting hers.
“I—I’m sorry!” she wheezed. “I wasn’t laughing at you or—”
“Laugh, damn it! You’re making me feel like quite the man again.” He teased a nipple with his tongue then, holding her waist to keep her from wiggling away from this riot of sensations.
Camille closed her eyes. As her head lolled back and her husband’s lips tormented her sensitive skin, it was Heath she saw in her mind. He wanted her…Heath wanted to make love to both of them, Colette had said. She couldn’t keep still, and as she imagined what her sister’s handsome husband would be doing to her, her arms encircled Rutledge’s beefy shoulders. He moaned, low and primal, as he squeezed her softness against his rough cheeks. He kissed her breasts with silly, teasing smacks then, inciting more laughter as he stood up.
Without warning, he shoved her backward and threw her skirts up over her waist. A wineglass toppled, unheeded, as he slipped a finger into the slit of her drawers. Camille gasped, resisting his intrusion, but he grabbed both her hands in his. “Has a man ever thrust his tongue up your cunt?” he asked slyly.
Her mouth opened but no sound came out.
“Good. It’s only fitting that I be the first.”
What did he intend to do? And why would a man want to—
Rutledge parted the crotch seam of her drawers again, and Camille screamed at the first contact of his inquisitive, wet lips. Her legs flew apart, and then she squeezed his head with them, and then—well, she didn’t know what to do about the shocking sensations of his probing tongue and his rough mustache as he kissed her down there. “My God, you shouldn’t be—you surely can’t mean to—”
He pressed the bridge of his nose against a bone that nailed her to the table. Never mind that wine was now seeping into her hair as her head tossed to and fro, and that she felt indecent and exposed and—
Suddenly it was Hadrian Swann’s handsome face she imagined between her legs. Camille
