Fortune's Son (13 page)

“But you still have one boot on.”

“I'll keep it on, thank you.”

“But then how can you dry yourself?”

“I'll sit by the fire.”

“No,
child
, I insist.” Her lips curled upward.

She
was
actually
enjoying
this.
“Bloody hell!” he groaned. “Just take the damned thing!”

They repeated the performance. Philip forced his eyes to the ceiling with the awareness that paradise was but an arm's length away. He mentally conjugated Latin verbs to no avail, becoming so hard it outright pained him.

The door opened abruptly just as the boot came free. The maid, carrying more linen, started and then blushed crimson at what she suspected she had interrupted. She hurriedly laid down her burden and then turned to busy herself with the fire.

“Thank you, Nan. That will be all,” her mistress said as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for her to play valet to a half-naked man. The shocked servant promptly withdrew without having spoken a word.

“There now, I am sure you can manage well enough alone at this juncture.” Lady Messingham turned back to find Philip already shedding his breeches, and her breath seized. She couldn't help herself. She stared. He was magnificent, every accursed inch of him.

“The blanket, my lady?” he prompted.

“Of course,” she said hurriedly, averting her eyes but making no effort to move.

He took the blanket from her hands and found them once more trembling. “Now look who's being missish. Only a moment ago you declared yourself quite unmoved by a naked male.” His voice was low and provocative.

Her heart thrummed erratically in her chest, sending an echo drumming in her ears. She looked up into his taunting face. He reached out to her but she pulled away, closing her eyes, suddenly seeing herself teetering on the brink of an abyss that destroyed women.

“You do fancy yourself quite the cockalorum, don't you, Philip? You have the brass bollocks to attempt seduction whilst another woman awaits you in my very kitchen?”

Philip snatched the blanket about his waist. “I told you—it's not what you think. She's
nothing
to me.”

“Nothing to you? Not what I think? Then tell me at last what I
am
to think.”

As she'd prayed,
the
moment
had shattered.

With the blanket secured around his waist, and looking to herd his hormone-enraged thoughts back to coherency, Philip took up a towel and began rubbing his dripping hair. At length he said, “All right, I'll tell you the truth, in all of its depravity. What do you know of Sir Francis Dashwood?”

“Dashwood? What does he have to do with any of this?”

“More than you would ever suspect.”

“What I hear
from
ladies
of my acquaintance is that Sir Francis is charming, splendidly wealthy, well-traveled, and a magnificent catch.” She paused to regard Philip circumspectly before continuing. “I also overheard
from
gentlemen
that he's one of the most debauched rakes of London and is rumored to have bedded nearly every woman in the
ton
. Based on personal experience, I would call the claim highly exaggerated.”

“You are surprisingly frank.”

“You asked a question. I gave you a direct answer. I don't hedge, Philip.”

“Then I have little fear of shocking you,” he said with obvious relief.

“No. I am not easily overset, nor prone to swooning fits.”

“Have you heard of the Knights of St. Francis?”

“Only whispers. They say Dashwood and his Knights couple an insatiable appetite for physical congress coupled with a certain apostasy. Don't tell me you are one of his number?”

“Gad no!” Philip exclaimed. “Ridiculous they are, playing at paganism and virgin sacrifice.”

She gaped. “What did you say?
Virgin
sacrifice
?”

“Indeed, and the intended victim sits in yon kitchen safely sipping tea with your servants.”

“Good God, Philip!” She collapsed in the chair. “How can civilized beings think to do such things?”

“Dashwood and his cronies are the most powerful men in the land. They can do whatever the hell they wish with impunity, but they didn't plan to sacrifice her life,” Philip hastily explained. “Just her…” His voice trailed off.

“Her maidenhead?” Her voice was skeptical. “Come now, if she were truly an innocent, what would she be doing in such a place and in such company to begin with?”

He shrugged. “I make no claims as to the state of her chastity, however, 'twas eminently clear she wanted no part in the blasphemous ceremony. Had I not intervened…” His fatal expression told the rest.

“You mean to say you rescued her?” She looked incredulous.

“Leaping onto the altar and quixotically brandishing my sword,” he replied with self-effacement.

“I suppose one might even admire your misplaced gallantry,
Sir
Galahad.
Others surely would have used and discarded her without a qualm. I've no doubt the girl in my kitchen would happily
repay
you.” She scrutinized his reaction.

“I have not the least interest in the girl, or any other of her ilk. I seem to have lost my appetite for tarts. Spoiled it, you might say, in craving other things.”

She looked away. “We can't always have what we desire, can we, Philip? You must accustom yourself to occasional disappointment. Now, more to the point—why did you bring her
here
?”

A flash of helplessness crossed his face and his words came in a sudden gush, “Because I had nowhere else to turn. I needed someone I could trust… I needed a friend.”

His words completely disarmed her. She had never felt
needed
by anyone. Her cool reserve faltered as, stoically, Philip awaited her response.

“Very well,” she answered slowly, warily. “What have you in mind?”

“I am a rogue to put upon you like this—”

“You are indeed.”

“I had hoped you might place her in service.”

Her reaction was incredulity. “You mean for me to provide her with employment?”

“Mayhap as a chamber maid, or some such?” he suggested sheepishly, while she mentally calculated the expense of adding another member to her household.

“You don't think she would rob me blind?”

“Quite possibly,” he replied with a sigh. “My apologies for not thinking this through, but I could hardly dump her on the streets.”

“No. I expect not,” she replied thoughtfully, weighing the benefits of his indebtedness to her against the strain of taking on another servant. “Perhaps we might consider the kitchen? I have a temperamental cook who has relieved my household of a number of scullery maids.”

It was also the humblest position in the house with the lowest wage. Perhaps she could dispense with her chairmen? But Longacre had already repossessed her carriage and she'd sold the horses…
No. It was impossible.
She could barely keep even her nose above water at this point, but he had asked for her help. How could she explain?

She had deeply regretted their earlier spat, compounding her harsh words with Jane. She had never felt more alone and isolated. The burden, the pretense, the deception, it was all suddenly too heavy to bear alone.

“Philip, please know that I want to help you, but I cannot employ her.”

“I don't understand. Why not?”

She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again.

“What is it you're not telling me?” he asked. “I've sensed it since the night we met.” She stared at him in silence. He waited, watching every passing emotion on her face—anger, frustration, and apprehension—while she waged her internal battle.

“It would appear your game is finally up. What are you hiding?” he prompted.

She looked up into his face, her expression uncertain and wary. “The truth?” she asked in a whisper.

“It is infinitely preferable to a lie,” he answered with only a hint of a smile.

“Quite,” she answered ruefully and averted her face from his view. “The truth is…” Her voice cracked. She took a deep breath and began again. “The truth is… I have debts. Enormous debts. Debts I cannot possibly pay.”

Philip was stunned. “But this house…” He gestured to the elegant appointments.

“Leased. And I am three months behind. I daily fear threat of eviction.”

“By all reports, you were married to a wealthy man, my lady. Do you mean to say your husband left you penniless?”

“Not quite, but close enough, given my living standards. I have only my personal possessions and a modest jointure of two hundred pounds per annum.”

“Two hundred pounds?” Philip's brows arched in surprise. “'Tis certainly enough to subsist on, just not in the style to which you are accustomed.”

“Don't misunderstand me. My circumstances are not the fault of any lack of generosity. Nigel was exceedingly doting and generous to a fault. One might say that I alone am to blame for my present sorry state of affairs. He could never say no to me about anything, and in ignorance I allowed him to squander his fortune.”

“You say nothing remains?”

“Only the properties and those all passed on to Nigel's heir. Now, if I had given him a son, perhaps my lot would have been different,” she spoke wistfully.

“Then sell your jewels.”

“Any of worth I've already pawned.”

“But you wore emeralds only the other evening.”

“The real ones are now gone, all replaced with paste.” She began to pace, refusing to meet his eye. “I've no longer a horse or carriage. My household is reduced to a skeleton staff. I owe the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker,” she finished in a sudden gush of hopeless mirth.

“You could return to the country, just disappear for a time.”

“I can't,” she replied in a pained whisper.

“Why not? Don't you have any family? Is there no one in Wiltshire with whom you could take refuge?”

“My father disowned me in disgrace. There is nothing left for me there but horrid memories.” She choked through a haze of misting tears. “I am at the end of my rope, and you were my last desperate hope.”

“You are in need and turned to me? That's almost comical. I'm the last one
I
would
turn
to
for deliverance. I am nobody, with nothing. Why in blazes would you pin any hope of recovery on me when you have powerful friends—courtiers, and princes?”

“Because of what every last one of
them
would demand in return. Because you can help me. Because you already have and did not importune me as the others would have. Remember the night at Belsize? The seventy-five pounds you helped me win paid my servants' wages and kept my creditors at bay. You are precisely who I need.”

“A lowly gamester over a prince?” he scoffed.

“Lowly? I think not. You far surpass what you care to reveal of yourself. I know this. Why did you think I sought you out?”

“I had little notion why. At first I was flattered, thinking you spoiled, neglected, or bored, and wanting…” He finished with a shrug.

“Wanting what?” she asked.

He answered with a sardonic twist. “Let's say it was not precisely what I'd hoped, though for a while you led me blindly down the primrose path.”

“Indeed? That may be so, the lovely path that leads to one's destruction.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“Perhaps you should go now,” she said, snatching up his wet clothes.

He stayed her by the arm. “I think not. We have yet resolved nothing between us.”

“I have told you the truth. I sought you out to manipulate and use you. What more is left to say?”

“Much, now that the proverbial cards are on the table. I still ask you,
why
me
?”

She looked askance. “Because I had the absurd notion that you would be malleable, that I could entrance and control you.” She looked back at him with a wretched smile. “I was wrong.”

“No,” he said. “God only knows, you were right. There's not been a day that's passed since Marylebone that I haven't thought of you and wanted you.”

“And now that you know how I sought to use you? What do you think of me now, Philip?” Her tone was corrosive, cutting, taunting, as if she wished to drive him away rather than have him walk out on his own.

He took her by the chin, meeting her fixedly with his probing stare. “What do I think? I think that a man is only used if he allows himself to be; and that having been in much similar straits myself, I understand you far more fully than you realize.”

Her amazement was such that she forgot to breathe, and even more than his incredible answer, his ensuing kiss completely overcame her. She sank into him with a gasp when his arms engulfed her. The levee that had held her emotions at bay, now having burst, she pulled him to her, frantically, clutching his hair, as if she were drowning and he, her lifeline. Abandoning all of her defenses, she gave herself with a desperate passion she'd held in check for far too long.

***

Philip awoke with a shiver. The coals in the hearth that had warmed them after their own heat had dissipated in a sated torpor were long reduced to dusty ash. He drew her body, still warmed by his own, closer still and cocooned the blanket more tightly about them and reflected on all the night had revealed.

Although he was no innocent, this woman in his arms had shown him just how ignorant he'd been beyond the very basics of physical congress. Last night with her had brought him to the very humbling conclusion that he'd known little of a woman's pleasure at all. Last night had changed everything.

When he and Susannah joined the first time, he was more than ready. He'd been randier than a billy goat since she took off his boots, but his eagerness for her, to be inside her, after so much unsated wanting, had unmanned him far too soon to give her any pleasure. She'd gasped at his sudden climax, and then her tears had flowed, tears of frustration and passion unfulfilled.

The prior females with whom he'd consorted, a jolly accommodating lot, had cared only for a hot and hard entry, more often than not, against the wall of a back room. This had suited him admirably at the time, but then he'd never experienced the deep and profound desire to please a woman, to bestir her to madness as Susannah did him.

Desperate to fulfill this need, he'd kissed her face, her eyes, her sodden cheeks, and soon his mouth and tongue began laving away the spilled tears. He tenderly ministered hot open kisses to her neck and her beautiful white breasts. He'd taken them into his mouth, one at a time, ravenously suckling, biting, teasing, until she'd frantically clutched his head, groaning urgent supplication hot in his ear. With youth and virility on his side, her grinding and whispered moans hardened him again in an instant, but she demurred when he'd moved to take her.

Instead, she'd guided him.

This
was when Philip's lessons of physical love truly began.

At her urging, and with an eagerness hitherto unknown, he roamed and explored every inch of her. With his hands and with his mouth, he filled her with whimpers and pleasured cries until discovering the very essence of her need. In this place, he worshipped at leisure, and when she broke with a shrill cry, muffled by her own hand, he knew he'd proven no slacker.

***

She stirred with a groan. Her eyes opened and lit on his face in bewilderment. She parted her lips as if to speak, but Philip silenced her with a lingering kiss and rolled her beneath him.

“No. We mustn't. The servants.” She pressed a hand against his chest, looking to the door in panicked protest.

“The door is locked, my lady.”

“Even worse,” she replied, before adding ruefully, “By the bye, Philip, I think last night places us well beyond formalities. My intimates call me Sukey.”

“I dare hope none are quite this intimate.” He grinned and ran his hand up her inner thigh. “Sukey,” he repeated her name. It glided over his tongue as smoothly as warm brandy. He moved to kiss her again.

She pushed him away with a frown. “Please, you must dress. You must go. Now,” she said more urgently.

“No,” he replied flatly, his expression uncompromising.

“No? What do you mean, no?”

He smirked. “The opposite of yes, I believe.”

“Look, what's done cannot be undone, but I am not about to compound one mistake with another.”

He flinched as if she'd hit him full in the face. “Is that all this was to you? A mistake?”

Regretting her word choice, she vigorously shook her head. “Philip, I don't know what to think. But surely no good can come of this.”

“I don't see it that way.”

“Then I shall make you see! The reputation of a single woman is a precarious thing. Any hint of scandal could banish me from good society. Having barely weathered one such storm, I cannot afford to risk it again.”

“Come now. You can think of a better excuse than that. London is full of ladies, even married ones, who carry on discrete liaisons without a whisper of defamation. Only a generation ago, intrigues were considered requisite to ladies of fashion.”

“Why can't you understand? I've told you I will be no man's mistress! That way lies only tragedy and despair. Such women are only passed from one man to another until all beauty is wasted and they are left ruined, destitute, and wanted by no one.”

“Is that what you fear, my love?”

“Yes. No. I don't know!”

“What if freedom could remain yours?” he asked in a heated whisper on her skin.

“I'm not sure I understand you.” Growing more befuddled by the minute, she tried unsuccessfully to shrug off his attentions, but he maintained her trapped beneath him. She could feel him hard and pulsing.

Sensing her imminent capitulation, Philip drew his lips over her bare neck and shoulders in a slow, sensuous torture. “What if the choice remained completely yours?”

“What choice?” she asked, closing her eyes to the impulse to grind against him.

“To cast
me
off whenever you please?” He paused to pay particular homage to her breasts. “Though I hope to please you sufficiently and frequently enough to avoid that fate.”

She was growing breathless with a desire she could no longer suppress. “What are you suggesting?”

“I don't seek a mistress, Sukey,” he answered huskily, his dark eyes dilated. “I'm suggesting I might be your lover, instead.”