Authors: Mia Gabriel
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Erotica, #Historical, #General, #Regency, #20th Century
Lord Savage
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CONTENTS
ONE
London, 1907
There are nights when a crowded ballroom can be the loneliest place on earth, when
every happy face belongs to a stranger and every smile is meant for another, and love
is as fleeting as the latest waltz.
I had not made the long voyage from New York to London to be lonely like that. Yet,
that was exactly how I felt as the Honorable Eustace Smithson led me through the dance,
his feet only slightly less plodding than his conversation.
“I trust you find our weather agreeable, Mrs. Hart?” he said, the words barely making
their way past his thick bristle of a mustache. “To be sure, London must seem quite
different from America, where you are accustomed to tropical climes and palm trees
and such.”
“Palm trees, Mr. Smithson?” I repeated, perplexed. I
was
trying to make the best of this evening, I truly was. “Perhaps to the south, in Florida,
but I am from New York, and we New Yorkers know nothing of palm trees and tropics.
Our weather is much the same as yours here, except that it doesn’t rain nearly as
often, and we’ve never much fog to speak of.”
“Ah.” Mr. Smithson scowled and puckered his mouth beneath his mustache, clearly at
a loss. “No fog and little rain. Well, well.”
“Indeed, Mr. Smithson, it is so.” I concentrated on keeping my smile bright and without
the disappointment and dismay growing within me. “No fog at all.”
I hadn’t come to London to speak of the weather, either. Only a few weeks before,
I’d at last put aside my dreary mourning for my husband and sailed to London with
dozens of letters of introduction to the grandest ladies of English society. By New
York standards, I’d traveled modestly: I was armed with only forty trunks of my most
fashionable gowns and jewels, three maids, a private chef, and a secretary. The city’s
society pages had breathlessly (and a bit disapprovingly) reported all the details
of my trip, but only I had known the true purpose for my escape.
An escape was exactly what it was, too, my long-overdue escape from the solitude that
had been my too-constant companion. Here in England I hoped to find all the things
my stultifying marriage had denied me: adventure, freedom, excitement, independence,
and intrigue.
Especially
intrigue.
Tonight was my first grand ball in Belgravia, at the home of the Viscount and Viscountess
Carleigh, and I’d scarcely slept the night before from anticipation. Though the elegant
company was brilliant with jewels and thick with titles, I had found myself trapped
on the dance floor with one dull partner after another, a parade of gentlemen who
saw me not as a woman but only as a prize.
“I say, Mrs. Hart,” Mr. Smithson said, his pale eyes popping as if struck with sudden
inspiration. “I’d venture you’ve seen those palm trees yourself, haven’t you? I’d
venture you’ve seen a great deal of that enormous America of yours, what with your
father’s trains and all.”
I smiled, even as the sting of his predictable words jabbed at me. Of course he’d
mention Father’s railroads. Everyone did, and they usually mentioned my late husband,
Arthur, too. Arthur and Father together had created a vast fortune from iron and steel
and other men’s sweat, an empire proudly documented by the maps in Father’s library
in our Fifth Avenue mansion.
But to me the railroads represented only the impenetrable isolation of our family’s
great wealth, of being the solitary passenger in a private train car muffled in red
plush and mahogany. Too well I remembered my life as an only child, with neither brothers
nor sisters for company, and even Mama had died so long ago that I’d no memory of
her for consolation, nothing beyond the stiff and formal portrait that hung in the
drawing room of our Fifth Avenue house.
Father had spoken of the railroads as if they were his true family, his face lighting
up in a way it never did for me. The intricacies of his ever-spreading empire were
what had mattered most to him. If it hadn’t been for the railroads, then Father wouldn’t
have forced me to marry his partner when I was seventeen and Arthur Hart forty years
my senior. I hated the railroads and always had. Because of them, I’d never had a
chance at being happy—until now.
“Railroads are the future,” Mr. Smithson was saying, blissfully unaware of my thoughts.
“You must be proud of your father’s achievements for the betterment of your country.”
“What you mean to say, Mr. Smithson, is that I should be proud of my father’s money,”
I said, my voice tart though I smiled still. “That is your real reason for dancing
with me, is it not? Not because I myself am of any true interest to you, but because
of the dollars I represent.”
Mr. Smithson’s mouth fell open with astonishment. “Not at all, Mrs. Hart!” he protested.
“You are most charming, ma’am, and such delightful company that I am honored to have
this dance.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smithson,” I said. “But what a pity it is that I cannot say the same
of you. Now if you will please excuse me.”
I turned and left him, slipping gracefully between the other dancers. Some turned
to look, surprised and curious, but I didn’t care. I was twenty-five, and at last
I was my own woman. I was done with pretending to be meek and obliging, and as I walked
through the crowd I kept my head high and my expression serene. I’d no wish to return
to the acquaintances who’d brought me to the ball, and instead I stepped through the
tall open doors to the gallery that overlooked the garden. The shadowy figures of
other guests were visible at the far end of the gallery, but they weren’t looking
for company, nor was I.
With a sigh of frustration, I rested my gloved hands on the stone balustrade and stared
out into the moonlit formal garden.
Where were the handsome and worldly gentlemen whom I’d come to London to find? Where
were the charming, seductive rogues whom I’d read of in novels, the dashing noblemen
with generations of hauteur and breeding to give them the confidence not to be intimidated
by the power of my wealth?
I’d hoped to find men who possessed the strength to match my own spirit, or even surpass
it. Yet so far all I’d found were the same sorry breed of males that I’d left behind
in New York, an uninspiring lot of self-centered dolts and impoverished younger sons
who were attracted only to my fortune, not to me. Where was the adventure, the intrigue,
the men, and (most daring of all!) the love that I’d so desperately hoped to find?
One man, that was all I wished for, but it was the single thing that all the money
left by my father and husband couldn’t buy. One man who’d be drawn to me for who I
was as a woman, not as an heiress. One man who would become my friend, my partner,
my lover, in every way that mattered.
I sighed again, slowly opening my ostrich-plume fan. I knew I should return to the
ball. There was nothing to be gained by remaining here, alone in the dark.
Then suddenly I realized I wasn’t alone. There was a rustling in the bushes in the
garden below, the breathy little cries of a woman and the deeper voice of a man. Frowning,
I shifted a few steps along the balustrade to see if I could discover the source of
the sounds.
As soon as I saw the pair, I knew I should look away, and yet I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I had never observed anyone else …
coupling
like this, and I was shocked and fascinated and oddly excited, all at the same time.
The gentleman—for from his impeccably tailored evening clothes, he surely was a gentleman—held
his partner by her bare hips, her lace-trimmed petticoats thrown over her body and
head. Her silk drawers were puddled around her ankles, and the jeweled buckles on
her garters sparkled above her blue silk stockings. A lady, then, and likely a beauty,
confident enough to be so daringly engaged. Bent over the back of a garden bench,
her buttocks gleamed pearly white in the moonlight, and with her legs parted for the
gentleman’s convenience, the rosy petals of her most private self blossomed like a
midnight rose. Her cries were soft and mewling, muffled beneath her skirts as well
as by the strains of the waltz drifting through the open windows.
The lady’s face was hidden and her identity with it, but I didn’t care. All that mattered
to me—all that I saw, really—was the gentleman. His face was hidden by the garden’s
shadowy branches, leaving me with only his back and arms to consider, well muscled
and powerful even though shrouded by the civility of his evening coat.
I could hear him better now, too, not his exact words, but his voice, a low, deep
rumble of desire and seduction to the woman beneath him. I didn’t have to know the
words to feel them, and the masculine mixture of coaxing praise and command that made
me shiver.
He had remained clothed, only unfastening his trousers to free the magnificence of
his cock. The moonlight spilled upon that, too, thick and strong as it drove hard
into the lady, and glistening wetly with her juices. He fucked—for that vulgar word
seemed so much more apt than the mealy
lovemaking
—her purposefully, masterfully, with an unyielding rhythm, nearly withdrawing the
full length of his cock, teasing her with the thick, blunt tip before driving deep
again, making her cry out and arch with undeniable pleasure. He paused, buried deep,
to let her feel his presence, and with obvious appreciation swept his hands from the
swell of her hips to the narrowness of her corseted waist and back, his thumbs tracing
along her spine. He began to move again, thrusting hard, and impatiently he tossed
his hair back from his forehead: black hair in the moonlight, as sleek as a raven’s
wing over the white collar of his shirt.
My lips parted as I watched, my quickening breath betraying my own growing arousal.
This was the kind of man I had imagined finding here in England, the kind of man who
would think first of passion, not railroads.
My nipples tightened above the top of my corset, my breasts aching to be caressed
as they pressed against the delicate silk of my gown. The gentleman’s cock fascinated
me, so ruddy and pulsing with virility. Restlessly I pressed my thighs together, feeling
the heat growing in my own empty passage in sympathy, even envy.
The gentleman quickened his movements, not bothering to hide his groans of rising
passion as he pounded against the woman. Arthur had always insisted on complete silence
and tedious decorum in our bedroom, but this gentleman was shameless both in how completely
he used and possessed his partner and in how he clearly did not give a damn if anyone
saw or heard them together.
No wonder I leaned farther over the balustrade, desperately wishing I were the one
he desired, the one bent over that bench, feeling his fingers holding tightly to my
hips, bracing myself against the pounding thrust of that cock as he—
“Ah, here you are, Mrs. Hart,” said the Viscountess Carleigh as she appeared through
the tall doors to join me on the gallery. “I rather wondered where you had vanished
to, but one of the footmen said he’d seen you go outside. Are you not enjoying your
evening?”