Temporary Mistress

Chapter Eight

DERMOTT HAD NO MORE than rung for Pomeroy than he was knocking at the dressing room door.

"Was he listening at the door?" Isabella's eyes went wide.

"No," Dermott said, stepping into his breeches, although the thought had crossed his mind; it was at least five minutes from the kitchen. He tossed Isabella a dressing gown from a nearby chair. "Put this on and I'll let him in."

Scrambling from the bed, she slid the robe on, tied it around her waist, then rolled the sleeves up half a dozen times and still looked drowned in the large garment. Lifting the fabric that dragged on the carpet, she searched for a suitable spot to receive a stranger. "Should I sit there?" She pointed to a chair near the fireplace. "Or should I stand? Or better yet, I'll hide in the armoire." She wasn't completely teasing.

Dermott swung around, his hands on the buttons to his breeches. "You could be standing naked in the center of the room and Pomeroy wouldn't bat an eyelash-nor should he." He gave her a reassuring smile. "So do what you like-so long as you stay within reach," he added with a roguish lift of his eyebrows.

"With you as incentive to stay," Isabella lightly replied, her gaze slowly surveying his splendid form, "I shall overlook any momentary embarrassment."

He winked. "Smart girl." And with a small deferential bow to her, he turned to the door and called out, "Come in."

Pomeroy looked neither right nor left when he entered the room, his gaze scrupulously on his employer. Isabella could have been absent for all the notice he took of her. "You rang, sir?"

"Miss Leslie is ready to sup."

"Very good, sir. Here, sir?" The butler's demeanor gave away nothing of the chaos below stairs, where the chef had thrown a tantrum and stalked off when the food that had been ordered hadn't been sent for immediately. He hoped the lady wasn't particular about her menu, because several of the dishes were now cold and ruined and the sous-chefs were frantically trying to deal with the crisis.

"Yes, here." Dermott began clearing the books and papers off a table.

"Immediately, sir?" It seemed a pertinent question considering the irregular scheduling of events.

"Yes, yes, of course, immediately." Dermott looked at him as though he were dense.

"Very good, sir." With a bow, he left.

"Is he always so grand?" Isabella asked, comparing him to her servants, who were more apt to tell her what to do than to take orders, since they'd raised her from a child.

Dermott looked up from his cleaning. "I suppose so. I hadn't noticed."

"Has he been with you long?"

"Always. My mother had him first."

"Does your mother live in London?" Obviously, she didn't live here or he wouldn't have had her over, she speculated.

"She lives at Alworth." At her blank look, he added, "My country home."

"She doesn't like the City?"

He shook his head. "Come, sit down. I've cleared off enough space, I think. Do you have any favorite foods?"

Obviously, he didn't care to speak of his mother, although she supposed it was highly irregular to discuss your mother with a paramour. "Right now," she politely said, responding to his bland question, "I'm ready to eat just about anything, I'm so hungry."

He half turned from his stacking of books.

"What?" The conjecture in his gaze baffled her.

A small smile curved his mouth. "I misunderstood. Please, sit down. I'm almost finished."

"You're not afraid of domestic duties. How delightful in a man of your notorious repute." She sat on a heavily carved chair with a cane seat and back, of Indian manufacture she suspected.

"When one campaigns in the hinterlands, servants are at a premium."

"Did you enjoy India? Molly said you'd spent some years there."

"I enjoyed some of it." His voice had changed, and setting the remaining books down, he walked to the liquor table. "Would you like a glass of wine or some brandy? It's my personal favorite to blur the harsh edges."

"I said something wrong again." His expression had altered, as it had in the library. "Molly will be quite frustrated with me," she went on, feeling a need to fill the silence. "I was supposed to speak in the most bland way. Please, forgive me."

He smiled, but the easy charm was absent. "It's not your fault. Brandy or wine?"

She understood the Earl of Bathurst had his share of demons; Molly had said as much. "Brandy, please." She was as capable as he of politesse. In future, she would raise no personal subjects.

He drank down one glass before refilling his and bringing hers to the table. "Tell me why you didn't consider a lawyer to curtail your relatives' greed," he said, sitting down opposite her.

Apparently, he was allowed personal questions, she reflected, but enamored of his company, infatuated with the sight and scent and taste of him-a not uncommon response to the earl-she obligingly replied. "My relatives would have never given up their pursuit of my fortune. Since that required marriage to me, I didn't feel any lawyer could physically protect me from them. Not twenty-four hours a day."

"And you don't regret your plan?"

"I haven't accomplished my plan yet. And please, don't start being honorable again. If it bothers you, consider this my problem alone. You are but a vehicle for its achievement."

He couldn't help but smile.

Gratified, she went on in a teasing tone. "So you see, I am blatantly using you."

"An interesting concept."

"Are you reassured, my lord? I wish nothing more than your lovely penis."

He laughed. "And I'd be a damned fool to refuse."

"I believe most of your gender would agree."

"Damned if they wouldn't. I suppose I have my reputation to uphold."

"Would you not be condemned, my lord," she playfully said, "if word got out that you refused a lady?"

He didn't answer.

"You do… you have," she said, understanding his silence. "My goodness, what do you say to an importuning female?"

"Something pleasant."

"I shan't let you do that to me."

He couldn't help but chuckle. "So I've noticed."

"Nothing you could say would be pleasant enough. I hope you understand."

"Am I obliged to make love to you?" he teased.

"Of course, absolutely. A promise is a promise."

"Then, I see I must," he softly said, the look of her in his oversized dressing gown, her golden hair in tousled ringlets on her shoulders, her cheeks still pinked from her orgasm-a sight even a monk couldn't resist. And monkish he was not.

"All this talk of making love"-she drew in a deep breath-"is quite intoxicating. I was wondering if perhaps"-her gaze came up and held his for a heated moment-"we could postpone supper for a time."

"I'd like that." How provocative she was, like a sultry houri asking for the favor of his arousal. Reaching across the small table, he eased open the front of his robe, exposing her large, pale breasts. "Why don't we start with these for a first course instead," he murmured, his voice touched with a provocative warmth. "Come closer, set these on the table…" He gently tugged on her nipples, pulling her nearer until she was leaning forward over the tabletop, her plump breasts resting on the polished mahogany.

"I don't know how long I can wait," she whispered, the insistent throbbing deep inside her sending ripples through her vagina, her sensual receptors on total recall, wanting another orgasm.

"You have to wait." He touched the tips of her nipples, gently stroking them until they were taut and hard. "If you want me to make love to you." His hands drifted over the fullness of her breasts, sliding over the flaring curves, easing downward until he cupped the ripe fullness in his palms. "Maybe we'll let Pomeroy see you. Do you think he'd like your large breasts?"

"No!" she breathed, but the shameful thought burned through her brain, coursed downward between her legs in a liquid warmth. A soft, needy whimper escaped her lips.

"It sounds as though you'd like that," he whispered, lifting the twin mounds higher. "He saw you in the entrance hall. Your dress didn't conceal much. You didn't mind then…"

"You wouldn't-" Her mouth was half open, her breathing erratic.

He shrugged. "Other men might like to see these… and the rest of you…" Easing his hands down, he carefully placed her breasts back on the tabletop, sliding his fingers down her deep cleavage, forcing the mounded flesh wider.

"Please, don't… say that."

"What would you do for me if I kept Pomeroy out?"

"Anything…"

Taking her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, he gently squeezed them. "Anything?"

"Yes, yes…" She was slippery wet with desire, her need for him overwhelming all else. "I'll do anything."

"May I whip you?" It was a test query only; he wasn't a devotee.

Her eyes grew large for a moment. "Would you make love to me?"

"Afterward."

She took a small breath and nodded.

"You're very hot, Miss Leslie, aren't you?"

She didn't answer.

"Don't be shy. I can see you squirming. You're wet and hot and wanting my cock inside you, aren't you?"

She nodded.

"Tell me."

"I want-"

"This cock." He unbuttoned his breeches and drew out his erection. "Say it, Miss Leslie, if you want me to put this inside you and make you come again."

She shut her eyes and softly said, "I want your… cock… inside me."

"Now open your eyes and look at me when you say that."

"Please-I want your-cock… inside me." The heat in her voice matched the heat in her eyes.

"I don't suppose you've said that before."

She shook her head.

"No more than you've ever felt a prick inside you."

She nodded, her eyes downcast.

"You're very quiet when you're aroused, Miss Leslie. I do believe I've found a way to muzzle your tongue."

Her gaze came up, the heat in her eyes fueled by more than passion, such spurious mockery galling. "How insolent you are, my lord. It almost makes one inclined to show you exactly what I can do with my tongue. Perhaps I'll take the initiative," she remarked, beginning to undo the tie on her robe. "What do you think of that?"

"I was only teasing, darling."

"I'm not." Rarely docile, she'd already exhausted her quota in the previous few exchanges with the earl. Rising from her chair, she walked the few steps to stand directly before him. Slipping his robe from her shoulders, she let it slide to the floor. "Look now, my lord, and if you're very good, I may let you touch me." She slid two fingertips down the cleft of her mons. "Would you like to feel this with your cock," she murmured, gently massaging her sleek, heated passage. "I'm not sure how far I'll let you go. Maybe I'll let you in only partway." She shrugged minutely and her breasts quivered. "Or if you're very good, I'll let you put that cock of yours all the way inside me. Do you think you'd like the feel of that?"

"You're pushing the wrong man." His voice was flat.

"And you the wrong woman," she sweetly replied.

"So you're going to fuck me?" The words, however softly put, held a distinct challenge.

She glanced down at his lap. "It looks like you're ready. All I have to do," she said, moving a step forward and beginning to lower herself over his thighs, "is see if this lovely penis wants what I want."

His hands closed around her waist, and lunging up, he lifted her bodily, carrying her effortlessly at arm's length. Striding to the bed, fire in his eyes, he tossed her down and growled, "Don't move."

"I have no intention of moving, my lord," she purred, looking up at him with a correspondingly theatrical gaze. "Do come join me."

His breeches were tossed aside in seconds, and he smoothly lowered himself between her legs with the finesse of considerable practice. "Now then, Miss Leslie, I believe I'll be going in all the way."

Her lashes lifted marginally. "If I let you."

He softly snorted. "No question of that."

"Well, then?" Her blue gaze was insolent, perhaps triumphant.

And he immediately took issue with her victress look. "Perhaps I'll make you wait after all."

"Dermott!" she wailed, suddenly throwing her arms around him. "For pity's sake! You win, you win… you'll always win. Now, just make love to me before I die…"

The tension left his shoulders as he lay braced above her, and his flashing grin warmed her heart. "You beautiful, hot little puss," he whispered, bending his head to brush her mouth with a kiss.

"Hot, darling, is the operative word. If you don't mind."

"Hell no," he cordially answered, cheerful once again, his joy out of all proportion to the simple act of intercourse. "I don't mind at all." Because of who it was, he thought, because this tantalizing beauty touched some hidden source of pleasure within him. Easing himself forward, he forced her thighs wider with the pressure of his hips. "Relax now," he murmured.

"I am," she breathed, clinging to him, letting her thighs fall open, her pulsing interior wet with desire.

But he was scrupulously cautious as he advanced forward, easing his erection into her sleek warmth by very slow degrees, watching her face for any indication of pain. She squeaked in the merest breath of sound when he struck the barrier of her hymenal tissue, and he paused, not sure himself the degree of brutality required.

"Dermott…" Her soft cry was urgent, feverish.

Feeling like some plundering barbarian, he took a deep breath.

"I need you…"

She was gently writhing beneath him as he hesitated, his erection clasped tightly in her heated passage, the friction intense on the very crest of his penis.

"Dermott!" she cried.

He suddenly plunged forward, his momentum propelled by the full force of his lower body, the resisting tissue swiftly pierced, rent, his erection smashing through, driving in so deeply, he was fully submerged before she screamed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, utterly motionless inside her, feeling the worst of brutes, the echoes of her cry ringing in his ears. "I'm sorry…"

Her nails cutting into the flesh of his shoulders loosened. He felt her take a deep breath, saw the color return to her face. And then her eyes opened.

"That's the worst of it, I think." Regret colored his voice.

Her smile gave him heart. "And now I'm an heiress again," she whispered. One brow rose in teasing query. "Are you going to do anything else for me, my lord?"

He softly chuckled. "I'm ready if you're ready."

"Try."

His talents for finesse were put to the test, but then, he'd passed that test a thousand times before, his expertise in the boudoir both a gift and a skill. He moved by infinitesimal degrees, prudent and deliberate at first, until her arms eased their grip, until the rhythm of her breathing altered to a more natural state, until he felt the liquid heat of her desire flow around him. Until at last she arched up into his downstroke.

"Better?" he whispered, his breath warm on her cheek.

"Very, very good, my lord," she murmured, her hands sliding down his back, resting at the base of his spine. "Exceptionally good…" she purred, her palms pressing down hard to hold him in place for a lush second more, the sweet ache spiraling outward, the intensity of sensation filling her brain. "I'm going to keep you here forever."

He found the thought appealing at the moment, his own desires beginning to peak, the only question that of timing. He took the briefest moment to insert a sponge to prevent conception, something she'd learned at Molly's as well. And then gently entering her again, he carefully watched her face as he moved within her, listened to her breathing, matched the increasing urgency of her rhythm, repressing his own eagerness-waiting for her.

And some moments later, she clutched at him, whimpering, and understanding the merits of opportune harmony, and he drove in, buried himself deep inside her, held himself hard against her womb. As she cried out and melted in orgasmic delirium, he too climaxed, flooding her, filling her, experiencing a primordial ecstasy so deep and pure and thrilling, it seemed as though they were meant to mate by some grand design of the universe.

"Don't plan on sleeping tonight," Isabella whispered a moment later, intoxication still stirring deliciously in the core of her body. "I'm going to need you as stud."

"Your devoted servant," he urbanely replied, wondering if they'd been touched by some mystical karma and this woman who'd stumbled into Molly's one rainy night was the Circe of his soul.

"Ahem…" The voice was Pomeroy's from the other side of the door.

Isabella went rigid in his arms. "Go away!" Dermott shouted.

"Away, sir?" A very real indication of tears echoed through the door.

"Does he cry often?" Isabella inquired, surprised a man of such hauteur succumbed to emotion.

"Never to my recollection. Don't go away," Dermott murmured, kissing her lightly. Gently withdrawing, he wiped himself on the sheet and was shocked to see blood. "Jesus," he muttered, turning to her, having forgotten. "I'm really sorry. You're going to need some hot water." Jumping from the bed, he shouted, "Wait, Pomeroy!"

Quickly throwing on a dressing gown, he strode to the door and threw it open just as Isabella hid herself under the coverlet.

"We need hot water. And I'll take the food too," he said, glancing at the numerous footmen holding trays, all of whom must have heard Isabella's screams, for they looked either sheepish or entertained. "I'll take the trays in myself," he quickly said. "Just leave them."

"How much hot water, sir?" Pomeroy's face was expressionless.

"A bath, I think."

"Now, sir?" His master's wishes were difficult to read.

"Yes, now." Dermott glanced at all the food. "I suppose the chef is in a temper."

"He has taken to his bed, my lord, with a bottle of brandy. My apologies if the food isn't up to the usual standards. The sous-chefs have done their best."

"Thank them for me, Pomeroy. Things are a bit-er-irregular tonight."

A moment of strained silence ensued.

"You may give all the servants a bonus," Dermott abruptly said. "Talk to Shelby in the morning."

"Very good, sir."

"And once we have the bath, we won't require any more service tonight."

"Yes, sir."

"Is that clear?"

"Perfectly."

Dermott nodded. "Good." Picking up a tray, he walked back into the dressing room and shut the door.

"A bonus no less," one of the footmen gleefully remarked. "It sure be worth it when the master fucks a beauty like her. He be in a right fine humor afterward."

"Who wouldn't be?" another flunky noted. "She be as fine a piece as I ever saw-and scarce dressed at all, with her boobies near to fallin' out."

A third man pronounced with relish, "I hear tell she were trained at Molly Crocker's by the very best and she be able to do most anything at all that a man do want."

"The kitchen maid at that there brothel where the master spends so much time," another said, adding his tidbit to the stew of gossip, "told her cousin at the Duke of Portland's, who told her cousin Meg downstairs that that beauty we all saw with hardly no clothes on be herself a great heiress."

"That will be enough of such ridiculous gossip," Pomeroy ordered. "An heiress indeed. A female dressed in such a fashion is far from an heiress. Now, I want everyone downstairs immediately, or you won't see a shilling of that bonus. The master doesn't wish to be disturbed-you heard him. And if a word gets out about his visitor tonight," he warned, "I'll sack you all."

Everyone nodded respectfully, but everyone also knew the story would be about town by breakfast the next day, the tittle-tattle of society's indiscretions the lifeblood of daily conversation. From the breakfast rooms of dukes to the penny sheets sold on the street to the common man, gossip was adored, dissected, embellished, and passed on. And the Earl of Bathurst did more than his share to fuel the salacious flames of scandal.