He ran a hand down the curves of her side. She loved the intent look on his face.

“Willoughby was not fond of mirrors.”

“Hmmm,” he said, obviously only vaguely listening. It was half a caress, his touch, and half a shaping.

“Our wedding night was something of a fiasco.”

He raised his eyes.

“Neither of us had any experience in the area,” she said, laughing. She’d never told a soul about the night. It felt enormously freeing.

“Poor Willoughby,” Darlington said. “None at all?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“What happened?”

“We couldn’t make it work. Not really. His belly was in the way, and it was mortifying for both of us, and so he kept losing his—his interest, as it were.”

“Poor sod!” Darlington said, horror in his voice.

“We tried again a few days later and it was more successful.” Darlington was beautiful: a muscled, young stallion of a man. Her two previous lovers had been cautious men in their forties, men who slid gently under the bedcovers and expertly, charmingly, made her as comfortable as they themselves were.

Darlington was another matter. She turned around so she could see him better, and found herself fascinated by the hollows in his hips, by the tight arch of his behind, by the golden sheen of his skin.

“Are you always like this?” she finally asked.

“Like what?”

“Naked. When you’re with a woman.”

His eyebrow shot up. “Have you seen me wandering through ballrooms without my waistcoat?”

“No, foolish one. I meant when you’re engaged in intimate activities.”

“Well, as to that,” he said. And pulled her against him, a shock of skin to skin. “I haven’t found myself in many intimate situations, and that’s the truth.”

“You haven’t?” She blinked up at him, wondering.

He shook his head. His hands slid down the planes of her back, making her feel deliciously smooth…feminine.

“Why not?”

His hands dropped away. He turned and picked up his glass. “No money to pay for the privilege, no living to back up the indiscretion…how could I?”

It seemed he had a code of honor, this man whom half of London considered despicable.

“How did you afford this room?” Griselda asked.

He turned. “Mad use of funds,” he said. “Every person deserves a last madness before they settle into domestic slavery, don’t you think?”

“Domestic slavery?”

He drained his champagne. “How else could one describe marriage?”

“Companionship,” she said. And thinking of Annabel’s, Tess’s, and Imogen’s marriages, “Passion, friendship, love.” She added, “Children.”

“You’re an optimist,” he said. “I see marriage as a fiduciary transaction. I will bring to the marriage little more than my skills in bed. My father made that clear to me at an early age. Under those circumstances, I’ve always found it hard to indulge an impulse to dally with a woman.”

“Because it took on the flavor of practicing your marriage-bound skills,” she said, sipping her wine and trying not to ogle the long line of his thigh.

“The taint thereof,” he corrected her. “But I do believe that I’m finally old enough to face my fate, coward that I am.”

She walked toward him, feeling her hair soft on her back. He had his back turned to her, so she ran her hands, palms flat, up the strong planes of his back. He shivered, but said nothing.

“’Tis a dismal way of looking at marriage,” she said, curving her hands around the muscles of his shoulders.

“Reality so often is disappointing.”

“Not tonight.” Then she came squarely up against him and felt his intake of breath through her body as well as his.

“I believe that we are in an altogether different realm than marriage.”

“I maintain, sir, that a marriage can be passionate.”

“I beg you to relinquish such unpleasant thoughts.” He turned around.

And what he was doing with his hands…well, it was enough to make every thought in Griselda’s head fly away.

An hour or so later Griselda was boneless, weak, satiated. “It’s time to leave,” she said, battling her own inclination to sink back into the bed. She bent over to pick up his dressing gown, but Darlington made a noise like a growl, a deep urgent noise in his throat, and she hesitated. And then he was wrapping his arms around her again.

She could feel his arousal, and her own blood sped into a throbbing melody in response. Some dazed part of her mind was measuring this evening against her other experiences and finding them to have no correlation. No other man had shown interest in more than one polite, cheerful coming together in which both parties were mutually satisfied.“I don’t—” she gasped.

“Lady Godiva,” he breathed into her ear, “ride me.” He picked her up as easily as one might swing a child in the air, carried her across the room, and then he was sinking back into one of the large armchairs, his face alive with laughter and wicked pleasure, a sinful pleasure that had everything to do with her body and his, and nothing to do with beds.

“Shouldn’t we return to the bed?” she asked.

“Bed?” He was laughing aloud now. “I’d like to make love to you in the outdoors.”

She felt herself blushing, and he was pulling her forward, lowering her. It was an odd way of proceeding. He stopped, hand between her legs. “I like to watch you,” he said silkily. “Your eyes almost close, but not quite, did you know that? And when you breathe so quickly, your breasts move. Your cheeks are pink, you know.” And all the time his clever, clever fingers were dancing between her legs.

“Charles,” she sobbed, and finally, finally, he let her fall forward, onto him. And then he stopped talking and made a hoarse noise in his throat.

She knew instinctively how to ride. It must be a skill that comes to Lady Godivas in time of need, because she found herself throwing her hair back so that it fell to his knees, arching her back and laughing.

He wasn’t laughing anymore. His face was rigid, his teeth clenched. “Ah, God, you’re so—” But the words disappeared somewhere and he just concentrated on shaping her breasts with his hands until he really couldn’t take it anymore, so he ran a thumb across her rosy nipples. Her eyes drooped and suddenly he was helping in the race, thrusting upwards with all his force.

And then she was crying out, falling forward into his arms, and he was clutching her tight, that lovely damp back, as tight as he could, wrapping his own lady in his arms so she couldn’t ride away from him.

16

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Fourteenth

At the time I met Helena—in the ballroom at Almack’s, Dear Reader—I thought I had sipped the cup of passion to the dregs. In short, I thought to marry. For surely marriage is the counterpart to the inertia of old passions, the weariness that comes from seeing one’s former lovers in all four parts of the ballroom.Yes! Such was the extent of my depravity…

L ady Mucklowe knew exactly what it took to make a ball into a tremendous success: a single stroke of genius. A few years ago she had created the most talked-about event of the season by inviting Lord Byron to read aloud his favorite love poem. That had ensured the presence of every wanton woman in London, as she later boasted to her sister. Wanton women cheer everyone up: gentlemen in the hope that such a woman might do them a favor, and gentlewomen in the realization that they had someone interesting to talk about.