12. November, 1826

12

NOVEMBER, 1826

NO. 4, GROSVENOR STREET

S aida got up onto her knees and stretched her back from her place on Lily's carpet in the parlor at No. 4 where Margot and Gabrielle, Lily, all their lady's maids, and even Mrs. Collins were cutting out costumes for the four of them to wear to the Cyprians' ball.

They'd sworn their housekeeper to secrecy and hoped she'd be able to keep from spilling their secret to the earl. They were all certain he'd forbid them from engaging in something so venal and dangerous, and that would not do.

The others had convinced Saida that Mrs. Throckmorton needed to be punished not just for her sake, but for the honor of all of them.

Her knees ached from all the work of cutting out the various pieces of their costumes, but the pain was worth it.

When Mrs. Collins had discovered their plan, she'd tried to talk them out of it, but had finally pitched in to help finish their costumes in time for the fast-approaching ball. Since the ball fell on a Monday, they didn't think the earl would stop by and discover their duplicity. At least that was their hope. They all realized, though, that lately, Derek had been visiting Mrs. Collins much more than his actual mistresses. The chance of him stopping by on his day off to see one of them was remote.

They'd hit upon disguises guaranteed to evade detection—Cleopatra and her bearers. Even the Rutherfords had joined the project and had built an elaborate carrying chair for the Queen of the Nile to arrive in, surrounded of course by her maidservants and Nubian bearers.

Their river gang butlers and footmen were at that moment out in the carriage house next to the mews painting the wooden contraption with gilded paint and pasting on fake jewels. Lily, of course, was the logical choice for Cleopatra, since her theatrical training would work the best to fool anyone looking for them.

As an added plus, the lines of the diaphanous costumes were extremely forgiving and easy to construct. They were planning on wearing skin-toned bodysuits beneath the costumes, although no one would notice, or care, if they paraded through the Cyprians' Ball au naturel.

At the last minute, Toplofty himself had insisted that he and the boys attend the masquerade as well to keep the mistresses safe. When asked what they were going as, he'd replied, "River pirates, of course."

Hamish knew there was a plan in motion to protect Saida and the other mistresses, but he felt he should at least make an attempt to make her see reason. If anything happened to her, he didn't know what he'd do. He thought back to the words of the ethereal woman patient who had died the day after he'd brought her to C.B.'s clinic.

The idea of someone waiting for him at the end of the day, someone who would love him and perhaps give him children, had caught hold of his soul and now he couldn't get the woman's prediction out of his head: He would let someone love him, and soon. He was afraid to hope that woman might be Saida.

But no, the stern, judgmental voice in his head insisted. She was a courtesan. Loving was how she made her way in the world. The few times they'd been together, he wondered if she was merely loving him in the rote way a woman of her ilk would pretend to love her protector. He squeezed his eyes shut against that thought, even while his mocking heart was telling him he was nothing to her but a moment's entertainment.

He trudged up the last few steps to the hallway leading to his bedchamber. His shoes squished over something soft beneath his feet, and he bent down to investigate. He put his physician's bag onto the floor and squatted to pick up some of what littered the carpet. Rose petals. Where had she found them at this time of the year? They only grew now in hothouses of the very wealthy. He stood and finished following the trail of petals. The trail stopped at the door to his room.

His heart pounding, he turned the knob slowly. When he entered his bedchamber, candles burned in holders on every surface. Saida's soft skin glowed in the candlelight. She lay face down on the counterpane, totally bare to him.

"You have too many clothes on," she said, turning to speak over her shoulder. "Take care of that and come to me. I ache from crawling all over Lily's parlor floor. I need your healing hands on my body."

Hamish's cock had begun to stiffen the minute he'd opened his door, and now he was so hard, his cockstand shoved at the inside of his heavy woolen trousers. He complied with his siren's command, peeling off his jacket, waistcoat and shirt before shucking off his boots, ripping at his falls and kicking off his trousers. His small clothes followed onto the heap already tossed onto the small settee in his room.

He carefully climbed atop her buttocks, trying to keep his full weight from crushing her. When his cock bobbed at her back entrance, she moaned a bit and guided his hand to a pot of warm oil on the small table next to the bed.

He covered his hands with the soothing, scented oil and began carefully massaging each part of her strong back. He couldn't remember from the last time they'd been together whether he'd noticed how well formed and strong she was. Her muscles were those of an apothecary whose days were spent pounding and grinding herbs into healing compounds.

When he leaned low to rub against her with his chest, she giggled. "Why did I never notice what fine, wiry hair you have on your chest?" She squirmed luxuriously. "It's such a fine feeling against my back."

At that, she turned suddenly and flipped him over onto his back. He gazed into the green depths of her eyes, the color intensified from desire. "Are you going to rub oil all over me now?"

"Oh, no," she assured him and produced a silk cundum. He nearly died when she took his cock into her soft hands and proceeded to sheath him firmly inside the soft covering.

When she'd neatly finished off the ties, his cock was so hard and throbbing, he feared he'd come inside the small silk prison without pleasuring either one of them.

All he could manage to croak was, "What do you want from me?"

"You know…"

"No. I want you to say it."

"All right. Dr. Hamish Douglas, I want you inside me, right now."

When he tried to roll her back over, she waggled her finger at him. She pulled one of the soft pillows from the bed and propped it under his head. He closed his eyes and she kissed each one.

She rose up and lowered herself slowly onto his cock whilst keeping her hands and knees on either side of him.

Saida gave out a little whimper as his penis glided against every inch of her quim whilst she took her time rising up and gliding back down, leaning into his cock.

Hamish had no more than uttered his first guttural groan when she began a slow, controlled moving of her hips from side to side and rotating all around. At his next loud groan, she muffled his mouth with a lingering kiss that covered his lips and penetrated inside his mouth to capture and suckle his tongue.

He chose that moment to grasp her hips firmly and take over the business of thrusting his cock to completion.

As soon as he sighed and sank back onto the mattress, Saida clenched her sex tightly around his still partially hardened cock and rode him until she screamed out her pleasure.

Many minutes later, when his breathing had returned to normal, he rolled over to face her and smiled down at her sleepy eyes.

"Are you going to stay here with me all night, or do we need to pretend we didn't just wake the dead whilst seeking our mutual pleasure?"

She didn't answer him, but merely rolled to her side and backed her warm bottom against his thoroughly drained and subdued cock. She reached her hand gently behind her and carefully removed the full cundum which she tossed to the chamber pot beneath the bed.

They were in the same cocooned position when the morning sun flooded his buttercup yellow bedchamber. Sometime during the night he'd wrapped his arms protectively around her shoulders, and she hadn't moved away.