Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Once again, Minerva woke in his arms. She was growing accustomed to waking like this—embraced by his heat, his strength, his clove-spiced scent. She didn’t hurry to rouse herself, but hovered in that half-dream world for just a minute longer. Sighing into his waistcoat and hugging his neck tight.

She trusted this man. He was a known liar and shameless rake, but she trusted him. Enough to fall asleep in his arms amid all this debauchery.

She blinked at the card table, trying to bring the confusion of cards and coins into focus. How much time had passed? It felt very late. Most of the players seemed to have already retired for the night. Only Colin and Halford remained.

She stared hard at the heap of shilling pieces in front of them. Had he increased their funds enough to continue their journey? Those coins had numbered twenty at the outset of the game.

Now she counted . . .

Four.

Her heart stopped. Oh, God. How could he? She’d trusted him, and he was losing everything.

Then she shifted her gaze to the cards in Colin’s hand. What she saw gave her reason to breathe again. His cards looked promising. She couldn’t make them out exactly—not without her spectacles. But she could see they were all red and they were all face cards. Simple logic told her, that had to add up to something good. A pair of knaves, at the least.

She looked to the center of the table, heaped with coins. More than enough money to replace what the highwayman had taken. Perhaps this was all part of Colin’s plan.

“A poxy pair of nines, that’s all.” The duke threw down his cards. “I’m sure you can do better, Payne.”

Yes! He could. She curled her fingers around the edge of his waistcoat pocket, faint with excitement.

Colin held his silence for a time. “Sorry to prove you wrong, Hal,” he said, “but you have me beat.” He laid his cards facedown on the table before him.

With a greedy laugh, the Duke of Halford gathered his winnings.

Minerva’s hand slipped from Colin’s pocket. She was stunned. Aghast. Four shillings. They were down to four shillings now. She had to get him away from this card table before he lost everything they had.

But how? She couldn’t even speak to him, thanks to his wild tales. These people all believed her to be Melissande, a refugee princess from some tiny Alpine principality. Or, alternatively, an assassin who just might garrote them all in their sleep. And in her spare time, Colin’s mistress.

His worldly, sensual mistress.

Minerva bit her lip. Perhaps there was a way to lure him from this betting table without words.

Adjusting her weight in his lap, she stretched up one hand to stroke his hair. The heavy brown locks sifted between her fingers, stroking like feathers over her palm. With her other hand, she teased loose his cravat knot until the entire length of fabric slid from his neck in a slow, sensual glide. She thought she heard him moan, a little.

She nuzzled into his neck. The scent of brandy clung to his skin, dark and intoxicating. Without her spectacles, at this close range, he was little more than an unshaven blur. But he was an achingly handsome blur, nonetheless. Craning her neck, she kissed his cheek.

His breath caught, and she almost lost her nerve to continue. But she’d started this, and now there was no retreating.

Tilting her head, she pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw.

Across the table, the duke gave a dry laugh.

Minerva’s heart stalled. She froze, lips pressed to Colin’s unshaven throat. What had she been thinking? A brazen seductress? Her? Of course Halford wouldn’t believe it. No one in his right mind would believe it.

“Payne,” the duke said, “perhaps you’d care to sit out this round? It would seem the fetching Melissande needs putting to bed.”

Colin’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “She can wait.”

“Perhaps,” the duke replied, with a knowing chuckle. “But can you? I’ve never seen a man’s knuckles quite that shade of pale.”

Exhilaration swarmed through her body. Halford did believe it. Colin was affected. She was a seductress. But she still hadn’t succeeded in her goal—pulling Colin away from the card table.

Minerva redoubled her efforts. She wove her fingers tight into his hair. She licked his neck, dragging her tongue from his pulse to his earlobe. With the tip of her tongue, she traced his ear’s every whorl and ridge.

“Upstairs,” she whispered. “Take me upstairs. Now.”

Colin’s hand fisted in the back of her dress, stealing her breath with a swift yank. But the sharp, secret rebuke only inflamed Minerva’s rebellious nature. Whose idea had it been for her to play this role? He had no right to complain. Besides, a part of her was enjoying this. Judging by the hard, heated ridge pulsing against her thigh, a part of him was enjoying it, too.

This doesn’t lie.

She kissed his collarbone, dropping her fingers to his shirt closures. Slipping loose one, then two, and snaking her fingers inside to caress his smooth, muscled chest.

The duke observed, “You’re getting rather low in your stack, Payne. Since you’re so uninterested in enjoying Melissande yourself, perhaps you’d care to make a friendly wager. I’d lay a great deal of money against such obvious and abundant . . . charms.”

Minerva had to work, very hard, not to betray her understanding with a sour look. Or a violent heave of her stomach.

Colin tensed as well. “Tread with caution, Halford.”

“Why? It’s not as though she can understand a word we say.” The duke shuffled and dealt the cards. “One hand, one winner. You put your girl on the table, and I’ll toss in one of mine. Whoever wins can enjoy double the amusement tonight.”

Every muscle in Colin’s body went instantly hard as stone. One of his hands balled in a fist. The other went to the pistol tucked at his hip.

Minerva’s blood turned icy in her veins. These protective impulses were all well and good, but the last thing she needed was for Colin to start trouble with the duke. They’d be cast out from Winterset Grange—running through the night this time, with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

A matter of minutes stood between them and disaster. But she could tell from his stormy expression, Colin wasn’t thinking more than ten seconds into the future.

Lifting Minerva off his lap, he pushed to his feet. He leveled a finger at the duke. “Don’t you ever—”

Smack.

Minerva slapped him, square across the face.

Colin blinked at her, clearly stunned.

She lifted her shoulders. He’d left her no choice. She had to stop the men’s argument somehow. And Colin couldn’t start a fight with the duke if she started a fight with Colin first. So . . .

Smack. She used her left hand this time, whipping his head the other direction.

Then she stood back, seething as dramatically as she imagined a dark-haired Alpine princess-assassin with hot blood could possibly seethe. Adopting a nonspecific accent—something halfway between Italian and French—she narrowed her eyes and said, “Yoooo. Bass. Tard.”

His brow wrinkled. “What?”

Oh, for God’s sake.

“Yoo!” She shoved at his chest with both hands. “Bass. Tard.”

Rising from his chair, Halford laughed. “I believe she’s calling you a bastard, friend. You’re in for it now. Seems the wench understands a bit of English after all. Whoops.”

At last, Colin caught on. “B-b-but Melissande, I can explain.”

She circled him, snarling. “Bass. Tard. Bass. Tard.”

When he spoke again, she could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “Calm down, pet. And whatever you do . . . please, I beg you, don’t go into one of your fits of wild temper and uncontrollable passion.”

Incorrigible rogue. She had no doubt he meant that as a dare.

Well, then. She would accept it.

Minerva reached for a glass of claret on the table. She downed most of it in a single gulp, then dashed the remainder straight in Colin’s face. Wine splashed them both. Ruby-red rivulets streaked down his stunned expression.

With a little growl, she threw herself at him, catching him by the shoulders and wrapping her legs over his hips. She licked the wine from his face, running her tongue over his cheeks, his chin . . . even his eyebrows. And then she ended her madwoman mistress performance with a slow, deep, savage kiss on the lips that had him moaning into her mouth and clutching her backside in both hands.

“Upstairs,” she growled against his lips. “Now.”

At last, he carried her from the room. And kissed her until they were halfway down the corridor. There he stopped, apparently unable to hold back the laughter one moment more. He pressed her to the wall and wheezed helplessly into her neck, shaking with laughter.

Well, she was glad someone found this amusing.

Still laughing, he set her on her feet and tugged her up a flight of stairs and down a side corridor. He flung open the door of a suite, obviously familiar to him. In decor, it suffered the same excess of gold leaf and dearth of good taste as the rest of Winterset Grange.

“Oh, Min. That was excellent.”

“That”—she banged the door shut—”was humiliating.”

“Well, it was a first-rate mistress performance.” He shrugged out of his coat, set aside the pistol, and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. “What the devil was that, with the . . . the licking, and the wine? And how on earth did you think to—”

“It’s called improvisation! Running down the slope and all.” She thrust her hands through her wild, unbound hair, making a frantic survey of the room until she found Francine’s trunk, tucked neatly beneath a scroll-legged side table. “I had to get you away from the card table before you lost all our money and ruined everything. We already owe him sixteen shillings from my sovereign. Aren’t debts of honor supposed to be paid immediately?”

She crossed to him and boldly reached inside his waistcoat. As her fingers brushed against his chest, she heard his breath catch.

“I need these,” she explained, suddenly timid. She withdrew her spectacles from his inside pocket and fit them on her face. It felt good to put the room in focus.

She only wished the lenses could help her make Colin out. Just what had he been doing downstairs? Trying to end their journey here? Perhaps he’d had enough of her and Francine and had decided he’d rather sponge off the duke’s generosity at Winterset Grange until his birthday.

“It’s the Shilling Club,” he said. “We play with shillings, but they stand for a hundred pounds each.”

“A hundred pounds? Each?” She felt faint. She pressed a hand to her brow. “But how will we—”

“We won’t.” He removed the waistcoat and set it aside. “I always lose, I never pay. They know I’ll be good for it in the end.”

“But why lose at all? I could make out your cards on that last hand. They were better than the duke’s. You let him win.”

He tugged loose his cravat and slung it over the back of a chair. “Yes, well . . . everyone loves a gracious loser. That’s why I’m always welcome at any card table, any evening, here or in London. I have no shortage of friends.”

“Friends.” She spat the word. “What makes people like that your friends? The fact that they’ll allow you to sit at their table and lose heaps of money? That hardly fits any definition of friendship I know.”

He didn’t answer. Merely sat on the edge of the bed to remove his boots.

“They don’t respect you, Colin. How could they? They don’t know you at all. Not the real you.”

“And what makes you an expert on the real me?”

“I suppose I’m not. I’m not even certain you know who you are. You just become whomever the situation requires.”

He kicked his boots aside and passed wordlessly into a connecting room. Presumably a dressing or bathing area. She heard the sounds of water splashing into a basin.

She raised her voice. “I mean, I am beginning to notice a pattern. All your guises are variations on the same theme. The charming, fun-loving rogue with the not-so-deeply hidden pain. Obviously, it works for you nicely. But doesn’t it grow tiresome?”

“Tiresome indeed.” He strolled back into the room with his hair damp and his shirt untucked and cuffed to the elbows. “Min, please. I’m a little drunk and extremely fatigued. Can we hold the rest of this character dissection for the morning?”

She released a sigh. “I suppose.”

“Then get in bed. I’m exhausted.”

With a bit of contortion, she managed to undo the hooks at the back of her gown. She drew the tattered, wine-stained silk down over her hips and cast it aside on the chaise longue. The thought that she had nothing else to wear tomorrow was lowering indeed. At least in the morning, she could ring for a proper bath. For now, she did her best with the washbasin and soap.

After rebuttoning her shift, she lay down on the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling.

A few minutes passed.

“You’re not sleeping,” she said.

“Neither are you.”

She bit her lip. Something lay heavy on her mind, and she didn’t have anyone else to tell. “He doesn’t know me, either.”

His reply was groggy. “Who doesn’t?”

“Sir Alisdair Kent.” At the mention of his name, she felt the sudden tensing from Colin’s side of the bed. “I mean, he knows of my scientific findings, and he admires my intellect. But he doesn’t know the real me. I’ve conducted all my Society business through written correspondence, and I’ve always signed myself M. R. Highwood. So Sir Alisdair . . . well, he thinks I’m a man.”

Several moments passed.

“He’s in for a great surprise.”

She giggled up at the ceiling. “Indeed he is.” Whether it would be a pleasant or unpleasant surprise, she was afraid to guess.

“But that’s odd, “ he said. “There was genuine affection in that letter.”

“Mere friendly interest, I’m sure.”

“I’m not so convinced. Perhaps he’s in love with you.”

Her heart gave a queer flutter. Not at the idea, but at the sound of that word from his lips: love.

“How could that be?” She rolled onto her side, bending her elbow and propping her head with her hand. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Sir Alisdair thinks I’m a man.”

“Oh, I heard you.” Devilish eyes slid to meet hers. “Perhaps he thinks you’re a man, and he’s in love with you. Poor fellow has some heartbreak ahead of him, if so.”

She frowned, unsure of his implications.

He chuckled low. “Don’t listen to me, pet. My bollocks are aching, and my pride is smarting. I’m foxed, and I’m feeling very wicked tonight. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll ignore me and go to sleep.”

“Why are your bollocks aching?” She sat up. “Were you injured somehow? Was it the highwayman?”

With a groan, he threw his wrist over his eyes. “My dear girl, you might be a brilliant geologist, but your grasp of biology is dim indeed.”

She dropped her gaze to the front of his breeches. They were impressively tented.

“Go to sleep, M.”

“No, I don’t think I will. Not yet.” With sudden determination, she plucked at the buttons of his falls. She had one side completely unfastened before he managed to struggle up on his elbows.

“What are you doing?”

“Indulging my curiosity.” She snaked her hand under the fabric, and he flinched. A heady surge of power rushed through her. The wine she’d drunk downstairs was doing its work, melting away her inhibitions. She wanted to know and see and touch it—this most honest, real part of him.

This doesn’t lie.

She said, “I did as you asked and played your mistress downstairs, and I’ve earned this much. I want to see and touch it properly. I never had the chance, before.”

“Mother of—”

“Do be calm. What was it you told me? Think of it as an . . . an excavation.” Smiling, she curled her fingers around his hard, hot length. “It’s in the name of science.”

It’s in the name of science.

Hah. That was a first-rate line, that was. Ranked right up there with, “You could save my life tonight,” and “Darling, teach me what it means to love.” Colin made a mental note to remember that one for the future.

Then her hand closed around his swollen cock, and his mental slate blanked.

“Good Lord,” he heard himself mutter. This was dangerous. He was half drunk and scarcely in control of himself as it was.

Rules, he reminded himself. He had rules.

But curiously, none of them covered virginal caressing in the name of science. Leave it to Minerva Highwood to transform bedsport into a completely new endeavor.

She held him gently for a moment, rubbing her thumb up and down the underside of his cock. The slight, delicious friction did more to tease than satisfy. Then she released her grip and began tugging down his breeches and smallclothes, wrestling them over his hips.

“They’re in the way,” she explained, when he sent her a scandalized look.

He let his head fall back on the pillow, resigned. He had no idea how to arrest this scientific exploration, and truthfully—no desire to do so anyway. He helped her by lifting his hips and kicking out of his breeches, once she had the fabric bunched around his knees.

“Oh, why stop there,” he muttered, gathering his shirt in both hands and drawing it over his head before flopping back onto the mattress. “There. Now you have your life model. Explore at will.”

And she did. She explored his body—every inch of it—at a leisurely pace that made him fair crazed with desire. He began to regret offering himself as a subject of experimentation. When she dragged a light touch down the center of his chest, a damned snail could have raced her fingertip.

Too exhausted and intoxicated to do otherwise, Colin simply lay there and endured. Suffered her slow, sweet exploration of his arms, chest, abdomen—God, his nipples. He emitted a sound that he feared was not quite manly when she grazed his nipples. All the while, his ignored cock leaped and strained for her attention, arcing up to his navel in what he assumed must be quite livid shades of plum and dusky red.

“If you mean to torture me,” he gritted out, “you’re doing an excellent job of it.”

“Am I?” She skipped her fingers over his collarbone. She was deliberately teasing him now, the minx.

With a curse, he grabbed her hand and dragged her touch where they both wanted it. The relief was immediate, intense. And nowhere near enough.

“Goodness.” She spoke the word in an awed, highly gratifying tone that made him wonder why he didn’t debauch virgins more often. “It’s so very . . . stiff.”

“You make it that way.” Unable to resist, he curled his hand over hers and silently urged her to grip tighter, showing her how to stroke. She obliged him for a few tantalizing pulls.

“What do you call it?” she asked. “I know there are different names.”

“Names? Like Peter, Belvedere, Sir Charles Grandison?” His breath was shaky. “It’s just my cock, pet.”

She stroked down to the root and grasped the base tight. “Your cock.”

Oh, holy God. She drove him wild when she talked that way.

“I quite like your cock. Smooth as talc on the outside.” She slid her hand up again. “But like granite beneath.”

He laughed. A strained, ha, ha, ha, I may die of this laugh. “Well. We both know how you love rocks.”

“I do love rocks, as a matter of fact.” A coquettish smile crept into her voice. “I find them utterly fascinating. I’m forever taking them in hand. Exploring their every ridge and contour.” She skimmed a petal-soft fingertip over the head of his cock, tracing the flared ridge of the crown and the dewy slit at the tip. Then her touch teased down his length, all the way to the root. “Some of them have very interesting veins.”

“I don’t suppose you ever—in the name of science, of course—put these utterly fascinating objects in your mouth?”

She froze. “What?”

He slapped a hand over his eyes. This—this—was why he had the rules about virgins. The lewd request had just flowed out of him, in a lascivious drawl.

“I’m drunk, Min.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Forget I said anything.”

“How could I forget you said that?” Her hand gripped his cock tight, as if she could wring an answer from its tip. “What a suggestion. Do women really . . .” She swallowed, audibly. “Really?”

“Would you like to hear a very bald, very earthy, completely scientific truth?” He struggled up on his elbow, reaching one hand toward her face. He cupped her cheek in his hand, traced her parted lips with his thumb. “You,” he whispered hoarsely, “have the most goddamned erotic mouth I’ve ever seen. These sweet, plump lips drive me wild. It’s impossible to look at you and not . . . not wonder, how it would be.”

Her eyes went wide. “You’ve wondered.”

He nodded. “Oh yes.”

“Y-you’ve actually spent time—”

“Hours, probably, if you added it up.”

“Thinking about—”

“This.” He slid his thumb between her startled lips, pressing it deep into her hot, wet mouth. “Yes.”

They stared at each other, unmoving. Then, after a prolonged, excruciating hesitation, she closed her lips around his thumb. Her tongue curled beneath it, gently tickling. Stroking. A bolt of sensation shot straight to his cock. He groaned with helpless pleasure.

“God, yes. That’s the way.” He slid his thumb out half an inch, then pushed it in again, deeper. Her cheeks hollowed as she lightly suckled. “You are unspeakably clever, Min. And so . . . so damned lovely.”

She moaned a little as he withdrew his thumb from her mouth. Her lips cinched him so tightly, he heard a small popping sound when it finally slipped free.

“Holy God,” he muttered, collapsing to the mattress. “You’ll kill me.”

She regarded his cock, holding it steady in her grip and giving it a bold, assessing look. Just the thought of watching his length disappear into her mouth . . . it was almost enough to bring him off, right then.

But then his damned conscience caught up with him. “Min, you needn’t . . . hell, you really shouldn’t.”

“Why not? You want it, don’t you?”

“With every corpuscle in my body, believe me. But I can’t ask it. And you shouldn’t offer. It would . . . it would make things awkward in the morning.”

She convulsed with laughter. “We can’t have that. Because we’ve been getting along so smoothly as it is.”

With a toss of her head, she flipped that mane of long, dark wavy hair over her shoulder, and then her head—that enticing mouth—began a slow yet steady descent. She was true scientific adventuress, this girl.

Rules.

He had to have some rule against this. And even if he didn’t have a standing rule—any code of conduct that allowed him to slide his cock into a virgin’s mouth but not her cunny? Well, that code probably needed some rethinking.

But then her sweet kiss was upon him. And then he was in the hot, slick heaven of her mouth. No more thinking would happen tonight.

“Oh,” he moaned, as her warmth enveloped him. “Oh, Minerva.”

Her lips slid downward, slipping over the swollen crown of his erection and partway down the shaft. Then she suckled lightly, her tongue caressing him in sweet waves. His hips arched off the bed, and he cursed.

She pulled away, leaving his cock glistening, aching, and quite possibly hard enough to crush stone. Colin struggled to master his disappointment. She’d performed her experiment, and now she was satisfied. He would not, could not ask for more.

But rather than abandon him entirely, she began to press little kisses up and down his length. He closed his eyes, reveling in the coy whispers of sensation. It was the sweetest torture he’d ever known.

When she took him in her mouth again, he slid deeper this time. Near halfway inside. Her slow, slippery retreat drove him wild with need. He writhed on the bedclothes, grappling for restraint.

No restraint to be found.

Rutting bass-tard that he was, he reached for her and did what he’d been longing to do for ages. He tangled his hand in all that dark, silky hair and made a tight fist. And then he guided her, teaching her how to please him. Dragging her lush, hot mouth up and down his length, in a deep, steady rhythm.

He was a cad. He was a monster. He was going to burn in the fires of hell.

It would be worth it.

“Yes,” he told her, wincing at the exquisite pleasure. “Min, that’s so good. You’re so good.”

He relaxed his grip on her hair, and she backed off him again, sitting straight.

“You don’t—” He gulped for air. “You don’t have to continue.” As if that made him some kind of generous saint.

She only smiled. First, she removed her spectacles, folded them, and set them aside. Then she readjusted her position, hiking her shift to her knees and straddling his sprawled leg as she bent to once again take him in her mouth.

He groaned. She was such a quick study. This was serious now. Shameless, he watched those plump, ripe lips sliding up down his cock. The tight, wet friction was only part of the pleasure. The rest came from the sweet triumph of being stroked by her, pleased by her. Most of all, just being inside her, in some way. He’d been wanting this so damn badly. Those nights of lying next to her, wanting to be inside her. To be part of her.

To feel joined, and not alone.

He stroked a fond caress down her body and reached for the hem of her shift, drawing it up. He slid a hand beneath the frail linen, sliding a touch up the bare expanse of her thigh. She moaned, spreading her legs a little. He took the encouragement, stroking higher still. Until he cupped her sex in his hand, dewy and flushed, guarded by enticing curls.

Yes. God, yes.

He slid a finger between her slippery folds, rubbing up and down her sex. She whimpered and ground her hips, seeking his touch. He slipped his middle finger inside her tight sheath, moving in slow, shallow thrusts that she began to mimic with her mouth. When he moved faster, so did she. When he pressed his finger deeper, she sank down, taking him almost to the root.

The pleasure was so acute, so intense. He couldn’t take much more of this.

He cupped his hand, so that the heel of his palm would rub against her pearl. Moaning with pleasure, she pressed into his touch. She rolled her hips at a brisk, frantic pace, and for the first time, her own rhythm faltered.

“Min,” he gritted out.

She lifted her head, glassy-eyed and flushed with arousal. His left hand remained blissfully lodged between her thighs. He put his right hand over hers where she gripped the base of his erection.

“Like this.” He dragged her hand up and down. “Yes.”

They worked each other in a firm, steady rhythm, staring into one another’s eyes as the pleasure mounted. Until her eyelids flickered closed, and little frown lines appeared between her eyebrows.

“Colin,” she gasped.

“Yes, love. That’s it.” His own head rolled back on the pillow, as he stroked them both faster. “That’s it. That’s—”

She cried out. Her intimate muscles clenched and pulsed around the buried girth of his finger. And then his own climax erupted, sending pure bliss quaking through his body and white light flashing behind his eyelids.

In the aftermath, he kept his eyes closed. He slid his finger from her sex and drew her shift back down her thighs. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths. He tried to coax her down to lie beside him, but she stayed where she was—straddling his leg, hand curled around his flagging erection.

Now that curiosity had been satisfied and her own need slaked, he expected her to recoil from him. Surely she’d realize how callously he’d just used her, and what liberties he’d taken with her body and her trust. He fully expected her to hate and loathe him with a renewed—nay, unprecedented passion.

When he finally summoned the fortitude to lift his head and gauge her reaction, he found her replacing her spectacles. Her expression did not hint at hatred or loathing, but rather . . .

Scientific interest. Of course.

“Oh, Colin.” She dabbed a fingertip to his sticky abdomen, then rubbed her fingers together, as though testing the quality of his seed. “That was fascinating.”