Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

J asper searched the dark eyes, which were fringed with luxurious, long ebony lashes. Surely he had misheard Lady Octavia.

"Partner?" he repeated, part of him incredulous.

Part of him intrigued despite himself.

She never failed to surprise him.

"In my journal," she added, nodding as if everything she was saying made utter sense.

And mayhap it did. To her.

The woman was queer in the attic.

"Your journal?"

Her smile returned, and damn her if his cock didn't harden at the combination of her nearness, her hands on him, and the way those siren's lips curved.

"Yes," she said agreeably.

"There ain't a journal, Lady Octavia."

"Not yet." Once more, she nodded. "But there will be."

"No," he said slowly, "what there will be is a visit to your sister and her husband from me, explaining to them you've been running wild all across the East End."

"That would be a dreadful idea, Sutton."

The bold minx.

He was not sure which he wanted to do more, haul her into his arms and cart her from his office, or kiss her.

So he kissed her.

His mind told him not to. His mouth, however, would not be denied the plump softness of her lips beneath his one more time.

Yes, that was all. One more time before he never saw her again.

Her hands slid up his arms to settle on his shoulders, and instead of pushing him away, she clung to him. Pulled him nearer. Held him in a tight embrace, her breasts crushed to his chest, as she kissed him back. The sweetest sound of surrender fled her throat. Her lips parted. He took advantage of the opportunity, his tongue slipping into her mouth.

Everything sweet. Everything he wanted more of. That was what she tasted like. Stupidity and lust and luxury and sin laced with a hint of tea. That, too.

He was the one between the two of them who was touched in the head. Not her. Because kissing her was madness. It could lead to nowhere good. He could not bed her. Innocents were not his sort. Neither were ladies.

And yet…

Her fingers sank into his hair, and her legs parted beneath her gown, opening for him to step between them. Jasper knew when to obey and accept an invitation. His rigid cock nestled into her belly. He could not keep himself from touching her. His vow to only allow himself a kiss was abandoned as he found her waist, her curves perfectly molded for his palms. Such softness. The cool fabric beneath his hands burned with her warmth.

She was not wearing stays.

The knowledge made him hungrier. Bolder. He slid a hand to cup her breast. Just one. A plump handful. Ah, Satan's teeth. This had been a wretched idea. What was he doing? Her nipple was hard. Prodding his thumb. He rubbed over it in teasing swirls that had her moaning into their kiss.

There was nothing to stop him from lifting her onto his desk, raising her skirts, and burying himself in the welcoming wetness of her drenched cunny.

Nothing except the repeated knock on the door, which finally pierced the haze of need surrounding him.

On a groan, Jasper tore his mouth from hers and stepped away.

"Sir?"

It was Randall's voice calling from the other side of the portal. An unlikely savior arriving in timely fashion to stop him from committing further folly. Trying to quell his ragged breathing, Jasper told himself to look away from the sight of Lady Octavia, cheeks flushed, mouth dark red from his kisses, looking wonderfully in need of ravishing.

He bit out a curse and dragged a hand through his hair to distract himself. "What is it, Randall?"

"Beaumont is at the tables, sir. Thought you'd like to know," his guard called.

Of course he wanted to know. The viscount was a terrible gambler. Or at least, he had been until a month ago, when his luck appeared to have changed. Suddenly, Beaumont scarcely ever lost. He was flush in funds.

Jasper always knew the sort of cove who cheated.

And Beaumont was one. But catching the bastard at his games was another matter.

He cleared his throat. "Thank you for alerting me. I will be out shortly."

"Aye, sir."

Jasper waited until the sounds of his man's heavy footfalls could be heard departing. "Hugh will see you ‘ome," he told Lady Octavia grimly, despising himself for his lack of control where she was concerned. "Do not return."

"But you did not listen to my proposal," she objected.

"There ain't going to be one," he snapped. "And if there were, my answer would be the same. No."

He turned away from her lest he give in to the temptation to stay. To kiss her again. To raise that hem to her waist. To run his hand along her pale inner thighs until his fingers found the center of her and he parted her slick folds to…

No.

He forced himself to stop the thoughts.

Being Lady Octavia Alexander and the human equivalent of a splinter in his big toe, she followed him, clinging to his coat sleeve in an effort to make him remain in the chamber. "You do not know what I was going to ask, Sutton."

He shrugged away from her touch, trying to ignore the fresh wave of longing that washed over him. "Don't need to."

Today was not the day he was going to drown, curse her. Besides, he had business to attend to. The Sinner's Palace was his family's livelihood. He could not spend all night kissing a virgin in his office while Viscount Beaumont fleeced them blind.

"I have more than half the funds required to begin my journal," she said in a rush as he reached the door. "All I need is a small investment from you to help at the beginning. I will split all the revenue with you."

He turned back to her. "I mean what I say, my lady. You do not belong here. There are print shops with scandalous caricatures aplenty."

"But there is nothing like the journal I wish to start," she countered, confidence in her expression and her tone.

Like every nib, she thought the world was hers for the taking.

Because it was.

But Jasper Sutton wasn't.

And she would do best to remember that.

"Forget about this nonsense, Lady Octavia," he said, his voice emerging harsher than he had intended. "I ain't giving you funds. There won't be a journal. The East End is no place for you. Go back to Mayfair and your drawing rooms and balls and your gossiping matrons."

"But—"

"If you return, I'll assume it's because you want to finish what we started here," he interrupted. "I won't stop at kisses next time, milady . I won't stop until your legs are around my waist and I'm deep inside you, giving you the thorough fucking you've been begging for ever since you first came to The Sinner's Palace. Understand?"

Her eyes were wide. Her countenance shocked. He had been crude. But it had been necessary. Giving her a mocking bow, he stalked from the room, before bellowing for Hugh to take her home.

"Lord grant me patience for females," he muttered under his breath as he went in search of the cheating viscount and the hazard tables.

They had recently blown into his life like an unforgiving storm.

"Where have you been?"

The familiar voice of her sister had Octavia jumping and emitting an undignified squeak as she attempted to steal back into her chamber. Pressing a hand to her heart, she whirled about to find Mirabel watching her with an assessing, narrow-eyed gaze.

"Nowhere," she said brightly. "Why should you think I have been anywhere?"

"Because you came in from the mews and your gown is damp," her sister said.

So she had been seen.

Her shoulders slumped in defeat. "I went for a walk. I was unable to sleep."

"Do not dare lie to me, Octavia. I know you have been going to The Sinner's Palace these last few weeks."

Her sister knew?

She sighed. She had supposed Mirabel had been too distracted by her new marriage to take note of Octavia's secretive comings and goings. She had been paying the tiger who accompanied her quite handsomely for his silence.

"Will you allow me to explain?" she asked softly, knowing she had abused her sister's trust.

It was one thing for Mirabel to allow her to consume scandalous caricatures from London's print shops, but it was quite another for Octavia to venture to the edge of the dangerous rookeries where The Sinner's Palace dwelled. She knew this, and she had intentionally kept the secret from her sister. Even for a self-avowed spinster, the mere action of going about unchaperoned in the evening—let alone in the East End and with a man such as Jasper Sutton—was well beyond the bounds of propriety. If anyone else knew her secret, she would be ruined.

Utterly.

And her shame would reflect poorly upon not only herself but Mirabel and her children, the eldest of whom was the young Duke of Stanhope.

"Come," Mirabel said, unsmiling, taking Octavia's arm in hand and propelling her into her bedchamber. "This is a discussion better had in private, I should think."

"Yes," Octavia agreed, the swelling tide of guilt threatening to choke her.

Going to The Sinner's Palace and seeking out Jasper Sutton had been foolish.

Reckless.

Dangerous.

The door closed behind them more loudly than necessary, as if a remonstration itself. She turned to face her sister.

"Do you have any notion of how much peril you place yourself in, each time you venture to that part of town?" Mirabel asked.

" You went there, if you will recall," she countered, thinking of the romance her sister had kindled with Mr. Damian Winter, who had been running a gaming establishment for ladies not far from The Sinner's Palace. "If it was safe for you, should it not also be safe for me?"

"Octavia, your sneaking about the East End alone is different, and you know it. First, I was a widow where you are unmarried, and second, Lady Fortune is in a far better area, surrounded with guards to ensure the safety of its patrons."

"The Sinner's Palace has guards as well," she defended weakly. "Hugh has been following me home each time I pay a call there."

"Each time?" Twin patches of color appeared on her ordinarily calm sister's cheeks, an indication of her ire. "How many times have you gone there, Octavia?"

"Three," she admitted.

"It is worse than I feared. And who in heaven's name is Hugh ?"

"One of the guards. As I said."

"You refer to him as his given name?"

"It is the only name I was told," she answered weakly.

Mirabel in dudgeon was fierce. Not even the swell of her burgeoning belly beneath her gown or the maternal glow she was exhibiting could detract from her intensity.

"Why have you been going there?" was her sister's next question.

"I wish to begin a journal of my own," Octavia said. "A journal dedicated to scandals and rumors. Something witty and clever."

Rather in the fashion of the mocking broadsides she collected. Only with words instead of art.

"I fail to see what that has to do with your sudden interest in The Sinner's Palace." Mirabel frowned at her. "Have you been compromised?"

"No."

She thought then of Jasper Sutton's knowing kisses. Of his hand on her breast. His thumb toying with her nipple. A small rush of sensation mingled with longing, passing over her.

Yes I have been. In the most delicious way possible.

"Of course not," she added, even as a guilty flush crept over her.

"You are lying," her sister accused.

"I am a dedicated spinster." Octavia winced after issuing her rebuttal.

Was that the best she could do?

"Who has been spending time with a…a… Hugh !" Mirabel retorted. "If Mama and Papa were to discover my malfeasance where you are concerned, they would demand you leave my home. It was difficult enough persuading them to allow you to remain after my marriage to Damian. You know that, Octavia. This business you are pursuing, this aspiration of yours, while admirable, is not destined to be."

Why was everyone so determined to see her fail before she could even begin?

" Et tu , sister?" she quipped in an effort to hide her disappointment. "Why should you be convinced my scandal journal is not meant to be? Have you never seen the manner in which people flock to the print shops for their next dose of humor? It is an elixir to save them from their daily drudgery. Imagine if there were a journal that provided reports of all manner of society gossip. I know it would be successful."

"That may be true." Mirabel patted her arm. "However, the manner in which you are attempting to secure this journal of yours is altogether wrong. Moreover, I do not understand what slipping into the East End and spending time with vagabonds has to do with your journal."

"Sutton is not a vagabond. Is that what you think of your own husband?"

The denial fled her lips before she could think better of it.

Too late to recall. And it was wrong of her, she knew. Damian Winter was a wonderful man, a true gentleman in the definition of the word, and an excellent father to his and Mirabel's growing brood. She felt devious for making the suggestion, despite the need to defend Jasper Sutton from Mirabel's aspersions. It was unfair and wrong of her.

Her sister's brows rose. "Of course not. My husband is a good man. Which Sutton are you assuming I have called a vagabond?"

Drat.

She lowered her gaze to the carpets, wishing she knew the given names of Jasper Sutton's brothers. But she could not remember one. Only his .

"Octavia," Mirabel prodded, her voice sharp. "Tell me."

"Jasper Sutton," she admitted, forcing her eyes back up to her sister's. "He is the man I have been meeting, not Hugh. Hugh is one of the guards Sutton trusts implicitly."

"Jasper Sutton," Mirabel repeated, her tone as shocked as her expression.

Octavia nodded.

" Jasper Sutton."

Perhaps her sister's gentle condition was rendering her more easily confused.

"As I said," Octavia confirmed yet again. "You did not mishear me."

"Octavia!" Mirabel pressed a hand to her heart. "I know you have always possessed a wild streak, but Jasper Sutton? I would never have imagined… You must tell me everything. I have to know the damage that has been done before I can settle upon a solution, however dire."

There was only one solution, as far as Octavia was concerned. "Nothing is dire, sister. I initially went to The Sinner's Palace in the hope that Mr. Sutton would be willing to allow me to interview his servants, perhaps even pay them to give me information about the lords who go there to gamble and drink."

Jasper Sutton had, of course, refused.

And kissed her.

No need to mention that part of the story.

"Why would you think a man like Jasper Sutton would be amenable to such a plot?" Mirabel asked.

"Foolishness?" she suggested.

Also, she had seen a caricature of him. And the scandalous broadside—well, she could not deny it had left her intrigued. She had used her sister's distractions and trusting nature, along with her loose familial connection to Sutton, to gain her entrée on the first occasion.

"I trust he told you he would not countenance something so nonsensical, Octavia. A gaming hell such as The Sinner's Palace is dependent upon the trust of the lords and wealthy men who frequent it. If loyalty is not assured, they will simply move on to the next hell."

Sutton had told her as much, though in bolder fashion.

And then his mouth had claimed hers for the first time.

She struck the thought of that deliciously wicked encounter from her mind.

"He did," Octavia allowed.

"Naturally."

"Which is why I returned."

Her sister made a strangled sound of disapproval.

Octavia bit her lower lip, and unless it was her fanciful imagination at work, the lingering trace of Jasper Sutton's kiss was yet there. "I am determined. You know that about me, Mirabel. I thought that if I persisted, he would change his mind."

"I trust he has not?"

"Well, after the second time he denied me, I came upon a new course of action," she admitted, still proud of herself for being insightful enough to understand the manner of man Jasper Sutton was. "I decided that he needed an alluring reason to aid me."

Mirabel gasped. "Octavia Elizabeth Alexander. What have you done?"

Well, aside from allowing Jasper Sutton to put his tongue in her mouth and his hand on her breast, precious little.

But no need to say that, either.

Octavia summoned a bright smile. "I asked Sutton to become a partner in my business."

"Your business? Have I missed something?"

"No, of course you have not. The business has yet to be opened. I was looking to Mr. Sutton for some assistance with that matter, which is why I sought him out this evening."

"Good sweet heavens."

Her sister's response left her feeling defensive once more. "I have some funds of my own. The pin money Papa has given me…I saved it. I have, despite my best intentions, a hand with sewing. I have managed to alter my old gowns to avoid having to purchase new ones for my few social calls. As my invitations have waned, I found myself no longer requiring ball gowns. And yet, I wrote to mother and father with news of all the glittering fetes I have attended in my search of a husband."

"Octavia."

She winced at the pitch of her sister's voice. "It was wrong of me, I know. But I wanted something for myself. From the moment I first saw one of the scandal broadsides, I knew that I wanted to do something very much like them, only better. However, a lady cannot so easily begin her own empire."

"And so you sought out Jasper Sutton?" Mirabel was incredulous. "Why not ask myself, or my husband for that matter? Why sneak about in the darkness, putting yourself at risk, endangering not just your reputation but your very life?"

The reason was simple.

But Octavia still felt sheepish revealing it. "I wanted to build this myself. I did not want to ask for help."

"And yet you did ask for help, but from an unscrupulous man like Jasper Sutton."

Was he unscrupulous? Octavia did not like to think so.

But his final words to her returned just then, and she had to admit that perhaps some parts of him were indeed as bad as her sister suggested.

"I cannot explain it, Mirabel," she said softly, her voice entreating, her eyes pleading her sister for understanding. "All I can say is that asking you and Damian for aid would be alms. I wanted to do this on my own terms."

Still, she had failed thus far.

And now she had destroyed her sister's trust.

Mirabel's countenance was tinged with undeniable sadness. "Oh, Octavia. You have gone about this all wrong. How can you not see that?"

"I have disappointed you."

"You have broken my heart." There was a sheen of tears in her sister's eyes that shattered Octavia's heart in turn.

"I am sorry," she whispered. "I hope you will forgive me."

"I need to tell Damian about what has happened," Mirabel said.

Oh dear.

"Must you?" she asked, for she had been hoping that her sister would continue her campaign of leniency when it came to Octavia and her foibles.

"We have no secrets from one another," Mirabel confirmed, grim. "I have to tell him and see where we shall go from here."