
Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedications

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Mailing list/newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, website, contact Carole, leave a review on ebook site

About The Author

Other books by Carole Mortimer
Regency Sinner 1

Wicked Torment

By

Carole Mortimer

USA Today Bestselling Author
COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2017 Carole Mortimer

Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper Designs

Editor: Linda Ingmanson

Formatter: Matthew Mortimer

ISBN: 978-1-910597-49-1 ePub

ISBN: 978-1-910597-48-4 mobi

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved.
DEDICATIONS

My Wonderful Family
Prologue

Meeting of The Sinners

London, July 1815

"So are we all clear on what must be done, gentlemen, in regard to these eight ladies?" Dominik Sinclair, the Duke of Stonewell, stood beside the unlit fireplace in the library of his town house as he looked at each of the other seven men in the room in turn. He did not move on to the next man until he had received a nod of agreement from the last.

"We are to gain our information from them by fair means or foul?" one of them prompted.

The duke nodded. "You may use whatever means you deem necessary to find the traitor, including seduction. Or brute force, if you prefer it. I cannot express how serious this matter is, or how imperative, in view of Napoleon's surrender and the decisions soon to be made regarding his future exile—his second exile—that it be settled as soon as possible."

"It is all well and good, each of us choosing a name from your top hat, Stonewell," another drawled. "But I am averse to using brute force on a lady. Unfortunately, neither do I feel the slightest inclination to seduce information from the lady I have chosen."

Rare humor briefly lightened Stonewell's stern features. "Then you may consult with the other six gentlemen in the room and see if one of them is willing to make an exchange."

A third frowned. "You are absolutely positive it is one of these ladies who has been responsible for passing information to Napoleon's spies?"

"Absolutely," the duke confirmed grimly. "There have been six breaches in England's security in the past year. Our own intelligence tells us they were carried out by a woman. Only these eight ladies were present at all six functions during which the information was exchanged." As a spymaster for the Crown, Stonewell was more than happy to pass along information to the seven men who were not only his closest friends but constituted his own network of spies.

"What will happen to her?" came the predictable next question. These were men of honor, as well as Stonewell's closest friends.

His mouth thinned. "What happens to all who commit and are found guilty of treason."

Another sought clarification. "So we will, in effect, be responsible for sending a woman to the gallows?"

"Sending a traitor to the gallows," Stonewell confirmed. "This lady is responsible for helping to supply the information which aided in Napoleon's escape from Elba and resulted in so many more lives being lost these past three months."

"I think we have spent quite enough time on this matter for one evening." The first gentleman stood decisively. "I suggest we all have dinner together, followed by a visit to a house of the demimonde, and then embark on this task afresh tomorrow."

"I am afraid I cannot join you this evening, gentlemen," the duke excused himself. "I have a prior engagement. You will, of course, report your findings directly to me," he added as the other six gentlemen also rose to their feet in preparation for leaving.

Each shook Stonewell's hand as they left. He waited until he was completely alone before taking a piece of paper from the breast pocket of his black superfine. A piece of paper upon which the name of a lady was written but had not been included with the other seven women under investigation.

Dominik had no need to read the name again but made himself do so anyway before crushing the scrap of paper in his hand and then hurling it across the room.
Chapter 1

One week later,

Hanwell Estate, Bedfordshire

"Good God, you did not tell us you had invited him to join us for the week!"

Bea, Lady Beatrix Hanwell, gave the lady who had spoken a quizzical glance. "Sorry?" As far as she was aware, all the guests invited to spend the week at Hanwell Manor had arrived yesterday.

"Wolferton." The other woman breathed the name as if it were sacred. Or the devil himself.

"Surely you are mistaken...?" Bea's voice trailed off, and her own eyes widened as she saw it was indeed Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton, striding arrogantly across the manicured lawn backing onto her small country house. He was making his way determinedly toward the terrace where many of her guests were assembled for afternoon tea.

The man was known to his inner circle of friends as Wolf, and to the rest of Society, the ladies especially, as the coldest and most heartless gentleman as ever lived. Of course, the latter could be attributed to sour grapes on their part, because the duke had so far eluded any efforts by those ladies to entrap or seduce him into marriage.

Wolferton was exceedingly tall, at least a foot taller than Bea's own diminutive height of three inches above five feet. His face was harshly aristocratic: dark brows over icy-gray eyes, a sharp blade of a nose, high cheekbones, a firm and stern mouth which rarely smiled, above a square and determined jaw.

A man reputed to always do exactly as he pleased, Wolferton was currently without the formality of a top hat, and he kept his dark hair unfashionably long. Nor had he secured it at his nape, but left the silky dark tresses in disarray on his wide shoulders. His muscular chest and tapered waist were emphasized by the cut of his dark gray superfine and one of the black shirts and neck cloths he always wore, despite the fashionable white worn by other gentlemen in Society. His pale gray pantaloons were also close-fitting to his powerful thighs, and his brown-topped Hessians gleamed brightly in the afternoon sunshine.

His cold and critical gaze swept over Bea's guests as they sat on the terrace enjoying their tea and watching some of the gentlemen engaging in a game of pall-mall on the lawn.

At least, their attention had been on the gentlemen playing pall-mall, but they quickly became aware of Wolferton's presence the closer he approached, causing the conversation to stutter and then cease altogether as all sharp-eyed attention turned in his direction.

Bea was as struck dumb and unmoving as her guests, but she quickly recovered in the knowledge she was the hostess and so must be the one to greet him. It was one of the very few things, perhaps the only thing, she missed about no longer having a male relative who might take on this role. Although if Charles were still alive, the weekend would not be happening at all. He had been far too close-pursed to extend a week-long invitation to a houseful of guests.

Bea stepped down from the terrace before Wolferton reached it, preferring her guests did not overhear their conversation.

She and Wolferton did not, and had never, mingled in the same social circles. Indeed, Bea was not acquainted with the gentleman beyond a nod of acknowledgment at one Society event or another.

As a widow of seven and twenty, Bea deliberately maintained a quiet presence in Society, whereas Wolferton, a single gentleman of possibly five and thirty, was recognized as part of the small group of gentlemen notoriously known as The Sinners. Some said they were so named in honor of the leader of their group, Dominik Sinclair, the Duke of Stonewell. Others were less charitable and claimed it referred to the scandalous behavior of those eight gentlemen.

As scandalous as turning up uninvited at the home of a woman to whom Wolferton had barely spoken half a dozen words in the past ten years?

Bea's thoughts raced, her heart pounding as she waited for the duke to reach her. It must be obvious she was entertaining a house party. Would Wolferton expect to be invited to become a member of that party and stay for the remainder of the week? If so, where was Bea to put him?

Her most prestigious guest, the Earl of Landbourne, currently occupied the bedchamber next to her own, which had once belonged to her husband, Charles. But a duke certainly outranked an earl, and Wolferton was not a gentleman ever to accept second best. Which meant either Bea or the earl would have to relocate to another bedchamber—

This was ridiculous. Whatever Wolferton was doing in Bedfordshire, it could not be with the intention of becoming one of her guests for the rest of the week. This arrogant duke was used to much more sophisticated entertainment than Bea had to offer. Indeed, she cringed at the very idea of his scornful reaction to being told he would be expected to wear fancy dress for dinner this evening. Or of the outing to attend church tomorrow morning, followed by a picnic lunch in the garden, and then the treasure hunt Bea had organized for her guests to enjoy in the afternoon.

No, Wolferton could not—Bea thanked God—have come here with any intention of staying.

An assortment of the local gentry and some of the lower members of Society comprised Darius's first impression of the guests of Lady Beatrix Hanwell. Not least being the hostess herself.

That lady had not been a great beauty when she appeared at her first Season ten years ago. Five years of marriage to a gentleman many years older than herself, followed by another two years as that gentleman's widow, had not improved her looks in the slightest.

She was short, with no tits to speak of, nor was the dull brown gown she wore in the least flattering to that slenderness or the pallor of her complexion. She also chose to wear her fair hair in far too severe a style. Darius was not an expert in how women styled their hair, nor did he wish to be, but he believed a few loose curls at Lady Hanwell's temple and nape might have softened that severity of style somewhat. Her deep brown eyes were rather fine, he allowed, and as far as he could see, the only claim to beauty in an otherwise nondescript and forgettable face.

And this, Darius recognized with a contemptuous curl of his top lip, was the woman whose name he had picked out of Stonewell's top hat a week ago. Darius had tried, as Stonewell had advised they could, to exchange that name with one of his close friends, but as might be expected, there had been no takers.

Nor had it pleased him, after making inquiries, to learn that the lady had already left London for the summer months and now resided at her country estate in Bedfordshire.

He had spoken to Stonewell on the matter, suggesting that as the lady had left the gossip and salons of London, she could not be the spy. His friend had disagreed with him, counter suggesting that perhaps the lady had left London for the very reason of meeting up with the person to whom she wished to pass further information. That her week-long summer party could be merely a shield to hide that meeting.

Much as Darius would have liked to disagree with Stonewell, he unfortunately found some merit in the other man's argument. That left him no choice, if this matter was to be settled as quickly as Stonewell wished, but to follow Lady Hanwell to Bedfordshire, which had not pleased Darius in the least. He had never followed any woman anywhere before, not even one he genuinely desired. Which he certainly did not in Beatrix Hanwell's case.

"Your Grace." That lady made a polite curtsey as he reached her side.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Lady Hanwell."

She seemed at a loss to know what to say next, pausing for several seconds before speaking again. "Is there some way in which I might assist you, Your Grace? Are you perhaps visiting someone in the area and have lost your way?"

Now came the tricky part, Darius acknowledged derisively, of announcing he was in the area to visit her. Not that he had any intention of being forestalled in that intent; he had not earned his reputation for ruthless arrogance by asking rather than taking. But convincing this lady of his interest in her was surely going to take all of his considerable ability.

"I am not in the least lost, Lady Beatrix," he assured her lightly. "I have arrived exactly where I wish to be. In fact, my coaches are currently at the front of the house, and my valet is overseeing having my luggage brought into the house."

She appeared startled. "He is?"

"Yes." He made an effort to soften his austere features into something he hoped resembled a smile—although he could not guarantee this was the case, considering the expression did not come naturally to him—as he reached out to clasp one of her lace-gloved hands in both of his. He ignored the audible gasps from several women on the terrace and instead concentrated all his considerable attention on the obviously disconcerted Lady Beatrix. "I was most unhappy when I called at Hanwell House and learned you had already quit London for the summer."

She lowered a quizzical brow. "You were...?"

"But of course," he answered smoothly. "I thought I had made it clear at Lady Cooper's picnic earlier this week that I returned your interest."

Bea stared at him blankly. Having already been unnerved when Wolferton took her hand in his much warmer ones and maintained that hold, she now found his conversation puzzling to say the least. Even more disturbing was his announcement he was here to stay. "Did we actually speak whilst at Lady Cooper's?" If they had, Bea must have slept through it, because— "Ah, I remember now. You returned my handkerchief to me when I accidentally dropped it along the path beside the lake, and I thanked you for doing so." "Thank you, Your Grace," having been four of the half-dozen words the two of them had exchanged in ten years.

"Exactly."

"I am sorry, Your Grace. I am afraid I do not understand...?"

"Really," he chided softly. "Let us not play games. You dropped your handkerchief, and I returned it."

"Yes...?"

He raised those imperious brows. "It is a well-practiced ploy by the ladies."

"It is?" Bea was completely at a loss as to why it was.

"Of course." Impatience underlined the duke's tone now. "The lady drops her handkerchief to see if any of the gentlemen are interested in a...flirtation. If they are, then the handkerchief is picked up and returned to the lady."

Bea moistened the dryness of her lips. "And if my dropping the handkerchief really was merely an accident?"

"Was it?"

"Of course," she confirmed evenly.

Although Bea admitted it was somewhat intriguing to learn Wolferton had not thought that to be the case. As was his response in coming here to fulfill what he had considered to be an invitation of intimacy with her.

Again, an utterly ridiculous notion. Bea had not reached her late twenties without being completely aware of her own attributes. Or lack of them.

Her mother had died during Bea's birth, and her father had joined his wife seven years ago. Bea's own husband, Charles, was also dead, and she had no other family now but a few distant cousins with whom she kept in touch but rarely saw. Nevertheless, she made a point of being a loyal and good friend to several of the ladies she had met during her first Season. A fair and considerate mistress to her household staff. She also treated with respect and kindness those older and younger than herself.

Loyalty and kindness were all well and good, but Bea had no illusions about her looks. She knew she was not a beauty and never had been. Nor did she possess any of the other feminine wiles a sophisticated and experienced gentleman such as Wolferton was reputed to find attractive.

It was a pity, but that was the truth of it—

A pity?

Bea became very conscious of the fact her much smaller hand was still held in both of Wolferton's. As she was also aware of the pleasant smell of his cologne: citrus and sandalwood, with an underlying male musk she believed to be all him, and which was having the strangest effect upon her.

For one thing, she was breathing in that enticing combination of aromas, and she could not seem to look away from those compelling gray eyes. Nor did she think the heat now suffusing her body to be due solely to the warmth of the day. The temperature was, at best, pleasantly warm. The bodice of her gown also felt a little tighter than it had earlier, as if her breasts had become plumper, causing the rosy tips to chafe against the cotton of her chemise. Those buds certainly felt uncomfortably swollen and sensitive.

Bea was once again struck dumb, this time by her unexpected physical response to Wolferton. Her marriage to Charles had not been a happy or passionate one, the latter partly due to his being over thirty years her senior, the former because, after only one year of marriage, Bea had decided she was not a sensual woman. Indeed, Charles had needed...further incentive during the last two years of their marriage to be able to have sexual relations with her at all. Even then, he had still complained she was like a stick of unresponsive wood lying beneath him, and the only reason he persisted was because he wanted an heir. An heir Bea had failed to give him.

So it came as something of a shock to Bea to realize she was physically responding more strongly to having Wolferton hold her hand than she had to sexual relations with Charles during the whole of their five-year marriage.

Darius waited for the conclusion to whatever thoughts were currently preoccupying Lady Beatrix. Although he hoped it would not take too long. His reputation for possessing absolutely no patience was not an exaggeration.

In the meantime, it gave him time to consider the blush now warming Lady Beatrix's cheeks, and the way in which it gave her an unexpected beauty. No, perhaps beauty was too strong a word, but the added color certainly gave a sparkle to those huge brown eyes and caused a rosy flush to the fullness of her lips. The top lip was intriguingly plumper than the bottom, something Darius had heard was indicative of a passionate nature.

Perhaps seducing this lady into revealing whether or not she had been and still was a spy for Napoleon would not be so much of a chore after all?

She drew in a deep breath, as if she had forgotten to breathe these past few minutes. "I am afraid you were utterly mistaken in drawing that conclusion, Your Grace—"

"Darius," he corrected huskily. "Or Wolf, if you prefer it," he added as another frown creased her brow.

She gave a shake of her head. "Addressing you with the familiarity of either of those names would be inappropriate. As I said"—she pointedly withdrew her hand from his grasp before putting both her hands behind her back for good measure—"you were mistaken in thinking that I was encouraging your interest during the picnic we both attended earlier this week."

He arched an autocratic brow. "But I am not mistaken in sensing your interest today."

A deeper color bloomed in her cheeks. "I am merely...taken aback by your unexpected arrival and the reason for it."

His mouth quirked in the semblance of another smile. "Then I shall continue to keep you in a state of suspense, because I have every intention of joining your other guests and remaining by your side for the remainder of the week."

Her frown was pained. "Is this some sort of dare or bet on your part?"

He raised those arrogant brows. "I beg your pardon?"

She sighed her impatience. "I have heard it said that gentlemen indulge in such wagers as to who will be first to seduce this or that woman. That these wagers are even written down in a book at gentlemen's clubs such as White's."

Darius's mouth thinned. "By callow youths who do not know better. I am far too old for such nonsense as that." He scowled his displeasure. "Nor is your conclusion that this must be one of those occasions in the least flattering, to either yourself or to me."

"That is possibly because I have no illusions in regard to my own appearance, Your Grace."

He looked down the length of his nose at her. "Then it is as well I have enough interest for both of us."

"You are wasting your time on me," she stated firmly.

The duke shrugged. "It is my time to waste."

"You will not succeed in seducing me," she insisted impatiently.

"Now who is the one extending a dare?"

"I assure you it was not meant as such, but merely as a statement of fact."

"Are you actually denying me an invitation of remaining here as your guest?"

Bea doubted that anyone had ever denied this man anything he set his mind on. Except this time, he stated he had set his sights on her. "The entertainments I intend to provide for my guests are far too unsophisticated for your tastes."

"On the contrary, the potential entertainment you offer is endless," he drawled softly as he looked at her beneath hooded lids.

Bea winced at the realization he had deliberately misunderstood her words. This was a conversation she had absolutely no intention of encouraging or continuing. "I would not want to keep you from your family."

His expression hardened. "I do not have any family."

Bea instantly realized her mistake. It was well known this man's parents, the previous Duke and Duchess of Wolferton, had both died when he was young. Being an only child, he had been left to the guardianship of his father's younger brother. Gossip intimated it had been a stormy relationship, although Bea had no idea in what way. She only knew that Wolferton, once that guardianship came to an end on his twenty-first birthday, had never publicly spoken to or acknowledged his uncle again.

All eight of the gentlemen who called themselves The Sinners had been orphaned at a young age, and no doubt this was part of the reason those gentlemen had been drawn to each other and formed such a close bond during their school years. A friendship that continued to this day. "Your friends, then."

The duke gave a dismissive shake of his head. "They are all currently busy doing other things."

"But I do not have a bedchamber prepared for your use." Bea was unhappy to hear a note of desperation entering her voice.

He eyed her mockingly. "In that case, I have no objection to sharing your own bedchamber."

Bea's eyes widened in shock. She frowned her displeasure as Wolferton chuckled at her reaction. "I do not appreciate being toyed with in this way," she snapped.

"Then let me assure you that in future I will be happy to toy with you in whatever way brings you the greatest pleasure, my dear Bea." He stepped closer. "That is what your close friends call you, is it not? Bea?"

This whole conversation had passed completely beyond Bea's control. If it had ever been within it, which she seriously doubted. She was no match for a gentleman as arrogant and forceful as Wolferton.

"Which you are not," she stated politely but firmly.

"I am going to be," he assured her huskily. "It is my intention to be very close to you before this week has ended."

"You are welcome to join my other guests for a week of pleasant activities, Your Grace." She pointedly added the formality so there would be no mistaking the invitation for anything other than what it was. "But you do so in the understanding I harbor no interest whatsoever in becoming your mistress," she added for good measure.

A slow and—yes, positively wolfish smile now curved those sculpted lips. "A week of sharing my bed would not make you my mistress, Bea."

"I have no interest in the two of us sharing a bed for so much as a single hour." She frowned her frustration with his single-minded pursuit.

"Liar," he taunted softly.

Was she lying?

There was no doubting she felt flattered by Wolferton having stated an interest in seducing her. Her insides were also aflutter with an unfamiliar excitement. Her nipples felt hot and fully engorged, and between her thighs was swollen and damp with a wetness which had not been present during any of her sexual relations with Charles. Indeed, he had complained often when her lack of a response necessitated him having to provide that lubrication by applying an ointment to his cock before attempting to breach and enter her.

Wolferton, it seemed, not only caused that natural lubrication without any effort, but was also experienced enough to know that he did.

Bea stepped away from him. "Please feel free to join my other guests on the terrace for afternoon tea while I go and talk to my butler and arrange a bedchamber be made ready for your use." She turned on her heel and lightly ascended the terrace steps before hurrying inside the house.

All the time aware of a narrowed gray gaze watching her every step.
Chapter 2

"I look ridiculous." Darius gave a disgusted snort as he observed his appearance in the cheval mirror in the corner of his bedchamber. The black shirt was unfastened at his throat; his black pantaloons hugged his hips and legs; his black Hessians gleamed.

He looked more like the devil himself than the pirate he had decided to be when Quinlan, his valet, informed him of the need to wear fancy dress for dinner this evening. Not that it mattered how Darius looked when he would be sitting down to dinner with twenty or so people he would happily never set eyes on again, and who would no doubt be wearing even more ridiculous clothing than he was.

Although he could not deny he was looking forward to seeing and speaking with Bea Hanwell again. To his surprise, she had piqued his interest earlier. She seemed so sure he would not succeed in seducing her, and yet her physical response to his close proximity had been unmistakable. Her cheeks had been flushed, dark eyes bright. Her tits had swelled above the low neckline of her gown, and there was no mistaking the delicious aroma of the musk a woman released when she was aroused.

"No more ridiculous than usual, Your Grace," Quinlan observed dryly as he continued to primp and arrange Darius's black shirt so that the sleeves billowed out in pirate fashion.

He was well aware of his valet's opinion of the preference Darius had for wearing black shirts and neck cloths. "Tell me again why it is I employ you, Quinlan," he drawled.

"Because no other valet would put up with your bad temper and terrible choice in shirts and neck cloths," the other man dismissed without apology. His own clothing was of a much more colorful and flamboyant nature, as if to make up for the fact his employer's was not.

Quinlan also preferred the company of men rather than ladies. A preference which did not trouble Darius in the slightest. What a man chose to do in the privacy of his own bedchamber was no one's business but his own. And the person he was doing it with, of course. Darius planned to be doing several wicked things to Beatrix Hanwell before the week was over.

He now gave a chuckle at his valet's complete lack of deference to his title. "That is the reason I employ you, you irreverent sod."

"Indeed, Your Grace." Quinlan stood back to observe his handiwork with a critical eye. "Do you think a pirate would leave his hair loose or tied back?"

"I think my hair shall remain exactly as it is." Darius turned away from the mirror dismissively, dark hair loose about his shoulders. "You are positive it is Lady Hanwell's bedchamber which adjoins this one?" He glanced at the door between the two bedchambers. A door which was currently locked, the key on other side. Darius had already checked when he was shown into the bedchamber earlier.

It would be too much to breach that locked door only to find a lady other than his reluctant hostess on the other side of it. Having met all of Beatrix Hanwell's female guests at tea this afternoon, Darius found none of them appealed to his jaded palate in the slightest.

"Her maid confirmed it to be the case, yes, Your—"

"Stop 'Your Gracing' me all the damned time and concentrate on the matter in hand." Darius and Quinlan might speak to each other in this informal way when the two of them were in private together, but his valet would never be overfamiliar in public. "You know exactly why I am here." Darius kept no secrets from Quinlan. The other man had been with him for fifteen years now, and had more than proved his loyalty and trustworthiness.

His valet gave a telling sniff. "I know that this house and Lady Hanwell's guests are not what we are used to. Although the lady herself seems mannerly enough, as do the household staff," he added begrudgingly.

"Stop being a snob and tell me who was turfed out of this bedchamber to make room for me?"

"The Earl of Landbourne."

His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "Dickie Havers?"

"Lord Richard Havers is the Earl of Landbourne, yes."

"Hm." Darius considered what he knew of the other man, a slightly overweight widower of forty or so. There were no children from the marriage. The earl also owned a fashionable house in London and an estate in the country.

Was it possible he was Lady Bea's lover?

Or the person she intended passing treasonable information to?

Landbourne could be both those things.

Or neither.

The other man could as easily be interested in making Bea his second wife. The lady was in possession of this small estate and the fortune left to her by her late husband. Both would be of value to a man like Landbourne, whose estate was rumored to be in need of a financial boost.

Darius, having now accepted his surprising interest in bedding Bea Hanwell, hoped it was none of those things. "Any idea what our hostess will be wearing this evening?"

"I believe Lady Hanwell is to be dressed as a serving wench."

A fitting partner for a pirate. "And Havers?"

Quinlan gave a snort of laughter. "I believe the earl is to be a Viking warrior."

Oh good Lord...

"Breathe in just a little deeper, and there is every chance I will have the pleasure of seeing your tits tumble out the top of that gown you are almost wearing."

Bea closed her eyes briefly and drew in several calming breaths before turning to face the gentleman who was rapidly becoming something of a nemesis to her. He had certainly succeeded in changing the whole tenor of her summer party.

She had arranged this week-long, end-of-the-Season house party in such a way as to be a time of enjoying simple pleasures and relaxing with friends. There was absolutely no possibility that was going to happen now that Darius Strong had insisted on becoming one of that number.

She had no idea what had transpired on the terrace after she left earlier to go in search of Kilby so that a suitable bedchamber could be prepared for the duke, but it was very obvious this evening that none of her female guests were clamoring for the duke's attention as might have been expected of such a handsome and eligible gentleman.

Bea could have insisted there really was no room for the duke to stay at the house, of course. But to have done so would have caused more scandal than the discomfort of his presence, if it became known one as low down the social ladder as Bea had ejected the Duke of Wolferton from her home. The duke and his inner circle were all friends of the Prince Regent, and as such were very influential in Society.

Landbourne had not liked being ousted from his bedchamber, of course, but Bea did not see that as being a problem. The earl had badgered her until she'd issued him this invitation, but within an hour of his arrival yesterday, Bea became aware he had done so with the ulterior motive of offering her marriage. Bea had absolutely no desire to be a wife to anyone ever again, had no intention of giving up any of the freedom being a widow afforded her.

So if Landbourne was offended by having been moved from the bedchamber next to hers to one farther down the hallway, then Bea was not in the least concerned by it.

Although she was not sure having Wolferton in such close proximity to her was a good thing either.

He looked more rakishly handsome than ever this evening. His overlong hair was still loose about his shoulders, and he had discarded his jacket and waistcoat completely. He now wore one of his black silk shirts unfastened at the throat, revealing the dusting of the silky hair covering his broad chest. Black pantaloons clung revealingly to his powerful hips and thighs.

He was obviously a pirate.

How fitting.

As much as his comment was not. "I will thank you not to use such language with me or my female guests."

He gave a hard smile at the sharpness of her set-down. "Perhaps I could be persuaded into desisting if you were to make it worth my while."

Bea drew her breath in sharply. "I beg your pardon?"

"Your hair is quite lovely this evening." He murmured his approval of the curly blonde locks currently falling about Bea's shoulders and partway down her back, instead of answering her question.

Nor did he make any attempt to conceal the fact he was currently using his superior height to look down the bodice of the red gown over which Bea wore a black corset in her role as serving wench.

A somewhat risqué costume for her, perhaps, but when Bea chose it, she had not known the Duke of Wolferton would be present to see her in it. Or that he would state it was his intention to see her without any of her clothing before the week was through.

Bea was still skeptical in regard to the duke's interest in her, when he had never shown that interest in her before.

"You have only to say the word," he murmured softly, "and I will be happy to repel all boarders."

Bea had no idea what he was talking about until she saw Dickie Havers, a determined glitter in his eyes, making his way across the room to where she and the duke stood talking together.

She had hoped the earl, having been removed from the adjoining bedchamber in favor of Wolferton, would accept her disinterest and cease his pursuit of her. Landbourne's single-minded determination to reach her side now would seem to indicate otherwise.

"Good grief..." Wolferton murmured so that only Bea could hear. "I do not think you can have properly considered the consequences of your guests wearing fancy dress for dinner this evening."

Bea held back her smile with effort. "Do not be cruel, Your Grace."

Landbourne did look somewhat ridiculous in tight, shiny black pantaloons that might possibly be leather, with only a waistcoat covering his chest and revealing that the earl had very pale skin and a paunch. His blond hair was sticking up in tufts, dirt had been smeared across his cheeks and forehead, and he carried an axe in a hand that was also smeared with dirt.

Bea was unsure as to what Landbourne's costume was supposed to represent. Possibly an American Indian or a Viking? Although the former would perhaps have carried a tomahawk and have a reddish hue to his skin rather than dirt smeared on his face and be carrying an axe.

"I will endeavor to be polite on the condition you call me Darius for the rest of the evening." Wolferton spoke very close to her ear.

Far too close, Bea acknowledged when a quiver of awareness traveled the length of her spine before settling as tingling heat between her thighs. "We have already discussed this," she answered him as softly. "Addressing you by your first name is far too familiar."

"Not if it is my intention for you to become very familiar with much more than my name, and sooner rather than later," he came back huskily.

Her cheeks felt very warm, and she knew there would be a blush to her cheeks. A most unbecoming occurrence in a widow of almost thirty. But she challenged any woman not to become flustered when a man such as Darius Strong seemed determined to flirt with her.

"How beautiful you look this evening, Lady Bea." Landbourne was out of breath once he reached her side, his hand very hot even through the material of her glove as he grasped one of her hands in his and raised it to his lips. "A vision of loveliness."

Bea really wished she had not invited this oafish man into her home. Having one gentleman in hot pursuit of her was unbearable enough, but having two seemed somewhat egging the pudding. If she had been a beauty, she could perhaps have understood their interest, but as she was not, she found it uncomfortable to be the focus of both these men's attention. It was obvious Landbourne's interest in her was based upon the fortune Charles had left her as his widow and only remaining relative. Wolferton stating his own interest in seducing her made far less sense.

Out of patience with both gentlemen, she could not help but breathe a sigh of relief when Kilby stood at the door of the salon and signaled dinner was waiting to be served.

Landbourne released her hand and turned to the duke. "Wolf—erton," he completed quickly as the duke looked at him coldly down the length of his aristocratic nose for daring to even think of using such a familiarity.

"Landbourne." Wolferton made no effort to hide his contempt for the other man.

The earl quickly turned back to Bea. "Are you ready for me to escort you into dinner—"

"I believe that, as I am the senior ranking male here, it is now my privilege to escort Bea into dinner." Wolferton stepped between the two of them to offer her his arm.

As the duke was perfectly correct in his claim, Bea was left with no choice but to place one of her black-lace-gloved hands on the duke's arm and allow him to be her escort out to the entrance hallway and into the dining room, knowing the rest of her guests would fall into line behind them. "I wish you would behave, Darius," she murmured under her breath.

Darius did not take kindly to being told what to do by anyone, but as Bea had just addressed him by his first name, he was willing to overlook it this time. "I much prefer to misbehave," he answered as softly.

"A fact I have noticed." She frowned. "My female guests seem somewhat wary of you this evening, leading me to wonder what you said or did to them this afternoon to cause such awe."

He raised arrogant brows. "Why should you assume I have done anything to them?"

She gave him a reproving glance. "I have heard it said, more than once, that the Duke of Wolferton is a law unto himself."

"Oh?" He eyed her coldly. "What else have you heard about me?"

"Nothing good," she came back pertly.

Darius found himself chuckling as he moved forward to draw back Bea's chair for her to sit down, before bending forward so that he spoke closely to her ear and the conversation could not be overheard. "I believe I am enjoying having you chide me in this way, Bea." Strangely enough, he was. It was certainly arousing his cock as he imagined all the ways in which he might cause that disapproval and have her chastise him again.

"No, not there." Bea stopped him as he would have taken the seat to her left, her gaze challenging. "As the senior ranking male here, you are, of course, seated opposite me at the other end of the table."

Hoist by his own petard, by God!

Nor was Darius fooled for a moment by the sweetly insincere smile which accompanied Bea's comment.

Nor, once he was seated at the other end of the table, was he inclined to make himself pleasant as he saw the distance, and the twenty or so guests, now separating him from Bea.

To add insult to injury, Landbourne was now smugly seated on Bea's left.

"I am afraid I must insist you tell me what further acts of rudeness you have practiced upon my female guests this evening?" Bea shook with indignation as she confronted Wolferton.

He and the other gentlemen had remained at the table after dinner to enjoy a glass or two of her best brandy. Bea had waited until the other gentlemen had passed by on their way to joining the ladies in the blue salon before speaking to the duke.

Those of the ladies who had not already excused themselves and gone to their bedchambers, that is.

"Why should you assume I have done any?" he drawled.

Bea did not trust Wolferton's too-innocent expression in the slightest. She should have known there would be repercussions for those few moments of triumph she had experienced earlier after consigning this man to the other end of the dining table. The silence at that end of the table, after the first flourish of breathless conversation by the ladies seated either side of Wolferton, had been very noticeable.

She eyed him accusingly. "Perhaps because four of the ladies have already excused themselves and gone to bed after claiming they have a headache."

"Perhaps it was something they ate?"

"Or perhaps it was something you said or did," she insisted stubbornly.

"Really, Bea, if this is the way in which you speak to your guests, I am not surprised the ladies have retired for the night. Nor, I might add, am I accustomed to being spoken to in this manner." He frowned his displeasure.

Bea was very aware she was being less than polite, but it was difficult to be any other way when she could see her week of hosting an enjoyable time with friends—Landbourne apart, she now accepted—disintegrating in front of her eyes. Besides, Darius Strong's conversation to her since his arrival had not exactly been polite either. "I apologize if I am accusing you unjustly, but how else can you explain the ladies' behavior when everything was going swimmingly until you arrived?"

Darius did not have the luxury of playing nicely with Bea Hanwell's guests. Time was of the essence, as Stonewell had pointed out so succinctly the previous week. They needed to find and identify the spy as quickly as possible and so avoid any further incidents in regard to Napoleon's second banishment.

Nor was he comfortable pursuing a woman in this obvious manner. Indeed, he was usually the one trying to avoid being the pursued. With Bea Hanwell, he had no choice but to forge ahead, by any means necessary, so that he might seduce her into sharing his bed as soon as possible, and hopefully take him into her confidence. Many secrets could be, and often were, divulged during postcoital euphoria.

Besides which, Darius had not been able to take his eyes off Bea during dinner, which accounted for the fact the women seated on either side of him, and vying with each other for his attention, had received a short, sharp set-down when they attempted to divert his interest to themselves.

He had very soon realized he had been even more wrong than he thought in regard to Bea not being a beauty. She did indeed possess beauty in abundance, but it was of a subtle kind, rather than the glaringly obvious charms of so many other women in Society. Most gentlemen might, and obviously had, failed to see it.

But the beauty was there in the mischievous tilting of her head.

The sparkle in her dark brown eyes.

The blush in her cheeks.

The rosy sensuality of those pouting lips.

As for her nonexistent breasts... This evening, they were pushed up and emphasized by the black corset she wore. Darius judged—and the engorging of his cock had agreed with him—they were not nonexistent at all, but would fit perfectly into the palms of his hands as he squeezed and pleasured them.

As he pleasured her.

Something Darius had every intention of doing, to some degree, before the night was over.
Chapter 3

What was Wolferton up to now? Bea fretted as she watched him surreptitiously from behind the fan she was using to cool herself in the warmth of the room.

The duke was currently standing on the other side of the drawing room in conversation with the portly Sir Edwin Greaves, the local squire and magistrate, rather than participating in the game of charades with the guests who had remained downstairs. The older gentleman was obviously somewhat in awe of the illustrious company in which he found himself as he listened to the duke intently.

After Wolferton's behavior this evening, Bea trusted his presence here even less than she had his arrival this afternoon. Nor did she believe he had followed her to Bedfordshire for the purpose of seduction. The whole idea of that was preposterous.

Which begged the question, what other reason could he have for being here?

His friendship with the Prince Regent was well known, so could he perhaps be here on some errand for the prince? An errand which involved becoming closer to her? Bea could think of only one reason for that, and the thought someone might have somehow discovered her secret caused a nauseating knot of tension in her stomach.

The duke's claim he was here because his friends were "busy doing other things" did not sit well with her either. Wolferton must have received dozens of invitations to attend parties this summer, and from members of Society of much higher social standing than her. Indeed, another one of the things she had heard about the duke was that he did not attend any summer parties, but preferred to spend his time on his own country estate in Warwickshire.

He— Oh dear God, the squire and his wife were now approaching her and about to make their excuses before leaving, the former having a somewhat hounded expression.

What was Wolferton saying or doing to her guests to make them desert her in this way?

Whatever it was, Bea did not intend to let this continue. She would very soon have no guests left at all if Wolferton continued to frighten them away in this manner.

"You have retired very early this evening." A slightly flustered Quinlan rushed into Darius's candlelit bedchamber shortly after midnight.

"I am not retired at all." Darius was fully dressed as he lay on top of the bedclothes, both arms raised and supporting the back of his head as he rested against the pillows, his booted feet crossed at the ankles.

His valet appeared puzzled by the reply. "Then what are you doing?"

"Waiting."

"Might I ask for what?"

Darius gave a pointed glance at the door that adjoined his bedchamber to Bea's.

Quinlan's brows rose. "Is that not rather a premature assumption to have made?"

"We shall have to wait and see, shall we not," Darius mused before sobering. "Have you had opportunity as yet to question any of the household staff further about Lady Hanwell?" Darius knew the quickest and easiest way to garner information about anyone in Society was through their servants. They always saw all, and would often tell all for a monetary exchange. Quinlan's complete trustworthiness in regard to Darius's private life was an exception and not the usual way of things.

His valet nodded. "Discreetly, of course."

"Of course."

The other man ignored his sarcasm. "Her maid, Jane, would not be drawn on her mistress other than to confirm the adjoining bedchamber as being hers. But another source assures me that Lady Hanwell is not a woman who becomes involved in affairs of the heart or of the body."

A mocking smile tilted Darius's lips. "Would this 'source' happen to be a young and pretty butler by the name of Kilby? I could not help but notice him as he served dinner," Darius supplied as his valet's cheeks began to redden. "I also observed he seemed rather...distracted as he did so. I instantly thought of you," he added dryly.

"You notice far too much," Quinlan snapped, but he did not deny the suggestion of his interest in the young butler.

Darius sighed dramatically. "It is a burden in life I have to bear."

"I have noticed how much you suffer," the other man said without any attempt to hide his sarcasm.

Darius gave a throaty chuckle as he moved to sit on the side of the bed. "Help me off with my boots, and then you may consider yourself dismissed for the rest of the night, and so free to pursue any more opinions your source might care to give."

Quinlan moved down onto his knees and began to pull off Darius's boots. "Jerem— Kilby," he corrected firmly, his head lowered as he concentrated on the difficult task of removing a boot specifically tailored to Darius. "The butler has nothing but praise for his employer. He was also quite specific as to Lady Hanwell's private life consisting only of charitable acts and calls upon the families in the village, as well as friends and acquaintances, when she is here."

"Those things might keep her occupied during the day, but what of her nights?"

"Always spent alone since her husband died."

"Good God, you cannot possibly be saying she has not had a single liaison with a gentleman in the past two years?" Darius did not care to go two weeks without some form of sexual release.

Besides, he had felt Bea's arousal earlier in the trembling of her hand on his arm as he had taken her in to dinner. Had seen it in her dilated pupils. Breathed in that heady combination of flowers and musk between her thighs.

"I believe that to be the case, yes." Quinlan rose to his feet once the second boot had been removed.

"I find that improbable," Darius dismissed.

"But not impossible if her marriage to Lord Hanwell was not a particularly happy one."

His eyes narrowed. "Are you saying it was not?"

"Apparently not."

"Then it would seem it is as well I am here to bring some relief to her mundane existence."

"I have long admired your lack of an ego, Your Grace."

"Bastard," Darius returned good-naturedly.

"And if you discover Lady Hanwell is not the lady you are looking for?"

"Then I still intend to give her, and consequently myself, the benefit of sexual relief."

"Is that not rather harsh?"

"It would seem you are becoming soft in your old age." Darius rose abruptly to his feet. "Or have you forgotten the seriousness of the allegations against the lady?"

"Of course I have not."

"Then perhaps this uncharacteristic concern for her has something to do with the fact the man currently taking your fancy is also the lady's butler?"

Quinlan winced. "Do you have to be such a calculating bastard all the time?"

He shrugged. "Why bother to change the habit of a lifetime?"

"Because this time, you just might be wrong in your assumption—" Quinlan broke off his protest as a knock sounded softly on the door between the two bedchambers, followed by the turning of the key in the lock on the other side of that door. "I withdraw my earlier comments, as it would seem you are once again proven correct."

Darius gave a humorless grin at the acknowledgment. He was not as pleased as he should have been by this confirmation.

Having been surprised by his own sexual interest in Bea, he would have preferred she not be Napoleon's spy. Not because Darius had any interest in pursuing anything longer than a weeklong affair with her or any woman—God forbid he ever should!—but because he would have enjoyed their sexual encounters more if he did not have to choose his every action and word with care so as not to alert her too soon to his real reason for being there.

"I usually am," he answered Quinlan evenly.

The other man snorted his opinion of that. "Nevertheless, I cannot express strongly enough that the lady's household staff are devoted and very protective of her." He collected up the boots ready for taking them away to be polished. "Or that they can as easily take note of and discuss your own behavior. Especially if you are...spending time with their mistress."

"Then it is as well you intend to keep Jeremy occupied for the rest of the night, is it not?"

"Bastard," Quinlan repeated under his breath as he left the bedchamber.

Darius's attempt at humor departed with the other man. He had no doubt Bea had come to rebuke him for the disarray in which her dinner guests had departed this evening, either to return to their local homes or their bedchambers here in the house, as all became visibly discomforted by his chilling and brooding presence in their midst. Only Landbourne had stuck it out for the duration, and even he had eventually slunk off to his bed—wherever that might now be—shortly before midnight.

Darius had fully expected to receive this reprimand from Bea at some time, but the fact she was doing it now, and through the access of the door adjoining their two bedchambers, seemed to him to have been a little too easily achieved.

Was it possible she was the one guilty of treason, and consequently knew of his real reason for being here and had decided to play him at his own game?

When Bea finally retired to her bedchamber, she did so not knowing whether she wanted to sit down and cry or throw back her head and laugh.

To cry at the dismal failure of an evening she had hoped would be one of laughter and fun.

Or laugh at the manner in which all her guests had scuttled away like frightened rabbits in response to the cold and silent presence of the autocratic Duke of Wolferton.

That he had frightened them off on purpose, she had no doubt. It was the fact they had allowed him to do so that she found so incredulous and...yes, amusing.

Even so, he might be a duke, but he still deserved a set-down for behaving so badly. At the same time, Bea could not help but admire his accomplishment in having cleared her salon of all guests in a matter of two hours. And, as far as she could tell, by doing nothing more than staring at them all with cold disdain.

At least she had her answer now as to how he must have behaved at afternoon tea, and why his end of the dining table had quickly lapsed into tense silence.

His end of the dining table?

Bea's anger returned. It was all her table, damn it, and one of the benefits of widowhood was that she could choose who could and would sit at it.

She dismissed Jane, her maid, for the night, and Bea's second knock on the adjoining door was louder and firmer. The first had remained unanswered, despite the fact she had heard two male voices in conversation in that bedchamber only seconds ago.

She gave a gasp as the door was flung open almost the moment she had removed her knuckles. "You startled me!" she accused with a frown.

Wolferton raised his brows. "When you knock on a door, it is usual to expect it will be opened."

Yes, it was, and Bea had been determined the duke would do so. But she now found herself completely disconcerted as she took in his appearance. His hair was even more disheveled than it had been earlier, as if he had been running his fingers through it. He had unfastened yet more buttons on his black shirt, revealing inches more of that bared and muscular chest covered in that dusting of dark hair. He had also removed his boots.

Bea acknowledged there was something strangely...intimate about conversing with a man who was in his stocking feet.

She bristled with indignation. "I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave Hanwell Manor."

He raised mocking brows. "Now?"

A blush warmed her cheeks. "In the morning will do."

"Why?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You know very well why. Your behavior this evening was...well, I am sorry to say it was rude and unsociable."

"Wishing all the other guests gone so that I might be alone with you is unsociable?"

Bea could only stare at him in consternation as her next reproof died unspoken on her lips. Was it possible... Had he truly...

No, she would not allow herself to be seduced by his man's overt flattery.

The Duke of Wolferton, as all of Society knew, was not known for his flattery, overt or otherwise.

Bloody-minded arrogance, yes. Cold disdain and haughtiness, also yes. But flattery? No, Bea was sure he had never been accused of that particular nicety. His coldness this evening toward everyone but her would explain the reason why he had not.

She sighed deeply. "You are ruining my summer party with your cold and standoffish behavior."

He tilted his head. "And it was my intention to rescue you from a week of boredom."

"You—"

"Come in, and we will discuss the matter further. Or I will come into your bedchamber," he added dryly as Bea stepped back in alarm, "if that is your preference?"

Of course it was not preferable to her. Indeed, now that Bea considered her actions, she realized she should not have dismissed her maid or knocked upon and unlocked this adjoining door between the two bedchambers. She would never have considered doing such a thing if Landbourne still occupied this room.

Did that mean she was attracted to Wolferton?

Well, of course she was attracted to him. She might never intend remarrying, but she was still a woman, and the duke was a legendary lover, his prowess in the bedchamber having been discussed by the ladies behind many a fluttering fan. Bea defied any woman to resist feeling flattered by having such blatant interest shown toward her by Darius Strong.

Bea was usually sensible enough to realize how ridiculous such an attraction was, on either side.

Unfortunately, when she was with Wolferton, she was aware she did not feel in the least sensible.

Perhaps having her hair loose about her shoulders and wearing the daring red gown and black corset were having a strange effect upon her? She had never allowed her head to be turned by a handsome face before this. Had certainly never seen the point of allowing herself to be attracted to a man like Wolferton, when she knew that interest would never be returned.

Bea now considered the duke between narrowed lids. "I insist you tell me why you are behaving in this way."

"Being rude to your guests?"

"No," she snapped.

"Then I can only assume you must be referring to my inviting you to join me in my bedchamber." He shrugged. "I thought I had made my intentions clear earlier."

"You've made several outrageous statements since your arrival, yes," Bea reproved. "Obviously, you do not know me very well if you think I can be seduced with insincere flattery."

"I am never insincere, nor do I flatter. And I do not know you at all," Wolferton murmured softly, those gray eyes no longer cold as his gaze swept over her in slow appreciation. "But it is certainly my intention to do so. Every single inch of you," he added so there could be no misunderstanding as to his meaning.

That fluttery sensation had started up in Bea's chest again. And her breasts, pushed upward and unconfined beneath the bodice of the red gown, were actually aching. The nipples had firmed and were sensitive, and the split gusset of her drawers was drenched with the same lubrication as earlier, simply from talking to this man.

She felt hot down there too, and uncomfortably swollen. To complete her confusion, she was also aware of a heady aroma, not unlike flowers and yet spicier. A perfume she was very much afraid was coming from that dampness between her thighs.

Darius could see the pained confusion in Bea's expression. Her eyes were huge in her heart-shaped face, her cheeks flushed, and her lips a deep rose color, the top one swollen as if it was bee stung. Her engorged nipples were clearly visible pressing against the soft material of her gown. The perfume of her arousal was even more intoxicating than the two glasses of brandy he had drunk after dinner.

Her bewilderment in regard to the responses of her own body, and Quinlan's earlier comments, would seem to indicate she had no idea what they meant, leading Darius to assume Hanwell must have been one of those husbands who had no regard for his wife's pleasure, only his own. Many men in Society held with the same practice, which was why so many of their wives chose to look elsewhere for their pleasure. Bea had obviously not been one of those wives, or as a widow, apparently, and now had no idea of her own arousal or her need for physical release to alleviate that discomfort.

This naiveté could all be a ruse, of course, a veneer in keeping with her life as a respectable widow and also a way of hiding her role as a spy for Napoleon.

Only time would tell whether or not that was the case.

"Come in here." Darius's hand was gentle as he took hold of Bea's arm and pulled her into his bedchamber before closing the door behind her. "No, do not speak." He placed his fingertips against her lips, immediately aware of how soft they were, increasing his need to taste them. He held her dark gaze with his as he cradled each side of her face before lowering his head to claim her lips with his own.

Bea's slightly parted lips were deliciously soft and welcoming as Darius sipped and tasted them, leading him to question whether those lips between her thighs would be equally as soft and welcoming to his attentions.

Darius intended to take his fill of these lips before venturing lower.

Bea had ceased breathing the moment Darius's lips touched her own. Charles had not liked to kiss. In fact, he had considered it unsanitary, preferring to kiss her on the cheek, if at all. Consequently, despite having been a wife and now a widow, this was the first time Bea had truly been kissed.

It was totally exhilarating and caused her heart to pound and the blood to race through her veins, making her feel slightly light-headed and giddy with pleasure.

She moved her hands up to grasp Darius's wrists, instantly able to feel the strength he was holding in check as his lips moved to her cheek and then explored her earlobe and the length of her throat.

Bea was filled with a physical longing to touch the glimpses of bared chest she had seen earlier. To know if the silky dark hair growing there was really as soft as it appeared. To feel if Darius's arms and chest were as hard and muscular as they seemed.

For the first time in her life, Bea knew a burning curiosity to discover exactly how a man's body looked and felt.

Why shouldn't she, as a widow, give in to that temptation?

No one need ever know. She had entered through the adjoining door, and there was no one here but Darius and herself. She very much doubted he was a man who ever felt the need to boast of his conquests, and she certainly had no intention of ever telling anyone what transpired between the two of them. It was not as if she was a virgin or need worry about her future marriage prospects. Landbourne might hint all he chose, but she had no intention of ever remarrying and giving up the freedom of will that had been given to her by widowhood.

Which meant she was perfectly at liberty to take a lover.

To take Wolferton as her lover, if she so wished.

Dare she do that?

Could she allow herself this one opportunity to explore and learn all the dips and hollows that made up a man's body? That made up Darius Strong's lean and muscular body? To allow him to explore and learn her own body in the same—

That thought brought her quickly to her senses, and she turned her head away to evade Wolferton's second kiss. What was she thinking? Wolferton could not be allowed to explore her body, because if he did—

Oh dear God...

She had been so totally lost to the pleasure of Wolferton's lips, she had not realized one of his hands was now beneath the skirt of her gown. But she was totally aware now as his fingers breached the slit in her drawers and commenced stroking along the swollen lips at the entrance of her channel, gathering up her lubrication on his fingers before moving higher.

She let out a keening cry, clinging to the support of Darius's muscular shoulders as those fingers stroked the swollen flesh nestled among her curls, sending hot waves of unfamiliar and glorious pleasure coursing through her body. Only seconds and several strokes later, she was consumed in a burst of ecstasy so intense, her knees actually buckled beneath her.

Darius was astounded by the speed of Bea's arousal and release, and the response that followed. He had not expected to have to catch her as she almost fainted away with pleasure.

But he could not doubt her climax was genuine. He had felt the pulsing of her clit against his fingers and the gush of her release.

He bent slightly to place an arm beneath her knees and about her shoulders before lifting Bea in his arms, carrying her over to place her on top of the bedclothes before lying down beside her. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed, those delicious lips slightly moist and parted, and her breasts quickly rising and falling.

He could not resist pushing down the bodice of her gown to bare her breasts to the stroke of his hand. As he had surmised, they fit perfectly in his palms, the nipples engorged and the same tempting rose color as her lips. "More?" He breathed hotly against one of those pouting nipples.

"More." Her eyes remained closed, lashes long and thick against her flushed cheeks, her hands tightly gripping the bedcover beneath her. Her back arched off the bed the moment Darius took one of her nipples into the heat of his mouth. "Do not stop," she pleaded, her hands lifting and her fingers becoming entangled in his hair, holding Darius close against her as he suckled and then laved her nipple with the moist rasp of his tongue.

Her thighs felt silky soft beneath his hand as he caressed his way back to the slit in her drawers. His intention was to give Bea as many orgasms as she could take until she begged him to stop. When or if she begged him to stop, which he hoped would not be for some time yet.

His hand entered that slit in her drawers as he turned the attention of his mouth to her other nipple. He was ready when she arched off the bed this time, his hand moving to cup and squeeze the cheek of her bottom, causing her to squirm and writhe against him as he allowed his fingers to explore the crease between her cheeks already dampened by the juices dripping from her pussy.

"What—"

Darius's mouth claimed hers, her surprised reaction telling him he needed to save that particular intimacy until she knew him better. Was more familiar with him and the ways he wished to make love to her.

His fingers stroked along the heat and wetness on her vulva, spreading that moisture over and around those swollen lips and up to her clit. He groaned his own pleasure as that knot of nerves engorged and pulsed in response to the stroke and press of his thumb. He pushed a finger slowly inside the heat of her pussy to the first knuckle, anticipating the pulsing heat of her clit precipitating her second orgasm. He stroked and swirled that pulsing nubbin, able to prolong her release when he curled his finger upward to touch the corresponding knot of nerves inside her.

Darius could see Bea was boneless with that euphoria as he moved down the bed to kneel between her parted legs and throw up the skirt of her gown so that he might remove her drawers completely.

"Darius...?"

He glanced up to see her lids were now open and her eyes were wide with apprehension. "You will let me, Bea," he instructed softly.

Her gaze moved down to where the bulge of his aroused cock was clearly pressing against his pantaloons. She moistened her lips. "We cannot—"

"We will not make love fully tonight, if that is your wish," he assured her. "Tonight, we will concentrate on your pleasure." His eyes felt fevered as he looked down at her pussy.

The blonde curls did not hide the fact the lips were swollen and suffused with rosy color, the glossy folds glistening and so very wet. Darius's mouth filled with moisture at the mere thought of tasting those hot and spicy juices. The hood above was pushed back completely, revealing her swollen and engorged clit.

"What are you doing?"

He lifted his head to look up at her from between her thighs, groaning his disappointment as he realized the delay in his mouth taking possession of those silky folds had given more time for Bea's euphoria to fade and she was now completely back to her senses.

The paling of her cheeks and the hurried pushing down of the skirt of her gown to cover her nakedness also told him this encounter was over.
Chapter 4

Bea was fully dressed, with her hair neatly confined at her crown, and seated in the chair by her bedroom window shortly after seven o'clock the following morning.

Ten o'clock found her still sitting there, reluctant to leave her bedchamber. She had not joined her guests for breakfast, but instead, Jane had brought tea and toast to her here two hours ago. But as the hostess, Bea knew she must make an appearance downstairs, and soon, if only so that she joined her guests in time to attend church with those that wished to go.

Church.

God knows it had been difficult enough for her to attend church after Charles died, but she had eventually made her peace with that establishment. But how could she possibly sit in church today and pretend she was still the same respectable widow, occupying herself with charitable deeds, she had been before Darius's arrival yesterday?

It was as alarming as the thought of facing Darius again after the intimacies she had allowed.

Would he be one of the guests who went to church? Somehow, Bea doubted it. There was a lawlessness to the duke that could not be contained even by the clergy's threats of damnation for the sinners.

Perhaps that really was the meaning behind the name The Sinners for him and his friends after all.

Bea was totally bewildered by her own behavior the previous night, and her responses to the liberties Darius had taken with her. Liberties she knew she had encouraged him to take.

She had not known... Had not guessed... Charles might have been her husband for five years, but he had never attempted to touch her with the same intimacy as Darius had. Perhaps if he had, their marriage would not have deteriorated to the barely polite tolerance she had suffered for the latter part of that marriage, and those often painful couplings he insisted on every week in his effort to produce an heir.

Last night's pleasure had been so unexpected and truly wonderful.

Bea glanced across at the door adjoining her room to Darius's. The same door she had unlocked and opened, and willingly gone through the night before. Had she ever really meant to chastise Darius, or had it been her intention all along to satisfy the burning curiosity inside her to know if he could give her the pleasure he had said he could?

If that was so, then last night had only whetted her appetite for more.

Her nipples had still been hard and aching when she woke this morning, and between her thighs swollen and damp with her own juices. Even now, if she pressed her legs tightly together, she could still feel the pulse of pleasure of that newly awakened nubbin between her thighs.

Bea longed to feel that pleasure again.

And again.

She wanted... Oh God, she wanted what Darius had promised. More.

She longed to feel Darius's lips and tongue on her breasts again as his fingers stroked the wet folds and that hard nubbin between her thighs, taking her to a plateau of pleasure she had not known existed. More than that, Bea wanted to feel his lips on those swollen lips between her thighs, as he had made it plain was his intention before she came back to a sense of what she was doing.

Once aware, she had hastily straightened her clothes before all but running from his bedchamber and into her own. Locking the door behind her and suffering the hours of sleeplessness which followed could not erase the memory of what they had done together.

Did other women experience the same pleasure in surrendering to a man's passionate demands?

Bea knew several of her close friends had happy marriages. Perhaps because they shared those same, and possibly even deeper intimacies, with their husbands... Bea recalled how shocked she had been when Darius touched her bottom. Did her friends allow such intimacies? Bea had a feeling that was indeed the case.

That knowledge rendered her own marriage even more soulless and without affection than she had already thought it to be.

Not that she believed for a moment Darius felt anything more for her than a desire to possess and claim. Until he tired of both those things, which, taking into account her complete lack of sexual skills, would not take very long.

But oh, how glorious would that time in between be!

Except Bea knew she did not deserve to know such happiness. It would also be difficult for her to continue with her mundane life after enjoying such excitement and pleasure. Although it might not seem like much of a life to other people—to Darius—to Bea, it was one that had been forged through great unhappiness and sacrifice on her part.

No, she could not allow last night ever to happen again. Nor allow the memory to tear her apart with longing.

There was no other choice for it. Darius must be made to leave.

"Is that stubble burn I see on your chin?" Darius eyed Quinlan with mocking humor as he sat up against the pillows in his bed so the other man could place the breakfast tray across his thighs.

Quinlan raised his eyes heavenward as he straightened. "I am sure you believe yourself to be humorous, Your Grace, but I only met the man yesterday."

"That has never stopped you before."

The other man avoided his gaze. "It would seem that prudishness runs throughout the whole household."

Darius chuckled. "He turned you down, by God!"

The valet's expression turned sour. "Might I ask if you fared any better?"

"You might ask." Darius took a bite from a piece of toast before continuing. "But a gentleman does not kiss and tell."

"Hah," Quinlan pounced triumphantly. "Which means, despite the lady having knocked on the door of your bedchamber as I was leaving, you were no more successful in that endeavor than I."

Darius was not sure he knew whether last night had been successful or not. For a time, Bea had seemed to be completely at the mercy of her own desires, and then reality had struck, and she had fled like a damned virgin.

Before he'd had a chance to taste her.

Licking her juices from his fingers after her departure did not count. He wanted his mouth on her, his tongue inside her, lapping up all those delicious juices as she pulsed and trembled toward her release. He had hoped to persuade her into returning that pleasure to him afterward.

Instead, Bea had fled, and he had been left alone with only his right hand for company.

Having glanced at his pocket watch lying on the bedside table, he now gave Quinlan a frown. "Would you care to tell me what the deuce you are doing waking me at this ungodly hour?"

The other man crossed the room to throw back the curtains from the windows and let in the sunlight. "Ungodly is precisely what it is not, when you are expected to join the other guests at church this morning."

"Absolutely not."

"But—"

"Not, Quinlan," Darius repeated firmly.

"Not even if it is for your king and country?"

"It is for their sake that I am not going. While everyone is away at church is the perfect time for me to search Lady Hanwell's bedchamber for any proof she is the spy," he explained at Quinlan's questioning glance.

"Do you think she is?"

"I will only know that when I have the proof." Or not. A part of Darius was starting to hope that would be the case.

Bea was much more than she appeared on the surface, one part prude, the other part siren. Despite her having fled last night, Darius sensed her interest, to know more physical intimacies, had been piqued. He could not help but wonder how far she would be willing to go in exploring those possibilities.

Which was enough to cause his cock to now engorge and pulse in expression of its own interest in discovering the answer to that question.

Quinlan nodded. "In that case, I will play my part and go and keep the household staff busy organizing hot water for your bath and shave."

Darius placed the tray farther down the bed once Quinlan had left the room, throwing back the bedclothes before standing. He always slept naked, and the evidence of his arousal, all nine inches of it, bobbed before him as he crossed over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows facing out to the front of the house.

He looked outside at exactly the moment Bea, seated with several of her other guests in an open carriage parked in the driveway, glanced up at his window.

Her eyes widened as she obviously saw him standing there—how could she not—in all his naked glory.

The decent thing for Darius to do was obviously to step back from the window until the carriage had departed. But after the frustration he had suffered last night, he was not feeling in the least decent, inside or out.

Instead, he held Bea's stricken gaze with his own as he stepped forward rather than back, running his hand slowly down his chest before curling his fingers about his cock. He noted the fevered glitter that entered her eyes as he rolled the skin back to fully expose the mushroomed and glistening head and began to slowly pump himself down and then up, fingers lightly stroking that sensitive head before pumping downward again.

Bea had gone very still except for the quick rise and fall of her breasts, her gaze caught and held like a startled deer staring down the sight of a gun as she watched and could not look away from Darius pleasuring himself.

Having Bea's gaze on him as he masturbated was a pleasure, made even more so by the fact there were three other ladies in the carriage with her who had absolutely no idea the two of them were sharing this moment of intimacy. Darius was so aroused by it, he only needed to pump himself three, four more times, before he felt the familiar tingle at the base of his spine and the tightening of his balls, as warning he was about to release.

Again, he should have stepped back, but some devil inside him—perhaps the one which had seen Bea once again looking the prim and oh so proper Lady Hanwell in a blue silk bonnet and matching gown—urged him to grip his cock tighter and pump harder, until he groaned his pleasure. He used his other hand to grasp onto the window frame as his cum pulsed hotly from the slitted top of his cock and splattered on the window.

"Are you in pain, Bea?"

The concern of her friend Margo was the first indication Bea had that she must have gasped out loud as Darius's release pulsed repeatedly against the inside of the bedchamber window above them.

It was—

She could not—

Bea had never seen anything so erotically stimulating in her life before. Not least the almost pained expression of ecstasy on Darius's face as that release pumped from his body.

Bea felt weak with the desire watching him had aroused within her. Her breasts had plumped and her nipples tingled, and between her thighs was burning hot and wet. All from the hunger of that need.

She dared not look up at the window again in case any of the other ladies should do so too and see Darius standing there gloriously naked with his spent cock still in hand. "I have a headache," she answered Margo, knowing it was the truth. The headache's name was Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton. "But a drive in the fresh air followed by the church service will no doubt do me good. Drive on," she instructed her driver briskly.

She had fully intended talking to Darius as soon as she returned from church, telling him he must leave, and that last night had been a mistake which could not be repeated.

But after watching him at the window, deliberately pleasuring himself as she watched, she knew she no longer had the will or desire to ask him to go.

"Did you enjoy watching me this morning?"

Bea looked up at Darius from where she knelt to straighten the last of the blankets placed on the ground in readiness for her guests' picnic luncheon.

She had been busy since the moment she stepped back into the house after returning from church. Had organized two of the footmen to go out into the grounds to leave the clues for the treasure hunt later this afternoon. Then spent some time in the kitchen talking with Cook regarding the picnic they were all to enjoy first. After which she and Kilby had come out into the garden to choose where the best place would be for them to eat that picnic luncheon.

During none of that time had Bea set eyes on Darius.

She was not sure if it was deliberate on his part, and that perhaps he felt uncomfortable in regard to what had occurred this morning. Although she could not see that as being the case. As well as being arrogance personified, she had no doubt Darius's behavior this morning had been deliberate, confirming he was completely without shame.

His words now confirmed his lack of regret for his actions.

Bea sat back on her heels, looking about them to make sure there was no one nearby before answering him boldly. "I enjoyed it very much. Did you?"

His mouth tilted mockingly. "Very much." Once again hatless, his dark hair gleamed in the sunlight. He was wearing a black shirt and neck cloth beneath a pale gray waistcoat and blue superfine today, his pantaloons also a pale gray, black Hessians highly polished.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Were you not afraid someone would see you?"

"Someone did see me," he drawled. "You saw me, Bea. Which is why my cum ended up all over the window."

That damp heat was back between Bea's thighs, and the bodice of her gown once again uncomfortably tight. She had not realized until she met Darius that her breasts actually swelled when she was aroused.

She had not realized a lot of things until this man pushed his way into her life yesterday. "Did the risk of being seen make it more exciting?"

"What do you think?"

She considered for a moment. "I would imagine so, yes."

"Would you like to experience that for yourself?"

"How?" Bea heard the breathiness of her voice.

Darius dropped down onto the blanket beside her, the hardness of his thigh resting against hers. "Place me next to you at dinner this evening. And while your other guests chatter and laugh together, my hand will be beneath your gown and inside your drawers. I will then play with your pussy until you come. Afterward, you can tell me whether or not you found it more exciting than when we were alone last night."

A gush of liquid instantly dampened her drawers merely at the thought of such wickedness. "Surely someone would see."

Darius smiled as he heard the lack of conviction in Bea's protest. "The table and the folds of your gown will hide where I have my hand."

"I might make a noise."

"Oh, you will almost certainly make a noise." He nodded in satisfaction. "I will simply tell everyone that you were startled by a spider."

The slenderness of her throat moved as she swallowed. "We cannot."

"I can," Darius assured her. Unlike Bea, he did not give a damn what any of her other guests thought of him. "Can you, is the question? Dare you?" he added challengingly, feeling a twinge of guilt as he saw her chin lift and her eyes take on a determined expression.

He had spent over an hour this morning carefully searching Bea's bedchamber to ensure neither she nor her maid realized it had been searched at all. Her bureau held letters from friends and several cousins, but otherwise, there was no personal correspondence, only bills waiting to be paid, and not too many of them. He had found no secret drawers or cupboards, nothing beneath the bed except a chest in which she had stored books and toys, obviously from her childhood. Her dressing room was just as neat and tidy, with no damning evidence in sight.

None of which made her innocent, only careful.

No, unfortunately, nothing Darius had learned thus far had convinced him of Bea's innocence.

Unfortunately?

Yes, because when—or if—Bea's innocence was proven, Darius had every intention of indulging in an affair with her in earnest.

He had not felt this aroused by a woman, and so often, for a long time. If at all. None of the available Society ladies were of interest to him, and paying for a lady of the demimonde was also less than satisfying.

Bea looked and acted like a lady, but Darius was quickly learning she had the soul of a siren. And he meant her no insult in that. Darius sensed there was much untapped sexual frustration within Bea, and that, once her barriers were broken down, she would eagerly try anything he might care to show or ask of her.

He was hard again merely thinking of all the deliciously wicked things he wished to do to her. To have her do to him. "Why did you run away last night?"

Bea gave Darius a startled glance and then quickly looked away again as she found herself the focus of those intense gray eyes. "I did not run away—"

"Do not lie to me," he cut in coldly. "You knew I was about to lick and taste your pussy, and you ran. Why?"

When he spoke to her in that commanding voice, Bea had no will to deny him anything. "You... It was too intense."

"Lovemaking it supposed to be intense."

Was it? That had not been Bea's experience to date. She was more used to a painful invasion followed by a few perfunctory thrusts before Charles squirted his fluid inside her. Once he had withdrawn, he would refuse to allow her to wash but instead instructed her to keep her legs tightly closed and his release inside her for the rest of the night, in the hope she would conceive his child. She never had.

"I hope it is not your intention to run away from me again," Darius stated.

"It was my intention to ask you to leave today."

"And?"

Bea closed her eyes briefly before looking at him again. "I will not run from you again. But..."

"Yes?"

"I have a condition if we are to continue with this...adventure." She gripped her lace gloved hands tightly together in her lap to stop them from trembling at the enormity of what she was doing.

"Yes?"

"No matter what happens between us, you will not ask me any questions."

His eyes narrowed. "What sort of questions?"

"Any and all."

He scowled darkly. "Why in hell not?"

"I will not answer that—"

"I have not agreed to your condition yet."

She frowned. "You are very forceful."

"You have no idea," he said without humor.

Oh, Bea had every idea, but for the moment, her curiosity had gotten the better of all her good intentions from earlier this morning.

Because she ached. She wanted.

Most of all, she wished to be in the room with Darius when he next stroked and pumped his cock. To actually hear his groans of pleasure when he came. To then know what his release tasted like. And afterward, what it felt like to have his mouth on the intimate parts of her body.

She had lain awake for hours the previous night after leaving Darius's bedchamber, her body aching and hot. But there had been no relief for that ache. No end to her longing. And no matter what she had decided in regard to asking him to leave, Darius had broken down every last barrier she had when he stood in front of the window this morning, his pale gaze fixed on her as he pleasured himself to release.

Her chin rose. "That is my condition. You may take it or leave it."

Darius studied her through narrowed lids. The whole point of his making love to Bea was so that he could ask her questions in those unguarded moments that followed. For him to agree not to ask her those questions would defeat the whole venture.

Except...

He no longer wished to make love to Bea only so that he could ask her questions while her guard was down. His motive now was far more selfish. He wanted Bea spread-eagled on his bed, her wrists and ankles secured to the bedposts by four of his silk neck cloths, after which he wished to pleasure her and give her climax after climax for hours without end.

"What are you doing?" Bea stared at him as he moved so that he was kneeling in front of her before unfastening the buttons to the fold of his pantaloons.

"Instead of shaking hands to confirm our arrangement, you are going to suck and pleasure my cock. It has been throbbing all morning and is in need of relief." He released the hard length from its confines. "But before you take my cock in your mouth, you will unfasten the front of your gown so I might play with your tits while you make me come."

Bea's eyes were opened wide at the shocking intimacy of what Darius was suggesting—instructing—but also at the crudity of his language. Even if she did find the latter wickedly arousing... "I could not possibly—"

"You will do it because I asked it of you. It is what lovers do for each other," he added firmly.

Lovers? "But—"

"If you do not do it yourself, then I shall unfasten your gown and expose you, and I cannot guarantee your gown will escape damage in the process." He shrugged. "One way or another, I intend to play with your tits while your mouth is pleasuring my cock."

Bea avoided his gaze while she unfastened the buttons at the front of her gown with trembling fingers.

"You will need to pull down your chemise too."

Bea knew there was absolutely no point in arguing with this man when he was in this forceful mood. Nor did she really want to. She was far too intrigued by the things Darius was describing. His cock in her mouth. His hands pleasuring her breasts. All while in the garden where anyone might see them.

"Better." He nodded his satisfaction once her breasts were completely bared. "Now suck." His hand was about his swollen cock as he offered it to her.

Despite her protests and the fumbling to unfasten her gown, Bea had not lost all sense of decorum. "Should we not move somewhere less...public?"

"My back is to the house, so no one can see what you are doing in front of me."

"The servants will shortly be bringing out the picnic."

"Then you had better be quick about it and take care of the matter before they do," he reasoned. "Stop protesting and do it, Bea," he added harshly.

She stared at the turgid length in front of her, thick veins throbbing along its length, the mushroom head a glistening red as the juices escaped the slit at the top. She had never— She did not know how—

"It was not a request but an instruction, and you did not forbid instructions," Darius bit out between gritted teeth as he lightly pumped the length of his cock. "Suck it, and you will see for yourself how exciting the forbidden can be."

He watched as she moistened her lips, her gaze fixated on him pleasuring himself as she placed her hands on his thighs and slowly lowered her head. That little pink tongue made another appearance as she licked up the bead of pre-cum that had bubbled to the surface of his cock.

Darius gave a groan as that rasping heat laved over and around the sensitive tip before she lapped up the second bead of pre-cum that had appeared in response to that caress. "Take me in your mouth, Bea, please," he encouraged gruffly. "Deeper," he encouraged as the heat of her mouth opened to engulf the whole of the bulbous top. "To the back of your throat. Yes, just like that." Darius's neck arched as the pleasure of her hot mouth shot straight to his balls. "Suck so that your cheeks hollow out. Yes, just like that." The walls of her mouth encased and drew on him as he thrust to the back of her throat and then slowly withdrew, before thrusting in again.

Bea had never done anything so scandalous in her life before.

Had never wanted to.

Sucking Darius was delicious.

He tasted delicious, sweet and salty at the same time. He smelled delicious too, that heady musk stronger with her nose pressed against the hard muscles of his lower abdomen.

His groans of pleasure spurred her on to give him yet more of it, and she pushed his hands aside to replace them with her own, stroking and pumping the inches of his cock she could not get inside her mouth. For all that Darius had instructed her to do this, Bea knew it was she who now held the power whether to give him pleasure or not. The feeling was exhilarating.

It was also extremely arousing to watch as Darius's hands first cupped and squeeze her bared breasts before he rolled the red and engorged nipples between finger and thumb. Pleasure pulsed through Bea, and she could feel how wet her drawers were becoming with the gush of juices between her thighs. The swollen nubbin pulsed with the need to be stroked as it had been last night.

Was it possible to attain the same explosive release of last night merely from sucking Darius's cock and having her nipples pulled and squeezed, all while daring the risk of being caught by one of her servants or guests?

As the pressure increased between Bea's thighs, the nubbin pulsing with the same wild rhythm as her heart, she knew herself to be on the very edge of a climax even more earth-shattering than the previous night.

She was determined not be alone in that release, intended for Darius to join her.

Bea increased her efforts, drawing Darius's cock deeper, sucking harder, instinctively knowing by the growing hardness of his shaft that Darius was nearing the same release she was.

"Do you want me to withdraw, or can you take it?"

If it was anything like she had witnessed this morning, then Bea wanted to be the recipient of all that thick and delicious release Darius had pumped over the window of his bedchamber.

Her answer was to lift higher onto her knees, taking him deeper, her fingers stroking him harder, faster. Darius threaded his fingers into her hair to hold her head in place as he gave several deep thrusts to the back of her throat.

He groaned. "I am coming now."

The words had barely left his lips before Bea tasted the first hot spurt of his release, quickly followed by a flood of that delicious nectar pumping down her throat. That, and Darius's almost painful squeezing of her nipples, triggered her own shuddering climax.

Bea had no idea how long the euphoria lasted, nor did she care. This, the wild pleasure, was too delicious for her to want it to ever end.

"You came too," Darius stated gruffly.

Bea lifted her head and reluctantly relinquished his only marginally softened cock. "I did," she confirmed almost shyly. "You were perfectly correct. It is very exciting to risk discovery and exposure."

So much so, Bea found herself very much looking forward to dinner this evening, at which time Darius had said he intended to touch and caress between her thighs and bring about her climax, all while her other guests ate their dinner in complete ignorance.
Chapter 5

"There is something..." Quinlan gave a shake of his head as he helped Darius on with his black dinner jacket. "I cannot quite put my finger on it, but there is something odd about the residents of Hanwell House."

"Odd?" Darius echoed sharply. "Stop your fussing"—he slapped the valet's hands away from flicking imaginary lint off the front of the jacket—"and explain yourself, man."

"I have just said I cannot explain it," Quinlan reasoned. "All I know is that the household staff are excessively protective of their mistress."

"Explain your use of the word excessive."

"It is almost as if there is...a conspiracy of silence regarding Lady Hanwell's private life. And yet I have also heard, repeatedly, from the lowliest maid to the butler, what a wonderful mistress she is."

"Perhaps that is because she is?" This was the last conversation Darius wanted to have when he had been anticipating touching Bea again since their encounter in the garden several hours ago. He had come twice today already, but he could feel the thrum of his third hovering beneath his outward appearance of calm respectability.

Insisting on having Bea's mouth on him earlier had been deliciously sinful. As he had suspected, there was a fire beneath Bea's outer primness. A fire which had caused her to climax by the stimulation of her nipples alone, something he had never known with any other woman but her.

A discovered fire Darius had no intention of allowing bloody Dickie Havers to bask in.

The other man had other ideas, apparently, Landbourne not having left Bea's side for the whole of the picnic. Something which Bea had allowed, and Darius needed to punish her for.

He felt a totally different curl of anticipation inside him, thinking what form that punishment might take.

Quinlan continued to frown. "All the servants have been here for at least five years, so perhaps you are correct."

"But you do not think so?"

"Being a mere servant myself—" The valet raised his brows as Darius gave a derisive snort. "Speaking from my own experience," he continued firmly. "There is always one servant in every household with something to complain about."

"Including my own?"

"Of course."

"Who— Never mind." Darius gave an impatient shake of his head. As long as it was not Quinlan, any of the other of his servants could easily be replaced. "There is no servant like that here?"

"No."

"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea." The valet frowned his frustration with the enigma.

"Could they all be in on Lady Hanwell's treasonous behavior?" It would not be the first time a whole nest of Napoleon sympathizers had been found living in the same household.

Quinlan considered the matter before speaking again. "One of the footmen and several young men from the village of Hanwell fought at Waterloo. They have all returned unharmed."

"Because they were protected by someone?"

"It is a possibility," the valet allowed. "But if that is the case they would hardly confide the fact to me."

And Bea had refused to allow Darius to question her.

Whatever Bea had expected of Darius this evening, after he had joined her and the other guests for a drink before dinner, it was certainly not to have him completely ignore her and instead take part in a low-voiced conversation with a blushing Margo Monroe. Margo's husband, Jamie, a tall, red-haired Scot, did not look at all pleased by the other man having singled his wife out for conversation.

Could it be Bea was also jealous of the attention Darius was showing another woman?

It was very naïve of her, if that was the case. Darius had offered her a week of indulging in delicious and forbidden delights, nothing more. She had accepted his offer under that and her own condition. To expect a man like Wolferton to fawn over her like some besotted puppy was ridiculous in the extreme. He did not love her any more than she loved him. Nor was he a gentleman who ever fawned over anyone.

Unlike Dickie Havers, who had not left her side during the picnic this afternoon, and was standing beside her now as if he were the host and so had every right to be beside her.

"—what do you think, my dear Lady Beatrix?"

Bea forced herself to look away from a giggling Margo—yes, her usually sensible friend was actually giggling at something Darius had said to her—and instead turned her attention to Landbourne. "I am sorry?" She gave him a polite smile of encouragement.

"I was suggesting that perhaps Wolferton's presence here has something to do with his...friendship with Lady Monroe."

Bea frowned her displeasure. "Lady Monroe is a close friend of mine, and is entirely faithful to her husband."

"I meant no offense," Landbourne hastened to assure. "It is merely...unusual to see Wolferton at a country affair such as this one."

And it had not even occurred to the earl, Bea realized irritably, to suspect Darius's interest was in her and not Margo Monroe.

All of Bea's insecurities and her previous suspicion regarding Wolferton's uninvited presence here reared their ugly heads and caused a flush of anger to warm her cheeks.

She had allowed Wolferton and her newly discovered sexual curiosity to dictate her behavior this past night and day. Had allowed him to dictate her actions. She was filled with mortification now at how wantonly she had obeyed his instruction in the garden earlier, and how doing so had caused her own pleasurable climax. Anyone could have seen or approached them, and she doubted either of them would have been any the wiser until it was too late.

Bea linked her arm through Landbourne's as Kilby nodded from the doorway. "No offense was taken," she assured the earl. "It is time to go into dinner now, and I believe we have discussed Wolferton enough for one evening."

The earl looked pleased by her sudden warmth. "I could not agree more. Arrogant bastard at the best of times."

"Who can the two of you possibly be referring to, I wonder."

Bea gave a pained wince as she turned to face the "arrogant bastard" in person, knowing by Landbourne's guilty expression he felt as discomforted as she did at having Wolferton look down the length of his arrogant nose at both of them. Bea felt her own share of guilt for having encouraged Landbourne into thinking she welcomed not only his attentions but also his opinion of the duke. An opinion Wolferton had obviously overheard.

She might be angry with Darius, as well as herself, for allowing him to tempt her into behaving outside the bounds of respectability she had long ago set for her widowhood, but that did not mean she should involve someone else in those feelings of resentment.

Her chin rose. "No one you are acquainted with, I am sure," she dismissed.

Mocking humor gleamed in those pale gray eyes before it was replaced with a sensual warmth that was becoming far too familiar to Bea and was a promise of giving her the pleasure he had talked of earlier today. "I believe it is time to go into dinner." He held out his arm.

"As you can see, the earl has already offered to escort me," Bea pointed out lightly. "We are to be very informal this evening, Your Grace, and I am sure one of the other ladies would welcome your escort and to sit beside you at dinner."

The warmth left the duke's eyes, and they narrowed to steely slits. "I have some things I wish to discuss with you during the meal."

"I am sure they can wait until later."

"No, they cannot."

"I say, Wolferton, you are coming on a bit strong, you know," the earl pointed out jovially, no doubt so as not to cause offense.

The duke looked at him coldly. "I will thank you to step aside, Landbourne."

"No," Bea spoke firmly.

"Yes," Darius returned as implacably.

Bea continued to meet his challenging gaze for several long seconds, but in the end, she knew she would have no choice but to acquiesce. Not unless she wanted to cause a scene right here in front of all her guests. Because the ice in Darius's gaze said he would not back down.

"Forgive me, my lord." She removed her hand from the crook of Landbourne's arm. "I had forgotten the duke's urgent need to speak with me tonight."

"But—"

"I promise we will sit together at breakfast tomorrow morning," Bea assured the disappointed earl before Wolferton whisked her away toward the dining room.

"Rather a rash promise for you to have made when I have no intention of allowing it."

Bea gave Wolferton a sharp sideways glance, but there was nothing in the sternness of his expression to confirm he had actually made the remark at all as he waved Kilby away. He moved forward himself to once again pull back the dining chair for Bea to sit down before taking a seat to her left. No warmth. No flirtation. Just that cold gaze daring her to challenge him.

Telling her Darius was spoiling for an argument.

"You seem...somewhat out of sorts this evening, Your Grace." She spoke pleasantly, aware of the other people dining with them, even if he was not.

"Not at all, I enjoy nothing more than watching my current lover not only accepting but encouraging the attentions of another man."

Bea drew in a gasping breath. "Lower your voice, if you please," she hissed, a fire burning in her cheeks.

He picked up his glass and took a sip of the wine Kilby had just poured for them. "Do you intend to let him fuck you later too?"

"Darius, please stop this..."

Yes, Darius inwardly rebuked himself, he should stop this. Now, before the conversation was completely out of hand. And maybe he would have listened to that little voice if he was not feeling so angry. First, by having to watch Bea as she chatted amiably with Landbourne for most of the afternoon and then seeing the two of them together again this evening. Especially when Bea looked ravishing in a green silk gown which suited her pale coloring and golden hair perfectly.

"If anyone is fucking you later tonight, it will be me," Darius assured her in a hard voice.

"No one is fu—going to be with me later tonight." He could see her hands were shaking slightly as she picked up her soup spoon to at least give the impression of eating. "Last night, and this afternoon, were a mistake. I—I admit to being flattered by the attention you gave me, but my sense of decorum has returned to me now, and I realize I should not have behaved in such a way as to encourage you to believe I wanted to continue the relationship."

He studied her through narrowed lids, noting the shadows in those deep brown eyes, the pallor of her cheeks, and the slight tremble to her lips. Because he was being so bloody minded and allowing his feelings of displeasure at watching her in Landbourne's company today to deliberately hurt her.

Darius had never been jealous in his life.

Not even when any of his previous lovers had deliberately tried to make him so as a way of deepening his interest. Those previous relationships had ended the moment any woman tried to manipulate him in that way.

He did not believe Bea's behavior to have been deliberate, but rather lacking in forethought. Nor did he intend to let her end their relationship until he was ready to do so. His reason for being here aside, he had not had nearly enough of Bea Hanwell.

"I apologize," he said stiffly. "Even as a child, I did not like to share my toys."

"I am not a toy." Bea looked outraged by the suggestion, the emotion bringing a little color back into her cheeks and an angry sparkle to her eyes. "You cannot— What are you doing?" she demanded as Darius placed his hand upon her thigh.

"I am sure I told you earlier that I wished to play with your pussy tonight."

She glanced about them nervously. "You must stop making such remarks!"

"Perhaps if I had your nipple in my mouth, it would be too occupied to speak. As it is..."

"Darius, please."

His anger drained out of him as he saw Bea truly was becoming distressed. It was one thing to play with her sensibilities, but something else altogether to cause her deliberate hurt or embarrassment. He used his free hand to lift the gloved hand closest to him and raise it to his lips before releasing her. "I will cease tormenting you if you will agree not to encourage Landbourne's attentions again."

"What of your own behavior— Very well," she agreed hastily as Darius's other hand moved higher along the length of her thigh.

His fingers tightened on that silky flesh. "My own behavior...?"

Her gaze avoided meeting his. "Margo Monroe is a particular friend of mine."

"Lady Monroe? But— Ah." Darius grimaced as he now realized the reason for some of Bea's change in manner toward him. "I am aware the two of you are friends. It was the reason I enjoyed talking with her."

"I do not understand..."

"I was hoping she might give me some insight into the woman I intend bedding later tonight. I am referring to you, before you imagine I am about to embark on an affair with Lady Harold."

Bea glanced down the table at the plump, middle-aged Lady Harold. "She is a darling lady."

"I am sure she is," Darius drawled. "But my interest happens to lie with a certain blonde-haired, brown-eyed lady who, it would seem, has the power to anger me as much as she arouses me."

Her gaze lowered. "I do not anger you deliberately."

"I am glad to hear it." He gave an inclination of his head.

"You are?" She moistened her lips nervously.

The same tongue that had been on Darius's cock this afternoon.

He nodded. "Your friend Margo told me nothing about you I did not already know, by the way. She truly is a loyal friend to you." Maddeningly so, as far as Darius was concerned. Margo Monroe had done nothing but compliment Bea's kind and warm nature for the whole of their conversation.

Yet someone else who was "excessively protective" of Bea Hanwell.

It was the reason why so many people felt the need to be excessively protective of her that intrigued Darius. "Did you love your husband?"

Bea almost choked on the wine she had been about to swallow. As it was, it took her several seconds to catch her breath enough to speak. "I believe I stipulated I would not answer any questions."

"I will take that as a no," Wolferton said dryly.

"As you have broken our agreement so quickly, you may take it in whatever way you wish," Bea snapped as she deliberately removed his hand from her thigh. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have other guests in need of my attention." She turned away from him to engage the gentleman seated to her right in conversation.

Outwardly, Bea knew she appeared relaxed as she chatted to Jamie Monroe while the soup course was removed, followed by the fish course, then the meat, followed by the cheese, and then lastly, the dessert. But through it all, she was completely aware of Wolferton's brooding silence beside her.

And inwardly feeling a certain disappointment he had taken heed of her set-down and not tried to place his hand back on her thigh.

She found it even more disappointing when he did not rejoin the ladies, as the other gentleman did, after they had lingered in the dining room to enjoy a glass of brandy at the end of the meal. Nor did she receive word from Kilby as to why he had not.

She could only presume by Darius's absence that he had accepted she had ended their arrangement. That he might even now be instructing his valet to pack up his things ready for their departure first thing tomorrow.

As the hostess, Bea spent the next few hours organizing a game of cards for her guests and joining in one of those sets of four so that the numbers were even. But her attention was totally distracted as she found herself thinking constantly of Darius leaving rather than the game of cards, resulting in a complete rout for her and her partner, much to that gentleman's disgust.

Bea had dismissed her maid for the night after dressing earlier, seeing no reason why poor Jane should have to stay up merely to help her prepare for bed. Consequently, Bea felt nothing but relief when the last of her guests had gone to bed and she could at last retreat to the peace and quiet of her own bedchamber. Today had been full of unfamiliar emotions, some good—very good—and some extremely bad, all culminating in that strain at dinner and the ending of the arrangement between herself and Darius. All Bea wanted to do now was sit down and cry in the privacy of her—

"Close and lock the door behind you, and then come over here."

Instead, Bea froze in the doorway to stare across to where Darius stood in the middle of her candlelit bedchamber.

Completely naked.
Chapter 6

Bea hastily closed the door behind her. Not because Darius had told her to, but because anyone could walk past in the hallway outside her bedchamber and see him standing there, his naked, muscular body bathed in the golden glow of candlelight.

Her mouth had gone dry at the unexpected sound of Darius's voice, but it now flooded with moisture as she stared at the utter perfection of that very aroused body.

His dark hair was in complete disarray as it rested on his broad shoulders. Those shoulders and arms were firmly muscled, as was his chest and the tautness of his stomach. His waist was slender, and his thighs as powerful as she had imagined.

But it was his cock which drew Bea's attention back up those long legs. It was fully engorged and jutting up toward his stomach, thick veins running from base to tip, that top glistening and the sac beneath full and heavy. The moisture increased in her mouth at the memory of having her lips wrapped about that turgid flesh earlier today, and she found it impossible to avert her gaze as it seemed she could once again taste him.

"I said lock the door, Bea."

"I—"

"Lock it."

She rallied what few defenses she had left. "I do not like this dictatorial tone you have decided to take with me."

"Please lock it."

Darius said the words so harshly, and not as a question, it was really no improvement on the abruptness of his previous instruction. In fact, despite his nudity and obvious arousal, the sternness of his expression was not in the least that of a lover. It was almost as if he was angry with her for being the cause of that arousal.

If she was the cause.

His being in her bedchamber at all, let alone naked and aroused, after his coldness toward her at dinner, was questionable to say the least.

Her eyes widened as Darius walked slowly toward her with all the grace of a predator about to devour its prey, causing her to instinctively press back against the door behind her. "I thought we had settled this matter at dinner and decided we did not suit after all."

He came to a halt in front of her. "I seem to recall you were the one who decided we would not proceed with our plans for me to pleasure you during dinner."

He was standing so close to her, Bea could feel the heat of his body through the silk of her gown. Her senses were also awash with the heady aroma of his body, that lemon and sandalwood and seductive male musk.

She was trembling so much, her knees were shaking. "I think it will be better for both of us if we do not proceed at all."

"I disagree."

She blinked up at him. "You do?"

Darius had been furious throughout dinner as Bea virtually ignored his presence in favor of talking to the Scot, Monroe, seated on her other side. It was made all the more unacceptable because Darius was unaccustomed to being ignored. Under any circumstances, but least of all by the woman who was currently his lover.

He had lingered only long enough to down a single glass of brandy after the ladies had left the dining room, before striding from the room and up the stairs to his bedchamber. Quinlan had taken one look at the furious expression on his face and wisely decided not to say whatever mocking remark he had been about to make. Instead, his valet had remained silent as he helped Darius undress and then tidied away before making a hasty departure.

Darius had paced his bedchamber for some time, a dark scowl on his brow as his thoughts once again turned to tying Bea to his bed and pleasuring her, punishing her, until she passed out.

He had brought four of his neck cloths into her bedchamber with him with just that purpose in mind. The apprehensive expression in Bea's eyes was causing him to rethink that earlier decision.

"I do." He forced the anger from his tone. "Bea, if I have done something to frighten you, if there are...sexual and other situations you would rather not participate in, then it is for you tell me, so that I do not venture into those areas by accident."

Her eyes widened. "You would listen?"

He nodded. "Otherwise, how am I to know? The last thing I wish to do is hurt or frighten you."

Something melted inside Bea at the gentleness of Darius's tone. Possibly that block of ice which had taken up residence in her chest after their disagreement at dinner? Whatever it was, she was no longer filled with that cold tension and dread at the thought of their liaison being over before it had truly begun.

She so wanted to be wild and irresponsible for just once in her life, to indulge in physical pleasure, and Darius was proving to be the perfect man with whom she might indulge that fantasy. Older than her but not too much so, and obviously not interested in anything more than a weeklong affair. He was also far more knowledgeable in how a woman experienced physical release. Which was not difficult in Bea's case, because until last night with Darius, she had never known even a moment of that pleasure.

She chewed briefly on her bottom lip. "It is difficult to have this conversation, any conversation, when you—when you are completely naked." That heady musk and the heat of his body were making it difficult for her to think.

He chuckled softly. "I can see no benefit in my dressing now only to have to undress again once we have finished talking."

She gave him a quick glance. "Perhaps you will not wish to remain after our conversation."

"I will."

Bea blinked. "You sound very sure of yourself."

"I am always sure of myself."

"You are indeed a very confident gentleman," she acknowledged ruefully.

"But I am not a cruel or unfeeling one," he assured her firmly. "I certainly do not take any satisfaction in causing a woman discomfort or pain during lovemaking or at any other time. Tell me, Bea," he encouraged. "I assure you I will listen."

He sounded so sincere, how could Bea doubt him? "I—I do not like to be ordered about as if I have no will of my own."

"Hm." He gave a pained wince. "And I have done nothing but order or instruct you since my arrival. I will endeavor not to do so in future. Anything else?"

She drew in a deep breath. "Nor do I want to be—to be forced to accept your...attentions when you wish it and without consulting my own feelings on the matter."

"Agreed."

She glanced up at him before quickly looking away from the intensity of those shrewd gray eyes. "I also reserve the right to add to that list if you do something I dislike."

"Also agreed."

"You are being very...obliging."

"I am a very obliging fellow."

"When it suits you."

Humor glinted in his eyes. "When it suits me."

As Bea had expected. But she also trusted Darius when he said he would not hurt her. "Then that is all for now."

Darius knew it was not all, that there was far more to the statements she had made than Bea was willing to say. She had been very young when she married, and no doubt a virgin, before being widowed for these past two years. There had not been so much as a hint in Society gossip of her having taken a lover in all that time, something Quinlan had confirmed. As such, Darius could only assume that Bea's husband was the man responsible for these further stipulations being added to their agreement.

An ugly image was starting to form in Darius's mind, one in which Bea was merely used by Hanwell for his own selfish sexual gratification rather than shown even the consideration of respect she deserved as his wife.

Darius decided using his neck cloths to tie Bea to the bed would definitely have to wait until another night. There would be time enough to suggest that and discuss it once Bea had learned to trust his promise not to hurt her and was accustomed to the other sexual pleasures he intended introducing her to.

He reached up to curve the warmth of his hand about Bea's cheek before placing his thumb beneath her chin and lifting her face up to his so that he might capture her lips with his own. He forced down his own need to take and claim in order to ensure the kiss was slow and undemanding. He was not used to denying his own desires, but he knew some of them might be darker than Bea was ready to accept, and he was determined not to alarm her any further tonight.

Considering Darius did not ordinarily kiss, it seemed to be becoming a need where Bea was concerned. As before, when he kissed her, her lips were soft and trembling beneath his. They also parted readily enough when he ran his tongue along them, seeking entry.

He groaned as his tongue entered the heat of her mouth. She sucked on it, in the same way she had his cock earlier, and ran her silky-soft and moist tongue along the length of his as if it were his cock.

No, he did not ordinarily kiss, but kissing Bea was so sensual, so arousing, Darius felt as if he could do it for hours and not grow tired of it. Or of her.

He had no idea how long those kisses lasted, nor did he care. Bea tasted so good, and the curves of her body felt soft and yielding against his muscled hardness. Her hands were warm against his flesh as they caressed across his shoulders and down his chest.

Darius raised his head to draw his breath in sharply as delicate fingertips caressed the hardness of his nipples, sending pleasure coursing through his body before settling in his cock and balls.

"Did I hurt you?" She was so much shorter than him that her breath was a warm caress against his bare skin.

Everything this woman did, every caress, felt like so much more than that and gave Darius not just physical pleasure but touched something deep inside him. In the past, his giving a woman physical pleasure had been more of a duty. With Bea, he found he wanted to give her that pleasure, with no thought of whether or not he found his own release.

"It pleased me, not hurt me."

"It did?"

"Yes," he assured her huskily.

Everything had melted inside Bea during the long minutes of kissing and being kissed by Darius. Undemanding and gentle kisses that had nevertheless aroused her and also given her the confidence to now touch him in the ways she had so longed to do.

Her hands roamed across and learned the curvature of his muscular shoulders and chest, those taut and responsive nipples, and the hardness of his abdomen. She looked down to watch as she curled her fingers about the long and throbbing heat of his arousal. The skin felt as soft as velvet, but underneath was pure steel, with those thick and engorged veins running the length of it. It was so long and aroused, the skin was pulled back, revealing the purple and glistening head she had taken in her mouth in the garden earlier today.

"Not tonight." Darius's fingers moved about her wrists as she would have moved down onto her knees in front of him. "Not because I did not enjoy having you suck me earlier," he assured her as she looked at him uncertainly. "I did not eat much at dinner. For some reason, my appetite seemed to have deserted me," he added self-derisively. "But I am hungry now and should very much like to satisfy that hunger by eating the nectar from your pussy. Do I have your permission to do that?"

Bea felt the flare of heat in her cheeks, along with a spreading warmth inside her because Darius was asking rather than taking. Proof he had listened to her earlier. "Here?"

"I believe you will be more comfortable on the bed."

Of course she would, Bea acknowledged as she allowed Darius to take her hand and lead her across the room. How gauche and naïve she must seem to— "Why are there four of your neck cloths laid out on my bed?" She came to an abrupt halt as she stared down at those pieces of black silk.

"Damn it," Darius swore as he quickly gathered up those scraps of material. "It was a mistake to bring them here. I had thought you more experienced than you are," he muttered uncomfortably.

Bea eyed at him with calm curiosity. "What did you intend doing with them?"

"It does not matter now—"

"I want to know," she pressed.

Darius felt discomforted by the arrogant assumption he had made earlier when he brought those neck cloths into the room. Admittedly, his intention had been to give Bea pleasure, but his own satisfaction in tying her up before ravishing her would have been as great.

Bea placed her hand on his forearm. "Please tell me."

He could not quite meet her gaze. "Once you were naked, I was going to tie you to the bed and then take you with my mouth and hands until you had screamed yourself hoarse."

She swallowed at the disclosure. "With pleasure rather than pain?"

"Of course with pleasure." He scowled. "I have told you, I do not enjoy inflicting pain upon anyone, least of all a woman."

"Then do it."

"What?" Darius stared at her in disbelief.

Bea's gaze remained steady on his. "I am taking you at your word when you say you will not hurt me."

"I told you I do not—" He broke off as he gave a shake of his head, not sure he had ever met a woman like Bea before. Her previous experience of physical relations had obviously not been a happy one, and for her to put her trust in him in this way caused an unfamiliar ache in his chest. "I believe this may come under the heading of 'doing something you might dislike.'"

"Might dislike." She nodded. "We will not know one way or the other until we try it."

"You seriously wish me to tie you naked to the bed with my neck cloths and then pleasure your body in any way I please?"

"I do."

Darius frowned his frustration. "It is extremely dangerous to give an aroused man carte blanche over your defenseless body."

"The only defense I need is my trust in you to release me if I find I do not like being tied." Bea's smile became teasing. "After all, you are the Duke of Wolferton, and everyone knows that gentleman is far too arrogant ever to be duplicitous. What is it?" she prompted curiously as his frown now seemed pained.

"Nothing." A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.

"Darius?"

"I said it is nothing," he snapped. "Do you need help removing your gown?"

"The buttons are at the front." Bea continued to look at him searchingly for several seconds. Something she'd said had obviously disturbed him. "I was only teasing when I called you the arrogant Duke of Wolferton."

His mouth twisted self-derisively. "I am the arrogant Duke of Wolferton."

She chuckled softly as she let down her hair before unfastening the front of her gown. "Yes, you are. The very naked and arrogant Duke of Wolferton," she added admiringly.

Bea had never seen Charles completely naked. He had always worn a nightshirt during his nocturnal visits to her bedchamber, his taking of her always carried out in the dark. But she still knew her husband's body had not possessed the musculature and beauty that Darius's did.

She could not help but admire his complete ease with his own nakedness. "Your body is beautiful, Darius."

How, Darius wondered, could one tiny woman, one who was not obviously beautiful, so completely disarm him with her candor? Because he was disarmed. As much as he had been by her previous comment regarding his lack of duplicity.

Surely his reason for being at Hanwell Manor at all was duplicitous.

Perhaps it had started out that way, as had his seduction of Bea, but that had changed since he had come to know her. He no longer regarded their lovemaking as a means to an end, but desired Bea wholly for herself. She might not be a beauty in Society's accepted sense of the word, but that sort of surface beauty was fleeting anyway. It was Bea's inner strength that made her so desirable to Darius. It touched a similar strength inside him.

His parents had died when he was six years old, after which he had to go and live with his uncle, Lord Soames Strong, his father's younger brother. Strong had been an exacting and cruel guardian, often beating Darius for no other reason than he felt like it.

Darius had felt nothing but relief when he was sent away to boarding school two years later. He'd had to go home for holidays, of course, but by that time, he had made his own "family" with the seven other orphaned boys who were still his closest friends. Occasionally, he even spent holidays with one of them.

By the time Darius was fifteen, he had been big enough and strong enough to hit his uncle back. And he had, repeatedly, until the other man had ceased hitting out with his fists and took to verbally abusing Darius instead with snide comments about his parents and Darius himself. Even that had come to an end once Darius was one and twenty. The guardianship came to an end, and he took up the title of duke and the managing of his own finances and life. He never spoke to his uncle again.

With hindsight, Darius realized the other man had been taking out his frustrations on the small boy who was heir to the dukedom Strong felt should rightly be his now that his older brother was dead.

That hindsight did not lessen Darius's hatred and disgust for the man who should have cared for that bewildered six-year-old boy but had instead chosen to show him nothing but cruelty and violence.

In the years that followed his coming of age, Darius had become the cold and controlling man he was today.

Darius sensed Bea, possibly because of her unhappy marriage, possessed a similar steely core, one that would not allow her to be controlled, by him or any other man.

And while he had been lost in memories of his past, Bea had removed her gown and drawers and now stood before him wearing only her camisole. "You may keep that on if you would prefer it," he assured her as he saw how self-conscious she was about removing this last garment.

Her expression remained anxious. "Perhaps for the moment? Once I am...more at ease, I might remove it then."

"Of course," he accepted lightly. "I will tie your wrists loosely so that you do not— Bea?" he questioned sharply as she turned to climb onto the bed and he saw the top of her bare back for the first time.

A back that he could see was crisscrossed with a maze of silver scars.
Chapter 7

Her expression was stricken. "It is not as bad as it looks—"

"Do not move," Darius instructed harshly, his earlier promise of no consequence to this situation as he held Bea firmly in front of him with one hand, her back toward him. He used his other hand to slip the straps of her camisole down her arms before allowing the garment to fall to her waist.

The scars, more than a dozen of them, covered the whole of her back down to the natural indent at the top of her buttocks.

Darius could only stare at them, the tightness in his chest barely allowing him to breathe. "Who did this?" he finally demanded. "What did this?"

Deathly pale, she glanced over her shoulder at him. The expression she saw on his face no doubt warned her against even attempting to evade answering him truthfully. "My husband with his riding crop."

"Dear God..." Darius muttered, knowing Hanwell must have struck her very hard and broken the skin to have left these scars on her back. "He whipped you in the stables for everyone to see?"

She shook her head. "Right here, in this bedchamber."

Darius had never heard of anything so barbaric. A deliberate act of barbarism when Hanwell must have had the foresight to bring his riding crop with him into Bea's bedchamber. "Why?"

She gave a choked laugh. "I had failed to give him his heir."

Darius had expected an affair with another man at the very least. "And Hanwell whipped you for that?"

Bea felt thoroughly humiliated at having Darius see the evidence of her failure as a wife. She had hoped—prayed—keeping her camisole on would hide the scars, but obviously it had not. Now, Darius had seen them and knew of some of her humiliation, if not all.

She blinked back the tears and wrapped her arms about her bared breasts before turning to face him. "He felt justified—"

"There is no justification for this. None," Darius repeated fiercely, his eyes glittering with cold anger. "There were no children in Hanwell's first marriage either, so he could as easily have been to blame for— No?" He frowned as Bea shook her head.

"He has...several illegitimate children, born to him by women living locally." Humiliated color burned in her cheeks. "Children I have made sure are well cared for."

"He bedded these other women during your marriage?" Darius lived his life by his own code, which might or might not coincide with those of Society, and very often did not. But his views on fidelity in a marriage were unshakable: a man did not show disrespect to his wife by taking a mistress or getting another woman with child. Under any circumstances.

"Oh yes," she sighed. "One of the children is less than two years old. So you see, it must be me who cannot conceive. Which is not a bad thing if the two of us are to... But perhaps you no longer wish to continue?" She chewed her bottom lip. "I know the scars are unsightly..."

"They are not unsightly. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Darius stepped away from her, his hands clenching, one of them crushing the silk neck cloths, as he began to pace the bedchamber. "If Hanwell were here now, I would use my own riding crop on him and see how he likes it."

Bea kept that arm over her breasts as she pulled up the straps of her camisole. "If Charles were still alive, a situation would never have arisen in which you ever saw my scars."

"Then I am doubly glad he is dead!"

So was Bea. The scars on her back were not the only ones she had suffered during her marriage to Charles, but the others were not visible to the human eye.

Oh, Charles had been attentive enough during their first year of marriage, slightly less patient with her inability to conceive during their second. By the third year of her lack of providing him with his heir, he had taken to chastising her, either verbally or physically, for even the slightest misdemeanor. That last occasion was the only one which had left physical evidence of those beatings.

The scars she carried inside her went much deeper.

Her smile was self-derisive. "I will not think in the least badly of you if you would rather not...proceed, and wish to return to your own bedchamber."

"Oh, I fully intent returning to my bedchamber," Darius assured her grimly.

Bea's disappointment was acute as Darius confirmed he was putting an end to tonight's lovemaking. Perhaps to any more lovemaking at all...

Not that she could blame him. Charles' last terrible beating had left her in bed for over a week until her wounds healed. But the scars that remained, she could do nothing about. They would be there forevermore, an unsightly reminder of the end of five awful years of marriage.

"And you are coming with me," Darius added decisively. He bent down to place an arm beneath her knees and the other about her shoulders before lifting her against his chest. "I cannot make love to you in the room where you were beaten," he announced as he carried her through the open doorway between their bedchambers and kicked the door closed behind him. He came to an abrupt halt. "Was this Hanwell's bedchamber?"

"It was." She nodded. "But I had the room stripped and all the furnishings and décor changed after he died."

"You are comfortable in here?"

"I am comfortable in here with you." Bea clung to the stability of Darius's bare shoulders as he strode across the room before putting her gently onto her feet beside the bed. Unshed tears stung her eyes as she gazed up at him. "My scars really do not repulse you?"

"Of course they do not." His eyes were glacial, his mouth a thin, uncompromising line. "They are physical proof of your strength and fortitude."

Bea saw he still held the four silk neck cloths in his hand. "Do you still intend to tie me to the bed?"

"No." He held the scraps of silk out to her. "I intend for you to tie me to the bed and then explore and take me in whatever way gives you the most pleasure."

Her eyes widened, allowing the tears to cascade unchecked down her cheeks. "You would allow me to do that?"

"I will not only allow it, I insist upon it." Darius reached out to touch her wet cheek gently with his fingertips. "It is my wish for you to know not all men are such selfish bastards as your husband was."

Bea could not believe a man such a Darius Strong, the man she had called the arrogant Duke of Wolferton, would willingly and so completely give up his free will to her. It was not only humbling but touched something deep inside her, a place she had believed locked away and protected.

It was her heart, Bea realized.

She knew in that moment she was falling in love with Darius.

Whatever this man's reputation in Society might be, and that of his friends, even at his most dictatorial she had found Darius to be a man of honor. As for his lovemaking... She had never experienced anything like it. That he was now allowing her to render him immobile, giving her carte blanche over his body, filled her heart to bursting with emotion. For him.

The realization not only struck her dumb but immobile.

"Bea?" Darius prompted as she continued to stare at him. "If you would rather we did not make love but merely fell asleep in each other's arms, that is also acceptable."

Bea shook herself out of her shocked realization. "I should very much like to make love to you and be held in your arms afterward. I— Such closeness would be another first for me," she admitted huskily.

It was easy for Darius to guess, now that he knew the circumstances of her marriage, that other first had been her physical pleasure, both yesterday and today. Damn Hanwell to the hell where he belonged!

Darius's thoughts and impressions of Bea had all undergone a complete change since his arrival at Hanwell Manor. Bea's inner strength was formidable and gave her a beauty that radiated from within. She was no pampered and spoiled socialite indulging in a physical interlude, but a woman who desperately wished to know if there was pleasure in lovemaking rather than the physical abuse she had suffered throughout her marriage. An abuse she had survived. As Darius had survived his own violent childhood.

The two of them were far more alike than Darius could ever have guessed before coming here.

And to think he had almost given this opportunity of knowing Bea away to one of his fellow Sinners. Because he had believed Beatrix Hanwell to not only be plain but uninteresting.

Bea was not in the least plain or uninteresting; instead, she was a constant surprise, complex, and in possession of a unique beauty most would overlook but which now intrigued Darius greatly. He had a feeling learning all there was to know about Bea would take a considerable amount of time. And Darius intended knowing her very well indeed.

Which could prove to be problematic if it should turn out Bea was guilty of treason.

Darius did not wish to think any more on that tonight. Bea was here, he was here, and they were about to embark on their relationship in earnest.

"Bea." He presented the silk neck cloths to her for a second time.

She took them with a shy smile. "You will have to direct me in how to do this properly. I should not like to hurt you," she said worriedly as Darius climbed on the bed and placed several pillows on top of each other at the top of the bed before lying down on his back, arms and legs stretched out toward the wooden posts at the four corners.

Bea felt a warm shiver down her spine as she paused to take in Darius's vulnerability. His perfect body was laid out as if in sacrifice. A body that was pure muscle, with that tempting vee of dark hair from his chest to the cluster of dark curls at the base of his aroused cock. The parting of his legs left the fullness of his sac completely unprotected.

"Wrap the silk about each of my ankles first, not too tightly, and then tie it about the post."

"Like this?" Bea did as he had instructed, finding she did not dislike this sort of instruction at all. She very much enjoyed seeing Darius lying on the bed with his ankles firmly tied seconds later.

"Exactly like that. Now tie my wrists in the same way," Darius encouraged gruffly, feeling more exposed and vulnerable than he had ever allowed before.

Bea gazed at him anxiously, as if she sensed some of his inner unease. "You are sure you are comfortable with my doing this?"

"No, but I shall do it anyway."

She eyed him quizzically. "Why?"

"Because I want you to trust me." As he was trusting her, Darius realized. A trust he had bestowed on no other woman. "I believe I would enjoy it more if you removed your chemise and were as naked as I am, but otherwise... Yes, I am comfortable."

Bea did not hesitate to pull the chemise over her head before discarding it altogether.

Darius turned his head to watch Bea as she knelt beside him on the bed to secure first one wrist to the wooden post backing onto the wall, before moving round to his other side to secure the other.

Merely looking at her naked body caused his cock to pulse and become harder still. Her breasts were firm and uptilting, her waist slender, dark blond curls covering her mound. Her knees were slightly parted to maintain balance as she knelt on the bed, allowing Darius to see that her folds were glistening with the milky pearls of her arousal.

Darius was not completely immobilized, of course. The silk was not tied so tightly he could not escape the binding if he so wished. But he was resolved not to do so. No matter what form of physical torture Bea visited upon him, he had every intention of withstanding it without complaint.

The fact he was allowing her to do this at all still surprised him. He hated any feeling of helplessness, no doubt a lingering scar from his childhood, when he had been completely at the mercy of his uncle's cruelty. Bea did not make him feel in the least helpless, and the pleasure on her face as she stood back to contemplate her own handiwork was payment enough for any lingering doubts Darius might have felt.

She positively glowed with satisfaction as she moved to kneel on the bed between his parted thighs. "There is so much of you," she said admiringly. "Now that I have you completely at my mercy I have no idea where to even start."

"I believe my cock would appreciate some attention," he suggested helpfully.

A wicked gleam entered her eyes. "Perhaps. Eventually. For now, I wish to touch and explore the rest of this magnificent body."

As Darius had already guessed, she intended to torture him with pleasure.

And it was torture to lie there, completely at Bea's mercy, as she ran her hands over the whole of his body, fingertips lingering here, lips kissing him there. All while she was completely nude and the perfume of her arousal saturated his senses.

When she leaned over him to caress his shoulders and chest, her breasts remained just beyond the reach of his mouth. It was sheer agony to withstand Bea's touch. Light pets against his skin to start with, but growing bolder and more confident as she gauged his reaction to those caresses.

Her hair was silky against his skin as she ran her tongue moistly over his nipples before leaning forward to suck them, the rasp of her tongue sending pleasure straight to his cock. Darius had never realized before how sensuous it was to have a woman suck his nipples.

Those breasts again, jostling against his thighs as she followed the silky vee shape of his chest hair down his abdomen. The curve of her bottom was fully exposed to him when she turned to explore his calves and feet.

His poor neglected cock jutted up proudly toward his belly, leaking, begging for the attention Bea playfully refused to give it.

"You have ticklish feet." She giggled as he attempted to move his foot away from her hand but was prevented from doing so by the black silk about his ankle.

He groaned. "This is not the way I expected you to take your pleasure."

"What did you expect?" Bea moved back up the bed to kneel between Darius's thighs. "Perhaps this?" She took his cock in her hand and began to stroke it the way she had in the garden earlier. A stroke up to run the soft pad of her thumb over the glistening top. "Or this?" Another stroke down, before she repeated the upward caress, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction as beads of pre-cum bubbled up to the surface.

"There is an area, beneath my sac, which is— Yes, there," he groaned as he felt her finger running along that sensitive area. "There is also a gland inside me which, when stimulated, gives me a pleasure unlike any other." So much so, Darius sometimes envied Quinlan his sexual orientation.

"Inside you?" Bea prompted curiously.

"We will save it for another time."

"Inside your cock?" she persisted.

"No."

"Can you possibly mean here?" That marauding finger pressed against the soft pucker of his ass. "Apparently so," she said with satisfaction as Darius's back arched off the bed. "Would you like me to—"

"Not tonight," Darius groaned, knowing he was too tightly strung, his release barely contained, and he would not be able to prevent himself from ejaculating if Bea once touched him in there.

"But I should like to give you pleasure."

"Then lick my cock," he invited between gritted teeth.

"Mm." She bent to lap up the beads of his pre-cum with her tongue, one hand continuing to stroke him, the other caressing that area beneath his balls.

Darius tightly gripped the silk neck cloths binding him, shoulders tense and muscles bulging, a nerve pulsing in his jaw as he gritted his teeth to prevent himself from instructing her to take his cock in her mouth and suck it, hard. He needed— God, he needed some sort of relief or he was going to spurt all over her like some callow youth who had no control over himself or his release.

Having her hands roam and learn the contours of his body from his chest to his feet had sorely tested his control.

But this, this teasing of his cock after offering to pleasure the gland inside him, was enough to drive any man completely insane with lust.

"Please, Bea," he groaned minutes later when he could take no more of the torment. "If you are not going to take me in your mouth, then I need you to put me inside you and ride me."

Bea had thoroughly enjoyed herself these past few minutes. Tying Darius to the bed had allowed her to explore his body without feeling awkward or self-conscious. She had found him a sensual delight of hard and soft, silky smooth and rough, each caress causing him to tense or groan. It was very arousing to see how much he enjoyed having her touch him this way. His eyes glittered with heat, and his jaw was clenched, the muscles tensed in his arms and chest, his breathing becoming more and more ragged.

It was only now she realized that Darius's hands and feet being tied meant that if he was to be inside her, then she would have to be the one to put him there. She questioned whether or not he would fit, considering the length and girth of his cock was far larger than Charles's had been.

Not only that, but once Darius was inside her, his being immobile meant she would be the one to control their lovemaking as well as him.

Could she do that?

Dare she do that?
Chapter 8

"Kiss me first," Darius encouraged gruffly as he seemed to guess some of her dilemma.

Kiss him. Yes, she could do that.

She placed her lips gently against his, only to have him rear up from the pillows, his lips parting hungrily against hers as his tongue thrust and claimed the heat of her mouth. Bea lost herself in that claiming for long and endless minutes.

Darius finally pulled back, gray eyes piercing as they gazed into hers. "Are you soft and wet and ready for me between your thighs?"

"Yes," she groaned as she buried the heat of her face against his shoulder.

"And may I offer words of guidance, rather than instructions or orders?"

"Yes," she said again. She trusted him not to overstep that line.

"Straddle my hips and lift up onto your knees before guiding my cock inside you."

Bea lifted her head to look at him. "You have done this before."

Darius sobered. "I have never allowed any woman to tie me up in this way. Ever. Whatever experiences we have both had before this have no place here. This is our first time together. All brand-new, with no other memories to mar it. Do you understand?" he prompted softly.

She did understand, and she appreciated Darius's gentleness in reassuring her this would be nothing like her years spent as Charles's wife. Years when she had been made to suffer through his complaints of having to use the salve before pushing roughly into her, having him grunt and groan for several minutes like an animal rutting on her. Then would come the flood of his liquid inside her before his withdrawal, the instruction not to open her thighs until morning, before he left her lying there in the sticky pool of his release.

She did not need Darius's reassurances to know this was nothing like that. Darius had given her nothing but pleasure in their lovemaking, had gifted her the freedom of his body to caress and pleasure, and she had no reason to believe having him inside her would be any less pleasurable.

She felt a little less self-conscious as she moved to straddle him, her legs stretched wide across his muscular thighs.

"Now lift up and rub the head of my cock in your juices," he encouraged. "It will help to ease my passage inside you," he explained.

Bea's cheeks burned as she gripped his cock and leaned slightly forward to do as he suggested, gasping softly as she ran that cock head along the lips of her pussy and then higher until it pressed against her engorged nubbin. Pleasure bloomed inside her at the feel of this stimulation against that swollen bud.

"Again," Darius encouraged as he saw and heard Bea's reaction to his cock touching her clit. His cock was big, and bringing herself to climax first would ease his entrance inside her. "If my hands were free, I would push a finger inside you now, stretch and loosen you before adding a second, maybe even a third as your pussy opens for me. I would rub against those nerve endings inside you with every thrust of my fingers until you were so aroused, your juices were dripping down your thighs. And I would revel in how tightly your pussy grasped and squeezed my fingers as you came."

She gave a low groan, and Darius was unsure whether it was from the stimulation of his words or the imagery of him doing those things to her.

"Do it for me, Bea," he said urgently, even as he fought his own need to come in response to the stroking of the sensitive head of his cock in her juices and against her pulsing clit.

"I cannot..."

"Please," he pressed.

"I—" She looked at him uncertainly. "You would enjoy it if I did?"

Darius nodded. "And so will you," he promised. He had only known Bea a short time, but it was long enough to know there was a very sensual woman beneath that prim exterior. Not that she looked particularly prim right now. Her hair was a golden tangle about her bare shoulders, her nipples hard, and the curls damp between her thighs. "You will see, this way, you will be able to control your own pleasure."

"As you were pleasuring yourself this morning as you stood in front of the window?"

"Yes."

"Do you pleasure yourself often?"

"When I feel the need," he confirmed. "And since being here, I have felt a great need. There is nothing to be ashamed of in giving yourself physical release, Bea."

"Are you sure?"

"Very." He nodded, realizing this was also new to Bea. It told him that Hanwell had given her no joy at all in their marriage. "Now lift up higher on your knees and put your own finger in your pussy."

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "I have never done anything like this before."

Darius had already guessed that. "Do it for me now," he pleaded softly. "Stroke and pleasure yourself while I watch." Her shocked gasp told him he may have gone too far. Or perhaps, with that now-fevered glitter in her eyes, not far enough. "I want to see you fuck yourself on your fingers and imagine it's my cock thrusting deep inside you."

"Darius..." she groaned, her cheeks awash with color at the crudeness of his language.

He grinned unrepentantly, having detected longing in her tone as well as embarrassment. "Trust me, you will enjoy it."

Her movements were tentative at first, her body tense as she placed her middle finger against her pussy lips.

"Lift up and then sink down onto your finger."

"Oh." Her eyes widened, and she gave a shuddering moan as she slowly pushed that finger inside her channel.

"Does it feel good?"

She swallowed. "It feels...strange."

"But good?"

"Yes," she allowed shyly.

"Now lift up and then plunge down again. Again," he said hoarsely. "Now put in another finger," he encouraged, knowing she was ready to take two fingers once he heard the juicy grasping of her pussy each time she thrust that single slender finger inside herself. "Curl your fingers slightly forward and you will find your own hidden treasure. Do you feel it, Bea, a little knot of nerves?"

"Yes," she gasped as touching it obviously gave her pleasure.

He nodded. "Stroke and rub against that every time you lift up."

"Oh." She gave another gasp as she followed his instructions.

Minutes later, she added that third finger without any prompting from him, her eyes closed, cheeks flushed, her back arched, and her breasts thrusting forward as her fingers pumped faster.

She had forgotten about his cock completely as she pleasured herself, but that didn't stop Darius from feeling his own release building merely from watching Bea's increasing abandon. Between her thighs was now wet with the flow of her juices. "Use your other hand to caress and pull on your nipples."

There was no hesitation this time as she did as he asked.

"First one and then the other," Darius encouraged, watching intently as she plucked self-consciously at her nipples. "You will need to pull harder and downward for the greatest pleasure."

The pre-cum leaked copiously from the slit at the tip of Darius's cock as he listened to Bea's pleasurable groans and watched as she became more and more abandoned in her movements. Those three fingers were now thrusting deep, both her nipples elongated from the rhythmic tugging of her fingers, and her red and engorged clit was now clearly visible poking through her wet curls.

God, how he wished he could put his mouth on that pulsing nubbin and suck her to completion. "Stop touching your nipples now and stroke your clit."

Darius could feel the beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead as those slender fingers moved to part her curls, baring her clit completely, before she began to stroke and press that swollen flesh.

"God. Oh God," Bea began to chant mindlessly as she felt her release building to fever pitch, and so much harder and deeper than it had been yesterday. "Darius!"

"Fuck your fingers deeper," he bit out. "Press harder on your clit. Harder still. Yes, just like that," he groaned.

Bright bursts of color exploded behind Bea's lids as her body was consumed beneath a wave of pleasure so intense, she never wanted it to end, the walls of her pussy convulsing about her fingers and her clit pulsing over and over again beneath her fingertips.

Her legs were trembling so badly by the time that maelstrom came to an end that she could only collapse weakly forward onto Darius's sweat-dampened chest, her whole body shaking and shuddering in the aftermath.

Darius had been right, it was a wondrous experience to pleasure oneself, made even more so because Darius's pale gray eyes had watched her every move as closely as a hawk watched its prey.

"Put your fingers in my mouth."

Bea's head almost felt too heavy to lift as she gazed down at him without comprehension.

"I want to lick and suck your juices from them."

Bea had grown accustomed to that bloom of self-conscious bloom of heat in her cheeks now, her movement languid as she raised her hand and placed her fingers against Darius's lips.

His tongue licked the cream from her fingers. "God, you taste so good. Far too good to waste. Move farther up the bed." He shifted his shoulders down the bed. "Bring your pussy up here to me."

He was simply impossible to resist, and Bea had no strength left to do so anyway. She crawled up the lean length of his body to place her knees on the pillow either side of his head, her pussy presented to him like a banquet.

"Perfect," he groaned. "Now put your hands on the back of the bed and hold on."

Her fingers barely had time to grasp the top of the bed before she felt the relentless probing of Darius's tongue against her sensitive nubbin. It instantly sent her hurtling over the edge of another climax.

He was insatiable as his tongue lapped up the flood of her release before lashing her nubbin again and bringing her to another climax. Bea lost count of the number of times she reached that release as Darius continued to feed on her greedily.

"No more," she finally groaned, her head resting on her hands as they kept a white-knuckled grip on the back of the bed. "Please, Darius, I can take no more."

His lips were a gentle apology against the inside of her thigh. "Sorry, love. I forgot myself. You taste so delicious. I have not hurt you?"

Bea gave a shake of her head and then realized he couldn't see her. "No, you did not hurt me."

"Will you release my wrists now and let me hold you?"

She sat back on his chest and looked down at him, his lips and chin glistening with her juices. "But we have not... You have not..."

"I am afraid I have." He gave a grimace. "I came seconds ago."

Bea glanced over her shoulder and saw the evidence of that release splattered all over his chest and abdomen.

"That has never happened to me before," Darius acknowledged ruefully. If anything, he had grown as cynical in the taking of physical pleasure these past few years as he had everything else in his life. But with Bea, innocent Bea, so wild in the throes of her passion, everything had seemed brand-new, sending him over the edge of release without so much as a touch to his cock.

For all they had done together, and would do together in future if Darius had his way, Bea's smile was slightly shy as she now swung herself off him to stand beside the bed and unfasten the silk ties at his wrists and ankles.

Darius moved to the edge of the bed before standing to take her slight form into his arms. "You were magnificent," he murmured into the silky softness of her hair.

Bea buried her face against his chest. "I was shameless."

"Magnificently so," he insisted indulgently before he began to chuckle. "I swear I will be inside you very soon," he explained at her questioning glance.

Bea's laugh sounded weak. "I fear it will not be tonight. You have exhausted me."

"And you me." He nodded. "Let us get into bed and hold each other until we fall asleep."

That would be another first for him, Darius realized with a frown. He did not spend the night with his lovers. Night always led to morning, and morning inevitably brought the question of when the two of them would meet again. Darius rarely bedded the same woman twice, and even on those rare occasions that he had, he did not spend the whole night with her. But the thought of Bea returning to her own bedchamber, of his sleeping alone in this vast bed, was utterly repugnant to him.

"What is it?" Bea appeared worried by his distraction.

"Nothing." The frown cleared from Darius's brow as he threw back the bedclothes. "Absolutely nothing," he repeated with satisfaction as the two of them made themselves comfortable in the bed.

His arms were about Bea, her head resting against his shoulder and her arm draped lightly across his waist. He knew within minutes, by the steady rhythm of her breathing and the heavier weight of her arm, that she had fallen asleep. Within seconds, he joined her.

"Would it be convenient for me to have a private word with you some time this morning, my lady?" Kilby inquired politely when she came down the stairs the following morning.

After enjoying a night with Darius which had led to the two of them falling asleep in each other's arms. Sometime during the night, Bea had woken, slightly disoriented, until she realized the arm curved about her side and the hand cupping her breast belonged to none other than Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton. Along with that had come the knowledge she was lying in bed with him completely naked, his own awake and very aroused body curled against her from behind, his lips caressing and then gently biting her nape and shoulder.

It had seemed the most natural thing in the world to arch sensuously as his hand moved lower and he began to stroke the already swollen nubbin between her thighs. Even more natural still to seconds later bend and then slightly part her legs and allow the hard length of his arousal to enter and claim her.

She had gasped as the broadness of his cock breached the entrance to her channel from behind, groaning softly as Darius increased the pressure of his stroking fingers at the same time as he pushed his shaft deep inside her.

Not only did he fit, but she had felt so full, so claimed, her release, just minutes later, so intense she shuddered and quaked beneath the onslaught.

And then Darius began to move inside her in earnest, long and measured strokes of his cock that brought her to climax twice more before he withdrew and she heard his groan as the heat of his release pumped against the cheeks of her bottom.

Darius had risen quietly from the bed to wet a cloth and gently clean his release from her body and then his own, before disposing of the cloth and climbing back into the bed to settle himself behind her, his arm once again possessively about her waist as he drew her back against him. It had been beyond sensual that neither of them had spoken a word during their lovemaking or before they both fell back to sleep.

Darius had still been sleeping deeply when Bea slipped from beneath the bedcovers earlier this morning, collecting her discarded clothes before returning to her own bedchamber. She had been lost in a state of euphoria ever since.

"Lady Hanwell?"

Bea blinked back to an awareness of her surroundings at Kilby's prompting. Now, what had he said to her before— Ah yes. "Of course." The bright smile she gave the butler gave no indication of the aches and the delicious stretching of her body she felt after last night's lovemaking. "We can meet in my private parlor once I have been to the breakfast room and said good morning to my guests."

"Very good, my lady."

She gave him a searching glance. "Is something troubling you, Kilby?"

"Nothing that cannot wait a few more minutes," he assured her.

Bea felt a slight unease in the pit of her stomach at the butler's grim expression. "What is it about?"

"I—"

"Lady Hanwell. Bea," Landbourne greeted warmly as he stepped out of the breakfast room. "I thought you had forgotten our tryst this morning."

Bea had forgotten all about the Earl of Landbourne. What woman would not after spending the night in bed with Darius? And she would certainly not class her agreeing to have breakfast with the earl as being a tryst.

Her smile became coolly polite. "Of course I had not forgotten I agreed to have breakfast with you today. Although it would seem you have already eaten?" After all, he was leaving the breakfast room, not entering it as she was about to do.

Landbourne took a proprietary grasp of her arm. "I am more than happy to eat some more if it means I will also enjoy the pleasure of your company."

Which no doubt accounted for the fact he was sadly overweight. "Very well." She nodded. "We will talk in half an hour, Kilby."

"Very well, my lady."

Kilby was very young to be a butler, possibly only in his early thirties, but Bea had always liked him when he was footman here. She had elevated him to the lofty position of butler after Charles died. She had never had cause to regret her decision.

But she sensed something was sorely troubling the usually unflappable Kilby this morning.
Chapter 9

"What is wrong with you this morning, Quinlan?" Darius frowned at his valet. The other man's distraction while shaving him had resulted in a stinging nick to Darius's jaw.

Darius was not in the best of moods this morning as it was. He and Bea had spent a night of pleasure together, and this morning, he had woken in bed alone. He had immediately risen from his bed and knocked briefly on the door between his bedchamber and hers. The door was not locked, but Bea's rooms were empty. Darius's disappointment at not being able to make love to her again this morning had been acute.

It was not helped by the fact he had then recalled Bea's promise to meet with Landbourne for breakfast today. Having Quinlan confirm Bea was even now seated in the breakfast room with Landbourne had caused that jealous green monster to rear its ugly head again, and had further added to Darius's bad temper.

He remained still now as Quinlan performed the magic of stanching the blood from the cut on Darius's chin.

Quinlan glanced at him before turning his attention to completing Darius's shave. "I spent the night with Jeremy Kilby."

His brows rose. "And this of interest to me because...?"

The valet gave up the endeavor of shaving Darius in favor of putting down the razor and pacing across to the window of the dressing room. "Because he asked me too many questions."

"It has been my experience that most lovers do," Darius drawled as he plucked up the towel draped about his chest and wiped the last of the shaving soap from his chin before discarding it and rising to his feet. Although, he had to admit, Bea's only questions last night had been how they might give each other the ultimate in pleasure.

And then she left me this morning to have breakfast with another man.

"The questions were not about me but about you."

All mockery left Darius, his eyes narrowing. "Such as?"

"Why you are here. What your intentions are toward Lady Hanwell."

"Sounds more like a clucking hen fussing over its chick than a reason for any real concern."

Quinlan frowned as he considered the matter. "No," he finally stated. "The questions were too pointed, too personal. They gave me a feeling of unease."

"But not enough to cause you to leave the man's bed?"

"No." The valet's cheeks flushed a crimson red. "I—believe I might be falling in love with him."

Now that was cause for alarm. Quinlan had been with him forever, was the closest thing Darius had to a family outside of The Sinners. Perhaps, because Quinlan's sexual preferences meant he would never marry, it had never occurred to Darius the other man might one day fall in love and wish to leave his employ to be with that love. But if Quinlan fell in love with Bea's butler, and the other man felt the same way about him, there was a distinct possibility the two men would at least like to work in the same household at some time in the future.

Of course, if Darius and Bea—

What the hell...?

If he and Bea what? Fell in love too? Married? Lived a fairy tale ever-after life together, with the faithful Quinlan and Kilby at their sides?

Darius had only really known Bea for a total of two days.

Besides which, he did not intend to fall in love with any woman.

Least of all one who had the crime of treason hanging over her head.

"Quinlan asks too many questions."

"And who, pray tell, is Quinlan?" Bea prompted lightly, wishing to get this interview with her butler over with so that she might leave her private parlor and go in search of Darius. Half an hour spent in Richard Havers's company was more than enough for any woman, especially when she had a virile lover waiting for her upstairs.

"The Duke of Wolferton's valet."

Bea was instantly wary. "And he has been asking questions?"

"Yes."

"In regard to what?"

"You." The butler looked more than a little agitated.

A cold knot formed in Bea's chest. "Who has he been asking these questions?"

"Me, mainly." There was an uncomfortable flush to Kilby's cheeks. "I... The two of us have become...friends."

"I see."

The butler winced. "Do you?"

"It is not my business to know about your private life." She had her suspicions regarding Kilby's sexuality, but it really was none of her business whom he chose to have in his life. Love, wherever it was found, was far too precious to care about such things. "It was during the course of this...friendship that Quinlan asked questions about me?"

"Yes."

"What sort of questions?"

Kilby looked pained. "If your marriage had been a happy one. Who your closest friends are. If there are any regular visitors to Hanwell Manor."

All of them questions a new lover, Darius, might wish to know about her. Except Bea was now familiar enough with Darius's arrogance to be sure that if he wished to know anything about her, he would ask her those questions himself.

Her uneasiness at Darius's unexpected and uninvited arrival at Hanwell Manor two days ago now returned with a vengeance.

It caused her to question whether Darius had an ulterior motive for making love to her. She had been suspicious of that marked attention from the beginning, knew she was no beauty and never would be.

Could it be Darius's reason for being here was that he had somehow discovered her secret and wished to confirm or deny his suspicions? The questions he was asking about her would seem to indicate as much.

If that should be the case, and Darius acquired the evidence he needed to ascertain her guilt, then Bea knew she faced the future prospect of swinging from the gallows.

"Your maid told me you are indisposed?"

Could crying until Bea made herself sick count as being indisposed? She supposed it could, when she still felt nauseous and her head ached as if the devil himself were hammering nails into it.

She gave a slight shake of that aching head as Darius stepped fully into her bedchamber and closed the door behind him. "I have a sick headache."

The headache was caused by the crying she had done at the thought of what might happen to her if Darius found proof of what she had done. The sickness because she knew she had been falling in love with the man whose real reason for being here might be to prove her guilt and subsequently have her accused and tried for her crime.

Darius crossed the bedchamber to sit on the side of the bed where Bea lay beneath the bedcovers. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, adding to the pallor of her face. "Did something the two of us did together last night cause this?" He gently touched the heat of her cheek.

She flinched away from even the lightness of that touch.

Flinched away from him?

It would certainly seem to be the case.

Darius allowed his hand to drop back to his side. "Perhaps we overdid things last night." He gave an apologetic wince. "I should have taken into account that you have not been in a physical relationship since your husband died and been gentler with you. Certainly less demanding. My only excuse is that I desired you so much, I could not seem to get enough of you," he acknowledged self-derisively.

Her gaze avoided meeting his, and instead she watched her own fingers plucking at the bedclothes. "Excuse me if I find that hard to believe."

He frowned. "How can you doubt it after last night?"

"We behaved rashly. I behaved rashly," she dismissed in a hard voice. "I am not accustomed to literally leaping into bed with any gentleman, let alone one I am newly acquainted with."

"We have known each other for years," Darius protested.

"We have seen each other at the occasional social event for years, but we have rarely spoken, and there was certainly never any indication we held any attraction toward each other."

"You were a married woman for several of those years, and I do not allow myself to be attracted to married ladies. It is a question of honor that I and my friends adhere to."

"Laudable of you all, I'm sure," she spoke dryly. "But it does not change the fact I allowed your marked attention toward me these past few days to go to my head."

"I believe it was other parts of your body which were affected the most," he teased.

"Exactly," Bea snapped, her cheeks becoming flushed. "But I am now come to my senses and realize I should not have allowed last night to occur. It will certainly not happen again."

Darius studied her through narrowed lids. "You are ending our relationship?" he finally prompted.

Bea's laugh lacked all humor. "I believe we have had this conversation before. One night together is hardly a relationship."

"I am willing to continue—"

"I am not. Besides," she added firmly as Darius would have protested. "I am seriously considering accepting the Earl of Landbourne's proposal of marriage."

"The devil you are!" Darius rose abruptly to his feet to stare down at her in disbelief. "Why on earth would you do something so obviously stupid?" he snapped. "Not only is the man the biggest bore on earth, but it is obvious he would only be marrying you for your fortune!" He was breathing heavily in his agitation.

She gave a wry smile. "You believe I am so unattractive, no man would wish to marry me for myself alone?"

"You know damn well I do not think that at all," Darius rasped his impatience with such a ridiculous notion. "I thought you enjoyed your freedom after the oppression of your marriage. Had the distinct impression you had no intention of ever remarrying."

She shrugged. "I have recently realized an unmarried woman is...prey, to the unwanted attentions of any man who takes a fancy to seducing her and engaging in a brief dalliance."

"Are you saying my attentions are unwanted?" Darius bit out coldly.

Her gaze still refused to meet his as she instead stared across the bedchamber. "I am saying I allowed myself to be...tempted, into going to bed with you last night. And I repeat, it will not happen again. Indeed"—she did look up at him now, challenge glittering in her eyes—"I believe it would be best for all concerned if you left Hanwell Manor this morning."

"No."

Her eyes widened. "You are refusing to leave?"

"Yes, I am refusing to leave."

"I could have my butler and several footmen eject you from the house."

He gave a scornful snort. "They are welcome to try."

She shook her head. "Why would you wish to stay somewhere you are not wanted?"

Darius gave a harsh laugh. "My dear Bea, if I only stayed where I was wanted, I would never leave my house!"

Bea looked at Darius searchingly, noting the tension in his body, the flush to the taut skin across his cheekbones, the thinned line of his lips, and the angry glitter in his eyes. She had heard whispered tales of the Duke of Wolferton's cold and lethal temper, and currently, Darius appeared to be in a very fine temper indeed.

Because she had ended their relationship and announced she was considering marrying Landbourne? Something which was not even a possibility, when the earl had not even proposed to her. But she had every reason to suppose it was Landbourne's intention to do so before the week was out. When or if that happened, she would, of course, refuse. Darius was right; she did not intend ever remarrying.

Or was Darius angry because she had asked him to leave, and so put an end to his ability to ask her servants any further questions about her?

It did not really matter which it was, she accepted heavily. Darius was dangerous to her on so many levels, and must be made to go. "I am feeling unwell and shall be suggesting my other guests leave later today too." She had come to that conclusion in the midst of her tears, knowing she could not keep up a façade of joviality for the rest of the week when the threat of losing everything she had fought so hard to attain hung over her life like an ominous dark shadow.

"Apart from Landbourne, one presumes," Darius sneered.

She nodded. "Apart from Landbourne."

Darius breathed out his frustration with the course of action Bea appeared to have decided upon after spending a single night in his bed. "Is this an attempt on your part to force me into declaring myself?" Years of having women try to trap him into marriage by one means of trickery or another forced him into asking the question.

"You arrogant—!" Bea broke off with a gasp as she pulled herself up to rest higher on the pillows behind her. "I would not marry you if you were the last man on this earth!"

He snorted. "Then it is as well I have no intention of making such an offer!"

"Get out," Bea sounded weary. "Get out of my bedchamber and out of my house."

Darius gave a disgusted shake of his head. "You, madam, are even more contrary than the rest of your sex."

"Then I am in fine company—because I do not understand you or your motives either." Fire blazed in the darkness of her eyes.

"Motives?" he repeated softly.

"Motives. Reasons. It is all the same," she dismissed impatiently.

"How do you explain the fact I allowed you to tie me up last night?"

That concession, vulnerability, was the one thing Bea had been unable—as yet—to justify in Darius's actions. The only reason she had been able to come up with was an attempt on his part to encourage her complete trust of him so that he might ask his questions directly to her.

"We men rarely have motives, nor does reason come into bedding a woman," Darius assured Bea at her silence. "We like to fuck, eat, and drink, work off further frustration by spending time sparring with fists and rapiers with our friends, and not necessarily in that order. Even so, I believe you will find Landbourne to be shallower than most. Left alone here with him, I predict you would be bored with his exclusive company in a matter of hours. You will certainly never marry him."

As Bea had absolutely no intention of marrying the earl, she did not attempt to refute the comment. She had only made that claim at all as a means of encouraging Darius to leave. Something she appeared to have majorly failed to do. Besides, Darius had overlooked the fact she had said she was considering marrying the earl.

"If you think by remaining here that I will once again turn to you for amusement, then you are mistaken!" Bea snapped in temper.

"Amusement?" Wolferton echoed in obvious disgust. "Is that what last night was to you, amusement?"

"Yes," she lied. Last night with Darius was something she knew she would remember for the rest of her life.

However long or short that life should be.

Her stomach gave another nauseated roll.

His nostrils flared. "In that case, you should seriously consider the idea of amusing yourself further, because I assure you we had only just begun to explore those wicked delights."

A shiver ran the length of her spine merely thinking of what more there was to explore. What further wicked and delicious pleasures Darius could have introduced her to if she were willing.

She gave a firm shake of her head. "I believe we explored enough for me to know I have no interest in repeating the experience."

"You bloody hypocrite!" Darius scowled darkly as he knelt on the bed to grasp hold of Bea's chin and force her to look up at him. "I have seen you in the throes of your pleasure, Bea, and I know you enjoyed every minute of what we have done together these past few days."

Of course she had, and she longed to explore further. But she could not do so now that she knew Darius's valet—and perhaps Darius himself?—was questioning her staff about her. Possibly some of her guests too, now that she thought of that long conversation Darius had with Margo yesterday evening. Not that she thought for a moment Margo would ever betray any of her confidences.

Darius's lovemaking had been erotic and exciting, but the pleasure of continuing along that path was not worth the price Bea might ultimately have to pay. As it was, she would have to be more careful in future in regard to her behavior, and not give Darius, or anyone else, further cause for suspicion.

Bea met his gaze defiantly. "Things we enjoy are not always good for us."

Darius released her chin and rose to his booted feet. "You are seriously set on this course of action?"

"Yes."

His eyes glittered icily. "Then there is nothing more to be said."

Bea looked down at the bed. "No."

"I cannot believe this. Cannot believe you are considering marrying yet another man you do not love." He muttered his frustration with her as he began to pace.

It was not helping Bea's resolve in the slightest that Darius looked so wild and handsome this morning. He wore a midnight-blue superfine and pale gray waistcoat over his black shirt, with pale gray pantaloons and black Hessians. His dark hair was once again loose about his shoulders in disarray, reminding Bea of how much she had enjoyed running her fingers through that silky softness last night.

None of which changed the fact that Darius's reason for being here at all was to make discreet enquiries about her. Thank God Kilby had thought to mention it to her; otherwise, she might have incriminated herself without even being aware of it. As had no doubt been Darius's intention.

"I take it you have reconsidered and decided to leave today after all?" she mocked.

"Then you take it wrong," Darius snapped. "My intention was to spend the week at Hanwell Manor, and I see no reason to change those arrangements."

"Even though your hostess does not wish you to be here?" Bea frowned her frustration with his bloody-mindedness.

"Even though, yes," he taunted. "We shall make a cozy threesome after your other guests have departed. You, Landbourne, and I."

Bea could only stare at him in consternation. He could not seriously intend to—

"Perhaps, if you asked him nicely, the earl might even be willing to be our third in a ménage à trois?" the duke mocked.

She blinked at the term. "What is that?"

"Three people having sex together," he said dryly. "More often than not with sexual relations between the two men as well as the woman. Not in our case, of course," he dismissed. "If I were ever to indulge in that particular sexual act, it would certainly not be with Landbourne."

"Three people...?"

Darius nodded. "Two men and one woman is usual, although I believe it can be a combination of whatever sexes the participants prefer."

Bea could not see how that could even work. Unless—

"One in your pussy and one in your—"

"That is enough!" Bea was totally flustered by the erotic images Darius's words evoked inside her head.

"Or perhaps one sucking your breasts and one licking your—"

"I said that is enough!" She glared at him.

He shrugged. "I am told most women enjoy having the attention of two men at the same time."

"Have you ever— Never mind." She gave a decisive shake of her head. "I do not wish to know."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Very."

"I have never been involved in a threesome," he answered her anyway. "I am not sure my nature is such that I could ever share a woman with another man," he acknowledged ruefully.

Bea doubted it was too. There was a proprietary air about Darius during lovemaking, one which would not allow for the presence of another man. Nor did she care for the idea of sharing him with another woman.

"The situation will never arise where I am concerned," she briskly dismissed. "I really wish you would consider leaving today. It would save us all further embarrassment."

"I am not in the least embarrassed." Darius held her captive with those challenging gray eyes.

No, what this man was, Bea acknowledged again, was arrogance personified.

He was also Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton, the man she had imagined to be her nemesis within hours of his arrival at Hanwell Manor.

A prediction which seemed in danger of becoming all too true.
Chapter 10

"I see that you are the one who has changed her mind."

Bea had no need to turn to know that it was Darius standing behind her and mocking her as she and her guests once again assembled in the drawing room after dinner.

All of her guests.

Because after spending the rest of her day in her bedchamber considering her dilemma, Bea had decided that it would be better if all her guests remained rather than putting herself in the positon of spending time alone with Landbourne and Wolferton. It had never been her intention to have Landbourne remain, but if Wolferton did so, then in order to save face, she would have to invite Landbourne to remain also. In the face of Wolferton's determination to stay, she knew it would be impossible to eject him if he did not wish to go. Not without causing a colossal scandal, anyway.

But putting Landbourne and Wolferton alone together for any length of time was also unacceptable. The two men did not get on. Darius made no effort to hide his contempt for the earl, and Landbourne was unable to hide the fact he was slightly in awe of the younger man. Bea had decided it was far better to dilute that tension by having all her guests remain.

With that decision made, she had risen from her bed and set about organizing the entertainment for after dinner this evening. Having eaten a sumptuous meal, with Darius thankfully once again seated at the end of the dinner table from Bea, her guests were now all occupied in enacting their own version of Romeo and Juliet. A more risqué version than Bea might have wished for, but everyone was enjoying themselves, which was the whole purpose of them being here.

As their hostess, Bea had helped with setting the scene and costumes, but otherwise preferred to remain a spectator.

Wolferton had, of course, disdained taking part in the entertainment which was now causing such hilarity to the others in the room.

Bea forced a polite hostess smile to curve her lips as she turned to face him.

He looked as dark as the devil himself in his completely black evening clothes and loosely curling hair, the gray of his eyes the only light to his scowling countenance. They were the color of and as cold as ice.

Bea maintained that falsely polite smile. "I am feeling much better, thank you, Your Grace."

His mouth twisted with derision. "I believe I stated you have obviously changed your mind about asking your guests to leave, not inquired after your health."

"Then perhaps you should have done," she snapped her exasperation. "It is the polite thing to do, after all, when one knows one's hostess has been feeling unwell."

"Indeed." He gave an inclination of his head, maintaining that slight bow so that none should overhear their conversation as he spoke close to her ear. "How are your pussy and nipples this evening? Any lingering soreness from last night?"

Bea drew her breath in sharply. This man was... He was... "You are utterly scandalous!"

"On the contrary, I am a concerned lover assuring myself as to your well-being."

"You are not my lover!"

"Until an official announcement is made of your impending marriage to Landbourne, that is exactly what I am and shall remain," Darius insisted softly. "Perhaps, as you are proving unhelpful on the subject, I should ascertain for myself as to whether or not your pussy and nipples are sore."

"I should like to see you try!" she scoffed, feeling safe among her other guests.

She should have known better than to challenge Wolferton.

His fingers snaked about her wrist as he tugged her toward the door out into the main entrance hall. Tightly enough that Bea could not escape the grip of those long fingers when she attempted to pull away, nor dare she call out and so bring attention to the two of them.

The duke picked up a three-pronged and lit candelabra as they passed through the shadowed hallway. "As my hostess was indisposed, I had absolutely nothing to do this afternoon, and during my wanderings, I discovered you have an orangery."

"My guests—"

"Have absolutely no need of your presence for the next hour or so."

The next hour or so...?

What did Darius intend doing to her that would take an hour—

He has already stated his intention is to ascertain for himself as to whether my pussy and nipples are sore.

Darius released her wrist as he closed the orangery door behind the two of them. "Never." He turned the key in the lock. "Challenge me again." He regained that grasp of her wrist and pulled her along beside him in the warmth of the glass room, making his way through the lush foliage. "Because I always." He stepped into the comfortable seating area. "Always." He placed the candelabra down on a side table. "Do exactly as I say I will." He turned toward her, his eyes glacial. "Take off your gown."

She raised her hands defensively in front of her. "No."

"Another challenge." He gave a sad shake of his head. "Will you never learn, Bea?"

"You agreed you would not order me about in this way."

"I agreed to that when you were not contemplating marrying a man we both know is beneath you in every way."

"That still does not give you the right to— Darius!" She cried out her shock as he took a firm grasp of the front of her gown and ripped it from breast to ankle. "My God..." She gasped again as he did the same to her chemise, her hands moving up instinctively as her bared breasts spilled free of the ripped material.

Darius moved those hands with a flick of his wrists before his own hands cupped beneath both breasts as he inspected them. "Hm, your nipples are a little red, perhaps." He lowered his head, causing Bea to draw in a sharp breath as he suckled one of the nipples into the heat of his mouth, laving it with a moist sweep of his tongue before releasing her. "And oversensitive." He nodded his satisfaction before capturing the other nipple in his mouth and repeating the caress and release. "The left more than the right," he observed before stepping back. "Remove your clothes, Bea."

He watched her through narrowed lids as she tried in vain to pull the two halves of her gown together. "You have ruined my gown."

He shrugged. "Then perhaps you should have removed it when I asked you to do so."

"You did not ask!"

"I am not asking now either."

Bea gave up the exercise altogether when it seemed nothing could repair the damage he had done. "How shall I ever be able to go back into the house, return to my bedchamber, with my clothes in tatters?"

Darius ignored her question. "Take off your undergarments as well."

She looked at him with dark, accusing eyes as some of her fire returned. "This is outrageous. You are outrageous."

Darius knew himself well enough to know exactly what he was and was not. And currently, he was a man in the throes of a passion so strong, it robbed him of any other thought. He had been in this intemperate mood since earlier today when Bea had told him she intended accepting Landbourne's proposal of marriage and then requested that Darius leave. On the surface, he might still appear civilized, but inwardly, it was a completely different matter.

He desired this troublesome woman to the point of madness.

So much so, he had realized as he paced this orangery for hours this afternoon, he was willing to defend her if it should transpire she was guilty of treason.

Which he was very much afraid was the case.

Her behavior in deciding to ask all her guests to leave—apart from Landbourne, Darius recalled with a scowl—was questionable to say the least. As was the behavior of her butler in asking Quinlan those pointed questions about Darius.

The thought of Bea swinging on the end of a rope was completely unacceptable to Darius. He had made love to this woman, he had seen the scars she bore from being married to a man who had taken out his frustrations on her, and Darius could not, would not, let her meet her end that way. Not without a fight on his part, at least.

"You are the one who is outrageous," he bit out harshly. "Now. Take. Them. Off." Whatever Bea's reasons for betraying her Crown and country, Darius intended to punish her before offering her his protection. For making him want her to the point he was willing to betray his closest friends in order to save her. "All of them."

She obviously saw something in his face which alarmed her enough she shrugged out of the torn gown and chemise.

"Drawers," he bit out.

She swallowed as she unfastened the garment at the waist before lowering them to the ground and stepping out of them, standing before him wearing only her stockings, garters, and shoes.

A nerve pulsed in Darius's tightly clenched jaw. "Bend over the back of the chair."

"Darius—"

"Do it, Bea. Please."

She moved slowly toward the chair as she obviously sensed the coiled—deadly—tension driving him. "Are you going to spank me?" she prompted once she was bent over the chair enough to expose her moist and swollen pussy.

He should. He should beat her ass until it was so red and sore, she was incapable of sitting down for a week.

The evidence of those scars on her back prevented Darius from ever laying a hand on her, or anything else, in anger.

"No," he assured her gruffly as he stepped forward to lift one of his hands and caress the soft curve of her bottom. "I will never physically hurt you in the way Hanwell did. Part your legs for me. Wider," he instructed softly.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. "What are you going to do to me?"

Darius moved down onto his knees behind her. "This."

Bea let out a low and aching groan at the first touch of the moist heat of Darius's tongue against her nether lips, her hands moving to tightly grip the sides of the chair as that marauding tongue laved her thoroughly, from those sensitive lips to her throbbing clit.

This was not punishment. This was bliss.

Bea knew she should not be as aroused as she was by both Darius's dictatorial tone in placing her in this vulnerable position and the intimacy of his mouth against her exposed flesh. She should not. But she was. So aroused, she parted her legs even farther and moved up on tiptoe to allow him greater access.

"Yes..." She groaned as she felt the hard probe of his tongue beneath the hood protecting her nub. Stroking. Pleasuring. "Do not stop," she pleaded as that warmth left her and she felt utterly bereft without that moist tongue pleasuring her.

"I should like to be inside you again, Bea. This time, I should like to come inside you. To fill you to overflowing. To claim you, and continue claiming you until you accept that I am your lover."

God, yes.

The increased heat and dampness between Bea's thighs told her it was what she wanted too.

She had been disappointed when the two of them had made love during the night and Darius had withdrawn before his release, the heat of his seed pumping onto her back instead.

But there was no reason why he should not release inside her when there was no possibility of her conceiving.

"Please," she encouraged.

"So polite." Darius had risen back to his feet behind her. "Will you say thank you afterward too?" His hand stroked along the wetness of her nether lips.

"If you wish it."

"I wish it."

"Then, yes, I will thank you. Only please..." She blushed to hear the desperation in her voice. "I need to be filled. I need you to fill me."

His breath was a warm caress against her ear, and there was the rustle of clothing. "Will you like feeling my hard cock stroking along that knot of nerves inside you?"

"Yes!" she gasped. "God, yes!"

"I intend to fuck you and keep on fucking you as you scream your pleasure, again and again." He ran the velvety length of his bared cock down the seam of her bottom and along her pussy lips, the brush of material against the backs of her thighs revealing that he was still fully dressed and had only unfastened the fall of his pantaloons to release his cock. "Even then I shall not stop. I will continue until you are hoarse from screaming. Until you repeat over and over again who it is you belong to."

This was wrong. So very wrong. Bea did not belong to anyone but herself. She should stop this. Must stop this before—

She groaned long and achingly, her fingers tightly gripping the arms of the chair as Darius's cock entered her in one smooth, slick thrust, lifting her up onto her toes as he filled her completely.

"Is this what you wanted?" His hands were on her hips, holding her in place as he slowly withdrew, deliberately stroking that cluster of nerves inside her, before thrusting in again, harder and deeper still. "How you want it?"

"Yes!" Bea hardly recognized her own voice in that rasping plea.

"Then you shall have it, Bea. All of it. All of me," he promised darkly.

Bea was aware only of those continued and relentless thrusts and the slow and tortuous withdrawal. Feeling so full when he thrust inside her and so empty when he withdrew.

"Come for me, Bea," he instructed. "Come for me now."

Bea cried out as she tumbled over the edge of that fierce climax.

"Again," Darius instructed harshly seconds later, his hands now cupping and squeezing her breasts.

Her second climax was even more earthshattering than the first.

"Again." His fingers stroked across her engorged nipples.

Bea was still recovering. "Darius—"

"Again, damn it!" He captured her nipples between fingers and thumbs, squeezing and pulling on those sensitive buds.

She trembled and shook as her body was claimed by yet another climax.

By the time Bea felt Darius's cock swell and grow even longer inside her, evidence of his own impending climax, she had lost all track of time and self. Forgotten everything and everyone else but the two of them and those increasingly aching climaxes as Darius took her to the heights again and again. As if he was punishing her— No, not as if he was punishing her; he was punishing her.

"Tell me who you belong to, Bea."

Bea was so exhausted from those multiple climaxes, she lay acquiescent over the back of the chair, no more than a willing vessel for that long and thrusting cock.

"Tell me," he said gruffly.

There was one last spark of rebellion inside her to assist her in remaining silent.

One of Darius's hands moved between her thighs, fingers remorseless as he ignored her groans of protest to stroke and pinch her oversensitive clit until she hurtled over the edge of yet another release. "Who do you belong to, Bea?" he repeated firmly.

"You," she choked. "I belong to you."

"I am going to release inside you now." His hands moved to grip her hips and hold her firmly as his thrusts became harder and faster, wilder. The only sounds in the room were her groans, whether of pleasure or pain, she was no longer sure, Darius's harsh breathing, and the slap of his heavy sac against her hot flesh.

Bea had not believed herself capable of it, but she was consumed with yet another climax as the hot spurts of Darius's release filled her channel. Tears of joy fell down her cheeks as Darius kept on filling her until he finally stilled behind her.

The reality of the situation hit Darius with the force of a punch to his gut.

That reality was Bea collapsed in front of him, bent over the back of a chair, her body shaking with uncontrollable sobs. There were marks on her hips where his fingers had gripped her tightly to hold her in place to receive his cock. No doubt her nipples would be even redder than they were earlier after he had pulled and pinched them to make her climax. Her channel would be sore, both from his length and the amount of time he had spent thrusting inside her. Her inner muscles would be screaming out in protest from the number of climaxes he had demanded of her. The backs of her thighs too, from the unnaturalness of her position.

He had behaved like a wild animal.

Marking what he considered to be his.

Taking what was his.

Even now, he wanted to withdraw and scoop up his cum with his fingers before smearing it all over her body. Marking her with his scent.

"Darius?" Bea's voice shook.

He drew in a ragged breath, unable to answer her as he slowly withdrew so as not to cause her further discomfort. He quickly shrugged out of his jacket before wrapping it about her naked and trembling body. His hands were gentle as he helped her to straighten before turning her to face him.

She was deathly pale, the tracks of her tears upon her cheeks, dark shadows surrounding her eyes as she kept her lashes lowered. As if she could not bear to even look at him.

Which, Darius accepted heavily, she probably could not. He was unsure as to whether he would be able to look at himself in a mirror right now, no longer sure what or who he would see reflected there. Himself, Darius Strong, the controlled Duke of Wolferton, or some wild and out-of-control barbarian he did not recognize.

He had always possessed a temper, but it was one which Darius had believed was under his own control these past fifteen years. He could no longer believe that after the way he had behaved toward Bea this evening.

Bea's complete physical collapse now was the result of that temper.

Darius kept his jacket wrapped about her as he lifted her gently into his arms before sitting down in the chair over which she had so recently been fucked to within an inch of her life. And it had been fucking, he acknowledged self-disgustedly. A primitive act of possession on his part.

A knife turned in his gut as Bea buried her face against his throat and he felt the heat of fresh tears against his flesh.

His arms tightened about her as he rested his cheek against the top of her head. "I am sorry. So very, very sorry."

Bea was sorry too.

Sorry that the fierceness of Darius's lovemaking was over.

She had seen a side of him tonight she would never have believed lay beneath Darius's normal calm and arrogant demeanor. A wild side which had resulted in equally wild lovemaking.

Most surprising of all, despite her earlier denials and the danger he represented to her, Bea knew that she did now belong to Darius.

Body, heart, and soul.

"I will leave first thing tomorrow morning."

Those words were like a knife plunged into the heart Bea had only just realized belonged completely and utterly to Darius Strong, the Duke of Wolferton.

How that had happened, and so quickly, she had no idea. She only knew the thought of Darius leaving Hanwell Manor, leaving her, made her heart hurt almost as much as the pleasurable ache of her body.

"Bea, for God's sake, speak to me." His arms were like steel bands about her waist. "Even if it is only to tell me how much you hate me."

Hate him? Why on earth should she— Ah. "I do not hate you, Darius." She raised her head to look at him. His face was pale, an expression of self-loathing in those gray eyes. "I asked for your lovemaking, remember?" she said softly.

"Lovemaking, yes." A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. "That was not lovemaking. It was—" He ran an agitated hand through the dark thickness of his hair.

"I enjoyed whatever it was." Darius had been every bit as out of control and forceful as she could ever have wished for in a lover.

"I do not recognize myself in the man who took you so roughly," he spat out.

"Is it not enough that I recognize you?" she prompted gently.

"As what?" he said bleakly. "The man who demanded your response and allowed you no respite until you were on the point of collapse? The man who caused these tears to fall?" He used his fingertips to gently wipe those tears from her cheeks.

"They are tears of extreme emotion, not pain." Bea tilted her head as she looked at him. "I do not believe lovemaking is always gentle."

"It should not be a punishment either," he said bitterly.

"Punishment?" Her gaze searched his face. That self-loathing was still in his expression, and there was now a bleakness in his eyes. "Because of Landbourne?"

"No. Yes." He sighed heavily. "Not completely because of Landbourne."

"What else is there?"

He closed his eyes and then opened them again before admitting, "I am here under false pretenses."

Bea's mouth went dry as she recalled Kilby's concerns regarding the duke's unexpected arrival, and his suspicions regarding the questions asked by the duke's valet. "You are?"

He nodded. "I was sent here to find evidence of your guilt."

Everything inside Bea stilled. Her heart, her lungs, all coherent thought. "Sent here by whom?"

"I and my close circle of friends report directly to a prominent member of the English government."

"Agents for the Crown?"

"Yes."

Her throat moved as she swallowed. "And did you find the evidence against me?"

"No."

A quizzical frown creased her brow. "Then I do not see—"

"I did not find it because there is no physical evidence," Wolferton bit out grimly. "There is only your guilt," he added softly. "Bea, I know you are guilty."

"How?"

"In the way you keep people at arm's length—" He broke off with a grimace as she gave a skeptical snort as to how close he had been to her merely seconds ago. "I refused to remain outside those defenses. There is also the behavior of your servants," he added heavily.

"What about them?"

"They are protective of you to an unnatural degree." His mouth twisted into the semblance of a smile. "My valet assures me there is always a disgruntled servant or two in every household. Not this one."

Her brows rose. "Perhaps I am an exceptional mistress."

"Perhaps you are," he conceded dryly. "But you and those servants are also hiding something. A truth which I know your honesty would force you to admit if I asked you the question direct."

Bea drew in a long and steadying breath. "Then ask it."

His jaw tightened. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because I do not want to know! Because I did not expect— I never thought I should—"

"You did not expect to like me?" she realized.

"I more than like you, Bea."

She laughed without humor. "Did not expect to desire me as much as you do, then."

He drew in a deep breath. "Bea, whatever happens, I shall do my best to defend your actions."

The fragile world Bea had built for herself had been quietly falling apart since this man arrived at Hanwell Manor.

It had collapsed completely at Darius's acknowledgment he knew what she had done.
Chapter 11

"You may leave me now." Bea faced Darius proudly as she stood in the middle of her bedchamber a few minutes later.

Knowing the two of them could not remain in the orangery indefinitely, she had insisted, if Darius intended to continue with this conversation, they do so in her bedchamber, well away from possible detection from her other guests.

She had kept Darius's jacket wrapped about her nakedness as the two of them moved quietly through the house and up the staircase, the sound of her guests' laughter coming from the drawing room now a jarring note on Bea's already frayed nerves.

She had gone to her dressing room as soon as she entered her bedchamber and now wore her robe over her night rail. She had wished Darius gone by the time she returned to her bedchamber but was not surprised when he was not.

Her chin rose. "I promise you I will not attempt to run away."

He gave a pained frown. "I did not for a moment think that you would."

Her mouth twisted. "And yet here you remain."

Because Darius did not want to leave. Did not want to be apart from her. Tomorrow morning, all would be changed. At his request, she had not admitted her guilt to him, but neither had she defended herself against his accusations, leaving Darius with no choice but to take her with him when he returned to London tomorrow.

But he also meant it when he said he would do all he could to help her. It was the least he could do. The least he could do? Why try to fool himself? If Bea paid the full price for her crime, if she was hanged, a part of him would die with her. Perhaps the best part. The part of him that now saw the possibility of hitherto unknown emotions as well as that overwhelming desire to possess her.

His mouth thinned. "I will talk to the Prince Regent on your behalf."

She gave a shake of her head. "What good would that do?" She moved to sit on the side of the bed. "I am guilty, Darius. There. I have said it." She sighed.

"Damn it!" He scowled darkly. "I told you not to—"

"I have said it, and now there is no going back," Bea said simply. "I am tired, Darius. So tired of living this lie. Of living with the guilt."

"Why did you do it?" Darius had seen no evidence either in her demeanor or her words of any treasonable feelings toward the Crown or country.

She sighed. "I will not discuss that with you."

"You must—"

"I must do nothing of the sort!" Her eyes flashed darkly, her knuckles showing white as she gripped her hands tightly together in her lap. "It was too much to hope my past actions would not catch up with me one day. And so they have," she added wearily. "I have said I will accept my fate, but I will not talk about why I did it with you or anyone else. Now, please leave me."

Darius frowned his frustration, but there was no doubting that Bea was speaking the truth when she said she was tired of living this way. It was as if she might shatter into a million pieces if he continued to push this subject further. No doubt the exertion of their rough physical activity earlier was adding to her air of fragility.

"Very well." He nodded abruptly. "Tomorrow, we go to London."

She frowned. "Sir Edwin Greaves is the local magistrate."

"I am here on behalf of the Crown," he reminded her. "We must go to London, and before we get there, you will talk to me. Your cooperation on this matter will serve as part of your defense," he insisted as she shook her head.

She smiled without humor. "I have told you, I have no defense. Presented with the same circumstances, I would do it all over again."

Darius barely held his impatience in check. "You will hang if you continue along this stubborn path."

She focused emotionless brown eyes on him. "I will hang anyway."

Darius scowled his frustration. "Why will you not defend yourself?"

"Because to do so would involve other people, innocent people, who do not deserve to share in my shame."

Darius could not help but admire her air of absolute dignity and determination. Even if a part of him wished to shake her until her teeth rattled.

A gentle knock sounded on the door before it was opened. "Oh. I am sorry, my lady." The young lady Darius recognized as Bea's maid stood blushing in the doorway as she saw the two of them together, her mistress wearing only her nightclothes.

"It is perfectly all right, Jane." Bea gave her a reassuring smile. "I shall not need you again tonight." She waited until the maid had left before speaking to Darius again. "I asked you to leave." She stood up, only that quiet pride Darius so admired now holding her together. "I promise you I shall be packed and ready to accompany you to London first thing in the morning."

"Bea, for God's sake, you have to let me help you—"

"No." There was a finality to that one word, a brittleness to the proud way in which she faced Darius, which advised against any further argument on his part. "You deceived me as to your reason for being here. Have lied to me repeatedly since. Have admitted you made love to me under false pretenses. Why should I ever listen to another word you have to say to me?"

"Because—" Because what? Because he cared for her? Because the thought of losing her ripped a deep black hole in him he knew would never be filled but would remain there inside him, a dark and festering wound. "My desire for you is not a lie. Or my offer to help you."

Her smile did not reach her eyes. "It is far too late for that."

"I will defend you, Bea, against anyone and everything," he insisted tautly. "Whether you wish it or not."

"That is your prerogative." She eyed him coolly. "If you will excuse me, I must dress again now and go downstairs and say good night to my guests. I will also have to explain I have been called away on urgent family business, so that they all know to depart tomorrow."

Darius had never felt so frustrated in his life. By Bea's stubborn refusal to accept his help. By the knowledge she had every reason to distrust him.

It did not help his disturbed state of mind that he heard her gentle sobs the moment he was back in the adjoining bedchamber. She had not locked that adjoining door behind him when he left, and Darius now fought an inner battle to stop himself from going back to hold and comfort Bea as she cried. She had made it more than plain she did not want him. Not his comfort now or his intention to defend her in the future.

Whether Bea wished it or not, Darius fully intended doing the latter.

"My God...!" Quinlan gasped the following morning the moment entered the bedchamber carrying a breakfast tray and saw Darius's disheveled appearance.

"Your Grace will do," Darius drawled mockingly as he stood in front of one of the windows.

The same window, he recalled with a stab of pain in his chest, at which he had enjoyed pleasuring himself while an aroused Bea watched. Was it possible that had happened only two days ago? It seemed a lifetime ago.

Because his life had changed. He had changed. He was no longer that selfish bastard who had arrived at Hanwell Manor, determined to prove Lady Beatrix Hanwell's guilt or innocence as quickly as possible so that he might return to London and carry on with his own life.

"You look dreadful." Quinlan's gaze remained on Darius as he placed the tray down on a side table. "And why are you still wearing the clothes in which you were dressed yesterday evening?"

"Possibly because my valet was too busy seducing his lover last night to come to my room and help me undress," he taunted.

The other man gave a snort. "We both know you are perfectly capable of undressing yourself."

Darius stepped away from the window. "I see you did not deny my accusation of seduction."

The valet shifted uncomfortably. "The man...holds a power over me which I have never encountered before."

A power Darius completely understood, when it was the same one Kilby's mistress now held over him. "How do you feel about the Continent, Quinlan?"

The other man looked suitably puzzled. "In what regard, Your Grace?"

"In regard to living there."

Quinlan was taken aback. "Your Grace...?"

Darius had been in an agony of turmoil the previous night as he listened to Bea's sobs in the adjoining room, wanting to go to her but knowing she did not want him there. She had eventually stopped crying, and then there was only silence as she dressed and returned downstairs to say goodnight to her guests. He heard her return a short time later, and then only silence, and he assumed she slept.

Darius was not so lucky. His night had been both sleepless and long as he considered the options over and over again in his mind, until he gave himself a headache.

Despite what he had said to Bea, once they reached London, Darius knew there was every chance the situation, and Bea, would then be taken out of his hands. Oh, he could appeal to the Prince Regent on Bea's behalf, might even be able to persuade Stonewell into supporting him in that defense, but ultimately, Darius knew it would make little difference. Bea had admitted herself guilty of treason and would no doubt do so again once she was questioned in London. Even if they managed to have the sentence of hanging commuted in favor of Bea instead being sent to prison, there was every reason to believe she would perish inside those damp and disease-infested walls.

Something Darius could not bear to contemplate. "It is my intention to remove Lady Hanwell and her maid from England as soon as possible and find some obscure place where we might live quietly and undisturbed. There is every possibility we might be able to persuade Kilby into coming with us," he tempted as Quinlan continued to stare at him blankly.

"Let me see if I have understood you correctly..." The other man finally stirred himself enough to frown. "You intend to accompany Lady Hanwell to the Continent, along with myself and that lady's maid and butler, and remain there?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"Indefinitely." He could not envision a time when it would be safe for Bea to step foot on English soil again.

"Why?"

Darius's jaw tightened. "Is that not obvious?"

"To you perhaps, but—" Quinlan's brow cleared. "My God, she has admitted her guilt."

Darius paced restlessly. "Not only that, but she will do so again to others once we reach London. I cannot allow that to happen. We will accompany her to the Continent and remain there."

"I still do not understand why... You care for her," Quinlan finally realized.

He nodded. "Enough that I will not allow her to hang."

"Do you intend to marry her once on the Continent?"

His mouth twisted. "I would need the lady's cooperation to do that, and I have every reason to believe she will not give it." He straightened. "Whatever does or does not happen in that regard, I cannot risk taking her to London to answer for her crimes."

Quinlan nodded. "I understand."

His brows rose. "You do?"

"Do not look so surprised." His valet grimaced. "The thought of Jeremy's—Kilby's pretty neck in a hangman's noose would be as unacceptable to me." He gave a shudder at the thought of it. "If he will agree to accompany us, I am willing to leave England whenever you wish to go."

Darius gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. "What a pair we are, Quinlan."

The other man shrugged. "We are not the same two jaded men who arrived here only days ago, that is for certain."

No, they were not. It was—

"Dear Lord, I forgot!" Quinlan exclaimed. "This letter was delivered a short time ago." He picked the missive up from the breakfast tray. "I allowed myself to become distracted by your disheveled appearance when I entered the bedchamber and forgot to give it to you," he added ruefully. "It bears the Duke of Stonewell's seal."

Darius took the letter but did not open it immediately, unsure if he wished to open it at all. His decision to leave England with Bea had not been an easy one to make and would involve distancing himself from the seven men who had become his family these past twenty-five years or more. Reading a letter from Dominik would not change his decision, but it would certainly cause Darius unnecessary pain to dwell on his estrangement from his friends.

"Start packing," he instructed Quinlan briskly. "We will leave as soon as Lady Hanwell's maid has also packed their things." Darius had no intention of telling Bea yet as to their change in destination. "Do you think you can talk to Kilby without his discussing it with Lady Hanwell?" Unlike Darius, Bea was resigned to her fate and would no doubt put up a fight if she knew he never intended for her to reach London. "If Kilby agrees to come with us, he can travel in the second coach with you later this morning, and so avoid detection from Lady Hanwell."

Quinlan's cheeks became flushed. "I have every reason to believe Kilby does not wish to be parted from me any more than I wish to be apart from him."

Darius nodded. "Then go to him, man, and let us all leave here as quickly as we are able."

He waited until his valet had left the bedchamber before breaking the seal on the letter and reading the contents.

"Whatever you are guilty of, it is certainly not treason!"

Bea frowned as Darius entered her bedchamber through the doorway adjoining their two rooms without so much as knocking first. She really must remember to lock that door in future—

Her irritated thoughts came to an abrupt halt as she realized she had no future, here or anywhere else.

She had been up since before dawn and was already washed and dressed for traveling as she sat in a chair beside the window. Jane had not arrived with her breakfast tray as yet, but once she did, Bea intended asking the maid to pack her clothes for a stay in London. At this point, her household staff did not need to know she would not be returning from that visit.

She frowned at Darius's enigmatic comment. "Why on earth would you suppose I was guilty of such a heinous crime?"

"Because you told me you were!"

She raised her brows as Darius impatiently crossed the room to loom over her. "I most certainly did not."

"Then what the hell were you admitting to being guilty of last night?"

"I... Why I..." Bea gave a bewildered shake of her head. "You thought I had committed treason?" A sense of outrage entered her tone as she stood up. "I am utterly loyal to the Crown and England. I would never— This is the real reason for coming here so unexpectedly and uninvited? Why you seduced me?"

"It was my initial intention, yes," he acknowledged heavily. "But that changed the more time I spent in your company. To the point I did not give any of that a thought when we were intimate together."

Bea snorted. "I do not believe you." It had been humiliating last night to realize Darius's lovemaking had been so cold and calculated.

The same lovemaking which had caused her to fall in love with him.

Because Bea knew without a doubt she loved Darius. Still. Despite knowing his own motives toward her had been less than honorable.

He grasped both her hands in his. "Bea, you must believe me when I tell you—" He broke off as she wrenched free of his hold to move abruptly away from him.

"I do not have to believe a single word of the cold and heartless man I now know you to be." Bea could feel the warmth of anger in her cheeks. "You came into my home." She began to pace. "You deliberately set out to seduce me because you, and I am guessing your Sinner friends, suspected I was guilty of treason."

"I was to prove you either innocent or guilty," he confirmed tersely.

Her hands clenched at her sides. "And last night, you believed you had proven me guilty?"

"I accused. You admitted it," Wolferton bit out grimly. "But now it turns out you are not guilty at all," he added disgustedly.

No, Bea was not guilty of treason. No one could add that to her list of sins. Her one huge sin, she corrected heavily. She could be as angry and hurt as she liked toward Wolferton for his trickery, but the truth would not be changed. She was guilty.

But not of treason... "And how can you possibly know that?"

"Because you accepted the invitation to the Countess of Dunton's ball, but in the end did not attend."

Bea gave a dazed shake of her head. She really was too tired from crying and her sleepless night, too defeated and downtrodden from contemplating her own future, to be able to understand a word Wolferton was now saying to her.

Not that he looked any better than she did, she allowed grudgingly. He was still wearing the same clothes from last night, his eyes looked as if they had dark bruises beneath them, his cheeks were somewhat hollowed, and there was the shadow of a beard on his jaw where he had not shaved this morning.

"I had a cold that evening and decided to stay at home," she dismissed distractedly. "Although I do not see how that should have convinced you of my innocence."

"Because the guilty lady did attend the countess's ball." And Darius had never been so relieved in his life as when he read Stonewell's letter explaining that Bea had not been present that evening after all, and so could not be the guilty lady they were looking for.

But it still left the puzzle as to what Bea was guilty of. Whatever it was, it could not be anything serious enough to warrant—

"I killed my husband."
Chapter 12

"You killed your husband..." Darius repeated slowly. "Accidentally?"

"No." Bea raised her chin. "Not unless you count my hitting him over the head with the fireplace poker as being accidental."

Darius dropped heavily into the chair beside the window, for once in his adult life not sure how to proceed. Bea had killed Hanwell? "Because he had beaten you with his riding crop?"

She snorted. "I was used to being beaten."

"Then—" He broke off as a knock sounded on the door of the bedchamber, dark brows rising as Quinlan burst into the room without being invited to do so, accompanied by a white-faced Kilby and Bea's equally pale-faced maid. "What is the meaning of this?" Darius demanded as he rose to his feet.

Quinlan was far from his unflappable self, his face flushed, eyes slightly feverish, chest quickly rising and falling, as if he had been running. "You have it all wrong, Your Grace," the valet told him with that same breathlessness. "Lady Hanwell did not— She is not— We will still all need to go to the Continent, as you planned, but not because Lady Hanwell is guilty of betraying her country or the Crown. She is— She— Jeremy..." he prompted, forgetting all formality in his agitation.

The butler stepped forward. "Lady Hanwell did not—"

"You will say nothing further, Kilby. Or you either, Jane," Bea instructed firmly. "And what is this nonsense about us going to the Continent?" she demanded of Darius.

His mouth thinned. "I will not allow you to hang, Bea."

Her brows rose. "You will not allow it?"

"No." Darius could feel the nerve pulsing in his cheek.

She eyed him quizzically. "I believe that is the penalty for murder."

"My lady—"

"You will remain silent, Jane." Bea gave her maid a warning glance.

"No, my lady, we will not." Kilby stepped into the center of the bedchamber. "I will no longer allow you to carry a burden that should have been mine." He turned to Darius. "Jane is my younger sister, Your Grace."

"Kilby, no!" Bea choked.

"I am sorry, my lady, but I must," the young man insisted before once again turning to Darius. "Lord Hanwell raped my sister, and when he learned she was with child, he demanded she and I both be put out of the house, as he had done with several other female servants whom he had previously forced himself upon. No one would have been willing to work here at all if not for her ladyship." A nerve pulsed in the butler's jaw. "When Lady Hanwell voiced her protest at our fate, she received a terrible beating. When he had finished beating her ladyship, Lord Hanwell turned on my sister. I believe it was his intention to kill her and the babe. Lady Hanwell hit his lordship with the poker to prevent that from happening."

"Self-defense," Darius murmured with some relief.

"Defense of me, yes, Your Grace," Jane put in softly.

"Who else knows this?" Darius could not help but recall Quinlan's comment that there seemed to be a "conspiracy of silence regarding Lady Hanwell's private life" in this household.

Not only in regard to Bea's private life, if all this was to be believed. And Darius did believe. It explained so much. Why Bea's household staff were so protective of and loyal to her. Why she had admitted herself as being guilty, albeit of the wrong crime.

"Only the people in this room know for certain, Your Grace," Kilby answered him. "Although I am sure the other servants are aware of the circumstances of his lordship's death. They did not like him either. As I said, we all remained here only out of loyalty to her ladyship."

"How did you explain Hanwell's injuries to the doctor?" Darius frowned as Bea, realizing the situation had progressed beyond her control, now walked over to the window, the stiffness of her back telling of her tension. "I am presuming a doctor or the magistrate were called to look at Hanwell after his death?"

"I pushed him over the top of the stair rail so that he fell into the hallway below." Once again, it was Kilby who answered. "His head injury was in keeping with such a fall."

Darius nodded. "They suspected nothing? No foul play?"

"No."

"The babe?"

Kilby's expression softened slightly. "My young niece is well and living with our mother in the village, thank you for asking, Your Grace."

Knowing Bea's soft heart as he did, Darius had a feeling her charitable acts and visits to the families in the village involved the care and financial upkeep of more than one of Hanwell's illegitimate children. Hanwell's actions toward Jane revealed he had never felt any such responsibility himself.

Bea had done it for him, despite the fact Hanwell's bastards were a slap in the face for her own childless state.

"You may leave us now." Darius's gaze remained on the paleness of Bea's profile as he dismissed the other three people in the room.

"Shall I continue to pack your things in preparation for leaving this morning, Your Grace?" Quinlan paused to inquire.

"No," he answered softly, instantly noting the increased tension in Bea's shoulders. He waited until they were alone before crossing the room to stand behind her. "Bea—"

"I killed him," she stated unemotionally.

"And if he were alive today, then I would be the one to kill him."

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. "Why on earth would you do such a thing?"

"Because he was an animal—worse than an animal, as I believe animals live by their own moral code. The bastard needed to be put down for what he did to you alone," Darius stated harshly. "Bea..." Her tension was such he was afraid to touch her. "You did what needed to be done. He gave you no choice. If you had not stopped him, he would have killed Jane and her unborn babe."

Bea began to tremble, and then to shake, hot tears stinging her eyes before they tumbled down her cheeks. "He was a brute, without conscience or heart. Jane was only sixteen when he—when he—" She broke off as her throat was closed by the choking sobs she could no longer contain.

She had no will or strength left to fight as Darius's arms came about her. He pulled her in tightly against the warmth of his chest as she continued to sob.

One of his hands soothed down the length of her spine. "I was six years old when my uncle began to hit me with his fists and kick me while wearing his boots." His arms tightened about Bea as she would have pulled back to look at him.

Even so, Darius could see her eyes glistened with unshed tears. "You do not have to tell me these things."

"I want to." Darius realized that it was true. Only The Sinners knew of the violent childhood he had suffered, but now he wanted Bea to know too. For her to know him. All of him.

"My parents died when I was six, at which time my father's younger brother became my guardian," he continued evenly. "The beatings began within days of my moving into his house. Thankfully, I was sent to boarding school aged eight, and The Sinners became my family. The beatings during the holidays continued until I was fifteen, when I had grown big enough to defend myself. Instead of fists, my uncle then used words to hurt me, maliciously slandering my mother and my father. His guardianship ended on my twenty-first birthday. On that day, I beat him to within an inch of his life. Have you noticed how he walks with a cane?" He waited for her nod before continuing. "I crushed his leg under the heel of my boot, and it has never been the same since. Nor have I spoken to or acknowledged his existence since that day. My point is, Bea..." His voice strengthened, "I might as easily have killed him that day. Nor should I feel the least regret if I had. Cruel men like my uncle and Hanwell should not be allowed to live and cause misery to the lives of others."

Bea's tears were now for the small orphaned boy who should have received love and kindness from his uncle but instead had received only cruelty. It explained so much of Darius's nature. The aloofness and arrogance which shielded him from ever being hurt again. His loyalty to the friends he considered his family.

"I do not regret Charles being dead either," she admitted huskily. "Only that I am the one who killed him."

"Because he gave you no choice in the matter," Darius insisted. "If you would let me, I will talk to the Prince Regent on the matter. I am certain his opinion will be the same as my own, and he will issue you with a full pardon. He does not care for cruelty to women or small children either. There is also the testimony of all the servants in this house as to Hanwell's treatment of you. The women he impregnated, whether willingly or otherwise. If you had not stopped Hanwell, then he would have killed both Jane and her babe. I have no doubt he would eventually have killed you too," he bit out harshly.

A small chink of light began to enter the dark dread in which Bea had lived for so long. "Why would you defend me in this way?"

Darius's arms tightened about her. "Because I love you."

Bea ceased to breath. "You love me..."

"Madly. Deeply. Intensely," Darius acknowledged self-derisively. "I have never said those words to another living soul, but I love you to the depths of me. So much so I cannot bear the thought of anything or anyone hurting you ever again."

"Is this the reason you were taking me to The Continent?"

He nodded. "We would have been safe there. You would have been safe there."

"It would have meant leaving the friends who are your family."

"You are all that matters to me now." He continued to hold her. "I am going to return to London on horseback later today and speak with the Duke of Stonewell, who I know will come with me when I appeal to the Prince Regent on your behalf. After which I intend to return here and court you in a manner befitting my fervent hope you will one day learn to love me as I love you. My wish you will then consent to become my duchess."

The last of Bea's darkness lifted from her heart in a burst of light, a happiness unlike anything she had ever known before.

Darius knew all of her there was to know, and he loved her still.

He wished to marry her.

To make her his duchess.

His arms tightened briefly as Bea attempted to pull away, before he relented and released her. "Or perhaps you consider me too unlovable?"

Bea hated seeing that expression of vulnerability on his face, the way he had withdrawn behind that mask of cold indifference, knowing that uncertainty was rooted in his uncle's cruel treatment of him as a defenseless child. "Your uncle was an idiot," she scorned. "A man who should have protected you as a child and had no appreciation for the honorable and admirable man you would become."

Darius looked at her searchingly. "Does this mean there is hope you might one day come to love me?"

Her heart swelled. "That day is already here," she assured him as she raised a slightly shaking hand to touch his cheek. "I love you now, Darius. I believe I was already in love with you that first night when I came to your bedchamber. If I did not love you then, I certainly did by the time I left," she acknowledged.

"You really love me?"

"I love you," she confirmed, the tears in her eyes now ones of happiness. "Except..." Some of that happiness faded. "I cannot give you an heir. Perhaps we should just continue as we have been? A duke needs an heir—"

"This duke needs only you," Darius assured her as he took her in his arms again. "I need only you. I love only you. My God, Bea, I love you so much, I cannot, will not, live without you for another day. Marry me." He looked deeply into her eyes, his love for her shining in the depths of his. "Marry me, and I swear you shall never know another day of unhappiness for the rest of your life."

There was only one answer Bea could give.

Only one word that need be said.

"Yes."
Epilogue

Three months later

Strong House, London

"The carriage will be here short— Bea?" Darius came to a halt in the doorway of the bedchamber he shared with his wife, surprised to find her sitting beside the window in her silk robe, dreamily looking out the window rather than dressed and ready to go out to dinner this evening.

The Prince Regent had taken an instant liking to Bea when Darius had introduced her to him as his duchess six weeks ago, and she was now one of Prinny's "pets." Not in a sexual way, as was the case with so many other ladies—Darius would never have stood for that—but in a way that showed how much the prince admired and respected her. Tonight, they were to dine with him at Clarence House.

Except Bea was not dressed for going out.

Darius's heart skipped several beats as she turned and gave him a blindingly happy smile. How he had ever thought she was not a beauty was beyond him. Bea was more beautiful to him every day, was lovelier than any other woman alive, because her beauty came from within and lit up all her features: deep brown eyes, flushed cheeks, perfectly pouting and kissable lips. Darius had scowled at more than one Society gentleman these past few weeks when they dared to gaze at his beautiful duchess overlong.

He now crossed the bedchamber, kneeling at her slippered feet before taking both her hands in his. "Of course, I have no objection to sending our apologies if you have some other form of...entertainment in mind for us this evening?" He eyed her wickedly.

Marriage to Bea was so much more than Darius had ever dreamed it could be. So much more than the perfection of their physical pleasure in each other. It went so much deeper than that, was a forging of two hearts as well as their bodies melding into one.

She gave a happy laugh. "I wished to talk with you alone before we have to go out." She looked at him shyly. "I visited Dr. Bentham today."

His fingers tightened about her much smaller ones. "What is wrong?" He looked at her searchingly. "Are you ill? Bea, I demand you tell me what's wrong with you!"

Bea could not help but laugh at how demanding her husband still was, and no doubt always would be.

Her husband.

Darius, the man she loved beyond life itself, and whom she had no doubt loved her in the same way, had become her husband six weeks ago.

Once the Prince Regent had dismissed the circumstance of Charles's death, Bea and Darius had married quietly, at her request. After which they had spent several weeks honeymooning at Darius's principal residence—and now her own—Strong Park, in Warwickshire.

No one could have been more surprised than the two of them when the Duke of Stonewell was finally able to reveal the identity of Napoleon's spy. The capture and imprisonment of the traitor had freed all The Sinners to pursue their own happiness.

Hanwell Manor had been sold some weeks ago, and along with it all the unhappy memories. The servants from that residence had either been found new employment in the area, if they wished to remain there, or been taken into one of Darius's many residences about the country. Kilby was, of course, now their under butler here in London, his life with Quinlan now. Bea believed the two men to be almost as happy in their relationship as Darius and she were in theirs.

No one could be quite as happy together as she and Darius.

And she was about to add to that happiness.

"I am not ill at all," she reassured him.

"Then why did you go to see the doctor without telling me?" He scowled darkly. "Bea, I demand—" He broke off as Bea placed her fingertips against his lips.

She gave him a radiant smile. "Darius, I am with child."

"I... But—" His gaze dropped abruptly to her abdomen, and then back up to her face. "Are you sure?"

His disbelief was perfectly understandable. Bea had not been able to believe it herself until the doctor confirmed it for her earlier today. All those years of marriage to Charles, and she had not conceived, and only a few months after meeting Darius, she was now carrying their child.

The doctor did not seem at all surprised when she explained the situation to him, assured her that it was sometimes the case in an unhappy marriage, and that her body had somehow rejected carrying the child of a man she did not love. Besides which, he had added with a roguish twinkle in his eyes, she now had a virile and lusty young husband who would no doubt give her many children.

Bea sincerely hoped that would be the case.

"I am absolutely positive, as is Dr. Bentham." She slid down onto the carpeted floor to kneel in front of him. "We are to have a child, Darius." She had believed herself ecstatically happy before this, but knowing she now nurtured Darius's child inside her went beyond happiness to euphoria. "Although he also believes me to be at least eleven or twelve weeks along rather than the six of our marriage," she added teasingly.

"The first time we made love together?" Darius touched her abdomen almost reverently.

"Yes."

"You know that I would not have minded if there had never been a child? That it is enough that I have you?"

Of course she knew. Darius showed her every day, and each time they made love together—which was often—how much he worshipped and loved her. "But it is wonderful news, is it not?"

He crushed her in his arms as he rained kisses against her hair. "I love you so much, Beatrix Strong. So very, very much."

"I love you too, Darius. So very, very much."

Lord Matthew Darius Jonathan Strong, the Marquis of Shelby, was born exactly six months later.
For news on upcoming releases in the Regency Sinners, Regency Unlaced, Knight Security, and Alpha Series please sign up to my mailing list/newsletter: http://www.eepurl.com/2rfzz

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CaroleMortimerAuthor

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@carole_mortimer

Visit my website: www.carolemortimer.co.uk

Or email me at: contact@carolemortimer.co.uk

If you have enjoyed reading Wicked Torment, please don't forget to leave a review of this book.
About The Author

Carole Mortimer is a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award 2015, a Pioneer for Romance Romantic Times Award in 2014. She was recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her 'outstanding service to literature'. Carole has written over 220 contemporary and Regency novels.

She is happily married to Peter. They have 6 sons, and live on the beautiful Isle of Man. She also loves to hear from Readers!
Other books by Carole Mortimer

Regency Sinners Series:

Wicked Torment (Regency Sinner 1)

Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners 2)

More books to come in this series

Regency Unlaced Series:

The Duke's Mistress (Book 1)

Claimed by the Marquis (Book 2)

Taken by the Earl (Book 3)

Pursued by the Viscount (Book 4)

Desired by a Lord (Book 5)

Captured by a Gentleman (Book 6)

Pleasured by a Duke (Book 7)

Seduced by a Marquis (Book 8)

Tamed by the Earl (Book 9)

Series is now complete

Knight Security Series:

Resisting Alexandre (Knight Security 0.5)

Defying Asher (Knight Security 1)

Challenging Gabriel (Knight Security 2)

Capturing Caleb (Knight Security 3)

Tempting Zander (Knight Security 4)

Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5)

Seducing Ethan (Knight Security 6)

ALPHA Series:

Christmas Alpha (Alpha 1)

Dark Alpha (Alpha 2)

Shadow Alpha (Alpha 3) Author's 200th Book

Midnight Alpha (Alpha 4)

Renegade Alpha (Alpha 5)

Warrior Alpha (Alpha 6)

Rogue Alpha (Alpha 7)

Savage Alpha (Alpha 8)

Series is now complete
