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  “It can’t be right…”

  “I am your lord and master, Alicia,” he said with mock sternness. “I command you to answer me.”

  “When I saw you…when I watched you…”

  “When you watched me touch myself.”

  “Yes. I liked that.”

  “Good.”

  “But I couldn’t stop thinking what it would be like…”

  “What?”

  “I can’t. It’s…it’s not right. It cannot possibly be right.”

  “Did you imagine something, Alicia? Was there some daydream that excited you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you perhaps remember watching our friends in the park?” Edward backed away until he almost reached the armchair with its ottoman, and looked down at her from his great height. “And in the conservatory?”

  Confusion boiled inside her. She had gone too far, confessed too much. Whatever acts Edward enjoyed, hearing her speak of what she had witnessed must be beyond the pale. The distance between them suddenly seemed like a chasm. “I’m indecent.” She turned away from him, squeezing her eyes closed. “But I couldn’t get it out of my head. While I undressed for you, while you…you made yourself ready for me…”

  “Alicia?”

  She shook her head hard. “I’m so sorry. I never meant…”

  “Turn around and look at me.”

  There was no mockery in this command, and she felt his unrelenting patience fill the room. Edward would stand there, saying nothing, until she did as he said. Slowly, she turned her face toward him. Edward stood squarely before her, with his hand resting on his hip, right beside the hard ridge of his erection.

  “It excites you,” she said wonderingly. “Hearing me…talk like this.”

  “Oh, yes. Now, come here, Alicia.”

  Edward watched Alicia rise trembling to her feet in obedience to his command. Her breath had grown ragged and made her breasts rise and fall delightfully beneath the light fabric of her too-tight morning dress. But he scarcely had time to appreciate these details before she fell into his arms, burying her face against his shoulder. Edward held her easily, and was amazed afresh at how well she fit against his body. He allowed himself the luxury of stroking her lustrous hair, spreading its soft fall across her shoulders and delighting in the silken strands as they passed through his fingertips.

  “Never be afraid to share your fantasies with me, Alicia.” She smelled of sunlight and fresh air, and ever so delicately of perspiration. “I want to know what excites you. I need to know.” It was true. He did need it. God help him, but he did. And he would know. If he had only this brief time with her, he would live it fully and completely.

  “But…” she mumbled to his shoulder.

  “No buts.” Edward let his voice go stern. He would rid her of this habit of shame at her desires. That much he could and would give to her. “You must tell me of what you enjoy and what you wish to experience. You may be sure I will give you all the pleasure I can.”

  Alicia drew back, searching his eyes. Then, slowly, her hand slipped down his chest, to his waist, to his hip. Edward made himself hold still as she hesitated. This was a step Alicia needed to take for herself. But he felt her gather her resolve, and she slid her palm around to the firm ridge of his cock. Edward closed his eyes, the better to savor her tentative touch.

  “You like it,” she said, half in wonder, half in accusation. “You like that I think of watching.”

  For his answer, Edward lowered them both down so he settled into the armchair and Alicia onto the ottoman. He leaned back to give himself some relief from the building pressure of his erection, and to allow her hand greater room for exploration. Alicia did not disappoint him. She ran her palm up and down his full length, letting desire and curiosity establish a rhythm to delight them both. He smiled and laid his head back, his chin tilted so he could still see her where she sat with her palm against his cock.

  “Harder,” he whispered. “Open my breeches and take me into your hand.”

  And she obeyed. The flutter of her fingers as she worked the buttons and pushed back his fly raised a low growl from deep inside him. This time Alicia showed no hesitation. She wrapped her hand around his thickening shaft. She stroked up and down, keeping her eyes on his face, gauging his reactions, her sharp mind working the problem of trying to comprehend what they both felt.

  That was something else that had to stop, right now. He captured her wrist firmly and lifted it away. She watched him with wide eyes as he slowly stood, placing his cock level with her full, sensuous mouth.

  “Suck me,” he ordered, wrapping her fingers around his shaft.

  Alicia frowned at his erection and their hands, which, he found, annoyed his vanity.

  “Take my cock in your mouth and suck me, Alicia.” Her eyes widened as she understood, and a flush stole down her throat to her gorgeous breasts. He reached out and flicked her hair over her shoulders so he could see better. Her nipples were hardening underneath her dress and chemise. Her hand had begun to move again, stroking him, signaling how much she wanted his touch. Glad to oblige, Edward cupped her breast. It overflowed his hand, sweet and plump and firm, and the way it swelled when she sucked in her breath was quite wonderful. He gently pinched one tight nipple. She sighed and leaned into his hand and his cock pulsed hard, telling him the time for this light play was over.

  “Suck me,” he ordered again.

  This time, Alicia yielded. She drew herself up until she was on hands and knees on the ottoman and her lips brushed his burgeoning cock. Edward’s mouth went dry and his cock pulsed painfully. He stroked her hair, her shoulders and her back. Fool that he was, he’d been too impatient to undress her. He grabbed up fistfuls of her skirt, hauling it toward him until he bared her stockinged legs and glorious ass. He could feel the heat radiating off her skin. She panted in her excitement at being so exposed, and her hot breath was a new torment against his cock. She was beautiful, and amazing. Carstairs ran his hand around and between her thighs to delight himself, and encourage her.

  Alicia licked the tip of his cock. He hissed, and clasped her ass more tightly, pushing her forward. He slid his hand between her warm, soft thighs until his fingers found her folds, already soft and damp with her desire. Slowly, he stroked one finger up and down her slit. Alicia groaned, and clenched, trying to capture him, but he drew away, stroking her back again.

  Clever girl that she was, Alicia understood what would gain her the touch she wanted, and she wrapped her mouth around his shaft.

  “Yes, yes, like that, oh, my dear, like that.” Pleasure lanced through Carstairs, and he pushed two fingers inside her. She groaned against his cock, and her tongue reflexively lapped at him. He thrust his fingers deeper into the heat of her luscious, responsive pussy, watching her head begin to move up and down as her tongue grew bold and eager for the taste and fullness of him.

  “So good, so beautiful.” He slid his fingers farther into her heat, matching the rhythm she worked on his cock. “So wet and ready. Do you know what I want to see? I want to see you stretched out naked and flushed with desire on my bed. I want to see a servant brought to touch and fondle and pleasure you at my command until you beg me to fuck you.”

  She groaned again. Her tongue licked him frantically now. She was lost in the fantasy he spun for them, lost in the pleasure of his cock in her mouth and his fingers sliding in and out of her pussy. She clenched tight, so greedy for touch and satisfaction.

  “I want to show you the acts of pleasure and watch while desire overwhelms you. I want to help you touch yourself until you scream with the delight of it. I want your mouth—oh, Alicia, your mouth and your tongue—I want your pussy on my cock and on my mouth, while others watch and while we are alone together, like now.”

  He couldn’t go on. Lust and pleasure pulled him under. He drove his fingers hard into her, and arched his hips up. Alicia moaned and sighed, accepting his thrusts and begging for more with every motion of her sweet bod
y. She clenched her mouth and her pussy tight, and tighter yet. He thrust into her again. Control was gone; thought was gone. Only need remained; need for her final pleasure to ignite his own.

  She came. She came hard against his hand, moaning and sobbing for pure pleasure around his cock. Carstairs was undone. He came so hard it felt like madness, like the wild end of all things. For how could there be anything after this brilliance, this utter intoxication of the senses?

  Yet as she fell against him and he pulled them both into the armchair so he could kiss and cuddle her to soothe her return to her own body, he knew that he would claim her again. It was impermissible that she should leave his arms until he had fucked her pussy. And then…and then…

  His words and his desires washed through him with a force that shook Edward’s entire being. Thought had returned, unbidden, to loom over sensation. He knew what was happening to him. There was no room left for doubt.

  I’m a fool. Edward closed his eyes and held Alicia close. I’m a weakling and a fool, and I will pay, but God help me, I will not give her up yet. Not yet. Not a minute before I must.

  Fifteen

  Being a wanton, Alicia decided, was a state of affairs that required rather a lot of upkeep. It hadn’t even reached three of the clock yet and still she found she needed to wash herself and change clothes for the second time that day. Fortunately, this time, Edward had been willing to be convinced that cold water would be entirely adequate to her needs, and that he should repair to his own room to return himself to some semblance of order before his people arrived. It was a measure of how far past all propriety she had traveled that his confident protestations that the servants would not bat an eyelid at finding the pair of them flushed and disheveled in the library almost worked. Especially when those protestations were combined with his wicked hands sliding up her waist to the sides of her breasts.

  As she sat on the edge of the bed and brushed her hair, Alicia wondered afresh at how strongly her body responded to Edward’s caress, and how ready this made her to discard all notions of correct behavior. She should be sobbing over her ruin and contemplating suicide. This was the course directed by all Verity’s novels. But she couldn’t do it. Had her years of enchantment stunted and deformed her heart after all? Was that where all this seemingly bottomless well of desire came from?

  This was a disturbing notion. But if there was truly something wrong about her desires, it meant Edward lied when he said her pleasure was perfectly natural. That she could not believe. Perhaps she was naive, but she trusted him. She had felt him deep inside her, not just in her body but in her mind. She did not believe that after such intimacy he could hide his intention and meaning from her. No. Nothing about this time was what she might have expected, but that did not make it wrong. In fact, between the magic and the pleasure he had shown her, it all felt very right indeed.

  A knock sounded on the door. “Come in,” called Alicia as she twisted her hair into a knot and reached for the pins laid out beside her.

  Edward opened the door. “The servants have arrived, Alicia. Would you be willing to come into the library and meet Mrs. Talbot?”

  “Of course. I’m nearly done here.” Alicia concentrated on setting the pins in place. When she looked up again, she saw Edward leaning against the wall, grinning at her with arms folded. “What on earth…?”

  “You’re beautiful like this.”

  “With my hair in disarray and a gown that barely fits?”

  “Recovering your dignity after you’ve been well and truly fucked.”

  To her amazement, no hint of a blush warmed Alicia’s cheeks. She rose to her feet and lifted her chin. “You, sir, are impertinent past enduring. I will take my leave of you now.”

  Recalling to mind Verity’s bearing when she wished to be dramatic, Alicia swept through the doorway. Edward bowed deeply as she passed, but did not lower his eyes, so she felt the full measure of heat from his moonlight gaze. Now she did blush, and he grinned at her, knowing he had won the point. With a great show of gallantry he offered her his arm. With equal dignity and seriousness she took it so they could proceed down the staircase to the library together.

  It was an entirely new thing to be so comfortable with someone. His smile could relax her as easily as his touch could enflame her. When she was with Edward, she found a capacity for humor as well as one for magic. These things shook Alicia as deeply as any of the more overt displays of sensuality she had enacted with Edward. What else would she discover in this man’s company? Alicia was conscious of a fresh warmth spreading through her; a sense of anticipation for the future that was also new and unlooked for.

  “I should warn you,” said Edward as they reached the library door. “Mrs. Talbot is something of a force of nature.”

  “After you, my lord, I’m sure she shall seem quite tame.”

  Edward sighed and shook his head at her. “Well, I did try to warn you.”

  He pushed the door open to reveal a giantess in a neat work dress standing by his desk. Far from the stout, maternal housekeeper Alicia had expected, Mrs. Talbot stood a bare inch shorter than her employer and was nearly as broad. Her work-worn hands looked like they could have knotted the fireplace poker without effort.

  “Oh! You poor dear!” Mrs. Talbot boomed, crossing the room in three long strides to grasp Alicia’s hands. “What you must think of us!” She turned her accusing glower on Edward to make certain he knew that “us” included him. “To bring you to this house without a thing being ready, not a single room done up decently, not a drop or a crumb or a kind soul to welcome you! I am all put to shame, my lady. To shame! I do hope you can forgive us.” This last was said with such earnestness that Alicia would not have been surprised to see tears standing in her keen blue eyes.

  “I’m only sorry to impose on you without proper warning…”

  “Nonsense! Not a bit of this is your doing! Oh, you need not be in the least embarrassed, my lady. My mother served his lordship’s father. We know the truth of the Carstairses’ legacy and certainly do not expect things to happen in the usual way here. But I did want to make myself known to you. I’ll be attending you until your maid can join you, of course…”

  “But I have no maid. Not of my own, at any rate.” When the upstairs maid was too busy, which was the normal course of events, Alicia had been expected to make shift for herself, or call on Verity.

  Where finding a strange woman in her house left Mrs. Talbot completely unruffled, the revelation that Alicia had no personal maid left her not just surprised, but openly shocked. “Then one must be hired immediately,” she announced. “You cannot be permitted to do without, m’lady. If you’ll allow me, I know a woman who might suit. She is experienced and discreet, and understands…how things are, if you take my meaning.”

  “I’d be grateful for the recommendation; thank you.” Alicia managed to bite her tongue before she corrected Mrs. Talbot about “m’lady.” The woman might say she knew how things were, but Alicia had no idea if the details she’d been given included the fact that her employer’s marriage was a sham.

  “Then I’ll send for her so you can conduct an interview,” said Mrs. Talbot. “And of course we’ll need a dressmaker, and a new upstairs maid and…”

  Alicia found her head beginning to spin. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Talbot, but we’ll surely need to discuss with Lord Carstairs…”

  Mrs. Talbot didn’t even glance in Edward’s direction. “His lordship told me I was to see you properly settled and cared for, my lady, and that is exactly what I intend to do. Now that we are here, you will not find us lacking.” She drew herself up to her full, imposing height. “Cook asked me to inform you she is preparing a late luncheon for you and Lord Carstairs. I’m sure you must be starved with nothing but cold chicken and muffins to sustain you all day! So, if you’ll excuse me, my lady…?”

  Mrs. Talbot dropped a hint of a curtsy and marched out the door. Alicia found she could do nothing but drop into the nearest armchair.
/>   Edward was grinning at her.

  “Yes, yes.” Alicia waved weakly at him. “You did try to warn me.”

  “She’s a good woman and you may trust her absolutely. I have done so for years. But why the frown? You’re not worried about the expense, are you? I assure you, I can bear it. In fact, I need to get my man in town to make sure you’re properly settled with a bridal portion, and we need to discuss an allowance and…”

  “Stop!” cried Alicia.

  Edward froze.

  “Please stop,” she whispered. Her hands were shaking now. “It’s…it’s too much.”

  “I’m sorry, Alicia.” Edward knelt beside her chair, catching up her hand in his. “I know I’m moving quickly. But given the circumstances, I did not want you to feel you had no resources of your own.”

  “No, it’s not that; it’s…” How could she explain? She met Edward’s gaze, and knew at once the only way was to tell the unvarnished truth. “No one has ever cared whether I was comfortable before, or if I had what I needed.”

  Edward did not answer her right away. When he did, he spoke carefully. “It was your enchantment that blinded you to your family’s concern, Alicia.”

  “No. It was not. I was just another body in that house, another plate at the table. I had new clothes when it was noticed I had outgrown the others. My sixteenth birthday, and my coming out, were not celebrated. They were attended to, because it would cause comment if nothing were done. After that, I was required to attend the theater at regular intervals, and be present at an adequate number of balls and parties, but only because it was the done thing.”

  Edward frowned deeply. “I’ve met your cousins, Alicia. They never struck me as so malicious toward you.”

  “It wasn’t malice. All of us were treated just the same. The Hartwell indifference is, like your magic, shockingly democratic.”

  “I’m surprised you all did not run positively wild.”

  “The others never seemed to mind it. Or much of anything at all. Except Verity, of course.”