Haunted by the Earl's Touch - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,101
I request this next dance, Lady Beresford?’ Gabe asked, with a sly look at Bane and a charming smile for his wife.
‘Mary is promised to me,’ Bane said quickly, unable to keep the possessive note from his voice.
She shook her head at him.
‘You are,’ he said and swept her into the waltz with a warning glower at his friend. As they moved around the floor, he was overcome by a wave of contentment.
‘Are you happy?’ he whispered in her ear.
‘Incredibly. Unbelievably. There is only one thing missing.’
‘Children.’
‘Your children,’ she whispered close to his ear.
His groin tightened. ‘I am sure no one would miss us if it is your pleasure to try again.’
A shiver passed through her frame. ‘It is always my pleasure.’
He manoeuvred her closer to the door and then whirled her out into the hallway. Giggling like children, they ran up the servants’ staircase to their chamber.
‘You, sir, are wicked,’ she said, leaning her back against the closed door.
She looked wanton and quite delighted.
His heart swelled as he pulled her close. ‘I am glad you are pleased, my dearest heart,’ he breathed softly against her neck, feeling her soft swells against his length with a powerful shudder of anticipation of the love and bliss he would find in her arms.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of Some Like it Wicked by Carole Mortimer!
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Chapter One
May 1817—Highbury House, London
‘Do smile, Pandora; I am sure that neither Devil nor Lucifer intends to gobble you up! At least...it is to be hoped, not in any way you might find unpleasant.’
Pandora, widowed Duchess of Wyndwood, did not join in her friend’s huskily suggestive laughter as they approached the two gentlemen Genevieve referred to so playfully. Instead she felt her heart begin to pound even more rapidly in her chest, her breasts quickly rising and falling as she took rapid, shallow breaths in an effort to calm her feelings of alarm, and the palms of her hands dampened inside the lace of her gloves.
She did not know either gentleman personally, of course. Both men were in their early thirties whereas she was but four and twenty, and she had never been a part of the risqué crowd which surrounded them whenever they deigned to show themselves in society. Nevertheless, she had recognised them on sight as being Lord Rupert Stirling, previously Marquis of Devlin and now Duke of Stratton, and his good friend, Lord Benedict Lucas, two gentlemen who had, this past dozen years or so, become known more familiarly amongst the ton as Devil and Lucifer. So named for their outrageous exploits, both in and out of ladies’ bedchambers.
The same two gentlemen Genevieve had moments ago suggested might be considered as likely candidates as lovers now that their year of mourning for their husbands was over...
‘Pandora?’
She gave a shake of her head. ‘I do not believe I can be a party to this, Genevieve.’
Her friend gave her arm a gently reassuring squeeze. ‘We are only going to speak to them, darling. Play hostess for Sophia whilst she deals with the unexpected arrival of the Earl of Sherbourne.’ Genevieve glanced across the ballroom to where the lady appeared to be in low but heated conversation with the rakish Dante Carfax, a close friend of Devil and Lucifer.
Just as the three widows were now close friends...
It was sheer coincidence that Sophia Rowlands, Duchess of Clayborne, Genevieve Forster, Duchess of Woollerton, and Pandora Maybury, Duchess of Wyndwood, had all been widowed within weeks of each other the previous spring. The three women, previously strangers, had swiftly formed an alliance of sorts when they had emerged from their year of mourning a month ago, drawn to each other by their young and widowed state.
But Genevieve’s suggestion a few minutes ago, that the three of them each ‘take one lover, if not several before the Season was ended’, had thrown Pandora more into a state of turmoil than anticipation.
‘Nevertheless—’
‘Our dance, I believe, your Grace?’
Pandora had not thought she would ever be pleased to see Lord Richard Sugdon, finding that young