amused him.
She rapped softly on the door and waited.
Just when she was about to knock again, he called out, “What the hell do you want?”
Benna opened the door a crack. Even though heavy drapes covered the windows enough light shone through the gaps to illuminate the huge four-poster bed.
Geoffrey was lying against the headboard, naked from the waist up—and doubtless naked below, too—holding his temple in a way that didn’t bode well for his card-playing acumen tonight. “What in God’s name is it, Ben?”
“You’ve got an engagement in an hour, sir.”
“An hour?” He stared blankly.
“It’s with Lord Philpot, sir.”
Benna watched as comprehension dawned. Geoff grunted and then raised a hand and swatted a lump beneath the covers. “Come along, my lady. It’s past time we were off.” His lips curled into a smirk. “Your husband will be expecting both of us, but it’s better that we don’t arrive together.”
He threw back the covers and slid out of bed, striding naked toward the adjoining chamber, where he kept all his personal possessions, even though it was much smaller than the master suite.
It was his habit to use two adjoining rooms whenever he knew he’d be entertaining in his bedchamber and didn’t wish to vie with a woman for space at the looking glass.
Indeed, Geoffrey spent more time in front of his mirror than any woman Benna had ever met.
He stopped and glared at Benna when she wasn’t quick enough to trot after him. “Well?”
She sighed and strode through the bedchamber just as Lady Philpot began to emerge from the tangle of bedding, like a rumpled butterfly from a cocoon.
Benna had just shut the door between the rooms when Geoff yawned and stretched languidly, the muscles of his magnificent body rippling. “Fetch my robe and shave me. And then you can bring me the newspaper and I shall read it while you ready my bath,” he added, as if lugging buckets of water up two flights of stairs would be a treat for her.
He narrowed his eyes her. “And make sure the water is hot today. Yesterday you dallied so much it was tepid.” He poured himself a glass of the expensive brandy he favored and then paused to examine himself in the cheval glass.
Benna swallowed the urge to hurl a candlestick at his head, instead looking inside the small dressing room; there was no robe. “You must have left it in the other room,” she told him.
“Then go and get it.” He turned to the side and was rubbing a hand over his flat midriff. “Do you think I’ve put on weight?”
“Yes,” she said, untruthfully.
Geoffrey barked a laugh. “Insolent upstart.”
Benna didn’t bother knocking on the adjoining door before entering the room Geoff had just left.
Lady Philpot already had her dress on, which didn’t surprise Benna since she knew for a fact that the woman went without stays or underclothes on these visits.
“Ah, Ben,” Lady Philpot greeted him with a coy smile while she reached behind her to do up her buttons, the action not-so-coincidentally thrusting out her impressive bosom. “Will you get these last two for me?”
“Of course, madam.”
It wasn’t the first time the other woman had asked for help dressing.
Benna quickly did up the remaining buttons, which Lady Philpot could have easily reached.
“Thank you, you darling boy,” she murmured, trying to catch Benna’s gaze in the glass.
“My pleasure, my lady.” Benna turned to fetch the robe, which she saw was tangled up in the blankets, but Lady Philpot caught her wrist.
For a small woman, her grasp was remarkably strong.
“Yes, my lady?” Benna hoped the other woman didn’t hear the annoyance in her voice; they were not done with Lady Philpot and her husband just yet. It would be better not to offend her.
Lady Philpot, who was perhaps six years Benna’s senior, but decades older in sin, looked up at Benna through her lashes, stroking her trapped hand. “Such manly, strong hands,” she murmured.
Before Benna knew what the other woman meant to do, Lady Philpot lifted her hand and took her thumb between her full lips, sucking hard enough to hollow her cheeks.
Benna goggled, a choked sound slipping from her open mouth.
“Now, now, Lucinda, you know it’s never a good idea to fuck one’s servant—especially when I have only one.”
Lady Philpot’s eyes moved to the doorway, where Geoff was now leaning, still naked but with an amused smirk on his handsome face.
Benna couldn’t help noticing that his cock, which had been flaccid only a moment earlier, had begun to thicken with