Page 5 of More or Less a Countess
Of course. Violet didn’t feel even a flicker of surprise to find he was every bit the rake Honora said he was.
“Oh, harder. Please, my lord…harder…”
Lord Dare didn’t hesitate to accommodate this request, but shoved harder against her—so hard he shook the bookshelf, and a book came crashing from its place and tumbled to the floor.
Violet smothered an indignant gasp, and it took all of her restraint not to hurl a pillow at his broad back. For goodness’ sake, the least they could do was mind the books.
The lady was sighing and pleading with him not to stop, and then all at once she let out a keening cry that made Lord Dare shove his hand over her mouth. Her body shuddered against his, and then a few moments after she quieted Lord Dare’s hips went still, and he buried his face in the lady’s breasts to smother a guttural groan.
Violet waited for something more to happen, but they only paused to catch their breath, then began to right their clothing.
She blinked. Was that it, then? The whole thing had left her curiously unmoved. It all seemed so impersonal, somehow—crass even, and it looked as absurd as it sounded, except for that one part, at the end, when Lord Dare found his pleasure. Something about that ragged groan reverberated deep in her belly, leaving a strange aching sensation.
If any of it truly shocked her, it was the nonchalance with which Lord Dare tugged the lady’s skirts back into place once they’d finished. “A delight, as always, Lady Uplands. I knew there was at least one reason to return to England.”
He patted her cheek in what looked to Violet like a dismissal, but the lady—Lady Uplands, evidently—grabbed his arm. “Come to me in Harley Street later, my lord.”
He gave a careless shrug. “Perhaps. Go on then, love, back to the drawing room. I’ll follow in a few moments.”
The door latch clicked, and Violet ducked back out of sight as Lady Uplands left the library. Once the door was closed and the room dark again, she peeked over the back of the sofa, curious to see what Lord Dare would do now.
As it happened, he didn’t do much of anything at all. He made some mysterious adjustments to his falls, then retrieved his coat from the floor and put it on. He fumbled in the pocket, drew out a pocket-watch and checked the time, then closed the case with a snap and strolled over to the sideboard to help himself to a glass of Lord Derrick’s whiskey. Once he was finished, he checked his watch again, pulled his coat into place with a sharp tug, and left the library.
Well. It had been a tidy night’s work for Lord Dare, hadn’t it?
Violet sat on the sofa for as long as she dared after he left. She had no wish to make an appearance in the drawing roomnow, but her sisters would be wondering where she was, and Hyacinth must be ready to leave.
On her way out the door, Violet stopped to pick up the book Lord Dare’s enthusiastic thrusting had knocked from the shelf. He must have stepped right over it on his way, without bothering to put it back. For some reason, this bothered Violet more than anything else she’d witnessed tonight.
She turned the book in her hand. It was a collection of engraved plates bound together in a leather binding. Her lips turned down in a frown when she saw the spine was cracked, but then she noticed the hand-lettered title, and a soft laugh escaped her as she placed the book gently back on the shelf.
The Rake’s Progress.
How fitting.
Chapter Two
Some chit was banging on the pianoforte, and each discordant note was crashing inside Nick’s head as if she were a blacksmith and his skull her nail.
Volume was not, alas, a substitute for skill.
Nick sighed. He’d come tonight hoping for a distraction, but there was nothing here to amuse him. Not here, and not in all of London. He’d seen it all dozens of times before. He’d been away from this cursed city for two long years, and it wasn’t nearly long enough.
England was as cold and wet as it had ever been, dinner parties were still deadly dull, and he would have sworn the young lady who was now displaying her dubious musical skills was the same young lady who’d performed at the last English dinner party he’d attended two years ago.
Impossible, of course, but it was remarkable how much one pale-faced English chit resembled another.
Or one English lord another, come to that.
Nick watched as Lord Derrick strolled toward him from across the room. He took the seat next to Nick on the settee and offered him a cordial smile. One thing about Derrick: he was always the consummate gentleman, no matter how awkward the circumstances.
“Welcome back to England, Balfour. Two years is a long time, but you’ve changed surprisingly little since the last time I saw you.”
It was a simple observation, and there was no edge to Lord Derrick’s voice, but Nick’s jaw tensed nonetheless. The last time he’d seen Derrick he’d been so sotted he could hardly stand upright. He’d been in a filthy West End gaming hell at the time, doing his best to squander his inheritance, and Derrick had been obliged to send him sprawling with a fist to the face to drag him out.
A lot of bother for nothing, as it turned out, because his father had squandered it anyway.
That had been six months or so after Graham’s death, when Nick had at last given up playing at lord of the manor and fled the West Sussex estate for London, his father’s curses still ringing in his ears.
