Page 21 of Your Wicked Ways

“Yes, home,” Mayne said, smiling down at her. “Your home or mine.”

Helene gulped. She didn’t want to take the man home, for goodness’ sake! Didn’t he realize that he was supposed to get the job done here and now? “Absolutely not,” she snapped, and then realized she didn’t sound very agreeable. So she put her hands on her hips and gave him one of Esme’s curling, seductive smiles. “Why don’t you just kiss me again instead?”

His eyebrow went up. “Why, Lady Godwin, you are growing more surprising by the moment,” he murmured, bending to her lips.

Of course, he immediately started plunging about with his tongue. Helene had never liked that sort of kiss. To be honest, it reminded her of the marital act, and both things were just far too intimate for her. But she had to admit that Mayne seemed to be better at it than Rees ever was. His tongue felt rather delicate and enquiring, rather than bullishly trampling. Naturally, he wished to continue kissing long past when she, Helene, would have closed her mouth and moved on to other things. Her mind started wandering. What was it that Esme said she must do? Be encouraging, show enthusiasm, and be intimate. Intimate must mean use of his Christian name. Helene ran her hand up Mayne’s shoulder and gasped, “You’re so marvelous, Gerard!”

“Garret,” he murmured. “And you, Lady Godwin, are a very interesting bundle of womanhood indeed.” His hand was running down her back to her—to her bottom! Helene almost jumped out of her skin.

“No corset,” he murmured against her cheek.

She shook her head.

“No chemise?” he suggested.

She shook her head again.

“A package wrapped just as I most like them,” he murmured, and captured her mouth again. Helene stifled an inward moan. Wasn’t he ever going to be done with the kissing? And, “Do call me Helene,” she said, once she managed to get some air in her lungs. “Shouldn’t you lock the door?”

“In a moment,” he said. His hands were stroking her back. It felt rather as if he believed her to be a cat: up and down, his hand sliding against the sleek silk. Helene had to admit that it felt quite nice. Although he did end up touching her bottom quite a few times. The caress made her feel rather wiggly and pleasant, rather than outraged. She took advantage of a moment’s pause to gulp her second glass of wine.

Really, she was quite getting into the spirit of the thing now, she thought rather dazedly. He kept kissing her ear. Well, nibbling it really. And although the thought of such an action wasn’t very enticing, Helene felt it was something she could definitely live with. If only ear-nibbling gave one a child!

Time to give him some more encouragement. If he were as slow with the rest of it as he was with the kissing, she wouldn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning. That was one thing she could say about her husband: he never wasted any time in the bed. “Gareth,” she whispered into his ear, running a finger down the side of his cheek. He really did have a lovely lean cheek, and he smelled good too.

“Helene,” he whispered back. “My name is Garret.” There was something about the slightly husky tone of his voice that gave her the oddest feeling between her legs.

She was about to suggest that he hurry along, but she gasped instead. Because he scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the couch in one long stride. A moment after that, she had almost forgotten that she wanted him to hurry. Because Garret, as it turned out, liked her breasts. Adored them, in fact. He said so, several times.

“They’re perfect,” he said, in his faintly husky accent. His hand ran over her bodice, again and again, shaping the silk against her nipple and running his thumb over it. Helene had to admit that it all made her feel most peculiar.

“Where is your accent from?” she said, and was surprised to hear her voice was slightly breathy.

“My mother was French,” he replied. And then: “Helene, I believe it might be time to lock that door. Would you be agreeable if I were to do so?”

And Helene stared at him, knowing that her eyes were as big as saucers, and feeling that odd sparking queasiness between her legs, and whispered, “I would—yes, please, Garret.”

He stopped for one second to kiss her again. Helene was thinking that perhaps kissing wasn’t all that terrible, when there was a noise at the door and someone walked in.

“Merde,” he said under his breath and pulled back. But he didn’t seem terribly perturbed. “One moment, Cherie, and I will—” Mayne turned to look over the back of the sofa and his body stiffened.

“Who is it?” Helene said, wondering if she should stand up. She would be ruined anyway, once she had a child, so she couldn’t bring herself to care overmuch about being caught kissing. Besides, as Esme said, half the women in the ton had kissed Mayne.

“Your husband,” he said briskly, putting her on her feet. “Good evening, Lord Godwin,” he said pleasantly. “Perhaps you were looking for your wife?”

And there was Rees, looking like an olive-skinned, brawling prizefighter in comparison to Mayne’s sleek elegance.

“Yes, I was looking for her,” Rees snarled. “I’d be grateful, if you’d give us a moment to speak before you add my wife to the list you keep nailed to your bedside table.”

For a moment, Helene thought there would be a fight. The air in the room seemed to have vanished, and the menace on Rees’s snarling face was matched by the potent fury on Mayne’s. Then she blinked. She had almost forgotten that Rees had relinquished any claim to being her husband, that in fact he had virtually ordered her to find a consort. It’ll do you good, wasn’t that what he said?

She put a hand on Mayne’s arm. “Will you give me a moment to speak to my husband?” she said, giving him a significant glance. “I will rejoin you in a moment.”

Mayne had gone white with fury and looked even more amazingly beautiful. Rees’s ancestry was just as ancient, but his face looked as if all his ancestors were farmers rather than courtiers. “I dislike the idea of leaving you with a man who may not be able to control his temper,” Mayne said.

She gave him Esme’s liquorish smile, and this time it didn’t even feel like Esme’s—it felt like hers. There was something in the smile that thanked him for the tingling feeling she had all over her body. Thanked him and welcomed it again. “My husband is of little concern to me,” she said softly, but not so softly that Rees couldn’t hear it. “Although I thank you for your concern.”

Rees moved backwards with mocking gallantry as Mayne started for the door. But Mayne stopped just beside him. They were of a height, and oddly enough, although Mayne’s rippling muscles were so much more in evidence because of his well-fitting clothing, they seemed to be of similar body weights as well. But the comparison ended there. The Earl of Mayne was dressed with a Gallic flare; his neck cloth, for example, was an exquisite snowy white, tied in a complicated fashion. Earl Godwin seemed to have knotted an old kitchen cloth around his neck; the outline of an overly hot iron was face-out, for all the world to see.