“You are an evil woman, Sally Mills.” Bess put down her teacup, dusted her hands together and fixed Cordelia with a gaze known to make grown men put down their ale and flee a tavern in a thrice. “Out with it, miss.”
Cordelia took a breath and shook her head. All of London believedAn Insatiable Ladyto be a woman of vast experience, passionate appetites, and in complete command of the men who pleasured her and took care of her every erotic need. Little did her avid readers know that the women in this room with her were the source of every story, every detail, and every adventure. She had taken the stories of their years on the streets and in the brothels of Seven Dials and spun them, Scheherazade-like into the sensuous fantasies of a woman who did not exist.
Cordelia had not been a virgin for over five years. The loss of that sacred virtue was not a tale for any book, not even her own. She’d been pleasuring herself long before that. Her grandfather’s collection of provocatively explicit books had fallen into her hands quite by accident when, by the age of twelve, she’d read everything in the vast library at Perriton Park, her family’s country home. Never make vague reference to a hidden reading room to a young bibliophile in search of something to read.
However, as her actual experience was limited to one man, a man who had turned out to be unworthy of the “gift” she’d given him, she suspected she needed the sort of instruction her books provided. Instruction the ladies in her Gracechurch Street house had given her first in late night conversations over too much wine and brandy, and then in tales she’d woven into two, nearly three now, very successful, deliciously wicked, and profitable books.
And now she needed their help. For, by all the lusty gods of the Pantheon, she intended to take Lord Daedalus Whitcombe up on his request. “I went to see my publisher,” she began. “And he has asked me for a favor.” She made a point of meeting each of their gazes, one at the time. “A favor for which I need your advice.” She then began to explain the entire story to them. She left out the part about her kissing the man senseless. She told them about his tricks to try and meet her, his arrogant demand she come to him in person for the money and to deliver her next book. She finished by repeating his request word for word.
“I want you to tutor me in the art of pleasuring a woman. I have read your books again and again. I want to learn from you so no woman will ever regret taking me to her bed.”
“He’s a toff? A lord?” Tall Mary asked.
“Yes.”
“He’s rich,” Bess stated more than asked.
“Quite.”
“And he’s never…fucked a woman?” Sally’s horror was almost comical.
“So he says.”
“And he wantsyouto teachhimhow to please a woman?” Short Mary stood and went to the escritoire in the far corner of the room. She began to rummage through the drawers and pulled out a few sheets of parchment.
“He wants me to teach him how to pleasure a woman completely,” Cordelia said slowly. “What are you doing, Mary?” The petite young woman returned to the sitting area with the parchment, an inkwell, and a quill in hand.
“We’re going to need more parchment and quills than that,” Tall Mary said. “Run up to my room and fetch ’em, Sal. Be quick about it.”
“What do you mean?” Cordelia didn’t know if the fluttering in her belly was excitement at her own daring or fear for poor Lord Whitcombe. She squeaked in surprise when Bess pulled her from the chair and ran an insistent hand all over her body before taking her face between her thumb and forefinger and turning her head from side to side.
“Ye’ve a pretty face, good legs, and a nice pair of tits,” Bess announced. “That’s a good start.”
“With what she’s got and what we teach her?” Sally snorted. “A rich, handsome lord who wants to learn how to pleasure a woman ’til her legs shake like a jelly and he or the wench goes blind from it? When we’re finished with him he won’t know his own name, and they’ll be lining up in the streets of Mayfair to taste his wares.” Sally threw her head back and howled with laughter. The others joined her. Cordelia began to imagine exactly what tutoring Lord Whitcombe meant and her heart took off at the gallop.
5
She was here. As if attending a ball given by the man he despised most in the world was not bad enough,the lady who had kissed Daedalus nearly unconscious now stood across the ballroom talking to Lady Honoria and Captain Leonidas Atherton, bold as brass and more exquisite than any woman had a right to be. His mouth went dry. What malicious deity had he offended to be caught between his brother-in-law, his brother, and the woman who had haunted his dreams for the past week? Well…not haunted precisely. His body flushed with searing heat at the thought ofhowthis unnamed woman had featured in his dreams.
The ballroom of the Earl of Breadmore’s town mansion, festooned with monstrous arrangements of white flowers and lit by the glow of hundreds of white candles in chandeliers the length of the room all but screamedOn the block tonight, gentlemen, my virgin daughter.Daedalus’s clothes, little used in the past five years or more, fit too snuggly and threatened to strangle him at any moment.
Yet the beauty who gave him a painful cockstand at the mere thought of her, stood across the room looking as cool and serene as the ocean after a summer without storms. He needed to leave. He wanted to stay. Honoria spotted him from her position just inside the French windows that led to the terrace, if memory served. Along withAn Insatiable Ladyand several other ladies of his acquaintance. Sweat began to pop out all over his body. Suddenly, in addition to strangling clothing, he had to worry himself with spectacles determined to slide off his nose.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
“Drink?” Lionel Carrington-Bowles appeared at his elbow, silver flask in hand and an unnervingly curious expression on his face.
Daedalus snatched the proffered vessel, unscrewed the cap, and swallowed over half the contents in one long draft.
“Not fond of balls?” Carrington-Bowles shook the nearly empty container, raised an eyebrow, and tucked the flask into the pocket of the tail of his black evening coat.
“Not fond of the host.” He gave the simplest answer so as not to rouse the gentleman’s suspicions. This was the man who had paid Daedalus a ridiculous amount of money not to publish the journal that had accidentally landed in his hands a few months past. A journal in which Carrington-Bowles and three of his friends had recorded their amorous exploits for years. The man knew something about wicked secrets and how a man might appear when keeping one or more.
“Breadmore? Wasn’t he married to your sister?”
“My late sister. Diana. Yes. This ball is to introduce their daughter, Alice, to society.” Daedalus continued to steal glances at his mystery authoress. Gowned in a dress of shimmering blue silk, she appeared a Venus rising from the sea. The bodice cradled her breasts, emphasizing their luscious top curves and the gloriously ivory shade of her shoulders bared by the cut of the dress.
“Yes, Honoria introduced me to her. She’s charming.”
