A Baron for Becky (10 page)

And for the
first time ever, she would not be able to hide her real self from
what someone did to the Rose of Frampton. When he asked leave to
call her Becky, she had been pleased to be known. Now, she wondered
if that had been a mistake. Rose had been the one who sold her
body; not Becky. And that was about to change.

The servant
showed her into a comfortable sitting room in what must surely be
the master suite of this huge complex of rooms.

Dinner settings
for two had been laid on a small table, and a deep steaming bath
waited in front of the fire, with large cans of hot water keeping
hot on the hearth to rinse and refill.

Despite her
nerves, she smiled. The stage was set for Scene One of Aldridge’s
fantasy.

Aldridge
suddenly appeared, leaning against the frame of a side door, a
darkened study behind him. She’d seen how hard he worked,
disappearing into Lord Chirbury’s study for hours each day to deal
with whatever business had followed him by courier. Even on their
trip, he had worked part of the time; in her carriage the first
day, and at the inn this morning.

He was still
wearing pantaloons and a shirt, but he’d stripped off his jacket
and cravat, and his waistcoat was unbuttoned.

“Did she
settle?” he asked. How typical, that his first words were of her
child. Defending her heart from this rogue was not going to be
easy.

“I left one of
the maids telling her a story. She knows she will not see me until
tomorrow. She will not make a fuss.”

He lifted one
brow, giving her a slow, smouldering smile that set her temperature
soaring. “Possibly not until afternoon,” he said, holding out his
hand. “Come. I will show you around.” He pushed away from the
doorpost, and led her to the door on the other side of the sitting
room.

She took two
steps into the bedchamber and stopped. Every surface was red or
gold, ornately painted or upholstered. Except for the gilt-framed
mirrors glittering on each wall and—she craned to check—on the
ceiling of the enormous bed. Huge though the room was, the bed
dominated. She couldn’t help herself; she started to laugh.

“What?”
Aldridge was frowning, but it was really too funny.

“Your cousin
was right,” she managed to say, before going off into another peal
of laughter.

It took him a
moment to fathom her meaning, then his ready sense of humour melted
his irritation. “A fornicatorium, is it? I will show you just how
right you are, my sweet.”

He gestured to
a door with his free hand. “Your dressing room. You can investigate
later. Dinner now, Becky? Or bath?”

His face was
calm, as if the answer meant nothing, but when she whispered “Bath”
through a suddenly dry throat, his intent eyes gleamed and his lips
curved in triumph.

“Bath it
is.”

Being undressed
by Aldridge was every bit the sweet torture he had promised. By the
time she reclined in the bath, she was yearning for more. And he
knew it, the fiend. “Patience makes the reward sweeter, my lovely,”
he told her, stepping away so he stood just out of reach and in the
plain glare of the many candles.

The waistcoat
first. Already unbuttoned, it shrugged easily off his shoulders and
was tossed to a chair. “Shirt, stockings or pantaloons?” Aldridge
asked.

“Stockings,”
Becky decided. He propped one foot on the bath while he rolled his
stocking down, giving her a close view of his fall. She should have
chosen pantaloons. Could he read her mind? His grin suggested he
knew exactly what she was thinking.

He pulled the
stocking off, revealing a long elegant foot, the toenails carefully
kept. The man was too perfect. If there were justice in the world,
he would have knobbly knees or thin calves. She was glad he didn’t.
The second stocking went the way of the first, both tossed after
the waistcoat.

“Shirt or
pantaloons, Becky.” The slow tease was affecting Aldridge, too, his
voice soft and husky.

“Shirt,” she
chose, and he slipped his braces off his shoulders, then ran one
hand down into his pantaloons, slowly untucking his shirt tails.
She watched the hand moving under the fabric, and trembled. Once
the tails were no longer wrapped under him, he tugged the shirt
loose, then lifted it slowly over his head, revealing the muscled
chest beneath an inch at a time. He stood, then, displaying himself
with unconscious arrogance, confident of her answer when he asked,
“Do you like what you see, my sweet?”

“You do not sit
at a desk all day,” Becky observed.

“I fence. I
box. I ride.” That quick Aldridge grin again. “Different types of
riding.”

“Pan...” She
had to stop and swallow and try again. “Pantaloons.”

He went slowly,
turning his back as he inched the pantaloons down, lifting first
one leg and then the other to work them over his feet. Again he
stopped, his back to her, and she was content to admire the broad
shoulders, the tight planes of his buttocks, the sculpted
thighs.

Then he turned.
“Do you like what you see, Becky?” he asked again.

Becky shook her
head in slow wonder. Nine years of old men, fat men, men who acted
and smelt like swine. They were far away. This part of her new
life, at least, would not be unpleasant.

He’d mistaken
her head shake. She smiled to chase away the slight indignant
frown, her smile broadening as her mouth dried again.

“I was right
about my mouth, my lord,” she teased, and was rewarded with a shout
of laughter and a splash as he vaulted into the bath to join
her.

“Becky, my
darling,” he said, as he soaped his hands ready for the next step
in the evening’s entertainment, “I see I can count on you never to
bore me.”

And Becky, as
she lay back waiting for Aldridge to serve at her pleasure,
devoutly hoped that would prove to be true.

Chapter Seven

1810, London

As soon as Hugh Overton
managed to unstick his eyes and crawl out from whatever was
weighing him down, he would search out another drink. He’d been
keeping the world’s largest hangover at bay for nearly a fortnight,
and he wasn’t going to stop now.

Meanwhile, he
lay still, trying to sort through his memories and match them to
sparse sensory information to decide where he was. Aldridge. That’s
right. And the bet.

He cautiously
opened one sticky eye. The room was dim, a matter for gratitude,
but light enough to confirm he was in Aldridge’s private sitting
room in the heir’s wing at Haverford House, lying on the enormous
fainting couch. And the weight holding his legs in place was a
sleeping woman sprawled across his thighs. The untidy mass of brown
hair didn’t identify her—at least half of the women he’d bedded in
Town had brown hair.

‘J’ something.
Joselyn? Johanne? Or was that the other one? There must be two
women; the details of the bet were surfacing more clearly in his
mind.

Hugh shifted
his hips, attempting to slide one leg out from under the woman,
whoever she was. She stirred, then sat up in one motion, already
talking before she was fully upright. Hugh, who had not yet dared
move his head, was all admiration at her resilience.

“Devil take it,
I fell asleep. What time is it? Lord Overton, do you know the time?
Is it morning? It must be morning. Look at the light!”

As she spoke,
she collected pieces of apparel from around the room, a dress, a
stocking, another stocking—this one clocked in a different colour.
She dropped it back on the floor where she’d found it, and kept
searching. “Overton? The time?”

Hugh had been
paying attention to her naked curves, not her words. “I beg your
pardon, ma’am,” he said, unwilling to hazard a guess at the lady’s
name. “I appear to be without my watch.”

She huffed her
displeasure through her nose, and marched over to the table, where
his watch lay in a heap of other bits and pieces—his coin purse
and, undoubtedly, his cuff links and tie pin.

“10 of the
clock,” the woman said, then, raising her voice, “Jessamine? It is
10 o’clock. We must hurry.”

Jessamine. That
was it. So this must be the other one. Damned if he could remember
her name, though he had rather pleasant memories bombarding him in
vignettes of the evening before.

It would be
polite to help, with the lady clearly anxious to be on her way. He
pulled himself up, wincing at the stab of pain. While he sat on the
edge of the bed, waiting for the room to stop spinning, and dinner
from the night before to return to his stomach, another woman
appeared in the doorway to Aldridge’s bedchamber.

This one was
fetchingly wrapped in a sheet, trailing behind her. “Lillian? Did
you say 10 o’clock? Oh, merciful Heavens, what if I am not home
before Bally?”

That name rang
a bell. Bally. The Earl of Ballingcroft. This fair lady must be his
countess, then. Hugh managed to stand and bow, politely.

“Bally is
unlikely to leave Baroness Farliegh’s bed before noon, my dear,”
her friend advised. “Which was, if you remember, rather the point
of you being here.”

The Countess of
Ballingcroft tossed her dishevelled head. “Sauce for the gander,
Lillian.” But her moment of defiance dissolved back into worry.
“But I can’t be seen leaving Aldridge’s house.”

“You will not,
my dear. Trust me for that.” The drawl belonged to Aldridge,
leaning against the doorway to his study. Fully and immaculately
attired, apart from his jacket, he looked as if he’d been up for
hours. Based on Hugh’s prior nights of raking and mayhem with the
Merry Marquis, he probably had.

“You look
disgusting, Aldridge,” he said.

“Feeling a bit
under the weather, Overton? Here.” Aldridge crossed to the array of
decanters and poured a good inch of golden nectar, which he brought
to Hugh.

“Now, ladies.
My coach has been waiting in the mews this past hour, and we can
have you out of here the back way and in your own back doors in no
time. Here, Mrs Barlow, is this stocking yours? How on Earth did it
get up there?”

“But people
will know,” Lady Ballingcroft wailed.

“The coach is
unmarked, Jessamine, and the same as a thousand others,” Mrs Barlow
reassured her friend. “No one will know where you have been.”

“And when word
reaches your straying husband that you arrived home long after
dawn, all you do is smile and say you were out with your friend,”
Aldridge instructed.

Lady
Ballingcroft, who had dropped the sheet and was shimmying into the
shift Aldridge handed her, stopped in mid-shimmy at the thought,
then resumed and emerged, clothed and beaming.

“And as long as
I say nothing more, he will be left to imagine it all!”