Always a Scoundrel (11 page)

For a long moment she looked at him, her expression tense and hesitant. “I dislike running to you every time Lord Cosgrove calls on me. I’m not some fainting flower.”

Bram shrugged. “I don’t mind.” His chest tightening a little, he forced a smile. “Not as though I’ve dire matters to attend to.” Just a few robberies and some drinking, but he could see to both of those again beginning tomorrow.

“Are you his friend?”

The question made him scowl before he could stop himself. “I’ve known him since I was sixteen. I give him some credit for making me the man I am today.”

“Yes, but are you his friend?”

He’d claimed friendship with Cosgrove before, but he’d never been asked so directly to define what it was between himself and the marquis. And he wasn’t an idiot; for some reason the answer would be significant. “I am social with him, but I wouldn’t tell him my secrets,” he said slowly. “Not any longer, at any rate. So to answer your question, yes, and no.”

Rosamund nodded. “I am somewhat relieved.”

“And why is that?”

“Lord Cosgrove spent several minutes describing his wedding night plans to me,” she said, twisting her fingers. “He means to humiliate and degrade me, and he wanted me to know it.”

Bram swallowed. There had been times he’d relished doing those very same things, when the female participant had shown an interest. Rosamund, though, had never been given a choice in the matter. All she’d done was catch Cosgrove’s eye at the time the marquis happened to be looking for a new game to play. Machinations, manipulations—he understood them. Hell, Cosgrove had introduced him to the twin evils, and he’d embraced them wholeheartedly. Or so he’d thought, until now.

“You asked me to say this, but in all seriousness might I suggest again that you leave London?” he said, as she continued to gaze at him. “I understand that you feel some sort of obligation to your family, but truly, Rosamund, what do you owe them that would convince you to stay about for this?”

“They gave me life.”

“So do cows to calves, every spring. The offspring don’t volunteer to walk into the slaughterhouse to spare their parents.”

“Yes, but I am not a cow.” Fleeting humor touched her eyes, then was gone again. “I take care of my family, Bram. It seems as though I always have. They’re…silly, for the most part. I’m not. And I have no idea how else they would survive this debt.”

“So they will survive, and you…pay the price.” He’d nearly said that they would survive and she wouldn’t, but she would probably accuse him of being overly dramatic.

“Someone has to pay.” She took a breath. “I know you dislike being pulled into the difficulties of others,” she continued, “but I have one last favor to ask of you.”

One last favor
. It was as if she realized that he meant to remove himself from this tragedy after tonight. “What is it, then?”

“I want you to ruin me.”

Bram blinked, the clever remark he’d been about to make dying on his lips. He might have been imagining stripping her out of her proper clothes for days, but to hear someone—her—say it aloud, very simply seemed too good to be true. “While I’m happy to oblige,” he drawled, “I have to ask how my ruining you would be better for your family than your flight.”

“Because it will be just between you and me. A…preemptive attack against Cosgrove’s plans.” She took a single quick step in his direction. “I want to know what is supposed to be between a man and a woman before he…educates me to his version of it.”

“That’s quite a burden you’re setting on my shoulders, Rosamund.” And it made him more uncomfortable than he would care to admit.

“If Cosgrove means to play games, then so do I. I will marry him because I must, but I shall not be a lamb—or a cow—led to the slaughter. If he intends to destroy my spirit, he will find it a difficult task. I am not some fly whose wings he can pull off and then step on. I’m…I’m a bee, and I shall sting him back.”

Good God. Bram refrained from pointing out that a bee died as a result of its sting. She would know that already. He wanted her, and she wanted revenge for a forced marriage scheduled to take place in a few weeks’ time. This was a damned flip-flop on his usual reality.

“Are you not up for it? You bed women all the time, do you not, Bramwell Lowry Johns?”

Not since he’d set eyes on her. “I am not the sort of man you tease, Rosamund Luisa Davies,” he said in a low voice, another kind of heat entirely beginning low in his gut. “I have a certain reputation, and you may be sure that I have earned it. I’m going to ask you once, and that’s one more chance than I generally give. Are you certain you want me to be the one to lift your skirts? Are you certain that what you experience at my hands will be better than what Cosgrove might do?”

“It has been so far,” she returned. “Just don’t disappoint me. Please.”

He cracked a smile. Any other chit he would have had on her back by now, regardless of the setting. “Leave your door unlocked tonight. If you change your mind, you’d best find another bedchamber in which to sleep. Because I mean to call on you at midnight.”

If Bram’s friends found it odd that he had another engagement after their dinner party, they didn’t say anything about it. For all Rose knew, Bram always had late-night assignations after dinner parties.

Tonight, though,
she
was the assignation. Another tremor ran through her as she sat at her dressing table. She’d done it. Just where she’d gotten the courage, Rose wasn’t certain, but at least now it was too late for her to change her mind. Well, she could, if she chose to leave the room and sleep elsewhere, but she wouldn’t.

The longcase clock downstairs chimed twelve times. The house was quiet around her, but she had no idea if all the servants had yet retired for the night. She hoped so, but it might have been safer for
Bram to climb in through her window. Rose stood up and pulled aside the curtains to look outside. A lone carriage rolled down the street, but other than that everything was still.

She paced to the bed and back to her chair again. A dashing young man climbing up the trellis would certainly be more romantic than his calling at her door. This, though, was not about romance. It was about knowledge, and about changing the rules another man had decided would apply to her.

Her door swung open. For a moment against the black of the hallway she couldn’t make anything out. Then he moved, black garments against black shadows, and stepped into the room.

“You decided not to flee,” he drawled in a low voice, closing and latching the door behind him.

“This was my idea, if you’ll recall,” she said with more bravery than she felt. Oh, goodness, he’d come.

“I recall.”

He tilted his head, watching her in the light of the one candle she’d left lit on the bed stand. And she remembered vividly their first encounter, before he’d become an odd ally. Back when he’d said that he could teach her some things, back before she’d known who he was and he’d been a pure, dangerous predator. Abruptly she realized that tonight he was that man again. Perhaps he had been all along, and he’d only been playing with her before.

That man, though, was who she needed tonight. She cleared her throat. “How should we proceed?”

One after the other he pulled off his black gloves and dropped them onto her dressing table. They looked strange there, surrounded as they were by her
hairbrush and hat pins. “First, tell me precisely what Cosgrove said to make you wish to embark on this venture.”

Her heart stuttered. “What does it matter? I do not want him to be my first and only experience.”

Bram continued to regard her. “Tell me anyway. I realize that it must have been terrible, to make you want me to be your first experience.” He shrugged out of his coat, setting it over the back of her dressing chair.

“Are you such a poor choice?”

He snorted. “The fact that you have to ask me that tells me I should leave. But I’m not that nice. Nor do I have that much self-restraint.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“Rosamund, if chatting is all you wish to do, then go fetch us some tea and biscuits. Otherwise, tell me what he said.” Bram drew a breath. “If you’re feeling missish about telling me the details, consider that in a very short time I shall see you naked, and you shall have very few secrets from me.”

Oh dear, oh dear
. Rose sat on the edge of her bed, then remembered that they would probably be conducting their business there and shot to her feet again. “He said that on our wedding night he would put me on all fours and mount me as a dog mounts a bitch.”

Something crossed Bram’s expression so swiftly that she couldn’t tell what it might have been. Anger? Surprise? Shock? She had no idea. And those were more than likely her own sensibilities she was looking for in him, anyway. He’d likely heard—and said—worse
things than that. “That…position,” he said slowly, unbuttoning his waistcoat, “can be quite pleasurable for both participants, I believe.”

“And then he said he would keep me on my hands and knees until he decided to give me permission to rise.”

His fingers paused in their trail down his chest. “I can’t assist you with that part.”

“I know. He told me that you would walk away as soon as anything became unpleasant for you, so I imagine we will have parted company long before my wedding, anyway. But you wanted me to tell you precisely what he said, and I have.”

“You are quite the logical chit tonight, aren’t you?” His waistcoat landed on the seat of the chair, and his cravat followed a moment later. He sat on them and leaned down to tug his boots off, one by one, setting them down quietly on the floor.

Fleetingly she wondered how much experience he’d had at sneaking into boudoirs while husbands or parents slept close by. “I don’t see the point of becoming emotional tonight,” she returned, telling herself that her abrupt fascination with his bared throat merely meant that such a sight in the future wouldn’t set her heart pounding as it was now.

“A fine sentiment shared by many a man.” Bram stood again to pull the tail of his shirt from his trousers, letting the fine white lawn hang loose down to his hips. “Do you wish to undress yourself, or shall I do it for you?”

Her knees began to feel wobbly. “I…um, what do you think?”

“It can be a quite intimate experience,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “Perhaps I should do it for you.”

Oh, she wanted him to touch her. “Very well. You do have much more experience about these things than I do.”

Unbuttoning his shirt cuffs as he walked, Bram closed the distance between them. As he stopped in front of her, she expected a kiss or at least a caress of her cheek, but instead he motioned for her to turn around. Rose complied, closing her eyes for just a moment. Tonight she’d chosen to best Lord Cosgrove. Her virginity would go to Bram, and not to her future husband. It was only lucky coincidence that she also wanted to do it, and with Bram Johns. The—

His fingers touched not her back, but her hair. Gently he pulled out the clips and pins, making short work of an artistic pile that had taken her maid twenty minutes to compose, and her hair tumbled past her shoulders. As she stood there he brushed his fingers down her tresses, making her shiver. “That’s better,” he murmured.

Then, with a slow, steady pull and tug, he opened the back of her gown. Warmth touched the nape of her neck, the soft caress of his lips against her bared skin. Goose bumps lifted on her arms.
Oh, heavens
. Bram’s mouth trailed along her shoulders as he pushed her dress down her arms, his warm, soft breath as arousing as the touch of his lips.

In a moment she stood in only her shift, her back still to him and her breath sounding not at all normal. Her mauve and gray gown puddled around her bare feet. Rose swallowed, determined not to flinch or wince or make any sign that might convince him that she was a
silly chit and not worth the trouble of seducing. Oh, she liked this seduction.

“Lift your foot,” he said, sounding as cool as if they were discussing apple tarts.

She lifted one foot, then the other, as he squatted down to move her dress. Once she was free from its circle, he tossed the material into a corner and straightened again. “What do we do next?” she prompted after a moment.

His hands rested on her shoulders, then pressed down a little. “Firstly, relax a bit. I don’t want you punching or kicking me, for God’s sake.”

“I am relaxed,” she lied.

“Really?” he breathed into her ear, then swept his palms down her shoulders to cup her breasts.

She jumped, squeaking.

“Hm.”

“You only surprised me,” she managed, her voice quavering as he splayed his fingers.

“This is allowed to be pleasurable, whatever your reasons for wanting me to seduce you.”

Rose took a deep breath, which only made her more aware of his hands on her breasts. “Very well.”

“I have a French condom, by the by,” he said. “To prevent you becoming with child.”

She shook her head, something warm running through her muscles. “Don’t bother. I’m to be married in less than a month.”

“Are you certain about that? Because I’m not certain I like the idea of Cosgrove raising the fruit of my loins.”

She hadn’t considered that; she’d been more focused on how much she would prefer a child fathered by Bram. “You mean to say that you care about something?”

He chuckled quietly. “You make a fair point. Lean back against me.”

“Fine.”

Rose settled her back against his hard chest. She could feel his breathing, the play of the muscles beneath her back, and his growing arousal pressing against her hip. Then he moved his fingers again. Slowly he circled her breasts with his forefingers, her nipples growing tight and budding through the thin material of her shift. The sensation was exquisite, and when he flicked a nail across her aching nipple, she drew in a hard breath through her teeth.

“Is this n-necessary?” she quavered, stammering over the words.

“Do you like it?”

Oh, yes
. “It’s pl-pleasant, but do you think Cos—”

“As a point of information,” he interrupted, his low voice rumbling into her, “discussing one man while another has his hands on you is generally a poor idea.” Moving again, he slipped his fingers beneath the straps of her shift and slid them down her arms to bare her breasts. “And if you wish to be ruined, we may as well do it right.”

Oh, he seemed to be doing quite well at it, because even with her shift still half on she was quaking and barely able to think.

“Any complaints thus far?” Bram murmured, trailing his mouth down her shoulder to the inside of her elbow.

“No,” she breathed shakily. “Not yet.”

He stepped back, then put a hand on her arm to turn her to face him. “Do let me know if anything should arise.”

“I believe something is already arising,” she said, stealing a glance down at the apex of his thighs, her breath hitching again.

“Indeed it is.” For a long moment his gaze lingered on her face, though she had no idea what he saw there. Then those black eyes lowered, and he reached out to brush a finger down her throat and her bare breastbone. He pulled her arms from her shift, and let the garment fall past her hips and down to the floor.

Abruptly feeling very vulnerable, and very conscious of the fact that she stood naked before a practiced rake, Rose squared her shoulders. “Are you going to kiss me?” she whispered.

“There are better uses for mouths,” he returned, lowering his head to kiss the outside of her left breast. He moved in slowly, kissing lightly, until he took her nipple into his mouth and flicked his tongue against it.

“Bram,” she gasped, arching her back.

He ignored her exclamation, shifting his attention to her right breast and repeating his actions. Her insides turned to liquid fire. Rose lifted her shaking hands, tangling her fingers into his coal black hair and pressing harder against him.

“Time to put you on your back,” he murmured, slipping a hand beneath her knees and lifting her in his arms.

Laying her down on the bed with his knees straddling her thighs, he bent down to lick and suck at one breast again while he teased at the other with his very capable fingers. A few moments later he straightened, and she moaned in protest. It couldn’t be over with yet. Not with this…craving rising through her insides.

Bram yanked his shirt off over his head and cast it aside. A dusting of dark hair crossed his chest and narrowed on its path down his stomach, disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers. Rose lifted a hand to place it over his breast, and the hard muscles beneath flinched.

“Do you enjoy my touch as much as I’m enjoying yours?” she asked.

“Yes.” He took her hand and lowered it to his trousers. “Why don’t you unbutton me, and I’ll show you?”

Shifting a little, her hands shaking, she unfastened the top button. Somewhere she’d stopped thinking about Cosgrove, about how her family had not raised her to ruin herself at Bramwell Johns’s capable hands. But if they’d raised her to be bartered in exchange for gambling debts, then she couldn’t place much value on anything they’d done. And as for what
she’d
done, she was prepared to sacrifice herself to the marquis—but first she wanted this, and she wanted Bram Johns.

As the last button came open he shoved his trousers down to his thighs. His large, hard…manhood came free, erect and jutting. “You know what this is for, yes?” he whispered, following her gaze.

Her mouth felt dry. “I can surmise.”

“Good. Then you don’t need an anatomy lesson, and we can continue with the exploration of you.”

“Of m—”

One hand trailed down her stomach, through her curls, and down
there
. She gasped again, bucking as his fingers parted her, pressed into her.

“You’re damp,” he announced softly.

“Is that bad?”

His lips curved. “No. It’s very, very good.” Kicking
out of his trousers, he bent down to suck at her breasts again. Then his mouth began a slow, delicious, breathless trail downward, following his very busy hand.

She was absolutely going to die. Nothing was supposed to feel this exciting. Slow lightning swirled through her, holding her more and more tightly in its heated grasp. Every touch from Bram’s fingers, from his mouth, sent her spinning into fire. When he began kissing the insides of her thighs, she half expected her heart to burst, it was beating so hard and fast.

And yet he didn’t seem to be in any hurry, at all. When his mouth joined his fingers, she shrieked, grabbing his hair.

“Shh, Rosamund,” he murmured, humor in the sound. “And loosen your damned grip before you render me bald.”

“Apologies,” she whimpered. “I can’t…This is too much, Bram.”

“It’s never too much.” He lowered his head again.

Her eyes rolled back. Oh, she was going to die. “Bram, please.”

Finally he relented, returning his attention to her tight, swollen breasts. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“On fire,” she answered truthfully, breathless.

Nudging her knees apart, he settled between her thighs. “I have it on good authority that this is going to hurt,” he said, gazing down at her from inches away. “But only this once. He can’t do that to you, anyway.”