Menage After Midnight
Other Historical Erotic Romance by Madelynne Ellis
MENAGE AFTER MIDNIGHT
A Romps & Rakehells Novella
By
Madelynne Ellis
MENAGE AFTER MIDNIGHT Copyright © Madelynne Ellis 2014. Violators will be whipped. With barbed wire. Just in case you were getting excited about it.
Cover Art by
Yocla Designs
First Published in 2012 by Ai Press.
This edition published by Incantatrix Press 2014.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or to events or places is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
About the Book
MENAGE AFTER MIDNIGHT ~
Affection for a price…
Paris Ashcroft supports himself by offering discreet sexual liaisons to women whose husbands neglect their duties. Romance is merely the means by which he makes a living. However, when Sophia Lovich, the one woman he’s lost his heart to, asks for his attention, he intends to surrender himself to passion.
Little does he suspect that Sophie will ask him to endure her husband’s dark desires too!
Series titles ~
Capturing Cora
Ménage After Midnight
Taming Taylor
Part One
Paris knew he’d struck gold when Sophia Lovich blew him a kiss from over her husband’s shoulder. Her gaze met his for a mere heartbeat before she glanced away, lowering those dark silken eyelashes of hers over eyes like chips of bitter chocolate. When she looked up again, he found it impossible not to smile back.
Lucifer curse him for the hideous wife thief he’d become, but Paris couldn’t help himself. Not this time. Not with her. He’d taken many to his bed out of necessity, but he rarely felt aroused by those who encouraged his affections. Swiving other men’s wives had become a way to bring food to the table and support his sister in her matrimonial quest. It wasn’t about love or excitement or anything but the most perfunctory sense of satisfaction on his part. He did it as a service to all the women who sought passion but whose husbands saw them only as a means to beget children, with no interest of their own in sex or in any sort of fulfilment.
With Sophia, things would be different.
There would be no detachment, only raw edges and passion.
He had only to look at her and his pulse raced. Every curve of her body set his imagination alight. She had such a tiny waist but broad padded hips. Perhaps some of that was the dress, but he liked to think not. He liked to imagine that hidden beneath her voluminous skirts was a softly rounded belly and thighs he could pillow his cheek upon. She’d have a plump womanly bottom too. Forget all the dainty sparrows; he loved Sophia for her sheer voluptuousness.
Hell if it hadn’t splintered his soul when he’d first seen the wedding band upon her finger. Not that he was in any position to make her an offer, but the fantasy of having her sprawled across his bed had been a good one. It remained a good one. Better yet, tonight he intended to make it real.
Across the table, Sophia shook her head at his prolonged scrutiny. He’d been staring without even realising it, but a quick glance at the gamblers around the table suggested the indiscretion had passed unnoticed.
“When?” he mouthed, wanting to seize this opportunity with both fists. The mere prospect of it had him fidgeting, and too much of a delay would necessitate him shuffling out of the room with the skirts of his frock coat drawn fast across his front to avoid displaying his obvious arousal.
Discretion—that’s what women valued. And public reserve, coupled with fire in the bedroom. He’d do well to remind himself of that lesson tonight; else she’d fly before he ever got close to fulfilling anyone’s wishes.
Sophia didn’t reply. Instead, her gaze strayed over to the mantle-clock. Already long past midnight, many of Reeve’s house guests, his sister among them, had retired to their beds. Only the politicians and gamblers remained, of whom several were likely to still be present at dawn, Lovich among them with any luck.
To Paris’s utmost relief, Alexander Lovich barely raised his elegant head to look up from his hand of cards when his wife whispered sweet nothings into his ear. Perhaps that was for the best. Paris didn’t want her reminded of how fine a catch Lovich was. Unlike most of the husbands he stood in for, Lovich was neither rotund, aged, or sallow. He was a stallion of a man, with the physique of a blacksmith, without any of the calluses that accompanied that profession. His hair and teeth were apparently all his own too. He had warm smiling eyes and was quick to laugh.
“Don’t wait up, dear. And do remember to warm the bed,” Lovich said.
Oh, don’t worry, I’ll do that.
Paris stifled the urge to smirk. No point flaunting the fact that he was about to tup another man’s wife, especially since it was a man he’d once admired. If Lovich had any sense, he’d be pleasuring Sophia himself, rather than indulging Lady Luck. Although, to be fair, the fool did at least catch her hand as she turned to go, in order to press a kiss to her knuckles. Many, he knew, would not even have done that. Too many men who didn’t care for their wives.
Still, the idle caress didn’t cause him any alarm. Sophia needed a greater show of affection than that one simple gesture, and with that thought clearly written into the sour turn of her lips, she bade the rest of the gamblers goodnight.
* * *
Was he following? Dear Lord, yes. Yes, he was. Just exactly as she’d prayed.
Sophia slowed her pace as she neared the top of the grand stairs. She didn’t want to lose him in the web of corridors that comprised Rievaulx House’s upper floor, but neither did she want to draw attention to their arrangement. The fact she’d been assured of Paris Ashcroft’s discretion was the predominant factor in her choice. There were plenty of young men she could have enticed to her bed tonight; one or two had even made gloriously lewd proposals, but no other she could trust to keep silent over the tryst. Paris kept himself to himself. He was no greenhorn youth set upon fashioning a tawdry reputation. Rather he was a man and one with magic fingers and heavenly lips if the tales that were told were at all true.
She closed her eyes on his approach and remained steadfastly faced in the opposite direction. First his scent—woody with a hint of juniper—then his presence washed over her, awakening the first stirrings of lust deep in her womb.
He drew level with her upon the landing, falling neatly into step beside her.
This was it, the moment in which she had to cling to her conviction and settle all the worms of doubt burrowing in her stomach.
“May I offer you my arm, Mrs Lovich?”
She turned her head to look at him. He was sparsely built, wiry and tall, with a profile that might very well have graced his ancient namesake, for he wore his hair short, embellished with neither powder, wig nor queue, but curled softly about his ears. “Why yes, that would be most kind.”
Hark at them, and the ruse of decorum
. Would the deception fool anyone? Perhaps it was well there was no one around to see.
Steady, strong muscles ran beneath her fingertips when she rested her arm along his. She sensed vitality and excitement, the latter giving her cause to smile. In all of her planning, she’d never anticipated anything beyond a remote sort of detachment from him. After all, this was not for his pleasure but hers, and he must have conducted such business with many, many women.
Her smile stretched a little further. No—tonight was not quite the same. None of those other women had been entirely like her. None of them had possessed husbands quite so tolerant or devoted, with whom they shared secrets and desires. Not that he granted all of her wishes, but on this occasion… well, they’d discovered a passion they truly shared.
The thought of what they had planned raised another set of flutters in her belly. She risked a quick glance at her companion and found he was looking at her with his soft slate-grey eyes. She’d never known a man with such appealing jet-black eyelashes or with lips so sensual that even when they were thinned and stern they still invited kisses.
Dear Lord, was it even fair to treat him like this? Oughtn’t she to lay it all out before him now and explain just exactly what it was she wanted? Except, what would she say?
Paris, you must know that it is the anniversary of my marriage tonight, and because Alexander and I wanted to make it something special we’ve invited you to our bed?
No—he might not take kindly to that at all. Would likely think he was being played, or would object outright to the notion of Alexander’s presence. If the two men had been closer acquaintances then it might have been easier. Then Alexander might have approached him, said,
Mr Ashcroft, I’d like to invite you to share my wife.
Except that in itself would have been somewhat misleading. Really he would have to have said,
Mr Ashcroft, my wife and I would dearly like to share you, if you don’t find that very notion abhorrent.
“This one is yours, I think.” Paris stopped her directly before her bedchamber door. “Are you all right, Mrs Lovich? You seem troubled.”
Sophia summoned a smile. “I’m fine, quite fine. I thank you.” She reached out and released the latch, paused on the threshold to look back at him over her shoulder. Those dark eyes of his fascinated, captivated her so that she remained frozen.
“You do understand what happens if you invite me in?”
“Yes.” She did.
But do you?
She ought really to enlighten him.
* * *
The room she and Alexander had been given was a dear little one, with a low ceiling that rose only a foot above the bed canopy but was, nevertheless, skilfully blessed by the plasterer’s art. The mantle over the fireplace stood at her eye-level, and all the furnishings were of apple-green Kidderminster stuff. A low fire burned in the grate, which Sophia attended immediately, pushing the poker deep into the coals.
Paris followed her in, though he presently hung back. Oh, she found it interesting, that there seemed to be no rush about him. His female counterparts were always so pushy and lewd. All for instant gratification, but Paris—well, he hadn’t done anything yet that would distinguish him as anything other than a proper gentleman, although, perhaps if he had been a little more cocky that would have made things easier.
He stepped closer after a moment or two of her fire attending antics. “If you’re not comfortable with this, there need be no rush.” His voice had a husky burr to it, which tickled her senses.
No need to rush. She wanted to smother him in kisses just for suggesting that notion. She’d known more than a few men before Alexander had seen fit to make her his, and none of them ever spoke of delaying, but then none of them had ever really been interested in her pleasure.
Sophia relinquished the poker and pulled her shoulders back. “No, no, it’s not that. I simply wanted to ensure our comfort.” And to assuage her guilty mind.
Paris nodded his approval. He glided across the floor to her in four neat strides. “If you ever find you’re not comfortable with something, you must tell me. Passions ought to be slowly coaxed. Like the embers you’ve just stirred, it takes time to arouse a woman’s pleasure.”
“Yes,” she squeaked. Hell ‘twas unfair to let him go on imagining her something she wasn’t.