Their Wicked Ways (15 page)

It took an effort, but Bronte
managed the lie with a semblance of truthfulness.  “Yes.”

Chapter Fifteen

The entire episode threw
Bronte into such turmoil that she decided to withdraw from company until she
could find some semblance of rational thought processes.  Lady Millford was
rarely at home to guests at any time since she enjoyed the poorest of health,
particularly at any time that anything might be required of her, and so she was
unaware that the servants had been ordered to turn away any and all visitors. 
If she had been aware of it, her curiosity about the reason behind it might
have stirred her sufficiently to draw her downstairs to question Bronte, but
since she remained ignorant of the situation, Bronte was allowed to mentally
thrash herself in peace.

To Bronte’s mind, there did
not seem to be a satisfactory solution.  She was tempted to urge her mother to
return to the dower house in the country, but she was not entirely certain even
she could pry her mother from the room she’d ensconced herself in.  Her mother
had sworn all the way to London that she felt herself slipping into a decline
due to the rigors of winter travel on England’s roads.  It seemed doubtful that
anything short of manhandling her mother into the carriage and whisking her
away despite her protests would succeed.

In any case, Bronte wasn’t at
all convinced that Darcy and Nick would not follow her.  In London, she had
least had some buffer between herself and them.  The opinion of society did not
seem to hold a great deal of sway over them, but it had, thus far, seemed to
rein in some of their wilder impulses.  They had both gone far beyond
acceptable behavior, taken liberties they should not have, but they had been
careful to practice a modicum of discretion.

Finally, she decided she
could not simply hide herself away.  Somehow, she would have to find the
resolve and the wit to handle Darcy and Nick until the time came when she could
return home.

That fact was borne up four
days after Mrs. Bolington’s party. Roused from sleep by a clattering outside
that seemed out of keeping with the typical city noises, Bronte was just
beginning to drift to sleep once more when she heard the scrape of a shoe on
the floor, the creak of a board, and then heavy breathing very close by.
Opening her eyes, she discovered a man rounding the foot of her bed and moving
quickly toward her.  Instantly wide awake, she bolted upright, gasping in a
sharp intake of breath to scream.  The man promptly clamped a hand over her
mouth that covered most of her face.

“Now is that any way to greet
me when I’ve gone to all the trouble to climb that twice damned trellis just to
talk to you?”

Bronte’s terror instantly
vanished.  “Darcy?” she mumbled against his palm.

He released her.  “You have
other
men climbing in your bedroom window at night?” he growled angrily.

“I haven’t had
any
men
climbing into my window!” Bronte snapped tartly. “I recognized your voice … and
that ham sized hand of yours.  What in the world are you doing here?”

Grinning as if she’d uttered
an invitation, he settled one hip on the edge of her bed, bounced
experimentally a couple of times, as if testing the sturdiness of it, and then
lay back, dragging in a deep, relaxing breath.  “It’s a good deal harder to
climb up than down,” he muttered.  “Particularly on something that shaky.  What
in the hell is the point of putting something like that on a house when it
won’t even hold one’s weight?”

He’d come to lecture her
about the party, Bronte suspected, but had apparently been diverted from his
original intention by the difficulties he’d encountered in actually executing
his plan.  After peering at him suspiciously for several moments, Bronte leaned
close to him to sniff his breath.  As she’d suspected, he reeked of whiskey. 
Before she could sit back, he wrapped both arms around her.  The weight of
those massive arms alone was enough to bring her crashing down on his chest.

“I knew you had missed me,”
he murmured, nuzzling her ear and sending a rash of goose flesh scurrying
across her skin.

Bronte struggled for a few
moments and finally managed to push herself away from him far enough to look
down at him.  “
You
are foxed!” she said with a mixture of amusement and
accusation.

“Almost,” he responded
agreeably and completely inaccurately.

“There is no ‘almost’ to it. 
I don’t know how you managed to climb that trellis in your condition, but
you’re going to have to climb down again.  You can’t be found in my bedroom.”

He lifted his head and looked
around the darkened room almost with a look of surprise.  “Damned if it ain’t.”

Bronte chuckled.  “Darcy!”

“Shhh!  You want to wake
everyone?”

“You have to go!” she said in
a fierce whisper. “You
will
wake everyone and then all the servants will
be talking.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because the damned trellis
is lying in the yard. Besides, I already told you.  I came to talk.”

Since he’d removed one arm
from around her shoulders and was busily examining the nightgown she was
wearing with curious fingers, Bronte had the impression that talking wasn’t
exactly what he had in mind.

“We need light,” he muttered
finally. “It’s too dark in here.”

“We don’t need light.”

“Yes, we do.  Can’t figure
out how to get this off of you.”

“I’ve no intention of taking
it off, so it doesn’t matter.”

He shrugged.  “Suit yourself.” 
Grasping the neck of her gown, he gave it a tug that separated the fabric
almost to her waist.  Her breasts, suddenly freed, bounced before his face,
swaying.  Bronte gasped in shocked surprise and dawning outrage.  Before she
could do more than suck in a sharp intake of breath, however, Darcy caught the
tip of one of her breasts between his teeth, biting down just hard enough it
sent a keen shaft of sensation straight through her breasts and into her belly,
making it clench almost painfully.

She gasped again, this time
at the intensity of heated desire that rushed through her.  “Darcy,” she said
despairingly.

Ignoring her weak protest, he
settled his mouth more firmly over the nipple he’d captured and dragged her
across him, slipping one hand down her back to her buttocks and pressing her
mound tightly against his hard erection as he arched upward, sending another
rush of desire through Bronte that was so powerful she felt lightheaded.

Groaning, as if in pain, he
released her nipple, clutching her tightly to him and rolling over so that he
was sprawled on top of her, his hips wedged firmly between her thighs.  Bending
his head, he nuzzled his face between her breasts.  “You smell so good,
Bronte,” he murmured against her skin.  “You taste even better,” he added,
raking his tongue over first one distended nipple and then the other before he
closed his mouth over one trembling peak and sucked it.

Bronte gasped at the dizzying
wave of heat and stimulating abrasion of his tongue.  His suckling mouth as it
closed over the engorged tip dragged one involuntary, uncontrollable groan
after another from her as jagged bolts of pleasure forked through her like
lightning.  It seemed that every nerve ending in her body jumped and danced
with the sizzling heat radiating from that point of exquisite sensation, making
every muscle in her body tense, but focusing more intensely on her breasts and
the moist channel of her sex that began to quake and weep for his possession.

She was so dizzy and weak
with desire by the time he ceased to tease first one breast and then the other
that no thought of protest entered her mind as he hitched himself upward and
ground his engorged cock against her mound.

Instinctively, she arched her
hips to meet his thrust, gasping as the pressure teased at her clit beneath her
night clothes, spreading her thighs wider and tipping her hips to allow him
better access, groaning in frustration when the fabric prevented the contact
she needed.

He bent his head and covered
her mouth, kissing her greedily, his tongue dueling with hers as he rocked
against her in a way that sent her spiraling upward toward release until she
was moaning into his mouth almost incessantly, clutching at him frantically. 
His hands moved over her restlessly, tangling in the folds of her voluminous
night gown as he sought bare skin with a touch of desperation, searching in
vain for the hem of her nightgown to thrust it out of the way.

A sharp rap on the door to
Bronte’s room jolted them both instantly from their mindless search for
gratification.  “Bronte?”

“Hell!” Darcy muttered
harshly at the sound of Lady Millford’s quavering voice, rolling off of Bronte
abruptly.  Unfortunately, they were closer to the side of the bed than either
of them realized.  As Darcy, thoroughly entangled in Bronte’s nightgown by now,
rolled off the bed, he dragged Bronte with him.  Bronte uttered a squeak of
surprise as she went over the edge, grunting as the air left her lungs when she
landed on top of Darcy, who’d struck the floor only seconds before so hard it
rattled every piece of glass in the room.

The door flew open.

Grunting, Bronte scrambled to
her feet.

“What happened?” Lady
Millford gasped, clutching her heart and slumping back against the door as she
spied Bronte’s disheveled form emerging from the shadows on the opposite side
of the bed.

“I fell out of bed,” Bronte
gasped promptly.

“But … but I heard you
moaning.  I thought you were ill.  What happened to your night gown?”

It was fortunate the light
from the hallway was not sufficient to illuminate the room enough Lady Millford
could see the guilty, heated blush that rose in Bronte’s cheeks.  Belatedly,
she remembered Darcy had ripped the gown in his enthusiasm.  She grasped the
ragged edges, pulling the gown together and clutching it in one fist.  “I … uh
… I was having a bad dream.  I must have caught my nightgown on something when
I fell out of bed.”

“Why are you breathing so
strangely? Do you feel unwell?”

She was gasping, but Darcy
was panting far louder.  Bronte kicked him warningly, realizing it was his
ragged breaths her mother could hear.  “I’m fine.  Really.  I’m sorry I
startled you. Go back to bed mother.”

“I’m not feeling at all well
myself.  I think I may have had one of my spells.  I had decided to go
downstairs to get a glass of warm milk when I heard such moaning and groaning
from your room it near frightened the life out of me.  I thought sure you were
ill.  You’re certain you’re all right?”

“I’m fine, Mother.  It was
just a very bad dream.”

“Perhaps you could help me to
my room and bring me a glass of milk?”

“Uh … certainly. Can you wait
until I’ve found a robe?”

“Of course, dear.  I’ll just
rest here on the edge of the bed....”

Bronte’s eyes widened. “No!”
she yelped, holding out her hand as if she could stop her mother from
approaching the bed by sheer force of will.  “Stay where you are.  You look so
pale,” she added after a moment when she saw from her mother’s expression that
she was beginning to have some doubt about the story Bronte had fabricated.  “You
might faint and hurt yourself.”

Deciding that removing her
mother from her room was far more important than what was left of her modesty,
Bronte stepped over Darcy and hurried around the bed to her mother.

“Why didn’t you summon one of
the maids to get you a glass of milk?” Bronte fussed as she helped her mother
down the hallway to her room.

“Pooh!  They are always so
slow.  I thought I might as well get it myself.”

“It’s the middle of the
night, Mother.  You can’t expect them to respond quickly when you wake them.”

“I don’t know why not,” Lady
Millford complained.  “They need only toss a robe on to see to my needs.  It
isn’t as if I expect them to arrive perfectly groomed in the middle of the
night.”