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About the Author

Award-winning author PORTIA DA COSTA’s first published story appeared in 1991. Since then, she’s gone on to write well over a hundred stories for magazines and anthologies and has penned almost thirty novels across a variety of genres. She’s best known for her sizzling-hot romances, including short erotic fiction for Mills & Boon^®. Portia lives in a typically Yorkshire town with her husband and the three beautiful cats they both adore. Visit her at www.PortiaDaCosta.com.

In the
Flesh
Portia Da Costa

www.spice-books.co.uk

To my dear friend and critique partner, Saskia Walker,

who’s cheered me on throughout the writing of

this story and many others

CHAPTER ONE

Eyes of the Devil

London, 1890

“WHO IS THAT MAN over there?” demanded Charlie. “See the one I mean? The tall impertinent-looking fellow by the ballroom door, talking to Sir Horace Rumbelow.”

Beatrice Weatherly suppressed a sigh. Her brother could be a bit of a bear sometimes when he drank too fast, and the champagne was disappearing down his throat tonight at an alarming rate.

“I asked you to wear a more conservative dress. Something dark and modest, maybe one of your mourning gowns,” Charlie went on. “But of course you wouldn’t, and now look what’s happened. I swear that if he doesn’t stop ogling you this very minute, I’ll go across there and box his ears for him!”

I’d like to see you try, brother dear. He looks as if he could swat you like a gadfly with just one hand.

“Please, ignore him, Charlie. He isn’t bothering me in the slightest, so I don’t see why he should bother you.” Keeping her face carefully averted, Beatrice sipped her own champagne. She was determined to make every glass last as long as she could tonight. Just look what had happened the last time she’d drunk fizz.

But, truth be told, her bold scrutinizer across the reception room did bother her and it wasn’t an urge to box his ears she felt. No, it was something far more alarming. Her heart pounded and her entire body felt deliciously restive every time she caught his hot gaze on her. Something that seemed to happen every few moments or so because try as she might, she couldn’t help looking back at him. And he hadn’t taken his eyes off her since they’d entered the room.

Of course, when she and Charlie had been announced, it seemed as though almost everybody had swiveled around to stare at them. Oh look, she imagined them all saying, There she is, Beatrice Weatherly, the Siren of South Mulberry Street, the shameless hussy who posed naked for those scandalous cabinet cards. Men who probably owned copies of said cards had eyed her with salacious interest when their wives weren’t looking. The women had frowned and pursed their lips as if worried that their men would be so overcome with lust that they’d flock around the indecent Siren, unable to help themselves. Even the discreet servants circulating with their trays had seemed to study her covertly.

Now, though, the first reaction was over and the hubbub of gossip had returned to its normal clatter. Some wives had won the battle for propriety and a few groups had self-consciously cut her and Charlie, but most of the other guests seemed far more free and easy.

I suppose a fast set like this is more forgiving of transgression, sexual or otherwise, and scandals are two a’ penny, something new every day, she thought.

But the tall man with dark eyes and blond hair continued to stare.

The temptation to glance around at him again was a physical force. It bore down on Beatrice’s chest, making her breathless, and it seemed to be affecting other parts of her anatomy, too. It was as if she’d suddenly appeared in Lady Southern’s salon dressed exactly as she’d been in one of her ex-sweetheart Eustace’s racy photographs.

That was, in nothing but her birthday suit.

Trying to appear not to be moving, she inched her head around, then blushed crimson when he nodded his head in acknowledgement.

Hateful man! I’ve had enough of this!

Beatrice glared back at him, adding a curt nod of her own for courtesy’s sake. He looked vaguely familiar to her somehow, as if she’d seen his image recently, too. An artist’s impression in some periodical or other, although obviously not a nude study. Her face and chest turned rosy pink at the thought of that, too. Especially as the elegant cut of his suit couldn’t entirely mask the rangy power of his body, making the job of her imagination dangerously easy.

Her oppressor gave her a smile. A dazzling, daring smile, so much more arresting than a mortal man’s should be. A smile that had her gulping her champagne as if it were lemonade, regardless of her resolve to be cautious.

His lips were sultry. In a clean-shaven face that was neither young nor older, but somehow strangely both, they were strong and firmly outlined, hinting at voracious appetites never denied. Beatrice imagined him savoring rich food and fine wine, but always in moderation, appreciating every pleasure without going to excess. Lips like that would kiss a woman just as hungrily and with equal calculation. Lips like that would kiss a woman until she gasped.

Lips like that would kiss a woman into doing anything.

Across the room, it was impossible to see the color of the man’s eyes, but they were dark, dark as night, glittering with mystery and menace, his stare unwavering.

Almost suffocated, Beatrice had to look away, barely able to breathe. Had Polly laced her too tight? Much as she disliked corsets, hers hadn’t seemed excessively oppressive tonight, not until she’d arrived here and set eyes on him. Now she wanted to rip open her bodice and wrench the entire miserable thing asunder, laces and all.

Taking small breaths so she didn’t appear to be panting over the strange, aggravating man, she turned smartly toward Charlie and found him frowning at an alternative source of vexation.

Their recently acquired friends, Monsieur and Madame Chamfleur, were talking and laughing with a small but rather animated group, a few feet away. Watching them discreetly, Beatrice envied the way Monsieur Chamfleur kissed his wife’s gloved hand with a decidedly French flair. It spoke of other kisses she’d imagined the two of them sharing, especially if the hot looks they kept exchanging were anything to go by.

“My God, those two are a rum couple, aren’t they?” Charlie swigged down his champagne and took another glass from a passing waiter. “When you first introduced them, I thought them to be persons of quality, but there’s something decidedly fishy about the way they look at each other. Don’t you think so?”

Sometimes Beatrice wanted to give her brother a good shaking. She loved him dearly, because he was a sweet man in his own way and she knew he loved her, but he could act like a towering hypocrite at times. “Well, I think they’re charming, and the way they exhibit fondness for each other is most refreshing. If more couples were as tender in their affections toward each other the world would be a far happier place.”

Charlie clucked in irritation, the expression far too stuffy for his twenty-five years. “I think the less you talk loudly about ‘exhibiting’ and ‘affections,’ the better.

We’re trying to retrieve your reputation here, sister dearest, not damage it further.”

“Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud, Charlie!” Nerves atwitter, Beatrice tossed back the rest of her champagne and took another glass, too. Better that, to take the edge off her apprehension, than be drawn into a public argument with her sibling. “We both know I’m completely beyond retrieval or redemption in most people’s eyes, so we’ll just have to make the best of it somehow.” She narrowed her eyes at him, keeping her voice low. “I think the sooner you relinquish thoughts of me making a good marriage to mend our fortunes the better. Maybe you should think about getting a job? I’ll work, too. I’m a quick learner and there are plenty of things I could do.”

Her brother looked as if he were about to explode. “No sister of mine is going to work! I’m a gentleman, for heaven’s sake!”

“Goodness, don’t take on so, brother dear. I was only thinking of learning how to operate a typewriting machine and enrolling at an agency. Anyone would think I’d just offered to walk the streets of Whitechapel at a shilling a tumble.”

Charlie opened his mouth, no doubt to reprimand her again, but no words came out. He stared over her shoulder, frowning furiously, and as she watched him, a silvery shiver descended the length of Beatrice’s spine. She hadn’t a doubt in the world who she’d find when she finally turned around, but like Charlie, she was frozen too.

Don’t be afraid, Bea. He’s just a man. Just a man …

“Such a modest sum?” A husky, measured voice rumbled with humor. “If it were me, I’d pay upward of a hundred guineas for such a splendid opportunity.”

“I beg your pardon, sir!” Pink in the face, Charles started to bluster, then shut his mouth again, as if turned to stone by the Medusa’s frightful gaze.

Slowly, as if in a strange, floating dream, Beatrice turned on her toes. Her chin came up, almost as if she were preparing to box some ears, just as Charlie had threatened to, but inside she was quivering to her core.

It was him, of course. The blond man of the dark, intimidating eyes and smooth, hard jaw. The man who’d stared at her so insolently. In an elegant flowing gesture, he bowed low, and it was only when he took her small gloved hand in his larger one that she realized she’d automatically held it out to him.

She could feel his mouth through the satin. The touch of it, the heat of it, burning like a flame. And at the same time she felt it elsewhere too, the sensation so vivid that she almost imagined she was back in the dreamy, drifting stupor Eustace had inflicted upon her when he’d sweet-talked her into letting him take those accursed photographs. A liberated state where she could do anything, feel anything, enjoy anything.

Between her legs, her sex fluttered as if her new admirer stroked it.

“I’m Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie, Miss Weatherly.” He straightened up and stared her directly in the eye, his gaze unwavering.

It’s like drowning. Drowning but wanting to drown.

Beatrice couldn’t look away, couldn’t be modest the way she knew she should be. His eyes were darkest blue, almost black. The color of India ink, fathomless and gleaming. “I won’t say that I hoped to meet you here tonight,” he continued, “because I knew I would. You were invited especially so I could meet you.”

It was Beatrice’s turn to be lost for words. She had them, plenty of them, but what was happening to her body shocked her into silence.

“I say—” Charlie tried to rally, then he too shut up when Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie quelled him with a look almost as disturbing as the hot one he’d given Beatrice.

“Weatherly, I wonder if you’d allow me a moment of privacy with your sister, if I may?” It sounded courteous enough, but it was delivered like a velvet slap in the face, and before Charlie could answer, the ruthless barbarian had Beatrice by the elbow and was steering her away toward a concealed corner between a pair of potted palms.

I should shake him off. I should walk away. I should ask for a carriage to be called and leave this place immediately.

The danger was so acute she almost did it. But she couldn’t. Deep in her body, some demon imp of sweet licentiousness was capering, roused to madness by the delicate touch of Ritchie’s hand on her gloved elbow.

She knew him by reputation. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was a famous figure, who featured often in publications such as Town Talk and the scurrilous but fascinating Marriott’s Monde, as well as the society pages of other more distinguished papers. He was a man of enormous wealth, an entrepreneur, owner of properties and businesses and the most notorious reputation with the ladies. He was always described as squiring some famous beauty or other, and the less salubrious periodicals, the sort Beatrice’s maid Polly favored, hinted heavily at a string of affairs.

Yet because he’s got money, he gets away with it all. He’s done far worse than me, but society adores him.

Now away from the throng, she expected Ritchie to launch into a flirtatious conversation in keeping with his notoriety, but he said nothing, not a word, and just stared at her. Beatrice realized she was still clutching her champagne glass, and wished it full again, not for the alcohol, but just for something to do with her nervous hands. As if he’d heard her, Ritchie plucked crystal vessel out of her fingers and set it on a shelf beside them.

High-handed beast!

“Kindly explain yourself, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice schooled her voice to project the same kind of unruffled authority the man in front of her exuded. It was a tall order, but she managed it after a fashion. At least she didn’t squeak like an outraged mouse. “What exactly did you mean? That you arranged for our invitation here. What do you want from us, sir, that you would do such a thing?”

Ritchie laughed, a low, thrilling chuckle that seemed to roll across her exposed skin and her covered parts, too. If it wouldn’t have caused even more public awkwardness, Beatrice would have slapped him then and there she felt so angry.

But was it just anger? She felt confused. All awhirl. Astonished by the way her body was reacting and betraying her. There was heat in her face and her décolletage, every hidden delicate portion of her anatomy tingled, and her breasts ached in the confines of her gown and its underpinnings. Yet at the same time, the sensations were undeniably pleasant. More than pleasant. In her drawers, her sex felt agitated and hot … as if, oh goodness, it were in need of touching?

“I don’t particularly want anything from your brother, Miss Weatherly. I only want you.” Ritchie paused, and his long, elegant, tapered fingertips rested against the lapel of his perfectly cut tailcoat. Watching him like an adder hypnotized by a mongoose, Beatrice jumped when, with a swift, almost showmanlike panache, he flung open his coat to reveal the inner pocket in its dark satin lining, and the gilded edge of what looked like a cabinet card.

Oh no! So that’s why he wanted to meet me. He’s seen the accursed things rather than just heard about them.

“I wanted to see if the real woman lives up to the promise of this image.” His jacket still open, he ran a forefinger over the card’s sliver of gold edging, slowly and lasciviously. “To see if you really are a siren.” Appalled by the implications of what lay against him, Beatrice experienced a delicious but alarming ripple in the pit of her belly.

I’ve gone quite mad. I only met the man a few moments ago and he’s turned me into a bedlamite!

“A gentleman wouldn’t bring such an item to a social gathering.” She gave him a hard stare, even though every single bit of her felt as if it was melting like a meringue before a gaslight. “A gentleman wouldn’t even own such a thing!”

Ritchie snagged his lower lip in his white teeth for an instant, still fondling the edge of the card. There were stars in his dark blue eyes that seemed to dance in time to the waltz playing in the ballroom beyond them.

“A lady wouldn’t have posed for it in the first place.”

True, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him. A lady wouldn’t have behaved like an incautious ninny and given in to her fiancé’s importuning, champagne or otherwise.

“Touché, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice tried to imagine a steel bar down her spine to match the busk down the front of her corset. Rigid corseting was the only way to stand up to Ritchie without dissolving in the heat from his eyes. “But I’m afraid those photographs represent an unfortunate and misguided incident. An error of judgment on my part that I’m trying to put behind me.” She paused, readying herself for flight at a dignified pace. “And I hope that members of society will also find it in themselves to relegate my indiscretion to the past, where it belongs.”

Turning, she made to walk away, but a hand prevented her. A hand on her upper arm, right in the vulnerable space between the top of her long opera glove and the wisp of French faille that constituted the abbreviated sleeve of her gown.

Bare skin on bare skin. Some time between their first meeting and this moment, Ritchie had removed his white evening gloves and his fingertips were hot as points of fire on her naked upper arm.

“Kindly let me go, Mr. Ritchie!”

Oh, too shrill, far too shrill. But immediately he released her. Or did he? The imprint of his fingers still held her immobilized. As did the dark fire in his eyes.

“You’ll never put the photographs behind you, Beatrice. They are you.” His voice was quiet, yet seemed to ring through the halls of the Southerns’ vast mansion. “I suspected as much when I first saw this.” He drew out the photograph he’d been taunting her with, and it was the most shameful one of them all, the tableau where she appeared to be touching herself between her legs.

Appeared? Is it just that? Did I actually do it? She still couldn’t quite remember, but a shudder ran through her. Ritchie’s eyes licked over her, following its progress.

“And now that I’ve met you, my dear, now that I’ve seen you in the flesh, I know.” His red tongue flicked out, touching the center of his lower lip. “You’re a goddess of sensuality, Miss Weatherly, truly a siren. And the sooner you admit it, the happier you’ll become.” The fans of his eyelashes beat down, all provocation and seduction. How could a man have lashes as long and thick as his and still be so uncompromisingly masculine? They were disturbingly beautiful and sensuous. “As will I.”

“I’m afraid my sensuality … or lack of it … is none of your affair, sir.” She tried to picture the steel bar again, but it was hopeless. She hated this taunting creature who was famous for getting any woman he wanted, but her traitorous body was yearning toward him as if it wanted to bend and mold itself to every contour of his. And trying to tell it not to yearn was wearing her out. She was close to breaking point. “Now, if you would kindly let me go, I’d like to return to my brother.”

“But I’m not holding you.” He laughed softly, the husky sound dancing along her nerves and teasing her most tender parts. “Except here.” He ran his thumb slowly over the cabinet card, letting it linger at her breasts and her thighs.

Aghast, Beatrice almost lifted her hand to strike him, but common sense stopped her. The man was an insulting blackguard, and lingering here was just giving him exactly what he wanted. The best thing to do was to leave, and leave immediately.

“Good evening, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice took a step away from him, but somehow it was like wading through molasses. How could she not be running yet?

“Wait a moment, Miss Weatherly, aren’t you at least going to allow me to mark your dance card?”

Beatrice glanced down at the little card dangling on its ribbon from her wrist. “I’m afraid not. As far as you’re concerned, it’s full already.”

And with that, to her surprise, the spell was broken, and as fast as she could without charging like a madwoman, she sped away from him.

She didn’t look back. No, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction!

Yet she could still see him stroking her photograph as she fled.

EDMUND ELLSWORTH RITCHIE DIDN’T FOLLOW Beatrice Weatherly. He couldn’t. He could only watch her as she stalked away from him, her shoulders almost vibrating with antagonism. Every swish of her pale skirts was like a wash of flame across his body as she wended her stiff-backed path through the groups of convivially chatting guests, leaving a faint aura of lily of the valley in her wake.

Even if he could have moved, he probably wouldn’t have. His cock had hardened like a ramrod the moment he’d set eyes on her, and was now a considerable bulge in his trousers. He had a reputation to be sure, but to be seen sporting a prominent erection at a society ball was a bit too risqué, even for him.

Had Beatrice seen the way he’d come up for her? She hadn’t glanced in that direction, but then, what well-bred young woman would?

All of which confirmed his instincts. Despite the fact that he possessed photographs of her lolling naked on an animal skin with her dainty hand pressed between her thighs, he still couldn’t shake off the notion that she wasn’t quite as licentious and free thinking as such a pose suggested.

What are you, my Beatrice? A hedonistic voluptuary or an untouched Vestal? Either way, you’re everything I dreamed of … and more.

It was impossible to decide which role excited him the most, but what he did know for sure was that Beatrice Weatherly had bewitched him. His ensorcellment had begun the first instant he’d set eyes on the card now back in his pocket, but meeting her in the living, vibrant flesh had increased it a thousandfold.

The collection of photographs had been circulating sub rosa at his club for a while, a minor sensation, and bored one day, he’d asked a friend to pass him one.

The sense of shock had been like a blow to his head, heart and gut all in the same moment. He’d been stunned to silence by a young woman’s exquisite, naked beauty, and he still couldn’t entirely deduce why that was so when he’d seen many gorgeous nudes in his adult life. But shock had turned to arousal, and arousal to a worrying obsession. He’d meant to meet Beatrice Weatherly in order to free himself, but now, instead, everything he’d felt seeing the photographs was validated.

Her face, in animation, didn’t possess the classic perfection of some of the society lovelies he’d courted. Miss Weatherly wasn’t even as delicate as the photographic rendering had suggested. There was a wild, untamed quality about her, something he couldn’t quite define and which she didn’t seem to be aware of herself. Her complexion had a creamy, almost animal vigor and her hair was so savage a red that the photograph’s hand tinting had merely hinted at it. He wouldn’t go so far as to say she was coarse or uncouth, quite the reverse, but she seemed to overflow with health and energy, and perhaps appetites that more delicate hothouse paragons sadly lacked.

And her body, oh God, her scented body.

How could she possibly appear as erotic and alluring in her outdated and obviously painstakingly made-over evening gown as she did out of it? It wasn’t attributable to any amount of corsetry or sundry feminine mechanicals, even though Ritchie was well acquainted with what women wore beneath their costumes.

No, with Beatrice Weatherly, every attraction came from the woman herself. Her dark green eyes, her fierce Amazonian expression, the way her head came up and she gasped as he challenged her.

I’ll make you gasp, Miss Weatherly. You can be sure of that. And even if you’re still angry with me, you’ll be glad you let me.

A footman appeared at his elbow with a tray of champagne, and about to reach for a glass, Ritchie paused. He’d been knocked far too far off-kilter in the past few moments to be satisfied by frothy French wine.

“Bring me a glass of whiskey, if you would?” His own voice sounded strange to him, as if he really had suffered an almighty blow. But the servant seemed to notice nothing amiss and stepped away smartly on his errand.

Gazing out into the glittering throng of bejeweled women and immaculately dressed men, it seemed to Ritchie as if they were projections floating on a screen. They weren’t real, just flickering, moving images such as he’d seen at a demonstration by Monsieur Le Prince in Leeds a couple of years ago.

Only the now-hidden Beatrice Weatherly was real to him, and discreetly, so as to avoid attention, he slid her photograph out of his pocket again and savored the contrast between it and the living woman.

Both were sublime to behold.

In the image, Beatrice was unstudied, dreamy and natural, her eyes averted from the camera in a private moment, so unlike the brazen stares of most naked models.

In the flesh, she met his gaze with fire and mettle and challenge.

Both incarnations stirred his loins to an alarming degree. And much, he admitted uncomfortably, in the manner they’d once stirred for his lost, beloved Clara. His first marriage had been fully and mutually satisfying in that department, as well as happy in every other way.

As the efficient footman approached, weaving his way through the chattering, preening guests, Ritchie slipped the photograph safely back into his pocket.

The whiskey was fire and peat on his tongue, and it settled him.

Yes, he could view the photograph, and the others like it, and take pleasure in them whenever he wanted.

But they, and the ministrations of his own hand, weren’t nearly enough now. He had to touch and admire the woman herself. From that isolated moment of contact, his fingers still tingled, feeling the warmth of her skin, and its softness where he’d held her upper arm. His entire body still felt the aftershocks of that singular instant, and his stiff cock jerked anew from simply reliving it.

I’ll feast on you, divine Beatrice. I’ll draw from you every last ounce of sensuality that’s in you. Because I know it’s there, even though you might deny it now. I’ll taste and stroke every last inch of your flesh, and I’ll feel your exquisite fingertips on my cock returning that pleasure.

And I’ll do it soon, because if I don’t, I might go mad.

Mad? God no … The most unfortunate choice of word. Raising his glass to his lips again, he shuddered as if an icy specter had drifted across his grave.

No! No dark thoughts now. Beatrice Weatherly was light. Heat. Passion. Everything positive and full of glorious, abundant life.

And, thanks to her imprudent brother’s bad investments, and his foolhardy days at the racetrack and nights at the card table, The Siren of South Mulberry Street was now Ritchie’s for the taking.

CHAPTER TWO

Creatures of the Tropics

BEATRICE FELT AS if her head was on a spring, it swiveled about so often during the dancing.

She wanted to freeze stock-still in the middle of the ballroom, turn around, and angrily demand that Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie stop staring at her!

But the trouble was, every time she was convinced he was watching her, the aggravating beast wasn’t there. Had he become invisible all of a sudden? Was he watching her by some arcane, remote means, like a medium?

And if wasn’t watching her, why not? Absurdly, his lack of scrutiny now annoyed her even more than being watched had.

With a supreme effort, she maintained a courteous interest in her partners, of which, surprisingly, there were quite a few. Obviously, her notoriety as the Siren was attracting most of the men, but it was still a pleasant relief not to be a wallflower, as a twenty-four-year-old spinster with no money and a besmirched reputation should expect to be.

She danced with Charlie, of course, who lectured her throughout, and stumbled once or twice, too. Brandy on his breath told a clear story, but Beatrice made a point of being especially patient and agreeable. It wasn’t all her fault that her brother’s life was difficult, but she certainly hadn’t helped matters by being so gullible in her dealings with Eustace Lloyd, and by leaving it so long to entertain a new suitor at all.

She shared a waltz with Monsieur Chamfleur, tall and bluff and jolly, as well as a cotillion with Lord Southern himself, and several other whirls about the floor with the charming Mr. Enderby, and one or two other husbands of the ladies in her Sewing Circle.

Ah yes, the Ladies’ Sewing Circle. Beatrice smiled wryly. Not much of a stitcher, she would never have joined such a group in the normal course of events, but when a card had arrived out of the blue, inviting her, she’d fallen upon it gladly. In the weeks since those accursed cabinet cards had begun circulating, along with a fruity exposé about them in Marriott’s Monde, all other social avenues had dried up to a state of desiccation. Backs had turned on her at church, the Ladies’ Charitable Guild had requested she not attend anymore, and likewise a ladies’ reading group she’d not long joined but had been enjoying immensely. In the face of this universal discouragement it was worth a few pricked thumbs and a nasty hole-ridden mat or two for the chance of feminine conversation with someone other than Polly or Enid or Cook.

And the talk over the crochet, cross-stitch and teacups had turned out to be unexpectedly racy.

Until Ritchie’s disclosure, Beatrice had believed the Circle to be the primary source of tonight’s invitation. Both Sofia Chamfleur and her friend Lady Arabella Southern had been especially amenable at the weekly meetings.

Now, however, Beatrice had been disabused of that notion.

Either one or the other of those two ladies had acted as a pander, and had expedited her appearance here to serve her up to the infuriating Ritchie. A man who apparently had the power to haunt her when he was nowhere to be seen.

What’s the matter with me? I’m having a perfectly delightful time, a much better one than I ever expected. Why do I keep wishing that every partner was that monster?

It was true. Good company as her dance partners had been, somehow they all seemed like shadows. Even Monsieur Chamfleur, who towered well over a stocky six feet tall. Only the wild, hot feelings she’d experienced in Ritchie’s presence had any verisimilitude. Her arm still prickled where he’d touched her, and when she relived that touch, her thighs trembled and a betraying liquid heat welled between them.

No! He’s a rogue and a womanizer and he’s even less respectable than I am!

Drifting away toward the periphery of the supper room, she looked for Charlie, but he too was nowhere to be seen now. One of his lecture topics on the dance floor had been a stern homily to her on the importance of not being seen in conversation with Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie.

“I didn’t realize it was him until he swanned up to us. The nerve of the man! If the papers are anything to go by, he’s a bad lot. Just stay away from him or he’ll compromise you even further.”

Beatrice had nodded, for once in perfect agreement with her sibling.

Yet she was disappointed. The ball was a dazzling, fairy-tale affair, and all the more so for the remarkable and revolutionary electrical lighting system that the Southerns had recently had laid on in their principal rooms. This new light illuminated the proceedings in a harder and more brittle manner somehow. It was unforgiving, yet it caused the women’s jewels to flash and sparkle and their gowns appear iridescent and vivid. But despite this modern miracle, all seemed lackluster just because she was missing a certain sharply beautiful man with navy-blue eyes, shiny, barely tamed blond hair and a mouth that could have as easily belonged to the devil as to an Adonis.

Lacking appetite, Beatrice sidled out of the supper room and across the broad, gilded reception salon. Glass doors to her right led out of the house proper into a conservatory, a vast and spacious jungle that seemed to have been shipped home from darkest Africa. Within it, the air was moist and hot, as she imagined it might be in the tropics, but it made her shudder, recalling the smaller, far less grand conservatory where Eustace had taken his photographs of her.

“To the devil with you, Eustace!” Muttering, she shook her head as if to dislodge his handsome but now hated countenance. How could she ever have believed she cared for him? Much less pose naked for him?

Loneliness, she supposed, and fear for the future. It’d been so long since she’d been courted—since the loss of Tommy, her first fiancé—and she’d been flattered by Eustace’s attentions. Practical issues had influenced her, too. Engagement to an eligible and apparently affluent bachelor had promised desperately needed security for herself and Charlie, and to her chagrin, she’d bamboozled herself into believing love could grow.

Regrettably, Eustace had been as mistaken in his assumptions as she’d been in hers, although far more deceitful. His affluence was all a facade and the moment he’d discovered the parlous state of the Weatherlys’ own finances, he’d made plans to drop her. But not before wringing a form of income from her in the most despicable way.

“You’ll get your comeuppance, one of these days, you beast. I just hope that I get the chance to witness it!”

Dismissing the weasel who’d shattered her reputation, she forged forward into the greenery. With the sound of a German polka fading in the distance, other sounds came more sharply to her ears. Trickling, tumbling water made the huge conservatory seem more than ever like a wild kingdom, and the cries of birds, and a flash of color right up in the highest edge of her vision suggested there might even be a parrot or two loose in the upper regions. Beatrice pressed on, her footsteps silent on the tiled path in her light dancing slippers.

The source of the water was a playing fountain, fed by an artificial stream. Large, colorful fish swam and wafted their fins in the central pond, and its cool freshness cut through the mulchy, vegetable aromas of the plant life.

What an incredible place. It was like having a patch of the foreign and the exotic in your own home. Unlikely a prospect as it was, Beatrice decided not to let the specter of Eustace deter her. If she ever came into a bit of money again, she’d have a conservatory of her own once more. Something modeled after the garden room at Westerlynne though, and relatively modest.

In the Southerns’ grand enclosure, however, narrow pathways wended away through the aromatic flora, and their promise called to her far more than the superficial world of dancing, chitchat, and social one-upmanship. The mystery of the place reminded her of the dark, troubling attentions of Mr. Ritchie. This wild and steaming jungle would be the perfect setting for his savage male persona.

As she explored further, holding up the hem of her gown to prevent it picking up soil and scraps of leaf matter, another sound, more familiar than tumbling water and parrot calls, caught her ear. Faint voices, both male and female, emanated from a little way ahead of her. She heard laughter and low, intimate tones.

Goodness, an assignation!

Perspiration popped and gathered beneath her corset and between her breasts, feeling sticky. It felt as if someone had suddenly adjusted the furnace that maintained the conservatory’s equatorial heat.

I should turn back … pretend I never heard them … respect their privacy.

But her days of polite, respectable and discreet behavior were over. Inching forward, Beatrice acknowledged a darker, more insatiably curious nature. Creeping like a native amongst the ferns, she followed the sounds.

And came upon a little grotto, right in the heart of Lady Arabella Southern’s metropolitan jungle, where two hungry creatures were cavorting, in flagrante.

Sofia and Ambrose Chamfleur were sitting on a bench, both pink in the face and gasping. She, with the bodice of her dress and her corset loosened so that her milky-white breasts overspilled the top of them. He with … dear heaven … his trousers unfastened and his masculine parts … his cock … fully out on view.

Beatrice’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart throbbed like a drum. And low in the pit of her belly, a serpent stirred.

So this was what a gentleman looked like when he was aroused? It wasn’t quite as she’d imagined, but then, what had she imagined? Women weren’t supposed to dwell on this particular part of a man at all until they were married, and respectable wives not even then. But having seen certain medical illustrations, Beatrice had often speculated about it. Long ago, she’d felt Tommy’s loins harden against her thigh when they’d managed to snatch a secret embrace in the rose arbor at Westerlynne, and Eustace too had become agitated and short of breath after a stolen kiss or two.

Beatrice had no idea whether Monsieur Ambrose Chamfleur was a typical fellow, or an especially fine example, but unbidden she wondered if a certain Mr. Ritchie might be even bigger. Sofia, however, appeared to be more than delighted with the size of her husband’s appendage, because she was stroking it in a clever, rhythmic action.

“Dear me, monsieur, what on earth is this?” she murmured, her slender hand apparently untiring as it rode her husband’s gleaming, ruddy length. “I swear it’s quite a monster and I don’t have the first idea what to do with it.”

Ambrose Chamfleur’s broad face looked strained, but almost angelically beautiful for such a large, bluff man. His mouth worked and his hips moved and shuffled where he sat on the bench. Pulling his wife closer to him, and cupping one of her rounded breasts, he whispered something guttural in her ear.

Sofia’s eyes shot wide, but she licked her lips. “Sir, you are scandalous, and a lecherous, low-minded rogue!” The words should have been an expression of outrage, but she was chuckling and smiling. And still licking her lips.

“And if I do that for you, Monsieur Chamfleur—” the clever hand twisted, and Sofia’s thumb seemed to be doing something most dexterous underneath the tip of her husband’s cock “—what will you do for me, in return?”

Again, a husky whisper that Beatrice couldn’t catch, even though she strained her ears to hear it.

“That seems most equitable.” Sofia’s smile was slow and fond, and for a moment, she closed her husband’s hand tightly around her breast, swaying as if the pleasure of it was so acute she was about to expire. Then, in a swift, sudden move, she sprang to her feet, and sank to the ground, her beautiful emerald-green skirts, so at one with her environs, spreading around her as she settled gracefully on her knees.

As she descended, her husband opened his thighs to let her in close.

Botheration! I can’t see!

It suddenly seemed the most important thing on earth to observe the proceedings, and despite branches and fronds of various dripping plants and shrubs almost slapping her in the face, Beatrice edged stealthily around the grotto for a better perspective.

When she achieved it, she clasped her gloved fist to her lips.

Sofia Chamfleur was sucking her husband’s shaft! And thoroughly enjoying it if all her little “mmms” and slithery-liquid sounds of appreciation were to be believed.

Beatrice watched. And watched. And the first shock turned to utter fascination.

I wonder what he tastes like? Is he sweet? Or salty? And what’s his texture? He looks smooth and silky and shiny, even on the length she can’t take in….

Beatrice’s knowledge of men’s bodies and their sexual workings came only from certain volumes she’d studied in the library at Westerlynne, after attacking the lock on the secured cabinet with hairpin. There hadn’t been time to peruse them in as much depth as she would have liked to, but even with only that rudimentary information, it was easy to deduce how much a man like Monsieur Chamfleur enjoyed this act. It must be seventh heaven for any man, pressing the most sensitive part of his anatomy into such a well of heat and moisture and being kissed and licked and sucked by his beloved.

Sofia Chamfleur seemed to be having a fine time of it, too. Despite the fact that her smooth and pretty face was deformed around her husband’s prodigious member, she was attempting a smile and her handsome eyes were sparkling.

She loves to please him.

Reluctant to even think about him now, Beatrice realized that even at her most self-deluded moments, she would never have wanted to kiss Eustace this way. Tommy, probably yes, but Eustace, never! The very idea made her shudder and her skin crawl.

But I’d kiss you, Mr. Ritchie … I’d kiss you.

The idea was preposterous. Ridiculous. Unthinkable. But before she could prevent it, another image sprang into her mind, clearer by far than any risqué photograph.

Instead of the happy Sofia Chamfleur on her knees in front of her beloved Ambrose, Beatrice saw herself, kneeling and sucking enthusiastically, her lips stretched and shiny around the even bigger organ of Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie.

This time her fist didn’t go to her mouth. This time, she couldn’t do anything and was in no danger of uttering a sound. It was as if a giant hand had pushed her sideways, not physically but psychically somehow. The thoughts and images were too shocking for her numbed brain to process, and yet at the same time, she seemed to feel Ritchie’s cock against her tongue.

Licking her lips compulsively, and still half observing the Chamfleurs, Beatrice suddenly experienced the strangest phenomenon. It was as if time itself were slowed down and all thoughts and actions were taking place at a snail’s pace. Her arms fell limp to her sides, and glancing lower inch by inch, she watched the cords and ribbons retaining her fan, her tiny evening reticule and her dance card begin to slide inexorably down the satin slope of her gloved arm and hand.

They’re going to clatter when they land and the Chamfleurs will know I’m here.

In the midst of that thought, she felt less worried about being discovered than she did about disturbing her friends’ pleasure.

What a shame if he doesn’t reach his peak inside her mouth.

But even as these weird observations passed through her mind, and her belongings proceeded at their attenuated pace toward the tiles, another hand, not hers, swept down and caught them.

Who was this prestidigitator, this illusionist? This person who snatched her around the waist at the same time, securing her against him with his other strong hand.

She hadn’t even realized she was falling.

“Hush.”

It was hardly more than a sigh, but she knew the voice, the strength, and the scent of his exquisite shaving lotion. As she breathed it in, her knees were jelly. She couldn’t stand.

The arm around her middle tightened as she sagged, pressing her corset against her body, restricting and controlling her.

“Come along.”

Again, the low voice hummed through her flesh, making the entire length of her torso vibrate where it pressed tight against him. There was no question who it was. It was as if she’d been waiting for him to join her. Somehow waiting since before she’d ever even met him.

Half carrying, half guiding, he began backing her away from the little scene on the bench. The Chamfleurs were completely absorbed in their pleasure, but as Beatrice’s fan swung on its cord, it brushed a palm frond and made it swish and rustle audibly.

Beatrice’s last impression of the jungle grotto was Ambrose Chamfleur glancing her way, smiling briefly, then moaning like a wild animal as his eyes rolled up in crisis.

As soon as they reached a safe distance away from the daring husband and wife, Beatrice tried to struggle against Ritchie’s grip on her then stopped fighting him again, just as quickly. Why give the creature the satisfaction of knowing how much he infuriated her? Especially when there was another distraction it was impossible to ignore.

Against the side of her hip, a sturdy knot of hardness poked at her through the layers of their clothing. And judging by what she’d just seen, back in the hidden grotto, there wasn’t the slightest bit of doubt what it was.

Randy beast!

“Let go of me, Mr. Ritchie,” Beatrice hissed as he manhandled her through a French door and back into the house. They were in another part of the vast Southern mansion now, one some distance from doors by which she’d entered the conservatory.

I’m lost. Lost in a big, strange house with a man who probably has far worse designs on me than Eustace Lloyd ever did.

So why wasn’t she struggling harder? She was a healthy girl with sound limbs, and if a man’s nether regions were as sensitive as Monsieur Chamfleur’s reactions led her to believe, a well-place knee delivered sharply should easily free her.

But you don’t want to be free, do you? proposed a sly, inner voice.

“No, Beatrice. If I let you go, you’ll run away again, and I want to talk to you.” Swiveling her around in his grip, Ritchie’s arms were still unyielding. They held her like iron bands, keeping her jammed up against the hardness at his groin. His cock felt warm and lively against her belly despite the layers and layers of her petticoats.

“It seems to me that you want to do considerably more than talk to me!”

The words came out without her bidding, and worse, her body seemed to have acquired a mind of its own now, too. Her hips jerked and rocked, bumping her abdomen against Ritchie’s loins as if deliberately massaging and caressing him.

What in heaven’s name am I doing?

Her thoughts whirled as he growled. Not quite as loudly and plaintively as Ambrose Chamfleur had done, but still in a way that recognized her desire.

But I don’t want you! No! No! I don’t!

Everything she’d ever read and been taught about ladylike behavior suddenly became nonsense. Stern words that had once tolled in her head were fading, fading. And there was no champagne or other intoxicant to lay the blame on this time. Not even the affection she’d felt for Tommy or misplaced feelings of fondness such as she’d experienced for Eustace.

No, with this man there was nothing more than instinctive antipathy at very first sight, and a low animal reaction to his maleness.

And yet still her hips churned and circled, rubbing her groin against Ritchie’s.

“I can’t deny that, Miss Weatherly. I want to see if that beautiful body of yours is really as luscious as the photographs suggest. I want to touch your skin, stroke you between your legs … taste you there.”

His tongue … oh, his tongue …

Had the ceiling above them opened? It seemed so. From the summer night sky itself, there shot down a bolt of lightning that struck Beatrice and took her breath away. Her legs, the very ones that Ritchie seemed so eager to put his face between, turned as weak as wet wool, making her sway wildly.

No! No! No! she railed again as his arms tightened around her, I am not a fainting miss who has the vapors just because this barbarian is trying to shock me!

“I’ll thank you not to make such crude remarks, Mr. Ritchie.” She stiffened her spine and fought his grip, but it simply became more robust. “They may impress a certain type of woman, but I actually find them boring, even juvenile.”

“Oh Beatrice, you’re such a little liar.” His breath against her cheek was as sweet and clean as his utterances were impure. He smelled a little of whiskey, and that only made her want to taste him. His mouth … his skin … oh, his cock.

Yes, his cock … I like calling it that!

Wicked thoughts, radical thoughts. But they didn’t linger, because at that moment Ritchie’s mouth came down on hers, devilish and hard.

The kiss wasn’t a bit like Tommy’s or Eustace’s. It was dry at first, hot and firm and purposeful. No tentative, boyish explorations. No messy meanderings with lips that were sloppy and vaguely slack. Ritchie’s mouth was strong and businesslike, and totally controlled. And when at last things did get wet, that was different, too. His tongue was a dart of power, pushing into her mouth and subduing her. Down between her legs, she seemed to feel it too, just as he’d described.

Sometime in their flight from the conservatory, she’d snatched her belongings from him, but now, as she tasted his tongue and her own flicked and played around it, her bag, her fan and her dance card tumbled forgotten to the carpet. She needed her hands. She needed them so she could explore his back and his shoulders through the fine dark cloth of his coat, and cling on to him when her knees went weak again.

She needed them so she could cling on when her hips started to press against him of their own accord, driven by a divine madness and a desperate hunger for the same intimate sharing the Chamfleurs enjoyed.

Her body was electric, as if filled with the same radical force that lit the glittering mansion around them, its Promethean power channeled into her every nerve and cell. She felt alight, aflame, filled with yearning and longing and an unstoppable compulsion to press her skin against Ritchie’s skin, cleaving to every last square inch of it.

When she’d had the mad urge to take her clothes off and pose for Eustace’s camera, it’d been nothing more than an anemic whim compared to this. The need to be naked for Ritchie and with Ritchie was a primal drive. An instinct in her blood, pumping and surging.

Aha, this “female hysteria” they write about so coyly in certain advertisements at the back of the Lady’s Weekly Journal. Why on earth do they imply that it’s unpleasant, and to be avoided? Because they’re wrong, so wrong! Completely wrong!

Her breasts felt sore and strange, and yet the sensation was delicious somehow, and far more than pleasant. They chafed against her fine chemise and the inside of her corset and she surged against the solid wall of Ritchie’s body, trying to increase the effect and rub her aching nipples against him.

“Oh, you’re a hot one, Beatrice,” gasped Ritchie as they broke apart to get more breath. Beatrice wasn’t sure she’d taken one for at least two minutes. She was light-headed, but it wasn’t through lack of oxygen … it was Ritchie. “You’re more than I ever dreamed, beautiful girl,” he went on, his mouth against her cheek, then her hair, his jaw brushing the side of her throat. As he spoke, his breath fanned against her, and below his hand pulled deftly at her skirts, with the skill of much practice, no doubt. Up and up they came, and then his fingers slid skillfully amongst the layers, pushing them up so he could clasp the rounded cheek of her bottom through her drawers.

Beatrice shot up in the air and started to struggle again. But just as before, without effort, Ritchie quelled her with his hands on her body and his mouth possessing hers. Conflicting urges battled. Every tenet of good behavior she’d ever had drilled into her waged war with delicious new desires—the craving to touch, taste, rub against and lay herself open to everything this man had to offer.

Her struggle died almost before it had begun, and she softened to the kiss like warmed honey. When he clasped her bottom this time, she almost purred into his mouth like a plump and lazy kitten accepting his affection, wickedly pleased that large, elaborate bustles were no longer en vogue and Ritchie could effect a firm hold on her without that extra hindrance to negotiate.

That’s outrageous! How can I think such things? Her mind raced. How can a kiss affect me this way?

The thought disappeared, drenched in oceans of sensation.

How can a kiss affect me this way?

On a wave of shock and desire, Ritchie plunged his tongue into Beatrice Weatherly’s mouth. He’d wanted her, yes, the moment he’d seen the first photograph, but this … this reality exceeded his every fevered fantasy.

Every part of her stirred him. Her soft mouth he imagined wrapped around his cock. Her delicious body he imagined writhing in uncontrolled ecstasy as he plied her with fingers and tongue, driving her to heights of sensation again and again and again. He imagined fondling the firm, rounded bottom that wriggled so exquisitely against his palm. She was a natural, unstudied sensualist and a little perversity would only spice her ultimate pleasure.

And oh, he wanted that, her ultimate pleasure. He wanted her orgasms. Her complete surrender. Her nakedness, his to enjoy in all ways, open to hand and mouth and a dozen wicked sexual contrivances. He wanted her secured to a bed so he could plunge into her, lose himself in the scent of lily of the valley and woman’s musk and forget every sad thing that had ever troubled him. In the oblivion of her flesh, there might be peace.

He had to have her.

How could he get her?

What could he offer?

A quick tumble with her simply wouldn’t suffice. So would Beatrice Weatherly be amenable to a grande affaire? A bohemian, worldly arrangement, between two adults? A woman of her age and class would normally be on the lookout for marriage, but posing naked for photographs meant she was far from conventional.

But still, the sense that there was more to her than simply a rather licentious young woman plagued him. What if she wouldn’t accept his proposition? The thought of her refusing him and the idea of never having and enjoying every last delicious part of her provoked a sensation like despair in his heart.

There was no alternative. He had power, resources, money in colossal amounts, and he’d use whatever tactics he had to in order to get her. At the back of his mind, guilt—and a distaste for his own self-serving motives—pricked him, but the jabs were faint and fast fading against the hard ache in his loins and the strangely indefinable longing that racked his chest.

Even as sweet lust gouged him, he began to make his plans. Oh, how convenient it was that her brother was such a ne’er do well.