He had noticed several gentlemen eyeing Mariah covetously when they first sat down at the dinner table. Glances he had frowned darkly upon. Those glances had then turned towards Darian, envious in some cases and actually belligerent in one or two others.
Because none of those gentlemen had been numbered amongst Mariah’s lovers? Darian hoped it was so.
He had soon forgotten all but Mariah, as he shut out the presence and behaviour of the people around them and concentrated all of his attentions on her.
He had enjoyed talking with her, their conversations intelligent and witty. He had also fed her sweetmeats on occasion, initially as a way of publically demonstrating the intimacy of their relationship, but continuing to do so time and time again as his shaft hardened as he watched her lips encircle his fork and imagined how those soft and full lips would feel encircling him in the same sensuous way. He had almost come undone completely when she had once run her tongue along her bottom lip as she licked away an excess of cream from a bonbon he had just fed her.
‘Very rarely,’ he answered her drily now. ‘What exactly is it that you forfeit here for losing at cards?’
‘Watch.’ She turned to where two tables had now been set up with four card players on each, two gentleman and two ladies on one and three gentlemen and one lady on the other.
‘Good gracious.’ Darian gave a shudder just seconds later as Clara Nichols, obviously the loser of the first hand of cards, instantly stood up to remove her gown, resuming her seat dressed only in silk drawers and pale stockings held up by two pink—what other colour would the woman choose!—garters, her breasts hanging down like two giant udders. ‘There should be a law against such an unpleasant display.’ Darian’s mouth twisted with distaste.
‘No doubt there is outside of the privacy of one’s home.’ Mariah smiled up at him impishly. ‘And some gentlemen find such full breasts...erotic.’
‘I cannot see how they could!’
‘Watch,’ she encouraged again, just in time for Darian to glance across the room and see a prominent member of the government—prominent in more ways than one at this precise moment!—lying back upon Lady Clara’s bare thighs and placing his head beneath one of her pendulous breasts before sucking the nipple heartily into his mouth.
‘He looks like a giant baby taking suck from its mother!’ Darian muttered with disgust.
‘I believe that is Lord Edgewood’s little fetish, yes.’ Mariah nodded. ‘And many women’s breasts become less pert as we age, especially when we have borne children,’ she added with a playful tap of her fan on his shoulder.
Whether intended or not—and Darian suspected not, in his particular case—the movement drew attention to her own perfectly formed and jiggling breasts, beautifully pert rouge-tipped breasts that peeped out at him temptingly from beneath that thin barrier of lace. ‘I am pleased to note your own have not suffered from a similar malaise,’ he murmured gruffly.
Mariah’s breath caught in her throat, her eyes widening in alarm, as she realised she had actually been flirting with Darian Hunter, the imposing and disapproving Duke of Wolfingham, these past few minutes. Openly, coquettishly, flirting.
‘I believe I have seen quite enough for one evening,’ Wolfingham now muttered harshly as he turned away as one of the gentlemen on the second card table, a short and overly plump member of the aristocracy, stood up to remove his trousers, revealing his small and glistening manhood sticking out from the opening of his smallclothes. ‘Shall we retire?’ He held out his arm to Mariah, a nerve pulsing in the hardness of his cheek.
She raised teasing brows as she rested her gloved hand lightly upon his arm and allowed him to accompany her from the room, aware of several pairs of eyes following their abrupt departure. ‘You do realise that everyone will assume we are going upstairs for the sole purpose of making love together?’ she teased drily as Wolfingham took a lighted candle from the butler before they ascended the staircase together.
‘Let them think it!’ Darian doubted he had ever actually made love to any woman. Had sex with, yes, but never made love with or to.
But this evening—that had been nothing more than several hours of a sickening display of unrestrained debauchery and was beyond enduring for even another moment.
He gave a shudder as they came to a halt as they reached the top of the staircase. ‘I do believe that just the memory of that image of Clara Nichols’s pendulous breasts will make it difficult for me ever to be able to become aroused again, let alone have sexual relations with a woman. I dread to think what outrageous entertainments they will think of for the masked ball tomorrow evening!’
Mariah cursed the blush that had warmed her cheeks as Wolfingham talked so frankly of his arousal. She was a widow aged four and thirty, had been a married woman for twelve of those years. And Wolfingham, along with many others, believed her to have first been an adulteress, then a mistress several times over these past five years. Women as sophisticated and experienced as Mariah Beecham was reputed to be did not blush like a schoolgirl when a man talked of his arousal.
‘This is just a small house party—the majority of the guests will arrive tomorrow evening just for the ball,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘This evening’s guests will no doubt sleep most of the day away after tonight’s excesses.’
‘One blessing, I suppose,’ he muttered.
Mariah nodded. ‘I am afraid the wearing of masks tomorrow evening allows for even more licentious behaviour than you have witnessed this evening. Also, the Nicholses’ smaller and private ballroom is...well, perhaps I should leave that as a surprise for you for tomorrow evening.’
He gave another shudder. ‘I would rather you did not!’
Mariah was about to answer him when there came the sound of loud shouts and whistles of approval from down the stairs. ‘I do believe another lady or gentleman has just been divested of another article of clothing.’
Wolfingham looked frostily down the long length of his nose. ‘In that case I see little reason to celebrate.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘Please tell me that you have never— Assure me that none of those gentlemen have ever—’
‘No,’ Mariah assured him hastily, the warmth deepening in her cheeks.
Those green eyes narrowed. ‘None of them?’
Mariah’s jaw tightened. ‘No.’
‘There is a God, after all!’ he rasped with feeling as he took hold of her arm, the candle in his other hand lighting their way as they began walking down the hallway to their bedchambers.
Mariah eyed him quizzically. ‘I fail to see why it should matter to you one way or the other.’
‘It matters!’ he ground out between clenched teeth.
‘As I said, I do not see why. This, what is supposed to be between the two of us, is merely play—’ The breath was knocked from Mariah’s lungs as she suddenly found herself thrust up against the wall, the candle placed on a small side table as an ominous-looking Wolfingham towered over her. He had placed his hands on the wall either side of her head, making her a prisoner of both his encircling arms and the lean and muscled strength of his body. ‘Darian...?’ She looked up at him uncertainly between long, thick lashes.
Darian was breathing deeply, in an effort to retain his control. He had already been enraged, just at the thought of Mariah having ever been intimate with any of the other men present this weekend—he refused to think of any of those