While she was still puzzling over what response she ought to make, he dropped to his knees on the floor and pushed her skirts right up to her waist. She almost cried out a protest. It had been hard enough having her bosom on show all evening let alone her most private parts. Not that he could actually see anything in the darkness, nor was he trying to, Julia suddenly realised in shock. What he was doing was lowering his head and kissing her. Nibbling at the top of her tightly clenched thighs, and then, when the sheer bliss of it had her relaxing, he pushed her legs apart so that he could kiss the exact place where his hand had ventured.
Julia almost panicked and pushed him away. Surely he couldn’t want to kiss her there? Could he?
Oh, heavens, whatever was she supposed to do now? What would Nellie do in her place? Was she used to men doing this sort of thing? Was she...?
Oh, heavens but that felt...
Oh, goodness, if he kept on doing that...
Oh, goodness, she hoped he would keep on doing that. That was...that was...
Excitement built in her, just as though he’d lit a fuse. It went fizzing through her, burning brighter and brighter, until somehow, she knew, there was going to be some sort of explosion.
It burst through her, startling a scream of pleasure from her throat.
He knelt back with a satisfied growl. Got up, bent one of her lax legs at the knee and propped it up against the wall. He then pushed the other down so that her foot was on the floor and came back down on top of her.
‘Unnhhh...’ She tried to say something, anything. But she was still stunned by the force of the explosion that had just flung her skyward. She was still floating, somewhere far above the earth, as he settled between her legs.
It was only when he surged forward she realised that at some point he’d undone his breeches and was sliding inside her. She tensed, remembering the discomfort his fingers had caused. But this didn’t hurt. Not even when he started thrusting into her—clutching at her bottom with one hand, and propping himself against the kitchen wall with the other.
And then he exploded, too. She felt him pulsing deep inside her as his whole body shuddered over her.
She slid her arms round his neck, hugging him in sheer delight.
‘Oh, David,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll have to get married now.’
He tensed.
Well, she’d been prepared for that. He must be shocked to learn that she was the woman he’d just ravished.
But before he could say anything, someone flung up the sash window and stepped into the orangery.
He didn’t have time to do more than lift his head and swivel it in that direction, before the light of two lanterns flooded the scene, clearly showing the unmasked faces of the three people standing there.
The Neapolitan Nightingale, her mouth agape.
And Marianne, her hands clasped to her bosom.
And, worst of all... David.
‘David?’
No! If David was standing over there, by the window, then who was this man who’d just...who she’d just permitted to...
Her stomach froze into a solid block of ice. David’s face contorted with disgust.
‘Cover yourself,’ he said.
The man on top of her twitched the full skirts of his coat over her exposed thigh. Though there was nothing he could do about her leg from knee to toe.
‘If you wouldn’t mind giving us some privacy,’ he drawled in the hatefully cutting way that identified him at once. ‘I can hardly...disengage, with you three standing there staring.’
Marianne gave a little whimper, and sagged at the knees. David put his arm round her shoulder and pulled her face to his chest.
The Nightingale clapped her hands over her mouth.
And Julia clamped her jaw against a wave of nausea. David was standing over there. Which meant she had her legs wrapped round the waist of another man. And not just any man, but the very last man she’d have suspected of being able to act like...like this.
Captain Lord Dunbar. The dour Scotsman who’d arrived uninvited a couple of days ago and had been acting the part of spectre at the feast ever since—skulking on the sidelines and glowering particularly ferociously at anyone who dared look as if they were enjoying themselves too much.
‘Wait!’
As the three witnesses to her downfall turned to leave, the man she’d just seduced by mistake barked out the single word in a forceful way that only served to confirm his identity. Only a man used to command could make perfect strangers stop in their tracks that way. A man who was used to storming enemy ships and cutting his opponents to ribbons. A man who would have been perfectly at home on the deck of a ship tossed by a howling gale, but who’d looked stifled by the social niceties of a drawing room.
‘You will none of you speak of this,’ he informed them. ‘Not until I have had a chance to speak to the young lady’s father.’
David swelled and quivered with indignation. ‘If you think I would ever stoop to blacken the name of a lady, no matter what her conduct—’ he flicked her another disgusted look that flayed her like a whip ‘—then you are very much mistaken.’
Oh, David. She’d lost him. Irrevocably. She’d never be able to look him in the face again, after this, never mind persuade him that, despite the difference in their stations, she’d make him a good wife.
‘And I could never, never speak of it,’ added Marianne in woeful indignation.
‘I definitely don’t want anyone knowing I had a hand in any of this,’ added the Nightingale.
‘Would it be too much to ask for one of you,’ Captain Dunbar said in the sarcastic way that never failed to set Julia’s teeth on edge, ‘to leave us a lantern?’
Marianne placed hers on the floor. Well, she wasn’t going to need her own, since David was holding her in such a protective embrace. No chance of her tripping over a loose flagstone on the way back to the house.
There was an awkward little interlude after the others had left, during which Captain Dunbar disentangled himself from her and briskly readjusted his clothing. Julia just about managed to swing both legs to the floor though they felt all weak and wobbly.
Oh, heavens! Now she knew just what a spent rocket felt like. Two minutes ago she’d experienced a kind of fire-bursting ecstasy. Now she just felt used and shattered.
* * *
Damn it all to hell and back! Snared by the oldest trick in the book. By a green girl, which was worse. Lady Julia, if he wasn’t mistaken. The two sycophants, who normally trailed everywhere after her, wouldn’t have cared tuppence what happened to any of the other guests at this house party.
Just to make sure, though, he untied the ribbons holding the elaborately decorated mask over her face. She barely reacted. Just sat there, shoulders hunched, gazing miserably at the floor, in the position she’d adopted after sitting up and smoothing down her skirts with trembling hands.
She looked as broken as the peacock feathers that had snapped off some time during their frenzied coupling.
Hell. He looked at the bedraggled mask dangling from his calloused fingers. Lady Julia had been a virgin. Of course she’d been a virgin. And he’d just treated her as though she was an experienced courtesan.
Though wasn’t that what she’d wanted him to believe? Else why sidle