Lord Savage Read online

  As my thoughts were still occupied with Savage, I said nothing. Lady Carleigh’s dismissive comments surprised me. Savage hadn’t appeared exactly contemptuous, considering the way he’d seen to Lady Telford’s satisfaction as well as his own, nor had the lady acted as if she’d been either used or discarded. Far from it—so far, in fact, that I would have given much to trade places with her in a heartbeat. I wanted this kind of intimacy, this kind of trust, this kind of passion, with a man like Lord Savage.

  No, I wanted it with Lord Savage.

  “They are not lovers?” I asked carefully, not wanting to betray too much.

  “Those two?” Lady Carleigh chuckled, still gazing into the now-empty garden. “Hardly. She was a passing amusement for him last summer, and it would appear she longs to renew their affaire. But it’s clear that Savage has no interest in that, or in her, despite what we have just seen. He is a restless man, one who lives for the thrill of the hunt. It will take a far more interesting woman than Lady Telford to capture him.”

  A strong wave of relief swept through me, but still I needed to make certain I hadn’t misinterpreted.

  “You are sure, my lady?” I asked. “I thought Lord Savage seemed rather charmed by her ladyship.”

  “Oh, I am sure there is nothing between them, Mrs. Hart.” Lady Carleigh turned away from the garden to study me shrewdly. “But tell me, my dear. Exactly how much of that little engagement did you witness? No false modesty, now. You were already watching when I found you here, weren’t you? How much did you see of Lord Savage’s, um, equipage? Enough to engage your own fancy?”

  I looked evenly at the viscountess. There was nothing to be gained by denial, and yet my nature was to hold back, to retreat to the safety of privacy, especially from someone who was, really, still a stranger. To confide like this was a risk, and yet, if I didn’t, this opportunity might be lost.

  “What did I see of him, Lady Carleigh?” I repeated slowly. “Why, I saw … everything.”

  “Quite everything, my dear?” Lady Carleigh smiled, thoughtfully trailing her furled fan along the curve of her cheek. “A sufficiency to inspire you to long to see more?”

  I opened my fan again, the ivory blades clicking softly one by one as the ostrich plumes fluttered apart. I was acutely aware of the significance of her answer. With the scandalous Lady Carleigh to lead me, doors to every kind of adventure—including those that I’d still no words to describe—might swing open to welcome me.

  “I have been inspired, yes,” I said cautiously, sharing more than I’d dreamed possible of myself, but far less than Lady Carleigh obviously expected. “But I am still such a newcomer to your country, and hope to be similarly inspired many more times in the course of my visit here.”

  Lady Carleigh laughed. “Oh, you shall, Mrs. Hart, you shall. I have taken an instant liking to you, my dear, and I am sure we shall become the fastest of friends. Now come with me, and let us see what manner of inspiration we can arrange for you this very evening.”

  We returned to the ballroom together, and at once we were both carried off to the dancing by eager partners. Yet, as one dance led to another, and a new partner with it, I became aware of a change in the gentlemen asking me to dance, and it was clear that my new friend Lady Carleigh had already kept her promise.

  Gone were the callow bachelors my own age and younger, respectfully wooing me as a future wife and investment. In their place were a different kind of gentlemen, confident men in the powerful prime of their lives who made little secret of their desire not for marriage but for seduction. Each open look of appraisal, each suggestive whisper in my ear, excited me further. I had always thought the waltz a slightly insipid dance, but now I wished the orchestra would play forever.

  “You must come riding with me in Hyde Park,” my current partner was saying. He was an officer in a splendid uniform that emphasized his broad chest and the numerous medals that hung there. “You Americans do ride, eh, Mrs. Hart?”

  “Of course we do, Colonel Roberts,” I said, willing to acknowledge the obvious double entendre to his question. The colonel had potential, enough that I saw no harm in encouraging him. “I have always enjoyed the feel of a high-mettled steed beneath me.”

  The officer laughed heartily, his teeth showing beneath his clipped mustache. “I’d wager you do, Mrs. Hart. How I’d like to see you well mounted when—”

  “Stand aside, Roberts,” interrupted another man, tapping the colonel on the shoulder. “This is my dance with the lady.”

  To me this seemed the very height of rudeness, especially since I was enjoying the colonel’s risqué banter. But as soon as I turned to confront the interloper, my rebuff vanished. I’d never seen this man’s face before, yet I knew him immediately.

  “Now, Roberts,” the newcomer said, faintly bored, his manner belonging to a man accustomed to being obeyed. “There are plenty of other ladies who will welcome your leaden style of flirtation.”

  The colonel scowled and glared, clearly considering standing his ground and defending it. But he, too, knew the other man’s identity and his rank with it, both sufficient to take precedence over his own pride. The colonel had no choice, really. He bowed curtly in concession and backed away, abandoning me to the other man.

  The other man: no, he was the only man, making all the others in the room fade away and vanish in my eyes.

  He was taller than the colonel, tall enough that by merit of his height alone he would stand out in any gathering of ordinary men. His hair was black and sleek, his eyes hooded with ennui, and, ignoring the fashion for mustaches and beards set by the king, his jaw was so clean-shaven as to gleam faintly blue-black. His face was severe, all bones and hard planes, and in contrast his mouth was sensually full.

  His features could be called patrician, and indeed he was by birth an aristocrat. But there was also a ruthlessness to his expression that did not belong on a man who had been born to wealth and privilege. Rather it was the rapacious look of a man who would take whatever he wanted, no matter the cost or the risk, and never be denied.

  It was the look of the man that I had always desired without realizing it. Why not, when it felt as if I’d been waiting my entire life for this exact moment?

  “Lord Savage,” I murmured. “I am honored.”

  I began to dip into a curtsey. He, however, did not wish to wait for such a nicety. Now, I was neither small nor delicate, yet he swept me up into his arms and back into the waltz and the center of the crowded ballroom, leading me away with such authority that I’d no choice but to follow.

  I felt both captured and captivated, and as I gazed up at his handsome face, I felt as dazzled as any schoolgirl. His eyes were pale, blue and gray and the color of mist, and ringed with dark lashes. Beautiful, mysterious eyes with a startling intensity, a gaze that could equally intimidate and fascinate.

  “I must compliment you, my lord,” I said, more breathlessly than I wished. Striving to recover my composure, I glanced down from his face to the beautifully knotted white silk tie at his throat.

  The collar of his dress shirt sat precisely against his neck, with the black superfine of his evening coat tailored to perfection over his broad shoulders. To all the world, he was the epitome of a civilized English lord, yet as his large fingers completely enveloped my hand and I felt the heat of his palm through my gloves, I was reminded of what he’d done, what I’d witnessed, not an hour before.

  “You are an excellent dancer, my lord,” I said. “I am fortunate to have you as a partner.”

  He nodded in acknowledgment but did not smile. “I demand excellence of myself in all things, Mrs. Hart, no matter how trifling.”

  I smiled anyway, determined to charm him as I’d charmed all the others. “I can tell that of you already, my lord.”

  “How?” he asked. His voice was deep and rich, the kind of voice that could charm with only a handful of words. “From spying upon me earlier this evening?”

  I caught my breath with surprise. “
Did Lady Carleigh tell you that—”

  “She did not,” he said. “There was no need. I saw you myself, Mrs. Hart, leaning over the railing for a better prospect.”

  Speechless, I blushed furiously, looking away from his face to my white-gloved hand on his shoulder. I’d expected him to be angered by what I’d done, but instead he sounded almost amused, in a dry and very English manner.

  “Is that how you entertain yourself?” he continued. “Watching, instead of participating? Is that what gives you the most pleasure? To be a voyeur?”

  “I—I do not know what you mean, my lord,” I stammered. In truth I had never before observed others making love, because I had never had the opportunity. This had been the first time, and though I had enjoyed it immensely, I was not going to confess that to him. “I had stepped out of doors for air, and heard, ah, curious sounds in the bushes.”

  “The sounds of a man taking a woman?” he said, bemused, as he deftly guided me through the steps of the dance even as my feet would have stumbled. His voice dropped a fraction lower, his words more confidential and meant for my ears alone. “As a married woman, Mrs. Hart, you must surely have recognized the nature of those ‘curious sounds.’ If you were drawn to them, then they must have intrigued you, and made you wish to see more. Perhaps you even imagined yourself making those same curious noises, unable to stop, nor wanting to.”

  His audacity stunned me, as did the frankness with which he spoke of such matters. I had wished for adventure, true, but I had not expected him—or any gentleman here tonight—to speak so directly to me, without the genteel gloss of a witty double meaning.

  “I am sorry, my lord,” I said, striving to draw the conversation back into my control, “but I do not believe that is a suitable topic for this company, in this house.”

  He laughed softly, a deep, rumbling sound in his chest that I found appallingly seductive.

  “I can assure you, Mrs. Hart,” he said, “that this house has been a haven to far, far less suitable pastimes, performed by this same company, than what you witnessed earlier.”

  “Does your assurance come from experience, my lord?” I said defensively. “Was that scene in the garden only one of many in your past?”

  “Is that what you imagine of me, Mrs. Hart? Is your fervid mind envisioning such a scene even now?”

  Sharply I drew in my breath, for in fact I was imagining exactly that. Was I truly so—so transparent? He was toying with me, teasing me, twisting my words around for my own entertainment, and I did not like it.

  “You flatter yourself, my lord,” I said, “if you believe that I would devote my thoughts so exclusively to your—your dalliances.”

  “‘Dalliances,’” he repeated, faintly mocking. “I do not dally, Mrs. Hart. As our acquaintance grows, you’ll discover that I am far more purposeful than that.”

  “Indeed, my lord.” I swallowed, and licked my lips, which had suddenly grown dry. “But only if I cared sufficiently to make such findings.”

  He raised a single dark brow. “What a singular show of spirit, Mrs. Hart.”

  If having spirit meant I must challenge him, I’d do so. “I’m American, my lord. Spirit has been bred into me.”

  “I have met a good many American women, Mrs. Hart,” he said, “and none of them have possessed what you call spirit to the degree that you appear to do. You are, in fact, not like any of them at all.”

  I couldn’t tell if this was intended as a compliment or not. “You are exceptionally bold in your judgment of me, my lord, given that our entire acquaintance has been the length of this waltz.”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Hart,” he said easily, ignoring the rebuff in my words. “Judgments, true judgments, can be made in an instant. I can see that you are not like the other American women, nor are you like the English ladies languishing in little groups about this room. You are not afraid of being alone. You are independent, a renegade, and you answer only to yourself. Is that not so?”

  I caught my breath again, stunned that he had in fact assessed me with such accuracy. I’d never been a girl surrounded by a pack of giggling friends, and because of my solitary upbringing, I’d accepted my lack of close acquaintance, even embraced it as I’d grown older. Yet how had he guessed?

  “You are silent, Mrs. Hart,” he continued when I didn’t answer. “You believe I have insulted you.”

  “No, my lord,” I said, striving to recover. “Although to be called a recreant is hardly flattering to a lady.”

  “I called you a renegade, Mrs. Hart,” he said. “A recreant acts from craven cowardice, but a renegade has made a conscious choice to exist beyond convention and expectations.”

  “I see I must choose my words with more care, my lord,” I said, deftly avoiding admitting how correct his estimation had been. “You speak with a pedagogue’s precision.”

  “I speak from experience, Mrs. Hart.” His eyes were intent upon me, holding my gaze. “I consider myself to be a renegade as well. It is the reason we are drawn to one another. The Turks would call it kismet.”

  I shivered, feeling too vulnerable. To blame what I was feeling on kismet, on fate, seemed so easy and pat, and yet I had no better explanation myself for why I felt so inexorably drawn to him.

  “I am disappointed, my lord,” I said, determined to regain some semblance of control—of myself, if not of him. “Only the most callow of ballroom swains invoke fate as a way to win a lady’s favor. Americans believe in plain speaking.”

  “Then speak plainly to me, Mrs. Hart,” he said, unaffected by my reproof, “and I shall speak plainly to you. Did watching me arouse you? Did your pulse quicken, your breath catch? Did your nipples stiffen and ache? Did your cunt tighten and grow wet with desire for my cock, Mrs. Hart?”

  I stared into his pale eyes, shocked that he would dare say such words to me in the middle of a crowded Belgravia ballroom, the blunt vulgarities all the more potent in his aristocratic accent.

  Yet what stunned me more was how my body was responding exactly as he described, now, as I danced with him. Beneath the layers of lace and silk petticoats, I felt shamefully wet, swollen, and empty.

  My sex wept for his cock. There was no other way to describe it. With each gliding step I took, my now-damp thighs rubbed together, then released, a gentle friction transformed into an inadvertent caress that was growing increasingly unbearable. My breasts felt full and heavy as they pressed against the bones of my corset. As much as I was trying to assert myself against his arrogance, my body was shamelessly betraying the excitement that same arrogance roused in me.

  “You are silent again, Mrs. Hart,” he said, the most ordinary observation in the world under other circumstances. “What has become of your plain speaking now, I wonder?”

  He was watching me closely beneath his dark lashes, seeing far more than I wished him to. Resisting the spell that he’d cast over me, I looked away to search for the acquaintances who had brought me in their carriage tonight.

  If I parted from him now, the way I had earlier from Mr. Smithson, there would be a minor scandal and fuss, but it would be preferable to remaining here to listen to—

  To what? The most devastatingly seductive man I had ever met, saying the exact forbidden things to me that I’d always wished a man would say? If his words alone could do this to me, what would it be like to feel those hands on my bare flesh and that cock driving its way deep into my body?

  “Mrs. Hart?” I thought he sensed my wish to escape, as his hand tightened around my slender, corseted waist to hold me fast. “I await your reply, Mrs. Hart.”

  “Yes,” I blurted out abruptly, yes to the truth, yes to everything he’d asked of me and other things he hadn’t. I felt dizzy, almost light-headed, with my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Suddenly the waltz ended, leaving me wondering if he’d somehow planned it this way all along.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hart,” he said, bowing like every other gentleman. “For the pleasure of this … dance.”

  For the
first time, he smiled. His eyes lost their wolfish intensity, his expression softened, and he looked much younger. He offered me his arm and I took it, clasping tightly to his well-muscled arm as he guided me across the floor.

  I supposed I was grateful for his support, considering how my knees wobbled beneath me. I could not begin to explain what had just happened between us, and I was conscious of how, for the first time all evening, no other gentleman stepped forward to ask to dance with me next. Instead they all hung back, watching me with Lord Savage, as if he’d made some kind of unspoken, primitive claim on me that the other men understood and respected.

  And in spite of how warm I’d become from the dance and his nearness, I shivered again.

  “Ah, Mrs. Hart,” Lady Carleigh said, smiling over her spread fan. “How glad I am that Lord Savage has brought you back to me!”

  Savage smiled in acknowledgment and slipped his arm free of my hand. At once I felt not only unsteady but bereft. Was the earl done with me, then? One dance and a single wicked conversation, and that was all?

  “I was only now telling Lord Carleigh how much I enjoyed your company earlier, Mrs. Hart,” the viscountess continued, waving vaguely toward her husband. “He suggested that I invite you to join us next week for a sojourn in the country. We intend to make a small party of it at Wrenton—that’s our place in Hampshire. We all do what we please, with whom we please, and because we all swear one another to silence, it’s all great fun, and no tedious regrets afterwards. No more than twenty, carefully chosen to exclude the bores.”

  “Oh, of course,” I murmured. “Bores can be so—so boring.”

  “Exactly,” said Lady Carleigh, chuckling. “Besides, I do detest a huge crowd. It destroys the intimacy of the country, don’t you agree?”

  I nodded. With the London season coming to an end, the nobility retreated to their country houses for the hunting season and for visiting one another’s estates. I’d already received a small pile of invitations from other noble hostesses, but none was as intriguing as Lady Carleigh’s.