The Devilish Trollop, page 11
Sully cut her off by leaving the door and Lord Cunningham and marching up to her side. He clasped her arms and looked deeply into her eyes. “Nothing could prevent me from marrying you. Especially not now. I love you, Felicity. I love your wickedness and your humor. I love that you stood up to an ogre like Lord Cunningham, in spite of what it would mean. More women should be as bold as you.”
“But your reputation, your family’s reputation,” she argued.
Sully laughed. “Do you think society will listen to a word Lord Cunningham says after this evening? You were not the one caught with your breeches around your ankles and your cock out. You were clever enough to keep yourself concealed.”
“Not deliberately,” she said. “It was pure chance that the curtain cords were close to the door.”
“But they were,” he went on. “And Lord Cunningham can rail against you and attempt to besmirch your name all he wants, but not a soul in that room can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were the one who caused that bastard’s humiliation.”
“What are the two of you doing in there?” Lord Cunningham resumed banging on the door. “It’s too quiet.”
“I will stand by you,” Sully went on, ignoring him. “Tonight and forever.”
“My darling,” Felicity said, leaping toward him and throwing her arms around his neck.
He caught her, slanting his mouth over hers and kissing her with a passion that curled her toes in her slippers and left her breathless. The rest of her body responded in kind. Suddenly, the fine gown she’d borrowed from Caro seemed far too restrictive.
But the mood was shattered as Lord Cunningham continued to pound and shout, “You will rue this day, mark my words!”
“What is going on here?” A new voice, Rufus’s, joined Lord Cunningham’s in the hall.
“You know damn well what’s going on, Herrington,” Lord Cunningham shouted. “I demand satisfaction.”
“You cannot challenge a woman to a duel,” Caro’s voice answered.
Felicity took Sully’s hand and tip-toed to the door to listen.
“Not a duel, you ignorant chit,” Lord Cunningham growled.
“How dare you speak to my wife in such a manner?” Rufus shouted.
“She is the one who invited that devil to this party,” Lord Cunningham railed. “I want the bitch evicted at once. I shall send for the authorities to lock her up in Newgate if you do not. I will have her sorry hide transported to Australia.”
“Calm yourself at once, Lord Cunningham,” Caro said, sounding as though she intended to take charge of the situation. “No one will be transported to Australia. You have been embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?” he parroted, as though the word didn’t go far enough.
“And you want redress,” Caro went on. “It is all understandable. But until you present proof that my dear friend, Miss Murdoch, was the cause of your embarrassment—”
“She was bloody well standing right there beside me,” Lord Cunningham shouted.
As Sully had pointed out, Rufus said, “No one actually saw Miss Murdoch.”
“What? How?” Lord Cunningham sounded as though he was in the midst of a fit of apoplexy.
“If it soothes your battered pride,” Caro continued, “I will ask Miss Murdoch to leave the party.”
Felicity gripped Sully’s hand tighter, not certain how she felt about that. It would have been glorious to stay and idyll away the rest of the summer with her friends, sharing her bed with Sully whenever possible. But they were not living in a fantasy world. It was advisable for her and Sully to rush up to Gretna Green so they could marry as quickly as possible.
“Banishment of the whore is the least you could do,” Lord Cunningham growled.
“Again, sir, guard your tongue,” Rufus demanded.
“I’ll say whatever the blazes I want to say,” Lord Cunningham raged on. “I want that whore and her pimp cast out at once.”
“We’ll leave,” Sully called through the door. “We’ll be gone at first light.”
Lord Cunningham was strangely silent in the face of that concession. Felicity wondered if Sully had taken the wind out of him by agreeing to go instead of being ordered to leave.
“There,” Caro said in a tone that hinted Felicity’s thoughts were right. “Lord Whitlock has agreed to go, and I assume he’ll be taking Miss Murdoch with him.”
“I will,” Sully said, turning to Felicity with a smile that could have split the gloomy clouds outside and dazzled them all with sunlight. “I plan to take her with me wherever I go for the rest of my life.”
His words were beautiful. They struck straight at Felicity’s heart. In all her life, she couldn’t remember a single soul who had actually wanted her with them. Her father had always treated her as a commodity and her mother had clearly favored her brothers. At last, she had someone who wanted her for her and who was willing to declare that aloud.
“I don’t think I will ever be able to repay your love,” she said, blinking back tears as she glanced up at him.
“You have no need to,” Sully said, sliding his arms around her and holding her close. “As long as you continue to be you, and my wife to boot, you will be giving me more than you could possibly imagine.”
“I’ll give you everything, all right,” she said, her brow flickering up. She dropped one hand from his neck, brushing across his chest, and grasped the front of his breeches.
His body responded immediately to her touch. It didn’t matter that Lord Cunningham continued to argue with Rufus and Caro in the hall. It was all so much background noise as Sully hardened in response to her touch.
“I think we should continue what I started with Lord Cunningham in the parlor,” she said in her most tempting voice.
“And just what had you started with him?” Sully asked, a sensual smile spreading across his lips.
Felicity feigned the same coyness she had with Lord Cunningham even as she fingered the fastenings of his breeches. “Remove your clothing and you’ll find out.”
He hummed low in his throat and backed away from the door toward the bed, unbuttoning his coat as he did. Felicity giggled at the carnal spark in his eyes and toed off her shoes, kicking them to the side. The conversation on the other side of the door gradually faded away, as if Rufus and Caro had convinced Lord Cunningham to depart at last.
“I must confess,” Sully said as he tossed his coat aside and started on the buttons of his waistcoat, “I am alarmed that my fiancée would attempt to seduce another man in this manner.”
“It was all part of a much grander plan,” Felicity said, certain that he was teasing and that he hadn’t truly been worried. His faith in her was astounding, and it only served to arouse her further. She reached behind her back to tug at the ties holding her gown in place.
“And was this grander plan to practice the skills you will need as my wife?” he suggested, flickering one eyebrow up.
“You have found me out,” she answered with a coy look.
Her bodice sagged loose as she undid the ties. She wriggled out of it, letting the silken fabric spill to the floor. It was a blasted shame that undressing was far more of a task than a tease, but she pulled at the ties of her stays in the most seductive way possible.
Sully seemed to like what she was doing. His gaze turned ravenous as he threw his waistcoat aside, fumbled to remove his cravat, then yanked his shirt up over his head. He backed all the way into the bed, and as he sat, he tugged his boots off with record speed.
Felicity had peeled off all of her clothes but her shift as the second boot dropped and he reached for his breeches. Rather than letting him proceed to free the stiff erection that bulged against the fabric of his breeches, she moved to stand between his legs, nudging them apart and pushing his hands away.
“Allow me,” she said, sinking to her knees.
While the thought of doing such a thing to Lord Cunningham had made her sick to her stomach, unfastening Sully’s breeches and taking his cock out filled her with heat and lust. He sucked in a breath as she handled him, stroking him lightly until he was as hard as marble. He leaned back, bracing his hands on the bed behind him, and groaned.
“Such a fine specimen,” she said, her sex aching with the knowledge that he was all hers. “I shall enjoy learning all I can about it in the years to come.”
Before he could come back with a witty reply, she leaned forward, kissing and licking his tip. He tasted of salt and musk, but it was the way he groaned and arched his hips toward her hungry mouth that sent a thrill through her. Slowly, she did more than tease him. She closed her mouth over his head, stroking her tongue along its underside.
“No.” He stopped her abruptly, pulling away from her mouth’s explorations.
“No?” she asked, a hint of worry coursing through her.
He reached for her, lifting her, then twisting so that he could spread her on the bed under him. “I don’t want you to service me like I’m some greedy bastard who sees women as objects of their pleasure.”
“But what if I want to pleasure you?” she asked, stroking her hands along his sides and pushing his breeches down over his hips.
“You pleasure me with every word you say,” he whispered, dipping down to steal the lightest of kisses from her lips. “You pleasure me with your wicked smile.” He kissed her cheek and nipped at her earlobe. “You pleasure me by sighing with lust every time I touch you and by coming when I’m inside of you.”
His words seeped through her skin and nestled around her heart. “I don’t deserve you,” she said, blinking back tears.
He responded with a laugh. “You most certainly do,” he said, reaching for the hem of her shift.
He swept it up, and she wriggled to help him peel it over her head, leaving her naked and aching for him. He rocked back for as long as it took to dispose of his breeches, then climbed back onto the bed with her, positioning her so that he could drink in the sight of her.
“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, full of emotion and sentiment. A moment later, the wickedest of grins replaced those tender emotions. “And I’m going to eat your pussy until you come so hard it will render you useless for days.”
She laughed, but moments later that laughter turned into a long moan of pleasure as he did exactly what he promised to do. He shifted to wrench her legs apart, brushing his fingertips up her inner thighs to toy with her sex.
“So wet,” he growled, teasing her flesh and sparking incredible sensations that pulsed through her.
He followed that preamble by bending forward and planting a kiss between her breasts, then one just above her navel, then below it, then low on her belly. His fingers explored her, parting her flesh to expose the most intimate part of her. A moment later, he raked his tongue across her opening, drawing it up to circle her clitoris.
Felicity sucked in a breath that she let out on a long, pleasured sigh as he continued to flicker and circle that sensitized part of her. Her body throbbed and tensed with a mounting tension that could only end in one way. She grabbed the bedclothes on either side of her, her breath coming in short pants as she sped closer and closer to the edge. He knew exactly how to fill her with joy and light, exactly how to play her body as though it were a celestial instrument. She writhed as his mouth drew pure sensation from her, and when she couldn’t stand the tension for another moment, when her body burst into a shuddering orgasm, it took her breath away.
He moved quickly, sliding up the length of her and thrusting inside of her as she continued to pulse with pleasure. It felt so good, so perfect, that her orgasm intensified. He wasn’t sweet or gentle with her either. He took her with wild abandon, groaning as he did. He stretched her to a delicious degree, almost as though he were too much for her, but the more he moved within her, the more she loved it. He was hers to hold, hers to receive. She arched into his every thrust, digging her fingertips into his back and praying the moment would last forever.
All too soon, he came with a shuddering force, spilling his seed deep within her instead of pulling out as he did before. It was the most wonderful thing she’d ever experienced, and as all energy drained away from him, she embraced him with her whole body.
“I love you, Sully,” she panted. She’d never meant anything more in her life. “I love you with all my heart, and I will be the most wonderful wife any woman has ever been.”
“I know,” he panted, keeping himself lodged within her even as he softened. “And I will be the most loyal and true husband a woman could ever ask for.”
She laughed straight from her soul, happier than she’d ever been. It didn’t matter how society treated her in the future. She was the happiest woman in the world.
Epilogue
Eliza’s shoulders slumped as she gazed out the window at the carriage departing swiftly through the rain.
“There she goes,” she sighed, waving at the carriage through the rain-streaked glass.
“It will be strange to be here without her,” Ophelia said, moving to stand by Eliza’s side. She fingered the mysterious key that she’d slipped onto a ribbon worn around her neck.
“I am happy for her,” Eliza insisted, turning away from the window. “Lord Whitlock is simply perfect for her.”
“Lord Whitlock is perfect for her because he finds her wickedness amusing instead of shocking,” Ophelia agreed, a look in her eyes that said she found Felicity’s mischievous ways shocking herself.
“Lucky Mrs. Wallace,” Eliza said. “She’s insisted that she was contracted to spend six weeks in Shropshire and Caro has consented to let her stay.”
“She doesn’t deserve it, if you ask me,” Ophelia said. “She was no help to Felicity at all.”
Eliza hummed in agreement. “I would have liked to attend their wedding,” she went on, crossing to the mantle and surveying the various porcelain figures, snuff boxes, and the clock it held.
“I’m not certain my Papa would have let me attend her wedding whether it was held in Shropshire, London, or Gretna Green,” Ophelia lamented. “He’s concerned with only one thing where I am concerned, and that is finding a suitable husband.”
“Has your Aunt Millicent had any luck finding a suitable candidate?” Eliza asked, lifting her brow slightly.
“No,” Ophelia sighed, sinking into one of the chairs near the window.
Eliza pushed away from the mantle, not wanting to see her friend in such distress. “Have you had any luck finding what that key goes to?” she asked, her gloom departing and her sense of mischief returning.
Ophelia perked up a bit. “Not as of yet, but I have ruled out all doors, windows, and clocks.”
“That’s something.” Eliza smiled. She glanced around. “Perhaps it belongs to this cabinet.”
She skipped across the room to a small curio that stood in the corner.
“Ooh, perhaps it does.” Ophelia leapt up and followed her.
She had just removed the ribbon from her neck and set about trying the key in the curio when the sound of a man clearing his throat sounded from the doorway leading to the hall.
Eliza gasped and whipped around to find Mr. Adolphus Gibbon, the Bow Street Runner, watching her and Ophelia with a stern frown. Ophelia squeaked at the sight. The two of them held their hands, Ophelia’s with the key in it, behind their backs.
“Ladies,” Mr. Gibbon said with a curt bow. His eyes narrowed slightly. “I trust you are keeping out of trouble.”
“Yes, sir,” Eliza and Ophelia answered in unison.
Mr. Gibbon didn’t seem convinced. He took a few more steps into the room, staring down his nose at Eliza especially. “You are not engaged in any activities that you should not be, I trust?”
“Not at all, sir,” Eliza said, surprised that her voice made her sound out of breath and as guilty as sin. Well, she certainly was not averse to sin.
Mr. Gibbon continued to study her, but unless Eliza was mistaken there was something far more carnal than suspicion in his eyes. His expression smoldered and his eyes raked her with a deliciously repressed heat.
“Good,” he nodded at last, his back stiff, his hands clasped behind him. “I would hate to see the same sort of misfortune that befell your friend touch you.”
“Misfortune?” Eliza asked, her blood stirring. “To fall passionately in love with a man who loves you in return?”
“Passion is risky,” he said without elaborating.
Eliza found it fascinating that, of all the words she’d spoke, that was the one his thoughts had snatched up. She couldn’t help but smile in a way she hoped he would find alluring.
In fact, his face reddened. But the rest of him stiffened further. “Well. Good day to you, ladies,” he said, sketching a quick bow. He then turned and abruptly left the room.
“I think he fancies you,” Ophelia whispered.
Eliza’s grin widened and she bit her lower lip. “He’s so stiff and restrained,” she said, her sex tightening at the thought. “It makes one wonder what he would be like unrestrained.”
Ophelia shifted to look at her sideways. “Should I assume this means you wish to be the one to loosen his restraints?”
“Oh, yes,” Eliza cooed. “Mr. Adolphus Gibbon may want to watch himself. Restrained or not, I shall have him on his back in no time.”
* * *
I hope you have enjoyed Felicity and Sully’s story. It’s true that they may never be accepted into polite society again, but with friends like Felicity’s, especially her new friend, Lady Cavendish, I think they’ll be perfectly happy. And what about Eliza and Adolphus? Can the mischievous minx loosen up the staid Runner? I’m sure you’ll have fun finding out in the next book in When the Wallflowers were Wicked, The Playful Wanton.
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