Voluptuous, page 14
And please keep reading on! In the pages ahead, you will find . . .
A sneak peek of Bed Me, Viscount. This full-length novel takes place at Crossthwaite and is what happens when “just us three” is disrupted by unplanned visits from Henrietta’s sister Ellen and Oliver’s cousin William Dagenham. It’s also an age-gap romance and features some Regency-style primal play.
My Author’s Notes and Acknowledgements, etc.
A list of all the novellas in the Curves & Cravats series.
Bed Me, Viscount
Crossthwaite, the Lake District. June, 1820.
William woke up in a tangle of bed sheets, limbs, and silky, red hair.
Nyah. His tongue was clinging to the roof of his dry, foul-tasting mouth. His body was coated with stickiness, the kind that accumulates after one has sweated all night and then let the sweat dry on one’s skin.
And his head. His head. The pain. The pain was splitting his head in two. The light. The light was torture. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again.
Silky, red hair.
He raised his head, battling the wedge of agony driving into his skull. Some of the limbs in the tangle were covered in golden-orange freckles. And some of the limbs were not his. The freckled ones were definitely not his. One slim arm thrown over his chest, the other curled around a pillow. Two exposed legs down at the end of the bed. Luscious, round, plump legs.
Legs built for sin.
He patted at the heap of sheets next to him and immediately discovered a body. A woman’s body in a nightdress, lying face down, surely the source of the red hair and the extra limbs.
The body stirred.
“Mmmf,” the body said.
He quickly withdrew his hand.
The arms stretched out, and the feet attached to the legs-built-for-sin pointed. The whole body elongated and went taut and trembled.
“Unghhh,” said the body.
It was a beautiful, sensual groan. William’s scrotum tightened, and his cock took notice.
He thought briefly about untangling a sheet to drape over his exposed genitals. But why should he? This was his bed. His chamber. His set.
He looked up at the unfamiliar canopy far above him and woke up a little more and realized that wasn’t quite true. He was in a bedchamber at Crossthwaite, his cousin’s house. Yes, he thought this might be the bedchamber he had been shown last night and told was his, but he wasn’t completely sure.
He was sure of very little, in fact.
His cousin had been the one to greet him when he had arrived at midnight. Oliver had brought William’s saddlebag to this room—at least, he hoped it was this one—and then had taken him back downstairs and gotten him some food from the larder and offered him whisky in the library.
Oliver had been the oasis of reserve he always was, not asking the infuriating questions anyone else would have. But William was eager to drown his sorrows in whisky and didn’t want a witness to his unbridled dissipation.
“Go back to bed,” William had growled. “Go.”
Oliver had departed the library but not before giving William a consoling thump on his shoulder.
And then William must have stayed a long time in the library, drinking away his despair, because he had clearly succeeded in becoming totally, exceedingly crapulous.
He did not remember returning to his bedchamber.
And he certainly didn’t remember collecting a woman along the way.
The body next to him shifted and half-rolled onto its side and suddenly a nightdress-covered bottom was pressing against him and wiggling. Slowly, very slowly, he turned towards the body and let that warm, ample bottom snuggle into his half-hard cock.
No reaction at first from the owner of the bottom. And then a contented sigh.
Had he coupled with this woman last night and given her satisfaction? It seemed difficult to believe, given his inability to remember the event. He knew from experience that the degree of inebriation that made him lose time and events and people also left him unable to perform.
And who was this freckled trollop? He snaked an arm around her waist. No reaction. He let his hand wander down the softness of an abdomen to a hip and then farther down, to where the nightdress had hiked up, and he got his first feel of the bare skin of a thigh.
Gorgeously smooth, warm silk over hard muscle. These luscious legs-built-for-sin were not plump as he had thought, but powerful. They were the haunches of a racehorse mare.
He pushed more of his stiffening shaft into the woman’s buttocks and his belly into the curve of her lower back and drew his hand back up. Over the thigh, the hip, the abdomen, and higher still, until he found a nightdress-covered breast. A handful. Or less. Surprisingly small, given the size of the thighs, the sizable jut of the bottom.
He squeezed the little breast.
There was a change in the body’s breathing. She was surely awake.
“Are you ready now, my lord?”
The voice was gravelly, low, perhaps familiar to him.
Suddenly a whip of red hair struck him in the face, causing him to blink several times. When he was done batting his eyelids like some coy wench, the body was on its stomach again and a freckled face was turned towards him and green eyes were staring at him.
The face spoke. “I would guess from that thing poking into me that you are.”
He drew in a breath. That face. He knew that freckled face. He exhaled.
The face’s nose wrinkled. “Pew.”
Stafford.
Ellen.
Lady Ellen Stafford.
Last spring, his friend Phineas had forced him to attend some balls in a well-meaning but futile attempt to keep him away from gaming hells. William had been introduced to Lady Ellen at one of those balls. He had admired her idly, dispassionately, just as he had admired many other young ladies.
But beautiful women—especially blue-blooded maidens—were not for him. Years ago, he had lost his heart to Lady Luck, that faithless bitch. And now he had lost everything else to her, too.
And if the Duke of Bexton—a man whose arm had a bigger girth than William’s leg—knew William was in bed with his daughter, William might very well lose his life.
And he mustn’t forget the feral brother. William would lose his cock and balls to Alexander’s knife first. And then the young blade would kill him.
He pulled away, scrabbling at sheets to cover himself.
“Lady Ellen, what . . . what . . . what are you doing here?”
She raised herself up on her elbows. “I was sleeping until you started pawing at me.”
William got the end of a sheet over his groin.
“No, I mean . . . is this my bedchamber?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you in my bed?”
And why was she here, at all? In the Lake District, in his cousin Oliver’s house?
Oh. Yes. More facts bubbled up in the murky bog of pain that was his brain. Lady Ellen’s older sister was Oliver’s most recent wife. The mistress of this house. Lady Henrietta.
The Duke of Bexton was Oliver’s school chum, and a few years back, Oliver had gotten entangled with the duke’s oldest daughter and it had been hushed up by a hasty wedding.
Wait. Hadn’t Lady Ellen herself been embroiled in some kind of scandal recently? He couldn’t remember details. What was it?
It was . . . no, it had slipped away into a morass of vagueness. He had tried not to listen too closely to the gossip of the ton over the last six months, knowing some of it must be about himself.
His bed-companion pushed herself up and got into a kneeling position on the mattress, sitting back on her lush haunches. She yawned, raising both arms over her head, causing her lovely, little breasts to lift and strain against the muslin of her nightdress. Her thighs peeked out from under the hem, and he could see the bulge of muscle atop her freckled knees.
She ended the indulgent, erotic yawn with a shrug. “You invited me. You said you would take care of me in the morning.”
“T-t-take care of you?”
Her arms came down and she leaned forward on her fists on the mattress, arching her back like a cat. “I assumed it was a euphemism for bedding me.”
The pain in his head doubled, a feat he would not have thought possible.
“B-b-bedding you?”
Her eyes glinted, and she smiled a wicked smile.
“You said, and I quote, you would give me the fuck to end all fucks.”
William Dagenham and Ellen Stafford get themselves into some very deep, very horny, very fun trouble in Bed Me, Viscount.
The best way to find out when Bed Me, Viscount will be released is to subscribe to my newsletter! And if you subscribe at www.felicityniven.com/voluptuous, you’ll also get the free second epilogue to Voluptuous.
Author’s Notes
This novella is part of The Bed Me Books series but is designed to work entirely as a stand-alone story.
In terms of reading order, Voluptuous comes directly before Bed Me, Viscount and serves as a prequel to that book. And, yes, Be Not Coy (available now on Amazon) is a short story prequel to Voluptuous so it’s a pre-prequel to Bed Me, Viscount. I do love to weave a tangled web.
Oliver and Henrietta marry by common license which does not require banns to be read. The couple must have permission from a bishop, marry within the church of either the bride or groom’s parish, and pay a fee. Henrietta also needs her parents’ consent because she is not yet twenty-one.
In the time period of this story, the type of vehicle known as a brake would have most likely been spelled break. However, to avoid confusion, I have deliberately used the more modern spelling brake.
The two-pommel (or “leaping horn”) sidesaddle that makes jumping far safer for sidesaddle riders was actually thought to have been first devised in the 1830s by French riding-master Jules Pellier. But there’s absolutely no reason some inventive horsewoman might not have thought of it first. And we all know how difficult it can be for a woman to make her way into history books.
As a full-figured heroine myself, I wanted to tell this particular story. But every person’s feelings and sensitivities differ. If any part of this novella offends a reader, I apologize.
Also by Felicity Niven
THE BED ME BOOKS
Duke the Halls (prequel novella)
Bed Me, Duke (Book 1)
Bed Me, Baron (Book 2)
Bed Me, Earl (Book 3)
Books 4, 5, and 6 coming soon!
THE LOVELOCKS OF LONDON
When Ardor Blooms (prequel novella, available with newsletter subscription only)
Convergence of Desire (Book 1)
Clandestine Passion (Book 2)
A Perilous Flirtation (Book 3)
Acknowledgments
First and always, thank you to anyone who reads anything I’ve ever written. Readers make my world spin, get me to turn on my laptop, keep me dreaming.
Thank you to my friends who read this book before it was complete: Alexandra Gall, Shannon Lawson, Melinda Greathouse, Kat Sterling, Jane Maguire. And thank you to Bree who performed a sensitivity read. I appreciate all the feedback I received. It was invaluable. However, all errors or missteps are mine and mine alone.
I have to thank Molly Gunn who has more courage than anyone else. Thank you to Jace Anderson who made me aspire to be an artist again. Thank you to Julia Quinn for the encouragement. Thank you to Alexandra Gall who has become a true friend through the internet. And thank you to Alexandra Vasti who is invariably so generous and so kind while simultaneously being so brilliant (how does she do that?).
And thank you to my wonderful and beautiful mother for introducing me to historical romance and giving me compliments about my writing when I need to hear them. Which is all the time.
About the Author
Felicity Niven is a hopeful romantic. Writing Regency romance is her third career after two degrees from Harvard. And you know what they say about third things? Yep, it’s a charm. She splits her time between the temperate South in the winter and the cool Great Lakes in the summer and thinks there can be no greater comforts than a pot of soup on the stove, a set of clean sheets on the bed, and a Jimmy Stewart film on a screen in the living room. She is the author of The Bed Me Books series and The Lovelocks of London series.
Subscribers to Felicity’s newsletter receive free second epilogues, prequel novellas, and holiday stories. Go to www.felicityniven.com/voluptuous and sign up now for the newsletter so you can get the free second epilogue to Voluptuous. You can also follow Felicity on social media as well as join her historical romance book club on Facebook, The Ungovernables—she and fellow hist-rom author Alexandra Vasti host a monthly discussion of great works in the canon of historical romance.
Curves & Cravats
Craving more dashing heroes falling for their curvy heroines? Enjoy the rest of the Curves & Cravats series here!
Twelve of your favorite historical romance authors are throwing the event of the Season, and you’re invited! From glittering ballrooms to the wilds of the American West, follow our plus-size leading ladies as they live full lives of love and passion with their swoony heroes!
A Lady's Curves by A.S. Fenichel
His Ample Desire by Terri Mackenzie
The Marquess and His Muse by Lavinia Glen
The Viscount’s Curvy Prize by Viola Grey
The One With the Duke's Curvy Bride by Eliana Piers
His Regency Goddess by Steffy Smith
How Her Curves Won the West by Wynter Ryan
When the Duke Comes to Play… by Kelsey Swanson
The Blacksmith's Borrowed Bride by Ginny B. Moore
Voluptuous by Felicity Niven
Curves and Counterfeit by Charlie Lane
Devils Covet Curves by Jemma Frost
Felicity Niven, Voluptuous
