Private Places, page 1
Table of Contents
Epigraph
Title Page
Copyright Page
THE DECIDEDLY DEVILISH DUKE
ONE - An Entertainment at Cards
TWO - Playing for Keeps
THREE - Michael’s Price
FOUR - Lessons in the Night
FIVE - The Taste of Pleasure
SIX - A Visit to a Man of Business
SEVEN - Preston’s Revenge
EIGHT - Amelia States Her Case
NINE - Sin and Chocolate
TEN - Trumps
ELEVEN - Bretherton Hall
A NIGHT AT THE THEATER
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
HUNTER’S MERCY
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
THE MEN AND WOMEN’S CLUB
Author’s Foreword
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
Teaser chapter
ROBIN SCHONE
“Combining the erotic with the romantic, Robin Schone tests the boundaries of romance fiction.”
—Literary Times
CLAUDIA DAIN
“Claudia Dain’s emotionally charged writing . . . will take your breath away.”
—New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries
ALLYSON JAMES
“Ms. James is able to capture what it feels like to discover that sex can be fun and intimate and loving.”
—Fallen Angel Reviews
SHILOH WALKER
“[Walker writes] some of the best erotic romantic fantasies on the market.”
—Midwest Book Review
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / August 2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Private places / Robin Schone . . . [et al.]. —Berkley Sensation trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-0-425-22172-3
1. Erotic stories, American. I. Schone, Robin.
PS648 .E7P75 2008
813’.60803538—dc22 2008001065
http://us.penguingroup.com
THE DECIDEDLY DEVILISH DUKE
Allyson James
To Forrest, my own devilish duke.
ONE
An Entertainment at Cards
Surrey, 1835
Michael Beaulieu, the Duke of Bretherton, was contemplating the hideous pattern on his teacup when he heard Amelia Lockwood’s voice. It was a low, sultry voice that ten years ago could make his cock hard by whispering his name. Doubly so when accompanied by Amelia’s red-lipped smile and a lazy look in her deep blue eyes.
Michael lifted his gaze to see Amelia on the other side of the ostentatious drawing room speaking to his host, the idiotic Preston Lockwood. Amelia, the woman he’d driven away ten long years ago with his arrogance and stupid high-handedness, the woman who vowed she hated him and never wanted to see him again. He’d quit England right after that and hadn’t returned for a decade.
Now he learned a disturbing fact—her voice could still make him hard.
Amelia did not notice Michael. He had chosen a seat partially concealed by a carved wooden screen, some monstrosity a curio seller had passed off to Lockwood as Oriental. Likely it had been made in Wapping. He’d chosen the chair because he did not want to be here.
Michael had come to Preston’s house party only because an old friend had begged him to accompany him.
Damn it all, I despise the man, Nathan Fuller had pleaded. But I’ve got to go because I need his backing in my election. Do come and make it bearable. No one’s seen you in a decade. . . . They’ve forgotten all about that business. . . .
They hadn’t of course. He hadn’t missed the looks of blatant curiosity from the hoi polloi of Surrey, the excited buzz that the beautiful debutante who’d driven him away had arrived in her widow’s weeds.
He’d been politely listening to an elderly gentleman, a well-traveled man as weary of inane London as Michael was. He’d found the gentleman’s tales interesting until Amelia’s voice cut through them, and then no amount of money could have pulled his attention back.
“Preston,” she was saying in that blood-heating voice. “We should speak of this privately.”
What the devil was she wearing? A prim, dark blue bodice buttoned up to her chin, long sleeves hiding her arms to her wrists. The last time he’d seen her she’d been in gauzy lace, a bodice cut low across her shoulders and breasts, the top two buttons undone so a man could slide his finger, or his tongue, into the enticing crease.
Now London’s most sought-after debutante was dressed like a nun. An impoverished nun.
“If you have anything to say, coz, say it here,” Preston drawled. “I keep no secrets from my friends.”
Idiot. Preston Lockwood was cousin to Amelia’s late husband, Basil Lockwood. Amelia was supposed to be in some remote country village; why she was here looking brittle and out of place was beyond him.
The elderly gentleman noticed his interest. “Oh, my dear chap, I must be boring you exceedingly.”
“Not at all,” Michael said, almost sharply. “I just wondered why she was here.”
“Mrs. Lockwood?” The gentleman lifted grizzled brows. “Preston Lockwood was her husband’s only heir, and she’s dependent on him. Probably asking for money, poor gel.”
Her high color and the rage in her eyes told Michael she wasn’t having much luck.
Michael quietly excused himself, rose, and moved so he could hear her, deliberately staying out of Amelia’s line of sight.
“You know my conditions,” Preston said, spreading his hands. He was surrounded by a group of men dressed identically to him, fops in expensive frock coats and waistcoats, style sacrificed for costliness.
“Your conditions have nothing to do with Basil’s will,” she said crisply.
Preston shrugged. “But he is dead, and I am alive, and I am your trustee.”
“The word trustee implies trust.”
“You always were clever, my dear. I have no idea why you came all this way to see me. My conditions were clear.”
Amelia’s lips went white as she glanced again at his friends. “I truly wish to speak of this in private.”
“This is private enough.”
Michael tasted rage, the same that had kept him alive in places where no one cared that he was the oldest son of a duke or English or rich. Preston wanted witnesses to whatever he planned to do, likely knowing that alone in a tête-à-tête, Amelia could best him.
At the same time, Michael admired the proud tilt of Amelia’s head, the glistening coils of dark hair that would be a silken weight when taken down. Ten years and Michael still wanted her with powerful intensity. He wanted her in his bed, her limbs tangled in his sheets, her body opened for him, her lips parted for his kiss.
He saw the same lust reflected in Preston’s eyes, and his rage flared.
“I shall make a bargain with you,” Preston was saying. He reached to the table next to him and lifted a pack of cards from the green baize surface. “A game of piquet, will that suffice? I know you and Basil loved an evening
“What of it?” she asked in suspicion.
“We shall play, and if you win, I will give you your money with all conditions waived. If you lose—you do whatever I say.” He let the pack ripple through his fingers. “If you refuse to play, you leave my house as destitute as you entered it.”
The man was stupid in his arrogance. It sounded as though Preston was denying her funds from a trust her husband set up for her. She could have a solicitor on him in a heartbeat.
If she could still afford a solicitor—her clothes spoke of genteel poverty with no pennies left over to hire someone to recover her money. Besides many a solicitor or man of business might simply tell her to marry Preston—ladies were supposed to let gentlemen take care of them.
Amelia’s shoulders moved with her sharp breath, but she stood her ground. Good for her.
“Very well,” she said.
Beneath Michael’s rage, he wanted to laugh. She must have noted the same thing he had observed during the weekend house party, that Preston couldn’t play cards worth a damn.
Unless, of course, he planned to cheat.
Michael walked forward. Preston’s friends noticed him with startled looks and retreated. Michael had a nasty reputation. A man who’d lived in exotic places, disappearing for years altogether, then turned up looking like a gypsy in Eastern garb with a daughter in tow, got talked about. Whispers of duels in Cairo’s streets, a Turkish harem, discovery of a great treasure, murder . . .
“An interesting bargain,” he said, pretending not to notice Amelia’s head jerk around, her azure eyes widen. “Except that you have no head for cards, Lockwood, and you know it. I suggest you let me sit in for you.”
Amelia’s gasp was audible. So was Preston’s. The man probably had been meaning to cheat.
“Why should you do this for me?” Preston asked. An excellent question.
“I’d like something in return, of course.”
Still Michael did not look at Amelia, who was glaring at him in palpable rage. She hadn’t forgiven him yet, and he couldn’t blame her one bit.
“What?” Preston asked nervously.
“I will name my price when I’ve finished the game.”
Preston gnawed his lip. He knew damn well Michael was the better player, having lost plenty already to him since the house party began. His indecision was comical.
One of his friends broke in. “We should let the lady decide. Who will you play, Mrs. Lockwood?”
“No, no,” Preston said petulantly. “This is my game, and Amelia has agreed to it. Very well, Your Grace, you may take up the cards for me.”
He stuck out his hand, not to Amelia, but to Michael. She was a prize, a woman to win, not a person.
Michael took the man’s hand, hiding his smile when Preston flinched at his extra-firm grip.
“Done,” Michael said.
TWO
Playing for Keeps
This could not be happening. Michael Beaulieu could not be here, looking so brown and exotic, walking back into her life to take over again. He was ten years older, still tall and hard faced, with glittering green eyes and a hawklike nose, still with the arrogant curl to his lip. He was a duke now, a man with a grim reputation, one of the richest and most powerful men in England.
He hadn’t changed at all.
She knew she could have bested Preston. Basil had taught Amelia cards so well she could have won and walked away with the two thousand pounds Preston owed her.
Why did Michael have to charge in and guarantee that she’d lose? He didn’t like Preston—that was obvious from the derisive way his cool green gaze flicked over him. So why? Did he hate her so much he wished her on Preston? He’d raged at her ten years ago, but the heat in him seemed to have turned to ice.
“Shall you sit, Amelia?” Preston said, pulling out a chair at the card table.
Amelia stared at the chair and his pudgy hand, not wanting to go anywhere near him. Michael smoothly cut him out of the way, gripped Amelia’s elbow, and guided her to the seat.
The heat that rushed through her at the contact unnerved her. She hid it by settling herself, trying to draw a calming breath. She’d been tricked into this game, but she determined to play her best and win it. After that she could turn her back on Preston—and Michael—forever.
Michael took the cards Preston handed him, examined them closely and demanded a fresh pack. One of Preston’s toadies produced another one, and Michael proceeded to remove the unneeded cards with his strong, tanned fingers.
Amelia remembered those fingers sliding along her bare neck, tilting her face for his kiss the day he’d first come to propose to her. They’d stood in her father’s apple orchard, and he’d brushed his lips across the corner of her mouth, tart apple on his breath.
She shut away the memories. She needed her wits to play this game and win it, but watching his calm fingers shuffle the cards, his lashes flicking as he did so, made her mouth dry.
Blast the man for still being so handsome. Preston, the same age as Michael, had a receding hairline, watery eyes, and a stomach going to paunch. How dare Michael still be muscular and tall, his hair wavy and thick, his eyes intense?
Michael set the shuffled pack in front of her. “I will deal. That gives you the advantage.”
“No, indeed,” she retorted. “We shall cut for it, as per usual.”
“As usual? Have you and I played before, Mrs. Lockwood?”
His eyes sparkled as wickedly as ever. Her thoughts flashed to that faraway night she’d made her debut and to Michael cutting across the ballroom while everyone melted before him, his green eyes holding that same look of determination.
She gulped and said hastily, “As is usually done. You know what I mean.”
Michael’s lips curved into his slight smile, and he gestured for her to cut the deck. Her fingers shook as she exposed her card, the seven of hearts.
Michael drew the jack of clubs, which he showed her with a cool expression. The lower draw became the dealer, because as Michael had said, the dealer was at a disadvantage. The other player got to call his or her points first, and could win the game without laying down a card if he received a good enough hand.
Amelia gathered up the cards, which were still warm from his touch. Shuffling and dealing at least let her regain some of her composure.
The clash between them had been long ago and far away, she told herself. It had ended badly, but both of them had married and become different people. Michael had an eight-year-old daughter, she’d heard, half-French, half-English. A wild child, people said, in outlandish clothes and with no schooling.
“Shall we say the best of five games?” Michael asked calmly as he picked up his cards.
“Yes, yes,” Amelia said, flustered.
Each game of piquet went to a hundred points, or cent, usually taking several hands to do so. If she could win three games quickly, she could end this ordeal.
Preston and his friends leaned to look as Amelia fanned out her cards. A good hand with quite a few face cards and aces, she noted with satisfaction.
Michael raised his brows as he contemplated his hand. “Carte blanche,” he announced.
He meant he had no face cards at all and so received an immediate ten points. Drat.
Michael discarded three cards and picked up three from the pile. Amelia exchanged two.
“A point of four,” Michael said once he’d arranged his cards again.
Amelia relaxed a little. He’d just revealed that he had four cards all in one suit, but she had five in the suit of hearts, so he’d get no points for it. “Not good,” she said with a little smile.
“A quart.” That meant he had four in sequence in one suit. Drat again.
“Good,” she said glumly, since she didn’t have a sequence of four herself. She tried not to grimace as he wrote down four more points.
“Trio,” he said. “Kings.” He had three of a kind of kings, beating her three of a kind of tens.
“Good,” she said with a sigh.
In all Michael began the game with nearly twenty more points than she had. But that was simply the luck of the deal. When the real play began, she had all kinds of strategies to best him. She’d learned the game well—in the long winter nights with Basil there had not been much else to do.
