Banished to Brighton by Sydney Jane Baily

Chapter Twelve

With his expressionunreadable, Hargrove slowly took her mouth under his, and Glynnis closed her eyes.

The floor sloped beneath her feet. No other part of him touched her, but her entire body heated and tingled. When he tilted his head farther, the force of his firm mouth pressed her head back against the door. If she thought about it, she would swear Hargrove’s kiss made the sensitive area between her legs start to throb.

Unable to keep from touching him another second, she raised her hands and managed to thread her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. That caused her breasts to lift. When her taut nipples brushed against the fabric of her shift, she moaned. Almost desperately, she wished to bare herself to his gaze, and then ... Then what?

Glynnis wanted to feel his mouth directly upon her breast. Indeed, she could almost imagine how glorious it would be.

“Hargrove,” she breathed against his mouth, and he insinuated his thigh between her legs.

Reaching around her, he cradled her bottom with his large palms and drew her up his leg, stimulating her womanly core.

Drawn away from the support of the paneled door, her head fell back, and he broke off the kiss to nibble a trail along her chin and down her arched neck. When the tip of his tongue touched her skin at the base of her throat, she shivered.

Glynnis was sure her heart was going to beat out of her chest. And no hotel staff carrying a bathtub would be showing up to interrupt the moment.

With no words passing between them, he removed one hand from her person, still balancing her upon his upper thigh, while he reached around to push down on the handle and send the door drifting ajar behind her.

As Glynnis’s eyes flew open and she slid off his leg, Hargrove walked her backward into the room, his mouth claiming hers again, even as she heard him kick the door shut.

Well!

And then everything seemed to happen in a flurry of movements, as the back of her legs eventually touched the side of her tidily made bed. Without breaking the fusion of their lips, he shrugged out of his jacket, dropping it behind him, and then dragged off her shawl which was draped precariously around her shoulders. He tossed this over her head.

To see his reaction, she raised her hand and knocked off his hat, sending it flying against the far wall.

Hargrove didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he slid the cap sleeve of her gown down her right shoulder.

This was going farther than she’d ever intended with any man who wasn’t her fiancé. Her real fiancé! After all, only a kiss was necessary to be compromised if properly discovered at the opportune moment. But Hargrove seemed intent on much more.

After drawing down her other sleeve, he tugged at her neckline until the entire gown fell, exposing her stays and under it, her shift.

They weren’t in a place where they needed to stop for fear of slippery sea creatures around their ankles, nor even an assembly host or hostess coming upon them. And as her heartbeat raced and her body turned molten, Glynnis wasn’t sure she wanted the viscount to stop.

Or at least, not before she experienced what she’d imagined — his wicked mouth upon her nipple.

“Yes,” she said.

To her delight, with the smallest rearranging of her shift, he gave himself complete access. When the night air caressed her skin, she felt her already-sensitive buds pucker.

“Mm,”he said, the first she’d heard from him in many minutes, just before his mouth latched onto one of her pert nipples, teasing it.

How was it possible she could feel his ministrations as if he were doing the very same between her legs?

Growing damp, she started to squirm as the pulsing sensation increased. Feeling suddenly desperate to shed more of her clothing and fiercely wishing to tear his off as well, she started to work on the buttons of his waistcoat.

His mouth moved to her other breast, sucking her nipple into his hot mouth.

“Yes,” she hissed again. With his vest open, she yanked upon his shirt until it was free of his breeches. Finally, she could touch his skin. Sliding her hands under the linen shirt, she splayed her fingers across his flat stomach.

His skin was smooth and warm, and she wanted to map out every inch of him. To that end, she sent her hands roaming higher over his tautly muscled stomach until she found his nipples, the tiniest of nubs. Gently, she stroked them.

Hargrove growled against her breast. She would have continued her explorations, but suddenly his hands went to her waist. In a swift motion, he lifted her backward, setting her onto the bed. She gasped.

While raising her dress and dragging her long chemise along with it, he stepped between her legs.

With her breasts uncovered and his hands gathering her skirts ever higher, his fingers scraping up her thighs, Glynnis — overwhelmed with sensations and passion, not to mention a healthy dose of trepidation — tossed herself backward onto the counterpane. Her legs dangled over the side of the bed, and Hargrove remained wedged between them.

“Will you ruin me?” she asked him, flinging her arm over her eyes.

***

WITH HIS COCK IMPOSSIBLYhard inside his breeches and his heart pounding, her words filtered into his lust-filled brain. James froze.

He had ruined young ladies before. Of that he had no doubt — usually because they’d willingly, wantonly, wonderfully pushed him too far, dangling their soft, curvy assets before him.

“I will not marry you,” he’d told an eager miss while they were behind a tree at Vauxhall, away from her chaperone.

“I don’t care a whit,” she had declared. “Just touch me again, my lord. Yes, there!” And a minute later, when her skirts were up and she was bent over a stone bench, and he’d repeated his warning about marriage, she’d added, “If you would be so kind as to ease my ardent excitement with your rod.”

James was always shocked by how much these marriage-aged daughters of the ton knew about amorous conduct, and even more surprised by how much pent-up tension they had. So much that even with the risk of being ruined, they let him penetrate their sacred passages. Naturally, after making sure they were satisfied, he always pulled out in time to avoid consequences.

Predictably, a handful of them began to push for an engagement as soon as the deed was done. Patiently, he would remind them a third time of his utter abhorrence to being roped into matrimony. After they’d arranged themselves and smoothed their skirts, he would escort each woman back to wherever she belonged and never see her again.

But this was Miss Talbot. He already knew she had a fiancé. Moreover, he’d managed to resist her before. If he were to wager a guess, he would say she was as passionate as he was and as attracted to him as he to her. Yet that didn’t excuse him willingly destroying her chance of marriage with no more motivation than to relieve his curiosity and his stifled desire.

With the strength of Achilles, James drew back, stepping out of the warm, beckoning area between her thighs.

“I became carried away,” he said quietly, wanting her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. He hoped it wasn’t simple competition with Dodd that had spurred him to this mad behavior.

Miss Talbot rose to her elbows, still reclined on the bed. He darted a hand out and sent her skirts dashing back down to her ankles.

“I suppose we both did,” she said, watching him with her big brown eyes. “Somehow, you stopped yourself from taking it too far for which I am grateful.”

No female had ever uttered those words to him before.

“And a wee bit disappointed,” she added softly, even as she realized her state of deshabille. Coming to a seated position on the edge of the bed, she hastened to draw up her shift, covering her lovely breasts before keeping her hands clasped over the sheer white cotton.

They were trembling.

“As am I,” he admitted, since she was being truthful.

Beyond disappointed, in fact. The ache in his groin was only matched by the odd emptiness that blossomed in his gut. A minute ago, he was set to have an enjoyable time, slaking his desire while satisfying hers, hopefully more than once before dawn. Instead, he would go directly home, for he no longer had a taste for an experienced blowsabella readily available in numerous houses in Brighton.

“Where you are concerned, my raffish nature fails me, which is to your benefit.”

She nodded, her brown eyes seeming bigger than before. Yet he refused to apologize for having gone as far as they had. Their brief encounter had been mutual, and he thought she deserved better than a hollow act of contrition.

Swiftly, he buttoned his waistcoat in silence before donning his jacket. How had his hat ended up on the floor? He didn’t recall.

At the door, he paused only to say, “Good evening, Miss Talbot,” as if nothing untoward had happened, wanting to return their relationship to one in which he could be around her without pouncing, one where he could look her in the eye without a drop of awkward tension. “I shall see you tomorrow at the Castle Hotel.”

Since he didn’t turn to her when he said it, he couldn’t see her reaction. Still, she didn’t speak, so he strode out, closed the door quietly, and crept down the stairs like a true cad, hoping no one saw him or guessed where he’d been.

For her sake.

***

GLYNNIS MOVED AS IFin a dream, or in a large bowl of sticky toffee pudding. Slowly, deliberately, she got off the bed and picked up her shawl from the floor. What a strange evening it had been. She was still trembling with how close she’d come to being taken from a maiden to a woman. She was relieved, but as she’d told Hargrove, she was also disappointed.

Never could she have imagined how intense the fiery passion of longing could burn. She had wanted him more than she’d wanted her virtue to remain intact.

Undressing, recalling his mouth upon her breasts, she removed her gown, then her stays and stockings. If she’d become so stimulated with a few kisses and caresses, how much more was there to experience when they were both bare and joining completely. She couldn’t fathom the actual act, but with this small taste, she could well imagine why men sought out prostitutes to enjoy it and why women sometimes gave in before marriage.

Thinking she would never sleep, Glynnis was surprised the following morning at how quickly and soundly she’d fallen into a deep slumber. In truth, when she had rested her head upon the pillow, the last dregs of her energy dissipated, and she recalled nothing else.

The sun was already streaming in her window when she opened her eyes, and the noises from the street below were rising to greet her. Carriage horses clopping along, people talking, even the sounds of the fishermen on the beach calling out prices of their catch met her ears.

And she had a long day to get through before seeing Hargrove again.

She shook her head — that should not be her first thought. She had a long day to get through before the handsome Lord Dodd came by to escort her to the Castle Hotel for the Regent’s next grand gathering. For despite knowing Hargrove would be in attendance, nothing could come of it. He’d made that abundantly clear. He wanted her, but he didn’t want to marry her.

Somehow, by strolling around Castle Square and North Street looking in the shops then returning to her room to write a letter to her brother as if she were in Bath and to her parents as if she were in London, before taking a light nuncheon and a walk along the Marine Parade, Glynnis managed to pass the hours. She told herself she was on the ocean boulevard looking for other eligible gentlemen and not hoping to run into Hargrove. In any case, she saw neither.

At the appointed time, she got herself ready, not an easy task without a lady’s maid, but she was getting used to dressing her own hair. And of course, she wore half stays à la paresseuse, the lazy girl’s stays, so she could easily tie them herself. Hargrove had already seen them, as had the hotel manager who’d got them cleaned for her.

So far, she had been humiliated and humbled. Shaking her head, she vowed to do better. To that end, she was waiting in the Old Ship’s lobby when Lord Dodd arrived. He looked very good, she told herself. True, he was not Hargrove, but no one was.

And she must stop thinking of the unattainable!

The fair-haired Lord Dodd carried himself well and wore a fastidious charcoal gray jacket over a scarlet waistcoat and pale breeches.

“You have exceeded my expectations,” he announced immediately. “A female who is ready at the appointed time. A miracle!”

She smiled, took his offered arm, and let him lead the way.

“I confess I like how close everything is in Brighton. It’s so manageable compared to London.”

He gave her a surprised glance. “I think everything one would care to do or anyone one would wish to know is all in the space of eight acres in Mayfair.”

“But Hyde Park,” she pointed out.

“We shall add the Park,” he agreed.

“Do you also have a country estate?” she asked when they were traversing the Steyne and nearly at the Castle Hotel. Carriages were letting off those who probably were renting at the farthest end of Brighton, on the Royal Crescent.

“I do, but at this moment, my favorite place is here with you.”

Glynnis took a breath. Was Lord Hugh Dodd going to be her husband?

When they were indoors, he began tending to her needs at once. It was warm so he found her a spot by the open window of the tea-room being used as a reception room before the dancing started. Luckily, there was no tea, only champagne and lemonade for those who didn’t imbibe. And Lord Dodd went off in search of a couple of glasses for them while guests were still arriving.

And then after a minute, she spied Hargrove, his head above others and his fine-looking face causing her insides to do an odd flip.

It was followed by a wave of resentment, for despite what he’d said the night before, he was, in fact, escorting Isabelle Montrose. And every eye turned to take in the woman’s stunning appearance.

While Glynnis knew her own gown of green silk trimmed with silver ribbon was pretty, it wasn’t eye-catching in the way Isabelle’s was. For one thing, Glynnis would vow the lady wasn’t wearing a petticoat or a chemise under the diaphanous light golden dress. As she walked, her mons Veneris kept appearing at the apex of her thighs, and from behind, Glynnis was certain she could see the shadow of the crack between her buttocks.

Close up, Isabelle’s nipples must surely be on display. Knowing how Hargrove appreciated a woman’s breasts, it was no wonder he’d hardly glanced her way. In any case, she feared she could not compete, even with her fashionably low décolletage.

Then she wondered at her own ridiculous wish to compete at all. She’d had him between her legs the night before, after all.

But would Isabelle have him in her bed that night?

Firmly taking hold of her wild imaginings, she forced her attention to return to Lord Dodd, gratefully accepting the champagne he offered her.

“You are precisely the type of person I’ve been looking for,” he said, surprising her.

“Type?” she asked. “You mean female.”

They both laughed. “I mean witty, amusing, and, of course, beautiful. And top it all off, you’re a viscount’s daughter with all the benefits, I imagine, befitting your status. No wonder your fiancé seeks to bind you to him. I cannot fathom, however, why he would let you come alone to Brighton. Are you sure he isn’t a madman?”

“Quite certain, my lord. Yet there are many suitable ladies on the marriage mart. I saw them for myself last Season. Why haven’t you snapped up one for yourself?”

He raised his gaze upward, as if hard put upon. Then he looked into her eyes.

“Somehow, I didn’t see you in time” he said. “And now it’s too late. Having kept company with you, I fear now I shall never marry.”

She appreciated his manners, although he overdid the flattery.

His gaze fixed momentarily just past her left shoulder. “Maybe Isabelle will not be as unlucky as I am, nor come away from Brighton empty-handed.”

Glynnis turned and realized he was watching Hargrove and Miss Montrose with their heads a little too close, discussing something private. She glanced back at Lord Dodd.

“Is your aunt—?”

“By marriage,” he amended.

“Is she looking to make a match?”

“Mayhap, yes. If she found the right man, I suppose. Why not?”

They both looked again toward Isabelle and Hargrove. Glynnis frowned. Had they somehow got even closer? They were behaving almost indecently.

Glynnis hoped the discomfiting claw of jealousy that gripped her heart was easily vanquished. It was unpleasant, not to mention futile. She had tried that path twice, and twice been thwarted.

Whereas Lord Dodd had practically declared he would marry her if she weren’t already engaged. She might not even have to get him into a compromising situation because he’d stated he wouldn’t be adverse toward being her fiancé.

Hargrove hadn’t had anything bad to say about the man, not the way he had about Lord Cumberry, Lord Leilton, or even the married Lord Staunton, all with their egregious character flaws. Although to be fair, she and Hargrove hadn’t really had much of a conversation about Lord Dodd, especially not while the viscount was kissing her senseless.

She looked at Lord Dodd again. He had gray-blue eyes and blond hair. Good cheekbones, too. Nothing round or pudding-faced about him. Instead of taking him for granted while mooning over Hargrove and sending Isabelle glaring looks of thunder, Glynnis knew she must pay the man better attention.

The Prince Regent chose that moment to enter the reception room. The cheering began as usually accompanied his appearance. For when Prince George arrived at a party, there was always the promise of a good time, high quality food, and plenty of wine.

“Do you know the Regent personally?” Lord Dodd asked her.

“Somewhat. He has been kind to me on two occasions.”

Lord Dodd gave her a nod of approval. “Naturally. You are a beautiful woman. Why don’t we greet him together?”

Finding his suggestion agreeable, Glynnis allowed Lord Dodd to take her arm and move in the general direction of the line forming near the Regent. She couldn’t help noticing Hargrove and Miss Montrose ignored the prince, remaining in their corner of the room.

In a few minutes, she and Lord Dodd had made their way to the front. She curtsied to Prince George who looked genuinely pleased to see her again.

“I heard you had quite a mishap on the shore,” he said. “But you look recovered.”

“I am well, Your Royal Highness. Thank you.”

“And your fiancé has shown up at last I see.”

Glynnis startled for a moment, thinking somehow Lord Aberavon had arrived from Wales. Then she realized whom he meant.

“Oh no, sir. Lord Dodd is merely keeping me company. He is not my fiancé.”

“Greetings, Your Royal Highness.” Lord Dodd offered a generously low bow. “If Miss Talbot would accept me, I should gratefully take up the mantle of an engaged man in the blink of an eye.”

Good,Glynnis thought. She was counting on it.

“I’m sure you would make a fine pair,” the prince said. “I don’t know anything about Lord Aberavon,” he said to her, “but you could do worse than Dodd.”

Glynnis felt her cheeks warm, and she spared a glance to the man beside her. He seemed entirely favorable to the idea.

“Worse indeed, like Hargrove,” Prince George added purposefully, as Hargrove and Miss Montrose stepped ahead of the line and turned their party of three into five. Then she found out why they took such a liberty.

“Isabelle!” Prince George gushed, taking her hand. “I’m glad to see you. It’s been a donkey’s age. And here you are, trying to outshine all the females in Brighton. You have competition, I fear.”

Glynnis had no intention of putting herself up against Miss Montrose. There was something outlandish about the woman, a trait that seemed unpredictable and erratic.

“I don’t think Miss Talbot has to worry on that account,” Lord Dodd said.

Glynnis wished it had been Hargrove who spoke in her defense, but the viscount remained silent until Prince George addressed him.

“I thought you were going to look after Miss Talbot, and yet I find you’ve taken up with another.”

Hargrove sent her a glance with an unfathomable meaning swimming in the depths of his deep blue eyes. She flinched, awaiting his answer.