Page 39 of Love in the Time of Scandal
Penelope forced her eyes up and away. She stared fiercely at the vase on the mantel, trying to keep her composure. “I don’t intend to sit quietly by while you take a mistress,” she announced. “If you didn’t want to be married to me and keep your vows, you should have taken advantage of my suggestion to avoid each other. Now you’ve lost your chance.”
“So I have,” he murmured, not sounding at all upset. Penelope shuddered at the gust of his breath on her breast. “As long as your next decree isn’t that we shall sleep apart, I see no cause for concern.”
“No?” Without thinking she met his gaze. There was something unsettling about the way he was watching her, without a smile or a grin, just a focused intensity that scrambled her thoughts. What had she been saying? “Well—good. I always expected to share a bed with my husband. I hope you know what you’re doing there.”
Leisurely he peeled down her gaping gown and shift, exposing her other breast. “Indeed. I’ll do my best.”
“I expect it to be pleasurable, you know,” she went on, her voice rising as his lips hovered tantalizingly close to that untouched nipple. “Wildly, passionately pleasurable.”
“Based on what?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.
Penelope quaked at the first lazy stroke of his tongue. “I’ve read stories.”
That seemed to amuse him. She felt him chuckle silently. “What every man longs to hear. But in that case, what are we waiting for?”
She didn’t know. Her body was a writhing mass of taut nerves, all hungry for him. The prospect of the pleasures Lady Constance recounted—and the considerable amount of brandy she’d drunk—had dulled her worries about love for the moment. He was her husband. He didn’t love her, but Penelope could no longer deny that she wanted him. She wanted him to seize her in his arms and take her to bed and ravish her senseless. Hadn’t their marriage vows included something hinting at that? Perhaps it would be so good, so blissfully satisfying, she could forget about the rest, at least for a while.
He rose to his feet, looming over her. “Tell me about these stories,” he said, turning her away from him and setting to work in earnest at her dress’s fastenings.
A furious blush warmed her face, even though he couldn’t see it. “They’re about men of astonishing prowess.”
“Oh?” He was amused again, she could tell. “And innocent maidens?” There was a swish of fabric as he untied the long sash around her bodice.
“No, there’s no innocent maiden.” She let him push the sleeves down her arms. “One brazen lady.”
“Intriguing. How brazen?” Her gown slid down to puddle at her feet, followed by her petticoats.
Penelope thought of the issue where Constance had allowed her lover to bind her to the bed with ribbons. And the one where she’d tested the limits of a closed carriage. And the one where she’d brought two men to her bed at once, and the one where she’d given herself—blindfolded—to a stranger. Just thinking about them made her pulse pick up and her blood surge. Would Benedict do any of that? She imagined him tying her to the bed with silk ribbons and had to press her knees together to stay on her feet. “Very brazen,” she choked out.
“Really,” he said in a speculative murmur. He was plucking at her stays’ lacing with both hands. Penelope shivered as it came loose. “What do you particularly like about these stories?”
The fact that there was no shame. No blushing embarrassment or tears. Even though Constance took a different lover in each story, she was completely free with them. She had no horrible secret lodged in her breast, like Penelope did; she had no hidden longing for more from her companions. She never feared she would fall in love with any of them.
But Penelope couldn’t say that to Benedict, who had married her without one word of love. He had wanted Abigail, who was kind and sensible—not like her. He had wanted Frances, who was sweet and anxious to please—not like her. He hadn’t wanted passionate love in his life. He was probably like the men Constance found, able to take any willing woman to bed and then walk away without a backward glance, while Penelope was realizing she might not be much like Constance at all. She wanted passion and excitement, certainly—but not without love.
Still, there was no doubt that her body was responding to his touch and the talk of all the ways Constance found pleasure in50 Ways to Sin. She felt hot and restless and desperate to discover the truth of lovemaking.
“The passion,” she whispered in belated answer to his query.
He began pulling pins from her hair. She heard each one plink as it hit the polished wooden floor beside her. It had taken Lizzie an hour to perfect the arrangement of braids and curls, and it was coming down in a matter of minutes at his hands. “What do you mean?”
She had no idea. “Desire,” she managed to reply. Now he was running his fingers through her hair, undoing all the plaits, and it made her want to arch her back in wordless pleasure. “A wild, desperate desire to throw off restraint and... and...”
“I see,” he said when her voice failed her before she could name the wicked act. He coiled her unbound hair around one hand and tugged her head to one side. “I can do that.” And he pressed his mouth against the curve of her neck.
Penelope sucked in her breath. Her skin seemed to come alive at his kiss; tendrils of sensation coursed, lightning-quick, through her nerves as his lips moved over her nape. His hands teased her waist before gliding up her ribs and shaping themselves to her breasts. Her shift felt coarse and thick now, a barrier between her skin and his, and her hands, braced against the wall, balled into fists as he kissed his way down her shoulder and played with her already swollen nipples until she found herself swaying in time with the strokes of his hands.
“I am agog to know more about these stories,” he murmured. His tall, strong body pressed against her, his boots bracketed her feet. She was hemmed in, trapped in an infernally hot cocoon of sensation, and she only wanted more.
“They’re wicked,” she whispered back.
“Tell me,” he growled. His teeth nipped her earlobe, and Penelope shuddered. “What does this brazen lady do?”
“It varies.” She gulped as his fingers ranged lower, over her belly. He was handling her body with a bold assurance that she thought she ought to protest, if only it hadn’t been setting her every nerve ablaze.
“Does she ever touch herself?”
Oh heavens yes. In one issue, a mystery man had blindfolded Constance and bade her touch herself all over while he watched. Penelope gave a weak nod.
