Scandalous Miss Brightwells [Book 1-4]

With an effort, she steadied her breathing. Her mother would be equally satisfied with Lord Fenton. Fenton provided the same opportunities as Lord Slyther. He had lineage, money, prospects enough to offer the entire Brightwell clan. Her mother would be as delighted over a match w

ith Fenton as she was with Lord Slyther. Wouldn't she?

Fanny could be a wife worthy of Lord Fenton. Fanny needed a man like Lord Fenton. And Fanny wanted…Lord Fenton.

Actually wanted him, like she’d never wanted a man. The need to reconnect with him, physically, was so powerfully intense she had to grip the sofa arm to steady herself.

Beware. She closed her eyes and forced reason to prevail. Fenton had the power to make her forget herself. It had happened before and she’d been lucky.

In Fenton she wondered if she’d met her match. She recognised in him qualities that went deeper than the ironic façade he chose to present to the world—for she practiced the same deception. A necessary deception if she were to shield her most vulnerable self from an exacting and judgemental society.

She bit her trembling lip and tried to collect her wits. If she had time she could work herself into the woman of Fenton’s dreams—dreams that would last beyond the here and now…

…if only she had time.

“You may come, Lord Fenton.”

She sat heavily upon the sofa and buried her head in her hands. There was no time. No time to insinuate herself into not just his heart, but his soul, his psyche. No time to receive the marriage offer that would save her from Lord Slyther.

The season was winding down. Matches were being made and the capital was emptying—as were the Brightwell coffers. With the parlous state of their finances came desperation. Fanny could not risk refusing Lord Slyther in case Lord Fenton proved as disappointing as Alverley. Her mother would never allow it, for, unless Fanny married a man who not only was prepared to overlook her lack of dowry but would be generous to the rest of her family, they were all lost.

“Miss Brightwell!”

She jerked up her head at his entrance and hope clawed a jagged journey from the soles of her feet to pound in her chest. Framed in the opening of the silken tent, the smile that hovered about Lord Fenton’s wide sensuous mouth echoed the salvation in his eyes.

Everything for which she could have hoped was reflected in their depths. Admiration, curiosity—and, above all, desire. Yet while it was his desire upon which she’d pinned her hopes, it was the kindness of his words that gave her the reassurance she needed.

“I’ve brought needle and thread,” he said, offering her the tools to restore her respectability, “which I snatched from the sewing room when I witnessed the unfortunate results of your fall.”

She managed to muffle the hysteria that tinged her laugh as she rose and took up the threaded needle.

“I’m not sure I’m in a position to play the seamstress.” With a wry look at her jutting bosom, which obscured the seam she must sew, her hand trembled as she handed the needle back to him. “Perhaps you, Lord Fenton, have hidden talents.” Her smile was as unsteady as her shaking hand. What was happening to the cool façade she’d cultivated to such a fine art? Her nipples ached and she was conscious of the sudden heat and moisture between her legs.

She swallowed, barely able to force the words out through dry lips. “I cannot see to sew, but you will be my hero if you can stitch a straight seam.”

Lord Fenton took the needle, resting his other hand upon her shoulder. Whether that was to steady her or himself, Fanny wasn’t sure, but that was immaterial as her whole body seemed to come alive at his touch. A dull, needy ache started in the pit of her belly as his eyes, full of sympathetic understanding, bored into hers. The usual, calculating gleam of the rake was replaced with something deeper and more sincere that nearly took her breath away.

But it was his lack of skill with a needle that, in fact, did so. At her exclamation of pain they jerked apart.

“My apologies!” he cried, reflexively clasping her wounded breast.

Each froze at the contact. With a soft gasp Fanny swayed and he caught her to him. His touch seared her soul, branded her his, melting her insides into a pool of heated longing. It was apparent he wanted something between them to happen as much as she did. She could feel the bulge of of his manhood pressed against her stomach. Lord Slyther had at least imparted some useful information on the mechanics of intimate relations between men and women. The thought burst into her head that, as God was her witness, she had no intention of allowing Lord Slyther to rend her asunder with his Magnificent Member when the man before her was just as willing to do so—and, oh, so damnably irresistible.

Suspended in an agony of waiting, she watched Lord Fenton’s sudden awareness combust into something far more primal, tensed for his response, then wilted as he tightened his arms about her with a low groan. She had wit only to be thankful for the fact that the needle was no longer between them before she responded—completely, and with every particle of body and soul.

“Oh, my Lord!” The fast and furious pounding of her heart and the urgency of her breathing almost deafened her. Or was that Lord Fenton’s breathing? The gaze he trained upon her was rapt. His eyes were glazed. In fact, for a moment he looked like a sleek, handsome wolf contemplating his dinner. Miss Fanny Brightwell? Oh, she was more than ready. Her nipples ached as her mind was tugged ever more insistently into the dangerous swirl of sensation that threatened.

When his mouth came down on hers she was ready and eager as she’d never been with Alverley—as she’d never been with any man. Her heart, pumping ever more furiously, seemed to carry hope, fire and passion through her veins, not the familiar resignation wrought by a man’s interest. The body she’d groomed since womanhood, the mind her mother had filled with careful calculation, all for the purpose of snaring a husband, no longer screamed its endless litany of ‘caution, as long as you catch him’.

Fanny’s mind emptied itself of every last drop of the careful advice with which it had been filled by her mother over a lifetime. As Lord Fenton’s hand contoured her from breast to knee, resistance was the furthest thing from her mind. The inner voice of warning that should have pierced her consciousness was stifled by the heady sensations that pumped through her like honey.

“You are exquisite,” he murmured against her lips as his hands roamed all over her, making her gasp as they skimmed her waist and thighs, cupping her bottom and pulling her hard against his jutting erection.

And so was he. Lord Slyther’s sly insinuations and the forced physicality in which she’d been an unwilling participant the night before had been her first initiation into the underworld of desire. Of the effect desire had on men. There was nothing sly or forced about this contact.

Excitement took on a life of its own as Lord Fenton's mouth, a hot, wet cavern of mystery and delight, became a playground of tangling tongues and panting desire.

A desire that became increasingly mindless in response to her throbbing need as he bent to clasp her knee, hooking her leg over the armrest of the Egyptian sofa. He cupped her face before burying his mouth in her décolletage, his lips probing, his hands massaging until her breast burst free of its confinement and his tongue curled around her nipple.