The Bluestocking and the Rake (Hearts in Hiding 2)

Tenderly, he groomed her, dressed her, and employed the offices of an old friend and former mistress to teach her how to walk, how to tilt her head when she flashed an enigmatic smile so that she would fulfill her important task of making him the envy of other men while pleasing him.

It was he who decided how much she revealed of her bosom or the daring flash of ankle beneath her dancing skirts. Lord Deveril liked to shock, and he didn’t care if Jemima were more shocked than anyone.

But he was equally lavish with the compliments he rained upon her golden-coiffed head threaded with pearls, often bearing the tallest and finest of ostrich plumes. Once he was satisfied that she was as finely, fittingly turned out to do him credit, he was assiduous in ensuring that she understood that he was her knight in shining armor. He had saved her from the gutter; from being forced to sell her body in the Haymarket.

As for Jemima, what alternative had she had when Roderick had cast her out, penniless and already ruined, and she had no family to take her in?

Jemima had been introduced to the supposed marriage bed by a callow youth, who’d conducted proceedings in the only way he understood: furtively, hastily, under the covers, beneath night-rails; paying attention only to his carnal desires.

Lord Deveril understood the necessity of introducing his fair cyprian to pleasure. The wife he would one day take would, of course, know nothing of such pleasures. Her duty would be to breed and preside over the formal side of his life.

His mistress must be the provider and conduit of a surfeit of pleasure.

Like the excellent horse breeder Deveril was, he knew how to coax a frightened creature into the necessary calm and trust it must feel before it would open up to its fullest potential.

And that’s how he went forward in his dealings with Jemima. For the first three days, he barely touched her beyond the gentlest of caresses after a sumptuous dinner and at least one bottle of champagne. Extravagances in the culinary field were followed by a slow introduction to bodily pleasures.

Of course, she was resistant at first. She was naïve and believed her heart must be engaged for her body to respond. Deveril knew that lust was an adequate substitute. Once he’d soothed her by taking matters slowly, he was determined to implement strategies that filled her with wonder. He was always the gentleman; never forcing her, while judiciously slipping in subtle reminders of what she owed him for saving her, of the gratitude she must feel. She had her own maid to help her with her lengthy toilette. London’s most skilled seamstresses visited her in her sumptuous boudoir to discuss the velvets, silks, and satins for her gowns, which were trimmed with the finest laces, pearls, and feathers.

She had a wardrobe to rival the Princess Royal herself by the time he invited himself into her dressing room to oversee her bath, dismissing the maid and soaping and sponging his exquisite, latest acquisition, himself.

Jemima knew ladies bathed only in their modesty shifts. It’s what she’d been covered in, from neck to toe, when he entered the steam-filled room and stood by the fire where he directed her to divest herself of the unnecessary garment. He coaxed her into overcoming her reluctance, just as he later coaxed her body to receive him, priming it with fragrant unguents, which he massaged into her soft, smooth skin, over her breasts, her flanks, between her legs.

She said she would not cry because she accepted she was a whore; destined for Hell. He told her she could believe in Hell if she liked, but she may as well enjoy life on Earth and all the sensory delights he could offer her while she could.

Two weeks into her apprenticeship, he’d introduced her to an even deeper level of intimacy, and after one week more, was satisfied at the manner in which he could induce the deep sighs and shudderings she still considered a blight upon her character. Her obvious shame at her physical responses amused him immensely when he rode her to the height of a climax.

Tonight, when the last of his guests had finally departed, he visited her in her bedroom. She was dressed to receive him in a loose robe of finest muslin with guipure lace inserts, though she wasn’t beneath the bedclothes.

“Wishing for the stars, now?” he asked, standing behind her at the window and gently drawing her to him. “Have I not given you enough?”

He was pleased by her lack of resistance when he slipped his hand beneath the fabric of her gown to massage her breasts.

“You have been very generous,” she whispered, still staring into the star-studded sky.

“There is nothing more you desire?” He touched his lips to her cheek and felt something deeper than the desire to possess. He truly wanted to please. “I would give you the planets if I could.”

“I know you would, Deveril.”

“I’m a generous man and a lover of beautiful things. You, Jemima, are my greatest treasure.”

Breathing in the scent of her hair as he nuzzled her neck while the familiar, growing lust tugged at his groin, Jemima was sure he meant every word.

Chapter 6

Miles’s eye was caught by the flash of gold through the half open window before his companion made his derisive remark. “Deveril’s whore,” the man muttered, his nostrils flaring as he stopped on the pavement and watched her carriage pass by.

But then, Miles’s companion was a gentleman of upstanding virtue; an MP who believed all parliamentarians and their constituents should be as morally upstanding as his former friend, the late, much-lamented evangelical Prime Minister, the Honorable Sir Spencer Perceval; cruelly murdered in the House of Commons several years before.

Miles bridled, bowed, left his companion near the Inns of Court, and hurried back in the direction in which he’d seen her carriage disappear. He was in luck to find it depositing Miss Mordaunt and Lord Deveril outside the British Museum. Uncaring of the passersby who jostled him, he watched as the lovely creature took the arm of her protector and gracefully ascended the steps.

Miles decided to follow. It was a public place, and Deveril could have no objection to his presence, if indeed he remarked upon it. He must be used to men ogling his mistress.

Last week’s brief, unsatisfactory conversation with Miss Mordaunt by the sphinx had done the opposite of satisfying him that she was beyond his reach, even though nothing in her response that night had given him any hope she might ever favor his attentions.

He paused in his progress. So what was to be gained by trying? As he continued to the second floor, he contemplated the state of affairs. Deveril provided her with every possible material desire, though Miles could come close. Naturally, though, should Miss Mordaunt wish for greater security, Miles wasn’t the man to make her his wife. Matrimony was a prize sought by women of great beauty but lowly origins who, like Miss Mordaunt, were clever enough to desire that as insurance for when their looks faded.

So what could he offer her she didn’t have?