Vixen in Velvet (The Dressmakers 3)

“I didn’t know,” he said. His voice was hoarse.

She could barely find hers. When she spoke it sounded like a drunkard’s. “Didn’t know what?”

“This is your first time, isn’t it?” It was an accusation.

“I’ve been busy,” she said.

One long, pulsing moment. Then he let out a thick laugh and shook his head, and bent and kissed her.

“It’s pointless to stop now,” she said when he raised his head.

“I’m not stopping,” he said. “It’s too damned late for that.”

He settled back onto his haunches, and hooked her legs over his arms. She felt the place where he was wedged give way a degree, and the squeezed feeling eased. He moved inside her, and her muscles relaxed a little more. And soon the moment of disturbance passed. The feelings flooded back, and the heat and pleasure and excitement of having him inside her, of being joined, smothered qualms and fears.

He went on moving inside her, slowly, and her body gave way, accommodating him. The heat built, and she was vibrating again, the way she’d done before, only this was more feverish and powerful. He thrust into her again and again, and her body answered his rhythm. It was like dancing in a storm, like riding ocean waves. She forgot discomfort, forgot everything but him and this rapturous joining.

Once again, the feelings pulsed inside and seemed to carry her upward, as though some god carried her to Olympus. On and on, the mortal world hot and pulsing, and feelings, the great storm cloud of feelings, swirling about her and inside her. At last she reached her destination, a long, soaring moment of pure joy, and then release. Then he sank onto her and kissed her, and she drifted down to the world again, her hands tangled in his hair.

Chapter Eleven

There is a most scandalous story about a certain English Mr. H. at Paris, and two orphan children of a German baron by an English wife: we shall wait to hear if it has reached our correspondent’s circle.

—Lady’s Magazine & Museum, March 1835

The chaise longue was narrow, not meant for two people. But when Lisburne moved to take his weight off Leonie, she turned in his arms and tangled her legs with his and fit herself against him as easily as though they’d practiced for years. Then they had room enough, all the room they needed, which was to say none at all between them, though he was no longer inside her.

He was cooling and calming, and a part of him was sliding into sleep, one hand resting so comfortably on her hip. Yet a fragment of his being clung to wakefulness. That was the part where his conscience was working itself into a frenzy—now, when it was too late, after it had lain about in a stupor during all the time when it might have made itself useful.

He said, “Are you all right?”

She had her face nestled against his shoulder, and the words came out slightly muffled. “Now I know why Venus wore that look. She was thinking, ‘What just happened? Am I all right? How can he sleep at a time like this?’ ”

It wasn’t remotely like any answer Lisburne had expected. Tears, shame, fear, guilt—weren’t those the usual reactions?

He should have known better. This was Leonie, who’d stood motionless for at least a quarter hour in front of his painting. She’d done it because, he now understood, she had been trying to organize and arrange it in her mental ledger.

“He sleeps,” he said, pushing aside his qualms for the moment, “because he feels as though he’s performed all the labors of Hercules in the space of a few minutes. In the most enjoyable way possible. But still . . .”

“It takes a lot out of a man,” she said. “I understand that now.”

Now she understood. Thanks to him. Other men, he knew, delighted in virgins and paid high prices for them. Those men were not Simon Blair, the fourth Marquess of Lisburne. His father had told him that a true gentleman had intimate relations with only one virgin, and that was his bride, on the wedding night.

Lisburne had only himself to blame for what had happened. Leonie was a novice. No matter how sophisticated she seemed, she was inexperienced. Lisburne, who had abundant experience, was the one responsible. He ought to have known better. He ought to have seen. But he’d been willfully blind.

Now, when it was too late, he remembered the clues: the tentative way she’d first kissed him, the sense he’d had of her learning as she went along. Gad, hadn’t she told him?

I may be inexperienced but I learn very quickly, and whatever I learn to do, I am determined to do extremely well.

Inexperienced. He’d made the word mean what he wanted it to mean. He’d barely acknowledged the possibility she was an innocent. He’d dismissed it as highly improbable. She was one and twenty. She was a milliner who’d lived in Paris. She was sophisticated, and it was a deeper sophistication than the mere Town bronze debutantes acquired after a Season or two.

Yes, that made virginity unlikely. It didn’t make it impossible.

His intellect, in whose logic he took so much pride, must have logically allowed for the possibility. But he’d let desire and vanity overwhelm his judgment. He’d refused to see the clues.

“You’ve labored mightily, yet you’re not going to sleep,” she said.

“I’m thinking,” he said.

He felt her tense.

“That you made a mistake?” she said.

“That I did something I know is wrong,” he said.

“Oh, your conscience,” she said.

“My dear—”

“I don’t have one,” she said. “I only understand them theoretically. I don’t have morals, either. I’m not a lady.”

“It doesn’t matter. This was your first time.”

“My first time would have happened a long time ago, if I’d had more time—or made more time—for men,” she said. “If it hadn’t been you, it would have been somebody else, eventually. I wanted it to be you. I knew you’d make it pleasurable, and you did. It was . . . very nice. I can almost forgive you for ruining my life.”

He kissed her shoulder again. “I thought it was more than very nice.”

“I have no basis for comparison,” she said.

“I don’t, either.”

Her head came up and she drew back to give him a hard stare.

“You’re my first maiden,” he said, and in spite of his unhappiness with himself, he couldn’t help enjoying the view of lush curves and the creamy skin that made a perfect frame for her hair. Titian would have swooned. Botticelli, too.

“Are you roasting me?” she said. “Not even when you were a boy?”

Except within the close bounds of his family, he disliked talking about his father. Even now, the sense of loss made it difficult to speak. Time had lessened the sorrow. It hadn’t erased it. No one but close family members understood how it was.

Yet he came up onto one elbow, like some ancient Roman settling to dinner conversation, and explained. The rules. What a gentleman did and didn’t do. The whys and wherefores. She listened, her blue eyes sharply focused, completely attentive. She was thinking it over and organizing it into neat files and marking it down in the columns of her private account book, he knew.

He felt more naked.

When he’d finished, she brought her hand to his cheek. He turned his head to kiss the palm of her hand.

She swallowed and said, “Not the clearest judgment either of us has ever exercised,” she said. “But to be fair, Lord Lisburne—”

“Simon,” he said. “I think when two people are naked, sharing a narrow piece of furniture, a degree of informality is permissible.”

She shook her head. “I’m not ready for informality. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. I think you should call me Miss Noirot when we’re naked. Especially when we’re naked. At a time like this, when . . .” She trailed off, her gaze turning inward, her eyes widening. “Oh, Gemini, what have I done?”

She was off the ch

aise longue in an instant, and hurrying away while he was still trying to find his balance and sit up. She scurried across the room, one of her stockings sliding down her leg. “What time is it? What have I done?”

“Leonie.”

She scrambled among the discarded clothing on the floor and various other surfaces where odds and ends of their attire had landed. She found her lacy handkerchief and hastily cleaned herself with it. She snatched up her chemise and pulled it on. “How could I be so stupid?”