Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Madelynne Ellis
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Copyright
About the Book
1800 – Three years after escaping to London with her bisexual lovers, Bella Rushdale wakes one morning to find their delicate ménage a trois about to shatter. Vaughan, Marquis of Pennerley, has left without any explanation. Determined to reclaim him and preserve their relationship, Bella pursues him to his family seat on the Welsh Borders, where she finds herself embroiled in his preparations for a diabolical gothic celebration on All Hallows Eve – a phantasmagoria. Among the shadows and phantoms, Bella and her lovers will discover shocking truths about each other.
About the Author
Madelynne Ellis is an award-winning author of erotic fiction, renowned for her character-driven plots, authentic settings and bad-boy heroes. She is the author of Dark Designs, Passion of Isis and the linked titles A Gentleman’s Wager and Phantasmagoria.
Also by Madelynne Ellis:
A Gentleman’s Wager
Dark Designs
Passion of Isis
Possession
Phantasmagoria
To my family, for their love and support
Prologue
The haunting strain of a violin marked his escape onto the moonlit balcony. Vaughan Peredur Forvasham, Marquis of Pennerley, brought his palms down hard against the flat stone balustrade. ‘Hell’s pits!’ he barked. The impact stung but he didn’t flinch, just glowered at the black blot on the horizon – the city. He could just make out the dome of St Paul’s.
Vaughan pressed his fingers to his temples. His dark ringlets fell forward over his face, concealing his expression. Why was he here? What was he doing? It was New Year’s Eve. They were supposed to be enjoying themselves, celebrating. He had been enjoying himself. He’d smacked Lieutenant Wilkes of the 52nd Oxfordshires across the cheek with his glove for his insolent remarks towards Bella. Nobody got to call her a whore, except him. The poor fool hadn’t dared call him out. Reputations were wonderful things, although the influence of their host, the Right Honourable Herbert Gillray MP may have played a part too.
Oh, and he’d taught that pompous arse of a Frenchman, the Vicomte de Maresi, just how knowledgeable an Englishman could be about certain manly pursuits.
Vaughan ran his tongue over his teeth. The Vicomte was achingly beautiful and had cheeks as sweet as a cherry bun, but he smelled like a perfumery and he had none of Bella’s fire or Lucerne’s charm.
Hmm! He sniffed hard, suddenly reminded of his feckless lover. Pox on the man! Why did he have to be so bloody gig-happy?
The door behind him swung open, and a spear of light struck the ground beneath him with the radiance of two thousand candles. He didn’t turn, just stared resolutely into the darkness. He knew who’d come after him, the only person who truly dared. Well, perhaps there was one other person, but she was too busy dancing to bother about him. He dragged a hand through his hair and let it slide slowly through the tangles.
‘Vaughan.’ Lucerne curved his hand over Vaughan’s. ‘Are we fine?’
‘Yes. We’re fine.’ Vaughan sniffed again. Liar, he chided himself. Clearly, they were very far from fine.
Too close to be just friendly, Lucerne slyly traced the curve of Vaughan’s arse. It was a subtle movement, not without risk. The assembly room behind them was full of their peers. On another occasion, the affectionate gesture might have won him around. Vaughan liked to take risks, but tonight it elicited nothing but a shudder of irritation. ‘I’m just brooding, Lucerne. It’s New Year. It’s what I do.’ He painted on a smile, then turned so that he stood inside Lucerne’s embrace. ‘Go back to the party. I’ll follow in a moment when I’ve conquered my mood.’
‘If you’re sure.’ Lucerne brushed his thumb across Vaughan’s cheek.
‘I’m sure.’
‘Don’t get too maudlin out here, will you?’ He drew the caress to Vaughan’s lips and rubbed over them slowly. ‘The night’s barely begun. We have to see in the new century yet.’ He flashed Vaughan an impudent smile loaded with sweet promises.
‘Away with you.’ Vaughan watched him rejoin a group of drunken bloods. It was no good. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t hurting, that he wasn’t revolted by the way Lucerne carried out his affairs.
He paced the length of the balcony to where the ivy hung like mermaids’ braids. Quietly, without a scene, without so much as a whisper.
Vaughan claimed a deserted glass from among the foliage and swallowed the rich, syrupy liquid without really tasting it. He held up the dregs to the moon in mock salute, then let the glass drop over the balustrade. It smashed on the paving below, where the shards glinted like angels’ tears. Several women shrieked. He didn’t look to see who. He didn’t care. Let them scream. Let all the bitches scream. Soon, everything was going to shatter.
1
‘QUICK, LUCERNE! HURRY up.’
Ignoring the extended hand of the waiting footman, Bella Rushdale leaped from the landau and sprinted up the townhouse steps, the train of her slender empire-line evening dress looped over her arm to prevent her tripping. She reached the door and turned to face the carriage. ‘Do you think he’ll have noticed we’re gone?’
‘He notices everything.’
Viscount Lucerne Marlinscar slid his six-foot-two slender frame across the leather seat and stepped carefully from the interior, a silver-topped cane clasped tightly in one hand and a hip flask in the other. He was dressed in a dark-blue evening coat, cut short at the front to show off his black and silver waistcoat. His breeches, cream, cleaved to his thighs like a second skin and were, Bella suspected, at least partially responsible for his slow descent.
‘Yes, but will he be on his way yet?’
Lucerne pocketed the silver flask and peered at his fob watch. ‘That rather depends on how well Henry Tristan’s delaying him.’
‘That’s who you left him with?’
‘Why, yes.’
Bella skipped back down the top three steps and grasped Lucerne’s coat cuff. ‘Then he won’t be above five minutes. Come on.’ She dragged Lucerne through the front door and across the echoing hall. Her first instinct was to squeeze into the broom cupboard below the stairs and get frisky among the mops, but she knew Lucerne would object. Too dusty, and he didn’t like spiders. He’d be far too concerned about his clothes and not nearly enough about her pleasure, and that would be no good at all, since Vaughan was probably already turning his black phaeton into the street.
Vaughan. Marquis Pennerley. Of course, if she’d been with him rather than Lucerne, there’d have been no qualms about the cupboard. He might even have led her past the house and into an alleyway. Vaughan had no respect for anything – clothing, furniture. None of it mattered, nothing got in the way of his pleasure. It was how it had been for the last two, almost three years, ever since she’d recklessly climbed into his carriage and waved Yorkshire goodbye.
‘This way.’
They ran up the stairs. Lucerne headed for the master bedroom with the enormous canopied bed the three of them shared, but its sumptuous cushioned comfort wasn’t what Bella was looking for. Before he dragged her down into its embrace, she swung left and bundled him through the door of the walk-in closet. The sharp smell of mothballs wafted over them, tempered a little by the scent of the lavender bags she’d made in a moment of boredom.
Not that there’d been many such moments. Her time in London had passed in a swirl of evening dresses and sexual excess. Only the fashions of the beau monde seemed to mark the seasons. When she’d first arrived, it had been all stays, bums and hoops. Now her waist had risen to somewhere beneath her breasts and diaphanous, Grecian simplicity was all the rage.
Bella liked the freedom of the new costume and the excitement of change, but not all the new fashions were so good. For starters, the men were all cropping their hair. She’d always liked Lucerne’s untidy fringe, but she admired Vaughan’s sable ringlets more. Thankfully, the marquis showed no signs of giving way to the dictates of fashion and the ‘dandies’, led by Mr Brummell. He’d sworn that he’d damn well please himself. No penniless army captain was going to tell him how to dress. Besides, she thought, where was the fun if all men dressed alike as blue and cream sheep, and they no longer had the likes of the macaronis or les incroyables like Henry Tristan?
Bella grinned. Lucerne was taking advantage of her distraction and exploring the swell of her breasts, while his lips teased the back of her neck. ‘Uh-uh!’ She swung him around and pushed him into the silken rainbow of hanging coats.
‘Uh-uh, yourself.’ He slapped away her hands, but Bella pressed in closer. Lucerne peeped coyly at her from beneath his eyelashes. ‘Just what sort of tryst is this, Miss Rushdale? It seems a touch indecorous to assault a fellow in a closet.’
Indecorous? Assault? Her fingertips sought passage beneath his tight clothes. Yes, that was about it. She strained on tiptoes to reach his lips, narrowly avoiding the foot-high pile of cravats at her feet. ‘Why so many layers?’
‘I could ask the same.’ Lucerne tugged open the buttons on his waistcoat, then reached for her hem. He slipped his hand up her stocking to the bare flesh of her thigh. ‘Except–’ he cocked one elegantly arched eyebrow ‘–you appear to have mislaid a few.’
‘Ah … Um, yes. I forgot them.’
Her new dress looked better without numerous petticoats beneath it; she had only her knee-length shift on, and she’d dispensed with her stays weeks ago, even though she’d had one of the new types made with a front busk. One or two of her acquaintances had taken to the new red silk drawers that had come over from France, but Bella thought them both hot and inconvenient.
‘Strangely enough,’ said Lucerne, ‘so did I.’
Bella wriggled her hand inside the placket of his breeches. Her fingertips found and traced the slender line of golden hairs down to where they thickened around his loins.
‘All that extra fabric ruins the line.’
Bella grinned and traced the column of hot flesh. ‘You mean it wasn’t just so you’re always ready for action.’ She slipped the buttons that fastened the flap to his waistband and shimmied down his body so that she was eye level with his revealed glory.
‘No-o, I don’t think that was it.’
She ran her tongue up the length of his erection. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. No. All right, maybe a little bit.’ He cupped his hand behind her neck. ‘Come a little closer, minx. Don’t be shy.’ With his free hand, he teased his cock closer towards her lips.
Bella kissed the plum tip, then rose to her feet. ‘More of that later if you’re good, my lord.’
‘Aw!’ He dipped his head so that she could reach his lips. Bella pressed her hand between their bodies and covered the hot column with her palm. ‘Vaughan will be here any minute.’ She could almost sense him getting closer, driving the phaeton hell for leather, his sable curls stirring in the breeze, all black silk and fire. ‘Let’s not waste time.’
She tucked her skirts up around her chest, rudely displaying her naked rear, then clamped Lucerne’s wrists against the closet walls. He didn’t struggle, just sank back against the coats and watched her with a hungry, fearful sort of longing.
Keeping one wrist pinned, Bella freed the other and wetted her fingers between her thighs, which she then fed to Lucerne to dutifully suck clean. He did so with a kitten-like gentleness, trying to soothe her, but Bella didn’t want to be soothed. She didn’t want sweet and nice. She wanted rough, sticky and dirty, something Lucerne only seemed capable of with Vaughan. It was always a battle trying to rouse that same response. She smeared saliva across his chin, held his mouth open for her to ravage, while her fingers locked around his wrist and bit into the warm flesh.
Lucerne protested, shaking his arm, but she just squeezed harder and ground her hips against him.
‘Bella,’ he groaned. His breaths were coming as irregular little puffs of pleasure. ‘Can I?’
Helpfully she opened her legs wide, raised one, which he clasped against his thigh, as he slipped inside.
Lucerne’s blue eyes glazed. ‘You’re teasing,’ he growled. He clutched at her bare bottom, trying to lift her. She knew what he wanted – to carry her to the bed still impaled upon his cock and tup her across the bedspread, but this wasn’t just about him. It was about having him at her mercy.
‘Yes,’ she hissed into his mouth. ‘And there’s nothing you can do about it.’
She hooked her raised leg behind his knee and gripped his wrists again, this time adding nail marks to the skin. His cock didn’t protest. If anything, the restraint goaded him to greater effort. His hips bucked as much as their precarious balance would allow, while his bottom clenched in time with the motion.
‘Bella, please, don’t make it a fight! Be soft for me. I get enough of this spitting and snarling from Vaughan.’
‘Yes, and I’ve seen what it does to you.’
‘What Vaughan does to me,’ he corrected, sagging a little. ‘And you do something equally precious.’
Reluctantly, she eased her grip. Lucerne slipped the loop of her fingers from his wrists and tangled his hands in the back of her hair. ‘Kiss me.’
It was slow and intimate. Understated, but with raging heat. Lucerne wanted her as a woman, not as Vaughan’s substitute. She wondered again how far their relationship would have come if Vaughan hadn’t been always waiting in the wings. Marriage almost certainly, but would either of them have been content?
She didn’t hear Vaughan enter the closet, but she felt his presence like a ripple through the fabric of the small, dark space. It warmed her long before he curved his hand over her bottom.
He didn’t speak, just allowed his palm to brand her with his intentions.
His eyes were probably closed, so that their long dark eyelashes dusted his cheeks. His cruel, sensual mouth probably curved into the ghost of a smile. Just the thought of his expression made her writhe harder against Lucerne. There was no denying they both belonged to Vaughan.
And how he enjoyed making them squirm.
It had been four weeks since he’d last touched her. Not the longest Vaughan had ever made her wait, but still a long time to be around him and bereft of his favours. It had been the evening of the Gillrays’ late summer ball. The bastard had caught her dampening her petticoats in an attempt to make her new dress cling. He’d blindfolded her, lashed her to the bedpost and then sponge-bathed her, making sure the petticoats were extra wet around her crotch.
Subsequently, she’d spent the whole evening with her fan strategically clamped over the wet patch so that nobody would see her thatch through the delicate muslin gown.
The time before that, he’d painted her nipples with beetroot juice and served her as a side salad to Lucerne and four of his close friends. Vaughan seemed to delight in teasing her. No one had touched her all night, but that had hardly been the point. By the end of the dinner, she’d been desperate to relieve the sensitive ache in her breasts and the fire of arousal in her belly.
Vaughan had ridden her hard that night once the guests had left. She grinned at the memory, even as Lucerne continued to tease her lips. He’d ridden them both hard to be precise. Having strapped Lucerne to a chair, he’d repeatedly brought him to the point of orgasm, only to stop him coming at the last moment, until finally, in the small hours, he’d impaled himself upon Lucerne’s weeping cock.
Lucerne’s breath whispered across the top of her head. ‘I need to move.’ He clutched her hips and rocked them forwards, desperate for the friction.
‘Tut, tut.’ Vaughan curled his fingers into Bella’s plump cheek in response: ‘Always so hasty, Lucerne.’ She squirmed back against him. The best times were always when the two men pressed into her front and back. And now he was here …
‘You should have waited for me,’ Vaughan said. Bella could feel his trapped erection pressing into her arse. ‘But I’ll forgive you.’
‘You can share,’ Lucerne blurted.
‘Oh, can I now?’ Vaughan drawled. He slid his hands around to her stomach, then up to her breasts. ‘And what say you, Miss Rushdale? Am I invited to this … assignation?’
Bella rubbed back against him. ‘You were supposed to stay behind. He’s mine tonight.’
‘Ah, but the distraction was fleeting. You really need to plan more carefully.’
Vaughan sank to his knees behind her, his palms following the line of her silhouette. His lips grazed the delicate crease where her bottom met her thigh. Bella shivered. She was sensitive there. Excruciatingly sensitive.
‘Why won’t you leave us alone, let us be together?’ she gasped.
His tongue trailed lightly over her cheeks, raising hairs and the level of sensitivity to make her squeal. She squirmed against Lucerne, shaking with pleasure.
‘Ah, Bella, you know why. You’ve always known why.’
She did but she liked to deny it. Here in London she was masquerading as Vaughan’s cousin, chaperoned by some matron he’d plucked out of obscurity for a yearly wage of twenty guineas. Lucerne was her unofficial intended, but he’d never proposed. Vaughan was adamant that while the three of them were together, there’d be no exclusivity agreements, particularly one that excluded him.
So here they were.
Vaughan’s tongue dipped into the channel between her cheeks. He blew whispery kisses and petted her lightly, the licks slowly becoming firmer, more invasive, until he was delving into her hot dark spot and lighting endless sparklers of bliss.
Bella’s hips rolled with the motions of the two men. Lucerne was getting close. She could hear it in his breathing.
She hated when Vaughan did this to her. There was something twisted about it. Licking her there always seemed far more taboo than filling her bottom with his prick, and she knew he’d make a point of messily kissing her later. Still, she couldn’t tear herself away, even if she hadn’t been trapped between two bodies.
‘I’m going to tongue-fuck you until you come,’ he said, raising hairs all across her skin. ‘Then I’m going to molly Lucerne, and if you’re good I’ll let you watch.’
He would too. Vaughan always kept his promises, and he loved licking and swiving arse almost as much as he loved Lucerne. Sometimes she wished he’d show her the same level of devotion.
Vaughan found her pearl and rubbed. She didn’t want to come like this, at his hand, with him sucking greedily at her hole, but her body betrayed her. Her hips moved in time with Lucerne’s. She sought his lips, but he was already screaming into the air as she came hard around his cock.
As her orgasm pulsed through her, the two men kissed over her shoulder, ignoring her as they focused on each other. When they showed no signs of parting, Bella sunk to the floor and crawled between Vaughan’s legs. So much for Lucerne being hers!
Still, it wasn’t all bad. Bella made herself comfortable on the bed and lazily rubbed her clitoris as she watched them petting. Vaughan and Lucerne were sexy as hell, two flipsides of the same coin, and never more so than when they were together performing like this. While it pleased her more to be between them, she’d learned to accept this was part of the relationship, and had no qualms about getting herself off while watching them together.
The two men stumbled out of the closet, limbs still entwined, clawing at each other’s clothing. Lucerne’s breeches were clinging to his thighs, his pale cheeks scored with the impression of Vaughan’s fingernails. True to his word, Vaughan soon bent him over the end of the bed. ‘I know what you need,’ he hissed into Lucerne’s ear. ‘Don’t even try to deny it. Your cock’s never lost its hardness.’
Lucerne gripped the sheets. His feathery blond hair was stuck to his brow with sweat, obscuring his hazy-blue eyes. Lower, the muscles in his neck and those running down his arms were braced for what was coming.
‘It’s not what I need that you’re about. Bella was satisfying me just fine.’ Lucerne grinned at her and blew her a kiss.
‘So you say.’ Vaughan grasped Lucerne’s hips and pulled him back against his loins. No matter how many times she saw him do that, it still made her wet. Bella covered her quim with her hand and rubbed her thighs together. There was something incredibly sexy about the way he manipulated Lucerne’s body with such ease, and aroused him despite all protestations. ‘But you haven’t refused me.’
A hot pink glow washed across Lucerne’s cheekbones. ‘I know better than to try.’ Resistance always made Vaughan even more determined. More than once their lovemaking had resembled a brawl, although Vaughan liked to pretend he was above fisticuffs.
Bella kneaded her bud harder. Go on, deny him, she silently urged Lucerne. Make him work harder. She watched him reach back to lash at Vaughan’s arms, but it was already too late. His mouth went wide and he released an urgent gasp. Vaughan was inside him, already moving him to his own special rhythm. There was no resisting left to be done.
Lucerne’s eyes rolled upwards. He shamelessly pushed back against the intrusion.
‘Nothing makes you feel quite like this, does it, Lucerne?’ Vaughan’s hands moved in fluttering circles over Lucerne’s arse, squeezing, moulding. He reached around, grasped Lucerne’s cock and tossed him off in time with their movements. ‘Feels good, doesn’t it? Ever since the first time, you’ve never been able to get enough.’
‘I’m not so desperate as you think,’ Lucerne snarled, his eyelids narrowed to slits. ‘I’ve always been content with a woman.’
‘Is that so?’ Vaughan milked him harder. ‘So slipping a finger alongside my cock won’t make you come so hard you’ll shoot yourself in the chest?’
‘Grrn!’
‘Here it comes, Lucerne. Think you can hold out? Of course not. I know you. I know what gets you off.’ He nibbled Lucerne’s ear. ‘If I catch you playing dirty again –’
‘You’ll what?’
Vaughan went silent. He held himself still, although Lucerne continued to move. ‘You’ll see. Are you ready?’ He wriggled a finger into Lucerne alongside his cock. Immediately, Lucerne held himself rigid. Tense shivers played out across his body. He was breathing hard, trying to control it, panting, determined to deny Vaughan his victory, but in vain. ‘You absolute bastard!’ he snarled.
Bella watched him sag onto the sheets, where he continued to whimper and jerk for several minutes. When he finally rolled over, his lawn shirt and indeed his torso were sticky with his seed. He pulled the shirt off and mopped his chest.
Vaughan stalked across to the washstand.
There was something going on, Bella was sure of it, and it wasn’t the first time the thought had struck her. Vaughan was still erect and untamed, but he seemed content to do nothing about it. Not unusual in itself, but curious.
Lucerne scrambled up the bed towards her. He cocooned himself in her arms. ‘You can’t change the way I feel about her, Vaughan,’ he said.
‘No,’ Vaughan agreed as he tucked himself back into his pantaloons. ‘I don’t suppose I can.’
She was definitely missing something, Bella was certain of it as she watched the candlelight glitter like black embers in Vaughan’s eyes. But whatever it was, they kept it to themselves.
Vaughan watched the firelight lap at Bella’s skin with tongues of gold and orange. Lucerne’s head rested in his lap. Idly, he stroked his fingers through the blond strands. It was late, though he had no mind for sleep. His two lovers had both drifted off hours ago, but Lucerne’s words still churned in his head.
‘You can’t change the way I feel about her.’
You can’t bully me into loving you, he may as well have said, and it was true. There was no getting around it. He’d been trying long enough.
Of course, the situation was of his devising. Bella had been the compromise he’d made in order to get Lucerne in the first place. The man was too hung up on reputation and respect to risk scandalizing his peers. But neither Bella nor Lucerne were the same people he’d found himself so infatuated with on the wild Yorkshire moors. The city was turning Lucerne into a dissolute fop and Bella into another belle in a chintz frock. She was losing her fire. Oh, she still had a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of fun, but he’d liked her better when she wasn’t so vain and the colour in her cheeks wasn’t applied with a brush.
He touched the ends of her hair where it lay loose across her back. He wished she’d open her eyes to how things had changed. In the beginning, he’d accepted her as a necessity, convinced that she’d lose interest or patience. No woman wanted to hang on for ever for a proposal. He was surprised she’d stuck it out this long without so much as a whisper of an engagement and, perhaps, slightly pleased.
But Bella wasn’t even the real problem. He could handle her. It was the other witch. His lips twisted into a sadistic smile while his fingers tightened around a clump of Lucerne’s hair. He tugged in annoyance, inducing a groan of protest. ‘Shh, sleep,’ he said, gently petting him. ‘Don’t wake. Don’t worry. Enjoy it while it lasts.’
Vaughan sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. It was time. He might not be able to change how Lucerne felt about things, but he could influence the way Bella felt about Lucerne, or at least open her eyes really wide.
Now. Tonight. It was starting … Ending …
2
BELLA WOKE COLD. Lucerne had stolen the covers again. He was turned away, coiled inside the array of sheets and blankets, while the bedspread clung to the bed in just one corner. Vaughan, she guessed, was on the floor beneath it. For all his preening and love of finery, he wasn’t afraid of hardship, unlike Lucerne. She’d once found him asleep on a windowsill.
Bella snuggled up to Lucerne and rubbed her nose against the back of his neck, where his hair was shorn close. Last night had been fun, but now she was ready for an energetic wake-up call.
‘Still sleeping,’ he mumbled. ‘Stop jiggling. I need another hour, or three.’
‘Fine. You’re hopeless.’ Bella sat up. ‘I’m getting dressed. It’s cold in here and you’re hogging the blankets again.’ She slapped him across the rump, but Lucerne just huddled deeper into the covers and pulled a pillow over his head. It was half past nine. If he surfaced before eleven, it’d be a miracle or a sporting event.
As it turned out, Vaughan wasn’t on the floor, nor was there any sign of him downstairs. Bella ate breakfast alone, but as time went on and Vaughan still hadn’t appeared, she started to feel something was amiss.
‘Has Lord Pennerley gone riding?’ she asked William, their first footman.
‘Not as I know of, Miss Rushdale, but I’ve not seen him this morning.’
Bella frowned. Nobody got in or out of the house without William noticing. It wasn’t like Vaughan to sleep this late, though, wherever he’d bedded down.
She moved to the parlour, but the constant ticking of the mantel clock only made her more agitated. Tea didn’t help either. She wanted some company. Where was he? The house was far too quiet.
Bella paused at the top of the stairs, hand clasped upon the banister. After several moments, she crossed the landing and knocked on his door. When there was no reply, she brazenly marched in. At worst, she’d catch him still abed and he’d throw something at her or, better still, he’d initiate her into some new art of erotic torture.
The bed was unoccupied.
‘Damn.’
Bella stared at the inky covers for a moment, imagining his hair like a dark cloud around his sleeping face, before her brow creased in confusion. The curtains were pulled back from the sash window so that the crisp October light streamed in and dappled the bedspread, like the autumn leaves on the pavement outside. There was something odd about the room. She turned her head about but couldn’t quite figure it. She didn’t come in here very often. There was nothing out of place, not even a discarded cravat or razor littering the surfaces, but Vaughan had always been spartan and neat.
Actually, there was nothing in place, either.
A chill trembled down her spine. Bella shook it off, crossed to the chest of drawers and wrenched open the top drawer. It was empty, as was the second.
‘Vaughan!’ Her hand came unbidden to her lips. ‘Oh, God!’ She bit her knuckles. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be. Why would he go? They were happy. ‘Lucerne!’ She ran though last night’s events in her head. There’d been that weird undercurrent, the strange, guarded conversation she hadn’t quite grasped the meaning of. ‘Lucerne!’
Panic gripped her. Vaughan couldn’t really be gone, not without a goodbye. Her gaze fell upon the smooth bed again. That was it. The locket. The precious keepsake that held a single lock of blond hair and commemorated the first night Vaughan and Lucerne had spent together. If it was still here, that meant he’d be back.
If she couldn’t find it …
Her fingers closed over nothing more comforting than the cold sheets. In despair, she tore the pillows from the bed, shaking feathers loose in the process. They floated down around her, but there was still no locket. Not ready to give up hope, Bella thrust her hands down between the mattress and the headboard. Still nothing.
‘No-ooo!’
Her shriek finally brought Lucerne. He sprinted into the room, half-dressed and trailing his valet, to whom he was attached by a long length of thread.
‘Bella!’ Lucerne pulled up sharp and looked at her curiously, his eyebrows impressively raised. ‘What are you doing? What the blazes were you screaming for?’
She scrambled off the bed into his arms. To hell with decorum; besides, Ivo didn’t count and he knew perfectly well what the living arrangements for the household were. ‘Vaughan’s gone,’ she gasped into the open neck of Lucerne’s shirt. ‘He’s left.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He pushed her to arm’s length, allowing Ivo to duck between them and resume sewing him into his skin-tight breeches.
‘I’m not. All his things are gone.’ She frowned at Ivo, tempted to kick him.
‘Leave it,’ said Lucerne, tapping Ivo upon the shoulder. ‘You can go for now.’ He waited until the man had left the room, then took Bella’s hand and offered her a humouring smile. ‘He wouldn’t just walk out, Bella. Think about it for a moment.’
‘Look.’ She dragged him to the chest and wrenched open the top two drawers again.
‘Ah,’ he said in response to the absence of linen.
‘Now do you believe me?’
Lucerne shook his head. ‘It doesn’t prove anything.’ He paced across to the window. Bella hesitantly followed. Vaughan was not, as she half-hoped, standing on the pavement laughing at them. Judging by his expression, Lucerne had been hoping much the same.
‘I expect he’s just been invited somewhere for the week and forgot to mention it.’ He dragged his hand through the front of his uncombed hair. ‘He’s been spending a lot of time with the Allenthorpes and their adopted frog recently.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ Bella chided. ‘He says the Vicomte smells like a fermented meadow, and even you don’t take your entire wardrobe away with you for a few days.’
‘Been through everything, have you?’ There was hint of amusement in Lucerne’s voice.
Bella glared at him, her temper rising. ‘No, I haven’t.’ She didn’t need to. The locket was the only thing of value Vaughan kept in the room, but she wasn’t sure if Lucerne knew about it. She was pretty certain Vaughan didn’t know that she knew about it.
Lucerne sat down on the bed, patting the mattress for her to join him. ‘Don’t fret, Bella. He’ll turn up.’ He snuggled her to his side, still smiling. ‘He always does. Like a bad penny.’
‘Maybe.’ She allowed herself to be lulled by his embrace. She never doubted that Vaughan would crop up somewhere. But he could be halfway across the Channel by now. Not that France was an ideal destination while they entertained Madame Guillotine.
Had he even slept last night, she wondered. He’d still been staring into the dark when she’d dropped off, which wasn’t unusual. There’d been no definite danger signs.
Dammit!
Bella sagged against Lucerne. She was missing something, something obvious. ‘Have you argued?’ she asked, rising up again so she could look Lucerne in the eye.
He dragged his fingers through the front of his hair again, causing it to flop forwards over his brow. ‘You saw us together last night. Did we look as if we’d fallen out?’
Bella sat a little straighter. ‘That’s just it. How am I supposed to tell when you routinely torture each other as a sign of affection? Even when you had that massive spat last May about the Act of Union, you still fucked like beasts.’
‘Bella!’ The skin around his eyes crinkled with annoyance. ‘Maybe being away from Vaughan will do you good. Leastways, it might improve your language. You never used to be so coarse.’
‘Don’t start a lecture. He’s gone. Can’t you see it’s a bloody disaster?’
To her annoyance, Lucerne collapsed back onto the bed snorting in amusement. ‘Oh, stop it. As if he’d really just leave in the dead of night. He loves what we have here. He’s responsible for the arrangement. Remember?’ He absently patted her leg. ‘Give it a day or two and he’ll be back and laughing off the fright he’s given us.’
Bella kneaded her temples. She really wanted to believe that but it was difficult. It felt like a chasm was opening inside her chest. Lucerne’s hand was warm upon her thigh. His touch slowed to a caress. ‘Bella,’ he soothed, his voice laced with honey. He brought her fingers to his lips. ‘You know how he is. Everything’s a game. He’s probably just trying to provoke a reaction, and he’s succeeding.’
Bella shook her head but allowed Lucerne to cuddle her. He tipped them both over so they sprawled across the soft eiderdown, face to face. ‘Don’t mope.’ His breath was warm against her lips. ‘You know how he is. If he was angry with either of us he’d have said something.’
‘Yes,’ she reluctantly agreed.
Lucerne pressed a kiss to her nose, then another to her cheek. ‘Look at me.’ His thumb rubbed lightly over her lips.
Bella looked. His smile creased the corners of his eyes, lit up their china-blue depths. ‘We’ve waited for this, Bella. Haven’t we? A chance to be alone together.’ He kissed her lips. ‘We can do whatever we want.’
She felt like sobbing but mustered a smile instead. It was true, they’d had little time to themselves, Vaughan made sure of that. If she could only have been certain he was really coming back, then she’d have no qualms about leaping on Lucerne and having him any way possible. But there was just that niggling doubt.
Maybe he’d moved the locket weeks ago.
Lucerne stretched his arms above his head in an overstated gesture of surrender. ‘How about it, Miss Rushdale?’ He tugged his shirt from his breeches. ‘Shall we rumple the master’s bed?’
Some hours later, Bella lay wrapped in Vaughan’s bedspread. Lucerne had gone to bathe and dress for his club. They’d spent the whole afternoon together, exploring the contours of each other’s skin, taking pleasure in simple contact, enjoying themselves. She sucked on her lip; a bitter taste accompanied her thoughts. Now that she’d salved her lust with Lucerne, Vaughan’s absence weighed on her conscience. Had she been responsible for his departure? Despite Lucerne’s reassurances, she couldn’t believe he’d simply return in a day or two, or even a week. Vaughan might be a creature of passions, but he was also stubborn and he never made any big decisions without thinking them through carefully. The absence of the locket aside, her instincts told her he was gone for good unless they did something to find him. She hadn’t the faintest idea where to look, let alone how to win him back. Whenever she’d deliberately tried to seduce him in the past, he’d played her for a fool. She didn’t think Lucerne would be any help, either. He was in denial, convinced it was all an elaborate game.
‘Oh, Vaughan.’ She rose from the bed and pulled the top sheet over her sticky chemise. Outside the sky was grey and already darkening despite the relatively early hour. ‘Where are you?’ She pressed her cheek to the cold glass. ‘Come home.’
3
BELLA STARED OUT of the downstairs parlour window at the dreary street. A flock of carriages clattered past, delivering guests to various soirées. Vaughan had been missing twelve days. She hadn’t left the house for ten, just in case he came back and she wasn’t there. She hadn’t spent so much time staring longingly out of windows since she’d left Wyndfell Grange. In London you could go out and find company. In Yorkshire she’d had to content herself with her own. She felt a throb of yearning for her home. She hadn’t seen her brother Joshua for months. He’d visited briefly at Easter, but mostly he was maintaining a diplomatic distance. He couldn’t be seen to be condoning her behaviour. Lucerne had been particularly sour during the stay, and she suspected Joshua had given him a lecture or two.
Bella rested her chin against the windowsill. She felt so powerless. It was no use talking to Lucerne; he was acting as if nothing was wrong and was relieved to have her to himself for the first time ever. It was working for him, but it felt false and sapless to Bella.
For nearly three years she’d wished Vaughan would leave them alone for just an hour, but now when he was gone she was constructing elaborate fantasies in her head about a sudden reappearance. Yesterday, after rereading Mysteries of Udolpho for the eighth time, she’d imagined him as the villainous Count Montoni, come to steal her away from her lover. She’d come twice in quick succession as a result, to Lucerne’s astonishment, but she hadn’t had the heart to tell him it wasn’t his doing. After that, she’d tottered off to bed in her own room.
She wasn’t even sure he’d noticed her leave. Too much port at his club had left him blinking sleepily. The sex had just become part of his routine too.
She’d lain awake for a while after that, long enough so that no one was up to see her slip into Vaughan’s room where she’d ground herself against his pillows and wet their surface with a thousand hungry kisses.
She hadn’t noticed it before but Lucerne was changing, and his total obsession with his appearance was just the tip of it. He was gambling again and his kindness and honour seemed facets he only polished for her. She closed her eyes, recalling the muggy September heat of 1797, the smell of the summer greenery, of parched grass and wildflowers. How she’d wriggled on her stomach beneath the rhododendron bushes at Lauwine to spy on him swimming in the river. She’d wanted to strip and dive in beside him. It’d been like a thread of destiny tugging at her, drawing them together. Lucerne had chased her naked through the grounds. Now he was in her bed, and her dreams were all of Vaughan: the mercurial, beautiful, volatile bastard that had dared to compete with her for Lucerne’s heart.
There’d been no word of him about town, although everyone seemed to have heard about his disappearance, encouraging endless speculation. Someone had even suggested he was on a secret mission for Parliament or the King. Bella thought she’d be happy to know he was taking respite in a monastery or a hermit’s cave away from the constant strain of their delicately balanced ménage à trois. At least then she knew he’d be back at some point, his reserves replenished, ready to stage another delicious game.
The parlour door opened to reveal William. ‘Mr Henry Tristan,’ he announced before bowing out again.
Bella straightened her gown. It was a shabby and out of date one, a dour mid-blue in colour, exactly suited to her mood. ‘Mr Tristan,’ she said bravely. ‘I’m afraid Lord Marlinscar’s not at home.’
‘Bella.’
She raised her head to find him standing in the doorway, lean and ballsy as an alley cat. He cast his hat onto a side table and slunk towards her, his cane trailing from a loop about his wrist, so that it clattered against the legs of the furniture. He was slovenly dressed in a shocking-blue coat and stockings striped in the same hue, so that the rings wound around his calves like cuffs. His cravat was a hideous contrast, cream with bilious green spots. ‘Still pining, I see.’ He pressed a powdery kiss to her cheek.
‘Henry. And you’re not?’
He brushed at the large snuff stain on his oversized lapels. ‘M’dear, I’ve been pining since the day we met, and I realised you were wasting yourself on two consummate rogues.’ He pressed another kiss to her fingertips, finally raising a smile from Bella.
She offered him a seat, but he remained standing. ‘I do believe that’s the first time you’ve acknowledged that fact, Henry. What’s changed? Am I this month’s scandal? Are you here to break it to me?’
‘No, no.’ He scrunched down the front of his ludicrous cravat with his chin. ‘Although the grandes dames are pressing Lucerne deuced hard about a formal proposal now your cousin’s flown.’
Bella shook her head. ‘Marquis Pennerley is not my cousin and well you know it.’
Henry turned a pirouette, sending the skirt of his square-cut coat spinning about him like butterfly wings, and finally accepted a chair. ‘No news?’
‘None of any importance. What about you? Lucerne tells me nothing, but he must hear the talk.’ She watched disapprovingly as Henry helped himself to some snuff and sneezed violently.
‘My apologies.’ He returned his box to his pocket. ‘All I’ve heard is speculation. Of as much validity as Napoleon’s claim on Egypt, I’d say.’
Bella returned to the window. She’d hoped he’d bring her better news. ‘What am I supposed to do, Henry? I feel like a songbird cooped in a gilt cage, with naught to do but sing for my supper.’
‘Which I’m sure you do very nicely.’ He joined her by the window, leaning over her to get a view of the street. Bella turned and gave him a hard stare.
‘You could take another lover. Luc–’ He stopped, licked his lips.
‘Henry!’ She pushed him away. ‘Please. Be serious.’
‘I am,’ he said, hand on heart.
Bella wrinkled her brows at him. ‘It’s just not the same since he’s gone. I’ve thought about hiring someone to search for him, but he’ll only be found if he wants to be.’ She kicked at a chair. ‘Damn him, I swear I’ll wring his neck for this if he ever does turn up.’
Henry laughed. ‘That’s the spirit.’ He took her hands, turned them in his. ‘You know, you’re looking awful pale, and dainty doesn’t suit you. Ask Lucerne again when he comes home. He may have heard something by then. I’d better go now. I’m expected at the Allenthorpes for dinner, and people will talk.’
Bella watched Henry leave from the landing window. He was as blond as Lucerne, but the complete opposite in every other regard. His coat was ridiculously sloppy and his poor cane was still dangling limply from his wrist. She knew some considered Henry a buffoon for his choice of fashions, but his mind was far too sharp for that and his grip on politics frighteningly exact. His real weakness was that he was hopelessly besotted with Vaughan. Bring them together and Henry would follow Vaughan like a devoted lapdog, the ultimate style-cramping accessory and therefore a target for Vaughan’s ruthless sarcasm.
A pity, because, alone, he had an exotic appeal all of his own.
Bella continued up the stairs for no other reason than a chance to walk. She wished Lucerne would come home and keep her company. In Vaughan’s room, she curled up on the bed. It no longer smelled of him. She’d muddied his scent with her own, but there was a sense of comfort attached to it.
Soon, surely, she would hear something.
The sound of Lucerne’s voice from the hall woke her. The room had grown dark as she’d slept and only a faint glimmer of moonlight penetrated the window. Bella stumbled onto the landing, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The hall clock was striking eleven. She’d been asleep four hours and managed to miss dinner. She wondered if Lucerne was hungry and would sit down with her now.
Bella padded down the stairs in her soft pumps, hoping he wasn’t drunk again. Halfway down the stairs she had a clear view of the hall.
She froze.
He wasn’t alone.
Suddenly wide awake, Bella stumbled down the next three steps, hope and fear slicing through her chest. Lucerne was obscuring the second figure as he handed his greatcoat to William. Bella’s fingers tightened on the banister, waiting. Her mouth opened on a squeal, which froze in her throat. The dark hair wasn’t Vaughan’s. Lucerne had come home with a woman.
Horrified, she watched him help her remove her cloak. His fingertips feathered across her bare shoulders, teased a stray curl by her ear. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he murmured.
My God, she thought. What had he brought her here for? He couldn’t suppose she was actually going to be fine with this. ‘Lucerne?’
He turned towards her growl, giving her a warm smile. ‘Bella. Excellent. Come down. Join us.’ He rakishly draped an arm around the woman’s shoulders.
Bastard, she seethed, a lump of fury forming in her throat. How dare he bring a whore home with him and act as if it were routine? She reached the bottom of the stairs and marched across the hall to meet him. ‘What’s going on?’
Unruffled, Lucerne pressed his guest forward a little. ‘Miss Bella Rushdale. Miss Georgiana St John.’
nervously