In the Flesh

“Oh Beatrice, you’re such a little liar.” His breath against her cheek was as sweet and clean as his utterances were impure. He smelled a little of whiskey, and that only made her want to taste him. His mouth … his skin … oh, his cock.

Yes, his cock … I like calling it that!

Wicked thoughts, radical thoughts. But they didn’t linger, because at that moment Ritchie’s mouth came down on hers, devilish and hard.

The kiss wasn’t a bit like Tommy’s or Eustace’s. It was dry at first, hot and firm and purposeful. No tentative, boyish explorations. No messy meanderings with lips that were sloppy and vaguely slack. Ritchie’s mouth was strong and businesslike, and totally controlled. And when at last things did get wet, that was different, too. His tongue was a dart of power, pushing into her mouth and subduing her. Down between her legs, she seemed to feel it too, just as he’d described.

Sometime in their flight from the conservatory, she’d snatched her belongings from him, but now, as she tasted his tongue and her own flicked and played around it, her bag, her fan and her dance card tumbled forgotten to the carpet. She needed her hands. She needed them so she could explore his back and his shoulders through the fine dark cloth of his coat, and cling on to him when her knees went weak again.

She needed them so she could cling on when her hips started to press against him of their own accord, driven by a divine madness and a desperate hunger for the same intimate sharing the Chamfleurs enjoyed.

Her body was electric, as if filled with the same radical force that lit the glittering mansion around them, its Promethean power channeled into her every nerve and cell. She felt alight, aflame, filled with yearning and longing and an unstoppable compulsion to press her skin against Ritchie’s skin, cleaving to every last square inch of it.

When she’d had the mad urge to take her clothes off and pose for Eustace’s camera, it’d been nothing more than an anemic whim compared to this. The need to be naked for Ritchie and with Ritchie was a primal drive. An instinct in her blood, pumping and surging.

Aha, this “female hysteria” they write about so coyly in certain advertisements at the back of the Lady’s Weekly Journal. Why on earth do they imply that it’s unpleasant, and to be avoided? Because they’re wrong, so wrong! Completely wrong!

Her breasts felt sore and strange, and yet the sensation was delicious somehow, and far more than pleasant. They chafed against her fine chemise and the inside of her corset and she surged against the solid wall of Ritchie’s body, trying to increase the effect and rub her aching nipples against him.

“Oh, you’re a hot one, Beatrice,” gasped Ritchie as they broke apart to get more breath. Beatrice wasn’t sure she’d taken one for at least two minutes. She was light-headed, but it wasn’t through lack of oxygen … it was Ritchie. “You’re more than I ever dreamed, beautiful girl,” he went on, his mouth against her cheek, then her hair, his jaw brushing the side of her throat. As he spoke, his breath fanned against her, and below his hand pulled deftly at her skirts, with the skill of much practice, no doubt. Up and up they came, and then his fingers slid skillfully amongst the layers, pushing them up so he could clasp the rounded cheek of her bottom through her drawers.

Beatrice shot up in the air and started to struggle again. But just as before, without effort, Ritchie quelled her with his hands on her body and his mouth possessing hers. Conflicting urges battled. Every tenet of good behavior she’d ever had drilled into her waged war with delicious new desires—the craving to touch, taste, rub against and lay herself open to everything this man had to offer.

Her struggle died almost before it had begun, and she softened to the kiss like warmed honey. When he clasped her bottom this time, she almost purred into his mouth like a plump and lazy kitten accepting his affection, wickedly pleased that large, elaborate bustles were no longer en vogue and Ritchie could effect a firm hold on her without that extra hindrance to negotiate.

That’s outrageous! How can I think such things? Her mind raced. How can a kiss affect me this way?

The thought disappeared, drenched in oceans of sensation.

How can a kiss affect me this way?

On a wave of shock and desire, Ritchie plunged his tongue into Beatrice Weatherly’s mouth. He’d wanted her, yes, the moment he’d seen the first photograph, but this … this reality exceeded his every fevered fantasy.

Every part of her stirred him. Her soft mouth he imagined wrapped around his cock. Her delicious body he imagined writhing in uncontrolled ecstasy as he plied her with fingers and tongue, driving her to heights of sensation again and again and again. He imagined fondling the firm, rounded bottom that wriggled so exquisitely against his palm. She was a natural, unstudied sensualist and a little perversity would only spice her ultimate pleasure.

And oh, he wanted that, her ultimate pleasure. He wanted her orgasms. Her complete surrender. Her nakedness, his to enjoy in all ways, open to hand and mouth and a dozen wicked sexual contrivances. He wanted her secured to a bed so he could plunge into her, lose himself in the scent of lily of the valley and woman’s musk and forget every sad thing that had ever troubled him. In the oblivion of her flesh, there might be peace.

He had to have her.

How could he get her?

What could he offer?

A quick tumble with her simply wouldn’t suffice. So would Beatrice Weatherly be amenable to a grande affaire? A bohemian, worldly arrangement, between two adults? A woman of her age and class would normally be on the lookout for marriage, but posing naked for photographs meant she was far from conventional.

But still, the sense that there was more to her than simply a rather licentious young woman plagued him. What if she wouldn’t accept his proposition? The thought of her refusing him and the idea of never having and enjoying every last delicious part of her provoked a sensation like despair in his heart.

There was no alternative. He had power, resources, money in colossal amounts, and he’d use whatever tactics he had to in order to get her. At the back of his mind, guilt—and a distaste for his own self-serving motives—pricked him, but the jabs were faint and fast fading against the hard ache in his loins and the strangely indefinable longing that racked his chest.

Even as sweet lust gouged him, he began to make his plans. Oh, how convenient it was that her brother was such a ne’er do well.

CHAPTER THREE

A Gentlewoman’s Temptation

IT WAS EXACTLY as she imagined drowning might be. Expiring in a well of lush sensation. Transformed into a houri within the space of a few minutes, she gasped in disappointment when Ritchie broke the kiss.

She tried to resume it. Digging her fingers into his thick, curly hair, she attempted to draw his lips back down to hers. Only his hands and mouth seemed real in a world transparent.

“No, no, Miss Weatherly.” His laugh was taunting, soft. “Unless you want me to compromise you even more than you’ve already been, right here on this runner.”

He nodded toward the narrow strip of Turkish carpet adorning the corridor in which they found themselves. Beatrice blinked. How had they got here? She was so disorientated that words temporarily escaped her. She could only stare at Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie, and blink like a nincompoop.

His smile brought her to her senses. It was hard, possessive, hungry, mocking. He was highly amused by the way she’d turned into a willing trollop in his arms with barely a fight. And yet still the twist of his mouth excited her and made her want it on hers again.

And elsewhere.

Between your legs … taste you there …

Dear God in heaven, what would that feel like? His tongue in her mouth had addled her senses. If it touched her there, if it stroked her there, she might go mad.

But still she ached and melted, wanting things that had been unthinkable an hour ago.

What in heaven’s name am I doing? I’m letting him turn my head again.

“Please let go of me, Mr. Ritchie. I’ve got to go back to the ballroom and find my brother.” As she wiggled out of his grasp, her skirts fell back into place like the curtain at the end of an operetta.

A farce, most definitely …

Free and covered again, Beatrice swooped low to scoop up her belongings. “I still have dances on my card and gentlemen waiting.”

“Fuck them!”

The card was whipped out of her hand, and with its tiny pencil grasped between his long, nimble fingers, Ritchie scratched out every name and scribbled his in each place.

“Mr. Ritchie, there’s no need to be so high-handed. Or so profane, for that matter.”

“There’s every reason to be high-handed. When I see you … when I touch you, I want to have you to myself.” As he hesitated, Beatrice made a move but he grasped her arm again, firmly yet gently. “But we need more time together, so we don’t have to be so hasty. The pleasures of sensuality should be savored like a slow, unhurried feast.” His fingers tightened and he tugged her toward a half-open door, a little farther along the passage.

“I’m not going in there for a … a feast with you. I’ve got to go back. Charlie will be worried.”

The tug became irresistible. She started to follow, her teeth gritted, more vexed with herself than with the strong, insufferable man who was leading her along. Enlightened by the lessons of Eustace, she was not going to be bamboozled by a male of the species ever again.

“Your brother is either too busy drinking or gambling or engaged in some other pursuit to worry about you for the moment. Unless of course you’re the precious item he’s wagering.”

“Don’t be grotesque!”

Beatrice went hot and cold. Might it actually be true? Charlie had gone on and on about the loss of her reputation damaging her chances of the marriage that would save both their fortunes. What might he be driven to when his judgment was clouded by brandy?

Her moment of hesitation was fatal, and Ritchie whisked her along just as he’d done in the conservatory. Within seconds, he’d plunged the pair of them into a small study or smoking room, a masculine retreat, lined with books. With an air of triumph about him, he locked the door behind them.

Beatrice stepped back and back, away from her captor. Fear surged, but swirled with a delicious longing in her belly. She was a person of supposedly bad reputation, so why not be worthy of it? Why suffer the disadvantages of being a scarlet woman without tasting any of its advantages?

But maidenly fantasies on a drowsy afternoon were one thing. Facing a powerful man in his lust was quite another.

“Don’t look at me like a terrified mouse, Beatrice.” Ritchie frowned, his broad brow puzzled. “A girl of your experience isn’t afraid of being alone with a man, surely?”

But I have no experience. I was tricked into posing for those photographs. I don’t even know for sure whether I was touched while I slept or not.

So, indeed, some variety of a mouse. But she wasn’t going to admit to being a fool and a gullible ninny, or Ritchie would laugh. And he’d know he could cozen her into any brand of debauchery that took his fancy.

“No, I’m not afraid of you, Mr. Ritchie.” She stared at him, her eyes steady. Then, feeling the edge of a chair just behind her knees, she sank into it, feigning a composure that was far from her true state. “I’m just not particularly fond of your company and I don’t see why I should grant you any further liberties. Even with my experience.”

Ritchie shook his head. He was smiling, but he looked impressed in a vaguely perplexed sort of way. “What would it take for you to grant me a few more of those liberties, Beatrice?” He swaggered over to her and stood looking downwards. He was like a giant, a colossus, looming over her, and he seemed to own the very air around them. “I’ve got a lot to offer.”

Beatrice swallowed. Right in front of her, he was still aroused and he did indeed have a lot to offer. She stared at his groin from beneath lowered lashes, then back up at his face.

“You’re a tempting woman. Far too tempting.” He reached down and cupped her face, and for a moment she thought he was going to draw her lips to him. Perhaps rapidly unbutton his trousers and offer his cock to her, as Ambrose Chamfleur had done to his Sofia.

“And that tempts me too, Miss Weatherly.” Ritchie laughed softly as if he’d read the lewd visions in her mind. Was he some kind of mentalist, with supernatural powers?

Shaking, Beatrice turned away. If he could read her visions, he could read her desires too. And know that she’d wanted to caress him in that way, and that she’d almost reached out to unfasten his trousers.

I’m going completely mad. I’ve known the man barely more than an hour … and he’s turned me into a jezebel and a slave to carnal appetites.

His fingers curved around her cheek. The touch was as soft as thistledown, but no force was needed. Like a cat hungry for affection again, she rubbed her face against his palm, and when he pressed a little more firmly, it was the simplest matter in the world to follow his urgings.

Beatrice laid her face against the front of his trousers, blindly seeking tangible evidence of his maleness.

Through the fine cloth, he felt hard, warm, alive. His penis throbbed as if it had a sentience all of its own. Beatrice’s mouth watered, remembering Sofia Chamfleur’s enthusiasm, and she rubbed her cheek against him, the response purely instinctive. She had no idea precisely how her action would feel to him, but his low gasp of pleasure was educational

“My dear … my dear …” Ritchie’s voice was ragged, not that of the man who taunted her and who seemed to control her so effortlessly. Now he was teetering on the edge of his own precipice, and the idea of that was both thrilling and alarming.

Ritchie had so much power he could simply throw her on the carpet and ravish her, and even though the throbbing ache between her thighs told her she wanted that, and wanted it badly, some self-preserving thread told a different story.

Don’t give yourself away quite so easily. Always, always remember how Eustace duped you. From now on, you must not let a man take the upper hand.

With one last buss of her cheek against his groin, she broke his hold on her, and wriggling like an eel, she slid sideways and out of the chair. Shooting to her feet, she skipped across the room. Out of his reach.

“I’m afraid that nothing you have is sufficient to tempt me, Mr. Ritchie.” With a twist of her lips, she stared pointedly at the lingering bulge in his trousers.

“I wonder.” He didn’t look down, but his imperious brows quirked.

“I’m quite certain.” It was dangerous to be here with him. She had to get out. “Now, if you have nothing more to say to me, I’ll return to the ballroom.”

Whirling, she sped for the door, not waiting for an answer. She was close. Escape was in sight. She almost had her fingers on the key in its lock.

Ritchie’s hand closed around hers, enveloping it.

How had he moved so fast? And with no sound? Was the wretched man possessed of strange occult powers of bilocation or blink-of-an-eye speed?

“Stay, Beatrice. Let me make you an offer.” He turned her, his ungloved hand on her bare upper arm again. The hot feel of it sent strange sparks rushing through her veins, heading for her deepest, most responsive zones. She opened her mouth to say there was nothing he could offer, to lie in effect, but before she could, he went on in a low, hard voice. “If I can’t tempt you solely with my amenable personality or my prowess as a lover, perhaps I can offer you a more businesslike arrangement?”

It was difficult to breathe. And when she did, the gasps made her breasts rise and fall alarmingly in the low, newly stitched neckline of her dress. Ritchie flashed a glance downwards, and his lips parted on a gasp of his own.

“Please let me go, Mr. Ritchie. There is nothing you can offer that I want.”

“You’re a liar, my dear. Your eyes and your blushing face and the way you’re panting all tell me otherwise. But that’s by the by.” He narrowed his eyes at her, suddenly all ruthlessness, “I’m offering to pay your and your brother’s debts. Which are considerable and far more than you realize, by the way. I’ll also settle an annual sum of money on you both that will keep you comfortable for the rest of your lives.”

Beatrice’s mouth opened and closed, like one of the fish in the conservatory pond. She knew she looked foolish, but there were no words she could utter.

The debts were perilous, she knew that. Many were inherited from their late father, a dear man but a poor manager, who’d caused them to lose Westerlynne on his demise.

But other debts were more recently incurred. Charlie liked to think he was keeping things from her, but he was as good as using a lace handkerchief to mop up a swamp. Her offers of help in planning a stratagem were always brushed aside with mutters of “gentlemen’s business.”

There was no hiding what Ritchie wanted in return for his assistance. She knew it. And she knew he knew she knew. It was a transaction as old as time, and one could either shudder over it or accept it with pragmatism. Well-bred young women weren’t supposed to even be aware of such negotiations, but they could easily be discovered in sensational fiction and the rags like Marriott’s Monde were full of them. The ladies of the Sewing Circle whispered and giggled and chewed over such scandals of the demimonde with relish.

I’m standing at the edge a cliff top. One step and I’ll tumble over. Unable to prevent herself, Beatrice pressed her hand to her bosom. Surely her heart was thundering so much the palpitations were visible? But if I don’t plunge, it’s utter ruin for Charlie and me anyway.

How much worse could this be than losing everything? She knew she could survive somehow, get lodgings, and obtain some kind of modest employment. The idea of the typewriting machine ever intrigued her. But Charlie? For all his bravado he was more helpless and without a clue than she’d ever been.

“For how long?” She drew in a breath, narrowed her eyes and looked Ritchie in his eyes. “For how long would you … you require me?”

“Require you?” Behind those dark blue eyes, Beatrice imagined she saw the whirring cogs of some infernal calculating machine.

“Come, Mr. Ritchie, we both know that it’s nothing so noble as an engagement or marriage that you’re offering in return for your largesse. If it were, you’d be all kisses on the hand and tender words and a request to present yourself to my brother and I for tea.”

“You’re very astute, Beatrice. I like that. I see we can proceed.” His hand loosened on her arm, and with a twist of the wrist, he drew the back of it across her chest, his knuckle trailing across one breast and lingering lovingly against her nipple through her dress and corsetry.

Even through the layers, the way he circled the little crest of flesh was demonic. Her nipple puckered, though he was barely touching it, and again, ripples of sensation surged through her body, centering between her thighs. Was she such a sensualist, a woman so easy that even the tiniest of caresses could work her into a frenzy?

Is that really such a very bad thing?

The question was relevant. The boundaries of her beliefs and her values were shifting and metamorphosing. She was no longer the woman who’d arrived here tonight.

It was time to call the arrangement by its name.

“For how long do you require me as your whore, Mr. Ritchie? I’ll enter into an agreement with you, but I insist on a finite period of time. After that, I’ll simply forget you ever laid a finger on me.”

Still stroking her breast, he laughed. It was a strangely young, happy sound and as he threw back his head, his white teeth glinted in the lamplight.

“You’re very wise to set conditions, Beatrice. If I was selling my body for money, I’d do exactly the same.” Then he lunged closer, his breath on her neck as he whispered in her ear, the scent of his shaving lotion coiling in her brain. “But I’m not sure you’ll be able to forget my fingers quite so easily. Would you like a little demonstration?” It didn’t seem that he needed an answer. Reaching for the fullness of her skirts, he began hauling the heavy mass of them upward again. “A little sample of what we might expect … for you and for me.”

He planted a hard, hungry kiss on the side of her neck, and then went at her skirts with his whole attention, lifting all the layers of petticoats so he could get both hands under them. French faille and lace, cotton and linen, all rumpled like an ocean of haberdashery, but Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was clearly a master mariner in those waters.

I should stop him. It’s too soon. Too great a liberty.

He intended yet more than he’d already achieved, she knew that, but within moments, she was holding up her skirts to help him while he slid his fingers into the vent of her drawers.

Thanking providence she’d chosen an open undergarment this evening, for ease when wearing a multiplicity of petticoats, Beatrice bumped backward against the door. It was hard and uncomfortable against her upper spine, but she barely felt it.

All she could think about, all she could feel, every last thought and notion in her head—all were subsumed to the demands of her aching sex. She moaned out loud when Ritchie found her with his fingertips, effortlessly parting the silky curls and reaching the heart of the matter. Her hips churned when he settled on the little button of flesh there and began to manipulate it in a slow, lazy rhythm.

Her petticoats fell over his arm as he touched her. Beatrice could no longer hold on to them, only on to him. She flung her arms around his neck, gripping hard, as if he were her rock in a wild sea and she would drown if she didn’t maintain her purchase. Her legs worked and kicked, her hips rocked and jerked and circled. But still Ritchie fondled her, not missing a single beat.

One long groan issued from her throat, the sound so bizarre and unusual to her own ears that it could have been the cry of a ghoul or some other phantom.

“Do you touch yourself often, Beatrice?”

No! No gently bred woman should admit to that!

But she did do it—yes, she did—in her quiet, lonely bed.

“Answer me! If you admit to stroking your own clitoris, I’ll double that annuity.”

Beatrice bit her lips, trying to stifle the uncouth sounds she couldn’t stop making. He might command her flesh, but he couldn’t make her utter such personal revelations. Not even for ten times the allowance!

“Don’t fight me, my sweet girl. Don’t fight me. I only want to pleasure you and to hear you describe your private games.” He kissed her neck again, his hot tongue gliding over her skin as his finger slid around and around below.

Beatrice started to whimper again, tossing her head. She might cry and shriek and wail like an animal, but she would not speak the revealing words he wanted.

“So that’s how it is, eh?” He laughed, his husky voice seeming to dance where his fingers flicked and played. “Perhaps another time then? For the moment, I’ll simply make you spend.”

He circled faster. And as she latched on harder to him, with both arms clasped around his neck, he burrowed beneath her skirts with his other hand, sneaking it into her drawers at the back.

Oh no! Oh no! Please, no!

The thoughts were nonsense. Her whole mind was nonsense. But her body knew what it wanted, what it enjoyed.