Black Silk. Sharon Page

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СКАЧАТЬ reexamined that case,” Sir William explained, his face red, his breathing unsteady. “It took place at Covent Gardens, another clue in this mad scavenger hunt. Two courtesans came forward to say you had enticed the woman away from Lord Craven. And two gentlemen—Sir Percy Whitting and Lord Yale—saw you hand her up into your carriage.”

      “And again, interestingly enough, I wasn’t there.” Dash scrubbed his jaw, gave a shake of his head as the voluptuous jades returned to earth, gulped hungrily for breath, and began to eye him. The promise of sliding his rod into a bubbling cunny began to pound through his brain. “Easy enough to pay courtesans to lie. As for Sir Percy and Lord Yale…” Christ Jesus, Dash loved the sight of two women’s breasts pressed together. He shifted in his seat, searching for a more comfortable position. “Both are young, can’t hold their drink, and are gullible. Whoever convinced them they saw me is clever.”

      “Indeed.” The magistrate’s face remained impassive.

      “And is likely involved in the white slave trade.”

      Grimly, Sir William nodded. “It is possible this is related, given the disappearances of the women. Though the ladies were not country virgins.”

      “It might be the reason my name has been used. Revenge.” The woman on top winked at him, but, groaning, Dash shook his head. Not now. Later he would spend the night losing himself in mindless sex. Spend the night escaping his nightmares with an orgy, or bondage, or candlewax dripped onto his vulnerable skin.

      “Or it is Robert,” Sir William suggested.

      Guilt rose, black and sickening. “My cousin is not like his father. He doesn’t covet the title. And he doesn’t know the truth.”

      The magistrate said nothing.

      Dash watched the cavorting women as they winked at him and wriggled together. “So it could be a member of my family—my uncle, my aunt, my cousin. What of my uncle’s mistress? Should I include her? Or Craven or his partner, Barrett, who I suspect are involved in white slavery.” Dash drained his port—the last of his bottle. “So I talk to your witness. And the other suspects. Then I join the scavenger hunt.”

      Sir William drew a card from his jacket pocket. “Bloody surprised you weren’t in it already.” He laid the folded white square on the polished table.

      “What is this?”

      “Your next clue.”

      Whereupon he ripped open his breeches, releasing his great purple-headed pecker. He pushed me forward, almost sending me toppling to the crowd below, and he threw me skirts over me head.

      “My lord Wooderton,” gasped I, startled by the fury of his passion.

      “Silence, wench,” he cried, and in one thrust, he drove his magnificent lance within me. My scream of submission shocked the theater into silence. Only my desperate cries of pleasure could be heard as Wooderton pounded his cock into my cunny. Then applause thundered from the crowd below us, and in front of all those snobbish ladies of the ton, I received the most wondrous fuck from the most desired gentleman in London.

      Having added the last required comma in the chapter, Maryanne Hamilton laid down the manuscript. She ached. And burned. Her heart danced in her chest like a bird beating against glass. And there was sweat…unladylike sweat trickling down her bodice.

      She leaned back against the ironwork back of the bench. The last of the roses tumbled all about her. Their sweet scent enraptured her, and she closed her eyes and turned her face up to the warm autumn sunshine. Here, in this secret garden behind her brother-in-law’s London mansion, she could imagine she was in the country and Almack’s and the marriage mart didn’t exist.

      Her first Season had passed without an offer of marriage.

      Thank heavens.

      She glanced down at the pages, the corners fluttering in the September breeze.

      Miss Tillie Plimpton’s spelling had improved remarkably over the last three manuscripts. With her royalties, Tillie had bought herself a nice cottage near Devon, and her three illegitimate children now attended a country school.

      The thought of three children with warm beds and gardens of their own made Maryanne smile.

      It terrified her to think of children destitute. Of innocents being forced into workhouses. Or worse. She’d been so close to that herself. And she knew what it was to be illegitimate—she and her sisters were the illegitimate daughters of the erotic artist Rodesson, though their mother had spent a lifetime hiding that truth.

      Maryanne sighed. Unfortunately none of the books had sold enough copies to pay for the royalties she had advanced to her authors. She was certain they would. Someday. But that day appeared determined not to arrive. And now she was in debt. Very much in debt.

      “Penny for your thoughts.”

      At her sister’s words, she muttered, “Five shillings would be more the thing.” Or five hundred pounds. Or five thousand.

      “What?” Venetia, her hand resting gracefully on her rounded enceinte tummy, strolled along the path. She paused to press one blossoming rose to her face.

      Maryanne tucked the manuscript to her side. “Nothing,” she murmured even as she felt the familiar plummet in her stomach.

      Five thousand pounds. It was an impossible sum, and she still couldn’t quite understand how she had spent that much. But there had been so many women in need, so many children without futures. And Georgiana had “borrowed” far more money from their publishing house than she’d imagined….

      The breeze flirted with the leaves and with the ribbons on her bonnet. But it did not toy with Miss Plimpton’s manuscript. No—it picked up those pages deliberately, tossed them up on the stone path, and sent them tumbling end over end toward her sister.

      Fortunately for her, Venetia could not move quickly, and she certainly could not bend.

      “Oh, heavens!” Maryanne darted after the fluttering white sheets and stomped her slipper-shod feet on two of them. She dropped to her knees and scooped them up.

      “Are you working on another book?”

      “Now and again,” she gasped. It wasn’t a lie after all. She was working on the book.

      The stones bit her knees as she reached for the sheets, as she crumpled the pages in her haste to group them together. Venetia had supported them by drawing erotic pictures, using the talent she’d inherited from their scandalous father, Rodesson. But Venetia would have a fit if she learned Maryanne was editing erotic novels and in partnership with a notorious courtesan. Novels of passion, Georgiana called them.

      They sold very well. Gentlemen loved them.

      In truth, she could see why. The books were like ripe cherries—eat one and you craved another.

      She couldn’t upset Venetia. But she could not stop her work—not when she was in such trouble.

      As she gathered up Tillie Plimpton’s magnum opus and struggled to her feet, she saw Venetia carefully settle on the ironwork bench. “May I take a peek?”

      Maryanne СКАЧАТЬ