The truth was undeniable now. Ash had been lured into the spiders’ web, and now he found himself at the center of delicately woven conspiracy.
A sham sandwich, indeed. One that sat on a tray of lies.
Penny leafed through the broadsheets. “Oh, look! ‘Thousand-Pound Donation to War Widows Fund Credited to Monster of Mayfair.’” She turned over another. “‘Monster of Mayfair Turns Cruel Taskmaster Out of Workhouse. London’s Downtrodden Cheer.’”
She picked up the next sheet and, instead of reading it, turned it face-out to display the headline.
Ash grabbed the broadsheet from her hand and regarded it with horror. “‘Monster of Mayfair Saves Puppies from Burning Storehouse’?”
This . . . this was an outrage.
Widows. Downtrodden.
Puppies.
Someone was chipping away at the legend he’d so carefully constructed. He took the stack of broadsheets and leafed through them, skimming the stories themselves. A pattern of suspiciously similar phrases began to emerge.
This paper has it on the highest authority . . .
An anonymous source of great repute . . .
“The pups wouldn’t cease licking him in gratitude,” a lady of Quality reports . . .
So. Emma and her friends hadn’t merely collected these stories. They’d concocted them, the little coven of witches.
“It’s just as we suspected.” Miss Mountbatten grinned. “The so-called monster is merely misunderstood.”
“If you want to know my opinion . . .” Emma began.
“I don’t,” he muttered.
“I don’t think he’s a monster at all,” she finished. “In fact, I heard that he stopped by a foundling home with great sacks of sweets, and that they mobbed him with hugs and kisses. I suspect that will be in the broadsheets tomorrow.”
“I suspect,” he said through a tight smile, “there will be a story of a duchess and her three accomplices jailed for slander.”
After a brief pause, the four ladies broke into simultaneous laughter.
Penny offered him the odious tray of edible deceit. “Do take another sandwich, Ash. Or was it lambkin?”
“It’s starshine, I believe,” Miss Mountbatten said.
“No, no,” Miss Teague said. “I could have been certain it was hot cross bun.”
As they all slipped into giggling again, Ash accepted the sandwich and arrowed a look at his wife.
Emma sipped her tea, casting him a coy smile over the cup’s rim.
Just you wait, he thought, taking a resentful bite of vegetable falsehood. Just you wait until we get home.
Chapter Twenty-One
As it happened, Ash had no opportunity to hold his wife to account for her perfidy. The moment they passed through the door of her suite, she closed the door behind them and pinned him to it, drawing him down by the neck for an enthusiastic kiss.
“Thank you,” she said. “You were wonderful.”
“It was nothing.”
And truly, it hadn’t been much of an imposition. Once all their merciless teasing was out of the way, he’d even enjoyed himself.
“I can’t believe you ate two of those dreadful sandwiches.”
Correction: He’d enjoyed himself—save for that.
But he would eat “sham” twice a day without complaint, if it meant coming home to this. Emma’s hands—and even better, her lips—were all over him.
She tugged his cravat loose and unbuttoned his waistcoat. He did his part to assist, shaking off his topcoat and tossing it . . . somewhere. He didn’t bother to look.
Emma slithered down his body, then sank to her knees before him. She undid his trousers, pushing them down his thighs. His erection sprang free, all but begging for her attention. With one hand, she lifted the hem of his shirt, pushing the excess flat against his abdomen. She took his shaft in the other, rubbing her thumb up and down the underside.
She licked her lips and bent forward.
“Wait,” he choked out.
She paused.
Why? Why had he said that?
“It’s not kissing,” she said with a coy arch of her eyebrow. “It’s licking. And sucking. Won’t you like it?”
“That’s . . . not in question,” he said firmly. Firmly in many senses of the word. “But we’re supposed to be procreating. I can’t make your mouth pregnant. Strictly speaking, this is outside our agreement.”
“So what will you do?” She looked up at him, amused. “Bring a suit in Chancery? Your Honor, my wife dared to unclothe me. She proceeded to caress my person, with both hands and lips, against our sworn agreement to the contrary.”
“Emma, you . . .”
“And then”—she gave a theatrical gasp—“the disobedient wench did place her mouth on my engorged staff.”
She gave him a slow, exploratory lick.
“Jesus.”
She backed off, lifting an eyebrow. “My, my. Such blasphemy. Is that in Shakespeare?”
He gritted his teeth. “Second Henry the IV, act two, scene two.”
“Really? Interesting.” She brushed a light, feathery kiss to the very tip of his cock.
God. Ash’s hands clenched to fists at his sides. He couldn’t take much more of this.
When she bent toward him again, her lips pursed for another teasing kiss, he grasped her by the hair. “Enough.”
“Enough.”
Emma gasped as he twisted his hand in her hair. His grip tugged on a thousand nerve endings at once.
“Enough,” he growled again.
She understood his meaning.
Enough talking. Enough teasing. She was meant to get on with it.
Whatever “it” entailed.
Emma wasn’t precisely certain what she’d started, but she would have rather died than ask. The basic idea seemed self-evident, even if the subtleties of technique were beyond her experience. Judging by her own responses to his lovemaking, it was hard to go wrong where licking was involved.
Casting her eyes upward to gauge his reaction, she traced tentative circles about the tip of his staff with her tongue. Beneath her hand, his abdominal muscles became washboard ridges. He arched his hips, nudging at her lips with the broad head of his erection. She took her cue from the inarticulate plea, taking him into her mouth.
He moaned, slumping back against the door. “Yes. Just like that.”
She loved the taste of him, musky and male, and the feel of him—stroking against her palm with silky softness, and filling her grip with need that was impatient and hard. She loved the way his breathing changed, and the deep, ragged sound she pulled from his chest as she took him deeper.
Most of all, she loved the power. He was helpless with desire, exposed to her, pleading and vulnerable. At her mercy. Triumph sang through her body with his every gasp and groan.
She glanced up and found him looking down at her, his eyes glazed with desire and his teeth gritted. Since he seemed to enjoy watching, she used her free hand to push aside her fichu and offer him a view of her breasts. Feeling naughty, she trailed a fingertip along the exposed curves, dipping into her cleavage.
“God. God.” His thighs tensed, and she abandoned coyness in favor of a brisk rhythm. She knew he had to be close to his peak. “Emma, I—”
He pulled his cock free of her lips. Putting his grip over hers, he worked her hand up and down in a furious rhythm. His breath came harsh and rough until at last he found release.
In the aftermath, he fell back against the door, gasping for breath. Emma used her discarded fichu to clean her bosom. He reached down to cup her chin in his hand, tilting her face gently so that she looked up at him.
“For that,” he said, “I would have eaten a hundred of those sandwiches.”
She smiled.
He helped her to her feet, then yanked up his own trousers. Together they stumbled to the bed.
“That was . . . indescribable.”
“It was my pleasure.” And that was the truth. She felt quite satisfied with herself and empowered to an unprecedented degree. She rolled onto her belly and propped herself up on her elbows. “So we’ve been to tea. Where shall we go next? It’s your turn to choose.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”