Last Rake Standing Read online

  “Oh yes,” came the reply, succinct and immodest. True to form.

  Hands linked at the nape of his neck, fingertips touching the slight curls of his very dark hair, she whispered into his lips, “About that chimney…”

  Before she could finish, he raised her legs and thrust, grunting. Her eyelids flickered shut. Her frilly lace garters rustled against his shirt sleeves as he pounded into her, slick and heated. She felt his teeth nipping her shoulder and the side of her neck. The only sounds were his groans, sharp and quick, her own halting breaths, the sputter of gas lamps, and the protesting creak of the frail, misused lady’s dressing table.

  At one point, he withdrew, leaving her throbbing, swollen with need. He kissed her breasts, tonguing her nipples, his breath scorching her skin, branding her. She shivered, aching to have him back, to feel complete. But he held off, tormenting her as he suckled her breasts, ducking his head from one to the other, while she felt his manhood twitching against her inner thigh. With her legs dangling over his strong arms, she was obliged to wait until he felt inclined to give her what she wanted. Every deliberate sway of his hips brought her one breath closer to screaming, as the broad, bold head of his staff caressed her, taunting her. Finally, impatient and bossy, she urged him in with both hands. He resisted for a few seconds, eyes smoky with brutal desire, then he obeyed her purring demands, filling her in one solid stroke.

  Thighs clasped tight around him, she welcomed every ramming thrust, rode every quivering tremor as he mercilessly played her to the core.

  He remembered his manners enough to withdraw, spending on her silk stockings with a stifled cry, sweat breaking on his forehead.

  Tonight he didn’t immediately move away, but leaned into her, hands on her hips, his face buried in her shoulder. Then, he lifted her, legs still clasped around his waist, and carried her, losing more pink feathers, to the chaise lounge.

  And she knew it wasn’t over yet. He must have given Lucette far more money than the cheeky brat deserved. She had, of course, taught her maid how to negotiate.

  Still slightly breathless, he murmured thoughtfully, “So that’s the chimney cleaned, madam. Now…about the rats in the attic…”

  He didn’t open the door of her cage. He wrenched the bars apart with his bare hands.

  Chapter Two

  He was quite certain Holly O’Neil now belonged to him. After three nights of unbridled, incredible encounters, it went without saying. The woman was now his mistress. He didn’t think he had to spell it out for her.

  It was something of an unhappy surprise, therefore, to have his diamond earrings returned the following evening. They were waiting for him in the box at the theatre when he took his seat. There was a small note attached, written in a very neat, studied hand.

  Sir, Get lost. Sincerely, H.

  Marcus Craven, Duke of Penhale, approved the brevity, not the sentiment.

  He was glad he didn’t have her nerve in a tooth. As he snapped the jewelry box shut, he realized his hands were trembling.

  He couldn’t imagine why she had such a savage hold on him. This had never happened to him before. This level of excitement, this need to see her every night, to devour her until she was a part of him completely, forever.

  Time for more brandy. He’d begun drinking earlier at the Elysium Club. Although the evening was already foggy about the edges, he saw no reason to stop now.

  In fact, Holly O’Neil had just given him more incitement to continue.

  * * * *

  “Really, Sir William, I cannot spend time with you in the country.” Watching her reflection in the cheval mirror, she slid the little glass stopper from the bottle, dabbing it behind each ear, then between her breasts. “Surely your wife would object, monsieur.”

  Standing behind her, the portly gentleman stared into the mirror, following the progress of the glass stopper with his eyes. “My wife? Oh, but she’s going to visit her widowed sister and will be gone a full two weeks.”

  “And while the cat’s away? Tsk Tsk, Sir William.” She shook a playful finger at his reflection, the French accent laid on thickly this evening. “You are too bad.”

  He flushed, grey brows twitching, as if they might take flight from his face. “And the offer of a new wardrobe would not sway your decision? I can provide you with the finest dressmakers in London.”

  She shot him a coy glance over her smooth, bare shoulder. “Monsieur, you are too generous, but I simply cannot.”

  The man fell to his knee beside her dressing table and clasped her hand. “You must at least consider my offer, Miss O’Neil. I beg of you.”

  She thought he must be unhinged to make such a pathetic fool of himself. As she considered jabbing him in the hand with a hairpin, he raised his head, eyes glassy. “Is it true, then?”

  “Monsieur?”

  “That you are Penhale’s mistress? Have I been usurped by that…that…scoundrel?”

  Stunned, she regarded the red-faced man on his knees before her. Now, how did that rumor get out? She should deny it, but she was in a strange mood tonight, not in very good temper with the damned aristocracy, or with men who thought they could possess her. She’d given Penhale his conge tonight rather than risk him getting comfortable in her life. Just because she found him unbearably desirable didn’t mean she should succumb every time he pushed his way into her dressing room. In fact, her unusually warm feelings for the man made it more important that she put a stop to it. Whatever it was, in their case.

  However, this rumor would keep Sir William out of her hair. Duke trumps Knight, of course, she thought acidly. And Penhale trumps just about anything.

  “Mon Dieu!” She sighed. “We are all pawns in the Duke’s game.” With a graceful hand laid demurely against her throat, she assured him of her innocence in the entire matter. “Much as I would enjoy your company, Sir William, I cannot put you at risk of his wrath. I would never forgive myself, if you came to harm at his hands.”

  While he hesitated, fidgeting in a nervous fashion, gaze still pinned to her shoulders, the dressing room door swung open to admit a small mountain of hot-house flowers in every shade from deepest violet to pale primrose. Her maid staggered into the room on two booted feet, one of which she used to kick the door shut. “These men they ‘ave no imagination. Mademoiselle, I think you ‘ave enough flowers ‘ere, eh? No more.”

  She agreed, laughing softly, adjusting the slipped shoulder of her silk robe.

  Sir William scrambled awkwardly to his feet. “The cad thinks he has a right to take whatever he wants, to trample the rest of us, to eschew gentlemanly honor and steal you away.”

  The pile of flowers scattered, some landing on the chaise lounge, some on the floor, and thus emerged a short, disheveled maid, her lace cap knocked askew. “What did you let ‘im in for? I told you that dirty old man wants something ‘e can’t afford.”

  Sir William backed away in outrage. “I have never been so spoken to in my life. Especially by a servant!”

  “I weren’t speakin’ to you,” the maid replied, hands on her waist. “I were talkin’ to Mademoiselle Honnell.”

  “Lucette!” Her mistress stood hastily. “You must forgive my maid, Sir William, her English, it is very bad.” She offered her hand for his kiss, soothing his ruffled spine with her infamous smile. “Bonne nuit, Sir William. I’m flattered by your offer, but, as you see, it is impossible for me to accept…at this time.” Those last three words were enough to keep the flame of hope alive.

  His fleshy, wet lips pressed to her hand, she eased him gently backward across the carpet. Lucette, her expression bored, held the door open for him and then, before he knew it, he was outside in the gas-lit passage. The door was quickly closed in his mottled face and immediately bolted.

  “Lucette, I’ve told you a thousand times it is O’Neil, not Honnell! I know you can pronounce it correctly if you try.”

  The maid screwed up her face. “I don’t know why it can’t be a good French name? Why it ‘as t
o be Irish?”

  “It goes with the red hair and adds to the mystery.” She winced, carefully removing her auburn wig. “And you must not be rude to Sir William.”

  “The sight of ‘is great, ugly pig face makes me rude. I cannot ‘elp myself.”

  Chuckling, she tossed the wig to her maid and turned her attention to the flowers, admiring the fragrant blooms, paying no attention to the cards attached.

  “Oncle Pierre is outside,” Lucette proclaimed in such a tone one might think she announced the imminent arrival of the grim reaper himself. Uncle Peter was actually no relative at all, but Holly’s manager and a considerable pain in the posterior.

  “I’ll see him in five minutes, but no one else tonight. Tell them I have a headache.” After that pest Sir William, she was in no mood for further demure evasion.

  Sidling up to her, Lucette purred, “What about the dark, ‘andsome stranger, mademoiselle? You will see ‘im, if ‘e comes again, eh?”

  “Certainly not,” she muttered, still studying the flowers. “I think you’ve made enough money off him, Lucette. You will not allow him to bribe you again. Understand?” Looking up, she found the maid scowling. “Understand?”

  Lucette sighed. “As you wish, mademoiselle. ’E will be disappointed.”

  “I’m sure he’ll recover.”

  The maid shook her curly blonde head. “Each night ‘e comes to see ‘Olly Honnell, the beautiful Songbird of Paris. ‘E ‘ope to be your favorite, mademoiselle, to win your ‘eart and be your lover. And why? Because you make ‘im think you might be won. You let ‘im believe, but,” she shrugged, “the Songbird of Paris will ‘ave none!” Her sentence was punctuated with a sharp nod.

  “Holly O’Neil,” she replied, correcting the maid’s pronunciation again, “is a very sensible woman. Just like Emma Hale.”

  “Ah yes! But Mademoiselle ‘Olly is a woman most naughteee, and Miss Emma is a woman most proper and dignified, eh? Two lives in one body.” Lucette began putting costumes on hangers and shaking out feathers. “But one day, mademoiselle, you, Emma Hale, will fall in love. And then you must say Bonjour to ‘Olly Honnell.”

  “Must be wonderful to have such romantic optimism,” Emma remarked.

  However, Lucette’s words touched a rare soft-spot. Sometimes her life was dreadfully lonely. It wasn’t the first time she felt this way. Such discontent usually occurred, as Lucette would point out, when her corset was too tight or she found another line on her face.

  Oh Lord. She sat abruptly, flattening a few flowers. She was twenty-eight. Soon she would be thirty. How quickly that number was creeping up on her. She’d hoped to somehow stop the clocks and remain young forever. She placed a hand to her heart. Was it still beating? Barely. Everything would slow down now. Very soon her bosom would droop to her navel; her nipples, once so proud and erect–the subject of a three-page poem written by an admirer–would point to the carpet, dejected and abandoned. Her fine teeth would begin to fall out. Sweeping an anxious tongue around her mouth, she thought she felt them softening already. And there, in the corner of her eye, was a very definite new crease. She traced it with her fingertip. Crow’s feet were coming. Incontinence was not far behind.

  It was a miracle she could still dance across a stage. Certainly no one would pay her to do it in a corset and bloomers very much longer. Although they might pay her to keep her clothes on, she mused. But what else could she do? The first time she allowed Uncle Peter to put her on the stage in Paris it was out of necessity, purely to earn money. She was a girl of seventeen, exiled to France with her troubled brother, and already the family provider. Uncle Peter, who once managed her mother’s career, said she was a natural.

  But what would happen when it ended? Until this moment, the future seemed far away, but now it loomed over her, dark wings spread across the sky. What she needed was a great role to play. The role of a lifetime, something she could really get her teeth into. But who could take her seriously as an actress in bloomers and pink feathers?

  “What’s the matter with you?” Lucette demanded.

  “I’m getting old.”

  The maid laughed. “We’re all gettin’ old, mademoiselle.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been putting it off,” she replied, ripping petals from an apricot rose, scattering them in her lap.

  “But when you’re old and grey, mademoiselle, you can look back at your youth and remember what it was like to be so admired, eh? Your beauty it live on in the memory of all these gentlemen who come to see you. They will remember. Ah yes, they will say, ‘Le Petit Oiseau, the Songbird of Paris, was once the brightest star in ‘eaven. Before she got old’.”

  The maid’s assurances were not quite as comforting as she meant them to be.

  A stout rap on the door interrupted her mournful musings and Lucette sauntered across to open it for Uncle Peter.

  “My dear, you were superb this evening.” He dashed across the room to seize her hands. “I don’t think you’ve ever been so radiant. Just when I think you could not be more beautiful, you surprise me yet again.”

  Twisting away, she moved around the chaise. “When will I be on a proper stage, in a proper role? Wearing clothes?” A familiar discussion, it had long since ceased to be meaningful, but not to partake of it would be like a child not saying his prayers before bed, or a dog not chasing its tail.

  “My dear, you are the most successful female performer on the stage today. What care you for Shakespeare and Marlowe? Those somber roles would not make the most of your…talents.”

  “When we returned to London, you promised me—”

  “The roles you seek will be yours one day and very soon.” Fingers steepled to his lips, he pleaded, “But with the management here willing to pay you so well…could we not harvest a while longer?” When she tossed her head, angrily looking away from him, he added, “After all, no one is breaking down your door to have you play Lady Macbeth.”

  As if she needed any such reminder.

  Still, she went through the motions, reciting her lines. “You’ll squeeze every last penny out of me, uncle. Have you any idea how humiliating it is,” she struck one hand to her brow, “to parade out there every night in my corset?”

  Apparently, he didn’t give it another thought, already he moved on to other subjects. “I saw Sir William in the audience again. A very advantageous acquaintance indeed! I hope you encourage him, Emma.”

  She stormed to her dressing table. “Need I remind you, yet again, that you manage my career, Uncle Peter? Allegedly.” She sat heavily. “You don’t manage my private life.”

  “But Sir William—”

  “Is married. And damned annoying.” She began unpinning her hair. “I don’t encourage married men.”

  He shook his head. “Your mother could pick the best opportunity out of a crowd before the first verse was sung and by the end of the chorus he was hers. She knew how to feather her nest.”

  “I don’t recall our nest being very well feathered when I was a child,” she muttered. “I do, however, remember her sobbing her eyes out every time another lover deserted her. And then I remember you telling her to pull herself together, that there were plenty more fish in the sea.”

  “Well, she had a tendency to lose her heart, didn’t she?” He sniffed, thumbs in his waistcoat pockets as he strode around the flower-strewn chaise. “She was a delicate, fragile soul.” He tossed a frown over his shoulder. “We don’t have to worry about that with you.”

  She laughed. “No, I have tougher skin. And I saw the damage love did to my mother every six months or so.” She’d never been in danger of falling under any man’s spell. Well, not since she was sixteen and perversely pointing a pistol at the man in question.

  “But think, Emma, what you could get, how far you could go, if you encouraged the right man—”

  “If I imagined, for the tiniest minute, you were concerned for my happiness, Uncle Peter, I’d thank you for the advice. But since I know you’re solely motiva
ted by coin, I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of my love life. Again.”

  “Love? No one expects you to fall in love with the man, just keep him enthralled.”

  “It was merely a figure of speech, Uncle Peter. I stopped believing in love when I was seventeen and realized that men aren’t capable of it for more than three minutes at a time.” She handed her hairbrush to Lucette, who stood by her shoulder waiting impatiently. “I wouldn’t expect to find love, anymore than I’d expect a unicorn to bring me my slippers.” She paused, her gaze sliding sideways to where he stood, leafing through the cards from her admirers, probably calculating their net worth. A sudden spur of mischief caused her to add, “And I’ve got bigger fish on my hook than Sir William.”

  He looked up, moustache twitching. “You do?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” She smeared her face with cold cream.

  “Heard? Heard what?” He scratched his moustache with one plump finger.

  “The Duke of Penhale wants to make Le Petit Oiseau his mistress.”

  Peter’s mouth opened. His cheeks flushed cherry pink and she knew he was already thinking how to make the most of the Duke’s interest.

  “Of course, I’ll turn him down. I hear the man’s a notorious rogue. A menace,” she added, briskly wiping away face paint and cold cream with a cloth. Hearing his stifled groan of frustration, she smiled wryly at her reflection and winked at Lucette. “Is that all, uncle?”

  ****

  He dropped the cards, chuntering under his breath about the waste, how she didn’t appreciate what she might have, if she put aside her misplaced scruples. But he couldn’t genuinely complain. That mysterious reserve, the secrecy surrounding Holly O’Neil, only served to inflame the passions of those gentlemen who kept the theatre full each night.

  One hand in his waistcoat pocket, he approached her mirror. “Good takings this week, as always. I suppose you want your share, stubborn wench.”