Any Wicked Thing Page 6

  Now he planned to enslave her to his every need when she had already been subjected to his father’s profligacy and his own indifference. It was almost enough to make him release her from their bargain. Almost.

  “I appreciate your candor and your service, Warren.”

  The old man startled. “Am—am I to be dismissed, Your Grace? I assure you that nothing Miss Frederica sold—”

  “Just from the table,” Sebastian interrupted, pasting on another harmless smile to calm the butler down. Sebastian had spent years perfecting that particular smile. It had never been known to fail, although gentlemen were somewhat less susceptible to it. “I’ll be staying at Goddard Castle for the next month, but I don’t expect any more extraordinary sacrifices from anybody.”

  “We don’t mind, Your Grace.”

  “I do.” His father really had a lot to answer for, leaving him with debilitating debt and Freddie to boot. “Miss Frederica is not going to do any more housekeeping. Make other arrangements, please.”

  The butler fixed his eyes on a molting stag’s head. Clearly his loyalty was conflicted. If Miss Frederica wanted to scour pots, who was he to stop her? Freddie had always been stubborn, a mulish, puggish little brat that Sebastian thought he knew. Until she donned a mask and ruined his life. He’d spent the first six months away waiting to hear he was to be a father. But then, no doubt the pater would have taken care of that with more money, he thought bitterly.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Warren said at last. “Miss Frederica is a lovely young woman. A man would be a fool not to appreciate her virtue.”

  It was not her virtue he was interested in. She had once tried to compromise him in her clumsy, schoolgirl way. He was anxious to turn the tables and show her how it was really done. It would give Sebastian great satisfaction to bring Freddie to vice, corrupt her so completely she’d walk around wet for him all day. He felt the surge of power to his fingertips. How he was to kill the time until a minute past midnight he had no idea.

  He left Warren to clearing the remnants of his dinner, wondering if Freddie was chewing nervously in her room, or if she had abandoned food altogether. Perhaps an après-sex snack would be advisable to tide them both over till breakfast. Sexual activity was hungry work.

  After several wrong turns down dim and dank passageways, he found himself in the sooty kitchen, interrupting the cook, her helper and the two toothless grooms as they sat down to their own dinner. A place had been set for Warren, and Sebastian felt a stab of guilt that he’d delayed the old gent from his meal.

  Once Mrs. Holloway got over the shock of seeing a duke in her realm, she promised to make up a tray for later in the evening and deliver it. The little crew around the long table was most unprepossessing, but they had been loyal to Freddie for the past year and a half under wretched living conditions, apparently with little or no pay. Sebastian felt obliged to pull out a few precious coins from his pocket and ensure them that one day—one day soon—they’d receive pay beyond their room and board. When he had satisfied himself that poor Warren—or worse yet, Freddie—was not going to haul up the requested bathwater personally, Sebastian excused himself. He’d lived in primitive conditions a time or two before—most noticeably when he was incarcerated for eight very long months—and thought he could manage to adapt here for a mere month. There was, after all, the enticing benefit of Frederica Wells’s lush body in his bed.

  With nothing left to arrange for the night’s festivities but his own ablutions, Sebastian returned to his room and dashed off two letters to his friend Cameron Ryder and Lord Sanderson and sealed them with his father’s ring. He was still not used to the weight of it on his hand, its etched sapphire reminding him of Freddie’s smoky blue eyes. He closed his own eyes and pictured her as he’d last seen her, looking as if she wished him to Jericho.

  Her hair, when it came down to it, was brown. Her blue-gray eyes were surrounded by half-and-half eyelashes, dark at the base but pale at the tips. She was still short, but her bosom was even more spectacular than he remembered. The rest of her was more voluptuous than was in fashion—she was no sylph. But she had a fine mouth, pink and sweet when it wasn’t tossing out barbs against his lack of morals. He could see that mouth around his cock now. He would see it there in just a few hours.

  The two grooms huffed and puffed into his room with a folding wooden tub. After several more trips up the winding stairs, Sebastian had a few inches of tepid water to wash some of his sins away. He was just drying himself with a threadbare towel when he heard a bloodcurdling shriek echoing against the castle walls. Freddie. He didn’t bother with his robe. There was a demoiselle in distress.

  Chapter 7

  It was nothing—nothing—like the last time. It was worse.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF FREDERICA WELLS

  Freddie’s room was a floor below his, the door standing conveniently open so he wouldn’t need a battering ram. She, however, was nowhere to be seen. He called her name, but there was no reply. Feeling somewhat foolish and extremely naked, he looked behind curtains and under the untouched bed for her. A candle flickered on her desk, revealing that she had been laboring over their contract. Her handwriting was scrupulously legible, fitting for the daughter of a secretary. He noted June the first as the date Goddard Castle was to be transferred to her.

  “Devil take it,” he muttered. Was she playing a trick on him again? Did she think she’d somehow avoid his embrace by frightening him to death and running away? He was about to pick up the candle and expand his search when he heard a little gasp.

  “Sebastian! What are you doing here? It’s not yet midnight.”

  Freddie stood on the threshold, arms folded over her chest, her long hair in the two neat schoolgirl braids he remembered. She wore a night rail with a thousand tiny buttons that marched right up to her chin. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen a more welcome or seductive sight.

  “Damn it, Freddie! I thought something happened to you. Why did you scream? I believe you must have taken a few years off my life.” He covered his heart, but Freddie’s eyes were elsewhere.

  “Oh, that. I didn’t scream. You are not dressed,” she said as an afterthought.

  “I thought your life was in danger. It hardly seemed worthwhile to don my breeches if I was required to save you in a timely fashion.”

  “How gallant. But I am perfectly fine. You really should . . . put some clothes on.” She stared at him for just another moment, causing his spine to straighten and his chest to swell slightly. He knew he was fit. Riding, fencing and long bouts of daytime and nocturnal sex kept him in excellent shape. He was somewhat disappointed when she raised her eyes and resolutely focused on the top of his head. She might be shy when it came to his body, but that bloodcurdling noise didn’t seem to disturb her at all.

  “What was that ghastly racket, then?”

  She flicked a braid over her shoulder and smiled. “You mean ghostly racket. Just one of the Archibald Walkers, I expect.”

  “What?”

  “You know we have ghosts. Your father was rather proud of them.”

  “Rubbish and rot.” Warren had alluded to the same thing, but Sebastian paid no attention. He didn’t believe people wouldn’t come to work here because of ghosts, but rather because of the likely chance they’d perish under falling debris. Sebastian certainly did not believe in ghosts himself. The only white drifty thing he wanted to see was Freddie’s night rail dropping to the floor.

  “I quite agree. I think if the wind kicks up a certain way through the arrow loops, the resulting sound is the noise you heard. It’s rather chilling, isn’t it? No wonder we can’t get the locals to work here—they’re a superstitious lot. They say the last earl is still wandering about the castle searching for his germinal francs. Or gold bars or jewels—whatever Napoleon paid him to betray his country.”

  Sebastian snorted. “If there’s any treasure to be found here, I’m the King of England.”

  She wagged a schoolmistressy finger. “M
ore treason.”

  “Where were you?”

  Freddie lowered her eyes. “The garderobe.”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “You know, the privy, Your Grace. With regular applications of lime, they’re still perfectly functional. We’ve upgraded from hay to rags, however.”

  How barbaric. The sooner he got away from this heap, the better. His father may have preferred to live like a feudal lord, but Sebastian was a thoroughly modern man, although his droit du seigneur was stirring—the right of the landed lord to sleep with the bride before the groom, or indeed any of his vassals at any time he chose. Sebastian knew that was more medieval nonsense, though. The custom was unproven, word of it likely spread about so the peasants would revolt against the casual cruelty of their lords. More often than not, the lord was probably paid a tax in lieu of sexual congress, but Sebastian didn’t think any amount of money would stop him from wanting to fuck Freddie.

  Sebastian considered himself an expert on obscure sexual practices, and knew of several other methods for a bride to lose her virginity—one, for example, by her publicly mounting a fertility statue’s phallus. It was even, God help the poor girl, part of the marriage ceremony, her blood or lack thereof witnessed by the wedding guests. But he wouldn’t have to worry about that with Freddie. He’d already relieved her of her virginal barrier.

  Freddie raised her chin. Her nightgown had been washed many times, rendering it almost transparent in just the right places, but she might as well have been wearing a queen’s robe. Her innocent braids begged for unraveling, but she held herself like the virtuous chatelaine of the castle. She stepped away from the doorway, her velvet slippers soundless on the cold stone floor.

  “I still have over an hour until midnight, Your Grace, and I’ve not quite finished the wording on the bill of sale. Of course, a solicitor will draw up the actual document, but this is between us. If you would be so kind as to leave—” Her voice was cool and dismissive.

  She had bottom, he’d give her that. It was not every spinster who could converse with a nude man with such aplomb, but perhaps she’d taken other lovers after him and was used to the sight of a man’s cock. Apart from the first few seconds of their encounter, she had not inspected his manly parts, which were rising to the occasion with alarming insistence despite the chilly temperature in the room. Her eyes had risen to his and were watchful. Soon they would be half-lidded in rapture.

  His blood was still hot from his earlier sense that Freddie was in danger. An hour seemed like an eternity to wait, and he didn’t want to. He would not be bound by an arbitrary time. It was a minute after midnight somewhere.

  “No.

  “Oh, I’ll leave your room, but you will come with me. There’s a fire in mine. Wine.” He held out a hand. “Come, Freddie. It’s pointless to delay.”

  She clenched the fabric of her night rail. Her hands were reddened and ink-stained, a pity when the rest of her was so perfect.

  “I—I’m not ready.”

  “We can iron out the details of the castle business in daylight, my dear. Let’s not waste any more of our first night together.”

  She made no effort to take his outstretched hand. If she could not come to him willingly, whether out of fear or aversion or pride, he would make her decision for her.

  A minute ticked by, and his arm grew weary. Just as he determined to sweep her up and carry her up to his beast’s lair, she took one shaky step toward him.

  “I do not plan to enjoy myself,” she said.

  Sebastian had always enjoyed a challenge. The more she fought him, the better he’d like it—and so would she. He knew every button to push, every lace to knot, every kiss to corrupt. She’d be screaming for him within a quarter of an hour, or he wasn’t the God of Sin.

  Chapter 8

  Kissing the back of one’s hand is a poor substitute for the real thing.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF FREDERICA WELLS

  Frederica marveled at her composure. She had barely batted an eye when she found Sebastian poking about her room. Poking was the operative word—his member looked like a dowsing rod that had located a vast underground river. She had fixed her eyes on his damp midnight hair, but the rest of him was all too visible. To think he had come naked and gleaming to her rescue, when all he would do in the end was bring her to grief.

  She was used to the peculiar noises of Goddard Castle but had not thought to warn the new duke. Maybe she should have claimed an army of ghosts resided here to drive him south. But he didn’t strike her as a man who feared much of anything. He was certainly fierce enough now, looking at her as though he wanted to gobble her up.

  Frederica was acutely aware of her threadbare nightgown and her childish hair. She had wanted to deter him with her appearance, but it seemed she’d have to be covered in sackcloth and ashes to repel Sebastian Goddard. He was hard for her standing half a room away. She ought to be flattered, but as evil Mrs. Carroll had said, he fucked anything.

  She’d been a naïve child the last time she’d seen him naked, and had been hopelessly impressed with every decadent scrap of him then. If the planes and angles of his face caused her heart to stir now, his body had more than lived up to its early promise. He was broad and well muscled, without an ounce of fat. He looked as though he could defend her from ghosts or dragons or anything inconvenient. Except for himself.

  Oh, she was naïve now, entering into this ridiculous agreement with him. And for what? The uncertain roof over her head? But it was too late. She took another step forward. And then another.

  He pressed his thumbs to her cheeks, his fingers resting lightly on her temples. His pupils were huge, black as his soul—if he still had one—ringed in dark, fathomless green. She longed to touch the bump on the bridge of his nose, the only imperfection she could detect in his shadowed face. He was whispering something scandalous, but she couldn’t listen for watching his lips move. Then he smiled and slanted them over hers, the soft strength of them warm and insistent. Her mouth opened in protest and his tongue traced the seam of her top lip slowly, as if he were measuring by touch, calculating the inches of pink. He did the same to her bottom lip, shocking her with his gentleness.

  When they’d last kissed, he’d tasted of too much brandy and smelled of sweet smoke. Tonight there was the merest hint of wine. His clean skin was scented with the rose petal soap she had made herself from the overgrown canes that tumbled over the outer wall. What should have been feminine had been converted into something else altogether—he’d captured the briar as well as the bud. She hoped to steady herself with a deep breath, but instead was swept away to the wild roses and the heat of last summer. Her skin beneath the pressure of his fingertips tingled as he drew her closer, his mouth skimming effortlessly over hers, brushing, savoring. There was nothing to do but meet his tongue and shiver as he tore her defenses down lick by wicked lick.

  She felt herself sway, and reached for something to hold on to, although she was still sweetly trapped between his hands. She should touch him, if only to feel his smooth brown chest or span his narrow hips or tousle his curling dark hair. But there was no safe place to touch that wouldn’t scorch her as he brought her to him, his velvet mouth angled expertly so that even the corners of her lips received attention.

  Frederica had dreamed of kisses like this, though doubted their existence. How odd that her oldest friend and newest enemy was the man to prove her wrong. He lulled her into discomfiting comfort, banishing all thoughts with the steady skills of his tongue and teeth. His fingers slipped through her hair, loosening the braids. Her scalp tickled as he massaged her head, and she felt a wash of heat down her neck. Her nightgown was suddenly too heavy, too warm, her arms useless at her sides, her knees weak. Sebastian seemed to know the exact moment of her capitulation, broke the kiss and lifted her from the floor.

  “I’m going to carry you upstairs now and take you to bed. Fuck you.”

  His voice was rough, barely above a whisper. Frederica nodded
. She could not have whispered herself if her life depended upon it. Her hand went to her swollen lips, still so sensitive that her own fingers sent shots of longing through her. He held her as if she weighed nothing and climbed the circular stairs. His room blazed with light—too much light. The scent of her rose soap was strong. The tub was still centered in front of a roaring fire, the dropped towel on the carpet. The least he could have done before he came downstairs to slay her was wrap up in it. No mortal woman could withstand his male beauty for long. It had taken just one kiss—one consummate, carnal kiss—for Frederica to lose every shred of sanity.

  He set her down on the edge of the bed and wordlessly began the arduous process of unbuttoning her. Frederica raised her arms and he pulled the garment over her head. Despite the blaze from the fireplace, her nipples pebbled to aching peaks. Sebastian flicked a thumb across one, his face shuttered.

  Was he disappointed with what he saw? She was not powdered now—she’d had her own anticipatory bath—and tiny freckles spangled her torso and beyond. He cupped both her heavy breasts in the welcome heat of his palms, then dropped to his knees. He peeled her slippers off her feet and now she was as bare as he.

  His black curls were drying in riotous disorder. She reached briefly for the silk of his hair, wishing hers was not such a prosaic brown. Wishing she were not so afraid. Wishing she hadn’t wished for this night for years. If wishes were horses, she’d be riding away from here right now. But there was nowhere for her to go, and nothing for her to do but sit, waiting for Sebastian’s next move.

  It didn’t take him long to make it. He parted her legs so that the brown of her nether hair was completely visible. His face was so close, his stare so hard, she wanted to snap her legs back together in embarrassment. His hands gripped her hips and he brought her to the very edge of the mattress. Her bottom slid easily on the ruby satin of the bedcovers and she almost tumbled headlong to the stone floor. But he stopped her in the nick of time, his fingers splaying deep into her flesh. She might see the fingerprints of his ownership on her tomorrow, as she bruised easily. The thought was somehow wickedly appealing, the secret of their night visible on her skin.