“Lisette?” she whispered. “He appears to be scarred.”
Lisette shrugged. “A lot of Englishmen look like that; it’s a legacy of their public school education.” She patted Marguerite’s arm. “I promised to meet David; come and find me when you’ve finished watching.”
Marguerite waved a distracted good-bye and returned her attention to the room. How barbaric the English upper class were, sending their boys away from home at such a young age and leaving them to the tender mercies of men who often didn’t have their best interests at heart.
She watched the man suckle the woman’s breasts, wondered how he managed to stay so erect for so long. In her limited experience, men came far too quickly. A deep longing stirred inside her, and her womb clenched, releasing its own cream as the man reversed his position and settled to lick and finger the woman’s sex again.
She wanted that feeling so badly. With a furtive look up and down the narrow passageway, she slipped her hand through the pocket opening of her dress, pushed her petticoat out of the way and settled her fingers over her mound. Oh, God, she was so wet, so ready to be taken . . . Her body easily yielded to allow two of her fingers inside.
Could she treat Anthony like this? Tell him what she wanted, make him go down to his knees and service her? The last time she’d tried to be sexually adventurous had proved a disaster. Memories of Justin and his friend Sir Harry Jones assailed her, the terrible complexities of unrequited love. Was she brave enough to try again?
The red-haired woman started to come, her cries filling the room. Marguerite climaxed too, closing her eyes against the ecstasy in the woman’s face as she sucked the man’s cock to completion. There was power in this for a woman, but was she prepared to wield it again?
When she found the courage to look back into the room again, the man had gone, leaving the woman on the bed. Her satisfied smile made Marguerite jealous. Trying to pretend that her intimate life had died with Justin hadn’t worked at all. She had to come to terms with her needs and find what she wanted.
Marguerite brought her fingers to her lips and inhaled her own scent. She wanted to make a man beg for her, but she wanted to be made to beg even more. The salacious thought shocked her to the core. Was she more like her mother than she had ever imagined? Did she still crave the forbidden, the sinful, the unknown?
With a moan, Marguerite ripped off her mask and stumbled along the passageway, her hand on the wall to aid her flight. She pushed open the door that led back into the main hallway and collided with a hard male body.
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
“Marguerite?”
She looked up into Anthony’s surprised face and wanted to cry. Of all the people to meet at this embarrassing moment of self-revelation, why did it have to be him?
7
“I was looking for my sister.”
Marguerite blurted the words out as Anthony stared down at her. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked on the verge of tears. Her slender body shook in his arms. A silver mask fell from her fingers, and she made no move to pick it up. He glanced back at the door she’d exited from.
“In there?”
She pulled out of his grasp and ineffectually patted her hair. “I just took a shortcut to avoid walking along the main corridor alone. I’m not really supposed to be here tonight.”
“Neither am I.”
She started back along the hallway, almost running in her eagerness to get away from him, but he kept after her, his gaze fixed on the back of her head.
“Marguerite, will you slow down?”
She came to an abrupt halt and turned on him.
“Why? Do you want to tell me what you are doing here? Didn’t you say you wanted to keep away from this place?”
Unaccustomed resentment filled him. Dammit, he’d come here for her.
“You said you never came here at all.”
She walked off again, reached the main staircase and started down to the main salons. He followed her, catching her arm at the bottom of the stairs.
“Marguerite, are you angry because I am here or because I found you here?”
She glared up at him. “Both.”
Well at least she was being honest. He drew her away from the staircase toward the servants’ door.
“I’m sure you have a key to the private areas of the house. Let’s go through here.”
He followed her onto the darkened landing beyond the greenbaize-covered door and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The starkness of his new surroundings was a huge contrast to the lavishness of the salons.
“Men are such deceivers.”
“Not all men, and who says I was deceiving you?”
Her eyes flashed a challenge at him. “You’ve had sex. I can smell it on you.”
“I didn’t, really, I was just . . .”
Hell, his explanation sounded weak even to his own ears. He could hardly tell her he’d been improving his technique for her benefit. Marguerite took three steps away from him, her shoulders rigid, and her arms hugging her waist.
“Why didn’t you have sex with me?”
He struggled not to gawp at her. “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I have turned into a figure of fun. A lonely widow who can’t do without a man in her bed. A woman reduced to arguing with a man about why he won’t have sex with her.”
“I don’t quite follow you.”
She swung around to face him. “Of course you don’t; you’re a man.”
He spread his hands wide. “What do you want me to say, Marguerite? I’m sorry that I’m a man, I’m sorry that I didn’t immediately put you over my shoulder, climb the stairs and ravish you on our first meeting?”
“Now you are being absurd.”
“Then help me understand.”
She slowly raised her head. In the dim light, tears glinted in the corners of her fine eyes. “I told you I loved my husband so much that I couldn’t contemplate bedding another man.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“And yet the first time you kissed me, I kissed you back.”
He inclined his head. “You did.”
“And then . . . then I sucked your cock.”
He leaned back against the wall, tried to appear relaxed even as his body responded to that intimate memory. “Yes.”
“I lied to myself because I was afraid to admit I liked being bedded far more than a lady should.” She grimaced. “I want to be a chaste and pure widow, but I can’t seem to stop wanting.”
“I’m sure your mother would say that a woman is entitled to just as much enjoyment in bed as a man.”
She went still. “And do you agree with her?”
He shrugged. “Of course.”
“But it feels wrong to have such brazen thoughts, to want something so . . . basic.”
“Why?”
She looked at him and then away. “Because sex is such a powerful thing. Strong emotions can ruin people’s lives.”
“Are you thinking about your husband again?”
“No, about myself and my mother. The passion she and Philip shared almost destroyed her.”
“But she found love with him, didn’t she, so wasn’t it all worth it?”
“For her, perhaps. For her children, it meant a lifetime of separation, of not knowing.” She sighed. “Please don’t misunderstand me, I have nothing but admiration for my mother, but I swore to myself that I would live a more conventional life and avoid grand passions if I could.”
Silence fell between them as he contemplated her. “Do you think your needs will shock me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Marguerite, nothing shocks me.”
She tried to smile. “I doubt it.”
“And what, if you were to be completely honest at this particular moment, would you want from me?”