Claimed by the Marquis Read online

  For once, Rose had chosen to remain silent, possibly because she could see how discomforted Sally was.

  “What do you mean by beside himself?” She could not imagine Nicholas being anything other than completely in control of any situation.

  “Well, he was only half-dressed, for one thing—”

  “Rose!”

  The maid grinned cheekily. “And to think I was starting to worry you would never find a man as suited you—”

  “Rose!” It was more of a groan this time than a genuine protest; Rose had been with her for so long, had shared so many of Sally’s confidences, that it was impossible for Sally to be truly offended by the young woman’s familiarity.

  As expected, Rose remained unabashed. “He certainly is a fine figure of a man. Those shoulders alone are enough to set a woman’s pulse racing— Oh, very well, I’ll stop there, my lady.” She chuckled as Sally gave another groan. “But he was certainly worried about you last night.” She sobered. “He walked you up and down your bedchamber for hours, insisted on bathing your face after you was sick, and then sent me off to bed once we knew you was out of danger. Said he would sit up with you himself. He’s a true gentleman, is His Lordship, and not one to run off when things get a bit unpleasant.”

  “Why, Rose, I do believe you have a slight infatuation for him yourself.” It was now Sally’s turn to tease.

  Her maid blushed. “What, a cat can’t look at a king?”

  “I am only teasing, Rose dear,” she assured gently. “In all probability, you and His Lordship are responsible for saving my life last night.”

  Rose frowned. “What do you think happened?”

  “I no more have the answer to that than you do, Rose.” She frowned. “Except to keep insisting the laudanum was not mine, nor did I take it knowingly.”

  Her maid nodded. “I told His Lordship as much.”

  “So he told me.” Sally squeezed Rose’s hand in gratitude.

  “I half expected him to still be with you this morning…” Rose raised speculative eyebrows.

  Nicholas had wished to remain with Sally until morning. She was the one who had insisted he must sleep in his own, adjoining, bedchamber.

  She had wanted to be alone. Had needed time to think of all that had happened the previous evening. And she could not do that with Nicholas in the room, even sleeping in a chair beside her bed as he had suggested he would if she was averse to him sharing her bed.

  Sally was not averse to his sharing her bed, far from it. She just knew she would not be able to think with Nicholas so close.

  Not that thinking had done her any good.

  To think of her time with Nicholas only made her blush and long for more. For all she had read and looked at her grandmother’s books, knew the mechanics of lovemaking, she had not realized it was also so…intimate. That it was possible to feel such a connection to another person. To Nicholas. He had been inside her, a part of her, and she could feel him there still…

  To force herself to think of almost dying instead from an overdose of laudanum was to acknowledge that someone here at Oxbridge House disliked her enough to make her very ill at the least, or kill her at the worst.

  The only name that still came to mind, all these hours later, was Mrs. Jackson. And Sally was suffused with guilt for even thinking of the other woman in such a context. Mrs. Jackson was a widow, her husband a war hero who had saved Nicholas’s life, prompting him to offer her employment in one of his homes. Even if the other woman had developed a crush on her own savior, that was surely no reason for her to wish to harm Sally. Much as it pained her to think of it, Sally knew her time here with Nicholas would be over soon enough.

  After last night, she felt that it must be sooner rather than later.

  For several reasons.

  She now knew she was in love with Nicholas. She not merely desired him, but loved him. He was everything she could possibly want in a man. He was roguishly handsome. In public, he was very much the gentleman and treated everyone accordingly. In the privacy of the bedchamber, Nicholas was as wild and tempestuous as she was, and yesterday, the two of them had made love as total equals, both giving and both taking. How could she not have fallen in love with him?

  No matter how much Sally might try to wish it were not so, she believed someone had tried to harm her last night because of that relationship. What other reason could there possibly be?

  The situation here at Oxbridge Park was also changed. Nicholas’s mother and her Cousin Maud were now in residence, and in the circumstances, Sally felt it would be for the best if she did not remain to cause Nicholas any embarrassment in front of his relatives. It was—

  “What are you doing out of bed?”

  This habit Nicholas had of walking in when she was bathing, and so finding her at a disadvantage, was becoming irritating. Especially when he was fully dressed and handsome as sin!

  Looking at him, no one would believe he had been awake until almost three o’clock this morning. His overlong dark hair was brushed back from his face, jaw freshly shaven, and he wore a black superfine over a deep green waistcoat and snowy white linen, with gray pantaloons, and highly polished black Hessians.

  He looked every inch the arrogant and haughty Marquis of Oxbridge this morning.

  Whereas Sally was once again caught wearing only a towel!

  Sally ignored his question and asked one of her own. “What are you doing here?”

  He arched one eyebrow. “I brought up your breakfast tray, expecting you to still be abed.” There was no mistaking the censure in those dark green eyes. “Which you should be. You nearly died yesterday—”

  “Thank you, Rose, that will be all for now.” Sally smiled at her maid, waiting until the other woman had left—reluctantly—before turning back to Nicholas. “Much as I appreciate your…assistance last night,” she said dismissively, “you really cannot keep walking in on me uninvited like this.”

  “No?” Nicholas knew exactly why Sally felt that way. With her golden hair once again loose about her shoulders, and wrapped only in a white towel, she felt vulnerable, exposed.

  Which she was, of course. She also looked decidedly fragile this morning. Her face was pale, golden eyes heavy, with dark bruises beneath them, no doubt from a lack of sleep. There was also a slight redness to the skin on her shoulders and the tops of her breasts, he was sure had been caused by the stubble on his chin during their lovemaking yesterday. And a bruise he couldn’t see as yet between her thighs? Nicholas’s mark. His claim.

  No matter how waspish Sally chose to be today, Nicholas had claimed her yesterday. She was his, damn it.

  “I have decided to leave Oxbridge Park today,” she informed him briskly.

  “No.”

  “No…?” She looked startled at his response.

  “No.” Nicholas stepped farther into the dressing room, a frown creasing his brow as Sally instinctively took a step back. “You cannot go anywhere until we get to the bottom of this situation. You are safer here, where I can protect you.” The thought of Sally leaving today was enough to bring out violent tendencies Nicholas had not known he possessed.

  “You said you have brought me up a breakfast tray?” she enquired slowly.

  Nicholas had come to appreciate this woman’s intelligence this past week, but even so, he could have wished it was not so sharp at this moment. “I checked with Rose last night, and the only thing you ingested yesterday afternoon—which is the time period the doctor indicated for the laudanum to have affected you as it did—was tea from the pot I delivered to your room.”

  “And?”

  “And last night, I had no idea you had not taken the laudanum yourself, and I had Rose remove the tea tray on her way to bed. The pot has since been cleaned, and so I am unable to confirm whether or not the laudanum was in the tea.” Not that he could have expected anything else from his efficient household staff, but it was bloody frustrating, nonetheless.

  “Who touched the pot besides yoursel
f?”

  “Cook, or more likely one of her kitchen maids, will have made the tea.”

  “I have never met any of them.”

  “Mrs. Jackson was bringing the tray up to you when I interceded.”

  “I have met Mrs. Jackson.”

  Nicholas gave her a sharp glance. “I refuse to believe her capable of such a thing.”

  “No one else touched the tea besides yourself?”

  “I am not sure… I was distracted for a minute or two on my way upstairs,” he explained at Sally’s questioning glance. “My mother wished to speak with me, and I left the tray out in the hallway during that conversation.”

  Sally sighed. “So anyone could have poured the foul concoction into my teapot, and I unwittingly disguised any taste of it when I added sugar to the brew.”

  He nodded. “Until I know otherwise, everything you ingest in future will be brought to you by either Rose or myself. After we have first watched it being prepared.”

  She frowned. “That seems a lot of trouble for you both to go to on my behalf. It really would be for the best if I left—”

  “I said no,” Nicholas bit out evenly. The thought of Sally leaving here, not knowing if she was still in danger, was totally unacceptable to him.

  “But—”

  “Besides which, you have not even begun the task you came here to do.” He forced his voice to lighten to teasing and was rewarded by the blush that now stained Sally’s cheeks.

  Her eyes widened. “You wish me to continue with my suggestion of sketching you?”

  “Unclothed.” He nodded.

  The blush deepened. “Yes.”

  He shrugged. “I have nothing pressing I need to do this morning.”

  Sally swallowed. She had obviously already seen Nicholas completely naked, but the circumstances under which she had done so had been completely different to having him remove all his clothing and pose nude while she sketched.

  “I would like you to leave your hair loose, and I choose your gown as the first piece of clothing you remove,” Nicholas drawled. “Or, as it happens, you need not go to the bother of putting one on.”

  Chapter 19

  She lives still!

  Even now, Nicholas is again alone with the woman in her bedchamber. No doubt the two of them are indulging in more of the same lewd behavior from yesterday. I am still in shock from the things that I saw, the things they did together.

  Sadly, I can no longer hold Nicholas as being completely blameless.

  He must want to be with this woman. Must desire her more than he has the others, to spend so much time alone with her.

  What am I to do about it is the question I must now ask myself. Nicholas’s behavior is reprehensible, and I believe he is now as deserving of punishment as the woman.

  What form should this punishment take, I wonder.

  It is doubtful I will be able to get away with putting laudanum in the teapot a second time; Nicholas refused to allow anyone to so much as touch the breakfast tray he brought up to the woman earlier, even went so far as to stand in the kitchen while Cook prepared it.

  Then perhaps there is another way I might punish him? Because Nicholas must be punished.

  He must!

  I cannot tolerate his hurtful and disloyal behavior a moment longer.

  Chapter 20

  Sally’s cheeks had a permanent heat in them as she sat on the chair in her bedchamber, her sketch pad on her knees, and wearing only her chemise and corset over silk stockings. The chemise was made of a sheer material, and the corset pushed her breasts upward so that they spilled over the top of her thigh-length chemise. She felt totally exposed.

  Nicholas lay sprawled across the bed in front of her. Completely and magnificently naked.

  She had managed to avoid watching as he stripped off his clothing, having remained in the adjoining dressing room to put on the few clothes their agreement had allowed. So it had been something of a shock when she entered the bedchamber and saw he was lying on the bed waiting for her and wearing not a stitch of clothing.

  A shock, quickly followed by a rush of desire, which had threatened to buckle her knees beneath her. He was all hard and defined muscles, his skin a light golden color all over, with that light dusting of hair on his muscular chest veeing down to the thicker thatch of dark curls encircling his cock.

  “I think, as the sketch is for your erotica collection, that my cock should be fully aroused.” Nicholas reclined comfortably back against the pillows as he took his semi-aroused cock in hand and began a leisurely pumping motion, running from top to bottom in slow and measured strokes. “Do you agree?”

  Sally’s mind had gone blank and her mouth dry as instead of continuing with her sketch, she watched the lazy up-and-down caress of Nicholas’s encircling fingers on his rapidly hardening cock.

  There was a familiarity to the stroking motion, as if Nicholas had done it a hundred times before—and possibly he had. He was nine and thirty, would have been sexually active for many years. The act of giving himself pleasure would be as natural to him now as drinking his morning cup of tea.

  Except he was not drinking tea but deliberately and assuredly bringing his cock to a state of arousal that caused the veins to engorge to an almost impossible thickness along its length, and the bulbous head to become slick with the juices dripping from its slit.

  His breath hitched slightly in his throat. “I could do this all day while looking at you dressed like that. Could you part your legs for me slightly? I have a desire to see my mark on you.”

  Sally felt an inner jolt at the realization Nicholas knew exactly what he had done to her yesterday. How, and where he had marked her.

  She squeezed her knees together rather than parting them. “I am supposed to be sketching you, not providing you with sexual arousal!”

  He ceased his pumping but still fisted his cock as he smiled across at her. “My dear Sally, you do that simply by breathing.”

  She shot him a reproving glance. “Then be satisfied that I am doing so.”

  “Everything about you satisfies me,” he drawled. “Do I satisfy you too?” He deliberately drew the skin back on his cock, fully revealing the red swollen head glistening with his juices as his fingers continued to slowly squeeze and pump along its length.

  Sally hardly dared breathe, knowing how her breasts swelled against her corset and over her chemise every time she did so. “You know that you do.”

  “Nevertheless, I would still like to hear the words.”

  “How am I supposed to sketch you when you insist on—insist on touching yourself, in that intimate way?”

  “As I said, I doubt the sketch could be classed as erotica if I am not fully aroused,” he reasoned.

  Those green eyes met her gaze so guilelessly, and still Sally knew there was not an ounce of innocence in this man, and that he was torturing her deliberately.

  “Are you wearing drawers today?”

  She glanced up and then quickly away again as her own arousal deepened just looking at him. “I believe when you spanked me yesterday, you informed me that I should.”

  “I will spank you again today if you continue with this defiant attitude.” There was a dark promise in his voice.

  She sighed. “No, I am not wearing drawers.”

  “Part your legs and let me see.”

  She flashed him an angry glance. “Is your interest in the fact I am not wearing drawers or in seeing your mark on me?”

  “Both,” he confirmed unabashedly. “Now open your legs for me,” he instructed again, gaze promising that spanking if she did not obey him.

  Sally allowed herself to be bullied by no man, not her father, her brothers, nor any of the gentlemen who had shown an interest in courting her fortune these past four years. She remained immune to any and all of their methods of persuading her into doing what they wanted.

  Nicholas was not bullying or asking, but simply stating what he wished her to do.

  She drew in a dee
p breath before forcing herself to allow her knees to first relax, and then slowly fall apart completely.

  Nicholas’s fingers tightened about his cock as he saw his mark on Sally’s thigh, and then the glistening and swollen lips of her bare pussy. This woman was so strong, so fearless. His woman. “I am still waiting for the words, Sally.”

  “Of course you satisfy me.” She sounded exasperated. “How could you possibly have any doubts I have enjoyed everything we have done together?”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  He nodded his satisfaction with her answer before rising slowly from the bed and crossing the room toward where she sat. “Stay exactly as you are,” he ordered harshly as she instinctively sat up straighter and started to close her legs.

  Sally eyed him—and his fully erect cock—warily. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Something you will enjoy,” he assured her as he slowly lowered to his knees in front of her and placed his hands on her bare thighs just above her stockings.

  She clutched the sketch pad to her breasts. “How am I supposed to draw you when you are no are longer posing for me?”

  There was no force behind her words, telling Nicholas she spoke out of nervousness rather than with any real chagrin at his actions. “You had no trouble doing so before,” he reminded her as he lowered his head to the apex of her parted legs. “Are you sore from our lovemaking yesterday?”

  “No—”

  “I think you are.”

  “No, I— Oooh,” Sally groaned as he swept his tongue across the bruise on her thigh.

  Nicholas gave it another claiming nip with his teeth before stroking his tongue moistly along the swollen lips between her thighs. It was as well he was already on his knees; otherwise, the rich and heady taste of her would have put him there.

  She tasted sweet, like the rich honey he occasionally put on his morning rolls, with a fresh and salty tang. The nubbin above was ripe and pulsing beneath the caress of his tongue. “So responsive,” he murmured with satisfaction. “Sally, I—”