Chapter Ten

Aiding Dulcie into her room, she seemed recovered from the episode outside her door. Griff gently kissed her forehead, “I’ll see you, Dulcie, tomorrow, I hope. Sweet dreams, my lady.”

He turned away as the door closed behind him. Voices echoed downstairs, and he knew the countess had returned from the card party. He went to his bedchamber and waited a brief interval before knocking on the door to her room. Agina opened it herself, her lady’s maid having gone to bed. “Ahh, Spencer, come in. Yes, yes, do tell me what happened.”

“Your stepdaughter has been compromised, although no one but you and I know it. She is very naive, just as you said.”

“Then you breached her maidenhead?”

“No. There wasn’t time. I will do so when the time is ripe.”

The countess was en dishabille again tonight. She had been pacing, but now she spun around to face him. Her prominent nipples showed through the flimsy silk of her nightclothes when she moved. She sidled closer, sliding caressing fingers over his shoulders, her hands slithering around his nape like a pair of sinuous reptiles.

“Well, then, I still have time to test your…um…reflexes again.” Like a purring feline, she rubbed her voluptuous body against him. “You must need what I can give you if you didn’t fuck her.”

Dammit, his cock was acting up again, having only subsided from the onslaught of Dulcie’s nubile body enticing him to take her and be damned of it.

“Countess, it is late. I have an appointment early tomorrow, so I will say goodnight.”

“Oh? Stop right there! Where are you going?”

“A private matter.”

“What does that mean? I wish to know where you go and what you do. You are bought and paid for, remember that?”

Perhaps, this was as good a time as any to squeeze additional funds from the tightfisted countess. “Not quite paid for, Auntie. And you are not my superior officer in Wellington’s army. Hmm…you see, there is a loose end I forgot to mention, but one that needs discussion. We decided upon a modus operandi, Countess, but…”

“What do you mean?” She snapped back at him, drawing her arms from around his neck and moving away from him.

Her back became rigid, and he sensed her arrogance and haughty annoyance radiate across the space between them. “You needn’t worry. I won’t forget your stepdaughter’s denouement. In the meantime, I have business of my own to address. My family’s estate is going on the auction block. I believe I can salvage it if I have sufficient funds in my account to make an offer.”

She whirled back toward him. “Are you hinting that you wish me to lend you money?” She laughed coarsely, her eyebrows leaping upward in astonishment. “That’s preposterous!”

“No, not hinting, asking. I’m asking you to give me what I need. If you recall, you altered our agreement, and now I am adding a new wrinkle.”

She glowered at him. “How much to you need?”

“Five hundred.”

“Five hundred pounds!” She looked dumbfounded. “What kind of May game are you trying to pull on me, Spencer!” she ranted, stamping a brocaded slipper angrily.

“I’ll reimburse you when you release Dulcina’s dowry to me, Countess. So you see, it really is a loan, not a gift.”

All business now, Agina squinted her at him through her lashes, to see if he was cutting a sham.

Griff kept his expression noncommittal, not showing what he truly planned or intended to do.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Think about it now, Auntie,” Griff replied curtly. He turned toward the door to the adjacent dressing rooms. “My appointment is set for tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. Your written draft will do fine.” He yanked on the doorknob and pulled the door wide. “Until tomorrow then, Countess. Sleep well.”

Griff shut the door behind him without another word and went to bed.

* * * *

Dulcie jolted awake, somewhat disoriented. It took her a minute or two to realize she had had a nightmare and was drenched with perspiration. As she lay awake staring up at the canopy over her bed, heat crept across her private parts. Her body still quivered from the throes of her dream. Her nipples burned and tickled. She ran a tentative palm over the fabric covering a breast, then pulled her hand away and clenched her fingers into a fist. No one said she shouldn’t touch herself there, but it didn’t seem proper. All she wanted was some relief from the strange, new sensations. She threw back her bedclothes and raised the hem of her damp night rail, fanning her nakedness with the fabric.

The place between her thighs pulsed. Vaguely, she recalled someone—

Omigod, it was Griff Spencer who touched me there, stroking my most private place. And I thought it was a nightmare! She gulped. And I liked it! It felt good!

And then…she delved deeper in thought, recalling that her body experienced weird, pleasurable things. She had wanted them to go on…and on. Dear God, she wanted to experience the same pleasure again.

What would happen if she touched herself between her legs?

Her hand inched under her night rail, smoothed her groin above her pulsing pussy. She wiggled through the crisp curls protecting her mound and reached farther, gasping a tortured breath as if doing something immoral and totally inexcusable.

She jerked her hand away. But soon her fingers again crept closer to the plump, nether lips nestled in the deep crevice between her thighs. She bent her knees and allowed her legs to fall open. Her index finger delved deep. Hot liquid drenched the area as she spread her own juices over the spot. The pad of her finger flicked the wet flesh easily, gently, erotically—commencing the same sensations she experienced before.

Oh God! I remember how wonderful it felt!

She teased harder, until she found the opening, her finger pushing deeper, stroking faster, and swooping back and forth between the slick lips.

This must be where he stuck his finger.

She went back to rubbing the sensitive spot until it grew even wetter. She sucked in a breath, her mind waiting for more to happen. The sensations were intensifying, growing almost unbearable. If they ceased—oh, Lord, she had to keep doing it to be satisfied. The need was so powerful now that she couldn’t stop herself. The excruciating, wonderful flutterings kept building, higher and higher, tightening, begging for release from her inner core.

She wanted it to happen…now! She was so close…

Strong and wet with her body’s fluid, her finger accelerated the rhythm. She stuck a second finger into the unseen opening. Her concentration on the sliding movements centered on need, anticipation, and hunger for satiation.

Tension grew when she manipulated the sensitive nub lying deep between the lips. Eyes tightly closed, Dulcie lay back on the fluffy pillows, hoping for the explosion of rippling, mindless, pulsating pleasure she experienced earlier with Griff. Seconds later sensitive nerve endings in her lower body heightened the rapid, pulsing spasms. She forced out an unexpected exclamation, one so different that Simon jumped up, growling at the sound, ready to defend his mistress from harm.

“Ahhh…no, no, Simon, it’s all right. I-I’m fine…I think.” She sighed deeply when all her muscles relaxed as the tremors coursing through her finally slowed, then ceased. She lay quiet, panting from the extraordinary experience. She pulled her hand away and yanked down her night rail.

Her thoughts were jumbled, suspended. She eased into a curving posture, lying comfortably on one side now that the urgent need was satisfied.

Has he put me under a spell? Is Griff the devil’s work? Good Lord! Why did I succumb to such wretched, unholy temptation? What would my sainted mother say if she found me doing these things… and enjoying them…especially, with Griff Spencer?

Dulcie burrowed her face in the bed pillows to hide her shame, eyes squinted shut. She lay alone in the room with only her dog for company. Nevertheless, she was embarrassed about what happened. She vowed not to touch herself that way again. It must be terribly wrong, indecent, and quite dreadfully sinful, to enjoy a man’s touch as well as doing it to one’s self.