He merely stared at her.
“I may be no Lady Killston.But I know when a man desires me.”
He stared at her.His mouth was slightly agape.He looked as if he had been slapped.
“Good evening, Lord Leith.”
And then she left the room.
Chapter Five
Vexing, impossible woman.
When Leith had first laid eyes on Miss Beatrice Salisbury, he had been sure that he hadnotdesired her.
Now that certainty was a shambles.
He liked his mistresses elegant and obliging, all outward smoothness, but Miss Salisbury was something else altogether.
She was cold-blooded.
And while she was not his usual type of thing in character, damn her if she wasn’t right.He did want her.
He had awakened this morning, not at all rested, because he had been pursued by…intimate dreams of her.
It turned out that having Miss Beatrice Salisbury waiting for him, untouched, made his cock ache.When he had awakened, he had refused to slake the bastard, as he would have any other morning waking with a cockstand like that.
Now, he regretted that decision.
Hedidwant to tup her.Just thinking of that pert, imperious little manner, her talking aboutnegotiatingwith men, and theloversthat she had had—who were, exactly, those fellows?—it made his cock hard.It hadn’t in the moment, but when he thought about it now, he felt himself stirring.And he had to think of a series of horrific things—smallpox, carriage crashes, sick children—for some minutes to quell the warmth in his blood.
Such doings were greatly displeasing to him.
Given his state of mind, he had brought no attendants, not even Charles.Only Preston at the reins and a glower in his heart.
Many saw his relationships with the women of the demimondaine as scandalous.But what the scandal sheets and, even, perhaps, his best friends didn’t understand was that he ordered his life the way he did because he wanted everything in its proper place.He had no interest in scandal.He had no interest in unsuitable women or uncontrollable passions or carriage cockstands in broad daylight.
Yes, of course, he had had his wild days.And even had run into trouble.There had been the time that he had mistaken the ample bottom and fair profile of a viscountess for that of her half sister, his mistress at the time.When he had given the viscountess a little, provocative pinch on her rear, he had had to pay off her husband handsomely to avoid being called out.Or the time that he had inadvertently double-booked the house in St.James’s and had hadtwomistresses on his hands at once—a trial that he would never again repeat if he could help it.
He told such tales as larks, showing that he could see himself in good humor, because he knew John, Trem, and Monty tended to see him as a prig.And no one wanted to be friends with a prig.
Undoubtedly, he had urges.Lusts that needed to be slaked.Unlike his friends, who had always seemed to be at home with their desires, his wants had always unsettled him.He liked the etiquette of high society, of rules, oforder.When he was a younger man, he had thought such desperate appetites abnormal.It didn’t seem right to want to put his cock into a woman, when the regular run of society seemed to preclude even the possibility of such a thing.His friends had long ago shown him that his desires were not his alone—but he had never been able to completely shake that initial, boyish feeling.That such desires should be locked away and dealt with in the darkness.And that his needs, if left to hold the reins in his life, would drive him straight into a ditch.
So he kept a new mistress every two weeks, bedded her in the fashion that he preferred, and then bid her adieu.It kept everything running smoothly.
No mess.No cumbersome emotions.He kept his passions secured in a place where they couldn’t hurt him—or anyone else.
And now Miss Beatrice Salisbury was ruining all of that.If Monty found out that he had bedded her, against his express wishes…he didn’t know if their friendship could survive another breach.But he also couldn’t take the chance that Monty would believe Beatrice’s lies.He would rather lose Monty over an act that he, in his heart of hearts,didwant to commit.It would be too painful to lose his friendship over his believing a passel of lies about his utter depravity.
Only one man on this earth could help him with his current predicament.He needed advice, badly, and he needed it from the one close friend who had once found himself in very close quarters with a womanheshouldn’t bed.Of course, he reflected grimly, that woman had been his wife these three years.
He found the Duke of Edington in his study.One look told him, however, that the papers spread out over the desk did not belong to John, but said wife, Catherine.Catherine was a scholar, of history or some such thing as that—Leith did not always attend on that score—and she seemed to be quite prolific and well regarded in her work.John was not a scholarly type himself and had always preferred riding and similar diversions to books.
“Leith,” John said, looking up and grinning.In that moment, he reminded Leith so much of the boy that he had known at Eton that he couldn’t speak.John had changed so much since his marriage—he had gone from a wayward rake to a happy family man.Leith had looked on in bemusement, pleased for him in a perfunctory way, but not understanding the transformation.
“I am surprised to find you here,” Leith said, as he seated himself in the armchair opposite.
“Ah, yes, in the study, you mean.You’re right that I have long ceded such territory to my brilliant wife.But she asked me to read over this manuscript she is preparing for publication.”He gestured downwards at the stack of paper in front of him.“And so I am spending some rare timereadingat this desk.To be honest with you, I have long associated this desk with other—”
