“And that rich toff was my husband?” she encouraged.
Peter nodded. “Indeed. He came to the back and told me how much he’d enjoyed the play.”
“And he dared to call me a liar,” Elliot interrupted. “Me.”
Peter smiled this time. “Indeed, I did, I fear. Because the play was terrible, Egerton.”
“Theproductionwas terrible,” Elliot corrected softly. “The play was adequate. Though certainly not your best work.”
Merritt wrinkled her brow at the easy nature of their banter. Here she’d been in the dark entirely as the two most important men in her life had apparently become…well, she wouldn’t say friends. Elliot wasn’t acting the way he did around those he called friend.
But something that wasn’t enemies, despite the shared nature of their attraction to her.
“At any rate, he said he saw something in me,” Peter said. “And he agreed to become my patron. Which changed my life.”
Merritt shook her head. “But…and I am not being arrogant when I ask this.”
“You?” Elliot teased gently, and she shot him a playfully dark look.
“Peter, there is no way you didn’t know that Elliot was my husband. You must have known who I married.”
“Of course, I did,” Peter said. “Of course, I did, Merry. I was aware of every single movement you made after I was cast out of your life. I couldn’t help but track them…just to…just to make certain you were well.”
Merritt shifted at the idea he had been following the trajectory of her life. It was comforting somehow to realize his presence had always been there.
“I knew you’d married Egerton years before,” he continued, and now his gaze moved away from hers. “I even tried to bring up the topic with your husband once after he was my patron, but was put off. So we never spoke of it.”
Merritt pivoted to face Elliot straight on. “Why? Why would you approach a man I’d once cared for and then…then not discuss that shared bond?” Elliot didn’t answer but shrugged lightly. She pursed her lips. “Egerton, Iknowyou. You have a reason for everything you do. Why?”
For a moment she thought he might actually respond, tell the truth. It seemed to hover between the three of them, but then his expression went empty. He put up the walls he was so good at erecting to protect himself.
“Caprice,” he said. Lied. She knew he lied. She just wasn’t entirely certain of why.
Peter seemed just as unsatisfied by the answer, but he didn’t push any more than she did. It seemed they were equally aware that Elliot could not be made to give any more than he chose to give.
“So you see, I owe your husband a great deal,” Peter said softly. “And when he crooks his finger…” Now he wasn’t looking at her, but at Elliot. “I come. Like I did today.”
Merritt shivered at the tension that crackled between all three of them. She’d never felt anything so intense before in all her life. Even when she and Elliot went to watch at the Donville Masquerade, or slipped to one of the rooms in the back where they could be watched by strangers…she’d never felt such a powerful strain toward what they wanted.
It had the potential to be explosive, like it had been for her earlier in the evening.
“Good,” she said. “I also come when he crooks his finger. Inside of me or otherwise.”
Elliot shifted at her lewd description and set his napkin down on top of his half-finished plate. “Have you had your fill?” he asked her.
She held his gaze. “Of food.”
“Good.” He glanced toward Peter and nodded. “Then I think it’s time to really begin, don’t you all?”
* * *
Peter
Peter leaned against the door in the bedchamber, watching as Merritt and Elliot moved together at the foot of the bed. Their desire was so well-matched, their movements all driven to derive maximum pleasure for themselves and give the same to each other. There was a poetry to it, of an erotic kind.
Elliot untied Merry’s robe as he leaned in to kiss her long, graceful neck. His fingers just glided along the edge where the fabric met skin and she hissed out a gasp of pleasure. Elliot smiled against her now naked body, like that sound was music to his ears. Peter was mesmerized by all of it.
By her, after all this time. Still and always. Only deeper now because he knew physical desire truly meant, as did she.
