Those two words were all Justin needed to hear. He grabbed her skirts and pulled them up to the tops of her thighs. His mouth swooped down to capture hers. He couldn’t just kiss her, he soon found out. Because the moment his lips touched her and her head fell back and she made a little moaning sound in the back of her throat, he was lost. She still clung to his neck, unable to let go as he had her leveraged at an angle over the desktop.
His hand moved up to push away her shift and caress her warm hip. He closed his eyes and let his senses guide him as his finger found the wet warmth of her. Touching her soft, intimate skin made him shudder. He clenched his jaw.
She shuddered too. “My lord,” she whispered against his lips.
“Justin,” he growled into her ear. “My name is Justin.”
He slid one finger inside of her and she cried out. Then he moved his finger, crooking it slightly forward to touch the spot that would make her wild. He shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t have taken it this far. But he couldn’t help it. There was no going back now. He intended to give her pleasure she’d never known before. He found it, that textured surface, and pressed his finger against it.
“What are you—? Oh, God,” she moaned. She wrapped her arms more fiercely around his neck and clung to him, her breath shooting out in hot burst after burst.
He knew precisely what he was doing. He pressed his finger home again and rubbed her. Her breath hitched in her throat. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she breathed. He covered her mouth with his just as she let out a keening cry.
He held her as her body shook and when her breathing finally returned to rights, he pulled her back to a sitting position on the desk and turned to adjust his clothing while giving her a moment of privacy to adjust her own.
Breathing heavily, he pressed his forehead to hers. “That is what a rake would do.”
Chapter Twenty
Ten minutes later, Justin was back in his bedchamber, splashing cold water from the washbasin over his face. He briefly considered upending the basin and pouring the contents over his idiotic head. He glared at himself in the looking glass. He’d never wanted to punch himself in the bloody throat more than he did right now. Every word he could think of to castigate himself for his behavior flew through his mind—he was an ass, a wastrel, a profligate, a scoundrel, a cur—none of them were strong enough.
He’d crossed so far over the line he couldn’t even see the line any longer. Even though he wanted Madeline with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, nothing could come of it. He knew that. He’d reminded himself of it often enough. He wasn’t a child or an imbecile. He must leave her the hell alone. And leaving her alone meant no talking to her and certainly no touching her.
Damn it.
Even if he could marry a maid, he wouldn’t want to hurt her. He was the son of a liar and cheater. His father’s son. Madeline had made it clear that she wanted to marry for love. Love for Christ’s sake. He scowled at himself in the mirror, self-loathing pouring through his veins. Bloody hell. This was it. There were only two choices here. He could send Madeline away, give her a reference, and wish her the best. Or he could be a man and keep his bloody hands off her. She didn’t deserve to lose her position because he was a rutting scoundrel. And Eliza didn’t deserve to lose her maid (the only maid she’d ever wanted) simply because her brother was no better than an animal. No. No matter how difficult it was. No matter how much he wanted to break his pact. He would find the strength to avoid her at all costs.
From this moment forward.
Maddie rushed up to her room and slammed the door behind her. Breathing heavily, she leaned back against the wood and slowly slid to the floor. She was shaken. Shaken by how badly she’d wanted Justin. Shaken by the things he’d done to her. The things he’d made her feel, things she’d never felt before. If he had merely said the word, she would have gone to bed with him, given herself to him.
Two days ago, Maddie had been nothing but thrilled with her new position. But now she wondered if it was simply a different kind of torture. She might not have Lady Henrietta’s snide comments and exacting demands to deal with, but she would be forced to be in the house with a man who drove her wild. A man she knew drove her wild because he’d demonstrated it on more than one occasion.
She pushed herself up from the floor and paced between the door and the far wall. Think. Think! She could leave here and try to find a position elsewhere. Perhaps Lady Elizabeth would take pity on her and give her a reference. But then she’d be doing Lady Elizabeth a disservice. The lady had made it clear she needed a maid for the Season and wanted one who perfectly understood how little she cared about having a maid in the first place. Maddie owed it to Lady Elizabeth to stay. At least for the Season.
All right. Very well. Maddie expelled a deep breath. There was only one other choice: stay but ensure she had no further interaction with Justin. Or at least as little as possible, which meant no more late-night talks and certainly no kissing. No touching! No seeking him out and no remaining in his presence if they found themselves alone together in a room.
Yes. That was it. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, so the answer was clearly to stay out of each other’s presence. She would not think about him. She would not ask about him and she certainly would not go looking for him. She would stay in Lady Elizabeth’s rooms, or her own bedchamber, and she would go downstairs only if she were escorting her mistress on an outing or going to the kitchens for meals. Yes. That would work. It had to work.
Maddie nodded firmly. It was a good plan, and one that she had to stick with no matter what. No good could come of any further interactions with Justin—No, not Justin—Lord Whitmore. She could not call him Justin any longer, no matter what he said. If she had any hope of keeping this position, she could not make any more mistakes.
Beginning immediately.
Chapter Twenty-One
London, Two Months Later, The Marquess of Whitmore’s Town House
Justin couldn’t stand still. He paced in front of the windows inside the drawing room. Days earlier, Eliza and Jessa had made their debuts at the Queen’s court. They’d attended the Cranberrys’ Season-opening ball that same evening, and Jessa at least had a half a score of callers the next morning.
Eliza had been discovered hiding in the Cranberrys’ library reading. Mama was already at her wits’ end attempting to convince Eliza to show some interest—any interest—in the gentlemen to whom she’d been introduced. Instead, she’d managed to neatly avoid all of them.
Eliza wasn’t the only Whitmoreland sibling who’d managed to avoid someone. Justin had done a splendid job of staying away from Madeline. In the last two months, he’d seen her only a handful times, almost always when she was on the way out of the house with his sisters. He’d steadfastly avoided eye contact. They’d done little more than politely nod at one another ever since that night two months ago, that night when he would have given his eyeteeth to take her to his bedchamber and make love to her for hours. Thank Christ that hadn’t happened.
It wasn’t that he no longer thought of her. On the contrary, he’d taken himself in hand more than once in the ensuing weeks, remembering exactly how much he’d wanted her that night, the way her soft skin had felt under his fingertips, the way she’d moaned and—No. That was not helping. He was busy tonight. He’d made an important decision. He couldn’t think of Madeline.
Tonight, he and Mama were hosting a ball at his town house in Jessa’s and Eliza’s honor. Mama believed it might be the only way they could keep Eliza from the library. In their own house, they could lock the doors. Footmen were also stationed along Eliza’s route to her bedchamber in case she attempted to sneak out and retreat to her rooms. Mama was taking no chances this evening.
“Oh, this is so exciting!” Jessa exclaimed as she twirled in a circle in front of the pianoforte. She wore a light pink gown and had pink flowers twined in her dark hair. She looked absolutely lovely.
