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‘It is not a legally binding contract, agreeing to sleep with me,’ Jack said. ‘You may change your mind, you know.’ He shifted on the seat and took her in his arms, and Madelyn was suddenly very aware of his breathing and his heat and the strength of him.
‘I thought that was very displeasing to a man,’ she ventured as his arms tightened.
‘Many things are in life. One just has to learn to live with them,’ he said and kissed her.
She had thought that she liked Jack’s kisses, even when they ended up with the pair of them in an embarrassing and undignified heap on the floor in front of the servants. Madelyn discovered that in a jolting, rather musty carriage in the dark, that she felt far more than liking. This was need and heat and shivery, alarming, sensation and there was no need to think about what to do because all she could do was hold on to Jack, kiss him back and feel.
And she was feeling in the most unexpected places. She knew what his mouth on hers would be like and of course she knew that the secret places between her legs were involved in the matter, but all of her skin tingled, her breasts ached and she realised with horror that she was becoming positively wet there. And yet all he was doing was kissing her open-mouthed, his tongue stroking in to tangle with hers, to explore. Then one hand moved down to her right breast and began to caress, and she gasped and pressed into his palm, then gasped again in shame at what she had just done.
Jack made a sound that was almost a laugh. It vibrated against the swell of her breast. ‘You like that?’
‘I... It... Do it again.’
‘So that was yes, then.’ The simple evening gown she had put on under her domino was cut low, and his fingers were exploring the edge now, then sliding round to the side. ‘How does this...? Ah, like that.’ There was the sudden release of pressure around her ribcage as the bodice sagged. Somehow, she realised, Jack had found the fastening of her short stays as well as the bodice.
‘Jack!’ Instead of stiff fabric and slightly scratchy lace her breasts were cupped in warm hands and his tongue was teasing her nipple. ‘Jack.’
It was... It was wonderfully indecent, terrifyingly good and she wanted it to stop and to go on for ever as she felt his hand slide over her garter, onto the warm flesh of her inner thigh and then, gently insistent, higher.
He was kissing her again and one hand was on her breast and the other one there and surely it should hurt? Surely she should be fainting with shame? But all she could do was writhe in his arms, arching into that knowing touch, seeking something because this could not go on or she would...
Fall into pieces, Madelyn thought hazily as she came to herself.
She was sprawled across Jack’s thighs, her legs apart, her skirts hitched up, her breasts exposed to the cool night air, and she had probably died and gone to heaven.
‘Jack,’ she murmured, then felt the carriage turn and slow.
He flicked back one corner of the window blind and swore under his breath. ‘Damn. We’re back in St James’s Square already. Charlie must have told the driver to come straight here.’
‘We are not going to your rooms?’ There was more to lovemaking than that, she knew—there were all the things she had been expecting, in fact.
‘I think not. Here, let me help you.’ He had her stays in place and fastened and her bodice straight, apparently by touch, then brushed down her skirts as the carriage drew to a halt. She felt it sway: someone was getting down from the box.
Jack moved to sit opposite her as the carriage door opened.
‘I’ll go and knock, shall I?’ said the voice of the man who had been with Jack at the masquerade. ‘Oh, no need, they were watching, the door’s opening.’
In the light from the torchères by the door, Madelyn tugged her domino around herself, pulled up the hood over her tumbled hair and risked a glance at Jack. He looked very pale in the flickering light and his breathing seemed rather heavy, but from his expression, she thought, no one would have guessed that he had just reduced one virgin to a state of quivering ecstasy in a jolting carriage.
Would he be even better in a bed? she wondered, blushing at her own thoughts, then even more at the recollection of just what had happened, of how she had reacted.
‘Will you drop me off, Ransome? Or are you going in?’ the other man was saying. He was still masked.
Madelyn fumbled for her own, then gave up when she could not find it. Anyway, walking into the house masked was as good as announcing to the staff that she had been at a masquerade and word would get back to Louisa as fast as they could whisper it.
‘No, I will not be stopping, I will just see the lady to the door, then of course we can detour past Ryder Street.’ Jack sounded as casual as if he had been out for a drive in the park.
‘Enough for one night, I think,’ he murmured as he helped Madelyn descend on shaky legs to the pavement, then gave her his arm up the steps to where her butler was holding the door. ‘Evening, Partridge.’
‘Good evening, my lord...ma’am.’
‘Goodnight, Miss Aylmer,’ Jack said. He took her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed her fingers. ‘Thank you for a memorable evening.’
‘You will call tomorrow?’ She tried to make it sound casual, as though he had just escorted her home from a respectable party.
‘Yes, of course. We have so much to plan. So much left undone. Sleep well.’
Chapter Thirteen
