Lady Varney's Risqué Business Read online

  “Ever since you began to emerge from mourning for your husband.”

  She gave Justin a small smile. Realizing he knew this about her was a delight. “Yes, and I have created some very fine marriages. Though not all of my couples have yet taken vows, those five who did, are very happy.”

  Justin brushed imaginary lint from his trousers. “So I have heard.”

  “But these requirements you list are unusual.”

  “I am a very exacting man.”

  “You are. Your friends declare it. I hear your tailor does, too. Your butler.”

  “I shall have to reprimand my man for engaging in gossip,” he told her, but his eyes and his lips quirked in amusement.

  She tipped her head, unable to resist grinning at him and learning more. “Your butler is a good friend of my cook. They talk often.”

  “To you as well, it seems.”

  “My sources are legion. They help me with the work I do.” She raised her brows. “You must realize to match-make I need to know many facts about people.”

  “A necessity of your occupation.” He winked at her, sending her back to days on his ship when she’d been so entranced by his charm.

  She cleared her throat and returned to the subject of his visit. “Your list limits me severely.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “There are few women who possess all the qualifications.”

  He rose and came to stand before her.

  So close now, she breathed his cologne. Smelled the mint on his breath. Admired the dimple in his left cheek and the facets of green and brown in his large heavylidded eyes. “In fact, there are only three women who meet all of your requirements.”

  “Ah. But wait, you have not heard them all.”

  “No? Preposterous! There is a very small pool of possible candidates, Justin. To add more requirements would be burdensome—”

  “But my fortune will be very large. My homes, here and in the country, are grand estates. I will be married to this woman for many decades, and I need the best companion possible.” He frowned, very determined looking. “I have the right to declare to whom I shall be joined!”

  “Precisely so, my lord, but we must be prudent.”

  “You be prudent! I shall be as I am!”

  His virulence shocked her.

  “Your fees are high. I shall have whom I want! Who is best suited to me.” He strode closer and seized her arms, his powerful body dwarfing hers. Once his might had been comforting, but now, full of fury, his size made her wince. She had been intimidated by her husband far too often, and she would not be by any man ever again.

  She stiffened her spine. “Tell me your other requirements.”

  “She must spend twenty-four hours with me at Belmont Manor.”

  “Oh, I see.” She let out a breath, relieved. “You want her to visit.”

  “No, I want her in my bed.”

  Kitty blinked. “I…I’m sorry. You want her—?”

  “Naked. I want to learn if she likes men. Me, to be exact.”

  “I see.” Women do like you, from what I hear. One mistress in particular who boasts of your prowess in the art of pleasing a woman. “Why wouldn’t she?

  “I need to learn if she is a dry piece of toast. Or a willing woman who likes a man’s touch. If she’ll be a desirable partner.”

  “Most women are.”

  “Really? You think so?” With a sound of derision, he spun away and walked toward the window. “I have learned that women in English society tend to be naïve and foolish. Certainly the ones who have been shoved at me as appropriate are witless ninnies, reared in tiny rooms by smaller-minded governesses. I want a woman in my bed, a full blown beauty with brains.”

  “I see.” Did you also think me witless? A ninny?

  “Can you find one?” He peered at her with narrowed, merciless eyes.

  She felt undressed from so far across the room, but she lifted her chin and carried on in a snit. “Indeed, I can, my lord. To fit your qualifications, I have two candidates.”

  “Two. Damn me! So many!” he scoffed—and his expression implied he was surprised at her capabilities. Odd. He ought to be damn pleased. “I am delighted at your resourcefulness, Lady Varney. I wish to interview each of them, naturally. At my home in Kent.”

  “First, I shall inquire if each is interested and accepts your terms.”

  He waved a hand. “Of course. Do it within the week. I need to know quickly. My uncle is not well, and he wishes this matter of my marriage resolved before he sheds his mortal coil.”

  Kitty frowned. Had she been wrong all these years to remember Justin as kind and caring? Had she varnished him with a romantic veneer of her own making?

  He strolled closer. His magnetic allure nearly buckled her knees. But she stood taller, met him toe to toe, damn his eyes!

  “And who are these women you have chosen for me?”

  She gathered her courage. “Maribella Winter, Baroness Avon. And Susanna Curtis, Marchioness Hamill.”

  “But to be honest, there is one more. Is there not, madam?”

  “A third? No, none that I—”

  “What of the illustrious blonde beauty who travels in the best of Society? What of the widow who has a son by her deceased husband? What of the heiress who holds through her own ancestry the ancient title of Lady Downey?”

  Kitty caught her breath at the mention of her own ancient title. “She is not available.” Not rich. “Not suitable.”

  “I say she is.”

  She stared at him, tempted and hating herself for it. “She is older.” Wiser than to do this.

  “She will be presented to me at Belmont Manor.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “I triple my fee.”

  “Triple?” she parroted like a simpleton.

  “One sum of five thousand pounds for each candidate.”

  She could not refuse him. Not that sum. That amount would nearly free her of Henry’s gambling debts and give her enough to buy a few new frocks for next Season. The ability to hire a governess for Hank. “Justin, fifteen thousand pounds is a startling sum. But I cannot take it. Cannot ask three women to rendezvous with you. Really, how could I? I want to, but I cannot because—”

  “Kitty! Stop this!” Justin stepped toward her so quickly, she scarcely noticed that he’d moved. But his arms crushed her close. His fingers lifted her chin. His lips took hers. Once, twice. Damn him, three times. Her own arms twined around him. She whimpered and moaned into his mouth while her breasts beaded and her nether regions flooded with a wet, hot desire. She had not felt so gloriously wanton since last she stood in his embrace.

  “Oh, you’ll take it. Look at me,” he demanded. “Tell me who the third candidate is.”

  She stared up at him, the devil. He had planned it this way. Devised this scheme to torture her, punish her for how she had not fought to stay with him eleven years ago. Poor man, he believed the ton. Thought she was rich. But he’d get no wife in her, only a lover. For one day and night. One risqué affair. “The last woman is me.”

  Chapter Two

  Would Justin be a good lover?

  Ramrod straight, Kitty pondered that as she sat in her hired carriage, her fingers fiddling with the lace at her cuffs.

  She rapped on the roof of her coach. “Hold here a moment, will you please, sir?”

  The coachman reined the four in hand to an idle.

  Her gaze, locked on the gigantic iron gate to Belmont Manor, did not stray from her destination. Nor did her mind from her quandary. To go or return home? Was that really a question? Shocked she had the boldness to have travelled alone these one hundred miles, Kitty felt caught in the trap of her own needs.

  To have an affair with Justin Belmont was a magnetic idea. She sought no marriage, for she was done with such subjugations. But the very idea that she might for one day and one night enjoy a physical relationship with a man had overruled her own common sense. Would going to bed with Justin b
e worth the risk to her reputation? After all, she was known among Society as a woman of virtue. A woman who had honored her husband, never cuckolding him. A mother. A devoted one. She was a light of the ton and enjoyed it. Now that she had developed her matchmaking business to earn the fees, she had enough money to scrape by, even if she feared the blackguards to whom she paid Henry’s gambling debts. That left only one lack in her life. A man. If there even existed such a thing as an entertaining man in a woman’s bed. Ba! She’d never had the proof of that pudding!

  But coming here did offer her one compensation. Before the next day had come and gone, she could rid herself of the notion that Justin Belmont was the only man who could please her. She’d come to prove him inadequate to the task.

  It was quite true, however, that in the past years when she’d been in Society, she had not found any man who captured her attentions. True, even if she’d found such a man, she had not been free to sample his charms. But she had looked. She had dreamed that one day she might be free. When Henry had died of a sudden Christmas chill, she’d been stunned. But learning of his profligacy with her dowry and his own income, she’d realized soon after her husband’s death that she would never be free. Of Henry. His perfidy. And his debts.

  “Madam?” The coachman called down from his box. “Should I continue up the drive?”

  Kitty licked her lips and stretched toward the window. “Please do.”

  “Walk on!” He flicked the reins and off they went.

  She settled back, pushed down her fears and reached inside her well of courage to bring up resolution and force a smile.

  Transforming it to the pleasant look she usually wore when receiving guests or walking the length of a ballroom in London, she awaited the coachman’s descent from his perch to open the door. With a turn of her head, she watched the butler step down from the white stone portico of the high-towered house and extend his hand to help her descend to the pebbled drive.

  “My lady,” Justin’s elderly, white-haired butler greeted her with deference. “Welcome to Belmont Manor. And you there,” he addressed the coachman and waved for a footman to come forward from the foyer, “Gerald will help you with the lady’s portmanteaux. Thank you.” He placed a few jingling coins in the coachman’s palm and smiled politely at Kitty. “I will show you inside, madam.”

  As she walked through the entrance hall of Belmont Manor, Kitty saw what Justin’s forty-thousand-a-year income offered. Spotless marble entry. Tromp l’oiel ceilings. Was that a Holbein on the wall there? French Aubusson runners down the far hall? Yes, she had always known she was a slave to extravagance. The odd. The new. Any lavish excess excited her mind and made her nipples into diamonds and her cunny a flowing river of wantonness.

  “Lovely, is it not?” the butler queried with smug pride.

  “Superb,” she affirmed.

  “My name is Harrison, madam, and I am at your service for anything you require.” He extended a hand toward the broad black-veined marble staircase before them. “Please. I would imagine you wish to rest after your journey, and I can show you to your rooms.”

  “Thank you, Harrison.” She removed her gloves, pulling finger by finger, then unbuttoning the frog closure of her cloak and turning to allow him to catch it. “You can show me into the presence of Viscount Belmont.”

  Harrison shook his snowy head. “I am afraid not, madam. The Viscount is not at home.”

  “Not—no?” She caught herself, unnerved not so much by the breach of etiquette but by the fact she could not face him now when she was as prepared as a sixty-gun galleon of the line.

  “He sends his apologies and asks that you make yourself comfortable here. Gerald, the footman, Cook and I are to provide with anything you require. The rest of the staff have been given leave for the next few days and only we three remain here to serve you.”

  “I see.” Oh, she understood perfectly! Miffed by Justin’s insulting absence, she was alternately grateful that she need not brave a coterie of maids and men who would find her presence here alone not only odd but titillating. “In that case, then, I wish tea and a few small cakes, after a tour of the house.”

  * * * *

  The tea was strong, hot and fragrantly rich jasmine. The cakes were an assortment of vanilla, spiced honey, drowning in crème and cocoa frosting. Justin’s home was huge, a mix of decors from the Ottomans, the French Empire and the Chinese Ch’ing dynasty. A rambling house, it was originally an Elizabethan country home in the shape of an E to honor that Tudor monarch. But the manse had gracefully embraced many renovations, including the sumptuous three-room suite that was Kitty’s. The abode was richly appointed with imported fabrics, art from the Continent and every amenity imaginable, including running water from a copper tube to the large porcelain bathtub in her suite.

  Kitty disrobed, wallowed in a hot soapy bath, and ate a large serving of roast duck and potatoes, finished off with more iced cakes, enjoying the elegance of her rooms and the kindness of Harrison. But by midnight, she paced her suite, awake, aware and anxious for company. Male company. Her nerves would kill her before dawn.

  Where the hell was Justin?

  She couldn’t remain here in the country indefinitely. She had her son to raise, one new client to serve and an appointment with her Turk man for her monthly hot wax depilation!

  She donned her new Chinese silk wrapper from the armoire and tied it loosely over her matching negligee. Succumbing to her need for something lovely to bring here, she’d spent far too much money on the two items. But then, she knew she was as much a fool to her own desires for fashion as Henry had been to the horse races.

  “Could not appear before Justin in something old, could I?” she taunted herself as she took the stairs down and made for the gardens. True, she was not attired for a sojourn, but the curving boxwoods invited her to try the maze. The smell of spring in the air created an ethereal bouquet that filled her head with sensuous longings for a flirtation with virile male company. Justin’s to be exact. Even if he hated her.

  Did he?

  Sitting on a stone bench, she stared at the sliver of bright moon in the velvet May sky and recalled his strong, warm arms around her as they sailed around Gibraltar on his ship ten years ago. He had been so chivalrous, never claiming any part of her except her lips, but vowing that he would claim much more. One day. Soon.

  That never happened, of course. Her father had been adamant. Angry. Violently so.

  She winced, recalling the terrible scene once Justin had brought her to her home in London and revealed how he had saved her from the French. No matter that Justin had been honorable and never touched her. No matter that the French captain had. Manhandling her, spanking her, binding her to a bed, he had been rough, crude, insulting her about her nationality and “the need to teach any Englishman a lesson about arrogance.”

  The arrival of Justin’s clipper ship, his command to fire the six cannon he had on board and surprise all hands on the Cyr, had been her saving grace. Justin had rescued her before the Frenchman had taken her maidenhead. But her father had not seen things that way. Instead, he had punished her severely, locking her away in her rooms for over a month. Then he’d married her off to Henry Varney. That was the beginning and the end of her naïveté, her belief in a happy future for herself. Never resurrected until her son, charming, fat little Henry, was born four years ago. And now that Justin had entered her life again, she rejected any hope she may have had to enjoy his company socially. That had died that Sunday two weeks ago in her parlor when he had shown her what he had become.

  A man out for revenge.

  “That is why I am here,” she whispered to the moon.

  “Then tell me why.”

  She jumped up at the sound. Vibrant, deep and rough, the timbre of his bass voice swept down to her stomach like a hot knife. She spun and found him.

  In the shadows, one foot before the other, Justin Belmont stood framed like a dark angel between the pillars of two large shrubs. She could
see he wore his shirt open at the collar, dark trousers and a long dark dressing gown. She could not, however, detect his expression, but then, she needn’t. His tone told her he was as indifferent to her as he had been during their meeting in her drawing room.

  “We know why I am here.”

  Moving into the moonlight, he pursed his lips and gave her a once over with languid eyes. “Do we?”

  Wrapping her silk robe closer, she scowled at him.

  He strode forward to stand before her and arch one dark insulting brow. “I have no idea. Enlighten me.”

  “You know full well. A condition of our business agreement demanded by you is that you will try each of the candidates. Here. For twenty-four hours.”

  “And you adhere to your clients’ wishes.”

  “I do.” She focused her eyes on his throat and scolded herself for her failure to thwart him. “Always.”

  His smile was so thin she compared it to a sneer. “How accommodating of you.”

  “It’s how I have pleased my clients.”

  “How you’ve made so much money.”

  She froze. Not so much as you think. “Just so.”

  “Why do you need to earn so much? Hmm?” He slowly walked around her. “I understand you have more than ten-thousand-a year income.”

  To hear him speak the lie she told her friends, she put on a haughty air. “Such things are not discussed among polite society.”

  “I am not polite, Lady Varney. Nor am I society. I am a bastard.” He faced her once more, his uncommon eyes brilliant in the scarce light. “I inherit my uncle’s title and estates only because there is no other heir born legitimately. But we digress. Tell me why you are in the business of finding wives for men.”

  He was not entitled to her full disclosure. What she gained from her contracts with her male clients was the stuff of her very existence now. Her fantasies. Her need for a ravishing lover came to her only in her imaginings of how her clients’ had learned to love each other. “I understand human nature. I can easily see through a man to his natural self.”