She was humbled. Grateful. Sufficiently awestruck.
And yet when she sat upon her bed in the tower at the end of the day, the same emptiness tormented her. Because even though her windows were large and grand instead of small and grimy and she had all the food, warmth, and care she could conceive of …
She was still alone in the dark.
CHAPTER ONE
Castle Redmayne, Devonshire, 1891
Seven years was too bloody long for any Scotsman to go without tupping a woman. Or was it closer to eight?
Cassius Gerard Ramsay, Lord Chief Justice of the High Court, convinced himself the extended abstinence had to be why he was currently plagued with a physical malady he hadn’t suffered since his adolescence.
An unwelcome, agonizing public erection.
He’d be forty before too long. Surely he was immune to such afflictions at this age. Indeed, he’d trained such weaknesses out of himself years ago.
Life had taught him a man must rein in his appetites with an iron fist and unshakable self-mastery lest he be controlled or irreparably damaged by them.
And yet here he was, a captive to his cock, posturing to hide his body’s instant—nay, violent—reaction to the sight of the buxom and mystifying Miss Cecelia Teague licking truffle chocolate from her ungloved fingers.
In the middle of a soiree at Castle Redmayne, no less.
Despite his stern inner admonishments to keep his notice elsewhere, his gaze was tugged back to her by an invisible rope over and again to linger at her heart-shaped features.
He needn’t waste time wondering why. She was exactly the sort of women he’d always found himself drawn to. One with more curves than straight lines. Lush. Luxurious, even. Her skin the color of rich cream, her lips the hue of his favorite cordial.
All wrapped in a silky violet confection that contrasted with her extraordinary copper ringlets shining in the luster of the chandeliers.
Her azure gaze was a paradox. Wide and candid … but mercurial.
Damned if he didn’t find that the most intriguing combination.
A living sin, was Cecelia Teague. A wicked brew of both innocence and indulgence. The female equivalent of a truffle.
The tip of her finger disappeared into her mouth as she sucked the last bit of flavor from her skin.
Ramsay swallowed a tortured groan, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood as he crossed his legs. Uncrossed them. Shifted positions and crossed them in the opposite direction.
Seven. Fucking. Years.
Or is it longer? The entirety of his thirties seemed to be one long endless span of labor and loneliness, bereft of the splendid visual feast that was the naked female form.
And what a delectable morsel Miss Teague would make, after all the laces, ruffles, and ridiculous contraptions were peeled away, leaving only honest curves, intriguing dimples, fine hair, and supple, pillow-soft skin.
How had he gone so long devoid of the warm weight of a woman’s thighs testing the strength of his shoulders as he brought her to shuddering completion?
Long enough to nearly forget the feel of a woman’s sex. The secret moisture, the yielding, intimate flesh, the unholy pleasure.
Cecelia Teague bent to select another truffle from the crystal dish, affording him a view of her more than generous décolletage. Every wicked thing he’d done, every act he’d fantasized about or even conceived of flashed through his mind in a heart-pounding storm of lust.
Sweet Christ, those breasts would tempt a saint. They’d spill over his hands like fresh cream.
A trickle of sweat slid from his nape into his collar as he inhaled sharply, imagining the warm, inviting scent of the downy skin in the cove between them. The salt of it under his tongue, the unbearable softness—
“May I offer you a taste, my lord Ramsay?”
It took him an eternity to process Miss Teague’s casual suggestion. Finally, he blinked and eloquently inquired, “Er—pardon?”
“You were staring as though you desired them.” Her spectacles magnified her curiously dark eyelashes as they lowered shyly across her cheek. “And I grant you, they taste every bit as good as you’re imagining they would. Creamy and rich, with a hint of salt. You’ve never had better, I’d wager my life on it.”
All the moisture abandoned Ramsay’s mouth. His gaze flicked down to her breasts and he swallowed, dragging them back up to her earnest expression.
Surely she wasn’t offering a taste of her flesh. Not … here. He was no stranger to the propositions of society maidens and matrons, alike, but never so explicitly.
His turgid arousal twitched and strained, making no mistake about what his unruly libido hoped he would do with her offer.
He glanced helplessly around at the soiree’s other guests, milling like over-bright hummingbirds at a lilac bush, never staying in one place for too long.
Had anyone else marked her shocking proposition?
“Alexandra and I share a weakness for decadent chocolate, you see.” She selected one from the dish with the discretion a jeweler would show a selection of diamonds. “These are imported from Belgium. The texture is indescribably above par, and just wait until you find out what’s at the core.”
Confounded, Ramsay stared at the chocolate, cursing himself for nine kinds of fool.
She’d been offering him a truffle. Of course she had. What on earth had led him to think she’d proposed a taste of her flesh? Perhaps he’d been so mesmerized by her husky voice, like smoke swirling over the finest brandy, the words hadn’t registered properly.
He cleared his throat and glared daggers at his half brother, Piers Gedrick Atherton, the Duke of Redmayne, who was too absorbed in the animated story of his wife, Alexandra, to notice.
Ramsay hoped if he simply glowered hard enough, the reprobate duke would come save him.
No such luck; Redmayne and the duchess busied themselves with their peers, doing their utmost to ingratiate the prodigal Countess of Mont Claire, Lady Francesca Cavendish, into select society.
Christ, Miss Teague was only invited to this blasted castle because she was longtime school chums with Lady Francesca and Lady Alexandra. The three women had been inseparable for decades, as he understood it, and his brother had married Alexandra knowing that Francesca and Cecelia were part and parcel of the bargain.
So why wasn’t the beguiling Miss Teague mingling with them rather than tormenting him?
The lady in question smiled a little ruefully and sank her teeth into the truffle, savoring it as a condemned man might his last meal. “I’m still sated from our sumptuous dinner, all told,” she said from behind the hand she held in front of her lips to protect her chocolate-filled mouth from view. “But I find my appetite for dessert forever unquenchable.”
Ramsay almost swallowed his tongue. Unquenchable. Like his ravenous, devious desire. His skin was sensitive, hot, and stretched very thin over his frame. Everything felt more sumptuous. Decadent. The velvet of the couch beneath him. The fragrance in the air.
This was dangerous. This moment. This lust.
This woman.
It was in instants such as this a man lost everything by making the wrong choice. Like asking her to dance, or to walk with him in the gardens so he could ruin her in the rosebushes.
He was not that man. He never would be that man.
Grinding his teeth together, Ramsay hoped that if he was taciturn enough, she’d merely wander away.