A more careful inspection of the room—with its heavy, patterned Persian rugs in shades of ultramarine, claret, cerise, and cream, and its richly striped silken draperies, which also ran the height of the library—revealed a highly unusual display of antique artifacts.
“And what is that, may I ask?” inquired C.J. of an odd-looking contraption—a studded leather cube on a wooden frame.
“My ‘liver shaker,’ you mean?” Darlington stepped up onto the box and sat atop the cube. “It has springs inside,” he said, grasping the handles and commencing to bounce, the action mimicking a monstrously rough ride on horseback. “It’s a gentleman’s exercise machine. The perfect solution for a rainy day.”
“Is there room for two?” C.J. quipped suggestively. Were his lordship able to read her mind, he might be shocked. An activity for a rainy day, indeed!
Darlington descended from the exerciser and gestured toward a foot-high, rather primitive-looking statue of a male figure with an erect phallus practically as long as the sculpture was tall. “My father unearthed him at Pompeii,” the earl remarked of the curio.
“It’s so . . . erotic,” she whispered.
Darlington slipped his coat from C.J.’s shoulders, observing how her drying gown clung to the contours of her luscious body. “Not unlike the figure before me,” he appraised, as his fingers gently traced the length of her arms. He raised her hands to his lips, bestowing a kiss in the center of each palm. They could both feel the heat rising in her body.
C.J. cleared her throat. “Would it be untoward for a proper young lady to suggest a glass of sherry to help her ward off the ill effects of the dampness?”
Darlington rang the embroidered bellpull. “Done,” he smiled. C.J. was sure she could get lost in the crinkles around his eyes. “I was debating whether or not I would violate your delicate sensibilities by suggesting an alcoholic fortifier.”
“Since my own behavior thus far has not been a very good credit to my character, were I you, I shouldn’t worry.”
“Lady Cassandra, I believe it was you who reminded me that there is no shame in the free expression of one’s desires.”
“Touché, your lordship.”
Darlington returned his coat to C.J. just as Cooper, the butler, entered the room with a pot of steaming hot tea and proceeded to set up a small table for the earl and his fair companion. He was followed into the room by a footman bearing a tray with a cut-crystal decanter of amber liquid and two delicately etched glasses, which he set upon the tea table. With another nod from their employer, the servants lit the beeswax tapers in the numerous ornate candelabras.
After his staff departed, Darlington poured their sherry. He swirled the spirits in his glass as he offered its twin to C.J. “May I show you my most prized possession?” he inquired. She nodded wordlessly. “Have you ever seen a first folio, Miss Welles?”
She gasped when the earl lifted a protective glass pane and removed from one of his bookcases an enormous leather-bound copy of the complete works of William Shakespeare. “I used to read from this to Marguerite,” he said softly. C.J. allowed her fingers to trace the length of the volume’s spine. For her, the touching of such an icon would remain a highlight of her life, no matter what might follow.
Darlington approached her and entwined his arm with hers, gracefully pulling them both to the floor, where they rested against the large, silken, tasseled cushions.
“‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,’ ” he murmured, tasting the sherry on her lips.
C.J. blushed deeply. “My dress is now quite dry, but these spirits,” she remarked, as she swirled the liquid in her glass, “are rendering me rather warm.”
“I have a remedy,” Darlington whispered, as he slipped both his coat and her own garment off her shoulders, freeing her from the semi-sheer column of white muslin and her undergarments within a matter of moments. The gown puddled about her ankles like the seafoam eddies that swirled around the iridescent shell of Botticelli’s Venus. He eased her back against the cushions and stroked her body with a featherlight touch. “So soft,” he whispered. “So soft.” He ever so gently extricated her feet from the discarded gown and removed each slipper, placing a lingering kiss on her instep before divesting her of her pretty white stockings and ribboned garters.
Self-conscious at feeling so much on display, she strove to pull him toward her, but he resisted the tug of her slender arms. “Shhh. No, love. There will be time for that soon enough.”
She was indeed a feast for his eyes. His hands roved expertly across her nude body, bringing into full relief every erotic sensation. C.J. had never experienced such an attentive lover. He aroused her every pore; every fiber of her being became more alive at his practiced touch. Darlington pulled her into his arms, and she felt the soft cambric of his shirt rub against her skin. They were on their knees, and while C.J. devoured his eager mouth with hungry, burning kisses, she sought to remove the fine linen barrier between them, tugging the shirt over the earl’s head, tossing it a few feet beyond where they knelt entwined in each other’s arms.
Everything was happening in hushed whispers. She smoothed her hands over his chest, noting the perfect contours, how the bronze of his skin tone formed a stark contrast to her own, how the dark patch of hair spread across his pectorals in perfect symmetry. She moved to unbutton his pantaloons, then realized they would be impossible to remove unless certain obstacles were eliminated. “Your boots,” she whispered, tugging one of his muscular legs toward her. C.J. placed his heel on her thigh as she struggled to find a posture that would not topple them both.
Darlington’s temporary distaste at placing the not-so-sparkling heel of his shiny Hessians on her soft skin was erased by the
