In the Flesh

“Touché, Mr … touché, Ritchie. So shall we sit down and discuss this ridiculous proposition of yours?” With a graceful gesture, she indicated the damask-covered chair he’d been sitting in, and its mate, facing it before the small, cheerful fire set against the early morning chill. “That is when you’ve first explained to me why you’ve arrived in this rather unorthodox manner. Sneaking around the tradesman’s entrance and dressing like a bookmaker or a pieman, rather than wealthy man of business.”

“I wanted you to see another side of me.” He plucked at the lapels of his commonplace houndstooth-checked suit. “See the blunt, plain man rather than the facade of Savile Row tailoring and society manners.”

She gave him a wry look, as if she did indeed see straight through him and any manner of subterfuge he chose to erect. “It must be a very peculiar society that encourages manners like yours, Ritchie.” She acknowledged his shrug with one of her own. “And I still consider your offer quite absurd.”

“Why so?”

Though he took care not to show it, Ritchie felt irrational disappointment. He understood her qualms, but still, the idea of not having her after all hit him like a rabbit punch. “I believe that it’s a generous offer, Bea, but I daresay I could be persuaded to parlay it a little further if you decree it insufficient.”

He watched as she slid her hand into a pocket in her dressing gown and pulled out both his letter, and another envelope, presumably her reply. It was a simple, artless, everyday action, completely without airs, but still his cock throbbed harder at the sight of it. In his imagination, he saw that same pale, beautiful hand sliding elsewhere; slipping inside the unbuttoned fly of his trousers, seeking his flesh.

What would her fingers feel like on his cock? Would they be cool and soothing? Or warm and tantalizingly heated?

Lord, I don’t care! I just want her to touch me!

“It’s absurd simply because it is so generous. Twenty thousand guineas is a disproportionate sum. Not to mention the debts covered, and the annual payment thereafter.” She looked away, sideways, a soft blush gathering on the apples of her cheeks. “I have no illusions as to my own value, Ritchie. I consider myself a gentlewoman, and I’m quite pretty, I think. But I’m just a woman like any other woman, when it comes down to it, with face and limbs and shape … and other parts—” the roses deepened “—and a month of my time is worth far less than twenty thousand.”

Was she toying with him? Angling like a practiced courtesan in a game of advance and retreat? Somehow, he thought not. Despite her recent notoriety and her avid response last night, the impression came again that the Siren of South Mulberry Street was relatively inexperienced. Was that the root of his obsession with her? A yearning to educate an eager acolyte into a new world of exotic bedroom games?

And she had been willing. It hadn’t been a mask, worn as some did, until it was too late.

Compressing his lips, he expunged the dark thoughts again and sought the light instead.

Beatrice Weatherly of the crimson hair, intelligent green eyes and sweet, uncorseted curves. Irresistible temptation in a softly fitted dressing gown.

“Let me be the judge of your value, Bea. I’m usually fairly shrewd in these matters and I always get my money’s worth.”

Those eyes widened into brilliant pools of jungle green, snapping with outrage. It was all he could do not to throw himself bodily at her and begin cashing in his investment right here in this pleasant little morning room. But instead, he held his hand out for the letters. “So, let’s see your counteroffer, shall we?”

CHAPTER SIX

Counteroffer

BEATRICE’S HAND SHOOK as she passed the letters over. Would her sweaty palms have smudged the ink? It was impossible to stay calm and cool around Ritchie. His masculinity was brilliant, as hard and bright as Lady Southern’s newfangled electric lighting, with a heat that singed the unwary woman who got too close. As he studied her swiftly penned response, she had to prevent herself from wrapping her arms around her middle. She felt as if she’d fly apart in pieces any moment.

Either that, or throw herself bodily at this handsome, atrocious man who proposed to buy her.

Ritchie was quite a different fellow this morning, yet fundamentally the same. His suit was a soft, well-worn, workaday checked thing, not the tailored, beautifully cut miracle he’d worn last night. With his curling undressed hair, and the suspicion of unbarbered whiskers, he looked almost the ruffian—piratical, wild and strong. He wore no collar, and the top of his striped shirt lay unbuttoned, baring not only a tantalizing triangle of his throat and chest, but, oh goodness, a few curling wayward wisps of sandy-colored body hair. He might as well have been a Gypsy rover in her morning room, and he certainly didn’t look like the sort of plutocrat who could casually toss away twenty thousand guineas in pursuit of a paramour.

No, you’re more the sort of buck a certain class of woman might lavish twenty thousand on for a month of your bedroom services!

Pressing her hands against the skirt of her robe, Beatrice calmed herself as best she could. She had to remain in control, no matter how intimate matters became. There was pleasure ahead, in the weeks, days and even hours, perhaps. But she still had to keep her wits about her and steer clear of any softer feelings toward Ritchie, for her own safety. Just look what had happened last time she’d thought herself sweet on a man. And yet somehow, Eustace Lloyd had drifted out of focus, like one of his own photographs, completely eclipsed by the man now sitting so calmly reading.

“This is nonsense, Bea. I can’t accept it.”

His voice was impatient, steely. Beatrice’s head shot up, and when she looked him in the eye, her heart sank. His glittering blue eyes were rigorous.

When Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie fixed a price, he fixed a price. Even when whoever it was he was doing business with wanted less!

How could anybody be so contrary?

“But two thousand is more than plenty, surely? It’ll pay mine and Charlie’s immediate bills … I think … with a little left over for me to purchase a typewriting machine and then take some lessons at the Moncrief Street Ladies Secretarial Academy. I saw it advertised in The Modern Woman just the other day, with splendid testimonials.”

“It’s twenty thousand, the debts paid, and the annuity, or nothing,” growled Ritchie, and to her horror, he tore her hastily penned offer into tiny fragments and dropped them like snowflakes into a little china dish that stood on a Malay mahogany side table. “And I’ll throw in a dozen typewriters and a course at your blessed academy and then you can set up a secretarial agency all of your own, if you want.” He smoothed out his own letter and glanced around the room until his gaze finally settled on the leather-topped secretaire in the corner. Striding over to it, he took a reservoir pen from his inner pocket, uncapped it, then held it out to her.

Beatrice gritted her teeth, every independent fiber in her body twanging taut. Ritchie was trying to take over her entire life, and her brother’s, with his obscene, seemingly limitless wealth. It was a prison sentence just as onerous as their debts were.

She stared at him, suddenly wishing for a different life and a different meeting. In his own way, Ritchie was quite beautiful, and she knew he could do wonderful things for her body. If there were no money and no debt and no buying or selling involved, who knew what there might be between them.

But hell and damnation, all those things were involved! Life was a knotty tangle and not easily resolved except in the sweetly idealized daydreams of idle ladies of comfortable means.

“It’s far too much, Mr. Ritchie.” She retreated to formality, as a shield. “Far too much. I think that unless you reduce it, Charles and I will have to resort to our own devices and manage some other way.”

“This is my final offer, Bea, and I urge you to take it.” His midnight eyes narrowed. He didn’t actually scowl, but his elegantly molded mouth hardened. “But bear in mind that even though I’ve bought up a large part of your foolish brother’s debt, he’s taken out additional loans from certain characters that you’ll find are even more despicable than you obviously believe me to be.” He twirled his pen at her. “And I saw a couple of very disreputable fellows lurking around across the road just now when my associate and I arrived, and they’re precisely the kind of ruffians a shylock might employ.”

A cold hand seemed to grip Beatrice’s vitals. Ritchie owned some of their debts? Just how determined was he to get her? It hardly bore thinking about, but the alternative was as frightful as it was true. There’d been some unpleasant scenes on the doorstep in the past few days, and it was getting harder and harder for Charlie or indeed anybody in the house to fob them off. The household was primarily an establishment of women, apart from her brother and Fred, a yard boy whose services they shared with their next-door neighbors. Charlie had no pugilistic skills, and tended to hide out at his club most of the time. They had no big, substantial male like Ritchie around to deal with any awkwardness … or worse.

Trapped. No choice. She had to sign. And hope that when it came to it she had enough natural bedroom skills. It wouldn’t do not to give Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie good value.

“Very well then, I’ll sign.” She marched over to the secretaire, snatched the pen out of his hand and scribbled her signature before she could give way to further doubts or the device could leak ink on her fingers. Charlie had purchased one a while back and made a terrible mess with it. “But I doubt if even the most experienced courtesan in the demimonde could give you a tumble worth that amount of money. No woman on earth could be as exotic as all that!”

The moment the words left her lips, the pen was out of her hand, capped and tossed aside. Ritchie grasped her fingers and bore them again to his mouth, pressing his lips first to her knuckles and then turning her entire hand over and pressing his mouth against her palm like a hot sweet brand. His tongue touched her skin, and he murmured,

“Ah, but a tumble’s the very least of what I want from you, my beautiful Bea. Don’t you know that?”

Beatrice couldn’t speak. Her mind circled like a carousel, fragmentary notions dancing in her brain while physical sensations cavorted around her body. She’d posed for Eustace, yes, but she was quite certain he hadn’t debauched her even though he’d had the chance. He’d been more interested in developing his precious plates than disporting himself with his laudanum-dosed model.

Which left her a virgin, even if not completely naive. Like many women, she suspected, she’d picked up a variety of hints and whispers. Polly liked nothing better than to chatter about scandal and sexual antics, Charlie was sometimes careless with certain items of clandestine literature, and even the Ladies’ Sewing Circle was unexpectedly educational. Beatrice was well aware that games were played, diverse pleasures indulged in, and that in the privacy of their bedchambers, cosmopolitan men and women savored a whole cornucopia of outré entanglements that had little or nothing to do with procreation.

And this was exactly what Ritchie wanted from her. This was what he’d paid twenty thousand guineas for.

“Indeed I do, Mr. Ritchie, indeed I do.” Tentatively, she reached out and touched his thick fair hair. It felt like silk and, without benefit of Macassar oil or lotion, it curled waywardly.

“Ritchie,” he reminded her, straightening up, his teeth white in a wolfish smile, his dark eyes glistening. He was so far from the polished gentleman of last night that he might as well be a different species of creature entirely. Perhaps a perverse and very masculine angel had tumbled to earth in order to tantalize and goad her?

“Very well, Ritchie.” He was still holding her hand as if he owned her. Which he did, of course, now she’d signed the paper.

I’m a whore now. A fallen woman. I’ll never be respectable again and I’ll probably never marry. I’ll be an unmaidenly old maid, typing for others for the rest of my days if Charlie spends all the money.

Sobering thoughts.

“What are you pondering about, Bea?” Ritchie’s eyes were narrowed again, but his expression was paradoxically gentle. “Not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Not at all. I was merely reflecting on my new status.” She looked down at their hands. Ritchie’s was big, but elegantly shaped, and capable, as she knew from experience, of the most delicate mastery. Just thinking about how those fingers had felt between her legs made her anticipate them anew.

“And that is?” He lifted her fingers to his mouth again, the kiss more formal and courtly this time, before releasing her.

Beatrice stiffened her back, trying to ignore the melting, yearning, embarrassingly moist sensation he induced with every simple action. She cast her mind back to their conversation in the study at Lady Southern’s last night. It seemed like an aeon ago. “Well, Ritchie, as of now, I am the wicked woman that everybody believes me to be. I’m a whore.”