In the Flesh

She could feel his mouth through the satin. The touch of it, the heat of it, burning like a flame. And at the same time she felt it elsewhere too, the sensation so vivid that she almost imagined she was back in the dreamy, drifting stupor Eustace had inflicted upon her when he’d sweet-talked her into letting him take those accursed photographs. A liberated state where she could do anything, feel anything, enjoy anything.

Between her legs, her sex fluttered as if her new admirer stroked it.

“I’m Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie, Miss Weatherly.” He straightened up and stared her directly in the eye, his gaze unwavering.

It’s like drowning. Drowning but wanting to drown.

Beatrice couldn’t look away, couldn’t be modest the way she knew she should be. His eyes were darkest blue, almost black. The color of India ink, fathomless and gleaming. “I won’t say that I hoped to meet you here tonight,” he continued, “because I knew I would. You were invited especially so I could meet you.”

It was Beatrice’s turn to be lost for words. She had them, plenty of them, but what was happening to her body shocked her into silence.

“I say—” Charlie tried to rally, then he too shut up when Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie quelled him with a look almost as disturbing as the hot one he’d given Beatrice.

“Weatherly, I wonder if you’d allow me a moment of privacy with your sister, if I may?” It sounded courteous enough, but it was delivered like a velvet slap in the face, and before Charlie could answer, the ruthless barbarian had Beatrice by the elbow and was steering her away toward a concealed corner between a pair of potted palms.

I should shake him off. I should walk away. I should ask for a carriage to be called and leave this place immediately.

The danger was so acute she almost did it. But she couldn’t. Deep in her body, some demon imp of sweet licentiousness was capering, roused to madness by the delicate touch of Ritchie’s hand on her gloved elbow.

She knew him by reputation. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was a famous figure, who featured often in publications such as Town Talk and the scurrilous but fascinating Marriott’s Monde, as well as the society pages of other more distinguished papers. He was a man of enormous wealth, an entrepreneur, owner of properties and businesses and the most notorious reputation with the ladies. He was always described as squiring some famous beauty or other, and the less salubrious periodicals, the sort Beatrice’s maid Polly favored, hinted heavily at a string of affairs.

Yet because he’s got money, he gets away with it all. He’s done far worse than me, but society adores him.

Now away from the throng, she expected Ritchie to launch into a flirtatious conversation in keeping with his notoriety, but he said nothing, not a word, and just stared at her. Beatrice realized she was still clutching her champagne glass, and wished it full again, not for the alcohol, but just for something to do with her nervous hands. As if he’d heard her, Ritchie plucked crystal vessel out of her fingers and set it on a shelf beside them.

High-handed beast!

“Kindly explain yourself, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice schooled her voice to project the same kind of unruffled authority the man in front of her exuded. It was a tall order, but she managed it after a fashion. At least she didn’t squeak like an outraged mouse. “What exactly did you mean? That you arranged for our invitation here. What do you want from us, sir, that you would do such a thing?”

Ritchie laughed, a low, thrilling chuckle that seemed to roll across her exposed skin and her covered parts, too. If it wouldn’t have caused even more public awkwardness, Beatrice would have slapped him then and there she felt so angry.

But was it just anger? She felt confused. All awhirl. Astonished by the way her body was reacting and betraying her. There was heat in her face and her décolletage, every hidden delicate portion of her anatomy tingled, and her breasts ached in the confines of her gown and its underpinnings. Yet at the same time, the sensations were undeniably pleasant. More than pleasant. In her drawers, her sex felt agitated and hot … as if, oh goodness, it were in need of touching?

“I don’t particularly want anything from your brother, Miss Weatherly. I only want you.” Ritchie paused, and his long, elegant, tapered fingertips rested against the lapel of his perfectly cut tailcoat. Watching him like an adder hypnotized by a mongoose, Beatrice jumped when, with a swift, almost showmanlike panache, he flung open his coat to reveal the inner pocket in its dark satin lining, and the gilded edge of what looked like a cabinet card.

Oh no! So that’s why he wanted to meet me. He’s seen the accursed things rather than just heard about them.

“I wanted to see if the real woman lives up to the promise of this image.” His jacket still open, he ran a forefinger over the card’s sliver of gold edging, slowly and lasciviously. “To see if you really are a siren.” Appalled by the implications of what lay against him, Beatrice experienced a delicious but alarming ripple in the pit of her belly.

I’ve gone quite mad. I only met the man a few moments ago and he’s turned me into a bedlamite!

“A gentleman wouldn’t bring such an item to a social gathering.” She gave him a hard stare, even though every single bit of her felt as if it was melting like a meringue before a gaslight. “A gentleman wouldn’t even own such a thing!”

Ritchie snagged his lower lip in his white teeth for an instant, still fondling the edge of the card. There were stars in his dark blue eyes that seemed to dance in time to the waltz playing in the ballroom beyond them.

“A lady wouldn’t have posed for it in the first place.”

True, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him. A lady wouldn’t have behaved like an incautious ninny and given in to her fiancé’s importuning, champagne or otherwise.

“Touché, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice tried to imagine a steel bar down her spine to match the busk down the front of her corset. Rigid corseting was the only way to stand up to Ritchie without dissolving in the heat from his eyes. “But I’m afraid those photographs represent an unfortunate and misguided incident. An error of judgment on my part that I’m trying to put behind me.” She paused, readying herself for flight at a dignified pace. “And I hope that members of society will also find it in themselves to relegate my indiscretion to the past, where it belongs.”

Turning, she made to walk away, but a hand prevented her. A hand on her upper arm, right in the vulnerable space between the top of her long opera glove and the wisp of French faille that constituted the abbreviated sleeve of her gown.

Bare skin on bare skin. Some time between their first meeting and this moment, Ritchie had removed his white evening gloves and his fingertips were hot as points of fire on her naked upper arm.

“Kindly let me go, Mr. Ritchie!”

Oh, too shrill, far too shrill. But immediately he released her. Or did he? The imprint of his fingers still held her immobilized. As did the dark fire in his eyes.

“You’ll never put the photographs behind you, Beatrice. They are you.” His voice was quiet, yet seemed to ring through the halls of the Southerns’ vast mansion. “I suspected as much when I first saw this.” He drew out the photograph he’d been taunting her with, and it was the most shameful one of them all, the tableau where she appeared to be touching herself between her legs.

Appeared? Is it just that? Did I actually do it? She still couldn’t quite remember, but a shudder ran through her. Ritchie’s eyes licked over her, following its progress.

“And now that I’ve met you, my dear, now that I’ve seen you in the flesh, I know.” His red tongue flicked out, touching the center of his lower lip. “You’re a goddess of sensuality, Miss Weatherly, truly a siren. And the sooner you admit it, the happier you’ll become.” The fans of his eyelashes beat down, all provocation and seduction. How could a man have lashes as long and thick as his and still be so uncompromisingly masculine? They were disturbingly beautiful and sensuous. “As will I.”

“I’m afraid my sensuality … or lack of it … is none of your affair, sir.” She tried to picture the steel bar again, but it was hopeless. She hated this taunting creature who was famous for getting any woman he wanted, but her traitorous body was yearning toward him as if it wanted to bend and mold itself to every contour of his. And trying to tell it not to yearn was wearing her out. She was close to breaking point. “Now, if you would kindly let me go, I’d like to return to my brother.”

“But I’m not holding you.” He laughed softly, the husky sound dancing along her nerves and teasing her most tender parts. “Except here.” He ran his thumb slowly over the cabinet card, letting it linger at her breasts and her thighs.

Aghast, Beatrice almost lifted her hand to strike him, but common sense stopped her. The man was an insulting blackguard, and lingering here was just giving him exactly what he wanted. The best thing to do was to leave, and leave immediately.

“Good evening, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice took a step away from him, but somehow it was like wading through molasses. How could she not be running yet?

“Wait a moment, Miss Weatherly, aren’t you at least going to allow me to mark your dance card?”

Beatrice glanced down at the little card dangling on its ribbon from her wrist. “I’m afraid not. As far as you’re concerned, it’s full already.”

And with that, to her surprise, the spell was broken, and as fast as she could without charging like a madwoman, she sped away from him.

She didn’t look back. No, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction!

Yet she could still see him stroking her photograph as she fled.

EDMUND ELLSWORTH RITCHIE DIDN’T FOLLOW Beatrice Weatherly. He couldn’t. He could only watch her as she stalked away from him, her shoulders almost vibrating with antagonism. Every swish of her pale skirts was like a wash of flame across his body as she wended her stiff-backed path through the groups of convivially chatting guests, leaving a faint aura of lily of the valley in her wake.

Even if he could have moved, he probably wouldn’t have. His cock had hardened like a ramrod the moment he’d set eyes on her, and was now a considerable bulge in his trousers. He had a reputation to be sure, but to be seen sporting a prominent erection at a society ball was a bit too risqué, even for him.

Had Beatrice seen the way he’d come up for her? She hadn’t glanced in that direction, but then, what well-bred young woman would?

All of which confirmed his instincts. Despite the fact that he possessed photographs of her lolling naked on an animal skin with her dainty hand pressed between her thighs, he still couldn’t shake off the notion that she wasn’t quite as licentious and free thinking as such a pose suggested.

What are you, my Beatrice? A hedonistic voluptuary or an untouched Vestal? Either way, you’re everything I dreamed of … and more.

It was impossible to decide which role excited him the most, but what he did know for sure was that Beatrice Weatherly had bewitched him. His ensorcellment had begun the first instant he’d set eyes on the card now back in his pocket, but meeting her in the living, vibrant flesh had increased it a thousandfold.

The collection of photographs had been circulating sub rosa at his club for a while, a minor sensation, and bored one day, he’d asked a friend to pass him one.

The sense of shock had been like a blow to his head, heart and gut all in the same moment. He’d been stunned to silence by a young woman’s exquisite, naked beauty, and he still couldn’t entirely deduce why that was so when he’d seen many gorgeous nudes in his adult life. But shock had turned to arousal, and arousal to a worrying obsession. He’d meant to meet Beatrice Weatherly in order to free himself, but now, instead, everything he’d felt seeing the photographs was validated.