The garden party was no small affair. Not that he should have expected otherwise, Max thought. Lady Peregrine was not one to go about anything in small measures.
He glanced up at the sun and cloud-dappled sky. It was the most sunlight he had seen since summer. He would not be surprised if Lady Peregrine had negotiated with the Almighty Himself for this fine spring afternoon. The lawn was a verdant green dotted with linen-draped tables, livery-clad servants, and ladies in bright dresses, parasols angled demurely over their faces lest they freckle.
A pair of fresh-faced debutantes strolled past Max and his cohorts, sending them long, flirtatious glances.
“Look there now. The Pelby sisters are looking fine this day.” Will nudged a scowling Declan with an elbow. “There are perks to be had for enduring one of my mother’s parties.”
“ ‘Perks’?” Declan groused. “You cannot touch any of these ‘perks.’ ” He kicked at the ground with a boot. “Not unless you want to face a parson’s trap. Damned frustrating, if you ask me. It’s like being shown a feast but permitted only water to sip.”
Will chuckled.
Max agreed. Not that he was complaining, of course. His morning tryst had well sated him. He was now content to while away the holiday with his friends.
“I’m not jesting.” Declan leveled both of them a somber look. “I say we slip away to visit the local tavern.”
Max scanned the horizon of tables and guests, searching for a pair of dark brown plaits. He doubted her mother would allow her to attend the party, but he knew Aurelia couldn’t be far. She was indomitable that way. If a party was afoot, she would not be one to miss it. Even if that meant she hid beneath a table.
In her last missive, she had promised to show him the progress she had made with her sketching. Not that he was any judge of fine art, but he appreciated her talent. Almost as much as he appreciated her. She might be a young girl, but Aurelia was an amusing and clever little thing. He smiled and slightly shook his head. She might also very well be the only female he called friend.
“Come.” Will’s voice distracted Max from his search. “I have something to take your minds off the unattainable perks of my mother’s garden party.” Will patted the front of his jacket. At Max’s lifted eyebrow, Will lifted his jacket, revealing a glimpse of the flask inside. “Something to divert, eh?”
“That’s a blasted fine idea,” Declan said, nodding. “Let’s get to it, lads.” He led them through the thick press of guests and around the side of the house.
They did not advance very far before noticing a group of laughing young bucks near the large oak tree that Aurelia often sat beneath with her sketch pad. Apparently they’d had enough of the garden party’s niceties as well.
Max marked several familiar faces in the group, including that of Archibald Lewis, the vicar’s son. He could scarcely tolerate the fellow, but, unfortunately, he was a neighbor of Will’s and he had to be endured.
“Who invited Lewis?” Declan grumbled.
“He’s my neighbor, Dec,” Will replied as they strolled toward the group. “And the vicar’s son. How could we not invite him? Let’s get this over with.” There was no escape greeting them.
“At least hide the flask,” Dec grumbled. “I’m not sharing it with the likes of Fish-Stink Lewis.” Lewis had a certain unpleasant aroma that had earned him the designation among their set.
Archibald Lewis looked up at their approach. “Speak of the devil!” he chortled, waving a pad in the air.
Lewis’s three companions swung around. The instant their gazes landed on Max they broke into loud guffaws. Two of them bent over, clutching their guts as though in pain. Will and Dec exchanged bewildered glances with Max. He shrugged back at them, at a loss over the men’s hysterics.
“What’s so blasted funny, Lewis?” Will asked.
The vicar’s son wiped tears of mirth from his blotchy face. “I had no idea this garden party would be so amusing, Merlton.” He shoved the pad they had been studying at Will.
Max leaned forward and stared down at the parchment, which depicted a caricature of himself. He wrested the pad from Will and looked his fill, absorbing the grossly exaggerated image. The blood rushed to his face as his gaze devoured the picture. The features were definitely his.
Even if the horns on his head were not.
Even if the tiny, minuscule cock was not.
If he had to hazard a guess, he would say that the artist’s knowledge of male anatomy stemmed from observations of ancient Greek art. Michaelangelo could have fashioned no smaller a cock than this.
“What . . . who—” Will sputtered.
Dec only gaped, shaking his head in bewilderment.
But Max knew the artist.
As uproarious laughter spun around him, the knowledge penetrated Max like claws locking deep. He knew instantly whose sketch pad he held. He knew of Aurelia’s penchant for drawing better than anyone. No one else possessed a thimbleful of the talent necessary for this level of skill.
“Cockless Camden!” Lewis hooted, doubling over and slapping his knee.
Max lowered the pad and glared at Lewis. Several of the others took up the chant and he saw red. A muscle ticked in his jaw. He felt it there, pulsing in violent rhythm with his fury.
Will took Max by the arm and tried to pull him away. “Come. Let us go.”
He shook his head, unable to move. Unable to see anything past the haze of red. Unable to feel anything past the sting of Aurelia’s betrayal flowing in his veins and settling acrid in his mouth.
Why? Why would she have sketched him thusly? She was a child . . . and his friend for all of that. His gaze dropped back to the image of himself—a horned satyr with wild eyes and a shrunken manhood. Was it mere jest to her? And how could she have left it for others to find? She had to know it would be discovered. Especially this day of the garden party.
With the blood still rushing to his head, his gaze zeroed in on Lewis’s fleshy lips. “Cockless Camden, Cockless Camden, Cockless Camden,” spilled out to the background of riotous laughter.
Max didn’t think. His fist shot out. Smashed into Lewis’s gleeful face. Bone crunched bone. Blood spurted. Tucking the pad beneath his arm, he turned and beat a hard line for the house, intent on confronting Aurelia.
Subdued laughter followed him as he stalked away . . . coupled with Lewis’s curses and the muffled mantra from the rest of them: “Cockless Camden . . . Cockless Camden.”
He didn’t have to go very far before spotting her. She was running directly for him. Only she had changed. Everything inside him seized and pulled up hard. This was the Aurelia he’d left a year ago, and yet it was not.
She was different. Gone were the plaits and girlhood frock. The deep brown hair was pinned atop her head. One fat sausage curl draped over her shoulder and wound itself down, the tip curling between the generous swells of her breasts. That bodice . . . those curves . . . those breasts. She was not a child. He could not stop himself from staring, from devouring the sight of her. She was lovely. Teeth-achingly sweet . . .
The rush of blood to his head intensified, and that only made him more furious. He felt as though he had been knocked a blow to the head. First the picture. Now this. He felt doubly betrayed. His friend was gone. This beautiful heartless creature stood in her place.
Based on the flush staining her face, he knew she could hear the vulgar chant at his back. Her fists knotted in her skirts, the knuckles white. His gaze held hers, the knowledge of her treachery digging deep.
In that gaze, he read more than embarrassment. Shame was there. She stood frozen, clenching her skirts as the color drained from her cheeks. Guilt was writ all over her face. She knew what she had done. She glanced from the pad he clutched in his hands back up to his face. She saw. She knew what he was feeling.
Without a word, he turned from the laughing boys. He turned
from her.
He strode away without a backward glance.
Chapter 1
Seven years later . . .
Max knew it was Aurelia the instant she sat down at the table. Or rather, the moment she plopped into the chair across from him. The black gown she wore was so indecently tight she wasn’t capable of sinking into her seat with any standard of grace. Her ridiculous disguise could not hide her from him.
He stilled, his entire body going rigid. The dress. Her. At this table. None of it was right or proper. Familiar ice chugged through his veins at the unexpected sight of her here, of all places. The most illicit of clubs. Young ladies of privilege weren’t supposed to know places like this even existed, much less step across the threshold. He shouldn’t be surprised. Aurelia had never fit Society’s vaunted criteria for young womanhood.
The laughter and buzz of conversation faded to a dull growl around him as his gaze tunneled through copious cigar smoke to peer at Aurelia. His lip curled as though he had identified something distasteful. He tracked her every curve, missing nothing. Not the absurd wig of golden hair piled atop her head. Not the olive-hued skin. Nor the whiskey-warm eyes.
His body reacted instantly. How could it not? He was a man in possession of healthy appetites, and however much he did not care for the chit, she was thoroughly beddable in that scandalous dress. He’d known she was voluptuous, but he had no idea she had been hiding a courtesan’s body beneath her clothes these many years. And that was what every man in this room thought as they devoured the sight of her. That she was a whore for the taking. A quick glance around confirmed as much.
The backside he had glimpsed before she sat down was well-rounded, with generous cheeks that would fill a man’s hands. He eyed the narrow waist that pooled into flaring hips. His mouth dried. Her body was made for sex. No quick and gentle mating that ladies with delicate sensibilities engaged in under the cover of darkness. She would take everything a man could give and revel in it. All he could give. Rough and fast. Base and primal. She wasn’t a fragile piece of crystal that would break beneath a hard shag.
He leaned back in his seat as though needing to insert additional space between them. His hand slid beneath the table to adjust his cock where it had grown achingly hard. He huffed out a breath, furious that she should make him feel this way. He did not like her. He’d sooner take a viper into his bed than this chit who had caused him such grief.
No one called him Cockless Camden anymore. At least not to his face, but it took years to put an end to that. Even now he knew the slur was still whispered behind his back. People thought it. The repercussions of that caricature followed him still. Every time he got naked with a woman, he read the surprise in her eyes. The relief.
“Gentlemen,” she greeted, her gaze fixing on him. The taunting light in the brown depths made his skin tighten with familiar battle-readiness. “Room for one more?”
“Always room for so beautiful a lady,” the man to Max’s left replied as he shuffled cards.
What the bloody hell was she doing here? He stared hard at her, letting his gaze convey his outrage.
She smiled prettily, her plump lips curving beneath her scarlet domino. The domino was a joke. As was the wig. Anyone who was more than a passing acquaintance with Aurelia would recognize her. Which only made her ten kinds of a fool for even stepping foot in Sodom. Even right now her cousin, Declan, was upstairs.
“Thank you.” She treated each man at the table to her smile. “What is the wager, gentlemen?”
Everything in him clenched hard. He wanted to wrench her up from the table, drag her from the club and stuff her into a carriage for home. Only that would call more attention than necessary. Not that she didn’t deserve a little public shaming. God knew, he had suffered enough of that over the years. Thanks to her. Pummeling anyone who dared call him Cockless Camden to his face and shagging half the women in the country had gone a long way in proving his virility and dismissing the moniker.
But if Aurelia’s presence here went public, it would ruin her. He couldn’t do that to Will or Declan. Instead, he traced the rim of his glass as he stared at her, hoping she grasped the full extent of his fury. Hoping she was afraid.
“We play for high stakes.” He raked her with his eyes. “Too high for you, I am certain.”
He knew the dig would wound. He knew because he knew of her brother’s dwindling funds. Her pin money could not be very prodigious.
She sniffed and pulled back her shoulders. An action that only pushed out those magnificent breasts. Everything in him twisted tight as the edge of an areola, dusky dark where it met her olive-hued skin, came into view. Reaching for his glass he downed it and signaled for another one.
And he wasn’t the only one getting an eyeful. Every man at the table was looking, salivating at the sight of her flesh. Scowling, he took in each of their hungry stares before returning his gaze to her.
“High stakes don’t frighten me,” she announced.
“They should,” he growled, and then added beneath his breath, “Daft girl.”
She heard him. Or read his lips. The hands that rested on the top of the table curled into fists. “What’s amiss? Afraid you will lose?”
“One night upstairs,” the man to his left blurted, boldly tossing down the gauntlet. “Winner claims one night with you in an upstairs chamber,” he clarified, as though his meaning wasn’t evident. The bastard then winked at Aurelia.
Max arched an eyebrow, waiting for her to flee. Now she would surely see. Now she would understand that she had gotten in over her head. He watched, waiting for her to come to her senses and excuse herself.
Her brown eyes locked on his as she asked, “And if I win?”
He slid his hands beneath the table and gripped his thighs, his fingers digging deep as he leaned forward. Mad chit. She was not doing this. He shook his head once at her. Hard.
“Whatever you want. Name your prize,” one of the other men offered, leering at her chest as he did so.
Her gaze roamed over each man at the table, assessing. Four in all, counting him. She thought she could best all of them? She was playing with fire and she knew it.
“I’ll have . . .” Aurelia paused, her gaze resting on him again, considering. “Your clothes.”
The man beside him choked. “Our clothes?”
She nodded, smiling pertly.
“You’ll have each of us strip down to our bare arse right here?” another demanded.
“You cannot think to win. You will lose,” Max hissed, letting that sink in her fool head. She would lose and be at the mercy of one of them. In that moment, he did not think she would prefer to be subject to him. Not as furious as he was.
She shrugged one shoulder. It looked as smooth as marble, and he imagined touching it, stroking the flesh and discovering if it was as soft as it appeared. One of the men at this table could very well win that privilege if he let her do this. Daft female. He should just walk away. Let one of them have her. It would serve her right, playing with fire.
And yet she was Will’s sister. He couldn’t leave her to these wolves.
“I’m in,” he announced, hating to utter the words even as he had no choice. He would take the wager and he would win and save her from this fine mess.
He admitted there would be some satisfaction in beating her. She thought she could win. For no other reason would she have agreed to these terms. He would relish besting her.
The other men quickly chimed in their own accord.
“Let us begin then, gentlemen.” Still wearing that insufferable smile, she nodded for the game to commence with a magnanimous wave of her hand.
The cards were dealt quickly and efficiently. He watched everyone’s faces closely as they played, reading for the slightest reaction.
He trained his features into a mask of impassivity. No expression. Even when the firs
t two men tossed down their cards in defeat. Rising, they stripped off their clothes with grumbles.
A crowd gathered, jeering at their pale, naked bodies on display. Aurelia dipped her gaze to her cards, but not before he read the amusement glimmering there. She was enjoying herself. Bloody fool. She hadn’t an inkling of the predicament she was in.
“Having a good time?” he bit out.
“Adequate,” she retorted, treating him to a chilly smile.
Shaking his head, he tightened his focus on the cards he held, placing one on the table and drawing a new one with nary a change in expression. There were just three of them left now, Aurelia, himself, and the man to his left.
The stranger knew what he was about. Not so surprising, since the wager had been his idea. He was confident and hard to read. Max’s gut churned uneasily, suspecting that he and Aurelia had perhaps been lulled into a swindle by a sharp. He glanced down at his hand, hoping for her sake that it was enough.
He watched the stranger draw fresh cards and then lift his gaze to Aurelia. “Well, my love?” the man murmured. “What have you?”
She toyed with the edges of her cards, bending them slightly, as she was not supposed to do. Not that any man at this table would correct her. No, she was by far too mesmerizing in her shocking gown, her breasts on full display.
Max’s fingers clenched around his cards, the knuckles whitening. “Be quick about it. We haven’t all night.”
Her gaze shot to him. “I’m sorry. Am I keeping you from more diverting sport?”
“You’ll be free to go about your diversions soon enough,” the stranger smoothly inserted, locking gazes with Max. “Once the lady and I adjourn to one of Mrs. Bancroft’s chambers upstairs.”
“Awfully confident, aren’t you?” Max asked, the silky edge to his voice deceptively calm.
The stranger smiled widely, revealing yellowed, furry teeth. “Our friend here is impatient, my fine lady. Shall we put him out of his misery and let him face his defeat?”
“After you,” Aurelia insisted.