Royal Harlot Read Online Free PDF Page B

kind, the more pleasure I felt.
    “Ah, what a little minx you are,” he whispered roughly, now lavishing kisses on my throat and lower, to my breasts. “You’re a Villiers, aye, with sin bred into your blood.”
    “What—what do you mean, my lord?” I stammered as I writhed against him, not really caring if he answered me or not, so long as he did not stop this rare delight.
    “I mean that you’re made for love,” he said in a low, wicked whisper that delighted me as much as any caress. “You were made for me, goddess.”
    In the room behind us, one of the men laughed with raucous, drunken enthusiasm. The sound was enough to remind me of the danger of what I was doing. It was not so much the act itself that worried me, but that I’d be caught and sent back to the country before I could meet Lord Chesterfield again.
    I slipped free of him, as hard for him to grasp as a spring eel.
    “No more, my lord,” I said, my words torn to a breathy whisper by my desire. “Not here.”
    “Then tell me where, goddess,” he demanded. “Don’t leave me like this, perishing from want of your love and regard.”
    His words came so earnest and fervent that I felt a heady rush of power, knowing I’d inspired such feelings in such a gentleman. I’d yet to cover my breasts, still shamelessly bare above my disheveled bodice, for I delighted in how he could not look away. He scarce knew me, yet already he loved me, and my own heart swelled in instant response.
    Ah, ah, is there anything more foolish, or more eager to be broken, than the heart of a young maid?
    “You must prove yourself to me, my lord,” I said breathlessly as I put my bodice back to rights. “Then—oh, then!—I’ll grant what you desire most.”
     
He pursued me with rare ardor for the rest of that year, with great protestations of devotion and loyalty whenever we met. He sent me posies tied with ribbons, and letters filled with fine poetry of his own device. Even when he was far away from London, tending to his estates in Derbyshire, he would make certain that he remained in my constant thoughts.
    I forgot the wreath of other ladies’ hearts that he freely wore like some ancient victor, and blinded myself to any sense of calculation in how expertly he stirred my passions. I refused to consider that he might have selected me as a tool of vengeance upon my family, and against my cousin who had stolen his prize of Fairfax’s daughter. All I chose to comprehend was that the Earl of Chesterfield loved me, and I him, and because love had been a most rare commodity in my life, I believed him.
    Before long I’d slipped my mother’s traces for an afternoon, and made the fateful journey across the town to his lodgings in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
    “Almost there, my goddess.” Philip hurried me up the stairs to his lodgings, past the baleful watch of his landlady. I was beside myself with wine and excitement, and so stirred from the caresses he’d lavished upon me in the carriage that I was as tame as a hen who lays her own neck upon the chopping block.
    As it was, I scarce waited for him to latch the door before I threw my arms around his shoulders, pressing my yearning young body against his.
    “My dearest, dearest Philip,” I sighed, raining kisses across his face. “I would follow you anywhere, from farthest India to Africa’s burning sands!”
    “All that I care is that you’ve followed me here, my fair goddess,” he said, his arms curling round my waist. “My own Barbara.”
    He kissed me with such purposeful passion that it stole my breath, and he drew me close to his body so I could feel the steely length of his cock within his breeches. That should have been enough to warn me away—oh, most fearsome instrument of my ruin!—but he’d brought me along so well in his seduction over the last weeks that instead it only served to feed my desire. He pushed me back onto the bed and climbed atop me, giving me only a moment to accustom myself to the