How to Marry a Marble Marquis(14)

“Moving from bloom to bloom, my lord?”

“Visiting each to pay homage to their beauty,” he agreed, lifting his wineglass to his lips, hesitating with a devilish smirk. “One can hardly hold it against a butterfly for dipping his tongue in for a taste of that sweet nectar.”

Heat moved up her neck, capturing her ears and cheeks. He’s testing you. He is a wicked profligate, but you can play this game. She laughed, a coy trill, watching closely as his fingers moved slowly against the stem of the crystal glass. “What else would the flowers have to discuss, if not the crude attentions of butterflies?” She picked up her own glass, swirling it, watching the garnet liquid circle before continuing. “One does wonder, though, if the purity of butterflies is questioned in the same manner the flowers are judged. After all, a careless butterfly can ruin a delicate bloom as he goes from bud to bud, but who holds him accountable for overused . . . wings?”

His head cocked, the corner of his mouth twitching. He managed to hold his smile in check, but she could see it there in his eyes, and knowledge that she had been the one to make those sapphires glimmer was a giddy triumph. She’d never before spoken to a man in such a way, but the theater had been educational in more than just stagecraft.

“On the contrary, my dear, the butterfly merely improves his technique from field to field. All for the betterment of the flower, of course. And those who would judge the flowers so harshly merely want a docile bloom who won’t question their lack of mastery over their own” — his hand hung in the air, and she held her breath, wondering if he would be brazen enough to gesture to his lap — “wingmanship.”

Do not laugh. Don’t give in to his wretched charms. “I hardly see how that is for the betterment of the flowers.”

“Oh, but of course it is. A butterfly with skill can land softly upon his chosen flower, giving each luscious petal the attention she deserves.” His thumb moved against the crystal stem of his glass, stroking it in a way that made it feel like there were indeed butterflies, all converging in her chest, tickling as his fingers moved up and down. “He will glory in every inch of her, from stem to stamen, with his sweet words,” — his thumb stroked down the stem of the crystal, and Eleanor was certain she was able to feel the drag of it down her throat — “his touch,” — her nipple tightened as she watched the drag of movement from crystal stem to the curve of the base, the pad of his thumb hugging its voluptuousness. She wondered if he would be pleased with the shape of her breasts or if he would find them too inelegant, a constant fear as she struggled to contain them in dresses she could no longer afford to have cut to her measurements. “And with his tongue,” he finished at last, red tongue darting out to touch his lip, as if to prove the point of his mastery. She pressed her thighs together, suddenly feeling flush.

Eleanor thought surely one of the servants must have lit a fire in the grate, for the room seemed uncomfortably hot. The image of Silas Stride’s head on the body of a butterfly crossed her mind, a butterfly with miniature dragon wings, like his, flitting from bloom to boom, coming to land on her eventually. Only when he did so, the flower seemed to be growing up from between her spread open-legs, his body covering the blossom of her most intimate place. Fire bloomed in her belly, and she was practically able to feel his clawed hands gripping her legs, the heat of his mouth molten against the petals of her sex.

“When he feeds from her nectar, the dip of his tongue is an ecstasy, Miss Eastwick, not an invasion. She’ll open her petals gladly for him and let him have his fill. The finest delicacy a butterfly can enjoy, and with the proper mastery, I assure you, it is extremely pleasurable for the flower.”

She could say nothing in response. It was all she could do to remain in her seat and not climb atop the crowded table, pushing pheasant and neeps aside to plate herself before him, raise her skirts and spread her legs wide, and allow Silas Stride to dip his tongue between her thighs. Why is it so bloody hot in here?! This was no longer innuendo, Eleanor decided fitfully. He had broken his own rules. As she squirmed in her seat, face flaming, the Marquis of Basingstone raised an eyebrow.

“Surely a lovely flower as yourself has experienced such —“

“I have not, my lord,” she answered weakly, wishing it was ladylike to dab at her forehead with her linen napkin. “I’ll remind you again, I am but a late bloomer in my first season.”

“I do confess myself shocked to hear that, Miss Eastwick. One does hear such tales of far-roaming adventures, after all. I suppose I assumed your time away from home added to your education in this arena.”

“Which arena might that be, Lord Stride?” she choked out, the room spinning. “Being a congenial conversation partner? Or tiptoeing around the innuendos of men, holding my tongue one moment and gilding it the next?”

“The arena of actresses, Miss Eastwick.”

That careless little shrug again, a thoughtless movement of his broad shoulders, and her heart sunk. She was never going to get her family out of this sinking morass in which they’d been left.

“Conventional wisdom says,” he went on in that lofty, careless tone, “that a lady of the stage is not much different from a lady of the night, does it not?”

“Conventional wisdom is often wrong, I assure you.” She felt overheated and dizzy, her head ached, and her appetite for both the rich food before her and the gargoyle across the table was gone. “Conventional wisdom would have me believe you to be a gentleman, Lord Stride, and not the unrepentant rake that you are.” It was a mistake coming here. It was a mistake trusting him at all.