Wicked Temptation (Regency Sinners 6)(37)
Titus was beginning to think Pru had ignored his earlier warning and decided to remain in her bedchamber this evening, when she entered the drawing room where he stood talking with her parents before dinner.
Pru didn’t just enter the drawing room, she swept into it, resplendent in a fashionable silk gown in a light color she had not worn since her sister’s death. The low neckline of the cream gown revealed a delicious expanse of the tops of her voluptuous breasts. Her golden curls were fashionably styled and secured at her crown with diamond pins, with several more loose curls at her temples and nape.
A fragility of nape which showed a slight redness where Titus’s teeth had bitten there earlier today when Pru lay over his desk with his cock buried deep inside her.
The thickening length inside his evening breeches told him his cock wanted inside her again.
Her parents moved discreetly away as Pru crossed the room to give Titus a formal curtsey. “My lord.”
He nodded. “Lady Prudence.”
“The weather is clement for this time of year, is it not?”
“Very clement,” Titus answered dryly. “Might I compliment you on your appearance this evening?”
“Thank you.” She gave a brittle smile. “Will you be retiring to the country soon for the winter months?”
Was this how she intended to spend the evening, by treating him as no more than a polite acquaintance to make small talk with?
It was a game Titus refused to play. “I have no plans to go anywhere until my wife can accompany me.”
Pru shot him a quick glance. “I was not aware you had a wife.”
“But I will have,” he assured her. “And, remember my warning of earlier,” he continued softly as she would have spoken. “The presence of your parents this evening will not protect you from me or the spanking you are very rapidly earning for yourself.”
A blush colored her cheeks. “We agreed only if I allow it,” she reminded him sharply.
Titus leaned down until his lips were only inches from the delicate curve of her ear. “If you continue to treat me in this standoffish manner, I shall make you beg for it.”
Her eyes flashed with temper. “You most certainly will not!”
Titus gave a wolfish grin as he nodded. “And I shall enjoy doing it too.”
“You arrogant—” She broke off to draw in a deep and controlling breath. “It seems dinner is now served.” She indicated toward where the butler—a different and younger man due to the previous butler’s death—stood in the doorway.
If Pru had thought she would be saved further embarrassment once they were seated at the dinner table, then she was wrong. Her mother, in her infinite wisdom, had decided to utilize the small family dining room this evening rather than the more formal room usually reserved for when they had guests. Because her mother now believed Titus to be a part of that family?
No matter the reason, Pru found herself seated directly opposite Titus at the small oblong table, with her parents at either end. Pru suffered his proximity as they were efficiently served wine, the soup, and main course by Mayberry, previously the under butler, but having now stepped into Parker’s place as head butler. None of the family could bear the thought of bringing a stranger into the house.
Romney engaged her father in conversation as they finished eating the main course. “Do you have any plans to return to Bedfordshire soon?”
“That will depend upon…developments here,” the earl replied lightly.
Pru was about to demand what developments when she felt a stocking-covered foot pressing against her ankle. Titus’s stocking-covered foot.
Although, there was no outward appearance of his subterfuge as he continued to converse with her father. “Of course.”
“A Christmas wedding might be nice,” her mother offered as Mayberry served dessert.
Pru gave a startled squeak as that stockinged foot now traveled the length of her calf.
“Perhaps that is a little too far away.” Her mother misunderstood the reason for Pru’s distress. “Next month, then?”
“I do not—” Pru broke off with a gasp, becoming completely befuddled as that silk-covered foot caressed along the length of her inner thigh before coming to rest on the heat of her mound.
“I spoke to the Prince Regent after leaving here this afternoon,” Romney announced. “He has very kindly granted Pru and me a Special Marriage License. I intend talking to the man at St. George’s Church tomorrow so we can be married next week.”
“I am not—” Pru groaned as a marauding toe entered the slit in her drawers and pressed against her nubbin.
“Next week?” her mother echoed in alarm. “I do not see how we can we possibly be ready by then.”
“Pru only needs a gown. The one she is wearing this evening is perfectly suitable.” Romney gave a dismissive smile—as if his toe were not presently rubbing between Pru’s thighs, stimulating her clitoris to hard and aching attention. “What Pru does or does not wear to our wedding is completely irrelevant to me, as long as she is my wife at the end of it.”
To anyone else—to her parents?—Titus’s comment might sound like that of a lover eager to marry, but Pru was not fooled for a moment. Titus wished to get the foolishness of their wedding out of the way so that he could concentrate on what was really important to him: identifying and arresting the traitor to England. No doubt he believed his offer of marriage to her to be another—misguided—way of protecting her.