A Touch Wicked (Private Arrangements) Read online

  Contents

  Newsletter

  The Private Arrangements Series

  A Touch Wicked

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Thank you!

  Sneak Peek

  His Scandalous Lessons

  Chapter 1 of His Scandalous Lessons

  About the Author

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  The Private Arrangements Series

  A Touch Wicked

  His Scandalous Lessons

  Coming Next:

  Tempting the Scoundrel

  A Touch Wicked

  (A Private Arrangements Novella)

  He is London's most eligible bachelor

  James Grey, the Earl of Kent, is at the top of every debutante's list for marriage. He's handsome, titled, rich as Croesus, and on the lookout for a bride. When an invitation to the Masquerade — an illicit club where members carry on affairs in complete anonymity — arrives on his doorstep, it seems like a last chance to revel in bachelorhood. But after he meets the mysterious Selene, he gets more than he bargained for.

  She is keeping a secret identity

  Emma Dumont is a commoner with desires far too lofty for her station — including a hopeless infatuation with Lord Kent, her employer. When she overhears his plans to attend the Masquerade, she decides to act: go under the guise of a lady, seduce him, and spend one night in his arms. As it turns out, one night isn't enough.

  The arrangement is supposed to be straightforward: anonymous lovemaking, no attachments. But matters of the heart are a lot more complicated . . .

  For the women willing to risk everything.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1872

  James Grey, The Earl of Kent, had only heard of the Masquerade discreetly murmured between glasses of brandy at White’s. The stories alone were enough to inflame a man's desire.

  Yet, as he regarded the invitation and box that had arrived on his doorstep that morning, he felt a foreign sense of trepidation. And James Grey — ever-practical, and certainly not prone to being emotional — was not a man who grew nervous easily.

  “If you don’t go, I will.” James’s younger brother Richard read over the invitation. “I shall bear the hardship,” he declared dramatically, “of anonymous lovemaking. Oh, the sacrifice.”

  James eyed his brother. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t pretend to be me.”

  “Thank god I’d be wearing a mask, then,” Richard said, looking up from the letter. “Since I’m the handsomer brother and no one would be fooled otherwise.”

  The Grey brothers were close enough in age and appearance that people often mistook them for twins. They both had the same dark blond hair and piercing blue eyes, the same broad shoulders and muscular form. They were, to use a word whispered among the ton, delicious.

  Their personalities, however, couldn’t be more different. Richard bedded any attractive woman who crooked a finger at him — then left her by morning. James had a tendency toward longer affairs. He was a considerate lover, methodical in his devotion to female pleasure. His partners gossiped often about his mastery in the bedchamber, his ability to seduce.

  There was only one problem: he never, ever yielded his control.

  “The answer is still no.”

  James swirled the brandy in his glass and drank. The afternoon light had cast the drawing room in a warm glow, and the light fell on that damned box as if God himself was telling James: take your mask, go to the Masquerade, and fuck a woman senseless. You know you want to. It’s been a month.

  James’s last affair ended in the way they all did: when his mistress began to feel things for him and expected him to reciprocate. Feelings were messy things. Too troublesome. He’d seen the destruction wrought when emotions clouded all sense of reason.

  Perhaps that made the Masquerade a perfect solution to his month-long celibacy. Its draw was the anonymity of intimacy, uncomplicated by identity, status, money or duty. But James was not the kind of man who listened to his cock.

  Or God, for that matter.

  Richard waved the invitation in the air like a flag. “Don’t you understand how many people are clamoring for this?”

  “I’m beginning to have some notion,” James said dryly.

  Richard went on as if he hadn’t heard his brother. “I haven’t received one, and god knows I’ve tried. I even went so far as to try bribing the messenger into revealing the Madame’s identity. No luck.” He looked up at James and narrowed his eyes. “Why you?”

  “I can’t possibly imagine.”

  James considered telling his brother that he might not have bedded every woman of a certain age in Britain, but he didn’t take his pleasure and leave. Quick lovemaking was not something James Grey was capable of. He gave and gave and gave first, until her knees shook. Until her toes curled. Until she screamed for him.

  He may not bother with things like feelings, but many women had tried and failed to make him theirs. Which was reason enough not to attend. "The last thing I need is to see some woman from this club in a ballroom. Especially, god forbid, a debutante. When I marry, I want it to be on my terms.”

  “Not a concern,” Richard replied shortly. He pointed to the letter and quoted, “Members shall never reveal themselves to one another. We honor secrecy above all.”

  “Noblewomen not expecting a betrothal after lovemaking,” James said doubtfully. “Assuming you can believe that overwrought letter.”

  As a rich earl, aged nine-and-twenty, James knew it was his duty to marry and begin the business of producing an heir. Which seemed a rather dispassionate view of matrimony, but it was the way of the ton. It was generally well known that James Grey — ever logical and scrupulous — had decided that his bachelorhood would end at age thirty.

  And his birthday was just before the London season.

  There’s still time, he thought, staring at the letter.

  Hell, ambitious mothers had already begun shoving their daughters at him whenever he entered a ballroom. A man could only take so much of it before he went mad.

  “I’ve had friends attend,” Richard said. “The rumors are true. If anyone breaks the rules, the Madame sends them a letter informing them they’re no longer welcome. Though I've heard she’ll allow people to trade memberships, depending on the circumstance.” He set down the invitation and regarded the slim white box. “What’s in this?”

  “What do you think? The mask, of course.”

  Richard opened the white box to find a leather mask nestled in the centre. Like something the devil himself would wear, it was pitch black and pointed at the ends, hornlike. Made for a sinner. Made for indulgence. It concealed just enough of the face to obscure a man’s identity. He could become a different person each night.

  James couldn’t help b
ut think of the kind of man he’d be behind that sinner’s mask. He could be anyone. Play a different part each night.

  How would he make love to a woman while he wore it?

  What would her mask look like?

  “Kent.” His brother’s voice was suddenly serious.

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re going to be thirty in under two months.”

  James scowled at Richard and took another drink of brandy. “I appreciate the reminder.”

  Richard set the mask back in its box and shut the lid. “I wouldn’t need to remind you if you hadn’t decided on an arbitrary age—”

  “It’s not arbitrary,” James said in irritation. "Christ, man, I'll be courting debutantes ten years my junior. If I wait too long, I’ll be another old bastard hoping to snare a young wife. I’d feel sorry for her.”

  Richard stared at him. “I see you’ve put a great deal of thought into this. Perhaps too much.”

  “If I had known you were here to harangue me, I wouldn’t have bothered letting you in.” James rose from the settee and went to collect the invitation, but Richard held it out of his reach. “Give me the damn thing, Richard.”

  His brother only smirked and continued to hold the paper aloft. James would have to climb over him like a complete fool to get it. “Do you plan to have a mistress after you marry?” Richard asked. “Or do you still only intend on fucking one woman?”

  James straightened. He shouldn’t have been surprised — the filter between his brother’s brain and his mouth always took a detour through his prick first. How he managed to hold any sort of conversation at all was a mystery. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business one way or another.”

  “Because you wouldn’t set some woman up, would you? Not like Father.” Richard looked smug. Sometimes James longed to punch him in the face for it.

  “I might.” The lie felt awkward on his tongue. “You don’t know that I won’t.”

  But James was nothing like the late earl. Their father was never discreet in his numerous affairs. He paraded his mistresses about town without regard to the humiliation and gossip his countess endured. When James’s mother was in labor with his sister, Alexandra, his father hadn’t bothered to be present. Nor was the bastard there mere hours later when his wife's difficult childbirth drove her to an early grave.

  He had been too damn busy tupping his mistress.

  Richard let out a breath, and James knew his lie was obvious. His brother held the invitation in front of him. “Go — before you’re shackled in a passionless marriage to a society miss seeking a titled husband. This gives you the opportunity to bed a woman in complete anonymity, no attachments. Hell, go bed several. Just make sure it’s enough to last a lifetime.”

  James felt something inside him stir at visions of his nameless future wife who only married him for what he could offer. One he only married because it was his duty. “How do you know it will be passionless and dull?” His voice sounded even, but hollow to his ears.

  Richard smiled bitterly. “Because duty is the antithesis of desire, brother. Father knew that.”

  James stared at the eloquent handwriting, each word painstakingly inked. After a moment’s hesitation, he took the invitation from his brother.

  Chapter 2

  Miss Emma Dumont — companion, secretary, and co-writer to Lady Alexandra Grey — was many things, but an eavesdrop? Not one of them.

  Until now, that is.

  She was at the door of the sitting room, ear to the wood as she listened to the conversation within. Shameless, shameless, shameless.

  You ought to be embarrassed, she thought. Look at you. You're awful. You're terrible. The worst sort of person. You're—

  "This gives you the opportunity to bed a woman in complete anonymity, no attachments," Mr. Grey was saying. "Hell, go bed several. Just make sure it’s enough to last a lifetime."

  Emma pressed a hand to her lips, smothering her gasp.

  You're pathetic, Emma Dumont. Truly hopeless.

  Yes, the horrible, awful truth was that she had desired Lord Kent since she came to live in this house three years ago.

  What began as a position of lady’s maid for his sister had become an unconventional arrangement. It started with Alexandra asking Emma’s opinion on her first publication, an essay on the restrictions etiquette imposed disproportionately on women. Those questions turned into reading the lady’s later work, offering criticism, and eventually, adding sections of her own. After the last, Alexandra showed her the front page of her next essay: by Lady Alexandra Charlotte Grey and Emma Dumont.

  Emma had protested, until finally she relented and said, “Please credit Marie Christine.”

  It only seemed right to give Emma’s mother recognition for the philosophies instilled in her daughter, carefully cultivated from a lifetime as one of Paris’s foremost beauties. Few people knew how clever Marie Dumont was, how wildly brilliant. She had taught Emma everything she knew, and hired tutors for what she didn't.

  The result? A daughter with more education than most noblewomen, and no use for it except to charm titled gentlemen into keeping her as a mistress.

  Like her mother.

  Emma had seen what the whims of a man had done to her mother. So she became a servant, a lady’s maid, desired for the novelty of her upper class accent.

  And, now, an authoress.

  Not even Lord Kent knew who his sister’s mysterious co-writer was; it didn’t seem to matter to him. Other members of the ton regarded Alexandra Grey as a radical, an eccentric, which was no doubt the reason she remained unmarried. Beauty only accounted for so much. Peers did not like marrying women with minds of their own.

  Yet Lord Kent encouraged Alexandra's independence, only saying, “I’m going to have to pay your bail out of gaol one day, aren’t I? Keep an eye on her, Miss Dumont. Don’t let her drag you into trouble.”

  That was the day Emma Dumont had decided she wanted him.

  Of course, it didn’t help that he was handsome and athletic, broad and more muscled than any lord had business being. But it was the way he supported his siblings’ choices that had clinched it in the end. In that, society had deemed him lax in his duties as the family patriarch.

  Emma thought it was lovely.

  She thought he was lovely.

  Hence: her foolish decision to eavesdrop once she heard the word masquerade.

  Emma jumped as the brothers’ footsteps sounded inside — coming right to the door. She moved to the shadowed alcove beneath the stairs, pressing her body against the wall. Not a second later, the men exited the drawing room, the heels of their boots thudding on the hallway carpet.

  “You’re making the right decision, Kent,” Mr. Grey said. “I hope she’s sensational, whoever she is.”

  “I suppose you’ll want an update tomorrow morning,” Lord Kent said.

  “That depends. Would you tell me?”

  “No.” Emma heard Lord Kent open the front door. “And if you consider breathing a word of this to our sister, recall that I have a mental list of all your married lovers, and happen to play cards with at least five of their husbands.”

  “Duly noted. Have a nice tup.”

  The front door closed and Lord Kent’s footsteps disappeared down the hall to his study. Emma waited a moment longer and eased out of the alcove. She considered returning to her room, but curiosity — a common trait among the Dumonts, to rather disastrous results — got the better of her.

  Emma went into the drawing room, picked up the stationary on the table, and read the flawless script. The invitation was concise, short. A cordial note about membership to the Masquerade, held at an undisclosed building in Mayfair, where gentlemen and gentlewomen met for clandestine erotic nights.

  They spoke five words to gain entry: Tu peux garder un secret?

  Can you keep a secret?

  Holding her breath, Emma set down the invitation and lifted the lid on the creamy, matte box. Nestled on white silk was a black le
ather mask, perfectly contoured to fit the face. Emma drew her fingers across the bottoms of the eye cutouts, picturing the earl wearing the mask, his beautiful blue eyes staring back at her. Meeting her own. Finally. Choosing her as his lover. Finally.

  Complete anonymity.

  No attachments.

  The Dumont curiosity always won.

  Emma could barely concentrate during her and Alexandra’s walk through Hyde Park. She made all the requisite noises that indicated, Why yes, of course I’m listening. Do keep chatting so I can continue to imagine myself making love to your brother.

  Lord, she was hopeless.

  Emma kicked at the pebbles on the walkway as they strolled alongside the Serpentine. On a normal day, she would have stopped to breathe in warm spring air, listened to the ducks as they swam across the water. Now all she could do was think about him. Kick. His mask. Kick. That bloody invitation. Kick.

  And how she realized that curse sounded like a shorter, nastier word for curiosity.

  “Emma dear?” Alexandra sounded amused.

  “Hmm?”

  Emma glanced over to find Alexandra smiling at her. Well, it wasn’t a smile so much as a quirk of her lips, a twinkle of amusement in her blue eyes — identical to her brother’s. “Is there something the matter?”

  “Of course not,” she said quickly.