Reckless in Innocence ~ A #Free Historical Romance story ~ Part Three

Reckless in Innocence

© Jane Lark

Publishing rights belong to Jane Lark, this should not be recreated in any form without prior consent from Jane Lark

Reckless in Innocence

Read the earlier parts one , two

Part Three

Elizabeth

Awash with Marcus, Elizabeth felt his chest rise and fall slowly beneath her fingers. Her pulse beat at her temples, and in other places, as he took control of the simple kiss she had begun and taught her a rhythm of caress. But his hands remained at his sides.

She wanted more.

She wanted what a man offered his wife.

She wanted to be enfolded in his arms as she had been in the dance, to feel his hands slide across her skin and the sparks his touch could ignite. She loved Marcus Campbell, the Duke of Tay, the most notorious and handsome rake in the entire ton and she wanted to have everything he could offer.

“Touch me.” Her lips parted their kiss and his open mouth caught the breathless words.

Pulling away, Marcus’s palms lifted to her cheeks, embracing her face. She felt the warmth in his skin from the coals of desire.

“Elizabeth, you don’t know what you’re saying. Have you any idea of my reputation, sweetheart? Do not tempt me. If I take a sip I will want the cupful.”

His mouth was still close to hers and every word was resonant, sending shivers across her skin. “Contrary to belief, even rakes may have morals, Elizabeth. I will not take your innocence.” The deep tenor of his voice reverberated through her soul.

Elizabeth broke their contact, moving away from his touch, gambling everything on his words, if her own thirst was any measure of desire and a sip was not enough – then if she took the cup away – perhaps his need to quench his thirst would be too great to deny.

She turned her back to him, not moving far away but willing him to reach for her, watching their reflection in the darkened glass opposite. He leaned back against an ironwork table, his arms folding across his chest, as if he wished to secure them away from her. But she also saw his gaze trail across her figure. He was tempted; all she had to do was lure him into letting down his guard.

“I was naive when you first spoke to me, Your Grace, but not innocent. We have been playing for weeks. I am merely showing you my cards and calling for you to lay down your hand. Which hardly makes me innocent. I am not innocent. I am the one who is raising the stakes between us.”

He said nothing then. His answer was silence. But she could see that he watched her still.

Marcus

The reflection of the pale fabric of her gown, clinging to her slender figure, kissing the edge of her hip, her buttock and her thigh… glimmered against the dark onyx glass showing their reflection.

She was ethereal.

Touch me. Her words… A shaft of desire raced through him, even though his blood already ran as heavy as molten lead with need for her. He had not seen this coming, but he was sorely tempted to accept. She looked delicious in that dress and luxuriously sexual with her lips reddened from his kiss.

She was obviously inexperienced; but innocent?

I am not innocent.

His heart thumped, a slow steady thud of building tension. Is she not then? Was I entirely wrong about her? She had openly encouraged him for weeks with her eyes. Tonight she had leaned against him in the dance and ruthlessly directed him to bring her here – and once she’d got him alone, kissed him senseless.

Perhaps she was not as innocent as he’d believed. It was an enticing thought, to touch her. Desire thickened in his throat and his body stirred.

She must have seen the dark, wanting expression on his face because when he met her gaze in the black glass she whispered again, “Touch me, Marcus.”

It sounded like a siren’s call. Instinct and thirst pulled him forward, and he reached for her as heaviness gripped his groin. His hand slipped about her waist and drew her back against him.

He took a sharp breath. It shuddered through his limbs. A similar breath echoed from her mouth. He brushed kisses against her neck and her body melted back against him.

When he looked up, he caught her watching their reflection in the pane of glass darkened by night. His dark hair was strikingly different to her pale complexion and towering blond curls. “Touch me.” Elizabeth repeated her desire, her voice crying out the longing of his body. He wanted to touch.

He released his grip at her waist and his fingers instead slid up to her bare shoulders, then traced the low neckline of her gown. He took a breath, as longing surged through his blood. He had never wanted a woman as much as this. His fingers slipped into her bodice and cupped her breast. His thumb stroked over the tight bud of her nipple. Locks of her hair touched his neck and his ear as he kissed her shoulder and continued to touch, he trailed his kisses up to her neck to feel the tremor of her pulse beneath her skin.

She laid her head back on his shoulder.

He gripped her shoulders, pressuring her to turn to him.

She did.

He took it as complete consent and his lips pressed to hers. The woman was about to discover what she had been playing with for months. His fingers clawed, gripping the sheer muslin fabric of her gown and sliding it up. Her thighs shivered as the fabric rose, along with her thin petticoat. Her fingers trembled a little as they held his shoulders, clinging not caressing, yet her mouth answered his with a beautiful hunger, searching and reaching for more of everything he gave, as if she tried to forget all else.

The hem of her gown breached the top of her thighs and his fingers touched skin. Desire gripped hard in his groin as he gripped the back of her thighs, and pulled her body closer, so she could feel what she did to him. Her fingers clawed into his shoulders pushing him back, but she did not speak when he obeyed.

He met her gaze and saw uncertainty there. The heat had faded a little. “Are you sure about this?”

She nodded, but it was a shy sort of nod. The girl maybe not be innocent but she was no wanton either. He brushed a loose curl behind her ear. “You are certain…”

She nodded again biting her lip, her blue gaze clinging to his.

But he was not certain. He would have turned away. but she caught hold of his arm. “Please, yes. Touch me… I want you to.” He held her gaze for a moment, reading the plea in her eyes as well as her voice.

She had feelings for him.

Feelings he’d never known before shifted in his chest too, and his head bent to kiss her again, his other hand returning to her bare thigh. His thumb stroked her skin there as he continued kissing her.

His kiss teased her lips until they parted and began to play, reaching up for his, if he lifted a little away. Then he breached them with his tongue, penetrating her mouth, and catching at her parted teeth. She had not kissed another man like this that was obvious, but she learned…

Desire raged in his blood as he gripped her thighs harder and lifted her up onto the table. His fingertips slipped down and up her thighs, just to feel the silk of her soft skin. Oh God, she was beautiful. He pulled her legs about his waist and rocked against her, penetrating her mouth and playing games with her tongue as it tentatively played with his.

Her stocking clad shins curled about the back of his thighs urging him on.

His hands lifted to her shoulders, his thumb resting over the pulse in her neck. It pounded out a sharp beat, and her skin was warm and damp. Her fingers slipped into his hair as the strength of his kiss leaned her back a little. Soon… But first.. He slid her dress from her shoulders and lifted one breast from its snug cradle in her bodice. Then he broke the kiss, lowered his head and devoured it, sucking hard on her tight, pale, pink nipple.

“Marcus.” Her fingers gripped in his hair as her soft thighs tightened their grip about his hips.

When he did not stop, her breathing fractured, but he gave her no chance to regain it, as his fingers traced a path up her inner thigh. Her legs let the grip about his hips go, and fell to hang from the table.

He slid his fingers in to her and he touched her with his thumb. Her breath became more hesitant. He let her nipple slip off his tongue and lifted his head to kiss her again…

Her inexperience made every experience new for him. He was used to grasping women. They would have touched him by now. They would be hurrying him, hungering for a quick escape, relief and then a return to the ballroom as though nothing had taken place. But then he should not allow this to go on too long. They still had to return to the ballroom, and people must not know what had occurred here… or even have cause to guess. This was too far. This would be ruin for her…

Still touching her between her legs, his fingers playing a game of enchantment he broke their kiss and whispered over her lips, “You’re beautiful.” A well of emotion swelled up into his chest as well as gripping harder at his groin. “I have always thought so.” She was losing the knowledge of where they were, focusing only on the tunes her body played and not those they could hear seeping from the ballroom. But someone could come here any moment, he could not leave this longer.

“You’re sure?” he said over her lips, looking at her. Her eyes had been closed, but now they opened and looked at him with a hundred questions. Was she sure? “No change of heart?” She took a breath that shuddered into her lungs, and shook her head, but her hands shook too as she leaned back a little and gripped the edges of the iron table. “You must tell me if you change your mind?”

She nodded.

His head bent to kiss her again and a tremor shook through her dangling legs as his fingers slipped from between her thighs, then reached to fee the buttons of his flap.

With her legs parted about his, she was open to him, ready, and hot, wet. Desperately wet. He looked down to the Eden of her juncture and touched himself against her nectar. Her fingers did not lift to touch him, but merely continued gripping the iron table as he angled himself, watching with a blissful hunger for what was to come, and a sense of awe for this beautiful young woman who was giving herself to him so humbly.

He thrust. The Devil. The damned Devil...

His breath hissed through his teeth as hers echoed about the glass expressing her pain and her muscle tightened in sudden shock.

She had been a virgin. She was not inexperienced. She had had no experience.

Her whole body shuddered as he stayed still within her and met her gaze.

He could not ask the questions… What was there to say… It was too late…

He held still as he felt her pain. She had become rigid and her passage had lost its slick coat.

Internally he used every curse he knew as he dropped his forehead to rest against hers, breathing heavily, his own desire had not waned, it had increased, the girl was pure novelty. But why the hell had she chosen to give herself to him – he was not worthy of this. Her fingers released their grip on the table and instead gripped and clung to his shoulders with a desperate hold.

“You were a virgin,” he whispered, stating the bloody obvious, as he lifted his head, his fingers gripping her thighs as he still stood between her legs, buried deep inside her.

“Please do not stop,” she whispered, in a voice that urged him to continue, with a desperate tone. “I want this.”

He held her gaze for a moment, she was so young. Why had she done this… But God it was too late now, even if he wished to stop, the damage had been done.

“Please I wish for this…” The words whispered from her lips and he breathed them in.

He wished for it too. A new thought bloomed – he was the first man to be in this precious place inside her. The very first…

Could there be any greater gift given to a jaded rake like him.

If you cannot wait until next week for more of Jane Lark’s writing there’s plenty to read right now 😀

To read the Marlow Intrigues series, you can start anywhere, but this is the actual order

The Lost Love of Soldier ~ The Prequel

#1 The Illicit Love of a Courtesan

#1.5 Capturing The Love of an Earl ~ This Free Novella

#2 The Passionate Love of a Rake

#2.5 The Desperate Love of a Lord ~ Free and NOW available to pre-order from Amazon

#3 The Scandalous Love of a Lord

and, yes, there are more to come 🙂

Go to the index

For

the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan,
another free short story, about characters from book #2, A Lord’s Scandalous Love,
the prequel excerpts for book #3 The Scandalous Love of a Duke

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance stories, and the author of a No.1 bestselling Historical Romance novel in America, ‘The Illicit Love of a Courtesan’.

Click here to find out more about Jane’s books, and see Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

Jane’s books can be ordered from most booksellers in paperback

Lady Caroline Lamb’s whole disgraceful truth… Part eight ~ coming out in France in the time of Napoleon

Does the title surprise you? Well this story surprised me when I read it some time ago… Who would have thought that the British aristocracy were bringing their daughters out in Paris during the time of Napoleon. But that is what happened.

Before I go on to tell you the tale though here is the background to this series of posts for anyone one joining us today, and for those who have been following my blog for a while, well as always just skip to the bold type at the end of the italics.

I was drawn to Lady Caroline Lamb, who lived in the Regency era, because Harriette Wilson the courtesan who wrote her memoirs in 1825, mentions the Ponsonby and the Lamb family frequently. Also the story of Caroline’s affair with Lord Byron captured my imagination. Caroline was also a writer, she wrote poems, and novels in her later life. I have read Glenarvon.

Her life story and her letters sucked me further into the reality of the Regency world which is rarely found in modern-day books. Jane Austen wrote fictional, ‘country’ life as she called it, and I want to write fictional ‘Regency’ life rather than simply romance. But what I love when I discover gems in my research like Caroline’s story is sharing the real story behind my fiction here too.

Lady Caroline Lamb was born Caroline Ponsonby, on the 13^th November 1785. She was the daughter of Frederick Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, and Henrietta (known as Harriet), the sister of the infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

Caroline became an official lady when her grandfather died, and her father became Earl of Bessborough earning her the honorific title ‘Lady’ and she grew up in a world of luxury, even Marie Antoinette was a family friend. Caroline was always renowned as being lively, and now it is suspected she had a condition called bipolar. As a child she earned herself a title as a ‘brat’, by such things as telling her aunt Georgiana that Edward Gibbon’s (the author of The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire) face was ‘so ugly it had frightened her puppy’.

And when she grew up Byron once described Caroline as “the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago.”

This is purely my guess – but I suppose the Cavendishs and Ponsonbys gravitated more towards France because they were from an old family, and when Harriette and Georgiana were in their youth the French court was seen as the most eloquent, and Marie Antionette had been their close friend. In the early period of the Georgian era people traveled all the time, many people know of the London seasons but in reality there was a Paris season, a Bath season and a Brussels season, and many more, the aristocracy moved around to socialize and to find marriage partners. I am stating the obvious now, but people didn’t have telephones, and the majority lived on country estates, how else were the young men and women to meet each other unless families came together, and as they did not want them marrying beneath them then travelling to meet others of the same standing was the only way to match make. Especially in the days of know pictures either (look what happened to Henry VIII when he chose a wife from a portrait). It was not the only reason for gathering, but it played a large part in why whole families traveled.

But why on earth did they travel to Paris to bring Caro out into French society? Well a treaty had been signed between France and Britain in March 1802 so they were no longer at war, so perhaps it was not so extraordinary, but Caro’s grandmother did not agree with the idea, and yet to Caro and her mother in the letters which were shared, this seemed a much bigger event than coming out among high society in London.

They sailed in December 1802 and Caro recorded her feelings in a poem.

‘Farewell to England and farewell to frocks.

Now France I hail thee with a sweeping train.

Subdued I’ll bed my stubborn locks

And enter on a life of art and pain.

Farewell to childhood and perhaps to peace

Now life I shall upon thy dangerous stream.

And oh may wisdom with each year encrease

And prove my follies but an infant’s dream.’

What Caro wore to her first Parisian ball, the Duchess of Gordon’s, on the 22nd December 1802, is recorded too. It was a fashionable white gown, with rows of bows, made from blue ribbon, along with shoulder length white doeskin gloves, and her white slippers were satin. Her hair had also been more significantly decorated in a ‘Whig bouffant’ and adorned with pearls and a diamond diadem, while pearls and diamonds were also about her neck.

The Duchess of Gordon was as much of a high society socialite as Harriette and Georgiana, all her daughters had married dukes, and so obviously the decision to take Caro to Paris was not without forethought, they knew the circuit they were taking Caro into.

Caro would have danced until daylight at the ball. Society then engaged through the night parted in the early morning and then reconvened calling upon each other after two in the afternoon, and then their evenings began again.

Caro and her mother record attending many balls, the Duchess of Luyens, Princess Dolgorouk’s and Lady Melbourne, the mother of Caro’s future husband, William Lamb, gave a party on 13th January (implying therefore that many people from British high society had traveled over to Paris for the period).

Harryo, Georgiana’s daughter, who was with the family too, had obviously taken a dislike to William Lamb and his brother Frederick; she wrote in a letter that they were drunk at their mother’s ball, and quotes William discussing ‘the danger of a young woman believing in weligion and pwacticing mowality‘

Oh those Lambs 😉 sorry that is pinching phrase Caro used later in her life.

However if Harriette had taken Caro there with the hope of attaching her to some suitable Frenchman, Caroline was having none of it. She wrote to a friend in England while she was there…

‘Frenchman, smile not thus on me;

I hate your race. I hate your nation.

In vain you bend your supple knee.,

I care not for your adulation.

I love a man of English race

Who never learned to fawn or dance.

He has an English heart and face.

Oh there is no such man in France.‘

Next time I will share Harriett’s opinion of the French and how she carefully maneuvered through society there with an aim to honour her memory of Marie Antoinette.

Go to the index

For

the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan,
another free short story, about characters from book #2, A Lord’s Scandalous Love,
the prequel excerpts for book #3 The Scandalous Love of a Duke