The Clever Strumpet Read online

  By the time they reached the modest grounds of Somerset’s country house—not to be confused with his vast landholdings in the county of Somerset from whence his title was derived—both Rufus and Caro were disheveled, sweaty, and thoroughly spent. Somehow, they managed to pull themselves together enough to stumble out of the carriage and approach the front door.

  A butler who appeared to be as old as the duke himself answered the door. Rufus drew himself to his full height—in spite of the fact that his hair was a mess and his lips were a tinge too red and swollen for innocence—and asked, “Is Miss Dobson at home?” as though they were on a banal social call instead of a dire investigation.

  “Who shall I say is calling?” the butler said in a voice like ancient, crumpled paper.

  “Lord Herrington and friend,” Rufus told him. There was an outside chance Miss Dobson wouldn’t quite know who that was and would be curious enough to allow them in.

  “One moment, my lord,” the butler said with a deep bow. He showed Rufus and Caro into a waiting area just inside the front hall, then disappeared into a side room.

  “This is encouraging,” Caro whispered, standing close enough to Rufus to reach for his hand and squeeze it.

  “Agreed,” he whispered back. “We can only hope the rest of the meeting is as auspicious.”

  A moment later, Miss Dobson stepped out of the room the butler had ventured into. Caro’s jaw nearly dropped. The woman had undergone a complete transformation. Instead of the haughty schoolmistress in serviceable muslin, wearing a cap, Miss Dobson appeared to be a grand lady, completely at home in a wealthy household. She wore a gown of deep blue brocade in a style that might have been fashionable when she was a younger woman and her hair was topped with a stylish turban. She carried herself with a serene grace and her expression was one of smooth boredom.

  At least until she spotted Rufus and Caro.

  All at once, everything noble about her dropped into open-mouth shock. Her eyes grew wide with panic. “No,” she said, taking a few steps back. “I am not at home to these people. Evans, get rid of them.”

  Rufus wasn’t about to let a butler as old as Methuselah put him off. He marched after Miss Dobson when she retreated into the parlor just off the hall, Caro right behind him.

  “We are not here to take up your time,” he said without addressing Miss Dobson, either as a friend or a superior. She was neither as far as he was concerned. “We merely have questions.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Miss Dobson insisted, retreating to the far end of the room and slipping behind a large chair, as though it could defend her.

  “Lies will merely prolong this process,” Caro said, coming to stand boldly by Rufus’s side. “Where is the Chandramukhi Diamond?”

  Rufus had to admire her courage and directness. He would show her just how much once they returned to London.

  “I know nothing,” Miss Dobson repeated. “Leave me alone.”

  “You were present in the same room with the thief on the night Lord Lichfield nearly unraveled the theft,” Rufus said. “You cannot pretend innocence now.”

  “It was a coincidence,” Miss Dobson insisted, everything from her expression to her posture proving her words to be a lie. “A mere coincidence.”

  “Evidence of your guilt was found at the school after your departure,” Caro said, taking a threatening step forward.

  Rufus did his best to hide his surprise. He couldn’t tell if Caro was bluffing or if there was something she hadn’t told him. Of course, he lived in a constant state of feeling there were things she hadn’t told him.

  Whatever her intentions, they worked. Miss Dobson’s lips quivered, and she sagged against the chair. “All right,” she said in a mournful voice. “I’ll tell you what I know, but it isn’t much.”

  She glanced to Caro, then Rufus, as though waiting for them to make some further comment. They both remained silent, staring intently at her and waiting.

  Miss Dobson’s shoulders sank and she let out a dramatic sigh. “I am not the thief,” she said. “Wallace Newman is.”

  A surge of victory shot through Rufus’s gut. He’d known it. He’d known it all along.

  Miss Dobson went on. “He was there that evening to sell the diamond to Lord Hazelton.”

  Caro sucked in a breath, snapping straighter and twisting to meet Rufus’s eyes. Prickles of surprise shot down Rufus’s back, numbing his hands with shock. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Hazelton was involved, not after the things he’d said the other day, but somehow, he was. It all fit into place, though.

  “He wasn’t there to pursue Jo and Felix,” Caro whispered, pressing a hand to her stomach.

  Rufus nodded, understanding fully what she’d meant. The man was a libertine and a blackguard. Unfortunately, as the sale hadn’t taken place, he wasn’t a criminal. Not yet.

  “That is all I know, I swear,” Miss Dobson wailed, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief she pulled from one of her sleeves. “Now leave me alone.”

  “Not yet,” Caro said, turning her scrutiny back on the woman. “What about Saif Khan? How is he involved?”

  “Saif Khan?” Miss Dobson’s face flushed a deep shade of red and she seemed to shrink in on herself. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him.”

  “Be careful of lying, madam,” Rufus said. “Lies never help the liar in the end.”

  “I am not lying,” she insisted unconvincingly. “I know nothing about the man.”

  “He was in the room during the evening in question,” Rufus reminded her.

  “I swear, I do not know why,” Miss Dobson blurted, annoyingly genuine. “Perhaps he was Wallace’s accomplice. Perhaps he was connected to Lord Hazelton in some way. He is the son of the man who hosts the parties, is he not? Perhaps he was attempting to cheat his father in some way. Fathers and sons despise each other. Or perhaps he merely wanted to bribe the partygoers. You know that savage Indians cannot be trusted.”

  Rufus clenched his teeth, his nerves bristling. He didn’t trust Saif as far as he could throw him, but the man was far from savage. Every one of the gentlemen from the subcontinent that he’d met were as civilized and educated as any other man.

  “Your prejudices will do you no good, madam,” he told Miss Dobson, “and your lies will not save you in the end.”

  “I am not a liar,” Miss Dobson insisted, raising her voice. She glanced to Caro. “If you want to know a liar, there she is.” She flung an arm toward Caro, one bony finger pointed.

  “I beg your pardon?” Caro yelped.

  “She’s the liar,” Miss Dobson insisted, narrowing her eyes and glancing back to Rufus. “I can tell you are enamored of her, but she is full of lies and deceptions. She stinks of them. Just ask her. Ask her about her wickedness and about her lies, the little strumpet.”

  Rufus grinned as though he didn’t care one wit about the accusations. “Caro and I have no lies between us,” he insisted.

  “No?” Miss Dobson stood straighter. “No doubt she’s played the blushing virgin with you. She is no such thing. You would be a fool if you cast your lot with her. Her secrets are numerous and wicked.”

  “You do not know half of my secrets,” Caro told the woman, shoulders squared, head held high. “Come along, Rufus. I think we’ve learned all we need to know here.”

  Caro turned to go. Rufus followed. Caro was right, they knew all that Miss Dobson had to tell them now. Everything else was unimportant.

  “She’s a whore,” Miss Dobson called after them. “Just ask her. Ask Mr. Prentice.”

  Rufus couldn’t stop his brow from jerking up, but he refused to pause or turn around and ask Miss Dobson what she meant. The woman was bitter and would say anything.

  All the same, once they were back in the carriage and rolling along the road back to London, he turned to Caro and asked, “Mr. Prentice?”

  Caro merely laughed and shook her head.

  A twist of surprising jealousy gripped Rufus’s gut. �
�Is he your former lover?” The image of Caro naked and splayed while another man pleasured her into the sounds he’d provoked her to make two nights ago burned in his mind.

  “You truly have no reason to be alarmed by a weak accusation such as Miss Dobson’s,” she said, cradling the side of his face with one gloved hand.

  “But is he?” Rufus repeated, one brow arched.

  Caro grinned mysteriously at him, but said, “No. No he is not.” She shuddered, then added, “Never.”

  “Then who is the man?” Rufus’s mind began to turn with all the ways he could pry the truth out of her.

  “He is unimportant,” she said with a saucy roll of her shoulders and the light of mischief in her eyes. “All that is important now is contacting Nigel Kent and the rest of the Bow Street Runners to tell them Miss Dobson has given us the name of the diamond thief. Frankly, I knew it was Mr. Newman all along.”

  She was barely able to finish her sentence before Rufus pulled her across his lap and planted a searing kiss on her open mouth. As he did, he unbuttoned her pelisse and pushed it off her shoulders so that he could fumble for the ties holding her gown together in back. She sighed into their kiss, doing nothing at all to impede his mischief, even though she must have known his intent. He was able to loosen her bodice and the top of her stays enough to scoop her breasts out into the open.

  “Are you a whore?” he asked mischievously as he rubbed his palms against her nipples to harden them.

  “I think you know the answer to that,” she said breathlessly, undulating against him in a way that encouraged him to manhandle her.

  His pulse raced and his cock hardened. The carriage was cramped and their position painfully awkward, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at all. He kissed her again, punishingly, thrusting his tongue against hers as a way to show her that she was his and his alone. He reached for the hem of her skirt, clumsily bunching it around her waist so that he could slip his hand along her leg. He hooked a hand under her knee, lifting it in a way that opened her hips.

  “Only an irredeemable strumpet would let a man do these things to her in a speeding carriage,” he panted, teasing his fingers along the hot flesh of her thigh.

  “As you say,” she said with a devilish grin.

  Her bottom nestled temptingly against his groin while the rest of her was splayed wantonly across him and the seat. Her pelisse slipped to the floor and her firm, glorious breasts spilled over the top of her sagging bodice, on full display for him. Her skirts were gathered above her waist and one leg was fully exposed while the other was mostly exposed. All he had to do was bunch the fabric a little more and her sex would see the light of day. He was utterly certain it would be glistening with her wetness and pink with anticipation. And to top it all, she wore a supremely wicked grin, as though daring him to pleasure her until she came for him.

  She was astoundingly wanton, shockingly immoral. She would be shunned by anyone who considered themselves good or upright. They would call her far worse than a whore, cut her at every opportunity, and cast her off as a condemned soul. If they could see her. If they found out. Rufus burned for her. No woman had ever excited him so much, had ever made him feel as though he wanted to live in a constant state of arousal, fucking, coming, and recovering as fast as possible so that he could do it again. Her very wickedness was what drew him to her, particularly the way she hid it so well when she was in polite society.

  He brushed his hand up her thigh, burying his two middle fingers deep in her dripping pussy and clasping the rest of his hand around her sex as she gasped and squeezed him.

  “This is mine,” he said, not caring how rough or possessive he sounded.

  “Did they not teach you anatomy at university,” she sighed, flexing and grinding against him to pleasure herself. “I believe the part you have laid claim to belongs to me.” She met his eyes with a look of ferocity.

  She was going to be the death of him. His cock ached so much that he fumbled to unfasten the falls of his breeches to free himself with one hand while the other stayed lodged firmly where it was. The open air was little relief, though. Nothing but sheathing himself within her would satisfy him, but he wasn’t ready yet.

  He ground the bottom of his hand against her clitoris while his fingers stayed lodged inside her. “Do you think of him when you come?” he asked, letting himself be jealous to increase the intensity of emotion pounding through him.

  “What do you think?” she asked, panting and gasping as she moved into his touch.

  Their position was strange enough that he was able to bend forward and nip one of her nipples with his teeth. She let out a cry and tilted her head back, jerking harder against his hand.

  “I think you want it,” he growled, stroking his fingers against her inner walls. “I think you’re wild for it.”

  “I am,” she confessed in a hungry voice.

  His groin tightened, and he had to fight not to come at the sight of her twitching and writhing as she came close to climax.

  “I think you would do any number of dirty things for me, and you would like them,” he went on.

  “I would,” she gasped, her breath coming in such short gasps and groans that he expected to feel her throbbing at any moment.

  “I think you long to be a wicked, wicked whore, but only for me.”

  She responded by bursting into orgasm. She cried out sensually as her inner muscles throbbed and contracted around his hand. Her face contorted with pleasure—pleasure he had given her—and she flushed a deep shade of scarlet. Her orgasm went on and on, and he stroked and rubbed her to keep it going as long as possible.

  When it was finally done, her body went soft and fluid, but he was as hard as a pillar. His groin ached so desperately that a gentle breeze could have made him come. But he was hardly going to spend for a breeze.

  He nudged her off his lap and pushed his breeches over his hips, lifting his shirt out of the way so that his cock jerked truly free and his balls tightened in the cool air. But he didn’t stop there. He grabbed Caro around the waist, bringing her back to him, though she faced the front of the jostling carriage. He would have taken her in the ass if he’d had something slick on hand, but her glorious quim was slick enough.

  He brought her down hard on his cock, jerking his hips to sheath himself in her to the hilt. She let out the most sinfully delicious cry as he impaled her and tilted her hips to take him in more fully. It was wild, untamed, but amazing. She arched her body, moving with him as he pounded into her as though she were a cannon and he was a ramrod. His only regret was that he couldn’t see her tits joggling as he fucked her. He settled for reaching for them and closing his hands around them as they moved.

  He wanted it to go on forever. Every inch of him felt alive. His heart was full nearly to bursting at her willingness, her adventurousness, at the way she made him feel like he was the most desirable thing in the world. So desirable that she was willing to ruin herself just to have him blow his seed inside her. She wanted him that much. She was the only person in his life who had ever wanted him so desperately as to be reckless. She would love him forever just as he was.

  That thought started the chain reaction that contracted his groin and sent liquid heat searing through him. He came hard, crying out her name as he did. The pleasure of it was beyond compare, and even after his essence had left him and the will to move began to ebb, joy continued to tingle through him.

  They stayed in their awkward position, his softening cock still inside of her, for what should have been an embarrassingly long time. It felt so good just to be joined with her. Even when she finally righted herself, primly straightened her skirts and collapsed onto the seat beside him, snuggling against his side and tucking his cock back into his breeches, the joy lingered.

  “Let’s run away together,” he said softly once he’d caught his breath. “Forget Lady Malvis and Lord Hazelton, diamonds and thieves. Forget everything. Let’s make a new life together in…in Australia.”

&nb
sp; “Let’s make a life together here,” she countered with a happy sigh, resting her head against his shoulder.

  “We can’t,” he said, his stomach pinching at the thought.

  “Can’t we?”

  Her clever answers would drive him mad, but at least he would be happy in his madness.

  He fell asleep, his head lolling against the back of the seat, not long after that. In the back of his mind, he wasn’t certain if he’d fastened his breeches properly, and he knew his shirt hung loose. It didn’t seem to matter one bit, though.

  At least, not until a loud knock on the carriage door roused him—and Caro, who had also fallen asleep—from slumber. Rufus snapped his eyes open and jerked his head up. When had the carriage stopped?

  “Rufus.” His father’s sharp voice sounded through the door a moment before the door in question was thrown open.

  Light spilled into the dim carriage interior. In an instant, Rufus noted that, in fact, he hadn’t properly fastened his breeches. He hadn’t fastened them at all. Worse, his penis poked from the side of the hastily-arranged fabric. He wasn’t the only one in disarray. Caro’s breasts were still on full display. His father stared furiously at the two of them. There could be no doubt at all in the man’s eyes about what had happened.

  “Pull yourself together and exit that carriage immediately,” the old man growled in dangerous tones.

  Rufus sent a wary look to Caro, who was suddenly fully awake. He did his best to make himself partially presentable as she did the same. He then gestured for her to stay where she was as he exited the carriage.

  “Father, I can expl—”

  “Who you keep as your mistress is none of my business,” his father cut him off.

  Rufus’s brow shot up at the surprisingly magnanimous comment, but his father wasn’t done.

  “Discretion,” he hissed. “The carriage has been sitting here in the mews for the past twenty minutes. It sat in front of the house for ten before Bullard had the intelligence to drive out of public view.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rufus said, merely because he could think of nothing else to say.