Page 81 of The Beast of Beswick
“To be seen, dearest. I’d rather feign interest and be allowed to have a Season than be locked like Rapunzel in a gilded tower. We do what we can with the lot we’ve been given. You taught me that.”
Astrid couldn’t remember the last time she’d been shocked speechless. Perhaps Aunt Mabel hadn’t been that far off the mark when she’d suggested that Isobel wasn’t as helpless as everyone—including Astrid—assumed she was. But all Astrid could think of was the sneaky, underhanded way the earl had manipulatedher. And how easily he had destroyed her life.
“Beaumont is cunning,” she said. “If he realizes what you’ve been doing, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.”
“I can handle Beaumont,” her sister said.
Astrid frowned. “Can you?”
Isobel reached for her hands, gripping them tightly in hers. “I love you, Astrid, but I’m not you. I won’t make the same mistakes you did, and do you know why?” When Astrid flinched and shook her head, she went on. “Becauseyoushowed me how not to. You taught me how to be smart. How to have courage.” Her smile was bittersweet. “I love my music and my dancing and my ribbons, and I know sometimes you think I’m just a silly, naive girl, but you have to trust me. Will you trust me?”
Astrid stared in shock at her sister and felt so much pride that her heart nearly burst. Who was this girl? Mabel’s words about having a little faith in the sister she’d raised came back to her. “What can I do?”
“Show up at Lady Hammerton’s spring ball in a fortnight. I’ll be there all week for her house party with Beaumont, Morley, and Roth.” Her sister’s eyes sparkled. “It’s in North Stifford. Come with Beswick if you can manage it.”
Astrid blinked.
All three potential suitors in one place. That can’t be good.
“Izzy, what do you intend to do?”
Isobel’s smile was decidedly wolfish. “I intend to cause a scandal to end all scandals.”
…
For the life of him, Thane could not focus on the performance, nor the lush contralto of Madame Diamante during the aria. He’d been the victim of an inconvenient erection the minute his wife had sauntered into his study looking like sex on legs. Thane had wanted to lay carnal waste to her. Suck on the ridges of that long, elegant spine, heft her skirts and devour the feast he knew lay hidden beneath.
Hell.
He was so fucking hard, he wouldn’t be surprised if his buttons popped loose.
The moment they’d sat and she’d leaned over the balustrade, opera glasses in hand, he’d been fixated on the sensual bare curve of her back, on display in that salacious dress. And he hadn’t been able to focus on anything since. He’d been right about the color. It turned her hair to mahogany and her skin to fresh cream. Thane’s eyes resettled on her vertebrae, his cock throbbing.
A woman’s spine should not be that erotic. But hers was.
To his left, his wife was so wrapped up in the performance that she hadn’t spared him a single glance since her return from her meeting with her sister or guessed at his acute discomfort, and for that he was grateful. The singer’s voice hit a note that made Astrid’s fingers curl and reach out blindly…to land on his knee. The innocent contact was like flint to tinder. His hand held hers in place as her gaze met his. She read the lust there easily, her own irises flaring with matching passion.
Neither of them spoke, eyes locked. And then slowly,slowly, Astrid edged her fingers out from his, returning her attention to the stage. Thane wanted to curse at the loss, but he was mesmerized as she studiously peeled the glove from her right hand, exposing those elegant, slender fingers. And when she replaced that bared hand on his thigh, he nearly expired from shock. Desire and heat collided savagely within him as her fingers crept upward, each frantic heartbeat bringing them closer to where it burned the most. Where he craved it the most. Almost delicately, with one finger, she traced the outline of his length.
Thane swore viciously beneath his breath.
“Astrid,” he rasped.
His vixen of a wife ignored him, deftly unbuttoning several of his buttons, enough so she could reach inside the fall and grasp his straining erection. Her fingers encircled him, her thumb rubbing over his weeping eye at the top of his cock, and then moved back down to stroke him from tip to base. He groaned softly as she repeated the act of sliding upward and then downward, using his own moisture to aid in her carnal exploration.
Her pace quickened, her clever fingers exerting exquisite pressure. Astrid’s breathing was ragged, too, and when he removed his left glove with his teeth to run his fingers over that delectable spine, she arched into his palm, moaning slightly. His orgasm roared upon him the second he touched her velvety skin, and he reached into his jacket pocket for his handkerchief. Thane covered her hand with his as he spent himself, his body jerking with the force of his release, pulse after hot pulse emptying into the square of linen.
Thunderous clapping replaced the rushing sound of blood in his ears as the singer completed her act. He wanted to clap, too, but for entirely different reasons. In a sated daze, he watched as Astrid daintily cleaned her hand on an unsoiled edge of the handkerchief and replaced her glove without a sound. The fact that she hadn’t said a single word was almost as stimulating as sex in the darkness.
It was intermission, Thane realized dully when people started moving on the floor of the opera house and in the boxes opposite them. Tucking himself away, he refastened his falls just in time for his aunt to announce herself and poke her head around the velvet drapes.
The old biddy smirked, one eyebrow arching. “Enjoying the opera, dears?”
“Very much,” Astrid replied in a casual tone, though her cheeks were crimson.
“Did you speak with Isobel?” Mabel asked.
Astrid nodded. “Seems you were right that my sister has things well in hand. I confess that I’ve never seen her so determined.”
