Free Three Little Secrets by Liz Carlyle Page A

which lay curled upon the carpet like a serpent. The tongue darted out again, moistening her lips. “But come, MacLachlan, and play Bess’s little game. Come give me just what I deserve,” she suggested. “You will enjoy it.”
    “Will I?”
    One of her hands slipped under her belly, and slid lower. “Oh, yes,” she said, her eyelids dropping shut. “I know you. Come, now. Make me… oh, make me …”
    He was already half-persuaded. Perhaps it was what he needed. Perhaps he was as full of demons as he sometimes felt. But the whip, no. Never that.
    The woman was writhing on his bed now. Against his will, his hands went to the buttons of his trousers, tearing them free. Damn his wife to hell, the faithless bitch. In an instant, he was crawling onto the bed, crawling over Bess, and forcing her legs wide with his knee. He entered her on one hard stroke, holding her buttocks firmly between his hands, stilling her to the invasion.
    Bess’s eyes opened wide, and she cried out from the shock.
    He did not stop. Instead, he let the demons drive him, drive him toward the only expiation the black devils had ever yielded to. For long moments, he let the anger take him, until Bess’s fingernails were clutching at his woolen counterpane, digging deep as she began to pant and grunt beneath him. Dimly, he heard her cry out, heard her pleading for more.
    Merrick obliged her. Beneath him, her whole body seemed to seize. She shuddered once, twice, and collapsed onto the bed. He felt it coming on him then. The utter numbness. The physical collapse and the black, mindless void. The few insensate moments his sated body could buy him. He thrust once more, and felt himself fall.

Chapter Five
    Do na’ suppose ye know a man ’til
ye come tae divide a spoil wi’ him.
    T he carriage ride through greater London and into the city was almost a two-hour trek through hellish traffic. Madeleine crossed her gloved hands neatly in her lap and tried to be patient. But the truth was, she might well have walked it more quickly, or taken one of the smaller, more nimble conveyances which one saw for hire throughout the capital. Her late father, however, had always impressed upon her the importance of looking the part of a wealthy, well-bred lady when paying a call of any sort.
    She had been surprised when Mr. Rosenberg’s summons arrived this morning. She had spent the last three days trying to decide whether to revisit his office, and if so, just how far she might press without arousing his suspicions. There was a nagging suspicion in the back of her mind. But Rosenberg had taken the matter out of her hands. His missive had come by a uniformed messenger during breakfast. The request had been exceedingly polite, almost fawning—and it had left her burning with curiosity.
    From time to time, Madeleine craned her head, as if doing so might part the carts and coaches which choked the street they traveled. Her eyes went to a corner signpost. Fleet Street, it was called. Madeleine had never heard of it, for she had traveled into east London but once in her life, to contract for the purchase of her new house. Indeed, save for the three months she’d spent in Mayfair as a girl, she knew almost nothing of this great, teeming city.
    During her first visit to London, she had scarcely been permitted to venture beyond the exclusive shops of Bond Street. While the crooked, narrow, less elegant lanes had held an odd fascination for her, Madeleine’s father, and Aunt Emma, who was to bring her out, had warned her early and often about the unseemliness of a young debutante’s being seen in any place less refined than Astley’s, or any place farther east than Hatchard’s.
    At the solicitor’s office in Threadneedle Street, Madeleine was greeted by an obsequious young clerk, who bade her be seated, and went scurrying up the stairs in search of his master. Mr. Rosenberg greeted her warmly, and sent at once for coffee.
    Madeleine made a pretense of asking a number