Wicked at Heart Read online

  WICKED AT HEART

  By

  Danelle Harmon

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Danelle Harmon

  Wicked At Heart

  Copyright © 2012 by Danelle Harmon

  License Notes

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  ~~~~

  May, 1802

  Prologue

  The sex was great.

  But that was about all the University of Oxford offered Damon Andrew Phillip deWolfe, the sixth Marquess of Morninghall, fourth Earl of deWolfe, and heir to one of the richest estates in England.

  He'd mastered both Greek and Latin before he'd seen his tenth summer; he yawned through Aristophanes, Euripides, and even Thucydides, whose supposedly difficult works on the Peloponnesian War offered him no stimulus or challenge; he knew more than his Oxford dons, despised his rooms in Peckwater Quadrangle, and made no secret of the fact that he was bored out of his brilliant young mind.

  For Lord Morninghall was only fifteen years old and, in the several months he'd been here, had found nothing at Oxford's ancient Christ Church College to interest him.

  Except the dean's pretty, young niece.

  Three years his senior, she lay beside him in the darkness, golden hair tangled in a pillow of grass and skirts sliding up her legs with no small degree of help from young Morninghall's eager hand. She was oblivious to the magnificence of the Great Quadrangle which surrounded them, the brilliance of Wolsey and the architecture of Wren, oblivious to the perfume of the night air, the echoing vastness of the courtyard, and the music the fountain made as it bubbled and splashed beneath the quiet stars. And now Great Tom, that noble old bell in the imposing central tower, began tolling out the curfew, 101 solemn strokes ringing through the night.

  Bong . . . Bong . . . Bong . . .

  The students were supposed to be in.

  Bong . . . Bong . . . Bong . . .

  A twinge of warning spread through Damon, but he ignored it, and soon the bell's summons had faded into the haze of passion that his mind had become, heard but soon forgotten, no more a claimant to his attention now than the damp coolness of the earth beneath him, the musky scent of the grass, or the star-shot beauty of the velvet night above his head. There was only this strange but exquisite being beside, now beneath him, only the feel of lace and satin as he anxiously pushed up her skirts, only the softness of inner thigh and the flimsy barrier of silk stockings as he hooked a finger atop first one, then the other, and slowly peeled the filmy garments down each leg. She urged him on with mouth and hands and breathy moans, and his heart began to pound with wild abandon. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, drowning in the scent of her hair, the musky perfume of her skin. Her soft gasps of pleasure feathered the hair at his ear, and her hands roved encouragingly over his shoulders, his back, his bottom. He had a last coherent thought, a terrible vision of his peers spying on him from a darkened room overlooking the Quad above, but then his searching fingers found the silken nest of curls at the junction of the girl's thighs, and he could think of nothing else.

  She gasped and arched against him.

  Bloody hell, I hope I am doing it correctly.

  He must have been, for as he stroked and thumbed her, the girl moaned and shut her eyes, her nails digging like cat's claws into his back. Her flesh was liquid heat, and as Damon eagerly explored these alien folds of damp femininity, she began squirming and gasping and making little sobs deep in her throat. Gaining confidence, he kissed her neck and the warm, fragrant skin of her bosom while his fingers caressed her slick petals; then, tentatively, he slid his middle finger into her, all the way up to the knuckle, and caressed the hard little bud of her passion with his thumb.

  "Oh . . . Damon," she gasped, seizing him around the neck and yanking his head down to hers. She was frantic, writhing, splaying her fingers through his hair as her lips wildly sought his. "Yes. . . . Touch me . . . there."

  Her mouth was hot and sweet, her tongue bold and thrusting. He felt his own body responding. Yes, he was definitely doing it correctly. To hell with the classics, with Greek and Latin, with all that university sought to teach him; such pursuits were worthless compared to the education that Miss Sarah Cherwell was giving him. Oh, this was good; no, it was better than good, oh, God bless you, Oxford.

  He broke the kiss, taking in great gulps of air. "Am I — hurting you?" he murmured, barely trusting himself to speak. How embarrassing it would be if his voice, still in transition from boy's to man's, decided to crack right now.

  "Oh, no. Oh yes, my lord — Oh! Oh! Yes! . . . There!"

  Confusion and impatience warred with instinct. Was he or wasn't he hurting her? "This way?"

  "Harder. Deeper, Damon . . . oh yes, look at me, I need to see your face —" She slid her hands up alongside his jaw, hauled his head down to hers and continued kissing him hotly, greedily, feverishly. "Oh, those eyes of yours, they set my blood afire . . ."

  He slid his finger in deeper, his thumb caressing her flesh, finding and rubbing that curious little bud of hardness until she was sobbing and gasping and moaning his name. Her reaction excited him and made his rod swell and strain and want, and soon the breath was roaring through his lungs, mingling with the damp heat of her skin and releasing the scent of roses from her hair, her skin, her clothes. How different the female body was from his own, how delicious the sensations just touching it evoked. And now, finally, Miss Sarah's fingers were unfastening his trousers with quick and skillful surety and pushing them down his bottom, his legs.

  Cool air swept over his backside. And then she reached for him.

  Damon froze, suddenly unsure.

  But she persisted, wrapping her fingers around him, squeezing gently and lightly stroking him until he groaned and pushed himself against her, into her hand. Oh, sweet agony. She was relentless, her fingers and voice guiding him, encouraging him, reassuring him.

  "Come, my lord," she breathed, "let me pleasure you."

  Under her skillful ministrations, Damon felt like he was dying and late for an appointment with heaven. He surrendered to her clever fingers, her caressing hand, and with a harsh groan, moved over her, covering her and pressing her down into the spongy, manicured grass with the adolescent impatience of his passion. Her pale hair haloed her head, and he buried his face in the silky tresses, then the curve of her neck, heatedly kissing, licking, and tonguing her ear, her arched throat, her swollen, hungry lips. She moaned softly, urging him on, and now her thumb and fingers were swirling around the tip of his erection, bringing on savage bolts of sensation that made the sweat break out all over his body, made all human reason flee his head, made him think of nothing but — but — damnation, I cannot hold on like this, oh hell, oh hell — and now she was guiding him toward that hot junction between her legs and arcing her body so as to better accept him, her hands fluttering along his back, over his bottom, positioning him where she wanted him and initiating him into this age-old act with deft and knowing skill.

  Skirts and tangled petticoats bunched beneath his torso, but Damon knew the moment he was inside that forbidden, dark center of her, knew the moment when all was lost. With a groan, he sank into her, feeling himself sliding inch by glorious inch into that deliciously wet, deliciously hot cavern his fingers had just sampled. Her hands
cupped his straining backside, urging him in deeper, further; her body writhed beneath his, a wild, hot thing that sought to be tamed, inciting him to begin the act he'd witnessed countless times in species other than his own, heard about from the ribald tales of his peers but had never experienced himself. His elbows dug into the grass, but he cared not that stains would blemish his fine shirt, cared not that she was all but shredding it with her nails, cared not for anything, for all that was in his world was her, her, her —

  He felt the rushing maelstrom of his first release before he actually cried out with the violent force of it. Her nails dug into his back, her face split in a grimace of anguished ecstasy, her body arched, and then she too was bucking and crying out beneath him, her inner muscles squeezing and contracting and draining the last of his strength, the last of his seed, from him.

  It was over. Damon's arms tightened around her, and he dropped his sweating brow into the cool grass behind her shoulder, his breath coming in panting, labored gasps as he sought to make sense of all that had just happened to him.

  "Oh, Sarah . . ."

  "Lovely, wasn't it? You did admirably well for your first time."

  He was beaming, knew he was grinning like a fool. "You — it — was brilliant. Positively brilliant."

  She giggled. He ran his hand along her jaw and turned her head so he could kiss her. Already, his rod was stirring again and he wondered, vaguely, if once activated, it ever stopped. He dragged his hand through her hair, anticipating a repeat of what they'd just done and silently thanking Lords Wycombe and Evesham for provoking him to commit this act as his initiation into The Circle. Not only was he a man now, but for the first time in his life, he had friends. Good friends, too —

  A shoe came down on his back, squarely between his shoulder blades.

  "If it isn't young Morninghall. Enjoying a new curriculum, my lord?"

  Damon froze, and the world swung into sharp focus. In the space of a heartbeat, he felt the summer breeze on his bare arse, the girl stiffening beneath him; he knew the dreadful silence of the night, the horrible taste of fear, and the sickening plunge of the stomach when one has just been caught doing something dreadfully, unforgivably, wrong.

  Whooping laughter erupted from one of the darkened rooms above, echoing over and over again through the vast courtyard.

  Wycombe, Evesham, and The Circle. Laughing at him, every one of them.

  He'd been set up. Betrayed. Deep, crushing hurt had barely reared its head before it was smothered by rage and then, humiliation and embarrassment that must, like everything else, be concealed properly behind a mask of cool difference, for he was the Marquess of Morninghall and there was no room for dread, no room for excuses, no room for being only fifteen years old when you've just been initiated into the act of maturity and now must pay the consequences for it.

  Slowly, he raised his head and found himself looking up into the enraged face of the dean.

  "Get up."

  The voice was harsh, stone cold and awful.

  Miss Sarah, recognizing the owner of that voice, let out a shriek, threw Damon off, and scrambled to her feet. "You beast! You savage, rutting beast, have you no respect for a woman's virtue? To attack an innocent woman, to pull her from her chambers and seduce her! Have you no honor? Have you no shame?" She yanked her skirts down and began screaming at him like a woman gone mad, leaving Damon to stare at her in numbed shock. What babble was this? Attacked and seduced her? His brows rose and he drew himself up, but before he could deliver his own scathing defense, she slapped him full across the face and flung herself into her uncle's arms, letting loose with a convincing display of tears that would have brought the level of the Atlantic up by at least a foot.

  And still that awful laughter, echoing out over the courtyard from the window above.

  Damon's well-bred dignity was the only thing that kept him from fleeing. With as much disdain as he could muster, he jerked on his trousers and buttoned them, though only he knew that his fingers tangled with each other and his heart was pounding wildly. And all he could hear was that terrible laughter bubbling out of the window above his head, going on and on and on . . .

  And Miss Sarah's shrill voice.

  "He attacked me, Uncle! He forced me into this horrible, shameful act, I swear it. I am the victim here, please understand! He overpowered me! He raped me! He — he — oh-h-h-h . . ."

  Cradling the girl to his chest, the dean fixed Damon with a furious stare. "Is that so, Morninghall?"

  It wasn't so at all. Damn far from it, in fact. And suddenly the rage swept in on a tide of hurt, rage that was deep and raw and black, for Damon had been betrayed by not just The Circle but Miss Sarah herself, and he was not in the mood to feel gallant. He raised his head, looked the dean straight in the eye, and hoped his voice would not betray the maelstrom of emotion that fisted his heart.

  "I did not attack your niece, sir." And then, unable to help himself, he added disdainfully, "In fact, the virtuous Miss Sarah was the one who wanted to do it right here in the Quad. Personally, I would have preferred a proper bed, but I'm afraid that she was most adamant —"

  The resultant crack of a hand across his face nearly broke Damon's aristocratic nose. Stars spun before his eyes, and he felt the ground come up hard against his hip, his shoulder, as he went down. It took him a moment to realize the dean had actually hit him, and gingerly fingering his nose and lip, he looked dazedly up into the man's thunderous face.

  The dean gave him no time to recover. Snaring Damon by the front of his shirt, he yanked him to his feet with a forcefulness that nearly choked him. "I knew when you came here you'd be nothing but trouble," he seethed, twisting the shirt until Damon couldn't draw breath. "Knew it the moment I laid eyes on you! Too damned young! Too damned smart! Too damned spoiled!"

  Damon stumbled as the dean shoved him violently backwards. He lost his balance, landing hard on his backside. More laughter burst from the windows above. He felt his eyes beginning to burn with tears of humiliation, and knew he was fast losing his grip on aristocratic indifference.

  "Supreme intelligence has always been your curse instead of blessing, hasn't it? How unfortunate that you didn't put that wonderful brain of yours toward the pursuit of self and science, instead of letting yourself be governed by what lies inside your trousers! What a loss to humankind that you're ruled by the devil you so resemble, instead of by the God you've chosen to ignore! What's that, Sarah? Yes, of course, dearest, I know. There, there, darling. It's all right, he shall not go near you again." The dean cradled his niece against his chest and glaring at Damon, shook a finger to emphasize his point. "And don't think your money will buy you out of this one, either, Morninghall. Titled and rich you may be, but I don't give a bloody damn. Now pack your things and get your spoiled little carcass out of my sight!"

  Damon finally found his voice, but it was little more than a pitiful whisper. "Pack my things? But sir, I don't understand —"

  "Understand this! From this moment on, you are no longer welcome at Oxford, and I never want to see your face around here again! Your studies here are finished, do you hear me? Finished! I'm sending you back to your mother, where you damn well belong!"

  Sending you back to your mother . . .

  Damon went deathly pale. The world began to rush in on him, like a constricting tunnel from which there was no escape. Then the facade of aristocratic aloofness he'd tried so hard to maintain cracked right down the middle, leaving him raw and exposed and vulnerable.

  He whirled and fled into the night, the laughter of The Circle's members floating out over the vast courtyard behind him.

  ~~~~

  Young Lord Morninghall's final night at Oxford was nothing short of hell. It was a long time before he finally dropped off, and when slumber finally overcame him, it was broken by dreams of his mother's cruel hand against his flesh, his mother's wine bottle smashing into his back as he fled, his mother's tormented ravings about his devil's eyes, his devil's doings, his de
vil's deeds . . .

  Now, in the sane light of early morning, Damon was bleary-eyed and depressed, his movements wooden as he tossed his few things into a satchel and set it down in a chair. Outside, dawn's light was just touching the magnificent carved spires that soared above the city, softening the forbidding stone and toasting the ancient buildings in peachy washes of pink and gold. Below his window the carefully groomed lawn of Peckwater Quad was a misty green; doves cooed from the elegant courtyard, and sunlight slashed against the stately Corinthian columns of the library opposite.

  Oxford. It would be the last time he'd look upon its noble, ancient beauty, the last time he'd behold its quiet magnificence. He set his jaw. He didn't care. He hadn't learned a damn thing here, anyhow — except how to make a girl moan and sob in the throes of passion.

  He sat down and put on his shoes.

  I don't care.

  But he did care. Despite everything, life at Oxford was still better than life at Morninghall ever had been, and the thought of returning to his ancestral home chilled his bones and made his heart accelerate with sudden anxiety.

  I won't go back there, he vowed, bending over and yanking on his other shoe. Mama will scream at me. She'll call Reverend Croyden in and make him exorcise the devil in me. And after he leaves, she'll take to the bottle and beat me. Again and again and again . . .

  At Morninghall there was no place to escape. Not in the library, where he had once been able to lose himself in books while hiding from his mother's heavy hand. Not in the huge bedchamber, which, with its gloomy, ancient furnishings, heraldic crests, and magnificent carved four-poster, had always frightened him, for it had belonged to five other marquesses before him and was still — he used to think when he woke up, trembling, in the dead of night — haunted by their wandering spirits. Not in the house, not in the stables, not even in the fact that he was the heir to the title and the vast Cotswolds estates that went with it.