His Hand-Me-Down Countess (Lustful Lords, Book 1)

His brother's untimely death leaves him with an Earldom and a fiancée. Too bad he wants neither of them...

Theodora Lawton has no need of a husband. As an independent woman, she wants to own property, make investments and be the master of her destiny. Unfortunately, her father signed her life away in a marriage contract to the future Earl of Stonemere. But then the cad upped and died, leaving her fate in the hands of his brother, one of the renowned Lustful Lords.

Achilles Denton, the Earl of Stonemere, is far more prepared to be a soldier than a peer. Deeply scarred by his last tour of duty, he knows he will never be a proper, upstanding pillar of the empire. Balanced on the edge of madness, he finds respite by keeping a tight rein on his life, both in and out of the bedroom. His brother’s death has left him with responsibilities he never wanted and isn’t prepared to handle in the respectable manner expected of a peer.

Further complicating his new life is an unwanted fiancée who comes with his equally unwanted title. Saddled with a hand-me-down countess, he soon discovers the woman is a force unto herself. As he grapples with the burden of his new responsibilities, he discovers someone wants him dead. The question is, can he stay alive long enough to figure out who’s trying to kill him while he tries to tame his headstrong wife? 

London, May 1859

“On your knees.” Achilles Denton, the Earl of Stonemere, towered over the trembling female with hands bound at her back, eyes downcast, and cheeks flushed. He stepped closer, allowing the toes of his boots to nudge her foot. His size alone often intimidated. When paired with a cold, implacable tone toward the target huddled on their knees? He was, in a word, masterful.

Utterly in control.

“Yes, sir.” She lowered her body, an awkward proceeding without the use of her hands.

Stone’s cock twitched in his trousers.

All around him, the carnal delights of his friends could be heard. To his right, his best friend, Robert Cooper, the Earl of Brougham, had two sumptuous wenches occupied. One serviced his rod as he licked the cunny of the other. Another grouping consisted of Matthew Derby, Marquess of Flintshire, and Grayson Powell, Viscount of Wolfington, who shared a lovely piece. Hands bound to the bench she knelt on, her mouth stretched wide to accommodate Flint’s member while Wolf fucked her from behind. To his left, Stone spied Marion Thomas, Baron Lincolnshire, taking a cock up his arse from a masked man while he filled another of the girls they had selected for the evening.

Any and all debauchery was accepted among the five friends, dubbed the Lustful Lords by Society. And The Market offered the requisite services in a luxuriant environment draped in velvets and silks, all dusted with gold gilt. His attention returned to his current pet. Lush, full lips framed a generous mouth, one sure to look superb wrapped around his cock. Her frame shuddered, either from desire or the remnants of her orgasm. Possibly a bit of both. The musky flavor of her desire lingered on his tongue and lips to tease the flames of his lust higher.

He opened his trousers and freed his straining erection. The girl’s gaze darted up to his manly endowment as her little pink tongue crept out to swipe over her lips. She would, no doubt, enjoy the next few minutes. “Suck my cock, pet. Show me how grateful you are for your orgasm.” He stroked his throbbing prick as she leaned over and swallowed him whole.

The warm wet heat of her greedy mouth engulfed him. All of him. And that was quite a talent considering his cock’s proportions. He sighed and sank his fingers into her sable curls. Without missing a beat, she adjusted for the thrust of his hips, allowing him to push deeper into her mouth and down into her throat.

Her moans told him she was, in fact, enjoying the rough handling. Fist locked in her hair, he thrust deeper on every stroke until the noises she made grew louder and more earnest. “That’s it, pet. Take every inch of my prick. That hot little mouth feels bloody good.”

In a sudden move, he jerked his length from her mouth, unwilling to spend between her lips. A cry of dismay escaped her even as she surged toward his crotch.

“Silence.” His command shut down her mewling. “I own your pleasure for the evening. You came because I permitted it. You will come again if and when I decide you will. Are we clear?”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied in a husky tone indicative of how close to the edge she was again.

It would not be a surprise if she climaxed when he thrust into her quim. Tight was, without a doubt, too much to hope for despite his thickness, but he had pushed her boundaries all evening. He’d taken care to ensure she enjoyed herself, had helped her along. Helped her as he couldn’t help the other women…

The Market faded away, replaced by reeds slapping at his face as he slithered through the marshes along the banks of the Ganges in the dark of night. All the while avoiding the sepoys, even as the screams of the women and children rent the air, and his very soul.

Pushing the morbid—though persistent—thoughts aside, he circled behind his current pet and pushed her forward onto the cushions on the floor. Control. He was in control. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Her arms remained bound by his necktie, his will. He was not helpless. Kneeling behind her, he notched his cock against her slippery opening. She pressed backward a bit as though she might be in charge somehow.

Slap.

The crack on her left rear cheek caused her to jerk up and forward. Then she stilled and awaited his pleasure. In one swift plunge, he sank balls-deep into her sopping pussy. She moaned, and her body shook with his invasion. Heated, feminine flesh gripped and released him as she exploded.

He’d been right.

As the spasms continued, he reversed direction and withdrew. Then he shoved in again. She shifted forward, unable to stop the momentum. Stone took a firm grip on the bindings at her wrists and proceeded to piston in and out of her body. “Once more, pet. Come for me again.”

“Nay, sir. I can’t.” A wild gaze clashed with his over her shoulder.

“You can and you will.” He smacked her other buttock, then reached down to tweak her pearl. She groaned and met him thrust for thrust. Fingers drenched in her juices, he brought them to the tightly puckered muscle on display between the tempting mounds of her bum. He stroked and circled the taut opening with ruthless determination.

She whispered as he dipped the tip of one digit in. “Oh. Oh, sir.”

He pressed deeper as he continued to fuck her. Once he wedged a finger past that tight little muscle, he wiggled deeper, then worked it in and out of her. Her head thrashed as she wailed incoherent words. Stone pumped harder into both holes as she spasmed around him. His cock shuttled in and out of her with a ferocious rhythm matched by his digit in her anal passage.

Then the first fiery sparks fired from deep in his balls to shoot up his spine. Jolt after jolt of pleasure ripped through him as he emptied his lust deep inside her. A surge of feeling—something akin to happiness—overwhelmed him, pulsing with a life he worked hard to smother.

His ragged breath slowed until his gasps softened in conjunction with his member. He withdrew from her, released her hands, and rolled onto his back with his eyes closed tight.

One breath. Two breaths. He imagined the walls he’d erected two years ago to protect his sanity being reinforced. Without those sturdy walls, all hell would break loose. It wouldn’t do for a decorated war hero to round the bend to Bedlam.

Particularly one recently named earl.

Earl of Stonemere. He still couldn’t believe Odysseus—his brother and the elder son—had been declared dead. While Stone relished his experience in the military, he regretted the time lost with his brother. Time he’d never get back. A brother he’d never see again, never laugh with, never hug. After Odey’s death, he’d expected the House of Lords to take years to make a declaration, not a few months. But for some reason, they’d made a swift decision and called him to take his seat.

Perhaps it had simply seemed fast to him because by the time he’d gotten word of his brother’s fate in India, made travel arrangements, and then made the trip, two months had passed, as well as his father. Another reminder of time lost and weakened bonds.

And now, a year later, he was faced with a decision he could no longer put off, according to his distraught mother. Despite the fact that he had yet to figure out how to be an earl, slept in two-to-three-hour bursts, and detested Society, he apparently still had to do his duty to the earldom by presenting an heir. All of which meant he needed a countess.

A career soldier, he’d never imagined himself married. After Cawnpore, it seemed even less likely. And yet he found himself considering not only taking a wife, but one he had only recently met. Lady Theodora Lawton, daughter of the Marquess of Coleridge, had been his brother’s fiancée through an arrangement made between their fathers many years ago, when that sort of thing was still fashionable.

Did he take the hand-me-down bride or go find his own? A shudder rippled through his limbs. Knowing her to be fair of face and pleasant in her bearing, he deemed her to be as good an option as any other socially acceptable chit. With a shrug, he rose from the floor of The Market along with his chums, who seemed to have recovered themselves. They pulled on trousers and shirts as their recent partners departed the room, likely headed to freshen up before returning to the common rooms below.

Stone slapped Cooper—the group’s Adonis; the ladies flocked to him like bees to honey—on the back and plopped into a chair at the table they’d been gambling at for most of the night. “Well, boys. A fine evening of sport, wouldn’t you say?”

“Passable entertainment.” Wolf sprawled in a chair, poured a fresh drink, and fell silent. The man was handsome, with golden-brown hair and light-blue eyes that drew his fair share of interest from the ladies, but there was something afoot with his friend. The man spent more time brooding sullenly than he once had, but Stone had his hands too full at the moment to push Wolf into spilling his guts.

Flint, as dark in appearance as he was inside at times, cracked his knuckles and grinned. “I feel ready for a bit of a brawl. Anyone want to go a few rounds?”

Linc, their resident jokester with laughing green eyes, chuckled. “Didn’t Langston take you enough rounds this afternoon at the boxing club?”

“He did, but there is nothing like a fine bit o’ tail to rejuvenate a man.” Flint winked and tossed back what was left in his glass. Though a bit dark, the man was as good-natured as a sport could be.

Stone laughed along with the others, but then decided it was time to come clean with them all. “Gents, I have a bit of sour news to share. It seems there is nothing for it. I must tie on the old ball and chain.”

The foursome gasped as a collective unit. Linc plopped a glass on the table and dumped the last of the scotch into it. “What tripe is this, you say? Our fearless leader cannot desert us! Who will lead us into the best kinds of debauchery if not you?”

“Bollocks! That’s a real clanger, Stone. Who would be desperate enough to marry one of us?” Flint asked.

“The dowager is after me to do my duty to the title and all that. Barely slighted the black and she is on me about marriage. Since my brother won’t be using the fiancée he left behind, I figure I’ll snap the chit up and make Mother happy.”

Cooper snorted and slumped in his seat. “Sounds ghastly, but I suppose a little bird like Odey’s won’t keep us from our fun.”

Stone scratched his stubble-lined jaw. “Well, I may have to limit some of my activities. Can’t go giving the girl the Foul. That wouldn’t be right.”

They all groaned. A brick to the man, they knew he had the right of it. It was a damned shame, but true nonetheless.

                                                             ***

The next afternoon, Stone’s carriage sat across Bond Street as he stopped for his final fitting of his new waistcoats. Eager to be on his way, he opted to cross over as opposed to making his driver circle around, and stepped off the curb. The crunch of wagon wheels and the clopping of hooves on the cobblestones made it impossible to yell out to his driver to wait. Unfortunately, his driver spotted him and moved to circle around to pick him up on the side of the street where he now stood.

Dismayed as his driver pulled away, Stone checked his watch. Damn, he would be late meeting Cooper and Linc. With a shrug, he moved to step back from the curb when he stumbled over something. With his balance overturned, his weight tipped backward until a helping hand righted him, and then shifted his momentum until he was utterly tipped the other way.

Stone looked up to see a dray cart bearing down the street as he flailed about in an attempt to right himself.

“Look out!” The warning was pointless. There was nothing he could do as he tumbled into the street.

His shoulder hit the stones with a bone-rattling thud as he curled into a ball and tried to roll out of the way of the large horse and cart.

As he rolled, feminine screams rang out all around him. But, for once, with a sense of energy and purpose thrumming through his veins, he was able to block out the waking nightmares.

***

Breath held, he watched Achilles—he refused to call him Stonemere or any other derivative of the title he didn’t deserve—take a header between the wheels of the wagon. With any luck, the man would get caught on the other side. Hope bloomed in his chest.

He would prove them all wrong. Show them who was meant to be Earl of Stonemere. Not some barely civilized soldier who spent most of his life harassing or killing people. It just wasn’t done.

He peered closer from his hidey-hole between two buildings. Had Achilles come out the other side? Did he lie broken in the street, crushed by the wagon wheel? The cart stopped, and the driver leaped from his perch. A moment later, a coughing and wheezing Achilles leaned against the wagon.

“Damn and blast.” Achilles was harder to kill than a cat with nine lives. Of course, hiring incompetent fools to kill the current earl certainly was not helpful. He’d told the fool to give Achilles a shove into traffic, but the useless buffoon had barely nudged him! A single-handed push wasn’t enough to move that mountain of muscle. He should know; he’d pushed more than one bully down in his life.

But this one… This one had always been the bane of his existence. The one his father had looked at and wished he’d be more like. A Corinthian. He sneered at the thought of the word. Well, he’d prove them all wrong. He should be the earl. He was the type of man ruthless enough to ensure his family’s lineage would continue for generations to come, both financially and politically. With one last curse, he turned and retreated down the alley and away from the debacle. Another time, he would see the fruits of his labors.