Duplicity Ch. 03

"No!"

He lifted his lips back to hers once more. "Hush, shhh..... sweetheart. Let me please you---!"

"Stop! You mustn't touch me there!" she shrieked desperately. Her little fists pounded and pushed at his shoulders and chest but he was immovable. Deftly he was under her skirt and his long fingers began to explore apex between her legs expertly. Evelyn's eyes widened then rolled back into her head as a torrent of tingling sensations from deep within her belly washed over her.

"Please--- my lord!" she whimpered weakly, unable to fight him or her own desire any longer. "Oh no...!"

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His Grace, the Duke of Northumberland toasted his king with a slight clink of their wine glasses in the king's own study. The elderly man with a tuft of billowy white hair then turned to young Prince Edward and salute him as well.

"How will your Grace break the news to your son?" asked His Majesty.

The elderly Duke huffed in contempt as he took a sip of his wine. "Hardly matters as long as I give him ample time to arrive at the church on time. His words those were. My son, for once in his life decided to acquiesce to my better judgment by letting me chose his wife."

Prince Edward chuckled as he studied the large stiff parchment paper in his hand. "Well he's a better man than me."

"We beget children to inherit our title and lands. Marriage ensures the proper order of such things," his Grace opined with a hardened faraway look in his eyes. "I should have chosen a frightful shrew of a girl for my son's insolent attitude. Instead I've given him a wife of great beauty and charm from all accounts which is more than he deserves. I thank your Majesty for your generosity of course. He owes all his future happiness to you. "

"I do suggest holding off the announcement for now," Edward said softly. "Not till after I've the chance to speak to Lady Evelyn and get her use to the idea. "

The Duke opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to protest.

"Quite!" His Majesty agreed. "She is young. Shan't just drop this on her. Turn her mind towards marriage and see to it she has all that she needs to ready herself, Edward. How old is she this year, 18 yet?"

"Just, Father."

"Jolly good! We leave it to you then Edward. Do as you see fit with our blessing."

The Duke was about to speak again but the footmen had already opened the door to the study to usher him out. With a click of his heels and a curt bow the Duke departed.

Prince Edward congratulated himself on this his most brilliant plan to solve several problems at once. Evelyn can now escape her unhappiness in the Warwick's household, and His Majesty is pleased to secure Evelyn a suitable marriage with a suitably old and powerful family. The Duke can look forward to more lands, more titles and the promise of future heirs. Lord John Mallory, Marquis of Davenport will have his bride in the lovely Lady Evelyn! In time they may even grow to like each other though that's hardly of any consequence. Yes, Prince Edward thought gleefully as he swiveled his wine goblet, his plan was brilliant! Evelyn will be so pleased!

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A pale silvery light poured through a gap in the heavy drapery and sliced across the room. It was dawn but Lord John Mallory had not yet sated his desires as he pounded himself deeply and furiously into the willing body of the young woman beneath him. He stood by the side of the bed with her long thin legs hiked over his waist as his powerful thrusts drilled her deeper and deeper into the soiled bed. She screamed again and again as her arms thrashed about.

He finally threw back his head as he exploding in pleasure and a shout ripped from his chest, "Evelyn! "

With a deep grunt he fell onto his back in exhaustion.

"I should take offense to you shouting another woman's name," said the young woman beside him.

Lord John lifted his head and glanced over to his bed mate, startled. An unfamiliar face framed by long blond hair rather than soft black curls, peered back at him. He signed, closed his eyes and dropped his head back down on the bed again.

"Get out," he muttered tiredly with his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

He barely noticed the bed dip as his companion leapt from the bed and started to noisily slam about the room. In his mind's eye he was back on the floor of the carriage again, with his arms around the soft yet supple curves of a dark-haired beauty...

She gave in to the ministrations of his fingers on the hot, silky, moist folds between her legs. His long fingers caressed that spot on a woman that would send her to the heavens before she crashed back to earth. With his other arm holding her against his chest he held and continued to squeeze and knead first one breast then the other. He couldn't stop touching her, kissing her soft, perfect lips. He felt every labored breath she drew, every moan she uttered and it sent his own heart thundering in his ears to hear the sensual sounds of her release.

"Oh please," she panted against his lips.

"I'm not one for poetry" he whispered to her. "I can't tell you what you do to me. Ask something... anything of me and it will be yours. Just let me have you!"

"My lord!" Evelyn cried as she shook the fog from her mind, and reached, unsteadily towards the bench seat of the carriage. "Oh Heavens!---"

Lord Davenport chuckled as he drew her back to him again. He buried his face against the fragrant curve of her slender neck and inhaled deeply. "I will take care of you. Whatever you desire... jewels, houses, books! Lots of books if you'd like. We'll travel too if you wish. You'll want for nothing if give yourself to me. Your Prince Edward is far too young to know how to indulge a woman properly."

Before those last words were even out of his mouth, he felt her body stiffen immediately. A short strangled cry escaped her lips as she lurched away from him while firmly clutching the front of her dress. "Release me sir!"

Her firm tone actually gave him pause and he released his grip. She pulled up her bodice and smoothed down her skirt as she quickly scrambled away from him to sit herself upon the carriage bench. For a moment neither moved. Neither uttered a word as Evelyn held her arms crossed protectively over her bosom. Her hair had long since fallen into dark wild curls around her face, but they could not hide her shame and devastation.

"You will leave now sir," she said with what dignity she had left.

"See here, Evelyn--!" he started to protest, deeply annoyed that she was being so difficult.

"LADY Evelyn!" she corrected him. Finally she tossed back her unruly mane of loose black curls to glare at him, still kneeling at her feet. "Leave this carriage at once! You sir, are shameful! From the moment I met you, you treated me abominably. What have I done to deserve this?. No! I don't care to hear you say anything! Please go before you ruin me any further."

"I'm offering you security!" he almost shouted at her. "I offer you my protection. More than you've received from Prince Edward. Don't you see you stupid girl? Can you not see that he has cast you aside already? I have no doubt he was the one who concocted your silly story and set you up with the Warwick's household. It would be a good plan except it's a fanciful dream. He wanted you to be debut into society to pawn you off to another man. Can't you see that that will never work? You will be found out and then what's to become of you. Can't you see I offer you a real solution with some honor--l"

"You offer me dishonor!" she shouted her retort. "You know nothing about me! All you ever do is make baseless accusations and assumptions. Please go!"

"Evelyn," he said more softly, more reasonably as he attempted again to take her in his arms. Even angry, she stirred his passion as no other woman had in a long time. She would not be comforted however and she scooted away from him. "Think of what I'm saying. See reason! No man of consequence would marry a woman of ambiguous background. Don't you see? I will see you settled comfortably, away from here. Don't be stupid, you know I'm right."

Slowly and carefully, Evelyn pulled her dress further up over her still trembling shoulders. She made the best of pulling her hair back, but hot tears started to roll down her cheeks. "I do see reason and my reason tells me you desire me not for what I am but what I've come to represent. You assume to know my relationship with Prince Edward, therefore I am a desirable prize to you! You want to be the man to steal a Prince's purported mistress so you can gloat to all your friends! Then you will abandonment me once you tire of me. Isn't THAT the reality you offer me?"

"I will not---"

"My lord I will not listen to you any more!" Evelyn cried out between sobs. "I was foolish to have let you --- How I've disgraced myself! God forgive me! I've been foolish to listen to other people's good opinion of you when I've known all along that you are a scoundrel, and I-- I never want to see you again. I hate you!"

Lord Davenport's eyes snapped open at the sound of his bed chamber door slam shut. He sat up on the rumpled bed and raked his fingers through his thick hair. The last image of her alluring sadness stayed with him. With an angry growl, he propped up on his knees and drew back his fist to landed several violent blows into a pile of pillows until several fleck of feathers flew up and fell harmlessly back down over him.

She had acted like a dishonored virgin, he thought sardonically as he pushed off the bed to pace, naked, up and down the length of the room. Such protests! Such a show of false virtue! How easily she compelled him to almost believe her over his better judgement. There was a moment when she ordered him out of her carriage that he doubted himself. Then again he can't recall the last time a woman had so ardently resisted him after almost giving herself to him so sweetly. He would pursue, and it was a lady's duty to feign resistance. Then when he backed away, she was sure to give a sign that she was keen afterall. That was an established dance between lovers.

It's been years since he's pursued a virgin though... only she was not a virgin! he reminded himself. Prince Edward and who knew how many others saw to that!

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the room. Perhaps he had underestimated her attachment to Prince Edward!

Lord Davenport saw in his mind once again how she darted up the steps of the Prince's London residence. He was certain of what he saw and was quite determined that he read the situation correctly. She had involved herself in a clandestine affair, conducted in secret or why else would Evelyn living with the Warwicks with a cock and bull story about being a niece from abroad. Ha! Surely the Prince had convinced her an appearance of propriety would be advantageous to her. Perhaps the Prince had even thought to marry her off to some lowly aristocrat, to be rid of her.

"How could she not see this?" Lord Davenport demanded of his empty chamber.

Perhaps she was just too young and easily lead astray by false promises. And that could only mean she truly loved the Prince, he thought with an inexplicable tightness in his chest. His mouth went dry at the thought.

"Evelyn!" he whispered huskily to the empty room. The thought of her loving the wey-faced young prince had Lord Davenport firm jaw clenching and his stomach churning disagreeably. Many women had fallen prey to the glittering allure of royalty, he reminded himself darkly.

"Well who am I?" he shouted, just as his valet opened the door with a basin of clean water.

The poor startled, servant quickly collected himself and set the basin down. "You are Lord John Mallory, Marquess of Davenport. Heir to the dukedom of Northumberland!" the valet answered with a stone face, as he held up a dressing gown for his lordship.

"Yes! I'm second cousin to the King! Is that not close enough to royalty to be worthy of her consideration?" his lordship shouted rhetorically at the impassive valet. The servant didn't respond as he set about laying out his lordship's shaving things.

"I will have her," Lord John muttered to himself as he belted the robe around him. "Whatever it take, I will have her!"

****************************************************************** While the rest of the city slept, Lady Evelyn remained awake in her bedchamber through the early morning hours. She sat at her writing desk furiously penning a letter to Edward though her tears were making it hard to see. Her bed hadn't been slept in and her weary eyes were red and raw from all the tears she had shed. Perhaps it would be best if she didn't write to Edward. Perhaps it would be best if she just quietly slip away while everyone slept.

It was no use! The words on the page had all started to run together. How could she put into words what she had done? What SHE had allowed to happen?

Evelyn clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle back a tiny sob at the remembrance of how wantonly she gave in to the pleasures HE had coaxed from her. She was lower than the lowest of loose women, as she would have surely given herself to him... if he hadn't put into words what she was about to become.

"I will take care of you.... Ask anything.... I offer you my protection. "

It took a verbally reminder of what she was about to become to pull her back from the precipice of disaster. Oh the shame of it all! Yes, she nearly yielded to him and would have not have given a thought to her honor, to her future. A worldly man such as he must have seen the wantonness in her and treated her accordingly. Perhaps she had brought Lord Davenport's licentiousness upon herself. Wasn't she the progeny of a just such an arrangement?

"The stain of my birth is clear for a man like him to see," she whispered to herself. Fresh, hot tears spilled from her eyes, as Evelyn pressed a kerchief to her lips to silence her sobs. There was no one to hear her as the rest of the Warwick household still slumbered. She must go before anyone awoke. She'll go anywhere if it meant escaping for impending disaster. It will be disaster too if her weak will and Lord Davenport's rakish designs were to collide again.

Where would she go? She could travel north to where her old governess had gone after her marriage to a mill owner, or to one of her own properties she had never seen before. Or she could simply quit this island entirely and travel abroad. She's sort that out after she's left the grey skies of London far behind. No matter where she went though, she would be have her dignity and virtue intact as God and her own conscious demanded of her. Yet somehow the thought wasn't entirely comforting to her.

After some effort to sort and resort her things, Evelyn finally gave up and woke her maid, Martha to help. The faithful servant asked no questions and quickly packed their things into two large bags and a satchel.

"Mi'lady, surely you don't mean for us to travel alone," her maid protested as they tip-toed down the staircase with their luggage in tow. .

"I have people meeting us at our destination. My uncle Warwick arranged it all" Evelyn lied. Evelyn almost didn't care if she sounded believable or not, she was too tired after a sleepless night.

"I see no hired carriages Mi'lady," Martha said once they were down the front steps and looking through the iron gate at the near empty boulevard before them. "Surely at this early hour there aren't any.."

"Run up the street and see if you can't find one there. Quickly! Go!" Evelyn commanded when the girl eyed her suspiciously.

Suddenly Martha's eyes widened as her gaze darted over Evelyn's shoulders and the trembling young maid sank into a deep curtsy. "Your Highness!"

"Why Evelyn, whatever are you doing?" said a familiar voice behind Evelyn.

Evelyn gave a tiny started shriek and nearly jumped from her skin. "Ed--- Your Highness! You gave me such a fright!"

Prince Edward alighted from his carriage, looking fresh and excited. "You mean to say you didn't hear my carriage? Pity for one so young to have a hearing impairment," he teased.

Evelyn cursed to herself and frowned even as she swept him a deep curtsy. "Highness." Truly she was more annoyed with herself. She was so tired and weary that she completely missed the sounds of the carriage rumbling up behind her!

"Are you going somewhere?" Edward asked as he nodded at her cases at her feet. "Heavens Evelyn. You weren't about to do something foolish!"

Evelyn had no response and silently allowed Edward to order one of his footman to carry her luggage back to the house. By now the Warwick's servants came spilling out, all in a tizzy, to be in the presence of a Prince. Edward seemed not to notice the commotion around him as he ushered Evelyn back inside.

The Warwick's family butler came running to the foyer and showed them into the formal parlor with several deep bows. "We're not to be disturbed," Edward said as he handed the butler his hat, gloves and walking stick..

"Why are you here Edward?" she asked once the parlor door had closed and they were alone.

"To visit my dear little sister of course," he replied with a bright smile and a tender kiss upon her cheek. "Sorry about the opera ol' girl. Duty called and so forth. The past fortnight had just been ghastly! But, I say! These Warwicks have the most appalling taste in furnishing don't they? The aesthetics is all wrong!" He swept a disdainful look around the room, then shrugged dismissively and turned his good natured smile back to Evelyn again.

"It's been longer than a fortnight since I saw you last!" she corrected him. It was most irritating for him to be so boisterous when she was feeling so weary and low.

"Will you ring for tea Evelyn?" he asked pleasantly. "I'm parched as I've been so busy last night that I hardly slept a wink. Do they have anything serviceable or will I have to send for my own brew at home?"

Evelyn pulled a rope by the fireplace and dropped down into a sofa. "Why are you here really? No one rises before noon for anything short of an audience with the King, and to visit me here yourself. What must people think?"

Edward flopped himself down beside her and tweaked her nose playfully as he did so. "Well I had to see for myself how detestable your living quarters are. You were so low when we last saw each other that I thought of nothing else since. I'm here now to say I've I found you the perfect solution! And quite frankly now that I've seen this place I can't blame you. What is this cushion stuffed with? Hay?"

"What solution?" asked Evelyn urgently. "Speak quickly as I'm sure Lord and Lady Warwick were made aware of your presence by now. No doubt they await you anxious just beyond that door. So speak quickly. If you keep me in here any longer, there'll be talk."

"I can't have a moment with my own sister?" Edward grumbled.

"Half-sister," Evelyn reminded him. "And we are not even that currently as far as the world knows."

Edward picked at the folds of her skirt playfully, not yet ready to reveal his news just yet. "Were you running away Evelyn?" he asked, his tone suddenly serious and full of concern. " Is it really so bad as all that? I was assured that the Earl and the Countess would look after you properly. "

"No," Evelyn mumbled, casting her eyes down to her hands clasped in her lap, as a warm rosy color spread over her cheeks. "I don't-- I wasn't. Of it's no use. You might as well know that everyone is so perfectly cordial. That is all. Just cordial. Yet I am constantly under scrutiny. It is most unbearable to live like this. " It was mainly true. How could she tell Edward what had transpired without revealed her own shameful acquiescence to Lord Davenport's advances?

The young prince blew out his cheeks in a deep sigh. "Not that again Evelyn," he admonished. "It would all be alright if you aren't so damn off-putting. I know you are, so don't tell me you've been perfectly sweet. You carry this thing of your birth like shield around you."