Lady Varney's Risqué Business Read Free Page B

one hundred miles, Kitty felt caught in the trap of her own needs.
    To have an affair with Justin Belmont was a magnetic idea. She sought no marriage, for she was done with such subjugations. But the very idea that she might for one day and one night enjoy a physical relationship with a man had overruled her own common sense. Would going to bed with Justin be worth the risk to her reputation? After all, she was known among Society as a woman of virtue. A woman who had honored her husband, never cuckolding him. A mother. A devoted one. She was a light of the ton and enjoyed it. Now that she had developed her matchmaking business to earn the fees, she had enough money to scrape by, even if she feared the blackguards to whom she paid Henry’s gambling debts. That left only one lack in her life. A man. If there even existed such a thing as an entertaining man in a woman’s bed. Ba! She’d never had the proof of that pudding!
    But coming here did offer her one compensation. Before the next day had come and gone, she could rid herself of the notion that Justin Belmont was the only man who could please her. She’d come to prove him inadequate to the task.
    It was quite true, however, that in the past years when she’d been in Society, she had not found any man who captured her attentions. True, even if she’d found such a man, she had not been free to sample his charms. But she had looked. She had dreamed that one day she might be free. When Henry had died of a sudden Christmas chill, she’d been stunned. But learning of his profligacy with her dowry and his own income, she’d realized soon after her husband’s death that she would never be free. Of Henry. His perfidy. And his debts.
    “Madam?” The coachman called down from his box. “Should I continue up the drive?”
    Kitty licked her lips and stretched toward the window. “Please do.”
    “Walk on!” He flicked the reins and off they went.
    She settled back, pushed down her fears and reached inside her well of courage to bring up resolution and force a smile.
    Transforming it to the pleasant look she usually wore when receiving guests or walking the length of a ballroom in London, she awaited the coachman’s descent from his perch to open the door. With a turn of her head, she watched the butler step down from the white stone portico of the high-towered house and extend his hand to help her descend to the pebbled drive.
    “My lady,” Justin’s elderly, white-haired butler greeted her with deference. “Welcome to Belmont Manor. And you there,” he addressed the coachman and waved for a footman to come forward from the foyer, “Gerald will help you with the lady’s portmanteaux. Thank you.” He placed a few jingling coins in the coachman’s palm and smiled politely at Kitty. “I will show you inside, madam.”
    As she walked through the entrance hall of Belmont Manor, Kitty saw what Justin’s forty-thousand-a-year income offered. Spotless marble entry. Tromp l’oiel ceilings. Was that a Holbein on the wall there? French Aubusson runners down the far hall? Yes, she had always known she was a slave to extravagance. The odd. The new. Any lavish excess excited her mind and made her nipples into diamonds and her cunny a flowing river of wantonness.
    “Lovely, is it not?” the butler queried with smug pride.
    “Superb,” she affirmed.
    “My name is Harrison, madam, and I am at your service for anything you require.” He extended a hand toward the broad black-veined marble staircase before them. “Please. I would imagine you wish to rest after your journey, and I can show you to your rooms.”
    “Thank you, Harrison.” She removed her gloves, pulling finger by finger, then unbuttoning the frog closure of her cloak and turning to allow him to catch it. “You can show me into the presence of Viscount Belmont.”
    Harrison shook his snowy head. “I am afraid not, madam. The Viscount is not at home.”
    “Not—no?” She caught herself, unnerved not so