Make Me Beg. Alice Gaines

if you put it that way.”

      “Then, let’s have some fun. Engage in sex play until one of us can stand no more.”

      “Until one of us begs.”

      “And then, we’ll fuck,” she concluded.

      “Agreed.”

      She rose and extended her hand. When he bent to kiss it again, she shook. Not a lady but an equal closing a business deal. The action only surprised him for a second, then he returned her grip with a firm one of his own.

      That seemed to please her, as she set aside the book and smiled. “Now, you may take me back to the party.”

      “Anne, what do you know about Thomas Boulton?”

      Olivia’s maid stopped brushing out Olivia’s hair in midstroke. “Mr. Boulton, ma’am?”

      “He’s notorious among the ladies I met tonight. You must have heard something.”

      “It’s not my place to know about such as him, Mrs. Trent.”

      “Hogwash. Footmen see and hear everything during those balls, and they pass it along to the rest of the staff.”

      “What our betters do is none of our business.”

      Olivia turned. “They’re not better than you because they have more money. And as to breeding…pfft.”

      “American ideas, ma’am. They won’t fly here.”

      “Be that as it may. I need information about Mr. Boulton, and for that I need your help.”

      Anne gripped the brush, and her gaze darted away. Clearly, she felt torn between sharing some juicy gossip and fear she’d overstep her bounds.

      Olivia pressed her hand to Anne’s. “I’d never give away anything you told me in confidence. But, I’m at a disadvantage without information.”

      “How so?”

      “Everyone else here knows him. Who his family is, his likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. I’m a stranger.”

      “You shouldn’t think to make a husband of him, I can tell you that much,” Anne said.

      “Not good marriage material.” No surprise there, but then, neither was she.

      “Lord, ma’am.” Anne fanned herself with one hand. “He’s been in and out of more beds than the rest of his type combined. Slippery as an eel, he is, and silent as a cat.”

      “Useful traits for a man in his position.”

      “He goes after married women mostly. Though many’s the husband suspected him, none have ever found any proof.”

      Discretion. Another useful trait.

      “They say he’s powerful good between the sheets, ma’am,” Anne went on. Now that she’d given herself permission to talk, she seemed ready to bubble over with information. “My cousin’s friend is Lady Blaisdell’s personal maid, and she says some very strange sounds came out of her room several nights when Lord Blaisdell was away on business.”

      “Do tell.”

      “Lady Blaisdell sounded as if she’d swoon. ‘Ah yes, there. I perish. I spend!’ My cousin’s friend almost went in to give aid, but she heard a man’s voice and went away again.”

      “And she thought the man was Mr. Boulton.”

      Anne nodded with enough force to get the ribbons on her cap aflutter. “He’d dined there several times. They’d all heard him.”

      “And stole into the lady’s boudoir during his lordship’s absence.”

      “As bold as day, ma’am.”

      Olivia tapped her finger on her lips. Either Lady Blaisdell had a melodramatic disposition, or Mr. Boulton had done well enough for her voice to carry through a closed door. No doubt, the maid had had her ear to the planks, but still…he must have some talent at lovemaking or he’d never have earned his reputation. And he had an impressive one, no doubt of that. The moment he’d entered Lord Ridgeway’s soiree that evening, the female interest in the room had taken on an electric charge. The name Boulton had gone from woman to woman. Hushed, but audible to a tuned ear.

      “Another story has it that a footman happened on him in a billiard room. He’d stretched the lady of the house over the table and had his face between her legs. The footman couldn’t see well because of her skirts, but she seemed in some kind of rapture.”

      Gamahucherie. That would explain his success with his lovers.

      “Then, after a bit, he took his…” Anne’s voice trailed off.

      “Go on. This is all very helpful.”

      “His thing. Took it out of his pants, he did. And, it was huge.” Anne spread her hands at least a foot apart. “This big.”