Games of Pleasure Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF JULIA ROSS

  Night of Sin

  “Exhilarating and highly sensual adventure romance . . . Ross’s gift for creating masterful plots and memorable characters is at its height.”

  —Romantic Times “TOP PICK” (4½ stars)

  “A terrific character study . . . Fans will appreciate gutsy Anne.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  The Wicked Lover

  “The Georgian period comes vividly to life here . . . I highly recommend The Wicked Lover to anyone seeking a romance with rich details, intriguing characters, and a fabulous conflict.” —All About Romance

  “Master storyteller Ross delivers a spellbinding double dose of intrigue and passion in this . . . fast-paced, sensual story brimming over with unforgettable moments and memorable characters. Exquisitely romantic, utterly captivating.” —Romantic Times “TOP PICK” (4½ stars)

  “A sensual, sophisticated tale, mysterious, elegant, and lusty . . . The pages heat up with very sensuous passages, passionate without a taint of crudity . . . For a tantalizing novel rich in atmosphere, I highly recommend The Wicked Lover.” —Romantic Reviews Today

  “Ross’s Georgian romances are never what one expects. They have a vein of eroticism, and plots and characters, traits that push the boundaries of the genre and make for not-to-be-missed reads . . . Twists and turns entwine with sensuality and suspense to make this lush romance a genuine page-turner.” —Booklist

  “An exciting story that sizzles with unbridled sensual desire. Lots of amusing twists and turns, a real keeper.” —Rendezvous

  “A stunning tale of intrigue and passion (with) some of the most beautiful and erotic imagery I have read in a long time . . . I feel very strongly about this book . . . The rewards are well worth it.”

  —A Romance Review

  The Seduction

  “Ross’s lush, evocative writing is the perfect counterpoint for her spellbinding tale of a wickedly refined, elegantly attired rake who is redeemed by one woman’s love. Ross, whose combination of lyricism and sensuality is on par with Jo Beverley’s, skillfully builds the simmering sexual chemistry between Alden and Juliet into an exquisitely sensual romance and luscious love story.” —Booklist

  “A gripping novel starring two wonderfully tainted romantic skeptics as lead protagonists.” —Midwest Book Review

  “Rich, delicious . . . Books like this are treasures . . . Put it at the top of your summer reading list.” —The Oakland Press

  “An extraordinary story . . . A superb example of Ms. Ross’s outstanding storytelling talents and exceptional writing abilities. Intense emotions and passionate, strong characters are the complement to a complex love story, replete with such dastardly villains as Shakespeare might have crafted.” —Historical Romance Reviews

  “Magnificent . . . A wonderfully tempting tale filled with unsurpassed sensuality . . . A hot and fast-paced read . . . Completely enthralling.”

  —The Road to Romance

  “Wit, lust, and just enough mystery . . . The characters are charming, reckless, and endearing.” —Rendezvous

  My Dark Prince

  “Brilliant! Passionate, complex, and compelling. The best book of any genre I have read in a long, long while. Don’t miss this beautifully written, intensely satisfying love story. I am in awe . . . Highly recommended.” —Mary Balogh

  “I thoroughly enjoyed My Dark Prince. If you enjoy exciting, entertaining, wonderfully written romance, read this book.”—Jo Beverley

  “A fantastic cast of characters . . . Julia Ross traps the reader from page one . . . outstanding . . . a breathtaking and mesmerizing historical romance. This is romance in its finest hour.” —The Romance Journal

  “Lovers of tortured heroes and intense stories will take this one to their hearts . . . My Dark Prince has a plot filled with complications and dangers—real dangers . . . I don’t think I’m going to forget this one any time soon.” —All About Romance

  “A powerful story of the redemptive power of love, with one of the most tortured heroes I have come across in quite a while . . . My Dark Prince has loads of danger and adventure . . . the definition of a ‘keeper.’”

  —The Romance Reader

  “With this thrilling adventure of the heart, Julia Ross establishes herself as a powerful, distinctive force in the evolution of the romance genre . . . Darkly erotic and sensually stunning, this innovative and spellbinding romance will enslave your heart and fill your dreams.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

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  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2005 by Jean Ross Ewing.

  All rights reserved.

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  BERKLEY SENSATION is an imprint of The Berkley Publishing Group.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  eISBN : 978-1-440-67458-7

  1. Women—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Courtesans—Fiction. 3. Nobility—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.O846G36 2005

  813’.6—dc22

  2005050121

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  CHAPTER ON
E

  RAGE IS A FUTILE ENOUGH ANTIDOTE TO REJECTED LOVE, but true love is elusive, even for the most desirable man in England.

  His heart raw, Ryder drove his horse along the cliff road. Indignation surged hotly in his veins.

  “I am very sorry, Lord Ryderbourne,” she had said. “I must inform you that I have just this morning agreed to marry Lord Asterley.”

  She must have known that his attentions were serious. He had received every encouragement. He was a superb catch, even for an earl’s daughter. Yet she had been secretly courting Asterley all along. In the end she had announced, with trembling fingers and silly little bites to her lip, that marriage to Ryder was just too alarming to contemplate, and she had accepted an amusing, penniless baron instead.

  While he had delayed—secure in her shy glances and delicate blushes—Lady Belinda Carhart had played him for a fool. Apparently, even becoming the Duchess of Blackdown one day could never make up for Ryder’s personal failings.

  It was humiliating. Humiliating and, perhaps, a genuine hurt. There was no reason at all why any young lady should hold him in fear, especially in the face of his magnificent prospects and his sincerely expressed admiration for her.

  Yet Lady Belinda had stared at him with eyes like a rabbit’s. “You’re so very forceful, Lord Ryderbourne. All the girls are frightened of you.”

  It was, he supposed, a serious shock to his confidence.

  Not to his position in the world, of course. To his faith in himself.

  The sensation was both unwelcome and novel. It left him feeling oddly vulnerable, to which the best answer was righteous resentment. Any insult to the male heart fuels only anger.

  Drizzle wet his face. The ground was getting slick. Just ahead, part of the road surface had fallen away, carried down with the collapsing cliffs toward the sea by a landslide the previous winter. The local people had beaten a new track across the tumbled earth and another, narrower path down through the uprooted trees to the beach, but no wagon or carriage could pass this way any longer.

  He slowed his horse, then stopped to gaze out over the bay. Clouds gathered on the horizon. Jade-shadowed breakers shattered white against the broken rocks of the headland.

  Something bobbed, appearing and disappearing among the swells.

  Ryder shaded his eyes. A scrap of wreckage, perhaps? Whatever it was, it had vanished.

  He took a deep breath. Salt air filled his lungs. Rollers surged up the Channel. Spume splattered onto cliffs. Waves dashed and sucked on the shingle far below.

  He loved this land. He loved Wyldshay, his ancestral home, his joy, his burden. He loved his family. His father, the aging duke, who delegated more and more responsibility to his elder son. His mother, brilliant and demanding and a light in society. His sisters, who would soon be fielding suitors of their own. And his younger brother, Wild Lord Jack—the wicked, interesting boy with the face of an angel who had left home long ago to drift about the world— gone again now with his new bride to India, while Ryder was left to both the duties and privileges of being the heir.

  He had never resented it before, but now a small disquiet seemed to be gnawing at him like a mouse at a grain sack.

  Ryder shrugged and urged his horse forward just as the flotsam lifted, closer to shore than he had expected. Dipping and spinning, it tossed haphazardly toward the headland.

  He pulled up abruptly. A dinghy. Foundering, without oars, without rudder, spinning straight toward the rocks.

  Yet something fluttered, almost out of sight behind the prow—a scrap of fabric?

  Someone lay in the slosh of water in the bottom of the boat.

  The gelding sank its haunches. Hooves slid on mud as the horse hurtled downhill through the jumble of dislodged trees and shrubs. Pebbles rattled, then showered past, when they reached the shingle. Riding full-tilt toward the surf, reins dropped onto his horse’s neck, Ryder shed hat, cloak, and jacket. His heart hammered as he plunged his mount into the sea.

  The gelding swam strongly. Cold water broke over Ryder’s chest, soaking him. The saddle turned to soap beneath his thighs. He urged his horse to swim faster, his hands filled with wet mane and reins like damp rubber.

  The sinking craft had disappeared among the waves.

  The gelding’s breath roared like dragon fire. Ryder shouted. The ocean swallowed the sounds in an infinity of moisture.

  He circled his horse, shouting like a madman, when the little boat suddenly wallowed down the face of a breaker. Cold spume broke over Ryder’s face.

  Half blinded, he grasped at the gunnel.

  A woman. Almost naked. Ivory flesh shone blue-white beneath her corset and a scrap of soaked chemise, her thighs and arms bare to the cold rain and the sea. Beaten iron-salt hair plastered over white neck and shoulders, streamed like seaweed across a slim waist. Just clear of the bilge, her half-hidden face lay pillowed on one outstretched arm.

  The next wave tore the boat from his fingers.

  Ryder tugged the swimming gelding back toward the dinghy. A rope trailed from the bow, coy as an eel. Reaching from the saddle, he grabbed at it. Skin ripped from his palm as the next wave lifted the boat, and his grip on the rope tore him from his horse.

  Cold ocean, loud with bubbles, closed over his head. Kicking strongly, Ryder grasped the end of the gelding’s tail. Fighting water, he looped a knot between tail and rope. As he surfaced and his horse turned back toward land, a flailing stirrup iron struck him hard on the elbow.

  He cursed and hauled himself into the dinghy one-handed.

  She was alive. As Ryder lifted her she groaned, her head falling back to expose her white throat. A red bruise marked one cheek. Streaks of color spoiled the flesh of her arms. He knew an instant of livid fury before he forced his mind back to the problems at hand.

  The boat wallowed deeper as another wave broke over it. The nerve screamed in his elbow, numbing the muscles from wrist to shoulder. Nevertheless, he propped the woman against his own body with one arm and hooked a foot under the seat to jerk off one of his boots. He began to bail as if his life depended on it—though his life was not at stake, of course.

  He could still swim to shore with one arm. Yet he probably could not carry her with him without both of them foundering.

  Her life, then. Her life depended on it.

  A woman. A stranger. Her bones as lovely as glass. Her long legs entangled in beauty and threat. Her hair a cloak of mystery. Her face damaged by a man’s fist. Other than the purple fingerprints branded onto her flesh, her body might have been carved from marble beneath the little stone ridges of crumpled wet fabric. A sensuous, enchanting body, ripe with female invitation.

  He cursed again and kept bailing.

  Freed of its burden of water, the dinghy lifted. The horse swam nobly, driven by instinct straight back to the beach. The woman coughed and opened her eyes. The deft curve of her waist burned beneath his palm as she coughed again, then thrust both hands back over her head, pushing the sea-tangled hair from her forehead.

  Her breasts lifted, nipples shining dark beneath the soaked fabric.

  She looked up at him from bleak chocolate eyes, her lashes spikes of distrust.

  He met her accusatory gaze without flinching. Of course he was aware of the shadowed triangle between her thighs; her breasts thrust up in deliberate invitation by her corset; her naked legs and cold white feet—glimmering beneath torn silk stockings as if she had run unshod over stones. Did she think he was villain enough to pay attention to anything but rescuing her? To feel anything but this white-hot anger at her unknown assailant?

  “It’s all right,” he said. “We’re almost ashore. You’re quite safe now.”

  She shivered and crossed her arms as if hugging herself, moving as far from him as space on the seat permitted, yet her mouth quirked with a kind of wry bravado.

  “So who are you?” she asked. “Sir Galahad?”

  REMARKABLE eyes glowered at her beneath strongly male brows: glass-green, storm-tossed ey
es, clear yet feral, like the deep ocean. Neatly barbered hair dripped water over a face ruggedly designed to please women. His soaked shirt plastered vigorous muscling. Drenched breeches painted inflexible thighs.

  A tall, powerfully built man, wet as a seal. Young and strong and lean—and splendid in his masculine certainty.

  “I am Ryderbourne,” he said.

  Miracle choked back a small laugh, dismayed at how bitter it tasted.

  Just that: Ryderbourne. With the assumption that anyone would then know exactly who he was. Even though his was only a courtesy title, as the elder son and heir of the Duke of Blackdown his precedence was just below that of a marquess. His given name, if she remembered correctly, was Laurence Duvall Devoran St. George, but he was known as “Ryder” to his friends.

  The select handful of friends!

  He was only whispered about by the amusing young gentlemen who whored and drank and gambled away both youth and fortune. A proud scion of St. George, slated to become one of the most powerful peers in England. Why be surprised if Lord Ryderbourne carved a rarefied path of his own?

  Miracle had occasionally seen him from a distance in London, of course, fawned over like royalty. He did not look so different now, even soaked to the skin. Lean muscles bunched and coiled as he bailed. Though his green eyes remained wary and cool, he was as attractive as they came.