LITMIR.BIZ

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was asleep on a pile of coats. There had been too many in the end, he supposed, as more and more guests arrived, and there was no place to put them all.

      In her hand was a red rose and she clutched the stem, her fingers moving nervously. It was newly budded, tight and fresh, still with just a trace of sparkling dew on its furled petals.

      It seemed to him that she held it to her lips. As if a lover had given it to her.

      He felt a furious jealousy that surprised him, and then disgust. Had she let herself be taken against the wall by some man, standing up like a common strumpet, and then collapsed in sleepy lust? There was no divan or chaise in the chamber, let alone a bed. What maidservant would risk being sacked by lying with a man upon the clothes of her betters?

      He reminded himself that she was most likely not a servant. Semyon studied her in silence for several moments, sniffing the air and thinking. He caught no smell of sexual congress, he could be sure of that much, but nothing else. Perhaps the rose had been given to her by a male guest as a gallant gesture and nothing more.

      Gradually, as his jealousy eased, something else took its place.

      Arousal.

      Her pose reminded him of the paintings some gentlemen hung in their private rooms. The sort that usually featured a beautiful woman, perhaps a shepherdess with skin like porcelain, her glorious hair a-tumble and her gown half falling off, barefoot, asleep in the hay as a sturdy farm lad happened upon her, agog with surprised desire.

      The sort of painting that a new wife consigned to a distant room or sent off to be sold in a London bric-a-brac shop. In the flesh, living and breathing, Angelica was in every particular the sort of woman that would worry an inexperienced young wife. An older one might be grateful in her way for the sort of respite she could provide.

      Perhaps she had been a lady’s maid, hired for her good breeding and taste, until some unfortunate event had consigned her to the lower depths of this household.

      She had seemed too intelligent to have fallen for the wiles of a master bent on seduction. Certainly the owner of this grand pile of stone in Mayfair, who had danced with someone else’s wife all evening, had a reputation for chasing his female servants, but what of it? So many gentlemen in London did. Had she been forced, then, by a thoughtless and selfish master, and demoted in rank by her long-suffering mistress?

      Angelica gave an almost inaudible moan through her parted lips. On the lower one he saw—or thought he saw—a faint trace of the dew upon the rose.

      He kneeled beside her. His hand hovered over the sweet curve of one thigh, longing to stroke it, but he drew it back.

      Her breaths made her bosom rise and fall in her uneasy slumber and he could not help but look. Such tender flesh. The idea that she had ever been manhandled made him angry.

      Invited to touch her in an instant fantasy, Semyon imagined her arching drowsily with pleasure as he caressed both breasts, releasing them from her bodice, then mounding and squeezing the malleable flesh to erotic heights so that the nipples—pink, erect nipples—jutted out.

      He would feast upon them, suckling avidly, one hand caressing the low curve of her belly until he felt the tremors of deep feminine arousal begin.

      And then—ah, my sleeping angel, he thought fondly, you have no idea what I am thinking or that I watch you. Dream, dream as you lie there on all that fur and finery and I will put it in your mind too.

      He would take her hands and place them upon her bared breasts, telling her to continue his caresses while he watched and undid his breeches. Were she wanton enough, and he suspected she would be, her slender fingers would clasp her nipples and tug, then move to cup her breasts and squeeze them in a rhythm that both satisfied her and made her want more.

      The thought made his cock spring powerfully upward, constrained by the soft, thin leather of his breeches, which remained buttoned. He did not dare touch the manifestation of his manhood or her, but let his fantasy take over until the sleeping woman before him shimmered in his mind, awakened and wanting him.

      He would tell her to lift her skirts, slowly. As the white material was drawn up, and she showed her legs and her thighs, a dainty triangle of curls and a flash of her most intimate, succulent flesh.

      He would waste no time in assisting her to fully spread her thighs and reveal the nether lips, neat and plump, to his hot gaze. She, of course, could not see herself in that way, but that did not matter. She would sigh with pleasure when his probing finger slid into her and lift her hips instinctively.

      He would bring her a taste of herself, touching his slick finger to her mouth and asking that she lick it.

      Then—he leaned upon one hand, looking ardently at the vision of unviolated beauty sleeping before him—his tongue would go where his finger had been. Lapping with just the tip, then thrusting as deeply as she would let him. Teasing the tiny bud that held the most intense pleasure for a lady. Overwhelmed by the sensation, craving more, she would bend her spread legs and clasp them behind the knees to give herself more freely.

      An excellent reason for him to raise his head, then, and push her clasped legs gently back against her shoulders, telling her to hold them so that her bottom was lifted off the bed.

      Then he would see all, from glistening curls to swollen bud to the flushed lips of her sex, and finally to the tiny puckered hole where a fingertip might stray and stimulate, if she wanted that. Her wanton display would call for further delights. Her plump buttocks he would fondle, perhaps a little roughly, as his tongue lavished her snug cunny with silky-wet strokes and soft penetration.

      Completely his at that moment, her body lifted and held in his hands, her first orgasm for him would be an intense one, an experience to savor while he controlled his own bursting desire.

      Ahhh. He bent his head and closed his eyes, still not actually touching her, wondering if the sleeping, fully clothed woman before him had experienced the compelling fantasy in slumber as he’d hoped. He let his lust ebb away.

      Semyon could not bear to wake her. If he was caught with her, the gossip would be all over London in an instant. If she had come down in the world and he suspected as much, she might fall still lower, though he had done nothing but look at her.

      His sensual reverie had taken no more than a few moments, but he was stiff all over as he got to his feet.

      Angelica slept on.

      His coat—where was it? He hoped she was not lying on it, but then he spotted it easily enough. It was still the only masculine article of clothing in the room and had been hung up with care by itself. He shrugged into it, thrusting his arms through the sleeves, glancing into the mirror to adjust the lapels and make sure his erection had gone down. Given the size of his member, something still showed, but that was de rigueur at a ball that went on into the wee hours. He had no doubt that the buttoned-back bulge in the front of his breeches would be grabbed at by more than one tipsy female as he left.

      Angelica’s warm breath had made the rose unfurl its petals somewhat and he could see its innermost center, drenched with the same dew that had moistened her lip. Semyon smiled sadly. He hated to leave her. But if fatigue and the tedium of seeing to the needs of so many others had claimed her so utterly, he had no right to wake her.

      There was always tomorrow.

      He would make inquiries and find out more about her—and her master and mistress and well. How she had come to this house, whether she had ever been “upon the town,” in the polite phrase, ever married, been widowed, run off with a soldier—in short, everything.

      From down the hall he heard the coarse but not unfriendly voice of Jack. The footman was alternately singing in snatches and muttering to himself.

      Semyon stepped outside of the curtain. “Miss Harrow has fallen asleep,” he said to Jack.

      “Miss Harrow? Do you call her that? Very kind you are, to treat her so respectful, when she is no more than an upstairs maid.” The footman peered at him “Downstairs, now, of course.” Then he looked at Angelica.

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