Everything Forbidden Read online

  Everything Forbidden

  Jess Michaels

  For Miriam. Hope you like your “naughty neighbor” story. Thanks for all your help in making it a reality.

  And for Michael, who knows me so well. Your chocolate and sushi breaks are always perfectly timed.

  Contents

  Prologue

  “Oslo?”

  One

  “Mama,” Miranda Albright said with a sigh as she watched…

  Two

  Ethan stared at Miranda Albright. The woman might be everything…

  Three

  Ethan straightened up in the chair as his face darkened…

  Four

  Miranda lay in Ethan’s arms, half on and half off…

  Five

  A stroll through the woods was normally Miranda’s favorite pastime…

  Six

  Ethan wet his suddenly dry lips. Miranda’s chemise was worn,…

  Seven

  “Miranda, what in heaven’s name is wrong with you?”

  Eight

  Miranda sensed a change in Ethan as his kisses against…

  Nine

  Nearly a week had passed and Miranda had heard nothing…

  Ten

  Miranda stared at Ethan for a long moment. For the…

  Eleven

  Ethan caught Miranda’s hand and pulled her back into the…

  Twelve

  Ethan paced around his parlor, checking the clock every time…

  Thirteen

  “Ethan?” Miranda said softly as she pushed the door closed…

  Fourteen

  Miranda hurried through the winding corridors and hallways of the…

  Fifteen

  Ethan paced his chamber, unable to sleep although it had…

  Sixteen

  There. He had said it. Ethan wrinkled his brow. He…

  Seventeen

  From the emotions that simmered in every fiber of Ethan’s…

  Eighteen

  Miranda had never liked London, not that she had been…

  Nineteen

  Miranda watched as Ethan came to a stock-still stop in…

  About the Author

  Other Books by Jess Michaels

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  1814

  “Oslo?”

  Miranda Albright ducked under a branch, batting twigs out of her face as she attempted to calm herself. Frustration bubbled inside of her, threatening to overflow and wipe away her last thread of control. The urge to throw herself down in the middle of the woods and have a childish tantrum was nearly overwhelming.

  “Oslo!” she hissed out a second time, this one through clenched teeth.

  No dog miraculously appeared.

  “Dratted animal,” she muttered as she stepped over a fallen log and moved further into the tangled branches of the trees.

  She had been following her mother’s dog since he broke free of his lead what seemed like hours ago. At the rate his short, little legs could carry him, they could well be in the next county by now.

  Or in the very least, their neighbor’s property.

  Just as the thought crossed her mind, she heard a low, masculine chuckle echo from nearby. Instantly, she stiffened at the sound and peered around to determine its source. It came again, this time huskier.

  It actually was her neighbor, she realized with a start. She’d heard the Earl of Rothschild laugh before and this was definitely him. Naughty, like he had a secret he’d never share with her. It was a teasing laugh, a taunting laugh.

  Quietly, she moved toward the sound. All she could hope was that her mother’s blasted Pomeranian hadn’t interrupted the man during his afternoon entertainments. She had only met him a few times, mostly at country gatherings with her parents, but he’d never struck her as a man of much patience. Just by the way he held himself, the way he looked at others, it was clear he was accustomed to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it.

  Certainly, Rothschild had never appeared to be the kind of man who would appreciate the devil disguised in fluffy orange fur racing across his picnic blanket. She was certain she’d get an earful from him and his companions if her worst imaginings turned out to be true.

  Prepared for a stern berating, she stepped into an area where the trees thinned and peered in the direction his voice had come from. What she saw froze her in her spot, jaw slack.

  She had assumed she would find the Earl with a group of friends, fishing in the pond, perhaps, or sharing luncheon. Any kind of normal diversion would have been expected with the fine summer weather.

  Instead, what she saw was a very different kind of entertainment. One that widows and married women whispered about in secret—but wouldn’t yet share with her, telling her that her time would come soon enough. An activity her mother vowed she would speak to Miranda about only when she was preparing for her wedding night.

  But this was not Miranda’s wedding night. And yet she couldn’t look away. There, right in the open air for everyone to see, was the handsome Earl of Rothschild, and he was with a woman.

  There were so many things in the scene before her to shock her, Miranda wasn’t sure where to begin. For one thing, Rothschild was shirtless. Oh, she’d seen men without shirts before, despite her mother’s attempts to shield her. Sometimes the field workers went without and Miranda would catch brief glimpses from her father’s carriage as they rode along to town. The sight had always given her a forbidden thrill. A feeling multiplied by what she was secretly witnessing at present.

  Those workmen, who often appeared soft, even from a distance, didn’t look anything like the Earl. Muscles tapered down his lean body, moving beneath the surface as he shifted his position on the picnic blanket that had been laid out beside the lake. His skin was tanned, as though he often went without the decent protection of a shirt. And a few tousled locks of dark hair fell across his forehead like a disheveled, tempting devil.

  When the woman beneath him moaned, Miranda started. She’d been so focused on the man, she hadn’t really looked at his paramour. Did she know her? There was nothing immediately familiar about her, not that Miranda could have recognized her with her head lolled over to the side, facing away from the brush where Miranda was concealed. And at present, her face didn’t concern Miranda as much as her state of undress that went beyond even Rothschild’s.

  The lady’s gown was in a pile beside the Earl’s shirt and jacket. She was wearing only a sheer chemise, which was hiked up around her stomach, leaving her utterly bare from the waist down except for a pair of lacy white stockings and satin high-heeled slippers. The slippers were impossible to overlook as they were thrown over the Earl’s tanned, defined shoulders.

  He was kneeling between her legs and he was…

  Miranda tilted her head, squinting to see better despite the fact that she knew she shouldn’t.

  Dear God, he was licking her…there. There in that place her mother told her to ignore, but she secretly didn’t. In the place that was tingling madly as she watched Rothschild pleasure the moaning, squirming woman. The unknown lady’s hips lifted and her back arched with every stroke of his tongue. Her cries grew louder with each intimate kiss.

  Miranda shifted. She should turn away. She should run away! This was no place for her. These were no sights for her. But she couldn’t make herself stop watching. Stop waiting for what she would see next. She couldn’t stop the growing ache deep within her body, one she had felt before, but never so sharp and needy. She shut her eyes briefly, but the moans continued to echo and they elicited a brief image.

  One of Miranda being pleasured by the Earl instead of this faceless woman.

>   Her eyes flew open, widened at the shocking thought. What in the world was she thinking? She covered her mouth to keep her startled gasp from revealing her spying, but she still didn’t look away from the scene being played out before her.

  Now Rothschild got to his feet and Miranda got a clearer view of his partner. She was definitely a stranger, not a village woman or a member of a neighborhood family. The woman sat up a little, leaning back on her elbows with a grin as she watched Rothschild shuck out of his trousers and give them a casual kick to the side.

  Miranda stared. While she may have seen a man’s chest before, this was something entirely different. Muscular legs met an equally muscular backside, and both were just as tanned as his back and arms. Dear God, that meant he went outside naked on a regular basis.

  And then there was the thrust of muscle between his legs. Miranda had heard the servants call it a cock when they didn’t know she was within earshot. It was as hard as any other part of him, curling up toward his belly at full attention.

  The woman below him licked her lips as she stared just as blatantly as Miranda did. The stranger smiled, a wicked, knowing expression that made Miranda feel very young and naïve. And jealous. There was such a confidence in the other woman’s every move. A sure sensuality that Miranda recognized, but wasn’t yet able to master, thanks to her mother’s constant criticisms and intrusions.

  “Come down here,” the woman ordered, opening her legs a little further.

  “Oh, very pretty,” Rothschild drawled as he looked at her blatant offering with a wicked grin.

  He dropped to his knees between the woman’s splayed thighs. His mouth came down hard on hers, his arms pinned hers above her head. And then, he thrust his hips forward and his cock disappeared into her body.

  Miranda had heard whispers about sex from servants and married friends. Varying accounts described it as anything from heavenly to horrible. But judging from the lusty moans from the woman on the picnic blanket, Miranda was beginning to think heavenly was a closer description. If it made that woman feel anything like just watching them made Miranda feel, it had to be heavenly.

  Miranda shifted a little, longing to touch herself, longing to ease the tension building like an inferno between her thighs. She knew her own hands could bring her pleasure. She’d done so in the past, reveling in the exquisite release.

  Would that be what it felt like if a man like the Earl spread her wide like he was doing to that woman, and drove into her with those short, circular swivels of his muscular hips?

  Would Miranda moan and cry out like that if it was she Rothschild was taking instead? If it was she who he claimed so blatantly?

  She squeezed her eyes shut again as hot blood rushed to her cheeks. How she wanted to know the answers to those wicked, unspoken questions. How much she wanted to experience that type of passion.

  A nudge on her hand made Miranda yelp in surprise. She looked down to see that Oslo had found his way back to her and was sitting at her side, little tail wagging wildly and head cocked with a quizzical bent as he waited for her.

  She cast a quick glance toward the couple as she snatched up the dog and held him to her chest so he wouldn’t escape a second time. With her luck, Oslo would bolt into the clearing and reveal her humiliating intrusion.

  Rothschild didn’t seem to have heard her cry, but the woman beneath him clenched her hands around his muscular upper arms.

  She moaned, a broken, wanton sound, before she said, “Did you hear that?”

  Immediately Miranda crouched down lower, peering through the high grass and praying she wouldn’t have to endure the ultimate disgrace of being caught. No doubt the wicked Earl would assume she had been spying on him for quite some time. Worse, that she was aroused by what she saw. She would never live that down. Never. How could she face him afterward?

  Worse, what if he marched her home and told her parents what she had been doing? She couldn’t bear their reactions. Her mother, especially, would make her life hellish if she knew.

  Miranda held her breath as Rothschild lifted his head. His breath came in pants.

  “What?”

  “A cry,” the woman insisted.

  Rothschild slowly circled his hips and the woman cursed, a word Miranda hadn’t heard before, but didn’t need to be familiar with to know it was not ladylike. Why did that vulgar phrase make her thighs even wetter? It was like everything forbidden was also undeniably arousing.

  “It’s probably those absurd peacocks Brendan brought with him last week,” he panted, driving his hips forward again with a groan. “Ignore it.”

  “Hmmm, peacocks, eh?” The woman giggled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a deep kiss.

  Miranda waited until the two of them were utterly engrossed in their coupling before she gathered Oslo closer and began to crawl out of their line of sight. Even when she knew they couldn’t see her and dared to stand up, she continued to hear the woman’s moans of encouragement and Rothschild’s grunts of pleasure in the distance. Worse, when those decadent sounds were no longer to be heard, she still couldn’t help but recall, with perfect clarity, everything she had witnessed. And the images continued to arouse her beyond measure.

  She fumbled in her pelisse for Oslo’s broken lead and tied it clumsily around the dog’s collar before she set him down and began to weave her way back to the house. With every step, she flashed to another heated image of Rothschild burying himself into the woman. Of him tasting her in the most intimate way. Of the moans. The slide of skin on skin.

  “Oh, God,” Miranda gasped. “I want that, I want that passion so very much. How could anyone ever settle for anything less?”

  One

  Three years later

  1817

  “Mama,” Miranda Albright said with a sigh as she watched her mother hold up yet another silken gown to her younger sister Penelope. “Honestly, you should not have purchased these things without speaking to me first!”

  Dorthea Albright turned her rotund form on her eldest daughter with a harsh frown. “This is my home, Miranda! I do not ask my children for permission for anything I do.”

  Miranda shut her eyes and counted to ten in her head very slowly. The hesitation wasn’t nearly enough to keep her anger and frustration in check. Still, she somehow managed to maintain a calm tone when she replied.

  “But, Mama, the cost of all these things!” she said through tightly gritted teeth as she motioned to the pile of fabric and hats and…were those jewels stacked on the settee? “I have been managing the finances for six months and I know better what can fit into our budget and what cannot.”

  Her mother snorted as her eyes rolled heavenward. “You know better. Ha! You know how to keep us in rags.”

  Miranda gripped fists at her sides. “If you insist upon living beyond our means, at the very least speak to me so I can prepare for the additional cost. And perhaps together we can find ways to be more frugal. Our debts—”

  Her mother held up a hand and waved off Miranda’s words. “You would be better served by finding a rich husband to solve our financial problems than to spend all your time fussing over ledgers! When your father was alive, he managed to give us all we wanted and needed and more! Why should that change simply because he has left this world?”

  Her mother sniffled, and despite Miranda’s frustration, she felt a pang of empathy for the feelings etched across Dorthea’s lined face. Whatever her father’s faults, their family all loved and missed him terribly.

  Penelope shot Miranda a brief, understanding look before she placed a hand on their mother’s arm. “Mama, you know Miranda is only looking out for us all. And I do not need three green gowns. Perhaps if we return two of them—”

  “Green suits your eyes the best,” her mother interrupted. “They make it less obvious that they are too close together.”

  Miranda flinched. Good Lord, their mother had no tact. She’d spent a lifetime being picked apart. She could hardly stand to
see that well-intentioned venom being turned on her sister.

  “Penelope’s eyes are perfectly spaced!”

  Her mother glared at her. “She will need all the gowns when her Season begins. I won’t have anyone saying my daughters are poorly dressed! That is the final word on the matter.”

  Dorthea gathered up the gowns and grasped Penelope’s hand, shooting Miranda a glare before she swept out of the room with all the pomp and circumstance of a queen.

  Miranda let out a moan as the parlor door shut behind them. If her mother was queen, it was over a shabby kingdom, indeed. Their father may have given them all they “wanted, needed, and more,” but it had been at the expense of their financial stability. His gambling, coupled with a lifetime of poor investments and lavish living, had reduced their coffers to almost nothing. The upkeep of the house alone was putting them at the edge of ruin.

  To make matters worse, as the third son of a not particularly wealthy Marquis, her father had no land to make up for their losses. All he had were bad habits, debts, and kind smiles.

  “God rest his soul,” Miranda murmured as she looked at the line of ciphers a second time. Nothing had changed. She rested her head against the desk edge with a sigh.

  What the hell were they going to do?

  “Miranda?” came a voice from the settee beside the window.

  Miranda jolted up straight in surprise. Her middle sister, Beatrice, was staring at her, arms folded. She’d almost forgotten the girl was in the room. A rare occurrence, since the spoilt child rarely allowed herself to be anything but the center of attention.

  “What is it, Beatrice?” Miranda asked on another sigh.

  “You cannot deny us Seasons!” Beatrice declared, her slippered foot beginning to tap beneath the hem of her extravagant morning gown. “Just because you are determined to be a spinster doesn’t mean the rest of us should be forced to follow in your footsteps.”