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The carriages of nobles heading to House Barca's Mendoza residence formed a procession along the main thoroughfare of San Talaria. Each luxurious horse-drawn carriage bore the crests of the seventeen distinguished Grandes de Ortega families. but other wealthy families like one who had gained enormous wealth through mining, one who ruled the coast and had made their fortune through their own trading ports, as well as families who were beginning to make a name for themselves as the nouveau riche of Mendoza were also to be seen. It was a strange sight to see all of these families together in one place. It was reminiscent of the banquet the night of the crown prince's marriage ceremony, except that the guest list was much more refined and pared down. 

Inés leaned against the carriage window, her gaze fixed on the passing scenery before drifting over to Cárcel, seated across from her with his eyes closed.

She couldn't tell whether he was lost in thought or merely resting. Whatever the case, she didn't want to disturb him, so she rested her chin on her hand and drank in the sight. She knew she would have to wake him soon, but for now, she found a small pleasure in simply watching him and wanted to let him be.

"I'm not asleep," he said, his eyes still closed.

"What?"

"You were staring at me, were you not?" His lips curled into a smile as he opened his eyes, twin pools of vibrant blue.

She considered turning away to feign indifference, to break his charming confidence, but instead decided to let him keep his delusions. He wasn't entirely wrong, after all. Then, a mischievous thought took hold. Slipping off her shoes under her dress, she raised her foot and tapped his knee. He snatched up her ankle and caressed the top of her foot over her stockings as if enjoying the sheer texture.

"Your touch is unseemly, Cárcel, even lewd," she chided softly, a hint of teasing in her tone.

"Lewd? Am I on my knees sucking on your toes, licking your foot, or using it for my pleasure?" he replied, revealing what he really wanted to do with no shame whatsoever.

Inés made to pull away her foot as if in faint disgust, but he held her in place, his fingers pressing gently on her ankle. She gave him a playful glare. "How far do you intend to take this?"

Cárcel's eyes narrowed, gleaming with lust, seemingly ready to devour her. "You are the one who initiated it with a lewd gesture-you tried to arouse me knowing we'll soon be among company."

"Does it not strike you as unusual that simply touching someone's foot arouses you so?"

"It's you who raised it for me to touch, knowing what it would do to me, Inés."

As they bantered, her foot brushed between his thighs. He responded in kind, his hand sliding up her calf under her dress skirt and tracing the back of her knee.

"Is this not what you wanted?" he asked.

Inés smiled, a look of wicked allure she showed only to him.

Cárcel let out a groan and grasped her knee. "You're regal even when you are being lewd."

He leaned forward, catching her lips in a fervent kiss. She felt herself lifted, and soon she was perched atop his lap, her skirts pooling around them.

She got to her knees so she was above him and continued to kiss him passionately. With one swift motion, she reached out to draw the curtains closed, draping them in darkness. His large hand gently guided hers over to his taut chest, where his heartbeat pulsed strong.

Without disheveling his clothes, Inés sought out his nipples over his shirt and pinched them. Cárcel panted in between kisses, brows drawn, caught between the thrill and torment as her fingers traced the toned muscles along his rib cage. His lips claimed hers again in a more demanding kiss, his teeth grazing her bottom lip as she pressed against him from above. She chuckled, as though it didn't hurt at all. Her hand trailed lower and began to work at the long column of buttons on the front of his pants, each one parting to reveal his half arousal. When her fingers finally reached their destination, she freed him with a practiced ease, stroking it slowly as she tilted her head sideways to deepen the kiss.

Though their carriage was headed toward Alicia Barca's exhibition, they were in no hurry and took a slower, winding path. Even once they arrived, they intended to stay inside the carriage for a while. The deliberate detour would draw curious eyes, and the carriage simply sitting there without opening would stir whispers, but that was exactly Inés's intention.

Cárcel seemed to have caught onto it-he was more than willing to cooperate.

A low, guttural sound escaped him as she tightened her hold, her strokes growing bolder. He broke away from her ferocious kisses, breathless, opting instead to leave a trail of kisses along her chin, her slender cheeks, and on the soft flesh under her jaw. He brushed his soft lips against her trembling throat, and once he reached the valley of her collarbones, he began to nibble at her skin.

Inés let out a low chuckle and allowed him to leave shallow red marks along her shoulders before roughly grabbing his chin and lifting it up to press her lips against his throat. As she rapidly stroked his member up and down, his large hand covered hers.

"Blast it, Inés," he groaned.

After leaving little bite marks down his throat, she traveled down to his clavicle and kissed it tenderly. His hand, which had been repeatedly grabbing her backside and spreading it apart under her dress, traveled from her back down to between her legs.

He covered her entrance, still covered by her underwear, with his whole hand before pushing in his middle finger to part her folds and rub the sensitive flesh over the wet cloth. Her stuttered moans tickled his skin.

Inés's knees gradually gave way until her buttocks barely rested on Cárcel's knees. He continued to caress her faster and faster without going past her underwear until she reached orgasm. She panted at the sensation, forgetting to stroke him and gripping tightly onto his manhood instead.

Without a hint of pain, he smiled at her and asked, "Are you trying to break it or crush it? Hmm?"

"Neither-ahh-stop touching me there."

He held onto her firmly as she tried to twist away from his touch and continued to torment her folds, oversensitive from the climax, and muttered, "Maybe I should have taken it off. You're so wet that it might trickle down, Inés."

"I know you did it on purpose."

"Of course not. We're about to attend an exhibition. How could I embarrass my dignified wife like that?"

"You want me to walk among the crowd while soaked down there. Isn't that right?"

"You are always right, Inés. I want you to stay soaked like this, because of what I did to you. Always. You won't be able to think of anything else while you are still wet, after all." His voice was so lewd that it sounded sweet.

It was difficult to understand how he had such a dark side, considering his insufferably kind nature, but whenever he revealed such twisted desires, the hair on the back of Inés's neck stood on end as she shivered with ecstasy. That was also why she liked it when he made a mess of her. She could feel traces of herself in every twisted crack in his nature.

Only after Inés reached climax once more did he ejaculate into her handkerchief. He had used it to wipe up the outside of her underwear and then rubbed the handkerchief against his manhood as if he deliberately chose to do it this way. It was clearly his intention.

Inés was so affected by his actions that she wanted to take him back to the Escalante residence right away, but at the same time, she thought about how little time they had left before the war would begin. It was only three days. He would be promoted and ordered to depart at the official opening ceremony and would have to board a warship less than a day afterward. She knew he had to be as desperate as she was. But she hid her impatience and gave him a loving kiss on the lips. His tender gaze seemed to darken.

Just as they had tidied themselves up, the carriage arrived at the Barca residence. Inés sat on Cárcel's lap in the dark and leisurely played with his hair as she stared into his eyes where she could see her own reflection. All the while, he waited silently for her, feeling up her slender waist and ample bosom. The sound of carriages rattling past to find a place to stop, or the sound of new carriages arriving, the clip-clopping of hooves, the music coming from inside the manor... none of it seemed to bother them as they sat calmly.

They hadn't actually gone all the way, and aside from her slipping out his arousal, they hadn't taken off any clothes or laid down in the rattling carriage to have some fun. In other words, when they exited, they didn't look entirely obscene. But something had clearly happened, as they did look slightly disheveled.

Cárcel helped Inés out of the carriage and put her down lightly. They looked put together, but there were some wrinkles in their clothes, their cheeks were flushed, their hair slightly out of place, and their eyes glinted with passion. They were the perfect picture of a couple coming back from a quick rendezvous out of the balcony during a ball.

Both the setting and the story was perfect. As much as it was uncouth for married couples to be in love, now that Inés Escalante was beginning to take over Mendoza's high society, she was no longer judged by the same standards as others. In just three days, her husband would be officially recognized as a naval war hero for his past achievements at the official ceremony commemorating the beginning of the war. He would then become the most celebrated military man since Admiral Calderon. Would the fact that he and his wife were flushed and passionately desperate for each other as though they were young lovers about to be separated by war, right before the most significant event the crown prince and his wife were hosting since their wedding, be seen as a flaw in Mendoza, the den of debauchery itself? Or would they be seen as a love story for the ages?

Inés turned Cárcel around among the crowd of people entering the residence and fussed with his hair for a moment before looking up at the upper floor, which was lit the brightest, and smiling. Alicia Valenza, stood next to Oscar who had his back to the window, was watching them from above.

There was no way to cure a woman who had already gone mad. Instead, it was best to make her into a weapon you could use. Even if the sheath itself was sharp.