Lords, Ladies, Butlers and Maids Page 10

  ‘No shame, Charles,’ she said softly, raising her eyes to mine. ‘Merely modesty.’

  A lock of hair had come loose from her coiffure. I twirled the silken strands between my fingers.

  She seemed surprised at the tenderness, and a shadow crossed her face. When I asked what troubled her, she merely shook her head. So I kissed the tip of her nose; and she smiled at me; and all was right again. We walked back to the house slowly, careful to stay a respectable distance apart.

  *

  The days that followed were the closest I’d ever come to perfect happiness. My work at Hartfield – and certain other preparations I was making – was almost complete when Felicity approached me with a sparkle in her eyes and a sheaf of yellowed papers in her hand.

  ‘Charles, look – I found the original plans of the house!’

  She spread out one of the fragile sheets, and pointed to a cross-hatched area along the right-hand side of the house.

  ‘It’s a secret passageway! We must explore it at once.’

  Felicity grabbed my hand and pulled me along behind her. Sure enough, carved into the wall, easily missed unless one was looking for it, was the symbol of a torch. We pushed it together, it depressed, and a panel of the wall sprang open. After lighting the candle she had brought, we groped our way down the dark passage. Our footfalls were muted by the long carpet runner that lined the narrow corridor, and just as well, for shortly we heard voices clear as day from the other side.

  ‘Listen,’ whispered Felicity, ‘that’s Cook’s voice. We must be right near the kitchens.’

  I stumbled in the near-darkness and banged my elbow on something. My groan must have carried further than I thought.

  ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us,’ shrieked Cook, as she dropped what sounded like the soup cauldron. ‘I knew this place was haunted!’

  Felicity shook with mirth, the candle waving so precariously I feared she’d set the place ablaze. I took the waxy pillar from her and set it in a wall sconce, and she came to me as I’d hoped she would, unpinning her hair and letting it cascade in golden waves around her shoulders.

  The knowledge that we were well and truly alone seemed to free something in her, for she embraced me without her customary shyness and pressed teasing little kisses to my mouth, and down my neck, and finally all over my chest, unbuttoning my shirt as she went. I shrugged out of the garment as soon as I could and was soon divested of my undershirt.

  Felicity began to smooth her hands over my muscles in slow, hypnotic strokes. My eyes closed in pleasure, and I imagined myself lying naked in my bed, with Felicity’s small hands curling around my prick, struggling to encompass my rapidly increasing girth.

  She stopped to gaze up at me with those big eyes of hers, filled with a need she would not name.

  ‘Charles,’ she whispered, ‘there are … that is, I have heard …’

  ‘What is it, love? Tell me.’

  ‘There are things a man and a woman may do, Charles,’ she burst out, ‘that will bring them great pleasure, without risk of a child.’

  That Liss would know this, desired to do this, set my blood on fire.

  ‘Yes, my clever girl, yes, there are. And I would like to try all of them with you.’

  She hid her face against my chest, but that suited me well. It meant that I could clasp her to me, pull us both down to the ground, and settle her body over mine until we were pressed together from tip to toe.

  ‘Kiss me,’ I murmured, ‘kiss me and I will show you.’

  Liss went wild for me then, squirming atop me til I could hardly bear it. Her hands slipped between our bodies to wrestle with my breeches; eagerness made her clumsy. After what felt like an eternity of the most agonising anticipation, she finally succeeded, but by then the gesture was almost redundant. With each button she’d undone, her hands had caressed me. In the end my prick was so painfully hard I’m sure it could have burst free without any assistance at all. I did lift my hips, though, so she could tug my breeches down about my ankles.

  She settled back on her heels, and for a moment she was still. Her eyes traversed the length of my body, my thighs, the sickle-shaped scar beneath my ribcage, the scattering of dark hair over my chest. I felt at once how exciting it was to be bare when she was fully clothed, to have her sit there and just look at me so brazenly, to study the curve of my cock and the way my foreskin had drawn back so she could see the swollen tip in all its russet-shining glory. Could she really think me – it – beautiful? It certainly seemed so, for she was biting her lip and her cheeks had pinkened and she reached for me as if under a compulsion.

  ‘May I?’

  ‘I wish you would!’ I groaned, voice hoarse with need.

  Is there anything more sublime in all the world than the feeling of skin on skin? At first Liss handled me tentatively, as if she were afraid she’d hurt me. But just when I was about to tell her she needn’t worry, that I enjoyed a firm hand, she set to tugging at me in a rough rhythm that made my toes curl. She watched my every move, the way my breath came heavier when her thumb rubbed my frenulum, the way I jumped when she hit some other particularly delicious spot.

  With every new discovery she made, she grew bolder and her technique more assured. Soon she was working me with one hand while the other moved to circle my balls. I tried to thrust up into her hand, but she drew back, and I gnashed my teeth in frustration at the pleasure withheld so cruelly.

  ‘Be patient, Charles,’ she entreated, ‘there is one more thing I should like to do.’

  My heart skipped a beat as she bent forward and licked me with long, wide sweeps of her tongue, and I arched my back for her like a woman. After she had tasted me so, she trapped my straining shaft between her two hands, dragging them slowly upwards and taking my very soul with her.

  ‘“Palm to palm” –’ I gasped, as her steepled fingers enclosed my cockhead like a cage.

  ‘– “is holy palmer’s kiss”? Are you speaking in verse from now on?’ she teased. ‘Sir, this is too much.’

  ‘Then stop my mouth with a kiss.’

  She leaned forward, and I took great pleasure in redirecting her.

  ‘No, Liss –’ my voice was sly ‘– a kiss from your other lips. Slip out of your drawers and kneel over me, and we’ll both take our pleasure at the same time.’

  The look of shock on her face was gratifying; even more so because she proceeded to do just as I’d asked. Then her voluminous skirts covered my head like a hood, and everything went dark, and I felt my way to her like a blind man.

  The moment I tasted her I knew I would never let her go. I kissed her gently at first, mindful that she was new to this, but then excitement got the better of me and I tongued her passionately, tracing the silken folds of her cunt as if I were an explorer mapping some undiscovered continent.

  With a cry, she fell forward and took me into the hot wet cavern of her mouth. I was no green lad – I had bedded my share of women on several continents – but no one in the world could touch my Liss. Her wicked pink tongue teased me in ways I had never dreamed of, and never wanted to end.

  I thrust my hand under her bodice and grabbed hold of the laces of her corset, winding them tight around my palm to make sure she couldn’t move. The extra constriction seemed to please her, for her movements suddenly grew frantic, and I flicked insistently at her bud with the tip of my tongue and let her grind her cunny against my face.

  We took our fill of each other thus, with half of the household bustling on the other side of the wall. Felicity sobbed as she came, and it made my heart swell with manly pride to know that I had pleased her, and that she had swallowed my seed.

  Afterward, she nestled at my side, resting her hand on my heart.

  ‘Felicity – Liss –’ I had been rehearsing this speech for almost a week, but found now that I could remember nothing save the unadorned sentiments of my heart.

  ‘I love you, Liss. Make me happy for ever, and marry me?’

  In the silenc
e that followed, I thought – as I had so many times before – of the shadow that had crossed her face that day in the greenhouse.

  She pressed a kiss to my ear, then whispered: ‘Yes. Yes, Charles, I will marry you. Yes.’

  I knew words would be insufficient to express my joy, so I did the only thing that would, and buried my head under her skirts again.

  *

  I should have slept serenely that night, having secured Felicity’s hand. Instead, though, my sleep was restless. I woke from a nightmare and, too shaken to return to bed, began to walk the halls.

  I don’t know what force persuaded me to enter the wing of the house where Lady Hargreave’s rooms were, but I did. Perhaps the house itself was directing me, anxious to share its knowledge, to finally yield up its secrets in mute surrender. As I trailed my hand along the wall, I discovered another symbol, identical to the one marking the hidden passage downstairs. When I pressed it, a door swung smoothly open.

  I followed the passageway for some time, until I heard Felicity’s familiar voice. To my right, carved into the wall at eye level, were two holes. I had seen these before, in another old house. There would be a portrait on the other side of the wall, with eyes that followed you wherever you went.

  I fought with my conscience but, when I heard Lady Hargreave’s voice as well, the battle was over. The two women were in their nightgowns, Lady Hargreave sitting in bed propped up with pillows, and Felicity standing at the foot of the bed, slightly to one side. They were arguing.

  ‘This is the last time, Vivian. I love Charles, and I will marry him, within the week.’

  ‘I forbid it!’

  ‘It’s not your decision. I’ve loved you dearly, you know that, but you must let me go now.’

  Lady Hargreave was weeping. There was a regal grandeur to her tear-stained face.

  ‘We have tonight. Let that be enough,’ Felicity beseeched, ‘and please don’t cry.’

  With that she reached up and plucked at the ribbons tied at each shoulder, and her gown fluttered to the ground. She stood there for a moment, displaying a body just as lush as I had imagined, before climbing onto the bed and stripping her mistress naked as well. The two women embraced then, their bodies a study in contrasts, Felicity golden-haired, rosy and voluptuous, and Vivian dark-haired, pale and lithe. I knew I should have looked away, if only to spare myself, but found that I could not. Jealousy and anger roiled in my gut, but these enflamed, rather than dampened, my arousal. I released my cock-stand and stroked myself as I watched the women pleasure each other with lips and fingers, teeth and tongues.

  When Vivian produced an ivory phallus and made her lover take it into her mouth, I wondered for a moment whether she intended to assert ius primae noctis and take Felicity’s virginity for herself. The thought stirred such dark fantasies inside me that I half-wished she would do it. I would be powerless to stop it, could do nothing but watch, sick with lust and despair, as Felicity, the little traitor, raised her hips to welcome that piercing thrust. Vivian would pull out the phallus then and rub it over her breasts, adorning herself like some pagan goddess after the hunt. She would be magnificent, and terrible, and I would understand why she was worthy of Felicity’s worship.

  But I would still want to revenge the theft of her maidenhood. I would burst into the room, and snatch up the jar of night cream on the dressing table and then throw Vivian face down on the bed. I’d ruck up her nightgown, and spread the cream over the winking star of her arse. She’d make a half-hearted protest when I readied her with my fingers, but then, when I finally drove my prick into her, she’d make a guttural sound that I would never have heard from a woman before and thrust back, enveloping me in her tightness and heat.

  The cries from the other room grew louder, and I saw Felicity riding Vivian’s leg as she fucked her mistress with that ivory phallus.

  When Felicity reached her peak, Vivian looked toward my hiding place with an exultant glare in her cat-green eyes. She held my gaze, never wavering, as her own body was racked with pleasure. That Vivian had likely known I was watching them the whole time affected me intensely, and I came so violently it hurt. My seed spurted out in a great arc, spattering the panel in front of me, then slipping down it in an opalescent trail.

  Before I could recover, there were footsteps, and then the scraping sound of a sliding door, and I barely had time to pull up my trousers before I tumbled into the room at Vivian’s feet. She towered over me, naked and imperious.

  ‘Did you think, Mr Morgan, that I do not know every inch of this house, including all its secret egresses?’

  She reached out a hand to help me up. My voice was steadier than my legs.

  ‘No, Lady Hargreave.’

  I bowed.

  She laughed then, a short bark, more rueful than amused.

  ‘Well, Felicity, at least his manners are sound, for all he is a Peeping Tom.’

  My fiancée had the grace to look embarrassed.

  ‘I’ll leave you two alone for now,’ Vivian said. ‘Please refrain from fornicating in my bed.’

  I hardly knew how to react in such a situation, but my body decided for me and I walked over to where Felicity lay, tangled in her mistress’s twisted sheets.

  ‘We have some matters to say to each other, Felicity, which will keep until the morning. But this you must know – my feelings for you are unchanged.’

  As proof, I bent down to kiss the points of her exquisite breasts.

  ‘I love you,’ she moaned, and wound her arms around my neck and pulled me down beside her. I meant to protest, but then her hand curled around me and, well, how could I deny her?

  When Lady Hargreave returned, she did not seem perturbed. Her colour was high, and there was a gleam in her eyes that I recognised.

  ‘Since you are still here, and technically in my employ until tomorrow, Mr Morgan,’ she said, spreading her legs, ‘there is one more thing that I want done, and you look like just the man.’

  Peekaboo Lace

  Flora Dain

  The lace peignoir flowed down her body with a sensuous whisper. As it swirled around her feet Lucilla sighed with pleasure. When had she last worn something like this?

  The hour was late, but in the grand reception rooms downstairs a ball was in full swing. Music and chatter echoed all through the great house, all the way up to her tiny room.

  Sadly she was not invited. She was not even a guest.

  She was working here, doing a favour to a friend. By day she went by an assumed name, scraped back her hair and quietly performed her tasks.

  Only by night could she be herself.

  Leaving off her finery was a poor disguise but here she was unlikely to run into anyone she knew.

  Sometimes friends came at a high price.

  Creeping downstairs in search of a drink of water she’d spotted the lace laid out in one of the master bedrooms, the filmy silk a heap of dark roses scattered over the bed. Black lace? How intriguing.

  It had taken only a second to dart in for a closer look. She ran it though her fingers, entranced, and then buried her face in its gossamer softness.

  How would it feel to wear?

  Whisking it back to her room she had stepped quickly out of her modest gown and stays, held it aloft and slipped it over her head. In the faint light of her one candle her skin glowed through the pattern of finely wrought flowers. They skimmed and clung in surprising places, swelling her curves, pinching her waist, swirling free of her long legs with provocative abandon.

  It felt wonderful, but what must it look like?

  She had to see it.

  The tiny mirror in her room showed hardly anything but down near the main staircase there was a huge looking glass placed directly under the great chandelier over the stairwell. There she would get a full view … and everyone was dancing. No one would see.

  She ran lightly on bare feet down the rough wooden staircase to the wider corridor of the imposing second floor. Her toes sank into thick carpet, a reminder
of more missed luxury.

  Seconds later she caught sight of herself. From the huge mirror an enchantress from ancient legend gazed back at her, naked under the lace, her dark eyes luminous with excitement.

  Lucilla held her breath. In the hot beam of nearly fifty candles she looked back at her reflection in triumphant shock and then pirouetted happily.

  Her naked skin gleamed like pearl under the dark film of lace, her narrow waist, long legs and swelling breasts clearly visible. Her nipples glowed a deep, rosy red through gaps in the flowers. The dark patch at the apex of her thighs was a tempting, murky shadow.

  The next instant she felt a shift in the air, coolness on her skin. A ripple of fear ran through her. Supposing someone should see?

  ‘Exquisite.’ A rich male voice echoed around her.

  She spun round and clapped a hand to her mouth as a man emerged from the shadows.

  He swept her with a look of intense satisfaction. ‘I pray to the heavens for something – anything – to liven up this ghastly ball and they send me a gift, an Angel of the Night.’ He moved up close. ‘I should pray more often.’

  She gazed up at him, torn between the urge to flee and an overwhelming desire to stay. He was startlingly handsome, with strong features, a sculpted mouth and an intelligent gaze. He moved with the easy grace of the predator and the very rich.

  Her mind raced. This must be the star guest, the prize the lady of the house had hoped to lure for her daughter with this evening’s ball.

  Lucilla swallowed. ‘You are not dancing, sir?’

  He eyed her calmly. ‘I’d sooner watch you. Please, oblige me by turning again.’

  Now. Lucilla made a dash for the stairs but he was too quick for her.

  In a single bound he caught her by the waist in a powerful grip. ‘Not so fast, my Lady. In here, quickly, before we’re seen.’

  Her blood ran cold. To be caught like this would be a terrible scandal.

  Play along for now – slip away later.

  He pushed her through a doorway and slammed it behind them with the heel of his boot. She looked around her in amazement. Compared to her tiny room his suite was magnificent. The high ceilings were elaborately painted, the walls lined with damask. Through an open doorway she glimpsed a large bed, and beyond it tall windows draped with silk and open to the soft night air.