Lord & Master (2 page)

“Exactly how authentic will this be? There won’t be chamber pots, will there? And who’s doing the cooking?”

My mouth twitched with amusement. Damien did like his haute cuisine. “Pretty authentic but nothing dire. Everybody gets running water. Diogenes regular catering will do the heavy lifting on the food. No Internet, though. No newspapers or media from the modern world. We’ve decided people talking on their smart phones would ruin the fantasy.”

Damien’s brow furrowed. I worried the idea of being disconnected might be a deal breaker, but this wasn’t his concern. “Are we supposed to improvise in character the whole time?”

“Not exactly.” Prepared for this question, I opened my laptop and set it on the Lucite table in front of them. “I know you like things organized, so I drew up a loose outline. It’s an expansion of the Victorian scenario Jake came up with the first time we played at the club with you.”

“When you pretended to be my wife and I wanted Jake to help pleasure you?”

“Exactly. I thought that was pretty fun and used it as a starting point. Mind you, these are only suggestions. If you want to change this or that about the story, you should feel free.”

“All right. Let me look at this.” Damien pulled the laptop onto his knees, turning the screen so Jake could see it too.

Watching them read was one of the more nerve-racking things I’d done. Though I meant to let them take in my proposal undisturbed, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “I know the time you have to spend will be limited. Some of the events I’ve suggested can happen in a contracted way. We’d just pretend they take longer.”

“Mm,” Damien said, paging forward in the document. The outline was clear, I thought. I’d avoided making it too detailed to leave room for him and Jake to add their own two cents. Damien read through all of it and sat back. He didn’t speak at first but stared into space, thinking. I struggled not to gnaw my thumbnail. If his executives could stand sitting in the hot seat, so could I.

Finally, Damien blinked. “I notice you want Jake and I to play the original couple in this drama, rather than you and him meeting first.”

I had my reasons for that, but “I thought it might be interesting to switch up our dynamic,” I explained.

Damien rubbed his chin. “I don’t feel comfortable playing an aristocrat. Maybe that’s silly, but I think I’d rather be an industrialist. Perhaps a railroad tycoon?”

“That’s fine with me. Management simply wants male and female characters to pretend to head the estate.”

To my surprise, Jake objected to my laissez-faire attitude. “I don’t think it’s fine. If you’re not a lord, Mia can’t be Lady Call.”

“Hm,” Damien said, as if he also considered this important. “I’d definitely enjoying calling her ‘milady’—”

“—and seeing people curtsey—”

“—and her laced up under those dresses.” Damien nodded to himself. “Yes, Mia ought to be an aristocrat. I am concerned about pulling this off myself. I know you and Jake are good actors from when you went undercover to fool me. Mia, in particular, can rely on her memory to help her stay in character.”

“You wouldn’t have to be perfect,” I assured him.

He pulled a face, because naturally the great Damien Call wanted to be perfect at everything—if not on the first try then no more than the third.

Realizing I’d miscalculated, I shot a
help me out here
look to Jake. He understood it with no trouble.

“Research,” he said, which was more in the CEO’s wheelhouse. “We can watch that
Downton
show and Google things. I know how quick you are. You’ll have it down in no time. Anyway, it’s not hard to pretend. Everyone did it as a kid. You just be yourself but in another role.”

“I don’t know,” Damien said. “Mia’s storyline is . . . ambitious.”

I decided it was time to pull out an ace. “You won’t be the worst actor there. Sawyer Hayes asked to participate.”

“Sawyer Hayes!” Jake exclaimed. “When did you talk to him?”

Sawyer Hayes was a black ops buddy from Jake’s past. He’d helped organize a rescue when one of Damien’s enemies kidnapped me. Now the badass head of a security firm, anyone less likely to portray Hamlet was hard to imagine.

“Management asked Hillary Sweets to supervise costume production. She agreed on the condition that she play housekeeper. I’m not sure how Sawyer found out she was coming, but I think he’s interested in her.”

“Really,” Jake said. “Like
interested
interested?”

“That was my impression. That’s not a problem, is it? I know she’s one of your exes.”

Of the three of us, Jake had the most varied amorous history. He’d played Mata Hari for his CIA employers, discovering in the process that he was bisexual. As a result, he had exes in abundance.

“No,” he said. “Hillary and I are friends. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea of her and Sawyer. That’s like mixing moonshine with Cristal.”

I tried to hide it, but his comparison needled me. Though I liked Hillary and considered her a friend, she was incredibly elegant. Certainly, I didn't remind people of champagne.

“Opposites do attract,” I said blandly.

Damien shifted on the couch. “All of this is moot if Curtis won’t give you both time off.”

“He will,” I said, hoping this was his final objection. “In fact, he said maybe he’ll want to take part in a re-creation once we get the bugs worked out.”

I clutched my hands together before my chest, unconsciously assuming a pleading pose.

“Look at that puppy face!” Jake laughed. “How can you say ‘no’ to it?”

“Please,” I said, because Damien seemed as if he might cave. “You never take days off.”

Damien scowled at me.

“Pretty please,” Jake chimed in. “You know you’ll enjoy this more than roasting like a potato on some beach. This is a vacation with homework.”

He’d chosen the perfect analogy. Our mutual lover was a sucker for activities that required effort.

“One week,” Damien said, pointing his finger sternly at each of us.

A week was more than I’d dared hope for.

“A week is fine,” I said innocently. “You do mean the weekend too?”

Rather than confirm this, Damien
hmphed
. “Jake and I will want to send a few requests directly to Management, so as not to ‘spoiler’ everything for you.”

“Of course.” I controlled my urge to interrogate him on what the changes were. If I wanted him to play—and I did—I had to trust him not to undermine my ultimate objective.

“It’s decided then,” Jake said, surprising me by rubbing his hands together.

Our mutual lover displayed less anticipation. He let out a lengthy sigh.

“I guess it is,” he conceded grudgingly.

Chapter Two

England, 1912: Mia Beck’s Very Private Journal

I AM
not a habitual diary keeper. My youth was uneventful, for the most part. Recently, however, more dramatic occurrences have befallen me. To make sense of them for myself, I set down this account. And who knows, perhaps one day some trusted individual or two might find entertainment in perusing my scribblings. In the meantime, I begin . . .

I was a gentlewoman before the incidents I relate occurred. I still am, I suppose, though it matters less to me than it did. Suffice to say, until my marriage I was as innocent as it’s possible for a sheltered twenty-three-year-old girl to be. I knew no more of the world than my father wished—and barely anything of men.

My sire was my sole parent. My mother succumbed to illness when I was four. Compton Beck, the Viscount Marchton, had little to do with me thereafter, entrusting my upbringing to indifferent staff. As a child, I observed him to be a serious person. He frequently rushed about frowning. I assumed his occupation must be important to ignore me as he did. It was important, as it happened, though—sadly—he didn’t rise to its challenges.

I learned I was penniless only after his suicide.

Marchton, where I grew up, is a small village. All my life, I’d lived a cloistered existence. Due to my sire’s distraction with financial matters, I’d never had a season. Upon apprising me of my nonexistent inheritance, the family lawyer advised that if I did not wish to end in the poorhouse, my best remedy was seeking a husband.

The advice seemed sound, though how I might benefit from it I could not see. What commoner would wish a wife so unfit for workaday duties? And what aristocrat would accept a girl so tainted by ill fortune? In any case, I knew no one I could marry, high or low. I had no relatives who might introduce me, nor even any friends. My father, though a minor peer, had been the only man of rank in our town. He hadn’t permitted me to associate with other girls my age. Short of placing an advertisement in the paper, I had no means of looking for a spouse.

As this knowledge overwhelmed me, I confess I broke down in tears.

I was embarrassed to show such weakness, but likely it was the best thing I could have done.

The lawyer, Mr. Poole, was a tall man of mature years. I should not call him sentimental, but he had compassion. My tears tugged him around his heavy desk to crouch beside my chair.

“Can you be brave?” he asked as one would a child. If I could, he knew of a situation that might suit me.

I exclaimed—with too much honesty perhaps—that I wasn’t sufficiently educated to be a governess. I would try, I hastened to add. I wasn’t too proud for that. However, unless the children were very dull, I didn’t think I could teach them much.

Though I wasn’t attempting humor, he laughed softly.

“I don’t mean a governess position,” he clarified in the same soothing tone. “There is a man with whom I am loosely connected. He recently purchased a property in Locksley County, and I drew up the contracts. He mentioned he would like to marry but knew not where to find the sort of wife he desired. He seemed in earnest to settle the matter soon. I think you might meet his requirements.”

I blinked at this, for the way he phrased it seemed peculiar.

“Is he a good man?” I asked, though I could not afford to be finicky.

An expression I could not decipher flickered over the lawyer’s face. “I wouldn’t say ‘good.’ Honest, rather. And considering you father’s character, you may find him kind by comparison.” Mr. Poole hesitated. “I believe women think him handsome. He is not disfigured or anything like that.”

“Is he old?” I blurted before blushing for my boldness.

“He is older than you but far from aged. Though he isn’t gentry, I daresay few would call him coarse. Obviously, he’s no fortune hunter.”

“Obviously,” I repeated with a dryness I hardly recognized.

Mr. Poole patted my sleeve and rose. He stared down at me for a moment, considering. “If you wish, I could arrange for you two to meet.”

“You mean you could arrange for him to look me over.” Again came that odd dryness. Were my present difficulties turning me cynical?

“Yes,” he said, not sugarcoating his answer. “You’re very pretty, Miss Beck. That and your youth are assets you shouldn’t disregard.”

Suddenly, and against my expectations, I was grateful for his bluntness. I rose from my chair, smoothing the lovely blue silk dress I suddenly realized might not have been paid for. My gloves were butter-colored kid, my slippers the latest style from Paris. Given my isolated existence, they’d been wasted luxuries. My maid and I had been the only people to admire them. Now these items were assets too. If I didn’t wish to look pathetic, I must make the most of them.

That grim thought decided me.

“Please arrange a meeting,” I said in what I hoped was a steady voice. “And thank you. I trust myself to your judgment and discretion.”

My return to composure startled him. His shaggy white eyebrows twitched upward. This time I recognized his expression as respect. He confirmed my guess with a tiny bow.

“I shall not disappoint you,” he promised.

If he didn’t, he’d be the first among my whole acquaintance.

Chapter Three

MR
. Poole’s mysterious gentleman connection hadn’t simply bought a property. He’d purchased a grand estate.

My lady’s maid and I passed through its tall iron gates in my father’s maroon Packard, which his creditors had not as yet reclaimed. Given my errand, possibly I should have left Regina home, but calling on a male unaccompanied seemed too rash even to prevent gossip.

A long winding drive led us up over rolling ground. Our view was hemmed by a mature wood whose autumn hues glowed among the shadows as if still wet from a painter’s brush. By degrees, the trees gave way to parkland, finally allowing us a view.

Similar to the rise of a stage curtain, the great square bulk of the house appeared.

“Oh miss!” Regina my maid exclaimed.

She had no other comment, the sheer size of the establishment having stolen both our breath.

Diogenes House, for such we had learned was the place’s name, rose three impressive stories in smooth cream stone. Fortress towers marked its corners, the myriad windows flashing tangerine as their glass reflected the setting sun. A flock of black-nosed sheep accounted for the perfection of the grass, the lush emerald sward fairly begging visitors to run over it barefoot.

My toes curled in my soft kid boots as I leaned toward the window to see better. How many rooms would a palace like this comprise? Could it be as many as a hundred? The residence would swallow my father’s house six times over with room to spare. Though the architecture was beautiful, I felt uneasy to take it in. The temptation to instruct the chauffeur to turn around was nigh irresistible.

My mere presence among this grandeur seemed presumptuous.

With some effort, I kept my nerve. The car gritted to a halt on the cobbled drive. We were expected, but no one emerged from the bastion's doors. Unsure what else to do, I instructed our driver to hand us out.

Finally, someone came to meet us.

Our reception committee was a female whose height and sophistication I instantly envied. Far more elegant in her person than myself, her sleek braided bun was as blonde as wheat, her figure willow slim. She glided down the wide front steps in the dark crisp gown of a housekeeper. As it turned out, this was the role she filled.