My Three Masters (5 page)

I buried my face in the pink muslin dress as the harsh face
of my guardian hovered before my mind’s eye.

“I rule this house, no one else. Whatever I tell you to
do, that’s what you must do. Did I not tell you to stay away from that boy?”

“But he loves me. And I love him. He wants to marry me as
soon as you give your permission, even if we have to wait until I’m eighteen.
Look, he gave me a promise ring for my birthday.” I held it up and he snatched
it from my hand. He flung it across the room. It skittered into a corner with a
sad
clunking
sound.

“The answer is no.”

“But…but why not? He’s the Squire’s son, he would be an
excellent match for me even if I didn’t love him. He knows I have no dowry. Why
are you not pleased? I wouldn’t be a burden on you and your household anymore.”
Completely flummoxed, I’d let my distress show, something I didn’t usually do
in my guardian’s presence. It was always best to show no emotion.

“I have other plans for you.”

“What do you mean? Is there someone else you want me to
marry? You’ve never mentioned anyone.”

He’d never discussed anything like a London Season or any
other method for finding me a husband.

“No, marriage is not in your future.” A thick, dark look
gathered across his ruddy, bloated face. His eyes, lost in folds of flesh,
looked me up and down. Horror swept through me. I didn’t know what he was
speaking of, but I knew him, I knew he cared nothing for me or my happiness.
And I forgot myself. I shouted back at him, defying him, telling him there was
no way he could stop me, that he was only my guardian until I turned
twenty-one, and that one day I’d control my own life, my own future and I’d
find my own husband—

“Will you now?” He’d snatched something from his desk, I
couldn’t even see what, and stalked toward me. I was so caught up in my
passionate rantings that I barely noticed when he drew back his hand. “What if
no man will have you?” And then came a dark blur, a sharp rush of wind, a
terrible burn and shocking, shocking pain sweeping me into blackness.

Sweetbriar—The Countess’s Bedchamber—a few nights
later

The Duke and the Marquis stretched next to the Countess, one
on each side of her. Her wrists were tied above her head, the ribbon fastened
to one of the four posters. They all sprawled diagonally across the bed in a
tangle of perspiration and bare flesh. Flickering candlelight filled the room.
A wisp of smoke drifted through the air; one candle had been snuffed out by a
rush of wind generated by their thrashing.

The Marquis knew his way around both his lovers’ bodies so
well. He knew what that flush across the Countess’ bosom meant. He tightened
his teeth around her nipple.

“Lord, Gerard,” she gasped.

“I have a gift for you.”

“Do you?” At the juncture of her thighs, the Duke raked his
fingernails up her inner thigh. She pushed frantic hips toward him. “My love,
you torment me.”

“And you adore it,” murmured the Duke from between her
thighs. With a diabolical look in his green eyes, he swiped his tongue across her
clit, a long lick that made even the Marquis shudder.

Alicia mewled and bucked as the Duke took her clit between
his lips.

The Marquis continued, “You’ve been pleading my case well.
I’m grateful.”

He reached toward the small table next to the bed and retrieved
a velvet box. When he opened it, two small jewels winked from a bed of sapphire
velvet.

“Put that away,” said Alicia, suddenly stiff with outrage.
“I’m not your procuress.” She tugged her hands against the ribbon that secured
them. “How dare you?”

The Marquis assumed his most domineering voice, the one he
knew made Alicia melt in his arms. “I’m afraid you have no choice in the
matter. These are yours. They suit no one else in the world and when I saw them
I thought of you.”

“They’re earrings that any woman could wear. I don’t want
them. I’ll toss them away or give them to my maid.”

“Later, you can do whatever you want with them. But for now,
they go onto your body. Hold still.”

She twisted her upper body back and forth, the motion making
her breasts bounce most delightfully.

The Duke lifted his head and asked a silent question of the
Marquis, who gave him a secret wink. A game, just a game. One they all knew and
enjoyed.

“Are you ready to accept your gift like a proper young lady,
Countess?”

“Keep those things away from me.”

“Must I restrain you even further?”

The suggestion made her panting increase and brought a
deeper flush to her cheeks.

The Marquis reached to the floor, where his dressing gown
had slid off his body. He found the silk belt and wrapped most of it around his
wrist. “But first, you must be chastised for your inappropriate display.” He
snapped the end of the belt against one breast, noticing how lovely the garnet
silk looked against her snowy skin. Her nipple swelled as blood rushed to the
surface. She moaned and muttered something he couldn’t hear.

He swatted the other nipple until it too reared proudly on
her heaving chest, swollen and erect and ready for his mouth. What would
Miranda’s nipples look like? Would they be small, tender, pink things, little
maidenly buttons? Or would they be dark and erotic, maybe the same garnet hue
of this silk belt? Every time he saw her, he fought the urge to swing her up
against the nearest wall and pull down the bodice of that new pink gown she’d taken
to wearing. Oh if he had Miranda under his body, the things he’d do to her…

He willed all thoughts of her away.

He applied his tongue to one of Alicia’s straining nipples
and surrounded the other with the silk belt, soothing and teasing. So hard, so
responsive, so juicy. So ready.

“Now for your gift.”

Alicia gave one last spasm of protest, but she was too far
gone to be more than vaguely aware of what he was doing. He took the two jewels
from the box and cupped them in his hand.

“A small token of my obsession, my dear.” He never spoke the
word love, at least, not in English. Carefully, he fastened one clip to her
right nipple. It was a small bronze ring that surrounded the nipple and gently
squeezed it, leaving the very peak of the nipple available for his touch. As he
clicked the fastening closed, Alicia let out a long, ragged cry.

“It’s too much, Gerard, oh I can’t bear it, please…”

But she didn’t use the one word they’d all agreed on. She
didn’t say “
plaisir
”, the manor house where they’d formed their precious
bond.

So he attached the second ring and brushed his fingers
against the soft tips of flesh that peeked through the metal. They really were
lovely objects, with a wave pattern worked into the bronze. He’d found them in
a curio shop and had instantly pictured Miranda… No, Alicia, he told himself.
He should not be thinking of the innocent Miranda in such a way.

The Duke pushed him aside and poised his massive cock
between Alicia’s spread thighs. “Your mind wandering, Gerard?” he muttered.

The Marquis rolled off the bed and watched the Duke bury his
pulsing rod into his true love’s body. Alicia arched to meet him, the colossal
orgasm shaking her body. He smiled, satisfied with the culmination of the
desire he’d stoked. And, oddly, for the first time he was aware of—lonely. No
matter what else came before, no matter what the three, and occasionally four
of them did together in bed, in the end it was always the Duke of Warrington
and Lady Alicia Dorchester, wife of his heir, mother of his child.

His rod, still fully aroused, bobbed before him, but he knew
it would get no satisfaction tonight. He had no appetite for bedsport unless it
involved Miranda, naked and wicked. She’d come to him in the night, draw him
into her embrace, offer him her breasts, kneel at his feet, lick his cock, open
her throat for him… Give herself to him in every possible way. And he’d take
everything she offered and more. He put his hand to his cock, eyes closing to
better conjure the image.

Just then a frantic pounding at the door startled them all.
The Duke barely had time to pull the bedcovers over Alicia before the door
burst open. Miranda, wearing a plain white nightrail, stood in the doorway,
pale, her hair a brown tumble down her back. Her gaze skittered from one to the
other of them, landing on the Marquis’ pulsing rod. For a moment he thought she
might faint. Then she visibly composed herself.

“Milady, you must come. The baby has red spots all over her,
and I cannot wake Graham. Someone must summon a doctor.”

With utmost dignity, Alicia said, “We’ll take care of it, my
dear. We’ve encountered this before, it’s no doubt a harmless rash. Give us a
moment, please.”

Miranda whirled around and fled down the dark hallway.
Without thought, the Marquis grabbed a towel from the nightstand and ran after
her.

I’m sure you can imagine my shock. But can you imagine the
heady, tingling arousal that accompanied it? Images of the sensual tableau I’d
witnessed in milady’s bedchamber chased me down the hallway along with hurried
footsteps and muffled curses. I increased my pace, but by this time I
recognized those steps.

When I reached the staircase, I ran past it to the cozy
sitting room tucked next to the marble staircase. Perhaps the Marquis would
continue up the stairs or out the front door. I cared not. I curled up on a
chintz-covered loveseat, ducking down so no one would notice me from the
doorway. Through the doors that led to the terrace, shafts of moonlight cast
silvery shapes upon the polished floor. Surely I’d be safe here.

But, as I should have predicted, he was not so easily
deterred.

“Miranda,” his roughened voice barked from the doorway. “Of
all things, I know you to be no coward.”

I bit my lip. I wouldn’t let him goad me into revealing
myself, though the words stung.

“Very well.” With an impatient oath, he stalked after me.
Perhaps he followed a scent, like a hunting dog. In a moment he was upon me,
bracing his hands on the back of the loveseat and looming over me, still naked
but for a cloth tucked around his waist. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

I turned my face away. His nearness was almost unbearable.
The moonlight picked out dips and ridges in the muscles of his bare chest.
Sinewy and powerful, he could have been a vision from a maiden’s fever dream.
The scent of lust and lavender clung to his skin. Lavender from milady’s
sachets? The thought bolstered my courage. “You’re wicked.”

“We were all there of our own choice.”

“You’re dissolute!”

“I enjoy my pleasures.”

“You’re a rake!”

“Not for years.”

“You’re… You’re…repulsive.” I winced. No matter his actions,
he was a nobleman far above a lowly nursemaid.

“And you’re a liar.”

The firm declaration made me swing my head to face him. “How
dare you?”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you were repulsed by what
you saw,” he commanded.

I gazed at those dark, compelling eyes and opened my mouth.
Nothing came forth. Tingles spread through me, bringing my nipples to hard
peaks. “I…I…”

“You were aroused. Excited. I see it still on your face. The
centers of your eyes are dark. Your cheeks are flushed. Your pulse is
quickening, right there, on your lovely throat.”

His gaze drifted to my neck. I tried to swallow, but there
seemed to be some sort of constriction in my throat. I coughed to clear it.

“No,” I said weakly. “You’re the devil.”

“Oh I’m very much human. If you dared to look at me for more
than a second at a time, you’d see just how human.”

A dare. How did he know I could never resist a dare? The
word brought me back to the happy days of my childhood, when the village
children and I would dare each other to climb a tree, dip in the creek or race
across a field of poppies. I sat upright, startling him, and boldly looked him
up and down, taking care to linger on the prominent lump under his makeshift
loincloth. Was it my imagination or did the protrusion increase under my gaze?
I remembered what it had looked like, proudly rearing into the air.

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t fool me, Miranda. You’re a
minx. What color is your hair?” He touched it, sending a tiny earthquake of
tremors through me.

“Brown, as you know very well.”

“What I know is that it’s anything but brown.” He curled his
hand around my cheek. I couldn’t move for trembling. “If I had to guess, I’d
say it’s strawberry blonde. Carefree gold mingled with wildcat red. And you
hide with dutiful brown.”

I said nothing. He’d hit the mark fairly close; unsettlingly
so.

“Why do you hide your true nature, lovely girl? I’m not
referring to your identity. I know very well you aren’t Miranda Brown. You seek
refuge in brown at every turn.”

I had to stop him, head him off. “Why do you care about my
hair color? Maybe brown suits me best.”

“It does not. What would suit you would be to cast off this
pretense of the dull and dutiful. Release your true desires. Your true needs.”

I surged from the chair and pushed past him. I couldn’t
think straight when he was so close. “And turn into you? Indulging myself at
every turn? Incapable of resisting temptation?”

He gave a dark laugh. “If I weren’t capable of resisting
temptation, you’d be in my bed right now, your skirts over your head and my
cock so deep in your quim you’d think you were split in two.”

The shock of his words rooted me to the spot.

“I won’t ever apologize for my desires or for how I slake
them with my
consenting
lovers. I offer pleasure and I take what’s
offered to me. The Duke and the Countess and I bring each other joy, comfort
and sensual satisfaction most can only dream about. Are you so wedded to your
chosen lot in life that you cannot allow yourself the same?”

“P-pardon?”

“Should you decide otherwise, know that I want you, Miss
Miranda Anything-but-Brown. I burn for you. If you permit me—if you permit
yourself—I’ll show you your true sensual nature, the part you can’t hide from
such as me.”

He studied me so long and hard, I thought I might burst into
flames. Then he turned away with a jerky movement, releasing me from his spell.
“But I will never, ever force you as a more ‘dissolute’ man might. And
certainly no one will force you to stay in this house if you’re uncomfortable
here. I can help you find another position, one where you’ll be treated
properly, with every consideration for your scruples.”

He stalked from the room, leaving me limp and utterly
breathless.

* * * * *

Breakfast room—the next day

The Countess accepted a cup of coffee from a footman. She
added three teaspoons of sugar and stirred until he’d left. The Duke busied
himself at the sideboard, piling kippers and buttered toast onto a plate. She
watched him, feasting her eyes on his powerful form and fine hands, seductive
whether they were caressing her body or maneuvering small fish onto a plate.

When they were alone in the room, he seated himself next to
her, put down his plate and took hold of her chin.

“Don’t you dare worry about this,” he told her firmly,
fixing his deep-green eyes on her. “One way or another, we’ll be fine.”

She gave him a shaky smile. “It’s not us I’m worried about.
It’s our dear Marquis. I fear his heart is quite taken over by the girl. If she
leaves, he’ll be brokenhearted.”

“Surely it’s not gone that far.”

“I do believe it has. You saw the way he bolted out of the
bedchamber last night. I’ve never seen him hurry in such a way for anyone else.
Even for us.”

“He did seem quite thrown over by the incident.” The Duke
released her and tackled his breakfast. “Poor sap.”

She scoffed. “You were just as much of a sap not so very
long ago.”

“Guilty as charged.” He winked. “And not a single regret.
Except, perhaps, that I was not wise enough to marry you first.”