The Courtesan's Bed (3 page)

Darius tensed when the four men rose a little unsteadily. If Dragomilov tried to lay a hand on Regina, he'd come to her defense, as would, he suspected, half the gallant men present.

The Russian stood before her table and glared down at her. “Why did you refuse the champagne?” he asked in thickly accented English. “I am not accustomed to having my generosity rejected.”

Regina looked up at him and smiled serenely, though her eyes glittered with hostility. “To accept your generous offer would be an insult to Monsieur Valendry.”

Curiously, Monsieur Valendry remained silent, making no attempt to defend Regina, as though somehow removed from the discourse between his mistress and the angry Russian. Darius dismissed him as a coward.

The Russian stared at the older man as though he'd like to tear him limb from limb with his bare hands and then forcibly take Regina right on the table, but didn't dare in the presence of so many witnesses. He bowed slightly and followed the rest of his party out of Maxim's.

Beaucaire caught Regina's eye and applauded. “Well done!”

Darius concentrated all his attention on helping himself to more caviar. He had seen the possessive way Dragomilov looked at Regina. And while she may have smoothly deterred him this time, he suspected she had not seen the last of the boorish Russian.

“How
dare
he!” Régine kept still so Molly could remove the heavy diadem, but she plucked the ivy leaves from her hair impatiently and set them on the dresser. “I wanted to take that bottle of champagne and crack it right over his head.”

First Dragomilov, and then Clarridge.

Molly put the diadem inside the safe. “That Cossack bastard doesn't regard women as human beings. To him, they're just tits and c—”

“Molly! Some decorum, please.” Régine removed her diamond earrings, which she called Todd's Tears in fond remembrance of that sweet, foolish young man, and handed them to her maid, who added them to the safe. “If he thinks I'm going to take Odile's place and play his sadistic games, he's sadly mistaken.”

Molly closed and locked the safe. “I'd be very careful of him, miss. He's a man who's accustomed to getting what he wants, and we know how they can be.”

Régine was more concerned with the Earl of Clarridge. After she and Luc had left the auction, she'd felt confident that she'd never see him again. So she'd been shocked to find him sitting in Maxim's as bold as brass, sharing champagne and caviar with Anatole Beaucaire as if they were best friends.

She made a mental note to ask Anatole how he happened to know Clarridge.

She had first met the young earl when she was just eighteen, and known as Regina Willet. She'd been hired as a governess for his two half-sisters, and Darius had come home from Oxford for the Christmas holiday. He had endeared himself to Regina with his thoughtfulness when he brought the girls gifts of hand puppets custom made to look exactly like them. Not wishing to exclude Regina, he promised to have one made in their governess's likeness as well.

When he returned to Blackwall Manor again in March, he kept his promise with a governess puppet with fiery red hair and turquoise eyes, much to the delight of the little girls and the chagrin of their stern mother. After that, Regina's world collapsed and she never saw Darius Granger again.

Until today.

“Miss?” Molly's worried voice snapped Régine out of her reverie. “Miss, are you all right?”

“I was just daydreaming for a moment.”

She ruthlessly banished those cheerful little girls and their charming, lighthearted half brother to the past where they belonged and rose so Molly could help her out of her blue silk gown. She must dress for Luc, whom she'd kept waiting far too long.

Chapter Three

Régine inspected herself in the cheval glass and straightened the white cuffs on the long sleeves of her prim gray homespun gown. With her hair tamed and pulled back into a severe bun, she became a harsh, grim prison matron who took sadistic delight in wielding absolute power over her helpless prisoners.

She dismissed Molly, who wished her good night and headed off to bed. Then she took Odile's riding crop out of a bureau drawer and suddenly felt a kinship with her departed friend. Before she joined Luc in the boudoir, she stood very still with her eyes closed, said a little prayer for strength and forgiveness, and steeled herself. She loathed inflicting pain, but Luc paid her so handsomely to provide such services, and a courtesan who didn't satisfy her clients' requests soon discovered herself without any clients at all.

But she had found the perfect way to perform such a distasteful task. She simply pretended that Luc was Penbry Granger, her seducer.

She paused in the doorway connecting her dressing room to the boudoir. Molly had turned down the gaslights, casting the room in a soft, seductive light. Luc stood naked in the center of the room, with his back toward her. He'd hung a rope from a convenient hook in the ceiling, looped the ends around his thick wrists, and grasped the rope, his hands above his head, his strong, hairy legs spread apart and braced for what was to come.

Régine slowly walked toward him. With every deliberate, measured step, she kept time by slapping the wide leather end of the crop against her palm.

Luc tensed in anticipation.

Régine was about to play a difficult, challenging role worthy of the great Sarah Bernhardt.

She walked around him for inspection. For a man in his early fifties, his firm, muscular body was in fine condition, save for a slight thickening in his midsection which was to be expected of a man who spent most of his working day behind a desk in a bank. A dark pelt of hair covered his chest and tapered down to his groin.

He stared at the floor in abject submission, so unusual for a powerful man used to giving orders. But his thick, erect cock stood at attention, fully aroused.

Régine placed the flat leather end of the crop beneath Luc's chin and lifted. “Look at me.”

“Yes, madame.” His uncharacteristically meek tone belied the stark hunger in his eyes.

She asked the same question he insisted she always ask at the beginning of these sessions. “Have you been a very good boy today, monsieur?”

According to the script, his gaze slid down to the floor. “No, madame. I have been very, very bad.”

“Then you know you shall have to be punished.”

“Yes, madame, and most severely.”

Régine tapped his chest with the crop. “
I
shall decide the severity of your punishment.”

He flinched. “Yes, madame. Forgive me for my impertinence.”

Régine dragged the crop down Luc's chest, toward his navel. She fancied she could hear his heart thudding faster, faster as she approached his straining, blue-veined cock. She pulled the crop through his groin's dark, curly hairs, lifting one of his balls and weighing it.

“So heavy,” she whispered with a smile of approval. “And so tempting.”

Luc held his breath in suspense. He was wondering what she'd do next. Would she squeeze them? Lick them? Inflict a slap of pain on them? The uncertainty of not knowing excited him more than if she'd stripped off her clothes and fucked him standing up. He both dreaded and desired his punishment for a long list of imagined transgressions.

She didn't do what he expected, however, but slowly ran the crop down the insides of his vulnerable spread legs.

“Please,” he dared whisper, growing ever more desperate for release.

Time for the play to begin in earnest. Régine walked behind him, noticing the way Luc's firm buttocks tightened. With a flick of her wrist, she brought the crop down, the smack of leather against skin sounding like a gunshot in the silent room.

Luc yelped in ecstasy and pain.

Régine clenched her jaw and imagined that Penbry Granger was standing here instead of Luc. Penbry Granger deserved whatever pain and humiliation she could inflict, and much more. She slapped him again and again, his body jerking like a puppet on a string with every stroke of the crop. Soon his buttocks burned a bright red and he was groaning deliriously, his shrill cries rising.

She stopped. “Quiet! If you keep whining, I'll gag you.” Her conscience wasn't as troubled if he remained quiet.

He took a deep, shuddering breath that ended on a sob. “Yes, madame. Forgive me for not accepting my punishment without complaint. Please.”

She waited for him to release the rope, signaling that he'd had enough pain for one evening. When he didn't, she raised the crop again in resignation and commenced striking his already tormented flesh.

As ordered, Luc did not make a sound, though the strain made sweat rise on his shoulders and trickle down his back, dampening his body.

Again, Régine imagined the powerful, arrogant marquess standing there helplessly, begging for the mercy he'd never shown her. She brought the crop down, harder this time. Revenge was so sweet…

“Harder, madame! I beg you. Harder!”

She gritted her teeth and obliged him again and again, mentally counting the ten gold Louis Luc would pay her for each stroke and deposit into her growing bank account. Soon her arm felt so heavy and strained from the physical exertion, she wondered how long she would be able to continue.

With a cry, Luc dropped the ropes and, clutching the bedpost for support with his left hand, grabbed his swollen cock with his right and pumped it furiously. As always, Régine pulled a linen handkerchief from her sleeve and held it against the ruby tip of his engorged penis. As his body shuddered and convulsed, he threw back his head and closed his eyes, his features twisted in physical ecstasy worthy of a Christian mystic. His animal cries filled the boudoir in a wild crescendo, and he came in a series of powerful contractions that made his whole body shudder.

When his cries subsided into deep guttural sighs and the force of his orgasm drained all strength from his limbs, he flopped across her bed in an exhausted heap, while Régine walked to her dressing room to dispose of the handkerchief.

She went into the bathroom where a towel was soaking in a basin of iced water, wrung out the cool cloth until it was damp, and took a jar of healing salve from her dressing table before returning to the boudoir. The least she could do was soothe him.

“Oh, my sweet Régine,” Luc moaned. He lay on his stomach, his eyes closed in bliss. “That was…that was…” He hesitated. “I've gone to heaven, and you're an angel.”

She sat on the edge of her bed and draped the cold compress gently across his angry red backside. He flinched, squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.

“I desire only to please you,” she said.

“And you did, my dear, more than ever. That experience was so sublime, I'm going to add a bonus to your usual fee.”

And all for inflicting pain, which his staid, bourgeois wife of thirty-five years refused to do. The legions of Parisian men who envied Luc Valendry for having such a beautiful, accomplished mistress like Régine would be surprised and shocked to learn that he had never wanted to have sex with her and had never even seen her naked. He also required her to wear the plain gray dress and a severe coif favored by his boyhood nurse, a cruel, savage woman who took the switch to her young charge for any minor misbehavior, real or imagined. At the start of their liaison, Luc had told Régine that he didn't mind if she took other lovers, as long as she was available whenever he wished. Since he paid her so handsomely, she found no need.

“You are too generous,” she said. “If you would be so kind as to deposit half in my account, and invest the rest…”

“Of course.” He smiled. “I love your pragmatism, my dear.”

“I've learned to be very pragmatic over the years.”

She removed the compress and began to gingerly rub the fragrant salve into his tender flesh. As he knew from their many sessions, the ointment would sting at first, but then the pain would disappear.

He squeezed his eyes shut and gasped, a sharp intake of breath. “You take such good care of me.”

When Régine finished, she wiped her fingers on the towel, but still felt soiled inside. She stroked his damp graying hair. “My dear Luc…”

He turned his head and regarded her curiously. “What is it, my dear? You seem troubled.”

She stared off into the distance. “You are a kind, thoughtful man, and I dislike hurting you.”

He rolled over onto his side and propped his head up on one hand. “I know. But I find it so exciting when you do.”

“You are my protector, and I shall always do as you request.”

“And I expect you to honor the terms of our arrangement.” He smiled indulgently and brought her hand to his lips. “My sweet Régine, you have such a soft heart.”

“I'm afraid I do, in some respects.” And in others, she was as hardhearted as any courtesan who sold her body, never her heart.

“Your contradictory nature is part of your charm.” He frowned suspiciously. “You wouldn't be falling in love with me, would you?”

“I'm shocked that you could think such a thing, monsieur. I never fall in love.” She'd made that mistake with the marquess and had paid dearly.

“Good. Such folly would mean an end to our relationship. And I would certainly regret that.”

The threat of being so callously discarded didn't frighten Régine. She was wealthy enough to support herself, if need be, until another protector caught her fancy. She watched him crawl off the bed, grimacing in pain, and then rise. She helped him dress, another slow, painful process. Then she assisted him down the stairs and showed him to her front door.

Before he departed, he surprised her by leaving a small velvet pouch on the hall table. “A little extra for your excellent services tonight.”

She inclined her head in mute appreciation. As always, she had earned it.

They bade each other good night, and Régine closed the door. She picked up the pouch and contemplated its heft in her palm. Luc's generosity assuaged any regrets.