“Are you?” He cocked his head. Was this how people communicated? Mostly with his lovers he fucked. But he wanted… he wanted to somehow… talk… to his… housekeeper. “I’m not. I didn’t particularly like her, either. She tended to tell me that I was just like my father, whom she also hated.” He shrugged. “We looked very alike.”
“Oh.”
She stared at him a moment, burning eyes wide, and for a moment he wondered if she would weep again. That had been very distressing to him and he very much wished that she wouldn’t.
“Did you know,” he said rapidly, “that in Istanbul they smoke their tobacco pipes through water?”
She leaned a little forward. “What?”
“Yes.” He nodded earnestly, pleased he’d caught her attention. “The men in their turbans and draperies, quite colorful, really, lounge about on great cushions and smoke through enormous pipes.” He drew with his hands in the air. “Tall contraptions made of bronze and very elegantly chased. There’s an upper bowl where the tobacco is placed and lit, and then a long, hollow tube, which leads to the base, also hollow, where a basin of water lies. A thin pipe extends from the base and the smoker must suck very strongly in order to draw his smoke.”
She was watching him with a little half smile, his Séraphine, and were he not an empty man he might feel joy.
“I would like to see such a thing,” she said. “Did you try this water pipe?”
“Of course,” he replied. “I took to wearing the Ottoman’s loose, flowing breeches and shirts as well. And a long overcoat. It was white striped in purple and quite lovely.” He glanced at her amused eyes. “I brought it back with me, along with one of the water pipes. I’ll show it to you one day.”
“Will you?” she whispered, and turned her head so he could see only her profile.
“Yes,” he murmured, watching as her eyelashes lowered, veiling her expression. “Perhaps I’ll take you there, to far-off Istanbul. You can see the bearded men smoking their water pipes, and the domed buildings, and the tall minarets from which their priests sing their prayers, and the spice markets, and the quiet tiled inner courtyards where fountains play.” He got up and moved behind her. “They keep harems, those sultans, you know. Their women live behind beautiful screens so that no other man may see them.”
She shuddered. “That sounds terrible.”
He shrugged. “It’s their way, so I suppose they don’t see it as terrible. Sometimes I would glimpse a woman’s eye, peeking from behind a screen in my host’s courtyard. She’d have kohl smeared around her eyes, and silk draped over her face and head.”
He knelt behind the bathtub and leaned over her shoulder, bringing his hands around to cup her breasts. He watched as he circled her nipples, slowly awakening them from their slumber.
“It’s tempting. I can see why those Ottomans hide their women. If I could, I might dress you in silk—deep-red silk—and put you away where no other man might see you.”
She turned her head to glare at him, those dark eyes sparking. “I shouldn’t like that.”
He smiled at her fondly, almost sadly. This woman—why did he want this woman so very much?
“I know.” He sipped at her lips lightly—so lightly. “And yet, as I say, tempting.”
He caught her lips with his, widening her mouth, tasting red wine and gravy, apples, and her, all her. Bridget, Séraphine, her.
Her.
Her.
Her.
He groaned into her mouth, thrusting in his tongue, taking advantage, wanting, lusting, his cock rampant. He took her, lifting her out of the bathwater, a repeat of the previous evening, he’d lost all the finesse he’d ever learned apparently, and, wrapping her in a drying cloth, he backed into the chair, sitting down with her in his lap.
Still kissing her.
He’d kiss her until the day he died, if he had his druthers.
The drying cloth around her body fell to her hips. He tugged off the cloth wrapped around her head and let her damp hair fall about her shoulders, spreading it with his fingers.
She drew back, panting. “Oh, you shouldn’t.”
“Oh, I should,” he retorted. “I desire your hair. If I could, I’d wrap it about my cock and pull till I spilled.”
She looked at him a little oddly. “It’s so coarse. Like a horse’s mane.”
He laughed. “Then I desire a horse’s mane.”
He spread the heavy strands between his fingers and then drew a lock over his lips.
She smelled of roses.
“Are you going to take off your clothes this time?” she asked.
“No,” he replied, quite certain. “It seems I’ve regressed to fifteen with the attendant urgency and if I pause to divest myself of raiment, I run the risk of quitting the table too early.”
“That hardly seems very fair, considering how many times you paraded around nude in front of me.”
“You noticed!” he said, delighted. “Was I not magnificent? I shall make you a bargain. You may see my body afterward.”
And then he lifted her a little and fastened his mouth on her nipple, for he hadn’t been lying about his urgency.
She moaned, all warm, damp woman in his hands, breasts in his face, thighs over his legs, astride him like a female dragoon, and he wanted to inhale her. To drink her in and keep her.
Possibly forever.
He wanted to lick her cunt again, make her cream for him, make her scream and writhe, but the angle was wrong and he made a vow: no more baths before bed—they were just too much for his frayed nerves. Instead he drew hard upon her sweet little nipple and plunged his hand between her thighs.
She was wet. Oh, sweet, wonderful woman! She was wet already, slippery and soft and ready for him.
He turned his hand in the confined space between their bodies and she groaned.
He looked up and saw her, his archangel, head tossed back, black hair a cloud, burning, burning bright.
He caught the back of her neck and kissed her, deeply, ruthlessly, because there was nothing else to do.
Keep her. Hold her.
He worked the falls of his breeches with his other hand and freed his grotesquely engorged cock, weeping, pleading for surcease.
Raised her arse a little, placed himself at that hot, wet paradise, and thrust.
She opened her eyes as he pulled his face away, watching her.
He thrust again. The way was tight. Narrow. She was wet, but she hadn’t yet come tonight.
Her mouth opened, a strand of hair caught on her shining lips.
God.
He thrust again. Hard. And was home.
Burning fire surrounded him. He’d never be cold again.
He could stay like this, cock beautifully lodged in her, all night. Watching her. Perhaps he’d enjoy a glass of wine.
He smiled a little at the thought.
She swallowed, the line of her throat moving.
And then she moved.
Kneeling up a bit.
Oh.
Well…
She brought herself down again. Gently. Firmly. Sliding him into her passage. She even swiveled a bit once she’d settled herself fully.
He gasped.
That. That wasn’t fair at all.
He reached up to still her, but…
She was doing it again. But faster. And harder.
And she was magnificent, riding him, beautiful and stern, and… he tried to think of words. To tell her. But they flew away.
So instead he brought her face to his and kissed her helplessly as she ravished him, body and soul. Kissed his nemesis, his salvation, maybe his death.
He watched as she went up in flames.
Burning like an archangel, glorious, frightening, awesome.
And when he caught fire as well, when he emptied his loins into her furnace, in groaning, exquisite jerks, all he could think was this:
His Séraphine thought that deep inside him was a golden core—a good man who could be redeemed.
Sh
e was wrong.
And when she plumbed his depths and discovered instead a frozen hollow, she would do what she must.
She would leave him.
Chapter Fourteen
So that night King Heartless and Prue went to the castle gardens. Prue nervously took a spindle and some wool and showed the king how to spin.
“You aren’t very good at this,” the king said as his yarn broke.
“Well, neither are you!” Prue retorted before thinking.
After that the king hardly spoke save to swear horribly and in the morning Prue was very happy to still be alive.…
—From King Heartless
The Duke of Montgomery slept as he did everything else: easily, elegantly, and gracefully.
More beautifully than any other person living.
Bridget gazed down thoughtfully on the sleeping man the next morning. He lay sprawled upon the freshly laundered sheets, one arm arced over his head, his golden curls tumbled upon the pillows, his straight nose profiled against the sheets. His lips were a little parted, but he did not snore—no, not he. His stubble was gilt and merely highlighted the perfect angles of his jaw. The bedcovers were pushed to his thighs, his other hand resting on a taut belly. His chest was smoothly muscled and unblemished, the few golden hairs between his pectorals highlighting his masculinity. One leg was bent and his cock, thick and long this morning, lay along the crease of his thigh. The foreskin—his precious foreskin, she remembered with some amusement—was stretched a bit taut, revealing the very tip of his head, gleaming and pink.
He was perfect. Her lover.
Bridget pursed her lips, giving that lovely penis one last lingering glance before turning to the door and leaving the room quietly.
It seemed very strange that this man should be her lover, for however short a time it might be. Even if he were not a duke, even if, in some other world, he were a footman or a butler—a man of her own rank and station in life—it would be a strange fit. He was a beautiful, otherworldly creature, and she?
She was just ordinary. From her horse’s-mane hair to her sturdy, practical feet, she’d never turned men’s heads. Oh, she wasn’t ill-favored—her features were regular enough—but she knew, too, that she wasn’t the sort of woman whom men flirted with. Whom men stared at. She’d had a few admirers in the past, but they hadn’t been a multitude.
She was unremarkable.
The Duke of Montgomery was anything but.
Perhaps, then, that was what drew him to her—her very normality. Val was just quixotic enough to become fascinated—for a short time—by the prosaic.
That was quite a depressing thought, but Bridget faced it practically. She knew that whatever else happened they were not meant to be together for any length of time. It was too ludicrous a concept—like a racehorse yoked to a plow horse.
And what drew her to him? Oh, she could try to fool herself. Pretend that she sought out the duke only in order to try to help him recognize right from wrong, try to mend his wicked, wicked ways.
But that was a child’s game—because while she did want to help him find the better part of himself, that wasn’t the real reason she stayed.
The truth was much simpler. For the first time in her life she was doing something strictly for herself: she was letting go of propriety, reason, logic, even morality, she supposed.
She was making love to Val. Selfishly. Because she wanted to. Because he was everything she’d been denied in life—everything she’d denied herself: laughter and wit and books and adventure. Lust and sensuality. Silks and hot baths. Warm dogs and warmer bed linen.
He was sin itself and if she was a sinner for a little while, she’d pay the price and gladly.
And if that price was a child?
Oh, that wouldn’t be so very bad, either.
She was a bastard herself. If she had a child by him, she’d keep her babe and no matter how hard it might be to make her way in the future at least she’d never be alone again.
Bridget made the kitchen door and checked as always that her apparel was in order—minus her mobcap. By this time no doubt the entire staff must suspect that she was sleeping with the duke, but she wasn’t going to flaunt the fact, and she certainly wasn’t going to let any rumors affect her authority in any way.
She opened the doors and sailed into the kitchens. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” grunted Mrs. Smithers as she kneaded dough of some kind.
While she hadn’t the same rapport with the Ainsdale cook that she had with Mrs. Bram, nevertheless Mrs. Smithers was far more accommodating, in her own taciturn way, than she had been when Bridget first arrived.
Which she proved immediately by jerking her chin at one of the scullery maids. “Quit yer dozin’, Ann, and get a cup of tea for Mrs. Crumb.”
Bridget accepted her teacup gratefully, smiling her thanks to the little maid as she took a seat at the kitchen table across from Mr. Dwight.
“Good morning, Mrs. Crumb,” the butler said cheerfully. Bridget had noticed he was rather alarmingly awake in the mornings. “Will you be seeing to the upper floors today?”
“I think so, yes, Mr. Dwight,” she replied, tucking into the porridge set before her. She had to admit that Mrs. Smithers made a fine, hearty porridge. “I understand many of the rooms haven’t been opened in years?”
He shook his head, pursing his lips. “My aunt said they were shut up before Her Grace took ill.”
Bridget nodded. It was a money-saving measure she approved of—why heat and maintain rooms not in use?—but there were bound to be vermin and other unpleasant surprises in such places if they weren’t at least checked once in a while.
The kitchen door opened and Mehmed bounded in with Pip at his heels. The little dog made a beeline to Bridget, setting his paws upon her knees for a good-morning pat.
She took the last bite of her porridge. “I’ll be just a moment,” she told Mr. Dwight, and then went into the inner courtyard with the boy and the dog.
Pip immediately trotted over to water the ancient oak.
“It is very cold here,” Mehmed said mournfully, both arms wrapped around his shoulders. “I think I shall freeze in the winter. The duke says the sky will turn to ice and bits of it will fall in tiny pieces of white.”
“The duke likes to be dramatic,” Bridget murmured as she watched Pip race about the inner courtyard.
She glanced up at the widow’s tower standing sentinel over the castle, and remembered Val telling her what he’d watched from that tower. This place had witnessed debauchery, vice, and cruelty beyond her imagining and yet they had left no mark upon the old gray stones. The castle stood immune and impartial.
Were she the housekeeper of this place, she’d plant a vegetable garden here, right by the kitchen door. Herbs and lettuces, peas, carrots, and radishes, all bounded neatly by tiny box hedges. And farther on she would hire gardeners to lay down straight, level paths of gravel, train pears and apples and plums against the inner walls, and plant roses and irises for the lady of the house to admire as she walked her paths.
That’s what she would do if she were the housekeeper of Ainsdale Castle.
“Mrs. Crumb!”
Bridget started from her reverie at Mehmed’s happy shout and turned to the boy.
He was standing with Pip. “Mrs. Crumb, I forgot to tell you. Yesterday I teach Pip to sit.”
Bridget raised her eyebrows, because the little terrier wasn’t in fact sitting. “Yes?”
“Watch!”
The boy turned toward the dog and thrust his hands straight in the air above his head. “Pip!”
The dog barked and went into a play bow.
“Pip! SIT!” Mehmed shouted, bringing his hands down commandingly before him.
Immediately the terrier leaped up, barking madly, ran around the boy three times…
And sat in front of him.
“Oh.” Bridget pressed her hand to her mouth because she did not want to laugh at the boy. “How very extra
ordinary.”
Mehmed beamed. “I think this is much better sit than you try, yes?”
“Oh, yes indeed,” Bridget agreed.
“Pip very good at sit now,” Mehmed said, looking at the dog, who had almost immediately risen from his sit to wander about again.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid I shall have to start my work now,” Bridget said. “Will you attend the duke?”
Mehmed looked a little glum. “He not wake up for long time still. He say only pli-bee-un wake up before noon.” He looked at her and shook his head. “I not know what pli-bee-un is.”
“Us,” Bridget growled. “And he would say that.”
“Dukes can sleep all day. We can’t.” He darted her a rather sly glance. “But he very sad when you not there yesterday.”
She did not reply to that, but her heart skipped a beat, silly thing.
“Would you like to help me air and clean closed-up rooms?” she enquired as she walked toward the kitchen door.
“Ye-es?” Mehmed replied doubtfully.
“Or,” she added, “you and Pip could see if there’s any work to do in the stables.”
“Yes, very well!” he said, immediately brightening and starting for a different door to the castle, one that was much closer to the back and the stables. “Come, Pip, come!”
The dog raced after him.
“Don’t let him be trampled by horses!” Bridget called after the boy.
He waved cheerfully and disappeared into the door with the dog.
Bridget sighed and turned to the kitchen door. She had her troops to gather.
The morning was spent in opening and cleaning three rooms in the upper west wing, at the opposite end of the castle from Val’s bedroom. It was quite filthy work and Bridget mourned her mobcap, which had been missing since Val had torn it from her head yesterday.
She suspected that he’d burned it.
At the moment she was supervising the clearing of the third room, which evidently had been used as a catchall, as it was full of tables and other unused furniture. Two footmen carefully moved a heavy mahogany sideboard from the wall, revealing something cloth-draped leaning against the paneling.
Bridget gingerly pulled off the cloth, mindful of the layer of dust on it.
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