Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Newsletter and Social Media Links
About the Author
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Carole Mortimer
Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper WebDesign
Editor: Linda Ingmanson
Formatter: Glass Slipper WebDesign
ISBN: 978-1-910597-79-8
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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All Rights Reserved.
Dedication
My husband, Peter
Chapter One
Spring, 1817
Somewhere in London
Waking up in the semidarkness of dawn to find himself naked and bound at the ankles and wrists to a four-poster bed was not so unusual for Lord Sebastian Forbes, the Earl of Shaftesbury.
Nor was the fact that Bastian woke with a cock-stand, despite the fact that particular part of his anatomy was already aching and sore from an excess of sexual stimulation.
Or the raw taste of alcohol in his mouth.
Not immediately recognizing his shadowed surroundings was also no reason for alarm.
Or the lack of memory concerning the woman with whom he had shared this night of debauchery; there had been too many women these past three months for Bastian to remember all of them. Or any of them, if he was being completely truthful.
No, Bastian was not concerned by any of those things.
He was, however, a little disconcerted by the fact the ties securing his wrists and ankles were of stout brown leather rather than a flimsy silk he might break with the slightest of tugs. Which, a pull on those locked leather bands confirmed, was definitely not possible in this case.
Playing the game of being tied to a bed in order to heighten sensuality was one thing, but being unable to free himself when the time came for him to leave was something else entirely.
“I see you are awake.”
Bastian slowly turned his head to watch as a woman stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She carried a lit candle, allowing Bastian to see she was slender and wore a black silk robe tied about her slender waist. Her blonde hair was a loose tumble of curls down her spine before coming to rest on the curve of her bottom.
Her face was that of an angel, heart-shaped, with the deepest green eyes he had ever seen, a small retroussé nose with freckles across its bridge, and pale cheeks, with deliciously full and pouting lips above a small and pointed chin.
More ominous, as she held up the candle to light her way across the room, was the glow on the blade of the dagger she wielded in her other hand.
Bastian was immediately taken back to the conversation he’d had yesterday with Gabriel Templeton, the Duke of Blackborne. At least Bastian assumed it was yesterday. Not having any recollection of where he had been since that time or where he was now, it could have been several days ago.
* * *
“You seem intent on killing yourself with an excess of sex and alcohol.” Gabriel frowned across the width of his desk at Bastian sprawled in the chair opposite. “Or at the hands of some ruffian taking advantage of your inebriated state after you’ve been lured into a trap by his moll.”
“I remember a time when you were not averse to an excess of sex and alcohol yourself,” Bastian mocked. “Ironically, you seem less interested in both since becoming the proprietor of Club Venus.”
Gabriel scowled his displeasure. “As you know, I took over ownership of Club Venus five years ago, before my father died and I inherited the title. I did so to spite the old bastard, because I despised him utterly from the day he cast my beloved sister out into the world twenty years ago. She was pregnant and refused to name the man who had seduced her, just as he refused to acknowledge her or the child. I was too young to be of any assistance to her at the time, but I have used every facility available to me these past fourteen years to search for her and her child.”
Bastian hadn’t known Gabriel’s sister, that young lady being ten years older than Gabriel and having already departed the household by the time Bastian, aged twelve, started to spend his summers as a guest at the Blackborne estates. But he knew the sad tale of Gabriel’s sister, and of Gabriel’s love for her.
Elizabeth Templeton had disappeared shortly after their father disowned and disinherited her, and as she had not been found in the years since, Bastian believed she was either dead or had no desire to be found.
But it was no use telling Gabriel that; Bastian knew the other man would continue his search for his beloved sister, and his niece or nephew, until the day he died.
“Admittedly, becoming the owner of the most risqué gentleman’s club in London was delicious revenge against my father,” Gabriel continued in a hard voice. “It is also indication I continue to enjoy both the things you mentioned. But,” he added sternly, “I have never indulged to the point of endangering my life.”
Bastian gave a dismissive shrug. “Perhaps my life is not as valuable to me as yours is to you.”
The other man stood to his impressive height of several inches over six feet. “Then it is as well that your life is of some importance to me,” he admonished. “It is time this self-pity was brought to an end, Bastian.”
“What it is time for is for you to keep your arrogant nose out of my business.” Bastian’s previous air of disinterest left him as he rose to his feet, the two men of similar height. “Maybe if you had done what I have, you would understand,” he added bitterly.
“What did you do other than attempt to collect on a gambling debt long overdue to you?” Gabriel snapped. “You could have no idea that Rafferty would kill himself and leave his only child an orphan.”
“An orphan who has now disappeared without a trace,” he came back heatedly. “In all probability into the bowels of the Rookery or some other place equally as disgusting, to be used and abused until they are dead.”
His friend’s expression softened. “You are not responsible, Bastian.”
“Of course I am responsible.” He glared. “If I had not asked Rafferty to settle the debt, he would still be alive. It was not as if I had need of the money.” The Earl of Shaftesbury was known to be one of the richest gentlemen in England.
“It is a matter of principal for a gentleman to settle his debts.”
“Not when he does not have the coin to do so.”
“Then Rafferty should not have gambled in the first place.”
“He offered to give his child to me if I would forget the money he owed,” Bastian recalled bitterly.
Blackborne’s brows shot up to his hairline. “For what purpose?”
“I do not think he particularly cared what I did with the child if it succeeded in wiping out his debt.”
“Boy or girl?”
“He did not say, and there is no one left in the house Rafferty rented for me to ask for that information, nor are any of the neighbors willing to talk to me either.” He grimaced. “The area is not one where people find it prudent to know each other’s business.”
Blackborne f
rowned his displeasure. “I hate to think what might have happened to that child if you were a less principled gentleman…”
“My being principled does not seem to have helped them at all,” Bastian muttered. “I have now been searching for this child for three months, and truth be told, I am no further forward than when I started. Which is not surprising when no one seemed to know Rafferty even had a son or a daughter living with him, let alone how old the child is or what they look like.”
“If that is the case, then perhaps you should accept the quest is futile.”
“As you did not, and will continue not to do so, in regard to finding your sister?” Bastian challenged.
Blackborne’s nostrils flared. “We are not discussing me or questioning my actions.”
Bastian snorted. “No, because we both know what the answer would be. You might like to live up to your reputation of being the biggest bastard in London, Gabriel, but I have known you since we were children together and know how diligently you have continued to search for your sister and her child all these years.”
“Unsuccessfully,” the other man reminded grimly.
“Which is why, if you were now me, you would carry on looking for this other lost child.”
“Perhaps,” Blackborne allowed grudgingly. “But I would still feel happier if you did your drinking and engaged in sexual encounters here, in this club, where I can monitor both the women you choose and the alcohol you consume.”
Bastian grinned. “And where would be the fun in that?”
“I have several new girls who might pique your interest. One in particular is…intriguing.”
Bastian’s interest perked up a little. “In what way?”
“As you know, I only take in women who wish to be here, and I ensure that they receive and keep the money that is due to them. I will have none that are forced to pimp themselves out so that some man or family might live off their earnings and leave them with no choice but to continue to whore themselves. Many of them eventually find a gentleman willing to engage them as their mistress,” he added with satisfaction.
Bastian nodded. “Which is why the young ladies here change on such a regular basis.”
“Exactly.”
“What is so intriguing about the young woman you referred to?”
“She was one of three new girls Winter examined today.”
Lord Benedict Winter was a close friend of both gentlemen, and also a doctor, having studied abroad for several years to acquire that title. Gabriel required only the best in all things, that being so he had acquired Winter’s services as physician to the ladies at Club Venus five years ago when he took over ownership.
“To my surprise, this young lady is the virgin she claimed to be when she came knocking on the door two days ago asking for work,” Gabriel drawled cynically. “She is also, Winter assures me, highly sexually responsive.”
Bastian raised his brows. “And just how did he go about discovering that, might I ask?”
Gabriel shrugged. “He knows my requirements and carries out his examination accordingly. Enjoying sexual pleasure is also something I insist upon for the ladies who choose to live here.”
“And this new girl is highly responsive?”
“She reached a climax with barely any stimulation at all.”
Bastian snorted. “In that case, I would have thought you might want her for yourself. Or, with the lady’s agreement, do as you have in the past, and auction her virginity to the highest bidder.”
“I prefer my own women to be older than the nineteen this girl claims to be, and also experienced in the bedchamber,” Gabriel dismissed. “An auction is a possibility, but I am offering her innocence to you first, if you want it. You may consider it an early Christmas gift, as I shall be the one who ensures the young woman is paid handsomely for the privilege.” The Holiday Season was but a week away.
Bastian gave no answer, unsure if he currently had the patience to bed an untried virgin, even one as sexually responsive as the one Gabriel described.
* * *
He now stared up at the woman standing beside the bed to which he was so tightly secured.
Had he taken Blackborne up on his offer and visited the club that evening after all?
Could this young woman be the intriguing virgin Gabriel had spoken of?
If so, why was she carrying a knife?
Bastian occasionally liked his sex rough and his women mysterious, but this was perhaps taking things too far.
Chapter Two
Lord Sebastian Forbes, the Earl of Shaftesbury, was not as Abigail had imagined him to be.
He was far younger than she had expected, possibly aged a year or two above thirty, rather than the elderly and dissolute rake she had assumed him to be.
He was also, without a doubt, one of the handsomest men she had ever seen. His hair was dark and slightly overlong, and his features had the perfection of a marble statue: winged brows above eyes of dark blue, a straight slash of a nose between high cheekbones, chiseled lips, and a square and arrogant jaw.
As for his body…
He had been dressed well the previous evening in a black superfine, a silver brocade waistcoat, and black evening trousers, all perfectly tailored to his wide shoulders and chest tapering down to a narrow waist, muscular thighs, and long legs.
Stripped of that clothing, his naked body was equally as impressive and his skin the color of honey. Those shoulders really were as wide and muscular as they appeared rather than being due to the expertise of his tailor. The muscles on his chest were clearly defined in ridges down his abdomen and lower. There was a thatch of dark curls surrounding his thick and lengthy cock, his muscular legs covered in a dusting of the same dark silky hair.
He was what many women might call a fine specimen, but to Abigail, he was nothing more than the reason for her having been left destitute and alone in England’s capital. She had no family she could turn to for help, and what little money she’d managed to save had been spent on cheap lodgings while she tried to find employment. Having failed in that venture, her landlord had now evicted her because she could no longer pay the rent even on that single bare and barren room.
She had tried at first to find employment in a shop. Failing in that, she had enquired at several of the well-to-do households as to whether they required a maid. But even a maid required references from a previous employer, she quickly discovered, and she had been turned away from doing even that.
Abigail now had no means of supporting herself in the depths of what was proving to be a very harsh winter. There was already an inch or so of snow lying on the ground and more expected to fall over the few days before Christmas.
Other than the obvious choice of selling her body.
Abigail had fought against such a fate, but in the end was forced to accept she had no choice when her only other alternative was to continue to live on the increasingly cold and dangerously unforgiving streets.
So she had made discreet enquiries and learned that Gabriel Templeton, the Duke of Blackborne, was the gentleman who owned and ran the prestigious Club Venus. Abigail might have been left with no choice regarding her future, but if she was going to become a courtesan, then she did not intend to be one of those poor downtrodden women who plied their trade on the street corners of London and then died young of some sexually related illness. She had been told that the ladies who worked at Club Venus had their own bedchambers on the third floor of the building. Their food was also provided, along with the majority of the money paid by the gentlemen who visited the club. There were also the services of a doctor to ensure the women’s health.
At least that proved the Duke of Blackborne, despite choosing to be proprietor of a notorious gentlemen’s club, obviously wished for the women he employed to be well fed and healthy.
Convincing the duke to take her in had been more difficult than Abigail had imagined it would be, and it was only when she mentioned her virginity that the duke had relented enough to a
llow her to be examined by the doctor so that she might prove her claim.
A more humiliating experience Abigail had never suffered through. To be told to strip and then be intimately examined by a handsome gentleman aged possibly thirty, or a little older, had been the most demoralizing experience of her life so far. So much so, she had seriously considered putting her clothes back on and leaving. Except she had nowhere else to go. No one and nothing except her own will to survive and the one commodity she had left to sell. Her body.
A body that had totally betrayed her when Dr. Winter examined and touched her in places no other man had even seen, let alone caressed.
It had been a shock the previous evening when Abigail had learned the Earl of Shaftesbury was in attendance in one of the club’s richly furnished salons. Until one of the other girls had informed her the earl was one of Blackborne’s closest friends and a frequent visitor at the establishment.
Not yet given permission by the duke to join in the company, Abigail had fled back up to her bedchamber on the third floor for the rest of the evening. Not that the earl would have recognized her; it was enough that Abigail now knew who he was.
Only for her to come downstairs an hour or so ago in search of a glass of water to discover the Earl of Shaftesbury in one of the public bedchambers, completely naked and strapped to the bed.
She should have left him there, of course, to perhaps have suffered the humiliation of being discovered there by one of the women who came in daily to clean the establishment.
But she was not so hard-hearted as that, no matter that this gentleman might be wholly responsible for her current predicament.
Bastian's Surrender (Regency Club Venus 1) Page 1
