He paused, then raised his brows in amusement—a reaction that only fueled her anger.
“My uncle will see you brought before a magistrate,” she continued. “If you do not release me, then prepare to spend your time at Newgate.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. His bemusement when he should have been daunted by her threats both infuriated and worried her.
“On what charges would I be sent to Newgate?” he asked.
Damn his insolence, she fumed.
“On kidnapping!” she snapped. “And…and surely there are laws against this…”
“This what, Miss Merrill?”
“You know quite well to what I allude!”
She pulled at her bonds for emphasis, but he continued to wait for her elucidation. She let out a sigh of exasperation.
“Of forcing your attentions upon me!”
To her horror, he laughed. He pulled away from the wall. “Tell me, Miss Merrill, did you not come here of your own free will?”
She bristled. “Yes, but—”
“My coachman was not under orders to abduct anyone.”
“Yes, but—”
He took a step toward her. “Did you not lie willingly across my lap?”
Her flush of consternation began to pale.
“You—”
“And requested I spank you four times?”
“I did n—”
“And enjoyed it?”
He stood a breath away from her, invading her space and further scattering her thoughts. Her volleys had not struck their target. She needed a new approach.
“How would you explain to a magistrate that you submitted against your will when the evidence reveals your pleasure?”
“Please,” Heloise attempted. “Surely you are not without conscience or sensibility…”
“Only devoid of morals,” he reminded her.
She swallowed at the verbal blow but pressed on. “You can understand why I might—why I thought I had no other recourse?”
After probing the depths of her gaze he stepped away from her. Without the intrusion of his body, she took an easier breath.
“It is no small effort you have made to protect your cousin’s virtue,” he acknowledged. “Indeed, you have risked your own ruin to save her.”
“I will explain to my family that a dear friend took ill and I went to visit her.”
“In the middle of the night? Without packing a valise?”
“I was beside myself.”
“I find it hard to believe that Miss Merrill could ever be so discomposed.”
“My uncle will have no reason to doubt my word.”
“And what of Josephine? What will you tell her?”
“I will beg her forgiveness and hope that she will, in time, come to understand the wisdom of my action.”
“Perhaps that will come to pass,” he said as he began to walk around her. “Or more likely, she will find another man to whom she can attach her fancy and forget her lost invitation to the Château.”
Heloise found herself having to agree with the earl. Nonetheless, she professed, “I hope someone who merits her affection. Someone who will make her happy.”
“And what do you hope for yourself, Miss Merrill?”
The question was an unexpected strike. No one had ever asked her that before.
“Myself?”
“What sort of man will you marry or take a fancy to?”
“This is hardly a subject—”
“Pray tell you do not see yourself as a lonely spinster, content after some time to marry a kindly but boring vicar with limited prospects.”
That he could guess the precise future she had foreseen for herself disgruntled her.
“That would be better than succumbing to a rake,” she retorted.
To her further disconcertion, he laughed. “Do you know what I think, Miss Merrill?”
“I do not care what you think, Lord Blythe.”
He was standing behind her now—which was worse than when he stood in front of her for now she could not see him. She could only feel his heat.
He leaned toward her. “I think you wanted to come here for yourself. I think if you had been in Josephine’s place, you would have accepted my invitation and been furious at anyone who tried to stop you.”
Her gaze blurred. She trembled inside. Good heavens, could it be true?
* * * * *
Stepping toward her, Sebastian lightly grazed the curve of her rump. It proved a mistake. He could breathe in her scent—not the scent of her soap or perfume, but something deeper, something that could best be described as her essence—and it made the blood in him pound. He would have ripped the clothes from her and taken her there against the bedpost if he had lacked the resolve she had so flippantly questioned earlier.
Hell and damnation. After having convinced himself in his room earlier that he had provided Miss Merrill a decent set-down, he had returned, prepared to set her free and see her off home. But then she had hurled those threats of hers. And looked so damn delicious tied to the bedpost, still flush with arousal.
For the first time, he had no plan, knew not what he intended. He knew only that his hands itched to touch her, grab her, make her quiver with pleasure.
“Surrender to me.”
He knew not from whence the words had come, but suddenly his clothes were too warm. He undid his neckcloth completely.
Silence from her. He considered pressing his erection against her derrière, but he needed her reply. There had been women from whom he sought no consent for he knew full well their desire to be taken. And so he had played the game with them, he the ravisher and they the willing victims.
But not with Miss Merrill. A light spanking was one matter. For what he truly wished to do to her, he wanted her acquiescence. Her submission. Her surrender.
“Surrender yourself,” he repeated, softly. “You can trust me.”
Though he could not see the expression upon her face, he could sense her defenses coming down. He needed them to come down faster.
“You have such lovely hips, Heloise.”
She perked up at the sound of her name and allowed him to place his hands upon her. He grasped her hips, the flare of which her gown could not hide. What wonderful handles they would provide if he chose to enter her hard from behind.
“And the most delightful rump.”
She was likely blushing at the compliment.
He caressed a buttock, then placed his mouth near her ear. “There is so much that can be done here.”
He trailed his hand up one side of her arm to her wrist and down the other before cupping a breast. “And here.”
A pause. “Such as?”
Ah, he had stimulated her curiosity. Good.
“Anything you wish.”
With both hands he manhandled her breasts, eliciting a low groan from her.
“These,” he said, “can be fondled, licked, kissed, bitten, suckled…”
Her bosom heaved against his hands.
“Have you had such attentions upon your breasts before, Miss Merrill?”
“No,” she murmured.
“Has a man ever taken pleasure from your body?”
He half expected her to rebuke him that such matters were none of his affair, but she replied, “One. There was one.”
One too many, he thought while impressed, not by the revelation, but by her honesty. Given her obdurate protection of her cousin’s virtue, one might expect to find Miss Merrill beyond reproach in regards to her own, but Sebastian knew human fallibility all too well and was relieved to find she was no virgin. That he was not her only encounter roused an unexpected jealousy in his chest. Such a feeling was not common for he had, in the past, often shared his women with the other patrons at Château Follet.
“And did he pleasure you?”
“It was many years ago. We were young.”
Just as well she did not answer him directly, Sebastian decided. He was confident
he could surpass any experience she might have had and had no desire to know the particulars.
“Then you understand the yearnings of the flesh,” he said, sliding his hands down her ribs back to her hips. His fingers slowly gathered her skirts upward. The blood pounded in his head as the image of their naked bodies rutting against the post flashed in his eye. “I may be devoid of morals, but I am no hypocrite.”
She stiffened, but he dared hazard her indignation would be short-lived. His fingers continued to lift her skirts.
“Tell me, Miss Merrill, why you find it so depraved to indulge our prurient desires?”
“I don’t,” she protested. “My censure lies in your seduction of innocent young women.”
He did not bother correcting her that it was Josephine who had seduced him, but instead replied, “I willingly engage and seek the companionship of women with similar appetites.”
That gave her pause. Apparently it had not occurred to her that he was not the only one guilty of lust. His fingers grazed her thigh as he continued, “I think it immoral of you to impose your sense of morality on others and to deny women the pleasures of the flesh.”
“I am immoral?” she responded in disbelief. “Because I am not a libertine?”
“Because you would bar fulfillment from others for no purpose.”
He slipped his hand between her thighs.
“No purpose, my lord? Protecting a loved one from shame, from risking her future is not reason enough for you?”
He found her clitoris and began a gentle caress. “In whose eyes would she be shamed?”
“Need—need you ask? In the eyes of…polite society.”
Her breaths became shallow as he stroked the sensitive nub.
“Setting aside the premise that there is a single pervading norm—which I would dispute—are the darlings of the beau monde always right?”
“It matters not if society is right or wrong.”
“How convenient,” he said ironically, deepening his touch. “What if it were wrong? Ours is a society that once burned people they thought were witches, sanctioned the trading of fellow humans as slaves, governed without representation of the people. By abiding by its norms and following its standards, are you not guilty of supporting its immorality?”
He sensed her thoughts swirling, the wheels of her mind turning, and felt a strange thrill, more exciting than any seduction he had undertaken before. Slipping a finger toward her quim, he discovered her wet with desire. Arousal raged in his pelvis. He was almost there.
“You would believe,” she said, still trying to persevere with her own judgment, “that not allowing a woman to become wanton is somehow immoral?”
“Precisely. The suppression of freedom is rarely a good thing. Make no mistake, I do not encourage recklessness or condone any impulse that is criminal. But why should we condemn what are but natural urges of every man and every woman?”
She was gasping as his fingers plied their trade, striking her sensitive spot over and over.
“It may be natural for you, my lord.”
He fitted his body against hers. Marvelous. The contrast of her soft body against his hardness. With his length, he pushed her into the pole.
“Do you suggest you have no such urges, Miss Merrill?”
He ground his desire into her. Her arms tightened against the pole.
“I do not let such urges overwhelm me.”
She clearly knew not what she said for her body indicated otherwise.
“Why not?”
No answer. But her thighs parted for his fingers to conduct their ministrations. He plunged a finger into her quim. She instantly clenched about his digit. He plunged another finger into her as he continued to circle her clitoris with his thumb. She trembled between him and the bedpost, gasping and groaning, groaning and gasping. Her climax loomed near.
“I think, Heloise,” he said in a low, husky tone next to her ear, “you should surrender to your natural urges. Allow yourself to indulge in the sublime and submit to me.”
Though her body was clearly responding to him, he still wanted to hear her say it. There would be no triumph until she did. When she did not reply, he withdrew his hand. She let out an anguished cry.
“Surrender yourself to me,” he tried again.
Her hips ground against him, in search of his hand. He teased her lightly with his fingers, but not enough to make her spend. She moaned.
“Surrender.”
Her voice was shaky but the sentence clear.
“Yes…yes, I surrender.”
* * * * *
An inferno of yearning engulfed her body. Desperate for his touch, for release, Heloise had agreed to submit to the Earl of Blythe. The delectable beginning—of feeling his body pressing hers into the post, of his skilled fingers teasing her body to arousal—had become a divine torture. She felt as if she would go mad if she did not spend, and yet, she exalted in the precipice from which her body dangled. She understood that she wanted to submit to him.
And she was not the only one whose desire had been sparked. His erection, hard as stone, pressed against the arch of her arse. That awareness made her cunny ache, made what he did to her all the more pleasing. Her legs threatened to buckle and her arms begged for liberation from their bonds, but she would not give in until she had attained her climax.
She waited for him to resume his stroking. She heard him take a ragged breath. Then felt him step away from her.
What the bloody…
She had agreed to surrender to him! Surely he would reward her now. Her nerves trembled like the vibrations of a tuning fork, seeking the proper conclusion.
Damnation, she cursed to herself when still he did nothing. What a fool she was to think that she could expect better from a rake! Had she not accused him of lacking morals? Granted, she knew her statement to have been in the extreme—she suspected he did have a conscience or she would have thought all attempts to reason with him hopeless—but he was proving her words now. Well, if he would not help her, she would satisfy herself. She tilted her hips and attempted to grind her mons against the bedpost.
“Stop it,” he ordered.
When she refused to obey, he found her nipple and squeezed it. She yelped and stopped.
“You have much to learn, Miss Merrill.”
He was back to addressing her formally. She had liked it when he called her ‘Heloise.’ On his tongue, the name, which she had hitherto found plain, sounded beautiful, inviting and seductive.
Threading his fingers through her hair, he massaged her scalp with both hands, coaxing her resistance away and easing her into a quasi-meditative state. “Have you ever stood naked before a man?” he asked into her ear.
Her heart throbbed, pressing itself against her chest walls as if it had grown too large for its compartment.
There had been an attempt with the son of the squire, but her stays had exasperated the young man. He had thrown her skirts above her waist and penetrated her before prudence, made sluggish by the carnal distress in her own body, could prevail. In the most unceremonious of minutes she had lost her virtue. But amidst the aftermath of shame and fear was a guilty satisfaction, a smugness even, of having discovered the taboo reserved only for couples lawfully joined. Having given of herself already, what was left for her to forsake? Why not indulge her desires? The experiences of her youth could not compare to this though, and a part of her yearned to revel in what might come from a man of greater…artistry.
“Have you?” he repeated.
“No,” she replied.
“You are about to,” he informed her, undoing the back of her gown.
Her pulse quickened. It did not take long for him to push the top part of her garment off her shoulders and toward her wrists. He unpinned the skirt and untied the petticoats. They pooled at her feet. He unlaced her stays with the swiftness of the most practiced chambermaid. In little time, she found herself standing in her chemise, stockings and shoes. Little bumps lighted her skin at
her state of undress. Did he mean to proceed further? Would she find herself, as he had suggested, naked before him? What if he did not like what he saw? He had expected the company of Josephine, after all.
Reaching around her, he grabbed her breasts through the chemise. Of a sudden, she yearned to feel his powerful hands upon her bare flesh. She would arch her breasts further into his hand were it not for the post pressing into her sternum. He fingered the seam of her chemise, and she realized with embarrassment that she had not selected one of her finer, less worn undergarments. Fisting the fabric in one hand, he wrenched it against her body.
“Wait!” she gasped. “I haven’t—”
Too late. The chemise ripped away from her, scalding the skin where it had most resisted. She took in a sharp breath as if cold had blasted her body, but it was not the air she found chilling. She had no undergarments to wear home. And now she stood with all of her in plain view of his probing eyes—eyes that surely missed little, eyes that were examining every inch of her. What was he thinking? Why did he not speak?
“I will release one of your hands,” he told her. “You will pleasure yourself.”
Pleasure herself? In front of him? But masturbation was the most private of acts. The notion of touching her genitals before him was horrifying, wicked, and…provocative.
He coaxed her into action with another pinch of her nipple. Her hand flew to her mons and she rubbed two fingers against the little bud nestled between her folds. It was awkward with the bedpost in the way. She had to arch her derrière to provide her hand enough access. At first she felt only shame. There was nothing pleasurable about fondling herself before Lord Blythe. He had sauntered to the side for a better view. But when she chanced to meet his smoldering gaze, saw the slight ripple of muscle above his jaw, desire flamed in her loins. She rubbed herself more purposefully, making the anticipation quiver down the length of her legs.
He went to stand behind her once more and, reaching around her hip, he joined his hand to hers between her thighs. Their fingers bumped against each other. The agitation blazing in her body was ten times stronger than what she had felt earlier. She did not care if he ordered her to stop this time. She would not do it. Her body deserved to spend this time.
Submitting to the Marquess Page 3
