by Mason, Nina
Keeping a wary eye out for the crowned satyr, she made it as far as the entrance hall, where the clatter of pewter and din of lively conversation told her the party was still going in force.
The fantasy—and the amatory ache it engendered—had softened her heart toward her husband. If she could find him alone, she might be tempted to throw herself upon his…mercy. Perhaps they could summon their carriage, steal away together under cloak of night, and use the time alone to salve up their differences in creative ways. Surely, the king would not give chase, especially with his French whore on the prowl.
Hope quickened her pulse when she glimpsed, from the edge of her eye, a flash of red velvet on the staircase leading to the opposite tower. Might it be Robert? She had not spied enough of the garment to be certain. Deciding to take her chances, she picked up her skirts and hurried after him, praying ‘twas indeed her duke and that she’d catch him up before the king caught up with her.
By the time she reached the staircase, the velvet-clad personage had disappeared. She went up anyway, hoping to spot him or her again once she reached the top. She did—but again, a mere tease of red velvet as the wearer turned a corner. Hurrying after him or her, she rounded the corner in time to catch a blur of crimson disappearing through a door. As her heart sank, she muttered a blasphemous oath.
Staying where she was, she took a moment to catch her breath and consider her options.
If she knocked on the door and the gentleman in red turned out not to be her husband, he might assume she’d come to play musical beds. If so, she might be worse off than if she’d appeased the king. At least swiving the randy monarch discharged a debt and protected the duchy.
She could refuse the gentleman, of course, but what if he would not be put off? From what she’d seen and heard so far, the king and all his men thought with their cocks—her husband included.
When the latch clicked, her heart skipped a beat. He was coming out again! Picking up her skirts, she dashed around the corner and pressed herself into an alcove to avoid being seen.
The door banged closed and, seconds later, the red-coated gentleman stepped into view. ‘Twas Robert, thank the saints! Too overcome to speak, she started to go after him, but, struck by sudden inspiration, drew back. She now knew the location of his bedchamber. If she hid herself somewhere within, the king could not find her nor could her husband turn her away.
* * * *
With a seed of hope taking root in his heart, Robert made his way to the bedchamber he’d deducted was Maggie’s. Since the queen had not come to Scotland, ‘twas the most likely place for the king to stow a new conquest. Having his quarry in an adjoining room would provide easy access without risking discovery by the ever-watchful Duchess of Portsmouth.
Hand in the pocket of his coat, he fingered the velvet pouch containing Maggie’s restrung necklace. He’d paid a premium to have the coachman collect the pearls and locate a jeweler who could see to the task right away, but he knew ‘twould go a long way toward appeasing his bride. She’d broken the necklace in anger—to cut him to the quick—and he deserved no less.
Please let restoring the gift to her be enough to soften her heart toward me.
He stopped before the door, lifted his hand to knock, and then hesitated. What if the king were within? What excuse would he make for calling upon his wife so late in the evening? It would not do for the king to suspect him of duplicity. Should his actions arouse royal suspicion, Maggie’s sacrifice would have been in vain. No, he must invent some excellent excuse for calling. What about the pearls? He could say he’d had them repaired, which he could prove, if called for.
Satisfied with his alibi, he rapped upon the door with purpose.
No sound came from within. Was she abed already?
He knocked again, slightly louder. She still made no answer. Was it possible she was not within? He tried a third time with the same result. Hopes dashed, he retreated with the intention of retiring for the evening.
He’d won and lost the woman he loved in the space of a fortnight and desired solitude to lick his wounds and devise a severe enough atonement to assuage his guilt and self-loathing.
If he could fashion a way to flog himself, he’d tear open the scabbed-over cuts and abrasions on his backside and suffer afresh the wounds she’d justly inflicted.
But, alas. He’d packed neither whip nor cane and there was no priest about to hear his confession and assign him a less corporeal penance.
Forgive me, Maggie, for I have sinned against your virtue.
She was right about him. He was a maggot. Nay, a pig who’d trampled her pearls beneath his feet. He deserved neither her forgiveness nor her love. He’d ruined her. Forsaken her. Prostituted her to keep his creature comforts. He should have left her to Hugh. His brother may have saddled her with a passionless marriage, but he never would have whored her. Not for all the tea in England.
Feeling desolate and inconsolable, Robert hung his head as he ascended the grand staircase leading to his tower room. As he reached the top, he found Sir Richard and the courtesan from the banquet waiting upon him. The sight of them deflated his already depressed spirits. He was in no mood for company of the sort they had in mind.
They took him by the arms, making him feel more trapped than well met.
“Robby, where’d you run off to?” Richard’s breath reeked of alcohol. “We were hoping you would join us after the meal for a triangular tryst—a tribute to old times, you might say. You have become such a dreadful killjoy since you became a duke.”
Sir Richard was right. The yoke of responsibility his father’s death dropped upon his shoulders had turned him into a sullen spoilsport. Until Maggie, he seldom smiled or laughed anymore and could not recall the last time he felt anything approaching joy.
And to maintain this miserable existence, he’d thrown away his only hope for happiness.
As they pulled him along toward his bedchamber, he gave up fighting. Why not have a threesome? ‘Twas obviously what the king wanted him to do and, whatever he might fool himself into believing, he was but a pawn on the royal chessboard.
* * * *
Maggie, crouched among her skirts in the stuffy armoire, watched through the keyhole as they came into the room. Robert, then the lady, and last but not least, Sir Richard Hardwick.
Surely, the three of them did not mean to have sex—or did they? Though unsure how she felt about the prospect of observing her husband in a threesome, she could not bring herself to look away. Some of his books contained illustrations of multiple couplings—static images that, although fascinating, did not make clear who did what to whom.
All three set about lighting candles, whereupon the lady sat on the edge of the bed whilst the gentlemen removed their coats.
Fear of discovery set Maggie’s heart to racing. What if they should make to hang their garments in the wardrobe? To her great relief, they laid the garments over the backs of a pair of chairs against the far wall.
Now in only their shirtsleeves and breeches, the gentlemen returned to the lady, who proceeded to bare her bosoms.
Lord, bless me.
Her paps were so huge and so heavy they hung almost to her waist. The gentleman appeared to have no qualm, as both wasted no time latching onto the lady’s huge nipples. As they nursed, the doxy rubbed the front of both their breeches with purpose.
Maggie struggled within herself to remain emotionally detached from the proceedings, pretending to be at the theater watching a play rather than observing her husband in a ménage a trois. Aroused passions were an acceptable response, she told herself, whilst aroused possessiveness was not. She had told the duke she would never bed him again, so he had every right to seek satisfaction elsewhere. Still, she had not expected him to stray quite so quickly or in quite so inventive a manner. Or was she being too prosaic? For all she knew, three-party paramours were de rigueur at the court of the Randy Royal.
Remembering the king inflicted a sharp stab of angst, so she blin
ked it away and refocused upon the performance beyond the keyhole.
The courtesan, still seated on the bed with the men attached to her breasts, was now fussing with the closures on their breeches.
How commendable, Maggie thought, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes. Surely, to undress two at once was no small feat. She only wished the harlot would hurry up. She wanted to see Sir Richard’s cock. She’d only ever seen Robert’s in the flesh and was eager to compare their attributes.
Would they be different or the same?
She did not have to wait long for her wish to be granted. Their breeches dropped in unison. When the courtesan commanded them to take off the rest, the gentlemen readily obliged. Before long, they stood before both onlookers without a stitch.
Behind the keyhole, thirsty spying eyes drank in their physiques, comparing and contrasting. Sir Richard was paler and thinner than Robert and had considerably more body hair. A thick carpet of red-gold curls spread across his chest and ran in a line down his body to form a thick crown of copper curls over his red-knobbed erection, which curved upward like a saber. Sir Richard’s scrotum was also much pinker and lower hung than her husband’s.
Maggie was astonished. She had not thought men’s reproductive organs, one to the next, would be so very different.
The courtesan wrapped one hand round each of the gentlemen’s cocks and, pulling on them like leashes, drew her would-be lovers nearer.
“I believe His Grace is your better in both rank and size,” she said to Sir Richard, “though you are of a generous enough proportion for my purposes.”
“And what purposes might those be, my lady?” he returned.
“Every wicked one imaginable.” The lady stroked their cockstands in tandem. “But before you attend to me, I should like you to attend each other, starting with a kiss.”
“You wish us to kiss, my lady?” Robert’s tone conveyed no resistance to the idea.
“To start with,” the courtesan replied. “And make it a deep one in the French style. It does so inflame my passions to watch two handsome men making love to one another.”
Maggie covered her mouth to stop a squeal of shock from spilling forth. Would Robert really kiss his friend? Would he do more than kiss Sir Richard if the lady asked it of him?
The image of her husband buggering the other man popped into her mind. The picture inflamed her passions, much to her great surprise and puzzlement.
She’d never thought to ask if Robert had bedded men as well as women. She’d simply assumed, given what he’d said about Hugh, he never had or would.
Sir Richard stepped toward the duke, tilted his head to the side, and moved in.
Robert did not merely accept the kiss, he returned it with gusto. Abomination made Maggie withdraw from the keyhole. She could not watch her husband do this. It was so wrong, so sinful, so wicked. ‘Twas also highly provocative.
For several moments, she fought the bedeviling urge to return her eye to the keyhole. Giving up the battle, she peered through to find the gentlemen yet locked in a writhing French kiss.
Robert held the other man’s face in both hands whilst Sir Richard, gripping the duke’s bare buttocks, ground his pelvis against her husband’s.
“Oh, yes!” The lady clapped her hands in delight. “I am excessively diverted, not to mention, stirred up. Now, what will it take to persuade one of you to suck the other’s cock?”
Maggie gasped in astonishment even as desire raked dark claws across her womb. She took a breath and steeled her courage. Whatever should transpire betwixt the three persons present, in whichever combination, she resolved not to avert her gaze. She might never get another chance to observe a threesome, after all, and must not slam the door on opportunity. Yes, she had misgivings about Robert’s participation, but she was in no position to feel deceived, as she had broken off with him.
Besides, there was little chance the Merry Monarch would come looking for her in her husband’s bedchamber whilst he partook of a ménage a trois that did not include his wife.
For the moment, she was out of danger—and quite riveted.
Richard Hardwick got down on his knees, took hold of Robert’s hips, and guided the duke’s erection betwixt his parted lips.
This Maggie observed with an eye toward improving her technique–for who would know better how to please a man than another man?
The other man took Robert’s cock deeper than she would have dreamed possible whilst ardently caressing all flesh within reach.
Her husband, wearing an expression of enjoyment, merely held tight to his fellator’s bewigged head.
“I have seen enough,” the courtesan said curtly when Robert’s head rolled back in rapture. “‘Tis time you both attended me.”
Thereupon, the lady got to her feet. The gentlemen, working as a team, quickly stripped her naked, after which she stretched out on her back upon the bed.
Sir Richard went round to the other side and, availing themselves of the bed curtain tiebacks, both men secured her wrists to the bedposts. When they were finished, Richard mounted the mattress—and the lady’s chest—and promptly put his cock in her mouth.
Robert watched for several moments before joining his companions on the bed.
Maggie’s line of vision was such that she could not make out the finer points of the assignation, but she clearly observed the major events.
When Sir Richard had enough of the courtesan’s oral cavity, he traded places with Robert, who’d been fingering the woman’s cunny. His Grace then fucked her mouth whilst his friend swived her in the usual way. After all three had come off, the men untied the woman.
Whilst they dressed, Robert strode toward the wardrobe.
Maggie, heart jolting, scrambled behind a suit of clothes and pressed herself into the corner. He opened the door, reached in, and pulled his banyan off the hanger without glancing inside, thank the saints and martyrs. When he reclosed the door and withdrew, she relaxed a little, but her heart continued to pound.
Sir Richard and the courtesan left, whereupon Robert, now in his banyan, locked the door behind them.
Staying put, Maggie weighed her options. Should she make her presence known? What might he do or say if she suddenly burst out of the armoire? Would he be angry? Amused? Indifferent? Would he throw her out or invite her to spend the night? She should like to stay. Her observations had aroused her mightily and, despite all his crimes against her, she still cared for her husband, still wanted him, still ached for his touch, his kisses, and his cock.
Robert lay down upon the bed, draped his arm across his forehead and, expression turning grim, stared up at the canopy’s underside. Whatever he cogitated upon—might it be her?—clearly made him miserable.
Maggie’s heart expanded with affection and longing. Eager to go to him, she set her hands against the door. Just as she began to push, someone knocked on the bedchamber door. She held her breath and moved her eye to the keyhole. Who would be calling so late? A lover? The king? Pray, let it be neither.
Robert sat up and looked toward the door with an expression of surprise.
Relief lathed her chest. Not his intended, then, but the king remained a distinct possibility.
Climbing off the bed, he tugged on his banyan to ensure he was decent and ran his fingers through his unkempt hair.
At the door, he seized the handle, but turned it not. “State your business.”
“Are you the Duke of Dunwoody?”
“Aye. And who might you be?”
“I have a parcel for you,” the caller returned, “which has only now been delivered by express messenger.”
A parcel? What might it contain?
Robert opened the door, whereupon the man thrust a small string-tied package through the opening. Taking it, her husband closed the door and returned to the bed.
He turned the parcel over, held it closer to the candles to read the address, and appeared genuinely bewildered.
Maggie burned with the urge to scre
am through the door to open the bloody package already.
By the by, he did open the parcel and withdrew two objects: a miniature portrait hanging from a red silk ribbon and a folded sheet of paper.
As Robert moved closer to the candlelight to inspect both items, Maggie’s curiosity gnawed at her insides. Who might the portrait depict? Miniature portraits were generally given as a token of affection. Had it been sent by the woman the king wished her husband to marry? As much as she prayed ‘twas otherwise, it seemed the only plausible explanation.
Grief avalanched down on her as the cruel truth dawned. The king had dissolved their marriage. Robert would be made to marry the lady the king hoped to bed. Tears stung her eyes and nose and tightened her throat. Robert might be a rake, but he was her rake.
A strange expression came over his face, after which he got up and went to the chair where he’d deposited his clothes. As he stepped into his breeches, grief raked her heart.
She could only deduce the note was an invitation. He was off to rendezvous with his intended bride who, despite his claims, clearly meant to be a proper wife to him. The notion pierced Maggie’s soul. She dropped onto her haunches, covered her face, and broke into sobs.
Seconds later, the wardrobe door swung open. Robert did not look pleased to find her weeping amongst his new clothes.
“What the devil are you doing in here?”
“Hiding from the king,” she said meekly.
He went white. “You have been in here this whole time?”
She sniffed. “I have.”
“Oh, Maggie.” He looked aghast. “Pray tell me you did not watch what went on.”
“Are you asking me to lie?”
“Nay, but Jesus.” He covered his face and shook his head. “What you must think of me.”
“My opinion matters not a jot anymore,” she said glumly.
He dropped his hands and looked at her. “How can you say so? What you think matters a great deal to me.”
“Why should it when you will soon be wed to another?”
His brow creased and his eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
