Her Two Doms

by Ashe Barker

  “It’s my ancestral carpet, too,” Declan points out, though I note he is already removing his jacket.

  “Yeah?” Fraze settles back against the pillows. “Then I assume it’ll be your ancestral electricity bill as well. Turn the fucking lights out, will you?”

  Three days later, I’m with Fraze and Declan in Fraze’s rambling house in Hatfield. Fraze and I caught the flight back from Inverness as planned and came here. Declan followed us a day later, when his mother was released from the intensive care ward.

  The place is less the elegant ducal residence, more rustic retreat. A converted barn, it has four bedrooms and three acres of wooded garden, and is my favourite of Fraze’s three homes. The afternoon is warm, and we are seated on the flagged patio, cool beers on the table before us. My pussy and arse both throb still from the attention both channels received, first when Declan joined us here last night and again this morning when the three of us awoke in Fraze’s bed. I am contentedly satisfied, at least in the physical sense, but I know, too, that something is still bugging Declan. He’s quiet, withdrawn, clearly uncomfortable.

  Fraze, for all his sharp-tongued humour, is no less attuned to the residual tension between us. He regards Declan with a calm, assessing air.

  “You’re thinking incest,” he announces.

  Declan almost chokes on his Belgian lager. “What?” he splutters, before succumbing to a fit of uncontrollable coughing as he tries to clear his airways.

  Fraze makes no move to assist his stricken sibling. It’s left to me to leap to my feet to slap Declan between the shoulder blades. I glower at Fraze.

  “What are you talking about?” I demand. “Are you mad?”

  Fraze shakes his head. “No, not mad. But neither am I a man prone to repeating his mistakes. I let important things remain unsaid before, and that didn’t work, did it? If there’s an elephant in the room, let’s be naming it.”

  “What elephant?” Declan manages to croak the question. “What the fuck…?”

  “We were always friends, and now we know we’re brothers, right? You and me.” Fraze takes another drink from the neck of his bottle. “And we share the same bed. With Ellie, naturally.”

  “Naturally,” agrees Dec, still wheezing. “What would be the fucking point otherwise?”

  “Quite. Ellie’s what links us, sexually. Nothing else. It’s not you and me. It’s you and her. And me and her. We share our submissive, because it’s the kink we both enjoy.”

  “We all three enjoy,” I correct him.

  He acknowledges my remark with a small nod. “I love you, bro. But you know that. You’ve always known that.”

  “What is this?” Declan appears bewildered.

  “This is me telling it like it is. You and me are close, Dec. We always were, always will be. And now we have Ellie, so in my book that makes things just about fucking perfect. My cock turns solid pretty much every time I look at her. Yours, too?” Her pauses, that aristocratic eyebrow raised.

  Declan manages a curt nod. “Instant hard-on.”

  “Right. For her, though. Not for me.”

  Declan gives a derisive snort. “Of course not for you.”

  Fraze grins at him. “Don’t knock it, mate. There’s plenty of guys would find me hot. Still, neither of us is wired that way, so…”

  “Right. It’s for Ellie. Although knowing that you’re there, watching. Touching her, perhaps…”

  Fraze chuckles and winks at me as heat flares in my features. “I know. It all adds to the experience. But without Ellie we’re just friends. Brothers. If we didn’t have her, that’s still what we’d be. That’s all we’d be. Right?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying nothing’s changed, at least not from where I sit. What about you, sweetheart?” He directs his gaze at me.

  I shake my head. “No. Definitely not. I love you both. I love this life we have.”

  And I do. I love it when either or both of them show up in Richmond, or I go to Declan’s ultra-modern penthouse in Peterborough or this lovely old place in the heart of rural Hertfordshire. I’m not sure how things will work if…no, when we return to Hathersmuir together, but we’ll deal with that when the time comes. I adore the one-on-one fucking which they are both so adept at, but the double Dom relationship is simply mind-blowing. I can’t imagine anything else, could never contemplate wanting anything, anyone else.

  “What about you?” Fraze fixes his gaze on Declan, deep emerald eyes locked onto dark mahogany ones. “Can you get past the nonsense of the last few days? Get back to where we were? Where Ellie and I still are?” He lowers his voice. “You can see what’s at stake.”

  Long moments pass. Neither wavers, neither breaks eye contact. My gaze is locked on to Declan. He has to be the one to back down, to come around. A part of me, a tiny part, could cheerfully wring Fraze’s neck for forcing the issue like this, but a larger part wants the certainty. Either way.

  Declan’s nod is barely perceptible. I see it and let out a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding.

  Dark ebony eyes swing from Fraze, to me, then back again. “Okay. But I’m not saying nothing’s changed. Some things have. Or will. But not this. Not us.”

  Fraze finishes his beer and gets to his feet. “Fair enough. Glad we got that settled. Another beer?”

  Chapter Twelve

  I’m writing up some notes in my lab when my mobile rings. I glance at the display.

  Declan.

  I hit ‘accept’. “Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m good. My mum just phoned. She’s coming home tomorrow.”

  “Really? That’s wonderful.”

  Allannah has been on a normal ward for the last ten days, and despite the reassurances from the hospital staff, I know Declan has fretted about her. He’s made two return visits to Inverness when he could shoehorn the trip into his playing and training schedule but mostly he’s had to rely on updates from Miranda.

  “Is she going to Hathersmuir or her cottage?”

  “She still has her arm in plaster and has to use a wheelchair so it’ll be Hathersmuir at first. Fraze and I thought we’d go up there, spend a few days.”

  “Want company?”

  “We were hoping you’d say that. There’s a flight first thing in the morning.”

  “Shall I book the tickets?”

  “I already did. Can you get to Heathrow for six-thirty?”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  Wilson met us at the airport, but Fraze and I hopped in a taxi for the drive to Hathersmuir while Declan took the limo and headed into the city to accompany his mother back from the hospital. We’ve been awaiting their arrival in the drawing room at Hathersmuir.

  “They’re here.” Miranda pops her head around the door. “I just spotted the car from the landing window.” She hurries on across the hall in the direction of the front door, throws that open, and goes out onto the top step.

  Fraze, Stuart, and their two boys follow Miranda outside, so there’s quite a welcoming committee assembled to greet the car as Wilson pulls up outside. Fraze jogs down the steps to open the car door and help the ex-housekeeper out.

  Allannah’s right arm is in a sling and she sinks gratefully into the wheelchair which Declan produces from the car boot. Still, there’s no mistaking the beaming smile as she looks up at the facade of Hathersmuir.

  Fraze doesn’t miss it, either. “Welcome home, Allannah.” He kisses her cheek. “Your old apartment’s all ready for you.”

  He means the spacious flat she used to occupy when she worked here, the one which, in theory at least, Declan still uses on the rare occasions he returns to the Highlands. In practice the three of us will share Fraze’s apartment.

  “Thank you. It’s really very kind of you to let me come back here to recuperate.”

  “Where else would you go? This is your home. It always has been.” Miranda jostles Fraze aside so she can also drop a kiss on Allannah’s cheek. “Do you want to go straigh
t up there, get some rest, perhaps?”

  “I’ve been resting for the best part of three weeks. I don’t suppose there’s a nice cup of tea to be had, is there?”

  “Mrs McBride will bring a tray to the drawing room.” Miranda beckons to her brothers. “You two can manage the wheelchair up the steps, can’t you?”

  A few minutes later, with the exception of the two boys who are again going fishing with the ghillie, we’re all seated in the elegant drawing room, the sunlight dappling the carpet through the French window. Allannah looks about her.

  “I see you moved the Lowry.” She is scowling at the beautiful landscape painting above the main fireplace

  “Yes,” agrees Miranda. “It’s in the library now. We thought the Gainsborough looked better in here.”

  In the weeks I’ve spent at Hathersmuir, I’ve become accustomed to the family bandying around the names of great artists whose works hang on the walls. Apparently, the old duke was a renowned collector. I’ve also gotten used to the notion that we have a drawing room, and a library, and even a great ballroom on the first floor, though Fraze insists it’s intended for ball games such as cricket.

  Allannah purses her lips. “The chandelier in the hallway needs cleaning.”

  “I’ll mention it to Mrs McBride,” Miranda promises. “It is still just one lump of sugar, isn’t it?”

  “Thank you, yes.” Allannah takes a sip of her tea and nods her approval. At least Mrs McBride is not found wanting here. She takes another drink then sets her cup down on the saucer. “I’m glad we’re all together. I was hoping for a chance to explain…”

  “There’s no need. Really.”

  It’s as though Fraze never spoke.

  Allannah continues. “It was all a long time ago now, of course. But you have a right to know.”

  When Miranda would have interrupted, Allannah waves her good hand at her. “Please, let me finish…”

  Miranda subsides, and we all sit in silence, waiting.

  Allannah furrows her brow as though gathering her thoughts. “I was just eighteen and working as a waitress in Glasgow. I’d not long moved over here from Clarinbridge. That’s in County Galway. There were no jobs in Ireland, so…”

  Fraze gets to his feet and goes to stand by the window. “Is that where you met my father, then? In Glasgow?”

  “Yes. I worked behind the bar in a hotel, and he was staying there. He asked for a whisky, and I told him the Lyons was best. He laughed and said I was dead right there. We got chatting, and one thing led to another.” She gazes off into space. “He was good company…”

  “Did you love him?” asks Miranda.

  Allannah considers that for a few moments. “Maybe, a little. For a while at least. Long enough to…well, you know…” She gives a wry laugh. “It was only a temporary thing, we both knew that. He was married, he had responsibilities, a family. He made no secret of it, and I was too young and silly to care. I’m not proud of that, it was wrong, I know. But he was nice to me, we had fun. Then his business in Glasgow was done, and he left the hotel. A few weeks later, I realised that I was expecting.”

  She reaches for the teapot, but Miranda beats her to it.

  “Let me.”

  Her cup replenished, Allannah resumes her story. “I knew who he was, obviously. I knew about Hathersmuir, his family home. So I wrote him a letter. I explained the predicament I was in and asked him for money. I thought ten thousand pounds would be enough to set me up, see me through the pregnancy and birth, and make sure me and the baby had a place to live, food. Babies are expensive, and it wasn’t a lot, not to him. I half expected him to refuse, to say there was no proof the baby was even his. There would have been nothing I could have done…”

  “I take it he didn’t refuse.”

  Alannah glances up at Fraze. “No. He gave me the money, all ten thousand pounds of it. He also offered me a job and a home. Here.” She flutters her hand. “Of course, I refused, it just seemed weird. Sort of awkward. We were a fling, it wasn’t meant to wreck his marriage or tie us to each other for life. But he came looking for me in Glasgow. He handed me the cheque for the money but convinced me to at least try his suggestion until the baby was born. So I did. I reckoned I had nothing to lose, and I didn’t want to be pregnant and on my own. Going back to Ireland was quite out of the question, so I came back here with your father as assistant cook. It was a decent job. I had a nice room and my board, and when I needed it I had time off. He insisted I go to a lovely private hospital to give birth, the same one your mother went to. I was very well looked after. He even came to see me while I was there. He brought you, Miss Miranda, though you won’t remember. You were very tiny…”

  Allannah smiles, the recollections obviously pleasant. “A few weeks after Declan was born, I was told I could leave my baby with the family nanny if I wanted to while I went back to my duties in the kitchen. If the other staff or the duchess thought it odd, no one said anything. He was the duke, you see, and he said I could stay.”

  “Yes, he could be pretty forceful when he wanted to be,” agrees Miranda.

  Allannah nods. “You were just a little girl then, perhaps fours years old. And your brother was born six months after my Declan, so they were always playmates. They were brought up together, in the nursery here at Hathersmuir, then they went to school together. Meanwhile I went to college. I got qualifications in catering so I could support myself and my little boy. I might have moved on, I could have, but there was never any pressure to do that. Declan was happy, and I was offered the job of cook when old Mrs Flynn retired. It was the duchess who promoted me.”

  “Did our mother know? About you and…?”

  Allannah nods. “I’m certain she did. But she was no fool. She also knew that her husband loved her, not me. I was no threat, and although at times she seemed cold and distant, she was never vindictive. She seemed content to let me stay here as long as I didn’t flaunt the fact that her husband fathered my son. So I didn’t. I kept my head down, did my best to be a good employee. I enjoyed the work. I was happy here. Then, when the duchess passed away, it seemed I couldn’t leave even if I’d wanted to. I was needed at Hathersmuir, and I felt I owed it to the family to stay, to do what I could to help…”

  “No one could have done more. I don’t know how we’d have managed without you.” Fraze strides back from the window to crouch in front of his old housekeeper. “I loved my mother, don’t get me wrong about that, and I missed her. But even when she was alive, you were always a hell of a lot warmer. You were always the one to go to with cut knees or broken toys.”

  Miranda reaches for Allannah’s uninjured hand. “You made a ball dress for my Sindy doll. And you were the one I came to the day I started my periods.”

  “Well, of course. Who else—?”

  “We knew all along. About you and our father. We knew Declan was our half-brother.”

  “I wondered. I was never sure… I didn’t want anyone to be hurt.”

  “We weren’t.”

  “And your mother? What about the duchess?”

  Miranda flattens her lips, thinking. Her response is a while in coming. “From what you say, it sounds as though she learned to live with it. The fact that you never flaunted your relationship, never forced her to confront it, probably helped.”

  “There was no relationship, not after that first time. I worked here, that was all. I was staff.”

  Fraze shakes his head. “You were always a lot more than that, Allannah. You both were, you and Dec. You must know that. That’s why our father left Lyons Whisky to Declan, the most lucrative of his businesses, not tied to the estate. That distillery makes a fortune. It was his way of providing for his son. Your cottage, too, and your pension. He was making sure you’d always have a roof over your head, always be comfortable. Not just staff, not by a long chalk.”

  “I was worried that you might resent it, your father’s generosity.”

  “There was always enough to go round, and we got used t
o sharing our toys as we grew up.”

  He catches my eye, then Declan’s. I flush scarlet as Miranda clears her throat. I imagine Stuart has had a word by now.

  “Would anyone like any more tea?”

  We all decline, so Mrs McBride is summoned to clear the tray away.

  “Shall I help you upstairs?” offers Declan. “You know, Fraze got a lift installed.”

  “You didn’t! For me?”

  “Of course for you.” Fraze grasps the handles of the wheelchair. “Nothing but the best.” He wheels her toward the door. “Just staff, indeed…”

  I hesitate at the door to Fraze’s room. He’s here, as I knew he would be. Declan, too, and the pair of them are deep in conversation. The dark head and the pale blond one are close as they speak softly, earnestly. They pause and look over at me, framed in the doorway.

  Suddenly self-conscious and unsure, I make to retreat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you…”

  “No, come in.” Fraze smiles at me. “We were just talking about you.”

  I feared as much. And whatever they were saying, it’s serious and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear it. I inhale deeply, then step forward into the room and close the door behind me with a gentle click. “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  Fraze furrows his brow. “Not wrong, exactly. But we’ve been discussing our…arrangement and we’d like to make some changes.”

  “Changes,” I echo, my heart sinking. Is this it? The moment when they explain, gently but firmly, that I don’t fit in here, at Hathersmuir. That this is their world, not mine? I look from one to the other, and I wait.

  Declan wanders across to the huge four-poster bed and perches on the end of it. “These last few weeks…” he begins, his gaze on his shoes. He raises his eyes to meet mine. “There’s been so much upheaval, a lot has changed. Relationships shifting, things we took for granted…”