The Duke's Dilemma: Regency Romance Menage Short Stories

by Lacoste, G. G.

  This time, it was Stanley who collapsed to the ground in a fit of pleasure. Thankfully, Marisa was holding onto him rather forcibly and followed him to the kitchen floor with great ease.

  "I love you, Marisa,” he said through his moans.

  "I love you too" replied the maid before taking that rock-like organ and placing it inside her. The woman shivered in indulgence when she felt Stanley enter her body, as did he when he felt Marisa move up and down on top of him, allowing their glands to meet, pass and meet several times in a row. Marisa screamed in delight as she continued to ride on Stanley’s body, her hands pressed tightly against his chest in order to steady herself. Then, finally, came the moment of orgasm. It was perfect. For both of them, there was nothing greater than that all too short snippet of time when they felt closer than they would ever feel again. They were one.

  Panting, sweaty and satisfied, Marisa rolled off the Duke and lay down on the floor next to him. She rested one hand on her belly as she tried to catch her breath. Stanley held her other hand tightly in his own and had no intentions of letting it go. Through her deep breaths and sighs of exhaustion, Marisa managed to turn her face to her fiancée and say "I love you" once again. He didn't reply. He didn't have to. Marisa knew that Stanley loved her more than anything else in the world, even if he responded to her in silence. She would never doubt his feelings for her. Now, as they lay on the kitchen floor, too tired to return to their feet, Stanley knew that he would spend the rest of his life content with the same reply of silence from Marisa. No matter what anybody, living or dead, had to say about it, Stanley would never doubt Marisa's love for him again.

  THE END

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  The Duke’s Demand

  Regency Romance

  By: Rosamund Talbot

  The Duke’s Demand

  Chapter One

  Veronica had always been aware of her of her husband's extramarital affairs. She knew that he was an extremely passionate man and that it would be totally unreasonable of her to expect him to love her and her alone. In the fifteen years they had been married, Veronica's husband had been involved a number of steamy and tempestuous romances with a number of steamy and tempestuous women. His lovers included wealthy women who were recently widowed, lonely wives who could no longer stand the emotional distance of their husbands, women of the street, Veronica's friends and, in some cases, her family. Sometimes, though not often, Veronica was bothered by the thought of her husband's infidelities; it pained her, as it would any woman, to think about the man to whom she was married conducting sexual encounters with other women inside their marital home. However, it was a testament to Veronica's self-confidence and open-mindedness that she was generally able to bear the knowledge that she was being cheated on and go about her daily routine without crumbling under the burden of what some would perceive as unrequited love. Perhaps Veronica was not quite as open-minded as she liked to believe herself to be; after all, it was in her best interests to stay married to her husband. He was a wealthy Duke with strong connections to the higher members of the royal family, right up to the Prince Reagent. In fact, he was so close to some of the more valued sharers of the bloodline that he was one of the first people in the United Kingdom to learn about King George being deemed unfit to rule, an insider's tip which he shared with his wife almost immediately. Learning of important events concerning the throne before the rest of the country made Veronica feel privileged, as did the money and esteem which accompanied being the wife of a duke. Not a single one of her husband's lovers got to experience that. With the exception of a handful of money here and there to keep quiet, those whores and potential home wreckers never lived anything close to the life Veronica lived.

  One dull September afternoon, Veronica took her usual seat by the window of the dining room and gazed ideally into the cloudy sky, which seemed to rise from the ground at the end of the estate. The frost that had developed during the cold of the previous night was now slowly retreating into water beneath the gentle warmth of the soft sun. On the tree to the left of the window, a gutsy spider busied itself in rebuilding its web, which had presumably been destroyed by the gardener, who made it his mission to destroy any and all spider webs he found on the property. For some reason, though, he never destroyed any actual spiders. Veronica suspected this was because he needed the spiders to keep him busy; if he killed those eight-legged annoyances, there would be no more spider webs for him to rid the manor of and so there would be less demand for his services, or so he thought. In reality, nowhere in the gardener's job description did it state that he was expected to remove spider webs. That was the duty of the maid. Nevertheless, Veronica did not interrupt the gardener when he came along to destroy this latest spider web. It was an interesting spectacle, which provided her with a minute or so of entertainment as she looked on from her spot behind the window. Besides, the maid was not exactly fulfilling her role. For the past number of weeks, it seemed as though the young maid was neglecting her duties. She seemed disinterested in her job and Veronica rarely encountered her as she journeyed throughout her home. What she did encounter, however, were spider webs and dust and a general filth, which on more than one occasion had caused the Duchess to fetch a rag and bucket of water and clean the manor herself.

  Shortly after the gardener had disposed of the latest spider web on the first tree to the left of the window, Veronica's listless daydreams were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. Her husband had left early that morning, probably to visit one of his many lovers, and was only now returning to the manor.

  "Veronica!" he called as he shut the door behind him, the clicking of the rusted metal lock nearly overpowering the sound of his voice.

  "I'm in the dining room, Edward" she replied before rising from her seat so she could greet the Duke upon his entrance. This was not something that he demanded, nor particularly desired, but Veronica had been raised to respect powerful men and so she always stood to greet her husband as he entered a room.

  "Where did you go this morning?" she asked him as he removed his coat and placed it on the coat stand, which resided just inside the dining room door.

  "I had a very important meeting, dear" replied Edward. He knew Veronica knew of his affairs with other women and some time ago the couple had silently agreed on using a "meeting" as some sort of code word, so neither of them would ever really have to acknowledge his blatant unfaithfulness.

  "I want to talk to you about the maid" began Veronica, not taking a second to ask about her husband's "meeting".

  "What about the maid?"

  "I think we need to let her go. She has not done a scrap of work in weeks and I think it is entirely unfair that we are still paying her for her services."

  "Marie is a hard worker" her husband replied in defence of the maid, "she has been with us for five years and has never failed us before.

  "Marie? Why are you calling her by her first name?"

  "Because she is a human being and deserves to be called by her first name."

  Veronica could sense that something was not right. Though the Duke had never been one to create barriers between himself and the help, he was extremely forgetful. The gardener, who had been staff at the manor since the day the couple made it their home, told Edward his name on what was an almost daily basis and still it remained
in its cosy home on the tip of the Duke's tongue. The cook, who prepared exquisite cuisines for his employers three times daily had never been referred to by the right name by the man of the house and the poor butler had been forced to get used to being called "Francis" despite the fact his name was, and always had been, Craig. Why was the maid not being treated in a similar manner? It did not occur to Veronica that her husband may be having a relationship with the maid - she believed he knew better than to get involved with his own staff - but she knew there was something going on.

  "You have never called any other member of the help by their first name" she said, challenging her husband to provide a better explanation for his actions.

  "What are you talking about?" he replied, slightly surprised to hear this accusation, "What about Francis?"

  In retrospect, it is unsurprising that the reason for Edward's unusual behaviour was that he was, in fact, involved in a love affair with the maid and had been for the past five months. While he was comfortable with his wife being aware of every single one of his other romantic conquests, the Duke did not want her to find out about his relationship with Marie. He knew that the news would only serve to throw her into a panic and send her off on an unfounded rant about how the maid was probably planning to use their affair to blackmail him and extort money from the couple. Yes, if Veronica found out about the affair, she would become insufferable until the exasperated Duke finally put an end to it, which was far more likely to lead to Marie blackmailing him.

  "Speaking of the staff" Edward began in a transparent attempt to change the subject, "what is the cook preparing for dinner this evening?"

  "I don't know. If you were aware of his name you could call it and ask him yourself."

  "Veronica, I have just returned home and I am really not in the mood for an argument." Edward ran his hand through his hair, as he was prone to doing when angered, and turned away from his wife. Veronica had been married to him for long enough to know that this was a signal for her to leave. Whenever he turned his back to her, it was abundantly clear that he did not want to have any sort of conversation with her, argument or otherwise. Being the good, rule-abiding wife that she was, Veronica left her husband in the dining room and made her way to the chamber.

  The chamber, which the married couple shared, was located on the third floor of the manor and was essentially the only room on the top floor which either of them made any use of. There were four other rooms on that floor, though all four were used only to store the many gifts and honours, which had been bestowed upon the Duke and Duchess over the past fifteen years. One room, the one which was located right beside the chamber, housed all the ornaments and furnishings left behind by the previous inhabitants of the manor which Edward and Veronica deemed unsavoury and not in keeping with either of their personal tastes. Veronica spent a great deal of her time in that chamber, reading novels and plays and collections of poetry. She loved to read. Sometimes it helped her escape her own life, other times it served to remind her that she was quite fortunate to be living her life inside the exquisite walls of that manor. On some occasions, reading made the Duchess long for that blissful first year of marriage, during which she had Edward all to herself. As mentioned before, Veronica was not overly disturbed by the affairs of the Duke, but she couldn't deny that she was much happier before he began loving other women. Back then, he was a generous and passionate lover who would pledge his life-long alliance to the Duchess in the midst of a fiery session of love making. He was romantic, he was powerful and he was energetic. He was engaging, he was captivating and he was breathtaking. Now, fifteen years later, he would still engage in sexual intercourse with Veronica, but it was different. He was different.

  Chapter Two

  As Veronica buried her head between the yellowed pages of a tattered book, which she had read many times in the past, Edward poured himself a glass of wine and sat in his favourite chair in the dining room. Looking at the clock that rested atop the mantle, the Duke was surprised to find that it was just then approaching four in the afternoon. He had believed it to be much later; his bones definitely felt as though they had been dragged through a whole day. He ran the hand, which was not holding a glass of extremely expensive alcohol, through his hair once more and allowed his mind, as he sometimes did, to drift into the past. Like his wife two floors above him, Edward retreated into himself and began to reflect on a time gone by. Unlike Veronica, the Duke did not travel fifteen years backwards in time; in fact, he did not even travel one year back in time. Instead, Edward travelled only as far back as five months in the past; specifically, Edward travelled back to the day he first became romantically involved with the maid.

  It was a quiet day in spring when Edward and Marie began their relationship; or it would have been a quiet day had the birds not been busy making themselves known to all those present in the manor. Not present in the manor that day, and unable to hear the singing of the birds, was the Duchess. She and her sister had arranged to spend a day at the seaside together, which Veronica had been looking forward to for months as it provided her with an opportunity to see her precious niece and nephew. Knowing of the planned day out long in advance allowed Edward to make his own plans for that day; and make plans he did. The Duke arranged for Katy, one of his preferred lovers and a childhood friend of his wife, to be picked up in his personal carriage and carried away to his manor at one o'clock that afternoon. However, when the clock struck one and he heard the sound of somebody entering the manor through the front door, Edward was dismayed to find that Katy had no plans to see him that day; or any other day for that matter.

  "Sir, I'm afraid something terrible has happened" said the Duke's driver, who had been the person to enter the manor.

  "What? What is it?" Edward asked anxiously, too panicked to remind his driver that he was not supposed to enter the house without being summoned.

  "The girl, Madam Katy..."

  "What about her?"

  "She says she can no longer come to the manor as her husband has found out. I do not know what he has found out about, but she insists that you will have greater knowledge than I."

  "I understand" said the Duke as his hand cut through the thick, recently washed hair on his head, "You are dismissed, Sebastien."

  The Driver, whose real name was Maxwell, left the dining room with a tip of his imaginary hat and made his way through the hallway of the manor. While he claimed to have no knowledge of just what Katy's husband had discovered, Maxwell was well aware of everything that had been going on between the Duke and just about every one of his lovers. All of the staff in that manor knew of Edward's incredible lust and libido, it was all but impossible to work there and not unintentionally overhear the screaming sounds of the lord of the manor making love to a woman who was not his wife. While the staff was not particularly concerned with what their master did in his personal life, they did enjoy discussing any major developments in his affairs, which were becoming increasingly similar to something one would find in a Shakespeare drama. It was for this reason that the driver travelled through the manor rather than simply exiting through the front door and returning to his duties; he didn't have to drive anybody anywhere anyway. In the kitchen, Marie, the maid, was busy wiping down counter tops and tightening a knob which had become loose and was at risk of falling from the drawer which it served to open. Maxwell rarely made a visit to the kitchen unless he had news of a big development and so the instant he entered the room, Marie's face lit up with excitement and she demanded to hear the latest plot twist in the love life of the Duke.

  "Oh tell me, darling" Marie exclaimed, "what's he done now?"

  "It is not the Duke who has caused disharmony this time, but rather Katy." Maxwell spoke with a confidence, which was not usually evident in his manner of speech. There was something about being the sole source of much-in-demand news that gave him a sense of importance and self-worth, which his position in life had never allowed him to experience.

  "Katy? Which one is t
hat?" asked the maid, her confused face as scrunched as the rag she clutched in her closed fist.

  "The brunette. The woman with the large breasts and thin waist."

  "Alexia?"

  "No, he ended it with Alexia months ago." Though it was a difficult task and probably wouldn't yield much success, Maxwell spent several more minutes trying to convey an image of Katy vivid enough for the maid to remember the girl. However, his exercise in description was brought to an abrupt end when the Duke came bursting through the kitchen door in a rage fit to rival the hunted bull whose head adorned the wall of the kitchen.

  "What is going on in here?" he yelled, the red fury of his face contrasted in colour only by the blue vein which was protruding from his forehead. Marie jumped from the chair in which she had placed her rump; she was not exactly sure how this action would help, but it seemed better than doing nothing. As soon as he heard the sound of the Duke's voice, Maxwell accepted that he was about to lose his job and so did little jumping or squirming and he certainly did no running. Both the maid and soon-to-be former-driver stood awkwardly, directing their gaze to the floor which Marie had spent the morning washing.