The Mistress of Sternwood Grange

by Arabella Knight

  A NEXUS CLASSIC

  THE MISTRESS

  OF STERNWOOD

  GRANGE

  Arabella Knight

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  By the same author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9780753542477

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  This book is a work of fiction.

  In real life, make sure you practise safe, sane and consensual sex.

  First published in 1998 by

  Nexus

  Thames Wharf Studios

  Rainville Road

  London W6 9HA

  Copyright © Arabella Knight 1998

  This Nexus Classic edition 2003

  The right of Arabella Knight to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  www.nexus-books.co.uk

  ISBN 0 352 33850 4

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

  Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St Ives PLC

  By the same author:

  THE ACADEMY

  CONDUCT UNBECOMING

  CANDY IN CAPTIVITY

  SUSIE IN SERVITUDE

  TAKING PAINS TO PLEASE

  BROUGHT TO HEEL

  INTIMATE INSTRUCTION

  THE MISTRESS OF

  STERNWOOD GRANGE

  Drawing up her silk panties luxuriously, she lingered at her thighs before snapping them into place. She thumbed the tight material where it snuggled into her cleft, and eased the bite of the amorous silk at her slit. On the bed, the naked man grunted.

  ‘I distinctly said no peeping. No peeping at Nanny in her silk underwear. I know you want to. Every naughty boy does. But I shall spank your bare bottom if I catch you looking at Nanny putting on her suspender belt and stockings. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Nanny,’ he said meekly.

  One

  Amanda tossed her blonde mane back and surrendered up her nakedness to the shower. Closing her eyes, she relished the sensation of the jet of water raking her breasts. The sluice rinsed the foaming gel she had palmed into her bosom, driving the bubbles down her deep cleavage to her pubis below. The scented foam gathered in the nest of her gold pubic fuzz. Parting her thighs, and crushing her bottom into the black tiles behind, Amanda felt the cascade hammering at her belly, hips and thighs. Soon, the bubbles were swirling at her feet then draining away between her toes. With them went some – but not all – of her anger. Only a week ago, just as the Canadian project had been declared a success, she had been downsized from the consultancy. The process had been brisk and humiliating. Denied access to her desk in the Millbank office block, she had been handed the last eight months of her working life in a bin liner and escorted to the door. The severance cheque had been big, but the lies had been bigger.

  ‘My problem is, Amanda,’ the project manager had explained, ‘I just don’t have the scope here to use your talents to their full potential.’

  Blonde, too young, too successful. A threat, Amanda had decoded.

  As the anger seeped out of her naked body, new sensations flooded in. Glimpsing the reflection of her breasts in the tiles opposite, Amanda raised her hands and cupped their wet flesh. The trapped nipples, already hardened by the punishing shower, thickened and puckered into pleasure buds. Amanda squeezed her breasts, splaying her thighs wider apart and grinding her buttocks into the tiles behind. Below the dripping pubic fringe, within the velvet curtains of labial flesh, a flame ignited. Her hands worked her breasts more fiercely, ruthlessly seeking to fuel the fire. Closing her eyes tightly, Amanda vowed never to be bullied, cheated or manipulated ever again. She had brains, spirit and a good track record. She had been too naive and trusting – but would be so no more. From now on, she determined, punishing her captive breasts and tormenting her nipples beween finger and thumb pincers, she would play tough. Tough, and dirty, if she had to. The smouldering heat between her thighs blazed, releasing droplets of molten lust. Her labia parted with a hungry smile, the flesh-lips glistening in their eagerness. Amanda guided her right hand down, palming her flat belly and caressing her thighs. The tip of her thumb sought out and found her clitoris. The flesh-thorn rose to salute the touch of her thumb as it stroked – with ever increasing pressure – until Amanda arched up on tiptoe, tensed for her climax.

  Snap. The brass letter box rapped loudly against the white door of her Notting Hill flat as the post hit the Macedonian carpet below. In her shower, the water a mere teasing trickle now, Amanda’s spinning brain pounced on the sound. Close to orgasm, and surrendering all sensations to it, she struggled to ignore the arrival of her mail and tried to concentrate on coming. But the sound had insinuated itself into her mind. Was it a reprieve? A belated recognition of the vital contribution she had made to the Canadian project? An invitation to return to her desk at Millbank? Thumbing herself mercilessly, the nude blonde pushed these annoying distractions aside – but they remained to haunt her. With a snarl of frustration, she grabbed a towel and scampered out to the hall to pick up the letter. Retracing her damp footprints, she perched her bottom on the edge of a leather sofa, sinking her cheeks into the supple hide. The letter absorbed her for several minutes. She read it quickly then perused it carefully at length, penetrating the thicket of legal jargon. She was, the letter instructed, to contact the senders – a firm of solicitors – who had information to convey to her which could prove to be of considerable material advantage. Pruning the letter of its herewiths and thereunto foliage, she knew she had come into some serious gravy.

  ‘Yippee.’ Amanda wiggled her bare bottom into the leather, hugging her breasts excitedly. Aunt Clare had died nine weeks ago. It must be her will. Scanning the letter, Amanda picked up the phone and made an appointment for ten thirty that morning.

  Rushing the remains of her cold coffee and toast, Amanda dashed into her bedroom. Picking up the abandoned towel, she patted her breasts, removing stray toast crumbs and sparkling droplets of water. The satin flesh bulged as she rubbed more vigorously, squashing her swollen curves. With the towel between her thighs, she dragged it gently up towards her belly, catching and inflaming her clitoris. The climax denied her in the shower began to well up implacably. Amanda glanced at her Mickey Mouse clock. Nine twenty-three. She just had time.

  Kneeling, legs apart, she threaded a single black Fogal stocking between h
er thighs, clasping it tightly – one hand in front, the other stretched out behind. The sheer nylon caught in her cleft, biting deeply into the shadowed flesh between her heavy buttocks. Amanda dug her toes into the carpet as she guided the stocking expertly, allowing it to ravish the ribbon of velvety flesh between her cheeks. The tremors in her belly arrowed down like forked lightning as the taut nylon skimmed between her sticky labia, teasing her clitoris up into a peak of exquisite agony. The stretched nylon grew stained and glistened darkly as she plied it deftly. Her blue eyes deepened from cornflower to indigo as the Fogal rasped her clitoris with an increasingly savage tenderness. Amanda gasped. Her pumping hands became a blur. At the base of her belly, the inner muscled walls spasmed – she suddenly squealed aloud and tumbled forward, pressing her face into the carpet. Squeezing her thighs together, trapping the skein of black stocking between her labia, she rolled over on to her back. She was coming. As the orgasm surged within her tingling slit, she splayed her legs and arms. Spread-eagled, she surrendered and came, pounding her buttocks into the carpet as the gentle violence of her climax gripped her naked body.

  Nine thirty-eight. No time for another shower. Amanda splashed her sticky flesh with cupped handfuls of rose water to mask the pungent tang and stepped into a pair of white cotton panties. Although early June, with all the promise of another hot London day, she knew the treachery of a sudden summer downpour. Skirt and blouse, she decided, playing safe. The white panties stretched across her plump bottom, the elastic hugging her trim waist amorously. Palming them smoothly into place, she plucked at the cleft and fingered the cotton away where it clung to her sticky labia. The brassiere was ice-blue, a lightweight silk half-cupped confection that bound her bosom with surprising firmness, disciplining the ripe breasts and controlling their weight within its strict bondage.

  Standing in front of her full-length looking glass, Amanda studied her reflection. The hastily donned scanties of cotton and silk contrived to reveal more than conceal her curved charms. Full frontal: she appraised her slender legs sweeping up to the firm thighs, their flesh honey-hued and satin soft. She patted her flat tummy and allowed her fingers to stray at the cleavage between her thrusting breasts. Through the pale-blue silk, she saw the bold, mulberry nipples. Turning, she glanced into the glass at her profile. The buttocks were pert, slightly heavy and invitingly rounded. The bosom was superb. Amanda twiddled with her left earlobe – a gesture common to her when contemplating. She perused her breasts, scrutinizing them closely – the half-cupped brassiere thrust them up deliciously.

  Five to ten. Mickey Mouse looked as if he had just clapped his hands to hurry Amanda out of her narcissistic reverie. Her tangled mane of wet blonde hair was briskly towelled before submitting to twenty punishing strokes of her cherrywood hairbrush. Too hot for tights, and there was no time for the delicacy of stockings and a waspie suspender. Her breasts bulged in their half-cups as she stepped into a cream mini-shirt, and joggled as she struggled into a pale-blue shirt. Gold ear-studs. Cartier watch. One minute past ten. Amanda grabbed her sandals, purse and a cab in Pembridge Road and made it to the solicitors in Bird Cage Walk exactly on time.

  The receptionist looked like she should have been in a girl-band. Reluctantly dragging herself away from her nail varnish, Cadbury’s Flake and fashion glossy, she showed Amanda into a spacious, yet still cluttered, office. Hogarth prints, deed boxes, files, folders and dusty legal tomes littered the walls, shelves and desk tops in sober chaos. An elderly man looked up, peering quizzically at Amanda over gold-rimmed glasses.

  ‘So good of you to come –’ he peered at the letter Amanda had shown him ‘– Miss Silk.’

  Amanda, suppressing her smile at the memory of her black Fogal stocking, merely nodded and looked across the desk expectantly.

  Twelve minutes later, Amanda was none the wiser. The solicitor mumbled and bumbled as he searched for documents, pored through closely typed paragraphs and fiddled endlessly with his glasses. Amanda, quick to think and fast to act, indulged his slow progress. Tuning into his old-fashioned charm and Victorian turn of speed, she settled down and waited patiently – wishing the polished seat of her wooden chair were a little kinder to her numbing buttocks. He rambled, in unconnected snatches of speed, about her late Aunt Clare’s sound business sense, but was maddeningly vague on detail. Nothing concrete was forthcoming, but clearly Aunt Clare had been running some sort of lucrative enterprise right up to the end.

  ‘A lady of considerable acumen,’ he remarked, flicking open a file which Amanda saw contained the will.

  ‘Am I –’ she began.

  The door opened abruptly and a stern-faced woman in her thirties walked in. Amanda looked up, noting the grey eyes, dark hair and the supple grace of the athletic figure. Dressed in severely tailored business style, the woman exuded efficiency, authority and a brisk sense of purpose.

  ‘Thank you, Dobson. I will take it from here,’ she said crisply. ‘Amanda Silk? Celia Flaxstone. I am familiar with your late aunt’s affairs. I’m afraid I wasn’t available to greet you but I distinctly remember telling that wretched receptionist that I was to deal with you.’

  Amanda noted the flash of anger in the grey eyes of Celia Flaxstone, though the thin smile on the lipstick-free mouth was sustained. A woman capable of wrath, Amanda thought. Mr Dobson ambled out as Celia Flaxstone commandeered his vacated chair.

  ‘How much has Dobson told you?’

  ‘Practically nothing.’ Amanda shrugged, slightly startled by the ferocity of the tone.

  ‘Practically?’ echoed the woman, searching Amanda’s face with her grey eyes.

  ‘Only that she was successful in her enterprise.’

  ‘I see.’ The tone softened – more from relief than civility. ‘To be brief. Your aunt had, in her later years, concentrated all her energies and assets in one enterprise. The details are immaterial –’

  ‘A farm? Racehorses?’ Amanda queried, remembering that Aunt Clare lived in the depths of Suffolk.

  ‘She was moderately successful,’ Celia Flaxstone continued imperturbably, ignoring Amanda’s questions, ‘but somewhat eccentric. There is a codicil in her will stipulating that any beneficiaries should refrain from inquiring into the nature of her business or indeed become in any manner whatsoever involved in it. I will add that in my –’

  ‘This business. What is it?’

  ‘I think I have made it clear that the codicil in her will precludes any disclosure of that nature. A little whim of an elderly lady, let us say, but which I, as her executrix, must honour and uphold. I suggest that –’

  ‘How much did it make?’

  ‘Difficult to say,’ the solicitor countered suavely. ‘I suggest that you leave it all to me. Your aunt was not all that successful. There is no fortune –’

  ‘But Mr Dobson –’

  ‘Dobson was being loyal. Age defending age.’

  Amanda tugged at her earlobe, wishing that the gentle if maddeningly slow Mr Dobson were sitting opposite. She trusted him. She did not trust Celia Flaxstone. No, not distrust, exactly. But certainly dislike, Amanda reflected, twiddling with her ear.

  ‘Just leave it to me, Miss Silk. I will tie up all the outstanding loose ends for you and after an initial lump sum, say ten or twelve thousand, I will arrange an annuity for you, possibly amounting to as much as three and a half thousand a year.’

  Amanda suddenly resented being managed so efficiently, as if she were a troublesome child. The solicitor was now speaking rapidly, overriding the chance to query or question what seemed to be already settled and decided. Amanda could not recall giving her consent. It was as if Celia Flaxstone were determined to exclude Amanda from getting anywhere near to her late aunt’s affairs.

  ‘I will organise death duties and capital gains, of course, as part of my letters of administration.’

  She’s fobbing me off. She’s fobbing me off with ten grand and a yearly handful of chicken feed, Amanda suddenly thought. Her business experience, and the MB
A completed last year, had taught her all she needed to know about capital transfer tax. Besides, if her aunt’s estate included buildings or land, the legacy would be much greater than any sum Celia Flaxstone had declared.

  ‘Ascot or Epsom?’

  Amanda looked blankly across the heap of files.

  ‘The Season. Will you be going? The tennis starts at the Queen’s Club tomorrow.’

  I’m getting the thank-you-for-coming-in-to-see-me-and-now-it’s-time-to-go treatment, Amanda realised, flushing slightly with resentment.

  ‘The will,’ she blurted out, not meaning to be so direct. ‘May I see –’

  ‘Probably still in the probate office,’ Celia lied, closing the folder Mr Dobson had earlier managed to locate and begin to peruse. ‘When in due course the document is forthcoming I will of course forward a copy to you.’ The grey eyes narrowed, the resolute lips pursed. Celia Flaxstone stood up and held out her hand. The interview was clearly at an end, although Amanda was far from satisfied.

  ‘Nice little windfall, and pocket money to follow. Provided the process is uninterrupted.’

  Amanda sensed she was being warned off.

  ‘Best keep these things uncomplicated,’ the solicitor purred.

  Celia’s grey eyes met Amanda’s blue gaze over the desk top. They shook hands perfunctorily, though Amanda sensed the strength in the solicitor’s firm grip. Amanda knew that the concluding words had been a subtle threat. Accept what I tell you – or else risk delay, perhaps risk everything. With this stern advice ringing in her ears, Amanda was escorted to the front door. It closed behind her and, to her surprise, Amanda heard the latch click and a bolt being drawn.

  Blinded by the late-morning sun, Amanda paused, resting her hand on the black iron railings. They were hot. Stung into alertness, she felt her anger rising. She had, she knew, been efficiently managed by Celia Flaxstone, who was even now probably laughing at how she had effectively dealt with the dizzy young blonde who had come in hope of a fortune. Turning, she remembered the sound of the front door being locked and bolted. Amanda felt a blaze of angry resentment surging up within her. She would go straight back in there, she decided, and confront the capable Celia Flaxstone. Undaunted by the stern authority of the dominant woman, Amanda resolved to demand to see the will.