ThePleasureDevice

by Regina Kammer

  Her heart clenched at his pain. She slid her hand across the bench toward him. Nicholas surreptitiously glanced around before placing his palm over her offer of comfort.

  “I never wanted to come back after that. I changed my name to distance myself even more. Ramsay was my mother’s surname.”

  “But you did come back.”

  “Yes. Lavinia insisted. And I suppose I grew tired of aimlessly wandering. I needed to put what I had learned into practice. And I started to have thoughts of having my own family.” He gazed at her. “A proper family.”

  A flush of heat rose in her cheeks. “Did you make amends with your father?”

  “Just before he died. I’m glad of that.” He let out a grunt. “I suppose that’s why he chose me over Bertie—my cousin.”

  The pieces were beginning to fall into place. Somewhere, deep inside, Helena had known to trust Nicholas, to not second-guess why he suddenly appeared before her as a titled bachelor. “You thought me engaged already when you went to see your father.”

  “Yes,” he admitted sullenly. “There was no incentive for me to be the earl. Just a lot of bother, really. And I was rather enjoying my new life.” His expression softened into a mischievous smile. “I probably would have been quite content with doctoring and having you as my mistress.”

  Her pulse quickened.

  He leaned toward her, his breath hot on her skin. “We would not be in this frustrating position at the moment. Instead we’d be satisfying our desires against a tree.”

  Her heart pounded in her ears as a flush of excitement tormented her privates.

  “But I don’t want any of that now.”

  “You don’t?” Helena panicked at what he could possibly mean.

  “No, darling, I don’t, because I want you to be my wife.”

  Helena stifled a squeal of joy, emitting a clipped squeak instead. The horrid noise turned heads on the terrace.

  Which made her giggle.

  “How can I possibly ask you to marry me when you are laughing?” Nicholas asked, clearly trying to quash his own mirth.

  She wanted to scream and shout, twirl about in uninhibited joy. Instead, she sucked her lips between her teeth, struggling to contain a grin.

  “You might want to take a breath soon.”

  It was true, she was holding her breath. “Nicholas,” she puffed, “you’ll need to—”

  “Ask your father?” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. After your last suitor, I plan to do this correctly.”

  Hope and possibility flurried about in her head. “He cannot refuse you. He simply cannot. You’re an earl. It’s what they want for me.”

  He was what she wanted for her as well.

  * * * * *

  Julius had forgotten how exhausting a full day of dealing with frightened mothers and their ill children could be. Perhaps he had been rash in dismissing the young Ramsay. The lad was certainly well-liked, from the inquiries after his health posed by his patients. But Julius had to remind himself, Ramsay knew far too much and meddled in his affairs rather excessively. He exhaled a long breath in exasperation.

  Grace knocked before entering with the tea tray.

  “Thank you, Grace.” Julius eyed her. She also knew too much, but she was useful and, he had to admit, not just as a servant. He watched her, certain she was moving her hips in an exaggerated manner.

  When she was finished with preparing his cup, she went around the office straightening up without a word. She had been very subdued since the incident after he had dismissed Ramsay. As he drank his tea—a bit too strong for his liking—he wondered if he should apologize.

  “Grace?”

  She looked at him with a strained expression. “Yes, Dr. Christopher?”

  “Since you’ve been in my employ I have come to rely upon you.” He took another sip of tea. This time it seemed not just strong, but oddly bitter. He never used sugar but even a lump of that did not help. He winced and put the cup down.

  Grace stepped forward. “Thank you, sir.” She seemed keen to observe his expression. He liked that, he supposed.

  “I just wanted to say that I hope you understand that if I have mistreated you in the past, it was a mistake.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Julius stood to leave. A rush of dizziness made him somewhat unsteady. Exhaustion probably. He got as far as the office door.

  Grace was by his side when he fell to one knee. “Doctor!” She grabbed his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, stupefied. “If you could help me upstairs to the study—”

  “No,” she said firmly. “We’ll just go in here.” She led him into the opposite office and bent him over the examination table. The padded table felt oddly comfortable under his enervated torso. He watched as she set to busying about, with what, he wasn’t quite sure.

  His limbs felt heavy and weak. He tried to lift his head but it could only loll against the padding. His eyes grew drowsy watching Grace. She was doing something with the leather bindings on the sides of the table. He raised his head with great effort and found his upper body had been strapped down. “Grace?” he queried meekly.

  But she said nothing as she closed and locked the office door.

  A sudden rush of anxiety burst into fear. Grace would never do anything to harm him, would she?

  He heard her move the metal cart closer to the examination table, heard her set up the electro-mechanical vibrating machine as she had been taught to do. But she was taking too long, doing something that he didn’t always do to the machine, something they did infrequently, only with certain patients. He tried to think, but his mind was growing murkier by the minute.

  She went to the cabinets, took something out and came back. Her movements were matter-of-fact, as if he were an actual patient and not a…

  Captive.

  She was behind him, unbuttoning his suspenders, unbuttoning his trousers, untucking his shirt.

  She paused only a moment to snap open a pair of shears.

  The blades were cold against his back as she cut right through his trousers and drawers from the waistband to the fly. Alarm lifted him momentarily from his delirious state when the blades passed between his buttocks and under his stones. However, she was very careful. She had learned such delicacy from his lessons in dressing wounds and cutting bandages.

  “Now, Julius,” she said with the blades still poised between his thighs, “you will spread your legs wide. It should be so much easier now that I’ve cut your trousers.”

  He did so with difficulty, his legs as heavy as lead.

  She reached under him and grabbed his cock. He jolted up.

  “Ah, the locus of pleasure,” she said.

  As if a trained courtesan, Grace masturbated him to full stand, coaxing and giggling in his ear. The stimulation was confusing and arousing, his mind somehow disconnected yet all at once immersed in the intense feelings.

  She released him, engorged and unsatisfied. Behind him she moved the machine once again. He heard the familiar click and buzzing of the motor.

  Suddenly her insistent and oily fingers separated his butt cheeks to massage his anus, twisting inside him and pulling out, first one finger, then two. Julius sighed.

  “I think we’re ready.”

  Something nudged against his lubricated buttocks, something oscillating with a rapid rhythm.

  Julius lurched when the rubber tip of the vibrator pushed into the tight puckered hole of his arse. Grace consoled him with encouraging words while she slowly drove the device deeper and deeper. He wanted it, he didn’t want it, his mind vacillating until the pain dissolved into an unknown ecstasy.

  Of course he knew intellectually that a man could be stimulated physically in such a way as to achieve a sort of orgasm, knew from his research that the ecstasy was more intense if effected along with genital stimulation. He had, however, never himself actually experienced any such thing.

  Until now.

  Grace grabb
ed his cock and massaged slowly, pumping steadily, gripping resolutely. Inside him, the vibrations matched her rhythm, the insistent pulsing intensifying her ministrations. She cooed over him, assuring him she would take care of him, exhorting him to simply give in and let go.

  Julius flinched in reaction. He never let go. Grace most definitely should not be in control.

  But his body fought his intellect, mired in the most wondrous sensations it had ever experienced. Grace, he convinced himself, was simply taking him on a journey he had always been curious about.

  He closed his eyes and relaxed on the padding to let Grace do her will.

  He spun into the depths where sensation became oblivion.

  His culmination was unexpected, explosive, the most astounding he had ever experienced.

  Grace milked him seemingly endlessly, murmuring praises as his emission spattered on the floor.

  His body utterly spent, his mind retook control with a nagging thought.

  How had he ever lived without Grace?

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was a bold move, to be sure, but Nicholas did not want to miss his chance, did not want to let Helena get away. He called on Mr. Phillips at the Phillips’ Belgravia mansion at the earliest possible moment the very next day after the Raeburn ball, determined to make Helena his bride.

  Left to his own devices to wait in the morning room, he paced around, surveying the décor. From the sleek geometric pottery displayed on the hand-joined side table, to the Whistler landscape hanging against the block-printed floral wallpaper, everything was new and modern, as if the objects had jumped from the pages of one of Lavinia’s radical interior design magazines. By lacking any sort of history, the room and its contents revealed inhabitants who were defiantly forward-looking. Even the house itself was new, the Phillipses probably the very first occupants.

  It made Nicholas potently aware that, with Helena at his side, he would start a new life, free from the entanglements of his own past, his own heritage.

  He was kept waiting longer than he had hoped, giving him time to practice what he would say, yet also giving his stomach time to clench with doubt and fear. Permission was not a certainty, especially after the disaster with Dr. Christopher.

  Nicholas desperately wished Helena were there with him. Her presence would buoy him, her love would give him strength.

  The door opened and Mr. Phillips entered, the almost imperceptible dishevelment of his morning suit hinting at his already having attended to a great deal of business that day. He raised his brows in surprise.

  “Albans, correct?”

  “Actually, St. Albans, sir.”

  Mr. Phillips snorted at the correction. “What are you doing here, son?”

  American directness was quite disarming. “Yes, to get to the point, sir, I would like to ask your permission for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

  “You too?” he exclaimed. He threw up his hands and shook his head in irritation.

  Had the floodgates restraining the legions of Helena’s suitors suddenly been opened? “Sir?”

  Mr. Phillips’ countenance grew stern. “After that blasted Christopher affair I’m not sure Helena’s ready to marry anyone.”

  Nicholas’ heart sank. He had been prepared to plead his case but was not prepared for such a vehement reaction. “Sir, if I may say so,” he began quietly, “I’ve known your daughter all Season. We get on quite well.”

  “That may well be, young man, but she claims to be in love with someone else.”

  Helena in love? Of course it was with him. “Pardon me for asking, sir, but who might that be?”

  “Some fellow named Ramsay.”

  “Dr. Nicholas Ramsay?”

  Mr. Phillips brightened only slightly. “Why yes. Do you know him?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, what I mean to say, sir, is that I am Dr. Nicholas Ramsay.” Blast! The man was making him far too nervous.

  Mr. Phillips frowned. “What the devil do you mean by that? Is this a joke?”

  “No, sir. You can ask Miss Phillips to confirm, if you like.”

  Mr. Phillips paced before Nicholas, staring at him warily, like a lion ready to strike its prey. “Is this one of those English aristocratic quirks where the nobility have all sorts of names?”

  Nicholas did not know how precisely to respond to that. The question was partly an insult, partly in earnest. “It may very well be, sir. I was born Nicholas Atherley, the second son of my father, the Earl of St. Albans. My older brother, Jonathan, was in line to inherit from my father. But he died before my father and so I became the heir.”

  “So where does ‘Ramsay’ come in? And the part about being a doctor?”

  “Ramsay is my mother’s surname. And it is traditional for second sons to take on a profession of sorts, so I became a doctor.”

  Despite his weak attempt at cluttering subterfuge, Nicholas could tell his omissions were not missed by Mr. Phillips. “Why do you not use the name Atherley?”

  Nicholas drew in a bolstering breath. Honesty worked with Helena, so it might be the best course of action with her father. “My father was cruel to my mother, sir, as was my brother. When I reached my majority and received an income, I left my family and went abroad. I decided to study to become a doctor. A few years ago, I received word that my mother had been killed by my brother. In her honor and to distance myself from my father, I took the name Ramsay.”

  “And how much of this story does my daughter know?”

  Nicholas started at that, slightly abashed. “I’ve only just told her, sir.”

  “What do you mean by that—’only just’?”

  “Last night, sir. I told her everything last night.”

  “Last night?” He slammed his fist on a table dulling the polish. “Last night! You’ve known her for how long—two months?—and you only told her last night?”

  “I was only just recently made earl, sir.”

  “But you thought nothing of harboring secrets from the woman you supposedly love?”

  “Until I was made earl I was not considered worthy of your daughter’s hand. We were merely friends, sir. The truth did not seem important.”

  The second the words came out Nicholas wanted to take them back.

  “Truth not important?” Mr. Phillips hissed. “Well, tell me the truth now, Ramsay. When you say your father and brother were cruel to your mother, what do you mean by that?”

  Nicholas swallowed hard. “My father beat her and cheated on her, my brother was cruel with his words,” he admitted ashamedly.

  Mr. Phillips eyed him. “And how did your brother die?”

  It was as if he knew, and knew the answer would be damning to Nicholas’ suit. “My brother shot himself, sir.”

  “And your father?”

  “My brother shot my father. The wound was not treated properly. He died a short while later.”

  Mr. Phillips clenched his fists and paced slowly but determinedly in front of Nicholas. “Guns,” he muttered. He stopped and rounded on his guest. “So, Nicholas Ramsay, doctor and earl, what you are saying to me is that you come from a family of a murderous and violent disposition and you have been hiding this from my daughter for most of the time you’ve known her. Now I should ask you, if you were in my position would you allow your daughter to marry such a man?”

  Nicholas was stunned at the question and all it implied. “Sir, it is not like that at all. I love Helena—”

  “Do you know what love is, young man? I have been married for eighteen years to the woman I love. I have never been deceitful to her. There are no secrets between us. I have been nothing but honest with her. And I expect no less for my daughter. Do you understand?”

  Nicholas fought back every angry riposte, desperately tamping the rage welling within him. Before he could respond the door to the morning room opened. It was Helena.

  She looked at both men, wide-eyed, realizing she had just interrupted something rather grave.

  “Papa?” Her brow t
wisted in anguish.

  “Helena, sweet, do you know this man?” Her presence had softened him somewhat.

  “Of course, Papa,” she intoned with quiet incredulity. “We danced at the Raeburns’ last night.”

  “Yes, of course you did. What I mean is, do you know his name?”

  “His name?” Helena looked questioningly at Nicholas, but all he could do was nod. “His name is Nicholas,” she responded.

  “Do you know the name given him at birth?”

  Alarm flitted across her face. “Papa?”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “He is a doctor,” she responded meekly, “and I suppose he is now Earl of St. Albans.”

  “Do you know how his mother died?”

  “His mother?” Helena turned to Nicholas again, fear in her eyes. “She was killed by his brother, Papa,” she said helplessly.

  “And do you wish the same fate to befall you?” Mr. Phillips bellowed. “Helena, this man has asked for your hand in marriage and I have forbidden it. He has won your love through deceit, concealing his family’s murderous past. I cannot allow such a union. It is almost as preposterous as marriage to that Dr. Christopher.”

  Helena paled, gaping at her father, wavering as if she were going to faint. She turned to Nicholas, tears in her eyes. He reached for her but she ran from the room.

  Nicholas’ heart tightened, the loss of his love leaving him bereft, debilitated, the same overwhelming bleakness he had felt after reading the news of his mother’s death.

  He turned on his heel and left.

  * * * * *

  Alone in her room, Helena sobbed into her pillow.

  She had no idea what had just transpired between Papa and Nicholas. All she knew was that she loved Nicholas enough to spend the rest of her life with him. But she also loved Papa and had to respect his decision.

  Except in this instance her father was wrong. She was sure of it. Nicholas would never hurt her. Never.

  She gulped air and cried until her head hurt, until she could cry no more. Until she fell asleep from exhaustion.

  The memory of Nicholas’ pained and defeated expression before her father ripped her from her dreams. Nicholas wanted to be with her as much as she wanted to be with him. She had to do something.