The girl darted away from him and skipped around the room in victory, her breasts bouncing in the gaslight.
The pouter pigeon groaned as Mrs. Erskine approached to remove the blindfold. “Maggie, you are a cruel wench to torment me so.”
Maggie stopped dead. “You knew who I was all along,” she accused him.
“Of course I did.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?” she asked with a pout. “Didn’t you want to win my company for the evening?”
He stood up again, his sight restored, and surreptitiously adjusted his trousers as he moved toward her. “Your breasts were too delicious. I had rather lose the game than guess your name and give up the taste of you a scant second too early.”
Maggie giggled, her hurt vanity appeased. “You are a flatterer,” she said, allowing him to take her arm.
“And you are a tormentor. You know how to whet a man’s appetite and leave him hungering for more. Will you let me taste you again?”
In reply, she simply giggled again and led him to one of the outer sofas.
Mrs. Erskine chose the next victim, Sir Richard, and bound him to the chair, blindfolding him securely. A sweeping glance through the room and her eyes lit on Polly, who came forward to stand before the corpulent politician.
As soon as Mrs. Erskine overturned the hourglass, Polly grabbed Sir Richard’s hand and sucked his index finger, taking it all the way into her mouth and slowly withdrawing it again.
Sir Richard grunted, whether in pleasure or impatience Sarah couldn’t tell. Though she had grown up in a country vicarage, she had never learned the art of translating the speech of pigs.
Polly released his finger, moved in front of him to stand astride his knees and lifted her skirts over his head. When her skirts were at their highest point Sarah plainly saw, for the briefest of moments, that Polly wore nothing underneath.
Sir Richard’s hands moved under Polly’s skirt and, with a sudden movement that nearly caused Polly to topple, he pulled her toward him.
The gentlemen cheered and called out encouragement to him when Polly arched her back and let out a moan of pleasure. Sir Richard’s hands and head were plainly busy underneath Polly’s skirts.
Sarah put her hands over her eyes, spreading her fingers the tiniest bit so she could still see through them. It seemed there was to be no end to the debauchery she would have to witness in Mrs. Erskine’s house.
What Sir Richard was doing under Polly’s skirts she didn’t like to conjecture, but Polly certainly seemed to be enjoying it. As the sands in the hourglass ran inexorably out, Polly writhed and moaned under his attentions, her head thrown back and her eyes closed as if in the throes of ecstasy.
The room held its collective breath as the last grains of sand in the hourglass slithered toward the funnel. With uncanny timing, Sir Richard let out a muffled “Polly!” just as the last grains fell.
Polly squeaked with delight at being guessed and lifted her skirts to release Sir Richard’s head. With a sly look, she turned toward the audience of gentlemen and lowered her skirts a tad too slowly, affording the entire room a view of her neatly trimmed bush.
Sir Richard released the blindfold himself and stood, Polly’s juices clearly visible on his chin. “I believe I have won your company for this evening,” he said as he pulled her away to a darker corner of the room. Polly followed him with a squeak and a giggle, not at all loath to oblige.
Mrs. Erskine walked through the crowd of gentlemen to choose the next player. Though Tom and Sarah were standing toward the back of the crowd, she bypassed the eager gentlemen at the front and took Tom by the hand. “Let us see how you perform, Mr. Wilde,” she challenged him.
He allowed himself to be led to the chair where he was duly blindfolded.
As soon as his sight was obscured, Mrs. Erskine took Sarah by the elbow and propelled her inside the circle of watching men. “Mr. Wilde will not pay for your company forever,” she whispered into Sarah’s ear as they made their way over to the chair. “It is time you began to learn what pleases the men who come here. You are not a Polly, to flit carelessly from flower to flower. You will want another protector to secure you as soon as Mr. Wilde loses interest in you.”
With shaking hands, Sarah overturned the hourglass. There was no point in worrying just yet about Tom losing interest in her—he had paid for her for the month.
Though she did not want to attract the men who stood around her watching, she wanted them to be amused and entertained with the game. Mrs. Erskine would be displeased if she bored them.
Most of all, she wanted Tom to know, not just to guess, that it was she who stood before him.
As she stood there, irresolute, the men around her began to turn their heads away and titter. The cause was easy to divine—they were distracted by Sir Richard Etheridge and Polly, who were getting very intimate in their dark corner. The esteemed politician was half lying on the couch, his trousers around his ankles, while Polly sat on top of him, moving rhythmically. Her voluminous skirts could not hide the fact that she was fucking him in the corner.
They were making no effort at concealment. To Sarah’s horror, and the amusement of the gentlemen, Sir Richard grunted with Polly’s every downward thrust, sounding remarkably like a pig at the trough. Even Tom, blindfolded as he was, was facing the direction of the noisy couple.
Sarah could not compete with such an open and public display of intimacy. Nor did she want to. Instead, she wanted to tease, to entertain, and to allow the men’s imaginations to complete the picture.
She grabbed Tom’s hands and held them to her face. Would he know her by his sense of touch alone? She guided his fingers over her eyes, round her ears, down the nape of her neck, shivering at the intimacy of his touch. Though he was only touching her face, his caress was more private and more sensual than all the thrusting and grunting that was emanating from Sir Richard’s corner.
Tom’s hands rested on the nape of her neck as she repeated the caress on him, running her hands over his face and neck, learning every ridge and hollow of him with the sensitive tips of her fingers.
In turn Tom gently ran a finger up Sarah’s throat, over her chin, and gently parted her lips where she kissed his questing fingers.
Her fingers mimicked his as they explored each other in gentle caresses.
The surrounding crowd had gone quiet and were watching them intently, ignoring the overt display in the corner.
Intent as she was on caressing Tom, she did not notice the hourglass until the last grains of sand were falling. She squeezed his earlobes hard in a silent message.
His lips curved in a smile. “Miss Sarah Chesham,” he said quietly, just as the last grain of sand fell.
The men in the audience applauded loudly as she removed the blindfold and, to her own surprise, planted a chaste kiss on Tom’s lips.
He took her by the hand. “I have won your company for the evening?”
Sarah nodded, her mouth dry. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that, thankfully, Sir Richard and Polly had finished their display and were lying quiescent on the sofa. The thought of providing such a wanton display made her breathless with fear, and also, she had to admit, with excited anticipation. She could never behave like that in public. Not with Tom. He would think she was a shameless tart.
Maybe one day when she had lost her virginity and was a whore in every way, maybe then she would feel ready to take part in such public fucking. Maybe one day she would lie on a sofa in the middle of a crowded room, spread her legs wide apart and invite a man to climb on to her and fuck her. Her pussy began to grow shamelessly hot at the thought of watching them watch her fucking. But she was not ready for that now. Not yet. “I will not—”
Irritated, he cut her off. “I know. You won’t fuck me on the sofa in the corner. Believe it or not, I wasn’t going to ask you.”
A wave of what almost felt like disappointment swept over her. “What were you going to ask for?”
“Your company
and your conversation. Is that too much to expect?”
“No.”
“Good. Then stop scowling and try to look as if you are enjoying yourself.”
If Mrs. Erskine had not been watching her suspiciously, she would have stamped her foot. “I am not scowling.”
“Far be it from me to contradict a lady. You must simply have a particular way of smiling that I mistook for a scowl.” He dragged her to the closest sofa and pulled her down next to him. “Come sit down on my lap and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. I guarantee that will wipe the scowl off your face.”
Though she would rather have bitten him, she had little choice but to obey.
To her surprise, the evening passed quickly in Tom’s company. Although he kept her anchored on his lap, he did not press her to get more intimate with him than that. Content to sit and talk with each other, they passed the evening in remarkably good cheer, paying little attention to the rest of the room. Though Sarah could not help but notice that the games of blindman’s buff got increasingly rowdy and debauched as the evening wore on, Tom’s attention remained on her alone and their corner remained quiet.
The salon had all but emptied when Tom suddenly whispered an invitation in her ear. “Walk with me.”
Sarah looked up at him in astonishment. It was well after midnight, and the streets would be as black as ink. “What did you say?”
“Walk with me,” he repeated.
“Surely you do not want to go for a walk at this hour of the night?” The streets of London, even lit up as they were with gas lamps, were no place for a midnight stroll. There were too many ruffians abroad at that hour, and too many dark alleys where danger lurked. Besides, she was far too warm and comfortable sitting on his lap to want to move.
As if he could read her mind, he hugged her tighter to his chest. “Not now, you goose. Walk with me tomorrow to the park.”
She did not know quite what to read into his demand. While working at the milliner’s, she had been asked many a time by the butcher’s boy in the next street to take a walk with him in the park. The leer with which he’d asked had left her in no doubt as to his intentions. She had not liked his loud voice and his casual cruelty to the young apprentices in the street, whom he lorded over as if he were a king, and had always refused him.
Did Tom mean to court her? He had been so abrupt and unloverlike in his demand that she could not credit it. “Why do you want to walk with me? Do you have something you wish to talk about?”
His hands were wandering across her bodice, but for once she did not slap them away. There was something so comforting about being held like this.
His hands brushed her breasts with tantalizing gentleness. “I don’t particularly. I’d far rather that you took me to your bed.”
“Will you stop asking me that,” she said with some irritation, knowing how desperately close she was to giving in to him. Just the feel of his arms around her as she sat on his lap and the touch of his hand on her breast were enough to make her nipples harden to an uncomfortable tightness and her pussy to weep anew.
After all the games they had played and watched this evening, she was desperate to take him upstairs to her bedroom, to let him undress her and to welcome his thrusting cock into her burning pussy, but she would not do so. Taking him into her bed would be as good as a confession that she was no better than a whore. However much she desired him, however much she melted at his touch, she would not humble herself so far. “You know I will not agree.”
A great sigh escaped him. “I know. Which is why I have hit on the notion of walking with you instead. I am at the sorry stage where I would rather have your company fully dressed than not at all.”
He really was trying to court her. Her insides curled pleasantly at the thought that he liked her company as well as desiring her body. “I do not know if we are allowed out to go walking,” she said doubtfully.
“Pshaw. Tomorrow is Sunday and even the lowliest house maid gets a half-day on a Sunday. Mrs. Erskine would be a brute to refuse you. I will come to call for you at two in the afternoon.”
With that, he set her off his knee, stood up purposefully, and clapped his hat on his head. “I had best be off before Mrs. Erskine sets her porters on me and tosses me out into the street.”
That night Sarah barely slept. Before it was yet dawn, she had risen from her bed and was contemplating her wardrobe in despair. Going walking with Tom was a far cry from walking out with a butcher. What sort of a dress should she wear for a stroll in the park with a real gentleman? She did not want to make him ashamed of her, or regret being seen with her in public.
She did not admit even to herself that she had other, equally pressing, concerns. Which dress would Tom like best to see her in? What color did he fancy above any other?
Polly, seeing her confusion, kindly came to her rescue. “The green dress with the ribbons,” she pronounced almost at once. “It sets off your pretty pale skin, and makes your eyes look even greener. Besides,” she added with a giggle, “it is cut so neat that you will not be able to wear a thing underneath it. Poor Mr. Wilde will be driven to distraction thinking about that for the whole walk.”
Polly helped her to lace herself tightly into the chosen dress. That done, she paced about the floor unable to concentrate on anything, waiting for two o’clock.
To her relief, Tom presented himself at the coffee house at two o’clock on the dot. He offered her his arm and walked her out of the door like any lady into the bright sunshine of a clear afternoon.
“You look as pretty in the afternoon sunshine as you do in the dim light of the gas lamps of an evening,” he remarked, as they picked their way over the cobblestones toward the tiny patch of green at the end of the street that called itself a park.
“Is that meant to be a compliment?” She could not help but think that it was a very poor one.
He shrugged. “Not at all. It was simply the truth.”
The bright sunshine made her feel more daring than usual. “I would think a man who writes for his living would be able to make a prettier speech to a young woman than that,” she teased.
“Do you want pretty speeches? I can make you twenty such if you please, but I rather thought you would prefer me to pay you the compliment of talking honestly with you.”
He was right, of course, though she was more in the mood for compliments this afternoon. “I do prefer your honesty.”
They walked in silence for some moments until Tom broke it again. “I will not marry you, you know.”
His sudden pronouncement took her aback. There was such a thing as too much honesty. “I never expected you would.” Expectation was one thing, hopes and dreams and wild fantasies were quite another. She could not deny that in her fantasies, Tom had proposed to her on bended knee, but she knew as well as he did that her dream was unthinkable in reality.
“I cannot afford to set you up as my mistress. Though I can support one house hold well enough on my income, I cannot support two in any style. You would make a poor showing as my mistress. You’d be better off as a milliner than depending on me for your bread.”
She pulled her arm out of his, picking her way through the muddy grass of the park without the support of his arm. Did he think because she was poor that she had no pride? “I am not depending on any man for my bread.”
“I have paid Mrs. Erskine for the pleasure of your company for a month, but I really do not know why I am bothering with you.”
A cloud covered the sun, making the afternoon suddenly dull and dreary. “Am I that tedious to spend your time with?” Her words were brave, but he had cut her to the quick. “No doubt Mrs. Erskine would give you a part refund if you complained to her of me.”
“I cannot afford to keep you to myself indefinitely. I was impetuous enough to pay for the first month, but to pay for a second would be sheer folly. I will have to give you up.”
She had never imagined anything different, but still his pronouncement hurt her. “I cannot s
ee what it is to me,” she retorted. “I did not ask you to buy my time. Mrs. Erskine will keep me on whether you pay for me or not. There were plenty of single gentlemen in attendance last night who would no doubt have been glad of my company.”
A park bench stood at the far end of the tiny park. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the seat dry. “That is the problem. There will always be gentlemen glad of your company.”
She sniffed dismissively as she spread her skirts and sat down on the bench. “That is hardly a problem for me.”
“It is, however, a very large problem for me.”
Her tears threatened to choke her voice. “You do not have to make it so.”
He tipped her head back to look into her eyes. “If I could prevent it, my dear, I would.”
5
Nearly a month of evenings passed. By now Sarah had suffered through twenty-three evenings in a row in which Tom Wilde had teased and tormented her just as much as she had teased and tormented him, if not more so. No longer did he ask her to take him as her lover, and for that she had been grateful. She was not sure that she could live for much longer without giving in to him.
She had started to crave his touch, to live for the moment when she could enter the salon for the evening and he would come forward to take her arm and to claim her as his own.
Twenty-three evenings. It was both too short and too long a time. Too short, for it seemed as if it had been just yesterday when first she met him. Too long, because with every day that passed, one day fewer remained of the time he would spend with her.
Tom tightened his grip on Sarah’s arm as he led her to one of the sofas arranged in front of a large curtain. Mrs. Erskine had just announced that the evening’s entertainment was to be a play—a new variation on their amusements for the past three weeks and more. He could only hope that it would prove less inflaming to his libido than the usual games.
Parlor Games Page 6
