by Josie Litton
Only then did he discover that he was no longer sleeping on the floor. Craning his head, he observed that the other side of the large four-poster bed--the very one where he had awakened a fortnight before in such distress--was unoccupied. On a happier note, it at least showed signs of having been slept in. When he leaned closer, he could just catch Jane’s scent lingering on the sheets.
A quick glance down at himself confirmed what he had already felt. The loathed cage was gone. His cock, restored to its natural state, was at full salute. Extraordinary really considering what he remembered of the night before. That he could recover from such unparalleled carnal excess to manage even a modest erection would have been more than he might expect. The flagrant reality filled with him unabashed pride.
On that cheerful note, he showered, shaved, and girded himself to go in search of Jane. He had to face her eventually. Best to do it while he was feeling so upbeat. And before he could wonder why that was the case.
In deference to any housemaids who happened to be about, he slipped on a pair of shorts. Getting them buttoned in his present state was a bit tricky but he managed it.
The house felt very quiet. He padded through it without encountering anyone until he came to the broad glass doors that led outside.
Jane was sitting on the terrace, wearing a short little robe that left her exquisite legs on view. Her feet were propped up, crossed at the ankles, succulent toes tipped in perky pink twinkling in the sunlight.
She was frowning as she studied the sheaf of papers she held. Beside her on the table, among the remnants of breakfast, was a red leather box embossed with the royal cypher. His lordship smiled at the sight of it.
Change was all well and good but there was also a place for continuity. Boxes of the same design had been dispatched to the heads of ministries since the reign of Victoria, she of blessed memory. Still lead-lined from the days when they might have to be tossed overboard from a British ship-of-the-line that came under attack, they were a reminder of the power and will that had forged the empire.
And also, on occasion, of its vulnerabilities.
Jane looked up just then. Seeing him, she flushed. The look of concern and uncertainty in her eyes emboldened him.
“What have you got there?” he asked as he walked out onto the terrace.
She took a breath and with a visible effort, forced her attention back to what a moment before had riveted it.
“Dispatches, apparently of the most urgent nature. They seem to indicate that everything is going wrong everywhere.”
He nodded and plopped down in the chair next to her. Reveling in the sight of her, he ignored the documents altogether.
“That’s just Old Bumble. Lord Bentley Montague to the uninitiated. About this time every year, he comes back to town briefly from Cannes and lets loose with a blast of “Action Alerts” before going off to Scotland to fish the Tweed. Everyone knows not to bother with them.”
“You mean he doesn’t expect anyone to actually read all this, much less do anything?”
“Heavens, no. It’s just OB pontificating, getting some things off his chest. He really should write a book. I’ve no doubt some idiot publisher would pay him royally for it. The pity is that too much of what he knows is classified so he has to make do with this as an outlet.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I was becoming alarmed.”
He snagged a piece of pineapple off her plate and made short work of it. “You really should ask me before bothering with any of this. If you’d actually replied to OB, on my behalf of course, he would have known instantly that something was wrong. The jig would have been up.”
And what a remarkable jig it was. Now if only he could manage the final steps with a bit of aplomb, a dash of grace and a soupçon of good luck.
“How are you?” she asked.
He knew perfectly well what she meant but preferred to play innocent for the moment, a Herculean acting job to be sure but hadn’t he more than proved that he was a man up for any challenge?
“Ravenous. Is there any more breakfast?”
There was--fluffy scrambled eggs, rashers of ham, toast and his favorite marmalade. Tea, too, of course. Nothing could happen without that.
He caught Jameson smiling as he served them--really just a quirk at one corner of his lips but that was enough to reassure his lordship that he was on the right track.
When they had finished eating, he asked, “What would you like to do today?”
Jane looked startled. “Have you misplaced your high-handedness, milord?”
He quirked a brow and rose. “Merely stowed it for the moment. If you’re through being snarky, how about a swim?”
It had occurred to him that with Bunny gone, there was no reason not to avail himself of the amenities in the older wing of the house. Moreover, he wanted Jane to see it under rather better circumstances than her only previous visit there. Being absconded with, tied naked between two pillars, and toyed with by brazen women bent on no good was probably not the best way to form an impression of a place.
“I don’t have a bathing suit,” she said.
“Oh, good. I can’t imagine what you would do with one.”
He laughed at her chiding look and held out his hand. Without hesitation, Jane took it.
Chapter Eleven
Together, they walked across the lawns toward the original Georgian residence looking once again elegant and peaceful after the departure of the rampaging Amazon.
Entering the cool marble center hall, his lordship was struck at once by the silence. The blissful, absolute, lovely silence. No more Bunny meant no more nymphs, boy toys or chitter-chattering friends. No more blaring music, high-pitched cackling or walls vibrating from the sheer excess of estrogen. Even the servants were absent, although they must have been by at some point because everything was in impeccable order.
“This is amazing,” Jane said as they passed through one of the portrait galleries on their way to the pool. She tugged at his hand to slow him down as she tried to take in all the dozens and dozens of paintings covering the walls as far as the ceiling. “Imagine knowing that you come from all these people.”
All those elegant, self-assured people pictured in lovely rooms, on the backs of thoroughbred horses or standing proudly next to whatever it was they had most recently killed--piles of partridges, razor-tusked wild boar, the occasional tiger. If he were honest, he had to admit that they wore their smugness well.
Reluctantly, he said, “I thought you despised my kind.”
“I’ve tried to,” she admitted. “But among everything else that I’ve learned from you, milord, what stands out the most is that if we’re to be fairly judged, it has to be as individuals.”
“That’s very broad-minded of you, Jane. On behalf of the--how did you put it? Overly privileged, insufferably arrogant, appallingly self-centered, jumped up, self-anointed, willfully cruel, so-called elite, I thank you.”
To his delight, she blushed. “I may have over-stated the case a bit. I’m also astonished that you remember all that.”
“You have a way of commanding my attention. Now about that swim--”
She was a bit shy, needing reassurance that the servants were nowhere about and that they were entirely alone. He shucked his shorts without hesitation. She required a bit more coaxing before she let her robe fall and stepped into the pool with him.
The water was pleasantly warm and silken smooth. He lay back for a few moments, staring up at the pure blue sky with the sun on his face. Freddy was standing to attention, doing his imitation of a periscope. Not a care cluttered his lordship’s mind. Except for Jane, of course. She was always in there.
Turning his head so that he could look at her, he said, “Have you given any more thought to Nepal?”
She was still standing, studying him. Ripples of water alternately revealed and concealed her nipples. He thought of those ripe little berries in his mouth, her legs twined around his hips, her cunt open and eager for him,
and had to stop himself from reaching for her.
Too much was at stake for any such impulsive action nor was he weak enough to make so elementary a mistake. He was a hunter at heart, bred to it for generations and with all the patience it required. But just then he was having difficulty remembering that.
“I think you’re right,” she said, “about the climate not suiting me.”
“Very wise but you aren’t still considering the…other?”
“Rome, the Church, a life of chastity? No, I’ve given that up as well. It turns out that it’s a package deal--you have to also take vows of poverty and obedience. I’ve had enough of poverty to last me a lifetime and let’s face it, obedience is not my strong suit.”
The beginnings of relief eased the tightness in his chest. He straightened and moved through the water until he was standing in front of her. Her look of faint apprehension did not escape him but neither did the fact that she held her ground, not giving an inch as she stared directly as his broad, glistening chest. Her tongue snuck out to moisten her lips.
What had he said that he wanted in a pet? Tractable, obedient, submissive, compliant. What a crock. He would have been bored out of his mind. Still…
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, “there were times when you were quite delightfully obedient.”
She shot him a chiding look but did not deny it. “I was trying to live up to the spirit of the contract which, I must say, you did not make easy.”
He raised a hand and lightly brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek. The urge to twine that silken strand around his finger and tug her to him was all but irresistible. Only the fact that every instinct he possessed was shouting at him not to fuck this up stopped him.
Carefully, he said, “We both know you don’t like easy. You got into this whole thing because you saw a challenge.”
“That’s true and you certainly have been.” Her eyes darkened. Softly, she asked, “Are you…all right?”
Her cheeks were flushed, her gaze not quite meeting his. It dawned on him that she was more anxious about what had happened the night before--and his reaction to it--than he was.
Quietly, he said, “Honestly, I feel weirdly buoyant, as though I’ve shucked off a load that I didn’t even realize I was carrying.”
“Might it have been the weight of that barrier you’re so good at keeping raised between you and everyone else?”
Had any other person shown such probing insight into his lordship’s nature, he would have stood astride that same barrier and answered them with boiling oil and a volley of arrows. But Jane was…different. Her understanding of his nature--and even more extraordinarily, her acceptance of it--made him feel as though she had lifted him out of a flat, two-dimensional world into a far deeper and richer existence.
The only problem was that it could still be snatched away at any moment.
“It might,” he acknowledged and moved on quickly. “So not Nepal, not Holy Mother Church. Is Argentina still in the running?”
A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Definitely, but I was also thinking of Singapore. And then there’s French Polynesia. I rather like the idea of going bare-breasted in a grass skirt.”
His gaze drifted lower to the wetly inviting globes he so badly wanted to fuck. What an oversight that he hadn’t already done so. Squeezed together, his cock thrusting between them, he would slide his crest between her lips and tell her to suck…
“So do I,” he said a bit thickly. “You, I mean, bare--” With a supreme effort, he dragged his mind onto a slightly more elevated level.
“It seems there are a great many possibilities. Since this is such a big decision, don’t you think that you should take your time making it?”
Uncertainty flitted behind her eyes. She drew a quick breath. “I probably should but I thought--”
He broke in hastily, not wanting to be reminded of his foolish threats to punish her for daring to confront him with his own humanity.
Taking a tight hold on his courage and sending up a prayer to any deity that might be paying the slightest attention, he said, “While you do that, you could stay here.”
A wave of color spread across her lovely face and just as quickly went, leaving her more pale than he had ever seen her. Worse yet, her luscious mouth trembled.
Panic filled him. He’d spoken too soon. Now he’d have to deal with the consequences somehow, talk her down, reassure her, at least stop her from bolting.
“Stay?” she asked. “Here?”
Quickly, he said, “Why not? It’s pleasant enough on the estate; there’s no lack of things to do. By any chance, do you like to fish? Never mind, you could learn. Only if you want to, of course. And then there’s London. I’ll have to be back there in a fortnight or so. You could come with me, do the town. I’m sure you’d enjoy it.”
He broke off, fearing he was saying too much. Or too little. The simple task of breathing eluded him. His chest--and the heart within it--felt clenched in a vise.
Then Jane laid a hand on his arm and the world suddenly rightened. He was vividly aware of air rushing into his lungs, of sunlight falling over the water, and of a flock of birds whirling in the sky above them, all together around a center that inexplicably did indeed hold.
Softly, she asked, “Adrian, are you asking me to stay with you?”
He cleared his throat, looked down into her exquisite face and said, “Well, I hardly think it’s fair to insist that I save the empire and then expect me to do it all on my own.”
“But you wouldn’t be alone. Take the first steps and others will follow.”
With a flash of his customary arrogance, his lordship replied, “Follow, certainly. But what about someone to walk beside me, catch me when I stumble? And I will you know, it’s inevitable. But oh, no, you’ll be off in Argentina or somewhere, probably with some cowboy--gaucho, vaqueiro, whatever--”
“Do they still have those there?”
“I have no idea, that isn’t the point. You’re going to leave me and then, when I fail, you’ll hear about it over there, wherever that is and you’ll shake your head and say, ‘Well, I tried. He just wasn’t up to the job.’”
“Why do you think you’ll fail?”
“Why? Because I’ll backslide, I’ll make mistakes, I’ll get distracted. Without someone to keep me on the straight and narrow, we’re all basically doomed. You said it yourself.”
“I didn’t say that playing it safe would rescue the empire. You have to be imaginative, expansive, daring and you are all those things. Heavens, I should know.”
“I am when I’m with you. Without you…” His sigh contained volumes of tragedy. “I’ll probably just become one of those husks of men trundling into work every day, pushing papers about, going to meetings. Death won’t come soon enough.”
She rolled her eyes and looked at him chidingly. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Adrian! I am not going to stay with you for the sake of anything so lofty as the empire. You will have to give me a much more personal reason than that.”
Once, when he was a child, his lordship had lost his footing while out roaming about the estate and taken a tumble down a steep hillside. He still remembered that moment when he felt the ground give way under him. For one glorious instant he had hovered in mid-air, weightless, as likely it seemed to rise as to fall.
Being old enough now to understand the implacable nature of gravity, he nonetheless decided that if he was ever to take a leap into the unknown, this was the moment.
“Would you stay because of us?” he asked.
“So that you can take your revenge for all the indignities I have perpetrated on your person?”
“God, no! I did want to do that at first, very much. But I’ve been thinking and the fact is that I have come to…tolerate you excessively well.”
Drawing on all his considerable courage that had sometimes gotten lost in the pain and confusion of his world, his lordship added, “If you go, I anticipate that I will miss you every bit as
much.”
It sounded so inadequate but it was all he had at the moment. He could only hope that it would somehow be enough for her to give him a chance.
“Well, then.” Jane tilted her head slightly, regarding him through luminous eyes. “You had best persuade me to stay.”
Chapter Twelve
Despite his recent ordeal, his lordship had faith that his persuasive abilities remained intact. At least, he hoped to heaven that they did. All his earlier grand plans to seduce Jane had crumbled like so much fairy dust. He’d come far enough to know that he couldn’t simply deploy his vaunted expertise in matters of the flesh. She deserved vastly more.
But what exactly? The comforting thought arose that perhaps Jane would have an idea. She’d read all those romantic novels, hadn’t she?
Not that he was entirely without inspiration. What was it in the old Church of England wedding vows, the ones he and Bunny hadn’t bothered with, opting instead for a civil ceremony that could be kept as mercifully brief as possible?
With my body, I thee worship. That was it. What an extraordinary idea to have come from a bunch of fusty churchmen. Unless, of course, they hadn’t been so fusty after all, upturning the world as they did.
With my body--
It was as good a place to start as any.
To his delight, she had kept the nipple piercings, now adorned with small gold hoops. That gave him hope she didn’t disapprove of quite all his darker tastes. Not that he could ever bear to hurt her again, never that but there were other--
“Did you know,” Jane asked, “that when you’re particularly aroused, your eyes become a shade that I’ve never seen before, blue-green, almost teal with shards of gold?”
Tremendously pleased that she cared enough to observe him so closely, he said, “I had no idea of that.”
