by Eden Myles
I slipped my gloved hand into his and we danced, he well, me less so. But to his credit, Stuart did not complain, even when I trampled his feet. Directly after, the governor wanted to dance with me, his eyes permanently fixed on my décolleté. After that, two more gentlemen requested a dance, and by the time they were finished, Tiberius was nowhere to be found.
Spotting Stuart talking to the governor, I tried to make a break for the balcony, hoping to find him there, but before I made it halfway across the room, I heard the tinkling sound of the governor striking a knife against his wineglass to gain everyone’s attention. I stopped abruptly, jabbing the heel of my slipper through the hem of my gown. “Attention, ladies and gentleman, my good friend, Mr. Stuart Brinkerhoff, has an announcement to make.” Then the governor stepped back to allow Stuart to take the floor.
Stuart stood there, wineglass in hand, looking positively radiant. He glanced at me and smiled. “Thank you, all of you, for being here tonight. Part of the reason we are here is, of course, to celebrate Sinterklaas, though I must admit I have another, covert, reason to be celebrating tonight.” Again he looked at me. Again he smiled.
The others in the room looked as well, and I immediately felt like some strange insect being pinned down and analyzed.
Stuart continued by saying, “For the past few weeks I have had the great honor to be in the company of a truly remarkable woman—a woman who has managed to turn the economy around in this town. Miss Lucille Van der Meer.” He paused and the others murmured among themselves. I dearly wanted to sink into the floor. “And tonight I wish to announce that I intend to have her hand in marriage…”
I squealed like a scalded cat and raced from the room.
***
“Dear, it’s not that bad,” Charlotte said when she had succeeded in cornering me privately in the governor’s library.
“Yes, it is…yes, it is!” I said as I paced back and forth across the governor’s fine Oriental carpeting, trying not to trample my ruined hem. I pulled at my hair. I pulled at my skirts. “How dare me? How dare he embarrass me like this?”
Charlotte put her hand on my shoulder as she dogged me. “It’s not so unusual for a man to make a public announcement of marriage.”
“It is when he didn’t ask me first!” I cried to the ceiling. “He should have asked me privately before he went ahead and just assumed…” My voice trailed off and I sat down on the governor’s fainting couch in a puff of skirts as I began to cry.
“Lucky,” said Charlotte, sitting beside me, “what did you think the outcome of Stuart’s courting would be? Did you think he would simply court you forever?”
“I don’t know what I thought!” I said as I broke down into sobs on her shoulder. Things like this never happened to heroines in the book of romance I read! “I don’t want this, Charlotte! I don’t want to be Stuart’s wife!”
“Why? Stuart is a simply lovely man. Successful, dedicated, handsome…”
I just cried harder so Charlotte was forced to find her handkerchief. “I thought…I thought he would be jealous. That he would care…oh, hell…!” I hiccupped.
“Who…?” she began, and then she stopped and thought about that. Like Nellie, Charlotte too was an astute woman. “Oh dear God, Lucky…not Mr. Sloan?”
I sniffed as she dried my face. Slowly I started to relate my tale of woe to her, beginning when Tiberius first arrived at my father’s house, his proposal and our arrangement, and everything onward from there. I did not spare her and I did not spare myself. I thought if anyone would understand, it would be Charlotte. I knew she and Darcy were lovers long before they took their vows. Surely she would not hate me for giving my virtue away so easily?
She sighed when I had finished. “Really, Lucky, where is your sense? You’re as bad as…as Rupert!” she insisted. “Why must the two of you always pursue that which you’re not destined to have? It is something in the Van der Meer family?”
“I can’t help it, Charlotte. I love him.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He doesn’t love me.” I started to cry myself into a fit again.
Charlotte patted my shoulder to console me. “Are you certain he doesn’t love you? Perhaps he simply thinks your love is pity, much like in La Belle et la Bete, when Beauty first merely pities the Beast.”
“Do you think that could be so?” I asked, my voice nasally from the river of mucus pouring from my nose.
Charlotte eased me back and wiped at all the wetness on my face. “Well, you look horrible now, dear, red-face and miserable, and your makeup is a mess, so now is a good time to ask him directly. If he loves you in this state, he’ll love you forever.”
I smiled through my tears.
She gave me a stern look. “Tell him if he does love you, he’ll marry you. If he doesn’t, then you will simply have to marry Stuart. See how he responds.”
“Give him an ultimatum.”
“Exactly.”
“Charlotte…how do you know so much about men?”
She gave me a wise smile and a hug. “Lucky, dear, I’m married to a solicitor. I have to know how to manipulate a man.”
***
I paced the library nervously while Charlotte went to inform Tiberius that I had something to say to him. My stomach quickly knotted up and I couldn’t seem to keep my hands from wringing together or clenching the Oni mask in a death grip. The third time I heard a slight thumping noise coming from the adjacent room, I finally went to the adjoining door and cracked it open an inch.
In the next room, the governor’s study, Tiberius’s valet was on his hands and knees while my cousin Rupert rode him like a horse and simultaneously swatted his bare backside with a riding crop. I quickly closed the door, put my back to it, and squeezed my eyes closed as I attempted—albeit unsuccessfully—to remove the image permanently burned into my brain.
To his credit, Tiberius didn’t keep me waiting very long. Within minutes, he let himself into the library and closed the door behind him. I looked him over. He looked, as always, amazing and soldiery in his blue tailcoat and white ruffled shirt. The coat was cut in a simple military style, as was so much of his clothing, so it stood out amidst all the flamboyant gentlemen’s coats. Every lady in the crush had done a double take when he’d passed—at least, until they’d seen his face. “Lucky,” he said in greeting.
“Tiberius,” I answered, my fingers clenched around the frightening, fanged Oni mask. I held it in front of me like a shield. “Your valet and my cousin are in the next room, having very strange carnal relations.”
He thought about that a long moment. “Gavin and Rupert?”
“Yes.”
“Well, at least they’re happy.” He noticed the mask in my hands and said, “The Oni are creatures that figure prominently in Japanese folklore. They’re variously translated as demons, devils, ogres and trolls.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Would you prefer we discuss Gavin and Rupert’s strange carnal relations?”
“Dear God, no.” His words had nearly derailed my thoughts. I took a deep breath and got to the issue at hand. “Why did you wear that blue tailcoat, Tiberius?”
He looked at me with an unreadable face, then glanced down at my mother’s blue velvet gown. His eyes lingered on the mounds of my breasts, but only briefly. “Because I happen to own a blue tailcoat?”
I let my breath out in a rattling sigh and closed my eyes. “Why are you lying?”
“What makes you think I’m lying?”
“I don’t think. I know. I know when you’re lying, Tiberius. You blank your face so no one can see the lie…but I can see it.”
He seemed to draw himself up taller, as if he were insulted. “Lucky, I really don’t think…”
“Tiberius, shut up.”
That stopped him. He looked at me with those dark upraised eyebrows of his, as if he were
impressed by my gumption.
I stood taller as well but didn’t immediately approach him. “I’ve lain with you for months. I’m your courtesan. Your woman,” I said, holding his steady gaze. “I know every part of your body, Tiberius. Don’t you think I know when you’re lying?”
“Lucky…”
“Nanny Nellie put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“Lucky, I really must insist…”
I held up my hand for silence. I took a deep breath even as I felt my chest constrict under the pressure of my corset. The room grew surreal around me even as I formed the words I knew I had to speak. I had to lay it out for him. “You need to know something, Tiberius Sloan, something important. I lied too. I pretended not to love you, but the truth is, I do. I love you and I want to marry you.”
He looked at me in surprise. “Lucky…you’re asking me to marry you?”
“Yes. Is that so terribly unusual for a woman to say?”
“Frankly, yes…especially under the circumstances. I thought Stuart was going to marry you.”
I bit my lip but soldiered on. “I don’t love Stuart. If I loved him, I would marry him. I love you. Thus, I intend to marry you.”
In two long strides he was standing in front of me, the surprise in his face and eyes gone, replaced by something far more intense. His fingers grasped my chin to edge my face up. “Do you know how many men I’ve killed, Lucky? Not just Hastings, but soldiers in battle? Do you know how much blood I’ve spilled? I’ve earned every one of those scars.” He paused. “You can’t possibly want to marry someone like me.”
“You’re not some monster,” I argued, my voice catching in my throat. “You’re a man. You’re the man I love, Tiberius, and the one I want to marry.” I slid my hand up his chest. “I don’t care about the blood, the death, about Hastings, about any of that. That’s all in the past. I care about now, the present. And I want you to be a part of it. And my future.”
Something alighted behind his eyes and I felt a part of me melt inside at the sight of it. “You do realize this is all rather forward of you.”
“I don’t care. I speak my mind. You know that. I’m your partner. I have a mind to speak. And if you don’t like that…well, then, you’ll just need to learn to like it.”
He smirked at that. “Is that how it’s going to be between us?”
“Yes,” I told him, my courage building. “I intend to marry you and keep you here with me. And if you won’t stay with me, then I shall have to travel with you. But whichever way we do it, we’ll be together. And I won’t take no as an answer.” I wagged my finger in his face. “And one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I enjoy being on top when we make love, so we shall do that again…rather frequently, in fact. And if you don’t like that, then that’s another thing you’ll need to grow accustomed to.”
“You want to be a woman on top.”
“Yes, in all things. Business and love. I’m not afraid.”
He laughed at that as he set his hands on my hips and drew me against the hard wall of his body. “You’re not, are you? And actually, I do enjoy that, Lucky. Very much.”
“Then it’s settled. We’ll be married. Do you object?” I asked, afraid that he might.
He shook his head. “No objections. But I do have a request.”
“Yes?” I asked nervously, biting my lip.
He took my hand and brought the back of it to his lips for a brief kiss. “I would like us to continue to be gentleman and courtesan…at least until we’re wed. Then I shall be at your disposal.”
His offer was reasonable, so I said, “Yes, of course.”
He immediately took full advantage. He cupped the back of my head, his fingers sinking deep into my coiffure, and held me in place as he kissed me. I sighed at the familiar scratch of his cheek, the scent that was just him, musky and a little sweet, and slid my hands to his backside, gripping him tightly through his trousers as his kiss intensified and he first nibbled and then bit at my bottom lip. He moaned against my mouth as I sank my fingers into the firmness of his buttocks. His heat engulfed me and I felt the insistent stab of his erection probing my stomach.
I wrested the placket of his trousers open and slid my hands inside. I gripped the hardness of his cock and slid my hand to the top, teasing the little slit with my fingertips. His cock immediately began to weep for me and the heated stickiness quickly covered my hand. I ran it up and down his slippery, throbbing shaft, then lower still, to the firm, velvety sac of his testes.
He growled in response and slid his hands beneath my dress, expertly ripping away my underthings until I was, except for my stockings, completely naked beneath the skirt of my dress. I spread my legs for him as he fondled all the wetness between my legs. He slid his fingers deep inside my willing hole and I immediately grunted against his mouth and began rolling my hips in response to his touch. My hips met every deep, deliberate, intimate thrust of his fingers.
I thought we must make quite a wanton pair, and a part of me feared what would happen, should Rupert and his lover open the door and find us together like this, but my mind and all my worldly worries were quickly swept away on the tide of my desire for this man, my ogre. He brought me fast and hard while I stroked and fondled his cock. Our mouths clung in a kiss as I writhed against him as the pressure within me built and then burst inside me, making me thrust wildly against his body like some wanton, enraptured creature of the night.
“I want to be inside you,” he growled softly against my lips. “Now.”
I began spreading my legs further, but he said, “No. Not like that. Turn around.”
I obediently turned and he pushed me forward so I was forced to kneel on the cushion of the fainting couch and my upper body was bent over the back. He pulled my skirts up so I was bare to his touch and leaned against my back, pinning me against the backrest. I wriggled at the pressure until he swatted me, hard, and I cried out, muffling the sound in the crook of my arm. Then he snagged the back of my neck in his sharp, big teeth and started rubbing his seeping cock against my crack. I struggled until the pressure of his teeth increased and I moaned at the thrilling fear of being taken like this, like some creature in the throes of her heat season, and submitted to his advances. I raised my backside a little, the trickle of his seed dripping down over my back and legs, and wriggled uncontrollably.
“Do you love me?” I asked.
He released me long enough to whisper, “More than anything, Lucky. More than life itself. Yes, I love you.” He angled my hips up so he had better access to me and drew his lips and tongue along my spine and backside, nibbling my skin there so I ground my hips back against his wicked little bites. “I love your mouth and mind and your lovely little cunny. I love everything about you, Lucky.”
“Why didn’t you say then?” I cried. “Why did you say nothing?”
“Oh Lucky, I thought…it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
“That I wouldn’t love you because of your face? Do you really think me so shallow and callous?”
He traced the wetness between my legs with his tongue. He nibbled at both my openings. “Forgive me.”
“Show me. Earn it,” I commanded him.
He grunted in response. Steadying my hips with his hands, he heaved himself upward and buried the thickness of himself to the hilt inside me. His testes hit my backside as I took every inch of him at once and I cried out at the intensity of it all. I tightened my muscles around him until he groaned. I held him deep inside as the second orgasm hit me, and then the pounding of his cock brought an unexpected third, though this one was different from the others and acted like a shockwave echoing throughout my body so my fingernails pierced the velvet of the couch and I rocked back to meet each of his powerful thrusts.
He pulled out, turned me about, and lifted me slightly in his arms, guiding me back against the wall of the library beside the couch, just under the governor’s stern, inspirational portrait of the theologia
n Jonathan Edwards. My shoulders hit the wall with a soft thud. Tiberius immediately sheathed himself deep inside me. I wrapped my legs around his waist so it was just his body, cock and the wall behind me holding me in place, and then he was bucking almost desperately inside me, each thrust pushing my back up the wall and making me gasp with the sheer power and ferocity of his rutting.
I rested my hands on his shoulders. “Harder, Tiberius…harder…”
“I don’t want to hurt you, love.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“You’re simply amazing,” he told me, his eyes shining with love and lust. He pounded into me harder, all the way up inside me until my fourth, writhing orgasm triggered his own and his cock twitched and spurted inside me, filling me to overflowing. He slid his hands about my waist and crushed me against him, kissing me hungrily as he finished emptying himself inside me. In that moment the door opened and Stuart stepped into the governor’s library.
“What in hell is going on? Lucille?”
***
BOOK 4: A WOMAN ON TOP
Smithtown, New York, 1805
Tiberius slowly lowered me to the floor of the Governor’s study, then bent to fix my skirts properly so I was decent. He then turned to face Stewart. His face was drawn and mean, and it looked years older. The scar along the left side of his face seemed to pulse. He eyed the younger man like a big male bull ready to charge a young challenger.
“What do you think you’re doing with Lucille?” Stewart demanded to know, taking a step toward us both. To his credit, he didn’t back down, though I did detect a quaver in his angry voice. I shifted along the wall, away from both men. I was acutely aware of how small I was, and how much I didn’t want to be between them if there were fisticuffs.
Tiberius offered Stewart a bitter smile. “What do you think, lad?”
