And he expected to continue with her lesson! She could suffer no more at the man’s hands.
After he had departed, she rose from the bed. She would dress but feared doing so would delay her escape. Grabbing a robe, she slid into it and hurried out the door.
Out in the corridor, she knew not where to head but determined she would put as much distance between herself and her debaucher as possible. In bare feet, she scurried through the hall and was cognizant that she had entered a different part of the Château for the flooring and walls had changed. She slowed when she heard voices, one familiar to her ears.
Diana. Her husband’s cousin.
“No need to tarry out here, mademoiselle,” said a man who had come up behind her. “You’ll have a much better view inside.”
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her into the room. Luckily for Trudie, he released her when a woman pounced upon him and drew all his attentions.
Nearly a dozen men and women, in various states of dress, occupied the room filled with sofas and tables set about a mound of pillows in the middle of the room.
“Trudie!” Diana waved her over.
Without her mask, Trudie did not feel comfortable in extended company, but she had no wish to encounter her debaucher. Feeling safer with Diana, she went to take a seat beside her friend upon a divan.
“Where is your night’s paramour?” Diana asked.
“He and I are done,” Trudie replied and hoped that her friend would not ask for particulars.
“Then you are free to enjoy in the revelry here!” Diana handed her a glass of wine. “Madame Follet has a fine cellar. You’ll not find a better claret.”
Trudie took the glass. Though she did not partake of wine often, she finished the glass rather promptly.
Diana raised her brows and motioned for one of the footmen, scantily clad in nothing but a Roman toga, to approach. “Another glass for my friend.”
Trudie opened her mouth to object but Diana spoke over her. “Does Château Follet not exceed expectations? La! I wonder that I had waited as long as I had before coming? How silly I was to have thought my husband would give up his mistress! But at last I have found a proper divertissement for me, and I vow it were much more exciting than what Charles must have with his lightskirt! You saw the Adonis I found. Is he not far more handsome than Charles?”
Trudie would have looked for the man Diana had paired with for the evening but found it too unsettling to observe some of the guests, a few of whom were in engaged in amorous activity. Her cheeks reddened at glimpsing a couple brazenly petting one another, and she promptly decided that staring into her empty glass was a safer way to past the time.
“He has gone in search of the perfect Champenois wine,” Diana supplied. “I told him I adored the sparkle and the bubbles.”
Trudie watched Diana recline at an angle and wished she had her friend’s ease. One would have thought Diana to be a frequent guest of the Château. Trudie, in contrast, still harbored the desire to flee. But as the hour was very late, she could not. And courtesy would not allow her to depart without her friend. Thus, she was trapped.
A part of her wanted to reveal the details of what had transpired to Diana, to seek her counsel and her solace. As she observed the merriment in Diana’s countenance, however, she decided to keep her own woes to herself rather than dampen her friend’s mood.
But Diana noticed her less than cheerful disposition.
“Why so glum?” Diana asked. “Do you miss your lover? Did he desert you?”
Trudie shook her head.
Diana leaned in. “Was he all that you had hoped for in a lover?”
“Goodness, no!” Trudie replied. “I mean...he was...”
“I can tell by the blush in your cheeks that he must have been, at the least, decent.”
Blushing further, Trudie did not know how to respond. Her debaucher had made her spend despite the mental agony of her situation.
“Perhaps our lovers would consider swapping?” Diana mused aloud. “I am curious to know what your lover is like. Mine has been more than satisfactory, I assure you.”
Trudie’s mind whirled. She had sinned with one man and could not contemplate committing adultery with a second.
“We have an entertaining enactment,” Diana purred. “I am his ‘lovely little slave,’ as he calls me, and he is my ‘Master Aries.’ I must do his every bidding, and I serve him gladly for the rewards are delicious.”
“If you do not perform his bidding, what happens then?”
“I always do as he wishes.”
“There are no consequences?”
“I should hope not...or perhaps it would be rather fun to see what he would do...We are merely playing roles. Ah, my master approaches with the wine!”
Diana’s Adonis of flaxen hair approached with a bottle in hand.
“And who is your friend?” he asked of Diana as he sat beside her.
“This is my cousin-in-law,” Diana replied, holding up her glass for him to fill.
“Is she joining us for a menage-a-trois?”
Heat flared in Trudie’s cheeks.
“She is spoken for,” Diana answered for Trudie. “Thus, you must make any arrangements with her lover first.”
“And where is he?”
“I know not,” Trudie answered quickly, rather terrified that the man would seek out her debaucher.
“How is you do not know? He left you to fend for yourself on your first evening?”
“He...had other matters to attend.”
“Darling,” Diana interjected, “this wine is delightful. You must try it!”
Master Aries poured a glass for Trudie.
“I could drink this all day!” Diana said and held up her empty glass once more.
As he filled it, Trudie took a sip of hers. It was a cheerful wine and only mildly bitter.
“Do you not like it?” Diana inquired after swallowing it as easily as if it were milk tea.
“Careful,” Master Aries said. “The effervescence makes inebriation faster than you would suspect. Perhaps I should hold your glass.”
Diana giggled as he held her glass for her to sip from. Feeling a little awkward witnessing them, Trudie continued to drink her wine. She turned her gaze to a couple lying amid a bed of pillows in the center of the room.
The man and the woman were both naked. Trudie wondered that they had the courage to display themselves in such audacious and wanton fashion. They must be quite intoxicated. The woman lay stretched before her partner, her black tresses spread out among the pillows, a contrast to her alabaster skin. The woman groped her own breasts, rolling them over her chest as the man looked on, stroking his member. She spread her legs wide, a clear invitation. They would engage in congress in public, Trudie realized. With his free hand, the man caressed her crotch. She moaned and tugged at her nipples. For several minutes, they continued in this manner. He stroked himself, then her, then himself again. She began to writhe with her moans.
Trudie took another sip of her wine, only to find the glass empty. How had she finished it so quickly?
"Do you wish for more?" asked Master Aries.
"Perhaps a little more," replied Trudie.
He refilled her glass for her. Trudie returned to looking at the naked couple in the middle of the room. There was something utterly inappropriate and completely naughty in watching the private corporal acts of another, yet curiosity won over guilt and shame. After all, she was not watching them in secret. Nay, the couple flaunted what they did. The man began to slide his member along the woman’s folds.
With a grunt, the man sank into his companion. Trudie’s mouth dropped.
“Mmm, I should like to be her,” Diana murmured.
From the corners of her eyes, Trudie saw Diana’s hand pull at her own skirts.
“Allow me,” Master Aries said.
Flushing, Trudie fixed her attention upon her wine and the couple in the center of the room. Every time the man bucked his hips, the
woman groaned with evident pleasure. Trudie wondered that the woman could feel not the slightest discomfort being exposed to all, roughly taken by this man on the floor of the room.
Beside her, Trudie could hear Diana faintly panting.
The woman cried out in evident pleasure. The man followed not long after, roaring as if he had injured himself something fierce.
Trudie realized she felt exceptionally warm and that an agitation swirled gently below her navel. She found she rather envied the woman laying prone upon the pillows.
Diana gave a great sigh and mumbled, “That was rather delightful.”
“Another glass, my dear?” asked Master Aries. “I see your friend may need another as well.”
Trudie looked down at her empty glass.
“Shall I bring another bottle?” asked a footman.
“If you will show me to Madame’s cellar, I should like to select my own.”
“I wish to go as well,” Diana said, leaping to her feet. “You were gone far too long last time. Come, Trudie, lest you prefer to remain here?”
Trudie rose to her feet. She did not wish to be in a roomful of strangers, and a walk about might clear her head. Then she would decide what to do with the remainder of the night.
Chapter Eleven
A FAINT BUT UNCOMFORTABLE throbbing persisted like a vise about her head. Trudie fluttered her eyelids, glad for the dimness of her surroundings. She had fallen asleep, and part of her wanted to remain in slumber, but all was not right.
She could not remember where she had fallen asleep. Memories of a woman being taken by a naked man in a room full of strangers danced in and out of her consciousness. She recalled the thrusting of the man, how the woman palmed her own breasts and grunted with pleasure being filled by him. Trudie remembered attempting to douse with champagne the rising lust in her own body. She had consumed too much. That was why she had fallen asleep. But she did not recall drifting off to sleep in the salon. She had been with Diana and Diana's paramour. And there was another. One of the footmen. She did not remember his name. She had been in their company. Diana and her paramour had stumbled off somewhere, leaving Trudie alone with the footman. That was the last of what she remembered before falling asleep.
Realizing her discomfort extended to other parts of her body, Trudie attempted to adjust herself, but she could not move. Opening her eyes wide, she saw that she was not in the salon, nor the cellar where Madame Follett kept her wine, but a new chamber altogether. And the reason she could not move was because she was bound to the bed again, as she had been earlier, her wrists tied to the posts. Her head felt heavy, her confusion and upset greater than it had been before. Had the footman tied her in this manner? Her body felt as if it had been tossed about in a post chaise on a bad road. Even her jaw felt sore, with spittle drooling down the sides of her mouth because she must have fallen asleep with her mouth open. What humiliation was to be endured now? She tried not to panic. “Awake at last.”
It was the voice of her debaucher. She could not decide if she was relieved or not.
She decided not.
Though she could not see him as he was somewhere in the shadows of the room, she could hear his footsteps. She heard the sound of liquid being poured into a glass.
Where had Diana gone off to? Trudie struggled against her bonds.
“I would not waste the energy were I you,” he said. “You will require it to last the night.”
He stepped into her view, and she saw that, unlike her, he was fully clothed save that he had foregone a coat. He cupped her chin and lifted her head. In the dim lighting of the room, she could not make out the expression in his eyes from behind his mask, but from the firm set of his jaw, she believed she had much to fear. She did not believe she could endure any more, not even pleasure.
"I had not given you permission to leave," he continued, "thus, I was quite disappointed to find you gone when I returned. You realize you will have to learn from your lack of regard."
She gave a despairing moan as he released her chin and let her head fall.
"But I think you will be up for the task for you are much more the wanton creature than I thought. Perhaps I had not made clear the arrangements betwixt you and I. While we are here, and together, you are mine and mine alone. I had procured some ratafia among your refreshments, but given your inebriation, I think water best."
He lifted her head again and bade her drink. "It is naught but water," he said, taking a sip to demonstrate it was not poisonous.
He presented the water to her once more, and this time she drank it readily, hoping it would dilute the thickness in her head.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled after she had finished.
"Sorry that you were caught?"
Well, of course that. But she did not speak anything that might perturb him.
"I am disappointed that you found it necessary to abscond my company. Though you are a novice, your wantonness and willingness impressed me till now. But you have apparently found me lacking."
She furrowed her brow, perplexed.
"My company was insufficient for you as you chose to seek that of another."
"You frightened me," she confessed.
"And you did not find the footman intimidating."
"The footman?"
"Yes, I found the two of you in the cellar, your legs spread wider than a slut's beneath him."
Her eyes widened. "I did not..." Her mind strained to recall what could have transpired.
"When I discovered you missing," he said, "I went looking for you. By chance, I came across your friend, Diana. She told me you were in the wine cellar with a friend."
"I can't remember," Trudie protested. "I would have–I don't even know the man!"
"Then it is all the more naughty and wanton of you."
Dear God, had she committed adultery with a second man in one night? She remembered the champagne. Regret, its brutal blades twisting inside of her, made her want to curl in a corner and disappear. How could she have done such a thing? She should not have allowed herself to consume so much wine. Coming to Château Follet was the most grievous error of her life.
"I suppose you could affix the blame upon your intoxication, but can you truthfully say that you would not have lifted your skirts beneath the footman were you sober?"
Trudie was at a loss for words because she felt as if she no longer knew herself. Her silence seemed to displease him for his lips formed a grim line. "I promise you, after we are done, you will not want to desert me again."
TRUDIE GROANED. THIS did not bode well. He caressed then squeezed her breasts, tweaking each nipple between thumb and forefinger. She was fully awake now.
"Such lovely breasts merit attention," he said.
She took in long, loud breaths through her nose as she watched him go to the sideboard and retrieve a bottle. Ambling to her, he set the bottle on the nightstand. He uncapped it and poured out what appeared to be oil upon his hands. "With this, you shall need to remain naked for some time, lest you wish to soil your garments.” He smiled, as if he wanted her to be always naked. “My God, you have lovely teats. We must anoint them."
He rubbed his hands together over her, droplets of oil flecking her bare skin. With feather-light strokes, he eased his hands on her chest, first under her breasts, then on the sensitive flesh and nipples. The warmth, nay tenderness, of his touch caused such a war of sadness and tenderness that she could not move. Then his hand wandered between her thighs, prying apart the folds to reach that nub of betrayal. She strained and jerked against the ropes. He would undo her once more. He slapped a breast to still her and she did her best to settle her body, but it was no easy feat for that little nub of flesh held such potency. Even the gentlest stroke of his finger was agonizing. She did not understand how it could be so when apprehension still gripped her.
"I want you to spend for me."
She shook her head. How could she knowing what she did, and he did not? “No.”
To her dismay
, he dotted more oil on his fingers and worked at her nub. The oil slicked and warmed in such a way that she could not bear it, yet she arched into his touch. These sensations so echoed those in her mind and heart that all she craved was release, and he could give that to her, if she would let him. He stopped his touches. “You will spend for me now, I think.”
She nodded, relief washing over her when he again resumed his attentions. He caressed her between the legs. “And do not presume to fool me,” he said. “I know enough of your body to discern whether it has truly spent. You have no wish to deceive me.”
His thumb pressed upon that most sensitive rosebud. Pleasure flared. To her surprise, his continued fondling had caused her to grow wetter than ever. What did this mean? Why was this so? As he strummed her traitorous bud, he teased the opening of her slit. She was still a little sore from his earlier penetration but found herself wanting him to enter. She shivered when his digit passed over the opening and moaned when he sank a tip inside. His entry both satisfied and stoked the lust burning within her.
“Allow the pleasure to prevail,” he coaxed.
She shook her head. She deserved no pleasure, ought derive no pleasure from what he did to her. Spending would give him the false indication that she wanted this treatment. But concentrated shudders went through her when he curled two fingers inside her.
Good heavens! How was he able to draw such intensity, his fingers eliciting reverberations as if her body was a tuning fork he had struck?
“I think you will spend, whether you desire it or no,” he commented.
He spoke true. She could not fight against the tide, her body now jerking of its own accord. The wave would slam into her, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it from crushing her, till she became naught but a bundle of vibrating nerves, thousands upon thousands of nerves.
His fingers stroked and stroked, past her wails of dismay as her body triumphed, still buried inside her even as she writhed and flailed, unable to contain the burst of pleasure.
“My God,” he breathed.
Surrendering to the Baron (A Steamy Regency Romance Book 7) Page 8
