Surrendering to the Baron (A Steamy Regency Romance Book 7)

by Georgette Brown

He was in awe.

  AS SHE LAY UPON THE bed, Leopold sat beside her and untied her. She lay immobile He rubbed her breasts, her legs, and her backside, enjoying the suppleness of her body. His member was stiff as a maypole and would need tending to.

  After she had rested a while, he said, “On your feet. We will continue with your instruction.”

  She sat up and wrapped her arms over her bosom. “Instruction?”

  “Did you not wish to be a good little whore for your husband?”

  “I can take no more, sir. The hour must be late indeed.”

  “But we have hardly begun.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “There is much to learn if you wish to please your husband.”

  “Is this really what would please him?”

  “Men are simple creatures, and not a one would reject an offer to swallow his member.”

  She was silent, and he took this opportunity to caution her, “Perhaps you will not be so easily swayed by your friend in the future?”

  “Perhaps she did not fully understand what transpires here.”

  He snorted. “Your friend was once a frequent guest.”

  Trudie glanced up. “You know her?” She searched his countenance, perhaps wanting to ask if he had been with Diana before. He had not, but he had known many of Diana’s past lovers, some of whom were quite verbose with their escapades.

  “She was never a lover of mine,” he confirmed. “She has a cousin who once visited Château Follet as well.”

  She stared at him agog. Her voice wavered. “Her cousin? What was his—or her—name?”

  “I prefer to respect the anonymity of the guests here.”

  “She has few cousins...”

  He held out his hand. “I wish to show you another enjoyment of men.”

  Her mind obviously still whirled at the knowledge he had given her, but she accepted his hand. He rubbed his erection.

  “What do you intend?” she asked.

  He lay down. “Straddle me.”

  She knit her brows, perplexed.

  “As you would a horse,” he explained, taking her hand and pulling her to him.

  She placed a knee beside him. He pulled her thigh across his pelvis till it rested beside his hip. He settled her over him before pointing his shaft at her quim.

  “This is most awkward, sir,” she mumbled, unable to meet his gaze.

  “It is a divine position. Now ride me.”

  Hesitating, she adjusted herself over and over again till his patience thinned, and he pulled her thighs wide to lower her body.

  “Sir!”

  “Worry not. You shall enjoy it, as you have before.”

  He thrust his hips up and speared himself into her. She gave a loud gasp and attempted to wriggle off him, but he held her in place. Her wet heat was glorious.

  “Ride,” he instructed.

  “But how—?”

  He demonstrated by lifting her till she came to the tip of his cock, then pulling her down by the hips till she encased his entire length.

  “Up and down,” he said. “As if you were riding a horse.”

  He assisted the motions till she had a sense of the rhythm. Releasing her, he watched as her breasts bounded up and down. His erection was already hard as could be. He could have spent then and there if he lacked control.

  “My legs grow sore, sir,” she complained.

  “I did not give you leave to stop.”

  He reached up and grasped both breasts with his hands. Soon perspiration dampened her body. Her brow furrowed as she grunted and panted.

  “I cannot...it is too difficult to continue,” she pleaded.

  He gripped her hips and shoved himself into her till her teeth chattered. Tension fisted in his groin, his release near. Just before the boiling in his cods threatened to spill over, he pushed her off of him, came onto his knees, and allowed his mettle to rain upon her belly. He bucked his hips several times till the last of his seed had dropped. With a shake of his head, he fell beside her on the bed.

  “Well done, my love,” he said between ragged breaths. “I vow your husband would be proud.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHE HAD SURELY DESCENDED to a level within hell, Trudie thought to herself as she lay upon the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Her debaucher, having spent, lay beside her, breathing hard.

  Your husband would be proud, he had said after he had spilled his seed upon her.

  Was such a thing possible? Could Leopold be proud? Not of her infidelity. Of that she was certain he would be furious—or worse, devastated. She tried not to think on that and instead replayed her acts of wantonness. If she had taken Leopold into her mouth as she had done with the masked stranger beside her, if she straddled her husband and rode him, would that have been enough to stay him from straying?

  It mattered not if it would. For in coming to Château Follet with her husband’s cousin, Diana, she had allowed herself to be seduced and committed a transgression in the most depraved and wanton manner. The night had devolved from caresses to a dark torment. She had submitted to such things that would have appalled herself but yesterday.

  “You think overmuch, madam.”

  “I am merely...fatigued,” she prevaricated. Her head did still feel foggy, but that was likely due to the champagne. And it was perhaps a lack of sufficient thinking that had landed her in her current predicament.

  He rose from the bed and went to ring the servant’s bell. At that, she sat up and reached for the bedlinen.

  “I did not allow you could cover yourself,” he said whilst he pulled on his breeches.

  She looked down at his drying mettle upon her belly. “May I at least cleanse myself?”

  He grinned. “I like the look of my mark upon you.”

  She flushed. “You delight in wantonness.”

  “It is part of the allure here.”

  “For you.”

  “Have you not been aroused?”

  She could not deny she had.

  “Arousal is an odd beast to which there are many paths,” he continued. “Here at Château Follet, the titillation is driven by the more wanton, the more depraved and wrong.”

  “It does not have to be so.”

  “You did not have to come here.”

  His tone had an edge.

  “I did not—my friend did not fully inform me of what transpires here!”

  “Yes, it was mischievous of her not to have told you everything,” he considered with a frown, as if he were displeased with Diana somehow, though Trudie could not imagine why. What did a stranger care how Diana conducted herself? Certainly he had profited from Diana’s waywardness.

  “Nevertheless,” he continued, “I wonder that she would have brought you here lest she had some indication that you would take to the activities.”

  Her mouth dropped. “I would never have given her any evidence to support such a thing!” She had not known it herself.

  “Perhaps not knowingly—”

  “I have ever only been truthful and honest with her.”

  “Indeed?”

  She furrowed her brow. Why was he questioning her relationship with Diana?

  “As truthful and honest as you have been with your husband?”

  Her bottom lip quivered, and he shifted—in discomfort, it seemed. She said in a small voice, “Till now, yes. I had been a good wife—or so I thought. Perhaps not an adequate wife. But I was honest, and kind, and virtuous. Now none of that matters. I am the opposite of all that.”

  He gazed downward till a knock at the door roused him. It was a maid. Trudie pulled the bedlinen over her.

  “Bring up some tea,” he told the maid. After glancing at Trudie, he added, “and some biscuits. With strawberry jam.”

  Trudie perked up. She often enjoyed a dollop of strawberry jam on her biscuits.

  After the maid departed, he closed the door and turned to Trudie. She quickly uncovered herself, then blushed as if she had not been naked before him
already. She felt his gaze caress every curve of her body.

  “You say you have been a virtuous wife,” he remarked.

  “Had been,” she murmured with eyes downcast.

  “Perhaps that is why you are drawn to Follet. It is an opportunity to be naughty. Under the weight of virtue, of being the good, diligent, upstanding wife, the pendulum has swung the other way.”

  “That is no vindication, sir, for what I have done.”

  “I did not intend it for a defense, merely an explanation that is less damning and more forgiving of human nature.”

  “I could never forgive myself.”

  Her voice wavered, and she feared she might cry.

  “What if your husband forgave you, could you forgive yourself then?”

  She stared at him as if he were mad. “What husband would forgive his wife the crime of adultery?”

  “You said he was guilty first. You, at the least, are paying a form of penance, albeit a pleasurable one.”

  Again, she turned crimson. “It is not always pleasurable.”

  “No?”

  Her heartbeat skittered when he approached the bed. He removed the sash of his banyan.

  “Please,” she pleaded, though she knew not what he intended. “Have we not done enough?”

  “We had an agreement. Present your wrists.”

  She stared at the sash pulled taut between his hands. She considered running away, but he would catch her, as he had in the music room, and be vexed.

  Reluctantly, she presented her wrists. He bound them together with one end of the sash, then tied the other end to a cornice atop the headboard. Sitting beside her upon the bed, he reached for her thighs.

  “What do you intend?” she asked, though she knew his hand’s destination.

  “To prove that while you may not have relished every minute of what has transpired, pleasure endures.”

  She watched his hand slide between her legs and groaned when his digits brushed the slick flesh there.

  “As it would for any good wench,” he whispered in her ear, his words taunting and tantalizing.

  She shook her head in feeble protest.

  “You have acknowledged yourself a harlot,” he said, lightly stroking her. “Exalt in your admission. Is it not better than being a virtuous wife?”

  “Nooo...”

  She shut her eyes at his invasive fondling and how they lighted the most thrilling sensations.

  “Many a woman would be done for the evening,” he continued, “but harlots are rarely satiated, their bodies forever greedy to spend.”

  She could only whimper, trying not to mind how his fingers slid against her, grazing that nub of desire. A moan escaped her lips.

  “It is a shame your husband knew naught of your wanton nature. I vow he would have enjoyed it.”

  Was that possible? She half-wondered. The other half of her mind could not escape his ministrations. There was still dampness there, allowing his fingers to glide easily along her.

  “You know not my husband,” she said, hoping discourse would stall her arousal. “It pleases you to project your own inclinations onto him.”

  “At their core, men are not such diverse creatures. I know your husband—or his sort—better than you think. Can you not imagine him caressing you as I do now?”

  “I think not.”

  “Why not?”

  “My husband has not come into my bed for some time.”

  “And you wish he would?”

  Yes. And no. She had no wish to repeat the awkwardness and the discomfort of their marriage night. If she could be assured of his desire and her ability to enjoy his touch, she would desire greatly to share her bed with him.

  When she made no reply, he pressed, “Or do you doubt he could please you?”

  “You are impertinent to ask such questions, sir.”

  Shifting her hips, she tried unsuccessfully to escape his probing hand. He pinched her clitoris, making her yelp.

  “Perhaps you doubt his skills as a lover.”

  “It is not something I considered! I have no particular expectations...”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he is my husband. I would accept him if he lacked any skills. For certain, I would not have been the wiser as I have no basis to draw a comparison.”

  His fingers plied the spots that made her shiver. “Till now.”

  Till now, she agreed.

  “Would it please you if he could do what I do to you?”

  That familiar ache had begun unfurling in her loins, making her breath uneven, making her body tremble and tense.

  “No,” she exhaled.

  He withdrew his hand. Her body strained toward him, no longer fearful of the sensations his stroking elicited. He cupped a breast. She groaned, glad for the touch but aggravated that he did not apply it to a path that could lead to her desired destination.

  “You deceive yourself, madam.”

  He brushed his thumb over a nipple before tugging on the stiff bud. The ache between her legs throbbed.

  A knock at the door indicated the maid had returned. He rose from the bed.

  “Wait!” Trudie cried, tugging at her bonds.

  “Stay as you are,” he replied before walking to the door.

  “But—”

  He received the tea try from the maid and went to set it upon the table. He then returned to untie her wrists. She sat up.

  Returning to the table where the tea had been set, he pulled out a chair. She thought of asking to dress first, but when he handed her his banyan, she knew he did not expect her to attire herself. With a difficult swallow and as the agitation his hand had provoked still swirled below her belly, she grudgingly rose from the bed, slipped into the robe, and went to sit at the table.

  He added a little milk to the tea he poured, as she liked it, before handing her the cup. She found the heat of the tea comforting. He placed the plate of biscuits and the jam before her.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking a biscuit and trying to find normalcy in taking tea with a masked stranger whilst she sat in naught but a robe. She pressed her thighs together in an attempt to ease the pressure. Had he forgotten the state he had left her in? Or was it his intention to leave her body bereft?

  Of course it was deliberate.

  He seemed always to act with intention. A part of her hated him for this, for tormenting her with equal parts pain and pleasure. Yet, she could not bring herself to think him pure evil, as much as she wanted to. Perhaps it was because she had heard, at times, pity in his voice. At other times, she heard anger—more anger at her than was warranted, for she was a stranger to him.

  Something he had said earlier returned to her, and she wanted to break the silence between them. The longer they sat, the more conscious she became of her nakedness.

  He had pulled his chair away from the table to give him room to cross his legs. He had finished his first cup and did not partake of the biscuits or jam.

  “You had asked,” she ventured as she nibbled upon a biscuit, “if I could forgive myself if my husband did. Do you think a man—any man—capable of forgiving the crime of adultery?”

  “Your husband is Christian, is he not?”

  “I did not speak of my husband.”

  “Your hypothetical is of no use if it does not address your husband.”

  He sounded rather grim when he spoke the word ‘husband.’

  “Of course he is Christian, though perhaps he does not attend church as regularly as he ought.”

  “I presume he attended often enough to know that forgiveness is a Christian value.”

  “But adultery is among the worst of sins.”

  “Does John not say that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness?”

  “That does not give us license to do whatever we will. And whilst the Lord might forgive, my husband may not.”

  He looked down in thought for a moment before saying, “Do you
forgive your husband?”

  At first, she could not answer for she had not asked herself this. “I do not fault him,” she thought aloud. “My husband could have had a much prettier, much wittier woman than I had he not felt obligated to offer his hand to me. I think I was a wretched disappointment on our wedding night.”

  “Wedding nights are far easier for the groom.”

  “Yes, but I think I frightened him with my sobbing. I had not—I had not expected it would hurt as much as it did. He tried—I believe he tried to make it pleasurable for me.”

  “Tried and failed.”

  “I am certain the experience contributed to his desire to seek a mistress. Had I not been in such hysterics, had I been—I did not think I could derive pleasure from the venereal. I was convinced my body was not inclined to it.”

  “But it is. I would say exceedingly so.”

  Blushing, she stared into her tea. “Had I known...well, perhaps it would not have made a difference to Leopold.”

  “Are you so certain?”

  She blinked several times in thought. “Yes. No. How can one be certain? Regardless, he has a mistress now.”

  Silence fell between them again till he spoke.

  “Earlier this evening you had remarked that it was not uncommon for husbands to take mistresses, but that does not mean you condone it.”

  She took another biscuit and put a dollop of jam upon it. The tea and sustenance seemed to help settle her nerves.

  “I do not,” she acknowledged.

  “And while you say that you do not fault your husband for his infidelity, that is not the same as forgiveness.”

  “Luke says, ‘If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, “I repent”, you must forgive him.’”

  “It is easy to quote scripture, but much harder to follow it.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. How was it she had fallen into such easy conversation about so delicate a matter with this stranger?

  After another minute of silence, he said, “I would hazard you have not forgiven him or you would not have come to Château Follet.”

  “Perhaps. I suppose I must forgive him now if I hope to have his forgiveness.”

  “Do you?”