He had actually wondered if he should stay in the country all winter in order to escape her in town, but he ultimately decided against that. He needed to find a wife. And Eden needed to be wed or employed before her history was revealed. Before he might be forced to wed her himself. If this job she spoke of did not materialize, Juliet could find some poor fool to take her even if she was still in mourning. God knows, the dowry he intended to provide should bring out every fortune hunter in England.
She was not for him. She had been his uncle’s whore. He’d burned the proof, but he had it from her own lips. In unvarnished detail she’d told him of the years she’d spent with the man, each detail more shocking than the last. She’d seemed proud, too, despite her tears. When she tried to win him with her luscious mouth, his temptation had known no bounds.
Enough. He gathered up bills and papers to take back to town with him. Improbably he now had a “man of affairs” in London to see to the petty details of his newly idle life. Mr. Calvert was a clever young man, but Hart would feel useless if he left everything up to Calvert. After more than a decade spent in the army, Hart could never get used to being a gentleman of total leisure. Calvert had been with his uncle for a year and had been given complete reign over everything in London, since Ivor was evidently too busy in the country fornicating with his stepdaughter.
Hart would wait here a few more days, then return to London. Heaven forbid he encountered Eden on the road until he could make himself think clearly. What had she meant by that last hysterical outburst?
Hart toyed with the ring of keys that his uncle had left in the desk drawer. He had no idea what they opened, but hopefully Collins would know. It was past time he gathered up whatever valuables Ivor had and disposed of them. One of the first things to go would be the hellish “library.” More than half the books were beyond the pale. He knew because he had gone through each one, assuring himself that there were no remaining pictures of Eden to reveal what had transpired at Hartford Hall. He wondered how young Calvert would relish the prospect of finding a new owner for the volumes, for that was certainly something Hart had no interest in doing himself. He’d thought of burning them, but after going through the ledgers, he knew he’d be immolating hundreds of pounds’ worth of perversion.
Ringing for Collins, he poured himself another glass of port and stared into the fire. The house was quiet, something Hart was not used to. For years he’d been surrounded by the noise of men and war, animals and machinery. Until the other day, his aunt had flitted about the hall, laughing and teasing, trying to cheer Eden up. He could even imagine Eden’s melodious voice responding.
Collins entered the shadowed room. “Shall I remove your dinner tray, my lord?”
“Yes, in a minute. Do tell Mrs. Burrell it was excellent, as usual. But that is not why I called for you.” Hart reached into his pocket and held out the keys. “Can you tell me what these unlock? I’d like to make sure I inspect everything before I leave.”
The old butler fished a pair of spectacles from his coat and examined the ring. “These two are to the wine cellars, which you’ve already seen.”
Hart nodded. His uncle’s cellars were on a par with his books. Only the finest vintage had been purchased.
“I believe this one is for the box on the dresser in Lord Hartford’s bedroom. Kempton would know, but he’s left us.” Hopefully Ivor’s valet was now miles and miles away. Collins knew Eden had given him the contents of the box and most of her savings. At her direction he had packed a small trunk of valuables for the man before he sent him off with a ridiculously false glowing reference.
“This key unlocks the safe in the wall.” Collins walked across the room, fiddled with the hinge on a picture, and exposed a good-sized square cut into in the paneling. It was intended to be secret, hidden behind the boring pastoral painting of sheep. But not much got by Collins, including the clandestine staircase and the very inappropriate way his late master used Miss Eden.
He still suffered some remorse for not stepping in. He rationalized he had been protecting his daughter Charlotte, who for a frightening while had garnered the baron’s attention. He’d done the best he could. He suspected if he’d known all the actual details of the relationship, he might have had an apoplexy, or consulted with Mrs. Washburn and Mrs. Burrell on which herbs might be used to hasten the baron’s end. The total reality was still Eden’s secret, but what he thought was bad enough.
God only knew what the reprobate had in his safe, and Collins didn’t want to be present when the new Baron Hartford discovered whatever filth he might find. “If that will be all, sir.” At Hart’s assent, he carried the tray out of the library and down into the kitchens.
Mrs. Washburn, Mrs. Burrell, Charlotte and Billy, the new footman, were just sitting down to their meal. A place had been laid for Collins. After the hustle and bustle of the past few days, he thought the kitchens seemed a touch eerie. Almost too quiet. Hart’s rough young soldiers had added some life to the Hall, and Charlotte in particular had had her head turned. She was also jealous that Mattie had been plucked away by Mrs. Cheverly to see the sights of London. Collins would do his best to smooth his daughter’s feathers. The care of his young daughter was almost too much for a man his age, but he’d been unable to resist her mother. An old man’s folly.
“More work for me,” she was grumbling as he entered the staff dining hall.
“Don’t be silly, Charlotte. Soon we’ll have the house to ourselves again. The baron will be leaving within days,” Collins said, placing a strip of linen across his paunch. “We’ll close up most of the rooms and live like kings. And queens,” he said, winking at his daughter.
“What’s his nibs doing upstairs?” asked Billy, shoveling a wedge of mutton pie into his mouth.
“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” said Collins repressively. “He did ask me to tell you, Annie, that everything was excellent as usual.”
His daughter was not the only one to have her head turned. Mrs. Burrell turned pink with pleasure. For all that she was a grand-mother many times over, working for Stuart Hartford had made Mrs. Burrell as besotted as Charlotte.
“Please pass the carrots,” said Collins, bringing her back to earth.
“Certainly, Charlie,” she said, lifting the white ironstone bowl in her capable hands.
Hart wondered what treasure he’d find. A bag of guineas? Some diamond stickpins? A few naughty snuffboxes? All of the pertinent deeds and ledgers and shares were tucked away in the bank, with copies at Calvert’s offices. The key fit smoothly into its lock with a satisfying click, and the wooden door popped open.
He felt a moment of disappointment. Instead of a pile of bank-notes, he found a single leather-bound book. Hart took it from its resting place and put it on the desk. It really was too dark to read in the cavernous library unless he lit another branch of candles. Deciding to bring it and his unfinished glass of port upstairs, he extinguished the lighting. Another one of his uncle’s “valuable” books, no doubt. It might make for entertaining bedtime reading, and help dispel the sexual tension he was plagued with.
He’d sent his valet along with the women, so he prepared himself for bed without the hovering McBride’s assistance. Turning the lamps up, he sat by the fire in his banyan and studied the spine. The Education of a Young Lady of Doubtful Virtue. So here was the truly valuable book. The bill for it had astonished him. He wondered if the illustrations were painted with gold leaf. It was not especially thick, so it would make quick reading, if in fact there were any words accompanying what were bound to be dirty pictures. His uncle’s collection was probably the finest of its dubious kind.
The pages had already been cut, yet the book seemed quite new, hardly as dog-eared as some of the other volumes Hart had looked at. Somehow that gratified him. He didn’t care to be reminded of what his uncle had probably been doing as he perused each one.
The frontispiece had the gryphon trademark and the book’s title. The author was Lord H.
Hart got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. And when he turned the page, his worst fears were confirmed.
This couldn’t be. With clumsy fingers, he flipped though the book. There was only one model for the artist, yet many illustrations, each one progressively more graphic and tortuous than the previous picture. And she had stopped smiling long before the midpoint of the volume. His uncle had captured the hunted look of a woman, a girl really, who knew her choices were limited, none of them good.
Hart closed his eyes, but he still saw a collage of Eden’s images, her beauty bare, her eyes vacant. This was what she had alluded to, and he had been too obtuse to understand.
He forced himself to return to the first page and began to read the words that Ivor had paid so much to have printed.
They lay naked on a blanket under the hot sun. He had lapped wine from her belly and retrieved the strawberries he’d placed in her cunt.
“You are red. And sticky.” She laughed, placing a finger in the corner of his mouth. He had quickly suckled at her finger and watched the haze of her longing transform her playfulness into quite something else.
“Wash me, Puss.”
She straddled him, her heavy breasts falling to his chest. Her pink tongue darted and she licked his lips, the place beneath his nose, his chin.
“Mmm. You taste delicious.”
He raised a sandy eyebrow. “Are you still hungry?”
“Always.” She looked at him shyly, then scooted down and took his manhood in her mouth. He lay back, watching the clouds scud across the sky.
He was bored. The little whore would do anything now. Yesterday he fucked her right behind the hedge, with her mother reading in an iron chair just yards away and the snicking sound of the gardener deadheading roses in the background. He was even getting careless with the necessary precautions. But then, it would not be too awkward or unwelcome if he got a child on her. His wife seemed useless in that arena. She could simply be persuaded to pretend her grandchild was her son. His stepdaughter would have no say in the matter if she knew what was good for her.
It was time to bring the girl to her next natural step. She was so eager. Like a puppy. It was hardly a challenge to get her to spread her legs, or her lips. He had not asked for her arse; he was far too finicky for that. Unpleasant memories of his own youthful subjugation had ruined that particular vice for good.
She was cheerful, obedient. She loved him, or thought she did. Perhaps it was the secrecy and shame that spurred her on. She really was a consummate little slut. The plain ones were always so grateful, although her body was better than most by far. Absently, he tangled his fingers in her hair.
Her mother was sickly and stupid. Once the girl had been broken to him, she seemed not to give her mother a thought. But it was so handy her having a younger sister. One mention of the child’s name and the girl was putty in his hands.
He had not come to her for two weeks. Avoided her eye at the dinner table. Returned her carefully worded notes unopened.
The girl would think she had displeased him. But how? She had done everything he asked. Everything. True to his word, he had taught her tricks she’d never dreamed existed, and she performed them to perfection. Held her jealous tongue when she caught him kissing her mother. Laughed as he teased her little sister. Loosened her hair, lowered her necklines, hovered outside the library door. He knew the ache between her thighs was driving her to distraction. She must be spending her nights in fevered dreams, twisting her body around in imaginary ecstasy.
She knocked at the library door, then turned the handle. It was locked.
“Who is it?”
“It is I, my lord. Puss.”
“I’m afraid I’m busy.”
“Please, my lord, I won’t take up too much of your time.”
He opened the door and looked at her with deliberate disdain.
“What have I done?” she cried. “Why won’t you see me?”
His hand shot out and he pulled her into the library roughly. “Come in before someone overhears you.”
He locked the door again behind her. She stood in the center of the room, head bowed, eyes downcast, a picture of misery. Perfect.
He sighed. “This has been wrong. We cannot continue. I’ve allowed you to seduce me. I’m being devoured alive with guilt. I deserve to be punished. Beaten.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said, rushing to him. “Punish me. It’s my wickedness that drove you to it. I am a whore. A slut.” She looked around the room wildly, eyes settling on a riding crop that had been thrown on a chair. “Strike me, my lord, and then love me again. I cannot bear it!”
He shook his head. “I could not. You may have brought me to sin, but I cannot harm you.”
She tore at her clothing, then knelt on the carpet, presenting her bare bottom. “I deserve it. I deserve everything you could ever think to do to me. Do it. Do it now.”
In her distress she didn’t see the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. He picked up the crop and tossed it back and forth between his hands. “Very well. I can deny you nothing. You are my undoing.”
He hit her five times with the crop. Not particularly hard. That would come later. She uttered not a cry, not a whimper. Brave, foolish girl. The welts rose against the pure white of her bum. Delicious.
“Oh, Puss, I am so sorry. Forgive me.”
“Fuck me, please, my lord. I am going mad without you.”
He entered her from behind, where he could enjoy the proof of her devotion. She was drenched from her first true taste of his domination. They came together in a furious rush; she relieved, he exultant.
She sat unusually still at the luncheon table. Her little sister and governess were present. Even her mother was there, pale and ethereally beautiful.
“Some wine, my darling?” he asked, signaling to the footman.
“Just a drop,” his wife slurred. He knew she couldn’t bear to eat, but never turned down the wine that continued her disconnection.
All this food. Course after course. He had outdone himself for the special celebration. His wife had forgotten the date.
He looked at the girl and smiled. He knew precisely why she looked like a statue. Before escorting her into the dining room, he’d inserted a dildo in her cunt and told her she must keep it within her at all costs. It wouldn’t do to have the thing go rolling around the under the table. She was to exercise her vaginal muscles around it. Imagine that it was his cock inside her. If she was a good girl, after lunch, it would be.
He turned his attention to his stepdaughter.
“Yes, my lord?” she murmured.
“Some wine? It is your twentieth birthday, after all.”
His present was uncomfortably lodged within her. How was she to learn if he didn’t guide her? Wine would take some of the sting away if later on things went awry.
She was as light as a feather now, just a bag of bones. He untied her ankles, spreading her legs wide. He thrust three fingers roughly inside her.
“Wet. My God, what a whore you are.” He grabbed his sketchbook and sat on the edge of the bed. “I shall want to remember this night, Puss. You look quite beautiful. Almost as beautiful as your mother.” He pushed her knees up so she was exposed and fanned her hair out on the pillow, then raised her bound arms until they were over her head. He knew he didn’t have to tie her to the bedpost. She would not move unless he instructed her to.
He was an excellent artist, but it seemed this evening he was dissatisfied with his efforts. Page after page fell to the floor. He stretched her legs so wide, he thought she’d crack open. The drool from the gag dripped relentlessly down her neck.
“Something is missing.” He took the oil pencil and wrote on her stomach.
From her position, she could not see what he had done, but he told her.
He had beaten her today. Spanked her, really. There was no point to her being melodramatic. He’d found the pessary inside her and pulled it out in fury. He’d turned her over h
is knee as he’d never done before and blistered her so hard with his own hand she wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably for a week. He’d fucked her after. She couldn’t possibly have mistaken it for lovemaking. But he knew she’d enjoyed it anyway. She’d begged him to stay the night but he laughed and said he was growing old. That perhaps she was too old for him as well. Now, her sister . . . her sister was a ripe morsel, enough to make a mature man feel like a lad again. She had thrown herself around his knees and cried. He’d let her pleasure him with her mouth but withdrew to splatter his semen on her body. She had wiped up the wet with her hands and licked them clean, then licked and sucked his cock until he hardened again.
Tempting Eden Page 12
