by Brown, Em
“That is quite enough,” Mr. Winters pronounced, eliciting a chorus of moans. “If Lord Barclay is amenable, I should like to show him the grounds.”
Barclay surprised her by accepting the invitation. The girls followed. Gertie shook her head at how quickly they had forgotten her in favor of their ‘prince,’ but smiled at how much they had enjoyed their dancing. Foregoing the tour, she made her way upstairs to the nursery, where she found Mrs. Devon, a wet nurse who had worked in the orphan asylum for over twenty years, in the midst of swaddling a thrashing babe.
“I was about to bathe the wee one when Peggy awoke from her slumber cross as can be,” Mrs. Devon explained. “I fed her but still she hollers.”
Gertie took the howling babe from Mrs. Devon and paced about the room as she bounced the child in her arms. Peggy had been in the asylum three months. A man had delivered her here after finding her in a dwelling that had caught fire from an unattended hearth. Peggy had been badly burned, and Gertie’s heart broke upon seeing the charred skin. They had bathed her in ointments and salves to ease the blisters. Her skin was finally beginning to heal, but she still had patches of red and white. Nonetheless, Gertie thought her beautiful.
With Peggy occupied, Mrs. Devon was able to tend to the other infants. Gertie sang to little Peggy, eventually seating herself in a rocking chair. After sucking on Gertie’s finger, Peggy drifted into sleep. How calming the warm little bundle felt in her arms, Gertie reveled as she stared down at the small splotchy face. She imagined that she would never tire of holding Peggy. She would be content and want for nothing more if only she could have a Peggy for her own. Even the mighty Lady Athena would bow to such a sweet creature.
Feeling eyes upon her, Gertie looked up. Lord Barclay stood upon the threshold. How long had he been there? she wondered.
“It grows dark soon, my lady,” he informed her, his voice low as not to wake the sleeping babes.
Gertie nodded. Rising, she reluctantly returned Peggy to Mrs. Devon. Downstairs in the parlor, the girls clamored for Lord Barclay to return.
“You will bring him again, will you not?” Catherine begged Gertie.
“Will you show us another dance next time?” another asked.
“Well, I—I suspect Lord Barclay is a busy man,” Gertie stuttered.
“On the contrary, my schedule is quite open,” Barclay supplied.
Gertie bristled for he seemed amused to gainsay her. “Let us—we shall see then, my darlings.”
Barclay bid adieu with a gallant leg to the little girls, who gathered at the door to wave to them and see them off until their horses rounded the block and went out of view. Silence descended once again between them. Gertie decided to fill the void.
“It was...kind of you to learn the girls how to dance.”
“It would have been unseemly to deny such eager students.”
“You have a—you have endeared them to you. I confess I thought your charms reserved for...” She could not finish the thought as the memory of him and Sarah came to mind.
“I have two younger sisters,” he explained. “Prudence, the youngest, is nearly twenty years my junior.”
“Ah. I have not met her. She has not had her come-out, I take it?”
“Another year. She is in no hurry, though I would merit her with having the greatest maturity amongst us Barclays despite her years.”
“I should have liked to have had a sister,” Gertie thought aloud. “A younger one.”
“You have many at the asylum.”
“Yes, though I feel more like a doddering aunt to them at times. They are quite lively.”
“I have no doubt they could eat a man alive with the voracity of a pack of wolves,” he reflected.
Gertie chuckled. “They would not eat you alive. You have entranced them—like a snake charmer.”
He studied her. “Somehow I think I am at once the charmer and the snake?”
“Yes, well...there is the matter of your repute, sir. Alas, you have a way with the fair sex, young and old—or so I am told.”
And witnessed. Gertie scolded herself for surely she had given him an opening to make a spiteful remark as he had that night at the ball.
“And you have a way with the littlest ones,” he said. “The one named Peggy—she suits you.”
Perhaps she was nearing her menses, when maudlin sentiments could overcome her, for she nearly choked at hearing his words. She had never told anyone how much she longed for a child of her own. For a man she barely knew to have come close to touching that chord was too much.
“She survived a horrific fire,” she explained, feeling safer discussing the babe. “She was apparently alone, and whoever cared for her did not return to claim her.”
“Hers is a cruel world.”
“Yes, but what I have learned from the girls at the asylum is that children are remarkable creatures. They are driven to be happy, their resiliency unmatched. Their presence invigorates me.”
“Indeed? I think they have drained me completely of my vigor.”
An inadvertent laugh escaped her lips. “All the better, that you may wreak less of your mischief.”
She caught herself voicing her thoughts aloud and quickly added, “In truth, I find the girls tiring at times as well.”
But he would not be diverted so easily. “And you disapprove of my ‘mischief.’”
She caught her lower lip beneath her teeth. To her surprise, she was enjoying her tête-à-tête with him and had no wish to be reminded of their night at the Bennington ball.
“Of course,” she replied.
“Why?”
“Who does not?”
“Is it so hard a question for you to answer?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “The mark of a self-absorbed man is one who insists the conversation revolve around him.”
Turning up her nose, she quickened the pace of her horse. But he matched her and grabbed her reins, forcing her to turn and face him.
“If you disapprove, why did you watch us?”
Her heart began to beat rapidly, and she had to force herself not to look away from his intense stare.
“You came into the room of a sudden,” she threw at him.
“You did not have to hide and...observe.”
“I did not...” She felt herself turn red. “I hid only because...oh, you are an insufferable man!”
To add insult to injury, he threw his head back and laughed. “I have had much worse said of me, madam.”
“I am sure you have!” she snapped with a tug of the reins.
“Do not mistake that I disapprove of your Peeping Tom. I understand its titillation.”
She sucked in an incredulous breath. “You overstep your bounds, my lord, if you think I am a woman who would discuss such matters with you!”
She jerked her reins free from her hand. Fortunately, Lowry House was just around the corner.
“You prefer dialogue with Alexander.”
“Decent folk would not–”
The specter of Lady Athena would not allow her to finish her sentence.
“Forgive me, but many a decent folk are dreadfully tedious.”
“Yes, well—I mean—no. Of course a cad like you would find decency dull.”
“And certain ‘decent’ persons are not what they seem.”
“And you would know?” she asked archly as she pulled up before the house and slid off the horse before he could offer her assistance.
“The benefit of what you term my ‘mischief’ is that I have come to know a great many people, most of whom are not what they seem.”
She was not looking at him, but she felt his gaze boring into her as he meant to unearth her secrets.
“How ironic,” she declared, “for you are exactly what you seem. Good evening, sir!”
To her relief, the butler had seen her approach and opened the door. She did not have to hear Barclay’s rebuttal before entering the sanctuary of her own home.
“Are you wel
l, my lady?” the butler inquired as she untied the ribbon of her bonnet with trembling hands.
“Yes, yes,” she lied. “Have some tea sent to me if you would.”
Upstairs in her boudoir, she took several deep breaths. She ought not to let that Lord Barclay disconcert her so. He was not worth the agitation, even if the girls at the asylum did enjoy his company. She had spoken true when she said that he was what he seemed, but he also seemed more than her initial judgment of him. She tried to envision Alexander at the asylum, and concluded that her husband would never have had the patience to deal with the girls. He would not have accompanied her to the asylum in the first place. Alexander did not even venture to ask where she went on her Wednesdays.
As she removed her riding jacket, Gertie realized that Barclay had not broached his topic with her. Surely all his requests for her audience was not about the Orphan Asylum? Having stayed at the asylum longer than she had intended, Gertie quickly changed into her evening attire and went downstairs to dinner. She hoped Alexander would not be put out by her tardiness.
“I will be dining at White’s with Millington,” he informed her when she came across him in the hallway.
Millington was a classmate of his from Eton, but she happened to know that Millington had left for Bath yesterday for she had overheard Millington’s mother discussing the trip with the Dowager. Alexander, however, did not know that Gertie knew.
He was off to see his mistress, she realized. She wondered who it was. Was the woman pretty? Of course she was. How long had Alexander had this mistress?
But the answers would serve her no purpose, so she let Alexander by without a word. She decided that night she would return to Madame Botreaux’s.
Chapter Five
THE ROAR ECHOING IN his ears was his own. Phineas held back the oath upon his lips. The clamps Lady Athena had affixed to his nipples had springs compelling them to snap shut. Below the clamps dangled iron weights. He held his hands behind his head, where Lady Athena had instructed, and tried not to think of how much he wanted to rip the clamps from his body. She had made him strip to the buff and kneel upon a stone block.
Standing before him in her scarlet corset, she nudged one of the weights and admired it as it swung in a pendulum and tugged at his nipple. Phineas ground his teeth together, but maintained his focus upon her. It was the only way to endure the pain. He prayed he would have nipples left when the night was done.
He had returned every night to the Cavern to await her. For a sennight, she did not show.
“Do not flatter yourself,” Penelope had told him when he voiced his concern that perhaps he had caused her disappearance. “I doubt that the world of Lady Athena centers around the Cavern—or you.”
He had often speculated who Lady Athena personified in the world above the Cavern. He had studied the women of London, wondering with each one if she might be the glorious mistress, but none were obvious suspects. Lady Athena was bold, strong, confident, and electrifying. He felt his senses come alive in her presence. No woman in the world outside the Cavern produced such a surge in his body. He could attribute the thrill to the hunt, his desire to conquer the warrior-goddess, but his days at the Cavern without her had proved how keenly he awaited her. When he was not thinking of Lady Athena, his thoughts turned oddly to the Countess of Lowry.
“Lovely,” Lady Athena purred after circling her tongue around one of the nipples, biting on one of the clamps and tugging at it with her teeth.
Phineas stared at her plump red lips. He imagined the lush pair wrapped about his cock, imagined her mouth leaving a trail of rouge upon his shaft.
She pushed her breasts up with her hands. The voluptuous orbs filled his vision.
“Fondle them, Hephaestus.”
At last she would allow him to touch her! Upon raised knees, he gazed straight at her bosom. As she had instructed him to keep his hands behind his head, he had only his mouth at his disposal. He leaned into her rounded flesh and flicked his tongue at a nipple, playful and gentle even as his own nipples screamed in pain. When he had teased both nipples to pointed hardness, he encased one in his mouth and sucked. She moaned her approval. He sucked harder. She thrust the breast further into his face. He pulled as much of the flesh into his mouth as he could, suckling her tit with increasing vigor. His cock pulsed.
“Enough,” she ordered before he could lavish the same attention upon her other breast, which bore a small birthmark left of the nipple.
She stepped back and lowered her gaze to his cock, which lifted its mushroomed head. Kneeling, she cradled his shaft and gingerly slid her hand along it. She wore red satin gloves, and the harsh friction of the fabric against the tender skin of his member made him harden even more.
“Shall I allow you to pleasure yourself, I wonder?”
“No,” he replied resolutely. “Until my Mistress has found pleasure, I would not be worthy.”
She released him. “Suit yourself.”
His gaze caressed the contours of her body—the flare of her hips, the swell of her thighs. If she would but let him, he could worship her body.
As if sensing his thoughts, she asked, “In what ways do you enjoy pleasuring your Mistresses?”
“In all ways. How do you take pleasure, Mistress Athena?”
She dropped her gaze to his crotch and studied his erect member. Taking a step toward him, she removed one of her gloves, reached out her hand and grazed the side of his cock with a crooked finger. His cock responded immediately and lengthened. She slid her finger over the tip of his cock. When her finger passed over his piss-hole, he felt a tremor down the length of his inner thighs. Her hand reached beneath his cock, cradling his sack, and pressing her fingernails into it.
“I ask the questions,” she told him before roughly squeezing his balls.
Phineas grunted.
“How do you pleasure your Mistresses?” she repeated.
“The young woman you had me pleasure with my tongue,” he answered as he held her gaze, “I would have gladly done to...”
You.
“My Mistress,” he finished.
Her chest rose with inflated breath as she remembered his performance upon the redhead. She began to pace in front of him. “Tell me of your last Mistress.”
Phineas recalled the Marquise de Dupray, a lovely woman with dark black hair, who had an affinity for young lithe maids in her service. “She enlisted me in her service. She liked to watch me as I instructed her submissives on the finer points of pain and pleasure.”
“These submissives—were they men or women?”
“Young maidens. She preferred them virginal.”
He could not tell if his answer displeased her, but she nodded for him to continue.
“Her chamber had a large bergere armchair. She would sit in that chair and fondle herself as she watched us.”
“What did she have you do?”
“Fuck.”
He had spoken the word clearly, but she started as if she had not quite discerned his answer.
“I would fuck the maid,” he elaborated, speaking at a slower tempo so that she would miss not a word. His cock reared its head with the memory. “She—my Mistress, Madame, would have me fuck her maids in all manner of positions: standing, sitting, kneeling.”
“Describe one such instance.”
He thought he detected a slight hitch in her voice, but her face evinced no emotion.
“Madame had a Dutch scullery maid, Katrien, whom she favored. One night Madame called Katrien to her chambers. I undressed Katrien, removing every last article including her garters and stockings. Madame then told her to kneel and take my cock to mouth. Katrien had a remarkably pliant mouth, though when she first came to work for Madame, she often gagged while performing fellatio. She took almost the entire length of me down her throat this time.”
Lady Athena had stopped pacing.
“Madame would sit in that chair of hers and urge me to fuck Katrien harder, to grab Katrien by the hair an
d speed her motion on my cock. When I spent, Madame wanted Katrien to swallow every last drop of seed. Once, Katrien coughed, and my seed spilled from her lips onto the ground. Madame was furious and made Katrien sleep in a cage she kept next to her bed.”
He watched as she slid her fingers lovingly down his shaft. “Have you ever been caged, my Hephaestus?”
‘My Hephaestus’ she had said. Encouraged, he answered with a “no” but gave her such a look as to suggest that he would welcome such a prospect from her.
She smiled appreciatively and continued to play with his cock. “Continue.”
“Madame and I had trained Katrien well. She licked the last droplet off my cock and begged for more. That pleased Madame. As a reward, she allowed Katrien to kiss her. Madame kissed deep, as if she meant to lift the taste of me from Katrien’s mouth. Then she pushed Katrien to her knees and allowed the maid to lick her quim.”
He paused to relish the feel of Lady Athena’s fingers upon his cock. The pleasure made the weights upon his nipple more bearable. Indeed, the differing sensations began to complement each other, heightening his body’s awareness. Her thumb slid across the tip of his cock, drawing the glistening dew that had emerged there, and sliding it down his shaft. Suppressing a satisfied moan, he returned to his story.
“I knelt behind Kat and entered her from behind. My cock hardened further inside her. I fucked her as she did her best cunnilingus. Madame spent first, her thighs wrapped tightly about Katrien’s head. Then Katrien spent.”
“Then what?” Lady Athena blew into his ear. She had knelt beside him and drawn her body close enough for him to feel her heat. His hands itched to caress her—her arms, her hips, her thighs. Her hand had wrapped itself entirely about his erection, briskly pumping his cock.
“Then I fucked Madame.”
Her hand stopped. Her face was close enough to his that if he turned, his mouth could have brushed her cheek. He inhaled her scent, a fresh and subtle essence mixed with the musk of arousal that clung in the air of the Cavern.
“How?”