Master

by Colette Gale

  He was lying.

  He had to be.

  Mercédès would have tried again, but the front door opened there next to them, and the groom poked his head in, tugging his forelock. “Your coach, Your Excellency,” he said, then stepped away to gesture down the walkway to the waiting barouche.

  Monte Cristo placed the hat on his head and glanced down at Mercédès with another cool expression. It was as if his face was carved of stone. “By your leave, madam,” he said and, swinging his cane, started out the front door.

  She hurried after him, close enough to say, for his ears only, “I know it’s you, Edmond. I know it.”

  But the door closed on her words, and she was left alone, staring at it as shock trembled through her again.

  FIVE

  The Bath

  Later that day

  Paris

  Haydée remained tucked in her luxurious suite of rooms until after the Count of Monte Cristo left his residence that morning. The experiment in the bath hadn’t turned out quite the way she’d intended, but at least something had happened. She’d finally touched a naked man, and it was just as lovely and arousing as she’d anticipated.

  Of course, the little pip between her legs was still swollen and throbbing, teasing her now that she was alone in her rooms. Haydée knew what to do to relieve that discomfort, but she’d prefer to have someone else’s quick finger do the work.

  Ah, then. Perhaps she would call for a bath of her own.

  Looking in the large mirror in front of her dressing table, she smiled deviously. Her full lips curled up just a bit at the edges, her dark, exotic eyes sparkled, and her hair—long and dark and straight—hung in a perfect drape over her shoulders, curling just a bit at the ends. Her breasts . . . She let the soft robe slip away from her smooth olive shoulders so she could look at her bare torso. High and lovely, not too large and not too small . . . How could he resist her? She knew she was beautiful. She’d seen the way his eyes followed her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  If only he weren’t so damned honorable.

  The bath.

  She’d see how bloody honorable he was now!

  Pulling the robe back up, she arranged it so that it draped just perfectly over her shoulders so that with the slightest shift of movement, it would slip down and gap open just enough . . . just enough for it to look accidental.

  “Mahti,” she called, rapping peremptorily on the door to her outer chamber. When her servant came, Haydée said, “I will bathe now. Tell Galya I require her assistance as well,” she added with a smile. The other woman, knowing what that meant, flushed with pleasure and hurried off to do her bidding.

  After Mahti opened the wide French doors to the next room, where the bath was, Haydée rang for another of the house servants. When he came, she gave him his instructions.

  And then she settled back in her chair to wait.

  She could hear the splash of water in the next room—how convenient indoor plumbing was! The scent of jasmine oil wafted in from the bath, and she heard Mahti and Galya gathering her clothing and other accoutrements. From her seat, she could see the vista of Paris spread out beyond the small balcony on which she’d hardly set foot, but the view didn’t interest her as much as the accommodations in her chambers.

  His Excellency was inconceivably generous to her, a slave who’d been saved by his money and his mercy from a horrid existence at the hands of her father’s enemies. She often believed he had some secret reason for having her travel with and serve him, some motive as to why he treated her so like the princess she was.

  Whatever the reason, it was not for her to warm his bed.

  She’d been a mere twelve years of age when he purchased her in a private sale—the evening before she was to be auctioned off at a public market, saving her from untold humiliation. Haydée couldn’t imagine how much money he’d paid for her, but it had to have been an exorbitant amount, considering that she was the daughter of Ali Pasha. Over the six years they’d been together, he treated her more like a treasure than a slave.

  Now her lips curled down. She’d offered everything to him today, but he’d declined . . . some of it. Frustrating, yes, it had been. Confusing too. After all, she’d held his wickedly hot, thick cock in her hands . . . and it had been obvious he needed something.

  And so did she.

  A single sharp rap sounded on her door. Haydée sat up and called, “Enter.”

  The door opened and Ali walked in, tall and big and proud. Just looking at the broad shoulders in his blinding white tunic and the big black hands braceleted with gold bands made her mouth go dry.

  He stayed near the door, but bowed regally to her. His bald head was smooth and shone like an onyx marble, his full, soft lips fixed in a faint polite smile. His feet, always bare, were smooth, elegant ebony and decorated with a gold ring on one center toe, and thicker bands encircled his ankles.

  Ali didn’t speak, but Haydée had learned to read his sign language as easily as if he did. You called for me?

  Ah. The insolence was there—in his eyes, in the very way those powerful hands signed to her. Haydée gave him a haughty look. “Yes, indeed, Ali. I find that the arrangement in these rooms are not to my liking. Perhaps you shall be so good as to move the furnishings about.”

  Of course. Those full lips firmed ever so slightly, sending a pang down to the very little pip that still throbbed between her legs, swirling harshly in her middle.

  He said the words with his hands, but the subservient sentiment was not echoed in his eyes. They were carefully blank, and Haydée, who languidly lifted her arm to point to the bed, shifted so that her robe gapped, and watched his expression carefully.

  Yes. Ah, yes, it was there.

  She smiled deep inside, letting the knowledge tickle her belly. You’ve not seen anything yet, she thought. “There. The bed . . . it is too close to the window at that angle, and it catches the morning sun. I shan’t be able to sleep as late as I desire if it remains there.”

  Where would you like it moved, mistress? His last gesture, the one for “mistress,” he made with short, peremptory movements.

  “Perhaps . . . there.” She pointed to the wall opposite where the bed was now. Currently, her dressing table, covered with perfume bottles and jeweled hair combs and other feminine decorations, was in that position. He would be busy for quite some time. That wall also gave a perfect view into the room beyond, where her bath was nearly filled.

  Perfect.

  And just then, as if they’d been summoned, Mahti and Galya came to stand in the doorway between the two rooms.

  “Excuse me, Ali. It appears my bath is ready.” She felt his eyes on her as she swept past him into the inner chamber, letting her robe slip from her shoulders. She felt the heavy sear of his eyes on her bare skin as she walked away from him.

  Slowly. Rolling her hips.

  As she was climbing into the bath, which was positioned lengthwise in front of the doorway to the bedchamber, she saw Ali start to close the French doors between them.

  “No, leave them open,” she said, feeling her breasts jounce prettily as she turned toward him and propped herself up on the edges of the tub. “How else shall I give you directions?”

  As he turned abruptly away, Haydée sank into the tub, closing her eyes, brimming with satisfaction. The steaming water enveloped her, and the sweet tinge of jasmine filled the air with every flutter of her hands. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the edge of the tub, her long hair flowing over the side and pooling onto the floor behind her.

  Mahti gathered up the heavy tresses and twisted, then pinned them at the top of her head and left Haydée to relax for a moment. She heard the soft clink of bottles from the next room as Ali moved them off the dressing table, and she imagined those massive hands closing around such feminine and delicate knickknacks.

  When His Excellency had sent her, dripping and unsatisfied, from his bath and ordered her to send Ali, Haydée had been annoyed and fru
strated. But she’d managed to hide her feelings when, wrapped only in a soft towel, she approached the huge man, her face and body flushed and warm and humming.

  So you’ve succeeded, he had signed when he saw her standing there, knowing whence she’d come. His handsome countenance, trimmed with a tiny square beard under that luscious lower lip, had been stony and calm . . . but Haydée was certain there was a pinpoint of emotion in those black eyes.

  “His Excellency wishes you to attend him,” she’d told him, wearing a haughty expression despite the fact that she was completely naked and vulnerable beneath the white towel.

  Ali turned to go, but he stopped and looked at her again, slowly raking over her from head to toe. Did you?

  Haydée summoned a slow, deep smile designed to hide her confusion regarding the fact that she still bore her maidenhead and to leave Ali just as discomfited. “Our master is no longer in need . . . although I cannot say the same for myself.”

  And then, her heart pounding and her mouth dry, she turned and flounced away.

  And felt his gaze burning into the back of her, just as it had moments ago when she walked away from him into the bath.

  Now, her eyes still closed as she enjoyed the heavenly feel of Galya’s hands massaging her feet, Haydée smiled, but her grin was laced with frustration. If only Monte Cristo had taken her bloody virginity, then she would be free to do as she wished. But he owned her, and thus he owned her maidenhead, and it must be left intact until he chose to take it . . . or to sell her.

  Or to free her.

  He’d spoken of freeing her someday soon, and she both yearned for and feared that day. So it was best not to think about it, and instead to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  The clinking of bottles had stopped, and now Haydée heard the low, dull scrape of the dressing table being moved. She opened her eyes and, with a nod to her servants, knelt in the tub.

  Water sluiced down her body, running between her breasts and around her thrusting nipples, and she wished for a moment that she’d told Ali to bring the dressing table mirror into this room. She wanted to see what he would see.

  But she could imagine what vision would greet his eyes were he to look beyond the doorframe. And look he would, for she would ensure it.

  As Mahti’s fingers filtered around her mistress’ nipples, rolling them gently and erotically between her knuckles, Haydée felt Galya smooth her small hands down along the sides of her torso, tracing the flare of her hips with the same slippery soap, then sliding between her mistress’ parted legs. The water surged over her sensitive skin with every movement, in an ebb-and-flow rhythm that felt like the one her hips wanted to make, leaving her alternately warm and cold, wet and dry.

  Haydée sighed as the long, sensual strokes on her inner thighs raised bumps on her flesh and the incessant tug and pinch at her nipples sent lust curling tighter in her belly. She thought of Ali, on the other side of the wall, just beyond the doorframe, and his massive black shoulders and strong black hands, imagining them here with her instead of the two little maids, and the coil burned tighter in her belly. She wanted to call his name . . . wanted him here, with her . . . his thick lips sucking on her, his tongue snaking in between the lips of her quim, his heavy cock raging in her hands.

  Her pip surged at the thought, and Haydée suddenly tipped into orgasm—quick and sharp. Unexpected.

  She couldn’t contain the low, long moan as her body trembled beneath the capable hands of her maids, her wetness mingling with the water below. Then Galya’s little fingers slipped around through the folds of her quim as Mahti came around to take one of her mistress’ nipples into her mouth, prolonging the pleasurable shudders.

  Haydée opened her eyes when lips closed over her nipple in a long, sleek tug, slow and deep, and the pull of pleasure there matched the slow pulsing between her legs. She looked down and saw the top of Mahti’s dark head, hair piled high, cheeks sinking concavely with the strength of her suckle, and saw the hint of little breasts below bobbing enticingly. And then she saw the curve of Galya’s neat little spine kneeling in front of her, sweeping into the flare of creamy hips and round, ripe buttocks stretching open in a tantalizing vee. She looked up at her mistress, question in her eyes, and Haydée nodded in permission . . . and need. That little victory had been only the beginning.

  Galya slipped into the tub in front of her, facing her, sliding her strong legs beneath her mistress’, her own thighs parted as Haydée settled on her crouching lap, her quim facing Galya’s navel. Now Haydée’s legs spread wide and folded over the sides of the tub, and her buttocks were hoisted up on Galya’s lap so that her hips and the rise of her pubis were out of the water like a smooth, warm island. Haydée looked toward the doorway and saw only a fleeting movement of white along its edge, and the corner of what must be the bed as he moved it into place.

  Trying to avoid her.

  Haydée’s lips curled. Any other man would be watching the three women.

  When Galya bent to her mistress’ quim, raising her hips with strong hands, Haydée groaned loudly, purposely. She kept her eyes focused on the doorway, half seeing and half lidded as Galya’s tongue flew quickly and purposely over her little pearl, jiggling it, working it, teasing as the deep drive of lust built again.

  She felt herself rise, the soft skin behind her knees pressing into the side of the tub as she raised her hips, shoving them closer to Galya’s probing tongue, feeling the bite of the maid’s fingers in the flesh of her buttocks. Haydée shifted back and forth in a restless, needy rhythm, her eyes fastened on the doorway, willing him to come back.

  To see her.

  To see what she wanted.

  Mahti sucked, kneeling next to the tub, her free hand cradling the back of her mistress’ neck, soft little sounds of pleasure grunting from the back of her throat as she fed. Haydée felt her body gather up again, her sex swollen and ripe, teased and tossed by a little wet tongue, the pain of the tub biting into her legs, the pull and release of her nipple matching the pull and release of her pip.

  And then she saw him. Suddenly he was there, standing in the doorway. Watching.

  So tall, so bald and black and sober. His face impassive, his eyes hot and focused, his hands hanging at his sides. He watched, his lips slightly parted, his nostrils wide, his chest rising and falling beneath the white tunic.

  She looked at him. Matched his gaze with hers and held it. The pleasure built faster now, harder and deeper, and she let him see it. Let him see what she wanted, what she would give.

  Her servants sensed the change, the urgency, and the tongues moved faster, harder, deeper, wetter. Haydée opened her mouth, drew herself up, thought of him, and then it came—the undulating swells, the hard ripple of release, the shaking, trembling of ecstasy.

  When she opened her eyes, the bathwater was cold and Ali was gone.

  Haydée was roused from what had been a restless nap on her newly arranged bed by a sharp knocking on her door. She sat up abruptly, pushing the hair from her face, and bid, “Enter.”

  It was Bertucci. “Mistress Haydée, His Excellency has returned. You . . . I think perhaps you should go to him.” The little Italian man seemed to be wringing his hands.

  Go to him? Haydée swung her feet off the bed. She was dressed in a loose, flowing caftan of pale aqua silk, her hair pulled back in a simple single braid. “Is he ill?”

  “No . . . I do not think it is an illness. He seems . . . restless. Please. Jacopo is not here, and besides him and Ali, you seem to be the only one he—”

  “Ali? Where is Ali?” Her heart seized.

  “He’s gone to attend to some matters in regard to the house in Auteuil. Mistress Haydée, I think His Excellency might welcome your tender presence.”

  Haydée felt the slightest warmth on her face. It had been only this morning that she’d joined Monte Cristo in his bath; did the entire household now seem to think that her body was the answer to any malaise suffered by the count?

  However
, it would be another opportunity to rid herself of the nuisance of her virginity, so she acquiesced.

  Bertuccio urged her not to take the time to change, so she went to the count’s chambers dressed as she was. Of course, it wouldn’t matter, for soon she would be wearing nothing more than the sapphire in her navel. She was determined.

  “Enter,” rumbled his voice when she rapped on the door.

  Haydée opened it and came in to find Monte Cristo sitting in a chair, looking out over Paris from the interior of his room. He looked like a statue, not even turning his face to see who it was that begged entrance. His prominent nose was strong and straight, his lips set in a firm line, his eyes scanning the profusion of creamy architecture below, which blazed yellow from the afternoon sun. Thick dark hair curled around his ears and just brushed his high collar, which had been loosened, though he still wore his morning jacket. One long-fingered hand curled around the knob of his chair’s armrest, and his feet were planted firmly on the floor, unmoving.

  “Restless” was not a word she would use to describe the man before her.

  What had Bertucci meant?

  “Did you have a pleasant visit?” Haydée asked, taking a fat purple cushion from the divan. She placed it on the floor near his feet, just in his line of sight if he cared to look down and to the right. Arranging the pillow’s tassels, she sank down on it and raised her face to look up at him.

  For the first time, she saw the expression there, and now she understood why Bertuccio had called her. It was like granite, his face, but colder. Dark and harsh and set. Empty.

  Frightening.

  There was a long silence. Very long.

  She was just about to draw up her breath to ask another question, or to say something gentle and amusing, when he spoke.

  “Today I conversed with the man who killed your father. The one who murdered him in cold blood after gaining his trust.”