She remembered him closing his book earlier and shoving it into his pocket. He was a butcher’s son, trained as a groom, who was now a man-of-all-work, and he liked to read. The man was something of a curiosity.
∞∞∞
Joss surveyed his mistress from beneath heavy lids. She had an odd smile on her beautiful lips. He’d seen the look more than once—usually when she came away from one of these trysts. He felt his face shift into a slight, mocking smile. Tryst. Just listen to him, using a fancy word for knocking off a piece, for making the beast with two backs, for fucking.
He’d been around toffs for years, in one form of service or another—but never an American toff. He’d heard all the rumors about her—and there were wagonloads. He wasn’t sure which ones he believed; not that it mattered what he believed. She was so far above him, so far beyond his reach, that she might as well be one of those exotic, tropical islands in the Caribbean he’d read about. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t think about her. She might own his time, but his thoughts still belonged to him.
Well, that was a lie. The truth was that all Joss’s thoughts had belonged to her since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.
Her man of business, a dry little stick by the name of Shelly, had interviewed Joss first and then a week intervened.
And then Joss had been summoned to speak to her.
Seeing Lady Selwood for the first time reminded Joss of the time his brother Gordon accidentally struck Joss in the head with an entire side of hog.
Nana Gormley hadn’t been in the Countess of Selwood’s study to slap Joss’s slack-jawed face back to awareness—like she had that time with Gordon—so Joss had gaped at his prospective employer like a yokel. Neither had there been a cold, slimy side of hog squashing his face to the bloody killing floor.
So, perhaps his first glimpse of her had not been exactly like the hog incident.
Joss knew he wasn’t alone in stunned his reaction to the beautiful American. But to still be in awe of her months later and—he had to be honest—to be obsessed with her? No, his fellow servants appeared smarter than that. Only a romantic fool like Joss was stupid enough to wander down that fork in the road. Yes, romantic foolery—yet another crime he could lay at his mother’s door.
As always, he took these opportunities when they were alone to drink her in. Never had he seen a woman so physically perfect in every way. Tall enough to come up to his shoulder, a waist so tiny a man’s hands twitched to span it. Hips and breasts that would make an hourglass envious. Skin like cream, red, full lips that promised dark, sinful things, and hair an impossibly pale silvery-gold, just like one of the fur cloaks she sometimes wore—a garment that shrieked wealth, position, power, and unattainability.
But it was her thickly-lashed eyes that were the real shock; they were a deep sapphire blue with gold around the pupil. A combination unlike anything he’d ever seen: crystalline, perfect, and as remote as the moon.
Of course Joss rarely looked directly into them; it wasn’t the place of a servant to meet the eyes of his mistress.
But in his mind those eyes had looked up at him times beyond counting as he slid into her body. They’d been hooded and heavy as he’d taken her from behind, his hand fisted in the luxurious silk of her hair, and they’d gazed down at him in queenly hauteur as she rode him—posting him the way he’d watched her posting her fine hacks.
Yes, he’d done things to her in his imagination that would get him jailed, hanged, or transported if anyone could see the contents of his head.
Joss knew what he felt for her originated from between his hips rather than between his ears. A man couldn’t look at a woman like her without primal, lustful thoughts; even a man like him: a mere servant.
Just catching a glimpse of her was like the taste of something expensive and elusive—a brief holiday from the mundane, drab realities of life. But it was a holiday that never lasted more than a few minutes. Right on its heels was the gut-churning despair of knowing a man like him could never possess her. Except in his dreams.
Each and every male in her London establishment had fantasies of their glorious employer just like Joss did. Well, perhaps not the very same.
Joss would rather he hadn’t learned what his fellow servants thought, but he was forced to listen to their musings. Often. He couldn’t count the times he’d sat in the servants’ hall, his hands fisted in his pockets to keep from wrapping them around some bloke’s neck. It had gotten so bad he’d stopped loitering with the other servants unless Lady Selwood’s butler, old Feehan, was around to scupper such talk. If the ancient butler had any fantasies about his employer he kept them to himself.
The general consensus among the male servants was that Lady Selwood was as cold, untouchable, and icy as the name the nobs gave her: the Ice Countess.
Only Joss knew better. Only he among her servants knew her true pursuits when she was supposed to be attending routs or dinners or balls or whatever rubbish members of the aristocracy spent their time doing.
Joss let his eyes drop from her distant profile to the swell of her chest beneath the velvet cloak she wore.
In his months with her he’d seen her with two different men. Oh, not seen her, of course, but waited for her; waited for her to sate her desires and for those lily-white-handed nobs to sate theirs.
The knowledge that she spent her evenings with men who looked like they knew as much about pleasuring a woman as they did about digging a ditch or butchering a hog rankled. But what rankled even more was the knowledge there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop it.
An ice queen would never seek lovers. No, her façade might be ice, but beneath it? His body responded instinctively to what lay buried beneath that ice. But his mind? Well, his mind entertained even more dangerous impulses. His mind wanted to know what lay behind her beautiful face.
Joss knew he wasn’t the smartest of men, but even a fool would realize the work he’d done for Melissa had given him thoughts and ideas that were not suited to a man of his station. It was natural, he supposed, to begin to see aristocrats as people—at least the women—when you’d seen them naked, been inside them, and learned they were just a collection of wants and needs like anyone else—just wealthier.
He knew better than most that money could not buy happiness—but it could buy pleasure. And it had certainly bought Joss often enough. But not anymore.
Joss banished those memories, none of which he took any enjoyment in. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly and soundlessly. Being with her, thinking about her, meant he was working himself up. Again. His cock was as hard as cast iron pipe and his stomach churned with all the desire he was forced to swallow while he waited and imagined.
He would be glad to leave her tonight, although such partings usually left him feeling restless, yearning, and not a little despairing. Tonight he would go to his snug room in the mews and he’d beat the living fuck out of his bag, until his knuckles bled, until he was too bloody fagged to do anything but pass out. Sometimes that afforded him a certain . . . release.
“What were you reading when I interrupted you earlier, Mr. Gormley?”
Hearing her voice was so shocking his mouth fell open. She’d rarely spoken to him directly in the months he’d worked for her. And now she had fixed her disconcerting blue gaze on him and expected an answer.
“What book do you have in your pocket?” she repeated.
Joss fished the book from his coat and handed it to her. He watched her face as she flipped it open, staring at it for so long he thought she might have fallen asleep.
“Shakespeare.” She said the word with an inflection of amazement, as if she’d just discovered one of her carriage horses could read. When she looked up at him her eyebrows were arched.
Her surprise was like salt on an open wound and Joss felt his mouth twist into a smile that held no humor. “I like to look at the pictures, my lady.”
She glanced down at the boo
k in her hands, quickly flicking through the pages and, of course, finding nothing but words. Even in the dim light Joss could see the slight flush that spread over her magnificent cheekbones. He sighed. Here it came, the sacking he’d expected since the first week he’d begun to work for her, when he’d realized he wanted her in a way that was futile, dangerous, and destructive and that his blazing yearning was making him even surlier than usual.
But she surprised him.
“I didn’t mean to imply I doubted your ability to read, Mr. Gormley.” She closed the book and handed it back to him. “I was merely intrigued by your choice of reading material.” And then she surprised him yet again. “I’ve never read Shakespeare, myself. Is Antony and Cleopatra your favorite?”
Joss looked down at the book, which he was squeezing with unnecessary force. “It’s one of them.”
“Why do you like it?”
Mercifully the hack came to a shuddering halt and Joss all but leapt for the door, spared from having to answer as he flipped down the steps.
He stood to the side of the door, his breath like the steam from a kettle in the frigid night air.
She gave him her hand, always gloved, always two barriers between his skin and hers, and he released her almost before he’d touched her, mounting the eight steps to the house and unlocking the door for her with his own house key. No servants waited up for her aside from her maid and Joss, the only two she required for these late night excursions.
“Goodnight, Gormley.” She spoke the words without pausing or looking at him, picking up the candlestick that waited for her on the console table and heading for marble stairs that led to her chambers.
“Goodnight, my lady.” He murmured the words quietly, too soft for her to hear over the muted clicking of her heeled slippers on the hard stone steps. Only when she’d disappeared did he close and lock the door.
He paid the driver and then walked down the narrow alley that led to the mews which serviced this block of town-houses. Lady Selwood kept the whole of the stables for her needs, even though she only had the two carriages and a dozen horses in a space big enough for at least triple that number.
The servant quarters above the carriage house were more private than those that took up the attic of the town house. As a result, there was a good deal of competition for the rooms. Joss had occupied the same type of room at Viscount Easton’s house and made sure it was part of his employment to have a bedchamber and the small box room next to it for his personal use.
Although he’d almost stopped taking fights, he liked to keep fit if he should ever need to resort to such work again. At twenty-eight he was getting too old for such a brutal sport, no matter how good the money was. Besides, Lady Selwood paid him well enough that he didn’t need to box or, God forbid, go work for Melissa. If he could keep this position until he was thirty-five he would have enough money saved to rescue his sister Bella when his brother Gordon and his wife Susan made true on their threat to move into the small house at the back of the butcher shop.
Joss took the stairs to his room two at a time, stopping abruptly when he found the door to his quarters ajar. When he pushed it open, he saw the unmistakably naked body of a woman lying across his double bed.
You can grab a copy of JOSS AND THE COUNTESS here!
Check out www.minervaspencer.com for free excerpts of upcoming books and sneak previews!
More books by S.M. LaViolette & Minerva Spencer:
THE ACADEMY OF LOVE SERIES
THE MUSIC OF LOVE
A FIGURE OF LOVE
THE OUTCASTS SERIES
DANGEROUS
BARBAROUS
SCANDALOUS
NOTORIOUS
THE MASQUERADERS
THE FOOTMAN
ANTHOLOGIES:
BACHELORS OF BOND STREET
THE ARRANGEMENT
About the Author
SM LaViolette has been a criminal prosecutor, college history teacher, B&B operator, dock worker, ice cream manufacturer, reader for the blind, motel maid, and bounty hunter.
Okay, so the part about being a bounty hunter is a lie.
SM does, however, know how to hypnotize a Dungeness crab, sew her own Regency Era clothing, knit a frog hat, juggle, rebuild a 1959 American Rambler, and gain control of Asia (and hold on to it) in the game of RISK.
S.M. also writes under the name Minerva Spencer
Melissa and The Vicar (The Seducers Book 1) Page 34