“Take me now,” she pleaded shamelessly.
He closed his eyes, his body gone rigid with tension as he declined her heartfelt offer. “No, dove. I’m going to hold you while you recover and then tuck you into your maiden’s bed the way you left it this morning.”
His reply held a ring of finality as did the fact that he reached for her dress. Lifting it over her head, he settled it around her, mindful of her tender bottom and loosely tied the laces in back. Once covered, she leaned weakly against him, feeling oddly content, but confused. She rested her cheek on his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heart, and feeling the pulse at her hip where his hard need pressed unabated. Why would he give her so much pleasure and not seek his own?
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, hoping he would explain. “Don’t you want me?”
He put a hand in her hair, cradling her as his lips brushed to the top of her head. “I can think of nothing I want more; however, I promised to keep you pure and I intend to do so.”
She tried to lift her head, but he held it firmly to his chest. “Corbet, please.”
“Hush,” he urged, smoothing his hand down her back, along the length of her hair. “Although I am very aroused right now, I will not dishonor you or your family by taking your virginity. It touches me that you came back when you could be on your way home right now. I regret having to be unduly harsh and couldn’t send you to bed in need of release a second night in a row.”
Emilia stiffened in his arms. He’d touched her out of guilt. Gave her pleasure out of pity. How could he torture her like this, making her body soar with a bliss she never knew existed only to crush her hopes that he might want her the same way she wanted him. More tears stung and threatened to fall.
Having gone from the pinnacle of pleasure one moment to the depths of misery, she figured she had nothing more to lose and told him what he wanted to know.
“The reason I came back, it’s because I’ve fallen in love with you.” She paused, holding back a sob. “It’s foolish with the circumstances, but being around you makes me feel things I’ve never felt before and I thought you might want me, and in time, perhaps come to love me too.” She took hold of his shirt, burying her face in it, too choked up on tears and anguish to continue.
“Shh,” he soothed, stroking her hair. “It cannot be, dove. We are of two different worlds. I am of Lancore, and you know better than anyone what that entails. After what’s happened, your father would never agree to you staying here, and if you did, I would have to ask for special dispensation from Lord Ervin to free you for us to wed, and that is impossible.”
“Why?”
“We have a history. Suffice it to say, my request would be denied and bring undue attention upon you because of my interest. I won’t risk that. What’s more, I’ve proven myself a horrible husband once, I don’t wish to repeat the past.”
To Emilia, it mattered not what others thought or desired for her. She was old enough to decide for herself and she wanted Corbet.
“Then keep me as your pleasure slave in truth.”
“No. That isn’t an option.” He snapped this response, his tone brooking no argument. “You’ll go home and find a fine local man to marry.”
“I don’t want another. I can’t help what I feel for you.” She wiped at her cheeks as she continued, her words nearly a whisper. “I’d like to stay, even if you don’t feel the same.”
Catching her chin in his hand, he angled her face up to his. He leaned in close until their noses were nearly touching. Her heart started thumping wildly, hoping she had gotten through and that he meant to kiss her.
“I do feel something for you, Emilia,” he murmured, his warm lips nearly brushing hers. “But I shouldn’t. We can’t. It is far more complicated than you know. There are things you don’t understand.”
“Kiss me. Just once,” she begged. “That will change your mind—”
He pulled away from her, recoiling as though she’d bitten him. “No, not again.”
“Not again?” she parroted, confused.
“Never mind.” Tightening the arm around her shoulders, he put the other under the bend of her knees. “It’s time we get you to bed.” He stood, taking her up with him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, noticing an entirely different look on his face than only moments ago. She’d angered him. But how?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured as he strode with her in his arms across the stable, leaning over a bit to blow out the lantern by the door. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not,” he stated into the sudden darkness. He didn’t sound angry, yet there was something in his tone that said he was no longer comfortable talking either. “This shouldn’t have happened.” His stride was quick and his words clipped as he took her to the house. “I cannot let myself be tempted by you. I am meant to be alone. You must understand this, Emilia.”
She couldn’t understand it though. He wanted her. She’d seen the desire in his eyes. His past was a misfortune indeed, but why did he feel the need to restrict his heart forever because of it?
He made quick work of the door, passing through the kitchen to the stairs, carrying her up to the landing where he paused. “You will not speak of this to the others. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied sullenly.
He gently lowered her feet to the floor. “Are you able to stand?”
She nodded, holding her tongue lest more embarrassing pleas and entreaties escape. When her feet hit the floor, she clung to him, still a bit weak in the knees.
He held on for a moment as if to make sure, then turned her to face the open door in the middle of the hallway. “Good night, dove,” he said firmly, before giving her a little nudge toward her bedroom.
As he strode to the stairs and made his descent, she listened to the thud of his boots until they faded away before she walked dejectedly to her shared room and crawled into her cold bed all alone. Yet again, he’d managed to leave her befuddled and ashamed of her blatant yearning for him. She was too exhausted after the long tumultuous day to sort it out now. As she drifted off thinking about where his fingers had been, she couldn’t keep the sad smile from curving her lips.
Chapter Thirteen
Corbet walked back to the stable with two purposes in mind: to clear his head of thoughts of Emilia and to retrieve the paddle he’d left lying on the floor. He was only successful in one of the two. Squatting in the hay, he picked up the stout sanded board that he’d used solely as a prop. He turned it over in his hands, remembering the pervading fear and yes, some true anger, when he’d learned she’d run from him. Born out of fear of losing her as swiftly and enduringly as he had Sara, the spanking hadn’t been entirely an act on his part. He’d been tempted to give her more than his hand, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to use the harsh paddle on her delicate skin. He’d seen Charles apply it effectively on one of their absentminded stable lads; the strapping youth who was more of a man than the others in his employ had howled and shook the rafters when he’d earned a dozen swats after leaving the paddock gate open. He’d stood for his meals several days thereafter, never being so careless again.
Not wanting Charles to make assumptions or ask him questions about why it was sitting in the middle of the floor, he replaced it on its hook where it served as a warning that his stable master walked softly, but carried a stout stick.
After replacing it, he rubbed both hands over his face in exhaustion. It was a mistake, as Emilia’s scent lingered on his fingers and brought thoughts of her flooding back to the forefront of his mind. Spearing his fingers through his hair, he growled out his frustration.
He began to pace back and forth in front of the stalls. Guilt over his brutish behavior weighed heavily on his mind, yet with so many curious observers avidly watching tonight, he’d had little choice except to play the role of a no-nonsense slave owner. If not for Redford’s warning, he might very well have taken her into his arms and kissed her in front o
f their audience, such was his relief that she’d come home safely. That would have been an egregious error, not only for exposing his less than masterly feelings for his pleasure slave, but for inflaming the burning desire he’d been trying to keep at bay.
Echoes of her cries as she shuddered in ecstasy while half naked over his lap lingered intrusively in his mind. Damnation! He never should have touched her after the spanking. He knew that, nevertheless, he couldn’t resist, plagued as he was by his constant need to possess her. The haunting sound of her sultry voice called out to him in his dreams, more so in his waking hours when the lilting ‘sir’ rose from her pretty pink lips, or when she forgot and let his given name slip. ‘Master’ also did things to him that he was determined not to dwell on.
The bare-boned fact was that she stirred him like none before her, not even his beloved wife, which made his gut grip with the guilt of betrayal. Emilia’s skin held an irresistible allure, the texture like expensive silk beneath his rough fingertips, as was the mass of her coppery hair that forever escaped its confinement, falling in long spirals over her shoulders, and clinging to the provocatively elegant curve of her neck.
Worst of all was her scent. It surrounded him like a wispy fog, enveloping his senses whenever she was near, increasing to torturous levels when she was aroused whether by a fleeting touch, or if he inadvertently brushed her body in passing. The spicy fragrance of her innocent desire had taxed his control the few times he had bared her fully, or stroked the taut curves of her bottom, and heaven above, how it engulfed him when the evidence of her need had glistened on her thighs every time he spanked her. And now that he knew the full force as her essence flowed generously from her cunt onto his driving fingers…
“Arhh!” he yelled as his fists clenched tightly in his hair, welcoming the stinging pain. Somehow, he was going to have to find a way to curb this uncontrollable ache and the yearning need that could never be.
What had shaken him to the core tonight was her resolve to come back. Did she really have that much faith in him, or was it because she hadn’t seen the harsh reality of Lancore’s deviant and immoral practices? If she only knew what went on behind the high manor walls, and lurked in the black soul of the man they called earl of Lancore, surely she would have chosen to let her father’s friend take her home. In her naiveté, she couldn’t imagine what her next trip into town could be like or what wickedness awaited her around the next bend in the road, like it had Sara, who suffered from it to her dying day.
“Hell and blast, no!” he swore aloud. “Not if I have the power to prevent it.”
Never again would he allow Ervin’s evil debauchery to touch someone he cared for. That is why he erected walls around his heart, to keep tender emotions from penetrating, something sure to attract Ervin’s cruel attention as it had in the past. It had been a mistake to take her to town and flaunt his pleasure slave about. In an attempt to protect himself, he had placed her at risk.
Ervin’s spies would surely carry word back to the earl that a woman had caught his enemy’s interest, though she was a slave, bought and paid for as he would any other commodity. The townsfolk knew he had looked for her after the commotion. The people would expect that she be disciplined accordingly for straying from her master’s side no matter the circumstance. Further, the law was quite clear that the punishment be severe enough to deter any further attempts and that the slave be marked, visibly and permanently, with a sign of their status. A whip that scarred met the dual requirement, where the hard spanking he’d administered, or the firm paddling he’d implied, might not. He hoped fervently that it had satisfied the witnesses’ twisted need for gratification, because the whip, and the other two options, were too horrific for him to consider when it came to Emilia. Permanent scars were unthinkable; an enduring iron collar and shackle, the true sign of a slave, was too degrading; and the ultimate penalty, a brand bearing the master’s sign was something so abhorrent, his stomach churned at the notion.
His tired gaze strayed to the branding rod hanging from a hook on the far wall. It carried his initials and was intended for his livestock. His mind flashed upon a searing hot iron meeting flawless white flesh, defiling it with an ugly, indelible red scar that declared to one and all that she was a runaway slave. While his stomach lurched, he bent over and breathed deep, trying to keep from losing the contents into the straw. As he calmed his roiling insides, his eyes noted something green amidst the hay on the floor. Reaching for it, he saw is was a scrap of velvet, torn from her gown. He twisted the soft fabric in his hands, rife with regret.
He’d been harsh with her, but not so cruel as others would demand. Maybe he should have used the paddle and beaten the fear of Lancore into her. Wouldn’t pain and welts that would fade by the morrow be better than an irreversible marring of her perfect skin?
Any of the townsfolk who had knowledge of her crime today could demand her punishment be evaluated, and if deemed lacking, could call for more. If Corbet refused, they had the right to petition the court to declare him unfit as a master. Once proven, she would be removed and become a ward of the court. Then he couldn’t save her, any and all penalties would be in play, and she would be sold to a new owner more capable of keeping her in the manner a slave should be treated.
There was no way he could chance that happening. He had to get her home, the sooner the better.
In the dark recesses of his mind, he could see the same things happening to Emilia as had once transpired with Sara. The similarities were already mounting. A long buried memory had resurfaced this evening when Emilia, tempting him with her sweet berry red lips, had asked him to kiss her, just once, using the same words that Sara had. It was enough to bring him to his senses. He’d taken it as a sign, convinced that if he gave into those words as he once had with Sara that Emilia’s fate would be much the same.
He shouldn’t have told her that tonight had been for the benefit of the witnesses. He should have let her think he was cruel. “By my word, she would have hated me if I didn’t, but perhaps that would have been for the best.”
“She couldn’t hate you, sir. That little slip of a girl is in love with you.”
He jumped, spinning around to see Charles standing in the doorway. “God’s teeth, man, you scared the life out of me. What are you doing up?”
“Couldn’t sleep with all your scuffling and banging around in here. You forget my quarters are right behind the stable. I heard what happened earlier too, with the girl, why she came back. She loves you and by the look of it, you feel the same way.”
“Don’t be a fool, Charles. I’m merely frustrated with how to get her safely out of Lancore.” Corbet realized he still clutched her dress in his hand and tossed it on a stack of hay bales.
Charles took a seat on one of the stools closest to him, rubbing his hands over his knees, a nervous habit he had taken to. “Forgive me for saying, sir, but I heard more than the spanking you gave the girl. I heard the pleasure you gave her after. Reminded me of when Sara used to get your strap in this very stable and the—”
“That’s enough, Charles!” he said firmly, giving the man a warning glare not to take this any further.
“You would not have brought her, a dove, such pleasure without care or feeling between you. Perhaps her coming back to you is a sign that you should allow yourself to love again. That you are not cursed to a life of solitude after all. You know in your heart that Sara would want you to be happy, as you would have wanted for her had it been you in her place.”
“A sign?” He clenched his fists. “The sign was the wayward cart that careened down the street and separated us. A sign that I never should have gone through with this crazy scheme in the first place.” The frustration and pitch of his voice rose with each sentence as he continued. “Her coming back is my punishment. Now I have to explain more of the earl’s twisted rules and laws to her. I also have to figure out how to keep her safe until I can get her out of Lancore.” He ran his hands through his hair, clenching his
jaw as he seated himself on a bale of straw.
“You might be surprised by what can happen in the name of love.” A calm, even smile slowly formed on Charles’ lips.
“You forget the price that is often paid in the name of that love.” Corbet grew subdued, anguish and regret in his voice. “I don’t think I can afford to pay it. Not this time, or with this woman.”
Charles got up and went to him, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps it will be different this time.”
“What?” Corbet exclaimed, cocking his head. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, sir,” Charles replied with the same cool smile as before. “Except that if you don’t give it a chance, you’ll never know.” He patted his shoulder before he took a few steps away and gazed out the door. “Sky’s changing to blue. I think I’ll catch a few winks before sunrise.”
Leaning on the bales behind him, Corbet closed his eyes, rubbing his pounding temples. He should get up and take himself to bed, but he hadn’t the energy. The straw would be fine for the little sleep he would get.
* * *
Corbet woke groggily a few hours later, the remnants of the recurring dream lingering. As usual, it was vague, the substance of it out of his reach. He recalled a meadow of wildflowers and a blond woman resembling Sara, but it was foggy. The more he tried to grasp its essence, the more it slipped away. It wasn’t the first time he had such a dream. Always he’d dismissed it as meaningless. Today, it seemed different.
What wasn’t vague or meaningless were his memories of what had occurred with Emilia right in this very barn. The situation was getting out of hand. Something had to be done and he knew precisely what it was, no matter how hard it was on them all.
He rose slowly to his feet, stiff from his hard makeshift bed. After stretching out the kinks in his back, he brushed the straw from his clothes, finger combed his hair, and headed for the back of the stable with steely determination. Without knocking, he threw open the door, startling the older man who lurched upright in his bed.
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