by Mia Gabriel
“She’s not yours, Blackledge,” Savage said sharply, his bored manner dropping away like a mask. “There’s no fault with her.”
“You’ve been too gentle with her, Savage,” the baron said, goading Savage. “Education must include punishment, you know. It’s the only way an Innocent will learn to be properly grateful to her master.”
Blackledge’s gaze raked over me. I hated having him look at me like this, having him picture me bound and chained like his own Innocent, and I shrank against Savage.
Automatically his arm tightened around my waist, drawing me closer. I felt the tension in him coiling more tightly, and I feared he’d lash out at Blackledge the same way as he had done with Henery.
The baron would be a much more challenging opponent. He wasn’t drunk, and he was much larger and stronger than Henery. Worst of all, he was a bully, and he wanted to fight. Even as unworldly as I was in such matters, I couldn’t miss the antagonism simmering between the two men, threatening and dangerous.
“I require no advice from you, Blackledge,” Savage said, biting off each word. “She is mine, not yours.”
Swiftly Lord Carleigh stepped between them.
“I’ll have no more brawling in my house,” he said firmly. “You are here at Wrenton as my guests for pleasure and amusement, not for this kind of common, alehouse bravado.”
The baron bowed to the viscount. As the lowest ranking of the three men, he had no choice.
“Forgive me, my lord,” he said to Lord Carleigh, though without so much as a hint of contrition to match his apology. “I intended no slight. I was merely following the rules of Lady Carleigh’s game that permit one Protector to challenge another for the sake of an Innocent.”
“You press too far, Blackledge,” Lord Carleigh said. “I know as well as you do what your intentions were, and they have nothing to do with my wife’s rules. Now I must ask you and your Innocent to return to the table, and permit Lord Savage to, ah, compose himself.”
“As you wish, my lord.” Blackledge bowed again, this time pointedly to Lord Carleigh alone. As he backed away, he vented his frustration on his Innocent, giving an extra jerk on her leash to make her stumble after him.
Reluctantly Lord Carleigh turned back to Savage.
“I’ll thank you, too, Savage, to keep your temper in check,” he said. “No more fisticuffs, eh? You’re an old acquaintance. You know the rules of the Game. Laura will have my head if there’s any of her precious bric-a-brac broken in a melee.” Then he smiled weakly, trying to turn it all into a joke.
But Savage was in no mood for joking. “What are you trying to say to me in your ludicrously complicated way, Carleigh?”
Lord Carleigh’s face reddened. “Only that you, ah, mind yourself and Mrs. Hart. Be a good chap, yes?”
“‘A good chap’?” repeated Savage, leaving no doubt that there were few things he’d be less inclined to be.
“Well, yes,” Lord Carleigh said uneasily. “I’m glad you understand, eh? I do appreciate that—”
He was interrupted by a footman standing at the doorway, beating on a drum as a fanfare to gather everyone’s attention.
“Let it be known,” he called in a solemn, booming voice. “Her ladyship is served!”
Four other footmen entered the room carrying an enormous platter on their shoulders. Lying in the center of the platter was Lady Carleigh, completely naked and surrounded by a bed of succulent sliced strawberries.
Relieved by such an amusing distraction, her guests began to cheer and applaud the viscountess’s audacity, rising from their chairs to see more—and there was so much of her pale, voluptuous body to see.
In place of clothing, the pastry cook belowstairs had piped elaborate curls and flourishes of whipped cream, accentuated with more strawberries, across Lady Carleigh’s full breasts and the dip of her navel, which enhanced her charms far more than it hid them. The process must have tickled, too, since she was still laughing as the platter was carefully set down in the center of the dining table.
“Fine, fresh strawberries, fine, oh!” she cried gleefully, mimicking a street hawker’s call. She beckoned to her guests, raising her hands with care so that the whipped cream wouldn’t slide off. “Fine strawberries and cream for everyone! Come, come, Protectors and Innocents alike, and eat your fill!”
Eagerly the viscountess’s guests swarmed around her, men and women, Protectors and Innocents, bending down to lick the cream from her body. She laughed and writhed with lubricious delight, clearly relishing the feel of so many tongues lapping at her skin.
I watched, wide-eyed. So this must be Lady Carleigh’s grand entertainment, the one that Savage had said he’d never forgotten—and no wonder, either.
“Ah, you see my dear Laura calls,” Lord Carleigh said with obvious relief. “Mustn’t keep the viscountess waiting, eh?”
With a hint of a bow, he left Savage and me and hurried to join his wife. He pushed aside the others crowding around the platter and bent over to kiss Lady Carleigh. With husbandly devotion, he licked one of her nipples clean, giving the plump flesh an extra nip with the edges of his teeth, which made her squeal. Then he opened his trousers and pulled out his cock, already half erect. He scooped a handful of the whipped cream from Lady Carleigh’s thigh and lavished it like frosting along the length of his stiffening cock.
Before he’d finished, his Innocent, Lady Bilton, had appeared and dropped to her knees before him. He thrust his cock between her open lips and she sucked it with greedy enthusiasm, the sticky whipped cream oozing from the corners of her mouth as she fondled his ballocks at the same time.
I watched, intrigued. After Savage had kissed and licked my quim until I’d climaxed last night, I’d wondered if there was an acceptable—and pleasurable—way for me to reciprocate. Here was the proof that there was, and my imagination raced as I considered the possibilities.
But Savage did not feel the same.
“I’ve seen enough,” Savage said, his voice still curt. “No one will notice us if we leave now.”
EIGHT
Savage’s hand closed firmly over my fingers, making it clear that I would be leaving the dining room with him. Not that I’d object; I’d no wish to stay with the others, either, with the prospect of being alone again with Savage before me.
He led me swiftly from the dining room and up the stairs toward his rooms. His stride was so long and determined that I was breathless with hurrying, half running in my heeled slippers to keep pace with him across the polished floors and thick carpets and past the curtseying parlor maids and bowing footmen.
He offered no explanation of his haste, no apology for his earlier behavior, not even any small talk. He didn’t so much as look down at me at his side. His expression was dark and implacable, offering nothing, with his thoughts turned inward and away from the rest of the world, including me. I’d already realized that his reticence wasn’t part of the Game, part of playing the role of a master, but instead was part of him. I recognized it for what it was, because it was part of me as well. I’d been alone with him all of the last night and day, and had done wicked, shameless, wonderful things with him that would once have made me blush, and yet I still knew next to nothing of him as a man.
Nothing. And that, I did know, was exactly as he wished it to be.
As my father would have said, Savage kept his cards close to his vest. It was an excellent attribute for a poker player, but the very devil of a challenge for me now.
But I couldn’t think of it, or him, like that. I needed to focus not on what he wasn’t sharing with me but on what he was, which was exactly the sort of reckless passion and excitement that I’d left New York to experience. I couldn’t think of Savage like the ordinary gentlemen I’d known, who had ordinary families and homes and occupations. He’d already made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t like that. I couldn’t think of a future with him beyond Wrenton Manor and the Game, which had brought us together, or beyond the seven nights that were all
I was guaranteed to have with him.
I knew all this because, although I might be inexperienced with men, I wasn’t a fool. And yet, when at last Barry shut the bedroom door and Savage and I were finally alone together, I still said the one thing to him that I shouldn’t have, simply because I was too polite to keep silent.
“Thank you, Savage,” I said to his back as he poured himself a glass of brandy. “Thank you for stopping Mr. Henery when he became too—too forward.”
He didn’t answer, sipping the brandy in silence. Because the day had been warm, the bedroom windows remained open, and the yellow flames of the candles around them danced and jumped on their wicks, casting uneasy shadows across the walls that seemed to mirror the evening’s mood.
I stood uncertainly, my hands hanging awkwardly at my sides. I wished he would reply to me, wished it quite desperately. When he didn’t, I plunged on, feeling obliged to fill the silence that was stretching more and more widely between us.
“It was very unpleasant, having Mr. Henery touch me as he did,” I said. “I didn’t expect it, you know. I’ve scarcely said two words to the man, and then to have him act so—so rudely—”
“Is that all it was to you, there in the dining room?” Savage demanded, abruptly wheeling around to face me. “A bit of unpleasantness? Some fellow who was rude?”
Startled by his reaction, I drew back a step, folding my arms defensively over my chest. Even by the candlelight, his expression was dark and impassive, much as it had been downstairs.
“For me, yes, it was,” I said finally. “It was only part of the Game, I know, but it frightened me.”
He frowned. “You were frightened by a drunkard pawing over your leg?”
I shook my head, unsure how honest I should be.
“In part it was Mr. Henery,” I admitted. “But what frightened me more was you.”
“You were frightened of me,” he repeated, incredulous. He drank the rest of the brandy in a single swallow and set the empty glass down so hard that the crystal rang in protest. “First you thank me, and then you say I frightened you. What in blazes am I to make of that?”
“I thanked you for defending me,” I said quickly. “But it was how you defended me that was—was frightening. I’ve never seen gentlemen fight like that.”
“Will you believe me if I tell you I’ve never lost my temper like that?” he asked, his voice filled with bitterness, and more than a little of his earlier fury, too. “I lost my temper. I dishonored my friends. I insulted their hospitality, and I attacked another man as if I were some brawling bastard from the dockyards. If I weren’t who I am, I’d be in jail for it now. And do you know why I did those things? Can you guess? Or will you only stand there before me in judgment, like some damned sibylic oracle from New York?”
“I’m not judging you, Savage,” I protested. “I never said I was.”
Before I could react, he was with me, holding my face between his hands so that I couldn’t look away. His pale eyes were hard and cold, even with the candle flames reflected in them.
“Answer me, Eve,” he demanded roughly, his thumbs pressing into my jaw. “I want to hear you say it. Tell me why I acted like a madman.”
I had no idea what he meant, or what he expected me to say. I stared back at him, my heart beating wildly. He was going to kiss me, I was sure of it, and then it wouldn’t matter what I said.
“Tell me, Eve,” he ordered in a harsh whisper, his face only inches from mine. “You know the reasons better than I.”
I swallowed, the muscles of my throat working convulsively just beneath his fingers. At last I shook my head in the tiny fraction of motion that his grasp would permit.
His mouth tightened, his lips so tightly compressed that the little cut began to bleed again, a tiny, glistening trickle.
Abruptly he released my face, lifting his hands away with such suddenness and force that I staggered backward, off-balance. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been swaying into him, so much that he’d been supporting me.
“Stubborn,” he said, biting the word off. “Why won’t you say what we both know?”
“Because I don’t know!” I cried furiously. “You are making no sense, Savage, none. None!”
He’d begun to pace back and forth before me like some great jungle cat, caged and unable to keep still.
“I came to Wrenton for pleasure,” he said. “Mindless, rutting pleasure. That’s the whole point of Laura’s little game, isn’t it? I’ve done it before, with other women. I should be fucking you whenever it pleases me, and anyone else who pleases me as well. I should be making you suck my cock at the dining table, while I suck some other woman’s breasts. I should be sharing you with Carleigh, or any other man who wants you, and be eager to fuck their women—their Innocents—as well.”
“Then do it, if that is what you want,” I said, shoving back my tangled hair. I hated how he was saying the word fuck, short and sharp and ugly, and nothing like what he’d done with me. “I won’t stop you.”
“But you already have, Eve,” he said. “You have blinded me to all the others. I can think of nothing but touching you, smelling you, tasting you, fucking you, and I would kill any other man who tried to take you from me. I almost did with Henery.”
I wasn’t sure if he intended this as a compliment or not. To me, it wasn’t. Inspiring a man to attack another did not strike me as very flattering, and automatically I glanced down at the bloodstains on his cuffs, the crimson now darkening to brown.
“Your voice stopped me,” he continued, tugging apart the knot of his necktie and opening the throat of his shirt. “Only you could do that, because at once I thought of how much I wanted you. I wanted to throw you down and pound my cock into you with your legs around my waist. That’s what you wanted, too.”
I shook my head, not wanting to admit the uncomfortable link between his aggression and my arousal.
“Don’t lie,” he said. “I saw it in your eyes then. I can see it there now, too.”
My face grew warm, and I looked down so that my eyes wouldn’t betray me again. Daring, I closed the space between us and reached up to curl my palm around the back of his neck. His skin was hot beneath my touch and the tendons were tight as iron bands, and gently I rubbed them with my fingers.
“Do you want me in return?” I asked softly, already knowing the answer. I didn’t have to look into his eyes: his entire body was tense with white-hot lust. No wonder I was trembling in response, poised and ready for him.
But not for what he said next.
“You are like a witch who has cast her spell over me,” he said, his voice hoarse with the same fury he’d shown before. “With every other woman, once I’d had her, the novelty was done, and I was cured. I thought you’d be the same. But you’re like a poison I can’t resist, Eve, a poison that’s claiming my life. I think of nothing but how I fucked you last time, and how I’ll fuck you again. I don’t know how you have done it to me in so short a time, but damn you, you have. You have.”
I gasped, so shocked by what he’d said that I recoiled from him as if I’d been burned.
“How can you say such ridiculous things to me?” I cried, my anger swiftly flaring to match his. “How can you be so unfair? You are mad, to speak so! How can you call me poison? How can you fault me for your—your weaknesses? Why, you’re no better than Blackledge, blaming me!”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Blast you, Eve, I’m not Blackledge. I don’t blame you. I said you were the reason. That’s not the same at all.”
“Isn’t it?” I said. “It certainly seems so to me.”
“It’s not,” he said sharply. “Not at all.”
I couldn’t bear this. He was leading me down a dark, twisted, turning road, and I didn’t want to follow any longer.
“I’m leaving,” I said, heading for the door. “There’s no need for me to stay and listen to you insult me.”
He stepped in front of me, blocking my path. He stood with hi
s legs apart and his hands clenched loosely at his sides, a black-and-white wall of impossibly handsome, confounding maleness. Part of me warned that I should be frightened again, but I was too angry and hurt to care.
I placed my palms on his chest and tried to shove him aside.
“I’m not staying with you, Savage,” I said. “I’m leaving.”
“No, you aren’t,” he said. “Because I’m leaving first.”
Before I could react, he turned and was gone, slamming the bedroom door behind him. With a wordless exclamation of frustration, I threw myself at the door. My fingers slipped on the polished brass doorknob and fumbled as I tried to turn it, certain he’d locked me inside. But then the door opened easily, and to my chagrin I stood face-to-face not with Savage but with an unperturbed Barry.
“Where is his lordship?” I demanded, quickly scanning the corridor. “Where is he?”
“He has certain matters to attend to, ma’am,” Barry said, as mild as usual. “Is there anything you require, ma’am?”
I paused, my thoughts racing wildly. I could follow my first impulse and return to my rooms, praying that I wouldn’t meet Blackledge or any of the other masters on the way. I could send for a car in the morning, leave Wrenton for London, and never see Savage again.
I could do all that, or I could stay.
I could remain here in Savage’s bedroom, surrounded by scores of flickering candles, and wait for him to return. He would, too. I was just as sure of that as Barry was, because I was certain he’d expect me to be here when he did.
And he’d be right. I wasn’t ready to end things with Savage, at least not like this. I was realizing that as my anger cooled. I had been equally at fault, letting my pride get the better of me. It hadn’t been easy hearing him describe me as a poison, and yet I understood, for he’d become exactly the same for me.
I’d become jealous of any time he spent with others, let alone being parted from him. I thought of nothing except him and his cock, and what he would do next to please them both. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d been almost incessantly aroused since he’d sat beside me to watch the entr’acte. Even the merest touch from him had that effect on me, and for the first time I truly understood what an obsession could be.