She capitulated. “Yours, yours, only for you.” He rewarded her with the sweet wetness of his tongue. When he was a little too enthusiastic, she reminded him, “Gentle.”
“They’re darker.” He pulled back and examined her nipples. “They’re more smoky.”
“Don’t stop. And be gentle,” she ordered and pulled his head back down to where it was.
“Yssss, m’mmmmm,” he said, his mouth now full.
Unmindful and uncaring of the time, she kept her husband’s mouth and body busy following her orders.
***
Whistling, Darcy left the master suite. His wife’s last order was for him to start breakfast without her.
“Don’t worry if you have to work late.” Elizabeth waddled in twenty minutes later. “We’re having a girls’ night in.”
“I suppose that’s a hint I should work late. You want to drool over the two Regency blokes on those DVDs all evening long.”
“I’ll reward you tonight.” She sat on his lap.
He coughed to hide a grunt. Now nearing her third trimester, she seemed to have ballooned overnight, something she was very sensitive about.
She gave him a disgruntled look. “I didn’t hear you complaining earlier when I was on top of you.”
He licked his lips and leered at her chest. “I love every bit of you, on top or bottom or sideways or bent over. All positions. All the time.”
Eyes sparkling, Elizabeth tipped her head.
He turned and jumped.
Mrs. Reynolds’s red face was inches away from him. “You need to get going or you’ll be late. Again. Mrs. Darcy needs to rest before she’s expected at the free clinic.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he meekly replied.
After the housekeeper handed Elizabeth a glass of milk and left the room, his wife laughed and moved off his lap. “Did Anne leave? She wasn’t in your Oakland office very long for her briefing with you, was she?”
“She went back to Chicago yesterday.” Though Elizabeth was willing to move back to New York, he knew she wanted to be close to her family now that babies were coming. He’d relocated to the Bay Area and left Richard and Charles to manage their New York headquarters. Georgiana also moved west and now shared a house with Mary. Both had returned to school.
“Isn’t the Chicago thing about done in a few weeks?” His wife buttered her toast. “What are you going to do with her next?”
“Everyone in Chicago has been satisfied with her.”
“Do I hear a note of reservation in your voice?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “Though, I double-checked everything she’s done lately and everything is fine.”
“If you’re still having doubts after all these months, why don’t you just fire her straight out?”
“She still runs a couple of crucial departments Richard and Charles can’t spare the time to oversee right now. If I let her go, I would need to restructure internally and many jobs would be affected. I have no wish to uproot my other employees on a suspicion. I need more concrete reasons.”
“All you have on her is an uneasy feeling?”
He stared hard into her green eyes. “In my experience, once someone slips and slides with their ethics in one area, they tend to do it in other areas of their life also.”
“That’s a very black-and-white way of looking at the world. It’s hard for you to trust and forgive, isn’t it?” Her voice was gentle, accepting.
“I’m learning, my love.” He gave a wry smile. “I’m afraid there’s more than a touch of truth to my reputation, a glass half-empty guy.”
“That’s because your glass hasn’t been filled for a while.” She grasped his hand. “But now, you got a hefty wife on your plate.”
“And you, my love, are ever an optimist. And I love you for it.” He squeezed her hand, grateful that his wife didn’t deny him his pessimism. “We went through hell. What if something had happened to you in Darfur?”
She moved her hand to his arm. “We can’t blame it on Anne or your aunt. I was responsible for running away without talking to you. We need to move on, my love.”
He kissed her hand and put his chin on top of it. “I saw some disturbing pictures of Anne yesterday.”
“What kind of pictures?”
“Pictures of her in compromising positions.”
“Compromising positions, indeed. You sound like such a Regency prude.”
“She was tied up in bondage.”
“Bondage? Oh.” Her mouth opened. “How? I cannot imagine the woman I met at the museum…”
“She left her briefcase open, near the edge of the table. When she left the room, she closed the door too hard and her briefcase toppled over. These pictures came tumbling out.”
“Must be pretty interesting pictures if you’re grimacing and shuddering even now talking about them. What did you do then?”
“I shoved the pictures back in her briefcase and pretended nothing happened when she returned.”
After spending a few moments laughing at him, his wife narrowed her eyes. “And how would you have known it was bondage? Personal experience? At the penthouse perhaps?”
“Sweetheart, any red-blooded male over fifteen knows about bondage. And no, it was not something I was into in my single days. But now that I have a sexy, adventurous wife”—he waggled his brows—“bring it on, isn’t that what you always say?”
“Please.” She pushed him away. “I’m in bondage already, pregnant with twins and big as a hospital. I cannot imagine being tied up anymore. And I want to know what you were into at that penthouse. Your aunt said you had a mirror on the ceiling.”
“What? There was no such tasteless thing. I should have taken you there before I sold it so you could have seen the place for yourself, the way you keep carrying on about it.” He wished he had never had the damn penthouse. “I definitely never had any woman setting up house there. I hate to disillusion you from thinking I was such a stud before you, but my dates at the penthouse were boring. I barely remember anything.”
“Why have a separate place? You have a big townhouse.”
He stared at her, amazed at her questions. “I had Georgiana. There was no way I was going to bring a woman into my own home and have her invade my privacy or expose Georgiana to that. And…” He stopped, embarrassed.
“And you’re too damn fastidious to have the woman sleep in your bed and use your regular sheets.” She laughed. “My God, you must have had piles of new sheets there at that penthouse that you got rid of after each date.”
“No one told me being married meant I should be a source of amusement for my wife,” he complained, though he was thankful she could joke about his checkered past now.
“You were such a damn spoiled billionaire with too much money.”
“And that’s why I have you as a wife now, to laugh at me and keep me in line.” He stood and kissed her good-bye. “Remember, no more than two hours on your feet today at work, your doctor said.”
“She only said two hours after you harassed her for a specific number, but I’ll be good.”
When he arrived home late that evening, he smiled at the sounds of feminine laughter coming from the media room. Lydia bounced out and greeted him with a big hug. Not used to the exuberant way some of the Bennet women showed their affection, he awkwardly returned it.
“Hey, did you hear my good news? I’m going to be on a new show called Cheering with the Stars. They saw me at an anti-war protest and liked my protest cheer. They’re going to match me up with a star. I hope it’s going to be some cute guy.” On and on she chattered and she led him to his wife, who greeted him with a look in her eye that told him she hadn’t forgotten her promise to reward him that night.
CHAPTER 36
Bondage
“Next, we chop up everything.” Elizabeth put the onions, garlic, and carrots in the food processor.
“We’re making a mess,” Georgiana said.
“We’ll clean up before Mrs. Reynolds gets h
ome,” Elizabeth said. Something had been worrying Georgiana. She seemed jumpy lately. It usually took half a day to make fried egg rolls, hopefully long enough for Elizabeth to find out what was going on. “Now add the shrimp, the ground pork there, and the eggs.”
“Did your mom teach you to cook?”
“No, Aunt Mai did. You’d think that I was out doing wild things dressed all in black as a Gothic chick, but I actually spent most of my free time in my aunt’s kitchen cooking the angst out of my tortured young soul.”
Instead of laughing at Elizabeth’s joke, Georgiana said, “Did you ever do anything then you now regret?”
Here was the opening, Elizabeth realized. “I spent years looking like Morticia from The Addams Family. Don’t you think that’s enough of a reason to regret my youth?”
A weak smile appeared on Georgiana’s face.
Gratified to see that, in a serious tone, Elizabeth talked of her experience with the college professor, leaving nothing out, including how lost she’d felt. She ended with, “Lydia is much more savvy than I was at her age.”
Georgiana started crying.
Elizabeth rubbed her back. “Sweetie, talk to me.”
“If I tell you, I’m afraid you’d think…”
“You’re afraid I would think you’re not perfect like your brother, and I won’t love you? Wait, he’s not perfect. Darn it.” She wiped Georgiana’s tears. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s been going on with you lately, and I’ll decide whether or not I can live with another imperfect Darcy?”
“I’m being threatened because of some pictures.”
Elizabeth sucked her breath in. “What kind of pictures?”
“Porn pictures, of me.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know. It started last year then stopped, but it started back again.”
“And what do they want? Money?”
“They haven’t asked for money yet, but they keep reminding me they have embarrassing pictures of me. When I hadn’t heard from them for months, I thought I was safe.”
“You are still safe,” Elizabeth said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The rash promise seemed to relieve Georgiana. “The pictures were taken when I was seeing George Wickham.”
“I see. Pictures of you two?”
“No, just me.”
“I’d forgotten about his existence for the last few months.”
“I wish I could.” Georgiana made a face. “I was terrified about making friends on campus. Then, George showed up, and I didn’t have to work to make new friends. He knew all about me and where I came from; it was comfortable and easy to be with him and his friends. They were so nice, so friendly, so welcoming; it didn’t seem like they were a cult at all. That’s how stupid I was. I was excited about belonging…”
“Everybody wants to belong. Don’t be hard on yourself.”
“Luckily, my brother found out in time. I had invited Richard to the wedding… and that’s how Will learned of it.”
“Subconsciously, you must have wanted your brother to know if you invited Richard.”
“I wish I could say I was that smart, but the truth was George told me to. Richard already knew I was dating someone.”
“I see.” But Elizabeth didn’t see at all. She could not fathom why George Wickham told Georgiana to invite Richard. Surely, Wickham knew that likely the wedding would be stopped. Unless, he wanted it stopped. “George’s the one blackmailing you then.”
“No. That’s the thing. He swore it’s not him. He claimed someone must have broken into his apartment and set up a hidden camera.”
“If that’s true”—Elizabeth could not keep the skepticism from her voice—“then it must be someone who knew him well. Very well.”
“I don’t know for sure it’s not him,” Georgiana admitted, “but when I confronted him, he was shocked and looked very scared. This may be stupid, but I don’t think he faked that.”
Elizabeth pursed her lips. “The cult might be behind this, with or without Wickham’s cooperation. That may explain why he’s scared.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened and a small gasp escaped her. “The cult?”
“It seems logical. We need to talk to your brother, honey. You know that, right?”
“Lizzy, he’s going to freak.” Georgiana was now panicking.
Elizabeth tried to soothe her. “Sweetie—”
“Now that he has you to worry about, he’s finally giving me some breathing room. I don’t want to move backward.” Georgiana’s voice turned firm. “I don’t want to hurt William by fighting with him, but I like my freedom. A lot.”
Elizabeth clucked sympathetically but she didn’t argue the point. She loved her husband dearly—even with all his obsessive quirks—but she had to admit being his wife was easier than being his younger sister. “How do they contact you? You get letters?”
“No. Emails.”
“Emails? That’s not very smart. More easily traced than letters. I hope you didn’t delete the emails?”
Georgiana hid her face in her hands.
“Georgiana! You didn’t!”
“I did,” Georgiana confessed. “I still have the last one they sent me though, in my trash file.”
“Let’s see it.” Elizabeth stood and half dragged, half pushed Georgiana to the office. “Even if you did delete them all, I bet Mary could figure out how to get them back. She’s a genius with computers.” Three minutes later, staring at the screen, she exclaimed, “That’s not porn! I’ve seen more on tabloid covers.”
Georgiana looked hopeful. “You think so?”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Sweetie, all the pictures show is you wearing a leather outfit with a chain around your neck and a whip in your hand. That one there of you touching yourself between your legs is a little provocative but you don’t look any worse than any ad in Vogue.”
“You don’t think it’s embarrassing?”
“Are you kidding? If these got published and it became known they weren’t staged, you’d be the hottest male fantasy. A classy, edgy, and sexy blonde heiress in black leather and bondage.”
“I don’t want to be an edgy, sexy blonde. I’m going to dye my hair black and be Goth.”
“I don’t think you have to go that far and go Goth,” Elizabeth soothed. “Nobody is going to be shocked by your pictures. Again, you’re sure George Wickham is not involved in threatening or blackmailing you?”
“Not completely sure, but my gut says no. He’s not smart or patient enough to not do anything all these months anyhow.”
Elizabeth reluctantly nodded and agreed. “That’s a good point. But who else’s behind this?”
“The cult, you said?”
“Now that I’ve seen these pictures, I doubt they’d involve themselves in an amateur thing like this to mess with a Darcy. They have got to know your brother would whoop their asses.” She smiled to see Georgiana giggling at that. “Okay, that’s more my trashy style, I admit. Your brother would probably hire a whole team of useless lawyers to deal with it and make them rich, wasting money.”
“Lizzy, if it might not be the cult, could we not involve William yet? Please?” Georgiana pleaded.
Elizabeth sighed. “Before I agree to anything about keeping it from my husband, let’s think it through first. And I have to ask this: Only dressing up for him? Nothing more? Like S and M sex? Did he do anything strange sexually?”
“I never went all the way. I wanted to, but he said he liked the idea of me being a virgin and wearing those sexy clothes. He… um… said it would make the anticipation greater for when we got married; it would have been a double present then, my um… wedding gift and my birthday gift.”
Ignoring the girl’s red face, Elizabeth pressed, “We need to figure out what’s the worst that this unknown photographer might have also taken. I’m very used to hearing about my patients’ sexual exploits so don’t worry. I won’t be shocked. Okay?”
William’s sist
er bit her lip then nodded. “Okay.”
The answers she gave in response to Elizabeth’s explicit questions reassured her somewhat that there wouldn’t be pictures that would be considered overtly obscene pornographic material. More importantly, she suddenly realized something. “Wait. These pictures were taken before your eighteenth birthday on Valentine’s Day. That’s when you were set to get married?”
Georgiana nodded. “Thank God Richard showed up the day before my birthday. I can’t believe I almost married George in a mass wedding.”
“But you didn’t,” Elizabeth reminded her. “If you were truly under his and the cult’s power, you would still have gotten married the next day, no matter who had shown up to stop it. You showed self-preservation.”
Georgiana’s face relaxed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Let me think about this and see what we can do. Meanwhile, why don’t you talk to Mary when you get home tonight?”
“You don’t think she’d be shocked?”
“Mary? Are you kidding? She’s gotten into trouble much worse than this. She might be able to talk to you about how to deal with the stress. I’ll talk to her too tonight also.”
Georgiana hugged her. “Thank you. I wanted to tell you… and even Mary. It’s just that Will—”
She cut Georgiana off, “I won’t involve your brother yet, not until we figure out exactly what’s going on. Quite frankly, I’m not in the mood to deal with his panic attacks.” She began to talk of other subjects to distract the younger girl. William would be home soon and she wanted his sister calmed before then. “We should get back to the kitchen. I’m hungry and the babies are hungry. Did I tell you that your brother is having the cribs custom-made so he could supervise the production? He worries the ready-made cribs would collapse. Can you believe that?”
CHAPTER 37
Showbiz
As Elizabeth sat charting in the free clinic’s office on a late Tuesday afternoon, her cell phone rang. She smiled. “Hi, love.”
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