Once inside and face-to-face with Mrs. Blythe, he bowed respectfully. “I’m sorry to intrude, but my Lady Greenleigh has asked me to return to you on her behalf.” Then he waited. If luck was with him, the woman would let spill something useful now. He’d learned that people made their own conclusions and were compelled to fill any extended silence with them.
After a long moment, Mrs. Blythe sighed. “She had second thoughts, I suppose. I’m surprised she actually had the fortitude to approach me in the first place. I was sure once she considered it, she would regret asking me to help her stage her Hunt Ball.”
Interesting. The man nodded somberly. “It is a very important event.”
“I suppose it is too late to reassure her that I had only the most tasteful entertainments in mind. I know the most wonderful soprano …”
The man felt a spurt of excitement. This fell neatly into his plan. “No, madam,” he interrupted smoothly. “My lady does not wish to relinquish your aid. In fact—” This was going to do the trick as nothing would. “In fact, my lady wishes for you to find something much more radical for her.”
Mrs. Blythe’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. I see. I had wondered why she came to me, specifically.” She snorted impatiently. “She couldn’t bring herself to say it herself, could she?”
The man nodded sympathetically. “She is new to her position, madam. I’m sure she was simply too timid.”
“Ladies.” Mrs. Blythe shook her head. “So she wishes that sort of party, does she?”
“Indeed. She wishes to be a most notorious hostess.”
Mrs. Blythe folded her arms. “Inform her that I have the perfect entertainment. It is, after all, what I do.”
The man nodded. “Indeed, madam.”
Perfect, indeed.
Olivia couldn’t think of anything but Mrs. Blythe’s advice on the way home in the carriage and through tea and through the household’s bustle and preparation for the journey day after tomorrow.
Mrs. Huff was rushing about in a flurry, directing this and that, even sending instructions to the other staff by fast courier!
Apparently, the house in Scotland had not been used for two years. Of course, there was a caretaking staff in residence at Kirkall Hall, but evidently Mrs. Huff didn’t trust anyone but herself to manage the preparations for so many guests.
Leaving the woman to it, for she’d not welcomed a single suggestion from Lady Greenleigh, Olivia dawdled in what she had come to think of as her “morning room,” a smaller parlor done in more cheerful colors than the supremely elegant pale tones of the rest of the house.
The butler tapped twice and opened the door. “There is a parcel come for you, my lady, from a ‘Mrs. B.’”
Olivia started, then turned away from the butler to hide her blush. “Oh yes, thank you, Kinsworth.” Goodness, was that her voice, so high and nervous? She cleared her throat and strived to sound normal. “Put that in my room if you please.”
She forced herself to wait, even attempting to go over the menus with the cook, Mrs. Arnold. Rather, Olivia listened while Mrs. Arnold told her in no uncertain terms what she would be eating for the next several days. Finally, she nodded agreement—apparently that was her role in this household, to nod agreement to what the servants wanted to do—and escaped upstairs, ostensibly to dress for dinner. Duty done.
On the side table in her room sat a paper-wrapped parcel the size of a small luggage case. Olivia looked for Petty, but the girl was nowhere in sight and likely wouldn’t be unless Olivia sent for her—in which case Olivia could count on it being several sullen minutes before the girl arrived. Assured of her privacy, Olivia ripped the paper from her gift.
It was a box of sorts, almost like a barrel on its side. It was stained dark and was heavily carved with sumptuous images of exotic fruits—at least, they looked like pomegranates and bananas.
On the front there were two golden clasps. After a moment of fiddling, Olivia learned the trick of them and flicked them both open.
The box fell apart, unwinding away from her like a rolled carpet. “Oh, how clever!” What had been a box was now a flat tray made of compartments hinged together. In each of the five silk-lined compartments, a single object lay, itself wrapped in matching golden silk. Biting her lip, she reached for the first one.
Mrs. Blythe had told her what was inside, but description did not satisfy one’s curiosity. Olivia picked up the first object and let the silk wrapping fall away. Oh my. Perhaps those hadn’t been bananas after all.
“What the hell?”
Dane’s appalled bellow from the doorway startled Olivia, making her drop the carved ivory vagina expander on the floor. It rolled away under the bed.
13
“Now look what you made me do!” Olivia glared at Dane. “It will be soiled under there!” She dived beneath the counterpane to retrieve it, only to find Dane lifting her bodily from the floor with a great arm about her waist. “Got it!” She waved it triumphantly at him.
He set her on her feet, glaring at her. “Do you mind telling me what the hell that thing is?”
He looked down at what she held in her hand and paled. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” He released her and turned away. “I suppose I cannot deny you your own pleasure. Only … please don’t let the servants find it.”
Olivia planted both fists on her hips. “Oh, you don’t know everything, Lord Greenleigh. These are for the both of us.”
He turned to stare at her, distaste evident on his face. “No thank you. I’m afraid my inclinations don’t run to—”
She pulled out the note from Mrs. Blythe. “Here. Read this.”
He took the note and read it aloud. “‘As I related to you earlier this afternoon, these relics are the Pleasure Rods of the Rajah, created at the request of the second Rajah of Najimbi for his bride in order for her to train her body to accept a man of great size. Alas, they were never used. It seems the young rajah had a rather inflated idea of his own proportions and felt that no pure, virginal woman could receive him. The story goes that neither the wife nor the rajah was quite as advertised.’”
Dane stopped reading and looked askance at the opened box. He folded the note and flipped aside the golden silk covering the next offering in the case. “So these ivory … things are supposed to help us somehow?”
Olivia knelt by the case and began unwrapping each one. “Yes. You see, they come in graduating sizes. Once a woman becomes comfortable with one size, she may move on to the next—oh, dear heavens.” She’d unwrapped the fifth and final rod. It was as thick as four fingers and its length lay across her two palms and then some. She blushed and rewrapped it quickly. “Well, at least I’m sure we won’t need to use that one!”
Dane rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Actually … I think we will.”
Olivia stopped with her hands still cradling the final rod. “Truly? Does that mean you don’t mind?”
To his surprise, considering he was not one to “augment” his satisfaction with objects, Dane felt his first glimmer of true hope in years.
“I’m surprised you are willing,” he said slowly. He didn’t want to sway her from it, but neither did he want to make her go through such a thing if she wasn’t—
She leaped to her feet and flung both arms about his neck. “Oh, thank you, darling! I know we can make it work, I just know it!”
An alarming thought struck him. “Who gave you these, and how did she know? You haven’t been—”
She shook her head, causing a rather adorable downfall of fair hair. “You needn’t worry. I trust her discretion completely. She helped me enormously with the arrangements for the Hunt Ball. She’s a good friend of the Prince Regent’s, you know. Her name is Mrs. B—”
Dane held up one hand sharply. “No, perhaps I’d better not know. I’d never be able to look her in the eye in a social situation.”
Olivia only smiled fondly at him. “Dane, you know this means we’ll be able to have children. You could be a fathe
r this time next year!”
What a startling thought. He pictured a sturdy, fair-haired boy with gray eyes, and a smile crept across his lips. Olivia sighed happily and snuggled closer to his chest. What an astonishing woman she was, to go through this for him, for their future and their familyto-be.
“I want lots of children,” she said dreamily. “Lots and lots.”
He chuckled and held her close, tucking her head into its perfect spot beneath his chin. If she did this for him, she could have all the children she could stand to raise. “And dogs.”
She nodded against his chest. “And dogs.”
Dane gazed over her shoulder where four of the five ivory rods lay beside the case. The thought of using them to drive her urgent responsiveness to new heights …
His body began to respond to his thoughts and the way her full breasts pressed to his chest. She must have been thinking along the same lines, for her body seemed to melt languidly into his. “Dane,” she whispered. “We could start right now.”
“Hmm.” Dane let his hand slide off her hair and down her side to cup beneath one lovely breast. “Do you wear any sort of ladies’ drawers, my dear?”
“Of course not,” she replied with a small smile. “‘Tisn’t healthy.”
Lovely, country-bred woman. Dane bent his body, reaching for her hem and taking advantage of his position to lay his mouth over her sprigged muslin bodice. He breathed over her nipple as he stroked his hand beneath her hem and up her stocking. Her body responded, quivering in his grasp already, though he’d touched no higher than her knee.
He passed over her garter—he ought to have her leave her stockings on sometime—and ran his palm up her inner thigh.
She gasped slightly and parted her legs a bit, allowing him in. He straightened, his hand planted firmly over her mound, and used his other hand to pull her bodice down to just below her nipples. They thrust out like ripe cherries and he plucked at them as he lowered his mouth to her neck. “What do you want, my lady?” he whispered. “You must choose. My hand or my mouth?”
She hesitated, her breath quickening. Her nipples turned to stone beneath his teasing fingertips. “Ah … might I not have both?”
He chuckled at her greed and slid his longest finger inside her. It slipped in readily, for she’d gone moist in a matter of moments. He took her small gasp into his mouth as he drove slowly into her, in and out. After a moment, she began to ride his hand’s motion, thrusting her pelvis toward him, then back, then forward again.
His vision glazed as he thought about how she might ride him someday, grinding hard against him as he drove himself deep. She moved her lower body faster, her urgency escaping her in small cries as she lathed his hand in dampness, until he felt her climax tighten her flesh about his probing finger. He didn’t stop there.
Using her wetness, he slid another finger alongside the first and pressed within her slowly but not tentatively. She wriggled in surprise. “Take it,” he ordered softly. “Take everything I give you.”
She nodded, still breathless from her orgasm, and permissively held still while he drove into her again and again, first slowly, then faster. At last she could bear it no more and began to move on his hand. Dane wrapped his other arm around her waist to balance her against her own frenzy and lowered his mouth to one exposed nipple, then the other, sucking them rigid while she bucked in his grasp.
She climaxed again, great heaving shudders that sent her knees right out from under her. She sagged in his embrace. He pulled his hand from her, drying it on her petticoat as he let her skirts fall. Then he tugged her bodice up and stood her on her feet.
She was breathing hard and her hair had fallen from its pins and her face was flushed—and he thought she may have bitten her bottom lip at some point, for it was plumped and pink. It only made him want to make her climax again.
She must have caught the look in his eye, for she backed a step and held up a hand. “No, please … .”
He took one long step and caught her to him. “I can make you take back that ‘no,’” he growled playfully.
She dropped her forehead to his chest. “I know you can,” she said, still breathing hard. “But the clock is about to chime for dinner and I haven’t changed yet—”
There was a rattle at the doorknob of the outer room. It separated them like a spark. Dane turned away to adjust his aching erection within his trousers and Olivia quickly rolled up the clever case with the rods inside it.
She had just latched it shut when Petty entered. “What gown do you wish, my lady—” She stopped short when she saw Dane. “Oh, so sorry, my lord!” She began to back from the room.
Dane smiled at the girl, although Olivia noticed he kept his hands folded before him. He was obviously striving for a casual air, for she’d never seen him be so friendly with one of his staff. He was usually most businesslike. “What is your name, girl?” he asked Petty.
Petty bobbed and shot a triumphant look at Olivia. “I’m Elspeth, my lord.”
Dane nodded. “A lovely name.” He turned to Olivia. “Don’t you think so, my dear?”
Olivia wished she could tell him what he did to impressionable young girls with his smile and his looks and his form and his easy compliments. What he did to her as well, for that matter.
“Indeed,” she replied. “So it must be Elspeth and Leticia? And Henrietta, of course.” She turned to Dane. “Did you realize that you employ Elspeth’s younger twin sisters as well?” She smiled fondly at the maid, whose eyes shot sparks back at her. “And what a hardworking trio they are.”
Dane smiled at her proudly. “You already know my staff well, I see, right down to the housemaids. Well done.”
Olivia cast Petty a triumphant glance of her own before she bobbed her own little curtsy. “Why, thank you, kind sir!” Then she gave him a little push. “Now, I must prepare for dinner. If I’m not mistaken, Proffit is gnashing his teeth in impatience even now.”
Dane rolled his eyes. “Proffit’s a genius, but he will fuss so.” But he went, with a bow to her and a distant nod to Petty.
Olivia turned to look at the maid. “Elspeth? Really? I should think you’d prefer to be called that instead of Petty.”
Petty scowled. “Don’t think my preference matters much. My mum named us all such pretty names, and my da never uses them.” She shrugged. “So no one does.”
She reached into Olivia’s wardrobe and selected a pale green silk. It was prettier than the deceased gray silk and had a much more flattering neckline. Olivia suspected the modiste, driven past her last nerve, had simply disregarded Lady Greenleigh’s specifications.
Mother did tend to have that effect on people.
“That handsome Lord Dryden is dining with you again, my lady.”
Olivia searched that sentence for some kind of snide subtext, but it was nothing but truth. “Yes, he’s handsome indeed.” She smiled to herself as she turned to let Petty unfasten her sprigged muslin. “Not as handsome as his lordship, however.”
She heard Petty sigh. “No, indeed, my lady. Although Letty likes him better, but she’s always gone daft over the dark ones.”
Olivia turned her head to look at Petty over her shoulder. “Are we having a normal conversation, Miss Elspeth?”
Petty blushed and looked away. “Seems like.” She shrugged. “Gossip was, you were going to fire us all and bring your own people in.”
Olivia blinked. “My people are more than ready for their well-earned retirement. I don’t think anyone here needs to worry, although Mrs. Huff is beginning to drive me mad.”
Petty gasped. “Oh no, my lady! Mrs. Huff is right kindly, once you get to know her. She gave me and my sisters our positions as a favor to my mum. It’s only her bones aching so that makes her cross. She’s got the arthritimus real bad, she does.”
Olivia bent to let Petty pull the fresh gown over her head. “I … ow … do … out … at.”
Her head popped out the neckline. Petty was frowning at her. “What was
that, my lady?”
Olivia smiled. “I know what to do about Mrs. Huff’s … ailment.” She couldn’t bring herself to repeat Petty’s mangling of the word, but she didn’t want the girl to feel criticized, not when she was finally being almost friendly.
Olivia went to the writing desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. She inked her quill and quickly jotted down a list of herbs and ingredients. “Take this to Cook and have her make up a gallon of this tonight. Tell Mrs. Huff that she must wring cloths in it and lay them over her joints, and do it again as long as the mixture stays hot.” She handed the list to Petty.
The girl took it hesitantly, seeming rather uncomfortable. “Yes, my lady, but …”
Olivia crossed her arms. “But Mrs. Huff won’t have anything to do with it if it comes from me.”
Petty nodded, her gaze on the floor. “Don’t be angry with her, my lady. She’s been keeping house for his lordship for ten years and she’s afraid no other employer will want her with her joints so bad.”
Olivia nodded. “What if you told her you got the recipe from someone else?”
Petty smiled slyly. “Like my mum.”
Olivia grinned and dusted her hands briskly. “Now, what do you have in mind for my hair tonight? Something that won’t fall out, I hope.”
Petty slipped the list into her sleeve, then made a sour face. “Like it’s my fault your hair won’t stay pinned. Mayhap if you didn’t spring about so … .”
Olivia seated herself in the vanity chair, serenely confident that Petty would make her look wonderful. Now she knew that sour demeanor was just … well, it was just Petty, that was all.
In no time Olivia was dressed for dinner. She only hoped dinner could be dispensed with as quickly. She and Dane had a rendezvous planned tonight that just might change everything.
Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 02] Page 12