“Do not fear. I have planned to bring my household servants to join us. I like them one and all. And I would rather pay to ship them with us than to hear that John in his vengeance has rounded them up to torture and slay them.”
“A wise idea. And we should do the same for my staff, too.”
He stroked her back. “I have the coin for that.”
“How well you have prepared.”
“Would that I could hire a whole fleet of ships and send all John’s subjects to Ireland.”
“Aye, he’s not been successful there in persuading them to love him.”
“Bah!” He laughed. “We could send all the English to Irish shores.”
She shook her head. “They would never do it.”
Geoffrey splayed his fingers into her hair. “He will pass away one day.”
“May it please God soon,” she whispered.
“Until then,” he said, “we go far away where his reach is frail.”
“And there for the time we have left to each other, you will be mine and I yours.”
“As man and wife, as we were always meant to be.”
Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
His Delectable Cook
Cerise DeLand
Excerpt
Chapter One
Bess Deveraux stood before her new employer, prim as a blushing bride, which she most definitely was not, and proud as the virago she wished to become. And all because the man she faced was precisely the type of master she had yearned for since she’d first discovered the joys her body could give her six long years ago. He embodied all the essential qualities she desired in a lord and master—he was handsome, self-possessed, filthy rich and scandal-ridden. At the moment, he was also astonished at her appearance before him. The tick in his left cheek told that tale.
“Mrs O’Brien assures me you are qualified for my household.” Lord Taryn Wentworth sat, loose-boned and maddeningly louche, in a large leather chair, examining her from across his sun-dappled library. The rogue controlled himself so well—too well. Far beyond Bess’ expectations. After all, she knew he had always hated surprises, especially ones she’d concocted.
Bess flushed with pride. Convincing the acerbic housekeeper to choose Bess for the cook’s position had been quite the gauntlet, but she had succeeded. The servant had riddled her with questions for hours about her previous experience and employers.
“She informs me you are experienced with supper parties and balls.” Crossing one long, well-muscled leg over the other, Wentworth pursed his full lips together as his searing sapphire eyes assessed her chin, her throat and her bosom in the cook’s shapeless white attire.
At his gravelly bass voice, Bess refrained from shifting on her feet as her nipples peaked high and hard against the rough cotton of her new uniform. She’d been right not to have donned a corset this morning. Nor worn any pantalets. After all, she had taken this position to be free of all social restraints.
“Bess! Do answer his lordship,” Mrs O’Brien chastised her to respond to the man who had recently inherited this Mayfair house, an older pile in Dorset, an earldom and twenty thousand a year income.
Bess locked eyes with him, the rogue. “I was not aware it was a question.”
“Careful, girl,” O’Brien growled.
Bess caught his lordship fighting a smile. “Yes, of course. Pardon me, Went—” No, not so familiar, Bess! “Sorry, my lord. I am very accomplished at preparing party menus. Game, beef, puddings.”
“Red snapper?”
Bess suppressed a chuckle at his lewd reference. How like the scoundrel to try to make her laugh. “I have it on good authority that my fish is superbly prepared. Always in a savoury sauce.”
He rubbed his lower lip with the tip of one index finger. “How are your sweet things?”
When properly prepared? “They melt in your mouth.”
“Tempting,” he conceded, with a tour of her body from generous breasts to tiny waist and the length of her legs. She had heard his eyes could scald and titillate. Her cunny swelled with the proof. “And what of your cakes? Do you work with chocolate?”
“I can bake one for you, my lord.”
“Frosted?”
Irritable and commanding this morning, are we, my lord Wentworth? Hmm. “Of course. Marzipan. Vanilla glaze. Whatever you—”
“What do you do with strawberries? Peaches?”
The devil. Her nipples pebbled like strawberries. Eager to have those luscious lips of his sucking them. And her peaches? She squeezed her pussy walls together. Yes. Her peaches were plump and ready to be bitten into. “Such delicacies, I offer ripe and sugared with—”
“Ices?” He cut her off with a narrowing of his sparkling eyes and a shift in his chair.
Uncomfortable, my lord? This is your fault, you realise. You did ask. “Yes. Sculptured, my lord. Swans, birds and—”
“I see,” he said, though what he was looking at was her nipples against the muslin uniform. “Where did you learn to carve ice?”
“In the house where I grew up, my dearest friend was the cook.”
His cool façade fell from his face at hearing this titbit. “Was your friend, the sculptress, also expert with her dishes?”
“A fine chef, my lord. My father became enchanted with her finesse and claimed no one could make a soufflé that compared. I learnt much from her.”
“Such as?”
Ah. You taunt me at your own risk, Wentworth. “She declared if one fed a man what he loved, he would return, hungry forevermore.”
“Astute of her.” Over the shock of gazing at her face and form he grew more relaxed. Even jovial.
“True, my lord.” Bess rocked back on her heels, bolder now that she had him in conversation. “She was most particular instructing me on how to prepare any organ from a large animal, most especially his brain.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “For example, what?”
“How to tenderise a big piece of meat.” She used her hands, illustrating her passion to pull and draw on one specific part of a male animal.
O’Brien cleared her throat.
Bess clasped her hands behind her back, rising on her toes and thrusting out her heavy breasts. “I roast a succulent duck, as well. Do you like duck, my lord?”
“I appreciate all things succulent, Bess.” He flashed a smile at her, a rueful twitch of that libertine’s mouth. One Bess had to trace and taste very soon. “Leave us, Mrs O’Brien.”
“My lord, I depart here in the morning for the house in Dorset as you requested,” the housekeeper bit off her words, miffed at her dismissal from this interview. “But I have not yet discussed the menu with her for tomorrow evening, and with a new butler and footman—”
“I will tell her what to serve.” Wentworth waved the woman towards the door, though his gaze was locked on Bess’. “She will inform you after I am done with her. You may go to your duties, Mrs O’Brien.”
Bess pressed her thighs together. Her cunny pulsed at the prospect of being alone with her lord so soon after being hired. Quivering with anticipation, she gripped her hands together before her while the housekeeper hemmed and hawed, then turned on her heel to sail from the library.
When the door clicked shut, Wentworth crooked a finger at her. “Come closer, Bess. Afraid I bite? I do occasionally when compelled by surprise—or disobedience. But then, I suspect you knew that. Heard tales of me, have you?”
“Yes, sir.” The ton is awash in them. Though I knew the older ones of your outlandish past, one dear friend of mine has filled my head with many of the new tales. Your sudden ascension to this earldom. Your personal fortune, made from your trade out of Jamaica. Your penchant for risqué gentlemen’s clubs. The woman you adored and the love affair that failed so tragically. I have learnt them all, rejoiced with you, save for that latter story which we might amend with a new conclusion.
“Perhaps you don’t know enough about me to work for me.”
“I
do, sir. I wish to work for no one else.”
“Well, then, come. Stand just…here,” he instructed, both feet to the floor now, straightening in his chair and widening his knees. He pointed between his legs, her body so near to his that she inhaled his scent. Bergamot and musk. Mingling with the heady fragrances of my own juices dribbling from my drenched pussy.
She swallowed hard, the sound reverberating in her head. Her head spinning with desire to touch him, she did not dare to look him in the eye. She had promised herself that she would steal her courage for this position as his cook, give him his prerogatives as her master and let him do as he would. His reputation had preceded him. The newest claimant to the name Wentworth was the one any gossip equated with rakehell. The heartbreaker of virgins. Debaucher of widows. Yet whispers declared he pined for one woman who was beyond his reach and this was the reason that his recent indulgences in houses of ill repute were oddly only that of observation.
“Turn up your palms.”
She did and he stroked her flesh with the backs of his nails, frissons of delight shooting up her arms.
“You have such elegant fingers. What happened here?” He circled a dark scar beneath her index finger.
“I was clumsy with a pot and burned myself.”
“With such fine hands, you must be more careful. What else do you do with these elegant fingers, Bess?”
“I play,” she managed to get out. The housekeeper had warned her to answer any question put to her by her new master with only the truth and to be quick about it.
“What?” His touch was soft, rhythmic.
“Chess. The pianoforte.”
“And?” he insisted. “Any other instrument?”
“Anything your lordship wishes.”
He left off stroking her hands and sat back for long minutes when she dared not move. “O’Brien tells me you have a reference from an employer in Lancashire.”
My past? Yes, you would want to know, wouldn’t you? “This is true. I was cook to Baron Charles Mowbray and his wife, my lord.”
“For how long, Bess?”
“Five years and two months.” Her voice broke, she could barely speak the words that told of her life before that. “The baron and his wife were very good to me, my lord. Taking me on my word that I was an accomplished cook though I had no previous employment.”
“So then, before that, Bess, where were you? Tell me,” he ground out, raw despair a palpable sorrow in his voice.
“My two guardians had shut me up in a cottage near Berwick.”
He cursed roundly beneath his breath.
“They fed me laudanum and said I was mad, then set a guard on me.”
His expression grew feral, his nostrils flaring, his teeth bared. “Do you still eat opium, Bess?”
“No, my lord. I never liked the stuff.”
His fierce blue gaze pierced her own. “And are you mad, Bess?”
She shook her head vigorously. “Never, my lord. Never.”
“And you escaped from these guardians,” he marvelled.
“I did. For the years I was with Baron Mowbray, I was well hidden away.” She straightened her back. “But before I came to you, I went to see them and showed them I have defied them.”
His mouth fell open, a look of awe and horror straining his expression. “Bold of you, Bess.”
“I would not let them take my life away from me. They had taken—” She bit her trembling lower lip. “They had taken so much else from me.”
“And why now are you here with me, Bess?”
“The gossips said you were come here as the new earl, the oldest natural heir to the Wentworth titles and lands. I heard you sought restitution from those who had done you ill and I wanted to work for such a master. I came as quickly as I could.”
He slid his big warm hands up to her forearms, his touch one that proclaimed he treasured her form. As if she scorched his flesh, he let go and sat back. “I am honoured, Bess, to have such a determined woman in my household.”
She stared into his heavy-lidded eyes, wishing she might show him how thrilled she was to have learnt of his very existence.
His eyebrows knitted, a vulnerable tenderness in his countenance. “Are you not too beautiful to work here hidden away in my downstairs kitchen?”
“I am thrilled you think so.” That I retain my looks after all I have endured makes my heart sing.
“Won’t you be tempted to leave me?”
What I have seen of the world does not offer more than to live here. “Never.”
“Why not? What must I give you, Bess, to make you stay?”
“I wish only to please you, my lord. Tell me what you wish and I will provide it.”
“I wish sustenance from the storms of life.”
She nodded her agreement. “I can give you that. And what else?”
“My tastes are unique.”
Praise God. “Describe them.”
“You.”
Yes. Me. She swayed with the hope that she would be all he needed.
“Joy.”
She smiled, her blood running hot with excitement. She had heard he liked to view chestnut-haired women making love to two or three men at one time. “I will give all I can.”
“And obey all my commands?”
“Every one.”
“Is that so?” He challenged her with narrowed lids.
Leaning forward, he gathered her hem in his hands and hoisted her skirts to hook the front into the apron band at her waist. The air on her bare skin was cool, setting her afire for his touch. For excruciating moments, he surveyed her naked assets. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out and hurrying him on. “Do you ever play with any of this?”
“I do.”
“Often?”
“Every day. Two or three times.” Her pussy quivered. Her teeth set. I’ve been so lonely, my lord.
“How?”
“How, my lord?”
He spread her cunny lips wide with two thumbs and looked his fill. “What do you do to play here, my dear Bess?”
“I play with my cherry.”
“Tell me.” He pinched her clit and she jumped.
“I roll it to warm it and then I crush it.” Do the same. Have me.
“Hmmm.” He circled her sensitive nub with the tip of a nail and she reeled as her cunt rejoiced with a gush of fluid. “Like this, I would presume from your response?”
“Precisely so, my lord.” Her eyes drifted closed.
“None of that, Bess. Look at me. Yes. I do like your eyes, my pretty cook. Brown with flecks of gold. Much like the hair on your head. And the curls on your mound.” He threaded his fingers through her bush and tugged, giving her labia a pull that made her cry out.
He made no remark about her outburst, but punished her by sitting back in his chair, draping his hands over his arm rests. Still, he twirled a finger at her. “I would see more of your crowning glory, Bess. Remove that silly hat and your pins.”
With shaking hands, she did as she had been bid and let the offending articles drop to the rug. With her thick tresses cascading over her shoulders and around the points of her breasts, she ached for him to comb his fingers in her curls.
“As I thought, you are a woman blessed with an abundance of hair. On your head and your lashes. As well as there, covering your quim. I appreciate all this.” He indicated her head and eyes, then gestured to her mound. “But for what you will do here, Bess, your pussy hair obstructs my view. Tomorrow, I will shave you.”
She gulped, enthralled that he would put his fingers to her hot tissue once more, manipulate her, spread her wide, hold her open and divest her of her womanly veil. “I look forward to it.”
“Eager, are we?”
She nodded like a silly chit.
“Remain so. No playing with your cherry or any other bit of your very healthy body. In my service, you are mine to command.” He waved a hand to denote her body. “Do you agree?”
“I do.” I’d be a fool t
o object after working so diligently to get here.
“You will be punished if you disobey me, you realise?”
Oh, yes. “How?” Tell me. Make me pant.
“A paddle. A gag. A rope.”
She shivered in exquisite anticipation.
“Yet you seem a wilful woman.”
“You have the right of it, my lord.”
“As I thought.” He rose from his chair then walked to his desk. He removed a key from his pocket then unlocked a bottom drawer. From its depths, he took two metal gadgets that he rolled like dice in one hand. Then he resumed his chair. “I have been saving these for many years. For use, you see, with one special woman.”
Her blood roared. Her thighs clenched.
“Spread your legs, my pretty cook.” He stroked the length of her slit and found her cunny. Rubbing the warm metal around in her juices against her hot lips, he thrust up inside her one plug and seated it there with a deft push.
“Ohhh.” She loved the bulk of it, the weight.
“Turn around, my girl. Bend over. Hands to the floor. That’s it. Now.” He inserted one hand between her wet thighs and urged them wider. There, with tantalising wisps of his fingers, he bathed the other metal in her cunny cream. Rolling it about her labia, he drove her to a keen. “This is a charming view, Bess. But I must see more. Put your hands to your cheeks, spread open your arse crack and let me see your rose, darling. Ah. Pink. Cresting for me? Inviting me in. Such a good girl. Then here is your reward, pet.”
In one smooth move, he sank the other plug up inside her arsehole. Stunned for a moment, she clutched at the metal in both of her orifices and rejoiced that her pussy and arse muscles were so strong, so capable of receiving her lord and master’s gifts. She had practised for such a moment for years with similar toys of her own. On a shiver, she recalled a few moments of bliss she had shared with a lover so long—too long—ago.
“Turn to me.” He spun her, hands on her hips, and steadied her before him.
She cupped her elbows, her breasts engorged and pleading to be released. Her pussy pulsed, swollen and full. She could come now, merely from the plugs and the touch of his caring hands. How would she last until he decided to fill her with his cock?
With Her Kiss (Swords of Passion) Page 12