She’d taken his breath away when he saw her again after what had seemed like a lifetime, walking into that boudoir on the arm of a prosperous-looking gent older than his father. She wore a stunned expression of recognition when her gaze met his, followed by a withering blast of icy contempt.
He sipped his drink. He’d resolved to be very, very patient. For now.
The man seated at his right scanned the room with the concentration of a bird dog seeking game and scribbled in a worn little notebook. No doubt a journalist, a man whose professional knowledge of the city and its people could be useful to Darius.
He leaned over. “Excuse me, monsieur. Would you share a bottle with me, and some caviar? I am new to this city and would appreciate the company.”
The man, with curious, penetrating eyes, a mustache and Van Dyck beard like most of the Frenchmen present, smiled and nodded. “Anatole Beaucaire, reporter for Le Figaro, at your service.”
“Darius Granger, from London.” He purposely omitted his title.
He signaled for a waiter and ordered another bottle of champagne and some caviar, which were quickly supplied.
“So, Mr. Granger from London,” the reporter said, proffering his glass to be filled, “what brings you to our beautiful city?”
“Women.” One in particular.
“Ah. You’ve come to the right place. Paris is famous for its beautiful, charming women. And the cream of the crop can be yours for a mere fifty Louis an hour.”
Darius raised his brows at the lofty amount. “Are they worth it?”
“Some more than others.”
Conversation suddenly stopped, and heads turned as if royalty had arrived. When Darius saw who had caught these sophisticates’ attention, his heart thudded like a love-struck schoolboy’s.
There stood Regina.
Beaucaire leaned close. “Régine Laflamme, our Queen of Fire.”
She’d abandoned her plain English surname of Willett for a pseudonym as exotic as her beauty. Her thick, wild auburn hair collected all the room’s soft light into a fiery mass. A man could burn his fingers sifting through those tresses. She wore an elaborate gold diadem on her head like a regal medieval queen, and small gold ivy leaves sprinkled with diamonds that sparkled in her hair like stars.
“Take notice of her earrings as she passes,” Beaucaire whispered.
Jewelry only interested Darius when he selected a special piece to give a woman. His attention remained fixed on Regina’s expressive oval face, with its creamy ivory complexion devoid of paint and those mysterious blue eyes free of kohl that could imprison a man’s soul in their depths with one direct, worldly glance.
“They were a gift from the young American heir to a copper fortune,” Beaucaire continued. “He said that when he first beheld her beauty at the opera, he was so overcome, he wept. His tears turned into diamonds, which he had made into earrings for her.” The Frenchman snorted. “Nonsense, of course, but a very romantic tale. We Frenchmen do love a good romantic story.”
Darius tore his eyes away from Regina long enough to notice the old gent standing a little behind her. “Is that the American?”
“Oh, no. Their liaison was over a long time ago. He begged Régine to marry him, but of course her kind wouldn’t dream of ruining such a respectable young man by marrying him. The uproar! His family would disown him. So she refused, and he returned to New York City with a broken heart and a lighter wallet. We heard he married a nice respectable heiress and settled down. But practical woman that she is, Régine kept his gift. The diamonds are large and very fine, cut like teardrops and worth a king’s ransom, so she won’t have to endure an impoverished old age like many of her sisters in sin.”
If Darius offered to marry Regina, would she also reject his proposal? Like Régine’s young American, men of his class dallied with but did not marry women of easy virtue.
Beaucaire spread some beluga caviar on a thin piece of toast. “Her companion is Luc Valendry, the banker, her latest in a long line of wealthy, indulgent conquests.”
A long line of conquests… Those other men sharing her bed and possessing her luscious body night after night sent a cold stab of jealousy into his chest.
Now Regina and the banker followed the maitre d’ slowly toward her table, her tall, willowy body moving with the effortless, sensual grace of an odalisque. She did not wear green, as one would expect of a woman with her vivid autumnal coloring, but a gown the intense blue in the heart of a peacock’s feather, cut low to show off the gentle swell of her full bosom. What would it be like to pull down that blue gown’s bodice and bare those enticing pale ivory breasts to stroke and suckle until she climaxed, crying his name in a frenzy of desire? His cock stirred with heat, and Darius suspected that every man here tonight was experiencing the same fierce, painful arousal.
When Regina noticed him sitting there, watching, her step faltered for just a second and her warm blue gaze turned to ice. Then she looked beyond him at Beaucaire, and it was as if the radiant sun broke through black rain clouds on a cold winter day. She smiled, winked and blew the reporter a kiss.
He reached up, pretended to catch her kiss in midair and placed his hand against his heart with a dramatic, rapturous sigh. Other men who saw the gallant gesture chuckled and nodded in approval, to the chagrin of their female companions, who stared daggers at their rival.
Then she and the banker swept by and were seated at her table, with Regina on the banquette, on display for all to see.
Darius damped down his jealousy and asked the reporter, “Were you and the lady…?”
“Lovers?” He shook his head. “Alas, no. I am far too homely and far too poor for the Queen of Fire, but she does find me clever and amusing. Also, why spoil a beautiful friendship with sex?”
“How long have you two been friends?”
Beaucaire stroked his beard. “Ever since she first conquered our fair city five years ago.”
Darius’s stepmother had thrown Regina out of Blackwall Manor seven years ago. Where had she gone, and what had happened to her in the two years between leaving his family’s employ in unjustified disgrace and arriving in Paris to lead a life of decadence? Obviously she’d overcome her gentlewoman’s high morals enough to sell her body and had acquired enough skill in the amatory arts to rise to the heights of her profession and become a grande courtisane.
Beaucaire studied him out of narrowed eyes. “Would you like me to introduce you? She is English herself, though she’s more Parisian now than many of us natives. She might enjoy meeting one of her countrymen.”
Darius doubted that, but he was tempted, just to see her reaction. But no. He must be patient and approach her in his own time. “I’m afraid the lady is too rich for my blood. Besides, wouldn’t her banker object?”
The reporter raised one shoulder in a Gallic shrug. “Just because I introduce you doesn’t mean that Régine will discard Valendry.” He smiled. “Though you are quite the dark and handsome one, with the advantage of virile youth, and I’m sure she’d be tempted if your pockets are deep enough.”
“Alas, they are not.” Darius gave a cocky grin and refilled the reporter’s glass. “But otherwise, I’ve never had any complaints from the fairer sex.”
Beaucaire laughed and lifted his glass in a silent toast.
Darius watched a waiter approach Regina’s table and proffer a bottle of vintage champagne. Instead of accepting it, she turned an angry shade of pink and sent the waiter away with an imperious flick of her hand. The waiter turned, looked at a group of four men seated together, shook his head and shrugged apologetically before taking the bottle away.
Everyone who saw her gesture fell silent and exchanged nervous looks.
One of the men, a tall, muscular sort with a thin red dueling scar slashed across his left cheek, scowled and almost turned purple with anger. Regina ignored him, bestowing a warm smile on her banker instead, and conversation resumed.
Beaucaire gave a disgusted grunt. “I can’t belie
ve Dragomilov would have the audacity to send a bottle of champagne to Régine’s table. Poor de la Montaigne isn’t even cold in her grave. What a sadistic pig. But all those Cossacks are sadists. Bah! I have no use for them. None at all.”
So that fuming boor was none other than Count Serge Dragomilov. Darius had heard the story of course, how the Russian had accidentally shot his mistress in a fit of drunken high spirits. Since Regina and Odile de la Montaigne had been close friends, she would naturally be offended by the attentions of her friend’s killer.
But as he watched the waiter return with another bottle of champagne and some caviar, he wondered if her very public rejection of the volatile Russian nobleman had been wise.
Darius tensed when the four men rose a little unsteadily. If Dragomilov tried to lay a hand on Regina, he’d come to her defense, as would, he suspected, half the gallant men present.
The Russian stood before her table and glared down at her. “Why did you refuse the champagne?” he asked in thickly accented English. “I am not accustomed to having my generosity rejected.”
Regina looked up at him and smiled serenely, though her eyes glittered with hostility. “To accept your generous offer would be an insult to Monsieur Valendry.”
Curiously, Monsieur Valendry remained silent, making no attempt to defend Regina, as though somehow removed from the discourse between his mistress and the angry Russian. Darius dismissed him as a coward.
The Russian stared at the older man as though he’d like to tear him limb from limb with his bare hands and then forcibly take Regina right on the table, but didn’t dare in the presence of so many witnesses. He bowed slightly and followed the rest of his party out of Maxim’s.
Beaucaire caught Regina’s eye and applauded. “Well done!”
Darius concentrated all his attention on helping himself to more caviar. He had seen the possessive way Dragomilov looked at Regina. And while she may have smoothly deterred him this time, he suspected she had not seen the last of the boorish Russian.
“How dare he!” Régine kept still so Molly could remove the heavy diadem, but she plucked the ivy leaves from her hair impatiently and set them on the dresser. “I wanted to take that bottle of champagne and crack it right over his head.”
First Dragomilov, and then Clarridge.
Molly put the diadem inside the safe. “That Cossack bastard doesn’t regard women as human beings. To him, they’re just tits and c—”
“Molly! Some decorum, please.” Régine removed her diamond earrings, which she called Todd’s Tears in fond remembrance of that sweet, foolish young man, and handed them to her maid, who added them to the safe. “If he thinks I’m going to take Odile’s place and play his sadistic games, he’s sadly mistaken.”
Molly closed and locked the safe. “I’d be very careful of him, miss. He’s a man who’s accustomed to getting what he wants, and we know how they can be.”
Régine was more concerned with the Earl of Clarridge. After she and Luc had left the auction, she’d felt confident that she’d never see him again. So she’d been shocked to find him sitting in Maxim’s as bold as brass, sharing champagne and caviar with Anatole Beaucaire as if they were best friends.
She made a mental note to ask Anatole how he happened to know Clarridge.
She had first met the young earl when she was just eighteen, and known as Regina Willet. She’d been hired as a governess for his two half-sisters, and Darius had come home from Oxford for the Christmas holiday. He had endeared himself to Regina with his thoughtfulness when he brought the girls gifts of hand puppets custom made to look exactly like them. Not wishing to exclude Regina, he promised to have one made in their governess’s likeness as well.
When he returned to Blackwall Manor again in March, he kept his promise with a governess puppet with fiery red hair and turquoise eyes, much to the delight of the little girls and the chagrin of their stern mother. After that, Regina’s world collapsed and she never saw Darius Granger again.
Until today.
“Miss?” Molly’s worried voice snapped Régine out of her reverie. “Miss, are you all right?”
“I was just daydreaming for a moment.”
She ruthlessly banished those cheerful little girls and their charming, lighthearted half brother to the past where they belonged and rose so Molly could help her out of her blue silk gown. She must dress for Luc, whom she’d kept waiting far too long.
Chapter Three
Régine inspected herself in the cheval glass and straightened the white cuffs on the long sleeves of her prim gray homespun gown. With her hair tamed and pulled back into a severe bun, she became a harsh, grim prison matron who took sadistic delight in wielding absolute power over her helpless prisoners.
She dismissed Molly, who wished her good night and headed off to bed. Then she took Odile’s riding crop out of a bureau drawer and suddenly felt a kinship with her departed friend. Before she joined Luc in the boudoir, she stood very still with her eyes closed, said a little prayer for strength and forgiveness, and steeled herself. She loathed inflicting pain, but Luc paid her so handsomely to provide such services, and a courtesan who didn’t satisfy her clients’ requests soon discovered herself without any clients at all.
But she had found the perfect way to perform such a distasteful task. She simply pretended that Luc was Penbry Granger, her seducer.
She paused in the doorway connecting her dressing room to the boudoir. Molly had turned down the gaslights, casting the room in a soft, seductive light. Luc stood naked in the center of the room, with his back toward her. He’d hung a rope from a convenient hook in the ceiling, looped the ends around his thick wrists, and grasped the rope, his hands above his head, his strong, hairy legs spread apart and braced for what was to come.
Régine slowly walked toward him. With every deliberate, measured step, she kept time by slapping the wide leather end of the crop against her palm.
Luc tensed in anticipation.
Régine was about to play a difficult, challenging role worthy of the great Sarah Bernhardt.
She walked around him for inspection. For a man in his early fifties, his firm, muscular body was in fine condition, save for a slight thickening in his midsection which was to be expected of a man who spent most of his working day behind a desk in a bank. A dark pelt of hair covered his chest and tapered down to his groin.
He stared at the floor in abject submission, so unusual for a powerful man used to giving orders. But his thick, erect cock stood at attention, fully aroused.
Régine placed the flat leather end of the crop beneath Luc’s chin and lifted. “Look at me.”
“Yes, madame.” His uncharacteristically meek tone belied the stark hunger in his eyes.
She asked the same question he insisted she always ask at the beginning of these sessions. “Have you been a very good boy today, monsieur?”
According to the script, his gaze slid down to the floor. “No, madame. I have been very, very bad.”
“Then you know you shall have to be punished.”
“Yes, madame, and most severely.”
Régine tapped his chest with the crop. “I shall decide the severity of your punishment.”
He flinched. “Yes, madame. Forgive me for my impertinence.”
Régine dragged the crop down Luc’s chest, toward his navel. She fancied she could hear his heart thudding faster, faster as she approached his straining, blue-veined cock. She pulled the crop through his groin’s dark, curly hairs, lifting one of his balls and weighing it.
“So heavy,” she whispered with a smile of approval. “And so tempting.”
Luc held his breath in suspense. He was wondering what she’d do next. Would she squeeze them? Lick them? Inflict a slap of pain on them? The uncertainty of not knowing excited him more than if she’d stripped off her clothes and fucked him standing up. He both dreaded and desired his punishment for a long list of imagined transgressions.
She didn’t do what he expected, however,
but slowly ran the crop down the insides of his vulnerable spread legs.
“Please,” he dared whisper, growing ever more desperate for release.
Time for the play to begin in earnest. Régine walked behind him, noticing the way Luc’s firm buttocks tightened. With a flick of her wrist, she brought the crop down, the smack of leather against skin sounding like a gunshot in the silent room.
Luc yelped in ecstasy and pain.
Régine clenched her jaw and imagined that Penbry Granger was standing here instead of Luc. Penbry Granger deserved whatever pain and humiliation she could inflict, and much more. She slapped him again and again, his body jerking like a puppet on a string with every stroke of the crop. Soon his buttocks burned a bright red and he was groaning deliriously, his shrill cries rising.
She stopped. “Quiet! If you keep whining, I’ll gag you.” Her conscience wasn’t as troubled if he remained quiet.
He took a deep, shuddering breath that ended on a sob. “Yes, madame. Forgive me for not accepting my punishment without complaint. Please.”
She waited for him to release the rope, signaling that he’d had enough pain for one evening. When he didn’t, she raised the crop again in resignation and commenced striking his already tormented flesh.
As ordered, Luc did not make a sound, though the strain made sweat rise on his shoulders and trickle down his back, dampening his body.
Again, Régine imagined the powerful, arrogant marquess standing there helplessly, begging for the mercy he’d never shown her. She brought the crop down, harder this time. Revenge was so sweet…
“Harder, madame! I beg you. Harder!”
She gritted her teeth and obliged him again and again, mentally counting the ten gold Louis Luc would pay her for each stroke and deposit into her growing bank account. Soon her arm felt so heavy and strained from the physical exertion, she wondered how long she would be able to continue.
The Courtesan's Bed Page 2