“Nothing will happen to your precious servant,” Chantal said, seemingly amused.
Sarah turned and glared at the woman. “He is not my servant. He is a man of business, one who has cared for my husband and for me. He has been loyal beyond his position and I will not have him risk his life again for us.”
“And you would not have another woman touch him.” Chantal said with infuriating calm.
“I would not have him used against his will,” Sarah snapped. “He has already been injured protecting me. Now should I ask him to place his body in your hands with no guarantee for his safety?”
Chantal’s gaze sharpened. “He was injured? When?” she asked.
“Only yesterday. He was stabbed with a knife and was lucky to live to tell about it.” Sarah would not allow Jaimison to risk his life again.
“Milady,” Jaimison said gently. “As you were born to stop the curse, I was born to help you.”
“But Edward—”
He shook his head sharply. “It is my birthright. Joshua and Perry are my family. I take care of my family.”
Chantal stepped around Sarah and placed a hand on the shoulder that had been injured. “Here?”
Something flared in Jaimison’s gaze and Sarah raised her eyebrows. So that was it. Jaimison was attracted to Chantal.
Jaimison reached up and gripped Chantal’s hand. “Yes.” He started to remove Chantal’s touch from his shoulder but the woman resisted.
She spoke eight or ten words as she laid her hand on his wound. Jaimison hissed in a breath and stared at Chantal as if she’d grown a third eye. He jerked his arm and took an awkward step back. “What did you do?” His voice was gruff and low.
Chantal tilted her head and met his stare. “I…healed you.”
“You did more than that,” he said in a low, hard tone.
The woman cleared her throat. “I did not expect—” She stopped abruptly and closed her eyes. “Will you help the Coven or not?”
Something passed between them and Sarah wondered what they had both felt in that moment.
Jaimison nodded slowly. “I am at your service, Mistress D’Insigny.”
Sarah wanted to protest but there was a tension in Jaimison that she couldn’t understand, some desperate need he exuded that would somehow be fulfilled by the ceremony.
“Accepted,” Chantal bit out. “I will summon the other eleven. You will both wait here.”
She swept out of the room, her skirts rustling and her face flushed.
“Would you like to tell me what that was all about?” Sarah studied Jaimison’s face as he stared after their strange hostess.
“She—” he stopped and frowned. “Something…” His voiced died and Sarah raised her eyebrows.
“I see.” And in a way Sarah did see. When she and Perry had shared a bed, each time he touched her there was a spark, a connection. Sarah couldn’t explain it any more than Jaimison could explain it.
A wry smile relaxed his face. “Do you? Perhaps you do.” He strode over the window and gazed out at the wild forest that surrounded the small house. “Though my family has served the Arundale family for generations, we are not like them. We serve.” His gaze met hers. “I do not know if you understand what that means but we have often played a much different role for our Arundale masters than I have for the last twenty years of my life.”
“You are like Derek was to Marcus.” She should have known. Sarah had watched Jaimison serve Elizabeth Arundale for ten years, to bring Perry home, to keep the family secret.
“Not exactly,” Jaimison answered. “If I had been perhaps Perry would have suffered less. My only excuse is that when Joshua left I was only nineteen years old myself and my father was very ill.” He shrugged his shoulder and turned back to the window. “I did not understand that I could serve a male even though my first inclination was women.” Jaimison didn’t look at her when he asked her, “Remember when Perry begged you to whip him?”
“How did—?” She shook her head. It didn’t matter how Jaimison knew. If Chantal was to be believed she and Jaimison were going to know more about each other than either of them wanted to. “I remember.”
“What he really wanted was you. However he could have you. He was confused and only knew that the lash worked to keep the Beast at bay.” Jaimison shook his head. “I believed I could only copulate with women.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I like women. But I like the lash, the pain, to serve a woman at her feet.” His face changed to a fierce longing. “It isn’t easy to find a woman who has the strength and desire to wield power over a man like me.”
“Madame de Laval,” Sarah breathed. Now she understood.
“Yes. She taught me what it could be, what I could have.” His hand curled into a fist. “Of course I never believed it was possible to…have it.” He glanced at the door that Chantal had exited. “Chantal showed me that I could.”
Sarah walked across the room and gripped Jaimison’s arm. “I’m so glad.” She cocked her head to the side. “Why are you telling me all this?”
Jaimison smiled and patted her hand. “Because I want you to know that whatever happens tonight it is my choice. I want this.”
Sarah nodded and turned away. Now they had to wait. She wondered if Perry would find them first and try to stop her. She wondered if he had confronted their mystery wolf. And most of all she wondered if this was her last day alive.
Chapter Thirteen
After his confrontation with the enemy wolf, Perry went back to the inn and requested a second carriage. It was easy enough to find out where Ms. Chantal D’Insigny resided and prepare to follow Sarah.
But soon after he arrived he was interrupted. He was at the window in the lounge on the first floor when he noted a carriage pull in front of the inn. Thinking it was his requested carriage, he headed out the front door.
The carriage door swung open and he was stunned to see someone he knew. Benjamin Isler. “What are you doing here?” He stared at his friend.
His handsome face immediately changed from marked worry to congeniality. “Why, I came to help you as I always have, my friend.”
“Help me?” Perry said cautiously.
Ben expressed distaste with a twist of his mouth. “I’m sure you’re bored with married life by now. After all, you only married the chit to make an honest woman of her.”
Perry did not return his friend’s smile and studied the man. Ben was slightly built, wiry, a man whom many people underestimated. He had gentle brown eyes that deceived many into believing him as innocent as a lamb. That was laughable. Ben hadn’t been innocent for years.
Whatever they had shared before, Perry was not glad to see the man now. “So you came to provide entertainment?” How often had Ben allowed Perry to whip him with a switch? Often enough. It wasn’t until the end when Perry’s drunkenness had led him to dangerous decisions that had Ben abandoned him. The man had never allowed Perry to fuck him. That had always been a definite, though unspoken, no.
The clap on the back that Ben gave Perry seemed false and too hearty. “What are friends for? Now how about a drink?”
“I do not drink anymore, Ben.” Perry eyed the man’s carriage. “Where did you get the carriage?”
“It was on its way here for a customer when I absconded with it.” He grinned but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Wasn’t for you, was it?”
“Ben, why are you here?” Perry didn’t want him there. Ben was part of his past and Perry wanted to leave him behind.
The pleasant expression died away and the anxious look was back. “I’m here to help a friend.”
“While I appreciate your concern, I’m not sure that there is anything you can do. I am married and joining my wife for dinner.” Perry placed his hat on his head and started for the carriage.
“Where do you dine with your wife tonight?” Ben asked in a worried tone.
Perry stared at him. “Why do you care? Ben, what’s going on?”
Just as Ben opened his
mouth to answer, the proprietor of the inn stepped out the front door. “Mr. Isler! How good to see you again. Will you be needing your old room?”
So. Ben was a regular visitor to Bayeux. Perry didn’t believe in coincidences. He shook his head at Ben’s guilty expression and swung into the carriage seat.
“Perry, there is more to this than you know. Take me with you.” Ben stood on the cobbled street, his gaze imploring.
“Go home, Ben. I don’t know who sent you but I don’t trust you.” He gripped the reins and urged the horses down the street.
He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
* * * * *
Even the squab for dinner hadn’t made the waiting bearable. Sarah paced the drawing room where she and Jaimison had eaten a fine dinner. Her frustration was taking its toll, her hair beginning to come loose from its pins.
Chantal had left them there as she made arrangements for a ceremony in which Sarah was the main participant. Sarah was sick with concern. What would be expected? What was the blood sacrifice? The sun dropped beneath the horizon and the room became dark.
Finally Chantal entered with two candles just as the last of the light died away. “Come with me.”
Sarah rose from her chair and glanced at Jaimison. The man immediately waved Sarah ahead of him and they followed their hostess from the room. Chantal led them to the end of one of the bottom-floor corridors to a large, heavy wooden door. When Chantal opened the door, cool air blew in from the stairway that wandered down into the depths of the earth.
It was pitch-black, the candles only illuminating a small portion of the staircase they traveled down. Sarah stepped cautiously, refusing to hurry though her heart pounded with urgency. The waiting had preyed on her patience and she wanted to do this thing before another obstacle presented itself.
Jaimison had been strangely quiet, his thoughts his own, his face unreadable, but she was very glad he was behind her. She longed for Perry but knew he would object to her capitulation to this sacrificial ceremony, which Chantal had proposed but revealed nothing about.
The stairwell seemed to travel on forever but finally they reached the bottom step and entered an underground chamber. Rock walls and a stone floor made the room seem like a tomb. A large archway at the far end led to a darkened expanse and Sarah could hear the sound of water.
Chantal walked to the center of the chamber where a pentagram had been cut into the stone beneath her feet. “The river flows beneath the earth here. It is hidden from human eyes and creates this space where Wisteria D’Insigny once cursed her lover.” Her reddish hair was loose now and spilled over her shoulders. In the candlelight she could have been Wisteria.
From the archway several women appeared. There were eleven of them, all of them older than Sarah and all of them beautiful in their own way. Two of them looked like village mothers, their ample figures and kindly faces out of place in the barbaric cave.
They circled around the pentagram and gave Chantal their attention, a silent sentinel standing guard. Chantal met each of their solemn stares individually before she spoke.
“I have asked you here to call up a spirit of one of our own.” Chantal glanced at Sarah. “The curse of Wisteria D’Insigny is challenged.”
“As you predicted, madam,” one of the younger girls commented. Chantal glared at her but the girl was unapologetic.
Perhaps Chantal thought Sarah would be surprised or offended to know that her hostess had known she was coming. But Sarah realized that Chantal must have known. She had been prepared for Sarah’s request and knew the outcome. Chantal was, after all, a woman of power.
“She has made our task easier by bringing a man to service our needs for the summoning.” Her gaze met Jaimison’s and he stepped forward.
Sarah put her hand on his arm. “Edward, are you sure?”
His looked down at her and there was a twinkle in his eyes. And as he had at Madame de Laval’s he winked at her. Then he patted her hand and continued into the middle of the pentagram.
Chantal faced him, the two of them alone in the circle as she studied Jaimison from head to toe. “You serve me. Do you accept?”
“I accept.” He didn’t flinch when Chantal reached up to grip his hair.
“On your knees,” she demanded.
Jaimison dropped to a kneeling position but his stare never left Chantal’s, an apparent reminder that he did this willingly, not because she was forcing him. Sarah tried to remain unmoved by the sight but it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.
The women circled around them, and stripped off their clothing until they were naked. Chantal stepped back from Jaimison. “Strip. Now.”
He started to rise but Chantal pressed her hand on his shoulder. “From there.”
Slowly Jaimison removed his cravat, his shirt and undid the ties on his pants. He shoved them down and twisted his torso to untie his boots. It was an impressive display, his muscles tense and tight. After he toed his shoes off, he lifted one knee and dragged his leg out of his trousers. He did the same with the other leg. He was naked and aroused, as evidenced by his hard and erect cock.
Still clothed, Chantal motioned toward one of the women in the circle. “Begin with her. Bring her pleasure and begin on the next.”
Again, when Jaimison tried to rise to his feet, Chantal stopped him. “Crawl to them. Like a lion stalks its prey.”
With a defiance that made Sarah grin he shot a smile at Chantal and said, “Yes, Mistress.”
The two words made Chantal catch her breath and glare at him. He did, however, crawl toward the first woman who had reclined on the stone floor, her discarded clothes under her ample hips.
She was a sturdy woman, obviously accustomed to hard labor, but her hair was jet black and she had no pussy hair. Her breasts were much like the rest of her—soft and sumptuous. Sarah had a moment of envy for those heavy globes that beckoned to a man like ripe berries.
There was a weighted silence as Jaimison approached this nameless woman whom he was bound to arouse. He slid his hands up her inner thighs and blew gently on her pussy. She arched like a cat but kept her gaze locked with his.
Jaimison pressed his lips to her left hipbone and began to place kisses on random spots, avoiding the obvious erogenous offerings, focusing on a seduction rather than an assault. Sarah was enthralled, remembering how Perry had done much the same the last time they had shared a bed.
The woman murmured in French, and when Jaimison glanced up she offered her generous breasts. Jaimison obliged, sucking and biting until the woman cried out. His hand crept over her belly and dipped down to stroke the woman’s pussy. She panted and squirmed beneath him.
Even Sarah held her breath in anticipation as he placed kisses over the woman’s stomach to the bone above her now-slick opening. Her cream glittered in the candlelight and Jaimison licked her slowly to capture it. Abruptly he dove in and she screamed with pleasure as his ministrations sent her over the edge. Her shout subsided to whimpers as he continued to stroke her pussy with his tongue.
The other women in the circle were just as fascinated by Jaimison’s actions as Sarah was and their faces were filled with arousal. How much longer Jaimison would have gone on, Sarah didn’t know, but Chantal broke him away with an order.
“The next one now, Edward,” she demanded, her voice sharp, but there was a shine in her gaze that showed her excitement.
As Jaimison slid over to the woman beside the first, he dragged his fingers over the first woman’s hand, a sensitive move that made Sarah sigh. His technique on the second woman was vastly different. She was more petite than the first woman, with light-brown hair. Yet when Jaimison reached her he yanked her head back and swooped in to bite her earlobe. The woman cried out, her hips thrusting forward, her hands gripping his arms to pull him closer.
He seemed to know the woman’s needs for rough treatment and brought her to an orgasm that made her whole frame tighten when she released it.
“N
ext,” Chantal demanded.
Sarah watched, fascinated, as Jaimison used every tool a man could use to bring each woman to completion, varying his approach to fit the woman he touched. Each woman was given special consideration, a gentle, teasing caress, a rough touch, focused on her neck or her breasts or her pussy.
He didn’t kiss any of them.
Sarah was so aroused by the tenth woman that she forced her hands to her side to keep them from stroking herself to her own orgasm. Chantal stood in the center of the circle, watching, waiting. It was impossible to tell if she was aroused or merely amused.
Somehow Sarah didn’t think Chantal was as unaffected as she appeared.
After Jaimison brought the tenth woman to a screaming orgasm he turned to focus on the eleventh. And froze. “Mistress?”
Chantal stepped toward him and he glanced up at her from his position on the floor. “Yes, Edward,” she said, her tone flat and unreadable.
“She is—” he stopped and held the eleventh woman’s wide-eyed gaze.
She was young and slender, her blue eyes as round as saucers, her pussy glistening with her arousal, her face flushed and her breasts small and high. It was clear that the woman was excited but something about her spoke of innocence and fear. Sarah knew why Jaimison had halted.
Chantal’s gaze softened and she stroked Jaimison’s head. “She is ready, Edward. Never fear. I would never allow anyone to hurt her.”
Jaimison studied Chantal for a long time then kissed the inside of her wrist. He slid closer to the young woman and his touch on her skin was gentle and easy. He bent down and kissed her forehead, then her cheek and her neck. He nuzzled her rather than kissed her, his actions slow and methodical.
Sarah watched with amazement as he brought the young woman to the edge and backed away not once but several times, always sweet, always implacable. Finally she was mindless, begging him to fuck her, to take her in the most basic way a man can possess a woman.
Jaimison spoke, the only time he addressed any of them. “Come for me, my lady.”
The woman screamed and thrashed beneath his touch as he drove her higher and over that pinnacle he’d held her from. Her whole body trembled, every muscle loose and relaxed now.
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