On These Silken Sheets

by Sabrina Darby

  “It’s a very nice room,” Corrine said, “but no one has used it for years. Sir Robert’s rooms are next door.”

  Then the maid opened up the door and inside Lucy found a space that was completely opposite to everything else she had seen.

  Above the wainscoting, the walls were papered with a delicate pink rose pattern that made her feel as if she had entered a spring garden.

  The high canopy bed with its freshly ironed sheets and hangings was done in ivory and green damask. Spring green, of course. For the first time in years, Lucy longed for home, for the lush fields of St. Keverne, for open space and fresh air.

  “Sir Robert purchased this house from the late Lady Aubrey, and the whole place was supposedly like this. It must have been just beautiful,” the maid informed her with a dreamy sigh. “He left this room, two of the guest rooms, and the small parlor with the original decor.”

  “It’s lovely,” Lucy agreed.

  Corrine hurried over to the fireplace to nudge the flaming wood with the wrought-iron poker.

  It was very uncomfortable. She was just a guest here, and as his mistress no less, but despite the slightly doubtful look in her eyes, the maid deferred to Lucy.

  “Would you like anything else, miss?”

  She could ask for anything. How decadent. In all her twenty-eight years, Lucy had never had the luxury of being attended to. She had assisted Lady Blount in every way, and before her there had been other employers, to each of whom such an action was commonplace rather than a novelty.

  From now on, or at least as long as she was Sir Robert’s mistress, it would be commonplace for her as well. If she was wise, and continued to save funds the way she had the last two years, when she moved on from here, she could continue such little indulgences.

  “Yes, Corrine,” Lucy said finally, straightening her spine. “I’d love a cup of chocolate and a bath.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Maneuvering his curricle through the busy streets on his way back from the solicitor’s office, Robert enjoyed the tight handling of the new vehicle as he turned a corner. The construction was remarkable. He wasn’t a man who took foolhardy risks with his life, but he was itching to take the carriage out to the open road and give it a good test. His horses would like that too, he thought, admiring the matched bays—their sloping shoulders and strong limbs.

  Right. He’d have to send to his estate for Dancing Girl. He’d send a note as soon as he arrived home.

  All in all, Robert was pleased. Perhaps he’d made a bit of a fool of himself the day before, and likely he’d hear about it from his friends when the gossip made the rounds, but he didn’t think he’d miss Harridan House.

  He’d been a member of the club for just over ten years. Ten good years during which he’d enjoyed the sexual freedom, the mutually pleasurable encounters with the women who either visited or were employed by the club.

  Now he had a mistress—a delightful, unexpected, and fascinating mistress. As soon as she signed the papers that Mr. Burke was drafting, she was his by contract.

  He knew very little about her. Mr. Burke’s numerous questions had made that abundantly clear, but somehow, for a man who triple-checked his business agreements, it didn’t seem to matter. He knew almost everything he needed to know about her: she was loyal, clever, wickedly skilled, and above all, she had chosen him.

  His new mistress—who awaited him at home. Having a woman in his bachelor house was in and of itself a novelty. He felt like a young child with a new toy.

  Giving in to all his desires, Robert urged the bays into a canter.

  He found her in the bath, the soapy water concealing little of her body, her hair piled atop her head, a few stray tendrils damp and curling around her face.

  A most well-developed toy.

  She was alone, her head resting on the lip of the tub, her eyes closed.

  He took a step forward into the bathing room. The air was moist and hot, beads of condensation clung to the blue Italian tiles that lined the walls and he could still see the faint curl of steam rising from the water.

  “Robert,” she sighed, not opening her eyes, but arching her back so that her breasts broke the surface of the water and her nipples puckered instantly in the cooler air. “I was thinking of you and here you are.”

  A perfect, erotic toy, as if it were Christmas already and not merely the middle of August.

  He adjusted his suddenly uncomfortable trousers.

  “Where is the maid to help you?” he asked.

  Lucy opened her eyes finally, her gaze unerringly finding him. “I’ve been a lady’s maid much of my life,” she reminded him. “I asked Corrine to leave.”

  Robert pulled a stool away from the wall and after shrugging out of his coat, sat down.

  “You were a lady’s maid before Harridan House?”

  “Yes, since my twelfth year,” she informed him with a little smile, as if she knew just what question he would ask next.

  Robert began the slow process of unfastening his hessians instead.

  “I’ve never had anyone to wait on me,” Lucy said abruptly, filling the silence.

  Of course Madame Rouge would have servants to wait on her, but Lucy had not truly been Madame Rouge.

  Robert pulled off one heavy boot, and moved to the next. There was an art to taking off one’s own boots with elegance.

  “You’ll have to get used to it then,” he said finally, placing his boots to the side and moving on to his cravat. He noticed that she looked away from him.

  “I must warn you that if you are intending to join me in this bath, it will never do.”

  His cravat fluttered to the ground. It was only a matter of the wrist, a shrug of the shoulders, to undo and remove his waistcoat.

  “An interesting idea,” he murmured, “but the tub is far too small.”

  “And the water is losing its heat,” Lucy agreed.

  Robert stood and crossed the room to retrieve the large, soft bath towel that lay folded on a bench. As he walked back to the tub, he shook it out and held it up in invitation.

  Lucy stood and the water poured off of her body as if she were Aphrodite rising from the half shell.

  Like his mare, he had said only a day ago, and he still thought the description apt. As she raised her leg to step over the edge of the tub, her sleek muscles worked and flexed, her movements fluid and graceful yet utterly economical. In that way she was like his matched bays, a perfect mix of rare beauty and practicality.

  And rare spirit?

  Both feet flat on the tile floor, she stepped into the waiting towel, which he wrapped around her, folding her in his arms. He knew vaguely, as he kissed her, that his clothes were growing damp and uncomfortable.

  Which was just as well. They were clearly getting in the way.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He kept her in his house for two days. They hardly left the bedroom. He canceled his business meetings, everything, until there was an appointment that he could not refuse.

  “But I’ll be back soon. Perhaps after, we’ll go to Vauxhall.” His gaze fell on her gray dress, crumpled on the floor where they had left it days ago. She looked as well. She should have done something with it, asked Corrine to launder it, anything but leave it there.

  “Don’t you have anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing that’s any better.”

  “Then we’ll take care of that this afternoon.”

  Lucy watched him leave. She pulled the bed cord for Corrine and flopped back under the covers, snuggling up in the place that was still warm from his body.

  She liked this dreamworld into which she had awakened. New dresses, all for her. Any new dresses she had ever had had been made by her own hand or her mother’s. Her best dresses had always been hand-me-downs from her employers that she had gratefully accepted and altered.

  Visions of fashionable gowns filled her head, material she had hemmed, or mended, spot cleaned or ironed. Silk stockings, velvet bonne
ts, lace trimmings and ivory fans…

  When Robert returned a few hours later, he took her up in the landau with the roof closed despite the fine weather.

  “Do you have a dressmaker you prefer?” Sir Robert asked, as he handed her up into the carriage. “Peters recommended Madame Ferrars, Mrs. Baswick or Mrs. Abernathy.”

  “I’ve only heard of Mrs. Baswick,” Lucy said with a shrug. “Her work was lovely but that was years ago.”

  “We’ll try her then.” Robert gave his coachman the direction and then followed her inside.

  The small shop was situated on Oxford Street beside a millinery shop whose front window displayed a compelling array of bonnets. Tearing her gaze away and into Mrs. Baswick’s shop, she could see that it was empty of other customers. That was a bit of luck, for even the dress she wore, her best rose muslin dress, was several years old and much mended.

  Lucy recognized the thin, angular dressmaker immediately, despite the spectacles that now perched upon the bridge of her nose. The woman wore her gray curls under an embroidered mobcap that looked similar to one of the designs Lucy had seen in the window of the store next door.

  “Good afternoon, Sir…” Mrs. Baswick greeted Sir Robert, even as she eyed Lucy speculatively. Lucy hadn’t expected to be recognized, as lady’s maids were rarely noticed, but the slightly disapproving look in the woman’s gaze startled her. Was it that obvious she was now one of the fashionably impure? Or was it simply that Lucy’s dress was so appalling the woman couldn’t keep her distaste from showing?

  “Sir Robert George,” he filled in for her, handing her his card. “Good afternoon to you, ma’am.” Lucy pasted a polite little smile on her face, waiting to be acknowledged.

  “I am Mrs. Baswick. I am honored you’ve found my shop. How may I help you, Sir Robert?”

  “This is Miss Leigh,” he introduced her. “I believe she needs everything.”

  It was a fairy tale and she was Cinderella. For the next hour, Lucy was measured and prodded, draped with fabrics and plied with designs.

  Robert watched her, commenting infrequently.

  Then Mrs. Baswick ushered Lucy into the dressing room and had her try on one of the few dresses she had readymade, almost finished.

  The hem was unfinished and fell long on the floor, in case a taller lady should wish it. It was an evening gown, and the neckline was low, though not scandalously so, for having worked at Harridan House, Lucy had seen dresses that revealed far more of the breasts. In fact, it was almost too respectable.

  It was blue. A fine sky blue with a trim of Belgian lace about the sleeves. Staring in the mirror, Lucy hardly recognized herself. All the fine gowns she had worn as Madame Rouge had been utterly indecent.

  “And we’ll have a petticoat made for you, miss, with the same lace.”

  “Should we make the neckline lower?” Lucy asked. Wasn’t she supposed to be more on display? Wasn’t that what a courtesan did? She knew nothing about what was expected of her.

  “Lower?” the woman gasped, as if she didn’t know that Lucy was Sir Robert’s mistress. “Hush now. Go on out, Miss Leigh, and show Sir Robert the dress.”

  As Lucy stepped around the door she could hear the woman huffing, “lower,” but all her attention was focused on Robert, who lounged on the sofa, his legs stretched out before him as if he were at home or at his club rather than the shop.

  He looked up. She felt his gaze run over her but his expression didn’t change. Although his right eyebrow flickered in that funny way it sometimes did. She hadn’t deciphered the mannerism yet.

  “She looks lovely, doesn’t she?” Mrs. Baswick asked, bustling around Lucy to speak to Sir Robert. “As if the dress were made for her. And by tomorrow, I promise, it will look exactly as if it had been!”

  Robert nodded. “Tonight you say?”

  “Absolutely!” the dressmaker assured him.

  “Good.” Robert stood, slapping his gloves, which hung loosely from his right hand, on his thigh as if it was a whip he held instead and he intended to ride. “Well, then, you’d better change, Lucy.”

  His gaze found hers and her own eyes widened in sudden understanding. They couldn’t. Surely not here!

  Not a hint of levity expressed itself on Robert’s face. She knew that look well. He wanted her and he would have her.

  So this was what it was like to be a mistress. A mistress could do as she wished, be as outrageous as she wanted, in public or in private. A sudden giddy happiness inspired a conspiratorial smile as she turned around again toward the dressing room.

  “Sir!” Mrs. Baswick gasped when Robert followed her. “I must insist you await Miss Leigh out here.”

  “But Mrs. Baswick,” Lucy protested quickly, struggling not to laugh. “I need Sir Robert’s assistance.”

  “I believe that I can assist you,” Mrs. Baswick returned, her voice icy. “As I have all afternoon.”

  “Ah, but you haven’t my touch, Mrs. Baswick,” Robert interjected, as if it were completely proper to say such a thing. “And I should hate to have to take my business elsewhere.”

  Lucy had never seen anyone’s face turn quite so red as the dressmaker’s.

  It was shameless, that’s what it was, Lucy thought when Robert shut the door behind him and rested his hands on her bare shoulders. He turned her around so that she faced away from him and deftly undid the buttons at her back.

  “Arms up,” he urged, his voice low.

  She followed his directions. “You’ve done this before, have you?”

  He pulled the dress up over her head and then draped it across the chair. She still wore her plain cotton chemise and unadorned petticoat. Without the lovely blue dress, she felt equally plain.

  But then his mouth was on her neck, where the curve met her shoulder and his hands covered her breasts, lifting their weight through the worn fabric. She sighed, her own hands reaching back, caressing his thighs.

  He turned her in his arms and pushed her against the wall.

  “Hold on to me.”

  She draped her arms around his neck, leaning against the wall for support when the touch of his hands on her thighs as he lifted her skirts sent a bolt of pure heat to her core.

  “Wrap your legs around me.” Again, she did as he said, and he shifted her weight in his arms. She could feel his hand between them, unfastening his breeches.

  Then he pulled his hips ever so slightly back and the round tip of his cock pressed against her.

  He slid inside smoothly and the movement thrust her against the wall.

  She leaned her head forward and kissed him, tugging on his lip. His hips pounded against her and she held on. He wasn’t gentle and she reveled in the pure maleness of him, the joy of it all.

  Lucy was surprised when she came, crying aloud into the warm air that smelled of them. Her head fell back, bumping against the hard wall, but she hardly noticed. His hips kept pumping against her as he moved toward his own release. His mouth fastened on her neck, licking her hungrily.

  She felt his cock grow inside her, that moment just before, and then he pushed in deep, clutching her buttocks and holding her tight against him as his body shuddered and rocked.

  He lifted his head and kissed her—a long, deep, searching kiss.

  Finally he broke away and slowly, one leg at a time, let her stand.

  Her petticoats fell, covering her, but the dampness between her legs made her feel naked.

  He fastened his breeches and then helped her into her dress. Standing behind her once more he kissed her nape.

  “I haven’t actually.”

  “Haven’t what?”

  Lucy could feel his breath hot against her ear, his lips so close to her skin but not touching.

  “Fucked at the dressmaker.” Then he caught her earlobe between his teeth and tugged lightly.

  It was wicked of them, utterly wicked, but Lucy didn’t avoid the dressmaker’s eyes when they entered the main room. After all, if she was to embrace this new life, this f
reedom was one of the consequences. And Lucy always faced the consequences.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The following day, Robert’s secretary informed him that rooms had been obtained for Miss Leigh and a temporary staff had been hired. He took Lucy to the large apartment, which the landlord, a Frenchman, referred to as a maisonette. Lucy didn’t know French but she did know that two stories of the stately stone building were now her new abode.

  Sir Robert had seen to everything, or rather, had instructed his secretary, Joshua Pale, to see to everything. From the lovely, airy apartment of rooms to the name of the bank in which he’d deposited funds for her disposal, to the small staff, footman, cook and maid, to wait upon her.

  Lucy was quite certain she had never been more pampered in her entire life. There was nothing, absolutely nothing she was expected to do but decorate the apartment as she liked, shop for whatever clothing she desired and attend to every wish Robert had when he came to visit her.

  The last could hardly be too difficult, as she seemed to share his every desire.

  Tonight would be the first night he came to her—a man visiting his mistress.

  Robert left her at the apartment and went back to his house to change for dinner. She had only been there three days, but his room still smelled of her, still felt like she should be there.

  Perhaps he should have kept her here, he mused, but even a man with a reputation like Robert’s could hardly go that far. Certainly not if he intended to marry.

  Peters handed him a freshly starched cravat. Robert tied it simply, ignoring the small moue of disapproval from his valet. Peters had been in his employ for three years now, and every day threatened to leave him for a more fashionable man.

  “If I might say…”

  “No, Peters, you may not,” Robert interrupted. “I am not courting this evening. I am merely observing the young lady.”

  “And at what point, sir, does observation become courting?”

  Robert sighed. That was the trouble with Peters—he had opinions.