by Shirl Anders
Read an excerpt from My Lady Enslaved, By Shirl Anders
Tricks. Damnation it had to be an act. “I am sure you remember, the Duke of Kittridge ... Lia,” Harrison finally rasped. He would not call her lady or mademoiselle or any other genteel reference, he argued with himself. “Refill his drink,” he finished with a harshly issued command.
“Y-Yes, my lord ... your grace,” she murmured faintly to both of them, coming forward hesitantly toward Drummond.
The firelight did wicked things to the red silk skimming along her ivory flesh, in curves and hollows of sleek femininity. She could well have been naked for all it covered her lush buttocks.
“My lady,” Drummond murmured with a slight bow as he offered his glass, then he turned an arched eyebrow to Harrison.
“You are ....” Harrison snapped harshly. “The same man who spanked his, now, wife’s naked bottom in the hallway of his country manor. Are you not?”
“Really, Harrison,” Drummond muttered irritably, making Harrison smile lethally in satisfaction of a point well taken. But Drummond continued. “I do however, have a wife now. One whom I love and who would not take kindly to my having viewed any other delectable feminine form but hers.”
Harrison dropped his chin to look down at Lia’s dark head from where she stood next to him trying to pour whiskey into Drummond’s glass. However, he could see that her hands were shaking too badly, and she was making a spilled mess of it. When he reached forward to take the decanter away from her, she cried out softly as though he might strike her as she stumbled back. It was then she looked up at him for the first time since entering the room. Her eyes were stormy with emotion. Fear, embarrassment, and some presence of deep yearning that held him arrested for long moments while he gazed into her dark brown irises.
“Yes, as I was saying,” Drummond murmured. “I cannot carry on a conversation with a half-dressed lady.”
Harrison reluctantly lifted his gaze and saw that Drummond had removed his black satin evening jacket and was even now placing it around Lia’s slender shoulders. She did not look at Drummond though but instead looked worriedly at him as though he would berate the gesture. She was afraid and timorous of him, and for a single moment he nearly went forward to put his arms around her in comfort. He simply could not overlook the guilelessness in her gaze. If she was acting, then he was a fool in compliance to her act!
“Keep it,” he uttered gruffly with a tilt of his head toward the jacket.
Lia’s slight grateful smile nearly undid him as did her liquid brown irises. “Thank you, my lord,” she whispered demurely, clutching the jacket tightly around her.
“And now, my lady, if you would not mind taking a seat. It seems you and I have some old adventures to reminisce upon,” Drummond murmured behind them.
Harrison watched as once again Lia looked to him for permission and the open submissiveness of the action strangely touched a suppressed dark ache deep inside him. It was a moment before he acquiesced with a nod, allowing her to follow Drummond to a chair. And then it was a moment before he followed as a chimera of lust warmed his blood at the knowledge of the control he had over this woman. A fact more blatantly tangible in Drummond’s presence, and an idea he had never fully considered the effect of before.
Of course he had dreamed of vengeance for two years since he’d been burned, and it was not until he had concluded that Lia Delconte was the traitor that he'd started to envision the methods of his revenge. At nights, in the haunting hours, under the influence of vast amounts of Scottish whiskey he would play idly over the many scenarios his revenge could take. Finally concluding the more personal the better.