Hidden Paradise

by Janet Mullany

  Rob looked at the brochure Peter had handed him. “‘Paradise Hall, where anything can happen,’” he read aloud. “Two centuries ago things were different, passionately so.” He looked up. “I’m cool with that.”

  Peter tried not to let his imagination run riot. What did these kids get up to? It made him feel old.

  “Good,” he said, and moved on to safer territory. “You’re a local, so I expect you know about the history of the house—originally Jacobean, remodeled by Adams, and there’s an undocumented tradition that Jane Austen stayed here.”

  Rob nodded. “When I was a kid, we thought it was haunted,” he said. “’Course, we’d say that about any old house in the village that stood empty. Changed a bit, though.”

  “Oh, it’s fabulous,” Peter said, aware that he was falling into the role of the queer old uncle who liked interior design. “You’ll love it. You’ll work hard, but we pay well, and you’ll get excellent tips.”

  “I think they called them vails then,” said the future Cambridge history undergraduate.

  “Absolutely. Vails. Let me give you the grand tour…” God help him, he sounded as though he were about to coyly slip away and come back in drag as Danvers. He deepened his voice and tried to sound more masculine. “And I’ll introduce you to my partner, Chris Henckley.”

  * * *

  “WHAT AN ADORABLE BOY,” Chris said, gazing at Rob, who swung one leg over his bicycle and pedaled away. He and Peter stood in the stable yard, while doves cooed and fluttered overhead. “On a bicycle, too. How sweet. But troubled, I think, don’t you, Peter?”

  “There’s some family crisis, from what I read between the lines. He’s straight.”

  “Oh, yes, it sticks out half a mile.”

  Peter refused to crack a smile at Chris’s double entendre. “He’s barely legal, for God’s sake. I hope I’m making a wise decision hiring him as head footman.”

  “He’s nineteen. They start young here. Oh, come on, honeybuns.” He slid a hand into the back pocket of Peter’s Levi’s. “I will not fuck the help, I promise, even if they’re as fuckable as young Master Rob. But think how he’ll look in livery. I can’t wait. I just hope Viv doesn’t eat him alive when she measures his inseam.”

  “Mmm.” Peter slid away and headed back into the office, once the estate manager’s, that opened onto the cobbled yard. He tapped the keyboard of the computer and the screen sprang to life. He had mail, a perky message informed him.

  Chris peered over his shoulder. “Oh, excellent. The widow Loulou is emerging from her deep winter to join us.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rob

  “You’re Rob Temple, right?”

  He turned to the girl who was crammed against him at the bar. “Yeah. You’re…” She looked familiar, someone from school, or from the posh part of the village.

  “Di Brooks.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “We were at St. Matthews.”

  Primary school. He’d probably thought the height of eroticism then was being given a glimpse of her knickers.

  “So you’re working down the old house. Me, too.”

  He nodded and tried to catch the eye of Baz behind the bar.

  She leaned forward and yelled, “Oy, Baz, get us two pints, will you?” She shoved her glass and Rob’s forward.

  Baz swiveled, took the glasses in one hand and Rob’s last ten-pound note with the other.

  “I was going to buy you that,” Di said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Sorry about your house and all.”

  So the whole village knew. He’d ridden home from Paradise Hall and, without thinking, had found himself about to push open the gate of the family’s house, their former house, blinking at the for-sale sign. His mum would have been furious at the weeds in the front. A kid’s football, probably Graham’s, had lain abandoned in one of the flower beds, and Rob had picked it up and stuffed it into his backpack. He’d ridden away, wanting to bawl like a little kid.

  “’S’okay. What are you doing up at Paradise Hall, then?”

  “Lady’s maid.” The glasses arrived back in front of them, froth running down the sides, along with a very small handful of change. “I’ve just done my first year at the London School of Fashion. So it’s good experience. I’ll be mending stuff and helping the women guests dress and all.”

  “Cool,” he said, and took a good look at her. Pretty, brown eyes, brown hair with lighter, toffee-colored streaks in it, skimpy short sundress, those clacky sort of heels and long bare legs. “I’m a footman.”

  “I bet those two gay blokes just loved you. They seem okay, though.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  “Whatever. I’d better get back to my friends.” She nodded her head toward a group of girls, all like her, pretty, sexy, laughing in a corner. A few guys hung around, looking, but not approaching, under the pretext of a game of darts. “Thanks for the pint.”

  “So you’re going posh on us, then,” Baz bawled at him, the sudden rush at the bar dispersed.

  “What?”

  “Cambridge.”

  “Not really.”

  “They pay well up the old house?”

  “Not bad.” They paid exceptionally well, but he wasn’t telling Baz that.

  “Them couple of pansies have been in a few times.”

  “They’re okay.”

  “Keep your back to the wall, son.” Baz winked, wiped the counter and, having dispensed his advice, went back to the other end of the bar to join an impassioned discussion about football.

  Rob drained his glass and glanced over at Di in the corner. She raised a hand to push back her hair, bangles sliding down her arm, and laughed with her friends. She leaned back, her skirt riding up. Great legs. He wasn’t the only one watching. Blokes hovered around like wolves around a herd of lambs on one of those TV nature programs.

  He went outside and unlocked his bike, reluctant to leave the warmth and friendliness of the pub—or rather, the relative anonymity of the pub. He hoped his dad would be asleep by the time he got back to his sister’s place, or passed out, like he had been the past few nights. He pedaled down past the village green, and turned onto the lane that led to the estate—formerly a council estate, housing for poor people, badly built and cramped.

  He could understand his mum being mad at Dad, lying about the business and the mortgages on the house. Although, what sort of woman would be so clueless about the family finances? Someone like Di wouldn’t let a bloke get away with that sort of shit. On an impulse, he steered onto the grass verge and punched in his mum’s number on his cell.

  No reply.

  You stupid bitch, he thought, you bloody, stupid, selfish bitch, and disconnected, leaving no message. He pulled the football out of his backpack and threw it hard over the hedge into the darkness of a field. A football wouldn’t stop Graham sniveling all day and wetting the bed at night.

  Only his mum coming back would cheer Graham up, but apparently she’d abandoned them all.

  * * *

  Lou

  LOU’S JET LAG GAVE HER A FUZZY sense of unreality and heightened senses. The sunshine was intense, the crunch of tires on gravel deafening as the limo dropped her off at a stone house next to a pair of imposing wrought-iron gates.

  “You have a nice holiday, miss,” the driver said.

  She fumbled in her billfold for a tip, squinting at the unfamiliar bills, but he’d dri
ven away, the smoked glass of the window rolling up.

  The door of the house swung open, revealing a woman with lipstick so vivid it appeared cut into her pale skin, and dead-black hair cut in a severe, angled wedge. She wore a pair of cowboy boots, a leather miniskirt and a vintage Sgt. Pepper T-shirt. A cigarette dangled from bright red lips.

  “Welcome to Paradise Hall. I’m Vivian. You must be Lou. Don’t tell the boys I was smoking. Come in. Good timing, I’ve just brewed up. Cup of tea? I know you stopped for lunch on the way down, but how about something to eat?”

  She led Lou into a room with a flagstone floor and a minimal sort of kitchen at one end. Tailors’ dummies stood around, draped in fabric, gossamer-thin silks and cottons, sumptuous satins and velvets. More fabrics lay on a large table scattered with scissors, pins, scraps of paper, manila folders and a complex hi-tech sewing machine.

  Viv tossed the cigarette into the sink. She poured tea from a fat brown teapot into a mug and arranged scones and butter on a tray. “I’ve put milk in it for you—sugar? Your folder’s on the table. Your day dress I’ll finish off after a final fitting here, and you can take the sleeves off and accessorize it for tonight. How was your flight?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Lou found the tea hot and strong, invigorating and soothing at the same time. She flipped open the folder with her name scrawled on the tab, and sketches with swatches of fabric pinned onto them, pretty florals and delicate stripes, tumbled out. “I didn’t bring much of my own. I…” She stopped, dumbfounded, as Vivian, having run her cigarette under the faucet, unzipped Lou’s bag and rummaged inside.

  Lou almost choked on her scone as she watched this woman, a stranger, pick through her belongings in the battered leather bag that had once been Julian’s.

  “Knickers optional,” Vivian said. “No bra, no watch, no cosmetics. You’ll have stays, which I made to your original measurements. This silk scarf is okay, most of your earrings are okay. The rest I’ll keep here for you. We have a safe.”

  “But…”

  Vivian plucked what looked like a folded length of white cotton and a pair of shapeless socks from the table and folded them over one arm. “There’s a bathroom and dressing room upstairs, and you can take a nap up there afterward, while we prepare your day dress. It’s silly, but we like to give guests the experience of walking up the drive to the main house in their Regency clothes, giving them a chance to ease into the Paradise experience.”

  Just what she needed, a bossy punk elf dominatrix. Clutching the steaming mug of tea, she followed Vivian upstairs and into another room stocked with racks of clothes and more dressmaking paraphernalia. A large, comfortable-looking sofa strewn with pillows and throws stood in one corner. Vivian opened a door that revealed a huge bathroom with a large cast-iron bathtub with claws and a rack of thick white towels. Blue-and-white-striped curtains fluttered at the window, allowing plenty of light to spill onto the flagstone floor.

  “Take your time.” Vivian turned on the faucets, and steam billowed into the room. “You look like a rose girl to me, but there’s lavender and lemon. Enjoy. Give me a shout when you’re ready and we’ll have more tea and a fitting. These are your stockings and shift.” She laid them on the towel rack, winked and left.

  Lou stripped off her clothes, poured rose bath oil into the tub and sank into its comforting, foamy depths. The bath was equipped with an attachment to the faucets for hair-washing, which she managed with only a minimal amount of water sprayed around the room.

  Heaven, just heaven, after the travel. She and Julian had never got around to really fixing up their bathroom—she would have loved a tub like this—but now it all seemed so far away. Even Julian.

  She dozed off, woke to add more hot water, scrubbed herself luxuriously and experimented a little with the shower attachment. Not quite enough pressure, she decided, but she certainly was clean from head to toe and in every nook and crevice, and with a mildly excited tingle. After witnessing Vivian’s bag search, she was glad that she hadn’t packed a vibrator.

  She dried off and dropped the cotton shift over her head. It was a silly, unsexy, shapeless sort of garment, but if you were going around with no panties, and everyone knew it, you didn’t really need sexy underwear. Her first step into the Regency accomplished—she wondered vaguely if in future here she’d be bathing from jugs and bowls; Peter and Chris had been rather vague on plumbing matters—she padded across the flagstone floor into the next room. The sofa and pillows lured her in. How wonderful, to nap in the middle of the day on soft down pillows, wrapped in cashmere.

  When she woke, the light had changed and she guessed a couple of hours must have passed. It was very quiet, apart from the birdsong, but she could dimly hear a man’s voice from downstairs and a woman’s reply, muffled by the thick stone walls of the house. For a moment, she didn’t recognize Viv’s voice, uncharacteristically soft and plaintive.

  Lou hesitated. She was barely dressed and had no wish to expose herself to a stranger, or some sort of intimate scene. She looked around the room for a shawl. Maybe she should return to the bathroom and retrieve the long-sleeved T-shirt she’d worn on the plane. Or she should just go back to sleep. Curiosity won. Even as she hesitated, she opened the door that led to the staircase.

  “You are a naughty girl,” the man was saying. An American accent, an amused, sexy purr.

  “Yes, Darcy. I’m sorry, Darcy.”

  Darcy? This was ridiculous and intriguing. The door into the main room stood slightly ajar. She had to get a glimpse of a real-life Darcy. She tiptoed down the stairs to the doorway and peered through.

  “How do you suggest I punish you?” The speaker stood leaning against the table, absolutely at ease in his Regency clothes. And he looked terrific in them, tall and lean and muscular, his black hair mussed forward. He wore a blue coat and buckskins and boots. Everything fit like a glove, revealing a noticeable bulge at his groin.

  Vivian stood in front of him, head hanging, tracing a pattern on the floor with the toe of one boot. “Maybe you should fuck me, Darcy. In a very degrading sort of way.”

  “Hmm.” His mouth quirked upward in an involuntary grin for one moment. “Are you wearing panties today?”

  “Oh, yes, Darcy.”

  She lifted her skirt to reveal a skimpy leopard-print thong.

  “I guess it’s quite wet.”

  “I’m afraid so, Darcy.”

  He straightened up and took a step away. “Too bad, honey. Take it off. You’ll go bare-assed the rest of the day.”

  “Yes, Darcy.” She pushed the thong down and stepped out of it.

  “And keep your skirt up.” He dropped one hand to the front of his pants, cradling the erection that bulged against the leather.

  “Yes, Darcy.” Vivian stood, obediently waiting for his next command, her skirt rolled around her hips.

  “On the table.” He removed his coat and dropped it onto the flagstone floor.

  “Don’t do that,” Vivian said in her usual voice. “Put it on a chair. And fold it, otherwise I’ll have to iron it. I am busy, you know.”

  “Sorry.” He straightened the coat out, folding it neatly onto a chair, and removed his waistcoat. “Okay. On the table. Ass up, I think.”

  “Yes, Darcy.” Vivian pushed papers and fabrics out of the way and arranged herself on the table, her bottom raised. She was facing to Lou’s right, fortunately—how embarrassing if she’d positioned herself facing Lou.

  Darcy stood behind Vivia
n for a moment, as though admiring the view, and unwound his neckcloth. He laid it on the chair with his other clothes, and then bent to rummage in the coat pockets, pulling out a pair of leather gloves. He slapped them experimentally on his palm.

  Lou’s breath caught. Was he going to…?

  “Like I said,” Darcy said, “you’ve been a bad girl. I’m going to have to spank you.”

  “Yes, Darcy.”

  “And then I’ll fuck you.”

  “Yes, Darcy.” Her voice quivered with expectation. “May I pull my top up, Darcy?”

  “I think not. I don’t want you enjoying this by rubbing your tits on the table.”

  “No, Darcy. I’m sorry.”

  He grinned, and brought the gloves down on Vivian’s bottom with a sharp crack. She gave a short squeal of surprise.

  He paused to unbutton his cuffs, and slapped her again.

  Fascinated, Lou watched as he removed his shirt—getting in another slap, while the shirt hung from his other arm—and tossed the garment onto the chair. His chest was spare and muscular, dusted with black hair. He coordinated slaps with unbuttoning his buckskins and Lou waited, breathless, to see his cock emerge.

  Oh. She hadn’t seen an erect cock, apart from her halfhearted internet explorations, in…months. She stifled a small moan—nothing compared to the sort of noises Vivian was making, shrieks and groans and continued requests for Darcy to “Stop, stop, please. I promise I’ll be good.” It all sounded rather theatrical to Lou’s ears. She wanted to laugh, but at the same time she was embarrassed at how excited she felt at the electric response that thrummed between her thighs.

  Darcy’s cock arched out, blue veined and strong, from a nest of dark hair.

  Lou curled her hand, imagining the spring and tender silkiness of it in her palm, his groan as she caressed him.

  Darcy shoved his partially unbuttoned buckskins down, revealing the curve of his buttocks and part of a black-furred thigh, and produced a condom from a pocket. Not very historically authentic. Shouldn’t he be messing around with a nice bit of sheep gut tied with a red ribbon?