My Lady's Pleasure (17 page)

Georgiana appreciated Rose’s willingness to accommodate her, and couldn’t imagine that the maid was the culprit. She protested that she wouldn’t prolong the clearing of lunch any longer than she already had, and went up to her room.

Rose took the dishes down to the scullery and handed them over to Maureen, who was standing in the middle of her spotless domain, wiping down a perfectly clean table.

“Here’s the last of it,” Rose told her.

“I thought that last batch was the last of it,” said Maureen, looking at the dishes with distaste. “I’ve already washed everything up.”

“Sorry,” said Rose. “Lady Georgiana was late to lunch.”

Maureen made a face. “That one’s quite the princess, isn’t she?” She took the dishes and had them cleaned, dried, and stored away in a matter of ten minutes. Then she wiped her hands on a dish towel, took off her apron, and left the scullery, knowing she had at least an hour before she had to be back. She headed out across the grounds to Bruce Barnes’s cottage.

Barnes lived in the old gamekeeper’s cottage, a small, ancient stone house about a quarter mile from the main house. When the Loughlins had engaged his services, they offered him a suite of rooms in the house itself, but Barnes preferred the more austere, but private accommodations of the cottage.

He and Maureen had met there many an afternoon, and he often made it a point to be at home, dealing with paperwork or letters, when he knew she would be free. Today was no exception.

When he began his intrigue with Lady Georgiana, his first impulse was to keep Maureen at arm’s length. Although he couldn’t have known that the intrigue would be public knowledge, he did know that information like that had a way of seeping into servants’ quarters, and he didn’t think it likely he could keep the secret. His life would be simpler, he knew, if he limited his intimacy to one woman at a time.

Two things got the better of him. The first was that Maureen didn’t seem to mind. The only remarks she made about it were amused. The second was that he thought he would have a better chance of controlling himself with Georgiana if he had a safety valve in Maureen. He’d always been a man of animal appetites, and when those appetites were whetted, he sometimes had less control over himself than he would have liked. And so he was glad to hear Maureen’s familiar knock at his door.

He opened the door and smiled at her. He stepped aside and, without a word, she walked in. He closed the door and shot the bolt.

“You look happy to see me,” she said, a sly look on her face.

“When have I not been happy to see you?”

“But when have you had an earl’s daughter at your beck and call?”

“I’m a gardener, Maureen,” he said. “Maybe a glorified gardener but, even so, I hardly have an earl’s daughter at my beck and call.”

“So you’re not proposing to marry her, then?” Her voice dripped sarcasm. She wanted him to know just how likely she thought it that Barnes would marry Georgiana.

This hit him hard, because it went straight to the heart of the conflict in his own breast. On the one hand, he genuinely believed that glorified gardeners didn’t have a fighting chance with earls’ daughters. On the other, though, he harbored a hope that maybe, just maybe, Lady Georgiana was unconventional enough and their magnetism was strong enough . . . He didn’t articulate the thought, even to himself, but he knew it was there. What a triumph that would be.

Aloud, he simply scoffed. “Don’t be daft.” He stepped toward her, took her hand, and pulled her toward him.

“You can’t blame me for pursuing the novelty,” he said. “I’m a man, after all.” He slipped his arm around her waist. “But it’s nothing like what we have.”

It was her turn to scoff. “What we have?” She gave a harsh laugh. “What we have is a jolly good time, nothing more.” But she harbored a conflict similar to Barnes’s. He wasn’t as far above her in social standing as Georgiana was above him, but the difference in their status was large enough to render it unlikely that he would ever marry her. But not impossible, she told herself, not impossible. What a triumph that would be.

She knew, though, that if he even suspected that she had such thoughts he would be lost to her, and she wasn’t ready to give him up. She ran her hands up his chest and began to unbutton his shirt.

Barnes was relieved that the conversational part of their meeting appeared to be over, and they were moving on to the physical. He let her finish unbuttoning his shirt, and turned her around so he could unbutton her in return. Her blouse had a nearly endless series of tiny buttons running from her neck to below where it tucked into her skirt, and his big fingers fumbled with them.

She smiled to herself as she sensed his frustration, and reached her hands behind her to run her hands up the inside of his thighs. She found his cock, which was not yet hard. Through the stiff fabric of his trousers, she fondled it gently. He groaned softly, and stopped fussing with her buttons.

She pressed the fabric on either side of his penis hard against his hips, imprisoning his cock beneath the taut cotton. Then she lightened one hand’s pressure while pressing harder with the other, and then switched. As she did that, the fabric pressed against his cock, pushing it to one side and then the other, all the while keeping it trapped, still pointed toward the floor.

As his erection mounted, it was almost painful to be kept in that position, but the combination of the pressure and the emerging pain was exquisite. He put his hands on Maureen’s shoulders and wasn’t even aware that he was gripping her hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

She knew where his threshold was, and when his cock got so stiff that it pushed hard against the fabric, she released it. She slipped her hand under his waistband and took it in her hand, letting it, at last, point skyward. Then she took her hand away and backed against him. She stood on tiptoe so she could let his cock nestle between the cheeks of her ass, and she swayed back and forth.

Barnes grabbed her by the hips and ground so hard against her that they almost lost their balance.

“I need to finish your buttons,” he said, and went back to that task.

The unbuttoning finally complete, he eased her out of her blouse. Underneath, she wore an old-fashioned whalebone corset, laced loosely.

“Ah,” he said. “The corset.”

“I haven’t worn it in a while,” she said. “I thought it was time.”

She made short work of taking off her boots, stockings, drawers, and skirt, and stood in front of him naked but for the off-white muslin corset. She was firm and succulent in thigh and breast, narrow and delicate in wrist and ankle. Her skin was milky white, set off by her reddish brown hair. She had freckles on her arms and back, but none on her belly or thighs.

“This is a view I could never tire of,” he said as he reached out and ran the back of his hands down the front of her thighs and then up again, finishing where they came together in a small triangle of hair two shades darker than that on her head.

He traced the twin crevices where her thighs met her pubis with his index fingers, and she involuntarily stepped her feet apart, responding to the stimulus of his touch. From the tops of her thighs, he moved up to the points of her hip bones jutting out on either side of her smooth, firm, slightly rounded belly.

He turned his hands so the palms faced him, and edged his fingers under the bottom of the corset. It was loose, and his hands fit under it easily. He followed the curve of her waist around to her sides, and then took his hands out from under the corset and let them sit on her hips.

And then he kissed her. His tongue was as soft as his hands were rough, and Maureen thought he tasted faintly sweet. Every time she kissed him she was surprised anew that such a tender, sweet kiss could come from such a large, hard man.

She could still taste him as he turned her around and walked her into his bedchamber.

His bed was a large, elegant four-poster, incongruous in the modest stone cottage. When he’d first arrived, the house had been equipped with nothing more than a straw-filled mattress on a makeshift platform, and the Loughlins had been quick to send down a proper bed from the main house.

Maureen, her back still to Barnes, took hold of one of the posts at the foot of the bed and braced herself. He took the grosgrain ribbon laces in his hands and began to tighten the corset. He started at the top and pulled it so tight that she gasped. Then he put a finger over where the laces crossed between the top eyelets, to hold it tight, and went on to the next set of eyelets. In this fashion, he worked his way down.

He used his considerable strength to tie her in so tightly that she could take only the shallowest of breaths. She could take in enough air to stay conscious, but the quick little breaths made her feel light-headed almost immediately.

Barnes finished lacing her in, tied the ribbons securely, and turned her around. Her waist, narrowed by the corset, accentuated her round, firm breasts and full, strong thighs. He put his hands around that waist—they almost went all the way around—and buried his head between her breasts, which were held high by the top of the corset.

He ran his hand up her back, and then up to her hair. He pulled her head back and kissed the side of her exposed neck.

Maureen felt his lips, and then his tongue, and then his teeth, and her own arousal began to mount. The more pleasure she felt, the more air she needed, and the harder it was to get enough. The giddiness that resulted heightened the experience for her in a way she didn’t quite understand.

Barnes, still wearing trousers and his unbuttoned shirt, pushed her backward onto the bed and removed the rest of his clothes. He knelt, straddling her legs, and her perspective was such that his fully erect cock looked even larger than it was. She reached up to take it in her hand, but he brushed her hand away.

“You’re not allowed to move,” Barnes said, roughly but quietly. She spread her arms wide and gripped either side of the mattress to keep herself from touching him.

He moved up the bed until he was straddling her midsection, and then came down on all fours. He worked his penis between her breasts and pulsed gently forward and back.

All she could do was watch. She yearned to be in contact with him, to hold him in her hand, to feel his pressure against the mound between her legs, but she knew that if she moved he would withdraw altogether. The waiting drove her mad, and she felt herself growing faint as she panted for breath.

Barnes sat up again, and finally—finally!—touched her breasts. He started making gentle circles around her nipples, but soon held the twin orbs fully in his hands, moving his fingers over them as though he were testing their texture.

Then he reached across her to open a drawer in his nightstand and pulled out a length of bright red silk. He balled it up in his hand and put it in her mouth.

The gag was the last restriction on her airflow. Now, with her breathing restricted two ways and her excitement on the increase, she felt herself slipping to the edge of fainting. Half her attention was on her breath, and the other half was on the fact that Barnes was easing his cock into her.

His slow, shallow thrusts brought Maureen almost to the brink. The room was spinning; she couldn’t keep her lover in focus. Her lungs and her cunt were competing for her attention, and she was engulfed in a whirlwind of sensation.

And then he was in her all the way. Deep, hard, insistent. Through her fog, she heard his climactic moans, and her own orgasm took on a life of its own. Her light-headedness made her experience it almost as though it came from without rather than within. It engulfed her completely and there was a moment—there always was—when she did think she would lose consciousness.

She didn’t, though, and Barnes took the gag out so her heartbeat and her breathing could slow. When the last vestiges of sensation had ebbed, she turned over and Barnes loosened her laces. She filled her lungs over and over, experiencing the simple pleasure of breathing again.

Barnes watched her recover herself as he pulled on his trousers and shirt.

“I love it that you like that,” he said. “Not every girl would.”

She took one last deep breath and sat up. “I’m not every girl,” she said and stood up to collect her clothes.

“I’ve got to get back. Dinner service starts soon.”

He smiled at her with uncharacteristic tenderness. “Thank you for visiting,” he said, with only the barest touch of irony.

She smiled back, got dressed, and was gone.

L
ady Georgiana little knew what was going on in other parts of the estate that afternoon, as she sat in her room after lunch, an unread book lying closed in her lap. She sat in the window seat and was just feeling the heavy-lidded sense that she was about to fall asleep when there was a knock on the door.

She shook her head briskly to rouse herself. As yet, the only unexpected visitor she’d had at Penfield had been Barnes, and she expected that this was him. She took a moment to arrange herself to appear to best advantage. “Come in,” she called.