Seducing the Master (An Erotic Historical in the Red Chrysanthemum Series) (35 page)

“You’re wrong. You forget I have endured
much in my past life.”

His jaw tightened. “What was this past
life?”

She looked down at his chest and traced the
muscles with a finger. “The life of a slave.”

When it was plain she would say no more, he
said, “I will know it.

“If you please,” he added when he realized
he’d spoken sternly, “lest telling of it brings you pain.”

She glanced tentatively into his eyes, then
returned her attention to his chest.

“I consider myself beyond blessed that I was
brought to England, where I may be a free woman. I mean never to
return to Barbados.”

“How long were you in Barbados?”

“I was born there.”

“And into slavery.”

“Yes.”

“And it was in Barbados that you acquired
the…scars?”

She nodded.

“At whose hand?”

“An overseer.”

“I hope he came to some justice for his
deed.”

She looked at him as if what he said bore
little sense. “That is the way in Barbados. What I received is
merely a consequence of upsetting the white man.”

“Lest you killed a man out of malevolence, I
fail to see what you could have done to merit such a hateful
flogging. This overseer is a brute of the worst kind. What prompted
such savagery?”

“I had a half-sister. Younger and far
prettier than I. She was twelve years of age, and Mr. Tremayne, the
overseer, took an avid interest in her. One day, he asked where she
was. I knew why he sought her. I replied I didn’t know, but he had
seen us together but twenty minutes before. When I would not tell
him where she was, he reached for the flogger.”

Charles felt sick to his stomach. His hand
tightened upon her. “This is true?”

She met his gaze but only briefly. “There
have been far worse consequences for lesser crimes.”

“How did you come to England?” he asked,
hoping to steer the dialogue to a less painful period in her
life.

“My master wanted my company far too often
for his wife’s tolerance. One day, when he went into town, she sold
me to another.”

“Good God,” he responded as another
nauseating wave hit him. He knew he would regret the answer to his
next query, but he asked it nonetheless. “How old were you?”

“Six or seven and ten. For a Negro, the
years do not matter.”

He sat up. “Six or seven… When did you start
keeping the company of the master of the house?”

“A year before perhaps. Before that, I
entertained Mr. Tremayne.”

He was aghast. “What? The man who beat
you?”

“Mr. Tremayne is not a man to cross.”

“He wields the flogger often?”

She nodded. “If he be in a proper rage, he
would apply salt pickle, bird pepper or lime juice to the wounds.
And flogging was not the only form of punishment.”

Charles felt the color drain from his face.
“What else did this monster employ?”

She paused before saying, “He had Jonah,
caught stealing a banana, naked in the bilboes and rubbed with
molasses. During the day, the flies swarmed him. At night, the
mosquitoes.”

“My God.”

Her gaze assumed a vacant quality. “Mabel
died of the dysentery for Mr. Tremayne had plugged up her arsehole
with a corn-stick.”

Charles could not speak. Wang had once told
of how a cousin of his had been dismembered by horses. Charles had
not thought he could hear of anything more gruesome till now.

“How could the master or the owner permit
such atrocities?”

“The master was not a better man. When he
thought Nathan, the stable boy, to have maimed one his prized
colts, he had Nathan buried alive.”

Charles could not suffer to hear more. He
thought of her mutilated back and shuddered to think she might have
received a worse fate.

“You see how fortunate I have been,” she
said.

He had many more questions but asked only,
“Did the man you were sold to bring you to England?”

“That man was a drunkard and a poor gambler.
He was sometimes flush in the purse, but there were times he had
but pennies upon him, which went to gin as often as could be had.
Once, I went five days without eating till I came upon a mulatto
who spared me part of her breadfruit.”

Charles ran a hand through his hair. If he
were to ever cross paths with the man or with Mr. Tremayne, he
would be hard-pressed not to cane them to within an inch of their
lives.

“But here I was blessed,” she consoled.
“After but a few months, he sold me to Mr. Terrell, who treated me
kindly, almost as if I were a daughter or a niece.”

“But one he fucked,” he replied with a wry
grin.

“Yes, well, that was to be expected, but as
he was much older, he did not require my favors as often as others
had. It was he who brought me to England.”

“Were you married to him?”

She shook her head. “He had acquired malaria
in his time in Barbados and passed away within a year of our
arrival in England. I had to start a new life for myself in an
unfamiliar land. I wanted nothing to do with my past in Barbados,
not even the name I bore as a slave. I feared I would be found
somehow and returned.”

“So you became Miss Terrell. You have no
other name?”

She gave him a wry smile. “The men who take
an interest in me care not what name I bear.”

He refrained from wondering how many men she
might have lifted her skirts to, but she seemed to know his
thoughts.

“It is true I have lain with many men. That
is how I know I am barren. I would surely have conceived by now if
not.”

“After the treatment you have received at
the hands of white men, why should you wish to submit yourself to
another? I wonder that you can tolerate the implements we use at
the Red Chrysanthemum without their provoking the pain from your
past?”

“At first, they did, though my first
instruction came from a woman. Mistress Brownwen. She gave me a
gentle introduction into the
arts
here.”

He lifted his brows. “She was my instructor
as well.”

“You were a submissive?”

“One cannot be a good dominant without fully
appreciating the other half.”

“You have had no Mistress since her?”

“Not one who demanded my submission…till
you.”

She had the decency to flush.

“And if you reprise such a stunt, I will
have your hide,” he warned.

“From my backside, I hope?”

He stared at her. There was no winning with
her.

“I know not that I could submit to anyone if
I had endured what you have,” he diverted.

“But, at the Red Chrysanthemum, we submit
for corporal pleasure. Submission is not slavery.”

“But there are members here who treat it as
such. Even the language can be the same, the instruments of
punishment the same.”

“There is a fundamental element of
difference betwixt the two: choice. The members here
choose
their bondage, as I ask it of you, of my own free will, Master
Gallant.”

He could not escape the clarity of her gaze
as her last words echoed in his ears. There was no passiveness to
her tone. He realized there never would be with her. Despite the
nature of the words, she spoke them more to affirm her own will
than to convey deference. Though she professed to wanting
instruction and wanting to be the perfect submissive for him, as he
had countered to her, she would never truly submit all of herself.
She was too willful, too wayward, too wanton.

And yet he could not help but admire her. A
lesser man or woman would have had their spirit broken by all that
she had suffered. He knew there was far more she had not disclosed
to him. That she would trust him when she ought to have fled with
revulsion from every one of his kind was more than flattering. It
was inspiring. He found himself curious to know how well he could
tame the she-panther.

“Will you instruct me as your submissive?”
she asked. “I ask only a sennight.”

He rose from the bed and pulled up his
trousers. If he tarried in the bed, he might find he would not
leave.

“Have you forgotten Sir Arthur?” he reminded
her. “Or do you intend to forsake him?”

“Would you take me if I did?”

He reached for his shirt and pulled it
overhead as he pondered his answer. “No. You can fetch far more
with the likes of Sir Arthur, and I am not seeking a submissive at
present.”

“Why not?”

Because he had hoped for the return of Miss
Greta. Aloud, he replied, “I have an election that requires my full
attention. It is an opportunity that will not come to pass for many
years.”

“But I ask only a sennight. When you are
finished with Miss Katherine.”

“You could not be instructed in the ways of
a perfect submissive if given a fortnight.”

She sat at the edge of the bed and pouted.
“That is unkind.”

He smiled. “I fear it true.”

“Let me prove you wrong.”

He tucked his shirt into his trousers and
secured the braces. “I am certain of the outcome, Miss Terrell. You
may indulge me at first, but your true nature is not that of a
submissive.”

“Do you fear to be proven wrong?”

That was at least twice, if not thrice, she
had accused him of being afraid. Grasping the back of her neck, he
angled her head up toward him. Her mouth dropped open.

“Your accusations grow wearisome, Miss
Terrell.”

“If you did not desire me, I would not
trouble you again. But you do.”

Sensing a dangerous area coming upon them,
he released her. He picked up his collar.

“I do not deny you are a very alluring young
woman, but we do not suit.”

“We suit in the way that matters for the Red
Chrysanthemum. My cunnie suits your cock perfectly, and your cock
craves my cunnie.”

“That is not all I seek at the Red
Chrysanthemum.”

Seeing that he struggled with his collar,
she knelt upon the bed and fixed it for him. “What is it you
seek?”

“If—
if
—I sought one to be my
submissive, she would be nearer my age.”

“I could not be much younger than you, and I
have fucked men twice your years.”

That was hardly what he wished to hear.

“And she would be proficient in the ways of
submission,” he added.

Taking up his neckcloth, she wrapped it
about his neck. He allowed her to arrange the cravat though he felt
himself responding to her nearness. If her hands should wander…

“I am no novice,” she said.

“You are worse than a novice. You are
intractable.”

She yanked on the neckcloth. He grunted as
the linen tightened about his neck.

“That is the second unkind statement you
have made,” she remarked with aplomb.

While he valued truth and honesty, he would
not have been so blunt if he thought her constitution too delicate.
And with her, subtlety was as effective as a light spanking. She
required something more forceful.

“Forgive me,” he said, “but you deserve the
truth of my thoughts.”

“Then grant me three days. If I show no
promise in that time, we may go our separate ways, and I will
plague you no more. But I think you will find you want the full
sennight with me.”

Silent, he believed he shared in what Eve
felt when faced with the forbidden apple. He put on his waistcoat.
The more layers of clothes he had on, the better.

“Miss Terrell, we have had this discussion
before.”

She responded as if nothing could be
simpler, “Take me as your submissive and we need discuss it no
further.”

The saucy minx.

“Three nights,” she reiterated as she began
to button his waistcoat. “You owe me a shirt and may repay me with
your time.”

By design or not, she played upon his guilt
over the incident.

“I prefer to replace your shirt with a new
one. Of better quality.”

“You may offer me a dozen new shirts. I
prefer
you
, Master Gallant.”

She had reached the final button of his
waistcoat, and he was conscious of how near her hands were to his
crotch. She placed both hands upon his midsection to smooth the
waistcoat. Her hands traveled down to the buttons of his fall. His
breath grew uneven. He caught her hands before she could touch him
more intimately.

“
When
you are finished with Sir
Arthur,
when
I have completed Miss Katherine’s instructions,
and
if
I have an interest in taking a submissive, I will
consider your request,” he told her.

Dropping her hands, he went to the sideboard
to pour her—and himself—a glass of wine. He wanted a stronger
drink, but given that he had to ride the streets at night, it would
not be wise. Approaching, she accepted the glass he presented
her.

“Why these stipulations?” she inquired.
“Have we not already ventured down the path you persist in
eschewing?”

“It was unwise. And wrong. We allowed—I
allowed compulsion to best judgment.”

“If the dye be cast, why worry of it
now?”

“Having erred once—”

“Twice.”

“You think it of no consequence to repeat
the folly?”

“We cannot undo the crime.”

“We can make it worse and expose ourselves
to discovery.”

“We have done so already.”

He found her robe, which was heavy with
something, and offered it to her. She slid her arms into the
sleeves. Her eyes were downcast in thought, and, for the first
time, she appeared a little disheartened. He cupped and lifted her
chin.

“Terrell—Miss Terrell, you are a most
desirable and enticing beauty. But I have no interest in taking a
submissive.”

“I would not require much of your time. You
cannot be every minute on your election. The harder you work, the
more you require a reprieve.”

With an exhale, he realized he would have to
give her the other answer. “Because another occupies my heart.”