Seducing the Regency Dom (7 page)

Tony began to plot.

Chapter
Eight

An hour before Tony was due to collect her, Susanna’s
nerves were shot. Not that she would let anyone know that. She smoothed her
riding habit, twitched her hard won curls—straight hair was the spawn of the
devil—and strove not to bite her nails. Why did it take so long for the clock
to reach eleven?

When, right on time, her mother's Major Domo
announced Tony had arrived Susanna was a nervous wreck.

Did her rear look overlarge? Was her bosom smooth
under her gown? Was her lacy fichu still covering the red mark he'd left on
her? Should she wear the bonnet with the pale yellow rosebuds or the one with
the green ribbons? Should she have eaten more than one slice of bread, and made
sure her tummy didn't rumble? How mortifying that would be. Had Tony changed
his mind? The questions jumped around in her mind, all shouting to be answered.

She'd railed at her mother's interference and
insistence she should be subservient to Tony during their dealings, and defer
to his every utterance. Somehow she didn't think her mother and she thought of subservience
in the same manner.

"I will treat him as I think fit," Susanna
said finally.

The dowager had narrowed her eyes. "Have you
been reading that abominable book by that wretched Wollstonecraft woman
again?" she asked Susanna. Suspicion laced her voice, which rose alarmingly.
"She is abnormal.
Trying to put all sorts of silly ideas
into young women's minds."

Susanna sighed. She admired Mary Wollstonecraft, and
thought her ideas that women were not inferior to men, just less well educated
were sound. However, it would do no good postulating that to Mama.

"Mama, Mary Wollstonecraft has been dead these twenty
years," Susana said. "And all I have ever done is read the copy of her
Vindication of the Rights of Women
I
found in the library. Our library, where you told me I should go to improve my
mind."

Her mother snorted, and Susanna choked back a
snigger. Truly, when her mother got irate she looked like a gobbling turkey. The
snort brought to mind a horse in full flight.

 
Was it polite
to compare your mother with an animal? The remembrance of those few minutes,
and how her Mama had added that Susanna must be all that was amiable, was
enough to set her mood to contrary.

Tony entered the room as she picked up her gloves
and reticule. He looked her up and down and smiled. She mistrusted it.

"That's it. I knew this wretched hat made me
look like the hothouses at Kew." Susanna rolled her eyes. "I blame my
Mama… she insisted I look ladylike. Pah, a ridiculous idea. It is not possible."

Tony laughed and kissed her wrist.
"Eminently possible, my dear.
You look ravishing and
outshine any hothouse anywhere.
Though I'd prefer you without
that apology for a cover-up."
He flicked the lace at her neck.
"I assume it's necessary due to my, shall we say, attentions?"

She nodded, and her skin heated under his amused
glance. "I thought I’d better, and according to Mama this darned fichu is
the height of fashion. I say it’s the height of itchiness."

He ran his finger under the edge, and stroked her
skin. His fingers left a trail of arousal across the softness of her bosom.
Susanna shivered. Of course he noticed. "Not cold, are you?"

She shook her head. Coherent words were beyond her.

"Good. And I will take it upon myself to find a
fichu less likely to mark your softness, my dear. The only marks I wish to see
there are mine. Shall we go?" Before Susanna could think of an appropriate
retort, he took her hand—something he did often—and with a slight pinch on her arm,
tucked it in his. "Midwood is walking my horses, but I don't like to leave
them idle for too long."

"Indeed not." Susanna found her voice, and
matched her tread to his. "Prime cattle have to take first thoughts. Mere
women are far down the list." He stumbled and she realized how terrible her
pronouncement sounded.

"Argh, my lord, that sounds old catty, and I
didn't mean it like that."

Tony stopped walking and stared at her. "Did
you not?" he stroked her cheek. Then under the watchful eye of two footmen
and a maid, he pinched her earlobe, before he sent the tiny pearl on a gold
thread that hung from it spinning.

Susanna bit her lip, as the pearl danced near her
skin. It seemed such a personal thing to do.
Damn him. Now half the household will have us bedded by midnight, and
the other half betrothed. It will not happen like this.

"Stop that…the servants are taking bets on what
we're about to do." How could she sound so sharp-tongued? "No, my
lord, I didn't mean to be so spiteful. I have had a session with my Mama
earlier. It's enough to make anyone sound shrewish."

He nodded to the doorman, and ushered her down the
steps toward the road.

"Ah. Along the lines of the lecture I had from
my own Mama, I surmise. Be nice, be positive, and try oh so hard to be gentle.
I ask you. I am me... Is gentle in my make up?"

Susanna smiled at him. Did he really understand?
"Only you can answer that, my lord." She waited until he handed her
into his phaeton, and let her settle her skirts under her. "For myself, I
accept I do not only want the mundane, and my Mama cannot understand me. I need
to learn not to react to her absurdities. Maybe this problem is nil by
mouth."

Tony stared and to her amazement his lips twitched.
"From your Mama?
Oh yes. For myself, you can give me
anything with your mouth.
Whenever you wish."
He
took up the reins of the horses as his groom jumped up behind them. "Parents
have a very narrow idea of what suits, don't you think?"

Susanna held onto the rim of the carriage as, at a
signal from Tony, the horses set up a spanking pace, and the cobbles sent it
rocking.
"Ah, probably."

He flashed
her a
grin she
could only describe as wicked. "I myself have very different ideas. Are
you game to ride with me, if I let Midwood return to the stables? We can tool
the horses out to the Heath."

The thought of a long drive over the Heath, and
fresh air to breathe was too much. "I need that."

Tony signaled to the groom. "Midwood, if you
turn here you may get down. It is a mere few minutes to the mews. Do not grimace.
If I let you go now you will have time to visit the young nursery nurse from
number fifty-four. I know today is her morning off." The groom grinned and
touched his forelock. Tony laughed: theirs was much too close a relationship
for that to be necessary. "Tell her there is a cottage waiting for you on
the estate, and the position of head groom is yours if you want it." He
brushed off his groom's stammered thanks. "Mind you, you'd best be wed. Enough
scandal surrounds me without it being said I condone my staff living in sin. Tell
Emma, there might not be a position for a nanny as yet, but the school in the
village needs another hand. It pays well. Come and speak to me on the morrow."
He waited until the red-faced man jumped down, and then Tony took up the reins.

"What?" He glanced at Susanna as he once
more set the horses to trot.

"You really are a nice man."

"I am?" He sounded astonished. "I
wonder if you will say that later."

She looked up at him as best she could from under
her bonnet. The brim obscured her vision, and Susanna vowed to consign it to
the nearest tweeny. "Why on earth wouldn't I?"

He blinked. "Ah, perchance what I demand of
you?" he suggested.

Much to her amazement, Susanna sniggered.
"As in?
Be subservient? Oh, my lord, do you not realize
that is me? I am in charge of my life, my existence. And I wish to defer to my
Sir." She paused.
"If I have one."
She
ran her finger around the contours of her mouth.
"In
matters of the flesh."

Chapter
Nine

Now what exactly did she mean by that? Tony tooled
his horses along the road, one eye on the traffic and the other on his
companion. She sat, outwardly composed, unknowing what her statement portrayed.
Or did she? Tony distrusted the gleam in her eyes and the secret smile that
played over her full lips. Lips he decided would fit around his cock perfectly.

Did she really understand what he demanded? Did she
feel the same? There was only one way to find out. As he left the last few
houses behind, and began to drive along the less travelled road toward his
destination, Tony slowed the horses to a walk. The road was
deserted,
the only signs of life three Jersey cows in a field and a whitewashed farmhouse
in the distance.

He swiveled on the bench to look at Susanna. She'd
untied her bonnet and let it hang from her neck to rest on her back. Her red
curls gleamed in the sun as they fell loosely around her face. "Do you
trust me?" Tony asked.

"I must do, or I wouldn't be in the middle of
nowhere without a chaperone." Susanna giggled. "Though I must hope Mama
never hears of it, or we'll be in the chapel at your country seat before we can
say ‘
I don't
’."

"And you know what you mean by
subservient?"

The silence was broken only by the sound of several
sparrows twittering above them, and the jangle of the horse's bit as it tossed
its head, impatient at their slow progress.

"I know what I mean by it, my lord. To do as my
Sir tells me, to let him push
me
further than I
thought possible, and to show him all the respect I think he deserves."
The last was accompanied by a grin full of mischief.

"So, are we going to progress in this?" he
asked her. "If so, lift your skirts." Crude, to the point and one
step too far maybe, but Tony decided he would be brutal and forthright from the
beginning. If she did as he said, and they developed a good Dom/sub
relationship then he had an inkling their Mamas would both be happy with the
outcome, and he'd have his new countess.

He watched Susanna take a quick look around. The
cows showed their disinterest, and didn't stop chewing the cud, and the
sparrows had disappeared. They really were alone. She bit her lip.

"Xiao
Māo
?"

"Sir?"
Her reply came
without hesitation.

"If we are to explore this side of you, perhaps
this is the time to start? And stop reddening your lips. As I said before the
only coloring of your body will be by my touch, not any other way. So either
lift your skirts and show me your subservience, or tell me enough and we'll
continue our drive."

"That's a new name for it." Susanna gave a
nervous sounding laugh.
"To call my quim my
subservience."
She began to gather the soft material of her gown in
her hands and lift it up. Inch by inch her ankles, and then her legs, clad in
the finest silk, were revealed.

"Minx."
Tony loved her
feistiness. "Spread your legs for easier access."

She responded immediately. It held such promise for
the future, and implied so many things, that Tony's cock was straining against
his knit pantaloons. He wondered how long it would be before the pale oatmeal
color of them changed to a darker grey with the evidence of his arousal.
Or if the material would ever regain its proper shape.
Pantaloons
might be designed to have some give in them, however his seemed about to split.

"Hold your skirts in one hand and touch your
subservience
with the other, whilst I
urge the horses forward. It's not that far to our destination." He shifted
in his seat to give his cock a little more leeway to sit snug against his
torso. "Show me now, Susanna, or tell me to turn around and drive back to
town."

"Do we have pause and desist words?"
Susanna ignored him and posed a question of her own instead.

Tony clicked at the horses and they moved into a
smooth trot. Once he was sure the horses were settled, he risked a swift glance
at her. To his utmost delight, her skirt was bunched around her waist, and she
was tucking the material tightly to each side, thus exposing her cunt to his
view.
 
Her nether lips showed between the
bright red curls, to tease and entice him. Soon, he promised himself, if all
went well, it would be her bare skin on view.

It was lucky he and his horses knew the lane and its
ridges and potholes like the back of his hand. There was no way he could
concentrate on the road, not with such a perfect view beside him. He brought
his mind back to her question.

"Safe words.
Of
course.
If we need to pause you say
deng
.
If we have to stop, then it's
ting
.
Simple.
Are you happy with that?"

"Yes, Sir,
deng
and ting.
So if I'm happy, can I just say
so?"

He put the reins in one hand and used the other to
lean over and pinch the soft skin at the top of her leg, just above the silky
ribbon garter she wore.
"Of course.
Now where are
we?"