Chapter 19 #2
“I don’t like it,” Ives said. “Don’t agree to anything until I have a chance to speak with him. If it is as simple as that, he will not mind some frank negotiations on the matter.”
Lance threw up his hands. “He isn’t one of your mistresses, Ives. A little subtlety is in order at times.”
“What would you know about subtlety? Just do not agree to anything.”
One of the servants at the fencing studio approached them. “Milords, there is a man outside. He asked to speak with you, sir.” He addressed the last to Ives.
“What man?”
“A big one. Black. He did not give his name.”
Rather suddenly, his brothers lost interest in Radley. Lance eyed him. “Didn’t Mrs. Lavender have a big black man at her door? An ex-slave from the islands. What was his name? Achilles or something.”
Ignoring him, Ives walked to the door and stepped outside. Hector waited there. “Mrs. Lavender said you are to come. Very angry, she is.”
“Tell her I will come tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “She said you are to come at once.”
“Fine, go and tell her I will be there soon.”
He strode back to his brothers, unfastening his padded vest as he went. “I must do something.”
“Are we going to Mrs. Lavender’s?” Lance asked.
“You are not.”
“I think I am. I have not thought about Mrs. Lavender in a long time. Years. I always liked her. She reminded me of a mother.”
“Not our mother, I hope.”
“Of course not our mother. A real mother. Warm and concerned. Don’t you agree, Gareth?”
“I never visited her.”
“No? I thought everyone did, at first.”
“Take him to his club,” Ives said to Gareth. “He will have to be Aylesbury there. That should make him manageable.”
“I am not a member of his club,” Gareth reminded.
Damn. He kept forgetting. “Then take him home.”
“I’d rather go to Mrs. Lavender’s,” Lance said.
Ives glared at him. “Don’t you dare show up there. I mean it, Lance. You have all of London to distract you. Do not go to that house.”
He threw off his vest and turned to go.
“You heard him,” he heard Lance say to Gareth. “We have all of London, with the vicar’s blessing.”
* * *
Ives did not know what he expected to find at Mrs. Lavender’s. Nothing good, that was certain. He imagined the various ways Padua might have caused enough trouble to cause Mrs. Lavender to send Hector to find him.
Hector let him into the house. The night was far enough along that Mrs. Lavender had taken her position in the office.
He had to wait while some business occurred behind its closed door.
Eventually it opened, and a young man who looked all of eighteen came out.
Mrs. Lavender escorted him away, to make the introduction to the woman she had just sold him.
She returned, gave Ives a stern frown, and entered her office. He followed, closed the door, and sat in the patron’s chair much as he had when he was as green as its last occupant.
“Miss Belvoir is not keeping to herself, as I was led to think she would.”
“Why don’t you tell me what she has done to distress you.”
She treated him to a long description of Padua joining the household for dinner, making a speech, and threatening Mrs. Lavender with the loss of her lease.
“She intends to look after her father’s interests, she says.
She intends to watch the accounts most closely, she says.
She intends to involve herself in the running of things, she says. ”
“I will talk to her.”
“I’ll not be tolerating such cheek. She thinks she can threaten me about the lease? Well, I have a few aces in my pocket, too, if need be.”
He took his leave and walked to the stairs. Above one level he heard laughter coming from the drawing room. He kept climbing, past the chambers, up to the servant quarters.
Padua opened her door a crack when he rapped. She peered out, startled.
“Let me in, Padua.”
“I don’t think I should.”
“Open it, or I will kick it in.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“What you hear is as restrained as I am likely to be, and I grow less restrained by the moment. Open the door. Now.”
She did, but gave him a pinched, low-lidded look he suspected she used on students who challenged her authority.
He paced around the little nest she had made for herself. “You said you intended to use this chamber as a free bed. You said you would go and come by those stairs outside, and no one would be the wiser.”
“That is true, I did say that.”
“Mrs. Lavender says you dined with the prostitutes.”
“We call them the young ladies.”
“We?”
She backed up a step. “Mrs. Lavender. And, um, Hector. And . . . me.”
“Have you decided to enter the trade now? Should I offer you coin, when you refused less insulting forms of support?”
“That is uncalled for. I am not one of the young ladies, nor will I be one.”
“How reassuring. You will, however, be a madam, like Mrs. Lavender.”
“If she told you that, she exaggerated.”
He sat on the bed, and pulled her in front of him. He looked up. “Tell me how she exaggerated. What are you up to? Are you so disillusioned with him that you want to rub your own ruin in his nose?”
“I am not doing this to spite him. I am doing this to save him.” She laid her hand on his face and leaned down so her gaze filled his own. “Do you believe me so stupid as to risk everything for no worthy reason?”
Her touch both soothed and seared. He reacted like he had been starved for years, not mere days.
“I have a plan, Ives. I think it will work.” She spoke seriously. Earnestly. He barely heard her.
He pulled her onto his lap and raked his fingers into her hair. “Later.” He kissed her. “Tell me later.”
She accepted a consuming kiss, and returned one just as fiercely. She tried to turn her head. “What are we— We should not—”
He went to work on her dress’s fasteners, impatient to see her, hold her.
“We are blameless. Eros is present in this house. Have you not sensed his spell, even up here?” He kissed her neck and sucked on her pulse.
She groaned, and nodded. “Then do not tell me we must not, Padua. The wonder is I do not take you every way I have known or imagined.”
He pulled her garments off impatiently. Clumsily. She knelt beside him on the bed and took his face in her hands. She kissed him a long time and forced some calm on him. Not much, but enough that he allowed her to slide his coats off, and unbutton his shirt, and tantalize him by undressing him.
“What do you imagine? You said the wonder would be if you did not take me every way you have imagined. What wicked things do you dream of doing?” She pushed his shirt open and gently rubbed her breasts against his skin.
“They would shock you.”
“I have not been too shocked so far.” She worked at unbuttoning his trousers. “Are they the things you needed to negotiate with your mistresses?”
“Some of them.”
“Not minor variations, then, if such women might not be amenable.”
“Nothing dangerous, however. Nothing cruel.”
She scooted off his lap, and helped him to shed his lower garments. Then she straddled him, her long white legs dangling on either side of his lap, the dark hair of her mound revealing flashes of dark pink flesh. “Perhaps I will not be shocked. At least not too much.”
She lured him to a path he had avoided. He might have forgone it forever. With Padua such things became unnecessary indulgences. Now that she spoke of it, however . . .
He put his hand to her, and used his fingers to explore the most sensitive spots she had. She draped her arms on his shoulders and accepted the pleasure. A dreamy expression softened her face.
“The first thing is that you do as I say,” he explained, leaning forward to lick the dark, hard tips of her breasts.
“You command me, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“No seductions.”
“No.”
“Negotiations?”
“You can say no.”
Her hips swayed to his hand’s arousing touches. “It sounds— It should not be exciting, but I find the notion is. A little frightening, but—” She looked into his eyes.
“The second thing is, you will answer my questions.”
“We will be chatting?”
“You will be telling me things I want to hear.”
“Anything else?”
“You will address me as my lord.”
That amused her at first, but he watched understanding dawn in her eyes. “That has nothing to do with your title, does it?”
He shook his head.
She pressed her forehead to his and looked down. She took his cock in her hands. “What does my lord want? This?” She trailed her fingertips up the shaft, then wrapped them around it.
“That is the least of it. But first things first.” He lifted her forward, so her knees rested on the mattress. He raised her until his mouth could reach her breasts. He wanted her so wild that she denied him nothing. He aroused her without mercy until she swayed and clawed at his shoulders.
He inserted two fingers in her passage, then three. She bore down on them hard, panting in short, desperate breaths.
He controlled her carefully, giving her just enough to leave her on the edge. She sought more with her hips and objected with frustrated whimpers.
“What is it you want, Padua?”
“I want— I need— Can’t we—”
“You must wait for that. Does this help?” He withdrew his fingers, and caressed around the outside of her lower lips. A low, guttural scream trembled out of her. Her response had him gritting his teeth to control the urge to throw her down and relieve them both.
“Or do you want this?” He stroked forward to the nub and rubbed.
She buried her cries in his shoulder while the pleasure sent her crashing higher. He let her have her release, but not totally. He removed his hand at the point where she had calmed and known the best of it but remained aroused.
He set her on her feet, and stood with her. He released some of his own hunger in an embrace too tight and a kiss too savage, but anticipation had his blood scorching his mind.
“I want you to kneel now,” he said.
She gave him a glance of curiosity, then lowered herself. He gazed down on her long dark hair, and full breasts and pale arms and shoulders.
“How do you feel, Padua?”