Belle squirmed on the richly upholstered red velvet of her chair in the gallery above the satin-sheeted bed. Her hands covered her cheeks, pinkie fingers pressed tight over her lips. Oh. My. Her only consolation—Cecy and Holly appeared almost as stunned as she.
The opposite. She supposed they should have guessed what Lady R meant, but who could possibly imagine . . ?
The man below—a model of male perfection, from the stylish cut of his chestnut brown hair to the striking contours of his broad shoulders, well-muscled arms, and lean–ah–buttocks—had begun his amatory quest at the female’s eyes, kissing and licking his way down her body, ever so slowly. So slowly, so deliciously, in fact, that Belle’s squirms had begun by the time he reached the woman’s lips, become agonizing by the time he devoted tender attention to each breast in turn. Embarrassing as he lingered over the woman’s belly button, and freezing in total shock as his head ducked lower, his bare bottom saluting the ceiling as he actually put his mouth there.
Belle had just enough awareness of the world beyond the bed to find grim satisfaction in the shocked gasps from Cecy and Holly. Clearly, neither was as well-educated in the sexual arts as they had thought.
It is most singularly guaranteed to provide a woman with fulfillment.
Surely not.
As her jaw dropped, Belle’s fingers itched to inch up and cover her eyes. And yet she continued to watch as the female writhed, seemingly in ecstasy. Strange sensations tugged at her, sensations too strong to be ignored. Moisture dampened her chemise. Moisture down there.
No! This was not what she wanted. She had viewed the earlier demonstration with close attention, for clearly what the woman did to the man equaled power. Female power. But Lady R had been right. This demonstration was indeed the opposite. Here, the man held the power, the female weak and compliant, willing to be manipulated. Not Lady Arabella Pierrepont. Not Belle Ballard. In any relationships she might engage in, Belle vowed, the man would pay, but she would wield the power.
The woman cried out, her body convulsing.
“Well, who’d a-thought it?” Holly declared. “I heard a female could go off just like a man, but I ain’t never seen it. You ever do that, Cecy?”
“The men I knew just wanted it all for themselves,” Cecy returned after a huff of disgust. “I guess Lady R really is trying to teach us there’s something more.”
Below, the models stood up, the man delivered a fond swat to the woman’s bare bottom, and they sauntered across the plush red, black, and white oriental carpet and disappeared through a door into whatever warren they hid in among the fastnesses of Thornhill Manor.
“Lady Rivenhall must bend her own rules,” Belle said, “because clearly there’s a man at Thornhill Manor.”
“She’s a strange one all right,” Holly said. “I’d swear I saw a man in the gardens last night. Makes y’ wonder, don’t it?”
“I wager the people she uses stay in that cottage down by the river,” Cecy offered. “Maybe doing the Dragon Lady is part of the man’s employment.”
“Cecy!” Belle gasped. “Lady R still wears mourning.”
“Don’t mean she ain’t got urges,” Holly declared.
“It’s been nearly two years since Rivenhall challenged the wrong man,” Cecy declared. “Any other woman would have put off her blacks long since.”
“Bamming everyone, she is,” Holly said, “so no one will know what she’s getting up to. I mean, y’ can’t know all she knows and not want a bit of a tickle now and then.”
“That’s disgusting,” Belle huffed.
“No need to be so high and mighty, girl. I saw your eyes bugging out, saw you squirm. Panting just as hard as the rest of us, and don’t try denying it. We saw you. So-ci-e-ty gets babies jes’ like the rest o’ us. All hot and bothered like. And don’t you never fergit it.”
“Really, Holly,” Cecy drawled, “you’ll never rise above the tavern and a shilling a pop until you speak properly. And where else are you going to learn but here? If you can’t mimic Belle’s accent, then try for mine. As is, you’ll never get out of the gutter.”
“Which is where you’ll end up, Miss High and Mighty—”
“She’s right, you know,” Belle said, cutting off Holly’s tirade. “If you wish to attract a gentleman for more than one night, you really must improve your speech.”
“And what do you know about it?” Holly challenged.
“A great deal, I’m afraid,” Belle admitted. “I saw the women invited to entertain gentlemen at my father’s card parties.” When the daughter of the house was not the evening’s entertainment. “They spoke as you do, and I heard what the men said of them. They were good for what they called a ‘grab and tickle,’ but would never, ever, be considered for gowns, jewels, carriages, or a fine house in St. John’s Woods.”
Holly regarded her two companions with a scowl. “You mean it, don’t you?”
“We do,” they echoed.
“It’s not fair,” Holly grumbled. “You two were born ladies—accent, manners, education, fine gowns. “I gots to learn it all.”
“I have to learn,” Cecy corrected.
“Shite!” declared the newly minted Miss Holly Hammond. With feeling.
“Venez ici,” pronounced a cultured voice from behind them. “It is time to speak French.” Madame Dumont stood poised in the door, as if there were no incongruity in retrieving her pupils from their positions as voyeurs to what some might call sexual depravity.
“Oui, Madame.” As Belle curtsied and followed the French instructor into the corridor, she heard Holly groan.
Arms spread wide, fingers gripping her partner’s hands, Felice Lattimore slowly fitted herself onto the soft flesh coating the rod of steel jutting up from her partner’s groin, a liquid surge of arousal easing her way. An almost feral smile of anticipation lit her face which, though no longer young, was still strikingly beautiful. Her brown eyes glowed as she leaned forward, dangling her more than ample breasts above the lips of the gentleman beneath her. Gabriel, Viscount Ashford, blinked, suddenly, shockingly, realizing he had been going through the motions, his mind disengaged from the moment and allowing Felice to carry on alone. Hell and damnation! He’d never intended a single act of mercy to interfere with the way he lived his life, most particularly with his activities in bed.
And yet the Pierrepont chit haunted him. Had he done the right thing? Had he rescued her from the baron only to deliver her into the clutches of someone who would assure her complete downfall? What did he know about Lady Rivenhall, after all? Only that he’d liked her in the days she and her husband were part of the ton. The rest? Rumors, conjecture. Faint hope.
The inevitable scene with the girl’s father had ended better than he had a right to expect. Five thousand wasn’t too much to pay to keep Bow Street Runners from his door. After all, a dozen men had seen him disappear out the front door of Pierrepont House in the middle of the night with the daughter of the house in tow. The payment should have been the end of it. Except he couldn’t help but wonder about the poor little thing. Arabella? Yes, that was her name—
“Gabriel!”
“Ah! Apologies, my sweet. I spent the day with my man of business and I can’t seem to get his admonitions out of—”
Felice’s breasts bounced as she sat bolt upright, her glossy brown curls framing her artfully enhanced face. She loosed his hands and crossed her arms in front of her. “Do not lie to me. It is another woman, I know it. Is it this lady they say you have stolen from her home? And where are you keeping her, pray tell? Did the little virgin disappoint you so much you must come crawling back to me?”
“You’re mad!” What a liar he was. “The girl was in danger. I took her to relatives in the country, and there’s an end on it. I haven’t seen her since.” Which, surprisingly, was almost the truth. He offered Felice his best, oft-practiced smile—part cajolery, part come-hither, overlaid with his most charming plea for forgiveness.
When he caught the first hint of weakening in her stance, Gabe stretched out his hand and allowed his fingers to play in the soft curls where their bodies were joined. Her lips firmed, the brown eyes glared. Slowly, ever so slowly, Gabe feathered his fingers up her belly, insinuating themselves under her crossed arms. For a full ten seconds, Felice maintained her upright posture. Then, as his questing fingers tweaked her nipples, her anger dissolved with a small murmur and a wriggle of satisfaction. She flung herself forward, kissing him on the lips, gasping his name. Unseating herself from the spear of flesh embedded inside her.
Gabe flipped her over with ease. Determined to prove his mastery and his unwavering interest, he rammed himself inside her with one hard thrust. Teeth set, almost grimly, he plunged inside the welcoming moisture, letting the warmth, the burgeoning sensations drive all thought of the little Pierrepont away. He pulled nearly all the way out, thrust back in slowly, deliberately. He was where he wanted to be. Free to do as he pleased. And with a woman who was always eager to please. Out. In. Faster, harder. And finally the ghost of Arabella Pierrepont was gone, lost in the desperate driving demand for more. And more. Felice’s body convulsed beneath him, she cried out his name. Gabe stopped fighting, wallowing in successive waves of passion which left him sweaty, limp, and mindless.
Yet even through the haze of sexual completion, he heard a small voice whisper, Arabella.
Today their instructor was Lady Rivenhall. The girls sat taller in their chairs, their hands folded in their laps, feet flat on the floor. In their unadorned, dark blue gowns and simple hair styles, they might have won the approval of the most evangelical religious order. Cecy, Belle noted, matched her own look of polite attention, although Holly’s eyes reflected her customary skepticism, clearly stating that whatever they were going to learn today, she was quite certain she wasn’t going to like it. But if it would make her queen of courtesans, she might possibly consider paying attention.
Belle ducked her head to hide a smile. She was growing accustomed to her new friends, discovering they had admirable qualities hidden beneath the armor they had developed to cope with the world they lived in. Hadn’t she done exactly the same? She might look fragile, but she had learned to protect herself the only way she could. By building a shell that shut out the world. Invisible though it might be, it had kept her father and his friends out. Never let them penetrate her inner self. That same shell would protect her from whatever man chose her for his mistress. She would absorb all the Aphrodite Academy had to teach, and then she would use it to become so much more than that poor frightened girl stripping off her clothes for the delectation of her father’s gaming partners.
Oh, yes. She would learn how to manipulate, how to gain power, how to wheedle money to put away for a future when she could walk away. Be free. Live a life where a man had no control over her. Not a jot. A cottage by the seaside perhaps—
“Ladies.”
Belle heard Holly make a sound suspiciously like a snort. No one was ever going to make a lady of Holly, and no one knew that better than Holly herself. She would polish her speech, work on the airs and graces that would make her look like a top-of-the-trees courtesan, but be a lady at heart? For that Holly had only scorn. She was what she was. She’d bend a bit to have a better future, but in her heart she would always be Elsie Ragsdale, daughter of an innkeeper in Kent. Oh yes, they’d had enough time together for Belle to understand her friends much better. Holly’s accent might falter occasionally, but her sharp wit, her sense of humor would see her through. Holly asserted that gentlemen liked to feel superior, even while having a bit of slap and tickle, and who was she to disappoint them? Not everyone had to leave the Aphrodite Academy aping the elegant woman-of-the-world attitude of their headmistress.
Headmistress! Belle choked, quickly turning the sound into a cough. Lady Juliana Rivenhall, headmistress of the Aphrodite Academy. And wasn’t she just! Belle clapped a second hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. And realized she had missed Lady R’s introduction to the subject of the day.
“Miss Ballard, I cannot imagine what is so amusing about today’s topic. Would you care to explain.”
“No, ma’am. My lady.” A rush of tears misted her eyes. If Lady R tossed her out, she had nowhere to go. Shell. Back in place. For a moment she had allowed it to slip, had allowed herself to feel. Shell. Now!
“Very well.” Lady Rivenhall fisted her hands on the desktop in front of her and regarded her three suddenly solemn students. In her stiff gown of black moiré, accented at the neckline and cuffs with white Alençon lace, her bronze hair pinned into a twist on the back of her head, she looked every inch the widowed baroness, a baroness to whom the word sex was anathema. Belle attempted to justify this perfect portrait of a widowed member of the ton with the graphic demonstrations the Dragon Lady had arranged for them . . . and failed.
“In order to attract and keep a gentleman who will maintain you in the style we wish for the graduates of the Aphrodite Academy,” Lady R was saying, “it is necessary for you to understand the degree of pleasure you can provide. For that is what a man is looking for above all else. Pleasure. Extensive pleasure. Exquisite pleasure. The fine manners, the art of being able to converse on a wide variety of topics, the ability to understand your gentleman’s role in politics or business—all these are important to keep him interested beyond a month or two. But can you pleasure him? This is the great question.”
Belle’s insides rebelled, she thought she might be sick. She had pleasured men and it was horrid. She knew—of course she knew—that wasn’t what Lady R meant, but the flickering candles, the pungent odor of cigar smoke, the slap of cards on the table, the leering eyes, the groping hands—it all came back in a rush. She whimpered.
“Miss Ballard?”
“I beg your pardon, my lady.”
“Are you ill?”
“Bad memories,” Belle murmured. “I’m sorry.”
Lady Juliana’s face softened. “No, I am sorry for bringing back your past. But always recall what you are doing here. We are training you to become a person who will never again have to suffer abuse. Even if we should make a mistake and pair you with a man who turns out to be less than we thought, you always have a place to turn. My doors are always open to my girls.”
“My lady.” Belle bowed her head, a tear dripping onto the wooden surface of her desk.
“We can come back if a man knocks us about?” Holly asked, a tinge of wonder in her customary skeptical tone.
“You may always come back. I promise.”
Belle heard Cecy heave a soft sigh before saying, “That is very good of you, my lady. That’s why you chose us, isn’t it? Because we’re the ones with no place else to go.”
“That is part of it, Miss Lilly. But I also chose you because I thought there was hope of teaching you to be something more than you were.”
“But you didn’t choose me,” Belle said. “I was thrust upon you.”
The Dragon Lady smiled. “My dear child, if I hadn’t chosen you, you would have been scooted off to the country the very next day, destined to be a companion to some maiden lady with nineteen cats.”
The girls giggled. Belle sniffed, fumbling inside her skirt for a handkerchief.
“And now, may we please get on with the topic of the day?” Three pairs of eyes focused on their mentor. “As I said, it is necessary for you to experience pleasure so you need to understand why men crave it . . . and understand the power you hold by being able to provide it.”
“You going to let us have a go at that great hunk of a man we seen yesterday?”
Steepling her fingers before her face, Lady Rivenhall heaved a heartfelt sigh. “No, Miss Hammond, that is not at all what I had in mind. I am, in fact, suggesting something that may come as a dire shock to your upbringing.”
“Don’t know as I had any upbringing, my lady. M’ma died when I was eight. After that, I just growed.”
The clearly long-suffering Lady R shook her head. “I am beginning to think we should postpone this lesson for another day.”
“Don’t let me put you off,” Holly returned expansively. “I’m always right glad to learn about pleasure and pleasuring.”
Cecy glanced at Belle, fisting a hand over her mouth to hide a smile, but her eyes, brimming with laughter, gave her away.
“What I am talking about,” Lady Rivenhall announced in stentorian tones, obviously determined to get on with it, “is pleasuring oneself.” Silence. Instead of wide shocked eyes, three ducked heads. “Ah . . . then this is something not unknown to you.”
Not a sound.
“Then may I suggest you explore yourselves more thoroughly, not forgetting such sensitive areas as your breasts and nipples. And inside your vaginal passage. It is important that you experience the full force of the pleasure you are expected to give, for it is quite possible you may not experience it otherwise. Only a few wise men are aware of a woman’s needs and willing to take the time to provide it.”
Three heads remained bent. Silence ruled.
“Ladies, have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, my lady.” Faintly, in chorus.
“You are dismissed.”
The three girls scurried out, heads still bent, not so much as a glance at each other. Silence all the way down the corridor until they reached a small but elegantly appointed sitting room. They sat down, still not looking at each other until Holly burst out, “Oh. My. Gawd. Do y’think that’s how she gets by without a man? The Dragon Lady,” she snapped as the other two girls looked blank. “D’y’ think she pleasures herself?”