An Introduction to Pleasure (10 page)

Still, there was something friendlier, more
real
about Lysandra’s new home.

The door opened and his father’s servant greeted him. He was shown immediately to his father’s office. As he opened the door, the earl looked up from his desk and his eyes widened. He got to his feet while Andrew closed the door behind himself.

“Callis, I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

Andrew flinched. His father always called him by his current title, Callis, just as his peers did. Never Andrew. It put a distance between them that had always stung him a fraction.

“Good evening, my lord,” he said, just as formal. “I’m sorry if I intruded upon your plans for the evening by not sending word of my arrival.”

“Of course not,” his father said as he sat down and grabbed for a cigar to offer Andrew. Andrew shook his head. He didn’t smoke, though his father never seemed to recall that. As he lit his own cigar, his father said, “What brings you here?”

Andrew blinked. He didn’t really know the answer to that question. “I-I was just driving by.”

His father’s brow wrinkled. “I see. Well, I’m pleased you made my home a stop on your way to wherever you were going. To a soiree?”

Andrew pursed his lips. His father had made it no secret that he thought Andrew should return to Society in full. Perhaps should even marry again so that he could create the heir the earl so desperately required, despite the fact that Andrew had a younger brother who could very well fulfill that role if Andrew didn’t.

“No.” He looked away. “Home. I was going home.”

“Hmph.” His father chewed on the cigar restlessly. “Have you seen your brother since your arrival in London?”

Andrew looked at him. “Sam? No.”

“He’s serious about some girl. Pretty thing, I think her name is Adela. Daughter of the Duke of Wimberly. They could marry this year. And when they breed a son, he could become the next in line if you refuse to do your duty.”

Andrew stared at his father. Here he had just dropped a huge bombshell that his younger brother could soon marry, and all his father could do was try to stoke some kind of competition to create an heir.

“What does Sam think of her?” he asked quietly.

His father shrugged. “Who knows? He goes on about her often enough; I suppose he thinks himself in love with her. She’s suitable, though. That’s what matters to me. If they married, it would link us to yet another important family.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him,” Andrew said with a slight sigh. “But I should go to him soon to offer him congratulations. If he is happy, I will be happy.”

“You two.” His father waved his hand restlessly. “Too much like your mother. The woman had many admirable qualities, but she was a ridiculous romantic. Bred bad habits about marriage into you both. It is a business arrangement, my boy. Nothing to moon over for three years.”

Andrew flinched. “I realize you think I have mourned far past my rightful time. But it is my right to decide how my wife should be honored and for how long.”

His father stared at him and Andrew saw a brief flash of concern on his face. For all his bluster and ramblings about propriety and business mergers, Andrew knew the old man cared for him. Perhaps not with the obvious affection his late mother had shown to her sons, but their father loved them as much as he could love anyone.

And his gruffness and bluntness was often based as much on concern as it was on propriety or a desire for heirs or whatever else he said.

He shook his head. “Please, let us not rehash this same argument over and again. I know what your expectations are of me.”

His father puffed out a circle of smoke. “You ought not to lock yourself away, boy. It isn’t healthy.”

Andrew nodded. “Yes, I realize you believe that. But I do come here at your request, every time you request my presence. Don’t ask me for more.”

His father opened his mouth, but then shook his head as if he had thought better of it. Abruptly he changed the subject to the estate Andrew lorded over in Huntington. As the earl spoke, Andrew’s thoughts turned to Lysandra, asleep in the bed he had provided for her. More was what he had already unexpectedly gotten on this latest trip to London. And it was utterly confusing.

Lysandra stared out the window as the carriage rattled through London, but she hardly noticed the passing buildings and people. She couldn’t even appreciate the comfort of the vehicle, so different from the last time she’d made this trip.

No, the only thing she could focus on was Andrew. For the second day in a row, she had woken alone in the pretty little house he had given to her. There had been no word from him and she was too timid to send word of her own. She didn’t know if mistresses even did such a thing as contact a protector in his home.

Actually, that was only one of a thousand questions she didn’t know the answer to, which was why she was in her carriage. And why that carriage was stopping in front of Vivien Manning’s home.

Wilkes soon opened the door and helped her down. He smiled at her. “I’ll wait around the back, miss. Send for me when you are ready.”

Lysandra barely contained a nervous giggle. How different this trip was than her last to this place.

“Thank you, Wilkes,” she finally managed to say with some dignity.

He nodded and she swept up the stairs. The butler Nettle greeted her with much more warmth than he had during their first encounter and led her to the same parlor where she had waited for Vivien before. She paced the room, wringing her hands as she waited for her savior’s arrival.

But as she moved along the back wall of the chamber, something caught her eye. She hadn’t noticed the red wallpaper before, except to be aware of its bold color. But now she saw that hidden within the pattern were…

She gasped, and at the same moment, the door behind her opened and Vivien stepped in. Lysandra spun on her with a dark red blush and found the other woman smiling at her knowingly.

“Admiring my wallpaper?” Vivien said as she moved to stand next to Lysandra. “I designed it myself. It cost a fortune, but it is quite the conversation piece, is it not?”

They both stared. Lysandra could hardly breathe at the faint, artistic images of men driving into their partners from behind, women with their lover’s cocks between their lips, two men with one woman…her head spun.

“My favorite is this one,” Vivien said as she motioned to an image of a man and woman giving each other oral pleasure at the same time.

Lysandra’s eyes grew wide. She already knew the way Andrew’s mouth felt on her, but she hadn’t fully considered taking his cock into her mouth. Especially at the same time that he pleasured her. Would he like such a thing?

She could add that to her questions, a list growing by the second.

“But I doubt you came here to examine my wallpaper,” Vivien said with a laugh. “Not that it couldn’t give you excellent ideas of how to give to and receive pleasure from a man. Is everything well?”

Lysandra forced herself to stop looking at the naughty wallpaper and return her attention to Vivien.

“I— Well…”

Vivien tilted her head when Lysandra struggled to continue. She kindly filled the awkward silence.

“My sources tell me that Andrew has given you a home to live in during your tutelage. I assume that means you have begun your affair.”

Lysandra blushed. “Yes. He came to me two nights ago and we…uh, m-made love for the first time. But he hasn’t returned since. I fear I must have done something wrong.”

Vivien stared at her. “I see. What was his mood when he left you?”

Lysandra shifted. He had been so angry with her when he uncovered her secret, but then that emotion had seemed to fade. They had shared her bed over and over again with no mention of his being upset.

“I wasn’t entirely honest with you or with him,” she explained slowly. “So he was, for a time, very angry at me that night.”

“Not entirely honest…what does that mean?” Vivien asked, her tone filled with caution.

“Before he came to me, I-I was an innocent,” Lysandra admitted with another hot blush. These were not topics she had ever thought to talk about so freely, but here she was, discussing them for a second time in as many days.

Vivien was on her feet in an instant, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh God. Andrew must have been furious.”

Lysandra nodded. “He was less than pleased to find out the truth.”

“And he left then?” Vivien pressed.

“No.” Lysandra turned away. “We talked and then he made love to me. And again. And again.”

Vivien’s eyebrows shot up and a small smile tilted her lips. “I see. But if he made love to you three times—”

“Four,” Lysandra choked.

The other woman blinked. “
Four
times even after he discovered your secret, why do you believe you did something wrong?”

Lysandra shifted. “He is clearly very experienced. I am obviously not. The fact that he hasn’t returned or even sent me word makes me think that he has lost interest in me.”

Vivien shook her head. “Or that he is just as surprised by his reaction to you as you were.”

“His reaction?” Lysandra repeated.

Vivien laughed. “Of course, clearly he did have one.”

Lysandra worried her lip. She had been so wrapped up in her own emotions, the sensations he awoke in her and her reactions that she hadn’t actually thought much about his.

“Occasionally I felt I had some little amount of power,” she admitted. “But otherwise, I am not experienced enough to know what his reaction to me could be.”

Vivien leaned back in her seat with a soft sigh. “Being a mistress means more than just using your body as an instrument for pleasure,” she began. “Over time, the best mistresses begin to know things about people. They are told things. And I have been told something about Callis that you should understand.”

Lysandra leaned forward. “Yes?”

“Do you know his wife died?”

She nodded. “He told me.”

Both Vivien’s eyebrows lifted. “That in itself is very interesting. You see, he does not speak of that to very many people. Likewise, the time he spends in London is limited. He normally hides away on his estate in the countryside, Rutholm Park. The rumor is that he has not had a lover since the death of his wife, or if he has it has been a one-night affair that did not bear repeating.”

Lysandra blinked. He had said his wife died three years before. It was hard to picture such a sensual man as celibate for that long.

“But if he prefers to keep himself away from others, why did he agree to- to—”

Vivien shrugged. “To enter into this affair with you? I have no idea. Except that when I brought him here, when I showed you to him while you walked in the gardens, there was something that lit up in his eyes. He was attracted to you from the start, and I think the intensity of that attraction must be worrisome to him. It reminds him of the man he once was and everyone knows he shies away from that with all his might.”

“What he once was?” Lysandra asked.

“A libertine, my dear. Filled with frivolity and lust.” Vivien grinned. “He was a great deal of fun back then, though he was never my lover. We did run in the same wild circles, though, and I watched him play the role of rake to the hilt. The fact that he would make love to you four times in one passionate night makes me think perhaps you reawaken some of that rake in him.”

Lysandra swallowed hard. She wasn’t certain if these things Vivien was saying were compliments or damnations.

“But if he doesn’t want that part of him to live again…” she began.

Vivien waved off her concern with one elegant hand. “Posh. One cannot deny what he is, no matter how he tries. His problem was that he didn’t believe he could be a decent man
and
a man of pleasures. If you could show him that he could be both, then you will help him.”

“And how do I do that?” Lysandra asked with a shake of her head.

“Force him to surrender to those desires he fights so hard.” Vivien smiled. “Drag him headlong into pleasure.”

“I don’t think I could force that man to do anything,” Lysandra muttered as she thought of Andrew’s bold personality and strong will.

“You’d be surprised,” Vivien said. “You already said you feel you have some power over him, do you not? Minor or brief as it is, you can build on it. But you must develop some faith in your own powers as a woman.”

“How?” Lysandra asked as she got to her feet. “That is why I came here. To determine what I could have done wrong and get answers on how to proceed.”

Vivien tilted her head as she looked at Lysandra long and hard. “I wonder if you are ready…but how does one become ready?”

She was talking to herself, clearly, but Lysandra couldn’t allow such an intriguing statement to pass unanswered.

“Ready? For what?”

“I believe the best way to learn any new skill is by observation…and practice,” Vivien said as she got to her feet and motioned Lysandra to join her. “So I am going to take you somewhere that you can do the first. The second will be up to you.”

Lysandra wrinkled her brow as she followed Vivien from the room and toward the hallway.