Carnal Pleasures (40 page)

Griff sat down on the edge of the bed, next to his wife.

“It’s from Emma Trent, Dulcie.”

Dulcie looked up at him, her expression attentive, puzzled, and a bit surprised.

He cleared his throat and began:

Madam—

I will not advise you of my whereabouts. Nor will I write the current whereabouts of the Countess of Eberley. Let me simply state that we two are no longer together.

I loved your stepmother for almost a decade and acted as her lady’s maid for that time as well. Did you know that she loved me, too? That we were lovers? No, I suppose that never entered your mind. You were a very naïve lady in so many ways.

Dulcie pinched Griff’s brawny forearm. “No longer lovers? What does she…?”

“Never mind. I’ll explain later,” Griff said, and continued.

Your stepmother raised herself up from the slums, as I did. We both worked in a Cheapside brothel, side by side, hating every moment of it, until we managed to leave the place. Agina’s beauty bought us both salvation, along with a title and wealth when she met and married your father, the earl. She never cared for him, you see; he was simply a means to an end—and marrying him created a better life for both of us. Of course, we plied him with attention and liquor. He was so befuddled he never realized he was married until hours afterward.

Griff had wondered when he had read between the lines of Emma’s letter, if his own father had met his scandalous death, not by his own hand, but at the hands of Vagina Boggs. Griff believed that his father had shot himself outside a Cheapside brothel. Could it have been the same one? And was his father’s sickness the only reason? Or had his father, too, been in the clutches of the extraordinarily beautiful, uncaring, vicious Agina Trayhern. Could she have placed the pistol into his hand and coaxed him to use it? Or had she simply placed the pistol against his temple and pulled the trigger herself?

Griff realized too late that he would never know.

He paused, took a deep breath, and kept reading.

You didn’t recall, Lady Dulcina, did you, that both Agina and I are well versed in concocting herbal potions. Of course, you did not, though we did cure you once earlier when you fell ill.

It was Agina’s, or should I say, Vagina Bogg’s
(
for that is her real name) use of the purple foxglove that spelled disaster for your unwary father’s weak heart. Any learned physician would have warned him to be careful of the medicine or it could kill instead of help. No one ever suspected that a large dose was given the earl in error.

As to you and your lover, Griffith Spencer… ah yes, that was my doing, because I was attending to Vagina’s schemes. We had a deadline, you see. November twenty-first, the day before your twenty-first birth date or all would be lost.

At first, you were given tiny doses of a love potion, Lady Dulcina, to bring you into heat. So much so that you could not help but throw yourself at Spencer with a rabid lust for him…or for any male. Spencer was simply made available. Toward the end, I dosed him as well on that night. I heard you screaming in pleasure from down the hall. Wild, wanton, bloodcurdling sounds of satisfaction! Was it good for you when you came? Did you want more? I would expect so. I always did, because I used a much lower dose on Vagina and I when we made love.

But then both of you fooled us. Griff Spencer had the temerity to rejoin the army and leave England. And you… you, Lady Dulcina, would not give him up to marry another as Vagina wished. Instead, we had to wait and hope. But he didn’t return soon enough (or so we thought), and we needed to do something drastic to continue our lavish lifestyle. It almost did the trick when I laced your sugar bowl with rat poison. Another day or so and…well, then your lover arrived, wounded but alive, and early enough to marry you. But, of course, you turned Spencer down. By then Vagina wanted it all—your entire inheritance. She would have won, too, if you died when we expected.

“They both hated me, Griff. I still wonder why.”

“It was nothing you did, Dulcie. They were born poor and turned bloody sour and greedy. No matter what you did, you never would have been able to make them care.”

Griff smoothed out the folded parchment and continued.

Why am I writing this to you now, Lady Dulcina? It is because Vagina courted a few new lovers and turned me out in the cold. The ungrateful bitch! After all I did for her. I am no longer nearly as young nor as eager for lovemaking with her as I once was. The woman devours young flesh like a wild beast—male and female. I wonder how long she can keep it up and stay alive if she continually doses herself with potent aphrodisiacs.

I will be gone from England when you read this, Lady Dulcina, with enough jewels I filched from Countess Eberley to tide me over and live comfortably for the rest of my life. I pray that the countess will soon grow old and haggard, unable to attract new lovers, and never again be as well off as I am.

Yr. obedient servant,

Emma Trent

The End

About the Author:

Blaise Kilgallen was born in New Jersey, and lives in a semi-rural county in the "Garden State" with three four-footed companions: a retired thoroughbred mare, a half-Siamese cat and "a rather large" Rottweiler.

She earned her BS in Fine Art Education with the intention to teach but found she'd rather "do" than teach. Blaise was employed for a number of years by a series of New York advertising agencies. Later, she wrote catalog and PR copy for a private label, sales-marketing firm and drapery-bedspread manufacturer. She additionally earned a NJ Real Estate Broker's license and sold real estate. She now writes romantic fiction, paints and markets her watercolors.

Blaise is also published in Historical and Contemporary Romance under the name of Joan M. Fox.