Darker Than Love (19 page)

‘Yes,’ hissed Marldon. ‘Yes.’

She no longer cared that he watched. Her fast-rising arousal flamed and throbbed, taking precedence over modesty. She pounded on, driving herself to climax, cramming in the phallus with fast hard shoves. The curved tip bumped deep, exquisitely brutal. She clamped her muscles around the cock’s rigidity. She arched her spine, her loins heaving as she pistoned shamelessly.

A long, keening sound broke from her lips. Her orgasm peaked, spilt over, and blissful tremors coursed through every part of her body. She was motionless for a while, gaining her breath, then she curled on her side and hid her face in her arms. The dildo slipped from her.

The room was silent. Clarissa’s self-loathing grew ever
stronger as the stillness lengthened. Then Marldon began a slow handclap.

‘Encore,’ he said flatly. ‘Encore.’

Clarissa drew herself into a tighter ball, embittered and ashamed. She should not allow him to push her to such extremes nor to treat her with such contempt. Yet Marldon’s cold dominance made her powerless. It vanquished her because it thrilled her. She wished it were otherwise.

‘I can still see you,’ said Alec, nudging a cold shoe into her buttock.

She unfurled herself and sat in a huddle, glaring up at him with defiant eyes. ‘I despise you,’ she hissed.

‘I expected nothing less,’ he said, smiling. ‘Now stand up.’

Clarissa rose. Her lower lip trembled but she fought back the tears. She would not give him an opportunity for further amusement. Marldon took both her hands gently, then with a sudden twist he was clutching her wrists and bearing her backward to the wall – to the wall affixed with straps and shackles. Her toes crushed under his quick footsteps and she yelped, hopping to avoid further pain. He slammed her against the ebony panel, and pressed his powerful body to hers. His clothes felt rough against her skin and his cock was a hard bulky mass, digging into her belly.

He lifted one of her arms and deftly wrapped a leather cuff round her wrist, pulling the buckles tight. With quick skill he pinned up her other arm and fastened the second thick strap, grinding his erection into her as he worked. Clarissa barely had space to struggle.

‘There is no need for this,’ she gasped, squirming uselessly against him.

‘Oh, there is,’ said Alec, dropping to his knees. He leant heavily against her right leg and secured a fetter about her ankle. Then he did the same to her left ankle and stepped back, breathless, to look at her in the opposite mirror.

The candles poured their light on to Clarissa’s naked body, and she was a star of flesh. She could move her limbs, a few inches this way, a few inches that. But she could not make the body staring back at her any less exposed. A thick tress of her dark hair hung over one breast. Marldon, still watching in the glass, swept the loose curls behind her shoulder.

‘That’s better,’ he murmured. ‘Are you comfortable, Clarissa?’

‘Oh, perfectly so,’ she said dryly.

‘Good,’ he drawled. ‘Because I have some business to attend to. You’re going to be there a while.’

Clarissa cursed. The leather restraints creaked as she tugged. His devilry was impossible to match. Every time she predicted his next move, he outwitted her.

‘You cannot go,’ she cried. ‘You cannot leave me like this.’

But her protests were heedless. Lord Marldon had gone.

Alec strode briskly down the corridor. His lust pounded fiercely in his trapped prick, demanding relief.

The girl roused him too much. Her beseeching, fearful eyes brought the blood pumping to his cock. And those tormented writhings as she’d thrust with the dildo had made him savagely hard. Everything about her delighted him: her splendid body, her fights to quell her passion, and the beauty of her when she succumbed. Ah, they were exquisite things. They were also novelties and within a short enough time they would fade. He would tire of her, as he tired of all women. But, for now, that disenchanted future seemed far away. His appetite for Clarissa was strong and sharp.

If it were not for his plans he would have taken her in the Octagon Room, but that would have spoilt things. She would have enjoyed it.

He ran his hand along the balustrade and turned to
descend the stairs. He caught sight of a dark-haired maid below.

‘Charlotte!’ he called out. ‘Don’t move.’

He jogged down to the first-floor gallery. The girl stood motionless near the head of the marble staircase, holding a tray of silver tea things, eyeing him warily. He approached rapidly and her worried gaze flicked to his swollen crotch. She backed away.

‘Who’s taking tea?’ he demanded.

‘Brinley, my lord,’ replied Charlotte, still retreating along the gallery. ‘In the blue drawing room.’

‘Damned boy’s getting ideas above his station,’ said Alec, catching the young maid’s arm.

She squealed. The tray crashed to the floor, shattering china and splashing pools of tea and cream. Lord Marldon pushed the girl back against a marble column, clutching a fistful of her thick, brunette curls.

‘That will be docked from your wages,’ he snapped.

He took a moment to savour the fear in Charlotte’s face, then he twisted her around, forcing her upper body to lean over the balcony’s glass rail. The spreading tea trickled past the gilded balusters, over the edge. It dripped on to the tiled floor of the hall beneath. Marldon flung up the maid’s skirts and with a violent wrench tugged at her drawers and let them fall to her ankles. Her arse was taut and white, as deliciously skinny as a young boy’s.

‘No,’ protested Charlotte. ‘Not here.’

‘It’s what I pay you for, isn’t it?’ he snarled, quickly opening the buttons of his flies. ‘Are you handing in your notice, girl?’

Marldon released his pulsing erection and widened the maid’s legs with a swift kick of his foot.

‘No, my lord,’ she conceded in a breathy voice.

Her pink folds hung lasciviously below the split of her buttocks. Without delay, Marldon levelled his thick, angry glans at her yawning entrance and drove himself hard, penetrating her hot, fleshy depths. She was wet;
she wanted it. Or she’d just had it from Brinley. Lord Marldon thrust furiously, indifferent to her pleasure, hungry for his own. Her tightness clung to his surging cock and he plunged deep, his belly banging against her little quivering arse.

Charlotte’s shrill cries, punctuated by Alec’s husky grunts, soared to the domed ceiling. Their noises echoed back and an orgy of sounds filled the air. The maid grasped the rail with her small hands, her knuckles gleaming like the crystal. Her slender cheeks lifted and rocked with Marldon’s merciless slamming. His strokes were heavy, increasingly fast. His fingers were fastened to her hips like claws. The pressure of his impending climax swelled in his phallus. He thundered on, chasing fulfilment.

The maid beat a hand against the banister, shaking her mane of glossy curls. Her cries shortened to frenzied gasps then she released a long, bitter wail. Her vagina spasmed wet ripples around his shaft, milking the hot lust from him. Lord Marldon thrust deep, growled, and came.

His shoulders heaved with his recovering breaths. He slipped out of the maid and tidied his prick away.

Charlotte was motionless, her buttocks still bared. Alec eyed the white flesh, reddened at the sides with the imprints of his fingers. The girl mewled pathetically. Marldon raised a hand and swung it down to crack across one cheek.

Charlotte yelped and cursed him openly.

‘That’s for spilling the tea,’ he said in a dull tone. ‘Get it cleared up at once.’

‘For God’s sake, Gabriel, will you please sit down?’ snapped Lucy, clattering her teacup in its saucer. ‘I can’t think with you pacing about in that manner. It’s driving me to distraction.’

Gabriel stalked over to an armchair, perched himself on the edge and glowered at her and Julian.

‘I fail to see why we can’t involve the police,’ he said, slicing a hand through the air in exasperation. ‘I don’t give a damn if they raid his whorehouse and shut the place down. I don’t give a damn if they lock him up and throw away the key. I don’t – I just want Clarissa, safe and well. It’s perfectly, perfectly simple.’ He threw himself back into the armchair and exhaled impatiently.

Lucy twirled her wedding ring. A few weeks ago, she would have relished this friction between the two men. But now it was plain to see Gabriel no longer had eyes for her, and the situation was far graver.

‘My dear fellow,’ said Julian, calmly pouring tea. ‘The closure of Madame Jane’s would be another nail in London’s coffin. There’s hardly a place left which dares flout the licensing laws so unstintingly and with such panache.’

Lucy gave him a scathing look. ‘Sir Julian is being either incredibly selfish or utterly facetious,’ she said in a brittle tone. ‘Or quite possibly both.’

‘Quite possibly.’ He smiled and took a genteel sip of tea. ‘But at least we’ve moved on. Mr Ardenzi is, I assume, no longer contemplating murder.’

Gabriel fixed him with a black, angry stare.

‘I think he might be,’ mumbled Kitty.

Sir Julian laughed. ‘Forgive me if I’m being infuriating. But surely you see the sense of my argument. Alec Marldon is a clever man. He has friends in high places and he has influence. How else could Madame Jane’s have survived? Every brothel in Panton Street, barring his, has either closed or operates illegally. Heavens, we could send a cartload of constables to Asham House and he’d probably be on first-name terms with the lot of them. He’d offer them some bawdy delights, then they’d dance off into the night as merry as sandboys.’

Gabriel stood quickly. The little housemaid, sitting awkward and tense, followed his every movement with big anxious eyes. He combed his fingers through his hair and began striding between the two fireside armchairs.

Lucy fought the urge to upbraid him. ‘I’m afraid Julian’s correct,’ she said sympathetically, hoping to defuse the tension. ‘We have to catch Marldon unawares, play him at his own game. And, however we do that, I for one would dearly like to see him squirm and suffer.’

She had not forgiven Marldon for the night at Octavia’s ball. She’d insisted to Julian that she’d done it solely to prevent Lord Alexander from meeting Clarissa, but the truth of it was otherwise. He had aroused her greatly. He had built her appetite to such a fever that she had readily demeaned herself to quench her lust. He was remarkably adept, and she detested him for it. She could only hope that cousin Clarissa had substantially more willpower than she herself did.

‘Any bright ideas then?’ asked Gabriel, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets.

Silence fell upon the room. A carriage rumbled by in the square below. The hall clock chimed half the hour.

Lucy stood up and turned to the Longleighs’ housemaid. It was thanks to her that they’d learnt of Clarissa’s whereabouts. She’d rushed to Gabriel’s house within moments of overhearing the servants’ gossip. The girl was obviously loyal to her mistress.

‘Do you enjoy your work, Kitty?’ enquired Lucy affably.

Gabriel groaned and sat heavily in the armchair, his head in his hands.

Kitty shrugged. ‘It’s all right, ma’am,’ she said. ‘I get Sunday afternoons off and once a month I have a Wednesday. Don’t much care for Mondays though, as then it’s laundry day.’

Lucy smiled. ‘Would you like to spend long mornings in bed, wear elegant clothes and drink chilled champagne in the evenings?’

Julian rose to join Lucy and stroked a hand down her spine. He looked intently at the pretty, young maid, his smile broadening.

‘Course I would,’ replied Kitty, her lower lip pouting. ‘Who wouldn’t?’

Lucy swung around to Gabriel, her face bright with enthusiasm. She was about to speak when she stopped herself and looked at him thoughtfully.

‘I have two plans,’ she announced at length. ‘Both of which Marldon will never guess at. Both of which involve Octavia Hamilton.’

Gabriel sank back into his seat and released a heavy sigh. ‘Lucy,’ he said wearily, ‘you have my undivided attention.’

The Octagon Room was hot and airless. Clarissa’s arms tingled with lack of blood, and a dull ache weighed on every part of her.

The image of her body, spread and helplessly bound, would not leave her mind. Even when she closed her eyes and blocked out the mirror opposite, she could see herself. And the creamy-white phallus lay on the black floor, grotesque, mocking.

Clarissa did not know how long she had been there. There was no natural light to judge the hours by, no clocks, no sounds of the house. One candle had died and now another was guttering. Its dancing flame flickered light and shadows over the pale curves of her flesh. The room seemed to shudder.

Clarissa’s emotions had run from anger to frustration and now to listless despair. She was thirsty and tired. Whenever she thought of sitting down, a sob of wanting rose in her throat. If only she knew when Alec would return, then it might be more bearable. Would it be shortly, tomorrow, or a week from now? Perhaps he intended to starve her into submission. He would propose marriage when she was irrational, delirious with hunger. And, she thought sourly, he would do it on bended knee.

A long, heavy breath drifted from her dry lips. She tried to sink her body lower, allowing the cuffs to take
her weight, but the strain on her arms was too much. She tried grasping the leather plaits which joined her to the wall and slumping down. A few seconds was all she could manage.

If she had the strength, she would hate Marldon. And she would hate that duplicitous French maid, Pascale. How well they had organised her disappearance, bothering even to send on some clothes before her arrival. And, back in Chelsea, a carefully woven tissue of lies veiled her absence.

She recalled Gabriel’s letter and her heart lifted a touch. Marldon could not keep her bound for long: she had a reply to finish writing. He would surely not take the risk of arousing Gabriel’s suspicions.

To her left, the door swung slowly open. Fresher, cooler air wafted into the room and the spluttering candle at last petered out. Clarissa turned, hope and fear mingling in her stomach. A woman entered, a woman she vaguely recognised, with a cascade of rich-brown curls. She wore a maid’s plain blue linen, and in her hands she carried a glass pitcher, brimful of water. The amber half-light glowed in its transparency, and beads of dew misted the surface.