The General's Mistress (8 page)

“Why not Lucréce?” I asked, more sharply than I had intended.

“My dear, if rape were what I enjoyed, my profession would give me ample scope for my pleasures.” He smiled at me. “You sought me out and offered me this bargain. So there is no need to play the victim with me. Unless that’s what you like.”

I glanced away. He was still standing too close. Sandalwood and orange, and the scent of his skin after a day of work. Dark hair curling close at the back of his neck, and fine hands.

“Is it?” Victor asked. “The pretense of ravishment? All responsibility for your actions removed? A fairly common fantasy, in my experience, especially among whores who have not admitted it to themselves.”

I lifted my hand to slap him, but he caught my wrist. He did not bend it, just held it a trifle too tightly for comfort. He could feel the pulse jumping, my heart beating faster, and I could not hide it.

Victor smiled again, amused and indulgent both. “I don’t think so, my dear. I don’t particularly like being slapped.”

I looked away from his dark eyes. I was too conscious of my body and his, of this heat I was ashamed of and could not control.

He opened his grip and traced the veins in my wrist, circling around my thumb and opening my hand. “You have a fine sensibility, my dear. I saw that immediately. Like a delicate-mouthed mare who has never known anyone but an ironhanded lout. But you have no idea how to play the instrument you own.”

“You are mixing metaphors,” I said. My heart was racing.

Victor laughed and bent over my hand with a graceful gesture perfectly suited to the drawing room. “You’re clever as well. And of course you know you’re beautiful. Everyone must have told you that since you learned to walk.”

“Not really,” I said.

He raised one eyebrow. “Perhaps that accounts for your poor taste so far. So have you in fact slept with anyone besides your husband?”

“I am not going to answer that,” I said. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business. And you can’t make me tell you.”

“You will tell me,” he said. “Because you have just told me that you want me to make you. That bit of unnecessary defiance was very illuminating.” He crossed behind me and did not touch me, just stood close enough behind that I could feel the heat of his body, not quite against mine. “You want to be made to do things so that you don’t have to admit that you want them. So that you don’t have to accept your own deliciously carnal nature. Why else did you come here?”

“I had nowhere else to go,” I said. I waited for him to touch me.

“That’s not strictly true, is it, my dear? You could have gone on to Paris in disguise. You could have appealed to Meynier’s gallantry. You could have taken a ship to England. In actuality, you had many options.”

He did not touch me. When was he going to touch me? He was just standing there at my back, so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek as he leaned forward.

“You could have gone many other places besides here. ‘I had no other choice’ is an excuse for weak-willed fools. You sought your own ruin. You chased after it gladly.”

Now at last I felt his arm go around my waist, felt his lean, muscled form against my back. His hand slid up and cupped my breast, stroking the nipple agonizingly slowly through the cloth of my shirt. I took a ragged breath.

“You want me to take you. You want me to humiliate you
utterly, to bring you absolute abasement. And for it all to be my fault. For it to be my perversion, not yours.”

Abruptly his fingers snapped my nipple, pinching it painfully. I twisted and let out a moan. He released me. I staggered and almost fell.

“I am not going to do that, my dear,” he said. His tone was conversational, but I could see the flush on his cheeks. “Not until you ask me for it. Not until you beg for it.”

“That is worse,” I said.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” He smiled at me cheerfully, as though I were a child who had been clever. “You are going to anticipate everything. And you are going to tell me everything.”

“No,” I said. But I did not move. I wanted him to come close again.

“You are going to describe to me every minute sensation that you feel. You are going to tell me exactly how and where you’re becoming aroused. You are going to tell me exactly what filthy thoughts are passing through your mind. And you are going to ask me to do unspeakable things to you, only you are going to speak every word in the crudest possible language. And then, only then, will I do it.”

“I do not . . .” I said.

He crossed behind me again, his hip barely brushing mine, but it felt like thunder. He leaned close to my ear. “And when you come, I am going to feel every last shudder, and you are going to tell me exactly what you feel.”

“I have never . . . with anyone else . . .” I stammered. I leaned back, and his lips almost brushed my shoulder.

Victor laughed softly. “Only alone?”

I nodded. My breasts were tight, and a wetness was starting between my thighs. My eyes were sparking with tears.

He lifted one stray piece of hair away from my neck. “You see? That wasn’t so hard. Your first confession.”

I almost sobbed.

He stepped away. “You will dine with me tonight in my quarters. It does not matter what you wear. At eight o’clock. In the meantime, I will have my servant show you to a room where you can be comfortable.” Moreau crossed to the desk, picking up papers. “I will see you later.”

I nodded. I must pull myself together. I must.

He raised his voice and called for a servant. “Madame St. Elme will be staying. Please put her in the Blue Room and bring her whatever she requires.” He nodded at me. “Your servant, Madame.”

I followed the man quickly. I was shaking as though I had just faced the most grueling fencing match of my life.
At least I also scored a point,
I thought. As he crossed to the desk, I had seen the bulge in his trousers, uncomfortable if he intended to wait several hours to satiate it. But then, perhaps denial was something he found stimulating.

Moreau

T
he Blue Room was a pretty bedchamber at the back of the house Moreau was using for quarters. It was hung with light-blue silk and matching curtains. There was a four-poster with a cream quilt and duvet and blue brocade bolsters, a matching brocade chair, and a bench upholstered in light-blue slipper satin. A wardrobe held the few clothes from my saddlebags. A door gave onto a small, irregularly shaped dressing room with necessary pot, basin, and washing things, all made of plain white china.

It was all perfectly respectable and in good taste. I had half-expected manacles hanging from the ceiling. Or at least silk ropes twined around the posts of the bed.

Had expected or had hoped?
That thought rushed to my mind unbidden. Moreau, damn him.

I drew the curtains and lit the candles. The room glowed with a soft light. I opened the wardrobe and shook out my one dress. It was sadly wrinkled. Hopefully the rest of my clothes would be here in the next day or two. The gown was rose pink, with a modest square neckline and a belted waist, the newest English style. It did look nice. I let it air out while I washed up and did my hair. Which did not take two hours.

I heard voices distantly in the house, the sounds of servants, I supposed. I was not locked in. I could have left at any moment. Instead, I prowled around the room, picking up things.

The table held two books and a pamphlet:
The Indelicate
Debaucheries of a Crowned Head, Being the Excesses of the Late Marie Antoinette
. I flipped it open, then closed it at once. Then I opened it again. The engraving purported to show the Princess de Lamballe kneeling in front of the queen, her lips on the queen’s nether regions, while that lady flung herself backward, caressing her own upturned breast.

“So this is revolution,” I said. I doubted seriously that any woman would find that position comfortable, much less pose for an engraver. Nevertheless, it was intriguing. I had certainly never seen anything like it, not even in Italy during my remote childhood. The Dutch said that the French were depraved, and while I found it a bit hard to believe that Marie Antoinette had done anything of the kind, it said something about the audience that a printer found a ready market for things like this.
A different world,
I thought.
Revolution has toppled every barrier.
The idea was rather thrilling.

There was a discreet knock on the door, and I hastened to bury the pamphlet beneath the books on the table. “Come in.”

A sober valet stood there. “Madame St. Elme, General Moreau awaits your presence. If you will follow me?”

“Of course,” I said.

I followed him down the hall to the door on the other side of the dressing room from mine. It gave into a large room at the front of the house. The nearer part was arranged as a sitting room, while dark-red curtains framed the alcove containing the bed. There was a fire in the hearth and a table drawn up with covered dishes, a large armchair and a backless divan beside it. The floor was covered in a rich red Arabian rug. A bucket of ice held a bottle of champagne.

Moreau came forward to greet me as though we had just met after a long absence. “My dear Madame St. Elme! I am so pleased that you will share my little supper.”

The valet withdrew and shut the door.

“Won’t you sit and take some wine?” he asked, solicitously helping me to the divan.

“Thank you,” I said. I watched him open the champagne deftly and pour some for each of us.

He raised his glass. “To an interesting acquaintance, Madame.”

I touched my glass to his.

He looked at me over the table and frowned. “This will not do,” he said.

“What?”

“Your attire.”

I looked down at my dress. “I’m afraid it’s terribly wrinkled. But most of my clothes have not yet arrived.”

“It’s not a dress for a courtesan,” he said, getting up. “Not at all. That is the dress of a young and faithful wife. Which you are not.”

I flushed. “Victor . . .”

“Ah, now you call me by my name!” He smiled. “But you are not going to distract me. All my desires, as you recall?”

I nodded mutely.

“Then you will wear what I tell you.” He reached down and unhooked only the top hook on my dress, giving it just enough looseness in the bodice. Then he pulled the front straight down beneath my breasts, dress and chemise under it, down to the top of my corset.

I gasped.

He lifted each breast, stretching and pulling it over the top of the corset and crumpled dress, so they stood out pale and white. “Perfect,” he said. “Now stand up.”

I hesitated.

“Stand up.”

I did, feeling my pulse beginning too fast again.

He lifted my skirts, folding them about my waist with my petticoats. Of course I wore nothing beneath my chemise. One hand brushed against my bare hip, but he did not even look. “Sit down,” he said.

I sat down on the chaise. The satin was slick beneath my bare bottom. He tucked my dress behind me, leaving me covered only in a narrow strip from chest to hips.

“Now we will eat.” He lifted the lid on one of the dishes. “Chicken, Madame?” He resumed his seat.

To sit and eat like that, exposed and half-naked, was humiliating. To be expected to carry on normal conversation was surreal. We talked about books, and about plays that I had read, eating creamy chicken and fresh asparagus in a béarnaise sauce, drinking cold, crisp wine. And all the while, his eyes would go to my breasts, displayed there like sweets in a shop. I had never been so conscious of my body. I had never felt my private parts so keenly as when they rubbed against the upholstery each time I moved. The firelight encircled us, and the warmth from the hearth spread through me.

“Do you like champagne, Madame? I should not have to ask you twice.” His sharp tone reminded me that I had fallen into a reverie.

“Yes,” I said.

“How much do you like it?”

I shrugged. “Quite a lot.”

Victor lifted his glass. “I believe your attention is wandering, my dear. Allow me to recall it to the present.” He came around the table and leaned over me. His lips touched my bare shoulder. “Charming, I confess.”

I put my glass back on the table with a clatter.

“On your back, Madame,” he said.

I hesitated, and he turned me around longways on the divan and pushed me down so that my back was against the arm, my dress up around my waist. “Spread your legs.”

I bit my lip and did.

He pressed my knees wider open, all of my most private parts completely exposed. Looking full in my face, he opened my lips with one hand, smiling at what he felt. “You are soaking wet, my dear. Exposing yourself must agree with you.”

I moaned as he fingered my pearl, slid his fingers back and forth provocatively.

“You see,” he said, “I do not even need to tie you. I do not need to apply any threat of any kind. Your carnal nature keeps you chained more securely than steel. Nothing whatsoever prevents you from leaving this room. Except that then this would stop.” He drew his finger over my pearl again, and I tried not to cry out.