Rules for Being a Mistress Read online

  “Exactly so.”

  “But this could be to our advantage,” she said. “You forget how fascinating an older man like yourself can be to an ignorant young female. No doubt, she sees you as a sophisticated man of the world, which you are, of course,” she added hastily. “She dreams of being sophisticated herself, and so she is drawn to you like a moth to the flame. If you could but use your influence with your pretty cousin to keep her away from poor, stupid Felix, I should be very well pleased indeed.” She laid her closed fan on his arm, stroking him. “Perhaps pleased enough to accept your offer of marriage,” she suggested.

  Benedict suppressed a shudder of revulsion.

  “You are asking me to seduce Miss Vaughn? You, a woman, ask me this?”

  “You need not ruin her, of course, unless you want to, for some mischievous reason of your own. Just keep her away from Felix. The poor boy has been through enough.”

  “I’m afraid I must ask you to release me from my offer of marriage,” he said stiffly. “I had no idea you were so unprincipled.”

  Serena made rapid calculations.

  Despite appearances, she was not a wealthy woman. Her inheritance had run out. She was thirty and not getting any younger. If she released Sir Benedict, it was by no means certain that she would ever receive another offer of marriage. The only reason she had not seized on his offer immediately was that she hoped her cousin Felix might one day turn to her with love in his eyes. But if she could not bring Felix up to scratch soon, she would have to marry Sir Benedict after all, and she knew it.

  “No,” she said, when she had finished her meditation. “I don’t think I will release you. You made me an offer of marriage. It is hardly the act of a gentleman to withdraw it!” She smiled coldly. “And if you dare to jilt me, and marry another, I assure you, all of society will take my part against the lady’s. No respectable woman would ever be at home to your wife. Your political career would be ruined.”

  Benedict stared at her. He did not care three straws for his political career, but the thought of his innocent wife being reviled for his own error in judgement sickened him.

  Serena laughed suddenly. “I was only teasing you anyway about Miss Vaughn. It was a little test, and, I’m happy to say, you passed. Of course, I am not asking you to seduce her.”

  After the lecture, it was his privilege to hand her into her sedan chair.

  He walked home. His mind was full of ugly thoughts. As he entered Camden Place, he passed a well-dressed gentleman dragging his umbrella along the palings of the park.

  “Good evening, sir!” said the stranger.

  “Good evening,” he answered without thinking.

  The gentleman struck him on the rear end with his umbrella.

  Benedict stopped. He suddenly felt ten years younger. “Good evening, Miss Cherry.”

  “That’s Mr. Cherry to you,” she said, taking his arm.

  Pickering opened the door for his master. He could not help but notice that Sir Benedict looked unusually pleased with himself. “Good evening, Sir Benedict.”

  “Pickering, this is Mr. Cherry.”

  Pickering took the young man’s umbrella.

  Mr. Cherry began to giggle uncontrollably.

  “You may go to bed, Pickering,” Benedict said quickly, pushing his young friend into the study. “I shan’t need you anymore tonight.”

  “Very good, Sir Benedict,” said Pickering.

  Benedict closed the door, but Pickering could still hear the young man giggling like a schoolgirl. Why, he must be drunk! His master was not in the habit of entertaining drunken young men after hours, and “Cherry” was hardly a surname of distinction. Pickering was worried that Sir Benedict had fallen into low company. When, in the next moment, he heard a loud crash from the study, he did not hesitate. He threw open the study door, and stood staring.

  His master and the giggling young man had removed their coats and were on the floor wrestling in their shirt sleeves. In their noble exertions, they had inadvertently overset a small table. The branch of candles on it had been toppled, but fortunately the candles had guttered out. Pickering had never suspected that his master had an interest in the ancient Greek sport, but he had evidently pinned the young man down without much trouble. Although younger than his opponent, and blessed with two arms besides, Mr. Cherry was panting and moaning piteously beneath the superior athlete. The baronet was winning handily. Caught up in the excitement, Pickering fought the urge to applaud; he did not want to break Sir Benedict’s concentration.

  The young man seemed to realize he could not break free by fair means, and to Pickering’s indignation, proceeded to violate the rules of the sport. Pickering’s eyes narrowed in disgust as the young man’s arms encircled Sir Benedict’s neck in a python-like hold, while his slender legs, encased in black breeches and boots, stealthily began to slide over his master’s hips. This was a blatantly illegal and treacherous move. One’s very soul recoiled at the thought of such unsportsmanlike conduct.

  “Foul!” Pickering roared. “Look out, Sir Benedict! The dirty bugger is cheating!”

  “What the devil—!” Benedict leaped to his feet, his eyes blazing. At the same time, his opponent dove behind the sofa, out of sight. “Pickering, how dare you!”

  Pickering had never seen his master so angry. He cleared his throat nervously. “I beg your pardon, Sir Benedict, but the young man was clearly cheating! He might have broken your back, heaving about like that!”

  “Broken my—! Pickering, what exactly did you think we were doing?”

  “Wrestling, of course,” said Pickering, wide-eyed. “Isn’t that what you were doing?”

  From his hiding place, Mr. Cherry shrieked with laughter.

  The baronet’s mouth twitched. “Yes, of course, that is what we were doing. We were wrestling. Go to bed, Pickering, and do not come near this room again tonight, no matter what you hear. Leave it,” he added sharply, as Pickering began picking up the overturned table.

  “Very good, Sir Benedict,” Pickering sniffed.

  He stiffened as he heard the sharp click of the door being locked after him. There had never been locked doors between him and his master before.

  “Now then!” said Benedict. “Where were we?”

  She climbed to her feet. Her masculine clothes had become disheveled in the wrestling match. Her hat was gone. Her red hair was coming loose from the neat bun she had skewered at the nape of her neck. She had not bothered with the waistcoat, the neckcloth was a muddle, and his lawn shirt was so fine she might as well have been wearing a shirt made of water. Her little breasts pointed provocatively. She was still panting from her exertions and her cheeks were uncommonly rosy.

  “That was close,” she said breathlessly.

  “I apologize for the interruption,” he said courteously. “It won’t happen again.”

  “I should go,” she said softly.

  “You just got here,” he pointed out. “You haven’t even read to me.”

  “I’m thinking,” she said slowly, “it was a good thing your man came in when he did.”

  “We were only kissing,” he said impatiently. “No one ever went to hell for kissing.”

  She thought about it. He was perfectly correct. They had only been kissing. She felt hot and sweaty. The tips of her breasts were stinging, and there was an uncomfortable ache between her legs, but they had only been kissing. She had never heard of anyone going to hell for that.

  “That’s true,” she said. Her knees were shaking like a newborn fawn’s and she needed to sit down. She stumbled around the sofa like a drunkard and half-fell. “But we were lying down and wriggling, too.”

  “It’s not a sin to lie down. Nor to wriggle, if it comes to that. Though I strenuously deny that I wriggled.”

  “No, that was me,” she admitted. But—”

  “My dear girl,” he said softly, “I am not some rutting beast of the field. I am nothing like that mountebank who frightened you. And I am certainly not l
ike that young idiot who spoiled your dress with his…enthusiasm. You made your feelings on the subject plain. I respect your wishes. You have my word I will make no attempt on your virtue. You’re perfectly safe with me. You can trust me completely.”

  She looked crestfallen. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  He sat down on the ottoman and looked at her gravely. “There are any number of things we might do that are quite pleasurable and not in the least sinful.”

  Her eyes began to sparkle, but she did not want to seem too eager. “Oh?” she asked faintly. “Like what, for example?”

  He pulled off one of the boots she had borrowed from him. She had stuffed newspaper in the toe, but it came off easily. “Kissing, of course,” he said, pulling off the other boot. She was not wearing stockings. He began kissing her feet as passionately as he had kissed her lips.

  She shrieked in protest and kicked him in the face. He looked at her in surprise.

  “Tickles,” she explained, her face flaming.

  “You must accustom yourself to the idea,” he said reproachfully. “I am going to kiss your entire body, and I don’t like being kicked in the face.”

  She caught her breath. As he continued to kiss and fondle her feet and ankles, she licked her lips nervously. “You’re joking,” she said.

  “No, indeed,” he said, pausing to feel his nose. “I really don’t like being kicked in the face.” He returned to her feet, caressing first one and then the other, nibbling her toes while she squirmed and gritted her teeth. He kissed her legs, brushing his fingertips and lips lightly over the tingling flesh, raining tiny goose bumps as he went.

  “You’re prickling me,” she complained. “You need to shave.”

  “So do you,” he retorted, tickling the hair on her legs. It was fine as silk, and so light and sparse it was almost invisible. He was only teasing her, but she took him seriously.

  “I suppose,” she said contemptuously, “your dirty governess was smooth as glass.”

  Actually, his governess had been inordinately hairy. He had almost balked when she rolled down her stockings for the first time. And the hair in her armpits had been as thick as the spreading black bush between her stout thighs. Hers was a body only a desperate virgin male could enjoy. There was no comparison between that distant, nightmarish memory and the present reality of these lovely legs.

  “You’re beautiful,” he assured her. “I was only joking.”

  He opened her breeches at the knee band and began kissing her kneecaps as if he were in love with them. This, obviously, was no sin. It didn’t even feel good. Her feet were on either side of him, resting on the ottoman, her shoulders were flat on the sofa, her bottom was resting on his knees, and, as he nuzzled her knees like a madman, his face was directly in line with her womanhood. In fact, he was completely ignoring the parts of her body in which other men showed the most interest. She felt ridiculous and annoyed in this absurd position.

  She began to question his sanity. Just my luck. The only man ever to set my skin on fire, and he’s a madman. Then he began running his tongue along the back of her knees, and she thought, I must be mad, too. When he licked her behind the knees, for some strange reason she felt warm all over. Parts of her he hadn’t even touched began to prickle and sting. She began to squirm with pleasure. She couldn’t help it.

  He lifted her shirt—his shirt—and kissed her belly as if she were a baby. Except that, instead of making a raspberry, he kissed her navel. Hers was an odd little button of flesh, rather than a divot. She had always thought it shamefully unattractive. She was horrified and embarrassed when he suddenly took it between his lips. He tickled it keenly with the tip of his tongue, making her giggle as helplessly as a baby. He sucked it and bit it until she screamed at him to stop. He said it was like a baroque pearl, whatever that was. “Very tasty,” he murmured. “I wonder what other little buttons you are hiding.”

  Instinctively, she crossed both arms over her breasts, but he began unbuttoning her breeches. “Ben!” she shrieked, trying to push him away.

  “Do not be alarmed, madam,” he said. “I am simply removing your breeches. As I have no intention of removing mine, you are perfectly safe.”

  Her green eyes were enormous. “You’re not going to touch me there!”

  “My dear innocent, I am going to kiss you there.”

  “Ben!”

  He had the flap at the front of the breeches completely unbuttoned, but he had not yet uncovered her. “Why not?” he asked, softly. “It is as much a part of you as your feet or this sweet little button here.” He swooped down like a hawk and kissed her belly button again. “If it’s all right for me to kiss you here, why not here?”

  It was like trying to argue with a Jesuit.

  He snuck the breeches down over her hips as he was tickling her navel. Typical male trickery. She felt his hand move between her legs, and, instinctively, her thighs closed around it like iron, trapping him. She moistened her lips nervously. “Ben,” she protested faintly.

  “Only a caress,” he promised softly. “Let me in, sweetheart. Trust me.”

  His soft, deep voice had the power to melt her bones. He pushed her unresisting legs apart. She squeezed her eyes closed and braced herself, as if for a violent attack. Benedict caught his breath as he looked at her. Tucked between her creamy, slender thighs was the neatest, prettiest little nest he had ever seen. The fine, silky hair was golden-rose in the firelight. It moved delicately as he breathed. He couldn’t resist nudging the soft thighs farther apart to reveal the lips, pink and glistening as the inside of a seashell. She was so tiny he could not imagine making love to her without causing her great pain.

  “You expect me to trust you,” she whispered, “when you behave like this?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  With the utmost care, he parted the delicate folds of silk, skimming his fingertips lightly along the fine, soft hair. He caressed her softly as if she were as fragile as a butterfly, and in the softness, he found the tiny pearl protected by its hood of silky flesh. When he touched her there, she whimpered in the back of her throat. Soon she was so warm, so silky, and so wet, that he couldn’t resist tasting her with his mouth. He had never tasted woman flesh before.

  “You taste like honey,” he told her, wild-eyed.

  “I think you’re crazy,” she said, squirming in an obvious effort to bring his mouth to her again. He took the hint.

  With his tongue he parted the innermost, most delicate furrow of her body. It would have been churlish to used his fingers in such a fragile place, of course, but the intimacy was excruciating. Pinned like a butterfly between his mouth and his knees, she quivered helplessly. “Please,” she begged. Then he found the little button that seemed connected to every nerve in her body, and she began to moan for release in earnest. Her slender haunches moved up and down luxuriously as if she were bobbing in a gentle ocean. Her hands went to his hair.

  The first crisis stole over her little by little, in tiny, lapping waves. She hardly knew what was happening. A second climax, more powerful than the first, wrested a moan from her lips. The third shattered her into pieces. She collapsed, crying out shamelessly.

  While she was still dazed and helpless, he laid her back gently on the sofa, then climbed up next to her. They were squeezed close together on the narrow couch. He lay on his right side and gently explored her with his left hand. He caressed her face and neck and shoulders like a blind man. Finally, he untied the strings of her shirt and eased it down over her breasts. She hated her breasts, but she was too warm and lazy to resist him.

  Benedict was enchanted by the pale cups, each topped by a tiny, impossibly pink nipple. These were not the perfectly rounded breasts of statues. They had a shape all their own, and the fact that he was the only man in the world who would ever be allowed to see them made him very happy. The breastbone between them was as delicate as a birds. He walked his fingers down the miniature staircase, then back up again.

  “They’re smal
l,” she apologized.

  Tiny would have been the accurate word, but she had her pride.

  He played with her breasts for a long time, making the nipples erect, then feasting on them. They tasted as tart as wild strawberries. Finally, he settled down on top of her. She felt something massive and too hard to be flesh trapped against her belly.

  “Are you not going to undress?” she whispered.

  “No,” he said.

  He must have known she could no longer resist him, but he seemed to take a perverse sort of pleasure in denying himself. He laid on top of her, fully clothed. She could even feel his shoes hard against her naked feet. Her thighs were parted for him. She took him in her arms and he rested his head in the nook of her neck and shoulder.

  He didn’t kiss her.

  After an eternity, he got up and went to pour them both some brandy.

  She was suddenly furious with him. She sat up and pulled his shirt back up over her shoulders. It barely covered the soft triangle between her legs, but, at the moment, she didn’t know where the rest of her clothes were.

  “I suppose,” she said, “that nasty governess taught you that dirty little trick!”

  “What trick?” he asked innocently.

  Innocently!

  She refused to answer him. He knew perfectly well what she meant. She was obviously not the first woman he had ravished with his mouth.

  “Oh, that trick.” Smugly, he settled down on the sofa next to her with his brandy. He put his feet up on the ottoman as if he were putting the harmless piece of furniture back in its place. It really annoyed her that he hadn’t even taken his shoes off. “Actually,” he said airily, “I learned that at Eton. We practiced on fruit. Why do you think it’s called Eton?”

  She frowned at him.

  “What’s Eton?” she demanded, imagining a nightmarish place of unrestrained and unremitting debauchery.

  He laughed until he choked. Becoming frightened, she set down her glass and pounded him on the back, forgetting that she was naked. “Oh, my dearest girl,” he said fondly, when he had recovered. “I do adore you.”