Royal Regard

Chapter Fourteen, Part 1

Michelle tugged absently on the sparse curls on Adolphe's chest, her face on his shoulder, body tucked under his arm, while he gently stroked her hair. Their limbs were tangled, bodies and heat ensconced behind the forest-green tapestry bed curtains in one of his manor house guest chambers: not his room, nor hers. Both were nude, still sticky with sweat.

After hours of lovemaking, her hair was rumpled and matted, the paint on her face disarrayed, cheeks beard-burned, lips kiss-swollen. Adolphe could imagine no sight more striking than Michelle after a long day of pleasing him.

For her part, she couldn't help touching the long scratches down her sides and the bruises on her wrists and throat. His features were relaxed and body loose, hair tousled, falling unevenly without pomade.

"Every time, Monseigneur, vous êtes extraordinaire," she said, as she kissed him lightly, just above his nipple.

"You may call me by my name tonight, my sweet." She mouthed it silently, as though tasting a delicacy. "You are most entertaining," he chuckled. "I have hardly considered my troubles at all this day."

He opened the curtains on his side of the bed to encourage a breeze, brass rings sliding loosely along the canopy rail. "Light a candle and open the window, Michelle. It will rain tonight, and I want the sea air to clear the stink of London from my nose."

She opened the bed curtains and sat up. She used the tinder tube to light a rapeseed oil lamp, glowing red in the darkened room. Stepping to the window, hips swaying in the way she knew best enticed him, she said, "Why do you not come home to stay, Dofi? You say you dislike London, but you are there but for a few days each month. The air here is clean, and you can see France from your bedchamber. I see you renewed when you visit the cliffs. Your troubles fall away."

She opened the shuttered casement window, setting the latch to keep it open, then tied back the drapes. Walking back, she bounced just enough on her toes to set her breasts swinging, nipples hardening in the cool wind.

When she was almost to the bed, he said, "Stop." She pulled her foot back from the step she was about to take. "You have the face of a crone, ma petite, but in this low light, still the body of a girl. Turn for me," he demanded, twirling his finger to demonstrate. She turned her back to him, looking over her shoulder playfully. "Bend over and spread your legs. Show me your derrière."

She bent at the hips, giving him the view he craved: her striped, welted, and scarred flanks, bruised with today's handprints and fingertip bruises, scars years old, every one with a salacious story he could tell. He leaned over the mattress, ran his fingers up her leg, then sharp fingernails down the back of her thigh across the rising welts, making her stumble. She quickly regained her position and bent further with a sigh that could have been frustrated or contented or both.

He growled, "Come back to bed, my lovely little whore. It is a chilly night, and I would have you keep me warm."

He said nothing until she was once more in his arms. As she tugged the blanket up, he stopped her, rubbing his free hand along her arm, using his thumb and index finger to pinch her nipples lightly, then harder, using his nails until she keened. He fell back onto his pillow, pulling her closer, covering them both with the blanket.

"I have reason to remain in London for the moment."

He could hear the sneer in her voice. "Madame la Comtesse."

He yanked her head back by the hair at the nape of her neck, and listened to her gasp, his cock hardening again, the third time since he had returned to Dover five hours ago. "Oui, Madame la Comtesse. Soon Madame la Duchesse. I grow tired of repeating myself, ma chère. You will show respect for my wife, or I will have no need to keep you once I have married."

"I am sorry, Dofi. I mean no insult."

The lines around his mouth deepened. "Monseigneur will do." The tiniest of whimpers objected when he took back the gift of the name she had given him in childhood.

Satisfied with her fearful apology and his continuing lesson in proper deference, he dropped her head and caressed her hair again, and she snuggled closer to his side, letting her hand drift down his stomach, falling gingerly on his hip, close enough to stroke him if he commanded it, far enough away she couldn't be accused of taking liberties. She risked a sensual kiss behind his ear, and he turned his head to allow it.

"She responds well to your suit, Monseigneur?"

His hand dropped heavily to her shoulder. "She is charmed, but I must make her want to elope the moment her meddling husband is gone. She would have fallen in love before now if not for his interference," he snarled. "The old fool is minutes from death, and still he makes plans to thwart me."

"Does he not see the honor of his wife becoming une Duchesse de France?"

"He would prefer to consign her to a convent." His tone rasped as he explained, "Like the rest of les goddams, he has no love for Frenchmen, and like every bourgeois tradesman, is envious of nobility."

Fingertip twisting in the curly hairs on his thigh, she tucked her head close, burrowing against his shoulder, inhaling his scent. Shifting his hip under her fingertips signaled a small reconciliation. For a lifetime, she had been allowed more freedom with his person than other women, especially after she pleased him so thoroughly, but the indulgence was never guaranteed.

"And I am sure," he spat, "he has no wish to be cuckolded by a man who can screw her better than he, with his limp, old man's prick."

She moaned her agreement in his ear and gently nibbled the side of his neck until he tugged her mouth away by her hair. She settled her cheek against his shoulder before asking, "Does she not have other suitors? Is her fortune not appealing?"

For a moment, he was silent, listening to the wind whip around the corners of the house, considering the question he had been asking himself: whether any of the sycophantic fortune hunters sniffing at Lady Huntleigh's assets posed a real threat. "Only Wellbridge might seduce her readily, but once she has no husband and is draped in black, he will abandon the field. He has no need for money and will soon tire of la comtesse begging his attentions."

Her head came right off his shoulder. "You cannot want a woman who soils herself with an Englishman."

He laughed with a deep rasp, tweaking her nose. "I still want you, mon chaton, and you have soiled yourself with Frenchmen, Prussians, Turks, Venetians, probably even Gypsies." Her body tensed, so he allowed his fingertips to drift down her neck, across her shoulder. "Let him tumble her."

Michelle twisted her leg around his, chilly toes toying with his ankle.

"He can be her atonement for compelling me to dance attendance, as though she is worthy of my notice. I am sure Wellbridge is no dunce in the bedchamber. Let her know ecstasy once and she will feel the lack for a lifetime." Adolphe relished Michelle's quiet whining at the unwelcome thought of feeling his lack. "He will drop her in the gutter when he is sated; she is too whey-faced to keep as a mistress. La comtesse could not make me hard with both hands and a rope."