Belle Read online

  He nodded approvingly as he examined the cottage’s modest entry hall, where the housemaid was accepting his hat and gloves. The decorator had done an exemplary job—subdued elegance with no hint of the garish furnishings he had ordered hauled away by the dustman. A proper setting for Lady—

  For Belle Ballard.

  For some ridiculous reason his heart raced as he followed the maid down a short corridor to a parlor at the back of the house. Most likely, Belle was waiting for him with gritted teeth, ready to take up their quarrel where they’d left off. Ready to cast his largesse into his teeth.

  Hell and the devil! She probably thought he’d sent her to Lady R solely to prepare her for the moment when he would deem her fit to be his—properly trained in every nuance of delight.

  The maid threw open the door to the parlor, revealing a room lit by firelight and one multi-branched candelabra placed on a small table next to the sofa. Gabe stood transfixed. The room’s soft glow burnished the blonde of Belle’s head and fully illumed a body garbed in layers of ethereal white. She was reclining on a sofa, the tips of silver slippers peeking out from beneath the soft fall of her skirt, one graceful arm draped over the back of the sofa, the other resting demurely in her lap. Sultry blue eyes gazed at him from beneath semi-lowered lashes, enhanced by a skillful application of kohl.

  Speechless, Gabe could only stare. He had anticipated a termagant and found the ultimate courtesan. Had he said to expect him for supper? Devil a bit, supper could wait. His cock had snapped to attention so eagerly it threatened to penetrate his pantaloons.

  Some part of him knew the housemaid had departed, discreetly leaving them alone. And yet . . . he must have swallowed his tongue, for no words came.

  “You are disappointed, my lord?”

  Hell, no!

  “Will you not be seated?” Belle continued in dulcet tones. “Not wishing to give Cook an apoplexy at her very first meal, I told her not to begin final preparations until after you arrived. I estimate we may enjoy a half hour of conversation before supper is served.”

  All he wanted to do was fuck and she was discussing kitchen matters? Gabe bit his lip to keep from groaning. Juliana Rivenhall. It was all her fault. He had purchased a trained courtesan and gotten exactly that. A beautiful, enticing young woman who could carry on a conversation, no matter how strained the circumstances.

  When he wanted a whore. Ready and willing, right now. This very minute.

  His cock crowed.

  “Belle,” he managed to croak, “I thought we might dine . . . later.”

  “Oh.” Clearly startled, she recovered quickly, sitting upright, her dainty slippers sliding down to touch the floor. “You wish to retire upstairs?” she inquired as if such a request were not at all a surprise. As if, in fact, she took his words as a personal compliment, the momentary flash of Lady Arabella totally submerged beneath the cool façade of Belle Ballard.

  Upstairs be damned. He wanted to do it right here, right now. The sofa, the rug—who cared?

  Lady Arabella. Virgin. Born and bred for better things than a cottage in St. John’s Woods.

  Gabe dropped into a nearby chair, plunging his head into his hands. “I beg your pardon,” he gasped. “I would not care to begin our association by insulting Cook.”

  Silence. The fire crackled. Soft footsteps. Flowing layers of white dropped down in front of him, small fingers grasped his hand. “Ashford,” she said softly, “this is your house. The servants yours. I am yours. I believe we both have wished the circumstances other than they are, but a bell cannot be unrung, there is no going back. I am yours to command. Even if you had never laid out a penny for me, I owe you a debt beyond what I can ever repay.”

  “No.” His head came up, his eyes staring straight into hers as she knelt before him. “I could not have stood by and let Pierrepont—”

  “The others did.”

  Gabe scowled. “Small wonder you’ve taken men in disgust.”

  A tiny smile flitted across her lips. “All but you,” she whispered. And suddenly the warmth of her fingers were gone from his. Both graceful hands were sliding up the inside of his thighs, reaching for the buttons of his flap. Gabe gulped, eyes widening. Not that other women of his acquaintance hadn’t . . . but not Arabella, the virgin.

  Yet this was Belle, graduate of The Aphrodite Academy.

  Well, hell, that nagging voice of honor, reason, and high ideals could go hang. Was this not exactly what he’d paid for?

  Cook could eat the dried-out food herself. He and Belle would dine on ambrosia.

  Drat! Belle, thoroughly frustrated, glared at Lord Ashford’s drawers. Lady R should have had her girls practice on actual garments instead of watch from a gallery. The buttons on the breeches were not difficult, but underneath . . . Mortified by her ignorance, Belle stared at fabric that appeared to have no opening. Perhaps the men Lady R used for demonstrations didn’t wear drawers . . .

  What on earth did men do when they needed to . . . When they wanted to . . .

  She heard a chuckle and felt herself turning puce.

  “Defeated already, little virgin?”

  “At least my virgin fumbling assures you are getting what you paid for,” Belle shot back, before her vow to behave caught up with her tongue.

  “Now there’s the girl I remember,” Ashford declared. “Allow me.” He loosened what appeared to be a drawstring, did a slight wriggle, and out popped an appendage so large and ramrod stiff that Belle could only stare. The men Lady R employed were well-endowed, but from the gallery their manly parts had not seemed so huge. Belle gaped, swallowing hard. Courtesan, courtesan. She was a trained courtesan of supposedly superb skills and must maintain a worldly façade to match.

  “Look all you want,” Ashford added with an indulgent smile. “A virgin is entitled to preparation for the moment to come. I’ve often wondered how many poor girls were shocked out of their wits on their wedding nights. We English tend to train our young women for every household skill but the most important one.”

  Knowing what went where and in how many different ways had not prepared her for this. For his–ah–manly part stabbing the air only inches from her face. Nor the sacks of flesh that dangled—bollocks was the word used in the Academy’s anatomy class—beneath a mat of dark curly hair. Hastily, Belle returned her attention to his rod, where a drop of moisture glistened. Rod. The staff of life. Was that it then, the bit of liquid that made babies? Fascinated, Belle reached out a finger and scooped it up.

  Gabriel stiffened. His hand shot out, fingers freezing in a stiff claw an inch above her arm. “Belle . . .” He swallowed hard, began again. “I don’t expect any Frenchie tricks from you. Just look, satisfy your curiosity. If you do more, this evening may be over before it’s begun.”

  Belle fixed her gaze on the carpet, her brow furrowed in a frown. How very odd. Had touching not been their very first lesson?

  Yet Holly and Cecy had been shocked. Therefore . . . was playing with a man’s penis truly an act seldom practiced by Englishmen? Englishwomen, she amended quickly, more than a bit shocked by the vision she had conjured out of thin air. Ah! But perhaps that was the answer. It seemed quite possible the death penalty for sodomy could easily account for the British gentleman’s aversion to cock sucking.

  A shame, Belle thought with a sigh. For it was such a simple way to pleasure a man without risk of . . . consequences. Without offering her body to be touched. By him. A touch that would inevitably shatter her, turning her to chattel, with no hope of freedom until he tired of her. Possibly not even then. The moment the tables were turned and he touched her, she was lost forever. She knew it.

  Belle sat back on her heels, hands clasped primly in her lap. Slowly, she raised her gaze up his tight-fitting pantaloons to the drooping flap framing the sack of wrinkled flesh that held the seeds of life—Lady R’s lessons on the subject of men’s private parts had been quite thorough—and finally to the astoundingly engorged spear that jutted straight up, loo
king almost painfully erect. On up, over shirt, waistcoat, and cravat, to Ashford’s face, which appeared . . . strained, anxious, puzzled? But not loverlike. Not the face of a man caught up in passion. Of course, Belle reasoned, the people Lady R used in the Academy’s sexual exhibitions were likely accomplished actors as well as lovers . . . She bit her lip, heaved a sigh. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “Lord Ashford,” she declared, as formally as if they were taking tea in a Mayfair drawing room, “you took me to Lady Rivenhall, where I learned a remarkable number of wondrous things. Some of which might be new, even to a man of your considerable experience.” Blast! Was that amusement she now saw glinting in his steel gray eyes? Belle gulped and forged ahead. “I am aware of the fortune you have spent to acquire my services. So whyever would you ask me to stop doing what I have been taught to do?”

  Ashford pressed fingers into his forehead, hiding his expression. Belle’s eyes grew wide in horror as his manly part wilted. Oh no! He hadn’t been with her half an hour and already she was a failure.

  Into the awkward silence he said, “Belle?”

  “Yes, my lord?”

  A sudden snort. Disgust? Exasperation? “Good God, girl, here we sit with my roger in your face. The least you can do is call me Gabriel.”

  Belle, too choked up to answer, nodded.

  “Tell me, Lady Arabella,” he mocked, “how do you think I feel accepting the services of a young woman who was born into the ton, no matter how much I may have paid for her? The daughter of a titled gentleman who is an acquaintance of mine?”

  “Do not call him a gentleman!”

  Ashford pounced, his fingers leaving his face to reveal features hardened by rising anger. “Ah! At last we have fire instead of duty. Seize it, Belle, hold it tight. Fire—passion—will serve you far better than all the skills you learned from Lady R.”

  “I think not.”

  “Foolish virgin, you would argue with me?”

  Belle shrugged. “I suppose we have both had thoughts about what we would do if we had that night to do over again, and as for myself, save for the miracle of being born into a different family, I would not change a thing. I could not stay with Pierrepont, I had no relatives who would shelter me. I did not wish to live out my life in the obscurity of the country—for which there is no one to blame but myself. So I am here. We are here. And you should know,” she added more quietly and with only a slight quaver in her voice, “that I am pleased to be here and do not do what I do solely because you have paid for me.”

  Which was only the merest hint of how she felt. Her heart thudded, her breath caught in her throat, threatening to choke her. Her breasts tingled, her female parts cried with longing. For him. Yet his poor appendage was now shriveled to a fraction of its former self. After all he had done for her . . . after all she felt for him, it had come to this.

  Belle hung her head. What to do, what to do?

  Fingers. Touching her hair. Ever so gently. “I am a stubborn, narrow-minded Englishman, Belle, a true product of my class and my education. But now that you have pointed out my failings, who am I to argue with the expertise of The Aphrodite Academy? So show me, ma belle fille. I grant you leave to show me all you have learned.”

  Chapter 12

  Panic crashed through her. Did he really mean it? How many times had Lady R reminded them that Englishmen might set up mistresses for pleasures they would not dream of indulging in with their wives, but the truth was, they lacked imagination. They tended to be stuffy, even stodgy, requiring the female—though never their wives—to come up with the innovations which turned them into slavering puppies, panting to come back for more.

  But Ashford?

  She had been too bold. She should have waited, assumed the role of complete innocent. The vulnerable virgin quivering in the face of her lover’s desires.

  But this was Ashford, her hero. Whom she adored. Who better to benefit from all she had learned? So she had panicked, offering the one thing she knew Englishman shunned, the one thing that might be new to him.

  The more the fool, she!

  Too late now. Tonight she would make it good for him. Even if he chucked her out in the morning.

  Belle took a deep breath, pulling in the scent of him, filling herself with his essence. Oh yes, this was Ashford. Her savior, as well as the contentious gentleman from Vauxhall Gardens. And now—at least for the moment—all hers. The excitement, the tingling anticipation in her most private places came rushing back. Now was the time to show him she was worth keeping. That they were born to be together.

  That his investment was worth every penny of the price.

  Belle brushed her fingers over his bollocks. A sudden intake of breath, his cock stirred. Ah! She allowed her fingers to drift through his dark curls—so stiff compared to the silky look of the artfully disarranged hair on his head. Back to his bollocks for a featherlight squeeze. A sharper susurration exploded through his lips, his cock began to grow. For a moment Belle paused, fascinated by the phenomenon. Incredible. It was almost as if it had a life of its own. Two heads, Lady R had said, but only one with a lick of sense.

  What would happen if she touched it?

  Tentatively, she reached out, placing two fingers against the base of the slowly unfolding wrinkled skin. Soft. Warm. Enticing.

  And where had that thought come from? How could such an odd-looking appendage be enticing?

  A challenge, that’s what it was. Belle ran her fingers along the length of his damp flesh. Was that a soft groan of pleasure she heard? Good. She walked her fingers back down to his dark nest of curls, closed her hand around him, and stroked back up.

  “Hell!”

  Startled, Belle sat back on her heels, eyes wide, hands crunched together in her lap.

  “No, no, don’t stop.” He grabbed her hand, set it back in place. A frozen tableau for several moments before Ashford added, “I was merely startled by the extent of Lady R’s teachings. I apologize if I startled you.”

  Extent? She’d barely begun. At least he seemed to be pleased.

  A few more strokes . . . Belle lips curled in satisfaction as his male organ shot to attention, its full length extended, the flesh beneath the satin soft skin rock hard. No matter how many times she had seen an engorged penis, and no matter what orifice of the body it entered, the process never failed to amaze her. From small and floppy to a jutting sword, as if by magic.

  And now the moment of truth. Female power or abject failure?

  Belle bent her head and licked moisture from the tip. A gurgle, closer to a croak echoed above her head. Not a no, definitely not a no. Slowly, carefully—this was, after all, her very first time of doing anything but watch—Belle took him into her mouth. A lick here, lips pressing against him there. Struggling to keep her teeth away from sensitive flesh.

  A hand clasped the back of her head, strong fingers fisting in her hair. Belle’s brain went blank. Was this Stop?

  He wasn’t pulling her away. So . . . She tried to picture the woman she’d seen at Thornhill Manor. What had she done after she seemed to swallow her partner’s great shaft? In and out? Yes, that was it, just like sex. Belle moved her head, sliding her lips up the length of him, then back down. Ashford groaned. Satisfied, though still worried, Belle did it again, this time allowing herself to taste him, to wonder at the burgeoning warmth inside herself, the breathlessness that wasn’t wholly anxiety.

  His hand tightened, pressing her head down hard as he seized the initiative, pounding into her mouth again and again, and again. His body convulsed. One last thrust, a muffled cry, his hand fell away. Belle was left with a wilted nothing that slid through her lips and a mouthful of—

  A white handkerchief dangled before her eyes. As she cleaned herself, suddenly embarrassed to the depth of her being, she heard the most amazing words: “Pray thank Lady R for such thorough instruction of her pupils.”

  She blinked, her gaze flying up to Ashford’s face for the first time in several minutes. Fort
unately, he had the look of a man well satisfied, not the glower of a man who was about to toss her into the street as a bad bargain. As he slipped his manly parts back inside his drawers and began to rebutton his pantaloons, Belle summoned the most blasé tone she could manage and asked, “Shall I tell Cook she may serve supper?”

  Ashford’s lips curled into a wry smile as he fastened the last button. “Please do. After that bit of exercise, I need to recoup my strength so I can show you a few tricks of my own.”

  Belle gulped. Some men consider once an evening enough. Others have greater stamina. Lady R’s words rang in her head. Her escape had been short-lived. Ashford—Gabriel—would soon discover just how malleable was the clay beneath his property’s carefully cultivated worldly façade.

  Supper would forever remain a mystery. They might have had soup, they might not. A fish course? Belle had a vague recollection of prawns in butter, but had she eaten so much as one? For the life of her, she could not recall. A whiff of the meat course had set her stomach to churning so badly she thought she might disgrace herself by having to run from the room. She had toyed with the slices Ashford put on her plate, moving them from one position to another, all the time avoiding his eyes, which she could feel boring into her as he brought up one topic of conversation after another, only to elicit nothing but the most stilted responses.

  Her stilted responses. The responses of a highly trained courtesan who was supposed to excel at conversation on any topic from horses to politics. She was even expected to be knowledgeable about boxing cant and fencing. And the code duello. And here she sat like a great lump, flunking her second great test when she was still unsure of the outcome of the first. She rather feared that, no matter how much Ashford might have enjoyed it, she had shocked him to the core.