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An Excerpt From: ENLIGHTENING LUCINDA
Copyright © M.A. Ellis, 2008
All Rights Reserved,
Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.
Chapter
One
“Barnaby, darling. Bring your hand
a smidge farther down the barrel.”
“Like this, milady?”
“Perfect.” Lucinda smiled, rolling
the bristles of the thinly tapered brush into the dollop of white paint at the
bottom of her palette. She glanced from her canvas to Barnaby and back once
more before highlighting a bulge of rippling muscle with a quick stroke.
The drawn-out creak of the heavy
oak door echoed through the sunny room and she silently prayed for patience.
Her predominantly female staff had spent the last week inventing reason upon
reason for entering her studio. Truly, she could hardly blame them. Her model
was a decidedly delicious specimen.
“No time for tea, Mrs. Darsley. I’m
at a rather major apex at the moment.”
Footsteps, muffled by the somewhat
worn rug, continued to advance. A rush of warm breath tickled the back of
Lucinda’s neck, offering a second’s warning before a large, strong hand came to
rest upon her waist.
“That couldn’t possibly be
considered this side of major, my lady.” A familiar deep tone whispered
near her ear, the buttery voice sending a shiver through Lucinda’s body. One
she craftily covered by a dramatic shrug of her shoulders but not before the
sexy timbre had all but curled her toes.
“I’ve only your word as proof,
Gideon,” she replied with an exaggerated sigh.
His thumb rubbed teasingly against
her lowest rib, causing a gradation of heat to roll through her suddenly tense
form. His touches had become more frequent within the last month, bolder than
what society would deem acceptable. His hand stole away, but not before his
fingers trailed over her lower back and Lucinda turned her head to hide her
smile. Ah, yes. Unacceptability.
It was a trait they mutually admired.
Gideon was a bit improper and as
such, he never once questioned what the tittering society matrons and their
equally unamused spouses considered Lucinda’s lack of decorum. He championed
her taking an interest in what were now her vast land holdings. He stood by her
side when she told her late husband’s male family members that she needed not a
single one of them to take their place as head of her household. He hadn’t even
raised a brow when she took the daring step of cropping her long, auburn
tresses and throwing the strands into the wind.
Most importantly, in her quest for
independence, he had not dissuaded her when she made her intentions known to
him and her most trustworthy staff that she was through painting insipid still
lifes, choosing to embrace subjects a bit more controversial than bowls of
fruit and strategically arranged flora. The only time he had balked at her
unconventional choices was when he viewed the inaugural painting. Gideon had
covered his shock quite well. But then, men of his restrained demeanor
generally did.
“Do you think I have the angle of
the pheasant correct?” she asked with feigned innocence.
“I do fancy myself a worldly
fellow, Lucinda.” His lips hovered near her cheek, his heated whisper a soft
caress that caused her breasts to swell beneath the fabric of her gown. He
boldly brushed an unruly curl behind the shell of her ear with the tip of his
nose and she closed her eyes as her nipples hardened. She waited, hoping that
he might rise above his deep-seated sense of honorability and touch her—as a
worldly man might touch a young, desirable woman.
“In this case,” he said, taking a
step back. “I have no earthly idea if I should say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’.”
Lucinda exhaled the breath she had
been holding. Free of the permeating distraction of his body heat, she reined in
her libidinous thoughts.
“So you’ve never been pleasured by
a cock?”
A gasp echoed from her model’s lips
and she jerked her attention his way.
“Gently, Barnaby,” she quickly
ordered. The man was clutching the feather-covered stocking full of corn tightly
to his crotch with such force she feared it might burst. “We need our faux bird
to look recently alive and not something the dogs had a go at.”
“Really, Lucinda,” Gideon scolded,
a trace of humor in his voice. She hadn’t shocked him at all.
He strolled around her left side
and stood before her, his handsomely attired frame effectively blocking her
view of the all-but-naked Barnaby. Gideon brushed an errant lock of jet-black
hair from his forehead and arched one equally dark brow.
“How is it you know of such things,
my lady? Which of your maids has been spinning tales best left silent?”
Lucinda’s gaze roamed across his
broad shoulders and then over the front of his pristine white shirt. Somewhere
betwixt the front door and her studio he had shed his sack coat and she gave a
little sigh, pleased he rebelled against the formality of a waistcoat unless
one was stringently required. It made him all the more enticing.
He crossed his arms over his chest,
the starched fabric covering his biceps straining in a manner one rarely saw
from a man of his station. She fantasized about those arms, having once been
privy to their naked splendor when Thurmond had dragged her along to the
“Allow poor Barnaby his leave. Your
work is clearly finished for the day,” Gideon said in a somewhat amused voice
and she forced her gaze to his face. The strong angles were more than alluring
but it was the wry quirk of his full mouth that caused a jolt of liquid heat to
roll through her abdomen and settle in her cleft.
He gave her a slow, wicked grin—one
that suggested he discerned her exact thoughts. “Your audacity has shocked the
poor boy into flaccidness, my dear.”
Lucinda blinked, peering around
Gideon’s large frame. She watched Barnaby’s grimace as he peeked under the fake
pheasant.
Lucinda sighed heavily and set her
palette and brush aside. “You may go, Barnaby. Tomorrow at ten?”
“Ten, milady,” he said in an
obviously relieved tone. He wrapped a sheet around his waist, inclining his
head in their direction before walking behind the screen at the far end of the
room where he would change and leave through the side entrance.
Lucinda went about cleaning her
brushes, knowing all the while Gideon’s soft gray-green gaze followed her every
move. It was quite unnerving at times and a great deal similar to the exotic
snow leopard she had once seen at the zoo—a beautiful and patient beast, yet
one prone to pouncing without warning. She continued to wait for Gideon to
leap, to roll her beneath the weight of his powerful body.
She felt her cheeks heat and
attempted to focus on something other than the man who had haunted her dreams
both day and night, month upon month. Dreams that had left her skin damp with
sweat and the juncture of her thighs slick and throbbing. Dreams that, it
appeared with each passing day, would not be fulfilled, at least not by Gideon.
While she owed not one whit of loyalty to Thurmond’s memory, it was evident
that Gideon did not feel the same.
She gave the brush a final tap,
undid her paint-stained frock and tossed it aside. She turned, taken aback by
the fierce look on Gideon’s face.
“One day more of those lackluster
threads,” he said gruffly as his gaze roamed over her ensemble.
“Yes. I’m so looking forward to the
daring leap to crepe-trimmed black silk,” she said sardonically.
“Equally depressing,” he agreed,
his eyes softening as they met hers. “But not quite as dull.”
She snorted, unable to agree. She
longed for the brilliant hues and sumptuous fabrics of the gowns being stored
until the prescribed length of mourning was at an end.
“And what would you see me in when
I drop my widow’s wear?” she asked, arms outstretched, secretly hoping his
request would be to see her in nothing at all.
“I’m sure you and your
conspiratorial staff have given that a great deal of thought. It’s certain you
do not need my input,” he said, offering her a suddenly benign smile.
He is truly too much!
The man could deflect a flirtation like none other. It rankled and she doubled
her efforts.
“Frankly, I’m anxious to
concentrate on what I shall not be wearing…with whom I’ll not be wearing it.”
She gave a slow smile, pleased at the way his jaw clenched before he pulled
forth his ever-present calm and cleared his throat.
“Will you require my assistance in
arranging transport of the painting?” His voice was suddenly quite businesslike
as he diverted her comment.
Lucinda chuckled. Two could play at
the art of deflection. “You’re quite transparent Gideon.”
“Am I?” he asked, his voice
dropping.
“Indeed. This is the first time I
have not shared the name of my patron and while you’ve garnered high marks for
showing restraint and not asking whom it might be, I know you’re most curious
to discover the commissioner. Do not deny it, Gideon.”
“I’m far from interested in who
finds the notion of running the feathers of a dead bird against his burgeoning
prick so erotic that the image need be immortalized in oil,” he said
matter-of-factly.
She paid his coarse language little
heed. “I believe I once read feathers brushed against one’s skin can be highly
stimulating.”
The lines around his mouth
tightened and Lucinda gave herself a mental ovation for deftly turning their
conversation exactly where she needed it to be.
She closed the distance between
them and smiled sweetly. “I want the journal, Gideon.” She smoothed the fabric
covering his shoulders, drawing her fingers down the crisp points of his collar
before boldly sweeping her fingers across his chest, raising her eyes to his
when she felt his muscles twitch.
“Do you think that best?” His query
was barely audible. It was clear he found her demand unwise.
“You know I do. I’ve asked
repeatedly and you’ve held me at bay with the greatest aplomb. My full mourning
ends tomorrow and any misguided sentiment that my constitution can not survive
the contents, due to my grave upset over Thurmond’s passing, will be put to
rest. We both know it was a pitiful excuse on your part from the start, Gideon,
but I allowed it because I had no wish to upset you. But I now desire to read
each and every page, to see what delights I might have experienced had Thurmond
had the inclination—which we both know he did not.
“And while I’ll continue to
outwardly adhere to society’s dictate of another twelve months of bereavement
for a man who would have had not a single soul questioning him for seeking
companionship had it been my body lowered under the sod, I have no intention of
denying myself the fullest of life’s pleasures any longer.”
* *
* * *
Gideon halted at the bottom of the
steps and straightened his coat. He ground his molars, attempting not to loose
a stream of obscenities that would most definitely send the female passersby
into fits of the vapors.
“By Christ and all that is holy,”
he muttered, setting foot toward home. Lucinda—his friend— drove him to an extent of madness which became worse with
each passing minute. The woman was insufferable. Hardheaded. Determined.
Completely unconventional…and too beautiful to be ignored.
When she had bent over her desk,
the curves of her lush ass faintly outlined by the drab garb she was compelled
to wear, his cock had all but begged him to take her then and there—silencing
her obstinate raving with one deep thrust. How easily he could have flipped up
her skirts and teased his way into her softness. A softness that had been
untouched for over a year and before that, if Thurmond’s drunken ramblings were
fact, a pussy that had merely received a dutiful and quick fuck now and again
in a pitiful attempt to produce an heir.
Gideon walked briskly across the
street, memories of the blindsiding moment when his partner had told him he
would seek a bride rushing through his mind. His shock had doubled when he’d
learned Thurmond’s intended was an unknown cousin from some familial estate far
to the west.
His disbelief had increased—on a
very sunny morning months later, a thoroughly disheveled and undeniably
still-drunken Thurmond had staggered into Gideon’s study and begged him to meet
his betrothed at the train station in his stead—as he had watched Lucinda step
down from the rail car. Her beauty and innocent grin had knocked the breath
from him. Her lilting laugh had made him, a man prone to stoicism, smile in
return.
He had been prepared to find
objection with her at first sight. In fact, he had convinced himself she was
quite possibly an opportunistic relative intent on nothing more than enhancing
her family’s meager coffers at the expense of his friend’s freedom. But before
he had deposited Lucinda, and the young maid who accompanied her, on the
doorstep of her dowager aunt’s home, he’d recognized his misconception. Lucinda
had not one ounce of subterfuge in her entire being.
If truth be told, he had become
enamored with her that very day. Memories of how her deep blue eyes had widened
when he had taken her gloved hand and brought her knuckles to his lips remained
quite vivid. He had waited with her on the stoop, her hand trembling as she pulled
it free of his grasp. Just before the door opened he had promised her his
assistance. A man whose word was never brought into question, he had aided
Lucinda in every way possible. All but the one every heated fiber of his being
urged him to offer. The one that would have him breaching his personal code of
allegiance.
Gideon took his front steps two at
a time and wiggled his key into the lock. He would not linger on what bit of
providence had him giving his staff a much-deserved week off, but he was pleased
there would be no one there to cringe from his utterly foul mood. With the exception of Haynes who, if Gideon
knew anything about his driver’s habits, and he knew them well, was probably in
the courtyard diverting the duties of the buxom widow who arrived twice weekly
to tidy up. Gideon could bellow to the heavens and Haynes would care naught.
Gideon stalked into his study,
shrugging out of his jacket and dropping it carelessly over the arm of a wing
chair. With jerking movements he undid the buttons at his neck before wrenching
the links at his wrists free. He was hot. The fire kindling in his balls
beginning to spread as it always did when he failed to push thoughts of Lucinda
from his mind.
He yanked the bottom drawer of his
desk open and pulled the journal forth, placing its spine flat against the
leather desktop, allowing the covers to fall open as they would. He leaned
forward, palms flat as he studied the intricate drawing and neatly printed
text, knowing with deep certainty that Lucinda had never viewed the pages that
had randomly opened to his perusal.
He recalled the day shortly after
Thurmond’s demise when he and Lucinda had been in the library going through the
man’s business effects. He alerted at her intake of breath and turned sharply,
immediately recognizing what had caused her shock. He’d whisked the volume from
her hands but not before she’d grasped what it contained. She had first
demanded. Then, intelligent woman that she was, her tone had turned to a
request. She’d done everything but beg. To no avail. The slim volume had never
been meant for her eyes and he had told her such.
He looked down at the ink
renderings and shifted against his growing erection. The drawings were finely
detailed, right down to each curly, glistening pubic hair. It was far too easy
to imagine it was his fingers pulling back the little cape of skin hidden below
the curls, that the soft, slick folds of womanly flesh beneath the tiny exposed
kernel belonged to Lucinda. The mere thought made his cock unbearably hard and
he closed his eyes.
The lady would not relent. She
rarely did when she truly desired something. Her nature did not warrant
ignorance in any measure. She would never be satisfied until she learned all.
He admired each and every one of those qualities…when properly placed. But the
way his logical, albeit lust-filled mind reckoned, he was presented with
absolutely no choice. As it were, he was destined to burn in Hades for coveting
his friend’s wife. What harm in sealing his eternal fate?
He flipped the slender volume shut,
splaying his fingers over the cover. Her ladyship would soon find out every bit
of knowledge the journal had to impart. But not by studying its pages in the
soft evening light at her lakeside estate with young Barnaby as her devoted instructor.
She would learn her lessons well. And her proficiency would be tested. By
Gideon. And none other.