Jessie's Jewels [Submissive Sirens 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

Submissive Sirens 2

Jessie’s Jewels

Lady Jessamy Cumberland values her independence, and she won’t give it up for anybody. Well, she might be persuaded to compromise for some steamy sex, especially if the sex involves her scrumptious butler and dashing neighbor, the duke…but it won’t be forever. Will it?

Jessamy can’t ignore her feelings for either man, and she goes willingly down the garden path that leads to a BDSM fantasy with all the trimmings.

Liam Douglas has worked as a butler for Lady Jessamy for years, and he’s tired of ignoring his feelings for her. It’s complicated, though, because he’s also tired of hiding his feelings for the duke.

His Grace, Duke Gabriel Hartley, is a self-confessed pervert. A Dom by nature, the duke wants Jessamy and Liam in his bed, and he’s willing to do what it takes to get them there.

Will lust be enough when a mysterious threat arises?

Genre:
Contemporary, Menage a Trois/Quatre

Length:
63,079 words
 

Submissive Sirens 2

Charlotte Smith

MENAGE AMOUR

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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JESSIE’S JEWELS

Copyright © 2012 by Charlotte Smith

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-182-5

First E-book Publication: September 2012

Cover design by Jinger Heaston

All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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Jessie’s Jewels
 
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JESSIE’S JEWELS

Submissive Sirens 2

Charlotte Smith

Copyright © 2012

Lady Jessamy Cumberland was cranky. She was very conscious, as she stared at her reflection in her dressing table mirror, that
cranky
was not a word her late mother would have approved she use.
Cross
, perhaps, would have been more acceptable to Lady Catherine, or
ill-tempered
. Jessie could picture her mother’s face becoming pinched at her daughter’s use of common language, a long-suffering sigh escaping Lady Catherine’s small, thin-lipped mouth.

Good thing she’s not here to hear it, Jessie thought with a grimace. Her mother had died nine years ago, when Jessie had been all of nineteen. And Jessie was honest enough with herself to admit her mother wasn’t missed much, by her or anyone else.

Jessie smiled a little, stretching her arms above her head and luxuriating in the knowledge that she could be as cranky as she wanted. She pursed her mouth, looking around the room behind her for a way of venting her grumpy mood. Her eyes lighted on an oversized pillow on the floor beside her bed—she must have missed it when she made the bed after getting up this morning. Jessie rose, circling around the pillow and stalking it like prey. She stooped down, plumping it for a moment before standing straight and deciding on a trajectory.

“Ha!” Jessie shouted, kicking the pillow across the room. “Take that!”

Satisfied, Jessie flounced back to her dressing table and sat staring at her reflection once more. Her reflection stared back at her, and Jessie winced at the moodiness her reflection displayed.
Damn. I really do look cranky.

She sighed as she passed a hand over her eyes. If she looked cranky, she had good reason. The daughter of a lesser-known English marquess, Jessie was the last of their family line. After her mother’s death almost a decade before, the title had fallen to her brother, Christopher, and Christopher had wasted no time burning through family money, reducing their estate almost to name only. Hell, she’d even tried to escape her family by getting married. It hadn’t worked—the wedding didn’t happen—and she grimaced as she remembered how that had gone.

Her brother was dead, too, Jessie reminded herself. He’d gambled their fortune away, drinking like a fish and developing a taste for more exotic forms of entertainment, ultimately succumbing to a heroin overdose two years ago and leaving Jessie alone.

Now she felt the weight of her title like a burden. After settling her brother’s impressive debts and paying off the last of her mother’s medical bills—bills her brother hadn’t thought to pay before indulging himself in liquor and drugs—Jessie had been left with little more than enough to pay the servants’ salaries before dismissing them. She’d written them all fine letters of reference and had tried to keep track of them long enough to make sure they all landed on their feet, securing employment with other titled or wealthy families. In all honesty, she hadn’t been able to, and it broke her heart that her staff—her real family, as far as she was concerned—were scattered all over Great Britain. Many of them had cried when they left. Jessie certainly had, because amidst the clusterfuck of illness and addiction surrounding her, the servants had been a better family to her than her own blood. The only servant she’d retained had been Liam.

Jessie slammed out of her chair, walked to her closet, and grabbed riding clothes carelessly off their hangers. She’d kept Liam, and it had been both the best and worst decision of her life.

She’d had to keep him, because he simply wouldn’t leave. He’d sat in her office, his arms crossed across his massive chest and his long legs stretched in front of him, booted feet planted firmly on the floor. Jessie remembered the butterflies in her stomach and the way her gut had clenched, and she had to admit it wasn’t just because she had to turn him away. She’d had a crush on him since he’d started working for her family, and it made her even more miserable to have to tell him she couldn’t afford to pay him any longer.

Jessie had tried to dismiss him, tried to explain that she could no longer afford to pay him his wages. He’d listened patiently, not batting an eye and smiling encouragingly when her voice faltered and her eyes welled up. It seemed to Jessie that Liam always smiled. His smile was like a ray of sunshine, and her life seemed to always be raining. Well
,
Jessie reminded herself with a snort, I do live in fricking England.
It pretty much
is
always raining
.

When she’d finished, she sat staring at her hands, waiting for him to get up and leave. He was the last of the servants she had to let go, and she had the hardest time saying good-bye to him. When he didn’t move so much as a muscle, Jessie looked back up at him and saw that he was watching her intently. And then he started to speak.

* * * *

“Why do you think you need to let me go?” Liam looked at Jessie curiously, his grey eyes grave with concern. His Scots burr always sounded so musical, his gravelly voice dripping over the syllables like honey.

Jessie drew a painful breath. This one was harder than the others, she assumed, because Liam had always looked out for her. And it didn’t hurt that he’d hated Christopher as much as she had at the end of her brother’s life.

“Lady Jessamy?” he prompted her, reminding her that she really had to do this.

“Liam, I’m sorry. I can’t afford to keep you on.” Jessie went for broke, figuring honesty was the only thing that would work with him. “Christopher burned through everything we have. Right now I have the manor and everything in it, but my reality is that I’ll have to sell some things—or everything—if I hope to survive. I have enough for myself, but I just can’t afford to keep anyone on. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Liam listened, his sensual mouth turning down at the corners. “Your brother spent everything?”

Jessie laughed bitterly, leaning back and running a hand through her long dark hair. “What he didn’t spend when he was alive has to be given to his creditors. He still owes a huge amount, and I need to pay it.”

Liam uncrossed his arms, leaning forward. “That bastard is still ruining you from the grave.”

Jessie sighed wearily. “Maybe so, but I have to deal with it.” She looked him squarely in the face, deliberately hardening her voice. “Liam, I’m sorry. It’s not like I have any other options. I’ll write you an excellent letter, make sure you find work with another family...”

Jessie trailed off as Liam held a hand up.

“You’ll do no such thing. I don’t intend to be going anywhere.”

Jessie stared at him, not sure where he was going with this. “Liam, aren’t you listening? I can’t pay you.”

Liam was shaking his head. “Tell me, Lady Jessamy, are you afraid of hard work?”

He’s lost his mind
. That was the only explanation Jessie could think of. “Excuse me?” She injected her voice with every aristocratic shard of ice she could manage, which wasn’t inconsiderable. She was a Cumberland, after all.

“I’m just saying, Lady, that you must have worked incredibly hard to become a Marine. Doesn’t seem like you shy away from what’s difficult.”