Miss Simpkins' School: Lydia (3 page)

“Of course,” he said in a grave tone, as Molly left the room and closed the door softly behind her. “But why? The poor port is but a paltry excuse for what you understand. Be honest with me. Did you really think I’d let someone else be in charge of your education?”

She reddened once more, and wrung her hands together. “Education? I want to learn to dance so I don’t embarrass you at your house party that is all.” Lydia nibbled her top lip. “I need to learn how to follow directives.”

George narrowed his eyes, and she dropped hers toward her slippers.
Now that I like. But not the silly skin mutilations.
He put his hand under her chin and forced her head up so he could look her in the face. “That you do, love, that you do.”

Her eyes widened, and Lydia gave a soft gasp. The gentle sound was more of interested anticipation than fear, and he smiled.

“Stop hurting yourself. The only one to mark your skin will be me, and that I promise you will be arousing, exciting, and in a place seen only by me. Now tell me honestly; are you saying you thought Monsieur Alphonse or someone similar would be here to teach you to waltz, when you and I know you can do such dances when you stop thinking. The truth now.” He tightened his hand just enough to sting.

As he thought, the pulse in her wrist jumped and her bosom heaved. Nowhere in her demeanor or actions did he see worry or fear. She giggled, and the soft sheen of arousal coated her skin.

“I have heard there are many forms of dancing my lord, which Monsieur Alphonse and his ilk are not privy to. I would very much like you to teach me that which is not accepted in the ballrooms of the ton, but in the bedrooms of the demimonde. And also I am led to believe, in the marital beds of those who are enlightened.”

Chapter Four

George stared at Lydia for so long she had to force herself not to fidget. Had she and Molly read it all so wrongly? No, it wasn’t possible. Molly knew all the right people to ask questions, and she had assured Lydia this was the way to progress. It had taken several lessons from Molly, and a lady of the ton, to explain and show Lydia how to act. The lady, by name and nature, was most informative.

“George Stokoe has a reputation of riding his ladies hard and fast, but not of deflowering virgins or despoiling young innocents. If you are a virgin?”

Lydia flushed the color of her companion’s dress, and nodded.

“Then your job may well be harder. You will need to show him it’s your utmost desire to be fucked by the finest, and your initiation is to be from him and him alone. George is a fair man, and he will know if you are in earnest. He is well liked by his peers, and the ladies whom he favors or lets down gently, and considered to be a gentleman by all. For you see, he only plays with those who know the rules.”

“If he weds me he won’t. Ride ladies, whether they know the rules or not. I will be his mount, and only I will be his plaything,” Lydia had responded fiercely. “Rules be damned, I will not share.”

“Bravo,” Hermione had replied. “Now it’s up to you.”

So it
is
up to me to do it.

‘”No answer, my lord?” Lydia hoped she didn’t show how her knees knocked, and her stomach churned. She strove to keep her voice light, almost amused, and level. She moved from one foot to the other in order to relax her toes, which she’d scrunched up in tension, and did her best to take deep, level breaths. Whoever said worry had a smell was correct. It hung in the air like the wood smoke from the fire. Sweet, sickly, heavy, and vaguely menacing. As if it could take over. “I’m disappointed, I was sure you wouldn’t leave a lady to wait for your response.”

“Oh, I think you know the reply, my dear.” He rubbed one hand over the other. “I admire your intentions, if not the way you essay them. Tell me, where does your mama think you are?”

The change of subject made her start, and she had to unscramble her brain before she could answer him. “Ah, with Tilly Hammond and spending the night with the Countess of Addersley. Addersley has had to make an unexpected visit to one of his estates, and it was decided Adriana shouldn’t accompany him in her condition. She is due to increase very soon, and the only journey Ash wants her to undertake is to be confined at their country home. It is very convenient.”

“As you say.” Once again the saturnine expression on his face made her restless. “Stop fidgeting.” He snapped the words out and stopped her mid-movement. How her jaw didn’t gape, Lydia had no idea. “Come here, kneel at my feet, bow your head, and let us set out the ground rules.”

What?
Now she was certain she was slack-jawed. “Ground rules?” She walked across the room, stood a few feet away from him, and hesitated.

He stretched out his arm, took her hand, and tugged. For several seconds she resisted the pull on her arm. Just as the twinge of discomfort hit the edge where it would morph into pain, George relaxed his grip. He didn’t let go, just stared in a way designed to make her insides go to jelly, and her quim start to quiver. By the knowing look on his face he fully understood the effect he was having.

“Am I expected to know what you mean?” she asked.

“Do we dance around this?”

She giggled at his terminology and he raised one eyebrow. It silenced her mid-snigger and she gulped. He was
so
masterful with that attitude. Her body acknowledged it with a shiver that hit her bosom, streaked through her to her quim, and circled her nub.

“Is it funny? You want to learn to dance. We both know it’s not the dances of the ballroom. With me you didn’t put a foot wrong when I distracted your attention from one, two, three, one, two, three. So tell me; what is this really all about?”

Lydia jerked out of his grasp and began to pace. She needed to get away from his scent, his aura, and his authority. To try to explain what she desired she needed a clear head. She leaned against an elegant Hepplewhite console and bit her lip. The sting of pain gathered her senses.

“Are you cognizant with all the plans of our parents?” she asked him baldly. “And are you in accord?” Her heart missed a beat as he stood immobile and just looked fixedly at her. She had no idea how she would prefer him to answer.
To want me for myself and not for any other reason. However, is that likely? I’m his childhood annoyance, and I have nothing to make me stand out in the ton. And I am an innocent. Would he be prepared to train me? Do I want him to? Can I be a match for him? So many questions to be answered if I have the nous to put them to him. Even my inheritance, although very comfortable, surely cannot match that of many others.

Not that George Stokoe would need her money. He was often compared to a nabob. He was unostentatious, generous when necessary, but not a soft touch. His estates were well cared for, his crop yield high, and his worker’s cottages in good condition. The local church benefitted from a generous stipend for the vicar, and the village children were given rudimentary schooling. His peers all thought him a good fellow and the ladies, for all they whispered about his proclivities, liked him. He was the perfect gentleman.

For once his eyes weren’t hooded and they showed dark in the candlelight. Tiny flickers of something unbeknown to Lydia flashed in their depths and went as fast as they appeared. His hair reflected the flames, and strands of red appeared in the dark tresses. He lived up to his nickname of Darkness as he smiled, inclined his head, and said nothing. The smile did nothing to reassure her. In fact, Lydia decided it was annoying her. There was no depth to it, and it made a mockery of what a smile should mean.

“Are you mute?” she said and heard the snap of vexation in her voice. “I usually receive an answer to a question, not a look that makes me feel like a mouse who is being toyed with by a cat. What are you going to do about them?”

“If,
if
you want me to answer you, my dear, I think we need to set out a few ground rules. First of which is I do not want to be married or indeed associate with a harridan.” The ice in George’s tone sent prickles of fear skittering over her skin, and tiny unpleasant goose bumps broke out on her arms. “Any woman I associate will not only know the rules, she will adhere to them. Are you ready for that, Lydia? Can you give yourself to me as and how I demand? For make no mistake, demand is the word. And I would expect your instant obedience. You want to learn to dance and defy our parents, in a conventional way? Then the ballroom is below. If, however, you want to learn to dance to my tune, in my manner and in a way that will benefit us both, let’s think. If it is as a secondary manner which will appease our parents and ensure my title doesn’t become obsolete, then now is the time to decide. We have less than two hours for your first lesson.” His voice was flat, and he spoke in such a dispassionate manner she could almost believe it mattered not to him what she decided. It was only the tiny pulse at the side of his neck which showed how affected he was. “Are you prepared to ask for what you really want?”

Lydia trembled. This was a man she didn’t know.
But I’d like to.
He may sound harsh and look severe but a glint in the depths of his eyes hinted at something more than ire. It struck Lydia like an arrow from a bow and she shivered. The feeling was the one akin to how she felt when she was about to pleasure herself.

“I’m sorry, My Lord.”
Why did I invest his title with capitals?
“I’m somewhat apprehensive about all of this.” She waved her hand to encompass the room. “Not only this, my lack of social skills and my need to appeal to and please you. I’m floundering, and have no idea how not to be so.”

“Then come here.”

Three words that could change my life.
Lydia swallowed hard. She moved up off the console and stood tall.
Do it, do it.

“And kneel at my feet.”

Dare I do it?
Even as she hesitated in her mind, her body made the decision for her, and she began to walk.

Chapter Five

George glanced at the clock. They’d wasted over twenty minutes with Lydia being uncharacteristically coy. Even though he had been told by both Hermione and Molly that Lydia wanted him and all his needs, he had to make sure. He was under no illusion that once she was his he would be able to let her go. Their parents may think they had concocted the idea that he and Lydia become betrothed and wed, but he’d managed to infiltrate the idea to them without either of them realizing. George had wanted Lydia from the first time she’d emerged from the schoolroom, not a gangly schoolgirl who hung unto his every word, but as a young lady and made her debut. Caution made him wait until she was older, more assured, and able to meet him as near an equal as possible. Now was that time.

It seemed to take an age as she crossed the floor, her footsteps muffled by the carpet, and stood silently in front of him. Then with the innate elegance she possessed she knelt and bent her head. “Like this, My Lord?” He heard her intonation and was more than pleased. George was determined he would have to find the appropriate fond name for her for when they played.

“Perfect, sweetness.”

She snorted.

He chuckled. “Not appropriate? You see, when we’re together like this I need a name, a sobriquet to call you. In this mode I expect instant obedience, an extra connection. I’ll tell you now I have worked toward this moment for many a month. Why do you think our parents were so insistent? They don’t know they were manipulated, but if we are to be together there will be no secrets between us. You agree?” He held his breath.

“Of course I do. Because I had heard things about you, and it made me all the more determined that I could and would be all you want or need. So a cognomen.” She tilted her head to one side. “Honey.”

“Why?” It suited her. In the candlelight her hair was the color the honey made from bees that feasted on the moorland bushes near one of his estates.

“Because you and I know I can be sweet but not sickly?”

He bowed. “Then Honey it is. When I call you that I’m preparing to what I will call play. But it’s not play as a child would indulge in. My play is hot, hard, and will push you to places you’ve never even dreamed of. Not yet though.” He was gratified by the disappointment that suffused her face. “Honey,” he used the term deliberately. “I assume you have yet to see a man’s unclothed body, let alone experience love making in any form?”

“Sadly yes, but I’m more than ready to be shown, My Lord.” Again the emphasis on his title. It seemed it was her way of conferring his authority over her. “I have heard to be fucked by an expert is everything a woman will want. I myself don’t agree. I think I need other things as well.” She blushed and put her hands to her cheeks. “I wish to be spanked and feel the sweet sting it brings.”

His heart jumped and his skin tingled. Had she really said that? “Say it again. No don’t look up. Untie your hair, and then put your hands in your lap.”

He waited while she did as he asked and then she said distinctly, “I have heard it pleases you to spank your ladies. The though of this gives me strange feelings, good feelings, and I wish to experience it please.”

“Then follow me. On your knees. Lift your skirt so it doesn’t hinder you.”

Was he pushing too hard too soon? She was untried, a virgin who knew naught in practice.

George walked to a slim door set in the paneling beside the fireplace and opened it. Very few people knew of this adjoining room’s existence. Inside was a dominant’s paradise. Conceived by certain gentlemen of a similar persuasion to him, and with their ladies input, it was designed as Molly put it, “As the perfect classroom.”

Behind him he heard a gasp, a groan, and then an epithet, which he thought was “bloody skirts.” He had to agree.

Lydia made her way toward him on hands and knees. She’d kilted the material around her waist, and to his delight her lower limbs flashed smooth and silky in the light. As she reached him she let her head fall forward and her hair streamed down to touch the floor.

“Ah, Honey, this is so perfect. Now let me help you up.” He put his hands under her arms and helped her to her feet. “No, don’t drop your skirts, let me feast my eyes on your quim as I intend to feast my mouth and my cock later.” She bit her lip and moved her hand away from her waist. The downy blond muff now revealed shouted “shave me” to him.
Later.