Their Virgin Hostage, Masters of Ménage, Book 5 (34 page)

by
M.J
. Rose

Available Now!

A gothic tale about Victor Hugo’s long-buried secrets and
the power of a love that never dies . . . In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo’s
beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, still grieving,
Hugo initiated hundreds of séances from his home on the Isle of Jersey in order
to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed
with Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus and even the devil himself.
Hugo’s transcriptions of these conversations have all been published.

Or so it has been believed . . .

Recovering from a great loss, mythologist
Jac
L’Etoile
thinks that throwing
herself into work will distract her from her grief. In the hopes of uncovering
a secret about the islands mysterious Celtic roots, she arrives on Jersey and
is greeted by ghostly Neolithic monuments, medieval castles and hidden caves.
But the man who has invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard,
hopes she’ll help him discover something quite different—transcripts of Hugo’s
lost conversations with someone he called the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Central
to his heritage, these are the papers his grandfather died trying to find.
Neither
Jac
nor Theo anticipate that the mystery
surrounding Victor Hugo will threaten their sanity and put their very lives at
stake.

Seduction is a historically evocative and atmospheric tale
of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, written by one of
Americas most gifted and imaginative novelists. Awakening a mystery that spans
centuries, this multi-layered gothic tale brings a time, a place and a cast of
desperate characters brilliantly to life.

* * * *

I remembered Juliette saying she would tell her maidservant
to be on alert in case I needed anything.

“
Bonsoir
, Monsieur
Hugo.”

I nodded. “
Bonsoir
,
Fantine
.”

“Madame said you might be hungry. Can I make you something
more substantial?”

“No, I’m fine with this.” I gestured at the plate.

“Everyone in town is talking about you finding that girl.
It’s quite wonderful.”

“We all found her.”

“But they are saying it was you. Yes?”

“Well, yes, but only because I went down the stairs first.”

“Finding a lost child is a very worthy day’s worth.”

The melancholy expression in your eyes spoke more than your
words. I knew what you were thinking. And as I looked, I admit I noticed more
than the expression in your eyes. The sweep of your hair, your sweet scent, the
swell of your breast under your chemise, I took them all in.

“Would you like some wine?” I asked.

You hesitated for a moment, then something flared in your
eyes and replaced the sadness. Bravery? Rebellion?

Taking a glass from the cupboard, you sat down beside me.
Poured some wine and then drank.

“The child was unharmed?”

I finished chewing the bread and swallowed. “She had a nasty
cut on her arm, but that will heal.”

“How did she get to the basement of the castle in the first
place?”

“She said that she followed a dog who’d been playing outside
her window.”

“But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? I hear it in
your voice.”

I shrugged, not ready to talk about the stranger events that
I’d witnessed. Or thought I had. At that juncture, I hadn’t even accepted what
I’d seen. I was troubled by the possibility that my mind was touched and I’d
manufactured a vision.

“What have you been doing this evening?” I asked, anxious to
change the conversation.

“Sitting by the window, watching the sea. You would have
thought that by now I would have stopped waiting. I know he is not coming. That
he will never come.”

“Why won’t he?”

“His family. They didn’t approve of me. I was working-class,
he was aristocracy. They threatened him with his inheritance. After I’d been
here for a few months I realized his having me come ahead and saying that he’d
meet me was all an elaborate lie. It was just a ruse to get rid of me and the
child he had no intention of legitimizing. And yet I watch the sea. I know
there’s no reason to hope, and yet sometimes when I hear a ship’s horn coming
into port, I still think...”

“Hope is the most difficult emotion to give up.”

“What do you hope for, Monsieur Hugo?”

“That you will let me seduce you.” I ran my thumb back and
forth across your palm. The soft skin not hardened yet by housework. Juliette
employed a laundress. I was glad of that. It would have been a shame to ruin
that silkiness.

I waited for your reaction. When you neither resisted nor
responded to my touch, I lifted your hand to my mouth and pressed my lips
against your palm. I smelled a sophisticated and delicious scent. Lust surged
inside me, which was a welcome distraction from the disturbing events of the
last twenty-four hours.

“Is the perfume I smell one your father created?”

“No, it’s one that I made. I have a small laboratory in an
unused bedroom.”

“Could I see it?”

“Of course.”

“Your blush makes me desire you that much more. Your
innocence is a delight,” I said.

Following you upstairs, I watched your skirts move and
caught sight of your ankles. I imagined putting my hand up that dress and
searching out the warm wet spot between your legs. I wondered if you perfumed
yourself there the way some Frenchwomen did.

At the landing, instead of turning left toward Juliette’s
room, we turned right. I’d never explored this end of the house as there’d been
no reason to before. I smelled which way to go. Led like a dog by the nose to
the far end of the hall.

As you opened the door a cacophony of scents reached out and
embraced me. I’d never smelled such a rich, complicated aroma. For a second I
closed my eyes and just inhaled. I was transported to a lush flower field, a
spice market, a citrus grove, the forest and the sea all at once.

When I opened my eyes again I was surprised at how bare and
unadorned the room actually was. The smells were so decorative and elaborate.
The furniture consisted of a long table, a single chair and a tall
glass-fronted cabinet. There were two frosted glass wall sconces and a fairly
simple two-tiered crystal chandelier already lit. Noticing that, I surmised
you’d been working.

There was a bay window. And it faced the sea.

But the room was full of your utensils and supplies.
Everywhere were gleaming glass jars, canisters, small bottles and large
beakers. Around me, the smell evolved. I found myself thinking I was inside a
library, then a church, then a bedroom smelling a lover’s body, hot with want.

The whole world of scents resided in this one single room. How
was it possible?

“This is amazing. You are a true alchemist,” I said.

“No, just a perfumer.”

“Certainly that. Certainly that. Tell me,
Fantine
, why are you working as a lady’s maid if you have
all this talent?”

“I’m a woman, monsieur. You of all men know that. No
establishment in Paris would have me except to wait on customers and fill
bottles. Women are not noses. We do not create.”

“Would you like to open a store in Jersey?”

Your shrug saddened me. There was so little energy in the
movement of your shoulders.

“No. It’s enough for me to mix up scents for Madame Juliette
and her friends. I do it to please her and because I miss my father and my
home. While I work, I can pretend I’m back there for a little while.”

“But I might be able to help you set up a thriving concern
and sell your perfumes in the village. Perhaps you’d find some joy in it that
you can’t anticipate. Madame Juliette is an independent woman. Can’t you use
her as role model?”

I knew when you didn’t answer it was because you were too
well bred to argue with me. What I’d said wasn’t true any longer. Juliette had
been independent when I’d met her. But she’d since given up acting to accompany
me, and now she was as dependent as my wife was.

“Do you have all the materials you need? All the utensils?”

“That’s very kind, but I have everything. Madame Juliette
orders what I need from Paris.”

“Will you at least show me how you mix a scent? Make one for
me?”

Finally you gifted me with a smile.

I settled in the chair and watched your performance, fascinated
with the change in you as you worked. You were animated in a way you hadn’t
been before. The haunted look in your eyes was replaced by a determined
concentration as you picked up one vial and then another, sniffing and
searching and then settling on which one to use. Every movement was assured and
knowledgeable, and I found myself as entertained as if I were at one of
Juliette’s plays. Drop by drop the formula in the tube filled up. Every so
often you would dip a small length of ribbon in the liquid, wave it in the air,
then close your eyes and inhale its essence.

I imagined you were dreaming your own dream, oblivious that
I was even there. And that increased my desire for you. Often the wanting is
more satisfying than the fulfillment. I have come to prefer anticipation to
satiation. Longing can make one feel alive in a more profound way. You see
everything through champagne bubbles. Your senses are alert. You imagine how
your lover’s lips will feel, how her skin will taste. What it will be like to
unbutton her chemise, slip it off her shoulders, press your mouth to her skin,
cup her breasts in your palms and feel her excitement harden her nipples. You
picture her leaning into you, showing you just enough of her want that it
ignites yours.

That knowing is all. You forget your enemies, your fears and
your nightmares.

To live in the moment of desire is to be yourself in the
most pure and painful way possible, because beneath every touch is the
knowledge of how fleeting the pleasure is. How elusive the passion. How
impossible it is to contain it for long.

“I think you might like this.” You held out a small
container filled with topaz liquid.

I held it up to my nose.

“No.”

I was pleased to hear your laugh as you shook your head.

“Never smell directly from the bottle. Scent needs to
breathe and interact with your skin. You have to put some on.”

I held the vial out. “Would you please put it on me?”

A moment’s hesitation. Your uncertainty was charming and
seductive. The moment was a river to cross. On one side was the past, on the
other side the future. I wondered what you were thinking. Then you tipped the
bottle, wet your forefinger and gently ran your fingertip down the inside of my
right wrist and then my left. I shuddered at your touch.

The scent wafted up and filled the air. You’d captured the
scent of a primitive forest. Mysterious and woody. I visualized deep grottoes
and mossy glens. I traveled a whole journey in just one inhalation.

“So is this how you see me?” I asked.

“My father taught me to paint portraits in perfume.”

“Perfume portraits,” I repeated, never having heard the
expression before and enchanted by it. “Can you put on more?” I was teasing,
testing, and was delighted when you obliged and touched your wet finger to
small space behind my left ear.

“There are other places too,” I said.

“I know.” A whisper of a laugh. Was it excitement or just
nervousness?

 
I took the perfume
and put my finger over the top of the bottle. “Would you let me do the same to
you?”

“If it would please you.”

“What about its pleasing you,
Fantine
?”

That shrug, again without enthusiasm. I wanted to make you
feel, push you to enjoy. I unbuttoned your top blouse button. When you didn’t
resist, I worked on another button. I might as well have been buttering toast.
You didn’t care at all, one way or the other.

“What are you thinking? Why do you look so sad?” I asked.

“You are making me remember that I used to care about a man
touching me.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No, it’s all right. If you want to . . . please . . .”

I finished unbuttoning your chemise and pulled it down off
your shoulders. Your skin glowed in the candlelight. It was the color of the
inside of a nautilus shell. Your breasts were small but perfect. I wet my
finger with perfume and painted circles around each nipple. Then I leaned
forward and got drunk on the scent of the flowers on your skin.

My ministrations were not unpleasant to you. I knew that.
I’d been with enough women. You didn’t pull back in repulsion. But neither did
you arch or purr. You simply didn’t care what I did. My efforts to reach you
were failing.

And yet you were willing to let me pleasure myself with you.
That was something of a conundrum.

Then you slipped off your chemise and stood facing me, naked
to the waist. God forgive me but I thought of nothing but burying myself inside
you and forgetting everything else. I smelled skin, scented flowers and thought
this must be what Eden smelled like, and then I slipped into an embracing
wholeness that gave me shelter and soothed my soul while at the same time
inflamed me.

I’d never made love to someone so dispassionate who was not
a professional. I didn’t understand. Why were you allowing this? Why were you
willing to give yourself to me this way? What was wrong with you that I
couldn’t move you—not with my fingers or my words? But as I put my lips to your
lips, I determined to discover your mystery, not thinking that learning about
it might mean our very destruction.

Shayla
Black (aka Shelley Bradley)
is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nearly 40 sizzling
contemporary, erotic, paranormal, and historical romances for multiple print,
electronic, and audio publishers. She lives in Texas with her husband,
munchkin, and one very spoiled cat. In her “free” time, she enjoys reality TV,
reading and listening to an eclectic blend of music.

Shayla’s
work has been translated
in about a dozen languages. She has also received or been nominated for The
Passionate Plume, The Holt Medallion, Colorado Romance Writers Award of
Excellence, and the National Reader’s Choice Awards.
RT
Bookclub
has twice nominated her for Best Erotic
Romance of the year, as well as awarded her several Top Picks, and a KISS Hero
Award.

A writing risk-taker,
Shayla
enjoys tackling writing challenges with every book.

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Shayla
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