Her Lord & Master [Taken by Surprise Anthology]

  USA Today bestselling author THEA DEVINE

  HER LORD & MASTER

  (FROM THE ANTHOLOGY TAKEN BY SURPRISE)

  Bored, jaded, and obscenely wealthy, the Earl of Wick has ravished every woman in London and beyond. Now, with pressure from his family to settle down, the scandalous rogue embarks on an erotic odyssey to seduce a ripe lily-pure virgin whom he might—or might not—marry. But the lady in question is not quite as naοve as the earl expects, and with each heated night of bold passion and willing abandon, it's the silver-tongued rogue who finds himself falling under the lady's sensual spell...

  For editorial purposes, if you encounter the word "hi" and the sentence doesn't make sense, replace it with "in" For example, "it was hi the drawer" should read "it was in the drawer"

  Also, if you encounter "di" in any part of a word and the sentence and word make no sense, replace it with "th"

  For example, "diere were people diat dien went" should read "there were people that then went"

  Other possible replacements are "I" for "7" or "1" or "!" or "/" For example "1 am going to the store" should read "I am going to the store"

  Other possible replacements are "m" for "th" For example "that should be" for "mat should be"

  Sometimes, you may see the word "trie" which should be replaced by "the" For example "trie book" should read "the book"

  Sometimes, you'll see a capital U for double ll's For example "she'U go next time" should read "she'll go next time"

  Sometimes, you'll see an "m" all by itself which should read as "in" For example "it was m the store" should read "it was in the store

  Sometimes, you'll see the word "tune" when it should read "time" For example: "it was the right tune to see him" should read "it was the right time to see him"

  Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to go through every sentence, so I'll leave it for you to figure out if you run in to them.

  HER LORD AND MASTER

  By Thea Devine

  Chapter One

  London, 1810

  The Earl of Wick was bored.

  He was a man of five and thirty who had inherited his title young and had spent the ensuing years sampling everything his world had to offer. He was said to be jaded, dissolute, and unstoppable. Money bought him the freedom to be a libertine, and it did nothing to temper his appetites or imbue him with any sense of responsibility.

  "There must be one thing," Ellingham mused one evening when they had all retreated to Heeton's back parlor and were fair on the way to drinking themselves into a stupor while Wick watched and listened to them with the irritated look of the unutterably weary.

  He was tired, he thought, tired of the endless round of flirtations, seductions, beddings, women and wine, propriety and promiscuity, and gossips ever nipping at his heels.

  There had to be something more. And would that it didn't involve his dowager mother's ceaseless demand that he marry and get an heir.

  But what other challenge was left to him?

  "There are always the virgins," he drawled as he tilted his glass to the low light of the candle to admire the deep ruby color of the expensive claret.

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  Even that which gave surcease to life's travails looked better than it tasted, he thought mordantly. And that, perhaps, was the leitmotif of his life: things were never as good as they looked, and he was always doomed to disappointment. His friends thought him jaded, but in point of fact, he was just tired; sometimes he wanted nothing more than to just lie down and sleep because his dreams were much more interesting than anything his life had to offer.

  But this circle of his most intimate friends, the creme de la creme of society, was always on the lookout for anything new and novel to amuse him. It was in fact their entertainment, to provide for Wick what he couldn't seem to find for himself at this point in his life.

  Something that didn't bore him.

  Like virgins.

  Except men married virgins.

  As Ellingham immediately pointed out. "Incorruptible^ my dear Wick. Bred to purity, white as white. You touch a virgin and you die."

  "Certain road to hell and marriage," Max Bowen muttered. "You don't want to travel that road, Wick."

  "Now wait, now wait..." Ellingham interposed. "Let's just think about this. After all, Madam Mother is avid to find the hot piece who will by choice agree to wear blinders, in order to get Wick an heir."

  "I've had enough of that," Wick said dryly.

  "But here's the point," Ellingham said excitedly, "you haven't. You've had every available toss and tart who's struck your fancy, but that's quite another proposition from having a proper piece, someone you can take home to Madam Mother. Yes, I'm talking about cloistered virgins, my dear Wick. The mice on the marriage mart. The ones whose mothers would kill to have them marry an earl. It makes one wonder just how far a virgin would let loose if there were a real possibility marriage was in the offing. Marriage to you, Wick. The Unmentionable, the Unobtainable. The ever-corrupt, endlessly debauched,

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  but always acceptable—if not indeed sought after—Earl of Wick ... who in his expressed desire never to marry, has now come to the conclusion that he must find someone he can tolerate so he can mate and get an heir. What would a girl, an untouched, unstained virgin, trade for that?

  "Gentlemen, think of the possibilities: she will obtain money, position, a title. A bottomless well of luxury and pleasures to be plumbed once she provides the heir ... and all at the cost of one small insignificant body part that women have willingly surrendered or the price of a night's pleasure since time immemorial.

  "Could a well-bred English rose do any less? If her prize were to be the Golden Bull? Could any woman resist? Oh, they'd be beating down the doors, every last wanton one of them, from Lancashire to London. God, what fun. Can you see it? All those delicious, untouched, untried virgins, spreading themselves for your delectation? Wick! The idea of it is positively obscene. You have to do it. Oh, you must. All that luscious new flesh ... it makes my mouth water just to think of it."

  "My dear Ellingham," Wick interposed gently. "Don't you get carried away when it is I who must perform."

  Ellingham dismissed that statement with a wave of his hand. "The legendary Golden Bull? Never a problem. Did we not ourselves witness your masterful pump and spew of not less than five hot-tailed toddies two weeks ago? Didn't even stop for breath. Amazing performance. Amazing. But this— what I'm proposing—this is different. It's—an experiment. We seduce these sanctimonious unsoiled maidens of propriety who hide behind their purity, innocence, and spotless reputations, and offer them everything in the world they could want. Including Wick—because, after all, there must be a prize for such a massive and triumphant corruption.

  "But that's hardly of any moment, my dear Wick, because your Madam Mother will love this fallen angel who will have by that time gotten you an heir, and Madam Mother will keep

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  her suitably occupied raising the brat while you fuck and cat around as you always have."

  Wick yawned. "What's in it for me?"

  "Why, the challenge, dear boy. You underestimate how many vestal vessels are really whores under their skirts. We'll put out the word, we'll swear them to secrecy—they won't want to admit they've failed to captivate the mighty Wick in the first go-round anyway. We'll find three untouched, unstained, untrained beauties for you. Three desperate-to-wed-an-earl goddesses who would do anything for you, if only you would ... well, you'll teach them all the if onlys, Wick. You'll define what they need to do to excite your interest. Whatever your imagination dre
ams up, my dear boy. And we all have cause to know how inventive you are.

  "And in the meantime, we'll have the fun of watching the perversion of innocence. Fine sport all around and bets will be taken, gentlemen, once the contenders are chosen."

  "A momentary diversion at best," Wick murmured languidly, but his penis was already rigid with excitement at the thought of it, and ready to plow the nearest toll-hole. He reached for the waitress who was refilling their goblets, and pulled her onto his lap. The waitresses were very accommodating here: they wore no underclothes and they took every poke and thrust they could get for the lavish gratuity that came with their willingness to spread their legs.

  It was but one more movement to settle this willing trull onto his penis, and another to thrust and blow to relieve the pressure in his nether parts. A perfunctory performance at best, over too soon, and too easily come by at that, jf

  But what did he expect? He tucked a handful of notes into the woman's bosom and pushed her away.

  Life was a momentary diversion at best, he thought, picking up his goblet and tipping it to Ellingham. But he needed that diversion, and the idea of corrupting a stainless virgin had great appeal after all the practiced courtesans he'd seduced.

  And, there was something to be gained, which was never

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  the case in the normal course of events. And this was the thing that made him prick up all over: at the end of Ellingham's great experiment, there would be an heir, and his Madam Mother would cease her haranguing and finally leave him alone.

  ******************

  Jenise Trowbridge stormed into her family's London town house so choked with fury she could barely speak. "The beast, the bastard. The gall. The......outrage of it all." She slipped off her cloak and heaved it onto the sofa for want of having something heavier—a vase would have done, the bastard's dead body would have been better—to express her rage.

  And she stopped cold.

  Julia was there, curled up as usual in a corner of the sofa, staring out the big bow window that overlooked the street.

  The garment had settled like a cloud on her sister's lap, and the distressed look on Julia's delicate face stemmed Jenise's tirade instantly.

  Damn and damn. She had thought herself to be alone, and here was Julia, the abandoned object of the beast's attentions, poised like a siren to hear her clarion call.

  The beast would marry after all.

  How could she tell Julia?

  "Things are that bad?" Julia asked in her fairy-thin voice. "What could be that bad after all the bad there has been?"

  Jenise came into the room slowly. It seemed to her she had never appreciated this room so much as at this moment. It was a room made for confidences, a small room at the front of the house just off the entrance hallway that was cozy, warm, intimate.

  The family called it the blue room because of its blue painted walls and blue satin upholstered furniture. It was a very restful room, not a room that one barged in on uttering unladylike curses and throwing things.

  It was Julia's room, her refuge, her home, the place of all the rooms in the house where she felt safest and most content. The room where when the door was closed, the family knew

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  not to intrude because Julia's grief at having been jilted by the Earl of Wick had overcome her once again.

  Stupid beast, Jenise thought as she pulled up a chair close to the sofa and regarded her beautiful sister. How could he not have married her beautiful, tenderhearted, gentle, loving sister?

  Her younger sister, who had not yet learned there were liars and libertines in the world and promises made could just as easily be promises never meant to be kept.

  How could he have so callously destroyed this beautiful flower without a thought or care of her feelings, her delicacy, her life?

  And yet, he had, and in all probability he probably didn't even remember who she was, if the accounts of all his conquests were even half true. So many women. London was strewn with broken hearts tromped all over by the dissolute Earl of Wick, but after he'd gone through that first year of ravaging the wealthy, more worldly maidens in their first season on the marriage mart, he'd gone on to bigger, more experienced game.

  Not for him leg shackles and domesticity.

  Did one thank heaven he'd come to that conclusion in time?

  But not in time to spare Julia.

  She had never recovered from the blow.

  And now the daunting news that the Earl of Wick would marry, and he wanted not the gamey, wanton women whom he'd bedded and banged to a fare-thee-well for the past four years.

  Oh no. Even the mighty earl of debauchery wanted a virgin, pure and lily white. Damn the man. Damn, damn, damn the bastard, when Julia was everything a man of breeding and taste could want. He had had Julia melting and yearning for him not four years ago. He could have married her, set up his nursery, become a man of esteem and honor and substance.

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  Ha! Not for Wick—not then, in any event. The only thing of substance he was ever interested in was how fast a woman would spread her legs for him.

  Or at least that was what the gossips said.

  And now this.

  The earl would marry. And to carry on the line, only the most beautiful, the most accomplished, the most pristine of virgins would do.

  She wondered why, as she took Julia's hand reassuringly in her own.

  She wondered if there was a mother in London who didn't think her daughter fit the bill. She wondered if their mother might believe that this was a second chance for Julia.

  Oh no. No. Did that happen, I would sacrifice my body, my virginity before that beast would ever see her, ever touch her again.

  "Jenise? What can be that bad that you must vent your annoyance by throwing things?" Julia's light voice was like butterfly wings, fluttery and evanescent. The beast had destroyed her, just murdered her spirit and her confidence, and the bright young thing she had been.

  She ought not need to tell this awful news to Julia. And yet, Julia would hear, one way or another, whether it was a friend, or her mother, who, Jenise sometimes thought, secretly believed that Julia herself had done something to make the earl cry off the commitment.

  Had it been a real, formal engagement? Julia had thought so even though it had not been a public thing.

  Well, not yet, she'd said. He must tell his family, his mother, his friends. It is no small thing for the Earl of Wick to come to point.

  No small thing, indeed. A very big thing. A very wicked thing for him to promise marriage to get what he wanted. Then.

  He had no need to do so now, for he'd plowed and furrowed every available and willing woman in all of England, it

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  seemed, and he had no need of promising anything if he didn't wish to do so.

  So therefore something must have changed, Jenise thought suddenly as she stroked Julia's hand and tried to think of some way to impart the news that wouldn't send Julia into a deeper mope.

  Something was different. For some reason, marriage was on the table for real now, and the earl meant to carry through. He would not have gone public with it, were it not so.

  Oh dear God. Imagine what that would mean. Every mother, every fair maiden with lineage to the Stone Age would be casting lures for the earl.

  Her horror must have shown on her face because Julia tugged her hand and demanded once again, "What can have you in such a temper that you cannot even speak of it?"

  "Something you could not possibly want to hear," Jenise

  temporized. ,

  "Please, Sister—what could I not want to hear after having heard the worst, most debilitating thing a woman could ever hear?"

  Yes—and that was the other thing—everything in Julia's world was related to that event—the event of the earl's rejection of her. Which made telling her this news that much more appalling.

  But it had to be don
e—or someone else would tell her. Someone vicious and unkind, or someone who wanted to hurt and eviscerate her. Someone like their mother, even.

  But she couldn't quite utter the words, knowing that after a while, she wouldn't have to. Julia would divine the topic very soon just by the set of her jaw and the determination in her face. Julia would know part of it without her having to say it.

  And indeed, several minutes later, Julia said, "... Oh ..."

  "Yes."

  "The gossips are at it again?"

  Delicately phrased, Jenise thought. "The beast has gone to

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  a new level in his desire to debauch and destroy every woman in the whole of England," she said carefully.

  "How can that be? I thought he had already done that."

  Oh, there was a new sharp awareness? Could it be that Julia's heart was mending, that she finally perceived the truth of the matter?

  Too much to hope for, especially after she heard this news, for certain. And hear it she would.

  Or read it... Would there not be a tidbit in the gossip columns in the coming week?

  Oh, worse and worse.

  Julia must hear the news from her, there was no other choice.

  "But he has not ever—ever—declared publicly that he will marry," Jenise said.

  "What!" Julia turned white, looked faint, looked at Jenise as if she were responsible, as if she were the devil.

  "Don't—stop that! Don't you dare faint!"

  "Oh, how could you ... how could you... ?" Julia moaned, wrenching her hand from Jenise's and falling back on the sofa pillows. "To hear this from you ..."

  "And who else?" Jenise asked brutally. "Who else would impart this news without malice, without the vicious desire to hurt you? You would have heard in no time at all because I heard within hours of his having told acquaintances that this is his new and most urgent desire. How could you not have heard within this day, and perhaps from someone who cares not for your feelings and sensibilities? How dare you even think I would tell you because I wished to hurt you?"