My Lady Taken
By Shirl Anders
Smashwords Edition, My Lady Captive, published by Shirl Anders/ Allure Books
at Smashwords
Copyrighted©2002 by Shirl Anders.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Blurb:
erotic romance regency, m/f, HEA. A story with a twist about the
aristocratic duke, Lord Radford. It is time for Radford to marry and
he despairs of finding a lovely hot-blooded woman like three of his
fellow Archangels have. He decides to let the ladies decide. Two
risqué bets on the betting books at White's, and one weekend
party should do the trick. Radford is betting some of the ladies will
shed their staid English morals and come in sensual pursuit of him.
What he does not expect is the feminine artifice of Lady Nia O'Shea
My Lady Taken
By Shirl Anders
Chapter One
“You are as mad as a March hare, man,” Brynmore declared.
“I do not see why,” Radford responded. “It is a foregone conclusion that I must marry.” Radford’s sculptured lips grimaced plentifully. “This year,” he sneered, before he continued, with his more normally cultured baritone voice. “I am a fine catch, I understand, even given the eye patch.” He paused, sipping his whiskey. “Inasmuch as I am a Duke . . . and so young, they will come.”
“Yea, they will run to your side,” Brynmore agreed, interrupting. “And they do present all form of nuisances to you already, man, falling all over you. But a contest?”
“To win your hand in marriage and not the other way around?” Saxonhurst questioned. “It is nobly conceited,” he finished grimly.
“Nay, comrades,” Radford quipped. “I say it is a masterpiece of wit. A consummate plan of attack. I shall never be so fortunate as our compatriots Harrison, Wyndham, and our veritable leader Drummond, in finding the perfect woman, as they have. Each woman beautiful and classic as they stand, yet each with overflowing spoonfuls of the naughty vixen beneath their lovely exteriors.” Radford paused, striking a tall and languished pose. “Nay, it is impossible to think I could have enough time within this year alone to aspire to my companions good fortune . . . Unless, I cheat.”
Both men glared at him, thoughtful now. Yet, both of their intelligent minds were turning with the possibilities and apparently coming to the same obvious conclusions that he had. It was an amazing sight with the rogue Brynmore beginning to lecherously grin, while Saxonhurst stared at him intense but solemn. But in the end they both gambled to the same conclusions that he had.
“They will be trying to fuck you!” Brynmore blared.
“Tup you royally!” Saxonhurst exclaimed at the same moment, so that both mens voices pounded loudly over each others.
“Exactly!” Radford responded, with triumphant.
“But how would ye do the thing, man?”
“And their mamas would never allow it,” Saxonhurst declared, overriding Brynmore.
“Ah, but their mamas would, gentlemen. I put forth those mothering hens are more ambitious than Napoleon and his armies put together.” Radford turned his good crystal blue eye, not covered by the eye patch he wore, toward Brynmore. “And as for your question, Bry, I really intended not to do much of anything, but to show up.” Radford paused, swirling his glass of whiskey before him and staring at the amber liquid. “A weekend event in the country I believe should do it. At my estate. Soirées, a hunt, and a masquerade ball, all that sort of trivial. The second part of the plan shall encompass both of you and White’s Gentlemen's Club.”
“White’s?” Brynmore asked with his lilting Scottish drawl.
“What?” Saxonhurst questioned.
“Actually,” Radford responded “It shall encompass both of you and the betting book at White’s.”
“Ack, you one-eyed devil, you are as long winded as a Northeastern gale,” Brynmore muttered.
Radford winked, as he quipped “Large minds, my friend.” But then, he leaned forward with the intent expression of pure conspiracy. “Gentlemen, you my friends, shall bet on the date of my marriage and also to whom I am aspiring to marry. The matron hounds, from all counties around, will have this momentous piece of gossip ferreted out before the ink dries. Then, when my invitations arrive on the same day, as the bet, for a weekend retreat, giving them all enough time to work out their schemes properly, I shall have my contest with none of them being any the wiser, but for you two, my dearest friends.”
“Stow it,” Saxonhurst muttered, to Radford’s outrageous outburst of embellished endearments.
“This is why Drummond always appoints our Radford here the organizer” Brynmore addressed sagely.
“But what of the screwing, Rad?” Saxonhurst asked. “If anyone should catch you plying an over achieving maiden, the conclusion will be forgone.”
“Marriage,” Brynmore added, stating the obvious.
“Yes,” Radford muttered. He'd realized this was the only skip, in his brilliantly formulated plan. As society stood now, a man would be walking the marriage shuffle if he were just as innocently caught alone in a room with an unattached young pigeon. Oh, for the more progressive continent, he silently lamented. Yet, there had to be a perfectly good solution.
“You know with every one of them vying for you,” Saxonhurst said. “Each one will be unwilling to accuse the other, for the fear of losing the prize.”
“And some will not bring their mamas or chaperone's if they are clever, bold, and determined enough,” Brynmore added.
“I should surely keep to those,” Radford agreed.
“And lock all doors behind you!” Brynmore advised.
“With a pocket full of French sheaths, or our grand English island will be populated with snooty aristocratic rogues, looking uncommonly like vagabond pirates,” Saxonhurst said.
“It might just work,” Radford stated.
“I do not know,” Saxonhurst said. “I believe I will place my bet on the English women's stodgy sexual morality, and I will say that they will never be so bold.”
“Ah, but if only one does. She could be the truest prize of all,” Radford murmured.
Chapter Two
“You shall be able to send your serious young brother Galen up to Oxford with the amount I have purposed in this envelope, Madam.”
A white evening glove floated out of the darkness drawing forth a fat parchment envelope tempting Nia O’Shea’s waiting grasp. She did not, however, instantly and more uncouthly snatch the small fortune tantalizing her yearning fingertips. Her momentary reticence due mostly to the alarm tripping down her delicate spine.
“A promising mind, Madame, is not something to be wasted.” The gentleman’s voice sounded deeply contrived as it issued forth out of the dimness like a mesmerizing command.
“How dare you!”
Nia turned her profile away from the shadowy gentleman standing with her in the tree-darkened alcove off one of the paths in Vaudeville Gardens. The gesture was as if she might leave. Surrounding them the well manicured but thickly dense foliage seemed like ghostly black soldiers. There was a half-moon and perfume from the summer roses hung heavy in the night air. Off in the distance, Nia could hear the nightly fireworks display beginning. The atmosphere was dramatic and Gothic enough to make her want to shiver, but instead she chose to advance her indignation. “To think that you could know anything about me is daft, Sir. I do not know this Galen you speak of and if you think to blackmail me, I will be leaving this instant!”
The white gloved hand instantly sailed aloft in the darkness before her gaze with a halting motion. Nia pouted her lips, squinting slightly in an attempt to gain a better look at the covert gentleman. He would not allow it of course and she was certain that was why he had picked the obscure and shadowed location for their final meeting. Yet, she knew that she would not leave and she could feel the confidence in which her mysterious gentleman also knew that.
“I do not suffer fools easily, Madame. Let us just say the sum of money we are concerning ourselves with allows me a modicum of privilege. Furthermore, if you cannot produce precisely what I am asking for, I shall have to look elsewhere.”
Backtracking with a fine art that barely rivaled her quickness, Nia abruptly laughed in a gay, yet flirtatious manner. She used the ploy to ease the tension. However, even as she did, she also wondered how it was that she knew that the gentleman would not look elsewhere. He needed her. Precisely her! Yet, by all the bonny Saints of Ireland, what should she care about what his reasons were? Or the fact that he knew of Galen and therefore must know of her other four parentless siblings?
She had to admit, secretly to herself, that the money enticed her beyond any objections. So with that goal firmly set in her intentions, she saucily shook back her long mane of red hair, then smiled in her best coquettish manner, while settling her mouth in the direction she knew the mysterious lord's face must be. It was hard to ascertain, yet he appeared rather to be her same height, she thought, which was unusually short for a gentleman. “I would be the woman for you, Sir, and I dare you to say that I am not!” Her rich laughter followed, while she settled her hands on her hips, swaying them in an openly provocative manner.
“Precisely the fille de joie I envisioned!” Uncharacteristically the gentleman’s white gloved hands clapped together nearly gleeful, combined with an unusually high note in his voice.
Nia nodded to him with her eyes twinkling in a suggestive manner. She would readily admit that she was that! A whore. A beautiful one she had been told, and one that was a wee bit new to the trade, but a whore nonetheless.
“I can masquerade as the best of ladies!” Nia straightened to a more proper bearing, showcasing her willowy figure, which was clad in a black taffeta silk gown trimmed in red. The gown sported an indecently lower collar and stretched tightly across her bosom. It was the classic apparel of her trade. “I can do it so well this Duke of yours, Lord Radford Sutherlin, will not know what has befallen him! Is this a practical joke then?”
Nia peered into the shadows as the gentleman cleared his throat, gaining a suddenly deeper voice than the gleeful one of moments before. “The reasons are not germane, Madame, to our dealings. Just seduce him with all the skills you possess, while following my written instruction precisely and this amount again, shall be yours.”
Nia nearly gasped at the new added offer and it was only with great effort that she held it back. Double the amount? For an instant, she wondered what instructions could be inside the envelope for such a sum. However, in the next second her hesitations disappeared as she realized that with the amount being offered she could retire, and retire nearly as quickly as she had started her newest profession. For that she might do anything this side of murder. It was not that she disliked the men. She loved men, and she'd also found out quickly and quite by surprise that she was a sexual woman. She had yet to experience a bad liaison with any gentlemen. Quite the contrary, the few men that she'd entertained thus far had all been delightful and a font of information into the variety of sexual relations to be had.
Nay, her vehemence came from need. It was the need of her five siblings, who all but for Galen, were so young. They needed her older guidance, but of course they had needed the income more. In the end the income had won out over guidance, but now with the sum of money teasing her, she could return home.
“We have a deal, Sir! And, an O’Shea never breaks their word, my lord.” Nia thrust her hand forward as a gentleman might for a handshake, along with a crooked smile, for being so improper. Her impishness gained her a chuckle from the gentleman.
“You shall do, Nia O’Shea. You shall do,” he said, purposefully inflecting an Irish accent into his rather high voice.
Nia laughed as he took her hand, while further placing the hefty envelope into it. “You will find directions to Lady Nia O’Shea’s new townhouse, which is staffed with a cook, a maid, and a butler, who are all awaiting your arrival as we speak. And-,” the gentleman’s voice became low in tenor, as he warned, “I shall be watching you.”
Nia shivered beneath her silk pelisse cloak as she looked up at the lighted townhouse before her. The structure stood solidly and at the height of fashion on a well-noted London thoroughfare, she would give him that. “Hmm,” she mused out loud. “You, my mysterious nobleman, need a name.” Nia smiled, gathering her cloak up above her ankles, as she announced. “Lord Benefactor! That is what I will call you, and Lord Benny for short. And what’s more, Benny my love, I will vow on my sweet mum's grave that I will do you proud!” Nia pulled the edges of her cloak snugly together. It would not do for her new servants to catch sight of the gown she wore beneath the pelisse. “Give away the wee lark, before I start!” she proclaimed, and then she said, “And now, the newly arisen lady should meet her staff.”
Nia laughed as she stepped up to the front door of the townhouse and instead of pulling the bell, she turned the knob and she waltzed inside. It was after all, completely hers for a time.
The butler’s name was Harkin, the cook Mrs. Wink, and her new lady’s maid was Penny, a good Irish girl. Each of the servants appeared amiable, yet discreet. Exactly what she expected Lord Benny to provide, Nia thought later that night.
“I’ve been fed, bathed, and royally pampered!” Nia let her body fall onto the feathered mattress in her new boudoir, like a tree might after the ax. The mattress yielded like a plush cocoon around her and she giggled in delight. “Benny is a marvelous benefactor! I’ve only been on the outside of a London townhouse such as this.” Nia turned onto her stomach, wallowing in the luxurious feel of the sheer silk chemise she wore and the opulent mattress hugging her curves. “This bonny bed was made for the lively art of tupping. Oh, it is heaven!” She wiggled her toes into the soft feather ticking. She had not had a night on her own in any type of luxury since she was a child. The word, “alone,” with five dear and sweet but rambunctious siblings, was nonexistent.
“Och, and this silk, Benny, it is if the fairies have spun a dream.” Nia rolled onto her back, fanning her waist-long red tresses across the bed as she slid her hand slowly over the gossamer silk and her softly curving body beneath. “A whole closet full of these you’ve given me, and dresses, shoes, silk stockings, and . . . But you know Benny, my love, I did notice the lack of under-drawers.”
Nia brushed her fingertips down over the silk laying like whispers on her belly, then she caressed lower still, until her fingers spread over her mound and the bareness beneath. “Mmm, and what lady has a shaved cunty?”
She nibbled on her bottom lip pondering the dilemma, while her fingers traced the wetting lips of her pussy. She had never appreciated touching herself as well as since she'd shaved her pretty cunty at the suggestion of her mentor, a fille de joie by the name of Madame Vivian. She loved the tenderly exposed feel of her pussy lips and the delicate crease. Looking at her cunty now, completely nude, always made her instantly aroused with a seeping wetness to prove it. The silk beneath her fingertips grew damp with the erotic soft friction of her fingers increasing motions as she petted her soft cunty lips open.
She sighed dreamily. “I wonder what our Duke looks like? He could be old, or mean, or . . . Nay, I will think of him as tall, dark-haired and . . .” Nia paused slipping her finger over the swelling bead of her wet clitty. “Oh hh, pirate-ish.”
She liked to create a dashing figure of her gentleman in her mind, just to heightened both their experiences. “Yes,” she sighed, rubbing her clitoris in tightening circles as her soft thighs separated across the mattress. “A finely darken jawline, flowing black hair, piercing eyes with a roguish smile. Oh mmm.”
Nia bowed her hips upward, pressing her needy clitty firmly against the rapid petting of her fingers. It was moments like this when she appreciated men the most. When she was fully aroused and her feminine cleft was begging to be filled. She must admit that she loved a manly cock. Strong and stout hot male cock. It aroused her, fascinated her, lured her and obsessed her.
“Oh hh, and my Duke will have a bonny willy!” she exclaimed. “It will be thick and round as a billiard ball, curved upward with a fat sassy head. Oh mmm, that will stretch me tight and make me squirm atop it. Oh yes!”
Nia plunged her silk-encased finger deeply into her wet vagina, riding up on her heels as she brought her other fingers from pinching her nipples downward to smudge over her sharply aching clitty. Her knees drew upward to graze the aroused tips of her breasts as she imagined her pirate Duke above her, plunging his cock deep inside her, fucking her hard. Her fingers impersonated his manly cock with increasingly rapid in and out motions that rocked her hips.
“Fuck me!” she gasped, carried away into the world of carnal arousals. “Fuck me wild and true. Make me comeee. Oh hh!”
The pleasure twisted harshly, then spiked through her clitoris, while exploding deep inside her cleft. Each recurring plunge of her fingers exacerbated the intense pleasure to new heights as her climax shuddered through her body for long drawn out minutes. Slowly . . . slowly, she stilled her body’s motions. But still, she rubbed the heat of her cunty gently as she smiled.
“I do not know what the purpose is to seduce you, my Duke, especially by a common whore. Yet, I cannot imagine such a thing as being harmful and I promise on my dear mum's soul, that I will make you smile. Because you will be the wee bit o’ luck that changes my life forever, and changes it forever for the better.”
Nia giggled softly. “You will be my climax, Sir Pirate Duke!”
Chapter Three
“A what?” Radford turned his one shimmering blue eye to Saxonhurst, who for once had shed his solemn grace and was smiling devilishly.
“A bet!” Saxonhurst repeated, settling into the chair facing the desk where Radford sat in the study of his London mansion. “We placed the bet you asked us too, of course,” Saxonhurst continued. “Well, I and Brynmore’s, bet on you to be precise. Just as you asked. And then, my gaze wandered over the other new wagers placed on White's books, and there above the one that Brynmore and I had just had the Majordomo's write, was another wager concerning you. Bold as you please.”
Radford watched Saxonhurst flipping several strands of his ridiculously long maple-brown colored hair back over his shoulder with the use of a small hook attached to where his right hand had once been. Really, Saxonhurst must have hurried with the news to tease and irritate him, because he never wore his waist-length hair loose like he was, Radford thought.
“Well?” Radford raised his eyebrow over his black eye patch.
“The way I see it, it is clearly a challenge. A challenge that was made directly toward you. Although, I do not know her. I have never heard of the lady before.”
“Lady?” Radford felt the hawkishness of his emotions intensifying. A demoiselle betting on the books at White’s was summarily unheard of.
Saxonhurst continued grinning, persistently more, seriously nettling him, and torturing his impatience, as he still hedged. “A handful she would have to be, Rad.”
“Saxonhur-,” Radford began to threaten.
“Lady Nia O’Shea. I do so love to tease you.”
“You never did before, Saxon.” Radford's remark was banked with newfound curiosity.
“Of course I did! Before . . . well the accident where I lost my hand and you lost your eye.”
“No, you did not.”
“Well then, I think I shall start . . . with you!”
“You’ve met a woman then?” It was the only logical reason Radford could think of. It was past time finally, for his normally solemn and reticent friend.
“No, no of course not. Simply a new leaf turned for the better lets say. I am extremely tired of the wallowing.”
“Touche, my friend.” Radford smiled slightly with the hope that this could be true.
“The Lady Nia O’Shea has bet a small fortune that she will marry you in a fortnight!” Saxonhurst blurted out in a joyful manner. “Exactly put the wager states, I will have Lord Sutherlin bridled in marriage and bedded in pleasure, by . . . so on and so on.”
“Bridled and bedded!”
He was offended. And it was ridiculous that he was, yet it felt rather demeaning in an odd sort of way. He should be thrilled. He should be puffed up like a manly peacock that a lady wanted to bed him and in this morally strict day and age, had proclaimed it so vocally and brazenly for all to witness. This was exactly the sort of woman he was hoping for, wasn’t it?
“Really, Rad, I thought you would be pleased.”
“I should be, Saxon, shouldn’t I, but . . .”
“Hmm, feels rather odd being the pursued rather than the pursuer, perhaps, Rad?”
“Exactly. Yes, that must be it. Brazen tart, isn’t she? The language too, is meant to humble, titillate, and yet challenge.”
“Witty is good.”
“Yes, witty is number one here on my list.”
“List?”
“Yes, it occurred to me that I ought to have some idea of what I thought favorable besides nice tits, ass, and long legs.”
“I prefer short legs.”
“Really, Saxon? I did not know. Well actually, I realized after I started compiling the list that all women have beautiful endowments of one sort or another. However, when speaking of a wife these other characteristics become monumentally important. I never realized.”
“Characteristics, Rad?”
Radford turned the top piece of parchment on his desk toward Saxonhurst, who leaned forward. “Ah, loyalty, number one? As in not having affairs? Really, Radford?” Saxonhurst appeared surprised and the thought further rankled Radford, another oddity, he pondered, as Saxonhurst said. “Ah, the spying then, I see, Rad. But we no longer do that.”
Radford realized his mistake nearly too late to cover it. Really the wager must have him more rattled than he thought. He was not usually so sloppy. And he would never admit, even to himself, that the recent news that he might be losing the sight in his one remaining good eye had anything to do with this question of loyalty now. He had no aspirations of pity from anyone and so he sought to cover his faux pas quickly. “Yes, however humor and wit should be placed higher on the list. I had not set them in their proper order of importance yet.”
“You will have no argument from me. I miss humor and I am set to find it again.”
“Good for you, my friend.” Radford nodded to Saxonhurst.
“Well, you have not added brazen to your list here, Rad, and this Lady O’Shea certainly has that.”
“It is extraordinarily daring for a lady in this day and age, is it not?” Radford mused.
“Extraordinary. One might say ballsy, if we were not speaking of a woman.” Saxonhurst quipped.
“Intriguing.” Radford pushed the parchment paper around on his desk in an absent manner. His entire countenance felt energized in a way he had not experienced since the days of spying for the Archangels and England. Bittersweet. He had not allowed himself to realize how much he missed the thrilling pump of excitement thrumming through his tall frame, for an adventure about to begin.
“What will you do, Rad?”
Radford lifted his gaze to Saxon. “Nothing.” He felt oddly unsettled and he refused to acknowledge to himself the profoundness of his intrigue in this matter, so he fell back on his ever ready arrogance. “She will come to me. That is the plan and I never deviate from a perfect and brilliantly set plan. They will all come to me.”
Four hours later, Radford irritably slapped his leather gloves against his tan riding britches as he stood outside a decorous townhouse, one among many in London. Intrigue and irritation were proving to be winning combinations with him, and that coupled with the words ‘bridled and bedded’ blaring in his head, now found him standing in front of Lady O’Shea’s townhouse.
“Truly the lady has to be a minx,” he muttered, striding up to the front door. He really had no idea of what to expect. It was as unfathomable as was his presence there and for a man who assumed that he favored organization in all things to the point of an obsession, his actions now were bordering upon a nearly uncontrollable urge. Given that, he strove to hide his underling reactions with a more arrogantly aristocratic facade. He knew that stance well.
When the door opened to an elderly, yet immaculately dressed butler, Radford merely flipped his calling card over with a snap of his fingers beneath the butler's pinched nose. It was a wordless and pompous advance, with the word, “Duke,” blaring out of the pristine white card in so bold a manner as to have any butler worth his salt bowing and shuffling. Radford was therefore immensely surprised when this butler bared his teeth, and said, “I shall see if my lady is receiving.” Then, the short little man summarily shut the door right in his face.
“Balls.” Radford looked at the card outstretched in his hand. “What gall,” he muttered.
Then suddenly, he laughed, looking up at the door. He had arrived at birth in his cradle as a Duke and in all of his years, except for playing guises in spying ventures, he had been treated as though he was royalty to the point of irritation. He did not bemoan his good fortune, but some of the continuous trappings and attitudes were wearisome.
“The woman is completely peachy,” he declared with a chuckle and to him the word peachy meant sassy and impertinent, with touches of an original free spirit. He could not wait to meet her. Therefore, instead of turning away offended, he stood like a lower class clod upon her front door step.
He consoled himself with the fact that had the door not opened a moment later, surely he would have left, defeating the urge inside him to meet the brazen mystery woman. Also, within his few moments of reflection, he decided that his best, and for the justice of all males in any corner of the world, that his only course of action was to set a challenge to a challenge. The free spirited filly that he was about to meet needed to be set down a peg or two. Being a Duke was one thing, but more importantly first, he was a man. And his masculinity was rising to the occasion, spurred on by a witty and pernicious feminine advance.
“Lady O’Shea, has agreed to receive you, my lord, in the front parlor.”
Radford immediately noted the butler’s blatant leaving off of his proper noble calling of, “your grace.” And, he was equally certain the blaring faux pas did not come from the butler’s impertinence, but from the lady of the house’s orders.
Chapter Four
Radford sat with deceptive quietness in Lady O’Shea’s front parlor absently toying with the edge of the leather chair. The room spoke of subdued elegance with richly embroidered fabrics in reds and golds. There was an English hand-woven rug on the floor, in the unique color of black with honey-colored trim, and the entire room was set off with mahogany wood embellishments. Definitely not a feminine room, but highly sophisticated. The lights were low and cast a yellow glow over the books on the shelves. He considered wandering over to look at the titles to discover what might impress an overly bold femme fatale such as Lady Nia O’Shea, and he was just at the point of standing when suddenly the lights went out.