INVITATION TO RUIN

Included content © Copyright 2006 in Sacred Heart Diaries by Ann Vremont

This edition © Copyright 2009 Ann Vremont

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About An Invitation to Ruin

An Invitation to Ruin is a modern translation of Rococo diaries and letters previously released as part of the Sacred Heart Diaries collection, comprised of the letters and journals of France’s well-born daughters in the final days of the Ancien Regime. The material, gathered by Candacis Vremont, exposes readers to the hidden desires of the time - a willful noblewoman and her mother’s groom, a virgin and her masked lover, a brazen temptress playing the repentant sinner, a betrayal come full circle and forbidden love.

For more titles in the Rococo Diaries series, visit http://www.annvremont.com.

Introduction

Born in France in 1768, Candacis Vremont had a difficult childhood. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to Candacis. Sixteen years later, her father took his life after bankrupting his estate. It was then that Candacis was sent to a small convent in the countryside. As the populace of France became more hostile to the French aristocracy, Candacis found herself surrounded by other young noblewomen sent to the convent by their parents to ensure their safety. Having lived an isolated life of titled poverty, Candacis was fascinated and appalled by the whispered stories of these privileged young women. In the spring of 1787, as France's troubles were worsening, Candacis wrote to her cousin, Philipe, with an unusual proposition. The letter is translated, below, from the original French.

Dearest Cousin,

I read with joy the success of your new publishing venture. You are truly a self-made man—your father, like mine, having left you to survive on your own wits. And how you flourish!

Despite knowing that you are a successful businessman, I have trouble accepting the allowance you have sent. Here, at the Sacred Heart, I have grown accustomed to earning my way. The sisters insist on it for all their charity cases. That is why, dear Philipe, I have a proposition for you. Enclosed is Beatrice. a literary pilfering from a diary carelessly left among bed linens I was collecting. If you think it suitable—publish it.

The content might startle you, but please, Philipe, do not judge me too harshly for writing such a story. I am still the same chaste creature who worshipped you as a small child, dogging your every footstep whenever our fathers visited one another. But the things that I see and hear at the Sacred Heart! Truly, the French people are right—the aristocracy has become too self indulgent, too sensual, too deluded to recognize its own hypocrisy.

Oh, Philipe, you would not believe your senses to see the passions that find their fruition among the young women at the Sacred Heart. I have heard their whispered confessions, seen the pages of their diaries and smuggled love letters. Whether their escapades are wrong—I do not judge. Perhaps all God's creatures are entitled to such pleasures. I only wish to tell their story, to provide an inside glimpse at the so-called nobility that seeks to hold its common citizens to a higher standard than it holds itself.

As ever,

Candacis

BEATRICE

March 12, 1787

Home two days and the count stands at one cup, three bowls and a serving plate smashed, but not a one of them in Mother’s presence. Maria keeps her silence. How I hate the two of them!

March 13, 1787

I spilled tea on Mother's favorite white lace tablecloth this afternoon but Mdm. Bilodeaux was taking lunch with us and the ever efficient Maria had the stain removed before Mother could remember to punish me. How Maria conspires against me!

March 15, 1787

I started my nervous, tearful confession to Mother this morning—the kind that always sets her head to aching—but before I could tell her I had lost my sapphire and diamond brooch, Maria placed it alongside my plate. How could she have found my hiding spot? I wish that I could send her away. But then I would lose him.

March 18, 1787

Finally! After services, Mother sent Maria to deliver a dinner invitation to Mdm. “Bilodeaux” (she of the famous lost love letters). I had to serve our tea again and in the fine porcelain pot Mother purchased from Monsieur Henri. Oh, the worry in Maria's eyes as she dragged her cheap wool cloak onto her shoulders and headed into the rain! She is in the kitchen now, sobbing as she cooks tonight's dinner. She knows. She must know! His scent covers me, the swing of my skirts send it swirling around me as I move through the house in a triumphant daze. The slightest shift of my gown causes ripples of pleasure that threaten to drive me into a maddened ecstasy as it brushes against my swollen and bruised flesh.

How long I desired this day, I cannot remember. Certainly not the first time Mother ordered Louis to take me into the pantry and punish me for having forgotten my parasol at church. What was I then? Twelve, almost thirteen? Father had been in his grave two months, no more.

I was furious and crushed that time, too angry to realize that he was trying to be gentle. Later, I would learn the force that he was capable of. But that first time, I fought in earnest.

Did it take months or years for my struggling to change? How long before, instead of fighting to be free from his blows, my exertions were aimed at pressing against him as hard as I could, rubbing myself against his thick muscles in mock fight, forcing him to encircle my upper body with one arm while I ground against him with each blow?

Fifteen perhaps? My form as filled out as it is now so that I was no longer a girl, older already than the Queen when she married.

And the thrill of the first time I felt him harden against me. “Soon, soon,” I had prayed as a delicious wetness spread between my legs. But he’d pushed me away. And then she came. First, into the house as a serving maid, then between us as his wife. Only loathing and a fearful longing filled his face when he looked at me after that. Still, I would have him. She would not separate us. And today, I have made him mine.

I was sitting on the stool next to the pantry when he came home. Mother was upstairs, her rage at my clumsiness spiking through her head and sending her to her room with another one of her headaches. Maria was still out. Just me and him. Pieces of the broken pottery rested in my lap as I sat, eyes downcast, waiting for him to say something. But he remained silent, only the light twitching of his thigh muscles showing his agitation, his anger. Embarrassed, wanting him, I felt my cheeks flush.

Grabbing me by the elbow, he jerked me to my feet. The larger shards of porcelain broke when they hit the ground and I stood there, mute, staring at them. Tears of frustration caused my vision to blur. Would he refuse? Mother would fire him. She would find another groom and send him away. He had threatened me with that the last time she had sent him to punish me. Pleading with me then to stop provoking her, his voice had alternated between hot passion and cold fury as I denied any willful wrongdoing.

Now he stood silent, waiting. Why? I felt my body begin to sway. More tears welled up. “Louis?”

“Enough, Beatrice!” He pulled me into the pantry, his free hand slamming the door behind us and reaching for the wooden board in one fluid motion.

A crate rested against the opposite wall and he dragged me towards it as I reached for the door, moaning in protest. “No, Louis.”

I could feel the heat building between my legs as he positioned my body over his legs. I tried to back up, but he used the paddle to block me. I pushed forward, the move pulling my bodice tight against my chest. The lace rubbed against my hardened nipples as my breasts threatened to escape. The rough scratch of cloth lace on my skin was a delicious torture and I strained forward, grinding my hips into him. “Please, Louis, do not do this,” I cried, tears already spilling down my cheeks as I turned to look up at him.

He pressed between my shoulder blades, forcing my head past the plane of his legs. My hips rose to meet the paddle as it bore down. “No,” I gasped, sliding forward over his thighs until he had to bring one arm underneath me to hold me still. I could feel the dig of his fingers into my shoulder, the press of one half of his chest against my shoulder blade.

The board fell again and I clenched my thighs, the inner muscles pulling tight and sending a wave of heat to flush my entire body. The hits became more frequent, my body falling into a rising rhythm of contractions.

“Stop. Louis. Do not. Stop.” I was on fire. I had lost count of how many times he had hit me. Far more than he ever had, but I still felt no release, just a building wetness as I ground against him. “No, Louis,” I pleaded with him, my voice filled with true hysteria. “Do not do this.”

He raised my skirt, finding this time no underskirts. I gasped in real shock as the cool air hit my skin. The smell of my excitement filled the small room and I heard him groan as he brought the board down onto my bare flesh, my innermost recesses exposed to his view at last. All pretense flew from me. Legs parting, I collapsed against him, trembling in anticipation of the next blow.

Louis jumped to his feet, sending me sprawling across the pantry floor. Anger flooded into me as I stood up. He was still holding the board, his fist clenched around its slim handle. Lips slightly parted, he struggled for breath while he stared wildly at me. I took a step toward him and he grabbed me, spinning me around and pushing me against the pantry door. I started to speak, but he shoved the board's handle between my teeth as if he were inserting a bit into one of Mother's horses.

With his other hand, he raised my skirt again, forcing my legs apart with his feet. Cold air rushed up, licking at my heated thighs, cooling the swollen folds of my lower lips. His thumbs, rough with calluses, parted the fleshy barrier and he thrust into me, flattening my body against the door. I cried out once in surprise against the board’s handle as his swollen manhood broke the fragile layer of tissue that had so long separated us. Another stroke out, slower, seemingly longer than his intrusive thrust, erased the pain. I pushed against him, followed the thick retreat of his manhood, hungry for more, and he rammed back into me.

The door rattled on its hinges as he pumped my body, filling me with his thick shaft again and again, the tip almost leaving my body with each stroke, battering the already swollen flesh at the entrance to my womanhood. My nipples grew impossibly hard, aching for his rough touch as he slammed into me.

“Mine,” I moaned against the handle, a hot tingle fanning out across my body as I began to shudder with the thrill of his touch. He pressed his face into my hair, murmuring my name over and over as triumph and his seed surged into me, our bodies locked in a deep grind as a final wave of ecstasy washed over us.

He couldn’t know what I was saying behind the makeshift bit. It was enough that I knew.

“Mine at last.”

March 19, 1787

That so much pleasure could be mine so suddenly! And at the expense and pain of that cow wife of his, no less. I had her draw a bath for me before dinner although I was loath to lose the smell of him from my skin. She came into my room, carrying the water, her face puffy from the tears she had cried. I stripped in front of her as she filled the wash tub as I always did. This time, I ran my hands over my bruised body, stopping to examine each thumb print he had left upon me. The smell of our lust still hung ripe in the air around me and I passed near her, giving her the last scent of her husband’s perfume that she would ever have. I know I should have felt some pity, shame even, as she started to cry anew. But I couldn’t. She was the usurper! I had only claimed what was always mine, what never should have been lost to station or wealth.

I made her stay as I stepped into the water, reading clearly that she wanted to flee. I ordered her to wash my back. Let her touch me, I thought. Let her touch the flesh that he has touched, that still burns hot with the memory of him! And, meek cow that she is, she did.

She took the cloth lightly to my back and I turned to look at her, grabbing my breasts as I did so. “My breasts are so swollen, Maria,” I said. “Why is that?” She only shook her head and stared down into the shallow water of the tub as her hands mindlessly moved over my back and arms.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to shrug the tension from them. “Everything is so tight today,” I continued. “I do not understand.”

She sobbed then and I could only imagine how she would have cried had she been on the other side of the door as Louis rode my body. How, hearing the banging and moaning, she might have opened the door. The idea of her watching brought my nipples to a peak and I leaned back against her touch, letting her see my excitement. Her attempt to avoid my gaze was miscalculated, taking her eyes to the very center of the issue!

Spreading my legs, I took the washcloth from her and wiped between my lower lips, letting my hand linger there, the strip of cloth providing no barrier to the pressure of my touch over that sensitive dangle of flesh that had throbbed with the molten pulse of the very earth with Louis inside me.

“I m-must s-set the t-table!” she stuttered and backed away from the tub. She stumbled from the room, her gaze frozen on me as my hands moved on to explore my thighs, the soft swell of my stomach and then my heavy breasts with nipples that had beaded a dark salmon.

“By all means, Maria,” I said, cooing at her like the doves she watched outside the kitchen window. “I am unusually hungry tonight.”

Ah, but the hunger had nothing to do with food. I wanted Louis again. I couldn’t wait. I wanted to see the passion in his face this time, not feel it from behind! And so I finished my bath and floated around the room, dressing myself, mismatching buttons because my fingers trembled with need—the need to be touched and to touch him, to wrap my hands around the marvelous circumference of his manhood, knowing that its swollen state was my doing…and Maria’s undoing.

At the dinner table, I was of no use in conversation…of no use at all. Maria hovered like a hawk, trying no doubt to avoid Mother sending me to Louis for another punishment. Poor thing, she didn’t understand. The pretense was no longer needed. I could call to him directly, express my need to humble my body before him without the sham of disobedience. How could she not know that I only had to arch my back and spread my legs and he would answer in turn? Thrust for thrust!

Dinner was with Mdm. “Bilodeaux” in attendance. I suffered her in good humor, silently musing over the brief notoriety she had gained two seasons ago with a few misplaced love letters to a much younger cavalier.

When dessert was at last cleared from the table, I made my apologies and returned to my room, leaving Mother and Mdm. Bilodeaux to their prayer books. Locking my door, I stripped and crawled onto the bed, rolled on it, stretching my limbs this way and that, imagining Louis on top of me. Catching sight of my body in the cheval mirror, I jumped up and dragged it to the foot of my bed. Returning to the mattress, I rested on my knees and leaned back, examining the upward push of my breasts and the way my nipples stiffened with excitement.

My examination continued downward, and I parted my lower lips, letting my fingers play over the button of flesh at the top. I pulled and stroked at it until the light cream that dampened the folds of my womanhood thickened and coated my fingers. Gently, I probed at the opening, tried to gauge how many of my slick fingers were needed to equal his rod. Surely, the head had been bigger than all five of my fingertips pressed together.

I moaned at the thought, startling myself and releasing a flood of worry that Mother might be out in the hall, however unlikely. No, if Our Lady of Letters had departed, Mother would already be in her chambers on the opposite side of the floor. Not once that I can remember has she entered my room since father died.

Sweet isolation! Once I had hated it, now it served a purpose. Quickly I tossed a light robe around myself. The sheer lace and chiffon were meant to cover more substantial cloth and I could see my body, every curve, every inch of impassioned flesh, through the fabric. Opening my door, I poked just my head into the hall outside. The way to the servants’ stairs was clear and I dashed down the hall to them—going up, not down.

At the top landing of the stairs, I opened the small window that looks onto the back courtyard. I could see that the lanterns were still lit in the stable despite the late hour. Was he avoiding Maria? Drinking? He did so, I knew, after my punishments. Was he doing so again?

From further down the stairwell, I could hear the sound of Maria doing the dishes and cleaning up the rest of the kitchen. It was a muted, somber sound, and the plain, black livery mother demanded the servants wear since father’s passing took on a new meaning in my imagination. I could see Maria in my mind’s eye, clothed in the color of death—the death of her marriage, of his tolerance, of my tolerance, of her presence, of the barrier between us that she had been...but no longer would be.

Pressing my upper body against the window, I watched for Louis to leave the stables. Would he look up? He had to. Not just because it was his nature to look over the house before he entered for the evening, but because I willed him to. My heart began to beat faster, pounding against my ribcage when I saw him barring the stable doors for the night. In the low light of evening, I stared at his back, watched the ripple of muscles as he lifted the heavy slat of wood and set it in place. He turned, his gaze going first to the kitchen entrance to the house and then traveling higher.

He stopped at the second floor, his attention focused on the window opposite my bedroom door. So different the view must be now that he’d sunk his shaft deep into me, felt me squirming in delight along its length!

Higher! I willed him, almost tapped at the window to make sure he would not miss me. But I didn’t need to. His gaze caught mine a heartbeat later, his dark brows rising in inquiry. I brought my hands to the front edges of my robe in answer, parting them slowly to reveal my breasts to him.

Louis looked around at the yard—I imagine to make sure no one was watching our dirty little exchange. How I wanted someone to see it even though I half-feared the world’s hypocrisy and retribution should they find out. (I pictured myself like Mdm. “Bilodeaux,” confined to the company of women such as my mother with their pretentious attempts at reforming my soul.)

I didn’t let the fear stop me. I pulled the robe’s edges farther apart and cupped my breasts, offering the tender tips to Louis like the rare delicacies they are.

And then I backed away from the window and waited.

He didn’t make me wait long. I heard the kitchen door open and close, heard Maria offer a tentative greeting, heard her voice falter as he moved past her to the staircase.

“Where are you going?” she asked him. He mumbled a reply, something too low, too slurred with liquor or passion for me to make out from where I waited two floors up. She offered to do it for him and his voice sharpened to a stern rejection.

I counted his footsteps, realized he was taking the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding in time with each fall of his boot on the risers. Quickly, I pulled my robe back together as I decided to make him work for another glimpse of my bare skin.

“Beatrice…”

There was a question in his tone, in the way he said my name. I think it was my sanity—or his own—that he was unsure of.

“Louis,” I answered, my voice rumbling with the need that had grown monstrous over the last few hours.

Below us, everything went quiet. My heart sang at the silence. It was as if the world had stopped for us and she would hear. Maria would hear my passionate moans. If she dared venture onto the stairs, she would hear the slap of our bodies against one another, hear him call my name.

But the silence did not thrill him as it thrilled me.

“Your mother—”

“You know her, Louis,” I answered, my voice shrilling at his possible retreat. “She is in bed, asleep or with a dozen pillows propped around her head. We might as well be the only two people in the world.”

I dropped my robe and moved to him. “We are the only two people in the world, Louis.”

“Saints! I want…” he started.

I rubbed my breasts against his broad chest, ran my hands up his arms. “What do you want, Louis?”

When he only stood there, like a deer that had just caught the scent of a predator, I took his limp hand and shoved it between my legs.

“Is this what you want?” He nodded his head, his gaze awakening with lust. “Then tell me,” I said and started to move away.

He grabbed me, jerked my body closer and shoved his hands deeper into the pocket between my thighs. “I want you, Beatrice, this tight…”

“Tight what?” I urged him to answer, flexing the muscles that his fingertips only dared to graze against. I knew nothing of the vernacular that he used. There must be other names for these pleasures points, for the honey pot so wet from the mere anticipation of his touch. I wanted to know what they were, hear them roll off his tongue, watch the shock spread across his face as I repeated them in turn!

“This tight pussy,” he moaned and pushed a finger deep into me.

I leaned my head back, thrusting my breasts up as I stood on tiptoe to ease the penetration of his hand inside me. “Pussy,” I said, echoing all the passion his voice had held. “You are making it wet, so wet.”

I pressed my palm against the front of his breeches. “And what is this to my pussy?” I asked, squeezing its firmness for extra emphasis.

“My cock.” He panted his answer, his hand sliding over my button.

“Oh,” I gasped. “And that?”

He gave the tip a rough tug that had me panting in unison with his heavily drawn breaths.

“Your clit,” he answered.

“Those are not nice words,” I said, feigning indignation.

Pulling me closer, he shoved several of his thick fingers into me, his coarse evening beard scratching my throat and cheek as he nuzzled my ear. “Because you are a dirty whore,” he answered.

And he meant it! I could hear the hate in his voice, the shame. But nothing spoke as loudly as his lust. It rumbled in his chest, rushed out hot against my neck. He meant it, but he didn’t mind because I was his dirty whore.

“Yes,” I moaned and pumped against his fingers, my pussy jealous for his cock. “A whore, a bad little whore. And what are you going to do to me?”

“Fuck you,” he groaned, pushing me hard against the wall. He tugged at his pants, freeing his cock from its unbearable confinement. Its tip bulged, the soft twilight that filtered through the window giving just enough illumination to reveal the translucent beads of his desire pearling in the slit. My own slit was already a flood of need and I arched my body, trying to raise my pussy high enough that he could spear me with his cock.

I felt his hands curve beneath my bottom and he lifted me, my back sliding up against the wall. I spread my legs, wrapped them around his waist and he brought me down onto his shaft with a vicious tug that had me squeezing the air from him with my thighs.

“Yes, fuck me,” I begged, then louder, that Maria might hear his betrayal. “Fuck me, Louis, fuck me!”

The landing was narrow and the ceiling of the third floor low. I raised my arms above my head, placing my palms flat against the ceiling. My legs I thrust out until the soles of my feet met the wall, reveling in the control and penetration the tight space allowed.

His fingers bit into the flesh of my bottom, the calloused tips carelessly rubbing against my nether hole as he lifted me up and down the length of his shaft. Craning his head, he caught one of my breasts in his mouth and sucked at the nipple, pulling it hard, stretching the tip and then biting the pale flesh surrounding it hard enough to mark me. (Ah, what will she think of those marks when she sees them!)

The thick flesh of my pussy swelled from the relentless assault of his cock against and inside me. I cried out, nearly screaming as the tips of his fingers once again found the puckered hole hidden between the half globes of my bottom.

“Yes, hold me like that!” I panted. I squirmed against him, trying desperately to bury his cock deeper and to pull his fingertips into that other hole even as my body recoiled in shock. I knew that if any part of his hand penetrated me there, my body would burst.

He was grunting, sucking at my breasts like some newly birthed pig, noisy, greedy, his spit mingling with the light layer of perspiration that covered my throat and chest and the heavy drip of sweat from his forehead.

“Like that!” I demanded again, trying to clamp down on his finger as it strayed closer to the hole.

“You would fling us into hell,” he accused, letting go only to grab me by the waist.

“Afraid of damnation now?” I laughed and he slammed me against the wall once in warning. I laughed at him again and he threaded one hand through my hair, pulling me away from him and forcing me onto the landing on my hands and knees. I looked down the stairwell and saw candlelight still flickering up from the kitchen.

“Fuck me, Louis,” I hissed and reached behind me to spread my pussy lips for him.

His hands closed around my hips like a vise and he rammed his cock into me, my head bouncing once against the banister from the force.

“Again!” I commanded him.

He obeyed, leaning as he pumped his cock into me. His fingers, curled like meaty hooks, pulled at my breast, pinching the nipple to a blood-red peak. With my opposite hand on the floor, I braced one shoulder against the banister and began to rub my clit in time to the deep thrusts of his cock inside me.

“Yes.” I panted my pleasure down the stairwell, moaning and groaning to Maria’s torment. “That feels so good, Louis. Sooooo good.”

My nails grazed the skin of the two swollen sacs that hung from his cock and he shuddered against me, the tremble of it filling my pussy. “I feel like I am on fire, Louis.”

Just as that heat began to blaze across my entire body, I felt his seed ripple through his engorged cock, felt the muscles at its base twitch inside me.

“I am coming,” he bit out, his voice and body exhausted as he yelled it again. “I am coming, Beatrice.”

That was the final thing he said to me last night. His body locked mid-thrust, shooting so much of his seed into me that it spilled down my thighs before he even withdrew.

Withdraw he did. Nothing sweet or lingering. There was no need for tenderness, after all, was there? Not for such a dirty little whore. No, enough that he had fucked me like I wanted him to. When he was done, he picked his pants up from the landing and left, his face a storm cloud of confusion.

Me, I scooted down the stairs and crawled to my room. I pulled myself up onto the bed where I let my fingers explore the angry flesh of my pussy. How I wished it was daylight so that I could see the puffed red tissue, see the white pearls of his seed still dripping from me. I spread my fingers in the delicious mess, ran them over my clit and down along the crack of my bottom to that other hole to gently explore its edges, more fire bursting from my center as I probed deeper.

And that is how Maria found me this morning, my hand still buried between my legs, my body rank with the sweat and seed of her beloved husband, my lover.

March 22, 1787

She must have threatened him. How else can his careful avoidance of the house be explained? That he didn’t want me? Impossible! I saw in his eyes how his desire still burns. And I have caught him looking up at my window each night since. But he stays down in the stables!

Yet she could only keep him from me for so long, now that we’d been together. Duplicity or fate was bound to reunite us. Which it was, I still cannot say. Did I mean to cut Mother’s finger at tea this evening or was it really an accident?

She was reaching for the bread, which was alongside a bar of butter. And I was reaching for the butter…with the saw-toothed knife Maria had used to cut the bread. Looking out the window, I was thinking of Louis and didn’t realize which knife I was holding until I heard Mother’s bloodless gasp.

The lace tablecloth, on the other hand—not bloodless at all. Who would think that one bony little finger could channel so much blood? Even now, I wonder whether she sent me to the room, to him, because of her finger or the precious scrap of fabric.

That she sent me, of course, is all that really matters. I had to bite down on my tongue to keep the tears of joy and laughter from rolling down my cheeks. Maria raced into the room, begging forgiveness for my clumsiness. Even telling Mother that it was sinful to send me for a beating! Sinful, yes, what would go on in that room, what had already gone on in that room. Still, I would wager my opal earrings that Maria will be on bended knee tonight at church praying that her lie be forgiven while I lounge in my bed, still playing with the wet field of today’s lust.

His gaze was wide, frightened even, when he came in from the stables, Maria having been sent to fetch him. He smelled of sweat and horseflesh, but it only made me hotter for him.

“Maria says you cut your mother?”

Maria was standing in the kitchen, watching us, and he glanced back over his shoulder at her. She didn’t look away and he turned back to me.

“It was an accident,” I told him, my voice trembling. How different from the last time I had sat on that wobbly stool with the broken pottery resting on my skirts. I had feigned being innocent then, now I truly was. But still I craved his punishment. I realized I had missed the feel of the board against my flesh, of his forced dominance of my body when he otherwise would shrink from his own desires.

“This can be no accident, Beatrice.”

“It is,” I protested. “I…I was thinking of you.” I looked at Maria as I said this, saw her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. Louis stiffened, his body freezing half an instant before he would have looked back at her.

I hardened my tone, wiped any trace of timidity or fear from it. “But I am ready for my punishment despite such innocence.”

His nostrils flared at that, his sensuous mouth pressing into a hard line. “You dare claim any kind of innocence?”

“Yes.” So sweet was my voice, as sweet as the honey that pooled between my legs. He must have smelled my excitement, too, for his stance softened. “Look at me, Louis,” I entreated, still sweet, still light with youth. “I am just a girl, barely eighteen years on this earth.”

I raised my hand and gestured around the room. “This house and the convent are all I know of the world. Mother, the sisters and girls at Sacred Heart, you and Maria, Mdm. ‘Bilodeaux’—these are the only people I know.”

I let my gaze play over his safely cloistered cock, its swelling already evident, and then raised my head to stare him down. “If I have lost any claim to innocence, where, among so few people and places, should blame be placed?”

His arm shot out, pushing the door to the pantry open. “Get inside!”

“Louis, no!” Maria moved across the kitchen, her hand extended as if its frail strength could stop him. “Do not do this.”

Ah, my own entreaties thrown back at him in his wife’s voice. No, Louis, do not. Stop. Do not stop, Louis. Yes, that is what I had meant all along, perhaps even that first day when I thought my struggles real. And I had made him immune against such pleas. What were her tears and threats compared to the pleasures my body offered him?

I was still sitting on the stool and he grabbed me by my upper arm, pulling me to my feet. She reached us before he could shove me into the room and I let each of them tug at me. I tugged back, feeling my bodice stretch as husband and wife yanked at a sleeve. The lace binding loosened and I smiled in anticipation of a breast popping free as Louis tried to drag me into the pantry and ravish me while Maria tried to stop him.

He let go of a sudden and I crashed against Maria, my full breasts pressing against her smaller ones. Our faces came so close I could have kissed her on the mouth, let my tongue play over her thin lips before charging beyond the pearl gates of her teeth. She must have seen some of my intent written across my face. She scrambled away, but not before Louis caught her. She paled beneath his tight grip while I thrilled at the raw passion that blazed across his features. He would not let her come between us again.

“Get inside,” he repeated, not looking at me, knowing innately that I would obey, that my whole body was shaking with the need to obey.

He released Maria and dismissed her with a stern command to return to the kitchen. He closed the pantry door and dragged a heavy sack of flour against it, then looked around the room, measuring and discarding potential implements of pain and pleasure.

“Take your clothes off,” he ordered.

I started stripping, stopping every now and then as I watched him arrange the crates in the room. Each time he would urge me on in my disrobing with an enraged gaze that promised a painful retribution. At last, I was naked in front of him, my hands across my breasts as I tried to calm my excitement.

He had made a rough set of steps with the crates, one serving as the bottom step and two more stacked together to form a top step or platform. Grabbing the paddle from next to the door, he tapped the lower crate.

“On your knees, Beatrice.”

As I moved to comply, he shoved me forward and pressed my chest against the top platform. Slamming the paddle down next to my head, he grabbed my arms and pulled them back until one of his large hands encircled both my wrists. He fished a loop of leather lacing from his pants and bound my hands together.

“What—”

“Quiet!”

God help me, a fresh burst of cream coated my pussy at his barked command. I shut my mouth only to have him pry it back open when he forced his belt between my teeth. Only my moans were tolerated, his breathing growing heavier with each delighted squirm of my body as I waited to find out what he would do next.

Keeping one hand on the belt’s ends, he twisted the strap until I was forced to look back at him. His pants fell to his ankles and his cock, purpled with his readiness, pulsing in the air like a third arm. He stroked it a few times, my mouth and the leather between my teeth growing wet as I watched his hand sliding over his shaft. I squirmed some more, damning the string that kept my hands from touching him or relieving my own need.

Releasing his cock, he picked the paddle back up and delivered the first blow to my bottom. The wood of the crate, unsanded, scraped at my breasts as the power of his arm pushed me across the crude platform’s surface. Again he hit me, my bottom surely purpling to match his swollen cock. I jerked, pain and pleasure combining until my pussy was a mad throb of need.

Another hit and frustrated tears rolled down my cheeks. Yes. More, please. Take the gag from my mouth so that I can beg you for more, Louis. Unbind my hands so that I may grovel with them clasped around your ankles!

Another hit and the dam broke, my body thrashing violently as my pussy constricted with pleasure. He dropped the paddle and took a belt end in each hand, pulling my head back as he kicked my legs to the sides of the first crate, stretching my pussy tight before he rammed his cock into me. Louis worked the makeshift rein, pulling back again and again as if we were at full gallop, playing the roughrider to my tender mare.

Tender, indeed! He speared me again and again, his shaft too massive for such sport. I could feel the inner walls of my pussy protest each time his cock slammed into me, feel the tearing of the fragile tissue that surrounded its entrance. And I loved him for it! More so than I ever had. He was master now, if only for today. And I, his dirty little whore until, shaking and coming, I fainted beneath him.

March 24, 1787

Saturday has come at last! It is not joy with which I punctuate my sentence, but despair. I write this from the coach that will return me to the Sacred Heart before evening mass tomorrow, stopping only for the evening at another convent along the way.

How long will it be, I wonder, until Louis fills me again? Never? It seems likely that we part now forever. His lust and shame threaten to destroy him—even as I revel in this new freedom, my thoughts drifting now to the fine young coachman hired to transport me back to the school. How much transport, I can’t help thinking, is he ready to provide?

Wanton of me—to already desire another lover? I don’t know. I am only certain of what I saw in Louis’s eyes this morning as he came upstairs to my bedroom to force me to pack. Maria even encouraged his approach, confident, perhaps, that she would shame him back to her after my departure. His gaze was hollow, as if his soul had been sucked out of him, or, more accurately, pumped into me, for he had not yet let me set my lips to the plump shaft of his cock. A man on the gallows, that is what he was. As he should be! If he lamented my departure, why not tell me to stay? Why force me to pack? Why carry my luggage down to the coach? I would have defied every thing and every one but him had he done so. I would have lived in the gutter, bathed in the sludge and piss on the street if he would but promise to master my body each night.

But no, he came to me this morning as a hollow man, with nothing to offer save what I could squeeze from him with ridicule. I wish I could say it pained me to goad him on like that. I wish I could say it, but I was wet and hot the entire time, from the first glimpse of his dark locks as he climbed the staircase...until he spilled the last of his cum in me.

“I am here to make sure you pack.” He stood in the doorway with Maria looking over his shoulder.

I was still in my robe and nightgown and I started to take them off. Maria’s face hardened to a polished alabaster and I imagined I could see her fists curling behind his back.

“Leave us, Maria,” I said and turned to examine my body in the mirror, sad that something as innocent as a length of glass and its frame were banned from the convent.

“I shall tell your mother,” she threatened.

I smiled at her reflection in the mirror. “Do that.”

She must have thought me the devil because she crossed herself, praying to Heaven for protection and intervention.

“Maria, do as she says…or would you have me imprisoned?”

She wasn’t sure where or how she wanted him. I could see that and it only made my smile grow wider, more voracious. Perhaps I should have bid her stay and watch us fuck?

His gaze never leaving my body, he ordered her to leave. “Go, now!”

She turned, a leaden saint, and retreated down the stairs.

“You,” I turned and crooked a finger at him, pulling him into the room with no more than a gesture. “Close the door.”

“What is it you want, Beatrice?”

“A proper good-bye, that is all.”

“How can you do that to Maria?” He was earnest in his question and it made me laugh in his face. A flash of anger lit his gaze, narrowing the pupils to black points that threatened to tear out my heart.

Good, I wanted him angry. It made him hard, as much as he might wish to deny it. So it had been between us for so long, my fighting him, rubbing against him, exposing some bit of forbidden flesh. He could not know me without being the stern enforcer of Mother’s petty punishments. And now he had so much to punish me for and I intended to give him even more!

“I owe Maria no duty of kindness!” I spat the words in his face and he raised his hand to me for an instant before slamming his fist against his thigh.

“Is it my fault?” No longer looking at me, he stared at the floor and numbly shook his head. He glanced up, remembering that I was there, and shook his head again. “You have wantonly tempted me for so long.”

“Pity you did not take me sooner…before marrying that cow.” I thrust my breasts out, my chin following suit as I dared him to raise his hand again.

My words shocked him, apparently filling him with horror that I should have suggested so early a taking. And then some false chivalry over Maria’s honor fell across him like a black veil and he grabbed me by the throat. “That you, a whore, should talk about her—”

“Your whore,” I reminded him and stroked at the hands that threatened to squeeze the life out of me. “And what is she anyway? Is it her wifely duty that keeps her at your side still? Or, like me, does she want you to fill her with your cock, to fuck her with it, to let her take it into her mouth and suck—”

He backhanded me and I fell across the bed. On hands and knees, I crawled across the mattress, playing the naked, disheveled penitent. I stopped a hand’s width from him, not looking up at him, my gaze centered on the outline of his cock pressing against his pants. My tongue slipped out to wet my lips. “You are so hard,” I observed.

My breasts, ripe with need, brushed against my arm and the sensitive nipples stung as if I’d drawn a blade across them. “I need you, Louis,” I begged, sincere at last. “This last time before I lose you forever.”

“No!” He grabbed two handfuls of hair and pulled me against him, hugging my face against his erect manhood. “Why do you say that?”

So he wanted me to stay! But would he admit as much?

“When I return…” I started, looking up and faltering as I saw the truth scratched across his features.

“I will still be your mother’s coachman…and Maria’s husband.”

I rose up, pushing angrily at him. “I will be mistress here, soon,” I warned. “Do you think that old woman, with her headaches and her vapors and all her hateful misery will ruin my life for much longer?”

I shook my head, my hair whipping once around my shoulders. “No, this will be my house! And you…” I slammed my fist against his chest, my voice breaking. “You already are mine!”

“Yes, Beatrice.” He pulled me to him, hiding his face against my hair, rubbing his cheek against the satiny strands.

“Then show me!” I reached for his belt, tore at his pants to free his erection. So thick, wanting my touch, wanting me to taste it. My mouth descended, swooping down all at once, feeling the head stretch my lips and press against the back of my throat. I bobbed along the shaft’s length, sucking, licking, my hands workings the heavy sacs below, gently squeezing them until he put a hand on each side of my head and began to fuck my mouth. I let him control me like that, fondling his balls with one hand while I reached between my legs to pull at my clit.

“Blessed Beatrice,” he cried out, his skin along his cock rippling with the first of his cum. “Keep sucking, keep sucking.”

He bucked inside my mouth a few more times before withdrawing and collapsing along the length of the bed. He was panting, his body weakened from the past few weeks of fucking and fighting. Whereas I had only grown stronger. I scrambled to the head of the bed, turning quickly, one leg arcing over his head as I planted my pussy against his mouth.

Louis didn’t protest, only stopped his breathing for one surprised moment before he began laving the walls of my pussy. My whole body was alive with the sensation of his tongue stroking my labia before plunging into me. I wiggled against his face, his chin biting into the hard bone that ran beneath my clit.

The mirror was up against the wall and I watched myself squirming against his mouth. I cupped my breasts, fondled them as I began to bounce up and down. He stuck a finger inside my pussy and I cried out, my body hovering at the edge of climax. I grabbed his other hand and guided it to my bottom, forcing his index finger apart from its brothers. He licked the length of his finger and then swirled it in the thick juice that coated my pussy before ramming it into the tight hole that winked above.

My lust-filled scream pierced the morning quiet, but he kept driving his fingers into me, licking my pussy with long strokes, while he finger fucked both of my holes. I came then, a shuddering climax that thundered through my body and left me quivering above his still feasting mouth.

Louis pushed me forward onto my hands and knees and dipped his cock into my wet slit until it was heavy with my cream. Then he grabbed my bottom, his thumbs parting the cheeks. I felt the heavy tip of his cock wedge against the small opening to my bottom. Another wave of anticipation washed over me and I moaned my encouragement.

How can I explain what it felt like as he plundered that tight hole? Was there pain? Yes. But it only quadrupled my pleasure, my protesting muscles gripping his cock tighter still. His thickness filled me beyond the narrow borders of that other channel, seeming to fill my pussy with his manhood as if each stroke was inside its wet, grasping depths. The pressure on my clit was stacked so high I thought urine would spill from me before I came. Everything tried to pull him deeper into me. Every muscle rejoiced as he put his first tender, exploratory thrusts aside and began to drive hard inside me. I was moaning…crying…tearing at my hair…my face flat against the mattress as I screamed my pleasure into it until, with a bone-deep grunt, we climaxed together.

There was nothing for me to do then but get dressed and pack my luggage. Already, the livery bells were jingling outside, announcing the coach’s arrival. He carried the trunks outside while I bound my hair and walked down the hall to Mother’s room. There was the polite knock, the polite good-bye, the polite assurances that I would write her once a week even though she would never write a return letter. It was not my custom to approach her bed, but I did this time, nurturing with each step closer some perverse hope that she would smell Louis on me and that the shock might stop her heart. I had told him that I would do as much, but the blank mask had already fallen back across his face and he no more than shrugged before taking the next bag down.

So here I sit, journal in hand, the spot between my legs—that delicious area that I can only think of now as my pussy—still moist, still hungry. And I wonder, would the coachman notice a little more sway to the trap? Would he hear an escaped moan over the clatter of the horses’ hooves? And if he did, what would he do?

Interpreter’s note: This is the last entry in Beatrice’s diary. What we know of her fate is revealed only through the letters and journals of the other young women sheltered at the Sacred Heart.

GABRIELLE

Transmitted May 1, 1787, from Candacis Vremont to her publisher, and cousin, Philipe.

Dearest Cousin,

I received your letter today. How can it be that so few words can bring such profit?! You did not supplement it, did you? Promise me you did not!

I know I should not be thrilled at the sum; the image of poor Maria’s face haunts me now. My enrichment has come at the cost of her pain (although she is rather accustomed to such things, it seems).

You said the public clamors for another entry! How I wish I could be standing alongside the vendors as they distribute them or disguise myself as a man and sell them on the streets myself. The thrill it would bring to watch their greedy fingers pull the pages apart in their eagerness to read my words! There was, so the gossip goes, a copy smuggled into the convent and now the rumors fly. How many Sacred Hearts, the girls wonder, can there be in France? Is the convent in Beatrice’s story truthfully named or merely modeled after that most famous school? Is there such a girl as fatherless Beatrice here and, if so, where was she in March? It pains me that I have not seen the copy, although it is, perhaps, for the best. I am thought so innocent of potential wrongdoing in this matter that several of the girls here have pulled me into their confidences that they might mine me—much as they would a servant—for information as to Beatrice’s identity and that of the author!

You will, perhaps, recognize the young woman in this installment, the end result so widely reported.

As ever,

Candacis

GABRIELLE

April 10, 1787

Sebastian! The very name makes my chest swell with love and a most immodest passion. It seems miraculous that I may soon be in a position to tell him as much. And the bringer of this miracle? That is another miracle in and of itself. Long have I chronicled my attempts to win over Veronique as a friend so that I might gain some access to her cousin. And, while her family is, indeed, quite anciently titled, you would think I was a commoner grabbing at her skirts on the street! But, no more. She has finally accepted me into her confidences and I her. When she learned of my unrequited love for her cousin, Sebastian L’Aigle, she, of all people, agreed that we would make an excellent match. And now, in a few days, she has promised to present me to him at the masquerade.

And I without a costume! No time to write more. I must prepare!

April 13, 1787

Be still my heart! How things move so quickly when in love. Sebastian, through Veronique, has agreed to a private audience during the masquerade. I am near faint at the prospect that we will be able to discuss our mutual feelings. Yes, mutual! He has confessed as much to Veronique. It seems impossible that I wondered a mere week ago if I might ever capture more than his casual notice. Now, it is not a child’s query to wonder whether marriage is far off.

His secret gifts this week are enough to convince me his interest is not some shallow flirtation. The gilded masks and gold laced gowns and gloves, fine flame red wigs (the color not so far off from my own) so that Veronique and I may pass as twins at the masquerade. Their cost is a small fortune.

And the intrigue—so much more thrilling than what passes for formal wooing among our class. My heart (and more!) flutters at the suspense surrounding our first meeting—so masterful his courtship.

Father, of course, will be easy to convince and pleased, no doubt. But I do worry as to Marquis L’Aigle. Ambroise is such a rough brute compared to Sebastian, despite father and son being near mirrors of one another in physique and coloring. But then, Sebastian is the stone lovingly polished by his blessed mother (may she rest in peace). A world of polishing would still find Ambroise jagged and tearing at the hands of the lapidarian. And yet, such men may be easily manipulated by a woman’s soft manners. At least, somber bore that he is, I will not have to worry about Ambroise remarrying and producing a rival heir!

April 15, 1787

It is the morning after the masquerade and my body is sore. Not from dancing or perching at the edge of some ancient dame’s seat while I pretended to be enthralled with some cruel story of her maid having burnt a stocking and the beating that followed. No, not from anything so mundane am I sore, but from an evening of thorough lovemaking! Yes, I confess as much, here, in secret.

I arrived at the masquerade in the company of Veronique and her parents. Quickly, Veronique made her way to the masked Sebastian to identify him to me as such. He looked my way once, across the room, while they talked, but then he disappeared! I felt as if I would die there on the floor. But then Veronique, after many more minutes of talking with some of the assembled lords, made her way back to me, detailing where and when I should find Sebastian waiting for me. The soul of discretion, he feared harm to my reputation should anyone realize we had arranged a private conversation.

How long the evening dragged—how many lesser men bruised my feet as I danced with them. With each new partner, I longed to see before me one dressed in the dark blue velvet and feathered half-mask Sebastian wore, to have a supple blue leather glove take my hand. Ah, did he have another dance in mind so early, or did the evening’s forced separation make him long for my touch as it made me long for his?

It was after ten when I made my way to the appointed private drawing room. Some unused suite. No fire blazed despite the room’s chill. Not even a candle was lit. Instead, he stood by the window’s open curtains waiting for me. With a soft whisper, he bid me lock the door and sit on the couch. I trembled as I obeyed.

When I was seated, he moved across the room and sat down on the far end of the couch. My heart cried foul! I wanted him closer. I raised my hands to my mask, but he halted me.

“None know what face lies behind that mask tonight, do they, dearest Gabrielle?” he asked.

He still whispered and I squirmed in my seat, desperate for the sound of his light tenor. “No, all night Veronique and I refused to reveal ourselves—so too her parents,” I assured him. My low tones matched his, but I wondered at the necessity. Surely we were far enough from the party that we could abandon our hushed tones.

“Then keep the mask on, as will I, should some unannounced guest intrude on our…conversation.”

For an instant, I was glad of the half-mask for it kept him from seeing what disappointment might show in the faint light. He must not think me petulant, or domineering, or anything less than perfect. And so I nodded my agreement although I ached to see his fine features.

“And will we talk like children in a game of hide and seek the whole time?” I asked, keeping my words as sweet as I could despite my mounting impatience.

He moved closer and, even in the faint moonlight, I could see the trace of a smile along his lips, or so I believed.

“It is best, don’t you think, for what we have to discuss?”

Apprehension gripped me—I feared I would make a fool of myself with assumptions. Would we discuss it so soon—were we even thinking of the same thing?

I took on an evasive air. “And what,” I asked, “will we be discussing?”

Sebastian moved closer still. I could smell his perfume and deeper, more masculine scents. Had I been so close before? Of course not. Always had we been separated—he at one end of a far table, me at the other. Occasionally we might find ourselves close enough to exchange a few pleasantries. To think the same passions were building in his breast as stormed inside me.

There, so near at last, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. It was not as I expected, his scent. Strong and earthy, it made me hungry—for what I still couldn’t guess. Certainly I did not intend so early to take things so very far?

Feeling his hand on my bare shoulder, I opened my eyes.

“About our eventual marriage,” he answered.

A second time that night I thought I would die on the spot! I couldn’t respond, only tremble beneath his touch. Such heights in a few short weeks, it seemed impossible.

“Is that not what you are here to discuss, Gabrielle?” he asked and withdrew his hand.

“It is, Sebastian,” I assured him and reached out to touch his sleeve. “I just dared not hope to hear those words from your lips tonight.”

Grabbing both of my shoulders, he pulled me closer, my breasts a mere inch from the frills of his coat. I longed to push forward, to press against his chest, but fear that he would find me brazen stopped me.

“What is it?” I asked, the words sounding with a quiver as I fought to contain the heat building in me.

“I would kiss you, Gabrielle, if that is not too bold of me?”

I relaxed beneath his touch and closed my eyes, ready for his kiss. What did I expect? Not those light pecks that clumsy admirers sometimes sought to bestow upon me. But neither did I expect a deep probing of my mouth that would leave me damp and on fire (in so many places)!

He started slow, his lips whispering across mine, leaving me sighing. Then his tongue flicked at the corner of my mouth and, like a child drawn to a nipple, I followed the motion, opening my mouth to his. His tongue penetrated me, sliding over and against mine, swiping at my palate with sensuous thrusts that had me cresting against his broad chest.

He cupped my breast as he kissed me, the looser fitting gown he had equipped me with for the night allowing him to manipulate my flesh with his strong hands. I leaned into him, returning the thrust of his tongue, and his other hand traveled down to my calf. He rubbed at my leg through the fabric, effortlessly coaxing me into a reclining position.

Sebastian uncurled his body along mine and I felt the just of his hips and hard press of his manhood through the cloth of my gown. I sighed, arching my back, wanting nothing more than to have him take me but not knowing how to, or whether I should, ask for such a thing.

“My love.” His voice was filled with the same warm spice that scented his body and I moaned against his shoulder as his hand traveled the curve of my hip. “I would worship your body if you would but consent, Gabrielle?”

Dark, husky, the request sent thrills racing over my skin followed by a warm blanket of heat. Nevertheless, I tightened with dread.

“You would think me wanton,” I protested at the same time my tone pleaded for him to convince me otherwise.

“I would think you my mate, love, bound to me forever,” he answered. He lifted the skirt of my gown and undergarments, the leather of his glove smooth against my thigh. He gripped my hip, his thumb caressing the skin of my lower stomach.

How could I deny such a touch! I arched and moaned, my legs spreading even though I did not order them to do so. He stroked the small button between the folds of my womanhood, the touch of the leather on the sensitive skin maddening.

“Sebastian…I have never…” I stopped, the confession almost embarrassing. I knew how far other young women in my position had ventured. Veronique had teased me with half-confessions of her more sensual escapades. Would Sebastian expect me to be a virgin or find me a silly unschooled child?

“No?” he asked, his voice seeming to disbelieve his good fortune. “All the more precious, love, this gift you offer.”

I almost began sobbing against his chest at that point. The silken caresses, his calling me “love.” It was all too much…all that I had ever hoped for and I still could not believe it true. “You will not think me wanton?” I persisted.

He pulled back and, thinking I had lost him, my heart broke. How great my joy to see that he was only removing his signet ring and one glove.

“We will be married before a month passes,” he promised. “I will go to your father this week and arrange it.” Tossing the glove on the floor, he offered the ring to me. “Take this ring and know that I tell you the truth, that I tell you what is in my heart, dear Gabrielle.”

I fastened the ring to a long chain I wore hidden beneath my gown. Stretching my arms out, I unconditionally offered my body to him. “Come to me, my love.”

He moved cautiously, his obvious concern for my pleasure making me burn hotter with each caress. His ungloved hand parted my lower lips, the pad of his fingertips exploring the entrance to my very center. I had imagined his hands to be very smooth, more so than the glove, but they were rough. The surprise left me panting as he pulled and teased the small button and thick lips before sticking a finger full inside me.

I could feel him testing my virtue and he groaned as his finger brushed against the covering of my virginity.

“Sweet, sweet, Gabrielle.” His breathing was harsh as his lust obscured his voice. He stroked the inside of my center with his fingers as he leaned back and watched passion whip through my body. “To think that this should be mine. Only mine.”

“Only yours,” I assured him. Begging him to enter me, I extended my arms. “But take it now, my love. Take it as my pledge of love for you, as you have given me your ring as pledge.”

He stood for a moment, removing the other glove and tossing it next to its mate on the floor. He lowered his pants until I could see the full thrust of his manhood silhouetted in the moonlight. Something half gasp, half groan escaped me at the sight of it. Like a true wanton, I reached out, sighing when my fingers could not close around the shaft.

“Will it hurt?” I asked, some part of me hoping that it would. I wanted to walk around in the morning sore from Sebastian’s love of me.

He did not answer me immediately, choosing instead to kneel in front of my wide-spread legs. My lower lips were covered with a rich moisture that had built while he kissed and touched me. He ran the tips of his fingers through it before inserting them once again inside of my center. As his fingers moved within me, his thumb ran over that distended bump of flesh that so thrilled at his ministrations. So pleasured was I by his attentions I had to bring my forearm across my face and bite at the soft flesh lest I cry out and reveal our lovemaking.

As he brought my desire to a high pitch that had me thrashing on the couch, I felt the tear of my maidenly shield and then the full thrust of his fingers inside me while my body broke against a wave of ecstasy. When the waves subsided, he withdrew halfway, his fingers wedging open the swollen gate of my sex as he positioned his manhood at the threshold.

I could feel myself expanding as he pushed in. So greedy my body for his rod, the muscles snapped shut around him and he moaned my name. His hands found my thighs and he began pumping inside of me. Already, my body was quivering against his and I heatedly demanded more, more of his thick shaft, more of the sensuous flesh he offered up to appease my hunger. Fragile in our lust, we trembled against one another as he pumped my body.

I marveled at his strength, at the virility of his thrusts, more enthralled with him than I had ever been. Having loved him at such a distance, I had never noticed these unexpected charms. Where I had imagined him slighter to the touch, he was solid and thick. Where I had imagined every inch of his skin to be petal soft, he was rough in all the right places.

“Gabrielle, I die happy now,” he softly cried out, his voice breaking as he spoke my name.

I clutched him to me as I, too, rushed to meet my death. Oh, happy death that spread through my limbs with a molten silence, melting each muscle so that it first quivered and then quieted with fatigue.

Both our bodies exhausted, he pressed gently against me, his arms propped such that he did not ask me to bear his weight, though I gladly would have if only to keep his shaft, still throbbing in its pleasure, inside me.

“Gabrielle?” The question was breathless and low, as all our talk had been this evening.

“Yes, my love?”

“You must not inquire with your father as to whether I have asked after you,” he said.

I did not understand his order, however gently delivered, and I told him as much.

“Do not doubt that I will seek his consent to our union,” he explained. “I just would not have your inquiries cause some suspicion on our…” He paused, searching the darkened room for some word that would pass among the decent folk still enjoying the masquerade. “Our current acquaintance,” he finished. “Do you not think, my love, that this is the wiser course?”

If I did not doubt his love, it was, indeed, the wiser course. And how could I doubt it, offered so sincerely and with his attention to my pleasure. “I will do as you ask in all things, dearest,” I answered.

I felt him swell against me in satisfaction and had to keep from wrapping my legs around him and begging him to ask me to do all sorts of wicked things!

“And will you meet with me again?” he asked.

Such nervousness, such fear trembled through his voice at the thought I would refuse. Joy leaked from my eyes.

“Tell me but when and how,” I answered, wrapping my arms around him.

Gently, he unwound himself from my embrace. “Follow Veronique’s instructions,” he answered, the smile evident in his voice. “She can be trusted in this matter, although she can only guess the nature of our…words…with one another.”

With tender devotion, he pulled the skirt of my gown back down and rearranged its folds before restoring his own clothing. Offering me his hand, he helped me up from the couch and walked me to the door. “We will not see each other until I send for you, and perhaps, even then, only once before I claim you publicly.”

He kissed me then, with the same heated intensity as the night’s first kiss, and released me into the hall. Veronique met me halfway back to the masquerade and ushered me into another room to make sure my appearance was fully aright. I protested, of course, that nothing should have caused it to go amiss, but she did not believe me, even if she would not confess openly to thinking me a liar. What did it matter? A month from now and I will be the wife of Sebastian L’Aigle.

April 17, 1787

So hard it has been to do as Sebastian ordered and not inquire with Papa as to Sebastian asking for my hand in marriage. But he did not say that I could make no inquiries as to potential suitors!

And Sebastian must have visited with Papa, who is acting so strange at the hints I drop. At tea today, even though it has been only three days since the masquerade, I aired a concern that I would never find a suitable marriage. Papa dropped his biscuit into his tea! And when I mentioned a most unsuitable young man as Papa was reaching for the sugar, he knocked the bowl over! Papa is not so clumsy in a single year, let alone one afternoon at tea.

But that is not all that I base my hope on. Sebastian has called for me—in the form of an invitation from Veronique to spend the weekend at her parent’s estate. The invitation did not arrive alone, the courier having a second envelope for Papa.

April 19, 1787

It is true, it cannot be otherwise. Papa announced at breakfast this morning that my return to the Sacred Heart will be postponed. He claims that Mama is saddened by my absence and would not lose me so soon. I am almost convinced, as I found her crying in her room this morning, saying how much she would miss me. But I can only hope that he is keeping me here so that Sebastian may propose!

April 21, 1787

How the days dragged after I received Veronique’s invitation, even though my heart was in a constant state of flutter. I am exhausted and happy that Veronique is playing the indifferent hostess, leaving me to rest in my room.

There was a gift on my bed when I arrived. A small white box with a heavy gold chain inside to bear the weight of the ring, so his note said, until I bear it on my finger as his wife. The note also promised that he would be with me tonight, although his arrival and departure will be secret.

How much I would have protested the thought of such a meeting even a week ago. But I did not have his avowal of love and devotion then. Now, the secrecy of it only heightens my arousal.

April 22, 1787

How can the body know this much joy and pleasure and not burst into flames?

Again, our appointment was late, long after the family had gone to bed. Worn out from a day’s anticipation of the night, I fell asleep almost immediately after returning to my room and changing into no more than the robe that should have covered my modest sleeping gown. It was only upon hearing the creak of the bedroom door as it slowly opened inward that I awoke.

Footsteps sounded across the floorboards only to be muffled as he reached the bed’s carpeted perimeter. The curtains to the room were drawn and no candles had been lit in the hall. I had only my sense of smell and the muffled sound of his voice to know that it was Sebastian.

“Gabrielle…”

So quiet, so tentative. Did he doubt that I would come? “Here, my love.” I reached out to find and clasp his hand.

He slid onto the mattress, the muted drop of his boots and clothing on the carpet assuring me he did not intend to leave anytime soon. His hands found the edge of the robe and I heard his surprised intake of breath when he discovered that the robe was all that covered me.

“Do you not approve?” I grabbed his hand and placed it over my ripe breast, moaning my own approval when he gave it a rough squeeze.

His lips found my ear and nuzzled my neck as he whispered to me, “Vixen!”

“Ah, love, I wish to hear your voice, not these whispers.” I let my body plead with him, moving beneath his roaming hand as it played me.

“Shhh…” The admonishment came with caresses as he rubbed at the sensitive button until I forgot myself and gave an urgent moan that he might touch me more deeply.

“Then open the curtains that I might see you,” I said even as I pulled one knee up high to ease the entrance of his fingers into my wet slit.

He moved down the bed, stopping halfway. “I want nothing more than to make love to you by moonlight, Gabrielle.” He kissed my thighs further apart. “And by sunlight…by any light. But I would not risk compromising your name…having anyone think that I married you for anything other than love.”

“You are right,” I relented. “It is just that I so miss the sight of you, I cannot help but argue a little.”

“When we are married, we will make love in the day and by candlelight at night.” His lips brushed across the hair covering my sex as he made his promise. “Your passion-filled screams will wake the servants. They will think the devil has invaded the house!”

“You forget your father,” I moaned, barely able to form the words as his tongue punctuated his claim with a long swipe against my lower lips. “What would he think of such a daughter-in-law?”

Sebastian stilled. “Do not worry about that,” he said, his words low and clipped.

I sat up, my fingers curling in the blond locks I could not see. “But I do worry, my love. What if he objects?”

I could feel the day’s whiskers on his cheek and chin brush against the sensitive skin of my thighs as he shook his head. I collapsed back against the mattress, waiting for him to either answer or to kiss and lick the question away.

“The only impediment to our marriage will be your feelings for me…if you cannot promise that you will love me and no other.”

I sat up again, drawing his face to mine. “Never think there can be such an impediment!”

I kissed him, thrusting my tongue into his mouth, tasting my own juices. I broke from him breathless and flung myself back onto the bed, opening myself entirely to his desires. “There will be no other, my love. Claim me now, thoroughly, until you can name me wife!”

He fell on me then, ravishing my body. His mouth covered my breasts, sucking at them, kneading their fullness as the head of his rod massaged my wet entrance. I brought my knees up along his hips, urging him to enter, but he would have none of my impatience. He flicked his tongue across my nipples, bringing them to hard points while his fingers teased the moist interiors of my sex. Licking his way down to my navel, he tongued the small hole there, too. The sensation was maddening…the thrust of his fingers, the tickle of his hair on my abdomen. Nearly crying for his rod, I tucked my knees up to my chest.

“Not until I have tasted your sweet nectar properly,” he growled, his tongue moving lower as he added another two fingers. All but his thumb was inside me. That he used to push one of my lower lips to the side so that he could nibble at the plumped bud of flesh. He took it firmly between his lips, rolling it from side to side as he tongued at the small sheath and the kernel of pleasure it hid.

I threaded my hands through his hair once again, cresting against his mouth. Ecstasy forced my eyes shut so tightly I saw lights dancing across the inside of my eyelids.

“Take me,” I urged, matching the thrust of his fingers inside me. “Fill me with your manhood, my love!”

My demands undid him and he was quickly poised over my center, hesitating only a second before ramming his shaft into me. I felt the swollen sacs below his member slap against my bottom, battering that other hole. This was passion, abandon, and I could not think of what I had done to deserve it…to deserve him!

His strokes lengthened even as his breathing came more rapidly. Bracing himself against one of my thighs, he reached between my legs with his other hand and rubbed the top of my sex as his gyrating hips buried his shaft deeper inside me.

“This pleasures you, Gabrielle?”

“Pleasure pales, my love.” My words came too fast. Gone was every pretense of being an elegant woman of rank. “You take my breath away… my very soul would fly…could I not cling to you.”

“Marry me and I promise you there will always be such pleasure.”

“Yes,” I gasped, bright flames of climax burning my flesh from the inside out.

He slowed, almost withdrawing, and I whimpered from the loss of his fullness. He drove hard into me once and I jerked across the mattress in ecstasy. “Promise you will accept no cock but this one, Gabrielle.”

“Yes!” I cried out.

His hand worked the flesh surround my sex and I shuddered beneath him.

“No hands but these.”

“Only you, only you,” I groaned, my heart nearly bursting from my chest, my hearing all but gone. “I promise on my life that I will not love or accept another!”

His body shuddered as I spoke, his climax released into me to seal the vow I had made and proclaim me as his. Collapsing against the bed, he rolled onto his back, bringing me with him so that I was cradled against his chest, his rod still pulsing inside me.

He stroked my back, smoothed away the happy tears that fell from my cheek onto his chest. After a few quiet moments, we started to speak and, again, I marveled that I had won this man as my future husband.

“Did you think of me this week?” he asked, withdrawing from me at last and rolling until we were on our sides facing each other.

“Every day!” I answered.

Insatiable, he reached between my legs, fingering me to the edge of another peak. “And did you touch yourself when I was not there to touch you?”

“You do think I am wanton!” My accusation lacked any genuine indignation. I knew he had every reason to think me so, although my unexpected nature seemed to please him.

“Not so,” he assured me. “It is better, do you not think, for a woman to pleasure herself when her husband is away than to let the heat of her passions melt her reserve with other men.”

“I would never do such a thing, Sebastian!” Did he think I might seek another lover? He could not, but there was caution in his voice and I rushed to reassure him. “Other men are insignificant creatures compared to you.”

“But I must sometimes make long trips, Gabrielle, to see to the entire estate’s needs.” His fingers found their way into my core, their suggestive probing shocking me all over again. “And now, you have no fear of injuring yourself should you miss me.”

“Your father makes those trips.” I heard the weakness of my argument in my voice. It was not that I lacked conviction in what I said, but that he argued with his hands as well as with words and logic. My mind felt wrapped in a warm, wet blanket. I could only repeat myself as he brought me to climax so easily. “Your father makes those trips.”

Stiffening beside me, he withdrew.

“Shhhh…love, what troubles you?” My voice broke with concern.

“I will be absent. Show me how you will survive the separation.”

I could feel my cheeks flush and I drew my hands to my chest, unsure of how to respond.

“Roll onto your back, Gabrielle,” he ordered and I obeyed. “Good,” he said and took my hand, placing it between my legs. “Do you remember how I stroked this little button?” He asked.

I nodded and then remembered that he couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

“When I am gone, you can stroke it when you find yourself missing me too much.” He held his hand over mine and forced my index finger straight. Lightly, he made me stroke the length of the button’s spine until I began to moan from the sweet sensation of it. “Do not stop rubbing that sweet pussy, Gabrielle,” he said and removed his hand from mine.

“How does it feel?” he asked, his breath warm against my ear.

“Heaven,” I confessed, my strokes growing more rapid, firmer.

Sebastian eased up the bed until his back was against the frame. Spreading his legs wide, he told me to roll over, onto my knees while I continued to touch myself.

When I was before him, like a cat, he presented his rod to me. He was hard again, deliciously so, and I took a tentative lick at the plump head that rested atop its thick length. He was still coated with my juices, and I licked the length of his shaft, groaning with need as my bottom pumped the air, my fingers vigorously working my sex.

He knotted his hands in my hair, making sure that, as my mouth covered him, I kept my strokes deep and thorough.

“Sweet Gabrielle,” he groaned, his body pressed tight against the bed’s headboard. “I will never forget how sweet your mouth, how sweet your pussy. I will always worship your taste and your body.”

His bold words drove me wild and I tightened my mouth around his shaft, letting my saliva pool so that my lips could work him at a faster pace, a pace that matched the hard strokes I delivered to my own body. I felt his hands clench my hair tighter, his whole frame stiffening.

“Ah, release me, Gabrielle, before it is too late!”

A disobedient wanton, I only clamped his rod more firmly in my mouth, stilling the strokes to the shaft that I might suck his seed from him as my own pleasure flowed warm down my thighs.

“Gabrielle…Gabrielle,” he cried, shuddering against me, filling my mouth with the taste of his lust and love for me. I sucked harder, abandoning my own exhausted pleasures to grab his hips and keep him from pulling away until the last of his desire rippled through his shaft.

He gathered me into his arms then, cooing my name, kissing me, running his tongue along mine before sucking at my lips. “Gabrielle, my treasure.”

I drifted into a light sleep, wrapped in his arms. He roused me a short time before daybreak.

“I must leave, dearest.” He pushed my hair back and kissed my cheek.

“When will I see you again?” It was shameful, the need that trembled in my voice, but already I felt a great weight settling on my chest.

“Soon.” He drew me to him and buried his face in my hair. “By daylight, when I come to take you as my own love.”

His hand found my cheek in the dark and he wiped a tear away. “Does that not make the wait bearable?”

“Yes,” I whispered, but clung to him until he had to kiss my hands away.

“It is almost light,” he said, sitting up and feeling around the floor for his clothing. “Veronique and a trusted servant are the only others who know I am here. I must leave now.”

Hearing my quiet sobbing, he turned back to me, cupping my head. “I would not leave you crying, Gabrielle. What is the matter?”

“You are too good. I fear that you will realize I am not worthy to be your wife.”

“Ah, part of me would tell you how silly you are.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. “But the other part, the selfish part, prays you will always think it so, that I need never worry about losing you.”

“Then say that it will be this week, Sebastian.” I was pleading, glad that, in the room’s darkness, he could not see me now even if it meant I could not see him.

He stroked my hair one last time and then moved quietly to the door. “I have every faith it will be this week, sweet Gabrielle.” I heard his hand on the door, heard him turn the knob. “Just remember your promise when I come to claim you.”

He didn’t wait for my answer, quickly opening the door and slipping out of the room. Wanting to catch a parting glimpse, I rose from the bed, but only an empty hallway awaited me on the other side of the door.

April 25, 1787

The week drags and I begin to despair. Each morning I rise early, taking such pains with my attire for the day. Each night I go to bed no closer to being Sebastian’s wife. What does this delay mean?

April 26, 1787

Still no sign of Sebastian but some hope! Papa, his manner so strange and his sentences so carefully phrased, first inquired of my plans for the morrow (as I often go riding on Friday) and then all but forbid me to go anywhere. But, perhaps Sebastian has abandoned me and Papa, learning my true nature, prepares to send me away!

I cannot imagine the horror of losing Sebastian now. I promised him I would take no other—and it is a promise my heart will not let me disavow even if he rejects me!

April 27, 1787

How has this come to pass? A blindfolded child I have been, trying to play amongst the grown-ups! And Veronique, her name is “truth,” but she is a creature of lies and I shall make sure the truth of her nature comes back to haunt her.

As I had the last four mornings, I woke early and bathed. I had my maid Claire bring me breakfast before getting dressed. I so wanted to be spotless when Sebastian saw me, no stain on my clothing, person, or virtue. And then I sat in the drawing room with a book that I have had all week and still have not managed to read a single page!

Around two, when I was weak from an early breakfast and skipped lunch, Papa came into the drawing room, taking the chair opposite me.

“I have had a proposal.” His hands nervously smoothed the fabric of his pant legs. “Someone has asked for your hand in marriage.”

He stopped, waiting for my response.

I demurely closed the book I held and sat straighter. “What house?”

“L’Aigle.”

He held his breath, I believe, and it surprised me at the time. (Foolish child!)

I smiled, fighting to keep my hands primly folded in my lap, and set about allaying his apparent fear that I would refuse. “The du Quesne family would be well served by such a match, would it not, Papa?”

He nodded, the heaviness of his gesture at odds with an answer that he should have joyously received. He seemed almost to hope I would say no!

Suddenly, I had an inkling of what might be stressing him so. “Is the dowry too high?”

“No, child, it is remarkably low.”

Like an idiot, I smiled, although I managed not to cry. I went down on my knees, grabbing Papa’s hands and clasping them to me. “Then do not worry, Papa. This makes me happy.”

“You should take your time to carefully consider this, child.” He slipped his hands from my excited grasp and held me by the shoulders as his gaze searched mine. “It would not do to change your mind later.”

Ah, I could not tell him that, even if I had not long desired Sebastian, there was no right of denial left me! But my foolish heart was singing.

“I have no desire to prolong acceptance, Papa,” I answered and moved to the writing table. “Will you dictate your answer—that we might send it immediately?”

“You may tell him yourself, Gabrielle,” Papa answered. “He is waiting for you in the garden’s conservatory.”

I spun around to see if he was joking. There had been no sound of a carriage arriving, not even the jingle of a single horse’s livery.

“Oh, I did not hear that we had guests.”

“He wanted his arrival to be discreet,” Papa answered warily.

Yes, Sebastian certainly knew the art of being discreet! I curtsied low. “With your leave then, I will go and give him my answer.”

“Your mother and I will be waiting in the library for the two of you…” He stopped again, another long pause while I waited for him to finish. “I suggest you take the opportunity to speak with him at length this afternoon before giving him your final answer. I will instruct the staff not to disturb you.”

The shame of it…how my mind raced ahead to think what Sebastian and I, in the bright light of day but tucked safely in the conservatory, might do with that time!

I curtsied again, saying no more, and left the house at a near run. I had to count my steps on the path to the conservatory, else I would have flown across the lawn and into Sebastian’s arms. As it was, I threw the conservatory doors open forcibly, my step faltering as I realized that the man before me was not Sebastian.

“Marquis L’Aigle,” I said and curtsied. What was he doing here?

He looked stricken as he saw the surprise on my face. His hand reached out, stopping just before he touched me. “Gabrielle…”

And then he did touch me.

The voice, the hands…my body responded even as my mind and heart threatened to shut down. What a fool I had been to trust Veronique, to make love to a masked man in the dark! To open my legs to him a second time!

I could feel the tears pooling in my eyes, feel the tremble of my lips as fear and anger flooded into me, forcing down the brief fire his touch had kindled.

His face hardened and his hand moved up to grip my arm so that I might not flee.

“You have a choice to make, Gabrielle,” he said and reached behind me with one hand to push the doors shut. “And I will not phrase it in pretty words.”

He stopped, gave a hard swallow, and released my arm. “Your honor has been severely compromised and not, as you must already know, by Sebastian.”

“Why would you have done such a thing?” I softly voiced the accusation, tears beginning to spill down my cheeks. His gaze, if possible, grew sterner still.

“For the same reason you were willing to have it compromised…love.”

“You cannot think I would marry someone capable of such duplicity!” Reckless, I turned for the door, but he pulled me back and forced me against the wall.

He placed a palm against the wall on each side, trapping me against him, our bodies so close they touched, his scent curling around my senses. Ah, who was I to challenge him? He was, it was widely said, a mercenary in business who had rebuilt the family’s fortune when his father had left him little more than a title. “A cut-throat brute,” the other lords called him. Here I was a mere girl who had been stupid enough to hand him my only marker—my chastity.

His head dipped forward, his lips brushing my hair and temple. “Ah, Gabrielle, I have waited all week for just the smell of you.”

He pulled back and looked at me, his gaze hot and seemingly everywhere at once. Never had I seen his eyes so animated, the sky blue irises burning with life. Always when I had encountered him in the past, he had seemed to do no more than throw a vacant, cold glance my way. What had wrought this change? Did it start as some dark proposal by Veronique to have fun at my great expense? Or had he always worn a mask, that I might not see his true face, his desire for me?

“What do you see?” he asked and tilted his head, studying my expression as he waited for my answer.

I shook my head. I wouldn’t be taken in by the strong smell of him or the heat in his eyes. He had lied to me, plotted my downfall. “A liar,” I bit out. “Nothing more.”

His smile was hard, harder still his erection as he pressed against me, forcing me to breathe in short gasps.

“Your choice then, Gabrielle, is this,” he started and covered my mouth with his, stabbing his tongue past my protesting lips to draw me into his kiss. He broke the kiss roughly, leaving me more breathless than before.

For a moment, he seemed to have forgotten the ultimatum he was to deliver, but then he went on. “You can marry me, let me put you on a pedestal and worship you as I have worshipped you these last few weeks. You will never have to worry about your security or the safety of your family in these troubled times.”

He stopped, with a hesitant arrogance that hardened when I did not then give him my immediate consent.

“Or,” he continued, “I will revoke my offer and reveal the affair. Shall I tell you how much scorn that would subject you and your family to?”

I refused to let him see how the prospect frightened me, or how I struggled against my own body at his very nearness. Squaring my shoulders, I challenged him again.

“You came to me knowing I loved your son!”

One fine blond brow arched as I said “loved,” some mixture of hope and scorn pinning it there as he answered.

“My…my son would not know what to do with a woman if she was tied naked to his bed,” he answered. “I have spared you heartache in your pursuit of him.”

“Only to replace it with an even greater heartache!” I protested.

“Why? Do you think me too old?” he asked. “Too ugly?”

I stiffened against him, refusing to yield my opinion of his age or looks. If he had only touched my skin and felt its heat, he would have known!

“No answer?” He backed away ever so slightly, still keeping me trapped between his outstretched arms. “You would have an old man like me, then, announce you a whore to the world?”

The barb sank deep and I started to cry again. “You think me such?” I whispered. How could I marry a man who thought me a whore? Why would he wish to marry me if he thought me such?

“I think I want you so badly I shall die from it,” he said. “Now answer me!”

“Your manners are rough,” I cast my eyes down so that he could not read the emotions warring within me.

“That was not the question.” His voice gentled and he pressed against me again, more softly this time, his body not as unyielding. “Do you think me old…ugly?”

“I think you only a brute and a liar,” I relented.

“Have I physically hurt you, Gabrielle?” His head tilted so that he spoke the words against my neck, his warm breath fanning the skin until the tips of my breasts tightened into hard pebbles.

“You have damaged me,” I answered. Oh, I could not look at him, could not let him see the truth lest he own me forever!

“It is only damaged if you deny me…if you do not fulfill your promise.”

“I promised Sebastian,” I cried. “Not you!”

He shook his head and grabbed my hand, forcing it to the crotch of his pants where his manhood surged against my palm, demanding that I surrender. I grew weak at the knees and had to lean against Ambroise for support.

“You promised me, Gabrielle.” He forced my hand to stroke the length of his covered shaft. “This cock.” He grabbed me through the skirt of my gown, cupping my mound and squeezing until I moaned against his shoulder. “These lips.”

God help me! I leaned against the wall, my legs opening against my will as he massaged my mound. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his victory completed.

“No more of this game, Gabrielle,” he warned, his voice clouded with passion. “Do you keep your promise…do you consent to marry me?”

I answered in the barest of whispers, my body beginning to tremble beneath the divine attack of his hand. “Yes.”

“Open your eyes,” he commanded. “I would not think you were picturing another lover touching you.”

I did as he said, gasping as he raised the skirt of my gown and pushed my undergarments out of his way. Pinned to the wall, I braced my hands against his shoulders and watched him tug his pants down his hips until his cock sprang free. The damp spot that had built between my legs was refreshed, the new wetness coating my lips, making me ready for his heavy shaft.

How glorious his rod by day! I could see what before I had only felt. The tip, heavy and plumped, its coloring a swollen burgundy, was formed in the shape of a mushroom cap. From there, the stalk, barely narrower than the head, ran hard and straight to a base of dark blond curls. And the sacs that hung below! My mouth grew wet as I remembered the taste of his seed, how I had sucked so greedily at it, surprising both of us. Every aspect of his physique seemed magnified and ready to rob me of any choice. My breasts grew sore at the need to taste him again. Every inch of flesh ached for him. Even my tongue felt thick with the desire to dip into the opening at the tip of his cock and sample the bright pearl already beading there.

“Ambroise…”

“Do not ask me to stop, Gabrielle, please do not demand such a thing.”

He was begging me to let him continue! Could he not sense how hot I had become with my need of him? Did he think my trembling to be fear and not what it truly was—an appetite grown enormous at the sight of his thick cock pulsing such a short distance from my sheath?

“I was only tasting your name, my love.” I sighed and leaned my head against the wall, offering my throat to him as I thrust my hips forward so that my lower lips might brush his cock.

I had closed my eyes again and he softly bid me to look at him.

“Watch me fill you, Gabrielle.”

It was an impassioned request he made, not a command, and I opened my eyes to see the engorged head of his cock part the uppermost split of my lips and tease the spine of my tingling bud. Burying his shaft deeper between my lips without penetrating me, he withdrew for a second, showing me how my desire, wet and aromatic, coated his cock.

“You are so moist, my love, so ready.” Passion twisted his words into groans. “Do you now renew your promise to me?”

Ah, how I wanted to make him worry, to keep him thinking that I was anything other than enslaved by his touch. How miserably I failed at doing so!

“Yes,” I cried out, feeling him enter me a heartbeat later with a sharp thrust. “Only you, Ambroise.”

Again I was crying and he kissed my tears away before crushing my mouth with his. Salt covered his lips and tongue, and I licked at them as he continued driving his cock into me. My fingers dug into his broad shoulders in my fight to control my ecstatic moans—the prospect that my exclamations might draw Mama and Papa from the house with worried haste both terrified me and filled me with a wanton abandon.

“Mine?” He grabbed my bottom roughly and pulled me deeper onto his shaft.

“Yes,” I moaned, squirming on his manhood as the tension coiled like a snake in my belly.

He reached up and cupped my breast, squeezing it hard. “Mine?”

“All of it,” I panted, my vision blurring with the first wave of my climax. “All of me.”

Ever so gently, he put his hand between my breasts, covering my heart while his hips continued driving his rod into me in sweet torture. “Mine?”

The question was issued in a choked cry and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling myself to him, kissing the hard line of his jaw and answering before pleasure robbed me of all speech.

“Yours, Ambroise!”

...

Now I wait in my rooms, deliciously sore once again. True to his word, we shall be married within two weeks. I return to the Sacred Heart tomorrow…to remove temptation from him beforehand—so he had joked—and to gather my girlish belongings and say goodbye to my true friends. (Even now, my mind goes over how I shall take my revenge on Veronique for her duplicity. Is that fair, when I have what I did not know I wanted? Still, her intentions were far removed from the nurturing of love!)

And I must burn this journal, even though it nearly kills me to destroy a testament to the passion Ambroise and I have shared thus far. But I would not risk its discovery to the world, or even his discovery of it. I would not have him read of my silly devotion to Sebastian when I knew no better or of my unkind words. Nor would I have Ambroise know the full power he wields over me. I can only hope he is a benign (but dominant!) master.

I must trust that he is, for my body and heart can deny him nothing.

LUCILLE

Philipe,

I cannot tell you what a furor Beatrice’s story caused here at the convent. Now everyone goes around with suspicion in their eyes, tightly guarding their secrets (but not from me—I pass among them much as a servant does, invisible). Some of the sisters have even pulled burning diaries and letters from the fire. Ah, what I would give to read those charred, confiscated pages!

I fear, however, that it will become more difficult to find and record the stories. They have given me a roommate, so crowded have we become here at Sacred Heart. I did not know what to expect, she is of a very notable family. I thought I would come back to my room to find everything I own shoved into a corner or her endlessly complaining at being in no more than a broom closet (truly, it is that small). But she has been most gracious, although I sometimes wonder if it is not a subtle manipulation that she uses to ensure that she will always get the larger prize when the time comes.

But that is enough about AnneMarie. On to Lucille! I have moved beyond spying in diaries and journals to delivering a young lady’s love letters and intercepting their content!

Ah, I cannot tell you how hard my heart pounds as I prepare to post this to you. For, you see, I have not hidden the identity of Lucille’s roommate. It is Beatrice! And Lucy’s complaints of Beatrice tell us all too well that something dreadful has come to pass in Beatrice’s household. Yet, surely the pairing of the two stories will confirm the suspicions of the sisters and girls here at the convent. I write of them!

But please, dear cousin, you need not worry that Lucille will expose me, as you shall see at the end of this letter.

As ever,

Candacis

May 5, 1787

My dearest André,

It is night and I write this by candlelight. I should be sleeping but thoughts (most wicked) of you keep me awake. I know it is wrong, that I should feel this way for a man of the cloth—for any man I do not call husband. But my soul and body burn for you. Tomorrow, when I kneel before you, will you tremble as you place the wafer in my mouth? Well you should, for I do not imagine that it is some offering of our Lord’s body that I devour, but your manhood!

Will you not answer my cry for help—even if only by return letter? I plead with you to do so. My soul is imperiled and you are my only hope of salvation.

-L-

April 15, 1787

André, beloved,

I searched the drop point I suggested and still I find no word from you. And yet I know you receive my missives. I have gone to great lengths and expense to know that it is true.

Do you read my words or burn the envelopes unopened? You read them, I know you must! For your hand did tremble as you brought the wafer to my mouth this morning and when I was so bold as to look you in the eye, you cast your gaze to the side. So much more delicious this Sunday’s communion as I imagined the salty taste of your rod on my tongue and prayed that the same image ran through your mind.

I would fill your mind with more images since you do not care to make your own pilgrimage to me. Imagine, dear André, my body as it is now, while I sit here writing this letter. I have loosened the bodice to my dressing gown, allowing my hand to cup and stroke my breasts whenever Beatrice leaves the room. I count the minutes until she retires at last to her bed to sob into her pillow until sleep claims her.

Then, alone in my wakefulness, I lift the hem of my dressing gown. Do you picture this, beloved? Do you see the fabric sliding up over my bare calves, pooling between my thighs as one hand slips between my legs and the other fills these pages with promises of my love for you—promises I would give immediate physical form if you would consent and name a time and place!

...

Ah, I return to ink and paper now—Beatrice having finally retired for the evening. How she moans in her sleep! I worry her noise might call someone to our room and they should find me thus, my hand roaming my thighs, dipping into the wet recesses of my sex.

Would it shock you, André, if I named these parts to you, the parts that weigh so heavily in my mind? Pussy, cunt, clit, cock! How those words thrill my mouth, my tongue and lips silently shaping them as I write. Clit and cunt thrill me the most, the T’s delightfully thick and swollen, much as my own sex is as I think of fucking you.

But I do not say this to shock you—only to assure you that I would not suffer ruin at your hands—you are, my love, the only hope I have of my soul’s reformation.

Let me pray before you, on my knees, my hands clasped to your hips, your hands, divine in their touch, knotted in my hair. Please, beloved, do not continue denying me all hope of salvation.

-L-

May 8, 1787

André,

A letter from you at last. You will pray for my soul, you say. How kind of you. Have you done so already? God must not be listening for I still burn for you, still grow damp at the thought that I will see you at services tomorrow. Look for me then—see how I squirm along the bench, needing you so badly.

Do not mistake my intensity for religious fervor—it is a divine lust that possesses me. To sate it, until you take pity on me, I purchased a poor substitute for you. A dildo…I call it my Little André, although its circumference is not at all little. Little André is flat at the bottom, with a base that pushes at my thighs as I walk or sit with it embedded in my wet cunt (yes, love, even in the confessional, I carry your namesake at all times now). From the base, three rounded balls penetrate me. They are metal, melded together, and each has the circumference of a fat egg. My pussy folds around the balls and their little valleys, contractions rippling through me with the slightest movement of my body.

So picture that, dearest, when you look for me on the bench as you preach eternal love and forgiveness. Watch my body sway with devotion—not to the God you pay lip service to, but to your manhood and the sorry replica of it that my pussy clenches and flutters at.

-L-

May 9, 1787

Sweet Jesus! How you trembled at evening services. Have I undone your concentration? Tell me I have!

Heed my words, André. You can save me but you must touch me to do so—how else can the carnal beast that possesses me be driven out? A meeting will not be as difficult as you might think. I am alone in my room now, Beatrice having returned home to attend the trial of some mad family servant who killed her mother and a serving maid.

Do you not see how easy, then, it will be for me to sneak out and meet you?

You must agree or I will go mad with my desire for you—desire so long contained and so long denied!

Even now, alone, I do such things as to endanger my immortal soul forever. The metal dildo, my Little André, plunges in and out of my wet pussy as I write. To stop my moans, I have stuffed undergarments in my mouth, the cloth ripe with the pungent odors of my cunt. I imagine that it is your cock wet with the taste of my desire that fills my mouth, even as I pretend it is your cock simultaneously devastating my body with the vicious thrusts of the dildo.

Do you not fear for my soul knowing this? Will you not help me!

-L-

May 10, 1787

How short our meeting but how very satisfying! The next time we must have more privacy. I know we could have accomplished so much more today had you not feared discovery.

Did you find me wet enough, my love? I certainly found your fingers talented. I had heard you studied piano before taking your vows. I do not doubt this. I still tingle at the way your fingers stroked my clit, pinching and pulling me closer to climax before you thrust all your fingers into my pussy. (Was that all you thrust? It felt as if, beneath my skirts, your fist possessed me—so thick and firm. Ah, I am wet all over again!)

So, too, I remember how, dripping with my juices, your fingers dared to penetrate my ass. Do you believe, worldly as I am, that this was new to me? Now I fantasize of nothing other than you filling it again—your cock in one hole, your hand in the other.

If only there had been more time! I would know your taste, know the shape and length of your cock. When will you see me again?

-L-

May 12, 1787

Clever, daring man! Do you think Sister Orinthia suspected anything? Ah, she does not, as some girls here would claim, have supernatural vision that can see through wood and stone. She would have died straight away had she been able to see through your desk—seen me there at your feet, your robes pulled up and cock ramrod straight, bobbing with impatience for her to leave that I might take its full length in my mouth once again.

Do my words make you hard with the memory of it? I know my mouth waters still. You are, truthfully, the most well-endowed man I have ever seen. I turned my hand just now—examining my wrist and wondering how I managed to take something nearly so wide in its diameter—to have its engorged tip kiss the back of my throat.

And the taste of your seed and how much of it I drew from you. Though I loved it filling my mouth, sliding down my throat and hitting my stomach to spread its decadent warmth through my body—still, I have one regret. I would have you baptize my face and body with your cum. Can you not see me covered with it—face, neck and breasts glistening, my greedy tongue darting out to capture its taste.

How I long for the freedom that you might do just that! And I have devised a ruse to allow us to more fully explore one another, to sample every orifice the other offers until we grow sluggish and dumb from sated passions.

Do arrange, my love, a trip to the city this week and but tell me when. I shall tell you where. And do not worry as to clothes—you will be naked the entire time!

-L-

May 17, 1787

I am complete! You have made me so and saved my soul, without cost, I hope, to your own.

What luxury it was to lay beside you—a day of fucking before and behind us. Your juice on me and in me, your cock filling my cunt and ass. Your mouth—Sweet God, your mouth. Your tongue is as talented as your fingers.

And, my darling, your trust, your sweet anxiety as you let me penetrate you with Little André. We must have a mirror next time that you might see. It fascinated me so—the slide of the thick metal balls into your ass. My pussy clenched with envy as I saw your opening swallow each of the three bulbs. My heart constricted more tightly still with your heated demands that I pump the thick knobs in and out. How furiously fast we moved. I rode your legs as I fucked your ass. Did you know that? I rubbed my clit and wet pussy over your thick calf, soaking the hair, as I leaned against you, thrusting the dildo with one hand while I stroked your cock with the other.

Your cream on the sheets! I could have lapped it up like a cat in heat had you not thrown me on the mattress and devoured my pussy. Ah, your tongue on my clit, the nip of your teeth on that sensitive bud and my engorged labia. The thrust of your fist—your whole fist—inside my cunt. I am coming now in memory of it—my hands occupied only with paper and tit.

Sweet André, my beloved, my lover. I await our next meeting with near breathlessness—my hand and Little André poor solace until then.

-L-

May 19, 1787

That you must go away for two weeks saddens me, but all is not lost. Say, dearest, that you will write me. If you post in town, post in my brother’s name so that it will reach me without the sisters’ scrutiny.

-L-

June 3, 1787

Two weeks and I hear nothing from you, nor have I had any way to send you something. Surely you could have managed some note, however cryptically worded.

-L-

June 5, 1787

You call me deluded? You would disavow our knowledge of one another? How, when I could tell Sister Orinthia every word of her conversation with you that day I hid beneath your desk. Do not do this, I pray of you!

-L-

June 8, 1787

If you will not hear my pleas as your lover, will you not hear them from me as the mother of your child? Yes, André, it is true. I have spent my mornings sick the last ten days, and the stream of blood that should now flow between my legs is a week late. I fear that I am with child and would have—no, I demand your guidance and comfort! If you do not offer it immediately, I shall expose you.

-L-

Author’s note (June 17, 1787): This is the last letter I intercepted between Lucille and André. She and her belongings were removed from the convent during the next day’s services. Her fate, as of the date of this report, remains unknown. But Fra. André delivered a fine, rousing service today.

VERONIQUE

Philipe,

No doubt, dear cousin, you remember Veronique? I am pleased she has provided me, however unwilling, with more material for my readers. To think, had I not seized the opportunity—in broad daylight, no less—to take her diary a mere five minutes after watching her finish an entry, all would be lost! Her family, I hear, claims to have smuggled her out of the country to ensure her safety from the rising chaos that threatens to envelope all of France. But you and I, and now our audience, know better!

As ever,

Candacis

June 6, 1787

I commissioned a portrait this morning by post, having met with the artist last week while visiting Mother and Father.

My feelings on the selection are quite mixed. Christophe is not yet well-known, although his brush shows great talent. I would have had someone more suited to my social standing, but the funds are not there. Already, I have run through most of the money Ambroise gave me for my part in his seduction of Gabrielle. I would have thought, since her stomach already carries their first child, that he would have offered me some bonus. But he is so enthralled with that insipid girl and she has made sure that he keeps his purse strings tightly drawn whenever I visit.

So, instead of allowing Ambroise to throw me a coin or two for a proper artist, Gabrielle gives me Christophe’s name and studio address. I went to interview him, only to avoid insulting Ambroise!

Yet something about his work captured my interest. And he was very attentive in seeing to my comforts as I posed for a few preliminary sketches that he might show me his vision. Such vision! Passionate even on charcoal and paper. How accurately he captured the essence of my spirit while preserving my beauty. That those rough materials he used should be made to reveal my sublime grace—surely he is as talented as any painter at court.

So, it is done! The money for supplies went with the letter of commission this morning and I will see him this weekend when I return home for another week’s stay—Gabrielle having somehow convinced my parents that the city is safe.

June 9, 1787

He has drawn secret pictures of me! I know because I saw them today—having searched his drawing desk while he was busy setting up his supplies and staging the posing area. I could not help but do so, his manner at my arrival made me suspicious. He was in a great hurry to hide (not merely put away) the sketch books when I came. It seemed too facile a possibility that he was trying to protect my delicate nature by hiding common nudes. Since he could not think me so ill-educated a school girl, it stood to reason that he must be hiding his sketch books specifically from me.

And I was right, though I had no idea how thoroughly impudent a beast he could be. The pictures start out innocently enough, such that I might consider them more refined exercises as he formulated his final vision. But, oh how the series progresses. It moves from a study of my face to one of me sitting on a chaise. From there, he has me reclining with a leisurely grace, my clothing much as I might wear to bed, only loosely fastened. And then he has me alone in my flesh—no covering of any fashion! Only my hair is down, falling in loose waves over my breasts.

Even there, he did not stop and I marvel at where he found the time for so many sketches—have I possessed his thoughts that he has done nothing but draw me since our first meeting? For there were dozens more—all in an unclothed state. No mere studies of my form, either. He has drawn me at the height of my passion. Images of me touching myself, images of me on my hands and knees, lips sensuously parted. Pictures where my legs were thrown wide as if I were inviting the whole world to come and take a peek.

How difficult it was to softly answer his summons to come and sit…to demurely pose before him while feeling as if he already knew me in a most intimate manner! Again and again he had to correct me as I sat there...for I could not sit still. I had to look at him, see him, try to figure out what had driven him to make those sketches.

So, too, was I enchanted by his very presence, for he is a most handsome and virile looking young man. What response, I wondered, had these images of my body so wantonly exhibited produced in him?

Now I sit here debating what I should do when I next pose for him. Do I tell him I have seen the pictures?

June 11, 1787

What a difficult man! When I confronted him about the pictures, he acted nonchalant and showed me sketch after sketch of nudes, male and female, some of them in the very act of copulating with one another. When I thanked him, with honeyed sarcasm, for not pairing me with one of his sick imaginings, he only gave me a sly smile! What depraved acts has he drawn me engaged in? And why do I want nothing more than to go back through those books and find myself down on my hands and knees with Christophe’s manhood impaling me from behind!

June 12, 1787

A letter today from Christophe—canceling the day’s session because something “more important” has arisen. Vile beast that he is, he sent me a picture of his phallus drawn, he says, to scale—though he must lie!

June 13, 1787

How accurate his pencil! I must confess, I could not throw away his degenerate token. I spent the evening in my room, studying it, learning its every detail until I could think of nothing but taking its living twin into my mouth before sheathing it deep inside me.

The shaft is of a generous size. Not so frighteningly large as to scare me away, but far more than most women can hope for in a lover. Its greatest feature, however, is the network of thick veins that run near the surface. Oh, what a sensation to have felt their texture inside of me!

The head, too, produced feelings I still cannot calm. It sits on top of the shaft in a most unusual manner from what I have seen and felt of other men. It is meaty and bulbous, too thick at the sides to form the arrow tip to which I am accustomed. Yet how it found its mark as he thrust into me this afternoon! I could hardly walk from his doorstep to the carriage that would return me home.

It was evident from the moment I arrived that he intended to seduce me. A blank canvas was prepped and a flat table covered with a velvet throw and silk cushions had replaced the chaise.

“You are not prepared for my sitting?” I asked.

His gaze swept over me like a furnace blast and he arched one brow in actorly contemplation. “I am,” he answered after spending another long minute in pointed appreciation of my breasts and hips. “You, however, are not.”

I bristled at the challenge, more with impatience than anything else. He was moving quickly in his seduction of me, but still too slow for the need that burned inside me. I had not yet decided whether I would acquiesce or shred him into the mere memory of a man, but I needed the game to progress more rapidly – such have been my frustrations these past weeks with Ambrose and his precious Gabrielle and their counseling of my parents.

“Explain yourself,” I demanded.

“If you are to sit for me today,” he answered flatly, “you need to strip.”

He turned then and began mixing colors.

I could not even pretend to misunderstand his meaning—the blatant monster!

“Young ladies of my social standing do not pose nude.” I spat the words at him and moved as if I would leave. When he made no effort to block me or call me back, I stopped.

Maddeningly slow in the process, he finished mixing a soft peach color that matched my skin before replying. “Young ladies,” he started, drawing the second word out with a disdainful sarcasm, “of your social standing do whatever the fuck they please—as you well know, my lady.” He finished with a deep, mocking bow and returned to ignoring me.

“The actions of a few sluttish peers cannot be attributed to me,” I said and then a delicious possibility occurred to me. “Just because Gabrielle disrobed and spread her legs for you is no indication I would ever do the same!”

That seemed to give him a moment’s pause, but then I realized he was choking back laughter.

“Marquessa L’Aigle did not pose for me…her parents did. And do not mistake your desires for mine.”

Some confusion must have shown on my features, however vigilant I was in keeping my expression schooled, because he smirked in a most unbecoming manner and offered me his explanation. “I never said I wanted to fuck you.”

Oh! I was seething by this point, although few would have known. And, yet, he is an artist, long accustomed to making careful studies of people’s emotions—could I hope to keep my feelings veiled? I stepped toward him, still confident he would be begging me for my favors before our little meeting had concluded.

“Gabrielle recommended you,” I turned with my hand outstretched to mock his pictures as if only his cock could have earned her praise.

Ah, the beast! He had replaced the tame pictures of the previous days’ sittings with pure pornography!

Christophe moved closer to me and grabbed me lightly by the elbow. “And I am quite grateful that she did,” he murmured. “Now, disrobe so that we can begin the day’s work.”

“I did not pay for that type of portrait,” I protested hotly, trying to remind him—and myself, I daresay—who was servant and who was master.

“Yes, money.” He withdrew with a sneer and returned a few seconds later with the advance I had given him. Without paying me any more attention, he started cleaning and putting away his brushes.

“What is the meaning of this?” I threw the money at him. I wanted to strike his face, but something in his tightly coiled muscles told me that a mistake could be lethal.

“You are wasting my time, Veronique. There are other women to paint.”

The supplies were all but put away! He was about to remove the canvas from the easel when he tilted his head and saw how I trembled so. (With anger! I wanted to smother the life out of him with my cunt.)

“Why do you refuse? Are you afraid?”

It mattered not that I knew how calculated his question. I would let him think it had done its trick. We would see how his skills abandoned him when he beheld my undressed body!

My fingers flew to my bodice, racing from there to the strings at my back. In a short time, I was before him, utterly naked—making no attempt to cover my breasts or the dark blonde triangle of fur between my legs.

Grabbing me by the elbow, he led me to the table, his hands touching me almost everywhere as he helped me up onto the cushions. Unceremoniously, his hands pinched my nipples.

“Do not think to touch me,” I snapped, disconcerted that, while I grew wetter with each moment, he seemed to have no more interest in me than if I were a bowl of fruit.

Christophe smiled briefly, his eyes still unreadable, and gave my cheeks light but stinging slaps. “What would you have me do, Veronique?” he asked before I could lodge another complaint. “Paint some cold marble bitch?”

I started to rise, but he placed his palm in the center of my chest and pushed me onto my back, his other hand shoving its way into the pocket between my thighs.

“I thought you would have some passion for me to capture on canvas,” he accused. His fingers smeared the cream of my arousal across my thighs. “You are wet enough inside—why the arid exterior?”

“You have no intention of trying to paint me. You are only interested in seduction!”

“Really?” He backed far enough away that I could see his cock as he tugged his pants down over his hips. “Do you still think so?”

Damn him! He was flaccid, that thick, magnificent cock as limp as a dead fish. Yet he had seen me naked, had brushed his fingertips across the entrance to my slick cunt.

Christophe pulled his pants back up and returned to the table. I was too shocked, too humiliated to protest as he rearranged my limbs to his liking. He shook his head sadly, as if I still would not do.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered. I did and he parted my lower lips, thrusting a triangle of his fingers into me.

“What makes you hot, Veronique?” he asked as he stroked hard against the spongy knot of tissue just inside my pussy.

I did not even stop to consider my answers. “Power…money.” I was panting now, my body flushing a warm rose in response to his vigorous rubbing.

With his free hand, he slapped more color onto my tits, my body convulsing in orgasm from the rude treatment of breasts and cunt.

“What else?” .

“You.” My admission was punctuated with a moan and an arch of my body.

“Good.” He slapped my face again, a little harder than the first time and then he began to sharply tap at my cunt lips with the flat of his fingertips.

“Tell me you are hard now, Christophe.” Any pretense of pride had fled my manner.

He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his still relaxed manhood. The humiliation of his disinterest knotted its fist in my gut and I pulled my hand back.

“I am ready to start” He pulled his supplies back out.

“Christophe!” I was sitting up now, tears streaking down my face.

“You must stay as I placed you!”

His shouting should have frightened me by this point, but I could only rejoice that I had forced some more passionate emotion from him than mere artistic interest.

“Please, Christophe,” I went on my hands and knees in front of him, tugging at his pants.

He grimaced, then grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the next room. “If I must bear your mouth, at least I can get something out of it!”

He flung himself down on the couch, me on my knees, naked in front of him. Beside us, the window’s curtains were pulled wide, letting in the afternoon sun. He lifted his hips and stripped his pants away and then picked up a sketchpad and charcoal.

Vaguely, he gestured at his cock.

I looked at the window positioned so close to the street. “Someone will see us…”

“The hedge is too high for them to see you on the floor and I need the light,” he responded with a flat take-it-or-leave-it tone.

And I took it.

In its unexcited state, I could just fit my mouth around the fist-like head. I released him, running my tongue over the tip and shaft before taking him between my lips again. But he was growing so hard I found the lubrication too little to allow me to work his girth and length.

“You have cream enough elsewhere, Veronique.”

I blinked once at the suggestion, ready to reprimand him. But he was right. I was dripping with my excitement and I reached between my legs, my hand coming away slick with my juices. I spread the liquid around the shaft and head, stroking him to a new firmness with my hands. His body’s response produced a fresh fount of arousal in my cunt. I coated him with more of my juices and then took the head in my mouth. I bobbed up and down, one hand squeezing his shaft while I played with my clit.

“I did not say you could improvise, Veronique.”

He was still sketching but his breathing had started to break into harsh pants and the veins on his cock stood out in thick ridges. Dutifully, I took my hand from between my legs, bringing more moisture up and clasping both hands around his rod. My whole body was absorbed in sucking his thick shaft. My tits bounced from the long strokes, my ass followed up and down. And when, at long last, he wound his hands through my hair and forced me down until my lips touched its base, I came in time with the hot rush of his cum down my throat.

Keeping his hands in my hair, he stood and dragged me up until I was straddling the arm of the couch—one leg on the floor, the other, bent at the knee, resting on one cushion. Now anyone walking by might see my face—surely they would see my body.

“Do you want me inside you, Veronique?”

“Not here,” I moaned, both desperate and terrified. My cunt was so eager to take what my mouth had struggled to contain!

“All that work and you would put aside your reward?”

The hand that did not hold me in place by my hair worked the depths of my pussy, the hard thrusts causing my clit to rub against the arm of the divan. Once again I was shaking in orgasm. And then, sweet heaven, he withdrew his fingers and wedged the heavy cock head tight into the opening of my hole.

“I want it, Christophe,” I pleaded.

How he battered into me with his cock. He used hard short thrusts that kept him from entering and made my entrance swell tighter with the abuse. Two dozen such thrusts he must have made before he stopped and wedged himself again at the opening. Then he began slowly gyrating his hips, entering my wet slit inch by inch, butting up against one wall and then the other until his full length was buried inside me.

While he worked his cock deeper into my pussy, he forced my head to turn so that I was looking out the window. Ladies with parasols passed by and tradesmen with satchels rushed to wherever it is tradesmen rush. My mind raced between two prayers—that Christophe would fuck me ever harder and that none of the passers-by would absently turn their heads and see me splayed on the couch like a whore, clawing and groaning and loving every second his cock filled me.

At last, our bodies surrendered to their climax, my noisy excitement only heightening the chance of discovery as he slammed into me again and again. My cries of ecstasy and pain pierced the apartment as my torso jerked along the couch with the vigor of his thrusts.

Finished with me, he pulled his pants back on and sat down at a drafting table. He pulled out a new piece of paper and began sketching. His gaze focused on the work in front of him, he called my name as I turned to gather my clothes and some shred of dignity.

“Veronique, I would see you next week.”

I stopped in the doorway and watched him work for a few seconds before I answered. “I must return to the convent next week.”

He nodded and pulled out another new sheet of the same size. “I have a commission nearby and have been given use of a guesthouse,” he explained. “I will send a carriage for you.”

“The sisters are loath to let us out of their sights absent a parent in attendance,” I said and stepped into my dress. “They are afraid we will wind up in one of those ‘Diary’ stories.”

“Are they true?” he asked, turning at last to look at me.

I bit down on my lip to keep from blurting out the truth—what would he think if he knew that Gabrielle was the hapless twit and I Ambroise’s co-conspirator? He already seemed to think so little of me…it seemed impossible that he could think less.

“How should I know,” I answered. “I only know that the sisters have become miserably restrictive. One would think we had been sent there to take our vows!”

His attention drifted back to the table and sketch. “I will arrange something, you just must be careful not to give it away or inquire too much as to the reason behind the unexpected liberty.”

“Very well,” I answered. I would have a week to prepare for our next meeting then. He would not find me as pliant and docile as I had been today. Finished dressing, I joined him at the drafting table.

“You bastard!” I hissed and grabbed at one of the sheets that showed me with my mouth pulling back from his enormous cock, cum beading at the corners of my lips.

He caught my wrist, squeezing the nerves at its sides until I quieted. “That is the master,” he said. “No one will know the copies are of you.”

“Copies!”

Again, he caught my hand before I could tear the original up. My eyes burned with tears and shame and my voice was a squeak when I demanded he release me.

Letting go, he took the original and put a smudge-proof covering on top of it before placing it in an envelope and handing it to me.

“A remembrance,” he said before dismissing me. “In case you forget next week why you were so eager to agree today.”

And then I was at the door waiting on weak legs, my thighs soaked with his cum, while he hailed a carriage.

June 20, 1787

My ruin is nearly upon me—my fate all but sealed. Although it will not be quite the fate she envisioned! Still, I puzzle at the other causes of my downfall—too much pride and pleasure, not enough of either?

But I get ahead of myself and there is so little time to record this. It started with the arrival of a carriage. Ah, that is not exactly true…it started back in April, didn’t it? But I was too much the confident fool to suspect any foul play. Regardless, the carriage arrived, the emblem on its side and the invitation allowing for no refusal on the part of the sisters. As Christophe had instructed, I said virtually nothing, not knowing if the ruse was for tea or a funeral.

The coachman gave nothing away as well, tucking me wordlessly into the coach and driving away at a rough speed that quickly brought us to the country estate in question. Instead of going up to the main house, the coachman dropped me at a guesthouse (that eclipsed the size of most of the main houses of the nearby estates). With an unceremonious rap on the top of the carriage, the driver signaled me out and then disappeared with the same haste.

I walked to the door and knocked, waiting a few minutes before letting myself in at last. Christophe must have hoped that the surroundings would intimidate me and they did…for I meekly went inside, worried that I would be called out as a trespasser. Whether he had heard me knock, I know not, but he called to me from a room that jutted off from the main hall. The room was octagon in shape, the walls draped in black velvet without any windows visible and only freestanding candelabras blazing with dozens of candles to provide light.

The stage was already set and his body covered in no more than a robe. He motioned me into the room, bidding me to disrobe immediately. Ah, I was so damp at the prospect of our meeting and the mysterious coach ride I could have starched a week’s worth of undergarments.

“You smell wet, Veronique,” he said as I pulled the last of my clothing away.

I moved closer to him, keeping my body a study in softly swaying hips and breasts. “Touch me and see,” I offered, pressing my body against him and resting a hand on his chest.

He gently moved away, keeping me at arm’s length. “Bend over and show me,” he countered.

I did and he moved further away, off to one of the walls. Reaching up, he pulled one of the black drapes away from the wall to reveal a floor-to-ceiling mirror. A satisfied smirk on his face, he moved to the opposite wall and exposed another such mirror. Taking position behind me, he spread my cunt lips further apart and ran his fingers through my juices.

“Wet indeed,” he agreed. “Does it excite you to see yourself?”

Still bending at the waist, I strained to look over my shoulder. I saw the reflection of his fingers playing in my raw slit, saw and felt the quiver of my pussy. “Yes,” I confessed, already having to press my hands against my knees to steady myself as a pre-climactic tension filled my cunt like a fist.

He motioned at the other heavy drapes. “Then see yourself, Veronique…from every angle.”

I moved around the room in a slow tease, whipping a velvet covering away and then admiring some aspect of my body in the mirror beneath. I pushed my breasts together, squeezing the nipples roughly as I spread my legs wide and looked in the opposite mirror. Removing the pins from my hair, I freed it from the restrictive bun the nuns had sent me out in and spread it over my breasts. Next, I bent fully at the waist, hands on my thighs and ass seductively high in the air. I whipped my long blonde tresses in abandon, moaning, watching him through my slitted gaze to see if he was as enthralled by my body as I was. Never had I felt so wild, so free! All my other lovers had been child’s play - theatrical vignettes, always I played a role. Here, my pretenses were stripped away. I was a hungry cunt. Rank, family - these meant nothing to Christophe and so I could shed them as I had shed my clothes.

When the last mirror was uncovered, Christophe called me back to him, slapping the outside of his thigh like he was calling a dog. When I started walking to him, he stopped me, his voice cold.

“That is not how I called you, Veronique.”

I felt my spine stiffen, anger igniting within me. For a moment I wondered at his gall, remembered rank and family until he opened his robe. The sight of his cock, erect, painfully thick and wickedly textured with its heavy covering of veins, was my undoing. I dropped on hands and knees and crawled to him like the hot bitch I was.

He had made a bed of cushions and blankets on the floor of the otherwise furniture-less room and he rested on them, offering his rod to me with a familiar bored gesture. I licked my lips and started my descent, but he pushed against my forehead.

“As you did before,” he ordered and then leaned back and closed his eyes.

I dipped my fingers into my pussy, bringing up a rich load of cream that I smothered his cock with. Wrapping my mouth around the shaft, I began to pull his cock in and out, each time the engorged tip battering the back of my throat.

“Keep your ass up high, Veronique,” he complained, his eyes open once again, his head tilted to one side that he might see the wet red of my slit in the mirror behind me.

Another moment of doubt flitted through my mind at his churlish tone. Never had a man talked to me like this. I have had lords at my feet, begging for just the taste of my pussy and nothing more! How could I, who had spent a lifetime ordering others around, be aroused by his rough and childish commands?

“Higher, Veronique!”

I thrust my ass higher, my knees almost unbent, the added height forcing my mouth further onto his shaft until my lips were pushed against its base and the head was in my throat. I could feel the muscles in his rod begin to twitch, knew he was ready to come and tried to hold onto him, but he pushed me back at the last second, his seed spurting and hitting my face.

Pushing me onto my back and standing above me, he continued to spurt more cream into my mouth and onto my breasts. When he was done, he forced my legs apart and slid down until his head was cradled between my thighs.

“Lick it up, Veronique,” he ordered, offering stroke for stroke on my clit in exchange for what I was willing to lick off my body.

I swirled my tongue along the edges of my mouth and then smoothed his cream onto my hands, licking those and searching my breasts for more, licking when there was nothing left to lick so that his tongue would not stop its delightful torture of my clit and labia. But I was done too soon and his mouth abandoned me before release claimed me!

“I need…” I writhed on the cushions, unable to form the words, my tongue thick with cum, my mind only occasionally present.

“What?” he asked. I cannot even describe the manner in which he asked it! Bored, insouciant, quietly sarcastic?

“What do you need, Veronique?” he pressed, his finger flicking my labia to spur me on.

I bucked once at his touch. “Cum…” I moaned. “My cum.”

“Do you not know how to make yourself come?”

Arrogance! But it only made me hotter, more desperate. I wanted his cock and he would only give it to me, I knew, after I had utterly humiliated myself before him. Still, I tested his resolve, my body pumping the air as my arms searched the pillows for some purchase.

“Please, Christophe, fuck me,” I begged. “See how wet I am for you…have pity.”

“Show me,” he demanded. “Show me how you make yourself come when you are alone in that little cell at the convent.” When I made no move to comply, he grabbed my hand and forced it between my legs, guiding me in touching my clit, in using my fingers to explore the slick entrance to my pussy.

I did not notice when he pulled his hand away, I was stroking myself too hard to notice. “Mmm, yes.” I jerked along the makeshift mattress. Legs bent at the knees, I spread my feet far apart and thrust my cunt into the air as I fingered my clit. Over and over again, I would collapse and thrust, collapse and thrust until I screamed out my climax.

Christophe dragged me onto my feet, my body still shaking with self-pleasure. He pushed me in front of one of the mirrors. Standing behind me, he pullied my lower lips apart. He dipped two fingers into my pocket and then smeared my cream across my face as he dragged me to the next mirror. “Smell it, Veronique!”

I inhaled, another small climax claiming my body.

At the third mirror, he forced my head back by yanking on a handful of my hair. He slapped my proud, firm tits.

At the fourth, he forced me onto the floor, shoving my head and shoulders down and rubbing my ass and slit against the mirror.

At the fifth, he dipped into my cunt again, rubbing my juices onto the mirror and forcing my face against it.

At the sixth, he merely showed me myself. I flinched, waiting for whatever abuse or theatrics he intended, but he merely dragged me to the seventh mirror. Here he forced my head back again, choking me on his cock.

As the thick gag of his manhood gentled to soft strokes, he pulled me to the final mirror. I was sucking his cock in earnest then, the other mirrors and what they had revealed forgotten. Again, he let my greedy lips devour him until he was at the point of ecstasy and then he withdrew, covering my face once more with his cum.

And then, he bid me look at my reflection in the final mirror. “This is what you are, Veronique.”

So softly he said it, I almost didn’t hear him. I started to cry then and he lifted me, carried me back to the cushions and wiped my face clean.

“On your stomach,” he coaxed, arranging my body to his satisfaction as he had done at his studio.

A shameful pleasure in his treatment of me had kept my cunt moist and he eased his erection into me, his strokes slow and tortuously sweet. Everything was forgotten except for where his body touched mine. The slide of his cock, the gentle milking of my breasts whenever he leaned over me, his hands on my hips, his thumbs rubbing against the opening to my ass.

I was moaning and grunting on the ground beneath him, totally enslaved, uncaring as to whether I would ever find myself liberated.

Reaching beneath a cushion, he pulled out one more instrument of my humiliation—a soft tube of oiled lambskin filled with rounded stones and tied off at the top. He pulled his cock from me and I whimpered in protests.

“Patience,” he said, slowly filling me with the lambskin, letting my juices add to the sheath’s lubrication before he pulled it from me, his sweet rod once again overfilling my pussy.

The tube of stones was narrower at the end but I squeaked my protest as I felt him spread the edges of the puckered mouth of my ass. “Christophe, please,” I begged. “Do not. I want only your flesh.”

“Shhh,” he said, his hand never stopping the slow forward push of the tube up my ass. “Trust me.”

Trust! Something that is never wisely given. I knew this, how well I knew. So too was Christophe’s nature plain. He was vile! Ah, but he was also talented, masterful, and he had a cock that many women would die for. They would degrade themselves, sell themselves…do whatever it took.

No, trust him, never. Desire him? Always, so I felt at that moment. Pressing my chest flat against the cushions, I relaxed the muscles that were desperately seeking to impede the tube’s process.

“Good girl,” he said, shoving the rest of the tube’s ample length into my ass before I could change my mind.

Ecstasy! Just as the veins of his cock delivered exquisitely textured strokes to my cunt, the ripple of the stones as they moved against one another in the tight channel of my ass threatened to drive me insane from the pure pleasure of it.

“God, yes,” I screamed, my pussy constricting around his rod, the muscles an iron fist that refused to let him withdraw. My pumping grew erratic, frenzied, as I approached some physical zenith that left me calling out the name of every saint I had learned, each name punctuated by a bone-shattering tremor of my climax.

Christophe came and pushed me off his cock. I could feel the vacant yawn of my pussy and ass as they were emptied, the muscles still contracting, searching for some purchase.

Half conscious, I gazed in the mirror and saw Christophe raise his hands high in victory, some sort of seated bow. My blood slowed and I stopped breathing as I realized just how complete my humiliation was.

“Gentlemen, will you not come out and congratulate us on our performance?”

To my horror, there was the sound of eight latches lifting more or less simultaneously, followed by the controlled rush of footsteps as the secret watchers gathered around my prone body. Wildly, I looked around, finding myself completely surrounded. With nowhere to run, I tensed, ready to claw them should they approach too closely. One laughed at my feral position and I looked at him, recognized him! More faces swam in front of me, dipping to peer more closely at my flushed skin, at my wet cunt. Ah, I knew most of these faces! They knew mine!

One reached down and ran his fingers between my lower lips. I lashed out, only to have Christophe catch my hand and warn me to remain polite. This man knew my father! He bent down on his hands and knees, one fist clutching a sheet of paper.

“May I?” he asked, his questioning gaze on Christophe and not me.

“Only a taste,” Christophe warned. “I do not think she can handle more.”

A chorus of snickers broke out at that. “We have seen exactly what she can handle, Christophe!”

The man who had made the inquiry had one hand against his chest. “To hell with what the bitch can handle…I am halfway to death’s door as it is.” He bent down then, his lips against my cunt, and laved the length of my pussy from the top base of my clit to the pouting rose of my ass.

“And how does my cum taste, my lord?” Christophe joked and slapped the man on the back in an effort to move him along.

All but one left then, each daring a touch or taste on his way out, each compounding my shame until only Christophe and a middle-aged man, the only one among them unknown to me, remained. Preparing to leave me with the man, Christophe bent down and shoved a folded sheet of paper in front of me.

“Gabrielle sends her regards.”

Mindful of the stranger’s presence, I carefully reached out and unfolded the paper. My face, as he had sketched it as I sucked his cock in the studio. Above that, the words “an Invitation to Ruin.”

I had helped Gabrielle gain title and wealth and this was how she repaid me?

“What will you do now, Veronique?” the man asked as the paper fell from my shocked grasp.

I looked up at him, my gaze still slightly unfocused. He was smooth featured, neither handsome nor ugly…just there. A face that might easily be forgotten if it were not for the intense green-gray gaze and sensuous mouth. His tone was empty of judgment…he neither approved nor disapproved of what I had done—of who I was.

“I do not know,” I confessed. I should have been trembling, but I was too tired, my endurance stretched too thin.

He bent down, gently taking me by the elbow and helping me to my feet.

“Wh…what are you doing?” I asked. Was this some fresh game of Christophe and Gabrielle’s?

“Helping you, Veronique, if you will let me.”

“Why?”

He tilted his head, a flash of compassion crossing his features before he smoothed his expression once again. “Because you need it,” he answered. “And because I think there might be some profit in it for me.”

“Profit! Of course.” I recoiled, the anger I should have released on Christophe slowly beginning to build in my chest.

He did not protest, choosing instead to mutely stand there waiting for my eventual acquiescence. I would not give it. I would not!

I collapsed into his arms, tears bursting from me. I was naked, covered in another man’s cum, but he hugged me fiercely until my sobbing stopped.

“What am I to do?” I asked when no more tears remained.

He dressed me then and introduced himself only as “Daniel.” Quietly, he laid out my options. I could come with him, to England, and help in his “business” of gathering and selling information from the wealthy and powerful. Or I could trust to my family’s forgiveness.

Fool that I was, I chose the latter. I thought I could coax forgiveness from them…that I need not prostitute myself—for that is the nature of his proposition—to lure secrets when the prey is impassioned and vulnerable. To manipulate others as Christophe had manipulated me.

But now, I am to be forced, for the sake of my soul and father’s name (as if he had not already bankrupted his name much as he had bankrupted our estate on his stable of mistresses!), to take my vows. To walk as one among these drab gray ghosts! I will not. Father, confident in my shame, has allowed me to spend this last week walking free (if not unwatched) in the convent and its grounds. And so I go to Daniel! I am, I now know, a mere novice, but I already have learned so much about the art of deceit and betrayal this last week. In time I will be a mistress of the art and then I shall return to France, when everyone who disclaimed me or betrayed me has grown soft with forgetfulness.

I do this tonight at the evening sermon. While they pray for their souls, I pray for my escape!

Find More Releases from Ann Vremont at annvremont.com

I hope you enjoyed Invitation to Ruin. I have several more short stories available electronically, to include more in the Rococo Diaries series. For details on where to purchase, available formats and future distribution channels/formats available please visit http://www.annvremont.com.

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