Any Wicked Thing Read online

  “Do you know why you’re upset, Freddie?”

  “Why?” Her voice pitched into a shriek. “Because you are a perverted degenerate—that’s why!” She aimed the sponge at him in fury. He caught it in one hand and casually wiped his erect shaft and balls.

  “And you loved it,” he said quietly.

  “In your dreams! I hate you, Sebastian Goddard. I’ve never hated anyone so much in my life.”

  “Then why did you call out my name over and over? Beg me to fuck you? By my count, you’ve just come four times. Maybe five. You are delightfully responsive when you are helpless, you know.”

  Her cheeks were flushed with color. The evidence of his domination—the frayed ropes, the silken strips, the love marks on her magnificent little body—stirred his rod.

  “And a woman must be helpless—and an idiot to boot—for you to perform, isn’t that right, Sebastian?”

  It was his turn to flush in anger. For a short while, that had been true. He had needed to ensure that he was in control at all times. That his plans took precedence. That women were at his mercy, not he at theirs. “Don’t be ridiculous. We all have preferences. I assure you I’m perfectly capable in any situation.”

  “Well, I’ll never know, will I? Keep the bloody castle. I’ll begin my search for some long-lost relative I can live with until I turn thirty. And then I’ll have my fortune and you won’t be able to touch me or it.”

  “I’ll make a new bargain with you, Freddie.” He really had to. The thought of being deprived of her body now that he’d begun to explore it was almost painful. There was a way he could appease her independence and her volatile temper. It might be diverting to see what his little mistress was capable of.

  And to test himself to see how far he would let her go.

  She shook her head stubbornly and pulled at the fabric around her neck as though it choked her.

  He took three long strides across the stone floor. “Here. Let me. Hold still.”

  “Get away from me!”

  “I’m only going to untie it.”

  She held herself in rigid control, her back straight, her lovely bottom curving. He concentrated on the knot instead of the tempting creamy globes. He’d gotten too proficient in his knots, but managed to relieve her of the gag. The blindfold was simpler to pull over her golden brown hair, although he snagged a strand.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry. There. You’re almost back to rights. Sit down and I’ll work on the ropes. Then we’ll have our late supper and talk.”

  “I am not hungry.” Her own right hand worked furiously on her left wrist and he stilled it.

  “Freddie, I said I’d take care of it.”

  “I don’t want any help from you.”

  “But you’re going to get it.” He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to a plush velvet chair by the fireplace, one of the few seats in the castle that didn’t have stuffing spilling out of it. A tray with covered dishes had been placed on the table beside it. He settled her onto his lap, his stiff cock seeking the slippery crease of her arse. She tried to pull away, elbowing him in the process.

  “I’m only going to talk to you now, although I admit you distract me.” She flinched as he picked up the tiny silver fruit knife from the tray, but quieted when he began to patiently saw through the give on the rope.

  “Here’s our new plan, Freddie. As you pointed out, I do enjoy dominating women in bed. But I’m never cruel, and it’s always mutual. It has nothing to do with my ability to fuck you senseless. I believe I could do that even if you tied me up.”

  “That might be diverting,” she grumbled.

  “Indeed it might, and should you choose to do that, I will cooperate in every way.” He was fairly sure he would respond to her. His cock twitched at the mental image of Freddie riding him to oblivion. She jerked against him as his words sunk in, the honey from her cunt dripping down.

  “You are truly insane.”

  “I beg to differ. It’s not insane to want to experience every sexual pleasure imaginable, Freddie. You might say I’ve devoted my life to it.”

  “God of Sin.” She snorted. She was full of scorn and snorts and sniffs. That didn’t say much for his earlier performance, but he knew down to his toes she was putting up a front. The shrew that Warfield had complained of had returned. No longer was she liquid in his lap, but stiff and prideful. No doubt she was embarrassed by her behavior in the throes of passion. And she had been passionate. Wild. Wanton. If she hadn’t been tethered to the bed, he was sure she would have bitten and scratched him like a little hellcat in heat. It would be delicious to tame her and introduce her to every wicked thing he could think of.

  “Indeed. I understand that’s what some call me. I find it a bit blasphemous, don’t you? I’m in enough trouble with the Lord without adding to it.”

  “You are a devil!”

  He bent her leg and held her heel in the palm of his hand. “Such a dainty foot. You’re a lovely little package, Freddie.”

  “Stop trying to cozen me! Your words mean nothing. You’ve probably got the usual lines of dialogue folded in your back pocket.”

  “Has it escaped your notice that I’m not wearing breeches?” He managed to slip the rope from its knot and massaged her foot, tracing the faint pink line that now graced her ankle. Beautiful to see his marks upon her. The scents of citrus cream and sex invaded his senses. He breathed deeply.

  “Stop sniffing me like a dog. Although you are one. A cur.”

  “A devil. A dog. And despicable. ‘Who often, but without success, have prayed for apt Alliteration’s artful aid.’ ”

  “Never tell me you were paying attention in poetry class.”

  “They didn’t teach Charles Churchill where I went to school. I read him on my own.”

  Freddie turned to him, her profile visible. Her nose was straight and freckled and utterly delightful. “You are not stupid.”

  “Of course I am. Hasn’t my father always said so? ‘With various readings stored his empty skull, / Learn’d without sense, and venerably dull,’” Sebastian said, quoting Churchill again. Really, why was he trying to impress her? He attacked her other ankle.

  “Your father did love you.”

  “He had a peculiar way of showing it. I don’t wish to talk about the pater. It’s simply too banal to have had an uncaring father whose secret life caused me to hide my pain by drinking and drugging and fucking everything in sight. Until, of course, I come under the influence of a good woman, who reforms the rake right out of me. I suppose you think that could be you.” He laughed at her look of loathing. “Why, I understand it all now! You were only trying to save me from myself all those years ago, isn’t that right? My God, our lives are worthy of a bad gothic romance novel. Here we are, in a crumbling castle, the wind whipping outside. There are ghosts. Goblins. The fair damsel is about to save my spotted soul for the second time. Horrors.”

  He gave a mock shudder. He’d made partial peace with his father’s indifference and sexuality long ago, seeing and doing a great many things since he stormed off in the middle of the night as a hurt young cub. Nothing could shock him anymore. The truth was, it felt damned good to be bad, and he saw no earthly reason to change his ways for the foreseeable future.

  “Stop speaking nonsense. We are done.” She made no effort to hop off his lap, though. He took the opportunity to brush his fingertips against her nipples. Her breasts were full, more than a handful, and he had big hands, as he supposed he was big all over. Certainly he gave ladies no cause to complain about the size and thickness of his cock or the breadth of his shoulders or the length of his talented—if he did say so himself—fingers. He’d not feasted on her breasts enough tonight and would make up for it later. They were not done by a long shot.

  She was as tempting as Eve. He held a slice of apple to her lips in a role reversal, but she shook her head. He ate it himself, savoring last fall’s harvest, and supplemented it with a piece of sharp cheese. Had Fredd
ie made it? Picked the apples as well and stored them in a barrel in a cool dark place? She was a model chatelaine.

  “Now,” he said mildly, “hear me out. Remember, I said I had a proposal for you. You want this wretched castle, although I cannot see why. You agreed to let me use you in any way I wished for a month. But you seem to have some objection to my methods now, although it did seem to me that you were enjoying yourself very recently.” His hand inched down the velvet of her belly.

  She slapped him away. “You are insufferable.”

  “What if we take turns, Freddie? You follow my orders one day; I follow yours the next? That way there will be parity. Equality. You will obey me tomorrow. Without question or objection. But,” he said, squinting across the room at the clock on the bedside table, “for the rest of today, I am yours to command.”

  Freddie was very still in his arms. He could almost hear the wheels whirring in her head.

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “Oh, but I do.” He took another bite of apple. Why not? He had confidence he’d get his way in the end. She had been a revelation, all heat and silk and artless innocence, with a touch of tigress thrown in for good measure. He could not remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself so thoroughly. He could not with honesty admit that his current vices bored him, for what red-blooded man could spurn the kind of life he’d led? He was the envy of his peers and the scourge of the peerage. Wives, daughters, Cyprians and milkmaids fell to his feet with alarming abandon, provoking his friends’ admiration, unless said ladies were their relations.

  Ah, milkmaids. The last time he’d seen so many freckles was that hellish night with her.

  Sebastian swallowed back his inexplicable panic, nearly choking on a bit of apple that had lodged in his throat. He washed it down with a slug of red wine. Would she want revenge? Why should she, when she had seduced him? He’d been her ticket out of Goddard Castle, and he’d ruined her in the ruins, then abandoned her. When he had tried to do the honorable thing, he had been rebuffed. Totally, completely, repletely rebuffed. “So you agree?”

  Frederica stood, dusting off her pert backside. “Yes. Why should I not? I believe our agreement was for ‘any wicked thing.’ I presume you’ll honor that on my days.”

  He’d just given her a perfect opportunity to carry out the most diabolical depredations on his person. She probably had devoted the past ten years of her life to waiting to weasel him into this corner, thinking if she got her claws into him this time, he’d ask her to marry him again. That was not about to happen.

  Had she expected sex to end in marriage all those years ago when she came to him in the dark? Why, yes, she probably had. Her head was likely filled with all sorts of romantic drivel. She had been what—seventeen? Eighteen? But then the pater had hypocritically talked of duty to the dukedom, bloodline, dowry. After that little lecture, Sebastian had wanted to stuff his ears with cotton and fuck everything in sight, and had done so. For years he’d thought Freddie had opened her palm and waited to be bought off. Whatever she had felt for him disappeared like the smoke from his opium pipe. He’d flown the coop in the dark, shutting out the hellion who bucked over him in the milkmaid’s costume. He pictured Freddie waiting patiently for him at the breakfast table, to talk, to explain. She might have collected dust by the time she realized he was long gone.

  Frederica was busy braiding her hair back, snatching up her nightgown, whirling around the room like a dervish. “I am going to sleep now. In my own bed. I trust I have your permission? Or do I even need it? This is now my day.”

  Sebastian was unaccountably tired. He would fuck her again just as well in the daytime later, her day or no. “All right. Sweet dreams.”

  With one last snort of disgust, Freddie left him in the firelight, slamming the heavy door behind her. The wine glowed ruby in its glass, but Sebastian was loath to drink any more. Managing Freddie’s conversion to perversion would take every ounce of his skill. He was just about to take his rest when his door reopened and her freckled face popped in.

  “Meet me in the long gallery at ten.”

  “In the morning? I never rise at such an hour if I can help it.”

  “A day has only twenty-four hours, Your Grace. While I recognize the need for you to sleep to maintain your”—she flicked her dark blue eyes at his cock, which was still somewhat rampant—“stamina, if we meet at ten and my power over you exchanges at midnight, that gives me only fourteen hours to have my wicked way with you.”

  Sebastian nodded. “Just remember the code.”

  “What code?”

  “When one engages in games of domination and submission, one is cruel only if the other partner agrees to be treated cruelly.”

  “Why would anyone agree to such a thing?” she asked, her brows crinkling.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes a touch of pain is pleasurable. You’ll discover that when I spank you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “You may tell me to stop at any time. I suppose we’ll have to come up with a word that lets me know when.”

  Frederica looked grim. “What’s wrong with ‘stop’?”

  Sebastian grinned. “You might say that, but not really mean it. Kind of like when you cried, ‘Oh God, I’m coming,’ earlier. It really would have been most inconvenient to summon the Old Gentleman to bring you to heaven just then.”

  Frederica looked ready to fly at him. “Well, then, what’s it to be? Bastard? Troll? Toadstool?”

  “Rutabaga.” He doubted very much he’d ever hear the absurd word pass Frederica’s lips.

  Her dismay was comical. “I can’t possibly scream out the name of a vegetable.”

  “A fruit, then? Kumquat? Pomegranate? Pineapple?”

  “You are being ridiculous.”

  “Rutabaga it is, then. Good night, Freddie. Sleep well.”

  “My name is Frederica, Your Grace. You shall call me that today and every day when it’s my turn. Miss Frederica. Actually, Miss Wells is even better.”

  He tugged an imaginary forelock. “Very good, Miss Wells. Is there anything I might do to you—I might do for you tonight?”

  “Not a thing. I believe you’ve done quite enough.”

  The door closed again with a thud. Sebastian picked up her slippers from the side of the bed. His own Cinderella, but he was hardly Prince Charming. He was a despoiler of innocent virgins and wasp-tongued spinsters, and often they were one and the same. He threw his head back and laughed.

  Chapter 11

  I really didn’t mean to, but I cannot say that I am sorry.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF FREDERICA WELLS

  Frederica paced nervously in the long gallery. Generations of Archibalds hung on the wood-paneled walls that covered the damp stone beneath. She knew them all, and every contribution they’d made to Archibald Castle and the world beyond. They glowered down upon her in disapproval, possibly because she was wearing young Kenny’s rolled-up breeches. Once, she had worn Sebastian’s, but they had fallen apart even after her careful tending. Proper young women did not wear trousers, but she was no longer young, and certainly far from proper, if her behavior last night was any example.

  Frederica had never been successful with the old duke in persuading him to get rid of the paintings of the previous inhabitants of the castle. To her, the haughty Archibalds were unlucky and resentful. The Duke of Roxbury might outrank them, but he was an interloper, as was she, and after her acrobatic activities last night, they were probably in the highest ghostly dudgeon.

  No, she took that back. Nothing about her had been flexible or acrobatic, as she had been harnessed to the bed like a madwoman in Bedlam. And she had screamed like a madwoman in Bedlam. Sebastian Goddard was sin incarnate. He had done the most perversely pleasurable things to her body, things she had never even imagined existed. That object—his tongue—She shuddered.

  It almost made her sorry that such amusements were to be limited to every other day. Frederica had been very surprised when he m
ade his offer to take turns with her, nearly as surprised as she was when she made her original offer to him. He had an unsettling influence on her—an hour in his company and she’d promised to be his mistress for a month. Now she was his mistress for half a month. That was an improvement. Wasn’t it?

  She had stopped in the adjacent armory for the blades before entering the gallery. If she’d had more time, she would have polished some of the rust off, but they would do. Sebastian was a keen fencer and all-around athlete. She would test his mettle and hers in a few minutes. He’d be shouting rutabaga well before luncheon.

  “My, my. What have we here?”

  A lean and predatory Sebastian stood at the end of the wide corridor in a shaft of May Day sunlight. Wearing only a linen shirt, boots and dark gray pantaloons, he had dispensed with his neckcloth, waistcoat and jacket, which would make it all too easy for what she had in mind. His overlong hair was still damp, and she could smell her rose soap and his sandalwood cologne that had clouded her senses when they had tea together yesterday afternoon. A pity he’d wasted his time in the bath. She’d have him sweaty and panting soon.

  “Good morning, Your Grace.”

  He bowed. “Good morning, Miss Wells. May I say how very lovely your ar—ah, you look in those breeches? Most unexpected. And tailor-made for you.”

  “I borrowed them. You needn’t throw out compliments on my days, you know.” Though she did know just how fetching she looked in pants—even old Warren’s eyes lit up a bit before he collected himself to give her a stern talking-to. He seemed very agitated about something, giving her warnings against succumbing to Sebastian’s charms. If he had seen her last night and lived through the apoplexy, he’d know his reproof had come a little late.

  “Forgive me, Miss Wells. I shall endeavor to do exactly as directed from here on in.” He leaned back against the smudgy window. “What’s on the program?”

  “You are aware that when the Germanic tribes defeated Rome, swordplay became the prevailing way to settle one’s differences. Dueling grew out of that and spread throughout the Christian nations, right into the Middle Ages and the Age of Chivalry.”