Her pip surged at the thought, and Haydée suddenly tipped into orgasm—quick and sharp. Unexpected.
She couldn’t contain the low, long moan as her body trembled beneath the capable hands of her maids, her wetness mingling with the water below. Then Galya’s little fingers slipped around through the folds of her quim as Mahti came around to take one of her mistress’ nipples into her mouth, prolonging the pleasurable shudders.
Haydée opened her eyes when lips closed over her nipple in a long, sleek tug, slow and deep, and the pull of pleasure there matched the slow pulsing between her legs. She looked down and saw the top of Mahti’s dark head, hair piled high, cheeks sinking concavely with the strength of her suckle, and saw the hint of little breasts below bobbing enticingly. And then she saw the curve of Galya’s neat little spine kneeling in front of her, sweeping into the flare of creamy hips and round, ripe buttocks stretching open in a tantalizing vee. She looked up at her mistress, question in her eyes, and Haydée nodded in permission . . . and need. That little victory had been only the beginning.
Galya slipped into the tub in front of her, facing her, sliding her strong legs beneath her mistress’, her own thighs parted as Haydée settled on her crouching lap, her quim facing Galya’s navel. Now Haydée’s legs spread wide and folded over the sides of the tub, and her buttocks were hoisted up on Galya’s lap so that her hips and the rise of her pubis were out of the water like a smooth, warm island. Haydée looked toward the doorway and saw only a fleeting movement of white along its edge, and the corner of what must be the bed as he moved it into place.
Trying to avoid her.
Haydée’s lips curled. Any other man would be watching the three women.
When Galya bent to her mistress’ quim, raising her hips with strong hands, Haydée groaned loudly, purposely. She kept her eyes focused on the doorway, half seeing and half lidded as Galya’s tongue flew quickly and purposely over her little pearl, jiggling it, working it, teasing as the deep drive of lust built again.
She felt herself rise, the soft skin behind her knees pressing into the side of the tub as she raised her hips, shoving them closer to Galya’s probing tongue, feeling the bite of the maid’s fingers in the flesh of her buttocks. Haydée shifted back and forth in a restless, needy rhythm, her eyes fastened on the doorway, willing him to come back.
To see her.
To see what she wanted.
Mahti sucked, kneeling next to the tub, her free hand cradling the back of her mistress’ neck, soft little sounds of pleasure grunting from the back of her throat as she fed. Haydée felt her body gather up again, her sex swollen and ripe, teased and tossed by a little wet tongue, the pain of the tub biting into her legs, the pull and release of her nipple matching the pull and release of her pip.
And then she saw him. Suddenly he was there, standing in the doorway. Watching.
So tall, so bald and black and sober. His face impassive, his eyes hot and focused, his hands hanging at his sides. He watched, his lips slightly parted, his nostrils wide, his chest rising and falling beneath the white tunic.
She looked at him. Matched his gaze with hers and held it. The pleasure built faster now, harder and deeper, and she let him see it. Let him see what she wanted, what she would give.
Her servants sensed the change, the urgency, and the tongues moved faster, harder, deeper, wetter. Haydée opened her mouth, drew herself up, thought of him, and then it came—the undulating swells, the hard ripple of release, the shaking, trembling of ecstasy.
When she opened her eyes, the bathwater was cold and Ali was gone.
Haydée was roused from what had been a restless nap on her newly arranged bed by a sharp knocking on her door. She sat up abruptly, pushing the hair from her face, and bid, “Enter.”
It was Bertucci. “Mistress Haydée, His Excellency has returned. You . . . I think perhaps you should go to him.” The little Italian man seemed to be wringing his hands.
Go to him? Haydée swung her feet off the bed. She was dressed in a loose, flowing caftan of pale aqua silk, her hair pulled back in a simple single braid. “Is he ill?”
“No . . . I do not think it is an illness. He seems . . . restless. Please. Jacopo is not here, and besides him and Ali, you seem to be the only one he—”
“Ali? Where is Ali?” Her heart seized.
“He’s gone to attend to some matters in regard to the house in Auteuil. Mistress Haydée, I think His Excellency might welcome your tender presence.”
Haydée felt the slightest warmth on her face. It had been only this morning that she’d joined Monte Cristo in his bath; did the entire household now seem to think that her body was the answer to any malaise suffered by the count?
However, it would be another opportunity to rid herself of the nuisance of her virginity, so she acquiesced.
Bertuccio urged her not to take the time to change, so she went to the count’s chambers dressed as she was. Of course, it wouldn’t matter, for soon she would be wearing nothing more than the sapphire in her navel. She was determined.
“Enter,” rumbled his voice when she rapped on the door.
Haydée opened it and came in to find Monte Cristo sitting in a chair, looking out over Paris from the interior of his room. He looked like a statue, not even turning his face to see who it was that begged entrance. His prominent nose was strong and straight, his lips set in a firm line, his eyes scanning the profusion of creamy architecture below, which blazed yellow from the afternoon sun. Thick dark hair curled around his ears and just brushed his high collar, which had been loosened, though he still wore his morning jacket. One long-fingered hand curled around the knob of his chair’s armrest, and his feet were planted firmly on the floor, unmoving.
“Restless” was not a word she would use to describe the man before her.
What had Bertucci meant?
“Did you have a pleasant visit?” Haydée asked, taking a fat purple cushion from the divan. She placed it on the floor near his feet, just in his line of sight if he cared to look down and to the right. Arranging the pillow’s tassels, she sank down on it and raised her face to look up at him.
For the first time, she saw the expression there, and now she understood why Bertuccio had called her. It was like granite, his face, but colder. Dark and harsh and set. Empty.
Frightening.
There was a long silence. Very long.
She was just about to draw up her breath to ask another question, or to say something gentle and amusing, when he spoke.
“Today I conversed with the man who killed your father. The one who murdered him in cold blood after gaining his trust.”
Haydée froze. She’d been about to put her hand over his calf, to slip it up under the leg of his trousers and smooth it over the warm, hairy skin there. But she stopped.
“Who is he?” she managed to ask, her heart pounding madly.
“The Comte de Morcerf” was the reply. “You will meet him someday. Perhaps Albert, his son, as well. But you may not”— his voice became whiplash sharp, yet he still hadn’t looked away from the vista outside—“say or divulge that you are the daughter of Ali Pasha in any manner. To them, or to anyone in Paris. Until such time as I permit.”
Haydée’s belly twisted deep inside her as she remembered that night in the caves where she and her mother thought they were safe . . . that her father had been set free from those who’d captured him during his exile. And then the shrieks, the shouts, the screams as he and his men were slaughtered.
After giving their word, and receiving one of safety and trust.
Morcerf. So that was his name. The man who’d assassinated and betrayed her father in the most dishonorable way.
She felt ill, and wondered how she would ever hide her disgust and fury if she met him. “I’ll kill him myself,” she murmured, her fingers closing as if to hold the knife that would do the job.
“Revenge must be slow and deliberate and fitting,” Monte Cristo said quietly; and she was surprised that he’d heard her. “And it will be, Haydée. It will. If it is speedy, it is over too quickly, and the man will never know what—you have suffered. Will suffer.”
She looked up at him, but his face was still marble.
“The sins of the fathers will be visited upon their sons,” he said after another long moment. “For evil tendencies in the father will be passed on to the son, just as goodness and heroicism in the father is also given to the son.”
Silence fell again. Haydée remained still, watching as her fingers curled into the thickness of the rich wool rug beneath her, crushing the pattern of rich red and subtle gold.
“All of them,” he murmured, as if musing to himself. “Long and deep suffering.” His voice became a bit louder and clearer. “And it shall be of their own making.”
She wanted to ask
Who?
but something held her back, and she continued to watch the swirl in the rug’s pattern next to the soft leather of his shoes.
“She as well,” he whispered, his lips barely moving. “Most of all. By God.”
The venom in his voice made a shiver zip from Haydée’s scalp down along her spine, and unease pooled in her belly. She knew he needed comfort—she thought he did . . . but she didn’t know how to go after it. He was so removed and harsh. Fearsome. She brushed against his leg and felt a faint trembling there in his muscles, as if he controlled some great fury.
“Haydée,” he said suddenly, jerking her to attention.
Her heart pounding, she looked up at him, into flat, flinty eyes. Her fingers began to tremble and she was suddenly afraid of him in a way she’d never been. “Yes, Your Excellency,” she managed in a steady voice.
“You are a treasure to me,” he said.
She nodded, a huge lump growing in her throat.
“I do not want a repeat of the events during my bath today.”
No!
“But, Your Excellency, I wish to serve you . . . service you in every way,” she cried, her hands clasping in front of her. For if her master didn’t take her maidenhead, who would? Not Ali, damn him! He had made that quite clear.
“And you have done so. But I don’t wish for that kind of service from you. You are my slave in name only, and someday that will be rectified.”
“But . . . please.”
“There are many young and handsome men here in Paris— doubtless you will meet them and perhaps find one to love”— this last word came out with a bitterness that made it different from the others—“if you choose. With my blessing. But I—” He stopped abruptly.
A flash of something akin to kindness softened his features, just barely. “There is a kind young man, a good one—he is the perfect example of evil begets evil and goodness begets same. His father was one of the three best men I’ve known, and he, Maximilien Morrel, is just as fine a person. A hero, they call him, for all of the lives he’s saved.”
Monte Cristo’s thoughts were clear, but Haydée rebelled. She didn’t want this faceless Maximilien Morrel. She wanted Ali.
And he wanted her too. He just wouldn’t take her.
But neither would the count.
Not far from the Champs-Élysées, very near to the Jardins de Tuileries, was the very grand home of Monsieur Villefort. Such a residence was only fitting, for the crown prosecutor was an immensely powerful, well-respected man in the city, and had been since he had moved from a lower position in Marseille up through the ranks here to the capital.
Behind the stately house was a vast garden filled with oaks and maples, boxwood, sage and lavender, rosebushes, lilacs and lilies. Stone pathways and wrought-iron benches marked and divided the area. Its beauty and variety were always remarked upon during the spring, summer, and autumn months when the Villeforts entertained and their guests spilled out from the building into the thick green garden. What occurred among the bushes and behind the trellises and upon—or beneath—the benches perhaps was best left to the imagination; but suffice to say the garden was a popular place.
Perhaps a week after he had dined with the Count of Monte Cristo at the home of Albert de Morcerf, Maximilien Morrel approached a stone wall at the most distant part of this garden, where, among a cluster of apple trees and lilacs, there stood a little gate. It was barely wide enough for two men to walk through abreast, and its face was made of narrow iron bars, slats crisscrossed like regular little stitches, leaving small diamond-shaped openings perhaps the size of a child’s fist.
The gate was locked, as it always was, with heavy chains; but Morrel hadn’t expected to find it open. He had expected to see the lovely figure of Valentine Villefort sitting on a small bench on the other side, however, and he was not disappointed.
She had not heard him approach, and so he just looked for a moment . . . just gazed upon the beauty before him. Her profile was to the gate so that she faced the house and the pebble path upon which she’d walked in order to be warned if anyone approached. No one could see her from the house, but it was not prudent to take a chance.
Looking upon her face took his breath away. Honey-colored hair fluttered in a soft spring breeze that brought the scent of lilacs, tickling her rosebud lips and dancing around eyelashes as dark as ink. Her heart-shaped face with its little pointed chin and deep widow’s peak was turned away from Morrel, but he knew every detail, and contented himself with looking at her pert little nose and the long line of her neck.
He curled his fingers through the diamond-shaped holes of the gate, and it creaked ever so slightly. Valentine turned, her face immediately aglow with pleasure.
Morrel fell in love all over again, which was fairly difficult to do, as he’d adored her for months now.
“Maximilien,” she said in her sweet voice, low and careful, “I was afraid you weren’t coming today.”
“I would never miss our meetings, Valentine,” he told her. “You must know I live for them. You look beautiful today.”