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PROLOGUE
Her eyes snapped open in the dark of the night. A step in the wooden stair. Him. Her heart skipped a beat and went into overdrive. Not fear. Not apprehension. Her blood raced in her veins. Another step and her breasts peaked. Coming up, as he did almost every night. As she waited every single night. The steps reached the top. She gulped oxygen into her anxious lungs. The door opened and fire melted in her centre. As it always happened since he started coming, those months ago. He brought her a piece of paradise. A taste of sweetness. A relief after each hard working day.
As the door came ajar, a candlelight lit her wide-open dark brown eyes. She moistened her lips and forgot them half apart. All she could do was lie there, looking. Paralyzed with overwhelming sensation. Fierce expectation. Like every night. For those months. But tonight…tonight it’d be…
“Sarah…” His grave silken voice covered the darkness as a soft blanket. His tall frame cut against the doorstep of her cramp servant lodging. “Sarah, I need you.”
His manly grave murmur extracted another flow of melting desire through her middle. She saw the candle move to the small shelf beside the door, as it closed soundlessly. He neared her.
“Please, let me…” His voice sounded like honey in her ears. In the dimness of her tiny bedroom, she saw his hands go to his fine evening trousers.
“Yes, my lord.” She breathed out so softly that it felt more like a caress in Hugh’s ears. His desire went to mindless level.
What the hell did he ask her about? Her boss, the Earl of Hawkmore and she, his downstairs maid. No nobleman asked a mere servant anything. They commanded. They demanded. They seized. Anything. Everything. They took whatever they wished. They were entitled to. They were titled, period.
He jerked his trousers urgently open, revealing his hard bulky member. A member that would come looking for her, only her. Not his designed wife, never the countess. His cool, highly born, arranged-marriage wife. There was something about the woman lying on that cot. Something that pulled him to her. That kept her in his thoughts, in his blood. Kept him on fire. And he could not help coming up stairs, climbing it for his desire, climbing it for his release. For his damnation, his salvation.
He bent one knee on the hard cot mattress as he unbuttoned his shirt. She looked at him. Hunger in her eyes, parted lips. And his blood ran in his veins like lava. He wanted to set a house for her. He wanted to settle her as his mistress. He would do that. To hell with his peers’ opinions! He could not live like this anymore! He could not live with the trail of hot rush that she left behind every time she passed by him on her chores. Heaven and hell to have her around all day. He felt like dragging her to his chambers every single time his eyes met hers.
Sarah saw him pull the rough coverlet from her bonny body. Not lush with curves. Her worn chemise hid her plum-like breasts. They peaked firmly under his stare. She gazed him, imprinting him in her memory, as always. But tonight would be the last of it. The last for her. The last ever. Sadness bubbled inside her, but she pushed it back. She would not cry. Not in front of him. She could not go on like this any longer. Specially after…
Hugh undid her nightcap and pulled it from her sparrow-wing brown sleek hair. It spread over the hard pillow; it reflected the candlelight in reddish strands. His black-as-pitch eyes hovered over her bonny figure. His hand lifted her chemise. His other knee bent in between her legs.
Sarah’s eyes caressed his jet-black shiny hair, his lean chest, visible through his open shirt. He, the most handsome man she’d ever had the pleasure to look at; his straight proud nose, his square stubbed jaw, lips the colour of his skin, his piercing eyes. His eyes always looked at her as if they belonged to a lion ready to pounce and devour her. They invariably drew a shrill of excitement from her.
His strong body came over her receptive person. She bent her knees to cradle him. The smell of him, sandalwood soap and man, assailed her. His hand crept under her gown and held her small breast, caressing it. Her head bent back and she sighed with pleasure. She embraced him under his white shirt, palming the muscles of his back, pulling him to her.
This accounted for too much for him. Her sweetness, her receptiveness. He could not wait any longer. His thick hard member glided into her smoothly. Moist and hot there. He tried to suppress a grunt, but it came out anyhow.
Sarah kept on sighing with pleasure as he moved in her, deeper and deeper, as she moved towards him, closer and closer. She melted more with each move. He thrust harder, faster. She held him tighter. Their thoughts blurred, the world disappeared, the night engulfed them. The explosion of pleasure overtook them. Sarah bent back, locking her mouth so that she would not shout her pleasure to the whole Victorian mansion. Hugh grunted in his throat as he spilled his desire deep in her. He fell on her. Both of them breathless.
CHAPTER 1
A couple of months before, 1860.
Hugh entered his library, distractedly reading the paper. He wore tailored black trousers and white shirt. He disliked cravats and avoided them as much as possible.
He pushed the door open and heard a gasp. He lifted his eyes from the paper. A maid, in the middle of a curtsying. She looked at him with startled dark-brown eyes. She wore a standards maid’s uniform: dark dress and white apron and cap. He registered her bony figure under the uniform, the brownish hair that the cap allowed out.
“You must be the new downstairs maid.” He spoke to her downcast eyes.
The girl nodded shyly, while fidgeting with her fingers. “I-I’ll finish here afterwards, my lord.” She said to the floor.
