Page 10 of My Lord, Lady, and Gentleman

“So what is the verdict, then?” Joseph said lightly, and yet there was an intensity about him. A hopefulness.

Despite the possible pitfalls, her heart screamed yes.

“I think…I think perhaps next time he visits, we ask our favorite artist if he would be interested in a little daybed interlude between sketches. With an audience of one.”

Her husband’s face lit up. “Wonderful.”

Indeed, it would be.

Please Lord, let Clayton say yes.

Chapter 3

While he could probably stare at Clayton for hours for his stunning good looks alone, watching an artist at work was endlessly fascinating. The study. The stopping and starting and stopping and discarding. The blank gaze and faint scowl as they inwardly pondered an issue only they could see. The triumphant grin when out of nowhere, something magical appeared. Yet while the merchant in him applauded the diligence and perfection-seeking, the prospective voyeur was irritable as hell. He didn’t want to watch Clayton sketching Susanna. He wanted to watch him kiss her. Caress her. Fuck her until she screamed in bliss.

Leaning back in his music room chair, Joseph drummed his fingers on the wooden arm.

He truly was a terrible husband, asking for honesty in that carriage ride home from the warehouse when he’d only been partially honest with Susanna himself. But how did a man tell his wife that he wanted to see another man naked, and watch not only to learn, but so he could imagine the tongue and fingers and cock plundering her were instead plundering him?

If Clayton agreed, sitting here and observing him would be the closest Joseph got to his deepest desire. And that was for the best. In the past, he had exchanged his body for money—without care, without tenderness, without an orgasm—to lovers who all left without a backward glance, and the experience had nearly broken him. But for that to happen with a man he truly craved and actually liked…hell. It was just as well Clayton only bedded women.

“Right,” said Clayton abruptly, as he set down his sketchbook and rolled his shoulders. “I think I have enough for today. Susanna, you were magnificent at holding those poses, but I know you must be feeling a little stiff by now. I think I’ll need perhaps one more sketch session, and to know how you wish to be portrayed in the painting.”

“That is, um, wonderful,” said Susanna as she sat up and shuffled forward to dangle her legs over the end of the daybed, her little breasts bouncing with the movement, and obviously catching the artist’s attention.

“Clayton,” Joseph said, and the other man jerked slightly before turning to him, a wary smile on his face.

“Yes?”

He took a deep, calming breath. If he butchered this, he would never forgive himself. “There is another matter Susanna and I wanted to discuss with you, if you aren’t in a hurry to get away. A delicate matter.”

“I have no pressing engagements,” said Clayton, his gaze curious. “Go on.”

“The other day in this room…you helped my wife and I connect in a way that we hadn’t managed before in our marriage. An enjoyable way.”

“Very enjoyable,” said Susanna, her cheeks pink.

The artist grinned as he crouched to put his sketchbook, pencils, and charcoal into his satchel. “It did look, and sound, like a quite excellent orgasm. I was proud of you both.”

Joseph tried not to blush at the praise and failed utterly. “Well, we wondered…if you might consider helping us again.”

“Help you how, exactly?”

Unable to remain seated, Joseph rose to his feet and clasped his hands together. “As you know, I need instruction. To learn how to be a better husband when it comes to marital relations. I don’t wish to bed another woman to gain experience. But if I could perhaps…observe you and Susanna. Together…”

Clayton rocked back on his heels. “Just so I’m clear, you’re saying you want to watch me fuck your wife to improve your own techniques?”

“Yes,” he replied, forcing himself to hold the other man’s startled gaze.

“Is that what you want, Susanna?”

She nodded quickly. “It is. Very much. I, um, admire you a great deal.”

There was a long moment of silence, so long that Joseph began to despair of getting an affirmative answer. Perhaps they’d been wrong. Perhaps the previous interlude had meant nothing at all, and their artist was only interested in his painting commission.

And then Clayton unbuttoned his waistcoat and shrugged it off, before tossing it down on the floor beside his already-discarded jacket. Even more promising, a bulge began to tent the front of his trousers. “So. How do you want it, darling? Slow and gentle? Hard and rough? My cock is entirely at your service.”

“Huzzah!” said Susanna as she beamed and clapped her hands, and they laughed.