as well have been asking for morning ale. Her face was like a silver coin he’d once seen, cleanly cut lips and a long, straight nose, but this close he could see the bruises, carefully covered, along her jaw, and fine lines feathering from the corners of her eyes. Thick swatches of iron-gray streaked the ebony hair that fell past her waist. Her eyes, the cold gray of a winter sky, shone and swelled with water before she blinked, once, and transformed them back to metal.
His world shifted for a moment into some afternoon fantasy, glimpsed in sunlit dust sifting down from the hayloft. He would save her, and she would…have him killed, so no one would know what she had done? “Y-Your Grace,” Henri said. Her gown exhaled costly spices he could not name. His own clothing was pungent from horses and leather and sweat. The maid had directed him to leave his muddy boots behind, so his bare, calloused toes curled against polished stone.
The duchess stood back from him, her skirts unfurling over her jeweled slippers. “If I do not provide an heir within the year, I will be killed, so my husband can take another wife within the bounds of law,” she said flatly. “They will shave my hair and cut off my head. Do you understand? Answer me.”
“Y-yes.”
“I cannot protect you. I am a woman and my command to my husband’s guards is not worth a copper coin.” She paused. “Will you do this for me?”
For her. She would never humiliate herself like this, not to someone like him, unless she truly needed his aid. His mouth felt numb with fear as he nodded and knelt on the marble, searching in vain for another flicker of humanity in her pale, regal face.
Her crimson gown rustled as she paced to the door, like the caged crow in the stables. He scrambled back to his feet and followed. She had what she wanted of him, as the aristocrats always had what they wanted. It was their right.
How in the world could he even disrobe before her? Much less…less…
She stopped before the door and said, as if discussing her choice of gown, “It’s best done now. My husband will send for me tonight.”
Henri nodded again. What else was he to do?
The duchess opened the door a crack and peered out. She murmured to her waiting maid, then snapped the door closed. Henri twitched. “This way,” she said.
He followed. A delicate wooden chair with a plush red seat and curving arms that ended in carved blossoms hid another door behind swaths of red fabric, embroidered all over with flowers in a deeper red thread. Henri expected darkness, but the corridor of red marble was lit by yellow beeswax candles, sweet-smelling and thick as his forearm, in gold sconces shaped as unearthly smooth disembodied feminine hands, braceleted in cruel red stones. He’d never seen so many candles in his life. Who lit them? Who trimmed away the drips? Ebony chairs lined the walls, each carved with more flowers and accompanied by its own little matching marble-topped table, for what purpose he could not imagine. Each table was bare. The duchess swept down the corridor without glancing at the paintings of flowers in gilt frames, the tapestries populated by gardens and ladies and fat babies, even the carved figure of the duke’s head in white marble whose gaze, blind but all-seeing, made Henri want to hide his eyes. To his relief, he saw no guards.
He had to catch himself when she abruptly halted and withdrew a golden key from her bosom. Hastily, Henri averted his eyes, saw the dirty smear his hand had left on the pale pink wallpaper, and scrubbed it clean with a corner of his sleeve. The key scratched in the lock and the door swung open.
Henri scarcely saw the rooms they passed through now. He retained a blurred impression of fresh flowers and jewel- colored velvet, oval mirrors in frames as wide as his hand, overstuffed tapestried sofas with matching pillows, silver platters of fresh, shiny fruit, sinuous glass oil lamps perfuming the air. When the duchess finally halted, a square wood bed loomed before him, roofed in wood, canopied and curtained in fringed gold silk and piled with tasseled blue pillows—a bed wider than a prize stallion’s loose box and half the size of the hovel where he had been born. Henri had spent his nineteen years sleeping on straw, his spare shirt for a pillow and rats scampering across his discarded boots. Now he was expected to service the duchess on a bed worth an entire village? Impossible. His cock dangled flaccid as an empty sausage casing. He didn’t recognize his own voice when he said, “Stop.”
The duchess turned.
“I—I want—” Henri swallowed.
The duchess gazed impassively at him. She said nothing. She did not have to speak, he realized. He was here; she’d got her way and apparently had no further concern for how the…act proceeded.
He would make her feel something. If he was to die after, then he wanted to die a man, not a silent slave. “I want you in there,” he said as firmly as he could, gesturing toward the room before, a less frightening room.
To his surprise, the duchess retreated without comment, her skirts brushing his leg as she passed. Henri shuddered like a nervous horse and went after her.
This room was huge as well, but at least there was no bed. The duchess said, “If you give me a child, I shall reward you in gold coin.”
Henri’s cheeks flushed with shame. He was not a whore. As if gold would help him, if the palace guards caught him in her chambers. Gelding by hot iron was the first and least of what he would suffer. Delicious anger stiffened his cock, rasping it against his homespun pants, and he found he didn’t care what she thought of him. He hadn’t been asked to be her friend, only her stud. He could do as he liked with her. Anything. In this room, Her Grace the duchess was his to rule.
If he failed, would she find another to do her bidding? He couldn’t bear the thought. He must not fail. For a little while, he must rule her.
“Remove your clothing,” said Henri.
“I cannot. You must help me.”
This problem had not occurred to him. He was not a lady’s maid any more than he was a whore. However, the idea curiously excited him. “Bend over that sofa,” he said. “No, over the back.”
She did exactly as he asked. Bent over like that, her bosom swelled out the top of her gown, almost bursting free. Her face was hidden, but he could see bare white skin at the nape of her neck. Henri circled her, looking from all angles. Buttons bound her into her crimson gown. He’d never seen so many buttons on one garment. He imagined how many hours a seamstress might have spent covering those buttons, sewing them on and painstakingly stitching fabric loops to hold them. He imagined ripping the buttons off, letting them fly everywhere. Instead, he slipped them free down to her waist, then insinuated his hands down her bodice to squeeze enormous soft handfuls of breasts. Her breath hitched. So did his. Her buttocks twitched against his groin. He closed his eyes. Yes, he could do this; his body was brave. Reluctantly, he let go of her and returned to his task.
The gown pooled at her waist. He knew how to unlace a bodice and accomplished that task swiftly. Beneath lay a chemise of fine silk, softer even than her skin. The chemise was meant to be drawn over her head, but the thin silk tore easily and the sound of its ripping traveled straight to his balls. Beneath it she wore nothing. Henri feasted on her exposed vertebrae. He sucked on her neck until he remembered the consequences of leaving a mark and changed his strategy, just in time.
She was breathing unevenly, and he felt fine tremors under his hands. He examined her disarray as if she were a saddle he’d been given to polish, except that this saddle was his to ride upon. He dug his toes into the thick carpet, trying to decide what to do next.
“Hurry,” she said.
