Bound to Be a Groom (12 page)

Pia sat in the front waiting room of the convent. The small canvas bag at her feet held her meager possessions: a second dress, a night rail, a small locket with a faded drawing of her long-dead mother and father, and a well-loved, brown, leather-bound sketch pad. She felt the rumble of the carriage on the floorboards before she heard it. Six horses. Maybe eight. She had caught a few whispers among the nuns that Sebastian de Montizon was a very wealthy man. Upon the occasion of his betrothal to Anna, he had promised to donate a large sum to the convent in her honor.

Perhaps he was a debauched rake and would die quickly of some hideous disease, leaving a generous stipend for his widow and her quiet maid. The carriage came to a stop and still Pia kept her eyes downcast. The familiar shuffle of the abbess sounded outside the small waiting room. Would she ever again hear that particular mix of keys and fabric and purpose?

The front door was unlocked and a deep male voice spoke. Pia nearly wept when she heard Anna’s sweet tones a few moments later. She looked up to see the door to the small room fly open.

“There you are!” Anna cried, clasping her hands in front of her chest.

A tall, powerful man put one large hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Please remember we are in the convent, Anna. Lower your voice.”

Pia quickly looked back at the bare wood floor, hardly recognizing her former friend and lover in the elegant blonde woman dripping in emeralds.

“Yes, my lord.” Even Anna’s submissive tone was unrecognizable.

“And you must be Patrizia.” The male voice was now right above her. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished for nothing more than to be swallowed whole into the flames of Hell. It could be no worse than this.

“Pia!” the abbess scolded. “Stand up immediately and pay your respects to the gentleman. Where are your manners?”

She rose slowly, worried her legs would not support her. She didn’t know where to look. She couldn’t bear to see Anna, now the meek handmaiden to her new lord and master. She couldn’t bear to see the man who repressed Anna with a single hand on her shoulder. Instead, Pia firmed her lips and curtsied, a small perfunctory show of little respect.

“Pia!” The abbess was torn between embarrassment and fury. “I am so sorry, señor de Montizon. She has lived her whole life within the convent walls—another infant left in a basket, you see, with nothing but a locket. She has not spent any time in the world. Perhaps an older nun would be a better companion for doña Anna—”

“No!” Sebastian and Anna exclaimed in unison. The gentleman scowled at his wife, and something unspoken passed between them.

“You should not have spoken to the abbess thus,” he said to Anna. “Return to the carriage at once.”

Anna gasped, said, “Yes, my lord,” then curtsied and withdrew.

Sebastian reached for Pia, and she nearly recoiled in disgust at the contact. “And you will accompany your lady. I know we will have a period of adjustment.” He kept his hold on her upper arm. “But I also know we will have many years of devoted service from you, will we not?”

Pia despised this man and his arrogance. But Anna was alone in the carriage, and this same man was ordering her to accompany Anna there. She despised him less.

“Yes, my lord. I am sorry I was not properly respectful . . . my lord.”

“There’s a good girl.” He released his hold on her arm and smoothed the fabric of her shabby dress. “Now go attend to our lady.”

“Yes, my lord.” She bent to pick up her small bag and darted out of the room and then quickly beyond into the courtyard and the waiting carriage.

“I trust you will be pleased with my token of appreciation for the good works you are doing here at the convent,” Sebastian said as he handed the abbess a leather pouch heavy with gold
escudos
.

The abbess beamed as she took it. Sebastian suspected that she was probably as happy to be rid of two rather excitable young charges as she was to receive such a generous donation. “Your place in heaven is secure, señor de Montizon. We will be saying mass in your honor for the next four weeks.”

Repressing a smile as he thought of the very precarious nature of his place in heaven, Sebastian bowed and gestured for her to lead him out of the room. “Very well, then. I shall be on my way,” he said at the main doors.

He exited the convent and smiled at the coachman holding the carriage door wide open as instructed. Sebastian was not going to take the chance of Anna and Pia mauling each other in the forecourt under the watchful eyes of the abbess or anyone else who chanced to come along.

He hopped into the carriage, nodded to the coachman to shut the door, and waved to the abbess through the sparkling glass window of the newfangled carriage his father had given them as a wedding present. After they’d driven a few minutes away from the convent and the building was no longer in sight, Sebastian slowly pulled the silk curtains shut and gave the roof of the carriage three firm taps with the top of his cane.

They were not to be disturbed.

Anna was a quivering wreck. Pia was so altered. She seemed so cold, even now in complete privacy after Sebastian had pulled the curtains and alerted the coachmen and postilions they were not to be disturbed.

She reached a shaking hand to Pia’s pale cheek and watched in silent misery as her lover closed her eyes in disgust, as if Pia must force herself to withstand Anna’s touch.

“Did I mean so little to you?” Anna whispered, a helpless tear escaping from one eye. The pain of Pia’s rejection was ripping her apart. “You cannot even look at me? You are so changed.”

Pia—finally, the stubborn loving woman Anna knew—lashed out at her. “So
little
? Changed?
I
? It is
you
who is changed, in your fine clothes and your gaudy shackles—” Pia must then have remembered her new master sitting a few feet away. She lowered her voice and said to the floorboards, “I am sorry, my lord. I must endeavor to be more respectful to my lady.”

“Mustn’t we all,” Sebastian said on a sigh. “In fact, I think she will have you do her bidding immediately.”

Anna hid her relief. Pia’s fury stemmed from misunderstanding, not a change in her feelings. Anna took off her own gloves and then started undoing the ribbon of Pia’s tatty bonnet while her friend stared in shock at Sebastian. “Yes,” Anna growled. “You have been very, very bad to greet me in such a heartless manner. I think you need to give me a proper welcome.”

Pia looked confused and worried, but a lovely flush was rising up her chest and cheeks. Anna leaned in and kissed her neck, sucking on her rapidly pulsing vein. The taste of Pia’s skin after so many weeks apart made Anna burn with pleasure as her lips trailed up her lover’s quivering neck.

“Anna!” Pia sounded as if she’d been shocked back into the present. “Y-your husband will see!”

Anna gave Pia one last lick beneath her ear, loving the familiar scent of her, reveling in the nearness of her, then Anna looked at Sebastian and smiled. Her heart was beginning to race at the reality: this powerful man and this delectable woman were hers now. Anna groaned in pleasure at the prospect, then pulled Pia’s face toward hers and kissed her full on the lips. With a small, hampered cry of dismay, Pia tried to pull away. Anna released her but only after eagerly tracing her way around Pia’s full red lips with the tip of her tongue. “Yes. He will see. He will see every lovely part of you . . .” Anna’s chest was rising and falling in time with Pia’s. She finished removing Pia’s bonnet and began undoing the simple buttons that ran down the front of Pia’s dress. “Oh, my darling girl.” Anna’s breath was hot in her throat; the anticipation of seeing Pia’s luscious body once again, with the added excitement of revealing her to Sebastian, had Anna feeling wild and delirious.

Pia was crying by then.

“I love your tears,” Anna whispered hoarsely. “You’re so lovely and sweet, so upset and confused, but full of tender desire.” Anna smoothed her thumb along the ridge of Pia’s collarbone, and they both moaned.

“I don’t understand, Anna.” Pia looked quickly at Sebastian, then back into Anna’s eyes.
That’s right
, Anna thought,
find your anchor in me
. Anna felt her sex quake. “How can this be?”

“My husband loves me, it seems.” Anna sounded pragmatic, but her heart pounded wildly as she busied her fingers with the front of Pia’s dress. “He wants me to have everything I wish for.”

Anna finished with the top half of Pia’s dress and a gasp escaped her. After glimpsing the binding linen around Pia’s confined breasts, Anna was overcome with a fierce need to maul her. She yanked Pia’s sleeves down so they held her arms firmly in place. “And I wish for you.”

She kissed Pia again, lingering to taste and remember the curve and texture of her lips, then dipped into her mouth until Anna felt a hint of Pia’s answering desire—tentative tongue, curious lips—but still no surrender. Anna pulled away reluctantly.

“Oh, you sweet thing. Look at you. Lean forward.” Anna despised the binding cloth and everything it represented. If anyone was going to bind Pia, it was going to be Anna. But she would bind her in order to transport her to their shared world of pleasure, not to hide her beauty from the world.

Still weeping, Pia tilted her body as Anna removed the binding linen for the last time. “I never want to see this again.” Anna threw the fabric onto the floor of the carriage.

Pia started shivering—perhaps from the air against her bare skin, but more likely from the realization that she was now half-naked in front of a strange man. Anna felt Pia’s tremor run through her own sex. “Don’t be afraid, my love. I’ve come to save you, as I promised.” She soothed and petted Pia to calm her violent trembling. “Or better yet, feel the fear, and let me be the one to assuage it, to carry you through it. Look at me, love. Trust me.”

“Oh dear God.” Sebastian mumbled. Anna turned to see he was staring at Pia’s voluptuous breasts, and probably doing his damnedest not to palm his own rock-hard cock without permission. “Anna?”

She smiled at him and nodded her approval. “Yes, you may touch yourself, my pet.”

He let his head fall back against the velvet squabs and undid the front of his trousers, looking at both women through thick dark lashes. Anna held Pia close as she gasped in disbelief when Sebastian pulled his huge, hard shaft out of the confining fabric and began stroking himself in long, casual passes. Anna shuddered, feeling the rhythm of his hand as if he were touching her mound in the same maddening tempo. She turned back to Pia. “He wants us to be together, darling. Isn’t it miraculous?”

Pia whimpered and leaned in closer to Anna, but her eyes never left Sebastian’s firm hand. Anna could tell she was both appalled and intrigued. “Watch how he touches himself while I touch you. God, how I’ve missed you.” When Anna leaned down and took one hard nipple into her greedy mouth, Sebastian and Pia both moaned at the same time.

Anna laughed against Pia’s breast—the joy of her two lovers bringing her close to tears—and then she suckled the swollen tips of each breast, all the while gazing up at Pia to gauge her reactions. As Pia stared at Sebastian’s hand working himself, Anna felt Pia’s pulse echo in rhythmic response against her lips.

“Anna, stop! I don’t understand what he’s doing here—”

“He’s our husband, my love.” Anna sat up, missing her lips against Pia’s breasts as soon as she broke contact.

“Our husband?” Pia’s head swiveled from Anna to Sebastian and back again, as she tried to pull the bodice of her dress back into place. “You mean,
your
husband.”

Anna leaned in, forcing Pia to stay her nervous hand motions, and placed warm, wet kisses up her neck until Anna was close to Pia’s ear. “No, my sweet, I mean
our
husband.”

Pia’s breathless confusion was making Anna raw with lust; she wanted nothing more than to get Pia to the edge of what she could endure—and then toss her over the edge into glorious release. The poor thing was strung so tight, she was likely to break.

Anna certainly hoped so.

“It’s not possible,” Pia’s voice was getting frantic. “It doesn’t make any sense!” She was trying to fasten her bodice, and Anna gripped her wrists forcefully.