Parlor Games (3 page)

At that moment, Mrs. Erskine stepped into the center of the room. “Welcome to my coffee house, ladies and gentlemen, and to the evening’s entertainment.”

She gestured to the round tables set up in front of the fire. “Gentlemen, please choose a partner and take your seats at the table of your choice. This evening we will amuse ourselves with a game of cards.”

There was an instant rush as the men claimed their partners. Amid the hubbub, the portly gentleman led Sarah to one of the tables by the fire. She looked helplessly after Polly as she was led away by her escort to a table on the far side.

Sarah’s partner gave her a predatory smile as he showed her to her chair. “I shall enjoy playing cards with you, my dear.” His lips were fat and they glistened with grease where he had not wiped them properly after dinner.

The heat from the fire could not stop the goose bumps from forming on her arms. She gave him a tremulous smile back. “Thank you, but I am not very good at cards.”

His smile widened noticeably, sending a trickle of icy suspicion creeping down the back of her spine. “So much the better.”

Once they were all seated around the tables, a cry went up from the gentlemen. “What game? What game?”

Mrs. Erskine hushed them all with a wave of her hands. “Ecarte,” she pronounced.

There was a general groan of disappointment from the gentlemen and some mutterings about how they may as well have stayed at home. Sarah felt herself relax just a little. There was nothing too scary about playing straight ecarte. Polly had explained the rules to her last night—it was simple enough if she kept her wits about her.

“We shall be playing not for money, but for forfeits,” Mrs. Erskine amended, with a faint smile on her austere face. “Clothes or kisses or other favors, make them what you please.”

The groans turned to cheers, her partner joining in the general revelry. “Let us play for clothes, my dear.” He leered greedily at her. “At least at first. Who knows what may happen later.”

Sarah felt her heart leap into her throat. Polly had warned her that playing for clothes was one of the gents’ favorite games. She had hoped to escape it on her first evening, but it seemed luck was not with her today.

Mrs. Erskine approached their table, cards in her hand.

Sarah could hardly manage to give her a civil greeting. Her wits had completely deserted her—her only thought was how to keep all her clothes on her back.

Mrs. Erskine shuffled the pack and dealt a hand to each of them, leaving the rest of the pack on the table between them. Sarah stared at the cards on the table with grim fascination, silently praying that God would have mercy on her and send her a good hand.

When she had finished dealing out all the cards, Mrs. Erskine moved to the middle of the room and clapped her hands together. “I will leave you young things to play cards together now. Do not get into mischief as soon as you are unchaperoned. I shall be in the next room if anyone needs me.” And with a brief curtsy to her clients, she left.

Surreptitiously Sarah wiped her damp palms on her skirts and picked up the cards in front of her. She could do this. Indeed, there was little choice about it—she had to do this.

The fire was warm on her back, but she was as cold as ice inside. She stared at her cards blankly, wishing with all her might that her father had been less set against all forms of gambling. A sketchy explanation of the rules of the most popular games from Polly the previous night was no substitute for knowing what she was doing.

Opposite her, Sir Richard was looking at his cards with a frown of concentration on his face. She watched with fascinated disgust as he absentmindedly took a large silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his sweating forehead. If her partner had been a little less gross and a little less leering, she would feel more comfortable. But Sir Richard? Would she have to undress for this overblown glutton of a man?

She forced herself to focus on her cards. A pair of sevens. A faint smile crept over her face. A pair of sevens wasn’t so bad. She could win this hand.

She discarded her odd card. “One, please.”

Sir Richard dealt her a card and took one for himself.

Her new card was a disappointment. Her hand still only had a pair of sevens. It was good, but would it be good enough?

With shaking fingers, she pushed a chip into the center of the table.

Sir Richard grinned at her and pushed in two chips.

Her heart pounding with fear, she looked intently at her cards and bit her lower lip. Should she raise the stakes and risk losing the lot? Or play it safe and lose just a little at a time?

“Will you match me?”

The eagerness in his voice decided her. Throwing her cards facedown on the table with a grimace, she forfeited the hand. “I fold.”

His pudgy hands gathered the chips from the table. “You owe me a forfeit. Three forfeits, to be precise.” With a piggish gleam in his eye he studied his prize. “Turn around for me. I will unfasten three buttons from your bodice.”

Reluctantly she turned her back to him. He leaned over the table and unfastened three buttons of her bodice, his fat fingers lingering unpleasantly on her neck, his whiskery sideburns scratching her skin. She turned back to him as soon as she could, brushing his fingers away.

With a look of satisfied anticipation, he gathered up the cards and shuffled them together. “Shall I deal this hand?”

From the other side of the wall, Tom watched the game with growing fury.

His mystery girl of yesterday claimed she was an innocent? Hah—he wanted to spit at her dainty feet.

No innocent miss would be sitting down at a card table playing ecarte for her clothes and letting Sir Richard Eddington undress her, one button at a time. Or smiling in the rascal’s face as he did so.

He ground his teeth together. Sir Richard Eddington was a rake of the first order. He had a fashionable wife and a nursery full of babies waiting at home for him, not to mention at least one pretty young house maid who was expecting his child as well.

By God, if she was determined to act the whore, she could do better than Sir Richard.

If she wanted to act the whore, she could do so with him.

The card game continued with Sarah losing every hand. She was not the only woman to be doing so. While some of the gentlemen had lost their top hats and their jackets, and a particularly unlucky one had already discarded both his shoes, most of them were still fully dressed. The women, however, were unfastening bodices and shedding stockings and slippers at a great rate. Polly had already completely discarded her bodice and corset and was now giggling in her shift and petticoats.

At length Sarah had only one button left to her bodice—and not so much as a pair of twos in her hand.

One glance at her face and Sir Richard pushed two chips into the center.

She looked despairingly at her cards and tossed them facedown onto the table.

He grinned widely as he leaned over the table to unfasten the last button. “I have won another forfeit, I fear. Your bodice is mine, now.”

All of Polly’s warnings had not been sufficient to prepare her for this moment. Slowly she pushed her bodice first off one shoulder and then off the other.

Sir Richard’s tongue snaked out to lick his lips.

She clasped her bodice to her chest, unwilling to let it fall.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Sarah looked up, startled, straight into the eyes of Tom Wilde. She clutched her bodice tighter to her chest with fingers that shook slightly.

Sir Richard frowned at the interruption but did not take his gaze off her chest. “What do you want?” His voice was harsh.

“You are Sir Richard Eddington?”

“What do you want?” he repeated.

“There’s a messenger outside asking for Sir Richard Eddington. As I was coming inside anyway, I volunteered to fetch you.”

That brought his attention away from Sarah’s chest. He looked straight at Tom. “A messenger? For me? Did he say what he wanted?”

Tom coughed. “He said something about you being needed in the House for a vote. I told him I would pass the message on.”

Sir Richard swore under his breath and rose from his chair with alacrity. “Excuse me,” he said to Sarah. “I am needed elsewhere.” Without further fuss, he clapped his hat on his head and waddled self-importantly out of the room.

Tom sat down in the chair that Sir Richard had just vacated. “Now, where were we?” he asked, a glint of wickedness in his eye. “Ah, yes, I remember, you were just about to take your bodice off.” He waved his hand in the air. “Please continue.”

Sarah was rooted to the spot. Her face burned worse than the hottest horse radish mustard. “What are you doing here?”

“As your partner, Sir Richard Eddington, the right honorable Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent, seems to be needed elsewhere, I am playing the part of a gentleman and taking his place.”

“You should not be here,” she hissed at him.

One eyebrow rose in a query. “Why ever not?”

“You have not been invited.”

His laughter rang out through the room. “My dear girl, anyone with money in his pocket can get himself invited to Mrs. Erskine’s entertainments. I have money in my pocket, therefore I consider myself duly invited. Now, about that bodice.”

She clenched it even more tightly to her chest. “I cannot take it off in front of you.”

“Why not?” His voice was hard. “Is it not enough that I have paid Mrs. Erskine? Do you want me to pay you, too?”

Tears filled her eyes at the sneer in his tone. “You…you are not a stranger to me. I have met you. I know your name. I cannot show you my breasts.”

He took up the pack of cards and shuffled them with a practiced hand. “You only fuck strangers for money? Is that it?”

Tears were rolling down her cheeks now. “You are shaming me. Do not do this to me.”

He dealt the cards onto the table and took up his hand. “Come, take your cards. If you win this hand I will let you put your bodice back on again.”

His kindness was more than she had expected. She looked up at him through her tears. “You will?”

“I promise.”

Slowly she let her bodice drop, taking heart from Tom’s apparent indifference to her seminakedness. He did not stare at her greedily as Sir Richard had done, but kept his gaze on his cards.

Her eyes widened in delight as she picked up her own hand. A pair of tens. This was the best hand she had had yet.

Hastily she discarded her remaining card and picked up another. To her disbelief, another ten stared back at her.

With growing excitement she pushed a chip into the middle of the table.

Tom watched her with hooded eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Sarah. Sarah Chesham.”

“You disappoint me, Sarah.”

Miffed at his tone, she raised her head from her cards. “Why?”

“You are so cautious, so afraid.” He pushed a stack of his own chips into the center alongside her lonely one. “You do not have the courage of your convictions but play timidly, for small stakes, when you could be bold and win everything at a single stroke.”

She stared at the pile in the middle of the table. If she were to lose, she would be nigh on naked. “I do not care to win except to get my bodice back,” she said with a pout. “I have no wish to rob you of your clothes.”

“You do not wish to strip me naked?”

She pursed her lips. “No.” His question brought all sorts of naughty images unbidden to her mind. The thought of seeing Sir Richard’s naked rolls of flesh made her shudder, but Tom Wilde was a much better figure of a man. He was lean and wiry where Sir Richard was grossly fat, and his whiskers were dark and neatly trimmed, far removed from the bushy auburn monstrosities that Sir Richard wore.

Ignoring the throbbing in her pussy, she clamped her legs together to stop them trembling at the thought of Tom standing before her with no clothes on. She was a respectable woman still, despite her dodgy profession, and she needed to remember that.

His mouth quirked into a smile at her denial. “You are a liar as well as a coward.”

She was
not
a liar. She did
not
want to see his bare chest, his strong legs, or to see his member spring up at her touch. She did not want to see him as naked as the men in those naughty stereoscope pictures, or to have him do unspeakable things to her as they were doing to each other in the pictures. Or if she did harbor a secret desire, it was only out of curiosity, not lust. “You are no gentleman to say that to me.”

“Even though it is true?”

She glared at him and pushed an even larger handful of chips into the middle of the table. “It is
not
true. Match that if you dare.”

He counted out a stack of chips to match hers and pushed them in. “Done. Now show me your hand.”

Triumphantly she laid her cards face up on the table. “Three tens. Now start undressing. We shall see how well
you
like being stripped naked in company.”

He laid his own cards facedown on the table. “I think not.”

A trio of jacks. She looked at them in disbelief. Fate was playing a cruel joke on her.

He reached out to the pile of chips and began to count them, slowly and deliberately. “Come here,” he instructed her. “Around to my side of the table. I want to claim my forfeit.”

Her gaze was glued to that pile of chips. No wonder her father had disapproved of gambling so strongly. It only led to ruin and damnation. If only she had not let Tom goad her by calling her a coward and a liar. Now she would have to undress for him until she was as naked as the day she was born. Her whole body felt hot and flushed at the thought. “You will claim them all?”

“Every last one.”

“You are
not
a gentleman,” she complained, though her pussy was already beginning to drip in anticipation. If she had to lose her clothes, she would far rather lose them to Tom than to Sir Richard the gross. Sir Richard disgusted her, but Tom? She could not quite put her feelings for Tom into words. “You are a scoundrel.”

“I’m a scoundrel,” he agreed complacently. “I’m a cad and a rotter and a no-good wastrel, but I have also just won a game of cards and I am about to undress you one garment at a time and I will enjoy every minute of it.”

“I’m glad that one of us will enjoy it,” she muttered under her breath as she rose from her chair and came to stand beside him. She could not bear to let him suspect that she was half looking forward to having his hands on her, undressing her bit by bit. His opinion of her was low enough already. Such evidence of her wantonness would shock him further.

“Tut, tut. Mrs. Erskine will have you thrown out on your ear if she hears you. Surely she pays you to be pleasant and polite and to smile at me, not to grumble like an old fishwife.”

She poked her tongue out at him. “I’m here, aren’t I? Waiting obediently for you to undress me.” Goose bumps formed on her bare arms as she spoke. The prospect of having him as her master and having to obey every naughty command he gave her was strangely enticing.

His green eyes were calculating as he looked her up and down. “I like obedience in a woman. Take off your slippers.”

She held out her hand. “Two chips.” Nobody, especially not Tom, was going to cheat her.

Not until he passed her the chips did she slide her embroidered slippers awkwardly off her feet.

“That was easy now, wasn’t it,” he remarked, amused at her discomfiture. “Now, come closer and let me unfasten your skirt.”

He put his arms around her waist, drawing her in to stand between his thighs, and reached behind her to unhook her skirt. Her skin prickled at his nearness and she suddenly found it hard to breathe.

“You are very practiced at undressing women,” she muttered at him to hide her embarrassment, as he unfastened her hooks with ease and pushed her outer skirt over her hips to pool at her feet on the floor.

Though she was not cold, she shivered as she stood there in front of him, dressed only in her petticoats, her arms crossed over her nearly naked breasts to protect her modesty. Being a naughty woman was more difficult than she had expected. The lessons of a lifetime could not be overcome in one short evening.

All pretense he had made of indifference was gone and he was gazing at her as if he wanted to eat her up. She did not know where to look. He made her feel both eminently desirable and horrifyingly debauched at the same time.

“Silk stockings with red clocks embroidered on them?” His voice was still hard and sarcastic, but his face was flushed as he reached up and loosened his necktie. “How quaint. Put your foot up on my knee and let me see them closer.”

It was good to know that she had some small amount of power over him. She put her stockinged foot up on his knee, her skirts lifting with the movement.

His hands lingered over her ankle. “Very nice. Now take them off.”

Timorously she reached inside her petticoats to unbuckle the garter holding up her stocking, but Tom stopped her with one hand on her arm. “On second thought, I will take them off for you.”

Was he offering to put his hands up her skirts? That would never do. She pushed him away. “I don’t need any help. I can take them off for myself.”

“But I
want
to do it for you. And I have won the forfeit, have I not?” Reaching under her petticoats, he ran his hands up her leg to the top of her stocking. “You owe me.”

“Get your hands out from under my skirts,” she hissed, slapping at his hand on her leg and wriggling around to get away from him. “It is not proper.”

Oblivious to her protests, he unfastened her buckle, removed her garter, and slowly rolled her stocking down her leg and over her foot. “You are not
meant
to be proper. Give me your other leg.”

Sarah looked around for someone to protest to, but no one was paying them any attention. All the others were either crowing over their cards, or one half of the couple was undressing the other with much laughter and giggling.

“Come on. I’m waiting.”

Modesty had no value here—indeed, it would ruin her. She had to get over her fears if she wanted to stay. Mrs. Erskine would not take kindly to her first customer complaining over her unwillingness to play the game with him. Reluctantly she took her bare leg off Tom’s lap and put her other leg on his knee.

He reached under her petticoats to the top of her other stocking, caressing the bare skin of her thigh with his fingertips. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Her leg was shaking under his feather-light touch. “No.” He was touching her where no man but her husband ought to touch her. She ought not to be enjoying the feel of his fingers on her leg.

“You are lying again. You really must try to stop. Lying is a nasty habit.”

She shivered as he continued to caress her gently. “I am not lying.”

“Your neck is all red and flushed. Your leg is trembling under my hands. And if I were to reach my hand just a little higher, I would find your pussy as wet as any man could wish it. As wet as it was when you were looking at those naughty pictures in the salon yesterday.”

How did he know that her pussy was dripping into her drawers? She clamped her thighs together, trapping his wrist between them so he could not roam higher. “Don’t touch me there.”

“Relax.” He unbuckled the garter on her second stocking, unrolled it, and cast it aside. “I am only claiming my forfeit as I am entitled.” His pile of chips was dwindling rapidly, and he eyed it with disfavor, suddenly losing his patience. “I never knew a tart had so many damned underclothes. Come, take off those petticoats of yours.”

Her petticoats were fastened with distressingly few hooks and tapes. One by one she let them fall at her feet until she was standing in front of him wearing nothing but corset, chemise, and drawers.

A murmur of appreciation escaped him. “Turn around for me. I want to see you from every side.”

Obediently she turned in a circle for him, her body burning under the heat of his gaze.

“Now your corset.”

Her eyes fixed on his beseechingly. “Do you have no pity?”

“Not a whit,” he replied cheerfully. “Take it off.”

One by one he handed over his chips as she unhooked every last busk on her corset.

With shaking hands she cast her corset aside. Her breasts swung freely under her fine linen chemise, the dark outline of her nipples clear beneath the thin fabric. Her nipples were peaked into tight buds at the unaccustomed sensation of freedom, and the unsettling knowledge that his gaze was fixed on them. Her seminakedness was decadence itself—instead of being ashamed, her wickedness excited and inflamed her senses.

One chip was left on the table. He picked it up, tossed it into the air, and caught it again with an air of utter unconcern. “Take off your shift.”

And allow the entire room to see her naked breasts? That was taking decadence too far. She crossed her hands over her chest, wanting to obey him but unwilling to violate her modesty to such an extent. “I cannot do that.”

He was inexorable. “You lost the hand. You owe me a debt, and I want to see your breasts.”

“Will you not take another forfeit?”

Her words piqued his interest. “What are you offering?”

She looked wildly around the room for inspiration, her gaze finding only half-naked couples in unchaste embraces. “A kiss?” she offered in desperation. There could be no great harm in a kiss. It was better than showing off her naked breasts to a room full of gentlemen, and to Tom in particular. One kiss did not make her a whore.

“Sit on my knee and give me a kiss and we will have a deal.”

She had not kissed any man before—she had never had a follower to ask her to kiss him, or to steal kisses from her on the sly in a dark corner. The prospect of kissing Tom frightened her a little, but not as much as exposing her naked breasts in mixed company did.

Her heart beating fast in her chest, she perched herself on the edge of his knee and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek. “Now give me the chip,” she demanded, hopping off his knee again. “I have paid the last of my forfeits.”

“That was no kiss.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him so she was sitting on his lap, her head resting against his shoulder and her breasts jammed against his chest.

She gasped half in horror and half in pleasure as her drawers gaped open, plastering her naked pussy tantalizingly against his rock-hard member. Only the thin cloth layer of his trousers separated her bare skin from his. Her brain felt thick and heavy, as if it were covered in a thick London fog—all her sensations were bound up in her pussy, hot and tingling at the nearness of his member.

She moved tentatively against him and was rewarded with a quiver of pleasure that shot right through her body. Did all women experience this delight when a man kissed and fondled them? Was this wondrous feeling why women gave themselves over so willingly to be whores? No wonder Polly danced around with a smile on her face if she was made to feel like this every evening.

He bent his head to hers, kissing her roughly on the lips, forcing her to open her mouth under his onslaught. With one hand he held her tightly against him, while the other crept under her chemise to fondle her naked breasts.

His mouth was hot against hers, as he forced her to respond to him. She had no breath left to protest, and no will either. His hands were like fire on her breasts and his kiss was more intoxicating than port wine.

She squirmed against him, thrusting her breasts into his hands, her nipples begging him to fondle, to touch, to taste. He obeyed her wordless commands, cupping her breasts in his hands, flicking his fingernails over her sensitive nipples and rolling them gently between his fingers.

Her pussy ached with desire and she could not resist moving backward and forward on his lap to rub it more insistently against his member. Her juices would leave wet patches on his trousers, but she was beyond caring. What did it matter if he discovered what a wanton she was if he would only go on touching her and kissing her like this forever. He made her feel so alive, so desirable, so much like a woman.

When at last he raised his head from the kiss, his breathing was labored. “I can’t wait any longer,” he said with a groan, his hand already at his waistband fumbling with his buttons. “Take me upstairs and let me fuck you.”

His rough-spoken demand called her to her senses. Pushing his hands away, she pulled herself free of his embrace and stood up off his lap, flushed and panting. They had gone more than far enough already and she was not his for the asking, not even if her pussy was on fire for him. “No,” she said, her voice shaky. “I will not take you upstairs.” Enough of her good sense was still left her to refuse him the ultimate act.

“You’d rather fuck me here? With all these people around?” He sounded intrigued, but not put off by the notion. “What ever the lady wants.” He flicked open another button and rearranged himself so that his member stuck out, stiff and purple, from his unfastened trousers. “Come here and sit on my cock then, and let me fuck you right here with everyone watching us.”

She stared at his huge member poking out of the top of his trousers. Did he like the thought of fucking her in the midst of a crowd of people? Would he take her to the room next door and thrust his member into her pussy while a man took pictures of them for the stereoscope? “I will not be your whore.”

He stopped in the act of pushing down his trousers over his hips and looked up in confusion. “Why not? I can pay. I’ve already told you I have plenty of money.”

Mrs. Erskine had given her a choice and she would take full advantage of her freedom. She would not throw her virginity away for mere money. She was not that desperate yet. “Because I choose not to.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said, stroking his privates with one hand and holding out the other to her in invitation. “You cannot refuse me. You are a whore.”

“I make my living playing parlor games with gentlemen, not by sitting on their cocks,” she said crudely, gaining strength from his disarray. The ache in her pussy would go away if she ignored it. “Now, do you want to play another hand of cards?”

His member had grown more purple and swollen with every word they spoke. He slammed his hand down on the card table in a fury. “Damn the cards. I want to fuck you.”

“I do not fuck strangers for money,” she said primly, throwing his earlier words back in his face.

He gestured at the room, which had already lost a good half of its occupants. “I doubt your friends are as fastidious as you are. They will all be upstairs fucking away merrily by now.”

She shrugged. Taking off her clothes for a forfeit did not make her a whore, nor did kissing a man to pay another forfeit. Keeping company with whores did not make her one. “That is their affair. Not mine.”

“You are nothing but a cock tease. I should have chosen one of the other women. Any one of them would have acted fairly by me and not left me in these straits.”

Her anger rose, though she tamped it down as best she could. If he treated her as a whore, that was his mistake and his loss, not hers. “You chose poorly indeed.”

“You will not go upstairs with me?” He sounded as if he still could not quite believe her.

“No, I will not.”

“I will take my leave then,” he said sulkily, re-buttoning his trousers and clapping his hat on his head. “If nothing else is on offer.”

She inclined her head politely. “Good-bye, Mr. Wilde. I hope we will meet again soon.”

He grunted at her and strode out of the salon without looking back.

Sarah watched him go with some relief. Her first client had departed, her first evening was nearly over, and she had survived. She could have wished that Tom had not picked a quarrel with her at the end, but maybe it was all for the best. His rough demands for her to sit on his cock had been easy to refuse, but if he had coaxed her and talked words of kindness and love into her ear, she shuddered to think what she might not have done for him. His member had been so stiff and proud, and her pussy was still wet with wanting him…