Estelle's Story Page 4

  “But you’re already at nearly four thousand quid, and you know my rules are that no one gets more than one thousand pounds of credit here.”

  Prince Horace pulled a thick leather case from an inside pocket of his jacket. Madam Stansky’s eyes took on a mercenary light, and she issued the first genuine smile for Horace in a fortnight.

  But it wasn’t a money wallet. Rather, the leather case held the long, slender cigars that Horace preferred. Seeing that she had been confused by the leather container, Horace chuckled softly. He was a man who liked to torment.

  Madam Stansky’s smile vanished. She squared her shoulders, and when she spoke next, there was case-hardened steel in her voice. “Prince Horace, you have been a good and steady customer, but the next time you show up at my door, show up with money. You no longer have any credit here.”

  Horace lit the cigar with a sulfur-tipped matchstick. To prove how little he cared about Madam Stansky, he dropped the still-burning match to the exquisite Persian carpet underfoot, and stepped on it to ensure a burn mark.

  “What makes you think I’ll ever show up here again?” he asked, heading toward the door.

  In an icy tone that was loud enough even for the prostitutes across the room to hear, Madam Stansky said, “You might find that London can be a very small city, Prince Horace. I know what other establishments you frequent. Should they find out you’re unwilling to pay the money you owe to me, I think you’ll find that their doors are closed to you as well.”

  Prince Horace thought, The bitch wouldn’t dare get me blackballed from the best whorehouses in London. She knows I’d cut her face for it.

  But as he stepped unsteadily out into the dark city street, the inebriated prince was coming to an inescapable conclusion that he needed vast quantities of money, and he needed it fast if he was to maintain his current lifestyle. His wife, he decided, had much more money than she needed. It had been nearly a month since she had written him a bank draft to cover his gambling losses. And with her—even if she did have blonde hair and big tits—at least he didn’t have to pay for her pussy.

  * * * *

  Julian gave Estelle a smile, then said to Alek, “You’ve got to give her credit for having courage, going into a hellish neighborhood like that.”

  “Even if she went about it all wrong.”

  Looking at Estelle, Julian said, “What made you think you could ever possibly blackmail a man like your husband into a divorce? You cannot blackmail a man who has no reputation to protect.”

  Estelle looked down and replied, “Can we not say that word?”

  Julian’s gaze flicked over to Alek. Without words, the two made a pact to never again say “husband” in Estelle’s presence.

  “Why don’t you let Alek and I look into the matter for you?” Julian continued smoothly, as though they weren’t really talking about the happiness and safety of Estelle. “We’re much better versed in the world your”—he stopped himself quickly—“in the world he frequents. You don’t understand the streets and back alleys of London. And I’ve got some of the best legal minds on retainer. We’ll find a way to set you free from that monster.”

  Estelle turned hopeful eyes upward to Julian. Softly, as though afraid that if she got her hopes up they would once again be smashed before her eyes, she asked, “Would you? Would you really?” Then, as though she’d suddenly been selfish, she added, “You can’t imagine what it’s like…never knowing what he’s going to be like when he comes home, never knowing when he’ll slap me or spit on me. And his insults…he calls me the vilest things.”

  Mademoiselle Clarisse stepped up to the booth. She surveyed the empty schnapps bottle and the half-empty champagne bottle, still in the ice bucket.

  “More schnapps?” she inquired. The men nodded. “And champagne?”

  “No,” Estelle said quickly. She placed a delicate finger on the rim of her glass. “At least not for me. I’ve had more than I should have as it is.”

  Julian looked at Mademoiselle Clarisse and nodded. The proprietress turned and walked away, having waited for either Julian or Alek to agree that it wasn’t necessary to bring another bottle of champagne. She knew where her money was coming from.

  “One more glass won’t hurt you,” Julian said, extracting the champagne bottle. He smiled warmly at Estelle, who still had her finger protectively on the rim of her glass. “Just one more?”

  Estelle removed her hand. “You’re a dangerous man, Prince Julian. I suspect that you could talk a woman into doing anything you wanted her to.”

  He shook his head, then combed fingers through his long, jet-black hair, smoothing the silken strands behind his ears. “Obviously, that’s not true,” he said. “Alek and I keep an apartment in the Kensington district for entertainment purposes. I wanted to take you there, but you refused. There’s the proof that your assessment of me is false.”

  “But you do kiss divinely.” Estelle’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, dear! Did I really say that aloud?”

  The three laughed softly. Estelle sipped her fourth glass of champagne, which was two more than she’d ever had in a single sitting.

  “I’m not sure how to respond to that,” Julian said.

  “Just say ‘thank you’ and leave it at that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  When Estelle turned to speak with Alek, Julian allowed himself the luxury of an unhurried examination of this young woman he had rescued from a muddy, mean alley in London’s vice district. The very fact that her fourth glass of champagne had put a glassy sheen in her eyes told him that she was unaccustomed to any sort of drinking. How she had thought she could get damaging information on Prince Horace was an almost ludicrous mystery, and a perfect example of her abject naiveté regarding the seamier side of life.

  He knew of Prince Horace Moreland and had heard the stories circulating on the ton of his cruelty. Horace was a man who picked his fights carefully and cruelly. Household servants and workers of every stripe were mud under his boots, as far as he was concerned. Horace particularly enjoyed taking a riding crop to women of the servant class who displeased him, Julian had been told.

  A vision of Estelle cowering in fear as Horace lashed with his riding crop came into Julian’s mind. The image was so vivid and repulsive that he had to close his eyes for a moment to compose himself. A deep sense of protectiveness was coming to life inside him.

  Mademoiselle Clarisse returned with a fresh bottle of schnapps. She filled Julian’s glass, saw that Alek’s glass still was mostly full, then set the bottle down on the table. She left without saying a word. Mademoiselle Clarisse was a proprietress who knew when to hold her tongue and be invisible.

  As Estelle continued talking to Alek, Julian appraised the fullness of her breasts, hidden beneath her high-necked black woolen dress. How could any man have such a wife, Julian wondered, and despise her? Even if she were a fool, which Estelle wasn’t, just being near such beauty would be satisfying enough to keep any man home at night.

  Suddenly aware that Estelle was looking at him, Julian lifted his gaze. There was humor in the purplish-blue depths of her eyes.

  “You were staring at my breasts, Prince Julian.” There was an amused half smile on her lips, and not the least bit of censure in her tone. “Do you find them attractive?”

  This time it was Julian’s turn to grin. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  Estelle cupped the twin mounds from the underside to raise them slightly. The move caused the breath to catch in Julian’s throat.

  “Do you know what Horace says these are? He says these are cow’s teats. How do you think a woman would feel if her husband says she has the breasts of a cow?”

  Estelle issued a short laugh, but Julian saw the bitterness and pain in her eyes, and heard it in her false laughter. Even if she despised the man and everything he stood for, a woman couldn’t possibly hear something like that said about her without feeling as though she’d been cut with an invisible
knife’s serrated blade. The wound wouldn’t be clean and neat. It would be jagged and painful and leave an ugly scar that nobody would see.

  Julian clenched his hand into a fist, and thought, It’s going to be a major disappointment for me if I don’t get the chance to put a bullet in Prince Horace Moreland.

  “What do you think, Alek? Do I have the udder of a cow?” she asked, turning toward the Austrian.

  The men watched as Estelle lifted her breasts even higher. She squeezed the mounds, her fingers pressing deeper, and Julian’s cock, which had been at the ready since his first introduction to Estelle in the alley, began growing with startling swiftness.

  She turned back toward Julian, still caressing her own bosom, and asked, “Would these excite you, Prince Julian? If I took my dress and corset off for you, would you look upon me as a cow or a woman?”

  A vein throbbed in Julian’s temple. For a moment he asked himself whether Estelle was behaving so brazenly because she had gotten intoxicated. It was an uncharacteristic thought, since he’d never before cared why a woman lost her inhibitions so long as she lost them.

  Estelle said, “When we were in your coach, I could feel that you had gotten…aroused, Prince Julian.” She pinched her nipples through the bodice of her dress, and long, dark lashes batted briefly against her cheeks. “Whenever that happens with—with you know who—I’m ashamed of myself. I’m sickened at what I’ve done to him. But with you”—her gaze darted to Alek before returning to Julian—“with you and Alek, it’s different. I don’t feel dirty because of it. I feel wanted. Pretty.” She pinched her nipples a bit more firmly, and once again her lashes lowered. She uttered the softest of moans. “With you men…I behave like a whore but I feel like a woman. A complete woman…for the first time in my life.” She closed her eyes yet again. “I am sinful with you two.”

  Simultaneously, Alek and Julian slid on the horseshoe-shaped leather bench seat until they were sitting so close to Estelle that their knees touched. Looking down between the table and Julian’s body, she saw the swollen bulge of his captured erection straining against his trousers. When she reached for it, Julian caught her by the wrist.

  “No, Estelle,” he said, a sudden commanding quality in his tone. There was confusion in Estelle’s violet eyes, and the dashing English prince smiled wolfishly. For the moment, he wanted her a little off balance. “There’s something you must do first.”

  “Anything,” Estelle replied with embarrassing haste. She was beyond decorum.

  “Take your drawers off, Estelle. Take them off now, and give them to me.” He watched as her eyes widened in astonishment. Raising his hand with the index finger extended like a private tutor admonishing his student, he shook his head and added, “I don’t want to hear another word out of you until you hand me your drawers.”

  As Estelle pulled up her dress, reaching beneath the skirt and petticoats for the drawstring of her drawers, Julian and Alek made good use of their time. While Estelle rocked from side to side to lower the silk undergarment past the curve of her hips and down her legs, the men with her were busy unfastening buttons and opening flies.

  “I can’t reach them,” Estelle said when her drawers were around her ankles. “The table’s in the way, and you’re sitting too close for me to get to them.”

  “Leave them where they are.” Julian’s voice had lost much of its smoothness. The fly of his tuxedo trousers was unbuttoned, and his cock, thick and long and almost quivering with readiness, stood out from his loins. “They’re of no consequence now.”

  Alek smirked and explained, “They’re silk, Julian. I knew she was a lady of means the moment I touched her stockings.” Alek caught a lock of Estelle’s hair at her temple and twirled it around his fingertip. “Only a landed lady can afford silk stockings and silk drawers.” As if discussing nothing more intimate than if she preferred roses over daises in the sunroom when she took her morning tea, he asked, “Is your chemise silk as well?”

  Estelle nodded. She looked straight into the Austrian’s ice-blue eyes and added with a hint of challenge in her tone, “The lining of my corset is silk, too. Nothing else feels quite like silk against my skin.”

  “An underbust or overbust corset?” Alek asked.

  “Underbust. So that the corset won’t show when I wear evening gowns.”

  The words prompted action by the men. Each took Estelle’s nearest hand and brought it to a formidable erection.

  Chapter Four

  Estelle wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the shaft of Alek’s cock and whispered, “Oh, my God.” And then, when Julian brought her hand to his enflamed erection, her eyes widened even more as she gasped, “You’re both so…”

  Alek prompted, “Big?”

  Estelle looked into his eyes, just inches from her own, and she whispered, “Horses!” She looked at what filled her fist, then back up into Alek’s gaze. “That’s what my friend calls it when a man is really, really big.”

  It was Julian who chimed in with, “I’d whinny about now, but I’m sure I can’t get my voice high enough.”

  The men each had a hand over hers, keeping her hands in place upon their erections. Estelle felt giddy as the men began moving her hands, schooling her in how they wanted to be stroked. The giddiness, Estelle knew, could only partially be blamed on the delicious champagne that Mademoiselle Clarisse had selected. She was a little tipsy, but nothing more than that—not drunk enough to completely relinquish her entire sense of propriety. But she was with a beguiling English prince and a roguish Austrian count, and that had to be the real reason sanity had left her.

  “Believe me when I say that not only have I never done anything like this,” Estelle whispered, “I’ve never even thought about anything like this.”

  Alek slipped a hand between her knees, sliding her skirt and petticoats up her legs as he replied, “You’re about to have your horizons expanded.”

  Julian, as he worked Estelle’s hand from the base of his enormous erection all the way up to the tip, added in a tempting purr that held luscious promise, “Expanded considerably, I should think.”

  Julian grabbed Estelle’s knee and raised her leg, lifting and pulling it to the side so that her leg was over his. As soon as Alek did the same with her other leg, Estelle was sitting with her legs spread wide apart, and had a cock filling each hand.

  She rested her head against the high-backed booth and closed her eyes. She sensed the eyes of the men—her men, as she now possessively thought of Alek and Julian—on her…and she loved the way it made her feel. Her posture was obscene. Not just obscene, publicly obscene. Estelle had no doubts of that. But it was the danger that added one more element of eroticism to Estelle’s out of control passions. She’d never before even dreamed of doing anything sexually daring and adventurous. She’d never really thought it was in her nature to. Now she realized that adventurousness had always been in her nature, it was just Horace who couldn’t inspire it in her.

  A hand reached the juncture of her thighs. Estelle wasn’t sure if it was Alek or Julian who was touching her delicately, erotically. All she needed to do was open her eyes and she would have the answer, but not knowing added to her pleasure.

  She stroked her hands up and down the two hard cocks, feeling the masculine heat going straight into her blood. Her clitoris throbbed with an empty ache.

  The soft “oh!” caused Estelle to open her eyes. She found herself looking up into Mademoiselle Clarisse’s face. Estelle clamped her legs together, and took her hands away from Alek and Julian. She blushed crimson in an instant. When she looked up again at Mademoiselle Clarisse, it was hard to tell whether the proprietress was frowning or struggling to keep from smiling.

  Alek gave Mademoiselle Clarisse a somewhat sheepish smile. Estelle noted that the woman was paying very close attention to Alek’s erection. The table hid Julian’s cock from her view. When she lifted her eyebrows in inquiry, he slid around in the booth so that she could see his arousal.

 
; “I had heard the rumor that you men were well endowed,” she said, keeping her voice low. There were men and women in the neighboring booths. “I’m afraid that the rumors have not done you men justice. I haven’t been interested in men in more than a decade, but you two men are, quite simply, beautiful to look at.” She smiled. “If I were fifteen years younger…”

  Estelle smoothed her skirt down over her legs. She’d never been more mortified at her own behavior, nor more embarrassed, in her entire life. What madness had overcome her to make her behave so wantonly?

  Mademoiselle Clarisse put her hands on the table, leaning forward so she could speak even more quietly to the trio.

  “You are one lucky woman, my dear,” she said to Estelle. Turning to Alek, she said, “For the first time since I’ve owned this place, I’m going to make an exception to the rules. I know that people are always making exceptions for you and Julian, so at least I know I’m in good company there. I’m going to open up my personal office to you. I’ve never let anyone in there. Nobody.”

  She straightened, picked Alek’s cape off the hook on the side of the booth and handed it to him, then with a nod of her head indicated she wanted them to follow.

  “No. I can’t,” Estelle whispered, her tone indicating she was at the edge of panic.

  In a low voice that would brook no denial, Julian said, “You’re coming with me.” Then he smiled wickedly and added, “And you can take that to mean anything you want.”

  Julian pulled Estelle out of the booth. She tried to resist him, but he was much stronger than she. The instant she was out of the booth and on her feet, she stumbled, her right foot coming down on the drawers that were around her left ankle. The moment she lost her balance, Alek grabbed her by the elbow. The next step Estelle took freed her of her silk drawers, which remained on the floor behind her.

  “Wait!” she hissed, looking over her shoulder at the snowy white silk drawers on the floor, stark evidence of her own indiscretion. She tried to stop Julian and Alek from pulling her along, but she wasn’t strong enough to slow them down much less stop them entirely.