‘And cruel.’

She clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Oh, no, don’t say that! You can’t mean it?’

‘I wish it weren’t true,’ he grimly said. ‘But it is. Everyone knows.’

Her tears began to flow. ‘So I’m to be – sold off – for Richmond’s fortune,’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, Ned, what am I going to do?’ she wailed. ‘Help me!’

A theatrical silence fell. You could have heard a pin drop.

His expression solemn, he reached across the table and gave her his handkerchief. ‘You know what he’s paying for.’

She looked down. ‘I know.’

‘If you weren’t a virgin …’

‘He wouldn’t want me.’ She looked up, her eyes bright with hope. ‘How clever you are, Ned!’ Then her face fell. ‘But the contracts have all been signed. And Mama’s already counting her money.’

‘Then I’m not sure what he’ll do.’

She jumped from her chair and began pacing the room, her agitation plain. ‘The world is cruel when I can be sold off like so much chattel. It’s not fair!’ She suddenly spun around, her nostrils flaring. ‘I won’t go docilely like a lamb to the slaughter. I won’t! You hear!’ She brooded for a moment, then hotly declared, ‘Fie on Richmond and his grubby money! I shall give you my maidenhead, darling Ned.’

The young man looked startled. He wasn’t the callous seducer generally portrayed in Victorian tales. ‘You have to be sure,’ he quietly said.

‘Yes, yes, yes, yes! And darling,’ she gaily declared, ‘I’ve been wanting to kiss you for ever!’

He still looked grave. ‘This is more than kisses.’

She waltzed over to him, patently joyful, and held out her hands. ‘I know that. This will be my sweet revenge on them all.’

Rising from his chair, the handsome young man took her hands in his, raised them to his mouth, brushed her fingers with his lips and the sweetest of seductions commenced: both actors young and beautiful, their slow undressing – he helping her and she him – a languid, tantalizing production accomplished with deft show-manship. Once they were nude, he caressed her shapely form in all the ways meant to arouse, kissing her mouth, her neck, her showy breasts, her virgin cleft. When she was flushed all warm and pink, Ned eased her back onto the chaise, slid between her legs, and with an expertise admired at least by the females in the audience, brought little Liza to a rapturous orgasm.

It was clear that the actors had been cast in their roles for reasons over and above their acting skills. Ned was all magnificent male, handsome, virile and in terms of performance art, his erection was truly star quality. For her part, Lady Liza was stunning, voluptuous as Venus, and clearly of a passionate nature.

After the initial consummation, Ned was lying on the chaise, cradling Liza in his arms when, in lieu of the usual pillow talk, she casually said, ‘Abby tells me you have whips.’

He glanced down. ‘Does she now?’

Liza lifted her gaze to him and smiled. ‘She says she likes what you do with them.’

‘You’re not Abby Childers.’

Liza suddenly sat up, a little pout on her lips. ‘I might like it.’

‘No.’

‘That’s not very nice.’ A spoiled young lady acting spoiled.

‘Come, darling,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Abby Childers likes to be tortured.’

A wide-eyed look. ‘Tortured?’

‘There, you see, you don’t want that.’

She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment. ‘You could just whip me a little.’

He softly sighed. ‘If I do, is this conversation over?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

‘Very well.’ He pointed. ‘In that drawer over there. Bring me one of the whips.’

She leaped up and a moment later was back. ‘Will this one do?’ She held out a red leather quirt from which hung three knotted strands of black braided silk.

‘That one’s fine. It won’t leave marks.’

She half turned and glanced back at the bureau.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he muttered, ‘or I’ll send you home. It’s not a competition.’ Reaching out, he took the whip from her, rose from the chaise and helped her lean over the chaise so she was face down over the curved back. Then he tied her hands to the wooden legs, raising her pink bottom into a perfect target.

‘I intend to make this unpleasant.’ He lifted his arm. ‘I don’t want you to ask me to do this again. You’re not Abbey Childers.’ He brought the whip down with a crack.

A gasp went up in the crowd as the lash struck the lady’s plump flesh.

Another when she cried out. Then another and another as the young man wielded his whip and the lady shrieked and moaned. Ignoring her cries, he smacked her soft rump, the inside of her thighs, the pink pouty lips of her sex – those blows in particular eliciting little frenzied screams that soon morphed into frantic whimpers.

Was she really in pain? Kate wondered. Would he stop if she was?

Kate forced herself not to openly gasp but it was impossible to stem her feverish reaction to the lady’s punishment. She was wildly aroused, desire coiling deep in her core, spreading outwards in hard, forceful waves, spiking through her senses, making her edgy, making her skin tingle.

Her gaze on the actor’s huge, upthrust erection, she imagined it deep inside her, could almost feel it slide in and out, wanted it, needed it. Or perhaps someone else’s, the little voice inside her head whispered as Dominic Knight’s recognizable scent filled her nostrils. His physical presence beside her was like an irresistible force, like a hot brand on her consciousness. Primal male, oppressive, blatantly arousing.