A word about warnings for this story:
I struggled a lot with how to warn for this fic. If I tag for absolutely everything that happens or is referenced in the story, not only would I be spoiling at least some of what happens, it would make the story sound much, much more intense and angsty than it really is. But at the same time I always want to make sure that people who have triggers get full warnings. So I came up with a plan.
You should be able to tell from the title of this story that consent - what it is, who can give it, and in what situations - is a major theme. There will be non-con, dub-con, and various stages of questionable in Kurt's interactions with both OCs and Sebastian. And I do like my shades of gray, so I won't be making judgments about some of those questionable areas. That's the whole point. If you have issues with dubious consent, this is probably not the fic for you.
Also, this is a slave fic. Kurt, at the outset, is the slave of an OC and he's not happy about it. Bad things happen to him. He has strong emotional reactions to those things. But if you know my writing, you know that I don't like to belabor angst or linger on unpleasant things beyond what narrative demands. This is not a story about Kurt being hurt. But it is a story about Kurt struggling to survive in a bad situation.
So if you know me and trust me and don't have specific triggers that you're worried about, I'd say go ahead and start reading.
If you do have specific concerns or triggers, I've put a page listing of all the things this story could be tagged with at lilinas dot tumblr dot com slash assentwarnings. And you can always feel free to message me here or on tumblr or LiveJournal about any concerns you may have. I'm lilinas everywhere.
I've probably completely over-thought this, but better safe than sorry, right?
On to the story!
"Oh Gavin, he's beautiful!"
By any reasonable standard, Lady Miranda of Montrose should have been completely miserable.
First, of course, was location. Any trip to the eastern half of the Unified Realm of Concordia (and eternal blessings on King Harold III for saddling his kingdom with that particular acronym) was guaranteed to put her in the foulest of moods. There were those among the back-stabbing social climbers at court who might have hinted that her distaste was hypocritical, given the fact that she herself was a product of the eastern realm. But no one would have dared to say it to her face. Thanks to the custom of east marrying west, and vice versa, Miranda had happily left her homeland behind on her wedding day, determined to never return. Unfortunately, that same custom had eventually dictated that her own daughter marry east, and not even the honor of having a count for a son-in-law could compensate for the fact that the occasional visit was unavoidable. Lord Montrose had long ago learned to treat his wife very gently from the moment they crossed the eastern bank of the Whitemarsh River until they were at last safely returned to their manor in the heart of Concordia City.
Then there was the company. On any trip east, propriety dictated a stop to pay respects to the Duke and Duchess of Eastreach. They were the ranking nobles in the east and normally Miranda would have been thrilled to be welcomed by people of such station, who would be anxious for their news of the court and certain to invite them to spend the night in the ducal castle. But she'd learned on previous visits, and during the duke and duchess' infrequent trips to court, that Ardith was insipid in the extreme and Gavin was only interested in finding his way under the skirts of as many women as possible. Miranda had had to fend of his advances more than once – tactfully, of course; he was the queen's brother after all. But his behavior only served to confirm her opinion that even among the nobility, there was nothing of value to be found in the eastern realm.
Even her place at table for the midday meal seemed designed to irk her. Instead of a formal arrangement (and really, didn't Lord and Lady Montrose merit a formal arrangement?) with all the guests of distinction facing the commoners at the lower tables, their chairs had been set casually around the high table. So Miranda's place of honor at the duke's right hand also put her with her back to the assembled masses and what was the point of being at the high table if the commoners weren't able to see and admire her? She should have been seething. She had been seething, in fact, enough that her husband had spent most of the meal casting concerned glances in her direction from his place across the table at the duchess' right hand.
But that was before the duke had decided, during the dessert course, to show off his most precious possession.
Conversation at the lower tables had dropped to whispered murmurs the moment the boy had appeared from a hidden alcove to stand behind the duke's chair. The duchess, at the foot of the table, blushed red at his entrance and muttered a token protest in the general direction of her dessert plate. Lord Montrose, who had never, to Miranda's knowledge, pointed his dick in a male direction, stared openly. But the duke kept his avid gaze on Miranda, anticipating her reaction.
Miranda only had eyes for the boy.
"Beautiful" was the word she'd used, but it wasn't right, wasn't enough, somehow, to describe him. Standing naked, not a single adornment from top to toe, hands clasped behind him and head lowered in submissive deference, he was beyond beauty, really. He was a vision, something an artist might conceive in a brilliant fever dream and then coax gently from a block of marble using every ounce of his talent and hard-earned skill. A masterwork. His pale skin seemed to glow in the light slanting through the hall's high windows, so fair that the chestnut of his hair and the rosy pink of his nipples stood out against it in almost shocking contrast.
"Boy" was also the wrong word. It was only the lack of hair below his neck that gave that impression. He was a youthful but fully formed man. His shoulders were broad and strong. His skin was shadowed in all the right places with the outlines of lithe muscle and his cock, hanging flaccid against his full, heavy balls, was not by any estimation immature.
But more than his physical beauty, it was his composure that took Miranda's breath away. He stood perfectly calm, betraying no sign that he was at all discomfited standing completely exposed in front of the duke's entire household. No muscle trembled; no breath hitched. No matter where Miranda looked, she saw no flaw in his careful composure. His self-control must be remarkable. There had to be cracks, she thought. Everyone had weaknesses. Miranda had a passion for finding and exploiting the weaknesses of others. She wanted to touch this boy so badly that her fingers ached with it.
The duke snapped his fingers with a sudden sharp sound that echoed in the silent hall and the boy, as if waiting for that very signal, stepped forward and folded himself to the floor with perfect grace to kneel beside his master's chair. Conversation at the lower tables buzzed louder again; apparently a naked slave in the hall was only interesting if something was going to be done with him.
Miranda however, with her close-up view, was only more fascinated by the way the boy held himself, back straight, knees spread so that his balls swung down between his legs. Long-fingered hands rested soft and open on his thighs.
"I've never seen anything like him," she breathed. She hoped Gavin could appreciate how rarely she had occasion to make that assertion.
Gavin's thick lips pulled into a leering smile. "I should think not. He's one of a kind."
"Gavin, must we? At the table?" The duchess' protest was murmured so quietly that Miranda could barely hear it. The duke ignored it altogether.
"I thought slavery was outlawed a hundred years ago," Lord Montrose said. "When Harold III unified the realms."
"Acts of aggression rarely succeed in the way the aggressors intend them to," the Duke intoned, and Miranda had to pinch her lips together to stop herself smiling. A hundred years of unification and intermarriage and still the east wasn't over it. "I think you'll find the west is very rarely aware of what actually happens in the east," Gavin continued. "In point of fact, my own grandfather always kept a slut. I can remember the last one. And if that's a hundred years then the Maker's been much kinder to me than I'm sure I deserve." He laughed at that, pleased with his own joke, and Lord Montrose, with his usual skill at flattery, laughed merrily along with him.
Miranda was still transfixed by the boy. "But wherever did he come from?" she asked. The duke's hubris aside, it was a fact that there was no pool of slaves left in the east, or anywhere else, to provide likely candidates. "I don't imagine he volunteered."
The duke shrugged. "Some village in the mountains couldn't pay their taxes last summer. When my collector came calling, they offered him instead. Obviously barbarians." He snorted derisively, apparently seeing no irony in expressing that particular sentiment with the boy himself kneeling beside him. "But I'd been thinking about reviving the slut tradition so I accepted. You might say he just tumbled right into my lap." Another suggestive laugh, echoed sycophantically by Lord Montrose. "I even managed to find someone to train him. Cost me quite a bit of coin to have him properly put right. But worth every penny."
"Didn't he have any family? Anyone to defend him?"
Gavin shrugged again. "The man who offered him said he was an orphan. In any case, no one's ever come looking for him."
The boy knelt there, perfectly still, and carefully as Miranda looked, she could see absolutely no reaction to the story of his own loss of freedom being recounted over his head. He gave no indication that he'd heard a single word of it. The strength of his will made him even more alluring. Oh, how she longed to have him alone. The more perfect the façade, the more satisfying it was to shatter.
"So he was free, before?" Miranda asked, more to goad the boy than because she needed clarification. "He was kidnapped against his will?"
"My dear Miranda, what slave ever chooses to serve? Besides, once a slut is trained he has no will of his own. That's the entire point. His only thought is to please his master." Gavin dropped a heavy hand to the boy's head, tangling his fingers in the short hair there and pulling back roughly, forcing the boy to look up at him. "Isn't that right, slut?"
"Yes, master."
The boy's voice surprised Miranda, soft and high as girl's. His face still betrayed no emotion at all. As soon as the duke released him he lowered his eyes to the floor again in careful submission. Miranda was torn between the desire to laugh out loud and to rage. Gavin obviously believed what he was saying. And if he really was that oblivious, he didn't begin to deserve so exquisite a slave.
"Why a boy, though?" Lord Montrose asked, unexpectedly, from across the table. "Wouldn't you prefer a girl?"
"Sluts are always boys," the duke responded, patronizingly, as if he were telling a child something he should have been able to figure out on his own.
Miranda gave her husband a warning glance, but Ignatius went on, oblivious. "Always? I don't understand. I thought everyone in the east was horrified by the idea of –"
"You'll have to excuse Ignatius," Miranda interrupted, her warning escalating into a fierce shut the fuck up glare. The last thing they needed was for Ignatius to insult the entirety of Gavin's ancestors by implying they were all sexual deviants. "He's born and bred western so of course he doesn't understand the fundamental difference between a slut and a lover."
She forced out a laugh, as if mocking her husband's idiocy, and Gavin echoed it. "I don't fuck my slut, Lord Montrose."
"Gavin!" the duchess managed, but again the duke ignored her.
"But obviously you –"
"When you close your eyes, one mouth is as good as another."
"I just meant, why not girls? It seems to make so much more sense."
"I've always heard," Miranda said, throwing another death glare at her husband before leaning closer to Gavin in an effort to appease or at least distract him with her cleavage, "that men are often better at pleasing other men. Because they intimately know how it all feels. We women lack the . . . equipment . . . for that kind of personal knowledge."
Both men laughed at that, and the duchess blushed again and applied herself to her pastry with a fork that trembled visibly.
"Actually, Lord Montrose," Gavin said, "it's a simple matter of boys being easier to control than girls."
"I find that hard to believe!" Ignatius scoffed.
"Really?" Miranda raised an eyebrow at her husband. "Where in the world would you get the impression that women are easy to control?"
"We're speaking of peasants, not noblewomen. The man has yet to be born who could master you, my dear." He saluted her with his goblet and took a sip, then turned his attention back to the duke.
"Noblewomen aside, I assure you it's quite true," Gavin said. "Stand up, slut."
Silently, gracefully, the boy unfolded himself and rose to his feet, which had the happy result of putting his cock back at Miranda's eye level. Especially happy as Gavin, without taking his eyes off Lord Montrose, grabbed his slut's penis in a tight grip and began to stroke, pulling the foreskin roughly along the flaccid shaft. As if on cue, the entire hall went quiet again behind Miranda as everyone's attention was drawn back to the dais.
"Gavin, please –" the duchess tried again.
"You're free to leave the table if you'd like, Ardith," the duke told his wife coldly, not bothering to even glance in her direction.
The duchess remained in her place.
"It's perfectly sanitary," Gavin told Ignatius as he stroked the boy. "Keeping himself scrupulously clean is his second most important duty."
Cleanliness was the very last thing on Miranda's mind at the moment. She had the best view in the house and sat transfixed as, almost from the first stroke, the boy's cock began to stretch and fill. It had reached full hardness by the fifth, and without the downward pressure of Gavin's hand it would have stood, she could tell, flush against his belly. Miranda, who almost certainly had more experience with a greater variety of cocks than anyone else at the table, could see right away that the duke kept his slut very needy indeed. And yet even as the physical manifestation of his arousal grew, the boy's control was absolute. His eyes stayed down, his breathing even, if not for the evidence directly in front of Miranda's eyes, it would have been impossible to tell that he was in any way excited. How she longed to have a chance to break through that perfect shell. Just the idea of it made her wet.
"You see, Lord Montrose?" Gavin said, still stroking. "Men are ruled by their cocks. Yes, even you and I, although of course as men of breeding and education we can rise above our natural urges."
Miranda almost choked at that, and had to turn away and hide her face in her goblet. Only in the east could a man seriously assert his ability to control his sexual urges while masturbating the naked slave he kept to suck his cock.
"But these lowborn boys?" Gavin continued. "Keep them desperate enough and all they can think about is being allowed to erupt. Eventually they'll do anything at all to earn a chance to come. Control their pleasure and you control everything else. With one hand." He stopped his rough stroking and squeezed down hard on the boy's cock. Miranda watched, fascinated, as a drop of moisture appeared in the slit, beaded there for a moment, then fell, dropping in a shining spider-silk thread toward the floor.
"I'm close, master," the boy murmured suddenly, and the duke, without even a glance at him, release his shaft and went right back to his pastry.
Miranda wanted to laugh with delight. Gavin had no idea at all. It was obvious the boy wasn't anywhere near a loss of control. His cock was still hard, of course, but it didn't jump or throb; it had only produced the one tiny bit of slick, and his full balls still hung loose between his legs. Apparently the duke was too busy rising above his natural urges to realize his sex slave was pulling the wool over his eyes.
"I'm still in favor of Miranda's explanation," Ignatius said. "A cock knows what a cock likes."
"I'm sure it's more practical than either of those things." The voice from the foot of the table was so unexpected that everyone, even the duke, simply stared at the duchess, waiting for her to say more. Still looking flushed, she raised her pinched eyes from her dessert and looked directly at Ignatius. "A girl could only be kept naked three weeks out of every month, of course. There's more value in a boy."
Miranda wasn't sure what was funnier, the unexpected logic of the duchess' argument or the looks on the faces of the men when she made it. A bark of laughter escaped her before she could press her hand to her mouth to stifle it.
Ardith spoke again, still focusing on Ignatius, casually, as if she hadn't just shocked the entire table. "How did you leave the king and queen, Lord Montrose? Are they recovering from the death of the crown prince?"
Ignatius was still taken aback by the lady's outburst. "Well they . . ." he stammered, "I mean, does anyone ever recover from a loss like that?"
"Such a tragedy. We were deeply sorry not to have been able to attend the funeral. But we'll be coming to Concordia City in the spring, for young Prince Harold's affirmation in his brother's place, of course. Do you think . . ."
Miranda didn't bother to listen to the rest of the question. She turned her attention back to Gavin, his slut, and the slut's still-hard cock. Gavin was staring at Miranda as fiercely as Miranda was sure she was staring at the slut.
"Would you like to touch him?" he offered.
Would she? "Are you sure?" Miranda asked. It wouldn't do to appear too eager, after all. "Such a valuable thing . . ."
"I insist."
She wasn't going to wait to be told twice. Excitement fluttered in her chest and warmed between her legs. The boy betrayed no reaction to the idea of being handled by a stranger; Miranda would have been disappointed if he had. She rose and stepped so close to the boy that his cock bobbed inches from the ice blue silk panels of her skirt. She could feel Gavin's eyes on her, almost burning in their intensity, but she didn't care. Everything faded into the background, the rise and fall of chatter from the lower tables, the quiet conversation the duchess insisted on keeping up with Ignatius.
She touched a fingertip under the boy's chin and pushed up, so that he was forced to raise his head and meet her gaze. His eyes were a lovely, stormy gray-ish blue, pretty, but empty. Blank. She could imagine them, though, pleading, glistening with tears. They would be so beautiful. He would be so beautiful, if he ever broke. Intolerably beautiful.
She released his chin and the stormy gaze lowered immediately back to the floor. Miranda trailed her hand down, caressing the soft skin of his throat, over the planes of his chest to pinch at one pink nipple. She watched his face as she worked at it, but aside from the nipple itself peaking in pebbled arousal, the boy might as well have been a statue. But she knew the way in. There was one thing Gavin was right about, even in his imbecilic blindness. She slipped her hand lower, tracing over his hip bone before sliding between his legs to cup his balls. They were heavy, even heavier than she'd expected from their swollen appearance, so hard and full in her hand that she knew they had to ache. Pleasure pulsed between her legs again as she realized just how denied the slut must be.
"Gods, Gavin, do you ever let him come?"
"Occasionally. The teasing is the key. It's what keeps them obedient. But in order for it to work the slut at least has to think he has a chance. So I can't avoid the occasional release. Followed by plenty of pain, of course. Just to keep him in line."
"Of course," Miranda breathed. She tightened her hand, squeezing his balls hard enough to hurt, but the boy made no sound and his shadowed eyes showed no sign of strain. Then, deciding she'd teased them both enough, she finally let herself touch his cock. She slipped her fingers along the length of his shaft, stroking, not harsh as Gavin had been, but gently, tenderly, easing the foreskin over the exposed head and back again. The boy's flesh, at least, wasn't immune to her effect. She felt it thicken against her hand and again moisture oozed from the slit. Gorgeous. "He must be so much fun to play with when he's like this," she said.
"I wouldn't know," Gavin said with a sniff, as if Miranda's words offended him. "I almost never touch him. Why would I?"
"Then how –"
"My valet does most of the handling. He has quite the flair for cock teasing. I can't decide if he's a deviant or just a dedicated sadist. Either way, I should probably replace him. The priests would demand it if they knew, but then who'd torture my slut for me? Plus he's terribly talented with a needle and thread."
A tiny flutter, barely enough to be called a twitch, rippled at the corner of the boy's mouth. If Miranda hadn't been watching so closely she would have missed it entirely, but her breath caught and her heart jumped in her chest. Finally a crack in his perfect control.
"What in the world does he do with the needle and thread?" she pressed, eyes glued to the boy's face.
"Keeps my wardrobe, of course. What else would he do with them?"
Disappointing, but Miranda was undeterred. She began to stroke harder, faster, pumping her hand up and down the hard shaft. She didn't have to know exactly what had caused the boy's slip to take advantage of it. She swept her thumb over the head of the boy's penis, sliding through the slick, over and over until finally the boy murmured to Gavin, just as he'd done before, "I'm close, master."
Oh, he was perfection. Miranda wanted to shout her triumph. She had dragged enough cocks to eruption to know that the boy was still far from any danger of coming. She'd gotten further than Gavin – she could feel little pulses of desire running the length of the shaft – but Gavin's assertion that the boy had no will of his own was becoming more and more ludicrous. She tightened her fist around him and squeezed as hard as she could, until the slick began to trickle over the head in tiny rivulets. Then with her other hand she grabbed his chin, harder than before, and forced him to raise his eyes again.
This time when he met her gaze the blank emptiness was gone. She could see him thinking, assessing, and it was glorious. Everything she'd ever imagined. The duke, the hall, the entire world faded into nothing as his lovely eyes bored into hers. Miranda's sexual tastes had always tended toward domination, and though she'd never lacked for bed partners willing to play that way, this, this was so very different. This was real. There were no scripts or safewords here. This perfect boy was completely hers, to do with as she wished. She held his fate quite literally in her hands.
I know your secret, she told him with her eyes, and a thrill sparked through her body when his cloudy blue gaze darkened with the first flicker of fear.
She loosened her grip, both on his cock and his face, and resumed stroking in long, slow slides, while the boy returned his gaze to the floor, trying to hide from her again. But it was no good. She'd seen through him. She'd scented his fear and now the chase was on. There could only be one winner and Miranda was determined that it would be her. She slid her thumb around the crown, again and again through the accumulating moisture there, until his breath caught in his throat and he looked up at her of his own volition. "Please," he begged, taking the tiniest pause before adding, for Gavin's sake, "master," and dropping his eyes again to the floor.
"I don't want to spoil your fun, Miranda, but don't make my slut come. I have meetings scheduled all afternoon. I really don't have time to punish him."
The boy began to tremble. His chest heaved and he raised his eyes again, silently pleading.
Miranda resumed her stroking, ignoring Gavin entirely. The duke was an idiot who didn't deserve to occupy the same space as the exquisite creature in front of her. From just two feet away he was oblivious to the fact that she had more control of the boy after five minutes than he'd managed to exert in half a year. The boy continued to look her in the eyes, still begging, and she smiled at him, warmly, gently, a silent good boy as a reward for finally recognizing her mastery. Miranda had enough experience with bending others to her will to know that although there were many ways to force someone to do what you wanted them to do, the only way to truly control them was to know what they feared. And this boy feared punishment. Her contempt for the duke was growing by the moment. He had the means to break the boy, but his meetings were more important.
"Look at how he shakes," she said, turning her seductive smile on Gavin. "Your punishments must be fierce indeed."
The duchess and Ignatius had stopped talking, watching Miranda with the slut instead, and only the occasional whisper from the lower hall disturbed the overall silence.
"You have no idea what a challenge it is to come up with things that don't mark up that precious skin everyone keeps telling me is so valuable," Gavin said. "In his training they just beat him. But I have to be more creative."
"Tell me," she coaxed, slowing her strokes to keep the boy right where she wanted him.
"There was one that involved my best hunting dog, a cauldron of meat broth, and the slut's cock. I think that one was especially inspired. You should have heard him scream."
Miranda intended to do just that. She turned on the duke with the exaggerated pout that almost always succeeded in getting her what she wanted. From men, at least. "Oh, you can't tease me that way!" she protested, letting her voice slip into a more girlish pitch. "There must be time for just a tiny demonstration. I don't even have to make him come. After all, he's your slut. You don't need an excuse to punish him." She let go of the boy's cock then, and settled back down in her seat so she could lean closer to the duke, creating a sense of intimate space between them. "It's his job to entertain you."
As soon as her hand left his body, the slut fell to his knees again, and further, prostrating himself with his face pressed to the floor. As if by making himself as small and submissive as possible he might somehow avoid what was coming. His body shuddered against the parquet.
"Think of the stories I'll have to tell when I get home," Miranda wheedled. "No one in the capital has ever seen anything like this."
Gavin hesitated, glancing around the hall. Miranda may have had her back to the lower tables, but she could tell from the anticipatory silence that she wasn't the only person hanging on Gavin's decision. The duke then looked at Ignatius, who was keeping his expression carefully neutral, and finally at the duchess.
When Ardith gave a very tiny shake of her head, Miranda knew she'd won. Gavin immediately turned on Miranda with a grin. "Why not? I'm sure I can take time for a small demonstration. I'd hate for your reportage to be incomplete."
Miranda wanted to bounce and clap her hands like a child with a new toy, but she restrained herself to simply grinning back at Gavin, who was already signaling a nearby footman.
"Send someone to fetch Fang from the kennels. And a pot of stock from the kitchens. Not too hot," he glanced at Miranda and smiled again. "We don't want to do any permanent damage."
"Yes, Your Grace." The man bowed, then grabbed a serving boy and whispered in his ear.
At their feet the slut stopped shaking and went completely still. Miranda hoped he hadn't lost consciousness. She very much wanted to hear him scream.
Then a clatter of running footsteps drew her and everyone else's attention to the back of the room, where another young page came hurrying up the aisle between tables with a piece of paper fluttering in his hand. He stopped in front of the dais, clearly unsure how to proceed, and finally bowed, holding the paper up in the duke's general direction.
"Well bring it to me boy," the duke commanded.
The boy bowed again then, wide eyes glued to the prostrate form of the slut, climbed the stairs. He hesitated, obviously torn between reaching over the slave and stepping around him, then finally leaned forward awkwardly, the knotted belt of his livery falling to brush the naked back at his feet, and handed the paper into the duke's impatient grasp. As soon as it left his fingers, the boy retreated to a safe distance back down the stairs.
Miranda's spirits sank as she watched Gavin read the paper. His expression darkened to the point that she thought it must contain some kind of terrible news, but when he finally spoke, the duke was calm and nonchalant.
"Bad luck, Miranda," Gavin said. "My steward has just arrived from my estate at Greenway with a matter that requires my immediate attention. Our pleasure will have to wait for another time, I'm afraid."
Under the table, Miranda clenched her fists in frustration, but she kept her voice soft and controlled. "But there is no other time. We have to leave in the morning at first light if we're to make the river before nightfall. Surely business can wait another quarter hour?"
But the duke was already pushing himself back from the table. One of the footmen rushed forward to hold his chair for him. "I'm afraid it can't. According to my man, it's a matter of some urgency."
"And does a servant dictate to the most powerful duke in the eastern realm?" It was a desperate attempt, born of frustration, and, Miranda realized immediately, a mistake. Gavin's face went as dark as it had when he'd first read the note.
"I certainly wouldn't expect you to understand the demands of running a duchy, my lady," Gavin said coldly. "Business always takes precedence over pleasure." He looked at the page, still waiting by the foot of the steps. "Tell Sebastian I'll meet him in my private study."
"Yes, Your Grace." The boy bowed again and hurried back down the aisle, past the tables where the Eastreach retainers and hangers-on were taking hurried last bites. Once the duke retired, the meal was considered officially over and anyone who lingered was likely to have his plate snatched out from under him by the cleaning staff, eager to clear and reset for the morning meal.
The duchess and Ignatius both rose from their seats, and Miranda had no choice but to follow suit. Gavin gave her a tight, polite smile. "I'm afraid I won't see you before you leave," he said. "I never breakfast publicly."
"We're very grateful for your hospitality, Your Grace," Ignatius said with a nervous glance at his wife.
"Feel free to stop with us any time you come east," Gavin replied. He looked at Miranda and relented enough to wink at her. "Perhaps next time we'll be able to pick up where we left off, eh?"
Miranda found herself incapable of speech. Instead, she dropped a deep curtsy. Perhaps the duke would think the glimpse down her bodice was her reply. Before she was upright again, Gavin had slipped out through the alcove hidden behind his chair.
"Thank you so much for bringing me news of the court, Lord Montrose," Ardith simpered. "I do hope we'll see you when we're there in the spring." She offered her hand and Ignatius sketched a bow over it. Miranda curtsied again. Then the duchess followed her husband, leaving Miranda and Ignatius alone on the dais with the still-prostrate slut.
Miranda wanted to cry. She wanted to stamp her feet and throw a wailing, screeching five-year-old tantrum. But as she was a grown noblewoman, she had to restrict herself to a muttered, "It's not fair!" when her husband appeared at her side and offered her his arm. "He doesn't deserve him. He'll never break him properly. He could be so perfect."
"You did what you could," Ignatius soothed. "It's not the end of the world. At least you'll have a good story to tell your gossip-monger friends about. None of them have ever had a boy at their mercy like that."
"None of them would know what to do with a boy at their mercy," Miranda sniffed.
"Well then you can curl their hair a little. Titillate them with the possibilities. Drive them mad with jealousy."
"You have a point," Miranda admitted. But she stood still, staring at the boy, making no move to leave the dais. Ignatius had to give her a good tug to get her underway.
She could feel the boy pulling at her even as Ignatius led her down the steps and toward the doors at the far end of the hall. Before they joined the throng passing through them, she paused to look back just once at the beautiful slut, still lying motionless where he'd fallen face-down on the dais.
