Hidden Paradise

CHAPTER ONE



Lou, Montana

She would not answer the phone.

Not now, when she was coming awake to the slide of skin against skin, coming awake to the possibility of coming, sleepy and lazy, his cock prodding against her.

“Yes, like that,” she said. Or maybe he said it. Maybe they both did, finely tuned to each other, reading minds and touches.

“Tell me to open my legs.” That was her, quite definitely. He liked it when she gave orders, or when she talked dirty and got crude, because she didn’t do it all the time. There was an element of surprise, of the unexpected, and he reciprocated with his own sort of crude roughness. Sometimes, afterward, she’d find red welts on her breasts from his stubble—she’d remember much later in the day, when her bra rubbed against the abraded skin.

She’d feel what he did next later, too—the push of his fingers inside her before she was quite ready. At least, she thought she wasn’t, but he knew her better than she knew herself and laughed softly when she gasped in surprise and shock. Gasping and greedy, both of them now, and then the shock of cold air seeped in from outside as he lifted the quilt and climbed on top of her. Again, she thought she wasn’t ready, but she was. Quite definitely ready.

Don’t answer the phone. Ignore it. If they really want to talk, they’ll call back later.

“Shove it inside me. Hard.” She told him what to do, but she was helpless and at his mercy as he hoisted her legs onto his shoulders.

He caught and held the moment, extending it with exquisite care. His cock reared high, thick and ready, but he slowed to look at her p-ssy.

“Pretty,” he murmured. “Pretty.”

She loved him for thinking her p-ssy was pretty when it was flushed and wet and the seam swelled apart into a crevice. Sometimes she heard the tiny crack it made as it swelled and opened, a sound like a small kiss, as he kissed her or even just looked at her, sometimes hours before they’d even touched or undressed. She could melt with that special look across a room full of people, or just the two of them alone, a look that said tonight, or in the next ten minutes, I am going to f*ck you good.

His eyes gleamed with anticipation.

She raised her hips and told him again to shove it in her hard, like this was the last time, so this time it had to count, it had to be worthwhile. He slid his hand up his shaft, almost as though he was unaware of his action.

But he knew exactly what he was doing, conscious of every moment, every scent and touch and sound. And he knew precisely the effects each small movement had on her.

Words and her imagination were her allies now, shifting the power back to her. She whispered to him to do it now, now. She would allow him to pretend she was one of his hot little undergraduates, like the one who’d let her legs fall apart, oh so casually, revealing a narrow band of thong, while he was teaching. Because in real life, when that had actually happened, he’d looked once and then away, and wondered if he’d imagined it. At home, he was slightly embarrassed, more embarrassed by his excitement, as he related the tale.

In the safety of their bed, where anything could happen, she whispered to him that this time he would look again. And again. He would watch a strap of her sundress fall, a pink tongue emerge to lick glossy lips. With absolute precision, in a suddenly empty auditorium, her hand, tipped with shiny bloodred nails, would undo his zipper and release his cock.

Now—

The f*cking phone again, shrilling in her ear, ripping the moment away from her. She rolled across the wide expanse of empty bed to grab the receiver. “What?”

“You need to have some fun, Loulou.”

But she had been having fun, even if it was only a dream. “Don’t call me Loulou.” Grumpy, half-asleep, she shifted the phone to her other ear and turned to look at the clock. “You do realize it’s half past six?”

“Half past one here, Lou. Nuncheon time. Rise and shine.”

“Oh, shut up, Chris.” She contemplated briefly the indignity of her name—a name that suggested either a toilet, a cancan dancer, or one of Jane Austen’s mildly unlikeable characters, the fickle poetry groupie Louisa Musgrove. The room was dim and cold with the quiet silvery quality that suggested freshly fallen snow.

“So come on over and play with us.”

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“Peter, of course. The daft old queen has started interviewing footmen. We want to get a historically correct matched set—hire them like buying a team of horses, same height and coloring. Some quite delicious possibilities, darling. Other friends from London and the States are joining us, as well. A journalist, Viv, our terrifying costume person, a lovely lady who’ll teach us manners and act as chaperone—not that you need one, you’re so well behaved—and some very handsome men.”

“It sounds like a gay wet dream. All those tight pants and high collars.”

“Some of the men, and with you specifically in mind, are straight. It’s up to you to find out who.”

She sat up in bed, pulling the comforter around her neck, and hoped the stove wasn’t out downstairs. “So long as they know first. I’m not some sort of guide into sexual preference.”

“And the house, honey. Oh, the house is magnificent. Georgian splendor, original plasterwork, minimal plumbing and electricity. Except for the kitchen, which is all set up for fabulous, historically authentic food—”

“Lard and butter—”

“And dozens of eggs. Huge amounts of red meat. The first salads of the season, exotic fruit from the greenhouses—that is, in a few years. We’re buying in at the moment. Do come. We need our Austen expert on hand. We’ll put the sparkle back in your eyes and gunk in your arteries.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to do.” She got out of bed and padded across the room. She had no curtains or blinds. You didn’t need them when you looked straight out across the Rockies, at a pristine white wilderness and a blue sky. “I can’t get away until the snow’s gone.”

“Oh, to be in England now that April’s here. Come over in June. We’ll have staff then.”

“Stop it, you vile seducer.”

“That’s my girl. Peter sends kisses. Must run. But you’ll think about it, promise?”

“Okay.”

Chris’s voice turned serious. “Lou, he’s gone. We loved him, too. Come back into the land of the living. Come and have fun and adventures in Paradise. Kiss kiss. Bye-eee.” He ended the call with the curious upward breathy farewell she’d noticed on the phone with other English people.

Lou pulled on a pair of thick socks and a sweater and jeans lined with flannel over her pajamas and headed downstairs. The stove was lit, barely. She coaxed it into life with some choice morsels of wood, placed a kettle on to boil for coffee and let the dogs out. They frisked in the fresh snow with great enthusiasm as though they hadn’t done the same thing every morning for the past five months.

She picked up the picture of Julian with the dogs that she’d taken last summer and smiled back at him while running through the list of chores for the day. Muck out and feed Maisie the Morgan horse, oatmeal for breakfast, drive the tractor out with hay for the cattle, ski up to see Julian, ski back home, have a sandwich, shower, do some work, dinner. Read. Bed. Obligatory session with vibrator to stop things atrophying, and another day would be over.

* * *

“SO, YOU BIG JERK.” SHE STOOD in the meadow where she’d scattered Julian’s ashes last fall when the aspens were a glory of gold and the sheltered hollow still had a few wildflowers in bloom. “I still miss you, but you know what? I’m beginning to forget bits of you. I forgot what your penis looks like, so I had to go online and find some. Don’t think I enjoyed it. Some of them were quite grotesque. You’d think if they were that butt ugly the owner would edit them into something better, but I guess it’s like no one thinks their baby is ugly. Or perhaps dicks are like snowflakes—all basically the same but each one is different. Speaking of snow, we got some last night. Again.

“I went into your studio yesterday and looked at your stuff. I still haven’t cleared anything out. I wish you’d come haunt me. You won’t haunt me in the studio, you won’t haunt me in bed—what use are you anyway? Here I am increasing my carbon footprint with a plug-in vibrator because you won’t manifest. The dogs would like to see you again, too.

“Chris called this morning, trying to get me over for Paradise Hall’s trial run in the summer. Remember when I wrote the copy for the website and brochure? I’ll be doing another version soon. He’s planning to open officially with a big Christmas bash, taking things slow. Right now things are pretty primitive in the house. He’s already lusting after footmen.”

A chill breath of wind whipped the snow at her feet into a miniature funnel.

“Is that you, finally coming around to haunt me?” She sighed. “I’ve got to go. Things to do. You had some f*cking nerve, dying and leaving me with all this. I worry about stuff, whether the roof will be okay, whether I have enough oil to last the cold weather, where the phone number for the feed guy is, veterinarian bills. All the piddling little things. And you know you never threw a damn thing away and it’s all junk. I keep finding old envelopes with your to-do lists on them, printouts of emails— Why?

“Oh, good. I’m in the anger stage of grieving. I’m progressing. But you know what? I don’t want closure. I don’t want to forget. I want you back.”

She brushed away a tear, startlingly hot in the cold air, from her eye. She didn’t want tears freezing on her face. She waited for something, a sign, but nothing happened.

She whistled to the dogs and slowly, clumsily—Julian would have managed his skis with so much more grace—turned around and launched herself upon the two lines that cut through the snow, back to the empty house.

Maybe, just maybe, Julian might come to her again at Paradise Hall.

* * *


Rob, Seville, Spain, two months later

OH F*ck, OH F*ck. HIS HANDS were slippery with sweat and nervousness and he bit into the foil package of the condom, hoping he wouldn’t bite through the damn thing. That would be really embarrassing and probably taste awful, too.

“Oh, f*ck,” said Gisella or whatever her name was, writhing around like a belly dancer on the narrow bed, gorgeous, and if only he could get the bloody condom taken care of and hold her breasts again, and all that hair, ripples of it like a da Vinci sketch over the pillow. He thought it was Gisella, he knew it was Italian, but it seemed sort of stupid at this point to stop and ask her to spell her name. Just like it would seem sort of stupid to get off her and take his jeans all the way off, even if it meant he’d be able to move around a bit more freely. Perhaps next time he’d be better at it. He was allowed to be fairly stupid the first time, after all, but not too stupid. Like coming too early, or before he got inside or…

She murmured something. It sounded incredibly sexy, but then at this point anything would, particularly in Italian. For all he knew, she could be asking him to open the window or something, although probably she wasn’t. She raised herself up on one elbow and helped him roll the condom on—oh f*ck, oh f*ck, for a moment he thought he’d come right then, seeing her fingers with those long red nails on his cock—and then his mobile rang.

She plucked the phone from the bed and he grabbed it from her, and did what he immediately regretted—he looked to see who was calling.

Don’t answer it.

It was his sister, and he had no idea why he answered it, but he did, and regretted that, too.

Oh f*ck, oh f*ck. His condom clad penis drooped as he listened to his sister rant and rant and cry.

Oh, f*ck.

So much for getting laid.

* * *


Peter, a week later, Paradise Hall, Somerset

“ROBERT TEMPLE. AND WE CALL you—Bob, Bobby, Robert?”

“Rob.”

Bonny sweet Robin. The phrase crept into his mind unawares—shades of Good Queen Bess, or in his case, Good Queen Peter. The kid was sweet, though. Young, too—nineteen, nice clear English skin, brown hair with a hint of copper flopping over his forehead, gray eyes—an innocent Hugh Grant type, although even Peter could tell that he wasn’t posh, to use the English term. He had the local accent, that soft burr, and the address he gave on the application was in the new part of the village—tacky little houses crammed together—not the historic, older part.

Peter glanced at the kid’s curriculum vitae—God bless the English, they couldn’t just say résumé, even if it was mostly minimum-wage student jobs. “And you’re off to Cambridge in the fall. The autumn.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, Peter, please. At least until you’re on duty.” He winked, a mistake—he sounded like some effulgent old queen, which is what he suspected he probably was. “Congratulations,” he added. Cambridge was still a big deal here. “What’s your major?”

Another blunder. They didn’t use that terminology over here. “I’ll be reading history.”

“Excellent!” Now he sounded patronizing. “I mean, a sense of history will be an, an asset. And you’ve been a waiter. That will be useful, too. I see you’ve been abroad. May I ask why you didn’t stay in Seville for the summer?”

The kid’s face closed down. “Family trouble.”

Oh, dear. “I see. Well, let me tell you about the house and what we’re doing here.” He gave the standard spiel about how guests would be able to go back in time and live the life of Regency ladies and gentlemen, enjoying the pleasures of the age and, it was implied, each other, should they wish. What happened at Paradise Hall, in other words, stayed at Paradise Hall and very firmly in the early nineteenth century. “You may find that the isolation from the modern world, the role-playing, and the dressing-up aspect may go to the guests’ heads. As you know, it was a bawdy age, as well as an age of elegance—people were very forthright about physical matters. So discretion is absolute. And if you’re asked to participate in an activity that is unacceptable, remember you can always say no, and please come directly to me if you have any sort of uncomfortable experience.”

Rob looked at the brochure Peter had handed him. “‘Paradise Hall, where anything can happen,’” he read aloud. “Two centuries ago things were different, passionately so.” He looked up. “I’m cool with that.”

Peter tried not to let his imagination run riot. What did these kids get up to? It made him feel old.

“Good,” he said, and moved on to safer territory. “You’re a local, so I expect you know about the history of the house—originally Jacobean, remodeled by Adams, and there’s an undocumented tradition that Jane Austen stayed here.”

Rob nodded. “When I was a kid, we thought it was haunted,” he said. “’Course, we’d say that about any old house in the village that stood empty. Changed a bit, though.”

“Oh, it’s fabulous,” Peter said, aware that he was falling into the role of the queer old uncle who liked interior design. “You’ll love it. You’ll work hard, but we pay well, and you’ll get excellent tips.”

“I think they called them vails then,” said the future Cambridge history undergraduate.

“Absolutely. Vails. Let me give you the grand tour…” God help him, he sounded as though he were about to coyly slip away and come back in drag as Danvers. He deepened his voice and tried to sound more masculine. “And I’ll introduce you to my partner, Chris Henckley.”

* * *

“WHAT AN ADORABLE BOY,” Chris said, gazing at Rob, who swung one leg over his bicycle and pedaled away. He and Peter stood in the stable yard, while doves cooed and fluttered overhead. “On a bicycle, too. How sweet. But troubled, I think, don’t you, Peter?”

“There’s some family crisis, from what I read between the lines. He’s straight.”

“Oh, yes, it sticks out half a mile.”

Peter refused to crack a smile at Chris’s double entendre. “He’s barely legal, for God’s sake. I hope I’m making a wise decision hiring him as head footman.”

“He’s nineteen. They start young here. Oh, come on, honeybuns.” He slid a hand into the back pocket of Peter’s Levi’s. “I will not f*ck the help, I promise, even if they’re as f*ckable as young Master Rob. But think how he’ll look in livery. I can’t wait. I just hope Viv doesn’t eat him alive when she measures his inseam.”

“Mmm.” Peter slid away and headed back into the office, once the estate manager’s, that opened onto the cobbled yard. He tapped the keyboard of the computer and the screen sprang to life. He had mail, a perky message informed him.

Chris peered over his shoulder. “Oh, excellent. The widow Loulou is emerging from her deep winter to join us.”