A Gentlemen's Agreement Read Free Page A

opportunity to put me in his kennel. I gave him an
opportunity to do anything he wanted to me any time he wanted for the rest of
his life. And he turned his back on me. He didn’t even bid on me. He walked out
of the auction. He didn’t even wait to see who bought me. You want to know
about rejection? Well, that was the cruelest rejection any woman ever
experienced. I offered myself to him in the most complete, most humiliating way
possible and he walked out on me.”
    Lord Snow’s jaw hung slack.
“Seriously?” He was almost sputtering. “Seriously? You expected him to buy his
own wife? Seriously? You expected that he would raise his hand and offer money
for you? After you humiliated him in public. After you told everyone in the
world that he was an inadequate husband. You put yourself on the block because
you would rather sell yourself to a stranger than go home with your husband and
you expected him to just shrug it off and compete against the other bidders?”
    “I was only saying that I loved
him so much that I was willing to be his slave.” A bitter tear dropped from her
eye. “And he said that he didn’t love me enough to place even a single bid on
me.” She looked at him. “You did. I was told that you traded a knighthood for
me. You wanted me and you’ve got me, here, naked, kneeling in front of you in
your pleasure room. I’m ready to give you your money’s worth. Today and
tomorrow and every day, any way you want me, for as long as you want me.” She
raised her chin. “I was blindfolded so I don’t know if you were one of the
gentlemen who used me at the entertainment last week, but if you weren’t, I can
assure you that I have developed some considerable skill. And my enthusiasm is
unflagging. However you want me to serve you, I won’t disappoint.”
    “I want…” His voice broke. He
recomposed himself and said, “I want you to get the hell out of here. And tell Apple
to get the hell in here, right now. And Lime, too. Both of them.”

 
    * * *

 
    “That didn’t take long.” Nickel’s tone expressed her
suspicion.
    “He wants to see Apple and Lime
right now,” Irene said.
    The two slaves scrambled toward
the pleasure room. It was a foolish slave who kept her owner waiting even a
second longer than necessary and neither of them were foolish. Not after having
suffered under Lord Snow’s talented strap.
    “What happened in there?” Nickel
asked.
    Peach, Cherry, and Tamarind sat
silently and waited to hear Irene’s answer.
    “Nothing much. We talked.”
    “About what?”
    “About why I sold myself at
auction.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I told him that the life of a
lady wasn’t exciting enough.”
    Nickel rested her hand on the
strap clipped to her corset and waited for more explanation.
    Irene didn’t volunteer anything
more.
    “You better tell me exactly what
happened in there or I’ll make your life exciting enough for both of us. And,
believe me, it takes a hell of a lot of screaming to make my life exciting.”
    The other slaves looked at Irene
with eager fascination.
    Irene shrugged. “I offered to do
whatever he wanted. He wanted to talk. We talked. He was at the auction where I
sold myself. He asked why I did it. I told him that it was an impulse. He said
that my husband was upset when I put myself on the block–”
    “No shit,” Peach said.
    Nickel swiveled to glare at her
and Peach wilted.
    “– and I said that I was upset that my husband didn’t want to buy me. That’s all.”
    Nickel turned her attention back
to Irene. “Did you service him?”
    “Like I said, I offered. He wasn’t
interested.”
    “Did he whip you?”
    “No.”
    Nickel frowned. “What was his mood
when you left?”
    “I don’t know. His mood was
swinging back and forth. Sometimes he looked happy and sometimes he looked
unhappy.”
    A muffled scream slipped through
the door to the pleasure room.
    All the slaves’ heads swiveled to
look in that direction.
    Nickel looked back