Sudden Pleasures Read Free Page B

wine and gazed out over the bay. Byrnes knew her late grandfather probably better than anyone. He had grown up at Kimbrough Hall, as his father had been the previous butler. And he knew all about the clause that had been added to her grandfather’s will at Lila’s behest. Byrnes had not liked Lila Peabody, but he would have thought it presumptuous to voice an opinion on the matter. But Ashley had heard him speaking to his wife on the subject one day, and the butler had not spoken well of her grandfather’s last girlfriend, stating most bluntly that Lila was no lady. Ashley smiled to herself as she remembered the butler’s disapproving tone. But, of course, he was right: Lila Peabody had not been a lady, which had amused Ashley’s grandfather.
    Hearing Byrnes rolling in the dinner cart, Ashley seated herself at the little table that had been set up for her. Byrnes placed to her left a small salad plate of endive dressed lightly with a raspberry vinaigrette. Next came the dinner plate, which held a very rare piece of filet mignon, three small potato puffs, and several slender stalks of asparagus with a splash of Hollandaise sauce. The butler stood in attendance while Ashley ate in silence. When she had finished he cleared the dinner and salad plates from the table, replacing them with a dish of freshly hulled local strawberries dusted with sugar, and a tiny pitcher of thick cream.
    “The berries were picked this afternoon, Miss Ashley. The strawberry patch is quite bountiful this year,” Byrnes said. “Mrs. B. will be making jam and freezing some whole berries for the winter.”
    “They’re delicious, and still warm with the sun,” Ashley noted.
    “Are there plans for this evening, Miss Ashley?” the butler wanted to know.
    “No, I’ll be going up to my quarters after I’ve finished,” Ashley told him.
    “If you don’t mind my mentioning it, Ghostly and Graybar could use a good run on the beach, Miss Ashley.”
    “I have been neglecting them, haven’t I?” Ashley said. “It won’t be dark for a while. I’ll take them out. Thanks, Byrnes.” Finished with her dinner, she stood up. “Are they in the kitchen with Mrs. B.?”
    “Yes, Miss Ashley. Shall I bring them up?” the butler asked her.
    “No, I’ll go and fetch them myself. I want to thank Mrs. B. for such a wonderful dinner. The potato puffs were marvelous, even if I do try to stay away from those hard carbs,” Ashley said with a smile. She hurried down to the kitchen, where she found her two greyhounds sprawled beneath Mrs. B.’s large wooden kitchen table. “The puffs were heaven,” she told the cook. “Thanks, even if I shouldn’t have them.”
    “Nonsense!” Mrs. B. said with a smile. She was a small, round woman with fading strawberry blond hair that she wore in a bun. She was a perfect contrast to her tall, thin husband. “You’re too thin, Miss Ashley, as it is.”
    Ashley laughed. “Bless you!” she said. Then she whistled to the two dogs, who roused themselves and ambled over to her. Ashley took their leads from a hook on the wall where they were hung, fastened them about the dogs’ collars, and led them out of the house through the kitchen gardens. Once on her private beach she released Ghostly and Graybar, and let them run as she strolled along.
    The sun was getting lower and lower on the horizon when she finally decided to turn back. Whistling for the two dogs, she turned about. She wanted to get well settled before she turned on the Channel. They had done some upgrades in the last year. Now you could simply subscribe to it the way you would any other premium channel. And the remote had a terrific new feature on it: You could have two fantasies ready to go if you wanted, and Ashley did.
    In both of her fantasies she was a Roman noblewoman, the lady Cordelia, but the fantasies had slightly different themes. In fantasy A the noble Cordelia possessed a Celtic sex slave named Quinn, whom she used and abused to their mutual