Excerpt:
Parliament’s Big
Ben struck seven as Elizabeth came in from the cold. The bite of the
wind had numbed her face. She stepped into the cozy parlor where the
aromas of both sweet tobacco and garlands of evergreens battled for
dominance.
Thank goodness the
trusty housekeeper had tended the fire. She stood in front of the
welcoming blaze, sensation slowly creeping back into reawakened nerve
endings.
With the oil lamps
extinguished and only firelight to guide the eye, the room was aglow
with golden light reflecting off the tinsel, the tree ornaments, and she
and Harold’s many treasures. She surveyed the elegant furniture, the oil
painting above the hearth. It was a portrait of her wearing a long,
flowing, blue gown.
Harold had
commissioned the work during the first year of their marriage and hung
it over the fireplace on Christmas day five years ago. How prim and
proper she looked in the portrait. Who would have guessed the ribald
thoughts that trundled through her head while she was posing.
Elizabeth would
much rather have had a series of reproductions picturing Harold ravaging
her in several different ways, like in the book she had once given him.
She had purchased it from a peddler in a disreputable section of London
where ladies were not supposed to go and presented the book of
illustrations to Harold just after their first Christmas, New Year’s Eve
to be exact.
She’d hoped it
would give him some ideas. It certainly had given her plenty. She
tingled, not from the cold, but from the memory of the night when they
were ever so ungentlemanly and unladylike. The pleasure they found in
unbridled sex must have shown on their faces following their intimacies
as there acquaintances often looked askance at them.
A pleasant sting
returned to Elizabeth’s rosy cheeks and the fire began to warm her body
through the clothing. Soon she would be warm enough to peel off layer
after layer until she stood before the hearth wearing nothing but an
inviting smile.
Maybe she should
place a few strands of tinsel in her hair. Or maybe she would twist the
ends of two metal ornament hangers so she could hang tree ornaments from
her nipples. It would be a saucy touch for Harold when he came through
the door, to see his warmed, peeled, and decorated Christmas Eve present
anxiously waiting.
She glanced at
Harold’s writing desk and the polished cherry-wood pipe resting in its
stand on a nearby end-table. The pipe had been a birthday present. She
thought of filling its bowl with his favorite tobacco blend and lighting
it.
A naked woman
with a pipe in her mouth. That exotic sight would certainly give him
a moment of pause.
