Page 6 of Their Master

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Chapter 2

Smith stared at the complex legal document on his desk, his eyes glazing over. It was not like him to be distracted, but he’d been out of sorts since his last visit to Bernina’s.

Actually, that was a lie. He’d been edgy since the night he’d first taken that young woman, Moira.

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose while his eyes restlessly flickered over his study, coming to rest on the large painting across from his desk.

Smith had hung this particular painting—a portrait of him—in his study because this was the room where he spent most of his time and he adored looking at it.

It was probably wrong to say he adored a portrait of himself—it was certainly a vain thing to say—but Smith didn’t care; the portrait was magnificent.

The artist who’d painted it was Nora Fanshawe—the wife of Edward Fanshawe, one of Smith’s three business partners—and she’d done the painting without Smith even sitting for it.

This wasn’t the only painting of hers that he owned, he’d also commissioned a rather stunning dual portrait for his former lover, Charles.

Charles.

Charles—who coincidentally shared Smith’s surname and also Smith’s life for almost a year—had been the only live-in lover he’d ever had. It had been an experience that had soured him on ever having another.

Justthinkingabout Charles made him clench his teeth, and he moved his jaw from side to side to loosen it.

While he didn’t miss the man himself, Smith couldn’t deny that he missed theideaof Charles—or at least the idea of having somebody to come home to.

Smith had lost every member of his family—and every person he loved—when he’d been nine years old. Although the experience had traumatized him, it hadn’t left him afraid of intimacy or love. He’d hoped for years to have both a wife and children—not that he could replace what he’d lost, but at least he could begin rebuilding.

But the older he’d grown, and the more he’d come to know himself, the more Smith had accepted that he was simply not cut out for monogamy. Perhaps that was the way he’d been made, or maybe it was a result of that nightmarish day all those years ago. It didn’t matter what had caused him to be that way. What mattered was that he could never commit himself to only one sexual partner for the rest of his life. Just thinking about doing that made him rebellious and mulish.

He knew many wealthy men kept both a wifeanda mistress—sometimes several—but he’d seen how bitter those marriages could become. As much as he would like children, the idea of rearing them alongside a woman who hated him for his infidelity was too distasteful to contemplate.

He had been raised by parents who’d loved each other deeply and had been happily faithful until the day they’d been slaughtered.Thatwas his idea of marriage—well, without the slaughtering—anything else did not seem worthwhile. And so he’d long ago accepted that a wife and family was not something he could ever have.

His experience with Charles had proven that even living with a lover was not a good idea for somebody like Smith.

While he’d enjoyed the months he’d spent with Charles—at least the first few—the unhappy truth was that he’d begun to get bored with Charles even before their relationship had devolved into nothing but argument and strife.

Smith always became bored with his lovers.

Well, except for Joseph Leather, his valet of a few short months.

But Joseph, or Jojo as he’d called the complex young woman when they’d been in bed together, had already belonged heart and soul to Stephen Chatham, one of Smith’s business partners, when she’d come to work for him. The only part of herself she’d ever given Smith was her body.

Those few months with her had been heady. Not only was the master-servant dynamic tailormade for Smith’s sexual tastes, but Jojo possessed a gloriously submissive temperament and managed to subsume herself in her master’s desires without ever losing sight of who she was.

Smith sighed. Both Charles and Jojo were long gone and he was dwelling on the past when he had more than enough to occupy him in the present.

He gave up the charade of reading the new agreement for his syndicate’s recent purchase of a food processing factory, poured himself a glass of Armagnac, and went to stare out the window. But instead of seeing the extensive gardens—complete with a folly and tiny reflection pond—he saw the whore: Moira.

Although the current craze was for hourglass figures, Smith had found Moira’s spare—almost masculine—body unbearably arousing. Her skin was pale marble with faint blue veins, dusted with freckles as so many gingers were. Rather than blue or green eyes, her irises were a striking, seductive blend—a mossy cerulean shade that hinted at uncharted oceans and mysterious depths.

She had surprisingly broad shoulders for such a slight woman, her hips boyishly narrow and her belly as flat as Smith’s own. The only hint of softness on her spare body was her breasts—slight swells tipped with dark raspberry pink nipples—and her wickedly sensual lower lip, which pouted even when her face was in repose.

Miss Moira Dunsmuir reminded him of a Roman mosaic he’d seen at the British Museum, a scandalous image that had been draped with a black cloth to conceal the most interesting parts. Smith had arranged a private viewing—everything was possible with enough money—and had been enchanted to find two nearly naked females exercising with barbells, their slender, boyish bodies sleekly muscled. The mosaic was estimated to originate around the year 200 A.D. Which just went to show how society’s concepts of beauty were constantly changing.

Not only did he like Moira’s body type, but her air of reserve had intrigued him. She was like a smooth unrippled pond and he a bratty boy throwing stones to disturb her surface. Not that he’d been successful, no matter that he’d used her harder than he generally used women. That was one of the reasons he usually preferred men: he liked to play rough—sometimesveryrough—and it had been his experience that most women did not enjoy such brutal treatment.

But Moira had.

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