Page 14 of Centerpiece (Infinite Grace #2)

There was something in his voice he had no name for, a match to the pressure in his chest that he’d called longing a while ago.

It felt stronger than mere longing now. Stronger than the itch, even.

It reminded him of the gnawing of hunger in his belly, except that he knew he would be fed if he only waited. If he was good.

“That can come later,” Holburn assured him, holding him tight. “You’ve no other complaints about where you’ll be, do you?”

Agreeable shook his head in a daze, then darted a look to the Duchess, alive with that feeling again to know she would tease him for it.

He wanted her to and yet he wanted to please her.

But maybe teasing was what pleased her and that’s why he liked it.

He didn’t know, so a whined slipped out.

Holburn gently settled him with a tender shush .

“I’ll be with you?” Agreeable whispered, warm all over. “Does your lady grace share your bed too? What of her?”

“That is a lovely scarf, Remi.” The Duchess had moved closer while Agreeable had been lost in thoughts of being the Duke’s page who everyone knew was really the Duke’s willing hole, and then that the Duchess might also be in the bed while Agreeable was taken.

She might watch, or touch him. She might draw him into the snare with her because she liked it there.

And why wouldn’t she, with a husband richer than most, who liked her wild, and traveling on her own, and climbing trees, and drawing whatever she found interesting?

And taking lovers too? They’d both said that.

“What will the servants think of you though, Your Grace?” he wondered with a tremor going through him. “Allowing such a thing in your bed? I wouldn’t want you hurt.”

The Duchess reached out to take hold of the scarf ends and let them trail through her fingers. “Softer than I would have expected.”

“Quite soft,” Holburn murmured into Agreeable’s hair, “but strong.”

Agreeable nodded. “Finest thing I’ve ever had.” And it belonged to him now, because Holburn wanted him to keep it.

“Oh.” The Duchess’ mouth was pink and slightly chapped from her cold morning spent up a tree. Beneath the smudged streak of dirt, she was pink as well, but in the glowing color of certain apples, ripe for plucking.

“You see?” Holburn asked, although Agreeable didn’t see anything but the Duchess’ flush that spread all the way down to the tops of her breasts and looked so very tangible—touchable.

He quickly looked away so as not to offend.

Then remembered the lady fox in front of him would likely not be offended.

He brought his gaze back to her when she came half a step closer.

“If I may,” she murmured as she reached up to remove the long scarf the color of a robin’s egg from around her shoulders.

“Your scarf is lovely, but there are colors that would better suit you.” She rose up, perhaps onto her toes, to drape the shining length of fabric over Agreeable’s head.

She paused when Agreeable’s breathing stuttered, and met his eyes, and then continued to arrange the cloth around his face, tugging and tucking until finally releasing him.

“There, you see? You look like spring itself, Remi. It was, Remi, wasn’t it? Not Agreeable?”

“Remi is my real name.” Agreeable prayed the lady would not look down, but then wasn’t entirely certain what she would do if she saw what she had done to him. “It’s been forgotten by most.”

“A pretty name.” The Duchess smiled, not a hint of a vixen about her now although she still had Agreeable plumped and eager. “For a pretty lass? Unless you really do prefer to bow?”

Agreeable wriggled in Holburn’s arms, there was no other word for what he did. His mouth was open but he could not catch his breath.

“I don’t know,” he admitted faintly, burning when Holburn kissed the top of his head.

“I liked my skirt and my scarf. And I like this one. And I like it when I am a lass for him, but I like being a lad well enough too and always have. I’m a good lass, even if I was a lad no one wanted to keep.

I’m whatever you like as long as I’m yours, and you let me.

.. you let me stay, and you let me be good for you. Please.”

The scandalous confession out of his mouth, he bit his bottom lip hard to keep in anything else he might say.

Her eyebrows went up, then down, then up again when she looked beyond him to Holburn. “He’s truly that loyal?”

“He won’t even betray the friends who betrayed him,” Holburn answered.

“I think I see. Or I’m starting to.” She focused back on Agreeable. “Remi, the images in the churches, the painted ones, have you ever seen angels in them?”

More than a little lost, Agreeable nodded.

“But with freckles,” she said, as odd as her husband.

“As I have tried to say,” Holburn agreed. “And giving down to his very soul. He’s too dangerous a thing to be left alone in the world.”

“Yes, I can see that he will require care. I can see that only too well.”

“Me?” Agreeable tried to stand firm on one point at least. “I’m not worth that much trouble.

I’m a... slut, as they say about lasses who lie with many.

Which I have. It’s what I like, and that isn’t enough to make up for the fuss I’ve already caused.

But you can use me now if you like. I wouldn’t mind.

Holburn knows I wouldn’t—I mean Your Grace.

I mean, His Grace knows I wouldn’t mind.

” He tried to grab the pretty scarf she’d draped over him but the cloth was so slick and soft it slipped through even his rough fingers. “This is too much for me.”

“No, it isn’t.” The Duchess pushed out her lips in a pout. They were full lips, especially when she did that. Generous, he would have called them, until the pout. “I said so, and your job, once you are ours—our page, that is, is to say yes and agree with me.”

“ Ali ,” Holburn said, voice even despite Agreeable shaking apart in his arms.

“You already put him in your stockings and you’re going to scold me for a scarf?

” she asked loftily, although Agreeable wasn’t actually sure that was what they were really discussing.

But she looked at Agreeable. “If you don’t like it, you can refuse it of course.

I’m sorry. I’ve never considered bedding a servant before and I forgot myself.

Saint-angel, your friends lie if they claim they didn’t want to keep you.

People often do that, don’t they? Lie. Do you believe all priests are smarter than me simply because they are men?

” When Agreeable frowned in confusion, then forcefully shook his head, her smile went from warm to summer sunshine.

“They say what they want to be true and not what is true. If these people deny you, but still bed you, it’s because they want you yet they’re afraid of you. ”

She clucked her tongue when Agreeable started to protest.

“This whole area watches him.” Holburn spoke softly. “It’s why he had to hide.”

“The scarf is beautiful.” Agreeable gave in with a quiet breath and warmth all through his chest. “But you will ruin me too if you also speak this way.”

“I say the truth.” She brushed the ends of the scarf as she spoke. “Not always. But here I do. Because I’m not afraid of you. We’re not. Not enough to let you go. Unless you wish to leave?”

Holburn’s hold was inescapable. Not that Agreeable would have tried to.

He moaned before he could stop himself. It did not get any better when the Duchess’ smile turned smug, and she leaned in to place her hands on his shoulders.

She was so warm and her bosom was inches away, and Agreeable had often wondered what those might feel like.

Then he remembered imagining himself with breasts to fill Holburn’s hands and nearly moaned again.

He suspected they’d both like the thought as much he had.

Holburn had said his wife liked what she liked.

Maybe she would touch Agreeable in return, and grind atop him like a woman desperate for a hand between her thighs.

Agreeable wanted to ask her to. He felt almost as if he could say whatever he wanted, be whatever he wanted, and they would eat it up.

He’d be that morsel if they asked it of him... or her. Whichever or both, if devoured joyfully.

“Never had anyone worry so much over whether or not they meant me well.” It spilled from him as though he’d been at the wine all night.

“Not even my, well, my friends. There’s my ma only.

” He wanted to clean the fine lady’s cheek for her but was trapped between her and an oak.

He was dizzy and warm all through with that unnamed feeling.

“I couldn’t resist a duke anyway, nor a duchess, if you don’t mind me saying.

Any more than resist the Church. But neither do I exactly want to right now. ”

“I’d like to think we would manage better with you than some randy priests.

” The Duchess smiled and then reddish sparks appeared in the air around her, winking out of sight almost as soon as they had appeared.

She was a mage. The Church didn’t like mages who weren’t priests, but didn’t like lady priests either.

A mage and a duchess. Holburn had married what other men would have feared to. And he loved her as she was.

Even Holburn hadn’t had a chance. What choice did Agreeable have but to give in too?

The Duchess looked him over, wild eyes narrowed and clever. Then she leaned in, her gaze flicking from Agreeable’s eyes to his mouth.

“I suppose the Count can wait a little longer,” she said in response to nothing that Agreeable had heard, but perhaps she and Holburn knew each other’s thoughts.

But she did not lean in farther, and her tiny, vexed look reappeared, her lip out to sulk.

“Really, Holburn, how do you get us in these situations? You have stressed over your new role all these past weeks. Now people are waiting on us, and all I want to do is be selfish and have our pretty page. I want to let him try to keep me from trees. Would he be upset if I fell?”

“Oh,” she went on when Agreeable nodded and Holburn muttered, “ I would be upset too, as you know.”

“Oh,” the lady said again, “but you worry and scold, and he would gaze at me with those eyes and make me feel quite naughty.” Agreeable jumped.

The Duchess scarcely seemed to notice. “What power he has.” She focused on Agreeable.

“You’d have a much easier time attending to me.

I already have a companion so you wouldn’t need to do much. He is nothing but trouble.”

“I figured he must be.” Agreeable had to say it, because Holburn wanted honesty from him. “But perhaps you’d like me to help keep an eye on him for you, as part of me attending to you?”

To his dismay, she leaned back, but it was only to clap her hands together in approval. “That sense will do you good! Although I wonder if you can hold onto it for long.”

Between the two of them, Agreeable would have long days of worry and fuss.

.. and nights he couldn’t think about now without moaning again.

“Please,” he said first, like a fool, before trying to be as sensible as she thought he was.

“If it’s all that keeps you from tossing me out, then I will.

I will try at least. But I’m not known for my thinking. No one comes to me for that.”

Holburn tightened his arms around him.

The Duchess lost some of her smile. “These friends of yours, are they asses as well as liars?”

“Yes.” Holburn answered before Agreeable could, but pressed a kiss to the back of his head. “Aliette? You agree?”

“He’s nearly always right, in the end,” the Duchess complained to Agreeable, but with the ripening-apple pink returning to her face.

That was why she’d made Agreeable think of scrumping; she was lively and ready to be harvested.

Agreeable often was too, but she was strong enough to demand instead of merely agreeing.

“He’s a jewel.” Agreeable sighed. “So are you, Your Grace. Though I still don’t know what to do with jewels.”

“Aliette.” She put her hands back on his shoulders, then slid them up to tug the scarf off his forehead and expose some of his hair.

Agreeable’s face was as hot as the rest of him.

“Like this?” Aliette wondered, before tugging the cloth forward again to cover his hair as though Agreeable were a modest, goodly woman.

“Or this way?” She pulled it all down around his neck and shoulders, then tossed one corner of it across his throat.

“Or like this? Against your skin but permitting us to see all of you?”

Agreeable could not breathe. “Whatever you like.”

“Good lass.” Holburn began to pull the loaned chemise up to spread his hands over Remi’s stomach. “Good lad. Good for us, aren’t you?”

Aliette’s hands joined her husband’s, then dipped lower into Remi’s breeches.

Remi nodded desperately. “A centerpiece, as you said.”

Aliette paused. Then her lips were against Remi’s, and her breasts as well as the sprig of greenery in her bodice were pressed to his chest. “Much more than that, I think. Our centerpiece at least. Oh, you like that so much.” She and her husband both had a hand on his prick and were enjoying his trembling. “I feel quite greedy about him.”

“Then be greedy,” Holburn murmured. “He likes to be had. Until he is sore. Until she is ours. Isn’t that right?”

Remi whimpered.

Aliette wriggled in delight in the sound. “You did say she was agreeable.”

“Remi,” Remi begged. He had never been so wanted and he would never be the same for it. He couldn’t seem to mind. “Remi, if I am yours.”

“Remi,” husband and wife agreed, and kissed him, and petted her, and kept her right there between them, where he was theirs.

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