"Lara, please."

His voice was quiet, his eyes glassy, hands folded placidly in his lap. He was meant to be reading Descartes Passions of the Soul, resting indolently on the chaise while the rest of us took on the more mundane tasks to keep our empire running. I am, after all, a dutiful daughter. Bred to please. Consummately loyal. And no one will ever suspect otherwise.

Wind from the open window teased the dark hair spilled over his broad shoulders, allowing a glimpse of the scarlet earring that glinted in his left ear. I knew the texture of the skin there intimately. Knew how it turned pink from the lightest pressure from my teeth. How, when I'd been a mere girl, it was my anchor point when he pushed into me, my world narrowing to that point so I could keep a handle on sanity in those hours when he took his pleasure. He did it often in that first year, until it took only the mere timbre of his voice to bring me.

My smile was a brittle thing. Ah, how times changed.

I'd taken something of a working lunch, managing things from the den for the time being. I could always summon Justine if I need something more. Perhaps I was feeling wistful today. I didn't ordinarily let him hang about like this. Too gouche, to have one's thrall sitting about waiting for orders. Occasionally, it was nice to fiddle with the strings of my marionette. It would be supremely gratifying to have him kneeling on the floor before the divan, a supplicant before me. Let him nudge my thigh, caress the curve of my ankle or stroke the arch of my foot, lavishing slavish attention on me, as eager to please as a labrador.

But again, gauche.

His eyes were sheened silver, fixed on me, a hint of his true self trying to struggle through. Need vibrated in the air around him. I pursed my lips in distaste, calculating the days in my head. Yes, it had been some time, hadn't it? Perhaps too long, if he was able to voice his own thoughts.

I sighed. It would have to be remedied.

"Come to me," I coaxed, setting my work aside gently. I patted the upholstered surface of the divan.

He was on his feet at once, gliding toward me, inhumanly graceful even now, taking the seat indicated without hesitation. He leaned his back against one of the arms, half-lidded eyes fluttering closed when I trailed my fingers gently over his knuckles.

"Lara." My name rolled from his mouth, a half-groan as I crawled into his lap, straddling his thigh, nestling against the sturdy strength of him. I rubbed against him in a cat-like motion, so he could feel the heat between my legs. Perhaps later I'd let him taste. If he was a good boy.

His surrender was like candy on the tongue, lovely contours, easy to swallow, thick and sweet going down. Many years I'd longed for him to look at me the way he does now. Artifice but pretty deception nonetheless.

I anchored myself on those broad shoulders, teased his hair, rocking against him slowly. One hand fell to my waist at once, trying to guide my hips forward while the other strayed toward his trousers.

He stilled, a snake before its charmer when I fixed him with a silver stare.

"Did I say you could touch yourself?" I murmured, rolling my hips once.

Tantalizingly close, but not enough. I liked to keep him this way. Draw his hunger to the edge of its tether and hear its muted snarl. Arrogant thing it was, it defied the order of things, even now. The great White King, the dark seducer, the kiss of death, reduced to this. Delicious.

Turnabout is fair play, daddy dearest. I still remembered the night he came to me. The night after Paolino took me to his bed. The night when my first lover died. The night when I discovered what I truly was.

When he'd taken me in his arms, I'd thought he meant to comfort me. Until his demon descended on me, burying me in a wave of silver-edged pleasure. When I'd come to straddling his lap, much as I was now, with his release thick and warm on my thigh. The recitation of "daddy, daddy, daddy" still coming in soft whimpers. His smile. A gentle kiss on my temple and the stomach turning command of;

"Again."

I would never let him finish inside me again. He could climax in his trousers and lick them clean when he was through. I loathed him. I loved him. Contradictory impulses that snarled in my head, a Gordian knot, impossible to unravel.

I didn't even deign to meet his adoring gaze as I shimmied a little further onto his lap, putting myself where he wanted me most. His hardness ground against my front, his long spatulate fingers sliding up my thigh, gliding through my slick heat until he found the bud at the apex, skillfully manipulating it. I threw my head back, groaning as well when he tore my blouse away with his teeth.

He latched onto a breast and warmth coiled tight in my belly, my hunger reveling in his skilled attentions. What a sight we made. A perverse Madonna and child, a tableau sure to scandalize anyone outside the court.

"Lara, Lara, Lara..."

I sank silver teeth into his lust, tore bits of him away bite by succulent bite as his hips arched into mine, grinding his arousal into my heat, desperately seeking release.

His hunger didn't snarl now. It was a shadow of its former self. A mewling kitten in want of milk. I fed a little back to it slowly. Measured sips. Couldn't have it getting too spoiled now.

I licked along the jugular vein, tasted his throbbing pulse. When I rolled the lobe between my teeth, I thought he'd finish. But I'd trained him too well for that by now. I smiled at him, as lovely as a Botticelli angel, dip the tip of my tongue gingerly inside the shell of his ear before whispering;

"Call me mommy," I purred. Then I bit down savagely on the shell of his ear.

He screamed it as he came. I drank in his release, savoring the power of him like a draft of Hermitage La Chapelle.

He sagged, sated and placid once more as I dismounted. It's a shame Justine is protected. As much as I valued her, the idea of having her between my thighs was intriguing. I'd need to deal with the irksome desire with someone. Perhaps the new maid. She hadn't been house trained yet.

"Go," I said dismissively, arranging the sarong skirt into a presentable state once more. "Clean up. We've dinner to attend with Thomas tonight."

I still scented him in the air when he'd gone. The pleasantly musky scent of him made my nipples pucker. I definitely needed the maid, I mused, tracing the hardened peak.

I should have worked. But it was a lazy Sunday afternoon. The air coming through the window was perfumed by golden-skinned apples from a grove nearby. I sat with Henry James' The Middle Years instead.

"We work in the dark-we do what we can-we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."

It required sacrifice to be the power behind the throne.

Éminence grise.

François Leclerc du Tremblay, the gray shadow behind Richelieu.

I would remain that shadow until the day a figurehead no longer became necessary. I had plans. Dresden would be a useful piece if I could snare him. I had skimmed the surface of his desire. I knew where he was weak. But fate favored the patient.

My plans could wait another day.