Bad Kitty Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Bad Kitty

  ISBN 9781419923548

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Bad Kitty Copyright © 2009 Debra Glass

  Edited by Kelli Collins

  Photography and cover art by Les Byerley

  Electronic book Publication August 2009

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Bad Kitty

  Debra Glass

  Chapter One

  London, 1820

  “Oh my dear, he isn’t received,” Lady Martha Ashcroft whispered under her breath to Lady Emily Blevins.

  Katrina Hartford had never been one to be entertained by idle gossip but Lady Ashcroft’s harsh condemnation of another party guest snared her attention.

  “Indeed?” Lady Blevins inquired, squinting to view the subject of scandal.

  “I’m shocked to see him here. He has the most deplorable reputation.”

  Katrina would have passed them by on her way to hear one of the local girls play the pianoforte but instead, out of curiosity, she lifted her gaze to see for herself about whom the ladies spoke so harshly.

  It was a mistake.

  Even amidst the crowd of summer season party attendees, Katrina knew immediately which one held the deplorable reputation.

  Taller than the others and with a head full of wavy black hair, the man was arrogant, too proud in his stance. Although his coat was tailored to his body perfectly, he was far too big and broad to have been bred a gentleman. Instead he had the physical build of a man who knew hard labor, who worked outdoors. His skin was as dark, as olive, as that of a gypsy. A commoner.

  His dove-colored breeches strained, leaving little to the imagination, and when Katrina realized she was gaping at the bulge at his crotch, she chided herself and tore her gaze away.

  And yet there was something graceful about his movements, the way he held his brandy snifter, his posture, which revealed the breeding of a gentleman.

  Katrina swallowed. He had the look of a predator—a sleek, black jungle cat on the prowl who captivated his prey with hungry eyes.

  There was something else about him Katrina could not put into words. Because of Lady Ashcroft’s condemnation and Katrina’s own intense aversion to cocksure men like this one, she stopped to hear more.

  “Oh yes,” Lady Ashcroft continued, her rouged lips pursing with self-superiority. “That is Bram Barclay, Earl of Wiltshire, the only son of the Duke of Whitfield.”

  “The man looks coarse,” Lady Blevins added.

  “Ha!” Lady Ashcroft chided. “Coarse is hardly the word to describe Wiltshire.”

  Katrina wished they would get on with their gossip. She couldn’t hover behind the two ladies long without attracting their attention and subsequently being foisted as a potential marriage partner on their grandsons and nephews.

  No. Katrina had no desire to marry. Her parents had both left her a comfortable inheritance. Although at twenty-two, she was still a ward of her father’s brother, Jasper Hartford, she hoped one day to settle into a small estate and pursue her passion for writing.

  Already she had a following, anonymously writing political satire under the decidedly male pen name of Alistair Allenby. Katrina was an avid fan of Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and believed as she had that both women and men were responsible for the inequalities between the sexes. Why women would allow themselves to be coddled, patronized and, above all, controlled by men was beyond Katrina.

  “Do tell,” Lady Blevins encouraged her friend.

  Yes, get on with it, Katrina thought impatiently.

  Lady Ashcroft leaned closer, as if she had a precious morsel to impart, the decorative ostrich plumes in her hair partially obscuring Bram Barclay from Katrina’s view.

  Katrina assumed the man in question was having an affair with this or that married woman or widow. She never expected the next words that came out of Lady Ashcroft’s wrinkled lips.

  “He delves in debauchery at its worst! He uses women for his own sadistic pleasure and then tosses them aside like so much garbage. And the height of it is—no woman will turn him out!”

  “Debauchery?”

  Lady Ashcroft’s eyes narrowed as if Lady Blevins should understand without her having to spell it out. “Women seek him out…for the act of being…punished.”

  Katrina’s lips parted. Her gaze darted to the subject of gossip and her heart skipped a beat when she realized Bram Barclay was looking directly at her. A torrid blush rose to her cheeks and she looked away, pretending she wasn’t listening to Lady Ashcroft prattle on about him.

  “Punished!” Lady Blevins exclaimed. “Whatever for?”

  Lady Ashcroft patted her friend’s arm to quiet her. “For—dare I even say the words? Carnal pleasure.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Lady Blevins scoffed. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

  “Mary Myrtle Merriweather’s maid left her service after ten faithful years to go to him. They say he forces his maids to submit to all manner of degrading acts.”

  Katrina’s fists clenched at her sides at the idea of a man forcing a woman to do anything, much less unspeakable sex acts. But there was something else unfurling inside her she did not recognize, something warm and sinuous and curious.

  Something dangerous.

  “What does his wife think of all this lewdness?” Lady Blevins asked.

  “He has no wife. And no reason to marry. He’s well set and I daresay he pays his maids a pretty penny for their obedience—and their silence.”

  Lady Blevins nodded in disbelief as her gaze roved over the man.

  “Didn’t you hear about the Earl of Rochford’s daughter?” Lady Ashcroft asked, the bobbing of her head setting her plumes in motion.

  “No! You know very well that I have been ill these past months.”

  “Well,” Lady Ashcroft began. “Apparently she was forced to go to the country. In disgrace, I might I add. The man never lifted a finger to do right by her. Her reputation is completely ruined.”

  Katrina caught the blackguard’s eye again, and again she quickly looked away. What kind of fiend would leave a woman in dire straits—especially when he was the cad who had put her in that position? Katrina could not stand to look at him, knowing what he did to and with women. Besides, the man’s gaze had moved over her pale blue India silk dress as if he knew exactly what she looked like underneath the thin fabric.

  It was positively indecent.

  Her pulse accelerated. But worse, her nipples tightened almost painfully against her stays.

  This was ridiculous. She h
ad stood here eavesdropping far long enough but for some odd reason, she could not force her feet to move. Finally she shook herself free of the thrall the fiend had on her and walked away with Lady Ashcroft’s whispered words at her back. “Spankings, blindfolds, restraints, a dungeon in his cellar…”

  Katrina knew she should be horrified, even appalled to be in the same room with a person who engaged in those types of…activities.

  Her own parents had never laid a hand on her. There had been no need. She had always been the perfect child, the rule follower, always completely in control of her actions. However, stormy images of being thoroughly exposed and bent over, receiving smack after smack from that brute of a man, filled her brain and her body with unexplainable and unwelcome sensations.

  Angry at herself for succumbing to such carnal fantasies, she resolved Alistair Allenby would be the one to tell the world what kind of crass man lived in their midst. Through her nom de plume, she could call the earl to the carpet and demand he do right by the woman he had wronged by exposing his wicked lifestyle.

  As she passed by him, Bram inhaled the unique scent that belonged only to the woman in the deep blue silk dress. Lavender and…something else. Something that reminded him of fresh linen.

  He had noticed her watching him, listening while those two peahens undoubtedly gossiped about him. Even though the dress she wore boasted overly modest décolletage for Bram’s tastes, the color set off her eyes and even when she had been across the ballroom he had been able to discern their indigo color. He knew she was the type who did not want to draw attention to her femininity, yet ringlets from her blonde hair spiraled down like arrows, guiding the eye to the swell of her pale breasts. His cock strained against his tight breeches and he shifted from one foot to the other.

  Despite everything inside him that warned the woman was not of his caliber, he could not force himself to take his eyes off her. Small steps, taken so that her hips did not sway seductively, revealed she was a woman who was always in control of herself. She would never be the type to give herself over to experience the pleasures of the body.

  Although she did not look back as she left the ballroom, Bram relished the fact that she was aware of his gaze on her back.

  “Katrina Hartford,” Bram heard Henry Hamblen say.

  Reluctantly he tore his gaze from the intriguing woman’s bottom and looked at Hamblen.

  “She’s not your…sort, Wiltshire.”

  Bram already knew that but he asked anyway. “How so?”

  “She’s refused the suit of any of the eligible beaux in the county.”

  That fact only piqued Bram’s interest. Was she picky or frigid? Perhaps she was merely holding out for the right man. One corner of his lip curled in a self-deprecating smile. He was hardly the right man for a proper, sheltered lady like Katrina Hartford.

  Yet her posture, her hauteur, everything about her screamed that she was more like him than any of the other curious and willing women in the room.

  He downed the contents of his brandy snifter and was just about to get another when the bewitching, raven-haired Duchess of Blakemore caught his eye.

  She gave a slight gesture with her head for him to follow and then she left the ballroom.

  Bram made certain the Duke of Blakemore was nowhere in sight before he deposited his empty snifter with the nearest servant and followed the duchess through the double doors onto the veranda, and then into the shadowy garden.

  “Bram.” He heard the harsh whisper from behind the hedges.

  His blood heated at the thought of rutting the duchess again but his thoughts were consumed with the prim, proper Katrina Hartford.

  However, the duchess was here. Willing. Ready.

  When Bram stepped behind the hedges she was already bent over, her skirts raised to expose the enticing curves of her rump.

  “No bruises this time,” she bit out as, with a growl, he freed his cock and thrust it up her eager cunny.

  The duchess had a taste for the exquisite pleasures of torture and Bram knew her body well. His hand traveled up the gauzy fabric of her dress, where he pulled her bodice down and found her nipple, squeezing until she cried out.

  A growl escaped her throat as she covered his hand with hers. “Harder,” she urged.

  “If we weren’t in earshot of your husband’s party guests, I’d bend you over my knee and spank your luscious arse.”

  At his ribald speech, the duchess squirmed on his cock and Bram gripped her hip with his free hand, not caring about her warning not to bruise her. This is what she really wanted. To be fucked hard and fast. Rough. To have her nipple tugged and pinched while he pummeled her.

  She melted, mewling as he felt the muscles in her passage clench around him. Bram continued fucking her until the last spasms eddied away and then he withdrew and began to do up his breeches.

  For the first time in his existence the desire to finish left him, and he couldn’t for the life of himself explain why. He glanced over his shoulder at the duchess, who was smoothing down her champagne-colored dress. One inky ringlet escaped her previously well-ordered chignon and Bram bit back a grin. Although no one could prove he’d had her, everyone would know he’d fucked the duke’s wife in his own garden.

  “Did you not achieve satisfaction?” The duchess raised an eyebrow and looked at Bram.

  He graced her with a low bow. “I refuse to find my own pleasure until I am buried to the hilt in your tight arse, Your Grace.”

  The duchess chuckled as she slipped past him and back to her guests.

  Bram stared after her as she climbed the steps to where the light was spilling through the open French doors. Graceful, in command of herself, exhibiting the bearing of royalty, the duchess was a formidable foe and a willing bed partner. Bram should have been thrilled that she was one of his conquests, one of the many ladies of the ton who came to him for his expertise in pleasurable taboos that gave a woman permission to fully enjoy the fruits of her body.

  And still his thoughts kept returning to the coltish Katrina Hartford, who had probably never known a man’s kiss much less had any interest in carnal delights. Blonde, wide-eyed and innocent…

  Wouldn’t he like to have her bare bottom beneath his palm?

  Bram’s cock lurched at the thought of discovering how to unlock Katrina’s virgin secrets. Would she like to have her rump reddened with his riding crop or was she the type who found pleasure in a good arse rogering? Would she like to have her nipples nibbled? Did she prefer to be restrained or, better yet, forced to stand still, submitting to all manner of tantalizing tortures?

  There wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t like some sort of bondage play.

  Bram inhaled and rubbed his burgeoning cock with his hand. “What a rakehell you are,” he muttered to himself. Going after virgins wasn’t his style.

  He had already waited the customary few minutes before returning to the party himself. He straightened his clothing and rejoined the fray.

  Katrina had bitten her bottom lip so hard, she tasted the metallic tang of blood. She swallowed and let out the breath she’d been holding. She couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed.

  That vile man had defiled the duchess between the bushes like a common scullery maid. It was unthinkable!

  Still, Katrina had seen the whole disgusting episode from where she sat in the shadows on one of the many garden benches. A furious blush rose to her cheeks when she recalled the depraved words the fiend had uttered to the duchess.

  If we weren’t in earshot of your husband’s party guests, I’d bend you over my knee and spank your luscious arse.

  And the duchess…

  Katrina drew in a sharp breath. She’d had a view of the duchess’s face. Never would Katrina be able to erase the memory of the woman’s closed eyes, the rounded lips, the furrowed forehead or the harsh sound of her breathing punctuated by every forceful thrust. Obviously she had experienced something…exquisite.

  No. The fiend had to have some
hold over the duchess. He had to know some secret and he was forcing her to submit to his will in return for his silence.

  Why else would a woman willingly surrender to such disgraceful acts?

  Surely what Katrina had just witnessed was not really what happened in the dark between a man and a woman.

  Her aunt had told her it was a woman’s duty to lie back and silently but fervently pray while a man took care of his needs. No woman enjoyed the act of sex. Did they?

  No. It wasn’t possible to enjoy having a man see your most private recesses, much less poke and prod them.

  Renewed spite for the man burned through Katrina’s veins and she resolved that she would do everything in her power to expose him and rescue women like the duchess from his evil clutches.

  Chapter Two

  With her spectacles on and disguised in the common attire of a maid, Katrina waited nervously in the hallway outside Bram Barclay’s study.

  This was a mistake.

  It was stupid.

  She had certainly gone mad to be here like this. She had never dreamed the fiend actually interviewed potential servants himself.

  Instead, she had assumed she would be whisked in to work anonymously until she could get enough information for her article and then she would make good her escape like a quick hare from the hounds.

  She had been wrong. For here she stood, wringing her hands while she waited to be summoned into the devil’s lair.

  The estate itself was the largest she had ever seen, with sprawling, well-manicured lawns and a massive manor house. While she had entered through the servants’ entrance, Katrina had still gotten a grand tour just walking from the head housekeeper’s office to this hallway.

  Her gaze scanned the gleaming paneled walls that stretched upward to the impossibly high ceilings. The Barclays were an old, old family with strong connections to the crown. It only stood to reason their lands and estates would reflect their wealth.