The Gentlemen's Club: Volume One in the 'Noire' series by Emmanuelle de Maupassant Page B

her head back to
expose her throat and torso to him, yielding to his resolve. His kisses upon
her ivory skin were devoutly tender, bestowed as if upon an angel, yet still he gripped her haunches, so that little movement was possible on her
part. He continued thrusting, ensuring that each stroke was slow, long and
deep.

 
    She had never looked more
captivating to him: a goddess he was honoured to
worship. Her superiority to him in intellect and wit was as unquestionable as her
beauty and desirability, yet she was his, conceding to him, responding only to
his commands.

 
    As her breathing became
ragged, and her velvet passage gripped him tenaciously, she wrapped her legs
about his all the more tightly and arched her spine. He took her breast
entirely in his mouth then, sucking hard at the flesh around her nipple, and
drove into her. His fingers clutched into the cheeks of her buttocks, forcing
her resolutely upon his groin, so that his penetration was all and everything.
They gasped and groaned together, enjoying the ultimate satisfaction of mutual
pleasure: sharing that exquisite moment when flesh becomes one and naught else
exists.

 
    When all was done, they lay still,
like dreamers in half-slumber, yet to awake to the dawn. Eventually, it was he
who rose, dressing silently, and departing the room. Her eyes watched his every
movement, until the door closed behind him.

 
 
    Chapter Fifteen
    At the Mercy of Love

 
    Lord MacCaulay knew now that he was shipwrecked, without hope of rescue and, indeed, no desire
for deliverance.   His love could not
be denied. Whatever might happen, he knew that his adoration would endure a
lifetime. No other woman would supplant Mademoiselle Noire in this respect. His
hunger for her was all consuming.

 
    Her feelings remained, as
ever, mysterious to him; he knew not even if she were capable of returning his esteem.
Yet, this mattered not; his devotion was set in stone, regardless of how she
responded. She might cast him aside and refuse ever to see him again, yet the
flame of his love would remain. Even her death would not extinguish his thirst
for her.  

 
    He must fall on her mercy
and, despite his hunger to possess her, would accept whatever terms she
appointed. He could only now assure her of his love and genuine regard: his
appreciation of her independent spirit. In this, he was her devoted servant,
sworn to uphold her comfort, safety and well-being . If
she would allow him to do so, he would become her protector, her companion, her lover and fellow adventurer.

 
    Taking his quill, he wrote a
simple note, which he sent with all speed, accompanied by a bouquet of fifty hothouse
orchids:

 
    ‘The rivers, deserts,
forests, ocean, sun, moon and stars encircle you.
    You swim in my veins,
    My soul’s blood stirs for
you.
    You are my beginning and my
end.’

 
 
 
 
    Chapter Sixteen
    Breakfast Surprise

 
    Several weeks passed, in
which Lord MacCaulay heard nothing from Mademoiselle
Noire. Each day, he sent fifty of the same exotic orchids but, exerting all powers of control, he kept himself from visiting the Club and
refrained from correspondence.

 
    Once, in a moment of
weakness, he lingered nearby, hoping to catch a glance of her, either arriving
or leaving. He saw nothing.

 
    By day, he promenaded Hyde
Park and the streets through which he had chased her, wrapped now warmly
against the wind. Melancholy thoughts assailed him and brought to mind macabre
events which had unfolded in the Park: Sir Robert Peel’s demise on being thrown
from his horse some five decades previously; and the near fatality of the cruelly
puritanical Oliver Cromwell, whose own pistol shot had missed him by a hair’s
breadth, fired unexpectedly during a carriage accident. Ironically, the cold
hand of death, which had, with time, guided his mortal remains to repose in
Westminster Abbey, led Cromwell’s exhumed body to a posthumous trial and
hanging at Tyburn gallows, not