Stately Pleasures

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Her assailant was an extremely tall man—he had a good few inches on Jeremy—and stood with his arms folded, looking at her very sternly. He wore black trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt, and a black tie. His attire, and the fact he had a radio clipped to his belt, led Alice to draw the conclusion that this was the infamous Ethan Hayes—Head of Security. He certainly had the perfect physique for someone working in that area. His height, coupled with the bulging muscles she saw peeking from his shirt sleeves, were intimidating enough to scare away any potential thieves. His biceps looked damn good, but she was sure they weren’t just there for show.

His intense gaze made her want to run for the hills. After a few seconds of staring at each other in silence—a silence even more deafening since the office’s occupants had now gone quiet—Alice finally plucked up the courage to speak. “C-can I help you?”

The giant of a man unfolded his arms and took two strides towards her, which brought him very close, almost invading her personal space. She resisted the temptation to shrink away from him, then quickly regretted it when her nostrils caught his masculine scent. The sexy smell did funny things to her already-heightened libido, and she began to realise something. Not only was Ethan Hayes tall and well-built, he was bloody gorgeous too. She now understood how the Terrible Twosome of Jeremy and Ethan had left such a trail of broken hearts behind them. No sane woman would get either of those two into bed and then let them go willingly.

His words interrupted her reverie. “I could ask you the same thing. Is there any particular reason you are loitering outside Mr Davenport’s office?”

She didn’t yet have a name badge pinned to her top like all the other staff, therefore Ethan clearly thought she was a member of the public snooping somewhere she shouldn’t. Before she had chance to deny it, he turned and pointed down the corridor, away from Jeremy’s office. “Come with me please, miss. I think we should talk in my office.”

Alice remained rooted to the spot, her mind in a whirl. She was torn between doing what the six-foot-something giant was commanding her to do, and going to see her boss, like she’d been asked to do around twenty minutes ago now. She’d barely been in the place half a day, and she’d screwed up, which never usually happened. Throughout her education she’d been a straight-A student, never in trouble, and once she’d entered the workplace, she’d been the model employee.

How had she ended up in this crazy situation? The way Ethan was looking at her made her feel like a naughty child being sent to the head’s office—and of course, she’d never experienced that. Except to receive praise and certificates for her academic achievements and impeccable attendance records, that was.

It entered her head that Jeremy should have heard the exchange between her and Ethan, given they were standing right outside his door. Perhaps he was still “busy”, albeit much more quietly, and hadn’t even noticed they were there. Therefore, he was probably also too distracted to realise more than ten minutes had passed and she was meant to be in his office right there and then.

She made her decision, and followed Ethan as he strode purposefully down the landing. Minutes later, they entered the staff corridor. Ethan stopped in front of a door. He pulled a key from the loop hanging from his belt, then unlocked the door. He pushed it open and gestured Alice inside, his expression stony.

She gave a nervous smile and walked into the room, her eyes immediately drawn to the bank of monitors on one wall, which kept flicking through a rotation of images from each room and corridor in the house. A thought started to form in her mind, but before she could pursue it, Ethan spoke. “If you’ll take a seat please, miss, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Without giving her a chance to respond, he pulled the door shut. Alice heard the unmistakable sound of a key twisting in a lock, followed by retreating footsteps. Her mouth dropped open. He’d locked her in! For God’s sake, he obviously thought she was some kind of criminal. Was he going to call the police? She hoped not. Despite the fact that she hadn’t done anything wrong, it would be incredibly embarrassing for everyone concerned. Already was, actually.

A little smile tweaked at the corners of Alice’s lips. Ethan had probably gone to fetch Jeremy. He’d soon realise his mistake—and would get a severe telling-off when it became apparent that he’d locked the new property manager in his office. She wondered if she’d be allowed to stay for the no doubt heated discussion, or if she’d be sent away. She crossed her fingers for the former, though she knew it was unlikely. A professional would never discipline his staff in front of others. But Jeremy had just proven that he wasn’t overly professional by having s*x with someone in his office while someone else waited outside for a meeting he’d bloody well called! Then there was the fact that the two men were good friends. So perhaps the telling-off would never happen.

Alice shrugged. There was no point trying to guess what would happen next. She’d just have to wait and see.

The low electrical buzzing sound emanating from the monitors drew her attention, and the thought that had begun to form in her head before Ethan had locked her in came to fruition.

Surely, if Ethan had been sitting in here since the house opened this morning he’d been looking at the monitors? It was his job, after all. And if so, he must have caught at least a glimpse of her and Erin making their way through the house together? He wouldn’t have been able to hear what they were saying—it seemed the cameras were capturing images only, not sound—but it would have been pretty obvious that Erin was showing her around. As Head of Security, Ethan must have information on all of the staff and volunteers on the books at Davenport Manor. Plus he was Jeremy’s best friend. Surely he must have known she was starting today? It was a pretty vital piece of information; one Alice thought would be of the utmost importance for the man in charge of security.

Her eyes narrowed. If that were indeed the case, then why on earth had Ethan claimed not to know who she was and locked her in his office?

The sound of two lots of footsteps approaching shook Alice from her thought process and she knew she’d have the answer to her questions very soon. This had to be Ethan returning with Jeremy.

A click came from the door, then the handle turned and the men entered. Alice’s heart sank when she saw that Jeremy looked just as stern as Ethan, if not more so.

“Miss Brown,” he said, before taking a seat across the table from her. Ethan sat next to him.

Alice nodded in response, all the while worrying about how serious he sounded, and how they’d reverted to last name terms again. He was obviously seriously pissed off, but she wasn’t quite sure why. She’d had a legitimate reason for being outside his office, and an even more legitimate one for not going in—she wasn’t some kind of voyeuristic p*****t, after all.

“I’ll cut straight to the chase. Ethan—Mr Hayes—tells me that he found you loitering outside my office.”

“Bu—”

He didn’t let her speak. “Outside my office,” he continued, “listening at the door when I was in there with an… acquaintance.”

It wasn’t one of the staff then, she thought with relief. She only had to be embarrassed around him then, not any of her other colleagues. But he thought she’d been listening. Her expression turned indignant and she opened her mouth to deny it, but Jeremy held up a hand.

“I’m not done. What you did was unprofessional and a serious encroachment on my privacy. I thought better of you, Miss Brown.”

Surely he had to realise the reason she was there was because he’d summoned her? Or did he have short-term memory loss? Early onset Alzheimer’s? Very early in his case.

His tirade—for it was a tirade, despite the fact he wasn’t shouting—continued. “Your behaviour was immoral and unacceptable. I should fire you right now—and on your first day, too!”

Finally, he fell silent and raised an eyebrow, as if waiting for her to speak. Alice immediately broke the silence, before he changed his mind. “But Je—Mr Davenport, I was only there because you asked me to come and see you. I didn’t—I wasn’t… Please don’t fire me. I’ll do anything.”

She stopped short of sliding to the floor and begging on her knees. She was desperate to keep this job, but somehow she sensed that Jeremy wanted her to be apologetic, not pathetic.

It seemed she was right. He gave a thin smile. “Anything?”

Alice nodded eagerly, her enthusiasm waning as Jeremy’s smile grew wider and wider, until she thought it would touch his ears. He obviously had something in mind. Her imagination took flight. God, what was he going to make her do? Hold a spider, or a snake? Run naked through the gardens? Each possibility she conjured up was worse than the last, and she shut down the train of thought before she drove herself completely crazy.

He slid one of his hands from where it had been resting on the table and it disappeared from view. The angle of his arm and the fact he leant forward a little showed that he was getting something from the back pocket of his jeans. Sure enough, a second later he slapped a folded piece of paper onto the table and began to open it up. Once done, he flattened it out with his palms and flashed another smile at Alice before turning towards Ethan, who grinned back at him.

Alice frowned. Ethan hadn’t looked at the piece of paper and yet he was returning his friend’s smile, so he obviously already knew what the contents were. A trick they always played on new staff, perhaps?

She didn’t quite buy that idea. She couldn’t see the men joking around with most of the people who worked or volunteered at Davenport Manor. From what she’d seen of them so far, they were stoic, old, or both. Somehow, she didn’t think that Jeremy and Ethan would expect Mrs Jenkins to run across the garden naked. Not that anyone would want her to. Alice suppressed a shudder.

Mind you, why the hell would anyone want her to run across the garden naked? Granted, she had nice big t**s that didn’t swing around her knees, but the rest of her was certainly nothing to write home about. If someone was being polite, they’d call her curvy, or Rubenesque. Otherwise, they’d just say fat, plump, chubby, or overweight. Or chunky. She’d heard them all.

The sound of Jeremy clearing his throat brought her back to the present, and he picked up the piece of paper and held it in front of him as if he were about to start reading. He caught her gaze, and there was something dancing behind his eyes that she felt like he was trying to hide from her. Excitement? Whatever it was, it was intense.

“This,” he said in his Queen’s English accent, “is a list I made not long after my father died and left me Davenport Manor. Sadly, it’s been neglected for the eighteen months since then. But now, Miss Brown, I think it’s time to give the list an airing, and start checking things off of it.”

“W-why’s that?” What she really meant was why now?—but she didn’t want to say that in case this whole thing was nothing to do with her and she put the idea in his head that it could be.

“Because, my dear, of you.”

Bugger. So much for her not being involved.

“You see, in case you didn’t know, Ethan and I are best friends. We’ve known each other since we were at university, and have shared all sorts of experiences. This list holds some of the plans I have for Davenport Manor, plans that Ethan and I would like to execute sooner rather than later.”

Ethan and I? He kept saying that. Was he trying to tell her they were a couple or something? And they needed help making the manor into more of a home? But why her? And why now? Surely Erin could have helped out with that. She hadn’t been pregnant for eighteen months, after all. And then there was the fact that Jeremy had been with a woman in his office. No, she was pretty certain neither of them was gay. Or even bisexual—she just didn’t get that vibe from them.

“Okay…” she said warily, wondering what on earth he was going to come out with next.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and after talking it over with Ethan just now, we’ve decided you’re the perfect person to help us.”

Alice waited. Raised her eyebrows expectantly. Why couldn’t he just say it?

“This list,” he continued, putting it back on the table and spinning it around so the writing was the right way up for her, then sliding it in her direction, “is a collection of, how should I put it, challenges that I’d like to complete. Challenges set in and around Davenport Manor. My way of enjoying the house to the best of my ability, and thoroughly putting my stamp of ownership on it. After all, it’s mine, so I can do whatever I like.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the list, and Alice dropped her gaze to the piece of paper, pulled it in front of her, and began studying the sentences that were printed on it. She’d barely finished the first bullet point before she let out a gasp. She scanned a couple more bullet points to be sure she hadn’t misunderstood, then snapped her head up and looked at Jeremy, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

He gave a casual smile and nodded towards Ethan. “I told you, we’ve shared all sorts of experiences, many of which included women. Especially women. We like to take them to bed—or wherever—and pleasure them until they can’t take any more. Then do it again anyway. The thing is, up until I owned the manor, we couldn’t possibly bring ladies back here. My father would never have approved. So we weren’t able to act out some of our most potent fantasies. Now, though, we have this huge brick and timber playground at our disposal, and we plan to make the most of it.”

The twinkle in his eyes told her that the emotion she’d suspected earlier was, in fact, excitement. He was incredibly excited about this challenge thing—which, having looked at the first part of the list, was basically kinky s*x in multiple locations—and a glance at Ethan told her that he was too. They were both gazing at her intently, and looked not unlike two little boys begging for sweeties.

Except it wasn’t sweeties they wanted. It was her.

Clearly unable to stand the lack of response any longer, Jeremy spoke again. “Look, you said you’d do anything to keep your job. You do this thing for us, and I’ll forget all about your little indiscretion, and when you leave here after your contract is up, you’ll have the best reference anyone could ever ask for. I’ve also got some friends in high places, so I’ll do what I can to assist your next career move too.”

Alice was speechless. First she’d been railroaded by the challenge thing, and now he was attempting to blackmail her! If she didn’t do it, he’d sack her, and any future career prospects would be screwed, to say the least. She had no doubt that his friends in high places could also scupper her next career move, as well as assist it. But if she did as he asked, he’d do everything he could to ease her climb up to the next rung on the career ladder. All she had to do was, basically, f**k and be f****d by Jeremy and Ethan in a variety of locations throughout Davenport Manor and its gardens.

She looked at each of the men in turn. It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

She wouldn’t be the first woman to shag her way to the top, and she wouldn’t be the last. There were certainly worse things a girl could do to advance her career. Or worse men, anyway.