“Nature abhors a vacuum, they say. When I left and you left, it created a power vacuum. A dominatrix appeared on the scene and started scooping up the best and richest clients. Half of Irina’s clients deserted her. So did Mistress Vee’s.”
“Ballsy woman. I wouldn’t want to get on their bad sides.”
“She’s on my bad side. One of Irina’s clients came back to her, begging forgiveness and asking to be hers again. His new domme sent pictures she’d taken during their sessions to his wife. Thankfully he’d already told his wife about his submissive side, and she’d given him permission to explore with a professional. But it was a petty, vile thing she did, and she won’t get away with it. She keeps her clients in line through fear, not love and devotion. She abuses her power, and I won’t stand for that in my city.”
Elle winced. Kingsley had his reams of blackmail material on anyone in the city who mattered and many people who didn’t, but he used it to protect the citizens of his kingdom, not humiliate and ruin them for their proclivities. And to destroy his enemies, of course. Sounded like he’d made a new enemy.
“Who is she?” Elle asked. “What’s her name?”
Kingsley held the book in his hand out to her and pointed to an illustration of a beautiful woman in an eighteenth-century gown. Elle glanced at the title of the book and back at the page.
“Milady...” Elle said, studying the face of the woman on the page. The book was Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, and the woman in the illustration was the infamous Milady de Winter.
“That’s what your rival calls herself. No first name. No last name. Milady. Nothing else.”
“Do you know anything about her?”
“I know nothing about her and not for lack of trying. She claims to be the illegitimate daughter of a Japanese geisha and an English lord. She also claims she went to Harvard but didn’t graduate because she was caught topping one of her professors. Oh, and she says she married an Italian knight—they do exist, by the way, I’ve met a few—but he was fifty years her senior and when he died, he left her a wealthy widow with a villa in Tuscany. And if any of that is true, I’ll eat my vest.”
“You think she’s lying?”
“I do but I have no proof of it. She’s careful. Even wears gloves all the time so no one can get her fingerprints. When in the city she stays in a hotel under an assumed name and pays in cash. That level of paranoia and fear makes me suspicious. But her story makes for wonderful marketing. Her English is flawless, not a trace of an accent, but she also speaks Japanese flawlessly with no trace of an accent. She’s well educated and intelligent. She’s also mysterious, seductive, painfully beautiful and terribly cruel. Men throw themselves at her. There are rumors she secretly tapes her sessions so that if a client wishes to leave her, he either pays her a huge sum of money for the tapes or he stays with her. Most of them stay.”
Kingsley snapped the book shut and placed it back on his shelf.
“Have you tried sleeping with her?” Elle asked. Knowing Kingsley as she knew him, it wasn’t an unreasonable question.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t met her yet.”
“Is she good?”
“Very good from what I hear.”
For Kingsley to call a domme good was quite a compliment. The man could take more pain and wanted more pain than anyone she’d ever known in the scene.
“But...”
“But what?” Elle asked. Kingsley took her chin in hand and tilted her face up to him. He smiled.
“You’ll be better.”
“Will I be better than him?”
“No one is better than he is at sadism,” Kingsley said. “But...”
“But?”
“You’ll be a close second. Considering you’re untrained, and he’s been studying pain since he was born, there’s a very good chance you could put even him on his knees.”
“I don’t ever want to see him again, on his knees or off.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say that tomorrow, too.”
“Very well. I will respect that. For now. He’s not my favorite person either, nor am I his. But ours is a small world. You can’t avoid him forever.”
“Have you seen him?”
“I have.”
“How is he?” she asked.
“Not the question someone usually asks about someone she hates.”
“I want to know he’s hurting.”
“Then you’ll be happy to hear he is.”
“Good,” she said. That made her happy. So happy. So fucking happy she wanted to cry. “He’s still a priest, isn’t he?”
“He is.”
“I was afraid he’d leave the church.”
“He didn’t.”
“That’s good then.” She exhaled a breath she’d been holding for over a year. “He... Whatever his faults, he’s a good priest, isn’t he?”
Kingsley put his hands on her shoulders.
“Yes, he’s a very good priest.”
“I’m glad I left, then. He...he would have regretted leaving the Jesuits for me. I know him. It was good I left him if he’s still a priest.”
She knew she was speaking to convince herself, not Kingsley.
“This life I’m offering you isn’t easy money, Elle. The things dominatrixes do with their clients? Not even the priest would dream of some of it. It will be hard work. You’ll be tempted to return to him. Better to face that temptation head-on instead of running and hiding from it. Tu comprends?”
“Je comprends.” He was right although she hated to admit it. No way could she avoid Søren forever.
“Don’t be afraid. You won’t have to see him right away. He doesn’t know you’ve returned. No one outside this house does, and Calliope and Juliette will keep the secret.”
“What’s the plan? How do we ‘depose’ this Milady of yours?”
“In six weeks’ time, there will be a party at The 8th Circle. The summer solstice party—the Midsummer Night’s Fling. Everyone will be there. I will let it be known that I have a new domina who will make her debut that night. I will warn the world that she is the most dangerous, most sadistic and most beautiful domme they’ve ever seen. A domme who will put the great Milady in the shade. She will come, of course. If she doesn’t, she’ll be seen as a coward.”
“Six weeks? You think I’ll be ready in six weeks?”
“We’ll start your training tomorrow. I’ll work on a plan of attack, and we’ll build your dungeon.”
“I get my own dungeon? At the club? Seriously?”
“You will have the best dungeon in the house.”
Elle couldn’t repress a grin at that thought. Her own dungeon—she’d dreamed of such a thing but never spoke that fantasy aloud. That alone would be worth all the work Kingsley would demand of her.
“Okay. Six weeks. Milady shows up to this party. Everybody’s there. I turn up. And then what?”
Kingsley looked at her without smiling and the look on his face both scared