The baron moved around her, but Lucy stayed still, not even daring to let her eyes follow him.  He was somewhere behind her, and her breath caught as she felt his feather-light caress along her nape.  His words were insightful, delivered in a seductive, low tone that matched the sensual, flickering light from the fireplace perfectly.  They were a flame licking heat along her body.<br/><br/>She wanted to deny the truth of what he said.  She wasn't responsive to his touch!  She was here on a mission to ascertain certain facts and for no other reason than that.  This was for someone else.<br/><br/>Except her mind went back to the night before.  Her body had left no doubt, as least to herself, that she was indeed moved by Baron Covington's less gentle touches as he asserted.  He pinched her ear then, the touch unexpected, and she gasped in surprise.  Her chest was heaving in anticipation, and it was a smack to her behind that made her entire body flare with arousal.  Her nipples hardened in the response of which he spoke, and the muscles in the core of her tightened.  This, this was what she'd felt the night before when he'd taken her over his knee.<br/><br/>She had her shift on, and he talked to her about rubbing herself and letting herself feel the fabric against her flesh, but she didn't move.  Her arms remained crossed over her chest, and she concentrated on breathing in and out.  He kept touching her, speaking to her in that wicked way, and then he instructed her to remove all of her clothing.<br/><br/>She turned so that she faced his now, uncertainty clear in her eyes as she looked at him.  "Yes," she whispered hoarsely, "some port might help."  She needed the fortification.  As he turned away to pour a drink, she finally unwrapped her arms from around herself, wondering what she looked like.  Were her cheeks as flushed as she imagined them to be?  Could he see the way the tips of her breasts jutted against the thin muslin of her shift?<br/><br/>Was Lucy prepared to do this?  This was Katie's fiance, the man she would wed in just a few days.  And here was Lucy in a room alone with him, contemplating baring herself to his gaze.  She was not an innocent like her mistress was.  She'd even lain with a man before, but that time, she'd kept her clothing on.  It wasn't done, even with women of her class, but Lucy had long ago decided that she longed for adventure and refused to be tied to a man.  She would not marry anyway, so there was no groom to disappoint on a wedding night.  And she'd wished to have a taste of pleasures of the flesh, and so she had.<br/><br/>This, what the baron did to her, was nothing like what she'd experienced before.  That had been pleasure, and the baron promised pain.  But was he right?  Was the pain tied into pleasure as he claimed?<br/><br/>She knew there was truth in that.  Her arousal the night before was proof of that.  And yet she was uncertain about taking this step.  It was becoming evident that this was the darkness that was whispered about Lord Covington, and she worried about Katherine being subjected to this pain and pleasure.  It was nothing that a fine, gentle lady should suffer.  When the baron held a goblet out to her, she took it gratefully, sipping deeply.  She wanted to do this, and had he been anybody else, she would have followed his lead without compunction.  But Katie...<br/><br/>Lucy had to ask.  She was, after all, not here to discover her own pleasures but instead to learn his secrets in order to protect her mistress.  Resolved to speak her mind, she asked, "My lord, Lady Katherine... will you seek this pleasure for her?"  Perhaps, if she offered herself in Katie's stead, she could spare her beloved friend this fate.  "If I succumb, will you leave her be?  She is a gentle woman, and I do not believe she would feel the same pleasure from pain that you describe."