The Lily Brand Read Online Free PDF Page A

back. He was similarly adorned as Nataraj, though his hands were still shackled behind him. Camille did not yet consider him suitable to touch. Thus, he was here to watch and to learn.
    The first course consisted of mushroom soup, thick and creamy. Spoon after spoon Lillian raised to her mouth. It could have been sour goat milk—it was all the same to her.
    The hand-feeding began with the small pastries, filled with fish and herbs, that Gérard brought out next. Nataraj slid to his knees beside his mistress’s chair and made his fingers into plates for her pleasure. After each pastry, he would ensure that no crumbs remained to mar Camille’s perfection. Nibbling and licking, he removed all lingering traces from her chin and lips.
    Lillian sat straight and chewed, even though, with the presence of the man behind her, his breath almost searing ne little hairs on her neck, she felt as if she were choking. Through that course and the next, all through the Russian caviar and the Laplander reindeer tongues, Lillian’s back remained erect.
    After each course, Nataraj would wash his hands so as not to spoil Camille’s enjoyment of the different foods. She ate the curry rice from his palm and licked the caviar from his fingertips. Sometimes, when her teeth sank into his flesh, he would blink, but his smile never wavered. While she stroked his chest, he offered her the olives from Spain between his lips.
    Lillian ate, her face expressionless, her fingers unfeeling.
    On a large silver plate, Gérard brought in the last course, fruit and ginger-flavored cream. At the sight, Lillian’s stomach sank. Coldness washed over her—not the numbing cold she so often sought, but the sudden icy flow of despair. For between the juicy pieces of peach and pineapple and the bowls with cream lay one of Camille’s short whips. A whip with metal-adorned straps to draw blood at the first lash, which her stepmother only used to punish. So far, there had been no reason to punish Nataraj.
    Camille moved her chair backwards, and, smiling over the rim of her wine-filled glass, she beckoned.
    Lillian had to swallow hard, but then, turning her head a little, she said to the prisoner: “Go.” What else could she say? What else could she do, helplessly caught in Camille’s web, just like him, and surrounded by men loyal to her stepmother?
    The man walked slowly over, his limp more pronounced than it had been in the garden.
    It was enough to make Camille pout. “Has Gratien sold us damaged goods?”
    Carefully, Lillian folded her hands in her lap. “As long as the service is good in other quarters…”
    She met her stepmothers stare calmly, and after a moment Camille’s trilling laughter filled die room. “How right you are, chérie .” She toasted Lillian with her glass. “And now we shall begin to see how good it is.” This time, her smile was directed at the man, who had stopped at her end of the table.
    Nataraj got to his feet and, following the silent command of his mistress, took the whip and stepped aside.
    Leisurely, Camille’s gaze stroked over the man before her, lingered lovingly on the scorched flesh in the form of a lily, before, with a jerk of her chin, she ordered him to his knees. When he would not obey, out of stubbornness or perhaps because he had not understood, another, sideways jerk of her head made Nataraj shove him down. The first blow of the whip tore at skin still bearing the weals from the night before.
    Camille reached out and took a piece of peach, obviously enjoying the feel and taste of the fruit. Only when she had licked the last drops of sticky juice from her lips did she lean forward. “Your hands are in bonds, but you may serve in other ways.”
    Nataraj handed her a bowl of cream. Camille swirled her finger in the concoction, then licked it with relish. Next she dipped two fingers in the cream and proceeded to spread it on the pale expanse of her plunging neckline. While a smile of anticipation started to lift