The Lady Smut Book of Dark Desires (An Anthology) Read online

  The Lady Smut Book of Dark Desires

  LIZ EVERLY

  MADELINE IVA

  C. MARGERY KEMPE

  ELIZABETH SHORE

  A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  HarperImpulse an imprint of

  HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014

  Copyright © Liz Everly, Madeline Iva, C. Margery Kempe, Elizabeth Shore

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

  Liz Everly, Madeline Iva, C. Margery Kempe, Elizabeth Shore assert the moral right

  to be identified as the authors of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

  the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

  entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International

  and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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  written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © November 2014

  ISBN: 9780007594504

  Version 2014-10-27

  Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Lying, The Witch & The Wardrobe

  The Immortal Longing of Brenna Bang

  Sexsomnia

  Divine

  About Us

  About HarperImpulse

  About the Publisher

  The Lying, The Witch & The Wardrobe

  By

  C. Margery Kempe

  We must not look at goblin men,

  We must not buy their fruits,

  Who knows upon what soil they fed

  Their hungry, thirsty roots?

  ~ Christina Rossetti, The Goblin Market

  Jeanie looked up at the big rambling farmhouse with a mixture of happiness and misgiving. The worn clapboard had the comforting familiarity only your own childhood home could keep. But returning now just meant she had failed.

  Again.

  "This is the place?" The cab driver must have noticed her strange expression.

  Jeanie flushed. "Yes, this is it. How much do I owe you?"

  Before she even stepped out of the taxi, two figures appeared on the porch, waving eagerly. "Welcome home!"

  Jeanie waved back as she and the driver walked to the back of the car to retrieve her bags. Her mother's cheery face lifted her spirits and her grandmother's cheeks glowed with a pleasure that was hard to resist. And why should she?

  "It's so good to see you!"

  "Is that all the bags you have?"

  Jeanie hugged them both tightly, kissing one cheek and then the other. "Yes, a few more things coming by the shipping company later on, but these are the essentials." So little! It was a bit daunting to know how few belongings she had accumulated in her life so far.

  Of course, it made moving that much easier.

  The two women hustled her inside, chattering a mile a minute as she threw her bags down just inside the door, refusing any help. They were both strong women, but at twenty three Jeanie was more than fit enough to handle the weight of her own life, so to speak.

  "Time for a cuppa?" Her grandmother bustled into the kitchen without waiting for an answer, knowing there would be no debate. Indeed the kettle already whistled in anticipation. Jeanie saw with a sudden surge of pleasure that the tea tray was already laid, the beautiful blue and white Staffordshire pot ready for the hot water and its snuggly cozy that looked like a rooster. The cups that surrounded it on the tray were mismatched, but she saw her favorite elegant gold filigree cup and saucer were there. They were an essential part of her mad childhood tea parties when she pretended to be queen for the day.

  Her grandmother filled the teapot with boiling water and the exquisite aroma of Earl Grey filled the kitchen. "Biscuits? Or bread and butter?" Jeanie's mother asked.

  "Oh, surely biscuits!" Beatrice might be a grandmother, but her tastes still reflected a girlish delight in sweets, something her trim figure belied. Jeanie always marveled at her.

  "Well, it is a special occasion," her mother said with a smile. Gabriella didn't have her mother's lanky frame but she wasn't one to deny herself the little pleasures of life, particularly since her husband had died. Jeanie didn't remember him too well herself, but her mother's stories of his gentle humor and sweet romantic ways never failed to make her yearn for such happiness herself.

  Jeanie pushed that thought away. She didn't need one more reason to feel depressed. "It's so good to get such a welcome home." She did her best to smile bravely and felt the better for it. Here in the kitchen of her childhood home everything seemed a little brighter after all.

  "We're grateful to have you here, my dear." Beatrice kissed the top of her head as Jeanie took her seat at the big oak table.

  "I hope you are happy to be here," Gabriella said with the slightest air of anxiety.

  "I am," Jeanie said too quickly, then laughed half-heartedly. "There's nowhere I'd rather be licking my wounds than home."

  Beatrice tutted. "Now, now, we'll have none of that. We all have our disappointments. It's part of life."

  "If you're not failing, you're not trying," Gabriella said, laying a tender hand on her daughter's arm. "Take it from one who knows."

  "Mother, you're not failing!"

  "I'm not even trying," she said softly but firmly. "I'm proud of you for putting yourself out there and reaching for success. Sometimes it just eludes us."

  "And it's not your fault the business folded." Beatrice poured the tea into their cups, bustling around the table.

  "No, it wasn't my fault," Jeanie said. "But I should have realized it was happening. The signs were certainly there. I'm just not sure I cared to see them."

  "You'll find something new," her mother encouraged. "Maybe something locally."

  "It was such a long way away," Beatrice agreed.

  Jeanie laughed. "I was less than a two hour drive! I don't think I missed a holiday here apart from that snowstorm that made me late for Easter."

  "But we love having you here," Gabriella said, munching a chocolate biscuit. "You can rest up for a while before you look for a new job."

  As Jeanie carried her bags up to her old room, she ruminated on her mother's words. The thought of looking for another job filled her with despair but she couldn't just sit here and hide from the world, although that plan had a lot of appeal just now.

  She dropped her bags on the floor and looked around the room. It hadn't changed a jot since her last visit home, save for the little box of chocolates on her pillow. That brought a smile. I love you, mom! The view out the window toward the orchard
s also brought a poignant ache to her heart. There really was no place like home.

  Jeanie sank onto the bed and let the tears welling in her eyes spill down her cheeks. Despite the kind words of her mother and grandmother, she felt very much like a failure.

  Sure, it wasn't her fault that Morris, Hunt & Holman had collapsed taking a couple dozen jobs down with them. The signs had begun to appear six months ago. Her cubicle partner Liz took off soon after. "You should get out, too," she'd confided to Jeanie between sips of champagne at the going-away party. "The writing's on the wall."

  She couldn't say she didn't know. So why hadn't she done anything to stave off the inevitable? It wasn't that she loved her job so much that she couldn't bear the thought of leaving. It was fun enough, but Jeanie had never really been passionate about marketing, not like Liz.

  Face it, she was just lazy. Jeanie sighed. Look at this room! If she hadn't taken down the now-embarrassing posters of her teen pop star crushes, it would look little different from when she was in high school.

  Maybe even junior high, Jeanie realized with a sinking feeling. She had to stop feeling sorry for herself and do something useful. Rubbing her eyes to dry them, she hopped up and went over to her altar. Clearly her mother had dusted it, but the half-burned candles had a neglected air so she stuck them in the cabinet below and got some fresh ones out. Crossing the room she opened her red bag to remove the figures that had graced the altar in her flat in Springfield. Freya, Kali, Brigit and Bast looked much more at home here in her old room, circling around the Ganesh statue her father had bought for her birth. The elephant-headed god always remained here, a spiritual anchor to her home.

  With a lifetime of practice, Jeanie cleared her mind and focused. I am here, I am present, the magic is in me. She lit a candle of welcome and thankfulness and prepared to set her intentions. For a moment she faltered, then fell back on her standard mantra: I am ready for the opportunities the fates bring my way. Let me be open to the possibilities.

  That simple act of faith made Jeanie feel immensely better. She set about putting away the rest of her clothes and things with a pleasant song humming in her head. After all, she was home, the apples were ripening in the orchard, summer still held its golden sway. In fact as the morning wore on the room was beginning to feel a bit too warm.

  Jeanie stepped out into the hall to open the door to the 'jumble room' as they always called it. Getting the stubborn window open in there would get a cross breeze going and cool things down much faster.

  It took a few tries to get the sash up. The wood had swollen in the summer heat. Chances were no one had tried to open it yet that year. Her mother and grandmother both had rooms on the lower floors. Jeanie propped the window open with the little stick kept on the sill for that purpose and then looked around the jumble room. It hadn't changed much either. For years it had accumulated anything out of season or unused and on its way to being discarded.

  Yet even here, the neatness of the house continued. Snow boots were lined up on racks. The various seasonal decorations were carefully stowed in neatly labeled boxes. Jeanie smiled. In any other house, this room would be an overstuffed chaos. The only discordant note came from the seemingly ancient mystery of her childhood: the antique wardrobe that stood like a sentinel between the two windows.

  Jeanie approached it, feeling the anticipatory thrill of intrigue work its way up her spine. She knew the story well. It had belonged to her grandmother's grandmother, Lizzie, and was made from the oak of a single tree. In their family, oak and apple had always been intertwined with family legends. Their orchards were watched over by mighty oaks hundreds of years old. Jeanie had wandered among them since she could first walk.

  But this wardrobe retained its eerie appeal. It had belonged to her grandmother's grandmother, but it had been sealed by that woman's best friend and sister, Laura. Jeanie traced the red wax seal that bound the ribbon around it. Although wax, it did not give way to knife or nail, which Jeanie and her friends had all tried at various times.

  The blood red wax bore a hand print, Laura's she had been told. Jeanie traced it now. It very nearly matched her own hand's size. As familiar as the shape of it had been all her life, the mystery of it pricked her curiosity as much as ever. Not least because Laura had disappeared without a trace.

  Old magic, powerful magic… what took her away? They only knew what Beatrice's grandmother had told her family, that the young woman had been taken by the goblin men. Jeanie shuddered. The goblin men had been part of her childish nightmares after she had begged to know the story. Jeanie memorized the animal-headed grotesques in Arthur Rackham's illustrations with a delighted horror then regretted as they tromped through her bedroom in the dark.

  She looked up at the top of the wardrobe where the legend was carved. There is no friend like a sister, the carved letters announced, in calm or stormy weather. What secrets did the enchanted box hold? Why had the goblin men stolen Laura away? Even back in the nineteenth century such news would have brought out the doctors and skeptics. Goblins indeed! If Jeanie hadn't grown up in a family of witches, she supposed that it would be very hard to believe indeed.

  Not that she had seen any goblin men. Her mother was of the opinion that the worlds that contained other beings like goblins and the fae no longer intersected with their own. "Technology and the hustle bustle of modern life," Gabriella said, when Jeanie had quizzed her for the umpteenth time. "Why, I expect that's what drove them away. Though now and then I almost think I can hear the bells of that other land in the distance."

  "Do you ever seek it out?" Jeanie had asked, full of the boldness of the very young.

  Her mother had laughed. "No, child. What would I find there that I don't already have here?" Then she'd enveloped her in a fierce hug until Jeanie wriggled free with a child's thoughtless impatience. Her father's death was still a raw wound then, Jeanie realized with a start. Poor mama.

  Maybe that was why Jeanie dreamed of goblins that night despite the comfort of her familiar old bed. Just as the first light of dawn approached the unsettling images woke her, startled and at first uncertain of her location. Jeanie rolled away from the sunlight's persistence and tried to organize her thoughts.

  It was times like this she missed her old cat, Boo. The fluffy black cat with the white patch on her chest would sleep at the foot of her bed and when Jeanie wrestled with nightmares, Boo would wake her with a paw to the face as if to say, "Stop that!"

  Maybe she should get a kitten, Jeanie thought, then felt a stab of despair. Did that mean she was giving up and staying? She sat up, determined to push defeat away. Besides, there was something else. Jeanie frowned. There was something almost sensual in the dream, but the memory eluded her. She felt aroused, which reminded her how long it had been since she'd felt that way.

  As she got up and dressed, Jeanie contemplated the depressing fact of her sex life. It had been months without a good workout: she had been dating Bill for a while and Stan before that. Neither too exciting, but she had been concentrating on work going south. Jeanie made a face at her reflection. Was there some rule about not having a good job, home and relationship all at the same time?

  She trotted downstairs to find her mother up and making zucchini bread. "What else are we going to do with all of them," Gabriella groaned, gesturing at the basket full of green.

  "Do you need some help?"

  "What I need is some more sugar. Would you mind running to the store? There are a couple other things on the list on the fridge."

  Jeanie tore the list off the pumpkin magnet pad and scribbled 'sugar' at the bottom of the list. "Shall I take your car or gran's?"

  "Take mine dear. It's easier to park."

  Jeanie hopped in her mother's compact car and pulled out onto the main road. Something from her dreams still haunted the back of her mind, a tune perhaps. It proved elusive, but it was almost as if her tongue remembered it. But there was something dark as well, a shadow that made her shiver despite the warm morning
sun.

  By the time she pulled into the supermarket parking lot, Jeanie found it had all slipped away. No matter. It was just a dream. But as she stood in the produce section by the heaps of berries, the tune very nearly returned. Come by, was it? Or come buy? Same thing, or different?

  "Well, look who's back," an overly cheery voice broke in. It was accompanied by the garishly made-up face of Loretta Wanger behind an oversized shopping cart with a squealing child perched in it.

  Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Jeanie thought, trying to smother her desire to run screaming from the produce section. "Well, hello Loretta."

  "I suppose you just got in," Loretta said, giving Jeanie the once over and taking in her t-shirt, jeans and hastily pinned up hair. "How long are you in town? Get that out of your mouth!" The latter comment was directed at her small child, who had taken advantage of her mother's momentary inattention to stuff a large onion into her mouth and hum around it.

  "Oh, not sure at the moment," Jeanie said with as much evasiveness as she could manage while she watched Loretta try to remove the onion from the mouth of her toddler, who had apparently bit into it and was now simultaneously shrieking albeit in a muffled way as tears ran down her cheeks.

  "So help me Hannah," Loretta sputtered as she wrestled with the child, "if she's not into one thing then it's another. Spit it out!"

  "Well, I should probably leave you—"

  "There!" Loretta held up the onion in triumph while her spawn proceeded to scream at top volume. "How long did you say you'd be around?"

  "Oh, not sure, it might be a couple weeks…" Why couldn't she just lie? Or shove an onion into Loretta's mouth. If there was one thing everyone could agree with about Loretta, it was that she was an incorrigible blabbermouth.

  "Oh no," Loretta said with exaggerated alarm, "You didn't lose your job did you?"

  No, I just mislaid it. "The whole firm went under, alas." Jeanie gave her best I'm-taking-it-on-the-chin look and tried to smile in a way that ought to seem brave.