Welcome to Valenduckie Week!!
All week long we’ll be bringing you the best that romance has to offer – wonderfully romantic stories, memories, and book recommendations. We have enlisted the help of some of the best of the best to help us out in this love-inspired endeavor. One of these cupids is Sabrina Jeffries, author of the upcoming Let Sleeping Rogues Lie (releasing 19 Feb 08). Sabrina has lost her mind graciously agreed to host our Valenduckie progressive story, much the way E.C. Sheedy did for us last Halloween for our Spooktacular event.
So without further ado, I give you Sabrina Jeffries…
You can blame E.C. Sheedy for this. She let Sybil talk her into the Spooktacular last year, and it was such a great success that Sybil dreamed up Valenduckie Week. Which is why I’m here. Because Sybil knows I can never resist a challenge (that Sybil is evol, I tell you).
Unfortunately, I am also supposed to be writing two books this year, a reckless pace for me. So here’s your chance to help me out. I’ll start us off, and anyone who wants to can add a paragraph (or two or three). The story will evolve from there into a glorious Valentine. Or at least a funny one, I hope. Editors across Romanceland will be begging to publish this by the time we get done (begging, I tell you).
I’ll even throw in an epigram to begin, as I do in my books.
Sabrina Jeffries
Great Lord Fabulous looked out, on the Feast of Valentine,
where the snow lay round about, deep and thick and Byzantine.
Fab, as he was known to his Eton friends, scowled. All this damned snow complicated his plans to seduce Lady Aurelia Longbottom. He’d planned to warm her up for the seduction during their drive in his phaeton, but maneuvering the vehicle on bad roads would require all his skill. So no holding hands under the blanket, no fumbling with her skirts. He wanted to tumble her, not … well … tumble her.
At the thought of Lady Aurelia landing bottom-up in the snow, he let a smile touch his lips. It didn’t quite meet his eyes, stopping halfway up the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t his seductive smile-that one he saved for Aurelia. No, it was his devilish smile, the one he used when thinking up dark mischief.
He needed a different plan of attack. Somehow he’d have to persuade Lady Aurelia to ride with him alone in a closed carriage, no small feat with the woman Society called La Prude for her prudent ways.
He felt something lick his hand, and found Raksha nuzzling his wrist. He’d acquired the tiger while spying for the Crown in Tibet. She purred as he scratched her under the chin. “You little minx. Perhaps I should use you to coax La Prude out for a ride. Aurelia likes animals. And you haven’t attacked anyone in at least a month.”
Raksha sank her teeth into the fleshy part of his hand, a little love bite, nothing to worry about. But it gave him an idea…
In addition to a good giggle, adding your bit to our Story Cupid’s tale might net you a copy of Sabrina’s upcoming Let Sleeping Rogues Lie. WOOT!
Fab quickly bandaged the small wound with his silk handkerchief, embroidered with a humorous “I’m Fab’s” and feigned a pained look as he rolled to a stop in front of the Longbottom’s country house.
House, he smirked. More like a bloody mansion. Schooling his features to the suitably wounded look he was aiming for, he descended from the carriage…
His feet had just hit the ground when the grand glass doors of the mansion opened and Lady Aureila stepped out. Regal swirled through his mind, followed by too many clothes. La Prude walked toward him covered from neck to foot in layer after layer of…
Damn it! He had his work cut out for him this day.
Fab bowed briefly to Lady Aurelia, cradling his ‘wounded’ hand. As he slowly navigated the slippery steps to the front portico of the house, he pondered how best to play his hand.
***
Lady Aurelia watched the foppish Lord Fab wade thru the newly fallen snow, glad the groundskeepers hadn’t yet removed the snow. She sincerely hoped the wet, cold slush was making its way to the inside of the Fab’s highly polished shoes.
Her mood was so foul, she actively considered how to make Fab even more miserable. Dumping him in the snow? Sneering at his clothes? No. None of that would work.
Then she noticed him cradling his hand…
Oh, but she so loved incapacitated men–and Lord Fab in his present condition was a gift from the gods. There would be sport tonight . . .
Her mood lifted ever so slightly, and she took two small steps toward him, careful to keep her feet–her shame–tucked well under her voluminous skirts.
When she was close enough to be heard, she said, “Lord Fab, how brave you are to venture out on such a night as this. Pray, do come in before you catch your death.” She glanced at his bleeding hand, smiled. “A wound! How dreadful.”
Lord Fab tossed his ass-length blond hair, too long even for today’s fashion, and said, “It’s naught but the bite of a tiger, La prud– Lady Aurelia. Not to worry.”
“Ah, but I’ve a mind to, uh, worry, my Lord. Now please, do come in. Fortunately mother has restocked the iodine cabinet.”
“Your kindness has been well sought this night.” Lord Fab bowed in grand style, and promptly lost his footing . . .
Lady Aurelia looked on in horror are Lord Fab lost his battle to remain upright and landed in the slushy snow in a tangle of hair and great coat.
“My lord, let’s get you into the house and out of those wet clothes.”
tee hee
Oh sorry – lost my train of thought for a moment – on to the story…
—
Aurelia helped Fab up off his now very wet behind and hurried him into the house and in front of the entry hall’s warm fire. She instructed the butler to ensure that Lord Fab was brought a warm dressing robe to wear while his clothes were brushed and cleaned.
Lord Fab disappeared for a few moments with the butler and returned wearing nothing but some slippers and a robe.
Aurelia could feel saliva pooling in her mouth at the thought of what lay beneath that robe. Her feet, her only shame, fair curled at the thought…
But no, she should not let him affect her this way. He didn’t know it, but he was the one who’d ruined her brother’s cousin’s nephew at the gaming tables. She was determined to despise him, no matter how nicely his chest filled out that robe.
Was he hairy? Would his hair be blond or dark brown? She did so love a man with hair in the right spots …
With nary a thought, Aurelia took a step closer to Fab and reached a hand out, aching to begin her exploration to answer such questions. She snapped her hand back to her side, however, when Maisy, the housekeeper, came into room. Drat!
“Would you like tea now, Miss?”
Tea? Now? Aurelia huffed and seared the woman with a fierce scowl.
“I would love some tea,” Fab said.
Auerelia’s brows shot into a skyward arch. Well, mayhap she could hold his cup for him with one hand while her other discovered unmentionable places…
“Tea would be wonderful, thank you.” She demurred before turning back to Lord Fab. “Would you like a seat?”
“Thank you.”
She watched as he sat down right as Maisy brought in the tray with tea and biscuits. “I’ll serve.” she said, waving the maid away and hoping she would be the last interruption for the eve.
The door closed as she picked up the tea pot and began to fill Lord Fab’s tea cup, her eyes moving from the steady stream of hot tea to the neckline of his robe that had begun to fall open.
“My hand!” he cried and she jumped back, startled to see the white towel around his hand stained darkly.
“Oh no!” wailed Auerelia as she quickly put down the tea pot and took his poor wounded and now very red hand that she had burned in her own.
Lord Fab moaned, which could either be from the scorching pain or perhaps the perfect view he had of her heaving bosum. Ever so slowly he moved in closer. Auerelia could feel something hard against her thigh as he rubbed against her own. She looked into his eyes as she practically tried to climb onto his lap when suddenly…
he noticed her unfortunate feet. Large and ungainly from her secret childhood spent in Africa as the child of ivory-hunters, they were always kept carefully hidden beneath her skirts. But there was no getting round it now. He’d seen them.
“Good God,” he said ….
. . . those arches, those ankles, those long, nay, endless toes, nine of them tipped by nails the color of blood. Until this moment his manly appetites were whetted by breasts, narrow waists, and shapely calves, but feet? He shook his beautiful head, waited for the rattling to cease, yet was still unable to tear his gaze away from her lower extremities. Indeed, he could scarcely breathe.
“God’s teeth, Aurelia, your feet! They’re–”
Aurelia cursed, a most unladylike curse, and lifted stormy eyes to meet his. “You were saying something, my Lord?”
It took every ounce of breeding Fab possessed to say “amazingly l-l-l-lovely.” He coughed to cover the laughter that threatened to spill out. My God, he thought, the gypsy had been correct.
Sabrina as cupid is now stuck in my head! LOL great add-lib here everyone! Jen 🙂
The old crone had come to Fabulous Park on the night of his birth. Fab’s father, drunk on brandy and the triumph of having an heir at last, had stared dumbfounded as his usually discriminating butler escorted the wizened woman into the private sanctum of his study.
“Lord Fabulous,” she had creaked in a tone weighed down with age, “You have offended the Rom. Now your son will pay the price of your folly,”
“What are you nattering about?” He poured himself another drink and called for his butler. “Peters! You know I cannot abide this gypsy riffraff! Get her from my sight and off my lands!”
The old lady cackled and something dark moved in her gaze. ‘He shall not hear you, but you shall hear me and rue the day you took my brother’s hand for poaching fish from your stream.”
She began to speak and her voice rose in both power and volume.
“Nations may be conquered by intrigue,
the ocean by ship or by barge.
But your son’s destiny will be ruled
by a woman with feet both calloused and large.”
Fab shook his head to clear the memory of the story told him by his father’s old retainer, Peters. He peered again at the floor, hoping to catch yet another glimpse of Aurelia’s feet – just to assure himself he saw correctly.
However, true to her form, she had them tucked, out of site, under her voluminous skirts. She also appeared to have tucked away the sensual side of her nature he saw peeking out when she sat to pour the tea.
Fab cursed and considered what he could do to regain the ground lost, when it occurred to him – fetish. Fetishes were the latest fad with the Ton. Could he feign something as odd as a “foot” fetish?
“You have the nerve to laugh at my feet when your hair is ridiculously long?!” she asked. He wanted to tell her no, that her feet were the most beautiful feet he had ever seen. Aurelia thought to herself what she would give to stroke his flowing locks all the way down to his shapely ass…
–sidebar–
I’m lovin’ this! So funny LOL
In fact, Aurelia moved towards Fab to touch his glorious hair – to see if it really was as perfect as it appeared. Unfortunately, as she neared he stood abruptly, and fell over her ungainly feet. As he went flying forward, his hair streamed out and caught on the brooch Lady Aurelia had pinned on her dress.
“Ahhh my hair!” Fab howled as his knee banged against the table.
Aurelia yelped as Fab howled and they both tumbled to the floor. Now his hair was in knots and Aurelia’s ugly ass feet slammed very hard against his nose! Fab’s nose started to bleed and he saw stars. As the blood trickled down his chin, Aurelia could not help but notice….
…how the door burst open to admit the butler. He seemed a mite perturbed. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but there’s a tiger loose on the grounds! A slavering, bloodthirsty beast bent on having us all for tea!”
Aurelia’s bosom began heaving double-time. Fab’s nose sprayed a delicate circular rain of scarlet droplets as he looked out the window in search of his beloved pet. How could he have forgotten about Raksha, no matter what astonishing feet pranced within the manor! The last time Raksha ate an undergardener, she’d had quite an upset tummy….
With a hand to his bleeding nose, Lord Fab struggled to his feet, which seemed so small next to Aurelia’s much larger ones, and rushed to the French doors leading to the brightly colored gardens behind the mansion. He had to make sure Raksha munched on a proper snack this time to avoid a repeat of that horrid night caused by the undergardner’s huge…
“Raksha!” Fab reached the edge of the lake on the far side of the gardens and saw a small island several meters from the shore. He heard his pet roar with hunger and spotted the animal just as he began stalking — good God, was that La Prude’s father sunbathing on the island? Rushing headlong into the freezing water, he swam as fast as he could to prevent impending disaster.
His sure strokes pushed him through the placid water, but suddenly waves began to slow him down as Aurelia passed him by, kicking those humongous feet with all her might. She hit the beach before Fab had reached the halfway mark. So much for being physically fit. He’d just been shown up by the footsies he’d rather have playing with his…
beautiful hair was weighing him down! Lord Fab was about to drown because he dipped his head underwater and his flowing hair had grown too heavy. Just then he felt two very large hands brush under him…they were actually Aurelia’s feet lifting him out of the water. Lord Fab spluttered out of the water and then thanked Aurelia. He began calling for Raksha, who was cowering under a tree at the sight of Aurelia’s naked father….
… ‘s dragon tattoo that took up almost all of his exposed skin. The tattoo stopped just below where a collar would call and above where cuffs would be.
Fab was non-plussed. He had no idea what to say. His tiger had been stalking this man. His daughter saved him from drowning with her ginormous feet. The only two clothed people on the island were standing there soaked to the skin, panting. The unclothed one scrambled up and said, “Your wearing my dressing gown! Do you mind?”
Fab glanced down at his body and said…
“As you wish, my Lord.”
Left without recourse, Fab shrugged out of the dripping robe, pulled his hair from behind his shoulder, and used it to conceal what he could of his powerful manly lance–somewhat the worse for wear after his cold swim.
“Raksha, come.” The tiger did as he was bade and sat in front of Fab.
Aurelia’s father wasted no time. Donnng the robe, and seating himself in the small craft he’d used to get to the isle, he quickly rowed off.
Fab, naked but drying quickly under the hot February 14th sun, turned to Aurelia. “You have me at a disadvantage, my lady.” He glanced to the warming sky, then ran his glittering gaze over her sodden clothes.
His voice was low, smokey and scented with seduction, and Aurelia transfixed,could naught but stare, down there, behind his hair.
Oh, what to do, she thought, what to do . . .
He had something sticking out down there. It was purple. Was that normal? Or was he, like her, a freak of nature, only in his privates?
As she watched, the purple thing moved, and she screamed.
“Do not be frightened of Raksha, my sweet. She likes to watch.”
“But Fab …
— side note —
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Okay – carry on…
— back to the story —
“Yes my scrumptious big footed love?” Fab asked oblivious to the look of fear in Aurelia’s eyes.
“Umm there is something…”
“Yes? Ree Ree? May I call you that?” Fab inquired as he pet his large pulsing tiger.
Aurelia sputtered. No one calls her Ree Ree!
Fab slowly started to lean over to kiss his Ree Ree when he felt he patted his lap “Oh, why my other pet has come out to play! Would you like to know his nickname?”
It has a nickname? She didn’t know what its proper name was to begin with. And what is it with his nickname fetish? But she still couldn’t stop staring at it. It became more purplish as she studied it. Bigger too.
She pulled her gaze away from it with difficulty and looked at Fab. She gasped. His lips were but a hairsbreadth away from hers, his eyes sparkled with a look she’d never seen before.
“May I touch it?” she whispered.
“By all means, my lady,” he said.
She reached a hand toward it…well, she had to call “it” something.
“What is its nickname?” she asked.
“I call it — AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
Raksha found her midday snack.
Aurelia looked down at the tiger. “Is that what it’s….”
supposed to look like? Oh my gosh! It has two heads! It can’t be! Are you the heir to the throne? You must be! No one else in all the lands has a two headed purple amazon dickish! It is absulutely gorgeous! I must touch it!” She yelled a little to loudly. As she did the tiger fell over her two humongous feet in it’s attempt to scrabble away from Aurelia. Her sodden clothes weighing her down, Aurelia tumbled toward Fab, in her attempt to touch the amazing amazon dickish.
Thwat! Splash! Oomph! Aurelia landed with a thud at Fab’s soaking feet. “Oh my, what have we here?” She thought as she looked up slowly between…
…her oversized feet and his oversized AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Why they might well be a perfectly matched pair! After all, both were out of proportion in respect to their genders. *she peeked again quickly at the purple python proudly raised before her*
“Maybe you should get dressed” she said to him. “With what?!,” he exclaimed. She began to reach under her dress and pull off her pantaloons and extracted her chemise through her sleeve. She said, “Here, put these on for now.” Lord Fab looked at her undergarments in horror. “My AHHHHHHH would never FIT into those undergarments my lady.” “We could cram it in”, she said. Lord Fab donned her chemise, which was a lovely shade of pink and turned to her for help with her pantaloons….
and promptly fell over, tangling the pantaloons in his haste to get up. Helplessly he looked at her for a moment then shrugged. Well, I guess I better get dressed if I plan on getting out of here, he thought to himself. Struggling with the oversized pink undergarments, Lord Fab managed to get himself upright. The undergarments looked ridiculous on him.
Aurelia shrieked with delight at the sight of Lord Fab. “Oh my! You are absolutely hilarious in those!” As Lord Fab turned his head to look at himself a jolt to his back suddenly knocked him off balance. The…
The jolt brought with it a piercing sensation, and he turned his head slightly in an effort to see its source. It was near his shoulder. He felt a tingling but no pain, just a sure and steady warmth. A warmth now heating his back, sinking to his nethers, building in the sureness of his strong heart.
La Prude cried out, “My Lord, you’ve been hit . . . with I know not what. Turn about, I beg you. Let me see to it.” Aurelia shifted her feet to allow him to turn-and turn he did. “Oh, dear,” Aurelia said. “It is an arrow, with golden feathers at its end. Whatever can it be?”
Just then there was a rustling in the trees overhead, the sound of a giggle, gay and childish.
Lord Fab, still basking in the heat of his new wound, glanced up, and there, perched on a limb, and wearing a very pleased expression was . . .
An angel. No, a swan. No, a cupid? It seemed too large to be a cupid, and despite the childish giggle, its form was so substantial that the branch was straining under its weight.
Oh, Lord, surely it wasn’t Prinny with wings. Could it be the prince, naked, headed home from some costume party? But then how in the devil was that branch holding him up?
Crash!
It wasn’t. Not anymore.
Aurelia screamed as the winged fellow headed toward her. “Fab, quick, you have to save me!” she cried. “Papa has made a bargain with Cupido that I am to share his bed for one night in exchange for a dukedom and a large Cheshire cheese.”
“He will not have you,” Fab pronounced as he pulled the arrow free. It was a magical arrow, and he’d begun to feel rather woozy. Cupido must have tipped it with…
Morning dew gathered from a passion flower after the night of a full moon in the middle of summer. Everyone knew its invigorating effects upon one’s base desires and the ease which the victim of such could be swayed to act rashly. He glared at the infernal insidious Cupido, curled his lip…and could not help but become aware of the beauty and breadth or the villain’s wings…Blast it! He would not succumb. Fab tore his gaze away in desperation and looked down. There in all of their glory were the most deliciously long toes, Aurelia’s outsized attributes, the solid base upon which she stood her ground. For this, for her he could do battle, he just wouldn’t be able to look at his foe for fear of becoming enamored with the enemy.
Immediately a wind whipped furiously through the trees causing rippling over the translucent water, sending little waves of delirium through Fab’s body as he lay in wonder and awe of the magical powers sweeping over him from the hexed arrow. Blast it all anyway! He kept telling himself he would not succomb but the spell coursed through his veins making all the world slip away as he smoothly laid down next to Aurelia’s gargantuan toes. He looked at them and smiled. Oh to sweep his fingers over her toes in the liquidy water. What sweet sedution! Ooo…what sweet desires!
All at once…
*OUCH!* Fab looked down, to see another arrow, with golden feathers at its end protruding from his thigh. The extremely … hefty cupid peeked around a tree trunk and giggled at them again, although cupid was so large he was clearly visible around both sides of the trunk.
“Well dem me, you shot me again! What is the meaning of this?” Fab exclaimed angrily, yanking the arrow out of his thigh. He glanced at his wonderful large footed Ree Ree and was struck by a wave of emotion so strong, he almost felt ill. “Quickly, my darlingest Ree Ree – I have a plan! We will elope – and buy a cheese!”
“Elope? A cheese?” Aurelia tried to step back, but tripped over her own feet.
[threadjack]
*gasping for air*
I’m just an spectator… carry on, people
*laughing some more*
[/threadjack]
“Yes, a cheese!” Fab said. “And I know JUST the one. Quick, my love, give me your hand!”
Though somewhat skeptical, Aurelia took one look at Cupido’s maniacal grin and figured she was better off with Fab’s long hair and even longer “lance” than with Cupido’s wings and predisposition for shooting magic arrows at unsuspecting people. She let Fab pull her over to Raksha and seat her upon the tiger’s back just behind him. She’d had no idea two people could ride a tiger, but apparently Raksha had been trained in the circus, for the tigress broke into a loping run that had them miraculously outpacing Cupido in seconds, especially when Aurelia began using her large feet to push them along faster.
They traveled for two days and three nights, over hill and dale (and dale and hill), until they came to the seat of the dukedom Cupido had promised Aurelia’s father. It had suddenly dawned on Fab why the Cheshire cheese connection sounded so familiar. Clearly, Aurelia had misheard her father’s comment. It wasn’t the cheese and a dukedom that Cupido promised, but the cheese that would BUY a dukedom.
He had heard from Peters of the mystical Cheshire cheese, the key to a dukedom, which could only be purchased by a cupid’s arrow, and he had TWO of them sticking out of him. All he had to do was present one of the arrows at the Office of Applicants for Cheese Dukedoms, and he would have the cheese and thus the key to the dukedom.
Then he could bestow it at will upon whomever he wished.
“Tell me, my love,” he asked Aurelia as they stood outside the Office. “After I remove one of the arrows to obtain the cheese with which to purchase the dukedom your father so desires, would you marry me? Would you allow me to lick your feet and suck your toes for as long as we both shall live? Or must my lance linger forever in torment, shriveled down to a purple pea for love of you?”
Aurelia gazed deeply into Fab’s eyes, her heart filling with joy as she realized that he truly LOVED her feet the way they were. That proved that he was seriously flawed, which only made her realize that she loved HIM. The blond Adonis with the purple lance who could have any woman he wanted had been hard to love, but a crazy man with a foot fetish willing to sport her pink underwear in his eagerness to save her from his Unintentional Nakedness might actually have something to offer her.
“I WILL marry you,” she said, as she lifted her arms to encircle his oh-so-manly neck. “But only under one condition.”
He drew her into his arms, taking great care to avoid the arrow still sticking out of his thigh. “And what might that be, my sweet Ree-Ree?”
“That you never call me Ree-Ree again.”
“It is done,” he said solemnly.
As their lips met in a glorious kiss right in front of the Office for Applicants for Cheese Dukedoms, the arrows fell out, enabling them to purchase the cheese with perfect ease.
Then, riding upon the tiger, they went forth to claim the dukedom. And when they came before the Council of Cheese, who demanded that they perform the ritual Ceremony of Slicing in order to stake their claim, they joined hands in grasping the knife and brought it down on the mystical cheshire together.
And there was much rejoicing in the land. At last the people had gained a leader strong enough to cut the cheese.
*standing ovation* Bravo!!!!!!! Bravisssimo!!!! *furious applause*
Great job, everyone! So much fun. I’m thinking this is an epic that’ll last through the ages! Anyone? 😉
Awesome, thanks, Sabrina. Fab and La Prude were absolutely meant for each other!
“leader strong enough to cut the cheese” LOL
And thanks to all of YOU for your contributions. This was so much fun!!
Sabrina, this was a lot of fun to read through – great job, everyone, thanks for the entertainment.