Chapter One

 

To suggest Paige was a party girl would not be entirely accurate, but on the other hand, wouldn't be entirely wrong either. She certainly liked having fun, but that was hardly unusual for an eighteen-year-old freshman at Harvard.

Her parents were ... comfortable... which meant she certainly had no worries about money, or ideas about getting a part-time job to pay her very high tuition. She was given a nice allowance, and had no issues with purchasing whatever books or course materials, to say nothing of whatever clothes, shoes or creature comforts she desired.

She was an irrepressible girl who loved adventure, and was willing to try almost anything once, if it offered up the prospect of fun and excitement. And in Charlotte, she had met a kindred soul. Charlotte was her suite-mate in the dorm. She was British, and had an accent Paige found incredibly sophisticated, and deeply envied.

Certainly she didn't identity anything particularly novel in how a girl from Los Angeles spoke, nothing which sounded particularly memorable. Nor did she have Charlotte's soft, somewhat deep voice. She thought Charlotte could read a menu and sound both sexy and highly sophisticated.

Aside from both being the daughters of wealthy families (hardly unusual at Harvard), they were remarkably similar in looks. They were both five feet seven inches tall, both were slender and athletic, and both had egg shaped faces, with blue eyes and small noses, and both had shoulder length hair.

Paige was a blonde, however, while Charlotte was a brunette. Paige's hair was straight, simple, and parted in the middle, brushing her shoulders and curling inward a little several inches below her neck. Charlotte had a more complex, layered look with very thick bangs that completely covered her forehead, and longer hair.

Paige had larger breasts by size, but really, when they were pressed together, the difference seemed negligible.

And that was, of course, one area Paige had been more than willing to explore, and to which Charlotte had introduced her to. Sex with girls, after all, promised less threat of things like pregnancy and social diseases, just as much fun, and less likelihood of some blabbermouth date talking about her to his buddies. Something she had some experience with back home.

It hadn't happened all at once, of course. There hadn't been a hint for their first month together. Their second month had led to a deeper acquaintance with going out to parties together, and even making out with boys in the same rooms.

Sex had happened after one such event in their third month, and had been an eye-opening experience for Paige. Charlotte was quite talented in oral sex - an area most of her dates had been deficient in - and Paige had very quickly become enthusiastic about receiving it - and learning how to give back just as good.

In fact, though Paige was ever-appreciative of a fine looking male body, and thought about guys quite a bit, she quickly became a devotee of girl on girl play sex to a greater degree than Charlotte. She had to strongly resist pestering Charlotte, in fact, lest she make her uncomfortable, or worse, make herself look like a pathetic girl with a crush.

She did like Charlotte a great deal, but to suggest she had a girl crush on her was simply not accurate. Rather, she had developed a considerable infatuation with the kind of highly charged sexual highs she felt when Charlotte was running her skilled fingers and tongue over her body.

She, of course, searched out a similar talent in men, but was frustrated in her lack of success. It wasn't as if she could question them ahead of accepting dates, after all. That was the problem with men. You took whatever they had available when they thrust it at you (quite literally), and few of them showed a lot of interest in oral sex, or at least, in giving it, as opposed to receiving it.

That was another area, however, where Charlotte proved to be far ahead of Paige, as she demonstrated with a boy in front of her upstairs at a fraternity house party. Charlotte could deep-throat effortlessly! Paige was, of course, instantly envious and determined to equal her there too.

It took some doing, but once she got the 'mental trick' as Charlotte called it, she was justifiably proud of her enhanced oral skills. Certainly the men she demonstrated it for were suitably impressed. But that just made her feel more indignant that the men seemed to have made so little effort to improve any aspect of their own lovemaking.

"To be honest," she said to Charlotte, "I don't see how the men at Harvard, even the seniors, are any better than the high school guys were. They're both usually half drunk or worse, eager to get at it, and way too happy when it's over."

"Most men don't, unfortunately, change much over the years," Charlotte said, "Aside from to develop some degree of patience - most of them. What skills they possess in the bedroom they've picked up from some lover along the way who was willing to point out their deficiencies and educate them."

"What does that mean?"

"That, my dear, if you want a lover who's good in bed you'll either have to find one some determined girl has already trained, or teach them yourself."

The problem was that struck Paige as simply wrong. She had an oddly old-fashioned view of male female relationships. Or perhaps, old fashioned mixed with modern. She certainly believed in equality in a relationship. On the other hand, her fantasy boyfriend would be big, strong, handsome, confident and a take-charge person.

That didn't quite mesh with her having to correct and teach them what to do in bed...

Her teen view of romance had come from a number of thrilling 'bodice buster' romance novels which she had simultaneously dismissed as dreck even while imagining the handsome, sophisticated, powerfully built men taking her - roughly - thoroughly - and using her like an animal!

That wasn't to say she wanted a man to rip her clothes off, throw her on the bed and ram himself into her without any warm-up, but... well, certainly the fantasy of that was exciting.

As long as they were old clothes anyway...

But so far the only lover who had used any degree of force on her had been Charlotte! For a birthday present! On her nineteenth birthday, in February, she had tied her to the bed spread-eagled, taped her mouth shut, and then used her mouth and a vibrator to almost drive her out of her mind!

One shattering climax after another had caused the helpless blonde to writhe and twist and buck and thrash as her insides had melted down under the flood of sensations. To the point she was barely conscious!

It had been almost literally mind-blowing, and had left her with an incredible desire for more of the same!

Unfortunately, her pride got in the way of admitting any such thing. Especially since Charlotte was just amused and casual about it. She had to, for the sake of her self-esteem, pretend to take it lightly, too. She didn't want Charlotte to think she was some kind of bondage freak who would do just about anything for more of that!

Though she was starting to think she might be!

She couldn't ask boys to tie her up. For one thing, she didn't trust any guys enough to do that. For another, they'd think she was some kind of pervert! She didn't need talk going around the dorm that she was a freak!

March ended the school term, and when she mentioned to Charlotte, with some irritation, that her mother had informed her there were major renovations going on in their house and she'd have to stay in one of the guest rooms for a month, Charlotte invited her to her place.

"Come be a guest of the Hamiltons," she said.

Her place was a castle, an actual castle in the south of England.

"Well, not really a castle," she said, "more of a faux castle."

"I'm sure it's more interesting than our place in Malibu," Paige said.

"Just to warn, we keep our guests in the dungeon," Charlotte said with a smirk.

"Ha. You don't really have a dungeon, do you?"

Charlotte waggled her eyes.

"We reserve it now for lovely blonde slave girls," she said.

Paige gulped.

"I'm sure you'll love the place. It's quite beautiful."

And so it proved to be.

Hamilton castle was built in the tenth century, on a low hill amid a great swath of forest. But it had been mostly destroyed and rotted away until hugely refurbished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It now had huge windows looking out on the valley as well as on its immense courtyard. The 'keep' as Charlotte called it, was far higher than the walls, which were, for the most part, more decorative than deterrent.

"You'd need a ladder, of course," Charlotte said. "But it's not like anyone who came with siege equipment would have much trouble tossing big nasty stones through all those windows up there. It's really more like a large manor house with towers, to be honest."

Charlotte talked about it quite casually but Paige found herself infatuated, and had a hard time not acting like a gawking tourist as the car approached. They drove through a large open gateway and up to an enormous entrance.

The ceiling of the entrance hall was at least fifty feet high. In fact, all of the rooms had astonishingly high ceilings, and the grand hall was like something out of a medieval play! It was a good two hundred feet in length, had a cathedral ceiling fifty feet high from which dangled a double row of chandeliers.

The room she was given had three large arched windows looking out on the woods, with a huge four poster canopy bed! It was extremely old-fashioned, and she was delighted with it! Though, of course, she tried to take things in course and not get too enthusiastic.

Charlotte was so laid-back about things she did her best to not appear to be the same. She was older, at twenty-one, after all, which had made Paige feel a bit like a little girl, right from the start, and determined to act as mature as possible.

And then she'd been introduced to Charlotte's father, Lord Hamilton. He was in the library, a fabulously ornate thing of polished wood and paneled walls. Being introduced to parents was rarely a highlight for Paige, since most seemed to immediately conclude she was a troublemaker (not incorrectly in many cases).

Lord Hamilton, however, was something else again.

"Daddy, this is my friend Paige," Charlotte said.

Mr. Hamilton - Paige wondered momentarily if she should call him Mr. or Lord - got up from behind a desk and came around to them.

He wore a perfectly tailored suit, though with the collar of his shirt open and without a tie. He was easily six feet, with strong shoulders, and a square, chiseled jaw. He had beautiful brown hair which cut across his forehead in a slightly tousled way, and deep, piercing blue eyes.

"How do you do, Paige," he said, holding out his hand.

Paige swallowed. "Fine, sir," she gulped, taking his hand.

Lord Hamilton wasn't exactly handsome. He looked weathered and rugged, with a nose which had been broken some time in his past, and a careless attitude she recognized from Charlotte. He had the same accent, but of course, a deeper voice, and a ... a presence which made her gulp repeatedly as she tried not to look too impressed.

"I'm sure you'll find our weather quite a bit different from Los Angeles," he said with a smile.

"Oh, LA weather gets boring before long," she said.

"Imagine being bored of perfect weather," he said.

"You can get bored of rain and clouds more easily, Paige dear," Charlotte said.

"Maybe, but at least it won't make me break out in freckles," she replied.

"Now that would be a shame. You have very lovely skin," Lord Hamilton said.

"Well, she's nineteen, practically a child," Charlotte said, teasingly.

Paige stuck her tongue out at her, which of course, probably wasn't a good rejoinder so they all laughed.

"This is an amazing castle!" she said.

"Well I don't know about amazing but it's certainly a fine example - ."

"Now you've got him going," Charlotte said.

"Charlotte dear, would you like to be assigned to supervising the cleaning crew by chance?" Lord Hamilton asked sweetly.

"Forget I said anything," Charlotte said.

Her cell phone pinged and she took it out to check a text.

"The original library dates from the twelfth century," Lord Hamilton said. "It wasn't, needless to say, quite as well done back then."

"I'll be back. I have to take a phone call," Charlotte called.

"If you look up there," Lord Hamilton said, putting his hand at the small of Paige's back to guide her, "you can see the original stonework."

"It's hard to believe that was done nine hundred years ago," Paige said, somewhat awed.

"Ah, well, come up to the second floor a moment."

There was a sort of balcony running along the wall. They went up a rounded staircase and emerged to find it wider than she had expected, with shelves running along the walls on either side, most of them with clear glass doors.

Lord Hamilton went up to one and opened it, then took out a very tall, thin, leather bound book.

"This was written by the 12^th Earl in 1007," he said. "It's a description of the effort to repel the Viking invasions, as told by his father, uncles and others."

Paige stared at it in awe.

"That's a thousand years old!? I mean, Vikings!? For real!?"

"Yes, hard to imagine, but to the fellow who wrote this, that was recent history. You can't read it, of course, at least not very well. It's in old English, which was a Germanic language."

He slid it back into place, and his arm went behind her once more to lead her a little further along as Paige stared around her, fascinated. She'd never exactly been a great history buff, but this was living history, it seemed!

Though she was very closely aware of his arm against her back at the same time, not to mention his very masculine presence beside her, and the lithe way he moved. He was probably as old as her own father, she thought, but he certainly didn't look or act it!

She had a thought which almost made her blush - whether he would have the sort of sexual knowledge the boys at college lacked. But almost immediately she answered herself. He would!

Of course, he was Charlotte's father! She had no serious thought of anything happening, but she did sigh, thinking there must surely be other men like him out there somewhere.

"Daddy, you're not boring her with those musty old books, are you?"

"No, it's very interesting," Paige said, looking over the balcony.

"Well, come along and I'll show you some things more interesting than books."

"Run along then, Paige," Lord Hamilton said with a smile.

Yummy, she thought, trotting down the stairs and following Charlotte out.

"Honestly, he can go on forever about those books and this place."

"It is a gorgeous place," Paige said.

"Yes, well, give me a view of the pacific like I see in the videos you've shown of your place, and that lovely warm, sunny weather any time."

She showed Paige to the chapel, the grand drawing room, and then a room where Queen Victoria had stayed before taking her outside to show her the grounds.

They ate dinner in an enormous dining hall and then retreated to a quite modern theater to watch a movie on satellite.

"Seems weird having satellite TV in this place," she said.

"All the conveniences, dear," Charlotte said, lounging on a comfortable modern sofa. "Much of the place does seem like a museum, though, I admit."

Paige felt like she ought to have a candelabra when she went to bed, but sconces on the walls, and table lamps on either side of the bed were very oldish looking, and she was able to tie into the house's Wi-Fi so she could send texts and do some Facebooking before turning out the lights.

And then a soft grating sound near the fireplace jerked her eyes up. She gaped as a part of the wall slid back and then, grinning out at her, was Charlotte.

"Still haven't turned the lights out? Bad girl!"

"You're shitting me! A secret passage!?" Paige gasped, scrambling out of bed.

"Well, not entirely secret. The family knows, after all."

Paige hurried over and Charlotte stepped back and pointed her flashlight down a narrow stone corridor.

"Where does it lead!?"

"Various rooms."

"Was this, like, to escape enemies or something?"

"I suspect it was more to arrange private assignations between people who were married to other than their intended nighttime dalliance," Charlotte said with a smirk. "Come on."

"Wait. I'm just in my nightie!"

"It's a secret passage, girl! You're not going to meet anyone!" Charlotte said with a laugh.

She grabbed Paige by the arm and pulled her into the passage, then pushed a lever and the opening slid closed.

"This is so neat!"

"Shht. No noise."

She led the way down the dark passage, paused to show her a way to look into another room, and how to open the secret door, then led her down a flight of stairs, then down another.

"Where are we going?" Paige whispered.

"The dungeon!"