Ella had two bedrooms: the one she slept in and the one she allowed her lovers to enter. A large dressing room separated the two bedchambers. The pleasures of the flesh through one door; the comfort of a serene night’s sleep through the other.
Her bedchamber, the one her lovers never saw, was a sanctuary, a place of privacy and repose. Its palette was very different from the rich, sensual crimson and gold of her boudoir. It was a warm blush pink with notes of amber and peach and ripe apricot, the colors of soft sunrises and peaceful summer mornings.
HerThis morning wasn’t a summer morning, though; it was an autumn morning, and a cold one at that. A fire burned in the grate in the dressing room, pressing back the chill the room had acquired overnight. The candles in the girandole mirror a
