by Emily Larkin
* * *
Before dinner was served, Icarus found a moment to run upstairs. “Green, you’ve performed a miracle! And you even cut his hair!”
“Eliza cut his hair, sir.”
“Did she? Well, I must thank her for that, then—but everything else is due to you! Thank you.”
He pressed a guinea into Green’s hand and hurried back downstairs, arriving in the parlor half a minute in advance of the meal. The landlord supervised the placing of the dishes. Eight dishes tonight. The smell made Icarus’s mouth water.
Miss Trentham glanced at the meal, and gave the landlord a nod of approval. The man nodded back, looking pleased with himself.
Icarus examined the dinner. It took him a moment to realize what it was that Miss Trentham had seen: there was no dish that would pose a problem for a one-handed man.
He looked at Miss Trentham. Was this her doing?
Houghton had noticed, too. He became fractionally less self-conscious.
Miss Trentham was Tish tonight. Within ten minutes of sitting at the table, she’d managed to put Houghton completely at his ease. Within fifteen minutes, she’d even made him laugh. Not only that, she cheerfully browbeat Houghton into eating two helpings of everything. “You must have more of the fricassee, Sergeant. You need to put some meat on your bones!”
Icarus glanced at Houghton, and discovered that the man wasn’t offended; on the contrary, he was amused. He likes her. And she likes him.
Icarus felt a prick of something that might almost be—but most definitely wasn’t—jealousy. This so disconcerted him that he ate a second portion of fricassee himself. And later, a second portion of syllabub. Finally, full almost to bursting, he pushed his plate away.
After the servants had cleared the covers from the table, they sat talking. Icarus leaned back in his chair. It’s been a long time since I had an evening like this, mellow and relaxed, with friends.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten. He glanced at it, surprised.
Miss Trentham looked surprised, too. “Is that the time? Poor Eliza will be wondering where I am!” She stood, and held out her hand to Houghton. “Eliza tells me she’s responsible for your hair, and I must say, she did a good job!”
“She did indeed, ma’am.” Houghton took her hand in a friendly clasp.
Miss Trentham smiled at him, exactly as she had smiled at Matlock and Lucas Kemp. “I’m glad you decided to come to Exeter with us, Sergeant.”
“So am I.” Houghton released her hand and turned to Icarus. “Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Sergeant.”
Houghton left the parlor. Miss Trentham made to follow him, but Icarus detained her with a light touch on her arm. She glanced at him, her eyebrows lifting.
“The meal. Was that your doing?”
“My doing?”
“It needed no knife.”
“Oh, yes. I thought it would be more comfortable for him. He was bound to feel self-conscious.”
Icarus took both of her hands in his and looked down at her. “Bless you.”
Miss Trentham colored faintly. “Any hostess would have done the same.”
Icarus gazed down at her. She was wearing a gown of soft sage green, and her eyes were green, too. He frowned. Hadn’t they been gray yesterday? “Your eyes change color.”
“No, they don’t,” Miss Trentham said. She tried to pull her hands from his grip.
Icarus didn’t release them. “They were gray yesterday, and blue the day before. And now they’re green again.”
“My eyes aren’t any particular color,” Miss Trentham said, tugging her hands again.
Icarus tightened his grip. “They’re definitely green today.”
Miss Trentham stopped trying to free her hands. “They’re a little bit green,” she said, in an extremely patient voice. “And a little bit blue, and a little bit gray. They’re not any one color.”
Icarus looked at her eyes more closely. She was correct—and incorrect. Her eyes weren’t green or blue or gray; they were the color of the sea. “I like them.”
Miss Trentham flushed faintly. She tried to pull her hands free again.
Icarus retained his clasp on them. “Thank you for tonight. Thank you for seeing to the meal. Thank you for putting Houghton at his ease. Thank you for making him eat so much. I know I don’t thank you as often as I ought to, and I want you to know that I’m grateful for everything you do. Deeply grateful.” He bent and kissed her lips.
He felt her jolt of surprise, heard her intake of breath—and then her hands clasped his back, and her lips softened beneath his, and they were kissing properly, the way they did at night in his bedchamber—and then the door opened, and they broke apart, Miss Trentham blushing furiously.
A maidservant entered the parlor and began tidying the room.
Miss Trentham muttered a hasty good night, and fled. Icarus felt scarcely less discomposed than she was. Lord, what had made him kiss her here in the parlor, where anyone could walk in on them!
He climbed the stairs to his room in a state of mild perturbation and stood for a moment looking at the tray Green had prepared: the brandy bottle, the new vial of valerian. He could almost taste their flavors in his mouth.
I shouldn’t let her come to me. I should latch my door. But even as he peeled out of his tailcoat, he knew he wouldn’t. Miss Trentham’s nighttime visits had become almost as important to him as the air he breathed.
Chapter Thirty-One
Letty grasped Reid’s shoulder, shook it hard, and stepped back. “Icarus, wake up!” How familiar everything had become, a routine that had grown up between them. She plumped up Reid’s pillows, poured brandy—a quarter of a glass only, because that was all he’d drunk last night—uncorked the valerian and measured out a teaspoon, and opened Herodotus to the page she’d marked. She read until his eyelids were heavy and his breathing slow, then she slipped the ribbon between the pages again and put the book aside. She reached out and smoothed Reid’s hair back from his brow, as if he was a child. I love you, Icarus Reid.
He didn’t love her. She knew that without needing to be told. Reid had kissed her in the parlor in an impulse of gratitude, and he would kiss her again shortly because it had become their habit, but he didn’t love her.
Letty studied his face for a moment—the dark eyelashes, the strong cheekbones, the hard angle of his jaw. Reid’s voice echoed in her ears, as it had for the past two days. I’m dead already, don’t y’ see? Been dead for months.
He believed it. Truly believed it.
She smoothed his hair again, letting the strands slide through her fingers. He was like a character in a Faerie tale, trapped in a state of not-quite-death, needing someone to bring him to life again.
“How do I save you, Icarus Reid?” Letty whispered under her breath.
Reid’s eyes blinked drowsily open. “Did you say something?”
“No.” She bent closer and kissed him.
Reid turned his head towards her, sleepily seeking her mouth.
They kissed for several minutes. Heat flushed over Letty’s skin, but beneath the heat was a deep, cold ache of sadness. How do I save you? Reid’s kiss grew sleepier. Letty lifted her lips from his mouth and pressed them instead to his throat. Reid uttered a low sound of pleasure, almost a sigh.
She kissed her way down his throat to the open collar of his nightshirt and then back up again, nibbling lightly with her teeth, licking. Reid filled her senses: the taste of salt on her tongue, the pliant warmth of his skin, the faint prickle of whiskers. I love you, Icarus Reid.
Reid liked being kissed like this. If he was a cat, he’d be purring right now. That low sound he made in his throat almost was a purr.
Letty repeated what she’d done, nibbling her way down his throat. This time Reid uttered no sound. His breathing was slow and even.
She lifted her mouth from his skin. “Icarus?” she whispered. “Are you asleep?”
He made no reply. His eyes were closed.
He was asleep.
Letty gazed down at his face and loved him and grieved for him and wished with all her heart that she knew how to make him happy.
Abruptly, she had a flash of memory: Tom kneeling in front of Lucas. The expression on Lucas’s face had been one of utter bliss: eyes closed, lips parted.
I should like to make Reid look like that.
The thought—once it had formed—refused to be ignored. It sat in her skull, large and loud and blatant, crowding out absolutely everything else. She could make Reid look like that, couldn’t she? If she kissed him as Tom had kissed Lucas.
Letty heard her heart thump loudly in her chest. She felt nervousness prickle in her blood. I can’t. I daren’t. It’s not respectable.
And then she felt ashamed of herself. She’d dared to go to Marshalsea Prison, hadn’t she? Even though that had been scandalous and outrageous and not something a lady would do. She’d dared to go to Basingstoke and to come to Bristol. If she’d done those things for Reid, surely she could do this for him, too? Her gift to him: a moment of pure happiness.
But still she hesitated—and that also shamed her, because surely a woman who loved a man wouldn’t hesitate, not if she knew she could make him happy, and she did know it. No one who’d seen Lucas’s face could doubt that this kind of kiss gave a man pleasure.
Go on, Julia whispered at her shoulder.
Julia would have done it without hesitation, just as she’d done everything without hesitation—climbing trees and sliding down banisters and racing the boys on her pony. Julia had lived life boldly, and her joy in living had been contagious, and everyone had loved her for it.
Just do it, Tish! How many times had Julia told her that over the years?
Very well, she’d be Julia: she’d just do it.
Letty resolutely peeled back the bedclothes. Reid’s linen nightshirt was rumpled, the hem bunched around his knees. She gently eased it higher, exposing his thighs. In the candlelight, Reid’s skin was a pale golden color.
The nervousness spiked, became almost fear—and Letty set her jaw in determination and drew the nightshirt up to his waist. Her gaze skittered away, and then back. Away again. And back. Her nervousness became . . . bemusement.
When she’d been nineteen, Julia had found sketches made by their Uncle George during his Grand Tour—chateaux and churches, lakes and vertiginous mountains—and nude classical statues.
She and Julia had spent some time studying the sketches of the statues, quite baffled.
Later, Julia had shown her next-oldest and recently married sister the sketches, and inquired as to how the finger-shaped appendage dangling from a man’s groin could make a woman pregnant.
That explanation had been even more baffling.
Letty bunched the nightshirt at Reid’s waist and gazed at him in perplexity. The thick thatch of dark hair was nothing like the sketches, but she should have expected it—indeed, if she’d thought of it at all, she must have expected it—and the size and shape of Reid’s organ was . . . not what she’d imagined either. From the sketches, one could deduce that a man’s organ was no larger than his little finger, but Reid’s organ was thicker and longer—she glanced at Reid’s hand, lying limp on his chest—significantly thicker and longer—and his testicles were as large and plump as goose eggs.
Letty swallowed. Her nervousness returned. Her mouth was dry, her throat dry. She felt cowardly and craven. She wanted to lower the nightshirt and pull up the covers and hurry back to her bedchamber—and then she remembered the expression on Lucas’s face. That was what she wanted for Reid: pure, unadulterated pleasure.
She gazed at his groin, at the dark hair and thick, limp, rosy organ, and inhaled a shallow, nervous breath and bent low and tentatively kissed him.
The skin of Reid’s organ was soft and warm beneath her lips. She inhaled his scent—clean linen and soap and a subtle musky odor that was intensely and unmistakably male. The musky odor wasn’t unpleasant; on the contrary, it was oddly invigorating. Letty kissed him again, and then parted her lips and cautiously licked, tasting the salt on his skin.
She inhaled Reid’s scent, and licked again, trailing her tongue down his limp organ to the very end and back again. He uttered a low sound, almost a grunt. Encouraged, Letty did it again, slowly and thoroughly.
Reid groaned. His organ twitched beneath her lips. His skin seemed warmer than it had been and his organ to have increased in size.
Letty raised her head. Yes, his organ had grown a good inch. In fact, it was no longer entirely limp. And it was rosier than it had been. Improbable as it seemed—impossible even—Julia’s sister had been correct: a man’s organ did grow.
Julia’s sister had also said that it would become quite hard, almost as hard as a carrot, and stick straight out. At the time, she and Julia had known they were being roasted. Now, Letty wasn’t quite so certain.
She glanced at Reid’s face. His eyes were closed, but his lips were slightly parted. Although he was asleep, he appeared to be enjoying what she was doing.
Letty bent over him again, and kissed her way down his organ several more times. It twitched and swelled and stiffened beneath her ministrations. It wasn’t limp at all now; it jutted up from the hair at his groin like a tree rising from a thicket of bracken, and its crown reminded her of nothing so much as a plump, ruddy plum.
She ran her tongue over that plum-like crown, caressing, exploring, tracing its contours, savoring its taste. This elicited a groan. Encouraged, Letty repeated what she’d done—Reid seemed to particularly like it when her tongue touched the ridge of skin beneath that ruddy, bulbous crest. He groaned whenever she licked there. She lingered at this spot for a time, and then raised her head and looked at his face. Reid appeared to be in a state of beatific bliss, eyes closed, lips parted, cheeks flushed.
Pleased, Letty bent her attention back to his organ. If she hadn’t witnessed its transformation, she wouldn’t have believed it possible—the thing had doubled in size and gone from soft to rigid. One could be forgiven for thinking his organ had caught a fever, so hot to the touch it was, so rosily red.
Letty licked that plum-like crown again, licked that ridge of skin again. How intimate it was to kiss a man like this, intimate and quite extraordinarily exhilarating. Emboldened, she drew the head of his organ into her mouth, pillowing it with her tongue.
Reid uttered another groan. Letty deduced that he liked the sensation of being in her mouth. She liked it, too. His organ felt large and hot and smooth and hard, resting on her tongue. Experimentally, she sucked lightly. Reid seemed to catch his breath. He uttered a low moan. His whole body twitched.
Encouraged by this reaction, Letty sucked again. Reid caught his breath again. His body twitched again.
Letty sucked several times, each time a little more strongly. Reid seemed to like it very much. He was no longer relaxed, though. His breath was coming faster, his body shifting restlessly, and his hips had a tendency to lift off the bed each time she sucked, as if his organ was trying to thrust itself further into her mouth. She was compelled to take hold of his shaft with one hand. That was another exhilarating sensation. How hot he was, how hard, straining against her fingers, seeming almost to pulse.
Letty sucked again, even more strongly, and this time the shaft definitely did pulse in her hand, and his organ pulsed on her tongue, too, and liquid spurted into her mouth.
Startled, Letty recoiled. Reid’s organ slipped from her mouth, pulsed again in her hand, and more liquid spurted onto her cheek. An unusual taste blossomed on her tongue, bitter, salty, but not unpleasant—and then—in an instant of shocked comprehension—she realized what the liquid was.
It was Reid’s seed.
The instant of shock was followed by an instant of utter panic. Could she become pregnant from swallowing Reid’s seed? Letty scrambled off the bed, wiping her cheek. His seed was warm and slightly sticky to the touch.
Reid had woken. He pushed up on his elbows, looking quite dazed, his si
lver eyes dark and dilated, his cheeks flushed. “What the devil?”
She saw him focus on her, standing beside the bed—and then on the sheets pulled back and his nightshirt around his waist and his organ resting back on its nest of hair, not quite completely limp again.
His expression changed—she saw his shock, saw his horror—and he hauled the bedclothes up to cover himself. “What the—” The flush had completely drained from his face. “I didn’t—we didn’t—” He sat bolt upright and said frantically, “Tell me we didn’t!”
“I kissed you the way Tom was kissing Lucas,” Letty confessed.
Reid stared at her, his mouth open, his expression utterly appalled. Letty thought that he almost wasn’t breathing, he was so shocked.
His reaction told her how grossly she’d strayed past the bounds of propriety. Letty felt herself flush. “I thought you might like it. It was only a kiss, after all.”
“A kiss? Jesus Christ! That’s not a kiss! It’s as good as having sex!”
“Can I become pregnant?” Letty asked, uneasily aware of the taste of his seed in her mouth.
“What? No, of course not. But it’s not—” The beatific bliss she’d glimpsed on Reid’s face a few minutes ago was gone. He looked wholly agitated, clutching the bedclothes to his chest. “You shouldn’t have done it!”
“If I can’t become pregnant, why is it so terrible?”
“Why?” Reid stared at her, and then he said, “Christ,” thickly, and dropped his head back on the pillows and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.
Letty bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to upset Reid; she’d wanted only to please him, to give him the gift of happiness for a few moments. “Icarus . . .” She sat beside him on the bed. “It’s not so dreadful, is it? Only you and I know of it.”
“Please go,” he said.
“But—”
“Please leave my room.”
Tears rushed to her eyes. Letty stood and picked up her chamberstick and quietly left the bedchamber.
Chapter Thirty-Two
