Angel of Hawkhaven

by Maren Smith

  For a moment I thought he would strike me again. His black eyes glittered in the light of the single bedside candle. He glared at me, unsmiling, calculating. His fists, hanging loose at his sides, rhythmically opened and closed. Three slow steps had me backed into the nearest corner.

  “It has been a very long day, and I am very tired,” he said, taking off his coat and tossing it aside. Then he removed his cravat. I half expected him to toss that away as well, but he didn’t. He held it between his hands, the fabric stretched taut, the loose ends wrapped loose around his fists. “And yet, despite all my warnings to the contrary, you keep provoking me. Let me explain what is going to happen tonight. I am going to sleep, and I will do so holding you very close to me, just in case you should take it into your silly, little mind to run away. That means, we will be sharing the bed. Now, while I really could not care less if you suffer the cold and wet all night long, I have no intention of joining you in that misery.”

  “I w-won’t go anywhere,” I tried to assure him. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “This is not a negotiation. Take your clothes off.”

  “Don’t touch me,” I whispered.

  He took hold of the front of my uniform and ripped it to the waist, just as quickly slapping a hand over my mouth and shoving me back into the wall when I cried out. “Don’t make any noise. We don’t want to disturb the sleep of this fine inn’s other patrons, now do we? Think, Ella. Think very carefully. Would you like to remove what is left of your clothes, or shall I rip through your chemise, too? You can spend all day tomorrow, bouncing about on the carriage seat, clutching the front of your uniform shut with your hands just to maintain your modesty. Or you can right now change your mind, as women are so wont to do, and take off these wet things so I will not be forced to become beastly in my behavior towards you.”

  His black eyes bored into mine, and for the longest time, neither of us moved.

  “Would you like for me to describe exactly the sort of behaviors the word ‘beastly’ covers?” he finally asked.

  Miserable coward that I was, I took off my clothes. As they slid down me, plopping to the floor in a wet heap, I tried to cover myself with my hands.

  Albert’s dark eyes danced down into mine, that funny half-smirk twisting his mouth as, slowly, his gaze dipped down to take in the rest of me. As cold as I’d been in my dripping dress, I was even colder in nothing. My skin rippled with goosebumps, and I just could not stop shivering.

  “Yes,” he said, roving me from head to toe. “You certainly are provoking me.” Taking hold of my wrist, he pulled my arm away from my breasts. I squirmed, wrenching my hand from his grip to cover myself again, but not before his eyes had their chance to caress the stiffened peaks of my nipples. He tsked, and shook his head. “Unfortunately, I really am tired. Perhaps in the morning.”

  I stumbled into him when he pulled me to the bed. The straw mattress was just as uncomfortable as it looked, but cold as I was, the blankets felt heavenly. Ashamed though I am to admit it, the warmth of Albert when he lay down behind me, wrapping his arm securely around my waist and pulling me back against him… even that felt good. The heat of him sank into me, gradually stopping my shivering, though I lay stiff as a statue, waiting for him to do something other than just hold me. True to his word, however, Albert only fell asleep, albeit with his hand cupping my left breast.

  I didn’t think it possible for me to sleep at all. But as the warmth soaked into me, my weariness took over. One minute I was blinking in the darkness, waiting for his snores to deepen before I tried to slip out of bed, and in the next the sun was up and the tiny room well lit. Outside, birds were singing. Downstairs, I could hear people moving about. As I lay there on my belly, my legs splayed, a crushing weight bearing down on my back, it suddenly occurred to me that something was horribly wrong.

  Something thick and hard moved between my thighs, touching up between my legs and Albert’s hot exhale brushed my ear.

  “Wakey wake,” he whispered in my ear. “Guess what: I’m not tired anymore.”

  He grabbed the back of my head, smothering my scream into the musty straw mattress. I bucked, but he only forced his other hand underneath my stomach to grope between my legs. I struggled to get my head up just enough to breathe, but he was too strong, effortlessly pinning me down, suffocating me.

  He half-panted, half-laughed as I next tried to snap my legs shut, but my naked inner thighs came up against the hard muscle of his. That’s when I realized what exactly it was, pressed so hot and large up against my buttocks.

  “That’s it,” he breathed. “Fight me. Wiggle and thrash.” His fingers parted the curls that crowned my sex. “Feisty, passionate cunny. For some reason, they’re only found in the gutters.”

  I kicked and flailed, reaching back to scratch at his hands, arms and belly. When had he taken his clothes off? I screamed again, horrified, clawing to reach any part of him with my nails as his fingers opened me up to his invasion.

  No! I grabbed at the hand that kept my head down and ripped. The skin broke under my nails.

  Swearing, Albert yanked his hand out from under mine and shook it tenderly. “You, bit—”

  In that one brief instance, my head was free and I didn’t wait for him even to finish his curse. I snapped it back, sucking in a deep gasp of fresh air even as the back of my skull cracked into his chin. When Albert fell sideways, the weight pinning me down shifted and suddenly the fear inside of me turned to absolute rage. An uncontrollable, living thing, it unleashed itself from me right there on that horrible bed.

  I rolled over, kicking, clawing and screaming, knocking the blankets aside as all four limbs lashed out at him. My wildly flailing fists thwarted his, knocking them askew when he struck out awkwardly to silence me. We both fell off the bed. He grunted when we hit the floor, and for once I found myself on top.

  “Never again!” I beat, punched and clawed at his face, barely half of my blows making it past the frantic windmill of his own arms as Albert fought to protect his face. I barely felt it when my fist caught his nose. Even more vague was the hot, liquid wetness of his blood as it splashed up my arms and spattered against my naked chest.

  “Ah!” Albert grabbed his face with both hands. He fought to roll over, covering his head with his arms as I slapped and beat at him over and over.

  “Never again!” I screamed, my rage making me hoarse. My nails raked every inch of exposed skin that I could find. “Never again!”

  White, silk-clad arms suddenly came into view as they wrapped tight around me, pinning my flailing arms to my chest and dragging me backwards off of Albert. I screamed, bucking to get free, but the arms only tightened and pinned me inescapably in a strong man’s embrace. The next thing I knew, there was the Constable, braving my rage long enough to dart in and grab Albert by the shirt and hair. I lashed out furiously with all the strength of my legs.

  “Never!” I screamed, my feet landing one strong blow to Albert’s ribs and the other catching him dead center between his legs, doubling him over instantly, retching, coughing and clutching himself. “No man will touch me ever again!”

  John yanked Albert out of the room and the door slammed shut. Panting and squirming, fighting to break free and chase them both down, through the heat of my rage I heard Hawkhaven’s low voice, “It’s all right, Ella. It’s all right. I have you.”

  “Never again!” My bare feet pushed and shoved, sliding hard upon the rough wooden floor. “No man!”

  “No man but me,” he said, soft and soothing against my ear, holding me tightly to him no matter how I strained against him.

  “No!” I snapped back my head, but connected with nothing more vital than his strong shoulder. My fury exploded, sending me into one last tantrum of kicking, bucking and screaming before, like a wisp of dissipating wind, it all just disappeared. Abandoned and weary, I shook from the effects. My stomach felt sick, I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t stop my bottom lip from quivering. Bitterly, I mumbl
ed, “Let me go.”

  “Never.” Hawkhaven rocked me in his arms. “I can’t. I don’t know how.”

  My eyes burned and everything blurred, but I would not cry. I refused to cry!

  I began to shake and then to sob. “Let—let me go!”

  “I love you.”

  “No!”

  “I love you.” His embrace was unbreakable. His voice the only thing I could hear. It was as if we were the only two people left in the world.

  My rage totally spent, everything that I was splintered and broke and fell apart inside me. I cried, hard. “He put his… it was on me… his hands were on me…”

  “Not anymore,” he told me, his arms tightening around me. “Feel me now.”

  His grip on me loosened only enough to turn me around, and then it was me who latched onto him. I crawled into his lap, fiercely hugging his neck as my legs wrapped tight around his waist. We were as close as two people could ever be, with his clothes being the only thin barrier between the touching of our skin. My tears soaked into his shirt until I couldn’t bear even this much separation. It was a beautiful silk shirt, worth more money than I could hope to earn in a year, and I tore it in my haste to get it off him.

  “Ella, it’s all right.” He caught my face, brushing away my tangled hair and tears, but I didn’t know how to be soothed.

  “Hold me,” I wept, throwing my arms around him again. My breasts were crushed to his bare chest, he held me so tight and so close. My hands roved him, reassuring myself it really was him, needing to touch him everywhere that I could reach: his face, his hair, the strong breadth of his shoulders, the hard planes of his muscular back. But when my hands skimmed across his legs, there was still a barrier between us. His trousers. “Off! Get them off! off!”

  My fingers scrambled for the fastenings, but he caught my wrists. Forcing my arms behind me, he captured both my hands in one of his. Cupping my bottom with the other, he pulled my hips over his in an attempt to still me. But instead, I felt the full semi-hard heat of him pressed hot against the entrance of me. My belly tightened, my breath caught. I knew then exactly how I wanted to feel him. “Come inside me.”

  “You’re hurting right now, sweetheart,” he told me. “You don’t really want this.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” I nodded, tears streaking my face as I strained to break his grip. My hips were as if they belonged to someone else, moving and grinding and wiggling down on top of him in the tiniest, barest of circles.

  The brilliant blue of his eyes turned smoky as I moved on him. Beneath me, the front of his pants grew thick and hard because of my constant, minute caresses. His voice husky and low, he said, “No, you don’t.”

  I nodded again. “I don’t want to feel his hands any more, Matthew. Make them stop.”

  He let go of my hands in order to catch my hips, stilling my frantic rubbing. Immediately my hands went back to the front of him. I stroked down between us, feeling the contours of him pressed so tightly against the cloth.

  “Please come inside of me,” I whispered, and pulled at the fastenings to free him. “I need to feel you. All of you against all of me. Please.”

  I had never in my life dared to kiss a man first, but I did it now. I touched my lips to his, parting my mouth ever so hesitantly to taste him the way he had done me outside the church what felt like a lifetime ago. Struggling to stop crying, I timidly touched the side of his mouth with the tip of my tongue, and a shiver ran through him. He opened to allow me entrance, and then commandeered the kiss as I’d hoped he would. While I cowered, shaking in his arms, his hungry kisses and confidant hands chased away what phantom caresses still lingered on my skin.

  Cupping my bottom in his hands, he squeezed and molded me, rubbing and stroking my naked skin from behind, prying my buttocks apart before his fingers moved down between to touch the folds of my woman’s place. Unaroused as I was, he found little moisture there to explore.

  “Let me feel you,” I begged anyway, shivering at the touch of him there. His breathing became much heavier, his mouth much hungrier when I begged between kisses, “Please, Matthew, I want to feel only you now. Spank me.”

  Another hot shiver went through him, but then suddenly he broke his mouth from mine, abruptly letting go of my bottom. “No.” He tried to move his hands, but I grabbed his wrists, pushing them back down, squirming to raise my hips up until he cupped my bottom again.

  “Matthew,” I pleaded. “Get the feel of him off of me. Make me feel only you. Please, only you.” I cupped his face. Tears rolling down my face, I nibbled gently along the edge of his mouth, coaxing him until I felt his resolve waver. “Only you, Matthew.”

  I didn’t have to ask again. He slapped my bottom, the spanking little more than just noise.

  My insides tightened anyway. My bottom wiggled, as if already seeking to escape the sting it had become so familiar to feeling at the efforts of Hawkhaven’s hands. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I begged him, “Harder.”

  I pushed my bottom out and back to meet the iron-hard palm I knew him capable of providing. When he walloped the top of my right buttock, I closed my eyes and buried my face in the side of his neck. “Harder.”

  I bit my lip to strangle back a cry as he obliged me, five strong spanks, each smarting more than the last until I was clutching at him to hold myself in position. My hips squirmed, wriggling their tiny, rubbing circles over his lap. “More!”

  This time he found his iron-hard palm and there was no biting back my cries. I did not like getting spanked. After this, only an act of God would get me to ask for another. And yet when his hand covered my aching bottom, rubbing down between my buttocks to cover the folds of my sex, his fingers came away quite moist.

  “More!” My voice broke. I clung to him tightly, my whole body tensing against the hurt of the next three swats. But they worked. As the pain faded into throbbing, a slow heat rose up under my wounded skin. “Again!”

  “No.” Hawkhaven caught my stinging bottom in his hands. Lifting me up, he shifted onto his knees. “You want to feel me? Then I will give you something to feel.”

  He conquered my mouth with his as he lifted me onto the bed, but I caught the edge of the mattress and shoved hard away from it.

  “Not on the bed,” I said between kisses. “He was on the bed.”

  “The floor’s uncomfortable,” he breathed.

  “I don’t care.” I wiggled my way down until I felt hard wood at my back. Then, pulling him down on top of me, I twined him in both my arms and legs, keeping him as close to me as I could hold. In the end, the only pain I felt was barely more than a twinge when that first hard thrust joined his body physically to mine. After that, all I thought and all I felt was, “Yes.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Perched on one pillow-strewn seat, her hands clasped over her blanketed lap, Lady Victoria rocked gently with the motion of the carriage and stared expressionlessly out the window at nothing in particular. Sitting across from her, I faced that same window and strived to keep myself just as expressionless. Now and then I winced as the constant jostling of the carriage hurt me. I was a mass of bruises. Bruised all down the back of my spine, bruised across my swollen, aching jaw from the blow Albert had dealt me last night, and my hands were nothing but bruises and cuts across all my knuckles from this morning’s retribution. But at least I got to ride inside the carriage instead of up next to Shaver, thanks to Hawkhaven and the Constable, who followed on horseback.

  In cheerful contrast to the silence that reigned between Victoria and myself, the men exchanged an easy camaraderie, talking in low voices back and forth. I would almost have rather been outside, walking alongside them, than trapped inside this uncomfortable carriage with Victoria.

  Poor Victoria. From the moment Albert had dragged her from her window last night, her future had been cast in stone. To soften the building scandal of her overnight abduction, neither the manner nor location of her wedding was changed. Only the groom was different. With Albert on
his way to prison, Hawkhaven’s friend, the Constable had stepped up to the marriage plate. It took less than a minute to finagle an appropriate dowry out of Hawkhaven, but what surprised me the most was Victoria’s reaction to the news. She had gone back into the carriage without so much as a single protest. She hadn’t thrown a tantrum. She hadn’t even glowered.

  Every now and then out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed her looking at me, but it wasn’t until we’d rolled and rocked our way across the border from England into Scotland, not until the tiny village of Wigtown came into sight and the church lay less than a mile down the road, that Victoria finally turned to me and sighed, “Ella, how do you know if you’re in love?”

  “What?” I was completely taken aback. Throughout all this silence, I had thought her brooding and angry. With her fate, or with me at the very least. After all, here she was, about to get married to a middle-class working man, and in yesterday’s dress no less because Hawkhaven had given me the gown I’d packed for her.

  There was no way she could not have known Albert had me in his bed all last night. There was no way she could not have known about this morning, either, for that matter. I had made enough noise to wake the dead, or so Hawkhaven had told me. It was only by sheer chance that they’d stopped here to change horses and were still questioning the innkeeper as to our whereabouts when I started screaming

  “Don’t you know?” Victoria asked.

  “I—I don’t know what you mean,” I finally hedged.

  “You love my brother, don’t you? There is no accounting for taste, I suppose.” She turned to look back out the window, biting her bottom lip and shaking her head ever so slightly while I sat stinging under the implied insult. “I mean, for heaven’s sake, Ella. You could do so much better than Matthew. The man is entirely too high-handed. He has spanked you half a dozen times at least, that I know of, in the last two weeks alone! And it would take a real pudding head not to know Albert forced you into bed with him. Even I know that! It’s despicable that my brother would spank you for the way Albert forced you. I told him so when he carried me to the carriage, and I’ll tell him so again just as soon as we reach the church.”