Delia's Debt

by Allison West

  “Give me your arms,” he commanded, guiding the gown through her arms and then over her head before letting it slide down her torso. “You look lovely.”

  Her cheeks burned and she glanced down at the wooden floor. “Thank you, Poppa.”

  “Come, my little one. Let’s get you into bed and read you a story.”

  Delia followed Charles to the mattress and waited for him to turn down the bed before she climbed beneath the covers. She stretched back on the bed, resting her head against the downy pillow before shutting her eyes. The day had taken its toll on her.

  She felt the bed dip as Charles climbed in beside her, wrapping an arm around her as he pulled her against him. Her eyes momentarily fluttered open to see that he had changed out of his stuffy clothes for work. Delia’s fingers grazed over his shirt.

  “Close your eyes,” he whispered, as he began telling her a fantasy tale to help her drift off to a peaceful slumber.

  Chapter 8

  Charles did not dare wish to admit that each day passed and he felt a stronger connection with Delia then he had with any other woman. She had taken well to the girls, keeping them on a strict schedule while also caring and entertaining them at every turn. She might not yet be their mother, but one day soon, she would fall quite easily into the role.

  He ached, every inch of him, especially his cock as he had shaved her quim and listened to the breaths expelled into his ear and against his neck. She had aroused him so hard that he had been forced to relieve his discomfort after she had fallen to sleep in his arms.

  Charles wanted her to take him into her mouth and suck his cream again, but he had seen the dark circles under her eyes. He needed to do what was best for Delia and that had been putting her to bed, even if he was not thrilled with it. In time, he would get his chance to satisfy his desires in every way he dreamt possible with his little one.

  The days quickly passed and he awoke on Saturday looking forward to spending the day with Delia and his daughters. It was on the rare occasion that he did not have something pressing that stole him away from his children for at least part of an afternoon. Without Nanny Ida to keep an eye on the children, it meant that he and Delia had the girls on their outing. He had not seen much interaction between the children and Delia because he was often at work, but he trusted she could handle herself. If not, she would tell him of her troubles, would she not?

  “I do not wish to wake,” Delia mumbled as he nudged her in slumber.

  The light had woken Charles and the girls would be up soon, crashing down the door insisting on breakfast with a side of morning giggles. They had a great desire to wake anyone sleeping though he had desperately tried to shield them of the relationship between himself and their governess. Though the girls knew of the upcoming wedding, he did not wish to disappoint them should it fall through. They deserved a mother who loved them and cherished them as much as their papa did. Today would be a good day, a test of sorts, to see how she interacted with his girls. Not that he would tell her as much, it would likely upset his little Lia. Oh how he desired to keep her little during the day but it could not happen. Such treats were only possible late at night, when the curtains were shut and the front door secure. No visitors could gain insight into what transpired. They might have been two grown adults but such an action so scandalous would not only ruin his reputation but could be mistaken for something illicit and illegal. He would not serve a sentence in any gaol for his desires to be had with his wife.

  “We must awaken and dress.” Charles nudged her arm.

  “It is my day off,” Delia protested.

  Charles stared at her, an eyebrow raised, surprised by her demeanor. He had half a mind to wake her with a paddling to her bottom for disobedience but they were his children, not hers. It may have been his day off as well, but he refrained from voicing such thoughts.

  “One hour. Then you will meet us for breakfast.”

  Delia grumbled and tossed the pillow over her head. She was not a morning person and perhaps the late nights with him and early mornings with the girls had caught up with her. Usually she handled herself quite well, showing no sign of trouble.

  Charles climbed from the mattress and disrobed, watching her fall back to sleep, snoring softly. Would she come and greet him down in the dining room in an hour? He would not wait for her, she very well could be two or three by the looks of it.

  Once dressed, he quietly stalked across the hall to find his two young girls jumping on their beds and giggling like they had gone mad. How had he not heard them sooner?

  “How long have you girls been awake?” Charles asked, surprised to see them so full of energy and life this early. He was not as lively as his children were until he had his morning cuppa.

  Alice shrugged and grabbed the pillow jumping off the bed before she climbed onto her sister’s mattress to slam her with the material, starting a fight.

  “Alice!” Charles scolded his youngest child as Emma reached for a pillow, probably to protect herself. With only a few whacks, each of them gripping the end and pummeling their sibling, Alice’s pillow ripped midair, cascading the room in a fitful of feathers that rained down on them.

  Emma threw herself back on the mattress to lie down, staring up as the last feathers floated down to graze her cheeks.

  “Again!” Alice giggled, jumping up and down. She tossed the torn pillow to the floor and reached for Emma’s pillow lying beside the older girl.

  “No way,” Emma said, ripping the white downy material from Alice’s grip.

  “That is enough!” Charles said, shaking his head. He wanted to scold his girls but he did not have it in him to do so. Had it been the hour or the fact they had been through so much recently. With the changes of different governesses and now their nanny having departed, he wanted to make the next transition with Delia as their mother to go smoothly. Sighing he gestured toward the mess of feathers. “Promptly after breakfast you girls will clean up your room before we take a trip to London.”

  Emma’s eyes glistened with excitement as she climbed off the bed, rushing toward her papa. “Tell me, what are we going to do in London?”

  Though the city was not far, it was rare he took them from the estate. Their home had everything they needed and what they did not have the housemaids often went and purchased.

  “Can we ride the train?” Alice asked. She climbed down and kicked at the feathers as they gradually floated a few feet into the air before settling back down onto the marble floor. The rug in the center of the room housed much of the feathers, as if it had some attraction that had bonded the elements together.

  “Yes, but only after this room is clean of feathers. Emma, will you help your sister get dressed?”

  “Of course, papa.” Emma nodded proudly, walking toward the armoire to help choose something for her little sister to wear. Charles quietly took note of the moments that Emma seemed more mature, looking after her sister for a few minutes at a time brought her something that he could not give her ordinarily, a sense of purpose.

  “Come down for breakfast as soon as you are both dressed,” Charles said.

  “What about Governess Delia?” Emma asked. “Will she be joining us?”

  “Perhaps later. She is quite tired from the week she has had and I thought it best to let her sleep in.” He closed the door to the girls’ room and retreated down the hall, his footsteps soft and as silent as could be. In the distance as he reached the banister he could still hear the laughter and chatter through the muffled wallpapered hall. The blue and gray design his late wife had chosen. There were some memories, no matter how difficult he would not wish to tear away, ever. It was why he kept it up, a constant reminder of who he was and who he would never become again.

  “I can not keep doing this, Charles,” Mary said, pacing the length of the hallway, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “What do you suggest we do, Mary?” His voice held a hint of condescension. He had grown annoyed with her selfish ways, thinking on
ly of her own pleasure and happiness. Charles wanted to give that to her too, but she had been too eager to marry and look where it got them both. “I did what you asked. You told me you despised being little and I was to seek another for that pleasure.” He had not slept with the woman he had invited into his home but one glance from Mary had been the end of it.

  “Well, I did not mean it!”

  Charles grabbed Mary by the wrist, pulling her into the bedroom. He shut the door, careful not to wake their newborn daughter Alice or young Emma. “I am not a man who asks for much, but you should have given me honesty. We have two girls, tell me how we will make this better?” At the moment, he could not fathom any way out of the situation. He had brought home a young lady a few days before Mary was to give birth. Perhaps his timing had been selfish and thoughtless but he had only done what she told him to do. He had not laid with her in their marriage bed or touched her in the ways he desired to caress a woman. It had strictly been spankings, feedings, and plugging her round bottom. Charles had not even known the woman’s real name. They had agreed on Amelia and so that had been what he called the girl with red hair and freckles.

  “You can not fix this, Charles.” She pulled from his grasp.

  Their marriage had long been a disaster before he confessed his pleasures and secrets to Mary. Her desire for the finer things, to live among wealth with a title had been what ruled her heart. Charles had no great title, but he did have funds that provided him adequate land and a home he cherished. His home.

  “Do you wish to leave?” He could not imagine a world without his girls and he would not let her take the children from him. Besides, she had no money and nowhere to go.

  She laughed, the darkness shining in the depth of her eyes as her cheeks burned with anger, matching her fiery red locks. “Even if I wanted to, where would I go?”

  He could easily pay for a small cottage, allow her a place to fulfill her own happiness and Charles his, except he would not part with his children, ever.

  “I hear Paris is nice this time of year. Perhaps you could marry a Duke, as you have always wanted.” It was a dig and a good one considering the secrets she told him late at night, just as he shared his own. She knew no dukes, as far as Charles was made aware, but her flirty nature always bubbled out of her at the mere glance at a man of wealth. She would stray from him eventually and so he kept his heart guarded by his pleasures of seeking a little one.

  “What of our marriage?” Mary asked.

  They had consummated the marriage and she had given birth to two of Charles’s daughters.

  “I am certain you can slither your way out of it.” He knew his words and tone had been cruel but he found it impossible to say anything else. She had known from the moment of their engagement who he was, what he desired, and what their life together meant. Mary had chosen to ignore it, her mind locked solely on the thought of living in wealth and that making her happy. Perhaps it had for awhile, during the first few years when Emma had been born, but the second pregnancy and Alice’s birth, it had been too much on both of them.

  “That is it!” She stepped closer, attempting to get in his face but finding herself a head shorter than Charles. “I am leaving at once!”

  “Very well,” he said, stepping aside allowing her to exit their bedroom if that was what she truly desired. “But you should know the girls are staying with me. I will not have them on the street, wondering when their next meal will be or where they will sleep tomorrow.” Charles had the funds to keep the girls well-cared for.

  “You will separate them from their mother?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I do not see another choice. It is kinder to them to spare them such heartbreak. The girls will only know that you will have died shortly after giving birth. They will never know you still exist. We both get what we most desire, Mary. You shall run off and marry your prince charming, and I will have my children.” It was not all that he wanted but he would not listen to the tears and sobs another hour. Mary had been miserable which only made him filled with regret. Marrying her had been the biggest mistake of his life. He should have known, from the moment they had gotten acquainted that she was looking to marry up, but he would never be good enough.

  Mary stared at Charles a long moment, likely deciding whether she agreed with the decision or not. “If you wish for my silence and to keep away, then I demand payment every month.”

  He sighed. Mary was relentless. He had been an idiot for thinking she might have ever actually loved him.

  “Consider it done.” Sweat beaded his brow. How did he let it come to this? What father willfully lied to his daughters? Even if it was to protect them, did they not deserve a mother? Charles would do everything in his power to give them the proper upbringing from a woman of status, a governess to teach young Emma and a nanny to care for his darling Alice.

  There were many things in Charles life he regretted but most of all had been letting Mary leave and the lack of contact she had with the girls. Paying her had only been a small thorn in his side, but the girls had been kept out of the arrangement and she had likely taken on a new name, pretended to be an orphan or perhaps even lied her way up the status quo as some noble from a distant city. He put nothing past Mary, but she was gone. The money deposited into an account for her every month. He had loved her and look where that love had led?

  He could not allow himself to think such harsh and depressing thoughts. His children were just on the other side of the wall and soon he would be tying the knot with Delia. She would be his wife, a woman who had very little and did not seem to care about being penniless. In fact, in the short time he had known her, she had owed him money for her debt. A curious arrangement considering most women had feigned interest because of his standing.

  With quiet steps, he headed down to the dining room, awaiting his daughters to join him for breakfast.

  * * * * *

  “Everything smells so delicious,” Delia said, as she stepped into the dining room. The door closed behind her. “Why did you let me sleep in?”

  Charles glanced up, not having heard her come in. “You looked so peaceful, I thought I would give you the morning off.” He could not exactly give her the day off, as they would be spending it together traveling to London by train. He had made all the arrangements, including having Delia’s father’s coachman pick them up outside the entrance to The Great Exhibition. “Come. Have a seat and enjoy what is left.” The girls had eaten more than their fair share of sweet pastries.

  “May we be excused?” Emma asked. Before her father had time to answer, she had already scooted the chair back against the marble floor, prepared to escape the dining room for a happier hour.

  “Yes. Emma, take your sister into the nursery.”

  Alice climbed down from the chair and latched onto Emma’s hand as she walked out of the dining room and presumably across the hall.

  “I think the girls can manage one morning without their nanny around,” Charles said.

  “That is very kind of you.” Delia smiled and sat down at the table across from him.

  The housemaid brought a clean plate for Delia and placed it onto the table in front of her.

  Delia helped herself to breakfast, a warm smile but her hands twitched, a tell-tale sign that she was nervous. Did it have to do with them visiting her father and him asking for permission to marry her? There was no reason for him not to accept the proposal and wish them both happiness. Charles did not want to worry himself into thinking it a mistake. They both needed this and she had agreed to marry him. His eyes glanced toward the housemaid, watching them at the table. He raised an eyebrow at the older woman. Did she have something to say?

  She cleared her throat and quietly excused herself from the dining room.

  “That was most peculiar,” Delia said.

  She too had noticed the strange exchange. The housemaid had been there since long before Emma had been born. She had known Mary and been kind to her. Though the young woman had never sa
id or done anything to show her displeasure. Did she not like Delia or that he was intending to marry her?

  “We shall not worry ourselves with others today,” Charles said. Of course it was easier to say such words than actually act on them. He watched her nibble at her breakfast and he took another pastry to ease her nerves as well as his own. “What have you heard about The Great Exhibition?”

  “Not much. I only know that it recently opened on the first of May.”

  There had been much speculation on riots and trouble brewing from the different classes but it seemed the concerns so far had been for naught, as had many feared that Hyde Park would be demolished in place of The Great Exhibition. Instead, Crystal Palace had been built temporarily around the beautiful grounds and Charles had heard much about it, curious to see such a building for himself.

  “It will be a lovely sight, of that I am certain.” Charles took a sip of water from his glass on the table. “Do you think the girls will be able to appreciate it?” He looked to her on advice for raising his children, teaching and inspiring them. She was the governess and perhaps she knew something that he did not.

  “Emma most certainly will,” Delia said. “I do think it might be a bit overwhelming for Alice. We must remember to keep the children near us at all times. We would not want to lose them in the crowd this afternoon.”

  Without a doubt, she was absolutely right. He would tether his children to him if it were at all possible. Instead, he would have to settle with clutching their tiny hands. Charles had nearly lost his children once and he would not desire himself or anyone else to experience such a frightening loss.

  Delia finished her breakfast and waited for the housemaid to take her plate away. “Shall we gather the girls for the journey to London?” It was not far by train but they would spend the entire day out of the house.