by Noelle Mack
"No. We have no time for that—"
"Oh, but we do, " Quinn said. He took the portfolio and opened it, leafing through the images with the air of a connoisseur. I realized that he was counting them to make sure there were ten, as promised, and came to look at them again. They were risque but not obscene, and rather well done.
The model was shown in different alluring poses, utterly wanton and beautiful, as if she were about to jump from the page into her lover's arms. I had seen Xavi in quite a few of those poses, wearing little or nothing.
I reminded myself that the woman I was looking at was not her, but some unknown girl who resembled her or who'd been got up to look like her, and shook my head to clear it. Viewing all ten prints was having a curious effect upon my mind.
I closed the portfolio, asked Mr. Martin to wrap it up too, and we left. Quinn carried the heavy plates and I carried the portfolio.
We were at the end of the street before Quinn spoke. "Not the end of the matter, Edward, but it is a good beginning. If we had been too serious he would have suspected something. I thought I did well by playing the buffoon.”
"It comes naturally to you.”
He slapped me on the back. "You can say thank you at any time. If Martin had not wanted to buy from me in future, he might have had second thoughts about selling you the engraving plates.”
"Thank you. And yes, I know that.”
Quinn adjusted his grip on his parcel as I hurried him along, eager to get away from the neighborhood.
"Now all we have to do is find the other sets.”
I multiplied six by ten. "There are sixty etchings unaccounted for. Let us hope the sets have not been broken up.”
"They have only just been sold. And there is a receipt for every one in Mr. Martin's ingenious box. With the name and address of each owner. We shall have to get our hands on that box, find the receipts, copy the information we need, and return it with no one the wiser. I volunteer for that.” Quinn threw me an odd look. "Buying back all six sets will be interesting.”
"What if the owners don't want to part with them?"
"Then we shall have to steal them.”
Was I willing to risk gaol or the gallows to protect Xavi's reputation? I might well be protecting her very life and that of the English girl. I would have to. "I will.”
Quinn laughed. "By yourself? I don't think so. I say we get drunk first.”
I rolled my eyes. "It is not yet noon.”
"But it will be when we are finished drinking.”
"We might as well, " I said. "Lead the way.”
We stopped in a public house and quaffed far too much ale while we attempted to figure out exactly how to do the dirty deed. The ale did not aid our powers of reasoning and as a few hours went by the whole business began to seem like a play with some very odd characters. Thundering husbands, naughty wives, and hopeless romantics—in my beery haze I felt that my life had turned upside down and inside out, and I was beginning not to care. Drink made us low fellows for a little while, thoroughly coarse and maudlin by turns.
I set down my mug, feeling ashamed. At least I had a true friend in Quinn. He'd had to assure me repeatedly that he had nothing at all to do with the prints, knew nothing about their provenance, and at last I believed him. He had known from the beginning of my affair with Xavi, and I had trusted him implicitly to keep things quiet. That he had not betrayed that trust, as I had been too quick to believe he had, was a great relief to me.
He finished the ale in his mug. "We must get the receipts tonight and begin at once. Gossip travels quickly in London. We made ourselves conspicuous.”
"A fight in the street is not news.”
"But this one was more amusing than most, at least to the onlookers. One man tells another of it, and so it goes.”
"What of it?"
"If Don Diego should somehow find out about those etchings—if we fail to find them all—and if he figures out who did them before we do, he will skin the man alive, " Quinn said, chewing thoughtfully on the bread the barmaid brought for us to share, along with some cheese. He used the chisel to break off a chunk, looked at it closely and frowned. He threw it to the dog curled up in one corner. The animal lifted his head to snap the treat out of the air.
"To say nothing of his wife.”
"It could happen. And do not forget Diego is very likely to suspect me again. If he thought I would sell cheap copies of her portrait, it is not so big a jump to think I would do worse.”
"True.”
"I can't offend a man who knows so many people at court, Edward. Dukes and whatnot are my best customers.”
I nodded. "Then I will handle the matter myself. Perhaps it would be best if you went up to the country for a while.”
Quinn tipped up his mug and swallowed the last of his ale. "Not a bad idea. But we shall get the receipts first and you can begin.”
"Leaving me to my fate?"
"Yes. For now.” He laughed at my somber expression. "Edward, you know I will help you. Come back to the studio with me. I can pack a bag and take the coach to Surrey. Rob and Miss Reynaud can manage without me for a while.”
We settled the bill and departed.
Relaxed by the ale, I stretched out on the long divan in his study, my arms folded under my head, contemplating the ceiling. Quinn's studio was light and airy, a pleasant place to take a nap. Despite my worries about Anne and deep concern for Xavi, I succumbed to sleep. Some hours later, my eyes flew open when Quinn set a wooden case by my head with a thump.
"Wake up, my beauty. There is a midnight coach leaving from the courtyard of the Hare and Bells. You and I can get rip-roaringly drunk before I leave.”
I yawned. The Hare and Bells was around the corner. Good. I had managed to sleep the afternoon away. But... I had missed my appointment with the barrister. And there was something else. "What about the receipts?"
"Mr. Martin closes early on Saturdays. But I paid the shop a visit anyway. Through the window.”
He grinned and handed me six folded receipts, stained with ink. I looked at him with surprise and tucked them into my shirt. "And the portfolio of prints and the plates?"
"Safely hidden. Not here, though.”
I could not ask him more because I heard Rob's voice in the next room, talking to Miss Reynaud. So the assistant had returned, unafraid of his master when it came right down to it. Miss Reynaud shuffled in wearing carpet slippers and set up to resume her copying.
She cast a mild look in my direction and a tiny smile appeared on her face. I smiled back politely, wondering what it was Miss Reynaud did for fun. If Quinn was away, she was likely to take as many naps as she wanted upon this very divan. He buried her in work more often than not, and she deserved a rest.
In another hour, Quinn and I departed for the Hare and Bells, where we ordered stronger stuff than ale while we discussed what we knew of Diego. He was an undeniably powerful man and well-connected in high circles, certainly able to make trouble for both me and Quinn... but it was his notoriously foul temper that cast the longest shadow. To chase it away, we became more determined than ever to have a very good time.
By the third round, Quinn began to feel it. He said, just in case suspicions had crept into my mind as I'd slept, that he'd had nothing to do with the damned engravings, he would never dream of doing such a thing to Xavi although he was certain her naked body was far more beautiful than the new etchings for which Fotheringay, the idiot, was undoubtedly responsible and deserved to be thrashed. He added that I must be head over heels in love, which made me a bloody damned fool, because only a bloody damned fool would lay the wife of a jealous Spaniard.
After a while I told him to shut up. I assured him that he was no longer a suspect. We had known each other too long for him to lie to me and get away with it, especially when we were drunk.
He belched and wiped away a tear.
By the time we were well in our cups, he had somehow acquired a barmaid up
on each knee after a while, plying him with drink. I pitied his fellow passengers that night—he was sure to vomit out the window when the coach hit a rough patch of road.
With his teeth, he bit down upon the scarf that concealed one barmaid's bosom and pulled it out. Her shabby gown was very low-cut and her breasts almost popped out. She only laughed.
"Now, Ellen, " he said coaxingly. "Show us the scenery. I am a great lover of scenery like yours, my girl.” He held his glass of whiskey to her pretty lips and tipped it up.
Ellen swallowed the rest in one gulp and looked over her shoulder for the innkeeper. Mr. Cobbett was nowhere in sight. Harriet, the girl on Quinn's other knee, helped out by reaching into her friend's bodice and pulling out her big breasts. One nipple brushed his mouth and he wasted no time in sucking upon it.
"Mmm.” His cheeks hollowed with the force of his sucking, which the girl seemed to enjoy. Her friend tugged upon the other nipple, giving me a flirtatious look. It was clear that we could have them both for a few shillings and the price of a none-too-clean room upstairs. But I demurred. Let Quinn romp with barmaids. My taste in women was rather more elevated than that.
I finished my own whiskey and ordered more, which came quickly. I drank that too. And another. The girls were looking better and better. Harriet jumped up from Quinn's knee and came to sit upon mine. Well, I thought. Don Diego and his evil minions might be lying in wait in the alley. Life was short. I might as well enjoy myself.
It was late in the evening and my whiskers had grown out to stubble that rasped her ear when I whispered in it.
"Shall we fuck you and your friend together, then? Is that what you two want?"
She nodded eagerly and wriggled in my lap. Harriet's arse was soft as a sofa cushion and the thought of slamming into it was exciting me.
Ellen had guided her other nipple into Quinn's mouth to be sucked next, and the sight of the first one, shining and pink and stiff, made me reach into Harriet's bodice and see what she had to offer.
Her breasts were not so large as Ellen's, but the one I cupped filled my hand with pleasurable warmth. She sighed softly, and I caressed the other in due time, enjoying the way she was now bouncing upon my lap.
Quinn had his hand up Ellen's dress, I noticed. In another minute, he would slide beneath the table and have his head between her legs, eating her cunny. He often talked of his craving for this part of a woman, bragging that, blindfolded, he could distinguish between females by their flavor alone.
I knew that he had even gone so far as to advertise for partners in this practice in the magazines that women read, in careful words. And he'd had no end of replies. If he'd had his way, he would have posted signs on Covent Garden walls, of course. Ladies in Need of a Good Licking, See Quinn the Cunny Man! Satisfaction Guaranteed.
I stopped fondling Harriet and reached across the table to tap Quinn on the arm. He gave me a groggy grin.
"What?"
Harriet and Ellen got up at the same time and grabbed our hands.
"Upstairs, Quinn. We can share a room. Four of us won't be too much of a squeeze.”
His eyes widened. "No—I mean yes. Not too much of a squeeze at all.”
The raucous customers paid no attention to us as we threaded our way through the benches and deal tables of the bar room. Ellen and Harriet went up first, followed by Quinn, who managed to fondle both their arses. I admired his dexterity and concentrated on making it up the rickety stairs.
The room they led us into was not as grimy as I had feared, and someone had brought in a candle and provided fresh sheets. There was straw upon the floor that gave off a sweet, summery smell and even a nosegay of flowers in a small vase by the bed.
Ellen and Harriet wasted no time in stripping down to their stays, and Quinn was nearly as fast. Naked, he looked like a satyr. A set of horns would not have seemed out of place upon his forehead.
"Lie down, " he told them, indicating the bed behind them.
The girls giggled and did as he asked, lying side by side and opening their legs so that their knees touched. Their juicy quims gleamed in the candlelight.
"Is that not a fine sight?" he asked me.
"Indeed it is.”
He kneeled in front of them, fondling and playing with both cunnies at once. I decided to keep my cock out of it and have the pleasure of watching for now.
"Which one of you would like to be licked first?"
"Me!" Ellen cried.
"Very well.” Quinn patted Harriet's thigh. "You may watch if you like.”
Harriet seemed quite content to do that, rolling onto her side to watch Ellen be done first. Quinn gently spread her friend's labia, and found the clitoris, applying the tip of his tongue exclusively to that sensitive bit.
She wriggled her arse upon the sheets, pushing up into his face, and Quinn thrust his tongue deeply into her cunny. He did it strongly, forcing in with every thrust, and the girl responded. "Oh! Harriet does not do it so well as you!"
Quinn sat back and wiped his mouth. "Really? Shall we have a contest, then?"
"You're on, " Harriet said. She got on all fours and put her head where Quinn's had just been but kept her cunny over Ellen's face. The girl on the bed stared dreamily up, trapped between her friend's knees and unable to look at anything else.
I took my cock from my breeches and stroked it as I stared too.
Harriet began to lick and suck her friend with intimate skill. I could see that the twosome quite enjoyed such affectionate play, and who could blame them?
For my part, I loved the show. I was rather drunk and the whiskey quite dissolved my inhibition. Harriet raised her head and caught a glimpse of what I was doing to myself, and winked at me, then returned to pussy-sucking her dear friend.
Quinn, feeling rampageous, got on the bed and got behind Harriet. He licked her cunny from behind, treating her to the same deep thrusts of his tongue he had given to Ellen.
Harriet was not distracted for a moment. She continued her attentions to Ellen's cunt, but I could see that she was thrusting back slightly to take advantage of Quinn's stimulation.
The lascivious sounds of two tongues hard at work filled the room, punctuated by Ellen's soft moans. She was in an excellent position: able to watch her friend being tongue-fucked while she got the same. The difference was that Quinn went at it hard and fast, and Harriet was more gentle, but both methods were equally stimulating.
Quinn rose halfway and stayed on his knees, unable to wait for his own satisfaction. He positioned himself behind Harriet, who understood that she was about to get a cock shoved into her as far as it would go. She brought her face up from Ellen's dripping pussy and looked over her shoulder at Quinn.
"Have at, " she said cheerfully.
He spread her arse with large, strong hands and fucked her hard, making her rock on the bed. Ellen, neglected for the moment, whimpered underneath them, and then reached to amuse herself with Quinn's big balls. The man was very well endowed, and his heavy sac soon tightened from her feminine teasing.
Ellen raised up a bit and extended her tongue to lick his balls. Quinn gasped and fucked Harriet vigorously indeed, banging against her bum, until his groin tensed. His climax shook his body, both girls, and the bed, and I sprayed into the air at the same moment, shouting as the hot jets of cum fell onto the straw below.
We men collapsed, he on the bed, I onto a chair, and the girls finished each other. In another hour, when we had recovered sufficiently to make our way downstairs again, I put Quinn on the coach to Surrey, and headed home singing.
Seven
My head was rather the worse after such a convivial evening, to say nothing of my conscience. But I could not undo what I had done. Besides, an intoxicated dalliance with willing barmaids simply did not count as true debauchery by the standards of London, at least not for a man. I justified my lapse as a reward of sorts for undertaking the difficult task of preserving Xavi's reputation, to say nothing of her life. My conscience
would have to be satisfied with that.
I thought no more about last night. The matter of the engravings was far more pressing. I took Xavi's letters from their hiding place and read them again, paying more attention than I had the first time.
I had missed something important: she planned to attend a masquerade ball and hoped to see me there, although it would be dangerous. Still, if I were masked and she could slip away— she did not think Don Diego would be there— I understood what she was getting at. The ball would take place tomorrow night. The name of its giver, Lord Colefax, was familiar to me. However, it was not likely that I would receive a belated invitation, for many reasons. But I could contrive a way to meet her there.
The problem of the erotic engravings I intended to address at once, on my own. Since Quinn had not done them, that left Fotheringay to be investigated... and beaten to a pulp if he was the culprit. Mr. Martin's denial had not been convincing. But I would still have to track down all the existing sets. There were six and I had the seventh, or Quinn did, in some safe place. I might as well begin.
The folded receipts were hidden in a cubbyhole of the desk, put there upon my return from the inn. I took them out and studied the names and addresses. To my surprise, I knew two of the names, and one of those was a woman. But I decided to begin at the two bookshops that had each bought a set—at a slight discount, I noticed. Mr. Martin was enterprising and no doubt wished to expand his business.
I went into the showroom of Woolf's, looking about at the shelves holding thousands and thousands of books. The glass dome overhead, a wonderful novelty, brought a great deal of light into the room that made reading easy and attracted many customers. Comfortable armchairs had been placed in here and there, paired with sofas. Young ladies had commanded these to read together.
The few men in the place looked down on them kindly, no doubt imagining such pretty creatures in their own libraries, sighing over the handsome volumes they planned to have bound in matching leather for their own shelves. Volumes which were unlikely to be read, of course, even by bookish young ladies. Such sets were produced to convey the impression of intellectual brilliance. Thick with the weight of accumulated knowledge in them, they made excellent doorstops.
