“Oh, oh, oh Jesus, Joseph an’ Mary, oh God, m’dear, uhm!” she whimpered, her hands now clamped round his head, knees almost to her chest, shoving him into her groin. “Oh, God in Heaven, ye bastard . . . ! Yes, yes, yess! Ahhhaa!” she wailed, arching her back, “Ah, ye darlin’ man, oh Jaysus!” She froze of a sudden, loins pressed upward hard and her thighs gripping his head, her arms flung outside the blankets, to grip the pillows and the edge of the mattress, to claw the sheets. A moment more stiffness, and she collapsed with a shudder, croaking from a dry throat, gasping for air as he swarmed up her to take her in his arms, shift to lie on his side and stroke her all over.
“My dear,” Tess said with a shaky laugh once she’d gotten her breath back. “My God, but where’d ye learn that ’un? I never . . . ‘’
“I told ye the Navy’d see ye right, dear Tess,” he chuckled.
“Faith, if ye haven’t. Whush!” She fanned herself with the bed covers. “But . . . isn’t it time ye fetched one o’ yer cundums an’ had ye’re own pleasure?” she whispered, beaming with fun.
“I do believe you’re right, sweet ’un,” Lewrie heartily agreed, Before he could turn over to fetch one, though, Tess swarmed over him to the drawer of the night-stand and pulled one out.
“Your turn,” Tess whispered, a playful leer on her face for a moment. “My turn,” she added, tossing back the covers and slipping down to his erection to tie the cundum on . . . but not before her lips tasted him, licked, and surrounded its top, her mouth and breath hot and wet and maddening!
“ ’Tis a fearful big thing ye own, Captain Alan,” Tess said as she rolled away, opening herself to him. “But I do believe I’ll manage . . . d’ye start out gentle.”
In the candlelight, her eyes shone with mischief, and her mouth pouted so very prettily, her lips slightly apart. “Now, sir?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As the bells of London chimed the hour of one in the morning, a very pleased, and smug, Alan Lewrie allowed himself to imagine that he was not yet that old; that he did main-well for a fellow who’d reached his thirty-eighth year. His birthday had occurred a week before, to no particular notice from anyone else, friend or family.
“Hmm,” he purred into Tess’s hair as she lay half atop him, one slim thigh between his, and her belly sticky-damp against him. “Mmm!” was her matching purr as he stroked her back and kissed her cheek.
“Ye’re feelin’ sleepy yet, darlin’?” Tess asked, her head upon his chest.
“Is that a wish, Tess?” he asked, chuckling.
“Faith, it is not,” she answered, propping her chin on him, to peer drowsily sweet into his eyes, with that fetching wee, shy grin of hers breaking out on her face. “I was only wond’rin’ do ye feel a wee bit peckish. Should I ring for somethin’ t’eat?”
“Besides your sweet self?” he teased.
“Sweet Jesus,” she said, laughing softly, “sure and ye’ll be th’ end o’ me, . . . an’ starve me into th’ bargain.”
“Sounds good. I am hungry,” Lewrie decided. “What might they have?”
“Well, each ev’nin’, there’s an invitation supper,” Tess said, rolling away to grope at the foot of the bed for her heavy robe. “For the regular customers. More o’ what they call a buffet than anythin’ else . . . tonight was ham, roast beef, an’ goose, an’ there’s sure t’be plenty left . . . enough for sandwiches.”
“Aye, ring for something,” Lewrie told her. “We might not need another whole bottle, but . . . we could stay awake long enough to finish one. Another bloody guinea.”
“Sure t’be part of a bottle left by others, in the parlour,” she speculated as she quickly dressed, and hopped out of bed to search for her shoes. “Be back in a tick.”
“Wait,” Lewrie said, getting up on one elbow and taking her by the hand. Tess was simply delightful, and, with her heavy robe still hanging open, he could not let her go without drinking in the sight of her. Her hair had long before come undone from its restraining ribbon, and hung long and fair to her waist in soft curves, and in the dim candlelight, her body was a study in amber wash.
“Best choice ever I made,” Lewrie told her, “ ’cause you’re the loveliest girl I’ve clapped ‘top-lights’ on in years, Tess.”
“Ah, go on with ye,” she laughed, rewarding his words with one more shy grin and a cock of her head. “You keep the covers warm while I fetch us some vittles.” She stepped out into the narrow passageway and Lewrie settled back with his hands behind his head, about ready to laugh out loud in glee to have stumbled upon such a sweet young thing . . . even if she was a whore.
He heard her shoes click down the passageway to the outer door, the door open and close, and listened to the sounds of the house, now that things had slowed down a bit. Damnably, there was still a wench in a nearby cubicle who must have aspired to the opera, who trilled and hallooed false passion, still. Cross the hallway, perhaps, muffled but still loud, there was a couple who cursed each other like salty bosuns, between animal-like grunts and whoops. When he and Tess were not busy, they’d giggled like schoolchildren to the sounds, speculating what the other whores and customers really looked like . . . and what particular act they were engaged in.
Sleepy? No, he didn’t feel sleepy in the slightest, yet. There were seven more un-used cundums, and, with a cold collation and a new bottle of “bubbly” coming, he imagined he might attain a new record.
Tess was that intriguing, and enflaming.
And I’m too bloody hungry, he admitted to himself.
“Hallo,” Lewrie muttered to himself as the amourous sounds of the house changed. There were shouts belowstairs, a thud or two, then the quick clopping of someone’s shoes, the opening and slamming of the hallway door, some closer clopping . . . which forced him to sit upright in bed.
There was a woman’s shriek of alarm, another woman’s voice raised in high dudgeon, men bellowing, and . . .
The door to the cubicle burst open, Tess with her hair flying as she dashed in with a champagne bottle in her hand! She slammed the door and clawed at a pocket of her heavy dressing robe. “Help me, Cap’m!” she cried. “The chest! The bloody chest!”
He sprang from the bed stark naked, padded to the door, and she tossed him the champagne bottle—half-full as promised, sloshing on his bare chest and stomach, as she dug in the other pocket, then sprang to the silk robe, then the night-stand.
“Shift th’ damned chest! Block th’ fackin’ door, please Jesus, for I cannot find th’ fackin’ key!” she wailed. By then, all the customers and whores on both the second and third storeys were either yelling in fright or bellowing in anger.
“What the bloody Hell?” Lewrie demanded as he knelt to shift the large chest in front of the door.
“Fackin’ mad man, oughter be in Bedlam, he should . . . !” Tess said in a gasping voice, then exulted as she found a rusty key. She tossed it to him, which he dropped, then scrambled for, and locked the flimsy door for her. He turned to face her.
“What bloody mad man?”
Tess was now holding the throat of her wool dressing robe shut with one hand, and in the other, she shakily held a shiny wee dagger.
Belowstairs—uncomfortably closer than before—there came sounds of a struggle, and a bellowed demand. “Tess! Vant Tess, and no other, hear me? Peasants! Serfs! How dare you? Yob tvoyemat!”
“Eeep!” was Lewrie’s outburst upon hearing that Russian curse.
What’s Durschenko doin’ here? was his first panicky thought; I ain’t toppin’ his daughter, so . . . !
He picked up the champagne bottle from the floor, took a large swig that bubbled round his mouth and chin, then went to Tess’s side.
“B’lieve I know a bit more about daggers than you, sweetlin’,” Lewrie said, hand out to request it. “ ’Less you’ve killed somebody in the past with it. Here, I’ll trade you,” he said, offering the bottle. For an off-hand weapon, he picked the empty champagne bottle from the night-stand.
“Now, who’s
this bloody lunatick that’s callin’ for ya,” Lewrie asked over his shoulder, taking stance between Tess and the door. “His name ain’t Durschenko, is it? Arslan Artimovich? Scrawny old Russian devil with an eyepatch?”
“No . . . no, he’s a student,” Tess said with a weak shudder to her voice. She’d climbed onto the bed and was huddling in the far corner near the drapes. “Says he was. Anatoli, he called himself. Russian, aye. Goin’ t’Oxford, an’ some sorta title . . . count or somethin’. He was took with me, but Jesus! He’s a mean’un! I told Mother Batson I’d druther he come round no more . . . choose another girl, but . . . ! Ye’ll not let him in an’ git me, willya, Cap’m Alan, for th’ love o’ God?”
“Not if I can help it, no, Tess,” Lewrie assured her, hefting his dagger and make-shift cosh.
It sounded, though, as if the struggle had reached a high-tide mark on the second-storey landing, safely a floor below. More curses in Russian, from two voices, some good old London accents from several more bully-bucks. “Sasha, pamageetyeh! Doh! Viy mojetyeh mnyeh pamoch?” from one, and “Oww!” and a grunt from another, preceded by some lovely meaty thuds from fists and cudgels. “Vill burn house down! Ow! Kill all you pryazni . . . oof!”
Of a sudden, it got delightfully quiet. While whores continued to fret and fuss, and gentlemen customers made idle threats, an ironic series of cheers could be heard; the grunts and heavy-footed shuffles as bodies were hauled downstairs, and victorious bully-bucks congratulated themselves on a duty well done.
“Think you’re safe, now,” Lewrie told Tess, turning around. She was behind the bed, ’tween the mattress and the wall, with the covers thrown over her to appear as a pile of blankets shoved off the bed . . . one frightened eye peeked from a tiny fold.
“He’s gone?”
“Bashed senseless, by the sound of it,” Lewrie said with a wry laugh, “him and another, both. Damme, I don’t usually do my fightin’ in the buff.” He put the dagger back into the night-stand drawer, the empty bottle on the floor beside it, and hopped back into bed, pulling up the covers and shivering. “Well, don’t I get a reward?” he asked with a laugh. Tess untangled herself from the pile of covers, spread them back out to cover all the mattress, and slid in from the off-side.
“Ye’da fought him for me?” Tess shakily exclaimed as she curled up to him under the covers, her wool robe itchy on his skin. “Ye’da risked yer life t’keep me safe?”
For a second he took that for false hero-worship, the fawning of a courtesan dependent on his purse, yet . . . she sounded truly amazed to have someone . . . anyone . . . stand up for her.
“Still have the ‘bubbly’? Let me have a sip, there’s a darlin’,” Lewrie bade. He took a drink from the neck, then grinned at her. “Whoever the bastard was, you were terrified . . . and, he was spoilin’ our time t’gether, so what else could I do for a pretty young lass? Doubt he’ll be comin’ here again, so . . . ‘’
He would have handed the bottle back to her, but Tess threw her arms round his neck, thrust a thigh between his, and kissed him with a fierce passion. She jerked the knot of her sash loose and spread the dressing robe over him, pressing her fever-warm body to his . . . she whimpered and cooed and clung to him like a limpet.
And did he feel sudden moisture on his face . . . her face?
Oh, don’t do that, he thought as he hugged her back, slipping his free hand under the covers and her robe to stroke her bare back and shoulders as she writhed against him; A girl’s tears’ll always land me in trouble.
“There, there, sweetlin’,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s all over, and no harm done.”
“G . . . git one o’ ye’re cundums,” she breathed, “an’ make love t’me, this very minute!”
“Well . . . if it’ll make ye feel better,” he japed.
Damned if he wasn’t ready to oblige her, in point of fact, for the threat of danger, then her warmth and softness, had made him as inspired as the first time, with an erection as stiff as a marling-spike. She sat up, “armoured” him quickly with trembling hands, then sat astride of him, her robe cocooning them both, and her long, curly hair brushing his chest.
“La, ye’re th’ grandest . . . bloody . . . man!” she moaned.
Minutes later there came a discreet rap on the door, which made Tess start and Lewrie scramble for the dagger. “Who’s there?” the girl squeaked.
“ ’Tis Bob, Tess,” a man said in a gruff voice. “Wi’ yer vittles. No fear, ’at Roosky bastard’s long gone.”
Lewrie had to help shift the heavy chest, and unlock the door so the waiter could come in with another salvaged bottle of champagne and a tray covered with a napkin, which when whisked away, revealed a pair of sandwiches, and a dish of pickles.
“Two pound, six, sir,” Bob told Lewrie, who was looking for his coin purse, “an’ we’ll settle th’ reckonin’ in th’ mornin’.”
“Looks like you gave as good as you got,” Lewrie told him, noting the waiter’s bruises, and the beginnings of a black eye.
“Lots better’n he, sir!” Bob said with a boxer’s grin. “Him an’ his manservant, both. Poxy bastards’ll look like raw beef fer a week.”
“He’ll not ever come back, pray Jesus?” Tess fearfully asked.
“Ain’t sayin’ ’e won’t try, girl,” Bob reassured her, clenching his fists together and cracking knuckles, “but we’ve leave t’dump ’is arse in th’ Thames, if he do, Roosky titles’r no.”
Lewrie dug some money from a pocket of his coat and slipped the man the reckoning, with another pound note atop it for his efforts, and tipped Bob the wink.
“Mmm, roast duck!” Tess enthused once Bob had left, and she had lifted the bread to look at her sandwich. “Told ye the house sets out a grand table.” She sat in the middle of the bed, cross-legged with her robe spread over her lap, shifting with delight as she took a bite and chewed. Lewrie poured her a glass of champagne and slid under the bed covers, using the borrowed quilt to drape his shoulders and chest like a Red Indian. “Damme, this is good.” Lewrie agreed, after a taste.
“Hot mustard and some sorta red jelly . . . apple, it may be, all stirred t’gether,” Tess said, smiling with pleasure after chewing and swallowing, “like wot ye serve with venison’r grouse?”
“Mm-hmm!” Lewrie agreed again, with his mouth full. “So . . . who was this Anatoli character?” he asked, after a sip of champagne.
“A . . . customer,” Tess told him, looking uncomfortable with the subject. “First he come, was round Christmas . . . end of Terms, he calls it . . . from Oxford? Once th’ week’r so, ’til th’ night he . . . and I . . .” She frowned and squirmed a bit. “He went with no one special, ’til he lit on me, damn his eyes. T’other girls said he was a rough ’un, so I was leery, d’ye see? But he seemed nice enough, th’ first time’r two.”
“But then he turned brute on ye?” Lewrie gently probed.
“Aye, that he did,” Tess spat, “an’ askin’ for me only, fer all night . . . like you,” she added, leaning over to nudge his shoulder with hers, and flashing a brief, adorable grin. “Mind, ’tis a lot easier on a girl, with but th’ one feller t’deal with, an’ a lot o’ them older an’ . . . Well, I gets a lot more rest with th’ older fellers . . . not like you, Captain Alan, that’s fer certain. No sleep in you!”
She reached out to brush his hair from his brow.
Uh-oh! Lewrie thought at her gesture; Don’t go fond on me!
“Him, though . . . ,” Tess said, turning pensive. “Ev’ry night, for a fortnight, an’ him swearin’ he’d buy me out, an’ set me up an me own lodgin’s for his own, brr! Mean t’say, ’tis a poor girl’s fondest wish t’be set up good as a lady, but! Not with th’ likes o’ him, even was he rich as that Tsar o’ his. Just wouldn’t do it nat’ral, no, not him, an’ wantin’ me without ‘protections’ . . . in th’ wrong. . !”
She made an angry moue and swiped at her own hair, tossing her mane with anger and impatience.
“That
sorry I am t’bring it up, though ye did ask,” Tess said, “for ‘Mother’ Batson says her gentlemen don’t wanna hear ’bout t’other customers’ doin’s, or who went before ’em, ’cause half o’ what we sell is . . . illusion, d’ye see? Affection, attention . . . grace an’ beauty, an’ all that shite. Oops!” she pealed out a laugh as she covered her mouth with a hand for a second. “B’lieve me, Cap’m Alan, this bus’ness can be powerful strange sometimes. See there, in th’ corner.”
Lewrie looked where she pointed; there was a bundle of birch rods, which he’d taken for an old broom, or kindling for a Franklin-pattern stove.
“There’s some . . . real ‘Quality’ sorts . . . who can’t get goin’ without ye whip their bare bottoms, an’ tell ’em what bad boys they be!”
“And some who wish t’whip you?” Lewrie scowled.
“Bedamned if they will!” Tess declared. “ ‘Mother’ Batson don’t hold with her girls gettin’ hurt . . . scarred up, more-like.”
“And this Anatoli liked t’be whipped?” Lewrie asked.
“Oh no, not him,” Tess said, after a big bite of her sandwich and a swig of champagne. “He cared more for puttin’ it in my mouth or my bum-hole, an’ all th’ time tryin’ t’sneak his cundum off whilst I’m kneelin’ on all fours like a bitch-hound. Might start out havin’ me th’ normal, Christian way, but that never lasted long. And, do I ever balk, he’d go all sulky an’ teary, first . . . slip me more money, order up more wine an’ gin . . . said if he couldn’t get somethin’ he called vodka, then gin’d suit, and Jesus but he could put it away like water! He got drunk enough, he’d get mad, give me th’ back of his hand a time or two, but then . . . the daft bastard’d start weepin’ again, and tells me how much he loves me, for th’ love o’ God! Onliest way t’shut him up was t’kneel on th’ floor an’ . . . ye know. Then he was cherry-merry, again . . . for a time.
“One night,” Tess said, leaning close to confide in Lewrie, “he got th’ window open, an’ stood on th’ ledge, stark nekkid an’ drunk as a lord, fer ev’ryone t’see . . . swearin’ if I didn’t be his alone, then he’d jump, and . . . swear on the Bible, Cap’m Alan, ’twas all I could do not t’give him a push!”
The Baltic Gambit Page 14
