“They are of the highest quality, and new,” Jenny said, reaching under her skirt and pulling forth a little pocketbook, flame-stitched and tied closed with an embroidered ribbon. “Aunt Frances helped me select them.”
“Christ,” said Devere. “No wonder your parents didn’t want you to go off with her. Where did you procure them?”
“From an establishment in the Holy Ground run by an old friend of Fanny’s.”
“By ‘establishment’ you mean ‘brothel.’”
“I believe they also served suppers. I am by no means a lawyer, but if they have a victualing license, then that probably makes them a tavern.”
She unrolled the pocketbook and drew out a carefully folded onionskin. Inside were four sheaths, lying flat across the paper, all of the very thinnest lamb gut. They were finished with pink silk ribbons and decorated on the side with an illustration.
“Aunt Fanny advised you to choose illustrated ones, did she?”
“Yes. She said the fresh ink meant they were new. And in any case, the plain ones had cheaper ribbons. I worried that they would tangle and knot. I supposed the pictures serve to reinforce the gentleman’s intention, should it waver.”
“My intention has been fixed for some time now. It’s my turn to see to yours.”
Her eyes widened and he leaned in to kiss her, first at the corners of her mouth, then full on the lips, then teasing her tongue out to play.
“My intention is fixed as well,” she said, coming up for air. “It has been since you served me cake on the end of your blade. And I do realize how that sounds.”
He laughed and caught her up in his arms. “I very much doubt your intention is sufficiently fixed,” he said, taking her fingers and running them over the sheaths. “These are papery and dry. For this to work, they have to be slick and wet. We have to be slick and wet. Starting with you.”
* * *
She had been told that the slender membrane she intended to put between them would dull his interest and her ardor, but that was not proving to be the case.
He backed her to the cushioned chaise and drew her down on it to lie within his arms. He kissed her, his tongue wet, like he promised her she would be, his hands unpinning, untying, unlacing in all the right places until she was wearing nothing but her chemise and her stays were loose and pushed down to expose her breasts. He folded her chemise back from these and lavished attention on her nipples, first with his palms, then with his thumbs, next with his mouth, suckling—until his teeth scraped lightly at them and her spine was arching and her upper back coming up and off the chaise.
He shifted then to kneel at her side and reach between her legs: no preamble here, but a quick, successful search for her softness and slickness. She groaned when he found her and she thought that they were ready. “Now?” she asked, her hands groping toward the table and the pocketbook.
He grasped both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head. “Not yet,” he chided, using his other hand to spread the lips of her core and trace circles around her center.
“Yes, yes. Now, now,” she pleaded.
“No. But soon.”
He slid a finger into her and she sobbed.
“How soon?”
“You waited a year for me to come back. Now you cannot wait another minute longer?”
“For this, Severin? No.”
* * *
He reached for the buttons on his breeches. He’d fantasized about teaching her to tie a French letter on him. Now he didn’t feel like teaching her anything except how to repeat his name in a dozen different tones of wanting.
Her hands traveled down his chest. They were lying close together on the narrow chaise, and he placed one foot on the ground to brace and steady himself. Her fingers stole over his, fidgeting busily at his buttons. He took her hand and put it where he wanted it.
She smiled, then took his free hand and placed it back between her own parted thighs.
He could not question her judgment in this matter. It seemed to him most excellent. Warm and wet and most excellent in every way, and even more so when she took a tentative grip on his shaft and thumbed the head.
The word that came out of his mouth belonged in alleys and whorehouses, and the very happiest of bedrooms. He groaned with the pleasure of her stroking thumb and fingered her in time, a game he could play only for so long.
“The sheaths,” he said at last, groping along the table beside the chaise until he found one and rolled onto his back, faced with a rampant erection and a suit of unfamiliar armor.
He had not checked them. They were not his own, though they were undoubtedly clean, new, and from the very best London maker. But they had voyaged across an ocean and passed through many hands. He brought the first up to his mouth and blew into it.
It filled like a balloon. “Oh, thank God,” he said.
Jenny, who was perched on her knees on the chaise now, was eyeing him as though he had gone mad.
“If they inflate, they are sound.”
“Fascinating,” she said with an impatient scowl. “Now are you going to put it on?”
“No,” he said, smiling now that that daydream, that fantasy was at long last becoming reality. “You are.”
* * *
She was flushed and breathless with wanting, and very much done with waiting, and the impossible man was lying there, shirt askew, breeches pushed down, member twitching, and now he wanted to give her lessons in furbelows.
“Aren’t you afraid that if I learn how to put them on, I might consort with other men? I’m a terribly quick study, you know.”
“No,” he answered, slipping his hand between her legs once more and sliding his fingers over her slick cleft, seeking out her nub—rubbing hard enough that it burned a little and kept her from tipping over the edge. “You won’t want anyone else. Not after I’m done with you.”
“Careful, or my next play will be The Braggart Lover.”
“It isn’t a boast if I make good on it.” He wrapped his hand around the base of his member and tilted it toward her.
She’d enjoyed touching him tonight, watching the play of reactions across his face, the way his breath hitched when her thumb circled the head, how his back arched and muscles flexed.
“Why are you so insistent that I do this?”
“Because you ought to know how, not least in the unlikely circumstance that you are disappointed in me tonight and compelled to seek another lover. If you don’t know how to use a sheath, all the more excuse for him to plead inconvenience and refuse. But quite apart from that, I want to feel you put it on me.”
He handed her the French letter. It fluttered, papery, ribbons streaming between her fingers, and she parted the open end and fitted it to the head of him. Then she grasped hold of the ribbons where they were sewn to the hem and drew them down his shaft, the delicate membrane sliding behind to ensheathe him. He groaned, very gratifyingly, and then used a number of choice words as she gathered up the ribbons, the ends dancing over his scrotum, and tried to tie a knot.
“A bow is best,” he said. “So it is easy to remove. But a knotted bow is better, to ensure it doesn’t slip off.”
His flesh was so different from any part of her body, so transformed, so obviously needy and sensitive that she hesitated to tie the bow tightly.
“That will slip free,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to cinch it.”
She started over, taking him at his word, tightening the ribbons until he said, “Just there. With the bow resting beneath. You’ll like the ribbons better there, I promise.”
He was as good as his word. He flipped their positions until she was lying on the chaise and he was kneeling over her. His sheathed member was pressing against her, sliding in her wetness, becoming slick and supple, teasing her nub and her entrance, one, then the other, until her hips lifted off the cushion, aga
in and again, trying to capture him.
And then he was in with a wet pop, and she cried out in surprise. It was wonderful and incredible and too much and then suddenly quite painful.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have any pain.”
She scowled up at him. “As was I.” All of the wonderful and incredible had fled and she was left with a cold wet intrusion and could feel the folds of the sheath scratching her tender flesh. Now she could well understand why some people chose not to use them.
“Patience,” he said, sitting back on his heels while remaining still inside her. His hands settled over her knees, warm and caressing, then began to slide up her thighs, massaging the tight muscles there, and relaxing those where they were joined. Surprisingly—almost miraculously—it began to feel good again, slick and warm once more, and when his fingers peeled back her lips around his cock and painted delicate circles around her button, she started to climb again toward climax.
He didn’t tease or prolong her ascent, just went directly for that goal she knew how to pursue on her own but had never experienced in company. She could feel the little ribbons fluttering between them, sticky with their joining, kissing the sensitive, stretched flesh of her entrance. When completion was inevitable, she wrapped her legs around his back and dug her heels into his buttocks and came, a little ahead of him, so she was holding him, and holding on to him, when he began to thrust frantically and the chaise leapt and skipped across the floor beneath them until at last he groaned and stilled.
In the sudden quiet she could hear his heart pounding in his chest. His hair had come loose from its ribbon and sweaty tendrils of it were plastered over her face.
New Brunswick Jenny would have asked for promises: marriage or at the very least financial support. But she had a purse full of gold coins, still growing, from her work as Cornelia, and freedom to love whom she might, so she simply allowed herself to lie there and feel close to him, to enjoy his warmth and the beauty of his finely made body.
While he was still hard inside her he grasped his sheathed cock at the base and withdrew, removing the French letter carefully and laying it on the table. He kissed her one more time, then got up from the chaise, took one of the little pottery bowls stacked on the table, and knelt in the window seat and opened the sash.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, as the cold air blew over her.
“Practicalities,” he said, scooping up a bowl of snow and closing the window. He set it atop one of the stoves and it melted instantly. He dropped the condom into the water and returned to the chaise. “They are difficult to wash if you allow them to dry,” he explained.
She hadn’t thought of that, but it wasn’t the only practicality they had to consider.
“What are we going to do about André?” she asked.
Devere returned to the chaise and lay down beside her.
“This seemed more commodious earlier,” he remarked of the narrow cushion.
“That is because you are easily distracted. I am not. Tell me about André. How close is he to finding out about Aunt Frances and me?”
“That is difficult to say. Like me, he has spent the last year in captivity. He is only just arrived in New York. I am the best lead he has for catching her, but he will certainly be pursuing others. The footpads sent to kill us that night, the men who watched the docks and reported on my movements, the ones who helped the Widow to smuggle me out of the city—all are liabilities so long as André lives. And somewhere out there are your letters and your manuscript, enough to damn you.”
“But he has left Cornelia to you. So it is only Aunt Frances we need worry about.”
“Would she consider leaving New York?” asked Severin.
Jenny thought about their little household on John Street. “You were right, of course, about her illness. She is dying. But she is happy here. Fairchild is living with us.”
Devere’s expression clouded. “Would that I had been here to prevent that. I fear I have failed my oldest friend.”
“They don’t share a bed,” said Jenny. “Fairchild had a trundle built for her room.” Her chest felt tight thinking about it. “I can hear them, reading to each other and talking late into the night. I think your friend is the very best of men.”
“You’ll find no disagreement from me,” said Devere. “He acted the part of brother to me at school when my own flesh and blood did not. Julian made it clear to the other boys that I was a by-blow and that made me fair game for abuse.”
“I am sorry,” said Jenny. “I have four brothers. I can imagine your plight all too well.”
Devere smiled wryly. “English public school conditions might beggar even your imagination. Courtney put a stop to it. And he invited me home at the holidays, gave me a family to replace my unhappy one.”
“He comes home at midday to share his meal with Frances,” said Jenny. “They are devoted to each other. Fairchild is why I cannot ask her to leave.”
Devere sighed. “Fairchild is the best of men, though right this moment I wish he was not half so good, because it means I must deal with John André.”
“André has no reason to suspect Aunt Frances right now, does he?”
“No.”
“And no reason to suspect me either.”
“He will if my trunk turns up.”
“Then we must find it first,” said Jenny, sitting up. “And my aunt and I are safe for the moment, although I suppose I must have someone else copy out my next manuscript before I transmit it to the duplicitous Mr. Rivington.” The little braziers were no longer glowing and the room was starting to cool.
“Jenny, there can be no more manuscripts from Cornelia. It is too dangerous.”
“They can only hang me once, and I am already on their list with Adams and Hancock and the like. It is an honor I would choose over ranking first on Garrick’s Critical Balance of the Performers at Drury Lane. I would be a fool to stop now.”
“Are you mad? I didn’t come back to see you hang,” he said with sudden vehemence. “Not for words on paper.”
“It’s more than that now,” she said. “And less, in one sense, because the paper no longer matters. Rivington could never print another copy, and the play will still exist in people’s minds. When all I wanted was my plays performed on the London stage, the best I could hope for was the patronage of an important man and the laughter of a multitude. Now British generals want to hang me, armies march to ditties cribbed from my prologues, and recruiting sergeants quote me to drum up enlistments.”
“But I love you, damn it.”
“And I love you, Severin, but I have seen love up close now, and I will not settle for the kind that limits and diminishes me. You are capable of more than killing. I am capable of more than domestic devotion. I do not wish the kind of love that reduces over time who we each are. I want the kind that makes the whole of us greater than the sum of our parts.”
* * *
Severin let Jenny out the little hedge door without convincing her to give up Cornelia. They both knew that it was too dangerous to meet again until the threat André posed could be neutralized. Severin had, in a desperate moment, gone to his knees and proposed marriage. They had both burst out laughing.
“It is a better performance than Bobby gave,” she’d admitted. “But poor stuff all the same. Ask me again when it is not just a means to a specific end.”
It left Devere in an impossible position. He did not know how to protect her. He could not predict André’s next move, could not find or even determine if his dangerous box full of possessions still existed, and she would not let him fix this for her as he had fixed the problems of powerful men, by deceit and murder.
A month passed in which he no more than glimpsed her across a room or from the boxes in the John Street Theater. And after four weeks of careful investigation Devere was no closer to find
ing his damned trunk and its damning contents, but he had discovered a great deal more about André, none of it good. He had begun his discreet inquiries with the staff and former staff he could locate at the King’s Arms, and—as his quest had taken him from the vendue masters of the coffeehouses to the fences who dealt stolen goods in the canvas town that had sprung up in the wake of the fire—he had also gathered information on his dapper adversary.
As Jenny had said, John André was a talented artist with a passion for the theater. As he had revealed to Severin, the man had been a prisoner of war for nearly a year himself, an experience that had left him with little love for American Whigs. More important, he spoke fluent French and German and had made himself useful to Howe by translating for the commanders of the Hessian mercenaries now flooding into New York. He drew excellent maps and likenesses of people, and had compiled an encyclopedia of valuable intelligence on Rebel possessions while he was in their power.
His past commissions in the army were murky. He had traveled far too widely in the early stages of the war, and with far too much autonomy, for a simple lieutenant, and he had likely been grooming himself—or someone had been grooming him—for a career in espionage for a very long time.
André was also reputed to be an excellent shot and a formidable swordsman. Even a passable boxer.
March and April of 1777 brought first a thawing and then rain and finally spring in the first grass-scented week of May. Vauxhall and Ranelagh opened, and Devere could not keep away because he knew that Jenny strolled the gardens on concert nights with her aunt and Courtney Fairchild.
He encountered her at Ranelagh twice, and the second time his self-control failed him. “Meet me,” he said out of the hearing of her companions.
“Have you discovered something?” she asked.
“Yes. That I cannot live another day without you.”
A wry smile quirked the corners of her mouth. Her smile, he realized, was charmingly lopsided. He wanted to discover something new about her every day.
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