by Rose Lerner
The door creaked open, and her husband came in with his candle and began going around the room making sure the chests and cabinets were locked.
She giggled. “Come to bed.” Her tongue felt thick in her mouth.
He went to the shutter she’d left open an inch or two. “This ought to be locked at night.”
“It squeaks something awful. We’d hear if someone tried to get in.”
His candle was near his face, so she could see his frown. “Then it ought to be oiled.”
“But then I couldn’t leave it open, and I like the moonlight.”
“It lets in drafts.”
“You wouldn’t notice if you were in bed with me.”
“The security of the house is my responsibility. Imagine a burglary my first night here.”
“Is that what you’ve been imagining?” she asked tartly. “I’ve been imagining you in bed with me.”
He went very still, turning towards her. “Have you?” he asked, a reluctant smile in his voice.
“Mm. For quite a while. Promptness is a virtue, Mr. Toogood.”
“So is care,” he said primly.
She sighed. “I don’t have time for this. A minute ago I spent for the first time in my life, and if you don’t come over here and make me do it again, I’m going to sleep.”
He set the candle down. His face was in darkness, but she heard him swallow. “You did what?”
She blushed, wishing she hadn’t said it. But they were married, and she was drunk and tingly all over, and she wanted that wonderful feeling again now. “You heard me.”
“For the first time in your life?” He sounded more appalled than anything else. “You never…?”
She blushed harder. “You try being a girl. It isn’t so very obvious what to do, and it takes a long time, and I always got bored or fell asleep before.”
“But not tonight.” He blew out the candle. Taking off his shoes and shrugging out of his coat, he began carefully arranging his clothes on a chair by the window. Which meant that, while she couldn’t really see him, she could see the outline of him, moonlight creeping around the edges like sneaky fingers. Good idea, moon.
The gathered wool shoulder of his coat gave way to clinging, rumpled linen, which gave way—Sukey held her breath—to the smoothness of skin and muscle. As he turned to hang his shirt on a cabinet knob, she caught the edge of his hipbone.
“Not tonight,” she agreed breathlessly.
He took a nightshirt from his trunk and pulled it over his head. For a brief moment his cock was outlined by moonlight. Too brief, alas, to see much but that it stuck out from his body, but Sukey tightened happily, everywhere.
“And how do you feel?” he asked.
“Oh, tol-lol,” she said airily.
He huffed a laugh and crawled into bed with her. She turned towards him just as he landed on top of her, pushing himself down until his head was entirely beneath the quilt. Rucking up her nightdress, he pressed a hot, openmouthed kiss to her belly, and then took one nipple in his mouth.
Dear God. They had barely done anything but kiss before. Even when he’d spent, they’d both been fully dressed. Now his mouth was open on her bare flesh. This was more and strange and different and Sukey loved it at once.
“I was worried I wouldn’t be able to satisfy you twice in a night,” he confessed, his beard-roughened cheek scraping her soft skin.
“Were you really?” she asked, delighted that he’d been nervesome after all.
He nodded, pushing himself lower, and Sukey realized what he was going to do. Her legs were open and her nightgown already pushed above her breasts, if she was going to object she’d best do it quickly—
“Never mind, I don’t object,” she said. “But doesn’t it taste—”
“It tastes like a woman. I like women.”
“Stop talking,” she ordered, and he did. Oh, that was wonderful, entirely different than fingers—more efficient, she thought, and almost laughed because her husband was so very efficient. Soon that lovely, unimaginable feeling rushed over her again. She couldn’t believe her luck.
She felt every brush as Mr. Toogood moved up her body, his head emerging from the blanket to hover above hers. He was so much taller than her that his hips dug into her thighs. She tried to wriggle downwards, hoping even just for his cock to graze her tender flesh. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know about this or I’d have been married a long time ago.” She wriggled again.
He laughed and reached down between them, moving so that…
So that his cock lay between her folds, the head over that particular spot. He raised himself on his hands to keep his chest from smothering her. She moved a little. Oh, it was so hard, and that bump where head met shaft was such perfection.
“We never talked about children,” he said.
She couldn’t stop moving, but inside, she faltered. “I bought pennyroyal,” she said breezily. “I’m not having children with you. Not for a few years, anyway.”
Don’t contradict me, she begged. Don’t. Don’t make me stop doing this.
“You can’t brew pennyroyal here. Our master is a vicar, and it’s a very distinctive smell.”
“Fine,” she hissed, rubbing hard against him. He groaned. “I’ll keep it at my mother’s.”
“She won’t mind?”
“She took me to buy it.”
He moved down, bump bump, and then he surged into her. She’d thought she was split open before, but no, this was split open, this was being pried apart and helpless, so full of feeling she could hear her seams stretching. She gasped for breath.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, low as thunder.
She shook her head and pulled him closer, angry with his nightshirt. She pushed it up to claw at the hot skin of his bare shoulders. He shuddered and pushed his cock deeper inside her.
“I suppose you’d be flattered if I said something about how big you feel.”
“I probably would,” he agreed.
“It would be a lie, though,” she said as mournfully as she could when her voice was trembling.
She felt his laugh, chest and hips shaking over hers. “Wrap your legs around me.”
That got him even deeper, the bone in his groin hitting her in a really admirable manner. When he hunched forward to kiss her, the angle changed and she knew she’d spend again. She counted against his mouth, One…two…three…
Four thrusts and she flew apart, understanding now that her cunny rippled like that to draw him deeper into her. She was supposed to work tomorrow, knowing she could be doing this instead?
When her shaking stopped, she lay beneath him like a rag doll, head flopping back at an awkward angle. Part of her wondered if she could do that a fourth time, but mostly she was sleepy and happy and ready for bed. Still her husband thrust into her, grunting under his breath. She wasn’t sure how to help him, now her own urgent instincts were quiet.
“John,” she said. “May I call you John?”
He nodded jerkily.
“John, next time I’d like you to take off your nightshirt before we do this. Or perhaps wait to put it on until afterwards. That would be more efficient, wouldn’t it?” She yanked and tugged until their bare stomachs touched, and then she raised her head and sucked on his nipple.
He made a sound like a shout sucked back down before it could escape. So men liked that too. She licked with the tip of her tongue—he shuddered—and nipped him with her teeth.
“Please,” he said raggedly. “Again.”
She did, feeling ever so smug. He froze, his groin pressed fiercely against hers, and spent.
Above them, a bell rang. She could feel John go alert, propping himself on his arms as if a few inches closer to the ceiling would help him hear. Long moments passed. Sukey almost fell asleep with him still inside her.
; “Yes, Mr. Summers?” they heard faintly.
“That’s Thea,” John said. “Molly should answer the bell at night.”
Sukey froze, much less sleepy. If he went upstairs to investigate, he’d realize what she’d found out over the last weeks: that Molly had got her hands on a key and was sneaking out at night, probably to meet a boy. And then either Molly would get the sack, or she’d think Sukey had peached on her and would make her life hell.
She tried to pull John down beside her. “You can shout at them about it in the morning.”
He rolled off her, but he stayed propped up on an elbow. “Thea rises earliest of any of us. She must be allowed her rest.”
Sukey’s exhaustion left her no defenses against the affection that washed through her. He was so kind, worrying over Thea when he’d ought to be sleeping himself. She put her hand on his lovely, strong shoulder and yanked down hard. Surprised, he fell onto the mattress. “Sleep,” she ordered.
“Yes, Mrs. Toogood,” he murmured.
Sukey liked that.
* * *
John awoke in the dark. Either clouds covered the moon, or it had already set. Thea hadn’t come to wake them, so it was not yet half past five. He rolled over and reached for his watch.
His wife stirred. “What time is it?”
John realized that his watch was still in his waistcoat pocket, hanging on the chair by the window. It was too dark to see the hands, anyway. “Not yet half past five.” He turned back to feel for her face with his hands and kiss her.
A smile stretched his mouth of its own accord. Last night—well, he had satisfied her, that was certain. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so aroused by a woman, so entirely consumed by enjoyment that no stray thoughts had intruded into their bed. He rolled his shoulder, feeling the scratch marks she’d left.
She curled an arm sleepily around his neck, pulling him down on top of her and spreading her legs. “I want to do that again.”
When John’s mouth fell open, she licked his bottom lip. He made a strangled noise, his body humming and still half-asleep, pleasure building as quickly and easily as in a dream. He pushed their nightclothes out of the way, feeling to see if she was wet. She was, and he entered her. Oh sweet Heaven, how she took him in. He moved slowly, unable to believe his luck at having married her.
She moaned and shifted, her small breasts brushing his ribcage. Supporting himself with one arm, he fondled them—for the first time, he realized. They fit neatly in his palm.
She reached between them to touch herself, already so damned wet he could hear himself slapping into her. He tried to match his thrusts to the rhythm of her fingers, tugging at her nipple with each one. She made straining, desperate noises. He wished he could see her face.
“Say something,” she demanded.
He’d be embarrassed by this later, but at the moment, flattered by the request, he opened his mouth and said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re insatiable.”
She laughed breathlessly. “I’m what?”
“Never quotted,” he said, using the country word. “How many times do you think I can fuck you today?”
“Five or six,” she gasped. “I’ll come and find you when I get bored of housework.”
He shut unseeing eyes. “I’ll be making an inventory of the pantry, and you’ll just walk in and demand I put my cock in you.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, and you’d do it. You would.”
“I would.” He gave her a fierce thrust. “The shelves would be in the way. I’d have to give it to you on the floor, on your hands and knees.”
She spent. John’s arms gave out gratefully. He buried his face in his pillow, body half off her so he wouldn’t crush her, and let his hips move, using her until he followed her into bliss.
She patted his hip. “Don’t worry,” she said teasingly. “I don’t really expect you to fuck me five or six times a day. I know you’re old and infirm.”
John turned his face to the side so he could breathe. He didn’t feel old and infirm at the moment.
The clock struck six. “What in blazes?” He sprang to his feet, waking soreness in unexpected places, and wrapped his shirt round his hand to snatch the lid off the brazier. The embers’ light was barely enough to see by, but there was no time to fuss with his tinderbox. His shoulders twinged painfully as he pulled the shirt over his head. Damn. He was old and infirm.
“Thea must have overslept.” Sukey pulled on her shift.
“Because Molly made her answer the bell in the night,” he said grimly. Her silence struck him as weighted. He gave her a sharp glance. “You’ve been here nearly three weeks. Is this a common occurrence?”
“No.”
“How uncommon is it?”
“I’m your wife, not your spy.”
His fingers stilled on his buttons. “I’m not going to report them to Mr. Summers. I only want to know.”
She frowned in surprise. Then she shrugged, combing out her braids with her fingers. The ribbons that tied them were frayed. He ought to buy her new ones. “Then wait and see for yourself. Do up my buttons, will you?” She glanced at him through her loose hair. “I’ll get the girls up if you start the fires.”
It stung to see her try to protect them from him. His mother had always shielded the underservants from his father’s temper too.
It was his first full day here. He didn’t want to start it by making everybody dislike him and think of him as a person one needed to be protected from. Yet he ought not to be lenient merely to curry favor, but begin as he meant to go on.
By making everybody dislike you? he asked himself sardonically.
So be it. “I’ll wake the girls. You may start the fires and wake Mrs. Khaleel.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Suit yourself.” She tucked her hair into her cap. He wanted to do it for her. A few minutes ago, she would have let him.
He hadn’t done anything to merit the change. He was entirely in the right. He raised an eyebrow back. “I shall, Miss Grimes, thank you.”
Her pale blue eyes caught the light of the embers, fiercely smug. “I’m Mrs. Toogood now.”
His neck heated. Damn it all to hell. He hated looking like a fool. “My apologies. I shall, Mrs. Toogood, thank you.”
She snatched up the brazier by its handle and whisked herself out of the room, leaving him in the dark.
Chapter Eight
Molly and Thea were dim lumps when he opened the door to their room. “Girls?” Neither stirred. Anything louder would probably wake the vicar, and he had no desire to advertise their failing. He prodded a set of toes beneath the blanket with his foot. “Girls.”
Thea rolled over with a small yelp, huddling under the covers. “Who’s there?”
That woke Molly, who sat up and put herself squarely between him and Thea, crossing her arms across her full breasts in her nightgown. He carefully looked at the wall above her head, admitting to himself that he should have let Sukey do this. “It’s six o’clock,” he said in his mildest tones. “Get dressed and start your work. We’ll speak about this later.” He shut the door behind him and went to wake Larry.
When the maids were dressed and up and about the house, John found Thea in the living room. “Lost time can never be made up,” he told her gently. “A day that might have been pleasant and easy is now a day of anxiety and haste.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said as if hoping it would make him go away. She dusted like an automaton. A slow one.
“Thank you. I accept your apology, and I’m sure the rest of the staff will also. Mistakes happen.” He’d have liked to leave it there, but doing so yesterday hadn’t noticeably reassured her. Sometimes discretion was not the better part of valor. “I gather that you and the other servants have had a difficult time of it, and that the previous butler was not kind.”
She hunched her shoulders again, as if to hide that her breasts were growing. Her dress was too tight. He’d have to talk to Mr. Summers about a new one.
“I promise to treat you with respect,” he told her. “And I hope that you will do the same for me.”
She barely glanced up. “Yessir.”
“Remember that we rely on each other in this house. If one of us falls, we all do, like dominoes.”
“Yessir.”
“I think you will find that the best medicine for trouble is to keep your mind occupied. Over time, the pain lessens, and the satisfaction in industry and self-reliance grows.”
She nodded with an audible sigh. The magnitude of the situation seemed entirely lost on her.
“Thea, I’ve told you I won’t mention this or your nap yesterday to Mr. Summers. But many more slips, and he will remark it himself.” It was cowardly to shrink from sternness on his own account, and unfair to turn aside the blame onto another. But it was also the truth. He could not keep her from being dismissed if Mr. Summers found out she was sleeping in cupboards when she ought to be working. “I want to help you, but you must help me too.”
“With what?”
He remembered her apprehensive reaction yesterday when he said he wouldn’t tell Mr. Summers. As if, he realized with a burst of fury at his predecessor, she expected him to demand something in exchange. “With doing your work well. I will never expect more from you than that.”
She sighed again, heavily.
“I know this morning was not entirely your fault. Last night when Mr. Summers rang, why did you answer, and not Molly?”
She froze. “She was sound asleep and I was up, sir. I thought there’d be no harm in it.”
“I see. Is that the truth?”
She nodded frantically, the china Scaramouche she was dusting wobbling. She was lying or scared, but either seemed equally likely.
He moved closer to the mantel to catch the figurine if it fell, noting that Sukey, in her haste, had been obliged to sweep out the ash and light the fire without polishing the fire-irons or cleaning the inside walls of the fireplace. “Answering the bell at night is Molly’s task, just as it is yours to make up the first fires and wake the other servants. You may wake her to do it, and if she does not like it, you may refer her to me.”
