by Olivia Waite
“Oh!” Penelope gasped. Then: “Again! Please?”
Agatha complied joyfully, building up a steady, relentless rhythm of thrust and retreat, until Penelope’s hips began rising up to meet her and drive the dildo in as deep as it could go. Agatha’s greedy gaze drank in every toss of her head, the flush that spilled from her cheeks and down her throat and over the tops of that bouncing bosom. Her thighs were shaking now, legs splayed and straining, one foot arching up with toes spread as she fought toward the peak of pleasure.
Agatha leaned, down, breathing her words close into her lover’s ear: “Go on, love—you know what you need.”
Penelope let out a soft, choked cry, but her hand dove down between her legs and began stroking the aching flesh there. Agatha focused on the he’s-at-home, fucking Penelope just as fast as she’d promised, until with a final cry her whole torso arched off the bed and she came in great, gasping waves.
As soon as she relaxed, Agatha bent low and buried her face between her lover’s legs. The scents of heat and sweat and pleasure filled her mouth as she licked hungrily, suckling on the tender bud while holding the dildo in place to make sure Penelope stayed filled.
Penelope wriggled and writhed, but Agatha didn’t know there was purpose to it until she felt Penelope’s languorous tongue trace flickering fire against the inside of her thigh. The woman had twisted around until she could raise her head and lick at Agatha’s cunt, echoing the pace of Agatha’s tongue between her thighs.
Agatha moaned into the soft-sweetness beneath her mouth, and spread herself obligingly wide for Penelope’s advantage. They devoured one another, Penelope newly sated, Agatha growing more and more needy as her desire built and roared through the ocean of her veins.
Penelope pulled her mouth away briefly, and there was the gentle chime of glass. Then her fingers were back, oil-slicked, one of them plunging deep into Agatha as that wicked tongue resumed its journey, the tip flicking against the tenderest, most aching part of her cunny and causing her to curse in startled delight.
Penelope laughed knowingly and added a second finger.
Agatha felt herself stretched to the brink; her eyes shut, her hands slowed, and she pulled the dildo free and set it aside on the bedclothes. Greedily, she pressed her cheek against Penelope’s dewy thigh and gasped helplessly as sensations surged through her.
A third plunging finger, almost too much to bear—until the fourth was added. Agatha whimpered and keened breathlessly, shoving her hips back to take as much as she possibly could. There was nothing else in this world, just her heart and her cunt and the slick, solid pressure of Penelope’s hand. Agatha begged for more in whispers, pleading desperately as she rocked back and forth, a torrent of senseless words pouring from her lips.
Penelope’s low laugh skated over her inner thigh—and then a thumb pressed just so over the tight bundle of nerves buried in her folds, and all the striving and stroking and wonderful struggle of it burst like a glorious star behind Agatha’s eyes.
Her hands on Penelope’s thighs clutched tight and she rode that crest of pleasure until it faded and awareness of the world came creeping back.
Penelope’s hand eased itself away.
Joints shaking, Agatha collapsed to her side on the bed with a wheezing laugh. She felt like she’d been taken expertly apart by pleasure and then reassembled by some hapless amateur, not sure what bits went where. “Good god, Flood, you’ll be the absolute death of me.”
“I hope not,” Penelope murmured back. She went up on one elbow, eyes possessively roaming the long length of Agatha’s spent form.
Agatha rolled slightly so their sides were pressed together, even though they were nose-to-toes and slightly diagonal across the width of the bed.
Penelope looped a hand loosely around Agatha’s calves, curving one rough palm to fit them. “Stay with me tonight?”
Agatha sat up, hands clasping over her knees. “Could I? Won’t someone talk?”
Penelope shrugged. “We can say you heard something moving in the wood and grew frightened.”
Agatha snorted. “At least make it a ghost or specter or something, won’t you? For the sake of my pride.”
Penelope retrieved the he’s-at-home, cleaned it, and patted it carefully dry.
By the time she’d tucked it back in its box and hidden the box away, Agatha had blown out the candle and tunneled under the blankets. The fire was down to embers now. Only the moonlight reflecting off the snow was left, a cool silver illumination that touched only the barest outlines of furniture and curtains. “Thank you for thinking to keep it warmer in here tonight,” she murmured, as Penelope joined her and wrapped her arms tight around Agatha’s waist. “Apparently the ghost frightened me so much that I had no choice but to fling my nightclothes entirely off.”
Penelope cackled silently against Agatha’s shoulder. “If you’re worried, you could put them back on again.”
“No joy,” Agatha said, then wiggled so all their several bumps and valleys fitted perfectly against one another. Some part of her was only happy when skin to skin with this woman; she knew better than to lie to herself about that. And apparently most of Melliton already knew it, too. She grimaced. “Doesn’t it bother you? The things people say?”
Penelope shrugged. Her voice was already growing slow and sleepy. “It’s a small village. People always talk.”
“But then you have to look them in the face, and know they know.”
“And?”
Agatha shifted uneasily. “And how is that not terribly awkward, for everyone?”
Penelope shrugged again, less forcefully. “It might be, if that were the only thing they knew about me. It would feel more significant then. But they also know about the time my brothers and I stole Mr. Scriven’s newest baby goat, and tried to keep it as a pet. They know how many months Mr. Biswas spent courting Miss Calbert before she agreed to become Mrs. Biswas. They know how many enemy prizes Mr. Kitt helped capture during the war, and what battle Mr. Thomas was wounded in.” She shifted her cheek against Agatha’s shoulder, as if hunting for the right spot to settle in for the night. “So the things they might not approve of, the things that make us different—they don’t seem to stand out as much.”
“Until they do,” Agatha said.
“Until they do,” Penelope sighed.
Agatha stared up into the darkness. “Mrs. Stowe said that if someone’s looking for an excuse to hurt you, they’ll find one, and that’s all there is to it.”
Penelope hmmed at this. “Sounds sensible.”
“Sounds like London,” Agatha countered. “Maybe the two places are not so different. Maybe the city is just several small towns, that all happen to be stacked on top of one another.”
Penelope let out a puff of laughter, startled. “What?”
Agatha pursed her lips, warming to her theme. “If you live in town long enough, you find yourself meeting the same people wherever you go. You know someone who knows someone who knows someone, and it’s like they’re following you—when of course all it means is that you get invited to the same dinners and dances and such. And then you move to a different street, or you lose a fortune or gain one, or find a spouse or lose one . . .” She swallowed, thinking of the friends who’d just seemed to vanish after Thomas’s death. “And suddenly you’re in a whole new set of people. As though everyone’s moving in carefully plotted circles—like a dance, rings within rings within rings.”
“Who’s calling the figures?” Penelope murmured drowsily.
“No one. Who could possibly?”
“No wonder it’s all chaos, then.” Penelope sighed, and shifted, and before long her breathing turned deep and even, the unmistakable rhythm of well-deserved sleep.
Agatha pressed her face into Penelope’s hair, protectiveness like a tide washing through her. All at once she had so much more to lose than she’d started the holiday with. It would probably have been safer if she’d never gone to bed with Penelope Flood at all.
> She couldn’t dredge up even a single atom of regret. But she did make herself a silent promise, as the moonlight crept across the carpet: she would do everything in her power to keep anyone, in city or country, from hurting Penelope Flood.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Agatha dragged on her gray dress the next morning, fuzzy-minded, sore in unspeakable places. She washed her face with lukewarm water, and rubbed her winter-cracked hands with some of the balm Penelope had made for her. The scent of lemons and honey rose around her like a halo in the morning sunlight, and as her nose and mouth filled with that sharp summer scent, Agatha came to an abrupt decision.
She could, and arguably should, attach herself to Sydney and Eliza again. Hound them over hill and dale across the town. Trap them in corners of the house under an ever-waking and mistrustful eye.
But she wasn’t going to.
She had business with Mr. Downes at the print-works. And while she could have tried to insist Sydney come with her, to give him grounding in the business he would someday have to inherit . . . well, to be perfectly honest, she was tired. The amount of effort she knew she’d have to expend in getting him to accompany her did not seem worth the paltry reward of his sullen, silent companionship.
She went down to breakfast, and asked Penelope to walk out with her instead.
The sky had cleared again but the snow still lay glittering on the ground, sparkles dancing in the corners of Agatha’s eyes whenever she turned her head. Icicles hung from eaves and branches like diamond spears. Sunlight glowed on the greenery over windows and doorways, and made red holly berries shine like rubies.
Agatha gloried in all of it, and stopped in one snow-shrouded hollow of the wood outside the town to kiss Penelope beneath the boughs until both their cheeks were flushed and rosy.
The steam press was hard at it again, pouring white smoke into the cold blue sky. It was toasty enough inside that Agatha and Penelope had to shed their coats.
“Mr. Downes!” Agatha called.
The print-works foreman looked up from where he was checking the latest proofs from the apprentices’ compositing. “Mrs. Griffin,” he said with a nod. “How are your holidays going?”
“Splendid,” Agatha replied, “until I noticed a certain handbill that has lately gone up around town.”
“Yes, I’ve meant to tell you about that,” Mr. Downes hurried to say. His grin was proud and eager, not a whit of guilt about it.
“Did you not think to ask me about it before undertaking the job, Mr. Downes?” Agatha shot back, in her sharpest tone.
He paused, blinking. “I thought there would be no reason you would turn it down.” He dismissed the apprentice, and turned to face Agatha fully, tugging his rolled shirtsleeves back down over his forearms. “It seemed like a good way to use up all the spare paper we had left when you cancelled that last run of the Widow Wasp.”
Agatha’s stomach lurched. So instead of printing seditious ditties, she was profiting off people making threats against Penelope Flood’s friends and neighbors. She hadn’t enjoyed being threatened by the soldiers; she wanted no part in making anyone else feel that same sick, powerless fear. “I appreciate your ingenuity,” she said tightly, “but I must ask you to refuse any future jobs from Lady Summerville, or any other member of the Mendacity Society.”
Mr. Downes’ brows flew up like startled dragonflies. “Why, Mrs. Griffin?”
Agatha’s eyes narrowed. “Because it’s my press, not Lady Summerville’s, and I have the right to say how it’s employed.”
“But . . .” Mr. Downes was sputtering now with bafflement. “But there was plenty of room in the queue . . . and the rates were good . . .”
“How good?” interrupted Penelope Flood.
Mr. Downes wordlessly turned to the ledger on the table beside him, and pointed to the line in the book. Penelope whistled.
Agatha’s stomach twisted again. It was indeed a good amount of money. Giving it back would be difficult, especially if they were to replace the lost paper on top of that sum. And especially considering the Mendacity Society would only use it to do more harm, if Agatha returned the funds.
“No more such jobs in future, Mr. Downes,” she repeated. “On pain of dismissal.”
He blanched, but he nodded obedience.
Agatha and Penelope wrapped themselves up again, while all around them journeymen and apprentices whispered to one another and avoided making eye contact. Agatha knew the instant their employer was out of sight, the discussion would begin. There was nothing she could do to stop it. There would be people who agreed with Mr. Downes, and people who were glad to see him scolded because of the one time he’d scolded them. It was a moment that could poison the air of a workshop for months, even years to come.
Unless: she gave them something else to talk about.
She turned on her heel and strode back toward Mr. Downes. “May I see that ledger again, please?”
Pale as milk, he handed it over.
Agatha ran her eye down the columns, tallying silently in her head, and came to a conclusion. It was tight, but . . . “We’ve been doing so much better these past few months, even with the Wasp cancellation,” she said, and smiled. “I think a general pay raise is in order.”
It was as if the entire room was holding its breath.
Agatha’s smile widened. “Say, an extra shilling a month? And two shillings to you, Mr. Downes. For the overall excellence of your work, and that of the entire shop.”
Mr. Downes’ stiffness vanished, relief pouring off him like smoke. “Thank you, Mrs. Griffin,” he breathed.
Agatha nodded, took Penelope’s arm, and strode out into the winter world again. Just before the door snicked shut behind her, she heard the unmistakable sound of voices raised in excitement.
So what if she was buying their loyalty and goodwill? What else were employers for? And the quicker Lady Summerville’s money left her hands, the better Agatha felt about not giving it back.
Her lover’s frown, however, grew and grew as they walked by the snow-decked houses of Melliton. “What’s wrong?” Agatha asked.
Penelope Flood, bless her, didn’t beat around the bush. “Where do you suppose Lady Summerville got all that money?”
Agatha blinked. “What do you mean?”
“That was a great deal of cash to spend for those handbills,” Penelope said, waving at one as they passed.
Agatha’s hands itched to tear it down from the post—but there were too many windows around them, staring like pupil-less eyes.
Penelope waved at the vicarage, new windows misted over from the warmth within and frost without. “Mr. Oliver’s new glass couldn’t have come cheaply, either—not as quickly as they were replaced. And that’s not even counting the bounties offered for information on—” her lips twisted painfully “—sedition, blasphemy, or obscenity.”
“It does sound like a lot, when you list it out,” Agatha muttered.
Penelope nodded sharply. “So where is she getting it all? Everyone knows Viscount Summerville’s never had two pennies to rub together.”
Agatha tucked Penelope closer against her side as they passed from the village and into the wood. “We know where the money comes from,” she said. “She sold all of Isabella’s statues.”
Penelope’s mouth gaped, then snapped almost audibly shut. “You’re right,” she said weakly—then cursed loudly enough to startle a raven into flight from a nearby tree. Both women flung their hands over their heads as snow flurries and icy droplets rained down on them both.
Penelope cursed again, low and bitter this time. “How dare she,” she hissed. “How dare she put Isabella’s work to such a use, when she knows Isabella herself would never have supported such—cruelty.” She was shaking, her hands clenching shut and then flying open again, so bloody furious that Agatha was surprised the snow around her feet didn’t melt and sublimate into steam.
“She’s sold off nearly all of them, you said,” Agatha murmured. She put a hand
on Penelope’s elbow, soothing. “The funds will run out, too, soon enough.”
Penelope’s mouth went flat. “Unless she’s also sold the Napoleon snuffbox.”
Agatha gaped.
Penelope’s gaze was bleak and cold as the woods. “Her statues were not small, but the snuffbox was even more valuable. It had rings of diamonds, and the highest quality enamel, and a portrait of the emperor himself.” She kicked at a particularly grimy chink of ice. “She could fund the Mendacity Society for a decade with that kind of money.”
“Damn,” Agatha breathed.
Penelope wheeled to face her. “Do you still recall the name of that barrister you met? The one who told you where to find the dryad statue?”
“I can do better than that,” Agatha promised. “I’ve already written to a few London art brokers about the Napoleon. They’re sure to know who’s been arranging those sales—it’s a small, gossipy world and they’ll be thrilled to be able to share what they know.”
“Thank you,” Penelope said. One corner of her lip tilted upward.
They walked on, but after three steps Agatha felt her heart sink as something else occurred to her: Joanna Molesey would be bloody furious if Lady Summerville had sold that snuffbox. And a furious Joanna was a dangerous Joanna.
Bad enough that the Wasp’s popularity had caught the attention of the law in London. It wasn’t fair, Agatha knew—but that had been little comfort when she’d been facing down soldiers in her own storefront.
Agatha had paid the price for Joanna Molesey’s anger last time.
Who in Melliton would suffer, if she decided to sting again?
It was bound to happen: the Christmas holidays came to a close. Agatha and her family returned to London; Penelope yearned to claim a farewell kiss, but had to be content to squeeze her beloved’s hand as she and the young folk climbed up into the stage.
After the coach had trundled off through the slush, Penelope trudged back to Fern Hall, where Harry and John flirted cozily as they sprawled on the hearth like two great mastiffs. Penelope sat in the armchair, tucked her legs beneath her, and began counting the hours until Agatha’s next letter.
