The Tainted Love of a Captain

by Jane Lark

  ‘But will you call on me again tomorrow?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘Of course I wish.’

  He smiled and bowed his head. ‘Then I will call here. At what hour?’

  ‘For luncheon again…’ she proposed.

  ‘Very well, for luncheon.’

  For the first time, she did not curtsey to him when they parted; instead she simply turned and opened the door.

  When she went inside, he walked away and something clasped in his chest with a hard sudden grasp. He leant and patted Ash’s head. ‘Women are the strangest creatures.’ Yet he’d thought he had mastered that knowledge years ago. Charlie was proving him wrong.

  He had a sudden desire to break into a run, though. There was a lightness inside him, a strange emotion that expressed a sense of escapism—and the feeling had not come on the back of a physical encounter; they had not gone near a bed. This feeling was due solely to Charlie’s conversation, her laughter and her smiles.

  The next day he arrived at midday. With a smile on his face as he and Ash waited on the doorstep for the door to be opened. His heart had a full feeling, as though he’d just eaten a very rich meal. He had completed his duty and now he had two days to do as he wished.

  Charlotte, Charlie, opened the door.

  ‘Hello. Come in.’ She took hold of his coat sleeve and pulled him over the threshold once more. Then her other hand lifted his hat off his head, before he could do it himself. She put it aside on the hall table. ‘We have the whole house to ourselves, I told all the servants to go out.’

  ‘You will have me strung up,’ he said as he stripped off his gloves.

  She only smiled. Then took his gloves from his hand and dropped them on top of his hat. ‘I have luncheon ready in my parlour.’

  ‘And lemonade?’

  ‘And lemonade,’ she confirmed with a nod, holding his hand and then pulling him towards her parlour.

  ‘This is your lair I am being lured into again. Am I to be the luncheon today?’

  ‘No, you will be dessert.’

  Uncertainty lifted his eyebrows, although his smile still broke, yet that twisted a little. He was still unsure whether or not it was wise to call on her here.

  They ate their luncheon in her little parlour and drank the lemonade, just as they had done yesterday, talking and laughing together. Then she stood suddenly and took his empty plate from his lap. ‘Shall we go up to bed?’

  He glanced at Ash, with a desire to laugh at himself whipping at his chest as his eyebrows lifted again. He was in a strange play. The set for it was perfect; in a feminine parlour. And the scene; the demise of a lustful, sinful soldier. He was still tired from the hours he’d worked through the night, though. For two days he’d had only a couple of hours’ sleep and it made his thoughts disjointed.

  He looked up at her as she stood before him, trying to search for some common sense in this. ‘And what will be said by the servants?’

  ‘They are all out.’

  ‘I know, but if anyone returns?’

  ‘I have locked the door between the downstairs and the upstairs and only I have the key,’ her pitch was proud and self-satisfied and her chin tilted upwards, just as it had done yesterday when he’d questioned her judgement.

  Damn. The laugh escaped his throat. He could not help himself. The woman was so confusing and enchanting. The Charlotte he had met here, Charlie, was an entirely different person to the trembling woman who’d joined him in a bed in the inn for the first time.

  He reached out and held of her hand, without standing or making his decision to accept. Her fingers closed about his as her large eyes looked earnestly at him, asking him why he had not moved yet.

  He might be tired but he had learned to ensure his decisions were not slanted by fatigue. ‘Are you certain this is a good idea?’ Perhaps they both needed to come to their senses and stop this now. But his desire to do that was weak, his mind urged him to continue it as much as she did. He wanted to go upstairs with her.

  ‘Yes. I am. It is the best idea,’ her answer was spoken in her voice that said she intended to live her life as she wished. Her stance reminded him of his youthful self again and his constant refusal to conform to his father’s and older brother’s moralistic view of life. Ah. Damn the world and its judgement.

  He stood up.

  Damn an army that would make its soldiers march into a battle with a pitiful ration of bullets, let alone food. Damn the infections and diseases that killed the men who had survived the battles and died in filthy beds. Nothing in this world was fair or right.

  Who had the power to be a judge over them for choosing to share a bed? No one. They were free to do as they wished.

  The emotion that rushed through his body had him lifting a hand to embrace her neck. He wanted this as much as she did. The servants’ or Hillier’s interference be damned. He brought her mouth to his for a long moment.

  When they walked upstairs, he led her by the hand as Ash followed them, looking at him with doubt.

  If this was a wrong thing to do, then Harry was now cursed, but he would go to hell smiling.

  ‘Where?’ he asked on the landing.

  ‘There.’ She pointed to a door in the corner of the landing.

  God, he had to ask. ‘Is it the room you share with Hillier?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It is my room, as the parlour is my room.’

  He breathed out the disturbed sensations that began spinning in his blood on a frothing wave. He did not think he could have lain in the bed with her if Hillier had been there before him. Which was a stupid thought because when he’d slept with other women potentially hundreds of men had been in those beds before him.

  He clasped the door handle, turned it and pushed the door open. She took over and led him into the room. It was another small room, like her parlour, and the bed was plain and narrow. Beyond that she had a dressing table, wardrobe and a set of drawers, and that was all. There were none of the fancy things like the jewellery boxes and ornaments he knew were in his sisters’ rooms.

  She stood before him smiling proudly and they still held hands as Ash walked around the room sniffing at everything. Ash had known where the letter had come from just as Harry had.

  Harry’s free hand lifted and stroked Charlie’s neck, then he kissed her.

  She kissed him back as her hand pulled loose from his, then reached to release the buttons of his coat.

  It was hurried and urgent when they came together; there were still pins in her hair and the dog lay on the floor beside the bed.

  It was the first time they had done this in the way he might have done it with a whore, yet it still felt entirely different. The setting and the hours they’d spent together changed everything. And Charlie… Charlie was simply different—she felt different from every other woman in the world.

  When he’d finished, he rolled on to his back, content, and his mind was peaceful as it had not been peaceful for more than a year. He closed his eyes and let that peacefulness enfold him.

  Chapter 5

  Charlie sat down on the edge of the bed. Harry did not wake, even when the mattress dipped as she sat. He’d slept all afternoon.

  She had risen and taken Ash out for a walk about the garden, before any of Mark’s servants returned, and since then she had been busy sealing her new friendship with Ash in the parlour, playing games. She’d taught the dog tricks for the benefit of some treats from their left-over luncheon; to bark when ordered and lift her paw for a shake and to roll over.

  But now the others had returned and it was time for dinner and she had decided that she ought to come and wake him.

  His arms rested on top of the sheets and he breathed steadily, his chest rising and falling. Her fingers stroked down his cheek.

  Suddenly his eyes opened wide and he grasped her arm as he sat up. The grip hurt.

  There was a moment like that and then his eyes looked at her face when he fully woke and he recognised h
er. Letting go of her he tumbled back on to the bed with a sigh, his arms lifting and his hands then pressing on to the top of his head.

  She rubbed her aching wrist.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It is better not to wake me.’

  ‘But it is getting late, I thought you must be hungry.’

  ‘Lord. Yes. I am hungry. What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly seven.’

  ‘Really.’ He sat up again. ‘The servants—’

  ‘Have returned. But they have said nothing about your hat in the hall. Mark invites other women here, though, sometimes. That is why I have my own rooms, so I can stay out of his way when he wishes. So perhaps the servants do not care and why should I not have a man here, when he is entertained by other women?’

  He smiled, but not widely, and his hand lifted, then the back of his fingers ran over her cheek. ‘Do you think we have taken a risk we should not have? Will you be in trouble? I suppose I should not have fallen asleep.’

  ‘You should have done, you were tired, and this is my house when Mark is away. I have the run of it and the say of it in Mark’s absence.’

  A quiet sound that expressed amusement escaped his throat. ‘There is so much conviction in your voice that I shall let myself be convinced by you.’ He sat up and she stood, moving out of his way so he could get up. ‘You are right, I am hungry, but we will go out and eat at an inn. I am not inclined to ask the Colonel’s kitchen to cook for us.’

  While they ate, in the inn he’d taken her to on the second day they had shared a bed, with Ash at their feet, she persuaded him to come back with her and remain for the night. This was what she wanted, to be with Captain Harry Marlow. She had delighted in his company at the seashore and she enjoyed being in a bed with him and yesterday and today she had appreciated his companionship. This was what she wanted.

  When they returned to the house, she fetched one of Mark’s cigars, lit it herself as she did sometimes for Mark, and handed it to Harry. They shared it as she sat on Harry’s lap while they also shared a few glasses of Mark’s whiskey.

  She asked Harry about the places he’d travelled to with the army and the things he’d seen of the world. He told her some horrible stories about the war and spoke of the men he’d sought to comfort as they’d suffered with their wounds and men he had seen fall upon, or carried from, battlefields. He also spoke of men who were his friends; men who had done miraculous things. Harry was a good man. Everything he said to her screamed of it. Then he told her about his horse, Obsidian. She could tell from his voice that he was fond of the horse and as kind to her as he was to Ash and as he had been to his men.

  When he’d finished speaking, she said, ‘Would you introduce me to Obsidian one day. I’d like to meet her.’ Then she held his hand and stood up. ‘But let’s put Ash out into the garden now, for a moment, and then retire to bed.’

  This was very different to the way she had lived for the last seven years with Mark. She had talked and laughed with Harry and now they walked upstairs for a second time holding hands, only this time it was her leading him. In her room she looked immediately at the brass buttons on his coat and began undoing them as Ash found a place on the rag rug beside her bed.

  Harry let her take his coat off, smiling indulgently at her. Then she pushed his braces off his shoulders so she could pull his shirt up and over his head.

  When he stripped his shirt off his arms, she began undoing her dress. He did not try to help, but instead sat on the bed and watched her as he pulled off his boots.

  He seemed slightly intoxicated, but so was she and the taste of the cigar still filled her mouth. She felt naughty, as she had as a child when she’d sat on top of a hayrick chewing on a liquorice root, when she had run away and hidden when she was supposed to be in Sunday school.

  She was hiding again, with Harry—she wanted to hide away with Harry forever.

  When she remembered the days she had lain on hayricks, she always longed to go back in time, then she would never climb into Mark’s carriage and she would hide on a hayrick forever. She hadn’t known what would happen then. But now she knew the future and she wanted to stay in this moment and stop time.

  When she turned her back to him, so he could unlace her corset, Harry was sitting on her bed, in only his trousers, stocking-less, with his braces hanging by his hips. His fingers tugged the lacing free, jolting her body. The assurance with which he performed the task pulled strings inside her as well as pulling the lacing loose.

  When her corset fell off she turned and held Harry’s head, the heels of her palms pressing against his cheeks as she bent and kissed him.

  His hands grasped her chemise at the hem and lifted it, then he drew it over her head and off her arms. When she straightened, his gaze dropped to her navel and his hands settled at her hips over her drawers. He pulled them down, leaned forward and kissed her stomach, then the place between her legs.

  ‘Oh.’

  Her hands rested on his head and her fingers combed through his hair as his fingers spread and pressed into the skin and the flesh of her bottom, holding her against him as his tongue explored. He moved her hips as he wished, while the movement of his tongue stirred up the pleasurable sensations she’d discovered with him. Then his fingers slid into her and the rush of emotion rolled over her. She clung to his shoulders.

  He looked up at her, his eyes hazy with liquor, yet saying he was proud of his success.

  She took control, pushed him back on to the bed, straddled him and undid his trousers, so she could get at him, then freed him from his underwear and put him inside her. It was her turn to control the movement, moving up, backward and forward. Seeking to catch him out with unexpected movements as his hands slid over her thighs, gently, with the flow of her motion. But he did not try to take control from her.

  She moved more determinedly, her palms resting on his chest, her fingers splayed. She wanted to feel successful too, to feel as smug as he had looked when he’d brought on the rushing waves of the little death in her. She wished to make the waves crash over him, as though there had been the wildest storm.

  His pale-blue eyes looked directly into hers and his lips parted slightly as he breathed more heavily, in a quick rhythm of breaths, even though it was not him who was moving.

  ‘You are an incredibly beautiful woman, Charlie, in spirit as well as appearance.’

  Her hands ran down to his stomach then up to his shoulders and on to his arms. ‘You are beautiful too.’ She wanted to say she loved him, the whiskey had put the words on to her tongue. But military men like Mark and Harry did not recognise or trade in the emotion of love. She had learned that long ago. Everything with a soldier was just fact, they did not welcome compassion or care. But this… This they welcomed, and this Harry was skilled at—and he was youthful and beautiful and she had drunk whiskey and her emotions were free and she was in a mood to be naughty. She laughed.

  His hands came up and pressed either side of her head, then pulled her down to kiss him as she continued moving, working hard, more forcefully. She struck her body against his so that sensations exploded through her until the moment the wave came and when it came she could feel that a second later it broke over him too.

  She was sweaty and breathing hard. She lay on top of him, letting her body rest on his. His hand stroked over her hair as he breathed heavily too, his chest lifting beneath her.

  I love you. Her tongue longed to say the words.

  After a moment, Harry’s hand gripped her arm and encouraged her to move off him.

  She lay on the bed beside him.

  His forearm covered his eyes. ‘I did not put on the sheath.’

  She did not care. ‘It does not matter.’

  ‘It might. I have never forgotten before.’

  What did she say? He seemed upset. No. Not upset, angry. But with himself. Her fingers touched his arm. ‘I do not mind, Harry.’

  He turned then, rolling on to his side and wrapped his arms around her, holding her.
It was the first time he’d simply held her. ‘I am sorry. I should have remembered.’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

  He did not answer, only held her more firmly. She wanted to know what he was thinking, but she did not ask. She was not sure how to ask, or that he would answer.

  After he’d taken off his trousers and underwear they got into the bed.

  He lay on his back with her head on his shoulder and his arm around her as the sheet lay over their hips, so the breeze from the window he’d opened brushed over her skin. He held her all night, as she drifted in and out of sleep.

  ~

  Harry woke in a strange bed, in a strange room and his body was pinned down by… Charlie. He laughed quietly.

  Something tickled his foot. He lifted his head. Ash. The dog probably needed to go out; from the amount of daylight in Charlie’s room it looked quite late to be rising. But the late hour did not matter, he was not on duty today so he did not care that they’d slept late.

  The thought stirred a sound of humour low in his throat. She had cared for nothing yesterday. She’d let him spend time here and sleep here as though Hillier did not exist. He wished the man did not exist.

  He slid Charlie’s hand off his stomach, then carefully disengaged his arm from about her shoulders before climbing over her and off the bed. It did not disturb her. He picked up his underwear and trousers and put them on.

  Her beautiful hair was splayed out over the pillow. He smiled as he pulled on his stockings and boots. Then he beckoned Ash with his hand. He and the dog left the room and went downstairs side by side, then walked on through the room in which he’d played cards and over to the French doors. He opened a door and let Ash out, then turned to the box of cigars that Charlie had brought back into the room late last night. He took one out, lit it and then walked over to the open door.

  He smoked the cigar, half-clothed, his braces hanging down at his hips and his top half bare as he watched the dog discovering all the scents and secrets the garden held. There was that surreal feeling. Perhaps he had picked up an infection in the battlefield and he’d never come home at all and this, Charlie, the Colonel, all of it… Perhaps it was all a hallucination. Or heaven.