by Nia Farrell
“She’s beautiful,” I whispered. I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I was simply stating a fact. Yes, my hands had wielded the hammer and chisels but the force guiding them came from a source beyond me, almost otherworldly, divine in nature, superseding human limitations, allowing me to create this transcendent work of art. So lifelike…only a breath away from being—that’s how real she felt to me.
“Yes,” Edward hummed, acknowledging Daniel with a nod. “And her placement is perfect.”
“She’s yours,” I blurted. “I need her displayed for the open house, but she isn’t for sale. Merry Christmas?”
He was stunned. The look on his face was one that I’d only seen once before, when he was shocked to realize that I was a virgin.
“I don’t know where you’ll want to put her,” I rattled on, pressing a hand to the pinch in my nervous stomach. “I was thinking, the east wall of the drawing room? Of course, if you’d rather—”
He was on me in two steps, pulling me into his arms and kissing me senseless. I melted into him, relieved beyond belief.
After a long moment, he ended the kiss but continued to hold me in the circle of his arms.
Leaning back, I lifted my chin to meet his gaze and found it locked on our Belle. “I trust that I’ve made you happy.”
“Yes,” he said. “And no. She’s your prize piece. She should be shared with the world, not playing wallflower in my drawing room.”
“She’ll be happy there.”
“She’ll be happier where she can be admired and appreciated by the masses. Somewhere, perhaps, like the National Gallery, hmm?”
I squashed my excitement before it had a chance to take hold and make me say something stupid. I’d been to the Gallery. I’d seen the art on display. The likelihood of my work being accepted was virtually nonexistent. “I’m American,” I reminded him glumly.
“Ah, yes. But your mother was British. By right of birth, you hold dual citizenship, my dear.”
Suddenly, the door to a world of possibilities opened. I could see my work at the National Gallery. Mine. La Belle de la Rosa by Lane Davenport. God help me, I wanted it, but it would be up to Edward to see it done.
“I don’t know their process,” I said. “Whom to talk to. Whom to see. It would have to be offered and accepted, either as a gift or a loan.”
“Loan,” he said firmly. “That way, when we are old and gray, she can retire to the country with us, hmm? In the evenings, the three of us can read all the missives begging for bequests for your work and debate merits, pro and con. Whatever side I take, it is safe to say that Daniel’s opinion will differ and you will still be in the middle, sorting us out.”
Hearing his vision of our shared future touched me so deeply that my throat closed and my tear ducts opened, blurring my vision.
“Look what you’ve done,” I chided him gruffly. “You’ve made me cry, and you know that’s not my best look.”
“Perhaps not for Daniel,” he rumbled, catching a drop on his thumb and tasting it. “He wants your smiles. I want your tears. You are never more beautiful, more alive than when you yield yourself to me. Beg for me. Cry for me. Fly for me. I dare say, you are wet now, just thinking of it.”
Heaven help me, I was. My poor knickers were soaked with my juices.
Edward nodded smugly. “I can smell your arousal, even through your layers of skirts. Daniel, lock the door.”
His long stride echoed as he went down one side, bypassing the maze, to lock the door. By the time he returned to us, I was shivering in my chemise, gartered stockings, and shoes.
“She needs warmed, my boy,” Edward told him. “And fucked. She is going to offer you her body and when she is ready, you are going to strip her and lay her down on the altar and accept her gift, like a living sacrifice, hmm?”
I thought that sleeping with a stepbrother was taboo. That was nothing to what Edward proposed. If his intention was to make us uncomfortable, he’d succeeded. But I could no more deny my arousal than Daniel could ignore his. The desire to be inside me was ever-present. And we trusted Edward to know what we needed. What pleased Edward would ultimately please us.
“Hold me, Paddy,” I said. “And hurry, before I turn blue.”
Daniel wrapped me in his arms, rubbing my exposed skin, warming me with his touch. He’d been hard for me since Edward had ordered the door locked, thinking what I was thinking, that the three of us would climb to the loft, where they’d take me, tied to the bed. Instead of a spring mattress, there was a wide, long slab of stone that had seen hundreds of sacraments but never one as pagan as ours.
“Take me. Fuck me,” I whispered against the underneath side of his chin, twining my leg around his weaker one and nipping at his Adam’s apple. He’d never questioned why I didn’t have one. But then, not all men do.
He groaned, needy, and scooped me up, carrying me to the altar, stripping me bare and laying me atop it. Edward followed us, untying his cravat and pulling it free of his collar.
“Daniel, my boy, take off your cravat and bind her wrists.” Edward placed his over my eyes and knotted it in the back. Robbed of sight, I was dependent on my other senses. Edward smelled of books and newsprint. Daniel smelled of wood and paint. Both men were breathing heavily, but Edward faded, stepping away but not so far that I couldn’t hear the rustle of fabric when he opened his pants and pulled out his erection.
Daniel—yes, Daniel—pulled my bound hands above my head and ran a hand down my body, consecrating me, as if he was my priest and I was his offering. A willing sacrifice. The words echoed in my mind, coming from somewhere beyond myself. As above, so below. Another concept, that this was happening on multiple planes of existence, some Theosophists would have it. I cared not what was happening beyond this time and space. My concern was with the here and now and the man mounting the table, mounting me, possessing me in a thrust that went all the way to my womb.
“Ah!” I sucked in a breath and held it, bracing myself for the next thrust to come. At least he was holding his weight off of me, hips snapping, flesh pounding flesh, taking inches that felt like miles. He hooked one hand around my head and fisted my hair, pulling it the way I liked it, making me wetter yet. I tilted my pelvis to meet his, again and again, opening myself, offering myself, loving the way that he was using me, the confidence that he’d acquired in his ability to please me with that prize-winning cock of his. He knew how to use it, how to angle it just so, how to drive in as deep as I could stand it, then stretch me out and give me more, and more, until I shattered, arching my back to rub my breasts harder against his chest, abrading my nipples on his hair.
But Daniel was not done with me. He demanded more, and I gave it. All the while, Edward stood close by, watching us with his erection in his hand, stroking himself to the rhythm that Daniel set. When Daniel came, he did too, no doubt catching his release in the handkerchief that he always carried and that one of us always seemed to need.
Edward pulled off my blindfold, untied my wrists, and tucked himself away, helping us off the altar, kissing each of us as we dismounted, Daniel first, then me. The moment I stood, I had semen running down both legs, threatening to make a mess on the floor. “I need a towel, please. Or a petticoat.” More questionable laundry but the staff was used to it by now.
“Daniel, if you would.”
My Irishman was off and running, hastening to obey. Edward assisted me with my stockings, which I left ruched at my ankles, and my shoes. While he searched for my garters, I went to stand by the small coal stove nearest us, rotating as if I were spitted, warming myself on all sides. The cloth that Daniel brought back was wet and cold and sent waves of gooseflesh rippling out from wherever it touched, but I could deal with the cold if it meant getting clean.
When I’d gotten the most of it, I tied up my stockings, put my chemise and knickers back on, then began the process of layering up. It was ridiculous, what women were expected to wear, and I speculated how tolerant art patrons would be, were I to
adopt National Dress Reform Movement garb and work in a shortened skirt and Turkish pants. The more I considered it, the more appealing it sounded. Having lived six years as a man had spoiled me, making me appreciate the freedoms that I’d had. Wearing men’s clothing that offered ease of movement. The right to vote, gone before I had exercised it. I was a woman before I left for the war. It hadn’t dawned on me to register in time for absentee balloting. I hadn’t gotten to vote for Lincoln. I would have voted for Grant, had I stayed. Not that it would have made a difference in our bet. Edward had won handily, and after the grand opening, we would be paying a visit to an exclusive jeweler specializing in these things who would pierce my nipples for Edward’s pleasure.
And mine, he had assured me.
I shivered, thinking of what he’d said.
Daniel would be coming too. He had eventually agreed to have his ear pierced. I swore to support his decision, but at the same time, I told him that I thought that an earring would look dashing. “Imagine if yours matches mine,” I’d sighed dreamily, and, well, that seemed to sway him.
He confessed that he’d grown up with tales of Grace O’Malley and had once wanted to raid the seas (at the tender age of four or five). Listening to him talk about the legendary Irish female pirate, I had another portrait come to mind for Lucy and either one of her gypsies, dressed and posed as piratess Anne Bonny and her lover Calico Jack Rackham.
We banked the fires and locked up tight, then walked the half mile home in a biting wind that kept creeping under my skirts and threatening to flip them. Daniel stayed closed behind me, ready to guard my virtue—or at least shield me from having my underpinnings displayed for the world to see.
I was sneezing by the time we got home. By the next morning, I was absolutely miserable. My nose was stuffy and it dripped (I’ve yet to hear that one explained to my satisfaction). My throat hurt. My body ached. I could tell that I had a fever. There was nothing the doctors could recommend besides rest and a soft diet. Babs prescribed homemade chicken soup, not an easy thing, being the Sabbath, with daily groceries for the weekend purchased on Saturday. But she already had dressed hens in the basement larder, and enough vegetables to add bits of color and texture to the broth.
While everyone else had roasted chicken, I remained tucked snugly in my bed and nursed a porringer of Babs’s special soup.
Chapter Forty-Six
I’d like to say that meaty broth works magic, that I bounced right back, as quickly as you please, but it took the better part of the week to improve. Dr. Wainwright paid another house call on Monday. His concern worried Masey—enough that she took time from her schedule to sit with me on Tuesday while the men were gone. Edward was teaching and Daniel was doing some last-minute framing—pieces available for sale and ready to hang, as soon as a spot came open. Many of them were of my series The Fighting 69th.
Masey brought a couple of books and started to read one aloud to me. I didn’t tell her that I could recite it word for word. I enjoyed her vibrancy that grew as she went, her face animated, her voice shifting as she changed it for the different characters.
At one point, she stumbled over a word, and when I spoke without thinking, she looked at me as if I were a unicorn or some other fey creature that she’d found in the forest. She knew that I had a talent for memorization but she had no idea of its extent.
I’d felt freakish enough in my youth. Being a twin fascinated people. Wanting to be an artist amused them, until they realized that I was serious. (A female with a vocation outside the home was unthinkable.) For my own sake, as well as for the sake of my family, I had tried to blend in. That meant hiding the parts of me that I could.
I did one small trick (reciting page 154 paragraph three) then sank into my pillow, exhausted. Masey, feeling sorry for me, tried again, opening her latest purchase that neither of us had read. She had made it through four chapters when time came for her to go. Joseph would be walking home from school soon, and she wanted to be waiting for him. Not that he was spoiled, or that she was overly protective, but it was their routine and she did her best to maintain it.
She confided that he had been teased because he had no father. She couldn’t conjure one, but she could offer unconditional love and provide a sense of stability for him. She hoped for the best, but Joseph was a sensitive child with an artist’s soul and talent beyond his years. God help me, I understood what that was like. Yet I could not bring myself to tell her that, no matter how hard she tried, and he tried, chances were that he’d never fit in.
I hadn’t, until I became Lane. It was sheer luck that I’d stumbled upon a company of Irishmen who welcomed me as one of their own. Who knew what would have happened if I’d crossed another regiment’s picket line?
Perhaps Joseph would be so lucky.
“Thank you,” I rasped. “Tell Dr. Wainwright that I’m feeling some better. No worse, anyway. My chest is clear.” The source of my ticklish cough was higher, in my head. If I could just find something to dry my sinuses, I’d be vastly improved.
Then, on Wednesday, a miracle. One of Lucy’s gypsies, hearing of my plight, brought a brown glass bottle containing a decoction of herbs in a base of elderberry wine that greatly eased my suffering. Evidently their grandmother was a healer as well as a fortune teller. Not a charlatan, though. She’d read Lucy’s palm and scried a crystal ball, and everything that she’d said had been spot on thus far.
I wasn’t certain that I wanted to know my future. I’d rather share Edward’s vision for the three of us, hold it to my heart, and manifest it. If Theosophists were right, if I could see it, if we could see it, we should be able to bring it into being by sheer willpower alone.
I wanted Edward, needed Daniel, and loved them both. Living with less was unimaginable.
By Thursday, I was beginning to feel quite human again. To that point, the men had been all solicitousness. Holding themselves responsible for my taking a chill, they had catered to my needs and had refrained from approaching me sexually. Once the color was back in my cheeks, the mischief was back in Daniel’s eyes. Seeing my reaction to it, Edward decided that a therapeutic bath was in order—for the three of us, in Edward’s large tub. They sponged every inch of me. Edward washed my hair, grown five inches since we’d met. It was long enough now to twist into sections and pin back. Worn thus with a net, gave it the illusion of length from the front, anyway.
They dried me off and bundled me into bed, and made certain that I kept warm between them. It was slow, lazy sex, with one, then the other, until I asked for more and got it.
We slept, after that.
Friday was a new day, in every way. My cold was all but gone, thanks to gypsy medicine. My libido was restored. Tomorrow would be demanding, with a public grand opening from two in the afternoon until four pm, and a reception that evening from seven until ten. The prevailing light, of course, factored into our decision. The afternoon sun made for better viewing. The lamps and candles illuminating the night would create an intimacy and allow people to see what my art would look like in their drawing room or study, library or bedchamber. Not that I had many pieces suitable for the last, but taste was uniquely individual. One never knew. Some retired soldier might decide that he’d welcome falling asleep to a campfire scene.
Edward had ordered two new gowns, a day dress and an evening dress. They were worked up in the black of second mourning, minus the crape now that six months had passed. The fabric was rich beyond belief, and the evening dress felt like sin, positively decadent.
A governess would watch Joseph, freeing Masey to attend both sessions with Dr. Wainwright as his ward. I had grown fond of Edward’s father and appreciated the qualities that had doubtless attracted, then endeared him to, my mother.
Thinking about the open house, worrying if people would come and how my work would be received was enough to make my stomach pinch. That afternoon, a green glass bottle appeared at our door, this one, good for stomachs, so Lucy’s gypsy said.
I took a dose
but felt little improvement. The second dose seemed to help more. Perhaps it had a cumulative effect, but not knowing what would happen if I took too much too soon, I followed the directions sent with it and resolved to pay a visit to Grandmother Prince at the earliest opportunity. I was curious about this woman who could intuit things. My wish to thank her in person gave me an excuse to meet her. If she had any of her grandson’s looks, she’d make a fascinating model, if I could talk her into letting me sketch or paint her.
Edward had taken care of all of Daniel’s massages this week, and tonight was no exception. After a mild supper of oatmeal and stewed apples, I adjourned with them to Daniel’s room. I intended to watch, and to sketch, while Edward worked magic with his hands.
Daniel’s continued regimen of exercise, Epsom salt baths, and massage had greatly improved the strength in his legs, eased his suffering, and given him muscle definition along with the increase in size. I joked that we needed to buy some chestnuts. “You’re beginning to look like you could crack them with those legs of yours. Your chest muscles are more defined, too, and your arms.”
His whole body was changing. I couldn’t believe that I’d seen it and not understood what it meant.
“You’re teaching him to fence,” I said, my voice lifting on the last word to almost make it a question. Edward’s eyes twinkled, and Daniel had the grace to blush. “Fence and do whatever else you do to keep yourself in shape. And don’t tell me it’s fencing and fucking that’s built those Adonis belts that the two of you have going.”
“He has been following the regimen prescribed by Dr. Marshall and my father, but, yes, we’ve added to it. No fencing just yet,” said Edward, continuing his ministrations. “Earlier, you indicated an interest. I—we—thought that once the studio was opened, or after the holidays have passed, you might like to learn along with Daniel.”
