by Jane Lark
His arms hung at his sides, moving with his strides, as they walked farther along the road, at a steady pace. He did not speak.
When they reached the churchyard, he pushed open the lych gate, beneath the thatched arch, then held it open for her to pass through. “Now, Emily,” he stated as the gate closed, “please tell me what you are wary of, and what game is being played with me?”
She had endured difficult conversations with Peter, when she had been speaking of marriage, and he had not been speaking. He had always had the upper hand in those. On this occasion, that power was hers.
She glanced at Harry. “Your own game is being played. I thought you knew it. It is your game after all. You kissed me first.” She looked ahead once more, at the path that led around the grey stone church, beside the rectangular tombs and headstones.
“If you wish to play my game, Emily, then it is far more dangerous than kisses; they are only the first throw of the dice. You are not playing my game. Are you punishing me for what Peter did?”
Perhaps. “No.”
The heels of his boots struck the flagstone path beside her. “Peter was cruel to you. He treated you badly. He wanted marriage and not you. That is the first difference between he and I; I want you.”
“Not marriage then?” she shot back.
“I want you in marriage, as my wife.”
“No,” she answered without looking at him. No. She would not even consider it. She had learned her lesson.
He walked on beside her, silent again, but then she heard him inhale and knew he was going to speak again.
“And if I told you that I love you? That I am in love with you, and have been so for months, would that change your opinion?”
“It would not change a thing.” They had reached the back of the churchyard and on their right was the low gate that led to the path through the fields.
She turned in that direction but he caught hold of her elbow and stopped her walking. “I said I love you, is that all you have to say in answer?”
She looked directly into his eyes. “Yes.” Then she turned away. That moment was the most wonderful of her life. She had always felt out of control, lower in worth, insignificant, and self-conscious. In this moment, she was none of those things.
“Emily.” He caught hold of her elbow again.
“Harry, we are still in the churchyard, people might see.”
A growl of frustration left his throat, then he let her arm go. She smiled, turned, and walked through the gate into the field.
“Do you not believe me?” he asked from behind her.
“I do not care.”
“Why?”
“Because I have no intention of marrying a man like you, a man I could never trust.”
“Not after Peter, I suppose.”
“Not at all.” She looked at him.
They were now walking about the edge of a field planted with tall, ripening barley. The barley was higher than them.
“Then what am I to do, Emily? Tell me, because I am… I am breaking apart.”
He sounded so desperate she relented and turned to him. There was nothing of the humorous Harry in his eyes. A sharp pain clasped in her chest, and a decision shot through her. She gripped his hand. “Kiss me.” She pulled him in amongst the barley and her hand reached to the back of his head, knocking off his hat as her fingers slid into his hair.
“Emily,” he said against her lips, an intensity of emotion swelling the dark pupils in his eyes, “I love you.” He kissed her then. But it seemed different from the kisses they had shared in the garden. As desperate and emotional as his words had been.
His hand lifted and cupped her breast through her gown.
Peter had never touched her like that.
Her arms wrapped about Harry’s neck, her heart thundering in her chest, as a sweet desire to be closer to him filled her blood while their tongues danced about each other in a round.
His finger squeezed her breast then released it, then squeezed again.
Her mother and father were not due to return for half an hour. There was no need for them to rush back.
His hand moved and his fingers began freeing the buttons at the front of her bodice. She did not stop him as they continued to kiss. She enjoyed their kisses.
The buttons slipped free to just above her middle, and then his hand delved inside, reaching into her chemise above her corset to embrace her naked breast. He groaned into her mouth, through their kiss, with a sound of success and satisfaction.
You are not playing my game.
She wanted to learn this game, every part of it. She wanted to know what Peter had been doing with his mistress. What had made him choose the actress?
Harry’s gloved hand was abrasive and warm.
He broke the kiss, not meeting her gaze, but looked down as he lifted his hand, and then he bit the tip of one finger of his glove so he might pull his hand free. His glove dropped on the ground, then his hand slid back inside her bodice, and his mouth pressed down onto hers.
His bare hand was as warm as his glove had been, but soft and not abrasive at all. His fingers squeezed her breast.
Her tongue reached into his mouth. He sucked it. He’d not done that before.
There was a heady feeling to kissing him. A sensation that felt a little like the fuzziness she experienced after drinking champagne.
He broke the kiss, but not to end it. He kissed across the side of her cheek, then on to her neck. Her head tilted sideways to allow it, as her heart raced, and his hand continually squeezed and released her breast.
His kisses followed a path down her throat as his hand lifted her breast.
She knew what he was going to do. She did not tell him to stop, not even as the path of his kisses trailed in between the opened buttons of her bodice. Then he kissed the upper curve of her breast. Then his lips closed about her nipple and sucked.
“Oh.” She breathed out into the barley-scented air.
“This is my game, Emily,” he said against her breast, before sucking her nipple again.
“It’s a nice game,” she answered, her fingers combing through his blond hair.
He laughed against her breast, then his head lifted and he whispered against her ear, “Lay down with me? Then you might really play my games.”
Lay down with me…. The words swept through her. She wanted to, she wanted to desperately. Harry made her feel so special, so… desired. As Peter had never done.
“Here.” He caught hold of her hand and pulled her deeper into the field of barley, and then turned to the right so no one might simply see along the path of crushed barley, that they’d made. He let go of her hand and stripped off his long riding coat, before stamping down some of the stems of barley and then throwing his coat on top of the barley stalks on the ground.
He held her hand and lifted her fingers to his lips, then kissed the back of them. His free hand pulled her shawl off her shoulders, then he dropped it on the ground, then kissed her fingers again, his lips pressing against her skin. “Lay down with me,” he said again as his head lifted.
She nodded. The beat of her heart racing in the back of her throat. She knew what she was agreeing to. What she ought not to agree to. But she was tired of being good, of being used and held back. This was her using him. She would not marry, not him nor anyone, so why should she not experience this.
His hand still holding hers, she sat down on top of his riding coat.
He sat down beside her, then leant towards her as she rested back, lying on his coat. His hand slid inside her bodice and closed about her breast. He squeezed it a few times while he kissed her, then he ceased kissing her and lowered his head to kiss her breast, then sucked her nipple.
She sighed as her arm settled about his shoulders, while her other hand lay on his hair. A sweet pain gripped in her stomach and her body arched.
One of his arms rested beneath her shoulders, bracing her. His other hand let go of her breast and ran down over the materi
al covering her stomach then closed over the place between her legs, cupping and pressing her there.
His head lifted and he leant to her ear. “Do you want me there, Emily? That is my game? And I am happy to keep playing if you are.”
She swallowed back the sudden fear in her throat.
He kissed her again, as the summer air played over the breast he’d freed from her bodice and his hand pressed between her legs, while his hips began to rock against her thigh. Her hands clung to the sleeve of his morning coat and in his hair.
This was the game Peter had been playing with his mistress. All the time he’d been pleasant and nice, charming—he had been laying like this with his actress.
This was the game she would never know if she did not marry.
She was not ready to make the choice yet. But she did know she wanted Harry to be wearing less clothing. “Take off your coat?”
He smiled in his old wry manner as he rose to kneel beside her, obviously thinking her request an agreement. He removed a handkerchief from the pocket before taking it off.
After he had stripped it off, he folded it, and then looked into her eyes, lifted her head and set his coat beneath her as a pillow. Yes, he believed she would play the ultimate game with him.
Would she?
“Emily, I love you. It is not a lie. Trust me,” he said as he lay down beside her again.
She trusted him in this moment. That he loved her in this moment. His dark blue eyes burned with emotion.
Yes, she would play.
His hand gripped a fistful of her skirt and petticoats, and pulled them up. He kissed her again. Her fingers combed into his hair while beneath her skirt his fingers pulled at the ribbon securing her drawers.
Her heart beat in a heightened pace of excitement and fear.
This was not allowing him to use her, this was using him. This might be her only chance…
His hand slipped inside her cotton underwear, his fingers trailing across the skin of her stomach, then he reached down and played with the curls of hair there, his tongue dancing with hers as though his fingers did nothing beyond stroking her arm.
Goose bumps lifted on her skin as his fingers stretched, reaching lower. Trepidation and yet longing skipped through her nerves.
He touched the flesh between her legs. Then broke the kiss to look at her. “Are you ready to play?”
“I am not sure…” Her voice lacked strength when she looked into his eyes.
“It is a game with high stakes,” he answered. “A lottery you do not want to win, when the prize is a child. Are you willing to take that risk?”
Was he trying to scare her?
“Have you children?” She’d guess he’d done this a thousand times before—with woman who were not respectable.
“Not a one. But I have used sheaths to prevent it and I do not have one with me. I did not anticipate this.”
She held his gaze, Mary’s warning to be wary running through her. But she had always known he was a libertine. She had always known, and what did his shallow affections matter when she was not seeking promises, or a future? This was only about this moment and whether or not she was brave enough to join his game.
“If I withdraw, that should reduce the risk.”
She nodded.
All the time he had been talking, his forefinger had been sliding back and forth through the heart of her flesh.
“Is that yes? Because God forbid that I should dare to do this without first asking your permission.”
He was teasing her with his touch as he teased her with his words. Taunting and provoking.
“You have my permission.” Her tone was flat in reply—because she wanted to stay in control. Be the user and not the used.
“So serious,” he whispered near her ear, his head lowering as his finger slid into her.
“Ah.” The gasp escaped her lips before she could hold it in, and she lost her breath as her hand fell and gripped his forearm. The touch was so intimate.
He kissed the side of her throat below her ear.
If she let this continue it would become far more intimate.
She looked up at a small white cloud which scudded across the blue sky beyond the waving tops of the barley, and her fingers ran over his hair. “My parents will be home soon. I need to get back.”
His finger stilled inside her and his head lifted. He looked into her eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No, I want you to hurry.” Just let it be over with and the knowledge of it discovered.
He laughed as his finger withdrew from her and he knelt. “Then we will not delay.” With that, he bent and began peeling her drawers from her hips, pulling them down as he looked at the place between her legs. But then he had to focus on helping her untangle them from her shoes and feet.
The breeze cooled the skin of her thighs above the top of her stockings.
He undid his trousers as she watched, then he reached for her hand.
“Here, feel, it is nothing to be scared of.” He wrapped her hand about the part of him that protruded from his trousers amidst glossy gold curls.
Her fingers grasped at it as he came down again, his hands either side of her shoulders. His knee, nudged one of her legs. “If you wish to do this, you must let me in.”
Emily swallowed back the sudden fear that said she did not wish to. But her legs had opened instinctively. He moved so that he was leaning on his hands and knees over her, as her hand still gripped him. “Place me,” he said as his hips lowered.
She did; she angled him until his tip touched her flesh.
“Let go,” he whispered near her lips.
She nodded and did so. Then with one sharp thrust, he pushed in and tore through her inner skin.
“Ah!” It was a scream not a gasp, it had hurt, and by the look on Harry’s face he was as shocked as her that it had done so.
His lips pressed against hers as though he sought to heal the pain. Then he said, in an urgent whisper, “I am sorry.” He kissed her again, then said again, “I am sorry.” Then his kisses spread over her face as he continued to repeat that he was sorry as he worked within her, drawing out then pressing in. “I did not mean to hurt you.”
His movements were gentle and slow now, and the pain had eased, as though he stroked it better with his body.
She shut her eyes and sighed out into the air that was filled with the scent of crushed barley. It was pleasant. Warm. The muscle in her stomach clasped, trying to catch at the sensations woven from the pattern of his movement.
His shirttail and the bottom of his waistcoat brushed against her skin as he moved.
Her body urged her to push up against him.
“Lift your legs,” he whispered near her ear.
When she did, pressing her shins against the back of his thighs, he pushed deeper into her.
“Ah.” It was not a sound of pain but a catch in her breath.
The movement of his hips became swifter, more definite and determined.
When she opened her eyes, she could see the strain in his arms as he held his weight off her, and now his face hovered a few inches above her.
“Relax. Break for me.”
His blond hair had fallen forward and covered one of his blue eyes.
“Emily.”
He was pushing upward as he slid into her, caressing a place within her that sent tremors of delicious excitement spinning out beneath her skin.
His pace was steady, like the shuttles running back and forth through the looms.
She held his shoulders and shut her eyes, listening to the sounds around her. A wood pigeon called out somewhere near them, and there was a bee in the air, and there was the sound of his breathing, and their clothes brushing together. The feelings inside her swelled, rising like the stream at the back of her parents’ house after a rainfall, rushing in a strong flow through the weeds, making them sway like flags on a breeze. The feeling was so nice.
His breath brushed over the skin of her che
ek, as he suddenly moved faster.
“Oh.” It was neither shock, nor pain—it was heaven. “Oh.” This was the game. This was why they played it. The flow of the stream was now a river that washed through her and left her trembling and numb.
“Will you be able to help me with the flowers in the church for Sunday, Millicent?”
“I cannot see why not, Audrey.”
Harry’s hand came down over Emily’s mouth, as the weight of his body pressed down on to hers. “Shush,” he whispered in her ear, as panic raged into her blood. The women speaking were her mother’s friends, and if they followed the path of trodden barley…
“I have used all the flowers I had ready to cut, but Mrs Smithfield offered us the use of her garden.”
“We shall find plenty of choice there to make the altar look pretty.”
“Certainly, there will be roses.”
“Yes and pelargoniums.”
“And I have that lovely variegated shrub. That will look very pretty with the yellow…”
Their voices gradually drifted away.
Harry lifted his hand from her mouth, and his eyebrows rose, then he laughed quietly.
Oh, Lord, she laughed too. She would not have laughed with anyone but Harry, but he had always swept aside the things that would have her crawling under stones with mortification.
“Put your arms up on my shoulders,” he said quietly.
When she did, he gripped one of her thighs, then rolled to his back, pulling her with him, over him. He was still inside her, and he began moving again pushing up into her. His hand braced her head and pulled her down. “Kiss me.”
She had entirely become the user. She could control the sensations within her. Her hands pressed onto his riding coat, the sheet on their bed of crushed stalks of barley, and she moved her hips, rocking backwards and forwards. His thumbs gripped her hips and his fingers reached to her bottom and clasped her buttocks. He was sighing as she had, and breathing heavily, and his gaze seemed to cloud as the sensations wove out through her. The same must be weaving threw him. Needle and thread. They were being sewn together in this moment.
“Oh. Oh. Oh…” The breathy sound left his lips each time she dropped down onto him and he pushed up.
She bit her lip and tried to move with more deliberation, searching out the sensations.
