by Tia Siren
''I have packed some very warm clothes, I thought you might need them where we are going.''
Two porters put Charlotte and Mary's cases onto a cart and wheeled them up the gangplank and onto the ship.
Mary stood next to Lord Melbourne and smiled at him, ''Thank you, Sir, for all you have done for me.''
''Don't mention it,'' he replied.
''Why are we leaving on a military ship, not on a liner?'' she asked.
''The captain's an old friend of mine. He told me he was going the way we wanted to go and offered us a lift. It'll be much more fun than sitting with a lot of stuffy people on a liner. Besides, if the Duke ever managed to get out of that cow field alive, he would be more likely to find us on a liner. He will never find us on this ship. And when we reach the other side, we will be beyond his reach, forever.
''I think we are all set now, don't you dear?'' Lord Melbourne asked his daughter.
''Yes I think we are,'' she said happily.
''Right ladies, take my arm. Let's go to the new world.''
****
Charlotte opened the door to her cabin and screamed, ''What are you doing here?''
''Your father and I thought it might be a nice surprise.''
''Kiss me, you fool. Don't ever frighten me like that again.''
Charlotte and Ralph kissed passionately. When their kiss broke, Charlotte was out of breath. ''I am not used to kissing for so long,'' she said.
''You'll have plenty of time to get used to it before we reach New York.''
''You were supposed to be waiting for me there. What happened?''
''Oh, my love, it has all been so sudden. One minute I was sitting in jail, listening to them building the gallows, and the next, there were what seemed like a hundred horsemen, breaking me free. They brought me to the docks and told me I was to sail to New York and wait for you there. Then I got a message I was to board this ship and wait for you here.''
''Thank the Lord. You are safe. I will never be able to repay my father for what he has done.''
''Neither will I. Never. Perhaps we can talk a little later? I want to have my way with you now.''
Charlotte nodded as he took her in his arms and kissed her again. This time, though, she felt his manhood pressing against her thigh.
They were both eager to be naked, and it wasn't long before Ralph lay between Charlotte's open legs. ''I want you, more than anything in the world,'' she said to him.
Ralph grunted, and Charlotte gasped when he entered her. As his shaft slid into her, he bent down and kissed her. She put her hand behind his neck and pulled him tighter to her. Her legs wrapped around his back as she bucked her hips under him. She matched his rhythm, encouraging him to thrust harder.
They both felt the ship beginning to move as it left the harbor. Ralph looked at her breasts as he thrust into her. He loved the way they bounced in rhythm to the movements of his hips. Charlotte opened her legs as wide as she could and put her hands on his buttocks. When she dug her nails into him, he gritted his teeth and pumped faster. Charlotte felt him ramming himself against her clitoris and she quickly began to feel her arousal building.
By now the ship had left the safety of the harbor and on a windy day, it began to roll gently. Without warning, Ralph pulled out of her and stood up. ''What?'' she asked. ''The window again?''
He nodded. ''Except they aren't called windows. They're called portholes. Now I want you to get up and look out of the porthole while I take you from behind.''
''You are very inventive, Ralph. I'm sure we're going to have a fantastic sex life.''
''This is just the beginning, wait until I tie you to the mast,'' he joked.
She stood up and looked through the porthole. She put her hands on the wall, one on each side of the glass. When she bent forward and offered herself to him, Ralph was so consumed by animal lust that he got to his knees, and put his mouth to her. When she felt his tongue licking her juices, she pushed back at him and opened her legs wider. He could smell her arousal, and it drove him to lick faster and deeper.
Charlotte had never experienced a feeling like it. The man she loved was performing an act on her that was so intimate, she wanted it to last forever. When she felt his tongue at the entrance to her, she had an orgasm.
Ralph felt her legs shaking and in a gentlemanly gesture, he stood up and held her. Soon he was inside her again. Charlotte gasped as his thrusts threw her tighter to the wall. Her breasts pushed against the cold glass, and it made her nipples harder still. Ralph was grunting now, and Charlotte realized he was going to come. She put a hand to her vagina and began to masturbate. She was keen to come with him. The sight of his future wife pleasuring herself in such an uninhibited way drove him over the top. When Charlotte felt a gush of hot liquid inside her, she too came.
****
''We've been lying here for hours. I need some air. Shall we go on deck?'' Charlotte asked.
''Yes, let's.'' They got up, put on some warm clothes and went into the bracing sea air.
''Ah look, Mary, our lovebirds have decided to leave the nest for a while,'' Lord Melbourne said, ironically.
''Yes, indeed. How kind of them to join us,'' Mary replied with a chuckle. Lord Melbourne and Mary were sitting on a bench looking at the gulls as they accompanied the ship on the first part of its journey.
''Very amusing, I'm sure,'' Charlotte said. ''Do you know, when we get to America, the first thing I am going to do is look for a husband for you Mary. Then I'm going to find a wife for my father.''
''In that case, please find one who is gentle, kind, and totally silent. My ears have had years of abuse, and they are in urgent need or repair,'' her father pleaded.
Charlotte peered towards the horizon. Black clouds had started to build up, threatening a storm. She glanced at Ralph, an inviting smile on her lips.
“A storm’s coming,” Ralph said, kissing Charlotte’s hand. “We had better get below deck.”
“Mmm. A storm.” Charlotte could already feel the warmth between her legs as she recalled that night at the inn. “I know just how we can ride it out.”
*****
THE END
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The Duel of the Season- A Regency Romance
Lady Catherine Dalton turned the small slip of paper over in her delicate hands for the hundredth time since she had received the note. She had recognized the writing right away, the slanting letters looking as they had been written hastily. But she knew Dominick never wrote quickly, his handwriting was simply woefully poor.
Catherine sat in her room, having just gotten dressed for her short journey. She was wearing a gown of blue with white baubles sewn into the skirt, which shimmered when they caught the light every time she took a step. The neck was low, enough to expose the top of her rounded breasts, shoved upwards by an uncomfortable corset that had been strapped to her by Bethany, the servant who she had known since she was just a baby, nineteen years ago.
She just managed to sit on the edge of her four-poster bed and pull on her shoes, ankle length boots of a sort, with small heels upon them. She stood then, and looked down, using her palms to smooth out the skirt of her dress.
“You look great,” a voice said from her doorway. Catherine looked up to see Rebecca, her oldest sister standing there. She had her arms folded across her chest.
“Thank you,” Catherine said in a voice she had hoped was pleasant.
“Where are you going? It’s almost dark,” Rebecca said.
And indeed it was. Behind Catherine lay a window, and she turned her head to peer out of it. The sky was a brilliant orange, p
ainted that way by a sun which was practically falling from the sky, aiming to hide itself behind the horizon. There were clouds, but they were nothing more than silvery wisps in the sky, few and far between.
“I won’t be long,” Catherine said.
“Mother wouldn’t want you to go out,” her sister said.
“Mother doesn’t know I’m going out,” Catherine replied, a little more heatedly than she should have. Sometimes, Rebecca simply had that way about her, a way which made Catherine respond quite negatively.
“I don’t want you going out,” Rebecca tried.
Catherine stepped forward, sweeping out of her room, the sides of her wide skirt brushing against the skirt of her older sister’s dress.
“And you aren’t mother,” Catherine said over her shoulder, and she moved down the hall towards the staircase. Rebecca didn’t bother following.
Outside, the air was growing chill, and Catherine mentally cursed herself for not thinking to grab a shawl to wrap around her mostly bare arms. There was a horse and carriage outside the front door, as father always liked from sun up to sun down, just in case anyone needed to get somewhere in a hurry. The driver was an older man named Samuel with a limp in his right arm.
“Evening, Lady Catherine,” the old man said, sweeping his hat from his head and bowing.
“Samuel,” Catherine replied.
“Need me?”
“Not this evening, it is just a short walk I am after,” Catherine replied, and she couldn’t help but notice the look of relief which swept over Samuel’s face. It was so close to evening, and she knew the old man was tired and his leg was aching from a day of mostly standing, and then being cramped up in his driver’s box as he chauffeured the family around town. It was so close to nightfall, and he would be pulling the carriage around to the back of the house, and handing the horse off to the stable boys there, and then going to his own home, a small one-room home of sorts built of wood that lay situated at the very back of her father’s land.
Catherine left the grounds and turned right, towards town, but, of course, they lived some distance away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Here there were long stretches of land, and a curving river of cool and clear water, which cut through the fields and the small spattering of wooded area that grew up here and there.
It was the river she was after, or at least a small dock situated upon it, not even a quarter of a mile up the road from her home. The river was called the King’s River, and it was just wide and deep enough for a smaller sized ferry, and her father and some of their neighbors had supplies floated to them from town, instead of making trips in.
She had first met Dominick there, in the small shed, which housed boating supplies and stretched out over the river on waterlogged wooden struts green with algae. They had been eight then, both of them born in the same month, September, of the same year. He had been rough and dirty, his pants dirty, his knees scraped. She had been a Lady then as well, of course, and took it upon herself to stay away from mud and dirt, and things that may scrape her knees. But she couldn’t resist such passions when she was around Dominick, and when she had returned home the evening of that first day, she had been dirty, her dress had been ripped, and her father had swatted her bottom with a leather switch. She had cried and cried, her backside had been red and painful, but she mostly cried because she had wanted to be still with Dominick.
Even years later, over a decade, that same feeling had not dissipated. She wanted to spend time with Dom, as she had grown to call him, and if the days stretched on and she still did not see him, she grew sad. Everyone knew about their friendship, and when they were younger, everyone had often joked about what it would be like when they got married.
But that was nothing but jests, and everyone had known that as well, all except for Catherine, it had seemed. She wouldn’t be marrying Dom. She would be marrying Duke Andrew Rotham. He was older, almost thirty. He was a handsome man, that was true enough, but he wasn’t the man Catherine loved. Sadly, she had no choice in the matter.
Dominick was already waiting for her when she arrived, dressed in his best suit and standing at the edge of the covered dock, looking down at the water. Her footsteps caught his ear, and he turned to see her. She smiled, as she always did when she saw him, but he did not.
“What is it Dominick?” she asked, going to him. He reached out and took her hands in his. His hands were large, rough and masculine in a way that Catherine doubted Duke Rotham’s were. Dominick stood some inches over Catherine, and she looked up into his eyes. She could sense something was wrong; she had been able to tell when he hadn’t returned her smile.
“I leave tomorrow,” Dominick said softly.
“Leave?”
“My whole regiment,” the young man explained. Dominick was a soldier though his father was in good enough standing in the community, and rich enough, that he had never been far from home.
“To war?” Catherine asked. She hadn’t heard a word of any battles raging, but the skirmishes these men could cook up, they were apt to spring up overnight.
Dom laughed and shook his head. “Thank the Heavens,” he said, “no.”
“Then, where?”
“I do not know exactly, but I’m led to believe that it will be some sort of training, perhaps to bring my regiment closer together. You know how they love to call us brothers in arms.”
“How long will you be gone?” Catherine asked, and even as she spoke she felt the sharp sting of tears in her eyes.
Dominick let go of her hand with his right, and traced his thumb under one of her eyes, where a single tear had escaped over her eyelid and ran down her cheek, leaving a wet trail like a snail on a garden path. “Six months, maybe more.”
Catherine couldn't suppress the gasp that came from between her open lips. “Half a year?” she said, holding her free hand to her chest.
“Yes,” Dominick said.
“I don’t understand,” Catherine said, shaking her head.
“It’s that new commander,” Dominick said, referring to an old man with a hard demeanor named Colonel Croft. “You know the reputation my company has,” the young man went on.
Catherine nodded because that was true enough. The group of soldiers to which Dominick belonged was thought of as weak and soft, spoiled young men with fathers rich enough to keep them out of harm's way. It seemed as if Colonel Croft was anxious to dispel that notion since taking over the regiment.
“So they’re sending you away for six months, maybe more? It may as well be war.”
“Don’t say that,” Dominick said quickly, shaking his head once from side to side.
Catherine lowered her eyes, embarrassed. As soft as his company may have been, she knew he had found himself once in the midst of a bloody battle, a skirmish that sprang up where none had been expected. He had declined ever to speak with her about the matter, and she hadn’t pressed, if only because she saw the dark shadow that crossed over him when it was brought up.
“It’s not as bad as war,” the young man said finally. He had dropped her other hand now, and she yearned for him to take them both again, but he didn’t. “However, six months is a long time and the wedding…”
It usually went unspoken between them, Catherine’s upcoming nuptials. She knew it was as painful for Dominick as it was for her. But now, with him leaving, it couldn’t remain an issue that gnawed at their minds silently.
“I won’t be married that quickly. No date has been set yet. The Duke doesn’t seem to want to push me before I am ready. The arrangement is good enough for him.”
“So when do you think you’ll be ready?” Dominick asked, not bothering to hide the disgust from his tone.
“That’s not what I meant,” Catherine said as she looked down once more. “Oh Dom, I shall never be ready for that.”
Dominick sighed and nodded. He placed a hand under the young woman’s chin and tilted her face up so he could see her eyes. They were still wet, full of tears. “I’m sor
ry to have upset you, Catherine,” he said. “I only wanted you to meet me so I could say goodbye.”
She nodded, and when he lowered his head to kiss her, she didn’t stop him. They had kissed before of course, as children the first time as would be lovers after. Her lips were plump and full, his thinner but hungry. They kissed, and his hand went to the side of her face, his strong fingers tracing along her jawline. They kissed, and his other hand went to her chest, two fingers hooking the top of her dress, brushing against her ample cleavage. He began to tug the dress down.
Catherine broke the kiss, took his hand in both of hers. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Dominick said, as though that was all he needed to say, and that it had explained everything.
“Dom,” Catherine started, but she didn’t know how to finish her sentence. She and Dom had kissed, and done more, but they had never laid together. She was untouched in that way, no matter how many times Dominick had tried to convince her to lay with him. She wanted to, of course, but the shame she would feel, being unmarried, being soiled on her wedding night instead of pristine and untouched for her husband, she never could.
“Dom,” she said again. “I can’t.”
Dominick changed in a flash, his brows knit and pulled low over his eyes, his mouth turned downward into a cruel sneer. She had seen it before, had accepted it as a flaw in the man she loved, how quickly he could turn angry.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be gone, and you can have your Duke.”
“Dominick, it isn’t like that,” Catherine said, but the man was already brushing past her, heading out from under the cover of the dock, into the night. He didn’t say anything, and Catherine watched him go with more tears coming to sting her eyes.
****
When Catherine returned home, she had only been in her room for what seemed like a few minutes when her sister was at her door. Catherine hadn’t bothered to dress for bed; she had just flopped onto the mattress in her dress. The only comfort she had allowed herself was leaning down and pulling those ankle high boots off and letting them drop to the floor.
