Starling

by Virginia Taylor

  Her hands spread across the skin of his back. She made her kiss into one of the most exciting experiences of his life, and he didn’t know how. One part of his mind stayed cool, noting the practiced teasing of advance and retreat, and the other lost itself in the hot, wet sensation of her lips and the insides of her mouth taking his tongue in a tantalizingly deliberate firm draw. Too easily could he imagine that same surrounding of his cock, the slow dragging, the soft wetness, the glide, the desperate pressure. Too easily could he imagine the invitation of her hands sliding to his buttocks, caressing, rounding, and urging.

  Unable to help himself, he probed. She tightened, and when just the tip of his cock entered her, she arched. Her knees began to shake with the same rhythm as his flicking thumb. He could feel every nuance of her buildup, the tension before the explosion, and he wanted to feel her gush of excitement while inside her.

  The frustration of not having her permission made him sweat. He’d asked and been refused. Should he bleed from every pore, should his every nerve ending beg, he wouldn’t allow himself a sensuality she denied. Soon, she would see what she’d missed. Twice she almost reached climax and twice she fought herself, pulling back, tightening and moaning. Never before had a woman done this to him, even Lavender ,who had been a virgin and had more reason to be confused about her body’s reactions. To say Starling puzzled him would be an understatement. She would deny herself that which she didn’t deny him.

  “Take the pleasure, sweetling,” he murmured. “I give it willingly.”

  Her hands fell back on the sheet, her head twisted away from him, and in a series of convulsions she climaxed. He found himself breathing as erratically as she. He found his head on her shoulder.

  She edged her hips a little to the side, effectively nudging his arousal aside and moving out of the vicinity of his hand. He’d never felt so superfluous. She’d used him and lost interest. He pounded with frustration, experiencing a despair he didn’t understand.

  He rolled off her onto his back and flattened his palms beneath his head. The morning sun glinted on the window, casting patterns of lace on the wall. In an attempt to disguise his arousal, he lifted one knee, masculine vanity and wasted. She didn’t care and never had. “There.” He forced out an even tone. “Now we’re square. I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “By the end of this week you’ll owe me forty pounds,” she said in a shaking voice.

  His lips curved over his teeth. He rolled over to face her. Lifting himself on one elbow above her, he said, “And not four shillings more.”

  “No.” She turned her face to the window. “Not four shillings more. I don’t need to earn my money that way.”

  “And I don’t need to pay for a woman’s services. I never have, and I won’t start with a female I hired. Forget what happened between us yesterday because it’s been negated by what happened then. Nothing. Payment for payment.”

  Clothed only in frustration, he sprang out of bed, grabbed his drawers, and forced his feet into the legs. Unbelievable as it seemed after the words between them, he hadn’t lost one inch of his aching arousal. With no intention of letting her see his agony, he sat on the side of the bed.

  “Doctored,” she muttered.

  He spun around furiously. “Doctored? Hardly, my little bird. What do you think this is? A hairbrush?” His hand grasped his erection. Such was his arousal that he almost responded to himself, and such was his anger that he wanted to, right in front of her. Fortunately, he still had some pride. “It’s only proof that any female with opened legs tempts me. And yours, my dear, opened and begged. You came so fast that I’d say you found the one profession for which you have a natural bent.”

  She blushed, a full, awkward reddening. This proved one thing beyond the shadow of a doubt. She didn’t know he lied. She had no idea of the effort he’d expended in giving her an orgasm. After taking this revenge, he had no qualms about the bulge in his trousers.

  She didn’t look at him and she said not a word. He washed and dressed in a fraught silence.

  He didn’t speak to her during the day or at dinner. When Paul, Mary, and Lavender left the house for the theatre with Hamilton Fredericks, he went into the library and shut the door. There he finally gave vent to his feelings.

  Papers he had stockpiled for months flew out of his hands, floated over the room, and settled on the floor in untidy piles. Quelling the urge to grind them with his heel, he gazed at the pages, clenching and unclenching his fists. Finally, he collected each and sorted them again.

  As he noted dates and the corresponding profits in the margins, he thought of frightened, widened brown eyes; laughing, sparkling, teasing brown eyes; glowing, desirous, wanton brown eyes; and puzzled, hurt, angry brown eyes. His elbows lifted to the table and he dropped his head into his palms.

  He had to admit it. He wanted, yet couldn’t take, an ex-whore who had likely been tupped by far worse men.

  * * * *

  Starling sat alone in the sitting room. Embroidery skills like Lavender’s had not been needed in the orphanage, but every “bird” had been taught darning and mending. Some pricked their fingers more often than they pricked the material, but Starling had always managed quick, neat stitches. She liked sewing and enjoyed finishing hems, which she had been adding to the new sheets for the past three hours.

  Although she’d watched Lavender monogramming her handkerchiefs and thought she could imitate the intricate patterns, she resisted the urge to leave a splashy S for Starling, not Seymour, on the dog turd’s sheets. If she did so, only she would understand the joke, and an unshared joke was like an unshared smile, wasted for the lack of being offered to another.

  With that, she wasted a sigh. From now, she could count the days until she left. Alasdair would count them, too. He would be only too glad to get rid of her now that she had proved immovable. She wanted Alasdair to make love to her, but he couldn’t when he didn’t understand the term “make love.” He used the same word she’d heard in the inn and invested it with the same meaning: nothing.

  Intimacy with Alasdair could never be nothing to Starling. Every motion of his head, every shrug of his shoulders, every smile, bright or bland, had significance for her. She loved him but she hated him, too, hated him for not caring, for not knowing how much he hurt her. He could think she would only pleasure him for money until the end of his days, and she would never put him straight.

  She wouldn’t give her body because she’d given far too much already, her heart, a stupid—she wiped her eyes—piece of flesh situated about one foot above the piece of flesh he wanted.

  She hated him, his humiliating words, his smug smile, his snapping gray eyes, those stubby black lashes that could hide his expression so easily. No longer could he impress her with his wide shoulders, his beautiful taut body, or his gentle hands that could make her body feel like a length of precious silk. All those had been given to him or taught to him. He couldn’t impress her unless... Oh, Lord. He could, with every one of his generosities. He could, but she would never let him know. Dog turd. Seducer. Altruist.

  With the first two in mind, she folded the sheet. After her industry, she deserved a book to read, a calming story that would take her out of her meaningless life and into that of someone less ordinary. The fact that he’d shut the door to her book supply should mean nothing to a woman who meant to march through life, toss decisions over her shoulder, and turn into a true independent heroine. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked on the library door.

  “Yes!”

  She opened the door. “May I borrow a book?” She shook, knowing herself to be anything but dashing, fearless, and original.

  Alasdair moved his head in an upwardly inclined nod, indicating more impatience than acquiescence. Miss Eliza Bennett, individual and strong-minded, walked over to the bookshelves and pulled another book by her creator, Mansfield Park, into her undaunted hand.

  “What did you take?”

  Starling Smi
th, who’d rarely been given the courtesy title of Miss, turned around and hid the book behind her back. “You have thousands. Hundreds.”

  He rose to his feet. “Why hide your choice from me? You couldn’t have taken How to Turn a Man into a Eunuch in One Easy Lesson. I suspect you read it years ago.”

  “You have no right to talk to me that way.”

  “That’s what I am, a eunuch. In working order, ready whenever called but never given the pleasure of satisfaction. Is that what you want, my dear? To lead me around by the cock until I promise you anything your heart desires? The day will never come, of that I give you fair warning. I’ll never pay for your favors.”

  “In that case, we don’t need to discuss the subject.”

  She edged toward the door. He moved like a cat about to pounce on a sparrow, shoved the door closed, and leaned his elbow on the wood beside her head. “Show me the book,” he said in a threatening voice.

  “I said borrow, not steal.”

  “Does your type know the difference?”

  She smashed the cover into his shoulder and winced when she saw his expression. The black edging around his irises expanded until it almost touched his pupils, giving the impression of a bottomless pit. Dry-mouthed with contrition, she kept her expression hard and cold. “Did you have time to read the title?”

  “If you are using a whore’s trick to excite me, you don’t need to,” he said with soft menace. “I’ll offer you the same price as before—nothing.”

  Without knowing where she found the front, she relaxed. She tilted her head up the way Lavender did. She let her eyes melt as Lavender’s did. She smiled with yielding innocence, put one finger on the top button of his shirt, and traced a slow path to the next, the next, and the next until she reached the waistband of his trousers. She wouldn’t go farther. She couldn’t because she wanted to and he wanted her to. A pulse throbbed in his neck. He moistened his lips. “That’s what you get for nothing,” she said sweetly. “Nothing.”

  “I’ll take it,” he answered, not moving. “Give me nothing a little lower, and I’ll give you the reaction you’re asking for.”

  “You’ve already given me the reaction I expected.”

  “You little liar. You want me so much, you’ve done everything but ask. You’ll have to ask because you’ll get nothing until you do.”

  “Really,” she said sweetly. Her finger progressed to his trouser button. She could see the shape beneath, she could see he was, as usual, aroused, but testing him seemed to be important. Suddenly, touching him with her palm felt imperative, but until she glanced at his face she didn’t realize how easily he’d tricked her. He’d challenged her to touch him and his face relaxed now that she had. She dropped her hand quickly.

  With a gleeful laugh, he grabbed her, sliding his hands from her back to her breasts. “I’ll have to buy you a front buttoning gown.”

  She raised her arms to push him away, but her wrists glided around his neck. In truth, she had practically asked. She’d come to him and she’d insisted on his attention. His mouth gave her as much as it took. She almost sobbed as his touch on her nipples made the whole of her breasts swell and ache. He could do anything with her, anything, and the dog turd not only knew it, but he reveled in the power.

  Almost desperate with a need to please him, she let him lift her skirts. When he separated the seam in her underdrawers, with shaming compliance she spread her legs. He drew in a long breath and touched the dampened area between her legs. Despite her trembling compliance, she knew the harm. Every time he touched her, she wanted a little more. She wanted to know how his simulated love would feel inside her, and she knew that she would this time. He’d stopped stroking her to undo his trousers.

  Still kissing her, he lifted her higher against the door, pulled one of her knees around his hip, and let his erection seek. She loved the feeling and knew that from time immemorial women had enjoyed the very same thing. As she angled her hips to take him, she heard the front door slam.

  She froze. Alasdair arched his head back. “Damn,” he mouthed. “Damn, damn, damn. Don’t make a sound. No one knows we’re in here.”

  In the oil-lit room, Starling saw reality for the first time that night. She saw a born whore shoved against a door, skirts up. Instead of a couple in love, she saw a man with his trousers opened, urging against the whore and swearing. She saw two rutting pigs, herself and Alasdair, joined in sweaty lust. Her fist thumped his shoulder and she tightened her face. He leaned forward and tried to take her mouth, but she turned her head away. “Stop. Let me go.’

  The uncaring beast angled his hips and teased partway into the woman he didn’t give a shake of his head for, while outside in the hall, separated from him only by a door, his family and his beloved Lavender made their way to their respective bedrooms.

  Starling gasped. Using a whisper of repressed rage, she said, “Any further and I’ll charge you five sh...pounds.”

  His eyes flitted over her face. She could see him consider.

  Efficiently, as though he’d judged the price too high, he buttoned his trousers. With an expression of implacable coolness, he moved her from the door and leaned his back against the wood. Prevented from opening the door, she stood in silence, listening to the retreating murmur of voices.

  “They’ve gone,” Alasdair said, moving to his desk chair. “You have my permission to leave, too.”

  Flushed, after shaking out her skirts, she ran her hand over her hair and opened the door. Lavender had trooped halfway up the stairs, but when she heard Starling, she stopped, fanning herself with the theatre program.

  “Did you enjoy the play?” Starling asked, unable to hold the gaze of the angelic-looking beauty.

  “It was passably entertaining. Dare won’t mind, will he, if I spend some of the next week with Hamilton? He wants to show me the sights.”

  With a light shake of her head, Starling said, “You must do as you wish, Lavender. I’m sure he does.”

  Lavender smiled and caught Starling by the arm. As they walked together, Lavender said, “He always has.” She poked a blond curl behind her shell-like ear.

  Starling couldn’t bear looking at the other woman’s satisfied expression.

  Lavender giggled. “Hamilton thought it would be nice to get together as a group sometime next week. A picnic, he said, if the weather’s fine.”

  “I’m sure Alasdair would adore seeing you charm Mr. Fredericks.”

  “Surely you don’t imagine he can see past you?”

  “Surely you don’t imagine I can’t see through you?”

  Starling shut the bedroom door, leaving Lavender in the hallway with an expression of outrage on her face. No longer did Starling care about upsetting Alasdair’s guests or upsetting him.

  If she never spoke to him again, it would be too soon.

  As it happened, she didn’t have to worry. For the next four days, he volunteered not a word to her unless others were present.

  Chapter 17

  During the past four days, Alasdair had noted one thing. He had Starling’s complete attention. He knew for a fact that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He stared out of the carriage window, barely noticing the passing scenery. Lavender had asked him to take her to Hamilton Fredericks’s house, where she had been invited for a luncheon with some of the local dignitaries. He had invited Alasdair and his wife, too, but Alasdair had pleaded a previous engagement.

  “I don’t have to go. I’d rather be with you.” Lavender leaned into Alasdair, taking his hand in a clasp she lifted to her bosom.

  “Fredericks is expecting you. I promised I’d have you on his doorstep by noon, and I promised I’d be in the store by twelve-thirty. I don’t break promises, Lavender.” He’d promised to love Lavender forever and in certain ways he did. He could still read her like a book, and her smiles still lightened his mood. Strangely, those smiles no longer had the same physical effect on his body. His blood didn’t pound wh
en she touched him, and he didn’t long to pull her into his arms and kiss the petulance from her face. He’d lost his youthful passion for her and was now more in control of his feelings,

  For sheer physical appeal, he couldn’t think past Starling, but this would wear off if he spent less time in his bedroom with her. For the past four nights he’d gone up to bed long after she did, woken before Ellen’s rounds, and leaped out of bed first.

  Lavender pressed her lips on his fingers. “The first time we lay together, I remember you telling me you would always love me.”

  “I was eighteen and still a romantic.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I gave you my virginity. I made a dreadful mistake when I let my parents marry me to Richard. I couldn’t ever love anyone but you. He knew that.” She glanced at his face. “He knew when I crept out to meet you.”

  “You should have left him when I asked you to.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I can’t live without money. I told you so at the time.”

  “And I couldn’t wait around forever.”

  “Only men are granted divorces, and he wouldn’t divorce me. “

  “I didn’t see those practicalities when I was twenty. I thought you could leave and live with me.”

  Her pretty lips moved into a pout. “The scandal would have ruined my parents. I thought of you as my refuge, my love, but not my lover. You were more a husband to me than Richard.”

  “But I wasn’t your husband, Lavender. I couldn’t afford you, as you said.”

  Her eyes glossed with tears. “I should never have married him, but I did, and now I am free...and I don’t think I should be punished for my mistakes for the rest of my life.” She slid her arms around his neck. “Please don’t send me back to Melbourne. I want to stay with you.”