“Any one of these things could be true, Neville, and there just isn’t enough information to condemn him. We may have to put this entire investigation on hold anyway. The war is taking all my attention these days, and Stillwater seems to be very much a minor character.”
“Yes, Sir. I know I will have little time for such diversion once I join the admiral.”
For the first time in his recent memory, Neville had very little to do. He was ‘on holiday’ from Mulholland’s schemes. He had a ship, so it was not required that he spend day upon day soliciting the Admiralty for an assignment. Furthermore, his ship was in ordinary for minor reasons, so he had no need to pay close attention to its repairs. He considered making another visit home to Bury St. Edmunds, but two weeks wasn’t long enough; that left him with time to attend the furnishing of his London flat. 42D Bedford Avenue would be the first ‘home” that ever belonged to him and wasn’t afloat.
The furniture he had ordered before leaving had been delivered and deposited within. It was strewn about the place in no particular order. There was no organized kitchen - not even a stove. Neither was there a cook to use it. It did not take Neville more than a few hours to determine the ground he was on was so unfamiliar that it would be necessary for him to hire some sort of agent to complete the decorating. He sought out the manager of the house. From there he was referred to a Mr. Healy at 196 Tottenham Court Rd. After a short wait and a short conversation, Mr. Healy agreed to accompany him back to the flat for a review of the situation.
“We can certainly furnish this space to your satisfaction, Captain,” said Mr. Healy after an hour of measuring. “We’ll need to paint first, of course, and clean these wood floors. I can direct you to a shop for some lovely carpets. Do you know where you will find a bed, Sir? I notice there is not one amongst your things.”
“Bed. Oh, yes, I think the same shop would have one.” I’m such an idiot! No bed!
“This would be our charge. This for the paint and this for the cleaning of floors,” he was now saying while he poked at a scrap of paper upon which he had been scribbling. “We could begin tomorrow, but we’ll need you out for a few days. Well, I guess you’re not in, though, are you? No. Couldn’t be,” he said, more to himself than to Neville, while his eyes drifted around the hollow space.
Neville looked at Mr. Nealy’s scribblings with some surprise. The total was well beyond his expectations. It was also well within his means. What else have I to do with my money, anyway, he wondered. “Proceed, then, Mr. Nealy. Can you recommend a cheery little pub? One with a room to let, as well?”
“Sign of the Golden Pheasant, I would say, also on the Tottenham Court Road. A key, if you please, Sir.”
Neville pulled a key ring from his pocket. He did indeed have two. He handed one to Mr. Nealy. So I have a flat in London, but I’ll be living in a pub?” He also took a glance ‘round his empty rooms, locked the door behind, and descended the stairs to walk back to Tottenham.
It was a nice summer’s day for a walk, and not too busy along the street. Neville’s thoughts wandered between checking at the Admiralty for letters, considering purchasing a few sets of civilian clothes to wear in London and leave in his flat, writing letters home, wishing he had a friend to share London with, wondering where he would find a housekeeper to tend to cooking and cleaning when he was in town…
“Neville? Neville, is it really you?” asked a familiar voice.
He raised his head to see a well-dressed couple in front of him on the sidewalk. He realized he had been more watching his feet than watching the people walking by. They were still fifteen feet away. Should he know this couple? Their attire was not familiar. He was apparently a local civilian gentleman and she a well-dressed lady of town. Neville, of course, was far more recognizable wearing his uniform; thus far he owned naught else.
“Neville,” the man said again. “’Vast your wandering and speak, man!” They had now stopped in front of him, blocking his way.
“Joseph? It’s you, isn’t it?” The only recognizable thing about the man was his face. He wore not a shred of naval attire. “Joseph Dagleishe, you’re here in London?” Neville stepped forward and embraced him and thumped his back. “You must tell me everything,”
“You’re being rude, Captain Burton,” said Joseph. “Do you remember…”
Dagleishe’s words whirled off into the ether as Neville’s attention turned to the female face at his side. He had not recognized the woman – the woman as a fine lady – Marion’s maidservant, Miss Ellen Aughton. That meant Marion was here; she must be here, and she must be close.
“Are you well, Neville?” asked Dagleishe. “I’ve never seen you so distracted.”
“I am. I am. Even better now. Miss Aughton, my apologies. How could I not recognize you. Does your presence mean that Miss Stillwater is here in London?” He was gathering his wits quickly.
“She is indeed,” said Miss Aughton. She held her hand for his proper greeting kiss. “She volunteered to stay back and read her book while Captain Dagleishe escorted me on a walk this fine afternoon. Sir, I believe Miss Stillwater would allow me to say that she would be over the moon to see you. She had been close to distraught at her lack of letters. You can imagine where one’s thoughts might go. What would you two dashing captains say to walking back to our rooms and fetching her for a nice meal this evening. Restaurants in London are open to all hours.”
“Ho, ho. It’s an excellent idea, and we’ll walk you back, Miss Aughton,” said Joseph, “but we’ll not wait. I have learned that lesson. We shall return to collect you at half eight. Captain Burton and I will find a pub and spend some time catching up.”
The two men had first gone to the Sign of the Golden Pheasant on Tottenham Court Road and arranged a room for Neville. There they had a pint and told their tales. They were surprised to find their ladies waiting and ready when they arrived at Stillwater’s rooms.
Marion and Ellen both looked as beautiful as Neville could ever remember when they came down the stair to be escorted out. However, despite what Ellen had said about Marion’s state of mind, Neville felt a slight awkward chill to her greeting. Small talk on the ride to supper was more formal than he had expected and seemed strained.
“Just there, coachman,” said Joseph as the hack opened Kingsway Street from Aldwych. The hack jangled to a halt and the four stepped out into a surging crowd.
“Is it always like this?” Neville queried the group.
“We’ve not been here for a very long time,” answered Joseph, “but this seems unusual, even for London…
“Excuse me, Sir,” he said to a man hurrying past, “Hold on a minute. Can you tell me what’s the hullabaloo?”
“You ain’t heard? Admiral Nelson’s here. He saved the Indies from an invasion by the French fleet, and he’s chased them back into the Med, he has. He’s come back to confer with the big brass, as it were – the King, maybe. They say the man himself is down this way. Come along, Cap’n!” He trotted down the street with the crowd.
“He’s come back from the Indies, has he?” quipped Neville.
“Ha, ha! You’ll have to tell us how that was done, Captain Burton. I’m particularly interested in the influence rum had on the conflict,” laughed Marion.
“I shall tell a grand tale, then, but you ladies must tell me how you come to be here. I had the very distinct impression from Captain Dagleishe here that as long as you are here, he didn’t ask and he doesn’t care. Not that I blame him for the sentiment. Your father, Miss Stillwater, would only tell me that you’d ‘gone to Europe’. And in his version, ‘selling rum’ was only implied. He also wouldn’t say if Mr. Stearns had gone with you. I have been most concerned.”
“Oh, really,” Marion said, “Yet you couldn’t find a way to write me. And I do know what you did to Mr. Stearns?” They were swallowed for a time by the noise and bustle of the restaurant. So is that it? She’s only annoyed about not getting letters? Surely she didn’t mind seeing Mr. Stearns g
et stuck in the arm. But then he told the story differently, didn’t he? Or is it that she doesn’t want to discuss her business – why she’s here, or who she’s here to see?
To Neville’s dismay, small talk continued before starters. Between starters and the first course, however, he was more than pleased to see Joseph and Ellen paying less and less attention to anything but themselves. In the middle of a crowd, he then felt much more alone with Marion. He could finally say, “I’ve missed you. I thank you for writing, but I can’t say the letters didn’t make me miss you more.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Cap… Neville, but there are some things we must talk about...”
“The duel was not my idea. It was Mr. Stearns who threw down the challenge.”
“I suspected that. He had it coming, then.”
“Not writing, then? I didn’t have a current address…”
“It’s not the letters, either. I understand the difficulty of keeping up with addresses when people don’t stay put. It’s my business. This trip is my idea, not father’s.”
“But you’re willing to talk it out with me?”
“As best I can-” There she paused, and blushed at some thought. “-and share somewhat more than that. Like they do,” she said, giving a little nod indicating Ellen and Joseph, obviously lost in their own little world across the table. She leaned close to his ear. “They are smitten, Sir,” she managed with a little giggle.
“How do you manage if your handmaiden is off on her own business?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t need that much to manage. We’re Americans, you remember, and I’m a capable woman, after all. And please don’t think of her as my handmaiden. She’s much more than that to me. She’s quite the lady, don’t you think?”
“She is indeed. I might chase after her myself if… ow!”
“Oh, here’s the soup…
A light fish course followed, and then one of duck. Joseph and Ellen retreated for a time to their own planet. “Do you have a room, Neville?” Marion asked.
“I have both a flat and a room,” he answered, “but the flat is under the hand of a decorator for a few days. The room is in a little pub on Tottenham Court Road, near where we met.”
“A flat here in London. I’ll be interested to see that.”
“Marion, I could never ask you over there.”
“By myself alone, you mean, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry. I certainly could have you come with…”
“That’s not what I had in mind, either. I know you wouldn’t suppose impropriety , which is why I’m making the suggestion. But it can’t be for a few days, anyway, if you know what I mean,” she concluded with a wink.
“There will be a smell of paint, for sure.”
“Oh, Neville, you are simply pitiful.”
Four days later, Neville had moved from the pub to his flat. It wasn’t exactly as he had pictured it, and a smell of paint and turpentine still permeated the place, even with the windows open, but it was now at least livable. A knock had come at the door at about three in the afternoon, and he opened the door to find Marion and Ellen standing there. Marion was carrying a larger purse than he had seen before, as was Ellen, which struck him as odd.
“Ladies, good afternoon. Please come in; see my new home. I can’t offer an afternoon tea, I’m afraid, but I think I have a bottle of sherry. Perhaps you’d rather have some lemonade this warm afternoon? No Captain Dagleishe?”
“He’s waiting for me in the hack,” Ellen said, “I’m not staying. I am sure you can see Miss Stillwater home.”
“Go on and find the sherry, Neville. I’ll be right along.”
Neville went, suddenly feeling a touch of nervousness, but he could hear most of their conversation around the corner.
“Be careful,” Ellen said, and “I envy him,”.
“You should. He’ll be…”
He thought they kissed, as women do. Marion said, “Tomorrow, then. Lunch?”
The door closed and Marion appeared in the sitting area.
“Glasses, Neville said. I’ve found the sherry, and now I must find glasses.”
“They are just over there,” she said, “in plain sight.” She walked toward him, crossing the space remaining between them in only four steps. “Let me have that,” she said.
He handed her the bottle and she placed it on a handy coffee table. Then she pushed her body against his and moved his arms around her. She looked up into his eyes, and said, “Neville, I must admit that I am not here for the sherry. I am here for you to make love to me. Neville, take my virginity before I’m an old woman.”
Marion’s dress was floor length and made of a relatively thin light blue fabric. Its neck was a great V shape, displaying the skin of her neck, which was rapidly gaining a pink hue, almost to the shoulders. A bright yellow sash was tied high below her breasts, with a large bow on the left side.
Neville leaned down to kiss her waiting lips; he stroked her back and pulled her tightly to him. She did the same, and their lips and bodies remained glued together for several minutes.
“Marion, how could you claim to be an old woman. Your beauty takes my breath away.”
“I’m twenty-three now. I need you to keep me young.”
“I think I have wanted you since the first time I saw you at the New Year’s party two years ago,” Neville finally said.
“I thought you interesting, too, and I mentioned you to Father the next day. He would have none of it. ‘A navy man must be at least a captain’, he said. I am glad you were there last year. After that I knew I wanted you. Pull the bow, Neville,” she said. You may have as much of me as you would like. There is nobody here but us, I assume.”
He pulled the bow, as requested. It had been tied simply, like a gift-ribbon, and when it opened the sash fell to the floor.
“May I?” he asked, slipping his fingers beneath the shoulder of her dress.
“Please.”
Neville pushed the two sides of the neck outward and, as he suspected, the neck was wide enough when opened to pass over her shoulders. The blue fabric fluttered to the floor, leaving Marion standing with a sheer white petticoat. Her remaining garment did not leave the shape of her breasts or her nipples, hardened by the chill air, to his imagination. He ran his hands down her back again, taking hold of her buttocks and pulling her up to him. He held her hips hard against his and kissed her again. She wriggled her feet out of her simple shoes; he carried her to his bed.
Once there she pulled off her petticoat and displayed her naked body in the most suggestive way she could imagine while he fumbled his way out of his multi-buttoned uniform. “Am I as you expected?” she asked.
“Much more,” he answered. “Every part of you is beautiful. Even your feet are pretty.” He removed his tunic and shirt. “You wrote me some time ago,” he said, “that ‘seeing is believing’.” He sat and pulled off his shoes, then removed his trousers.
“It is, don’t you think?” she queried. “And I like what I see.”
“As do I; but I must add, however,” Neville continued, “that I further believe that ‘feeling is God’s honest truth”. He slid down on top of her, his tongue on one nipple and then the next. One hand hand slid up between her thighs. Marion gave little gasp, tipped her head back and arched up to him. She was already wet, and he kissed her neck while he increased her desire to take him in. Finally he could not delay longer. He pushed her wider and they coupled for the first time. Marion’s body trembled and they began a rhythmic pulsing, harder and deeper, each giving away everything. They did not stop; could not stop themselves long into the night, finally falling asleep intertwined and thoroughly spent.
At about three in the morning, Neville woke enough to be aware of his situation. He felt the warmth of his lover, running his hands over every part of her. He finally slid his hand up Marion’s naked thigh into the warmth in the center of her.
“Oh, you’re a wicked brute,” she murmured, running her hand down his
chest and past his belly to where he was stiffening. He rolled over on top of her and they began again.
“It was your idea, you remember.” He entered her slowly.
“I could get used to this,” she said quietly, when he rolled off again.
It was light when they woke the next time. The first Neville knew was the weight of her warm body on top of him. The feel of her smooth bare skin roused him again. She encouraged him to find more strength before breakfast.
They met Dagleishe and Aughton for lunch; all were in a warm and glowing mood despite a north-sea blow that had London awash with rain under the cover of dark clouds.
“After this terrible weather I’ll be looking forward to a nice warm bed,” said Marion, with a wink to Ellen, “but first we must find this captain some proper civilian clothes.”
“Do you find Joseph fashionable?” Ellen asked. “We found a shop over on Carnaby…”
When the meal was finished and Captain Dagleishe took Miss Aughton away with some errand as the excuse, Marion asked, “How would you like to see my rooms at the Saxon Arms? We can’t spend all our time in your flat. You have no food, no cook, and no restaurant on site. We can go to my suite. It is splendid being here in London. Nobody knows me anywhere I go. Nobody knows you are not my proper escort – or even my husband for that matter. Nobody even watches to see who goes upstairs with whom, unless special security arrangements are made. They suppose us all to be adults.”
“And in Washington?”
“The same, I assume. Worse, perhaps. It might almost be expected that there is something going on behind every closed door. Why would you ask that? I have told you that I’ve never met another man that has had any attraction for me.”
“What of Miss Aughton? Will she be with us?”
“She, my dear Neville, will be wherever Captain Dagleishe takes her. And I have no doubt that he will take her. ‘Take’, if you get my meaning. We’ll be quite alone. You don’t mind, do you?”
The Stillwater Conspiracy (The Neville Burton 'Worlds Apart' Series Book 4) Page 21
