“I didn’t know that the monarchs of Europe were such a saucy bunch,” he admitted. “What’s your personal favorite? And which ones have you used?”
“Used?” Tarquin chuckled. “Oh, no, I’ve never used any of them. I’ve never felt naughty enough. But…but now…”
He drew his fingertip down Chris’ cheek to his lips. “Would you like to try something from the collection?”
“Which brings us back to your personal favorite,” Chris told him. “But I know what collectors can be like. I don’t want to bring you out in a nervous sweat by touching—I don’t know—a priceless butt plug that once belonged to Julius Caesar!”
“Well, funnily enough…” Tarquin raised an eyebrow. “My father brought an artifact that for a long time people had thought was a bottle stopper. But…” Tarquin opened a wooden case, revealing a smooth amber cone with a gold top. “Some people thought it was a child’s dummy, but it’s far too large. So other people surmised that it was, in fact, a butt plug. And there’s a name engraved on the gold, too.”
“Show me?”
Tarquin took two pairs of white gloves from a drawer. He passed a pair to Chris then put on his own. “Gloves on!”
With meticulous care, Tarquin lifted the antique from its case and laid it on Chris’ gloved hands. “It belonged to William Beckford. Fond of the finer things in life. And bottoms, too, apparently! See his name engraved in it?”
“And how much would you pay for something like this?” Chris held it up, studying the smoothly turned surface. “It’s a work of art.”
“Thousands,” Tarquin said. “But it depends who’s bidding. If only one collector of sensual artifacts turns up, and everyone else thinks it’s an elaborate bottle stopper, then it could be picked up for a couple of hundred. It didn’t cost Dad very much at all, and he was very proud of it!”
“I’m not sure, all things considered, that I’d put a second-hand butt plug to the test, even one that wasn’t worth a fair bit of cash,” Chris admitted with a soft laugh. He turned it over in his hands, peering at the ornate inscription. “Catherine the Great’s crop though… I know we can’t, but you can’t blame a fellow for dreaming!”
Tarquin’s mind was filled at once with memories of the tack room. “Do you…you mean, you’d happily be spanked with Catherine the Great’s crop? Gosh. Well, maybe we could give it a gentle swish?”
Chris looked at him, his blue eyes wide with anticipation. “Could we? I mean, is that allowed?”
“The previous owner is no longer with us, thanks to the intercession of a whopping great phallus. And the current owner is me.” Tarquin pointed to his chest. “So…erm…I suppose the answer is yes!”
“With that in mind, show me the rest of the collection,” Chris urged with unbridled enthusiasm, handing the intimate artifact back to Tarquin. “I don’t know what those other Hardacres were thinking for all these years! Falling back on a life of roguery, gambling and sex when they could’ve left the first two behind and called round next door for the other!”
“I think your uncle rather envied this collection. Hence all that business about the PA!” Tarquin closed the lid on the butt plug. “Speaking of which, would you like to see it?”
“I was at a pretty low ebb before you hopped my fence.” He kissed Tarquin’s cheek. “How the hell did I bump into a man like you?”
A low ebb, Tarquin reflected, remembering the fond farewell to that gleaming sports car, not to mention the curious fact that a supposed Canary Wharf high-flier could spare weeks to hide away in the middle of Sussex and bury himself in DIY. He wouldn’t ask. At least not yet.
“As it’s such an important piece…” Tarquin crossed the room to a rather dingy painting, which at first sight looked like nothing but a gloomy sylvan scene. On closer inspection, though, well-endowed satyrs frolicked with nymphs—and other satyrs.
Tarquin hinged it open to reveal a safe hidden behind it. He unlocked it, then withdrew a rectangular jewelry box.
“It was part of the collection for many years, but was lost. As soon as it came up at auction, I knew exactly what it was, and I had to get it back. Would you like to open it?”
It was another secret shared between them and he didn’t focus on the box that Chris was opening with such care, but on his lover. My lover. How wonderful it sounded, even though it shouldn’t.
My lover, Christopher Hardacre.
“So this is the cause of all the trouble at t’mill,” Chris murmured. “Makes me wince just thinking about it!”
“I can’t say I’d want one either, but apparently it feels very nice for one’s…” Tarquin gazed at Chris, his words gone. Good Lord, the man’s beautiful. With effort, he finished his sentence, “One’s lover.”
“Kiss me,” he begged, suddenly breathless, “squire.”
“If my captain wishes me to kiss him.” Tarquin rested his forehead against Chris’, then brought their lips together. A kiss in a room full of the saucy ephemera of the ages—it seemed more than appropriate.
“Tarquin!” He heard Petunia’s voice from outside. “Tarquin! We’re having coffee and Chris must be bored witless, come down!”
Tarquin broke from the kiss and said in quiet, squirely tones, “We’ll continue this tomorrow.”
“And if you happen to be at the bottom of the garden at nine o’clock, you might see us rowing past,” Chris told him. “I’ll be at home from ten. And I’ll be waiting.”
Chapter Twelve
Tarquin wished he hadn’t had coffee after dinner. He could never sleep if he drank the stuff, but maybe that wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t sleep. Because tomorrow, he’d see Chris. And when they should be doing the DIY, they’d be doing something quite different instead.
Petunia was sound asleep, which made Tarquin’s inability to drop off all the more annoying.
He pictured the sheep, gamboling in the front garden, and as he did, they began to turn into clouds, white cumulonimbi drifting by, creeping through the house.
Tarquin woke as suddenly as if he’d been shaken awake.
Someone’s in the house.
He could hear them downstairs. It wasn’t a dog or a pig. He’d heard a human footstep, he was certain of it.
Would Chris have come back to see the Oracle?
Tarquin slid carefully out of bed, but nothing would wake Petunia, especially not now as she began to snore.
He silently crossed the bedroom, but just as he peered around the door, onto the landing, he heard a foot on the stairs.
And no singing.
Chris would be singing. He’d be with the pig. He wouldn’t risk coming upstairs, not with Petunia there.
Creak.
Another step on the stairs. And again. Someone was coming upstairs.
Tarquin gripped the doorjamb, trying his best to see in the dim light. He could almost make out a human shape down below.
The squire wouldn’t suffer this. He’d whip out his riding crop and chase away the burglar!
Perhaps summoning the squire hadn’t been a brilliant idea, as Tarquin opened the door, as if allowing his brave, gruff alter ego to zoom off in pursuit of the trespasser. The door whined on its hinge, and whoever was on the stairs froze.
Then when Tarquin heard their footsteps again, it was in retreat. They crept down the stairs, then the footsteps tapped across the floorboards of the hallway, and finally the stone flags of the kitchen.
Tarquin stood for a while—it could have been seconds, but in the dark it seemed like a hundred years. Then he went downstairs.
Someone had definitely been in the house. Tarquin had gone up to bed after Petunia, and he knew the cupboard under the stairs had been closed. Now, however, the door was ajar, as if someone had been nosing inside. He went into the kitchen and counted the slumbering shapes of the dogs, who had once again proved that they were useless guard dogs. They were all there, and so was—
No. What Tarquin had assumed to be the Oracle was in fact a heaped blanket. The p
ig wasn’t there.
Maybe she’s in a different room?
But the doggy door was swinging. She hasn’t been taken, has she? No, how could someone pignap the Oracle?
Tarquin was out in the garden in seconds, so fast he barely remembered opening the back door. “Orry!” he called. “Orry!”
Tarquin strained to hear—was that an engine? No, no, it was Petunia’s snoring. But he strained again and heard…
The click of the Oracle’s trotters over the veranda.
The security light had turned on, and there she was, calmly heading back toward the house, with something in her mouth.
Food dropped under the table during dinner, perhaps? But as she trotted toward Tarquin, he realized that it was a scrap of fabric. Tarquin crouched and she butted her snout against his knee. He took the fabric from her mouth and noticed that it was a piece of denim.
“So,” Tarquin whispered, “my enemy wears jeans.”
Which didn’t really narrow it down, but it was a start.
Chapter Thirteen
At nine o’clock, Tarquin just happened to be at the bottom of his garden, standing on the jetty that stuck out into the river. Cup of tea in one hand, slice of toast loaded with strawberry jam in the other, he awaited what he knew would be a treat. The first he knew of the approaching boat was the barking of his dogs as they ran along the lawn, the Oracle in their midst, signaling the arrival of the Bough Bottom Blues.
Shobna sat at the bow, her megaphone held in her lap, but this time the long-suffering coxswain didn’t have to gee her boys along, because they were rowing not like a boys’ club, but like a team. Perhaps Chris was right and Bryan wouldn’t walk away with another victory this year, because it didn’t look as though the team had it quite so easy under this new captain. The new captain, he thought with a smile, had done some whipping into shape of his own.
And Tarquin’s eyes were only for Chris, because how on earth could he have looked at anyone else when presented with the vision of his lover in the boat, an oar in each hand and his gaze turned to Tarquin?
“Morning, neighbor!” Tarquin said, and raised his cup. Then, deciding he shouldn’t appear partisan, he added, “Morning, Shobna! Morning, crew!”
Had Bough Bottoms ever seen the like of it before? Chris, in a tight vest, his glorious biceps displayed to their full advantage as he pulled on the oars. And his legs, each muscle defined under the lightly tan skin.
Tarquin set his jaw—the squire wouldn’t stare open-mouthed like a brainless twit, and neither would Tarquin.
Maybe they’ll row back this way?
A man can dream.
“Morning, squire!” Chris called as they passed. “Nice day for it!”
“Splendid morning!” Tarquin replied. “Keep your end up, chaps!”
It would do no harm to linger on a beautiful Saturday morning, would it? Petunia wouldn’t have cause to complain—she’d set off early to flog a consignment of Art Deco teapots and Tarquin had greeted the dawn out on the tractor, putting in the hours of work so he could enjoy hours of fun later. No, he’d earned the right to stand on his jetty beneath the morning sun, his dogs and pig at his heels, and gaze at the river.
And the returning boat, just fifteen minutes later.
“Squire!” Chris shouted to him. “Ready for some dedicated drilling?”
“I most certainly am!”
What a sight Chris was, perspiration emphasizing his muscles. And he would be in Tarquin’s arms very soon, enjoying exercise of a different sort.
“I’ll see you soon!” The boat sped past, taking its captain along with it. “Don’t be late!”
Tarquin waved until the ripples in the river from the passing boat had vanished. Now all he had to do was occupy himself until ten o’clock, when Chris would answer the door dressed just as he had been last night, the tempting buttons unfastened and those gorgeous feet of his bare. What a time they were going to have on this day of forbidden freedom.
Just before ten o’clock—because the squire would be punctual, of course—Tarquin knocked at Chris’ door in his finest tweeds, with a bundle under his arm. Tarquin could have been bringing dust blankets or painting overalls, but he grinned as he pictured the bundle’s contents in action. He and Chris would both enjoy it, he was sure.
His heart pounded with excitement as he waited, or rather didn’t, because Chris was at the door with admirable speed. And he was every inch the city canary in his pink shirt and carelessly just-so tousled hair, holding a white china mug from which a curl of coffee-scented steam arose. He looked Tarquin up and down and smiled, then said, “How do, squire?”
“Very well indeed!” Tarquin stepped inside the house. His brain processed the differences in the place since Chris had overhauled it, but his focus remained on Chris. And what lay under those clothes. “Quite a vigorous way to start the day, captain—are you sure you’ve got enough energy for what we’re going to be up to today?”
“I’m not some bumpkin who spends his Saturday lolling in the haystack,” Chris told him as he closed the door. “I’ve had time to knock the team into shape and help myself to the best from your orchard while you were having a good old plow up in t’top field. I bet you were thinking about me all the time, weren’t you?”
“Of course I was! I was thinking about how hard I’d spank you for wearing that tight vest in public. And how much you’d enjoy it!” Tarquin closed his square hand around Chris’ biceps and squeezed. “It really got my dander up!”
“So you liked seeing me in a boat full of strapping men,” he teased. “A city boy like me, waltzing in here and taking over the rowing team? You must be furious.”
“I bloody well am!” Tarquin pressed his lips to Chris’, bestowing a brief but passionate kiss. “So furious, I’m going to tie you in the silken cords that once belonged to de Sade himself!”
He heard Chris’ breath catch at the very idea of it, but he marshaled his braying city boy quickly to reply, “That’s what I call a bit of country hospitality!”
“Too bloody right.” The sound of Chris’ hitched breath sent desire prickling through Tarquin. “Where does a city canary like you enjoy a good spanking then, if not in the squire’s tack room?”
“Take your pick, squire.” Chris took a far too casual sip of coffee. “Where’s your tweed leading you?”
“You showed me your bedroom yesterday—we’ll go there.” Tarquin grasped Chris’ buttock. “Seems like a good place for a walloping.”
“Coffee first?” Chris teased, even as his breath leaped with desire again. “Or shall we get straight down to business?”
“I want you in that bedroom,” Tarquin purred. “Now.”
Chris put the mug down on the hall table beside a vase of bright sunflowers and seized Tarquin’s hand. His feet—bare just as requested—padded on the woven rug as he turned, leading his squire through the house. Tarquin was left with the intoxicating view of Chris’ broad back and firm buttocks, and drifted after him on a cloud of anticipated lust.
They climbed the stairs together, heading to the promised land without a thought to the rest of the world. How free it felt to be so able to explore, to discover the shores of this hidden part of himself that he had thought locked away forever. The squire wasn’t a character Tarquin donned, but just another thread in the tapestry that he had allowed respectability to dull.
They crossed the threshold into the bedroom as one, their fingers entwined. A ray of sunlight fell across the bedcover, picking out the colors in the cushions and throw in its path, and a new thrill ran through Tarquin at the sight of it. They would have all day to enjoy this enormous bed together.
“Do you think I’m overdressed, captain?” Tarquin indicated his tweed three-piece. His pocket watch glinted on its chain across his stomach. Who but the squire would wear such an outfit, including a silk tie, on a sunny day like this? “Or do you like your squire a little buttoned up?”
“You’re splendidly overdressed for a Saturday
,” Chris told him mischievously. “But I can’t imagine a squire like you ever lets his standards down, do you? Not like me, barefoot and half unbuttoned.”
“Good Lord, no, I wouldn’t go scruffing about the place dressed like that. Heaven forbid!” Tarquin dropped the bundle of silk cords onto a chair and brushed his hands together. “You’re insolently scruffy, you utter tyke, and it’ll only mean more spanks for you!”
Chris took hold of Tarquin’s lapels and pressed their noses together. Then he kissed him, fleeting and cheeky.
Tarquin tried not to laugh as he said, “Oh, you’d chance a kiss, would you? Did you have permission?”
“I think you like a little bit of naughtiness from your handsome captain, don’t you?” Chris asked, his gaze sparkling. “Do tell me if I’m mistaken, squire.”
Tarquin raised an eyebrow. “You’re handsome, are you? You flatter yourself that I’d noticed?” He grinned. “And yes, you are very naughty, and I do like it.”
“I think you noticed.” Chris nibbled Tarquin’s earlobe lightly, nuzzling against his jaw. “Why don’t you show me how a squire spends his Saturdays?”
“Well, I can show you how he spends it with a handsome city canary type who needs disciplining.” Tarquin grabbed the collar of Chris’ shirt and dragged him close. “First, a kiss.”
This time when their lips met there was no teasing peck, but a deep, sloppy kiss, filled with heat and need. It was the sort of kiss that Tarquin hadn’t really imagined outside of films, and everyone knew that films weren’t real but…but this was. It was the squire and his captain, his city boy, bathed in the warmth of summer, with de Sade’s silken restraints just waiting for them.
Tarquin smoothed his hands over Chris—through that thick hair which inspired poetic flights, across his back and finally over the vee of chest that showed thanks to his barely fastened shirt. He could feel Chris was hard against him, and Tarquin pressed his erection against Chris’ thigh, a promise for later.
“I saw you down by the river,” Chris said, breathless. “Were you hard for me then?”
The Captain and the Squire Page 13
