‘I remember you touching yourself. Showing me what you liked—teaching me.’ Calcourt’s voice grew husky as his palm rested inches from her mound; Mary squeezed her thighs, desperate for his touch. ‘Do you remember? You’d slide your gown upward, and I’d follow you.’
‘You shame me with such recollections.’
‘Nothing we did together was ever shameful. I shamed us afterwards.’ Calcourt bit her earlobe as if administering a pleasurable reprimand. ‘I used to love watching you stroke yourself. They way your fingers moved.’
‘Touch me now.’
‘Show me first. Remind me.’
Mary hung her head, her hand stilling on Calcourt’s cock. ‘I can’t—I can’t remember how.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I… since you, I…’ Mary turned her head, fighting embarrassment. It felt so foolish to say it. ‘I haven’t done it since.’
‘You haven’t given yourself pleasure since—since me?’
‘No. It felt sinful.’ How stupid the sentiment seemed now. All her reticence had done was make her life grey at the core. ‘Wrong.’
Calcourt didn’t answer. The troubling look was back in his eyes again, the look of softness, of aching compassion that Mary knew she had to fight against. Before she could object, or lash out—before she could weep—he kissed her harshly, almost angrily, his palm pressing to her mound with immediate, overwhelming intimacy.
‘You feeling pleasure is the holiest thing I know.’ His fingers parted her damp curls, moving to caress her rosy inner lips as Mary moaned. ‘Believe me.’
‘You are sacreligious.’
‘No.’ Calcourt stroked her, his voice low and firm. ‘I’m a man who’s learned what’s holy.’
There was nothing she could do but succumb. Nothing she wanted more. Mary moaned, unable to respond with any clarity as a wave of pleasure overcame her, a tight knot forming at the base of her stomach. Her body remembered his fingers with complete, staggering exactness, welcoming him home, pushing her to press against his hands with a quiet cry of surrender.
This was where she had found herself, found him—found love. Her hands on him, pleasuring him. His hands on her, slowly moving to curl and flicker in her, learning how she felt as she shivered and gasped against him. Mary stroked his cock faster as his fingers gently breached her entrance, her body taking him in with immediate, savage hunger.
‘See?’ One finger stretched her inner walls, followed by another. Calcourt moved to hold her, one hand wrapped firmly around her waist as he slid two fingers inside her. ‘Holy.’
Mary could only nod in response, quivering as he curled his fingers. She leaned against him, overcome with need, stroking his cock with the same urgency that she felt in Calcourt’s touch. This was the dance she remembered, the delicious giving and taking of sensation—the prelude to him inside her, deep at her core, holding her tightly as they came together.
That had always been their perfect state. Other lads and lasses were content with mere touching, mere tasting, stopping short at the act that would compound their sin. She and James, so unstoppably hungry for one another, had barely spent any time on preliminary exploration before joining as one.
Everything had felt right with him inside her. Every kiss, every caress, felt more vivid when they were already united. When his hips would thrust, his cock deep, deep within her, she felt as if they were one being rather than two. Here, inches from the forest floor, all the memories of their former ecstasy crowded her mind with a pleasure close to pain.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to climb atop him now, sink onto him, slowly welcome him into her again. To grip him in the way that made him shudder, years ago—to rise and fall, to meet his thrusts, to flood him with her passion as she came. To tremble and sigh and pant against him, clutching him, desperate to feel him spurt inside her.
The easiest thing into the world. And if she did it now, if they reached their peak now, together—why, then it would all be over between them.
They could finish with one another. Their feelings would fade. They had to.
Fumbling, suddenly frantic with urgency, she moved closer to him still. Ignoring Calcourt’s widened eyes, sighing with frustration as his fingers slipped free of her, Mary leaned astride the vicar’s broad thighs as she gripped his cock more tightly.
‘Ohh.’ She moaned, breathless, as the head of his cock brushed against her bud. Calcourt’s gasp only fuelled the feeling; Mary did it again, biting her lip, remembering how much this exact game had driven them past the point of no return. But no, this wasn’t the time for games—this was the time to feel him, to welcome him, to end this—
Calcourt’s warm smile, his hands on her wrists, stopped her in her tracks. He gently pulled away from her, his dark eyes alive with compassionate desire. ‘I want to, but not here. Not now.’
‘But I—but we must.’
‘Why must we? There’s time.’ Calcourt stroked her face, kissing her with a softness that Mary knew she didn’t deserve. ‘There’s so much time left still.’
‘There isn’t. There can’t be.’
‘Why?’ The confusion in Calcourt’s voice sent fractures through her heart. ‘Tell me why.’
‘Because this is the last time. The final time. It has to be.’ Mary said the words without thinking them through, the darkest part of her rising to her throat. ‘Because—because then we’re both free.’
‘I don’t want to be free of you.’
‘I can’t be with you, and live the life that I have.’ Mary paused, biting her lip as her vision grew blurred with tears. It had sounded so logical in her head—but now, now it just sounded brutal. ‘Neither can you.’
She had expected to feel better. To feel freer, somehow, after saying it. But looking at the hurt in Calcourt’s face, the pain in his eyes, she felt more chained to him than ever. Not chained to him as she had been before—these were new chains, fresh chains, that she had forged herself.
Why had she said something of such devastating cruelty?
She pulled away as Calcourt reached for her. She sat down, dazed, trying to find the words to apologise as he stared.
He had every right to be angry with her. To be furious. But Calcourt reached for her hands again with gentle persistence, taking them in his own, speaking with quiet, infinite patience.
‘I know I’ve caused you enough pain to last a lifetime. I know I made wounds that can’t be healed easily. But—but you must give me the chance to try and heal them, Mary. Please.’
‘I have been an open wound for so long.’ Mary spoke with difficulty, her voice a hoarse whisper. ‘I have forgotten what it means to be healed, and—and I don’t know if I can learn again. I don’t know if I have the strength.’
More cruel words. Words that sprang from enormous, overwhelming fear—the fear of having everything she had ever wanted in the palm of her hand, but being unable to close her fingers over it.
Calcourt’s long, slow sigh was more painful than any answer. The silence between them grew, filling the carriage, filling the world, before a sudden thunder of sound pulled them back into reality.
‘Hoofbeats.’ A stab of nausea ran through Mary at the thought of being discovered half-dressed, like some sort of animal. ‘They’ve found us.’
She ignored Calcourt completely as she rearranged her clothes, bringing back some semblance of decency to her disordered dress. It was only as she put her hands up to her unpinned hair that she realised her hands were bone-white, drained of colour—and her fingers were trembling like leaves, no matter how delicately she attempted to pin her rebellious locks back into their usual places.
It wasn’t the shock of the carriage overturning, however much she wished it was. It was the shock of pushing Calcourt away, even after he had apologised in the way she had always dreamed of him doing. The fear that had risen in her when he spoke of his love.
He had redeemed himself, and she was too frightened to even attempt to confront wha
t that might mean.
She waited for him to speak again. To reach out and seize her hand, or cup her face—the old Calcourt would have done it without a second thought. But the new Calcourt, the better man, respected her hasty words.
He kept his distance as the gig stopped alongside the wreckage of their own. As Rebecca’s faint, panicked cry filled the forest, Mary felt tears gathering in the corners of her eyes once more.
She had ruined it. Ruined something she hadn’t even realised she wanted. Now she would know, in agonising detail, exactly what it meant to repent.
The remainder of the carriage-ride to Satersall was conducted in fraught, furious and very squashed silence. Calcourt tried his best not to frown for the entirety of the journey, furiously biting the inside of his cheek as he stared out at the view from his side of the gig, so tightly crammed next to John Peterson that he could practically hear the man’s heartbeat.
Fortunately, no-one tried to speak to him. Neither did anyone try to speak to Mary, after the first enquiries were rebuffed with polite, but firm, refusal to discuss anything other than her physical state.
‘I know it must have been the most dreadful fright, dear. Are you—’
‘I am unhurt, and wish to arrive at the orphanage as soon as possible.’
Rebecca gamely tried her best, looking in concerned fashion at her husband as she took Mary’s hand. ‘But my dear, it must have been terrifying. I completely understand if you—’
‘I wish to be silent, and to arrive at the orphanage as quickly as we can.’ Mary sighed; Calcourt redoubled his attention on the view from his side of the carriage. ‘I have spoken quite enough.’
That appeared to be that. The journey continued, Calcourt keeping himself as determinedly separate from Mary, Peterson and Rebecca as he could be, his heart a whirl of torment. He didn’t manage to form a coherent thought until the wheels of the carriage finally met gravel, the low-roofed buildings of the orphanage visible at the end of the drive.
‘Reverend.’ Peterson’s low mutter as they jumped out of the carriage made him tense. ‘Was the accident graver than you’re saying? Miss Atterson seems quite shaken.’
‘It… it was a shock for the both of us.’
‘I can imagine. But there are no turned ankles or dashed brains.’ Peterson spoke quietly as they walked along the drive, the two women following at a distance. ‘And the horses are all right, even if one of them is missing.’
‘You’ve never been this curious about me.’
‘You were plenty curious when you found me in St Peters with a bottle of whisky. Your curiosity saved me.’ Peterson’s normally glowering expression had a shade of real concern. ‘Allow my curiosity to serve the same purpose.’
‘Peterson…’ Calcourt turned to him, the tension clipping his tone. ‘I appreciate your curiosity. But allow me to suggest that it comes from a knowledge of my situation, and of Miss Atterson’s, that had no right to be shared or discussed.’
Peterson coloured. ‘If Miss Atterson told my wife something in confidence, and she tells her husband, I hardly consider such information privileged.’
Calcourt stopped for a moment, blinking with shock. ‘Miss—Miss Atterson spoke of me?’
‘Not in so many words. There was a fair amount of guesswork involved.’ Peterson began to tramp again; Calcourt struggled to keep up with him. ‘Guesswork that turned out to be correct.’
‘I didn’t realise that my past sins were public knowledge.’
‘They are not. Neither is Miss Atterson’s present sadness.’ Peterson paused as he walked, his habitual scowl softening further still. ‘I… I can only apologise if our meddling has come to no good end.’
‘Unless you broke the carriage wheel, Mr. Peterson, I doubt I can call it meddling.’
‘We did meddle. The orphans are probably drowning in gloves and scarves.’
‘It did seem a somewhat flimsy excuse.’
‘At least the chapel is pleasant.’
Calcourt turned to look at the small white building, its doors currently tightly shut. Half-turning to look at Mary and Rebecca as they walked, he was struck anew by Mary’s singular beauty.
She was the only woman for him. He had meant every word he said, curled in the broken ruins of the carriage. And for a moment—an astonishing moment—she had clung to him, needing him, wanting him as much as he wanted her.
‘There’s still time, Reverend.’ Peterson followed his gaze. ‘There’s always time.’
‘No.’ Calcourt began to walk again, moving faster than before. The time in the carriage had been the last time, for Mary—he had seen it in her eyes. The final abandonment, before she came to her senses. ‘There isn’t.’
The afternoon crept gently over Sattersall, darkening to evening in slow degrees. Brief moments of chaos punctuated the silence as crowds of children ran over the grass, all safely in their beds by the time true darkness came.
The rooms set aside for guests at the Sattersall Orphanage were plain but serviceable, with whitewashed walls and neat blankets on the straw-stuffed beds. Rebecca Peterson sat on her bed, head in her hands, her voice quivering as she appealed to Mary.
‘I am so very sorry. More sorry than I can say.’
‘You used one of the most painful moments of my past as—as romantic fodder.’
‘I didn’t think the carriage would break down. No-one could have possibly predicted it.’
‘Even if it had been nothing more than a half-day carriage-ride, it would have been unbearable. I didn’t ask for your aid in speaking to—to that man.’
‘You never told me exactly what he did.’
‘And now I have told you. He took my virtue, and abandoned me without a second thought. I could have been with child, and I doubt he would have cared.’ Mary tried to keep her voice at the level of a whisper, but irritation made it difficult. ‘He broke my heart.’
‘But hearts can be mended! And the Reverend appears to have changed his life most significantly since then!’
‘And it was my job to discover that! Not yours!’
‘You never spoke to him!’ Rebecca lifted her head from her hands. ‘How were you planning to discover such a thing without ever speaking to him?’
‘I wasn’t planning to discover it! I planned to forget the past, and have been doing so with some success!’
‘That is not true, Mary. Forgive my boldness in this, but it is not true. When I came to you in a tilt because of John, your own story of heartbreak came very easily indeed to your lips—you required no provocation.’ Rebecca looked at her pleadingly. ‘I think you have been mired in the past, drowning in it, and refusing to take the hand of anyone who could pull you out of it.’
Mary sighed. She sat in the small wicker chair in the corner of the room, watching the candle-flame as it guttered.
‘I should be angry with you. I should be furious with you.’ She chose her words carefully, searching for the truth deep within her. ‘And I am, for organising this… this debacle.’
‘You know I am more sorry than I could ever say.’
‘I know. I also know that you wouldn’t have organised a broken carriage.’
‘I would rather die. I have been in agony all evening at the mere thought of it.’
‘Yes.’ Mary took a deep breath. ‘My anger at the circumstances of today is warranted in some aspects. But—but not others.’
Rebecca didn’t speak. She moved along the bed, closer to Mary, leaning forward with her hands in her lap.
‘I am angry with myself, Rebecca. Terribly angry.’ It was easy to speak to the candle-flame rather than her friend. ‘You are right. I haven’t just been living in the past—I have been swimming in it. I have been letting it guide my present state, my moods, my… my choices.’
‘And that is wise, if the choices you make are wise ones.’
‘But they aren’t. Forcing myself to live alone is unwise. Working myself to nerve and bone is unwise—it means I can’t solve the problems I
set out to ameliorate. And… and not forgiving someone who has done everything and more to earn my forgiveness…’ Mary sighed. ‘I have behaved badly.’
‘You have been frightened.’
‘I’m never normally frightened.’
‘You’re never frightened of the things that frighten everyone else. You’ve waded into slums with little more than a basket of bread and jugs of clean water.’ Rebecca paused. ‘Perhaps you’re so used to ignoring your fear, or discounting it, that you don’t quite recognise it when it comes.’
‘I have more than recognised it now.’ Mary curled into the chair, wishing it rocked. Melancholy thoughts needed a rocking chair. ‘But it took courage to recognise it. Maybe all the courage I had left.’
The two friends sat in raw, vulnerable silence. Rebecca, playing with the end of her braided hair, eventually spoke even more quietly than before.
‘Nothing needs to happen now. The events of today require a period of calm afterwards, do they not? You haven’t given me particulars, but—but I imagine a declaration was made.’
‘It was.’
‘And you didn’t give a definitive answer.’
‘I believe I gave the exact opposite of the answer I truly wished to give.’
‘Oh, Mary.’
‘I was frightened. I can admit it now.’
‘Things can be mended, even by frightened people. You and Calcourt can return to London tomorrow—in separate carriages—and then, if you feel capable, you can put an eye to repairing what has been lost.’
‘Years have been lost, Rebecca.’
‘But there are many years left.’ Rebecca leaned over, taking Mary’s hand in hers. She squeezed it, her voice full of faith. ‘More than enough years to make things right.’
She had never spoken to Rebecca with such vulnerability. She had never spoken to any female friend like that— the friends she had made over the years preferred to speak of the world around them rather than the world within them. As Mary left Rebecca’s bedroom, curtseying to Peterson as he finished the end of his cigar some feet away, she padded over the orphanage’s inner courtyard as the moon rose high.
Dukes of the Demi-Monde Page 33
