Jack followed and Thorne took his hand, leading him around the edge of the building, away from the sound of Queenie and his general. Entering the chateau via the kitchens, lit only by what moonlight could peer in the windows, they hurried onward. A large door set into a wall in the servants’ quarters revealed a staircase. Jack paused, his heart pounding. He was convinced that Thorne must be able to hear it.
“Upstairs?” Jack whispered.
“If you’d like to.” Thorne brushed Jack’s pomaded forelock back once again. “I hope you would.”
“I would… I would, more than anything in all the world, Robert.”
The stairs wound higher and higher, as if ascending a castle turret. Narrow slit windows threw lines of moonlight over the stair, but otherwise they were in darkness. Finally, Thorne grasped a large metal handle on a door and pushed it open.
The corridor was a world away from the practical plain back stairs. The carpet was thick underfoot and everywhere Jack looked were gold and flourishes, carvings and paintings, cherubs peering down from a fake sky on the ceiling. As eager as he was to be safe in Thorne’s bedroom, he slowed to a dawdle as he stared.
He dared not say a word, but he was too breathless from this strange world to utter anything.
Thorne took a key from his pocket and slipped his arm about Jack’s waist as he unlocked a gold-framed door. He brought them inside and closed the door behind them. It was entirely dark, except for a few points of light where the moonlight was doing its best to come in around the curtains.
Not letting go of Jack’s hand, Thorne lit the candles around the room and finally the gas lamps over the mantelpiece. As each candle shuddered into life, Jack stared, his eyes wider and wider.
“You—you sleep here?”
Jack had never seen a room like this before in all his days. A vast carved marble fireplace, with an elaborate painted screen in front of it, velvet armchairs and sofas with gold frames, cascades of luxurious fabrics, a huge gramophone, dark, polished tables, a wardrobe—or perhaps the entrance to another room, for its doors were so vast—and incongruous, hanging on it, Thorne’s breeches and khaki tunic.
And the bed. Which Jack had tried not to look at. One could almost imagine Napoleon reclining on it, planning a military maneuver while choosing himself a wife. It was the biggest bed Jack had ever seen. The natural swirls in the dark wood had been polished to a shine with gold garnishing the top of each bedpost. On it, pulled taut with military precision, was a beautiful embroidered quilt.
“Gosh—this really is quite a room.”
“Rather fussy, though, don’t you think?” Thorne shrugged in response to his own question. “Do you like it?”
“Like it?”
Jack stood in the center of the room and turned and turned, his arms flung out wide. He threw back his head and laughed. Dizzied, he fell into an armchair. The piano shawl that had been draped over it slipped off and cascaded over his shoulders.
Thorne laughed too, dropping to one knee before Jack’s chair. The gold braid shone in the candles and he bowed his head, peering up at Jack through his eyelashes to ask, “My beautiful gypsy, would you consent to dance with this old soldier?”
Jack grinned and took Thorne’s hand, palm upward.
“I’ll have to see if that’s in your fortune, won’t I?” He narrowed his eyes at the elegant hand and traced his fingertip across the palm. “You have a long life ahead of you. And…” Jack swallowed. He wasn’t playing. He knew very well what he saw. “But you’ll know sadness too. Perhaps you already have. And then, this line, here, it’s a deep crease—this is love. You’ll love very deeply, but this line here…” Jack looked up from the hand and squeezed it tightly in his own. He couldn’t look at it anymore. “Oh, it’s a lot of silly— I wouldn’t listen to all that. And you know your future can change, just as the lines fade or deepen. It doesn’t have to be— Oh, let’s dance, Robert, now that there’s no one around besides us!”
“What did you see, Jack?” Thorne’s voice was quiet.
“It’s your fate line, where it crosses your heart line, it— But please don’t… You could read anything into it. My mind’s playing tricks, that’s all.”
Jack was tempted to look at his own palm, but stopped himself with a laugh.
“You can’t read your own—I don’t know why I tried.”
“I don’t believe in fate. Apollo’s fate was the knacker’s, it didn’t happen.” Thorne kissed Jack’s hand fiercely. “We make our own fate, you showed me that yesterday.”
Jack ran his fingers through Thorne’s hair, gazing in quiet wonder at his ardor.
“Now, Robert, what about that dance?”
Thorne rose to his feet and drew Jack to his. He pulled him tenderly into his embrace and kissed him, chasing away the memory of those lines in his palm. Jack responded, his mouth soft and yielding. They swayed as if to a song that neither could hear but both remembered.
It was some minutes before Thorne whispered, “Why don’t you choose our song?”
“Would you like something happy or sad?”
“Not sad, not for us.”
“Only, sad things are sometimes the most beautiful.”
Jack slipped out of Thorne’s arms and went to the gramophone, where he could see a pile of records. There were pieces from opera, and chamber music, and symphonies. There were popular tunes from music halls, there were folk songs.
Jack pulled out a record and held it to his chest, hoping Thorne would guess what he’d chosen.
“You slipped away from this amazing room to sleep with me on a pile of straw.” He looked up at Thorne. “You know there’s a song about that?”
In a gentle tenor Thorne sang a line from the song, of a milk-white steed and a lord in search of his bride. His gaze was filled with affection and he smiled. “My raggle-taggle gypsy, Jack Woodvine.”
Jack beamed and held out the record to him.
“I’ve got this one at home! Honest, I have. The self-same recording. I love this woman’s voice… Antonia Sheridan. I take the gramophone up to my room and I listen to her singing it over and over again. I feel like I’m there with her in the song. I can see it all—the lord and the gypsy and the lady, and the milk-white steed. And Dad and Mrs. Byatt bang on my door, but I don’t care and I fling the windows wide and sing it!”
Jack started to crank up the gramophone, peering over his shoulder at the look of amusement on Thorne’s face.
“Am I a bit too silly?” Jack wondered if he should temper his enthusiasm.
“Do you think she has a decent voice, this Sheridan woman?” He put one hand on his hip, eyes widening as he waited for a response.
“Decent? Oh, I think she’s smashing!”
“I’ll be sure to let her know.” Thorne passed a hand over his already perfect hair. “She’ll be pleased to hear that the most beautiful chap in Shropshire thinks she’s smashing!”
“You know—you know her?” He completely missed Thorne’s compliment and breathed the singer’s name as though it were an ancient prayer. “Antonia Sheridan—the Antonia Sheridan?”
Jack dropped the needle onto the record and a fiddle started to play. Light as a breeze, sweet as a nightingale, Antonia Sheridan’s voice could be heard, as if summoned by Jack’s imploring. He grabbed Thorne’s hand and dragged him to stand beside him in front of the gramophone’s horn.
“I love her,” Jack confided.
“So do I.” Thorne said it with such gravity. “Quite a woman.”
“Well, she is marvelous! Who couldn’t love that voice?” Jack, his arms around Thorne, swayed in time with the lilting melody. “It sounds silly, but sometimes when I feel sad, I pretend that there was a mistake and that Miss Sheridan is actually my mother, but she had to leave me on the farm when I was a baby so that she could pursue her career.”
“I hope she isn’t your mother.” Thorne kissed his cheek, holding him close as they began a lilting dance. “I’d hate to find out that we were bro
thers.”
“That would be awkwa—” Jack held Thorne at arm’s length and gaped. “Wha—? What did you just say? You’re—she’s—what? She’s your mum? But surely she’s too young!”
“Oh, she’s going to love you, darling, if you tell her that!” Thorne turned to show Jack his profile and told him, “Everyone says I have a look of her. She’s rather prettier than I am, of course.”
“I would never have guessed if you hadn’t said— Oh, lor’, I feel so embarrassed now.”
Jack had indeed gone very pink again. He rested his head on Thorne’s shoulder as if he was hearing a lullaby.
“But…she does sing very beautifully, doesn’t she?”
“She does.” Thorne kissed his hair. “She taught me, I’m teaching Apollo. He’s not putting much effort into his lessons, though.”
Jack chuckled and was about to lean in toward Thorne to kiss his mouth when he looked back at the gramophone.
“We… We can’t do that in front of Miss Sheridan, can we?”
“We can probably go that far. I might draw the line at spanking your bare arse, though.”
Jack pushed himself up onto his tiptoes and Thorne bent to Jack’s lips. Their kiss began tenderly enough, but as Jack ran his hands about Thorne’s jacket, his gold buttons and braiding, he felt a pull of irresistible desire and their kiss deepened. And still they danced to that song that was theirs, their lips together, bodies pressed tight to each other.
They were still dancing when the needle traveled off the record and the disc hissed as it turned. Thorne held Jack in his arms as the dance continued, and in that rich tenor, sang their song once more. Jack gazed up at his captain, lost entirely in the depths of his dark eyes.
“I don’t sing as well as she does,” he murmured, quirking a small, bashful smile.
“You’re better than me. I squeak like a choirboy.”
“You have many other talents.” He brushed his fingertips over Jack’s face.
“Such as…?” Jack gave Thorne a deliberately cheeky smile. “Being rather naughty with my captain?”
“Poetry, taming willful stallions, being naughty with your captain.” He grinned at the last of the three. “What do you think of the old mess dress, eh? The only reason I joined the army, don’t you know!”
“You look so bloody handsome in that get-up, Captain Thorne! I’ve never seen— I mean, not that you don’t look handsome in the khaki. Or…or not wearing anything at all. But…this! Gosh.”
Jack ran his fingertips over the shining gold buttons.
“I saw you, and I had to remind myself to breathe.”
Thorne glanced down as though he had forgotten what he was wearing, then returned his gaze to Jack’s. “I wonder, Trooper Woodvine, if you would do me the honor of falling asleep in my arms again?”
“I would, most certainly. But I’m not tired yet.”
“And how would you propose that we tire you out?”
“I didn’t ask your permission to pomade my hair. I suspect my captain might want to punish me for that?”
“He might,” Thorne agreed. “Jack— I’ve been thinking all day about you, about what we—” He drew in a deep breath and Jack smiled as his captain set his jaw, clearly about to broach something that was causing even him a little embarrassment. “The whip. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Jack threaded his fingers through Thorne’s.
“Will it hurt? Only, I keep thinking about it. What it would feel like on my skin. I just… I trust you, Robert. And if you switch it over my buttocks once and it hurts then I’ll know. And if I like it…then…”
“Lightly, I’m not having you unable to sit down for a bloody week, Trooper!”
“Well, I wouldn’t want that either!” Jack turned to look at the bed. His voice heavy with desire, he asked, “Shall I undress?”
“Shall I undress, sir!” Thorne thundered, stepping ably into the character who would wield the whip.
Jack stood to attention.
“Shall I undress, Captain Thorne, sir?”
Thorne snapped an answering salute. “Undress, on the bed and let’s have a look at that arse, Trooper. At the double!”
Then he turned away from Jack and crossed the room to where two pairs of polished boots were neatly standing with their toes to the wall, the crop handle protruding from one. He pulled it out and swished as though testing the heft, the air swooshing as it was disturbed. At the sound, Jack’s fingers fumbled on his buttons.
Once he was naked, Jack neatly folded his clothes and put them on a delicate wooden table. He climbed onto the bed, the silk eiderdown soft against his bare hands and knees. He crawled toward the headboard and knelt up, holding on to the antique wood as he looked over his shoulder.
“This is a wanton display, soldier,” Thorne told him in a tight, stern voice and the crop sliced through the air once more. “Standing before a general with pomade in your hair without permission from your captain? Poor show, Woodvine. Jolly poor show indeed.”
The crop swished through the fizzing air, candles flickering at the disturbance. It landed across Jack’s bare bottom with the force of Captain Thorne’s more moderate spanks.
Jack moaned at the hot tingle that washed across his skin. It was just as he’d hoped it would feel. He clung more tightly to the bed, poking his buttocks out just a little farther toward his captain.
“Sorry, sir…” Jack couldn’t look away. Thorne had undone the first few buttons on his jacket. He now looked rakish as well as handsome. “Did you like my pomade, though, sir?”
“Damn it, man, don’t be so bloody impertinent!” He swung the crop again, landing it with the same force. “I thought you looked very dapper, Trooper!”
Through gritted teeth, Jack replied, “I’m glad you think so, sir.” He took a rasping breath. “I wanted to look handsome for you.”
“You’re already beautiful. Leave something for the rest of us?” Thorne rested one knee on the mattress and leaned down toward the bed, placing a soft kiss to the point where the crop had landed.
Jack gave a fluttering sigh.
“Captain…” he murmured. “Will you please spank me harder?”
“With my hand?” Another kiss soothed the crop mark. “Or with the whip?”
There was a pause. The room filled with a viscous silence.
“With the whip, sir.”
In a second the captain was on his feet again, his fingers nipping at a couple more of the tiny gold buttons that fastened his mess tunic. Then he drew back the crop and brought it down with increased force, his hand lingering to stroke and soothe the point of impact.
Jack gave a cry of pain, which immediately turned into a sigh of pleasure. He sagged against the headboard.
“Will you hold me, Captain?”
“Christ, Jack, I’m sorry.” Thorne threw the whip down and pulled Jack into his arms, pressing kisses to his face, his lips, his hair. “I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t be…it was splendid… But I just needed you to hold me. If that’s all right.” He felt the captain smile against his hair, and the strength of Thorne’s embrace increased, drawing Jack’s naked body to that mess dress that had left him enchanted.
“What do you have on under all that, Robert? You’ve undone all those buttons but you don’t appear to be wearing a shirt.”
“I can assure you I was properly attired at His Majesty’s party.” He laughed bashfully. “When you went down to the yard, though, I thought I might shed a few layers just for your sake.”
Kissing Thorne with surging enthusiasm, Jack stroked his hand inside the jacket, unbuttoning him farther with his other. He looked up at his handiwork—the stunning red and golden tunic hanging open, Thorne’s muscular torso on view.
“You—you—Captain Robert B.—whatever that stands for—Thorne… You are too bloody handsome for words!”
“I’m not doing too badly for thirty.” Thorne laughed and settled back on the bed with Jack still help in his a
rms. He crossed his legs at the ankle and told him, “I’ve been accused of arrogance in the past, you know. Can you believe such a thing?”
“Yes!” Jack caressed the bare skin, dipping his fingertips below the waistband of Thorne’s trousers. Hoping to force an answer via the art of distraction, he asked, “What does that B. stand for?”
Thorne gave a lilting, longing sigh and Jack realized that he had won, that it had taken so very little to finally undo Captain Robert B. Thorne in the end.
“It stands for,” Thorne breathed, closing his eyes in blissful anticipation, “Bloody handsome. Is there any wonder I’m arrogant?” Then he opened one eyelid, watching Jack with merry amusement.
“I’ve tried to work it out, but short of it being Bertie—and I can’t quite see that—I reckon it’s actually some old toff’s surname!”
“You’ll never guess that one, but I assure you that it’s not Bertie.”
Jack stroked his fingertips over the hard shape in the front of Thorne’s trousers. Just as Thorne moved his hips forward into Jack’s touch, Jack pulled his hand away.
“Go on, tell me…”
He saw admiration and surprise mingle in his lover’s eyes in the moment before Thorne said gravely, “Trooper, are you toying with your captain?”
Jack shone him a lopsided grin.
“Now would I do that?”
“One might almost imagine you’d like to go over my knee again.” Thorne lifted one immaculate eyebrow, his handsome face set in a look of pursed-lip anticipation. “But that can’t be the case, surely?”
Adopting a two-pronged attack, Jack scattered one hand through Thorne’s perfect coiffure and feathered the other over that shape in his trousers.
“I appear to have ruined your hair, Captain.”
“It would appear so.” Thorne slipped his fingers beneath Jack’s chin and tilted his head up a little. Then, as his lips pressed to Jack’s, he lifted his free hand and brought it down with a resounding slap on his derrière.
Jack gave an involuntary grunt of satisfaction, losing himself in their kiss. He reached for Thorne’s waistband again, slipping his fingers inside against that hard, flat stomach, twisting and sliding down to touch the warmth of his erection. In response, Thorne’s breath quickened, grew hoarser, and Jack marveled that he could tease out such a reply from this man who seemed so controlled, so logical. The captain’s fingers tightened against his buttock, kneading the soft, supple flesh beneath his palm in the moments before he lifted his hand and slapped it down again.
The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper Page 13