by Jane Lark
He undid her buttons to below her waist, then pushed her dress off her shoulders. ‘Help me take it off.’
She smiled in that shy way she had on occasion as she pulled her arms free from the sleeves, then he helped her get the dress over her petticoats.
‘Turn,’ he requested.
She did so, and then he undid the tapes holding her petticoats in place and once she was free of those and they were set aside he began unlacing her corset. She breathed heavily as he worked, sounding anxious as well as awkward. Yet she had kissed him just as any whore would kiss and unbuttoned his coat with a haste any whore might have.
When her corset was put aside he took off his coat and his shirt. She stripped off her stockings.
‘Take off your underwear and jump into the bed,’ he said as he sat down on the end of the bed to remove his boots.
A nervous sound escaped her throat that seemed to pretend laughter as she slid down her drawers and pulled her chemise off quickly, before lifting the sheet and blanket and slipping beneath them. Her body was pink with what he guessed was embarrassment. So odd for a whore.
She smiled at him with that essence of shyness as she held the covers up to her neck, no matter that it was a warm day.
He smiled too and continued smiling as he pulled off his boots, hoping to ease any anxiety she had. Then he stripped off his trousers, underwear and stockings all in one, so that he was naked too, before turning to find his sheath out of his coat. He slid it on, then smiled even more broadly as he climbed beneath the covers with her. The feeling in his chest was warm and full. It was no longer tight or painful. It was ready to know freedom and pleasure—with this woman.
He had never cared about it being with any particular woman before. But there was a sense of excitement that the woman would be Charlotte.
Her hand lifted to the back of his head and braced his skull through his hair as his hand reached to the place between her legs. He stroked her there as they kissed. He had never been selfish with women; he’d always ensured they had pleasure too. The experience was better for them both if that was the case.
~
Harry had dressed himself in something, but he had not immediately turned her on to her back and invaded her, neither with his body nor his fingers. He was just touching her, stroking.
His mouth lifted from hers then his head lowered and he kissed the edge of her breast.
‘What did you put on?’
He looked up. ‘A sheath.’
‘Oh. Why?’
His smile said she was being foolish and that she ought to understand. ‘To protect you from the risk of a child and us both from disease.’
She wanted to ask what disease, but he had thought her naïve for asking about the sheath and now was not the moment as his fingers continued to gently stroke the place between her legs.
Warm, nice, feelings skimmed through her nerves and across her skin.
He started sucking her nipple. That was done very gently too.
She shut her eyes, shutting out the room and the world as her fingers combed through his hair. Life had been cruel to her. But Harry… She had seen Captain Marlow and wanted to know him and this was her choice. For the first time in years she was doing something that was her choice, with no sense of persuasion or force.
His fingers slipped inside her and stroked, just as he’d stroked on the outside of her body. She let the feel of that, and only that, fill up her mind. Her fingers pressed into the skin and muscles on his back.
The emotions and feelings that rose from the points he touched spun like a whirlpool in a river. She had never felt such things when Mark touched her. When Mark touched her she felt cold and empty. But all those things were left in the room, in his home and pushed out of her thoughts.
She rocked up against Harry’s hand, enjoying every sensation, longing to feel them more strongly as his tongue pressed against her breast while he sucked her nipple and his fingers stroked in and out.
Harry’s lips lifted off her breast, pulling it as he sucked her nipple one last time, then his hands dented the mattress on either side of her.
She opened her eyes as he moved over her and her hands traced the contours under his skin, over his chest and arms, then settled on his shoulders as his gaze met hers.
When he pressed into her, it was done slowly, and still gently.
‘You are very pretty,’ he said as he began to move.
‘And you are very handsome.’
He smiled at her as he continued working. It was still nice, even with him inside her. He had sweetened it with gentleness. Enchanting sensations swirled through her lower body, gradually rising in intensity, grasping her attention. She did not think of other things as she did with Mark. It was impossible to think of other things with Harry.
Her fingers combed back Harry’s short hair, then trailed over his skin again, following the bulges of the muscles on his arms and his chest, as she rocked up against him, while he pressed into her with a slow enthralling pace.
With Mark it was always hurried and forceful, and often painful, but this… there was no pain, and no force—it just was. And it felt… beautiful. She had never thought she would say that about joining with a man, but he was even more beautiful without clothes and this was wonderful.
The feelings in her body spun higher, as though Harry’s movement whipped them up like a strap flicking at a spinning top. These feelings had risen from her stomach to her chest and were in the back of her throat and then they broke like a wave on the shore, frothing and washing out into her arms, her mind and her legs. She cried out with the pleasure of it.
Harry’s pace did not change, but his head lowered and he kissed her neck, her collarbone and her shoulder. She sighed and inside—writhed. The sensations danced through her continuously, racing over each other like waves tumbling on top of one another as she was thrown about in their white foam.
After a while, although she had no idea of how long because she had lost all sense of time, he clasped the back of her thighs and rolled on to his back, pulling her on top of him. Then his hands lifted and pressed either side of her head, his fingers curling into her hair as she knelt over him and he pushed up into her. His pace then was quicker and more powerful. Though even then he did not rush but moved in a way that seemed to focus on his pleasure. But the movement brought her pleasure too.
He turned again, tipping her on to her side.
It was like a sensual dance. Their arms and legs were all tangled up as they moved about the bed, in various positions that brought up different feelings inside her.
Harry knew how to do this in a way Mark did not and all the time her fingers ran over his skin, touching and appreciating as she looked at his beautiful eyes and face and her body grasped at every sensation and let wave after wave of pleasure wash over her.
Then finally Harry rolled her on to her back once more and pushed hard into her over and over, his pace quick and sharp, and then she felt his release throb inside her. Only it did not spill inside her, it spilled into the thing that he wore.
He withdrew from her body and lay on his back.
She rolled to her side and her arm reached across to hold on to him. The emotions still swayed inside her. ‘I have never enjoyed it before.’
He laughed. She could feel and hear the rumble of it in his chest.
‘How many men have you lain with, then?’
‘Only Mark.’
‘Colonel Hillier is the only one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then how many years have you been with him?’
‘Seven.’
He breathed out a long breath, as though her answer had disturbed him. Then his hand rested on her head and his fingers began playing with her hair.
~
Charlotte sat up suddenly, her hand pressing on his stomach. The motion woke him.
Lord, he’d fallen asleep. ‘What hour is it?’ He sat up too, throwing back the covers.
‘I have no idea. I
fell asleep.’
They had slept together, then. He walked over to fetch his pocket watch from his coat. ‘Six.’
‘Oh dear.’ When he looked back she was already hurriedly pulling on her underwear.
There was a jug of water and a washing bowl on a stand in the corner, he washed out the sheath and then began to dress.
She turned with her corset in her hand. He had only succeeded in putting on his underwear. ‘Will you help me?’
‘Yes. Turn around.’
She held her corset against her stomach as he threaded the laces at the back. It was far easier undoing the thing than it was doing it up. He had never done that before. When he’d left women before he had left them in a room in a bed or at the door, placing money on the bed or into their hand.
This was a very strange affair.
When he was done, she glanced across her shoulder. ‘Thank you.’ Then she stepped away and picked up her petticoats.
He attended to himself. Put on his stockings, then his trousers, then pulled on his shirt and tucked that into his trousers as she buttoned up the front of her dress. He was tugging on his boots as she came across the room to fetch her hair pins.
He slid his arms into his scarlet coat and then secured the buttons watching her, fascinated, as she deftly twisted her hair and then stuck pins into it to keep it up. Her hair was a magnificent colour. So bright. If it was dressed formally, as his mother’s and sisters’ hair was at times, she would stand out in any ballroom.
She picked up her bonnet, then realised he’d finished dressing and was watching her. She smiled with that hint of awkwardness and the shy nature that had been there before they’d used the bed. When she put on her bonnet and tied the ribbons her hands trembled as they’d done when she’d come up to the room. ‘I think I will be in trouble.’
He did not know what to say to that. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It is not your fault we fell asleep.’
No. It was not. But it had been a very odd thing to do.
‘I must hurry.’ She walked past him and opened the door before he could reach it. Then she hurried on down the stairs ahead of him.
He breathed steadily, keeping the pace of his breaths calm, even though his heart pumped harder in an uncommon way as they walked through the inn and then out into the street. He walked as far as the corner with her, though she did not give him the chance to offer his arm because her steps were so quick.
At the corner she looked at him. ‘Thank you. I enjoyed it. Will we do it again?’
Lord… Will we do it again? The words echoed through him. ‘Yes.’ The answer came from his tongue without thought, but now it was spoken the thought followed, and yes… He wanted that. ‘I am on duty until the evening tomorrow, but the day after I will be free.’
‘Shall I meet you here at the same hour?’
‘Yes.’
‘Goodbye, then.’ She bobbed a ridiculous little curtsey at him.
‘Goodbye, Charlotte.’
She turned and walked away, hurrying once more. He watched her until she was out of sight. Then he returned to the inn to collect Obsidian.
Everything felt strange, different. Which was absurd. Sleeping with a woman changed nothing. Yet certainly he was calmer than he remembered being in a long while and his mind continually reflected on images and sensations from the time he’d spent with her, it did not recall images of war.
It had been different from any other encounter he’d had with a woman, though.
She had been… He did not even know how to describe it. Refreshing, certainly. But it was not that; it was the way she had performed, or rather not performed at all. When they had been in the bed she’d done nothing like a whore. There had been no sound, or movement, that had felt forced, acted or exaggerated. It had simply been what it was—the only honest encounter he’d ever had with a woman. And he had not even paid her, when he would have paid triple for the service she’d given him. He felt so relaxed.
Guilt pierced through his ribs with a sharp pain that resembled the sudden lance of the tip of a sword. He had not paid her. Ought he to have given her something? Yet she had not asked, nor acted as though she expected payment. But unlike the other women he had been with, she was in the constant care of one man. Kept. For Hillier’s attentions. For seven years… For seven years she had only lain with one, old, man.
The thought stirred strange emotions Harry did not care to define.
When he rode into the stable yard at the barracks, Gareth was there.
‘Hello.’ Gareth called out. ‘I have been looking out for you. Are you in the mood for a drink?’
‘Yes.’ Harry suddenly had a desperate need for a drink.
He dismounted, then walked into the huge block of stables with Gareth beside him.
‘You were a long time. You had me worried,’ Gareth stated as Harry undid the saddle’s girth strap.
Yes. He could not believe he had fallen asleep. With every other woman, when the deed had been done they had thrown him out through the door, their money earned, no matter how pleasurably.
‘I mastered a few demons,’ Harry answered. He had. Harry gave his friend a twisted smile as he took the bridle off Obsidian. He could tell Gareth, but he would not. He had a desire to continue keeping his liaisons with Charlotte a secret.
Gareth fetched a curry comb, so did Harry, and together they brushed Obsidian down as Ash watched from the corner of the stall.
Ash was at Harry’s heel when they walked back into the barracks. Harry stroked the dog’s ear. He ate in the mess room and drank with Gareth, using the liquor tonight not to blur the images of war but to blur his memories of Charlotte.
The liquor failed in its task. When he retired to his bed, thoughts and memories still flooded his mind. He saw money being set into women’s hands, by him, and recalled the tremble in Charlotte’s hands. He felt the movement of her body and heard her breaths. Then he saw her holding open the cigar box for him to take one and then he saw Colonel Hillier welcoming him into his home.
You have eyes remarkably like those of a woman I once knew…
He had probably done something foolish today.
Yet nothing in his thoughts or emotions cared if there were consequences.
Chapter 3
He did not take Obsidian to the usual inn on the day he had agreed to meet Charlotte and nor did he hire a room at that inn. It had probably been foolish to meet her at the usual inn he used, the inn most of the officers used. He ought to keep their association more discreet—she was under the protection of another man.
Instead, once he’d met her, he walked farther along the sea front with her and then led her into a quiet, narrow street. They walked along that, talking and laughing, then turned right, into an even narrower street. In that street he took her into an inn, where he’d hired a room.
The room was smaller than at the last inn. But on this occasion he had thought to order fresh lemonade for her and some small, sweet currant buns topped with icing.
She turned and smiled at him as she took off her bonnet and then her gloves. ‘The refreshments are a very nice gesture; it was kind of you to think of that. What is the drink?’
‘Lemonade.’
‘I have never had it.’
That was a ridiculous notion. Who in the world had never tried lemonade? He crossed the room and poured some for her. Then held out the glass.
She took the glass from him and sipped from it. ‘It tastes sour and sweet all at once.’ Her expression spoke of the difference between sour and sweet too.
His lips pulled up into a smile and then he laughed before picking up an iced bun. There had been no blushes or hesitation in her movements or her conversation today.
He took a bite of the bun, then held it out to her. ‘Here, eat this, it will reduce the sourness.’
She bit into the bun as he held it, then he let go and let her hold it.
‘Mmm. That is nice.’
He picked up another and ate i
t, then poured himself lemonade and drank the glass down. The lemonade brought back memories of his childhood home and that sense of love that came with thoughts of his family, which then brought back the vivid images of battles and their aftermath. God he hated the shame and guilt that attacked him with the bombardment of cannon shells.
He set the empty glass down, then unbuttoned his coat, raising his eyebrows at her in a gesture to tell her that he was looking forward to what would come next. That would taste sweet too.
With a cheeky smile she started undoing the buttons of her dress, hurrying to get her clothes off as last time she had hurried to get them on before they had separated.
She stepped out of her dress as he pulled off his shirt, his braces hanging loose at his sides.
She untied the tapes of her petticoats as he took off his boots. Then she sat beside him and rolled down her stockings as he took his off too. She stood, then, and turned her back to him, so he could pull the lacing free from her corset and after he’d completed the task she stripped off her chemise while he stood to take off his trousers and underwear.
When she’d taken off her drawers, he looked at her. It was a hot day, there was no need to rush for the warmth of the bed. But there had been no need for her to do so last time, yet she had done.
She looked at him and did not move, seemingly trapped in his gaze. She had a perfectly proportioned body, small breasts, a curve to her hips and long limbs.
She took a pin out of her hair. Some of the copper spirals fell down and touched the top of one pert breast. She pulled another pin out. More hair fell. He walked forward and began taking out pins too, until all her hair had fallen.
He held her hand and tipped the pins from her palm to join those in his, then set them aside with their clothes.
When he returned to her, he looked at her hair, touching it as he’d done the other day. It was such an unusual colour. He had lain with women with red hair before but not with such a rich colour as this. He wound it around his fingers and drew her closer, tilting her head back so that he brought her lips to his.