Virgil dropped down beside her. Through the cold lake water, his body was already starting to emanate heat. ‘Last night, it must have taken a great deal to say what you did,’ he said.
Kate turned round to face him, dislodging the quilt from her shoulders. ‘You don’t despise me?’
‘On the contrary. You are very hard on yourself, Kate.’ Virgil wiped a drop of lake water from her cheek with his thumb. Her skin was softened by the water, chilly to touch, whereas he felt as if he were burning up. ‘Yesterday, it wasn’t that I was afraid of your reaction to my scars, I was afraid of my own.’ He still was, but he could manage it. He could. He owed her this much. No, it was more than that, he wanted to show her. Virgil lifted up the hem of his nightshirt and pulled it over his head. ‘These are not just from one whipping. I don’t know how many. I lost count,’ he said, swivelling round to show her his back.
Kate gasped. He wasn’t surprised; he knew it was a horrific sight. He’d seen it reflected in the mirror, though it was a long, long time since he’d seen it reflected in anyone’s face. ‘At the slave market, it’s what saved me.’ The words came out stiff, cold, but at least they came out. ‘It shows I lack discipline, you see. My scars, they mark me out as a rebel. A clean back would have brought a much higher price for Master Booth. This back, it’s what made Malcolm Jackson buy me.’
‘Why?’ Kate asked.
Her voice was ragged with horror. She hadn’t touched him. Virgil managed a shrug. ‘He said it was because he saw a free spirit. A man with dreams, he said I was. A stubborn man. A man who would fight for his cause. He took a chance on me, and I made sure it paid off.’ Another debt. In Glasgow at least he would have the opportunity to pay that one in full.
Kate touched him. Virgil flinched at the unexpectedness of it. ‘Did I hurt you?’ she whispered.
‘No.’ These scars no longer ached, though what they stood for would hurt him always.
Kate’s fingers traced the fretwork of lines, some threads, some thick like ropes, where his flesh had been opened and healed, opened and healed. The skin was tight in the bigger scars. It still pulled sometimes, tugged at him, wanting him to remember, making sure he could not forget. You are not healed. You will never heal. His scars spoke to him.
‘Did you run away?’ Kate asked.
Her hands smoothed over his back now, as if she would erase the mess, as if she would make him new. As if she could. He wished she could. Virgil nodded. ‘Once. Mostly I refused to do as I was bid. Spoke when I wasn’t supposed to. Looked them in the eye when they spoke. Once, they wanted me to fight and I wouldn’t.’
‘You mean box? Young Charlie was right?’
‘No! I wouldn’t fight. I saw Molineaux once. Prizefighting is how he earned his freedom in the end, but I wouldn’t let myself be treated like that, like an animal. I never fought that way, but I fought them every other way. Working too slow. Not working. Working too fast. I learned to read and write and they didn’t like that.’
‘They whipped you because you could read?’
He would have laughed at the utter shock in her voice, only it hit him like a punch in the stomach that she was right. It was beyond belief. He’d survived because he hadn’t let himself think about what was happening to him. He was afraid the horror of it would sap his strength. He had no energy to waste on railing against what he could not change. ‘They whipped us for any reason, and for none at all, but the last time I guess I gave them cause. I led a rebellion.’
Talking of his plans to force concessions by striking, to add weight to their strike by spreading it through neighbouring plantations, Virgil remembered what he had forgotten all these years, that despite all the evidence to the contrary, he’d believed that reason would triumph. ‘I thought if they could just be forced to see our point of view, they’d realise how wrong it all was.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I thought that if we could show them we had some power, if they could see that we were strong enough to stand together, they’d realise they would have to change. I was so wrong.’
‘What happened?’ He could see she already knew. Could tell from the way she gripped her hands together in her lap that she wanted to be wrong.
‘Just exactly what you think,’ Virgil said with a twisted smile. ‘It’s one thing to make promises, another to keep them when you know what the consequences are likely to be. Some didn’t strike. Some caved early.’
‘But not you?’
If only he had. Virgil shook his head. ‘Not me.’ He told her of that final whipping. He told her about the hellhole. And then he stopped.
Kate swore long and viciously in response, words even Virgil would not have spoken. Then she wrapped her arms around him, and leaned her body against the breadth of his back. ‘I would kill them.’
She took it for the end and he was too relieved to do anything but follow her lead. Her voice contained real menace. ‘I believe you,’ Virgil said. If it came to it, he doubted she would, but he believed she would want to, as he had, and it was a sweet revenge in its way, knowing that a duke’s daughter wanted to do what he had chosen not to. His vengeance had been slow in coming, but it was worth every second of hard slog it had taken. He had proved himself better. Now he would make sure others like him could do the same.
He could feel Kate’s breasts flattened against him. Her breath was warm on his neck. Her hands were wrapped around his body, her palms resting on his chest. ‘We should get back,’ he said, telling himself that he meant it.
Her arms tightened around him. ‘No.’
She nestled closer. Despite the cold, Virgil’s manhood stirred to life. ‘Kate…’
‘Did you tell me all that to show me I can trust you?’
‘And because I wanted to.’
‘Do you want me, Virgil?’
The evidence of just how much he wanted her was taking solid shape in the chafing leather of his buckskins. ‘You know I do.’ He twisted around in her embrace. Her mouth was soft, trembling, pink. Her eyes were grey rather than blue. ‘Kate, I don’t want to hurt you. I would never use you or force you or any of the things you’re afraid of, but if you’re not sure…’
‘I am. I think I am.’
Was he? He was sure he wanted her. He was sure it was different. The power of it came from passion heightened by abstinence, not love. But his abstinence had been one of the sources of his strength. Still, he wanted her and there were ways for both of them to have what they wanted without risk. Without compromise. Without hurt. He did want her. He was so tired of fighting it.
Virgil wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down onto the quilt which had fallen from her shoulders, and kissed her.
* * *
Was she sure? Kate locked her arms around Virgil’s neck and kissed him back. She was sure of him. Sure she wanted him. Sure she wanted what she had never had, what Anthony had taken from her.
He tasted of lake water. His lips were warm against hers. He rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his own. So large. Kissing, she stroked the breadth of his shoulders, then let her fingers flutter over the tortuous mess of his back. And so powerful. His kisses heated her. His hands on her face, her shoulders, her breasts, made her shiver in anticipation.
He kissed her deeply, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, then tangling with hers, teasing, tasting, then taking again. He kissed her neck, her throat, the valley between her breasts. The damp cotton of her chemise clung stubbornly to her body, but he was patient, untying the ribbons and buttons, feasting on each inch of skin as he opened it. Hot mouth on cold nipples. She arched up in delight, for his actions connected straight to her throbbing sex.
He kissed her lips again, as if he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, and that, too, delighted her. She watched him avidly as he kissed his way back down between her breasts, cupping them, his thumbs stroking, as his mouth nipped and licked at her ribs, her belly. Skin. The delicious abrasion of his skin on hers. Was there anything more delightful?
There was.
The ribbons on her drawers were knotted. When she would have torn them, he untied them with care, easing them down her legs. His face was taut, his eyes glittering, fierce and focused. The way he looked at her filled her with the most glorious sensation. She knew herself powerful. She knew herself wanted. Truly wanted. She let him look, made shameless with his need, her own need making her wanton. She kept her eyes open, fixed on him, his hands, his face, his mouth, his body.
She fumbled with the fastenings of his buckskins, but the leather was so wet her fingers could make no sense of them. She could have cried out in frustration but Virgil saved her, sitting up, quickly dispensing with buttons and falls, pulling them down his long, muscled legs.
He was utterly naked. Kate looked. She had seen a naked man before. She knew what an erect member looked like. She had been curious enough to look, and Anthony had been determined that she touch, but this was different. She’d thought the male body strange. Ugly, almost. Now, fascinated by the differences between them, she thought Virgil simply beautiful.
He sat down on the quilt opposite her and pulled her to him so that they were facing, her legs over his thighs. They studied each other, touching, tracing their shapes with their fingertips, exploring. They kissed. Virgil cupped her breasts, kissed her nipples. Kate arched back, her heels digging into the sandy floor of the hollow behind his back. He touched her belly. He kissed her again. He stroked her flanks, and then the soft flesh inside her thighs.
But when he began to stroke into the folds of her sex, she tensed, and Virgil stopped. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘I’m afraid I’ll fail you,’ Kate whispered.
‘Did he say that?’ Virgil swore. ‘Kate, he failed you.’
He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘Just trust me.’ He kissed her. He kissed her breasts. Then he kissed her mouth again. When her breath came shallow against his, he eased her back and stroked her thighs. Then stroked again, and slid easily past the folds of her sex and inside her. She gasped. Her muscles tensed around his finger. He eased into her a little more.
‘Do you like this?’ he asked. When she nodded, he took her hand and wrapped it around his shaft. They both stared, fascinated by the contrast of her skin on his.
The muscles in Virgil’s belly tightened. His erection thickened. He eased his finger higher inside her, seeing from the way her eyes widened that she liked it. ‘Stroke me, like this,’ he said, showing her, for he had no faith in her previous experience, and was glad, if he was honest, that she seemed so unsure.
She did as he asked; he had to close his eyes to hold himself back. ‘Again,’ he said, thrusting into her as she stroked, watching her as she touched him and he touched her. He could see his desire reflected in her eyes. It was intoxicating. He could see that she found it so too. He kissed her. Her lips were hard on his now, her tongue thrusting into his mouth.
Kissing. Stroking. Thrusting. ‘This,’ Virgil said, pushing harder and higher with his fingers, stroking over the smooth moist nub of her with his thumb, ‘this is what you’re doing to me.’ He could feel her swelling. He could feel himself thickening, pulsing. Her face was a mixture of confusion and delight. The knowledge that in this way he would be her first gave him immense satisfaction. He thrust and stroked and stroked and thrust, and then he kissed her, claiming her mouth with his tongue as she tightened around him and cried out, the pulsing heat of her, and the taste of her, and the feel of her hand, her fingers, on the length of him sending him over the edge seconds later, dragging a deep moan from his depths as he spilled his seed onto her hand and she slumped against him.
* * *
Solid. Virgil was so solid. Kate clung to him as if she were drowning. She felt as if she had been broken apart. Her body throbbed, wave after wave of sensation rippling out from the heat between her legs up, down, making her lightheaded, dizzy. She had been so furled tight and now she was—she didn’t know what she was. Unsprung? Was that a word? Like a clock which had been overwound. What she felt was red and sparkling and bright, bright, bright. Like a shower of sparks. A cascade. Her heart was pounding against Virgil’s chest. Or it was his heart. His hands on her back, his arms circling her so easily. When she wrapped her arms around him like this, her hands struggled to meet. His skin was like velvet, not soft, not rough, just velvet. Except his back. She traced his scars. She smoothed his scars. She nestled her face into the crook of his neck and kissed him. He smelled of lake and sweat and what they had just done. She didn’t know a name for it. No, Polly had given her several names, all of them far too vulgar-sounding for what she’d just experienced. It most certainly didn’t feel the least like a tickle.
Virgil hadn’t shaved; his chin was rough with stubble, though she could barely see it. She didn’t want to spoil the moment, but she had to ask the question which had been bothering her most of the night. ‘The girl you lost, did you love her?’
He tensed. ‘Yes.’
It was terrible of her, horrible, but Kate’s first emotion was jealousy. Virgil had loved someone. It was like picking at a scar, but she had to know. ‘How did you lose her?’
He put her from him, and got up, pulling his breeches on. His face was hard, his eyes hooded. ‘We should get dressed.’
‘I thought you trusted me.’ It was unfair of her. She could tell from the set of his shoulders, from the way he held himself, tight, the muscles on his abdomen clenched so hard she could count them. Kate scrabbled to her feet and began to drag her sopping swimming attire on. ‘Don’t answer that. I didn’t mean it. I shouldn’t have said it.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’
She had as well cut the connection between them with a knife, but what had she expected? It was just physical, what they had shared. Pleasure, nothing more. It was not life-changing or any other sort of changing. They were still the same two people, scarred and confused both of them. She had acquired no extra rights over him.
Virgil folded the quilts and tamped down the fire as she struggled with her buttons and ribbons. He picked up the heavy chest and disappeared down to the beach to return it to its hiding place.
‘I can fetch the rowing boat, if you don’t wish to take another wetting,’ she said when he returned.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Virgil ran his hand through his cropped hair. ‘She died. Her name was Millie, and she died. It’s not a question of trust, Kate. It’s none of your business.’
She was shivering as she followed Virgil down to the water’s edge and began to wade in to the lake. Virgil dived in and began to swim in a powerful if rather splashy style for the shore. Kate took her time. Swimming always helped her think. Virgil was right, Millie was long dead and none of her business, but she wished all the same that she could ask more. What happened to her? Were they separated when Virgil was sold, or had she died before? Eleven years ago he’d only been nineteen. The same age as she had been when she’d broken her betrothal. Just a boy. No. Nineteen years on a plantation would have made a man of him many years before then.
Whatever had happened had scarred him more deeply than the savage marks on his back, that much was certain. Perhaps that was why his lovemaking had taken the form it had. They had not been truly joined. She was not Millie. Virgil, thank goodness, was not Anthony. Though those first few times with her betrothed, she hadn’t been completely indifferent. She’d forgotten that. Funny, but what she remembered until now had been boredom, indifference morphing into pain and humiliation, but in the early days she’d been interested enough to feel let down afterwards, disappointed. Now she knew what she’d been missing, she could quite see that what she’d experienced back then was a shadow of what it could have been.
Virgil was wading onto the grass at the side of the lake. As she walked towards him, she could almost touch the barricade he seemed to have erected around himself. He wanted to be alone. ‘Go back to the house,’ she said. ‘I have dry things in the changing room below the fishing pavil
ion—there is no need for you to wait for me.’
He hesitated, then turned away. Kate watched him go. On the horizon, in direct contradiction of her own mood, the sun began to break through.
* * *
A few days later, despite the cold which hinted at the winter to come, Kate and Virgil walked through the woods to the village. Finally, the visit to the school had been arranged. Conversation between them was stilted at first, but their shared enthusiasm for Robert Owen’s educational experiment soon broke down any awkwardness.
The Castonbury school was a single-storey purpose-built building with an enclosed garden to the rear. The local vicar, the adopted father of Lily, Giles’s betrothed, awaited them with Miss Thomson, the schoolmistress, in the bright entranceway. ‘Mr Jackson, it is an honour.’ Reverend Seagrove was a portly man whose benevolence was writ large on his beaming countenance, and his handshake was as warm as his smile was genuine. ‘Lady Kate, always a pleasure. And this is Miss Thomson.’
The schoolmistress dropped a shy curtsey. Allowing the vicar to do the honours, for he was every bit as proud of the school as she was, Kate watched Virgil’s reaction on tenterhooks.
The school room itself was spacious, with two rows of desks separated by a central aisle. The children were ranked, with the littlest ones at the front and the eldest at the back. The entire wall at the rear of the room was covered with a depiction of the two central hemispheres, and a large globe stood beside them. Light streamed through the long windows, and every other bit of wall space was taken up with bright pictures of animals and wildlife, both familiar and exotic. The atmosphere was happy and relaxed. The children were smiling, clean and alert. As he followed the vicar and the schoolmistress around the room, watching as Miss Thomson led a spirited history lesson which included a battle re-enactment, Virgil was extremely impressed.
The Lady Who Broke the Rules Page 13