And there was the fear that he had kissed her as a ploy of some kind, to muddy his reputation, and steal the manor.
As though reading her thoughts, he whispered: “That was truth, Dolores. What just happened—I know it was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened. But it did. And it was true.”
Dolores nodded, saying nothing, and then walked ever faster. Soon, they were at the manor. They said nothing. Dolores almost ran up the stairs to her bedroom. She slammed the door shut behind her.
In a moment, she heard the slam of the guest bedroom door.
*****
One week passed like a play. Dolores and Mervin, when they ran into each other, pretended as though nothing had happened. It was like there were two versions of them. There were the outward versions, which were the picture of propriety and could not be accused of any dishonorable conduct, and then there were the true versions, which peered at each other through their hidden eyes, begging to be set free.
But Dolores would never make the first move in that direction. She had not cast her honor aside to do that. So she found herself waiting for him to do something. Just waiting for him to once again break the rules, to ignore etiquette, to resume their relationship.He had done enough now to ruin her. If he wanted to, he could leave and report what had happened, and begin a case against her. But he didn’t leave. He stayed.
She was in the drawing-room late one night. The summer sun had long since set, and she was gazing out of the window at the blackness. A solitary candle burnt upon the table. She took a deep breath. Her thoughts were consumed with Mervin, with the pleasure his lips had revealed, with his strong face, with his muscular body, with his stoic heart which had come through the war unscathed. With the man who was not at all like his evil uncle.
There was a slight rasping at the door. She turned, and there he was, stepping into the room. The façade has started to slip, she could see. His clothes were no at immaculate as they had been, and when he looked at her, he could not keep a smile off his face.
“If you keep smiling at me, my lord,” Dolores said, “I will not be able to stop myself from joining you.”
“That would please me, my lady,” Mervin said, stepping into the light. “May I sit?”
She nodded, and he sat close to her, so close that she could feel the heat from his body. The naughty part of her urge her to reach forward and touch his face, to feel his warm skin against her palm. She sat straighter, and smiled at Mervin as though she was just his uncle’s widow and he was just a troubled nephew.
“Is something the matter, my lord?” she said.
“You know there is,” Mervin muttered. “Dolores. Let’s not pretend we are not on first-name terms, now, sweet Dolores.”
Dolores nodded shortly. “Mervin.” It felt good to say his name aloud. “What troubles you?”
“Dreams,” he said. “Dreams of your lips. Dreams of your body pressed against mine. Dreams of the passion and heat between us.Every night for the past week, these dreams have disturbed my nights.And yet perhaps disturb is the wrong word, for I would not banish them for the world.”
Dolores let the words wash over her, into her, around her. The words enveloped her. Passion rose within her and when she looked at him she felt something strong and impossible to ignore in her chest. Something that was not quite love, not quite lust, but somewhere between the two. He was leaning forward. She leant forward so they were sitting very close.
“I, too, have had these dreams,” she said. “I have had them more times than I can count. They have taken home in my mind. I can hardly close my eyes without thinking of the kiss, of the heat. I know it is monstrously unladylike to say aloud, but I enjoyed our time together immensely. Truly, I did. It was wonderful. The heat, the passion …” She shook her head in disbelief. “I hardly knew these things existed before I met you. They are otherworldly and sensational, Mervin.”
He watched her with a serious expression upon his face. Then he leaned even further and brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead with his finger. His finger lingered on her skin, and then moved down her face, past her nose, to her lips. He rubbed her bottom lip, and then moved his head close. Dolores closed her eyes as they kissed, as the passion erupted between them. Every fiber of her being stirred. Lust moved through her. Her womanhood ached for the first time since she was a young, naïve girl. Her womanhood ached and she was not ashamed of it.
“Come with me?” Mervin said, as the kiss stopped. “Come with me, Dolores?”
“Where?” She could hardly speak; her breath was coming so fast.
“Upstairs,” Mervin said. “I don’t want to fight this anymore. I came here to ruin you. Yes, that is the truth. I monstrous truth. A truth I am ashamed of. But now that I know you, I could never ruin you. Not if a thousand Frenchman holding muskets stood at my back. I would rather die. I love you, Dolores. I hardly knew what the word meant until I came here.”
“You love me,” Dolores whispered, savoring the words.
“I feel like I’ve known you for far longer than these shorts weeks,” he went on. “I feel like I’ve known you for a very long time indeed. Perhaps it is because I often thought of you in France. Or perhaps it is because of your beauty, or your quiet strength. I hardly know how it has happened. But I happy about it. And I wouldn’t change it. It is immutable. My love for you will never waver. Even if you push me away now, and shun me for the rest of your life, I will keep on loving you.”
Dolores sighed with relief. “I love you, too,” she said, and knew it to be true.
Blast the etiquette. Blast the uncertainty. She loved him. She loved him for all he was, and all he wasn’t. She loved him imperfectly. If love existed, if it was anything, then it was this. It was how she felt about Mervin. She knew it in her bones.
“I will come with you,” she said.
Together, they rose to their feet, unmarried man and unmarried woman, about to commit a wonderful, euphoric sin.
*****
He laid her upon her back and leaned over her. His breath was hot upon her body as he undressed her, slowly removing each garment until she was stark naked. The room was warm, and yet her nipples were hard. He looked down at her naked body with wide eyes and then fell to his knees. Baring his lips, he suckled her nipple and rubbed her breasts, palming the flesh, squeezing it. Dolores moaned in pleasure, biting her lip to stop from screaming.
He kept suckling her nipple, and then moved his hand down her body to her womanhood. Pressing his finger upon her lips, he began to rub. There was a spot on her mound that produced a wonderful amount of pleasure. She threw her head back and closed her eyes, hanging in the pleasure, basking in it as though it was sunlight. He rubbed her harder, faster. She heard her moans as though from a long distance. A wave was building within her, a wave of pleasure. She had never felt pleasure like this. It seized her entire body. She saw red, nothing else. The red of pleasure.
And then it all released, his fingers prompting a thousand spasms in her muscles as she gyrated upon the bed. She wriggled here and there, catching the pleasure, stopping it, making it stay. Her womanhood was wetter than it had ever been now. When the massive pleasure has passed, she opened her eyes. They felt foggy, as they did after a long sleep. She was lightheaded and a rictus smile captured her lips.
“I have never felt that before,” she whispered.
“I have never—anything like this before.”
“Neither have I.” She paused, and then touched his head. “Take off your clothes, Mervin, love.”
He stood beside the bed and undressed. His body was rippled with muscle and marked here and there with a scar, pink and faded. His manhood was huge and rock-hard. She gulped.
Then he climbed atop her, supporting himself with his arms. “Do you want it, Dolores? Are you sure?”
“I want it,” she said. She had never been surer. “I
want it. Now.”
He reached down and touched his manhood, moving the tip so it brushed her lips. Then he pushed forward, entering her. She closed her eyes as his manhood filled her, pushing her lips aside and filling her completely. He grunted, and then thrusted into her, and out of her. Into her, and out of her.Slowly at first.And then faster.
Her womanhood was tight around him, but then his slow thrusts opened her, and she spread her legs wide to take him into her. She moved her hips with the motion of his thrusts. He took her hard, pounding into her. She heard herself screaming in pleasure and could hardly believe that it was her own voice she was hearing. “Yes, yes, yes,” she moaned.
Mervin groaned loudly and stared at her breasts, his eyes glassed over in a look of animalistic lust. “You are perfect,” he moaned, as he made love to her. “You are so, so perfect.”
“Harder,” Dolores willed. “As hard as you can.”
He buried his head in her neck and then thrust hard. Very hard.So hard that the sweet spot within her felt as though it were on fire. She shifted her hips with each thrust, pushing down as he pushed up, feeling the length of him enter and leave her three times a second. He was like a machine as he made love to her. The sweet spot grew even hotter. Dolores slammed her eyes shut tighter, and then the pleasure came once more, the massive pleasure. It made her womanhood tight, and she moaned loudly. It pricked every part of her body. Her head was fiercely warm. She felt like weeping in ecstasy.
Then Mervin grunted and fell atop her, his thrusts mad, frantic. He grunted once more, and then rolled upon his side, his muscular chest rising and falling in tandem with hers. His seed spilled from her womanhood, but she didn’t care.
She rolled onto her side and rested her head on his chest. She was terrified for a moment that he already devalued her, as most men would; that he already saw her as a whore. But then he cradled her head and kissed her hair, smelt it, moved his hands over her shoulders and massaged her.
“Do you still love me?” she said.
“Of course,” Mervin replied. “I’ll still love you later, too, when we’ve done it again.”
Dolores felt another thrill run through her.
*****
It was time for Mervin to leave. His time here was done. As far as his mother was concerned, he would be returning with news that he had ruined his uncle’s widow, to that he had fallen in love with her and bedded her. Dolores ascended the stairs to his bedroom and knocked twice. He opened the door and quickly ushered her inside. She could see by his room that he hadn’t started packing. The desk was full of his things, and his clothes lay scattered about the room.
“I thought you were going,” she said, confused. “You mentioned that you would leave, make your excuses, and then return here when it was convenient for you.”
“I did,” he said. “But I don’t want to leave you, and so I have decided on another course instead.”
“Oh?” Dolores said. “What course might that be?”
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck. A warm imprint upon her skin. “I have decided to marry you, instead,” he said. “That is, if you will have me.”
“Mervin!” Dolores gasped. “You must know what this would mean, for the both of us. The rumors will fly like arrows, and you will be impaled just as much as I.”
“Yes,” he said. “I am aware of that. I am also aware that it would mean breaking with my family. By my family I mean my mother, and her two sisters, all of whom treat me with disdain because I returned from the war with scars instead of riches. They look upon me as a nuisance, anyway. And it will mean that your family will cast you out, of course, but as far as I can tell—”
“They have done that already,” Dolores finished. “Yes, that is true.”
So this is the choice, Dolores thought. A life of widowhood and loneliness, with nominal connections to a family that has no interest in me, or a lifetime of dishonor with the man I love. A lifetime of rumors and ruin.A lifetime of joy and happiness.A lifetime of contentment. A lifetime of waking up next to the best man I have ever met.
“What do you say?” Mervin said, uncertainty suddenly flickering across his face. “Are you going to say no?”
Dolores laughed. I was a strange sound, even to her own ear. She was still getting used to it. It had been an awfully long while since she laughed like that. “I will marry you, Mervin!” she cried, hugging him close to her. “Oh, you silly man, of course I will marry you! But promise me that you will always be this man. Of course, time changes all. But remember the man you are now, and always carry a piece of his essence with you as the years trundle along.”
“I promise that my love for you will always remain, Dolores,” Mervin said, stroking her cheek. “I promise you that I will never stop loving you, no matter what happens. I promise you that no amount of rumors, or hatred, or ignoble whispers will make me change my opinion of you. I love you. That is a fact that cannot – and will not – change. I promise you that. Is that enough, my sweet love?”
“It is,” Dolores said. “Yes, Mervin, it is.”
He kissed her deeply and for so long that Dolores began to feel as though they were one person, bound by pleasure.
*****
1819.
Dolores, Mervin, and little Harry sat in the drawing-room around a blazing fire that fought off the winter cold. Mervin bobbed Harry up and down on his knee, and Harry squealed in delight. Wind battered Brickwall Manor, but no cold, no icy bite, entered this room. This was a happy room, a happy moment. Nothing could ruin it. Dolores had been wondering of late if it was all worth it, if Father and Mother’s silence, Mervin’s family’s hatred, the high-society whispers and the malicious rumors—if they had all been worth it.
Sitting in this room with her child and her husband, her body warmed by the dancing flames, smiles fixed upon all of their faces, she knew the answer.
Yes, it was worth it.
The Duke’s Nephew
Zita Cross – she still did not think of herself as sharing her husband’s name – sat beside the old, snoring man in the drawing room and sighed heavily. The old, snoring man who shouted more than he spoke, and who took pleasure in making others feel small. Zita laid her novel aside as he woke, leaned up, and reached across and pinched her knee. “Were you watching me sleep, you hussy?” he spat, his jowls quivering with the words. “I bet you were.”
“I was not, husband,” she said. “I was reading.”
“Eh, yes, of course you were. Some awful novel no doubt. Women, all you can do is read tripe. And then you wonder why nobody respects you.”
Zita took this placidly, as she took everything Maynard Bagstock, Duke of Bainmore, her husband, said. She couldn’t speak back to him. There was no point. He might slap her. He’d done it before, when she’d dared to ask to walk the gardens. He’d said he wasn’t in the mood. Well, she was. And then his hand had cracked across her jaw. The memory of that strike – casual, offhand, painful – still haunted her. Still made her flinch.He was six-and-sixty this year, thirty years her senior, and she had been married to him for one year. Her parents, dear old Mother and Father, had carted her off to this man without a thought. He was, after all, a Duke. There was no way they were going to refuse him, nevermind that he was old, sick, and revolting. Depraved, too.
“I am sorry, Your Grace,” she said, with downcast eyes. It was a title she did not owe him, but one she used for the sake of survival.
“Good,” he grunted. He lit a hip pipe and suckled on it between raspy, unhealthy breaths. “My nephew, Lord Saul Cartwright, will be here soon enough. And the last thing I want him seeing is some disrespectful little slut making me look like a fool. I am a Duke, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Obviously I haven’t. Otherwise I wouldn’t have honored you with the title. You fat, stupid oaf. She didn’t say this, of course. She could never ha
ve said something like this aloud. But it was nice to think it every now and again.
“Go and find a servant,” he said, waving his hand. “I’m hungry.”
Dinner would be served in less than an hour, but that wouldn’t stop him stuffing his face with lemon cakes and sausages until then, and then eating an entire banquet on top, and afterward more lemon cakes and other delicacies. She nodded, happy for the chance to retreat, and fled from the drawing room.
It was a woman’s lot, Mother had said, to be married when she reached a certain age. One could not remain alone forever. Whilst Zita did not massively disagree with this reasoning, she did wonder if one had to marry such a horrid man. He was a Duke; that was the only reason. But that meant less to her than the year of depression. A year in which he had slowly stripped away her sense of self until she no longer recognized the scared woman in the mirror. A year in which she had fell from a proud woman who laughed often to a woman for whom the sound of laughter was alien.
She found the servant and ordered him some food, and then returned to the drawing room. He turned away and leant over some old book, his eyes narrowed, pipe smoke pluming and curling around the room. She focused on the novel, which was a Spanish novel about knights and ladies. She lost herself in this, and imagined—imagined she was somebody else, somewhere else. Away from the Duke.Away from his awful demands.Away from his grasping hands and sickening leer.
On the morrow, Lord Saul Cartwright would be here. Zita shivered. It was always worst when visitors came, for she had to pretend that she simply adored her husband. She had to pretend that he was the nicest man God had ever created, lest he grow angry. The necessity for it made her queasy. But if this year had taught Zita Cross anything, it was survival.
Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) Page 39