by Nia Farrell
“Oh, but it is, Sir.”
That made him look. “No,” he said slowly, his meaning as clear as mine had been.
“Use my hand,” I whispered. “I want to see you ejaculate. Memorize how it looks. The purple head, the shining crown, the weeping eye. I want to feel the slide of satiny skin over the veiny pillar of your flesh, make it swell impossibly longer, harder, stroke it until your breath hitches in your chest and your hips lock for the moment it takes you to climax, spilling yourself on my hand, or chest, or face, wherever you wish, so long as I can see it. It will serve to reassure me, settle my nerves and my stomach, don’t you see? Please, Sir?” I dared to look at him through the brush of my lashes. “Please, may I?”
Put like that, he capitulated, shedding his clothes before coming to bed, gloriously nude, a feast for my senses and balm for my soul. He kissed me, angling his head and possessing my mouth as thoroughly as he commanded my body, finally allowing me to please him, then pleasuring me in turn. Two paroxysms later, he left me long enough to fetch a wet washcloth, cleaned me up, helped me into a chemise, then propped me on pillows to serve me supper.
Edward donned a robe and pulled a chair close by the bed, keeping me company whilst I ate, ready to render service if needed. Done, he removed my tray, setting it beside the door and returning with a copy of Travelers Official Rail Way Guide of the United States and Canada.
I could tell from the look on the professor’s face, it was test time.
Once more ensconced in his chair, he dipped his chin, opened the book, flipped a few pages, and asked me to recite the Erie Railroad timetable. This I did, making some effort to inject excitement in my voice by recalling the scenic route that we’d taken to get here. The schedule began at New York City’s Chambers Street Depot and ended with the rail line’s twice-daily departures from Rochester’s Genessee Valley Depot at 6:05 am and 4:00 pm, arriving in New York at 9:25 pm and 9:40 am, accordingly.
He cocked a brow when I paraphrased the last bit. “I know. I know. That’s not exactly how it’s printed. Is there anything else you wish to hear? Yesterday’s Times reported on foreign news by mail, brought by the Inman line’s City of Baltimore. Evidently your Mr. Disraeli has been making speeches, the Pope’s been declaring laws null and void, and there was a fire in Bremen. You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t describe the capture of Samarkand. Having lived through one war, I have no interest in reading of another.”
Leaning against the back of his chair, Edward studied me with those discerning turquoise eyes of his. No words passed between us, but his perusal made me feel like I was still being tested, evaluated, judged.
“What?” I pulled the sheet over my breasts, feeling suddenly exposed despite my undergarment. “Please don’t look at me like that. You’re making me feel freakish, like I belong in a sideshow, performing feats of memory for a three-cent piece. I’m certain it’s not worth a nickel.”
“That depends,” he rumbled, stirring himself enough to lean forward. Elbows on his knees, he brought his face close to mine, his mouth curled in an enigmatic smile. “Do you know what I would give to have your gift? To be able to read the volumes that I need for research when writing and to remember every word? To be able to pull them up and pour them out on demand? God help me, you would be the perfect research assistant, except the world needs your art more than I need your brain. Serving the greater good means my loss and their gain, but at least you will have the chance to shine on your own, free of any shadow I might cast.”
Edward thinks that I am gifted. That I could assist him in his work. The very idea made fresh hope bloom in my breast and visions of the future dance in my head. He wanted more than my body, more than my art. Now he wanted my mind. The knowledge thrilled me. Finally, here was a way that I could begin to repay him.
“I’ll do it,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “My faculties are yours, from now until Daniel comes with my studio and, after that, as time allows. I know you have some books with you. Whatever you wish me to remember for you, I shall read. Aboard ship, I’ll want to perambulate, to capture the views for my own future use, but I can take a book with me. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were. Please bear in mind that I can’t just glance at the pages; I must actually read them. Might I suggest a reorganization of your traveling library, in order of importance rather than how you normally arrange your titles, by subject matter? I can work my way through them, from greatest to least, excepting the two volumes that I’ve already finished: your pirate book and Miss Redden’s congressional biographies, written as Howard Glyndon. Or you could make a list, and I shall mark them off as I go. That way, you’ll have a record of what I’ve done and can make additions to it, once we are home.”
Home. The safe haven he’d offered. The residence we would share. But as what? Keeping up the pretence of being stepbrother and stepsister allowed us to share hotel rooms and ship cabins, but that was not who we were, or what we were to each other. We were sexual partners at the very least, but in truth, I was feeling more and more like Edward’s inamorata. There was genuine tenderness in his regard, in his touch, even when we joined in oral congress or anal congress and he took his pleasure in ways that would have sent married partners to jail.
I didn’t mind being Edward’s mistress. The rational part of me suggested that I could be happy as such, at the same time it warned of the price to be paid. Living in sin was one thing. Openly acknowledging such an arrangement bore social and professional consequences that could potentially ruin us.
In the beginning, I’d had two weeks to woo him, to entice him into taking my virginity. Having achieved my goal, with my sexual initiation complete, I now had ten days to make myself so indispensible, he would do whatever it took to keep me. Ten days to win his hand.
No time like the present to start.
“I read Latin,” I told him. “And Greek.”
The look on the professor’s face was priceless. Fingers itching to sketch it, I looked at my lap and smoothed a wrinkle from my chemise.
“Really?” he breathed. “How remarkable.”
“Yes. Well.” I smoothed another wrinkle and concentrated on my recitation, intent on keeping the emotional component bottled and locked where I stored them. “It was one of those things I told you about. A friend of my brother’s remarked that classical languages were beyond my simple female grasp. Nothing would do, then, but to learn enough that I surpassed him. If he was a braggart and a bully before, he seethed with enmity after that. I was relieved when he left to join the Confederate Navy. I don’t know what would have happened between us, had he stayed. Nothing good, I think.”
A low rumbling made me look. There was a fierceness on Edward’s face, and a growl in the back of his throat that made me so very glad he was friend and not foe. He would protect me. Safekeep me. From all others and from himself. He’d promised to never do more than I could bear.
“I suppose I egged him on,” I admitted. “In hindsight, there were other, better ways to handle it. I acted like a hoyden. Flaunted my knowledge, just a bit. If my father had been there…But he wasn’t.”
Edward’s hand twitched. His eyes became unfocused just a bit, as if weighing the evidence presented before rendering judgment.
“What you did, my dear, was not merely unwise, it was dangerously so. You were fortunate that he did not bite back when you baited him. From the sound of it, he would have eaten you alive.”
I was fairly certain he’d have eventually tried, but I wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. I would have screamed. Cried for help. I wouldn’t just…just…
I sat there, horrified by what I was remembering and only now realizing what it meant. Masey, beautiful honey-skinned Masey, her hazel eyes glazed, her dress misbuttoned, lips swollen, a bruise starting to darken one cheek. She’d frozen when she realized that I’d seen her. Refusing to meet my gaze, she’d scurried away, arms wrapped protectively around her stomach, shoulders hunched, shaking with silent sobs.
; He’d raped her. The son of a bitch.
“Good,” he said. “You understand the danger you were in.”
I’d been the target but Masey had come in his line of fire. Forced to submit. Threatened into silence, I have no doubt. He’d probably described what he planned to do to me next, if she did not. Knowing Masey, she would sacrifice herself before putting me at risk. That’s how she was. Who she was. The half-sister everyone knew about and no one acknowledged, two years younger than me, conceived after childbirth and near death had put my mother off sex and my artist father was on the road, courting Tidewater patrons. One of them offered a more comfortable bed than he’d been keeping and nine months later, Masey was born.
We’d never had a slave until she came, eight years old with a face so perfect, it begged to be painted. She was beautiful. More beautiful than I could ever hope to be. I used to envy her for it. No more. Not when I realized what it had cost her.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
Masey, forgive me.
I looked at Edward, my tear-glazed eyes pleading, for what I did not know, could not say, except I needed absolution.
I pulled off my chemise and lay down on my stomach, presenting my naked self to him, my bare hip near his knee. He sat for a moment in silence, then rose from his chair and went to my trunk. He returned with the coiled rope and his black leather belt.
“Wrists,” he said. I stretched out my arms in offering. He bound my wrists, a model of efficiency. He tied me to the headboard and used the extra length to craft knotted jute sleeves that stretched nearly to my elbows.
I was mesmerized.
“You like?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“Not too tight? Color good? Erotic bondage is not without its perils. Undo pressure can impede circulation and impair the nerves. I want you to pay attention, let me know if anything is amiss, hmm?”
Behind me, I heard him shed his robe and pick up his belt. Gripping it by its doubled length, he kissed my hair and whispered in my ear. “Fifty,” he said. “Because you need it.”
“Yes, Sir. Please, Sir.”
I was a mess by the time he finished, only half here, the other half on some other plane of existence. He freed me from the headboard but left my arms bound and cradled my sobbing body until the stream of tears ran dry. Licking the last ones from my face, he kissed my forehead and ordered me to sleep.
“Thank you,” I sighed, and let myself drift away, safely anchored in his arms.
Chapter Seventeen
The Bellona belonged to the London & New York Steamship Line, traveling regularly between those two cities by way of Havre, France. Everything aboard ship revolved around meal times, which varied by class. Third class passengers had breakfast at eight am, dinner at one pm, supper at six pm, and oatmeal at eight. At least I knew that I could get more oatmeal, if need be. First and second class were served breakfast at seven-thirty in the morning. Lunch was at noon. Dinner at four. Tea at seven-thirty and supper at ten pm. Given the food, the amenities, and the attention of the staff and crew, I could see why Edward insisted on traveling first class.
The monthly courses he’d mistaken my nervous stomach for came with a vengeance on our second day out to sea. Feeling the start of it as breakfast was ending, I’d excused myself and fairly raced to our cabin, throwing open my trunk and finding the folded cloths I’d packed for the occasion. I managed to leave our bed to take lunch, begged off tea, and was bedridden with cramps at supper.
Edward returned with a tray, setting it on the small dining table before checking on me.
I was curled on my side, eyes closed, listening to his movements, my face pinched in pain. “I don’t know why,” I moaned. “It’s never this bad. Do paroxysms worsen courses? If so, I’m never having sex again.”
“Really.” He sounded skeptical.
I can’t say that I blamed him. But then, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to make him work a bit harder for it. I hadn’t put up much resistance to this point.
“Shall I send for the ship’s surgeon? He can give you something to take the edge off the pain, hmm?”
The thought of laudanum made me shudder in dread. “Or perhaps a shot of something? Whiskey? Brandy? Whatever they have that’s best, but I’ll need to get something on my stomach or it will eat a hole right through.”
“At the table or here?” he said gently, ever the caretaker.
“Here. I’m sorry,” I said, keenly aware of the folded cloth jammed between my legs, the latest in a round of rags I’d been laundering as they were used, hanging them to dry. Proof of my gender filled our small but private water closet and had already spilled into the main part of our cabin, draped over the rope I’d stretched behind the upholstered davenport and matching chair on the far side of the room.
Edward cocked a brow. “Might I remind you of the three things I require?”
Oral, anal, and vaginal came immediately to mind. I bit my lip to keep from smiling at my waywardness and swung my gaze left, searching my aural memories, which were sadly deficient compared to my perfect ocular recall.
“Honesty, acceptance, and positivity,” he recited. “And are you following my directives?”
The telling gleam in his turquoise eyes made my breath hitch, just a bit. “No, Sir.”
“Disobedient chit.” He stalked across the space between us, the blond of his leonine head crowned with light from the lamp that I’d left burning. “You knew to obey or suffer the consequences.”
I pressed my hands against my cramping abdomen and winced. “I know.” I hissed through clenched teeth and bleated in misery. “Ahh. God.”
He swore beneath his breath and sat on the bed beside me. “Can you eat?”
“Plain fare, yes. I think so.” I hoped so. I couldn’t take the drink I needed otherwise.
He’d brought me oatmeal, bacon, a dessert baked with peaches, hot tea, and a small pitcher of milk. I managed to move the toweling I’d laid down to protect the sheets and sat on it, propped on pillows against the headboard, eating every bit under Edward’s watchful eye. Done, he removed the tray and returned with a glass tumbler of amber liquid. I didn’t ask what it was. Didn’t care, so long as it took the edge off my pain.
“Shit.” I grimaced at the taste. Three years in the army, six years spent as a man, and I’d yet to develop a taste for hard liquor.
Edward set the glass with my supper dishes and started to disrobe.
“I know that you prefer the left side of the bed for sleeping,” I said, watching him shed the appearance of civilization until he was a natural man, delightfully, sinfully, and—given the circumstances—regretfully attractive, “but might we switch until this worst is past? And leave a light on in the water closet, please? If this afternoon is any indicator, I’ll be up and down all night.”
His answer was to bring an armload of towels.
The covers were all kicked down, thanks to the July heat. He eyed the swell of my hip, leaned across me, and laid down a stack next to it. “Over,” he ordered.
I obeyed.
“Turn and face the wall, please.”
I rolled to my right side, away from him, felt him climb into bed beside me and pull my pelvis against his. While one large hand worked the tension from my neck, he slid the other onto my abdomen and gently massaged it.
“Thank you,” I said after he’d been at it for a while. “It might not have helped my cramping much, but it has provided a welcome distraction.”
“Well, then. Perhaps this.”
He slid his hand south. Ignoring the way I tensed when he breached my cloth, he threaded his fingers through my nether curls and cupped my sex, pressing against, then into my blood-slicked folds, finding my pearl and stroking it.
“Edward?”
“Shh. Tell me if this helps.”
He did not stop until I lay boneless, unexpectedly, deliciously shattered in his arms.
“Mmm. I think that it did.” I sighed softly, r
elishing the attention.
And then he moved, hips flexing, cock nudging, letting me feel his turgid length, pressed against the seam of my buttocks. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he was hard. A monk would have been so, nestled against my bare flesh as he was. My condition made me feel messy and unappealing, hardly worthy of his attentions, and yet there was no denying the evidence of his desire. I could only guess at how he would choose to satiate it. Mouth? Hand?
What? Wait. “Edward?” I whispered when he pulled the folded pad of cloth from my cleft and replaced it with his erection.
“Lesson Five,” he murmured. “Taking you like the woman you are.” And with that, he slid his girth inside me.
Holy mother of pearl.
I’d never heard of it, having sexual relations during a woman’s monthly courses, but Edward did not seem put off by it at all. He was gentle, sounding my depths, finding just how far he could comfortably go. He was steady, setting a slow, deliberate pace and maintaining it, never wavering, not even when I thought that I might like more. He’d already made me crest, with insistent fingers and knowing hands, yet I could feel the next wave coming as surely as the tide. He was masterful, commanding with the merest whisper, the slightest touch. Feeling the shift, he rose to meet it, delving deeper, ending his thrusts with a snap of his hips. I pinched and twisted my nipples, chasing the climax that finally came when he bit the curve of my neck and marked me as his.
After seeing to my needs, he quickly met his own, emptying himself inside me while the waves still rolled. The feel of his ejaculate flooding my womb was new and unexpected. I started to tense up, but a nip on my earlobe got my attention quick enough.
“This is the only time I can do this without risk,” he murmured against my ear, inciting a riot of gooseflesh. “If you think I would pass on the chance, you would be mistaken. God, the feel of you. Hot, wet walls. Clinging warmth. Filled with my seed.” He flexed his hips and rolled in me, reveling in his emission. “Of course, if you would rather that I take you like a mollycoddle…?”