‘I once thought about going to America,’ Freddie murmured to the girl by his side on the large sofa. He was merely testing her reaction, and her reply was eminently satisfying.
‘Oh, no Freddie. Oh, I do hope you’re not serious. I’d never see you again!’
He smiled teasingly into Venetia’s grey eyes.
‘And would that matter to you?’
‘You know it would.’ She blushed, the soft swell of her breasts relaxing a little inside the creamy silk dress she wore.
Freddie spoke softly. ‘That’s all I wanted to know. Do you think I’d go anywhere now, where I couldn’t take ’ee with me?’
He was suddenly feeling ten feet tall. Venetia Hocking was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and she was as much head over heels in love with him as he was with her. He knew her father for a plain man, for all his new status, and he’d be perfectly happy to give his daughter in marriage to a decent man with a good living.
There was only one thing preventing Freddie asking her right away, sweeping her off her feet and making her his bride before spring was out. He still didn’t know if he was capable of doing what he should. He respected Venetia too much to anticipate the marriage bed, but he went cold every time he thought of failure. The humiliation would be too great, but he was as innocent as any of the Killigrew boys when it came to lying with a woman. He knew the mechanics, but not the reality.
And the more he thought of performing well on his wedding night, the more there seemed to him only one way to perfect the art. He must get tuition from an expert.
‘Come on, you two love-birds, and join in the games,’ Morwen called across to them. ‘Our Freddie, you’re all red in the face. Have you been drinking too much champagne already?’
‘I daresay,’ he agreed laughingly, wondering what they would all think if they knew he’d just been picturing himself lying with a whore to learn the rudiments of fornicating.
He allowed Venetia and himself to be pulled into the centre of the circle where they were all about to play charades. He loved all his big-hearted family, but now he loved Venetia more than any of them. Not more, perhaps, but differently… He caught his mother looking speculatively at him, and wondered if she could tell what his thoughts had been. No, Freddie dismissed the idea. If anybody could tell, it would be Morwen, and she was too busy entertaining Matt and Louisa and Cresswell, and Ran as well, who was livelier than of late, with his own kin around him.
Did Ran Wainwright never feel the need of a woman? Freddie’s thoughts kept going off at tangents. He felt the familiar stirring in his loins that never seemed to come to anything, and decided desperately that his tuition had best be soon if he wanted to make Venetia his bride without feeling as futile as a eunuch.
* * *
There were whorehouses to be found along every waterfront. Freddie Tremayne picked his with care. Not in Truro, where he was well-known, nor even in St Austell, where the family likeness might be recognized. A week later, he locked up his chandlery shop and rode off towards Falmouth. Nobody knew him there, and in such a busy port, with seamen arriving and departing all the time, there was bound to be everything he required.
He was doing all this for Venetia, he reminded himself. For the girl he loved… though some might think it a peculiar mission to be frequenting a house of ill-repute in order to prove to himself that he was capable of a man’s most important act. Peculiar or not, it was perfectly logical to Freddie, and that was all that counted.
The horror of years past could still haunt him. He had been innocent of the lewdness of sexuality that was unnatural and frightening to a vulnerable child.
For a long while it hadn’t mattered physically. He was still a boy then, and had years of growing-up ahead of him. But now he was a man with a man’s needs, and he had to know that everything was all right in the marriage department. He didn’t dare to risk Venetia’s disappointment in him.
It only took a few coppers to get a waterfront scruff to give him the address he wanted. His pockets jingled with silver for the right instruction. Whatever it took, Freddie was willing to pay. He saw the house, knocked on the door discreetly labelled Madame Tania, and was admitted at once.
He blinked at the softly lit interior. He had expected something tawdry and sleazy, but this was subdued elegance in furnishings and drapery. He felt mildly reassured, and then a well-corseted woman of uncertain age came towards him.
‘Can I help you, Sir?’ she asked, as though she had vegetables to sell.
Freddie felt a sudden wild urge to laugh. It was so incongruous. Himself on the brink of marriage; this woman, selling other women’s bodies… at least, he hoped so. He didn’t fancy lying with this old hag, however well-preserved…
The tingle in his loins began again. He was here, and he may as well get what he’d come for. He cleared his throat.
‘A young lady—’ he began diffidently.
‘Of course,’ the woman said smoothly. ‘Perhaps you will just tell me your preference. We cater for all tastes here.’
He looked totally blank. Was there anything more than the simple act of which he had no knowledge whatsoever? Madame Tania shrewdly read his expression.
‘Are we perhaps wanting a first experience, sir?’ she spoke gently and tactfully. ‘If so, if you will allow me, I will choose one of my young ladies who will give you every assistance in making this a momentous and memorable occasion.’
‘Thank you,’ Freddie murmured. With every second that passed, it all became more and more dream-like. He was glad of that; it put less emphasis on the thing he was about to do. It made it totally impersonal.
He was shown into a small room. There was nothing in it but a bed and a small table. The covers and sheets on the bed were of red silk, the wall lights making it warm and inviting. All around the room, the walls were lined with mirrors, making the room seem larger than it really was. Everywhere Freddie looked, there was a reflection of himself, and he realized that the mirrors were angled to give infinite reflections of what went on on the bed.
For a minute he was tempted to change his mind and leave quickly. But it was too late. The door opened quietly and a beautiful dark-skinned girl came inside. He was too surprised to say anything for a moment. Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t someone like this. Her hair was as black as Morwen’s, but it reached to her waist in rippling silken waves, and even as Freddie gaped at her, she slid out of the white satin negligee she wore, and she was completely naked.
Freddie gulped. The image of the girl was reflected a score of times in the mirrors. Everywhere he looked there were breasts and thighs, and tufts of black pubic hair between long supple legs. He panicked, suffocated by the images.
The girl smiled, moving softly towards him on the carpeted floor. She lifted his hand to touch one of her breasts, sensuously rotating it so that he felt the nipple stiffen beneath his palm.
‘You like?’ she asked. ‘My gentleman would like more? My gentleman wishes to learn how to please a woman?’
‘Yes,’ Freddie croaked. The heady scents in the room were enveloping him. He was drowning in them. He wanted to drown in her. He felt aroused, even though nothing seemed to be happening down below. He nodded stupidly, and felt the girl’s fingers begin to unfasten his clothing.
‘But first I pleasure you,’ she said softly.
She appeared to expect him to stand impassively, allowing her lips to touch each exposed place on his body as she worked. It was extremely pleasurable. Her mouth was soft and warm. It covered each of his male nipples until they were little erect peaks, commanded to stand up by her circling tongue.
His shirt was pushed away from his shoulders now, and the girl sighed with pleasure, murmuring words in a language he couldn’t follow, smoothing his strong young flesh. Her hands ran down his chest, kneading and caressing, and Freddie ached with new and wonderful sensations. The girl continued to remove his clothing. He lost the restriction of his trousers, and then his underpants, and caught sig
ht of himself.
For a second, the girl stood beside him, smiling at both their reflections with satisfaction. They were Adam and Eve, Freddie thought incoherently, and the great stalk of his manhood proved to him that the girl’s administrations had already done what he hoped.
But she had hardly begun. As he watched, he saw her hand slide down his belly and grasp him. He saw her fingers start to smooth and caress, and the shooting sensations he began to experience were akin to exquisite pain.
‘Not yet, my proud one,’ the girl murmured. ‘Now you must learn to do your part.’
She lay down swiftly on the bed, her legs slightly parted in invitation. She patted the space beside her, and feeling as though his legs would hardly hold him up any more, Freddie sank down beside her. The mirror images followed them. He couldn’t keep his eyes off them, off her, off the ebony breasts that so tantalized him, off the silken chasm that was his for the taking… when the time was right. There was evidently more to learn yet…
‘You want to please your lady?’ she whispered. ‘Then you touch her here, you kiss her here, you stroke and caress and make her glad that she is a woman, with a woman’s special places to please a man.’
She guided his hands and his lips, and he was bemused by the expertise with which the girl performed. His mouth was on those beautiful breasts. One by one he drew the nipples into his mouth and felt them awaken, and glowed at his own ability. He followed the softly spoken instructions, finding the trail to the triangle of darkness below the soft belly.
His fingers found and explored and aroused in this new world of pleasure, and small cries of ecstasy came from the girl’s mouth. Then his tongue, on an exciting voyage of discovery, while her fingers groped for him, and she told him at last that the time was right. The mirror images magnified Freddie’s clumsy movements as he raised himself above her, preparing to follow her instructions.
She guided him. She was ready, and so was he… until the moment when his erect flesh touched hers. And as if someone had doused him with cold water, he felt himself dwindle into a pathetic lump of flabby flesh. The girl gave an impatient sigh.
‘It seems we have more work to do here, sir.’ She spoke politely. ‘You will pay for the extra time?’
Freddie gawped down at her, speechless for a moment. But even if his mouth refused to work, his brain whirled with the truth of it all. She was flawlessly beautiful, and totally cold. The cries of pleasure had all been false, the erotic pantings well-rehearsed, and to her this was no more than an hour’s work. He hauled himself away from her, fumbling for his clothes, feeling the need to cover himself, to stop looking at her, to resist the awful reflections of his inadequacy…
‘I’m sorry. I’ve no more time.’ He spoke jerkily.
‘I understand. You will pay Madame Tania, sir, and thank you for your company.’
The fact that she didn’t even care doubled Freddie’s humiliation. He couldn’t get out quickly enough. But the scent of her seemed to linger on him, no matter how many times he scrubbed himself the minute he got home. And he was just as tormented as ever after this failure, if not more so. Any man could succeed with a whore, he thought agonizingly. It was human nature, and had been so throughout the ages. What was wrong with him? And what was worse, could it ever be put right? Did he have the right to ask a lovely girl like Venetia Hocking to marry him, if he was impotent? The word burned into his brain, and he couldn’t rid himself of that either.
* * *
‘You call this a beach?’ Cresswell Tremayne said mockingly. The children had been allowed the use of the trap, after Walter had insisted that he was old enough to drive it. They had all piled in, eager to show the new boy some of their favourite places, more relaxed away from the house, where Cresswell acted more like one of the grown-ups than one of them.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Albert stared around the beautiful little cove. This was his particular favourite, almost closed in by the cliffs, and studded with small caves. The cove was golden, washed by the sea that rippled towards them now.
Cresswell sneered, scuffing the virginal sand into little flurries that stung Charlotte’s eyes and made her howl with rage.
‘It’s so small! Everything here is small. It’s nothing like America—’
‘Thank God for that,’ Walter muttered.
‘Walter, you know you’re not to say that,’ Primmy said automatically, but her blue eyes flashed furiously. ‘How dare you come here, Cresswell, and belittle everything about us. Your mother crows about your good manners, but it’s a pity she can’t hear you when you’re with us!’
‘My mother never crows,’ he snapped. ‘I shall be sure and tell her that you said so.’
She went scarlet. ‘I hope you won’t. I like Aunt Louisa very much, and I’d hate her to think differently—’
‘Then you shouldn’t say things you don’t mean,’ Cresswell said nastily. ‘Anyway, I didn’t ask to come here. I’d much rather have stayed at home.’
‘I wish you had,’ Justin was just as aggressive. ‘We can’t do the things we want to do because you’re here. We have to take you around with us all the time.’
‘I can’t see that there’s anything much to do around here. It’s the most boring place I ever saw. Nothing ever happens, and the people are all simpletons.’
Walter cuffed him on the side of his head.
‘You’d better not let my family hear you say that,’ he shouted. ‘Just because you’re a visitor it doesn’t give you the right to insult us.’
‘Don’t you dare hit me, you pig!’ Cresswell broke in furiously. He punched Walter in the stomach, and Albert joined in the fight at once. Primmy screamed at them to stop, but the next minute Cresswell was stumbling backwards, losing his footing, and rolling about in the sand with the two older boys on top of him.
They were too near the water’s edge, and the tide was coming in fast, but none of them noticed the chill of it as they rolled about, locked in rage. They were egged on by the others now, screeching and yelling, until they were suddenly dragged to their feet. All three had bloody noses, their clothes sodden and covered in sand, and they looked up into the furious face of Ben Killigrew.
‘What the hell do you all think you’re doing? You’re like rag-tags, the lot of you! If you can’t behave in a more civilized way, you’ll all be confined to the house, do you understand me?’
‘He started it, Uncle Ben!’ Cresswell whined, pointing savagely at Walter.
Ben looked at him with poorly disguised dislike. Cresswell was no kin of his, and he had despised him from the start. He’d kept his opinion to himself, but privately, he loathed children who were old before their time, and antagonized everyone else around them.
‘I didn’t start it!’ Walter bellowed. ‘He insulted us, and I gave him what he deserved.’
‘He did, Daddy, he did!’ Charlotte shrieked.
Ben shook them all off. ‘I don’t give a damn who started it, but I’m finishing it here and now,’ he said coldly. ‘You will all go home at once, and I want to hear no more fairy tales. How did you get here?’
‘Mother said we could use the trap,’ Walter said sullenly, and before Ben could rant at him about that, he added swiftly, ‘she treats me fairly. I’m not a baby any more, and I’m perfectly capable of driving a horse and cart.’
‘You should be,’ Cresswell muttered. ‘In a farmyard, preferably.’
‘That’s enough.’ Ben looked at him sharply. All three boys looked a sorry mess, glowering at one another like miniature prize-fighters, and if he wasn’t in such a state about the news he’d just received, he might have found the situation faintly amusing. ‘You will all get in the trap, and I shall ride alongside you to see that there’s no more trouble, since you obviously can’t be trusted to be by yourselves.’
It was galling to Walter to know that Ben’s eyes were on him every minute of the journey, watching the way he handled the reins, and ready to criticize the instant he did anything wrong. But h
e never faltered. He was very capable, and it was time Ben realized he was nearly a man, he thought resentfully.
When they reached home, Ben ordered them into the drawing-room with him, no matter how they looked. They must face everyone and see just how upset everyone would be by their bad behaviour. Primmy tried to object, but Ben shouted her down. She ached for her two brothers, whose stubborn faces told her that they weren’t going to forget any of this, not the insults from Cresswell, or Ben’s harsh treatment because of him.
When the drawing-room door opened, Morwen stood up with some relief. It was lovely to have had time alone with Matt and Louisa, and they had spent a happy gossiping hour before Jane Askhew and her daughter Cathy had arrived unannounced. They were still there, and Morwen had been conscious of the growing constraint between them all. For once, she longed for Ben to come, to make the conversation easier.
She started to smile, and then the smile changed to a gasp of horror as Ben stood aside after the briefest of greetings to Jane and Cathy, and ushered in the five dishevelled children. Everyone seemed to speak at once.
‘What on earth’s happened?’ Morwen gasped. ‘Who’s done this to you?’
‘My poor baby!’ Louisa said, rushing to hold Cresswell and examine his cut face.
‘Did you know who it was?’ Matt snapped. ‘Louisa, leave him. You know how he hates babying—’
‘Perhaps we should go—’ Jane began in embarrassment.
Cathy looked on, wide-eyed, a younger version of her mother, all the concern in her face focused on the oldest boy, about the same age as herself. The one they called Walter…
Family Ties Page 23