A pity, they agreed, that they’d wasted a night squabbling and throwing things at each other at that splendid inn at Calais. Still, this place wasn’t completely dreadful, and they were impatient to step down from the coach and stretch their unsteady legs. A comfort to have the landlord bustling about, in deference to the elegantly lacquered vehicle with the Stansell crest, griffon rampant, done in gold on the door.
And if they themselves could hardly measure up to the splendor of their conveyance-looking, well, exactly as they felt: a less-than-perfectly groomed couple who’d clearly spent an eventful day out on the road-it took only another extremely haughty glance from Lord Christopher to keep Mr. Frayne respectful and obsequious.
“It’s hypocritical of me, I expect,” Mary whispered, “but I’m grateful to you, with me so disheveled and no maid to help sort me out.”
Perhaps the Misses Raddiford might spare a girl to help, if tomorrow’s encounter were not an absolute disaster. Kit had promised to send a message tonight, requesting to speak to Richard.
“I’d planned to wait until tomorrow to do it. But the sooner the better.” Spoken in his firmest, most responsible Major Stansell tone of voice, though he’d kept his eyes trained on some distant point beyond Mary’s shoulder when he’d said it.
Belcher reported that the bedchamber was small but adequate. The sheets were dry and it didn’t appear that Lord or Lady Christopher would be sharing the sagging bed with anything that crawled about or bit at their ankles.
Ensconced atop the coverlet with Mary’s writing desk on his lap, Kit scribbled away while Mary struggled to pin her gown into a semblance of order, pained groans and muttered imprecations issuing from their separate sides of the room.
“Well, that’ll simply…”
“… have to do.”
“I shouldn’t like to do it every day, but…”
“… Please, oh, please, my lady, may we go down to eat, at long last?”
One might, if one were charitable-as well as ravenous after one’s day’s journey-characterize the pickled salmon and lamb chops served with grayish peas as “honest English food.”
Good enough, in any case, to fill one’s belly with, if one ate it slowly-well, one had to chew the lamb slowly-leaning across the yellowed linen, gazing into each other’s eyes across the table.
At any rate, one didn’t have to make excuses for the ale. Or the pudding, from early gooseberries. Topped with Devonshire cream the landlord had brought out when Mary asked, demurely and yet with a certain earnestness, if there might be a little of it in the kitchen.
“Traveling with you”-Kit’s eyelids flickered dreamily in the candlelight-“one would at least be sure of getting whatever was best to eat that night.”
Mary opened her mouth to reply and then closed it again.
“You were about to say, Lady Christopher?”
She smiled to make her single dimple show, but only shook her head.
“And are you quite finished down here?” he asked.
“Quite. Down here.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll take the candle, Lord Christopher.”
“I’ll have to follow you very closely, then. The staircase is most narrow and uneven.”
And so he did. With his eyes and even (it seemed to her) with his breath. One could become extremely self-aware, she thought, of the movement of one’s own legs and thighs, hips and arse, as one climbed the rickety steps with someone following so close.
So aware of how one occupied the space around oneself that one couldn’t help but sway and even wiggle a bit, in a less than seemly manner.
He caught her at the doorway to their room, arms about her waist, hips and thighs and belly and cock pressed through his clothes and through hers too, hard against her arse.
“We never…” he whispered. “I was afraid I might hurt you…”
“I’m still a bit afraid,” she whispered, “for all that I trust you…”
“Not tonight,” he breathed rather than said it.
“No.”
They’d let themselves into the shabby little bedchamber and closed the door behind them as she pronounced that no. Both of them, meanwhile, noting that some Rubicon had been crossed, and some future plans laid. Some other night, perhaps, if there was ever to be another night like this one.
He began immediately on the hooks at the back of her green chambray gown.
“While as for tonight,” he told her, “I got the distinct impression that you wanted something else to put between your lips.”
“Wherever did you get that impression?”
“Can’t… imagine.”
“And you, Lord Kit? Do you crave… anything?” The gown had fallen to her feet. After all his practice in the cottage, the light stays she wore would hardly present much of a challenge.
“Now that you mention it…” He’d tossed the stays onto a chair, and then did the same with her petticoat. Her shift followed. She pulled his neckcloth open while he wriggled out of his coat and waistcoat.
His boots now. She’d grown so skillful at it, he thought, that she could give Belcher a pointer or two. Slipped the left one off while he caressed her nipples, growing hard and dark under his fingers.
“Your… ah, cravings… Kit?”
“Well, the gooseberries were tasty enough, and the… cream as well…” She’d gotten his pantaloons all unbuttoned, and had taken his cock in one hand, stroking it while she nudged a slow finger up and down the middle of his scrotum.
He’d intended to tell her that he craved something less sweet than gooseberries. Something spicier.
But he’d lost the words for it, moaning softly under her hands, gasping now as she let go of him. He stared most intently at the picture she made lying spread-eagle on the lumpy, saggy, altogether pathetic bed, her eyes on his cock, lips parted, back rounded to tilt her hips upward toward him.
Spicier, saltier than gooseberries.
He climbed atop her, head between her legs, hips suspended over her face.
Her lips still parted-he thought he could feel the warmth of her breath as he lowered himself, her fingertips nudging him into her mouth.
The insides of her cheeks smoother, slipperier than Devonshire cream, she pulled and sucked and gobbled at him as though he were more delicious than berries or wine or even a good strong English Stilton.
Her hands on his arse now, to bring him closer.
Ah.
She needed to breathe very slowly, she thought, and through her nose, to take in all his deepest, saltiest, sourest-his ripest smells as she moved her mouth and tongue and opened her throat to taste him.
While another part of her wanted to kick and buck and writhe under his mouth. Thank heaven he understood this, and thank heaven too for his hands cradling, soothing, holding her still below his lips and tongue-oh yes, for now she could feel the flicker of his tongue, bright wonder amidst dark labyrinth.
Confusion, befuddlement, sweet sea of swirling distraction: she couldn’t tell (didn’t know and obviously was in no position to say) whether she was moving or sensing, doing or done to, lover or beloved or both at once.
Was it possible to be both at once? Could one sort it out, separate the each from the both of them, find the beginning or skip ahead to the ending? While the snake swallowed its tail, beyond words or thought, where there was only the endless circle, the ring of pure light, the blank low sound of ohhhhh, words faded to humming, ecstatic spiral of sensation? After heroine and hero have pushed and pulled, teased and taunted, come and gone and come and come again, to this quick, bright, simultaneous and happy confusion, bonds loosed and boundaries no longer distinct? Where does one pick up the story again, the then and now, he and she, lover and beloved?
In the homeliest things.
In Mary’s slow realization, that time had passed and her feet were cold.
And moreover, that the bruise on her hip had begun to throb. More pleasantly, she knew that Kit was awake as well. For he was ki
ssing her belly, in the places where she knew she’d never again be so lithe and taut as the girl who’d done splits like an opera dancer.
Awakened to time and sensation, and always, most humanly, to need, “Come here,” she whispered, “up with me on the pillow. Come close so we can warm each other.”
Drawing together beneath the covers, limbs entangled, torsos flush between threadbare, much-mended linen, he raised his head to blow out the candle while she drifted off on the happy knowledge that when she woke to find the story continuing, he’d be here to wish her good morrow.
Chapter Twenty-six
He did wish her a good morrow, smiling down on her as she woke to the new day. Lovely to watch her open her eyes, so eager and happy that he could do no less than fall upon her in a long, passionate embrace.
Which soon enough revealed itself as a hearty and dutiful embrace, in truth with very little passion about it. He should have realized just how distracted his attention was by the looming prospect of meeting the person he’d been so angry at for so long. And by the dream of the seventy thousand men, only in last night’s version it had been Morrice whispering to him, saying something he couldn’t remember, and the men were bloodier, and Oliver had looked even taller up there on his podium.
None of which had done much for his performance in bed this morning. Too late to stop, though: his and then Mary’s movements became clumsy and disjunct, the shame of it all quite palpable, the failure (his failure) a humiliation.
Should have known. Shouldn’t have been misled by yesterday’s easy pleasures-both times, and even before, during the morning meeting in the forest, her hands so mischievous, her whispered voice so randy. I expect you’ll manage quite splendidly.… Hell. Forget about England expecting every man to do his duty; it was a woman who really put the pressure on, and a wife was quite the worst. Was it any surprise that he’d wanted to prove himself this morning-to her, to himself, did it matter which?
Nothing to be done about it now.
And nothing to be done either about the communication he’d dispatched to her friend Morrice. Disgusting, the swill that had leaked out from his pen-wrongs on both sides, spineless womanish twaddle. Dutiful little soldier he’d been, to send the bloody thing off to the Misses Raddiford’s house before dinner, so he wouldn’t be tempted to tear it up. Today there’d be no escaping the consequences. Morrice had assuredly read it by now; perhaps he’d even sent his answer.
On the whole, Kit thought, it might be a relief if the man simply refused to see him. A relief or an additional humiliation. He tried to steel himself for either eventuality, even as he found himself plagued by Mary’s efforts at cheery reassurance. Salt in a wound; he scowled and grimaced until she grew equally glum and nasty over a late breakfast of watery coffee, bluish milk, and lumpy porridge, the glassware chipped and smudged in harsh, hazy daylight.
“Well, you needn’t mope about it,” she told him. “Nothing matters that much. To look at you, one would think the sun rose and set by it.”
Thanks, just what I wanted to hear. What a hypocrite she could be: if there existed another woman to whom such things mattered more, he, for one, had yet to make her acquaintance.
At which affectionate juncture, the landlord came by to inquire about how they’d found the bedchamber.
Excellent. Very fine indeed, we slept wondrously well.
Delightful couple we make, Kit thought, nodding and grinning like a pair of condescending monkeys. Though he couldn’t help thinking it a good thing, that acting the hypocrite to the landlord had stopped him from calling Mary a hypocrite to her face.
“Yes, it’s our best.” The landlord beamed and then patted the pocket of his coat. “Ah, but I’d almost forgot the message I’ve got for you, my lord. Brought by just now by the Misses Raddiford’s footman.”
Kit accepted it casually, waiting to open it until the man had taken his leave of them. He tried not to tear the paper while Mary made a noisy, unconcerned show of stirring sugar into her coffee.
“Well, don’t you want to hear what he says?”
“Only if you choose to tell me.”
He hadn’t called her a hypocrite yet anyway. But then, it was still distressingly early in the day. Morrice wouldn’t be coming round to call upon them until two.
Not a badly worded response. Or so it seemed upon his first hurried reading. Difficult to get all its meaning with Mary’s eyes fixed upon him in that brimmingly sympathetic way.
“Perhaps I’ll ride over to Campsall this morning,” he said. “Talk to the man in charge of the militia. General Byng-I knew him in France.”
She nodded too quickly. Bravely even, to demonstrate her understanding that he might want to be away from her for a bit. Lives of saints and martyrs. Until now he’d forgotten that aspect of the wedded state.
But was he sure, she asked now, that he could be back by two?
Of course he was; why the devil wouldn’t he be?
Damn, the little pocket watch told him otherwise.
They dragged themselves up the steep stairs to their bedchamber.
He’d have a smoke instead, he told her; take a walk about the town.
“Oh, and by the way,” he added, “Morrice is bringing his wife with him. Making a domestic affair of it, I guess.”
She smiled, quite as though he’d meant that to be a good thing.
Still, it might be useful to have the other lady about. Give Mary someone to talk to while he and his erstwhile friend said or did whatever the hell two gentlemen were supposed to say or do when both parties had been wrong and time had passed and it wasn’t a question of revenge or reparation. His experience in war and diplomacy didn’t yield many useful examples. Make it up as one went along, he expected.
And where the bloody hell were those cheroots anyway?
She shrugged her shoulders and turned her back.
“Well, why don’t you know?”
He escaped the bedchamber just before whatever it was she’d chosen to toss at him came crashing against the door he’d slammed behind him.
Jittery on tobacco, he marched purposefully about the town, pausing at unpredictable intervals to stare at nothing in particular, one time gazing blankly through the window of a local bookshop until Mary raised her head from whatever she’d been perusing and he had to duck away.
He grew hungry. A pasty from a pork butcher helped clear the foul taste of breakfast from his mouth. He walked more aimlessly now. The time crawled by, only to speed up calamitously around half past one when he lost himself in a tangle of alleyways. Willing himself to get his directions straight, he ran all the way back to the George.
No harm done. The clock tower in the square agreed precisely with his pocket watch; the Morrices weren’t due for another five minutes. He smoothed his waistcoat, caught his breath, straightened his cravat, and grinned at the knowledge that he’d outrun his anxiety.
The street he’d come from adjoined the coaching inn. He’d entered the square across the way from the George. Yes, there was Mary, seated on a bench some fifty yards away from him. The pink of her dress made a pretty splash of color in the dusty, bleached-out light of early afternoon. Perhaps he had been needlessly savage with her.
She raised her head from whatever she was reading; he thought he could see a glint of her spectacles, but it might have been his imagination. He waved and so did she. He had the impression she was smiling. The Morrices would be arriving any minute. Too late to be nervous. And anyway, Mary’d see him through it. Buoyed by this thought, he hurried forward to join her.
Only to find himself amidst a crush of hurrying people, bags and parcels and the bustle of travel.
Leeds, the coachman was calling, the Leeds Charger, boarding here directly. So intent had Kit been on his own affairs that he’d stumbled, first into a knot of disembarking travelers, and then the people clambering to take the vacated places aboard the coach.
“Sorry,” he muttered to anyone who might hear him, perhaps the young ma
n in a green coat, or the taller, stouter gentleman in brown…
Brown coat, reddish beard, Wellington boots bright under a hazy midday sun. Vital, energetic, somehow a bit bigger than life-sized, now at last that Kit was seeing him for himself.
The man who’d flirted with Peggy. The featured player in the theater of Kit’s dreams.
But was this really the first time Kit had seen him in the flesh?
Nonchalantly biding his time until the last moment to board, Mr. Oliver had finally taken a seat by the window. He was looking out now, his eyes scanning the square.
I’ve seen him before. I’m sure of it. But where?
To hell with it. I’ll confront the blackguard myself.
Unfortunately, that proved impossible. For at that moment, Mr. Oliver (or Hollis, or whatever the rabble-rousing London delegate’s name might truly be) was attending on someone else.
A footman in livery had rushed forward to doff his hat to the red-bearded man, addressing him with what looked like great deference, while Kit (and several people around him as well) stared in uncomprehending wonder.
A footman in livery, so humbly respectful to a workingman? Or at least to a man revered by workingmen all over the countryside. A man who’d spent the last fortnight orating and bullying, exhorting them to tear down the established order and take London as well. It was all too contrary. Kit lost a minute while he gaped and tried to puzzle it out; by the time he’d made his way forward, the coach was rolling in a cloud of dust onto the road to Leeds.
The dust settled. And here was Mary, arm in arm with a small, neat lady in a quietly elegant gown, with a lanky, diffident-looking gentleman at her side.
Changed and yet unchanged: a decade ago Morrice had appeared uncomfortably older than his years; now he wore his shy seriousness with ease. Kit took the tremulous hand held out to him, the grasp not as tight as it had been. I ought to be better able to hide my emotion, he thought. No matter. The moment passed willynilly. He and Morrice got through the handshake and a mumbled greeting, even some clumsy, random touches on the arm and shoulder.
The Slightest Provocation Page 25