Beloved

by Stella Cameron

  Pomeroy studied the muscular young bucks with interest. They had thick, black hair, slender, handsome faces, and large, dark eyes that darted between the other occupants of the room, then back to each other. The two appeared to communicate without speech. Their skin was the color of pale coffee and glistened—all the way to the loose, white trousers they wore. They were both naked to the waist.

  “Well, now,” Milo said, rubbing his hands and smiling as if he were about to preside over a tea party. “Shall we get started?” He seated himself behind his desk and propped his chin.

  Blossom wriggled closer to Pomeroy. He was more interested in the two men. They concentrated on Precious. She dipped her head and looked up at them, swinging her full, peach-colored skirts from side to side in what Pomeroy had dubbed her “winsome girl” manner.

  “It’s been some time since we saw you, Mr. Wokingham,” Milo said, inclining his head at the men. “Entertain the young lady,” he told them. “Pretty heads are for enjoying pretty things. They’re no place for business, and they can’t manage both anyway.”

  One of Milo’s trained performers promptly sank to his knees while the other hoisted Precious’s skirts and sat her astride his partner’s neck and shoulders. Squealing, she tried to cover her legs. Her efforts were useless.

  Pomeroy laughed and slapped his knees. “Most entertainin’, Milo. Most entertainin’.”

  “Is this to your liking, lady?” the man beneath Precious asked. “I am your slave.”

  “Ooh!” Precious squealed again. “Whatever next?”

  Her “slave” rose to his feet, and she gripped his ears.

  “Do not fear, lady, I will not drop you. Your pleasure is our only wish.”

  Precious clung and giggled, her face growing very flushed. The man wrapped his arms around her limbs and rocked her back and forth on his neck. “To pleasure you, lady,” he said, showing strong, white teeth.

  Pomeroy watched the expression on Precious’s face change from confusion to mounting arousal. He shifted to readjust himself inside his trousers. “Innovative,” he said to Milo. “A marvel how you acquire this supply of novelties. But we have a score to settle, my friend.”

  “Oh, Pommy!” Precious cried, her eyes popping wide. “Pommy! What’s he doing to me?”

  “He” was the second handsome “slave.” Lifting Precious’s skirts over her head, he bared her bottom and used his supple thumbs to massage the dimples at the base of her spine.

  Precious squirmed and moaned. She let go with one hand to bat at her skirts, only to grab her human mount again when she almost lost her balance.

  “Doesn’t this please you, lady?” Thumbs asked. He pinched Precious’s white bottom until she yelled, then reached beneath her to apply swift, rhythmic strokes. “Or this, lady?”

  Pomeroy hitched at himself and said, “I’m here on my own behalf this time, Milo. One word to my father, and I’ll see you in the gutter. I have decided to take matters into my own hands. Things will happen my way, and quickly. Do I make myself plain?”

  “Plain as plain, Mr. Wokingham.” Milo continued to smile. Even as Precious raised her bottom like a rider going over a jump, he continued to smile. Milo smiled when she panted, and when the stroking between her folds grew more insistent. When she bounced and grunted, Milo still smiled.

  Pomeroy’s breathing felt labored. He pushed an arm around Blossom’s shoulders. Her eyes darted from the spectacle in the middle of the room, to Pomeroy, and she passed her pointed tongue around full lips.

  He looked from her lips to her breasts. A little enjoyment was the least he should allow himself, particularly since it would annoy Precious.

  “What have we here, then, Blossom?” he asked, tugging a white muslin fichu from the neck of her pink gown. Plump breasts were revealed to the large upper rims of darkly rouged nipples. “Very nice, my dear,” Pomeroy said, his concentration momentarily diverted.

  Precious’s whooping cries reached crescendo an instant before she was tipped, facedown, upon a sagging divan. Thumbs flipped her over, and the two men sank beside her. Precious, her eyes glazed, hooked a dark head beneath each arm and appeared dazed.

  “Anyway,” Pomeroy said, clumsily opening the front of Blossom’s bodice. “As I said, Milo, there’s a score to settle, and we both know what it is. I’ve already waited too long.”

  Two silver balls materialized from a pocket in one of the men’s white trousers. He handed a ball to his companion and they took turns to insert them into Precious, whose mouth opened in silent but obviously delighted amazement. She tried to sit up.

  “No, no, lady,” the man who had produced the silver balls said soothingly. “Stay as you are. You will know joy as you have never known it.”

  Thumbs removed his trousers, revealing a rod big enough to make Pomeroy frown. Inserted swiftly in the wake of the balls, the effect of the giant shaft on Precious was beyond all. She screeched and grabbed, and bucked and begged. …She begged for more of whatever these perverted, deformed beasts gave her. Whore. As perverted as they were. His father should know of it. That would… No, he could not tell his father, or his own plans would be revealed.

  With the final parting of Blossom’s bodice, Pomeroy was confronted with enough to absorb him, at least partially, for some time.

  With detached pride, Blossom watched him play with her provocatively prepared nipples. She rested her hands passively in her lap while he scooped her immense breasts into his hands.

  “Quite a show, eh, Mr. Wokingham?” Milo asked. “Worth a bit, I can tell you.”

  “And they’ve earned a bit, no doubt,” Pomeroy responded, pinching Blossom’s nipples and waiting for a response that never came. Annoyed, he took one of her flaccid hands to his crotch. She squeezed him hard, but her expression still didn’t change. “Is she simple-minded?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” Milo said, chuckling. “Some gentlemen like a placid one. She can be something else if you want her to be.”

  Pomeroy studied Blossom and decided a silent woman was exactly what he needed at the moment. Precious made enough noise for several women. “Just keep squeezing,” he told Blossom, jiggling her swelling breasts. She felt it, all right. “Squeeze until I tell you what I want next.”

  Blossom squeezed.

  “What I intend to get isn’t going to be shared,” he told Milo, rushing as he felt his control slipping. “Do you understand me? You know the problem I’ve coped with for years.”

  “Some gentlemen like to share.” Milo glanced at Precious, who writhed, a clever male mouth attached to each breast. “Some ladies, too, I might add.”

  Pomeroy narrowed his eyes. “I have shared enough. I’m not a child anymore. This time I decide how my affairs shall be accomplished. The devil take my father and his wedding plans. I’m not interested in his selfish games. What I want, I want, and you know you’ve got to get it for me. And quickly.” At least Precious was too “involved” to hear a word he said. Later he might need her help. He was more likely to get it as long as she didn’t know he’d soon have no use for her.

  “It may not be possible to do what you ask quickly.”

  “Get down there,” Pomeroy ordered Blossom, shoving her to the floor between his knees. The scents of spent sex wafted on the room’s stale air, and he wrinkled his nose. The sooner his business—all of his business—was completed here, the better. He tore his trousers undone and told Blossom, “Use your mouth, now. Use it well.”

  Milo said, “I have not been idle on your behalf, Mr. Wokingham.”

  “Your time is up,” Pomeroy told him. “I have already given you too much latitude.”

  “Surely you don’t expect me to work miracles.”

  Blossom used her mouth very well. Pomeroy shifted forward on the couch. “I expect you to make good on our bargain.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll give you until the end of the week to get me what I want.” He found release and fell against the couch. “Until the end of the week
to get me what I’m owed.”

  “Mr. Wokingham—”

  “Today is Monday. On Saturday I’ll be back, and I won’t be satisfied with having her between my legs.” He pointed at Blossom.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The dowager duchess watched the proceedings as if she witnessed hasty marriages in her family’s London home every day.

  Saber observed the aged bishop, an old acquaintance of his grandmother’s, give the specially prepared license the briefest of perusals. “You do testify to the willingness of the bride’s parents to agree to the marriage, then, my lady?” he asked, his voice quavering.

  “Do get on with it, Dullington,” Grandmama said, leaning heavily on her cane. “Much longer and we’ll both be dead. Won’t matter who was willing then, will it?”

  The bishop bowed, showing the top of hair as white as his skin, raised all but transparent palms to the heavens, and “got on with it.”

  Saber glanced at the woman beside him and whispered, “Ella?”

  She peeked up at him, her expression deeply serious, and she frowned.

  In other words, silence at so weighty a moment.

  The ceremony drew rapidly toward a close.

  Saber put an arm around Ella’s shoulders and noted the bishop’s disapproving sniff. She wore a simple dress of cream silk banded with inserts of lace and scattered with tiny pearls and crystals. Flowers fashioned from lace, and with pearls and crystals at their centers, nestled in her smoothly upswept hair. Her only jewelry was the ruby star that had been his first gift to her.

  She held a single cream rose, taken from one of the bouquets he’d never instructed Devlin to stop sending.

  Exotic elegance radiated from Saber’s bride.

  “It’s my duty to instruct you in the …er…” the bishop’s voice trailed off.

  Saber raised an eyebrow and waited.

  “It’s my duty to instruct you in the duties of a husband and wife,” Dullington said, and went on to do so, at length.

  “You are my wife,” Saber whispered. “Ella, you are Lady Avenall, my love.”

  Her smile trembled. “And you have acquired a great trial, my lord, a great burden. I will do my best to make that burden as light as possible.”

  He wanted to tell her the only burden would likely be hers.

  “Mama and Papa should be here,” Max said loudly, creating a shocked silence.

  Saber turned to his new brother-in-law, but the young man wouldn’t look at him.

  “That’s quite enough, Max,” Grandmama said.

  Max’s expression became truculent. “Well, they should be. We should wait for them to get back and do this all over again.”

  “I hardly think—”

  “He’s overset,” Blanche said, surprising the small gathered company by interrupting Saber. “Come along with me, Max.

  We’ll go and sample the wedding breakfast. We aren’t required here.”

  “Most thoughtful, Mrs. Bastible,” Bigun said. Resplendent entirely in gold for the occasion, he joined Blanche. “I’ll accompany you.”

  Max stuffed his hands beneath the tails of his coat. “I’m only worried about you, Ellie. Will you look after her, Saber?”

  Grandmama said, kindly enough, “Your sister is not being taken from you. She will continue to be your champion.”

  Saber cast a thoughtful glance at his grandparent. He must not forget how insecure this boy had been and how, even now, the specter of abandonment must never be far from his mind. “You will have another home now, Max,” Saber said. “You may come to Ella and me whenever you choose.”

  Max nodded, a crimson blush on his cheeks. Flanked by Blanche and Bigun, he went quietly from the room.

  Crabley, who had been a silent witness throughout, cleared his throat and said, “Well, congratulations to you, m’lord. I’d best get to that breakfast before our young friend demolishes it. We all know his, er, capacity.”

  The bishop completed his instructions as if there had been no interruption. Grandmama presented him with the fat envelope Saber had provided and smiles instantly wreathed the cleric’s dour face.

  “Do join us for the wedding feast,” Grandmama said with a decided lack of enthusiasm. When he nodded acceptance and left the room with surprisingly light steps, she rolled her eyes.

  “I collect you do not admire our holy friend,” Saber said.

  “Then you collect entirely wrong, Saber, my boy,” his grandmother told him. “You would do well to show suitable respect to members of the clergy.”

  Roundly chastised, Saber grinned nevertheless and drew his wife into his arms. “I bless the man,” he said, resting a fingertip on Ella’s lips. “Of course I do. He has declared that you will forever be mine, beloved.”

  The soft Cotswold hills. Fields of purple linseed, of yellow rape, of tender green, and freshly turned brown earth, a quilt made by men’s hands and stitched together with woolly hedgerows.

  The carriage bowled through late-afternoon sunshine. Ella leaned her forehead against the window and allowed blossoms in the grasses beside the road to become blurry. Long purple orchid and yellow pimpernel. Here and there, patches of sweet woodruff showed their first clusters of tiny white flowers. She must pick some, as was her custom each spring, to dry for their sweet scent and place between her linens.

  Their linens.

  No longer could she think of what was hers alone. She was Saber’s wife and the things of his life were now hers, just as her life was his.

  Ella looked at Saber. He sat across from her, his face turned toward the opposite windows. From this angle his scars were hidden, his face the face she’d first seen as a girl of fifteen— the same but older, and, today, deeply fatigued.

  “You’re tired,” she said, breaking a silence that had lasted for what felt like hours.

  He glanced at her. “I’m well enough.”

  “I didn’t say you were ill. I said you were tired. You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?”

  “You slept.”

  “Yes, I believe I did. At least for a while. Does that mean I wouldn’t know if you happened to doze for a few minutes? That I wouldn’t have noticed if you closed your eyes in the chair where you spent our wedding night?” The instant the words were spoken she longed to be able to whisk them back. “Forget I said that, please, Saber.”

  “You understand nothing.” Once more the landscape claimed his attention.

  Every inch of Ella’s skin tingled at the sharpness of his retort. She scrunched down in her seat and held the collar of her cape around her neck.

  Saber might have been made of stone—stone with dark slashes beneath his eyes and a white line about his thinned lips.

  She could not bear this tension between them. “I had not been to Maidenhead before yesterday.”

  “No?”

  “No. And I thought The Dog and Partridge a delightful place.”

  “You must have stayed in enough inns before.”

  “Yes. But not on my wedding night.”

  His eyes closed, and she knew she did not imagine his pained expression.

  “I could hear them singing beneath the windows.”

  Saber kept his eyes shut.

  “I suppose they come from all around. Those people. From the farms, perhaps. For good company. And the landlord keeps such beautiful gardens, it’s no wonder the people sit outside and—”

  “They go there to drink,” he said, still shutting her out.

  “You did not like The Dog and Partridge?”

  “For God’s sake!”

  “Saber!” Ella felt the prickle of tears and blinked hard. He should not make her cry. “What have I done? What happened since—?”

  “Stop it. Please, Ella, leave me be. The inn was more than pleasant. I have always been particularly fond of it, in fact. I’ve stayed there many times.”

  “Yet you did not care to share a bed with me there.” She had spoken it aloud. Good. Starting the way one intended to continue was t
he thing. Openness. She remembered that much from Mama’s observations on the manner in which men and women should live together.

  Rather than respond, Saber rested an elbow on his knee and buried long fingers in his hair.

  “This is unbearable,” she said, wishing her voice were more steady. “Pay attention to me, my lord!”

  His face came up slowly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do not take that tone with me. I gave you every opportunity not to marry me. You chose to insist otherwise. Now I am your wife and you will just have to make the best of it.” Ella raised her chin.

  “You are the best of it, Ella.”

  He spoke so softly, she had to lean forward to make sure she heard.

  “You are my wonderful girl. I do not deserve you, but for some reason, you love me.”

  “Of course I love you.”

  Ella felt too warm. She took off her hat and placed it on the seat beside her. Their marriage had been a mistake. Despite his declaration of love, Saber was already withdrawing from her. She held her bottom lip in her teeth and sniffed.

  “Oh, I say.” Saber shifted to sit beside her and took her hands in his. “I have saddened you. What am I to do to make you happy?”

  “Stop sitting on my beautiful hat.”

  He shot up, forgot to duck, and banged his head on a luggage rack. “Damn!”

  “Saber!” She retrieved her ruined hat.

  He promptly sat down again, rubbing the top of his head. “Never mind that.” He took the white chip creation with its yellow and green tartan ribbons, and threw it across the carriage. “You shall have hundreds of them if you want them. Thousands, if that will stop your tears.”

  “My tears have stopped,” she told him, still sniffing.

  “But you are miserable.” He flopped against the squabs.

  Sitting very straight, she swiveled toward him. “The night before our wedding was heaven. I thought I should die of so much joy. Every touch of yours was a miracle, and I cannot wait to—”

  “Please, Ella.”

  “Oooh, you are making me so angry. Last night was the night of our wedding, am I correct?”

  “You know you are.”