Dukes of the Demi-Monde

by Felicia Greene

  ‘Are—are you hurt?’

  ‘No.’ Calcourt’s slow exhale hummed through her. No matter how much larger than her he was, their bodies had always shared a strange kind of symmetry. An affinity, even when he covered her. ‘No, I’m not.’

  She was too dazed to move away. That had to be the reason she wasn’t moving away. Mary clung to that excuse, staring into Calcourt’s dark eyes, the world shrinking down to the feel of his body against hers.

  ‘Sir! Madam!’ The driver’s frantic voice broke through the strange reverie; Mary turned her head, knowing it was wrong to feel disappointment. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No. We’re not hurt.’ Calcourt moved away from Mary; Mary curled against the window of the carriage, the cold earth pressed to her face. The driver’s panicked face was silhouetted against the other window, the light framing his disordered hair. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Clover. She’s always been flighty, but something startled her. She kicked at the wheel as she jumped.’ The driver mopped his brow. ‘I’ll never get her back—she ran into the forest.’

  ‘Is the other horse uninjured?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then ride it to Sattersall, or to the other carriage. Whichever one you reach first. Tell whoever you find what has happened, and bring help.’

  ‘But I can’t leave you alone!’

  ‘I don’t intend to drag a lady through a forest after a shock as great as this one.’ Calcourt looked at Mary. ‘Don’t tell me you wish to go to Sattersall on foot.’

  Mary opened her mouth, fully meaning to give a spirited defence of her ability to walk to Sattersall. But as she began to speak, to her enormous embarrassment, a sudden dry sob overwhelmed her.

  She had already been overly taxed in terms of sentiment before she had even set foot in the carriage. Now, curled up and practically devoid of dignity, moving even a step seemed utterly impossible.

  ‘You see? She is overwrought.’ Calcourt’s tone now rang with command. ‘Get on the horse and ride until you see help. Now.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ With another terrified look, the driver vanished from sight.

  ‘I’m—I’m sorry.’ Mary struggled with her breathing as another sob threatened to come. It was nothing more than panic—useless panic, given that she was unharmed. ‘I don’t know what has—what has come over—’

  ‘There, now.’ Calcourt’s voice, newly soothing, washed over her like a warm bath. ‘It’s all right. I’m here.’

  He was here. He was here with her, and for the first time on the journey Mary was grateful for his presence.

  She held her breath, trying to quell the trembling in her chest and limbs, exhaling with a thankful sigh as Calcourt returned to her side. As he curled himself against her, mirroring the curve of her spine as he gently wrapped his arm around her waist, calm flooded Mary despite herself.

  It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t respond this way, after what he had done. But relaxation settled into her muscles and bones despite herself, soothing her anxious sobs, bringing a stillness to her that was more than welcome. His body was so solid, so stable, a port in the storm that had violently overtaken her.

  For several long, sacred minutes, they lay together. Mary lay in his arms, eyes closed, as if nothing had ever happened between them. As if they were husband and wife, placidly sleeping in their marriage bed, rather than a vicar and a spinster curled together on the floor of a ruined carriage.

  When she began to enjoy the feeling too much, she gently but firmly moved away. Calcourt watched her as she sat up, the window of the carriage now a skylight as it lit his blonde hair with tawny fire.

  ‘Are you well now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you’re not, you needn’t be afraid of me.’

  ‘I think I’m now afraid of horses.’

  Calcourt’s smile sent sweet, forbidden sparks through her. ‘You’re well enough to joke. That’s good.’

  ‘Hardly a joke. I’ve never ridden anything but the most docile mares.’ Mary shook herself, pushing her hair back into some semblance of order as she came slowly to her senses. ‘I suppose we must thank God that we are both unharmed, albeit shaken.’

  ‘Indeed we must.’

  ‘And—and that help will come soon.’

  ‘We don’t know how far ahead or behind the Petersons are.’

  ‘We should have ascertained their distance from us.’

  ‘Probably.’ Calcourt’s tone gained a new significance. ‘But I didn’t wish to concentrate on them.’

  Always, always, the past came between them. Who they had been to one another should have faded into insignificance, but it hadn’t—if anything, the memories were more vivid and potent than ever.

  Mary swallowed. ‘I… I can’t believe you wish to speak of the past here and now, after what has just occurred.’

  ‘Neither of us are hurt. Not even the horses.’

  ‘It is still unseemly.’

  ‘I must disagree.’ Calcourt paused. ‘In fact, I’ll go further still. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not happy.’

  ‘If you were the gentleman you pretend to be, you would.’

  ‘If I were anything other than a coward, I would have scared the horses myself. I would have sent us flying into a ditch without a second thought.’

  We are trapped in the middle of a forest in an overturned carriage. I can’t think of a worse place to be.’

  ‘I am trapped with you. It’s Paradise.’

  ‘You… you are insensible.’ Mary leaned her head against the side of the carriage, hoping the cold wood would stop the sparks whirling through her at the sound of Calcourt’s words. At the urgency in his voice. ‘I shall ignore you.’

  ‘I am well-used to you ignoring me. It’s never changed how I felt.’

  ‘You—you are incorrigible.’

  ‘I am more than comfortable with that assessment.’

  ‘You are a nuisance!’

  ‘If I am genuinely a nuisance, Mary, tell me again. I will cease my provocations, and be perfectly correct until we are rescued.’ Calcourt paused. ‘But if you lie, I’ll know.’

  If only it wasn’t true. If only she could keep a part of herself free of his acute senses. Mary tried to keep her breathing slow as she turned to Calcourt, his face more arrestingly handsome every time she looked at him.

  ‘Why must you put me in this position?’ Her voice shook; she paused, swallowing before she continued. ‘Why must you demand this of me? How do you presume to demand anything of me, after how you treated me?’

  ‘I know I was inconstant. Faithless. I know I made you miserable, with my attentions to other women—I know I may have broken your heart.’

  ‘Of course you broke my heart!’ Mary clenched her fists, horrified at her own raised voice. How many times had she loftily counselled against anger? But it felt good to shout—good to say what had been festering in her for untold years. ‘I barely had a heart left, after what you put me through!’

  ‘I was stupid. I didn’t know what it meant to have a heart.’

  ‘Your stupidity became my burden to bear, James. I was wise enough to know what promises meant—what love meant. Even at a tender age, I knew that what we had was…’ Mary stopped, biting her lip, determined not to weep. She had already wasted enough tears over him. ‘I knew that our understanding—that my tenderness—did not deserve to be trampled on with such unthinking brutishness.’

  ‘I have learned the error of my ways! I have spent my life trying to make it right!’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry would have made it right.’ There was no way to stop the tear as it fell, hot and bitter, onto the carriage seat. ‘But you never said sorry, and I never demanded it, so everything withered and died.’

  ‘... I am sorry.’ Calcourt’s face was ashen. ‘I am so, so sorry.’

  Hearing the words that she had wanted for over two decades only strengthened Mary’s rage. Moving away from the side of the carriage, clenched fists raised, she pushed against Calcou
rt’s chest with an inarticulate cry of anger. Beating her fists against him, cursing his solidity, she gasped as his hands encircled her wrists.

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You’re not even hurting me.’

  ‘But I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you like you hurt me.’

  There has never been anyone but you. Not since I became a true man—not since I understood what love was, and what it means. There has never, ever, been anyone but you.’ Calcourt’s voice shook. ‘If I do not tell you this, I deny only part of me worth keeping. Loving you has led to my vocation, to the Church—to everything.’

  ‘This is impossible.’

  ‘Not as impossible as you denying your own sentiments, when I know that you feel as I do.’

  ‘You—you can’t know that!’

  ‘Tell me you don’t. Tell me now. Tell me, and I’ll leave you alone forever.’

  ‘Why must you give me these—these ultimatums? Why can’t I live in peace?’

  ‘Because you weren’t living in peace before this moment, Mary, and neither was I. Both of us were trapped.’ Calcourt gently squeezed Mary’s clenched fists; Mary dropped her head, overwhelmed at the feel of him touching her. Her skin had ached for him for so long now, so long, so fruitlessly. ‘But we don’t have to be. We don’t, however much you believe it, however much you try to build a cage around yourself to protect your—’

  He stopped, his sentence ending in shocked silence, as Mary pressed her lips to his.

  She had to stop his words somehow. It was either slapping him, or kissing him—those had been the only two options that made any sort of sense. Now that her lips were on his, Mary knew that only one of the two options had ever been possible.

  She had never raised a hand to James Calcourt, but she had kissed him many times. And oh, Lord, her body hadn’t forgotten how it should be done. All-consuming, fierce, showing all the passion and anger that she had hidden in her for so long—yes, like, this, exactly like this, for as long as she could bear it.

  He had been her first kiss, and her last. As Calcourt pulled away, panting, the distance between that last kiss and this new one vanished into nothingness.

  ‘I’m…’ Mary stopped herself before she could apologise. She wasn’t sorry for stopping him from speaking, and she would never say otherwise. She stared at him furious, determined not to blink when faced with the ferocity of his stare.

  Then his arms were around her, his mouth covering hers with a harsh sigh of need, and there was no need to be determined anymore. No need to do anything but cling to him, answering his fierce kisses with more and more of her own, all defenses slowly melting into the floor of the carriage and fading away.

  She had never known how quickly fury could turn to pleasure. How intimately the two were linked—how both could build, a delicious force of nature. It had overtaken her, her need for him more animal than human, her mouth, hands and body her weapons in a sensuous, delirious battle.

  She gripped his collar, her fingers white with effort. He couldn’t pull away from her now—not with his lips on hers, his breath mingling with her own in short, harsh gasps as they took pleasure from one another. They were still too far apart, still wearing too many clothes—still separated, damnably separated, when they should be one.

  ‘Touch me.’ It was wrong to plead with him, to order him, but she couldn’t stop herself. She had gone untouched for so damnably long, hating the only man who had ever truly held her. As Calcourt moved his hands to her waist, sending sharp thrills of sensation through her as he gripped her, Mary nodded with a quiet moan as she kissed him with renewed fervour.

  He hadn’t forgotten how to touch her. How she had always wanted to be touched—masterfully, urgently, as if she were necessary to him. Her respectable gown felt flimsy beyond measure as he stroked upward, his thumbs brushing against the underside of her breasts, making her breath catch as his hands moved higher still. When he finally cupped her breasts, a hoarse sigh of what sounded like gratitude on his lips, Mary pressed her forehead to his with a cry of pure want.

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded, biting her lip in desperation as he pulled her shawl away from her, throwing it into the corner of the carriage as he reached for her bodice. Tugging down her dress with the strength that she remembered so vividly, Calcourt took her bare breasts in his hands with a lustful moan. Mary closed her eyes, helpless, the exquisite feel of his hot palms on her exposed flesh stunning beyond measure.

  ‘I remember this. The feel of you.’ Calcourt’s murmur in her ear was cravenly delightful as he held her, his thumbs softly stroking over her hardening nipples. ‘It’s like yesterday.’

  She couldn’t answer. Time has no meaning; everything was pure sensation, the feel of his touch, his proximity. He held her breasts with gentle, expert reverence, taking the weight of her, his fingertips sending wicked sparks through her as he coaxed pleasure from her flesh. Mary leaned closer, greedy for more of him, her lips pressed breathlessly to his forehead as she sighed with bliss.

  ‘Let me kiss you.’ Calcourt’s fingers tightened on her nipples, pinching them, bringing a delirious edge of pain to the pleasure flowing through her. ‘Kiss you here. I remember the taste of you.’

  She didn’t want to speak. She wouldn’t even nod—she couldn’t. It would take too long. Kissing him harshly, brushing the tip of his nose with a soft moan of assent, Mary pulled Calcourt’s head down to her breasts.

  His tongue felt even more spectacular than his hands. It always had. Calcourt kissed her breasts with the same potency as he had her lips, delicious and exacting as he ran her tongue over her stiff, sensitive nipples. When he began to suck, his slow, rhythmic tugs sending lightning bolts of white-hot pleasure through her, Mary cried out at how perfectly familiar the feeling was.

  He didn’t stop. He had always known to continue, however loudly she moaned—he had been so attuned to her body, the need in her, that she had hardly ever needed to give him instructions. He hadn’t forgotten the way she moved, the way she sounded… and she hadn’t forgotten him either. Hadn’t forgotten the way desire altered his face, his body, adding an animal edge to his habitual gentleness that left her desperate for more. His breath was ragged with want, his heartbeat thudding in his chest as she pressed her palm against it.

  ‘Let me.’ She didn’t need to specify; she never had. Their unspoken conversation had always flowed parallel to any words they exchanged. ‘Please.’

  Calcourt looked up at her, his breath hot against her damp, flushed nipples. With a quiver at the corner of his mouth, the haunting ghost of the smile she’d loved so many years ago, he took her hand and pulled it to his breeches.

  He was hard. Mary ran her hand over his stiff breeches, astonished at how intimately she remembered the feel of his shaft. The forbidding steel of him, hot and dangerous—but how good he’d felt, how right he’d felt, inside her. Calcourt’s hitch in his breath, the low growl that came from his throat, was the same music that had thrilled her decades earlier.

  Clothes felt even more unnecessary than they had before. With clumsy, angry fingers Mary fumbled with Calcourt’s breeches, biting her lip with frustration as the garment suddenly refused to give, only to collapse into quiet laughter as Calcourt stilled her hands.

  ‘I love watching you laugh when you’re naked. They way you quiver.’ Calcourt stroked his thumb over her nipple again, lingering on her swollen nipple as he began pushing down his breeches. His cock sprang free, rigidly erect. ‘The way you blush.’

  ‘I’m not naked.’ Mary looked up at the carriage window, the outside world suddenly making itself felt. If she kept looking at the sky rather than Calcourt, she would begin to remember who she was. ‘I can’t be.’

  ‘I love watching you half-clothed too. Half-stripped. I love watching you buttoned-up as well.’ Calcourt’s eyes filled with a tenderness that Mary felt in her core, deep and strange. ‘I just… I just love watching you.’

  His words were dangerous
ly close to another confession—one that Mary couldn’t bear to hear. She was already so dangerously overwrought that more vulnerability, more softness, threatened to master her completely. Moving to kiss him before he could speak again, hoping he could hear her mute, desperate plea for silence, she closed her palm around his cock with a gasp of recognition.

  She remembered every inch of him. The silken steel of him from root to tip. She ran her palm along his shaft, marvelling at the memory of him as it twinned inexplicably with the reality of the man at her fingertips.

  ‘Yes.’ Calcourt broke through the kiss, panting, thrusting his hips upward with the abandonment that Mary couldn’t help but respond to. She moved her hand faster, her muscles thrilling at the memory of giving him pleasure. ‘Oh, Mary.’

  She had loved doing this. She had longed for it—she hadn’t cared for the sin of it, the fact that it was something she shouldn’t be doing, whenever they had managed to snatch a spare moment together. There had been an artistry to it, an expertise—she had considered it a skill to master, and he had considered her pleasure to be just as important. Mary buried her face in Calcourt’s shoulder, concealing a soft, devilish smile at the girl she had used to be, stroking the man’s shaft with the quick, thrilling rhythm that she remembered.

  She gasped as Calcourt’s hands moved to her breasts. That had always been the case—the pleasure always had to be mutual. No-one could ever race ahead or fall behind; the pleasure that would come had to be arrived at together. He pinched her nipples again, gentle but uncompromising, his rhythm matching Mary’s hand on his cock as his mouth covered hers once again.

  She was wet at the meeting of her thighs. Wetter than she’d ever been alone—it was as if she were a young woman again, unable to control the strength of her desires. She had resisted feeding her wants for so many years, not touching herself, not allowing herself to dream… oh, but it was agony, Calcourt’s fingers on her breasts but nowhere else.

  She cried out as Calcourt pushed up her skirts with one hand, gripping her thigh with a grunt of pleasure. Once again he had understood her without needing words. His palm climbed higher, his other hand still teasing her nipple to a point of exquisite tension.