Gilded Lily (19 page)

He'd taken his drawers off while her eyes were closed. Not that they'd concealed much. She could see all of him now, though, the length of his penis pressed against his thigh as he leaned in, the way the hair thickened in a dark line down from his belly.

She'd seen a naked man once before, a wandering drunk on some crooked lane in London, who'd inexplicably peeled off his clothes in the middle of the pavement while belting “Rule Britannia” to a mostly amused crowd. He'd had a fine bass voice, a barrel chest the size of an actual barrel, and whatever manhood he'd possessed had been shrunken by liquor and obscured by his prodigious belly.

Then Dan had slapped his hand over her eyes and made her promise not to look in that direction while he steered the cart around the disturbance.

This occasion wasn't remotely like that one. That man didn't even seem like the same species as the lovely, finely drawn creature before her now. She decided Barnabas must have his own category, one in which distinctions like clothing or nakedness were simply irrelevant. He was beautiful no matter what he did or didn't wear. The unclothed version did have some interesting features, of course.

Freddie closed the distance between them, tracing the long muscle in his closest thigh with her fingertips. He hummed at the contact, his dark eyes fluttering shut like a shy maid's. Like her own had, she supposed. But he didn't protest, so she reached farther, shaping her hand around his erection. It was firm and hot, and felt more muscular than she'd expected. Springy and resistant. She could assign it no corollary on her own body to help her understand its ways by association; she'd just have to learn it from scratch.

Barnabas stopped her before she'd got very far, removing her hand with great care before shifting position to lie alongside her on the bed, head on his hand, mirroring her. But his other hand was already busy, brushing against her ribs then up to cup a breast. She expected something more, a witty remark most likely, but he didn't say a word, just tossed another smile her way and then bent his head to suck.

His lips and teeth felt like a series of small miracles on her flesh, pulling sensations from her that she hadn't known existed. Something about the wet heat, and the intimate connection of a mouth to a nipple or the sensitive skin surrounding it. Something about the way his dark hair slanted across his forehead, obscuring his eyes until he looked up to meet hers.

That was too much. She couldn't look at him with him looking back and his mouth still on her like that. She closed her eyes and laid back, letting novelty and delight wash over her as Barnabas went exploring. Her breasts, thoroughly, until she was almost ready to push him off to escape the attention but at the same time realized she never wanted it to stop. Her neck and ears, in a series of tiny nibbles that left her spine zinging with joy and had her twining her legs around Barnabas's hips in an effort to wriggle even closer. Which was impossible, because he was already lying on top of her, but she had to try anyway. Then he worked his way down, all hands and mouth and the spirit of discovery, until he settled between her legs.

“We really should have called for a bath—”

“I don't care.”

“Yes, but—”

“Shh.”

When she would have said more, he licked her.
Licked
, from the veriest crux of the cleft between her legs up to that higher, keener spot. A slow, meandering line of liquid warmth and intention that took all her arguments and threw them out the window. She was reduced to breathy sighs, to wordless utterances that she could only hope conveyed her absolute approval of everything he was doing with his tongue, his lips and eventually his fingers too. Carefully, methodically, he unlocked her secrets until she lay open and revealed, allowing herself to give in to trust. When it finally grew to be unbearable, the eager pressure too much to withstand, she almost cried. She didn't want it to be over. But Barnabas grazed his tongue over that aching spot again, and again and again, and worked another finger inside her and she came, slow and hard and sweet. Her legs trembled, even though they had no weight to support. But her soul soared, stronger and steadier than ever.

“Was that all right?”

How could he even need to ask? “Quite.”

“Oh. Good.” His lips brushed one quaking inner thigh, triggering a minor aftershock in the surrounding regions. “Never done that before.”

She wanted to come back with a snappy remark, but her brain seemed turned to candy floss and fireworks. Not an unpleasant state by any means, but not conducive to witty repartee. “Weren't you going to . . .”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right first.”

Sweet. But she'd had a climax, not a debilitating illness. “Now.”

“Are you sure—”

“Now.”

He didn't rush, despite her command. He crawled over her, kissing his way up, until he was in more or less the appropriate position, but he paused there. Freddie opened her eyes and stared up into his face, struck by a wave of tenderness. It was dear to her, that face.
He
was dear to her. She was glad to be doing this with him, regardless of what happened afterward.

She didn't know where he mustered the patience or forbearance, but he entered her slowly, clearly fretting over her well-being even as he gasped at the pleasure. Limp, sated, she let him set the pace, and was aware enough to be grateful for it. Nothing hurt much, counter to her expectation. A slight twinge when his restraint failed him for a moment and he pushed forward the last bit all at once. Then only more pleasure, happy friction between them, and the wonder of discovering that her body had been designed to do this thing all along. Completed, she felt completed, not so much by Barnabas as by the act itself and the fact of their doing it together.

He buried his face in her neck and began to work his hips, not quite as gently as he'd started, and it was all the good things in the world together, all at once, right there in her arms.

“This is why people keep having babies,” she murmured.

Barnabas chuckled, his breath hot on the skin below her ear. “Please tell me that isn't your plan here.”

“God, no. I meant in the abstract.”

“Right.” He braced himself up on his elbows again to look her in the eye. It should have been embarrassing, like when he watched her while he sucked on her breast, but somehow it wasn't. This was a fine position for a conversation, apparently. “I mean to withdraw. Before I—
Lord
, that feels good.”

“Before . . . oh. All right.”

“Freddie . . .”

Whatever he'd meant to say, he lost track of it on his next thrust. A shiver went through him, and she clutched him tighter as he sped up. Faster, deeper, like a compulsion, the sensation overtook him and he had no choice but to follow it to his finish. A final moan—thrilling, primally wonderful sound—and a thrust deeper than before, and then he yanked away, ending with his face on her belly and his hips aimed somewhere between her knees and ankles.

His hair was flopping in his face again. Freddie combed it back so she could watch him return to the world, which he did with a smile she'd never seen on his face before. She quite liked it, as long as he never took it outside the bedroom. He could fell unsuspecting women at fifty paces with such a look.

“Beautiful,” she whispered.

His words slurred when he answered, as though he were tipsy on pleasure. “I think you're supposed to call me handsome.”

“I don't do what I'm supposed to.”

“Fair enough. But I think everything you do is wonderful. And I'm not just saying that because—”

“I know. I think you're wonderful too.”

He propped one fist under his chin, getting a better angle to contemplate her. “I wish it didn't sound sad when you said it.”

She swallowed back the tears that threatened to prick through. Those pesky, unwarranted tears again. “It's not sadness. Nothing about you makes me sad. Least of all this.”

“Wistful, then. Least of all this? Do you suppose we could do it again sometime?” He reached up with the hand not under his chin, toying with the ends of her hair where it curled around one ear. It was such an affectionate, familiar thing to do. For a moment Freddie wished she could make a whole life of this. Just her and Barnabas, a room with a bed and a fire. Perhaps smelling less like the mouth of the Blackwater River and more like something romantic and fresh, such as clear ocean air or the aroma of a rainswept meadow.

“Of course. But we really should wash first.”

“Agreed.” He pushed up and away, sitting on his heels and surveying the wreckage they'd made of the bed. Blankets thrown to the floor, sheet in utter disarray, a generally questionable air to the whole scene. Barnabas nodded at the wadded linens next to him. “It's a disaster.”

And it would just have to remain a disaster. Freddie crooked a finger at him, and he slid down next to her, trapping her legs between his and wrapping his arms around her. She snuggled against his chest, one hand curled against the soft mat of hairs at the center of his breastbone, and decided that rainswept meadows were probably not all that fragrant anyway.

F
REDDIE DIDN'T ASK
where Phineas had obtained the velocimobile. It seemed safer not to question it, simply to climb into the precariously attached sidecar and hope the thing didn't fall to pieces before they had traveled half the fifty or so miles from Mersea back to Tilbury.

Between the chattering growl of the engine and the wind in their faces, conversation wasn't possible between Freddie in the sidecar and Barnabas, clutching to Phineas's waist as he straddled the main seat behind him. She was practically alone with her thoughts for the three hours to Tilbury, which was plenty of time to do exactly what Mrs. Pinkerton would have once forced her to do, waggling a finger in her face until she did it.

You sit right there, young lady, and think about what you've done!

And so she did.

She had expected to feel transformed, somehow, as though something wonderful but at the same time cataclysmic had happened. Indelibly altered, perhaps marked in some mysterious way. Instead she felt more or less the same as she had before making love to Barnabas. Clearer about her reasons for wanting to do it again, certainly. A trifle sore between the legs, perhaps, though not from any rending of her maidenhead but from simple muscle strain. It had been ambitious of them to engage in that sort of romp, after sitting for hours in a cold submersible, then swimming to shore in clothes that grew heavier as they grew soggier. That was the sort of thing she wouldn't have known to consider before, of course. The athleticism. The sheer physicality of the business. The surprising and pleasant absence of any rending whatsoever. He'd been so careful, so considerate.

She peered at Barnabas, taking a moment to admire his profile, much of which was obscured behind the thick goggles and leather helmet he wore. She and Phineas were similarly outfitted, so even if Barnabas had looked her way, the tinted goggles would hide her eyes and her undoubtedly foolishly tender expression. She knew she wore that face because she could feel it. And she wanted to feel Barnabas again, perhaps finishing what they'd had to call a halt to this morning. His warm skin against hers, the delicious friction of the hair on his thighs rubbing against the smooth backs of her legs, the sweet grind of his hips into her bottom as they both woke up. Already sliding together, meshing, as if they'd never stopped.

Then Phineas had knocked.

Did he look at her differently when he entered the room, see her new status on her face like a brand or a scar? It was impossible to tell. He hid behind that eye patch, as usual, and the alarming facial hair. Of course, he'd also left them alone in the first place, so perhaps he just assumed they'd already been engaging in . . . that.

Intercourse
, she told herself boldly, refusing to accept her mind's attempt to censor itself.
Carnal knowledge. Sexual congress.
She'd always thought “sexual congress” sounded like a particularly naughty method of government.

Fucking.
She'd heard that one plenty of times on the street, sometimes from the prostitutes who liked to proposition her and Dan when they passed by. He always tried to instruct Freddie to look away—“Avert your eyes,” he'd say—but she was fascinated by the women. Saddened, also. Their faces grew old long before their time, and she couldn't help but notice how quickly they seemed to come and go on the landscape. A few months, perhaps a year, then some other girl would be there on that corner, a cheap, bright shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Quick to catch the eye, quick to fade as the season wore on.

Had they done that, really? Fucking? It didn't feel like what those young women sold. That commodity seemed shameful, feral, soulless. The human equivalent of the back of the butcher's shop, something necessary but fundamentally unpleasant and far better left unseen. What she and Barnabas had done was beautiful, every minute of it. She couldn't bring herself to feel any shame about it.

He was looking her way. She told herself it was the landscape that held his attention, but when she looked to his goggles, he smiled at her. He held one hand toward her, bravely releasing half his death grip on his brother, and Freddie stretched to brush her fingertips against his. One second . . . two . . . and then the velocimobile hit a larger-than-usual bump and Barnabas was clinging for dear life with both hands again. But still grinning.

She had almost hoped that the act of lovemaking would effect some change in her, make her want things that would be more convenient in her life. As if penetration could somehow carry with it a new pattern for thinking, for wanting, in realms that had nothing to do with the bedroom. But Freddie still didn't want to settle down on some piece of land and have babies for the sake of having babies. Or, heaven forbid, as some sort of family duty. She wanted to carry on exploring the ways of the flesh with Barnabas, and she wanted to keep working as a tinker. Those two things, in equal measure. She could think of no life that would afford her the opportunity to do both.

But still, it had been beautiful. She didn't regret it, even if her heart grew heavy as they drove into Tilbury to find the steam pony trap waiting where they'd left it the day before. The town was Sunday-quiet, and only a few strangers passed as Freddie unchained the pony from the old hitching post she'd secured it to. Barnabas topped off the boiler while Phineas stoked the furnace, and they were off within minutes on the second, much shorter leg of their journey to Sophie's house.

Freddie drove because, as she explained, driving helped her to think and she could do with a little bit more of that.

 • • • 

“W
HERE EXACTLY ARE
we going?” Phineas demanded when they turned onto the street that would take them to Lady Sophronia's carriage house.

“I told you. To a friend of Freddie's.” Barnabas was afraid of what might happen when Phineas learned the truth, which he was bound to do any moment now. “Somebody who helps her lead her double life of fancy dress balls and tinkering about in fishmongers' shops.”

“You mentioned a footman, and his mother the former nursemaid. This is no retired servant's neighborhood. My God, are you attempting to take me to the girl's own house? To Murcheson himself?”

“It isn't my neighborhood either,” Freddie assured him. “Calm yourself. As Barnabas said, this is the home of a friend.”

“I see. A friend. One you trust, I sincerely hope. I think I know this house. Surely it's under different ownership now, though.”

Wallingford had purchased the house for Sophie when they were married, according to Freddie. If Phineas recognized it as hers, that meant he'd been here after the wedding. Pining after his lost love, no doubt. He'd already been working in deep cover by then, but he'd taken the risk to come to Wilton Crescent.

There was every chance this might not go well.

“I believe it's under the same ownership, actually. In a manner of speaking.”

“Oh, dear,” Freddie mumbled.

“You're taking me to Sophie Wallingford. You actually expect me to go into that woman's house asking for succor? And then what, she'll lend me some of her husband's clothing for a new disguise? Somehow I don't think it will fit. You might want to consider a better class of friend, Miss Murcheson.”

Perhaps they should have gone to the Pinkerton home. But Freddie had insisted, and he had agreed, that Dan's mother was already in enough danger of discovery. Sophie, at least, had resources to defend herself if she was accused. And her consent in the whole affair was certainly better informed than Mrs. Pinkerton's.

“When I'm dressed like this, it's Fred,” Freddie reminded Phineas. “Whatever sordid history you have with Sophie, that's irrelevant to the current situation. Either I report to her, or she reports to my father. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is the wiser alternative at this point. But figure it out quickly, because we're here.”

The pony juddered to a halt by the carriage block, and a young groom dashed out, only to pull up short when he saw the rough conveyance and its rougher denizens. “'Elp you?”

“You're new here,” Freddie remarked, hopping off the trap's seat. “Run fetch Digby and Taylor, they'll know what to do.”

The boy ran off, and the seasoned grooms arrived in his place a moment later to spirit the trap away and usher the disheveled trio into the house, where Jacob, the senior footman, awaited them. Disapproval was plain on his face, but he kept any censure to himself as he led them to the green parlor. Sophie Wallingford was there, pacing and wringing her hands, and she swept across the room with a glad cry when Freddie crossed the threshold.

“Another quarter hour and I'd have sent Daniel straight back to your father to send him looking for you. I never dreamed you'd be this long.” She moved as if to embrace Freddie but stopped when she got within a step of her, one hand rising to her nose as if to protect it. “Good heavens, that's . . . pungent.”

Freddie snorted. “This is nothing compared to how it smelled yesterday. Poor Jacob would have turned us away entirely.”

“Won't you come in and, um.” Sophie was clearly torn between manners and practicality, but the latter won out. “Come and stand while we talk. Lord Smith-Grenville as well, I'm so glad you're back unharmed. Oh, and who's this?”

Barnabas followed Freddie into the room, only to see Daniel Pinkerton stationed in one corner, arms crossed over his massive chest, scowling like a gargoyle. He wore his rough clothes, which made him look even larger than he did in his employer's livery. The big man looked so fierce Barnabas actually flinched when he saw his expression. But Dan barely registered him. His eyes were on Sophie, who was transfixed by the last person to enter the room.

“My lady.” Phineas inclined at the waist, a half bow almost more insulting than none at all.

Not for nothing was Lady Sophronia known for her composure. Her eyes widened a moment. Her slender throat bobbed in an obvious swallow, her mouth pinched too tightly for that same instant. Then as he watched, the signs of strain seemed to melt away, leaving only the cool, beautiful statue in their wake.

“Mr. Smith-Grenville.”

After the most horrible moment of silence Barnabas had ever experienced, Sophie turned away and Phineas coughed into his hand and everybody else took a collective breath.

“Dan, what are you doing here? It's not your holiday, or your half day.” Freddie didn't seem concerned, more curious, but something about Pinkerton's expression sent Barnabas's hackles up.

“Supposed to be driving you to the country and back, miss, remember?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Daniel has been very worried for you, Freddie.”

Barnabas thought the man looked more angry and sullen than worried, despite Sophie's charitable characterization. They might have done better to bring Pinkerton along on the escapade, to keep him involved if he wanted to be. On the other hand, if he'd been there, last night would have never been possible. On balance, Barnabas found he had no regrets about leaving Dan behind.

“It's thoughtful of you, Dan. We're back on time, however, so there's no need to worry anymore. About anything except arranging a nice bath.”

“I'll see to it,” Sophie assured her, but Dan spoke up.

“I'll see you home, miss. We can bring you in the back and straight up to your room. If I send a boy now you could have hot water waiting for you.”

“I never go home like this, you know that,” Freddie reminded him with a frown before turning back to Sophie. “I'm sorry for bringing all this down on your head, Sophie. It all became more complicated than I ever dreamed.”

“Doesn't everything?” She didn't look at Phineas as she said it, but the subtext was palpable.

Fearsome though Dan looked, Barnabas was inclined to side with him. He wanted to see Freddie home safely, bathed and in bed. He was exhausted, so he knew she must be. And the sooner she returned home, it seemed to him, the sooner the risk of her father discovering her hijinks disappeared.

When he approached him, however, the footman's scowl deepened to a murderous glare. Dan spoke before he had a chance to, in a low tone that didn't carry to the others. “She didn't mention she'd be out all night. I thought she'd be here, not halfway to France or wherever you took her off to. Overnight. Young impressionable girl.”

Well, that was really too much. “I would hardly call—”

“And the two of you, you brought danger to this house. No, not him.” Dan waved a dismissive hand toward Phineas. “Whatever his story is, I can tell his bark's worse than his bite. I mean Mr. Murcheson. You know as well as I do if he decided to, he could crush Lady Sophronia Wallingford like an insect, and all the money in the world wouldn't protect her. Not if he thought his daughter had been put in peril, and Lady Sophronia had helped. You know what he is. And after last night, I know what you are.
My lord.
”