Listen to the Moon (13 page)

John walked in. Sukey felt as scalded as a biscuit dipped in coffee, even though he’d only come to fetch a taper.

He scowled at a candle-end, no doubt weighing if it
was
a candle-end now and his perquisite. She’d seen him fussing over this question a time or two already, afeared both to take a candle not his by right, and to give Mr. Summers one that would burn out during use.

“Mrs. Toogood?” the cook said.

“Beg pardon? I’m sorry, I was sowing gapeseed.”

Mrs. Khaleel shot an amused glance between Sukey and the object of her gaping, who was slipping the candle-end into his pocket. Maybe tonight he’d light it while they— “I asked what your plans are for Saturday.”

Sukey dragged her eyes back to the table. “Going to the mummers’ play, but after that, I’m not telling. That’s my time to be free of all of you.”

* * *

She’d barely closed the shutters when he shut their door and pressed against her from behind, his arms making a cage when he set his hands on the table. “Don’t move,” he whispered, taking his lit candle-end to the iron chest that held the silver. Then he was snug at her back once more, already hard.

“You’d better check the locks,” she said.

“I checked them all twice.”

“Even the windows?”

He faltered, and she cursed her heedless tongue. But he undid her buttons, holding her gently but firmly in place when she tried to turn towards him. He pushed her gown off her shoulders and had her step out of it, pausing to lay it carefully by. Then her flannel petticoat, and her linen one.

For a moment Sukey wished she hadn’t been working since half past five, and smelled sweeter. But he must have not minded it, for his hands shook on her corset laces. At last he lifted her stays over her head and set them aside.

She drew in a glorious gulp of air. The first breath after unlacing was always free and heady, a small perfect moment, and when his hands cupped her bosom through her shift, the first thing to touch her so close all day, she gasped a second time and arched her stiff back. He teased her through the linen, pinching her nipples until she was whimpering.

Then he teased her between her legs, unbuttoning his breeches with his other hand. She was so excited, so eager for him—she reached up and pinched at her own breasts, because she had to and because she’d learned he liked it.

But he set his hands on her hips, hefting her off her feet and pitching her forward until she clutched at the table for balance. She fetched up flat on her belly, breasts crushed against the pine.

She cried out when he pushed up her shift and slipped a finger into her, testing her wetness, and cried out once more when he drove into her. It wasn’t what you’d call a comfortable position, but maybe that was why she liked it. She liked the way her legs dangled, her arse in the air. She liked how the table slid when he thrust. She liked feeling small and helpless under his onslaught, under the onslaught of pleasure. He surged into her over and over, and just as she thought he’d spend, he stopped, thighs trembling between hers. She wriggled, but he put a hand on her back to stop her. “Don’t move or I’ll come.”

“Why don’t I want that?”

He breathed in and out, lodged deep within her, and—this was nice too. Being joined, and aching, and not so urgent. When his fingers slid firmly up the back of her neck, her shiver made him shiver in answer. Untying the strings of her cap, he set it aside. The easing of that slight pressure on her scalp was near as glorious as taking off her stays—and then he began feeling for her hairpins.

She moaned in surprise and sank forward, resting her cheek on the wood as he skimmed his fingers over her hair and burrowed in, until every last pin was out. He combed through her hair, loosening and fluffing it, and fanned it out on the table. She stretched and shifted like a cat, striking sparks of pleasure where his hard length was still buried inside her.

“You filched this pin from Mrs. Dymond’s sister, didn’t you?” He dragged the twin tips of the curved hairpin down the left side of her spine and up the right, tickling and tingling and better than any backscratcher.

“Does it have a little red rosette?”

“It does, yes.”

“I did indeed. Are you going to punish me?”

There was silence behind her. He continued to trace whorls and lines lightly across her back with the hairpin. She shook with pleasant chills, crying out at the way it pushed her up against him. “Please,” she begged.

“Please punish you? Or please have mercy?”

“Either.”

His big hand spread flat on her lower back. He dragged it up her spine and into her hair, where he clenched his fist, pulling her head up so her back arched and her breasts jutted out. It changed how he entered her, every thrust suddenly unbearably delicious. She moaned, words gone, and he leaned down and cupped one breast, closing and opening his fist in time with his thrusts so her breast squeezed through his fingers, her nipple catching at the last with a painful, wonderful tug.

“Ahhhh,” she cried, out of her mind with pleasure. His hand twisted tighter in her hair as he bent over her, curving his body around hers and crushing her to the table. He made that bitten-off growling sound right in her ear and then—oh—he bit
her ear, his teeth trembling as he spent.

Every part of her throbbed. Every part of her wanted him. When he softened and began to slip out of her, she moaned with disappointment. When he stood, she felt his effort in the table beneath her.

His hand smoothed over her arse and delivered a light, stinging slap. “That doesn’t look very comfortable for you,” he said, breathing heavy. “I’ll roll out our bed if you fetch the pillows.”

Her cunny squelched emptily as she obeyed him. He moved the candle-end to the table and knelt on the bed. “Lie here.” She did it.

“Touch yourself,” he said. “Bring yourself to completion.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked to watch her do this. It still embarrassed her to take a pleasure in which he had no part, but she liked it too. She pulled up the hem of her shift, exposing her wet cunny to him. He watched without expression as she trailed a hand over her belly, sliding her fingers between her legs, down and up. Teasing herself and making a show.

How quickly this luxury of pleasure had become familiar, almost a necessity. How quickly he’d made her hunger for his cock, his hands, his voice, his gaze. Well, so did he hunger. Look how he watched her. Here, he never thought she ought to do things different or better.

“Put your mouth on my breasts,” she said impulsively. He ducked his head with a sharp breath, mouthing her aching nipples through her shift. So hot, his mouth was.

She moved her fingers with more purpose as he pushed her shift up roughly to suckle one breast and then the other. He rolled her nipple carefully between his teeth, and it drove her mad to know he did it with the single-minded purpose of helping her spend, because she’d demanded it and he wanted to obey. She curled a possessive hand over his skull. “Good boy.”

Joy racked her at last. Her nipple stretched through his teeth one last time, and he kissed her. “I’m going to check the locks once more, but I’ll be back directly.”

True to his word, he crawled into bed before she’d even dozed off. She’d thought maybe they’d talk quietly for a bit, but she snuggled up to his big, warm chest and fell asleep at once.

* * *

On Christmas morning, Sukey awoke in darkness. She listened carefully but could hear no one. John didn’t stir as she buttoned her pelisse over her nightgown, took his house key from his pocket, and went into the hallway, cracking open the shutter to read the tall clock at the foot of the stairs. Four o’clock.

Sukey grinned to herself. She was the first awake, and the luck of welcoming Christmas into the house and sweeping trouble out the door would be hers. She’d been afeared that she’d lose the privilege she’d always had as maid-of-all-work.

She thought of John in their bed, his tall, commanding form relaxed in sleep. She wanted that luck for herself. She wanted to be happy this year. She tiptoed into the kitchen to fetch the broom.

A door within the room eased open. Instinctively, Sukey flattened herself along the wall, and Mrs. Khaleel—it must be her, as she slept in a closet by the pantry—padded right past her in the dark and into the hallway, not quite shutting the kitchen door behind her.
Stealing my luck,
Sukey thought. But Mrs. Khaleel had no house key. How would she open the door?

Sukey heard the door open.

“Mr. Bearparke,” Mrs. Khaleel said, yawning. Sukey’s eyes widened, and she peered through the crack of the door. The cook wore her flannel night-rail, her hair in a thick braid over one shoulder. She leaned sleepily against the doorjamb, bathed in the pale light of the waning moon. Meeting him in her bare feet, no less! “Is everything all right?”

Chapter Nine

Mr. Bearparke was a tall, slender shadow in trousers and a man’s hat. “I’ve asked you to call me Ned.”

Mrs. Khaleel was silent.

“It’s Christmas morning,” he said softly. “I thought I’d give you the luck. Where’s your broom?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Toogood are just there,” she answered softer yet, pointing towards the butler’s pantry. “If anyone sees us, they’ll think—” She hadn’t planned on meeting him, then. But she’d come to the door when he scratched at her window.

Of course, he had a key to the house. He could have walked right in and pulled her out of bed if she hadn’t come. Sukey shivered.

“Nora,” he interrupted her.

She went entirely still.

“Nora, don’t.” He stepped towards her, moonlight flashing on his pale, sincere profile, and Mrs. Khaleel retreated until she hit the kitchen door. Sukey drew back. Now all she could see was the cook’s hand on the knob. “Nora, you must know I love you.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t. My position—”

Sukey dithered over whether interrupting would be welcome or otherwise, and just how much Mr. Bearparke would resent her for it.

He laughed. “Oh, of course, you don’t know. Nora, among my people that’s a declaration. I mean, a proposal of marriage.”

Mrs. Khaleel drew in a sharp breath. Sukey’s own jaw dropped. Marriage? To a gentleman? “No,” Mrs. Khaleel whispered. “No, I can’t.”

“Of course you can, darling.” Mr. Bearparke laughed again, rather shakily, as if his own uncertainty was absurd. “You
can
. I’ll even take you home if you like. They’re saying the East India Company will have to give up its monopoly to convince Parliament to renew its charter this year. Missionaries will be allowed into India at last.”

“Missionaries?”

Sukey heard a kiss and, screwing up her courage, inched closer to the door, hoping she’d still be in darkness. Only the cook’s hand was pressed to his lips, her face turned away—from Sukey too, praises be.

“Nora, you’re shivering,” Mr. Bearparke said tenderly. “Let’s shut the door.”

She broke away from him in a single burst of motion and stood, trembling violently. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Ned—I’m sorry.”

There was a long silence. “You can’t?” he said at last, quietly. “Or you don’t want to?”

Sukey squeezed her eyes shut. If he became angry, she’d have to go out there and stand up to her master’s friend. She wished she’d stayed in bed and didn’t know about any of this.
Please don’t be angry,
she thought.
Please be as harmless as you act.

If she needed to, she could wake John. Or would that make things even worse?

“I don’t want to.” Mrs. Khaleel’s voice was a thread.

Another silence. Then Mr. Bearparke laughed once more, as if his pain was absurd too. “I don’t believe you.” He did sound angry. “I don’t believe you for a moment. You do love me.”

She didn’t answer.

“You need time to get used to the idea, that’s all,” he said, his light touch almost restored. “I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. I’ll ask again at Epiphany. Think it over, won’t you? And don’t forget to welcome Father Christmas when I’m gone. It’s good luck, you know.” But Sukey heard the doorknob and the key rattle in his hand as he went out and locked the door behind him, and it was a long moment or two before his footsteps headed away from the house.

Mrs. Khaleel sank down to the floor, still and hunched.

The safest thing to do would be to wait it out, and then go back to bed and pretend she hadn’t seen a thing. Mrs. Khaleel wouldn’t be best pleased to know she’d been eavesdropped on. So Sukey waited, listening to the hall clock
tick
and
tock
.

She thought about John. Being tall and self-contained didn’t really mean you never needed somebody to look after you. Sukey was already here. She might as well make herself useful.

She eased open the kitchen door. The cook tensed, her head snapping around. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me. Mrs. Toogood. I couldn’t help—well, I expect I could have helped overhearing, but I thought you might need me, and besides, curiosity killed the cat. How are you?”

“Tol-lol.”

Sukey was still a little startled every time Mrs. Khaleel talked like a Sussex girl. But the cook had lived in the neighborhood more than fifteen years, having come over from India as nursemaid to a local family when she was a little younger than Molly. Sukey was afraid to go to London, and here Mrs. Khaleel had gone halfway round the world. Sukey sat on the hall floor beside her. “Did you know he wanted to marry you?”

Mrs. Khaleel sighed. “I was afraid he did. It’s harder to say no to marriage.”

Sukey nodded.

“I can’t be a reverend’s wife,” she said, as if Sukey had argued. “I can’t.”

“Is that all? Why not? If he were a missionary in India, you wouldn’t have to worry about embarrassing him before his congregation.” Maybe that hadn’t been a tactful thing to say. And did she want to go home, as Mr. Bearparke thought? Or had she been glad to get away?

Mrs. Khaleel snorted. “Why does India need missionaries, Mrs. Toogood?”

“Because they’re heath…ens.” She grimaced. “I’m that sorry. I meant, because they aren’t Christians.”

“Precisely. I am not a Christian. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Mr. Bearparke any more than it occurred to you.”

That brought Sukey up short. Sedate Mrs. Khaleel, a—a what? Did she worship idols? But she went to church every week! “Does Mr. Summers know?”

Mrs. Khaleel shrugged. “I was baptized when I came to England. In India it never troubled my employers, but here—I suppose people talked, and they didn’t like it. I go to church. That’s enough for Mr. Summers.”

Sukey felt a little relieved to hear that. “Then you
are
a Christian, aren’t you?”

Mrs. Khaleel looked at her. “I hope not,” she said at last. “And my name isn’t
Nora
, either. Ned Bearparke is a darling”—her voice wobbled a little over the word—“but I wouldn’t be happy with him.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “Maybe at first. But I’d hate him after a while. He doesn’t know it, but I do.”

“Your name isn’t Nora?”

“No. It’s Noor. But even before I was baptized, no English folk could be bothered to learn it. It isn’t even difficult to pronounce, any more than Khaleel! But half the time people get
that
wrong. If you knew how many times I’ve thought about giving in and calling myself Collins—” Mrs. Khaleel broke off at Sukey’s expression. “Sorry.”

Sukey was too self-conscious to ask if she’d been mispronouncing it without knowing. “You did the right thing, turning him down,” she said, feeling surer of her ground here. “My… This is a secret, so please keep it.” There were people who knew. But nobody official. Nobody like Mr. Summers. You could hang for bigamy. That was part of why her mother had never tried to go on the parish, no matter how hungry they got. Sukey shouldn’t say anything.

She turned John’s ring on her finger, a nervesome habit she’d got into. It comforted her for no reason at all. Mrs. Khaleel’s eyes followed her fingers. A little wistfully, Sukey thought. “A ring’s nothing,” she said, holding hers tight to protect it from any listening pharisees with a sense of humor. “My father, he left my mother. He’s got another wife now in Chichester, and me and my mum have been getting by as best we could since I was a kid. People think, ‘Oh, marriage, you’re a fool to turn that down, you’d be set for life’, but you aren’t really.”

“We will keep each other’s secrets.”

Sukey nodded, feeling a little proud that Mrs. Khaleel trusted her.

“Would you like to sweep the trouble away from the door? I’m sure your husband would loan you his key.”

Sukey dangled the key before her eyes, and they smiled at each other.

The door had been opened already. The luck was gone, wasn’t it? But maybe the trouble wasn’t. As Sukey took up the broom, a thought struck her. “But he’s moving into the house.”

Mrs. Khaleel’s hand fisted in her lap.

“You should tell John. He could—” Sukey had no idea what he could do. But he knew a lot of things she had no idea of. Why not this? “He could talk to Mr. Summers.”

Mrs. Khaleel huffed a laugh. “He told me that too. I daresay he would, for all the good it would do me.”

Sukey privately agreed. Mr. Summers seemed kindhearted enough, but Mr. Bearparke was his curate and friend, and Mrs. Khaleel was just his cook. She swept the broom hard across the floor and out the door, and hoped it was really so easy to banish trouble.

* * *

Boxing Day is my favorite day of the year
, Sukey thought as the mummers’ play began in the taproom of the Lost Bell. She wasn’t sure if it was true or if she was drunk on cider and the feel of three whole crowns in the purse between her breasts. Two were wages for the last few weeks, paid on the quarter day yesterday, and one was her Christmas box, given to her by the vicar with festive ceremony this morning.

They’d each got a crown, and John and Mrs. Khaleel a guinea. And the upper servants had already received several presents from the tradesmen with whom they managed Mr. Summers’s accounts. Sukey couldn’t get over it. Two crowns was a whole quarter’s wages at Mrs. Humphrey’s, and usually half of it was held back for things broken or scratched or burnt.

Terrified of losing her purse, she kept touching her bodice to be sure it hadn’t fallen out. She’d ought to put it somewhere in the butler’s pantry, but…well, she’d never say so aloud, but what if another servant stole it? She mostly trusted them, but how could you even blame someone for stealing something so tempting, when it was in such easy reach? It was for the best John was taking his guinea to the savings bank this afternoon, or she’d have run through it in a flash.

He’d offered to share it with her. But she’d said no. Why? What was she so afraid of, that she’d turn down half a guinea for it? What could he expect in return that she wasn’t already giving him whenever she had the chance?

But maybe that was the problem: he didn’t expect anything in return. She didn’t want to be anybody’s charity case.

He’d said he’d buy her new gloves without holes too. She’d need them come January, so she’d thanked him and tried to feel smug about her luck in landing him. But even that galled a little, not less because he’d scolded her again five minutes later about making the bed.

She ought to put her own coins aside for a rainy day, but maybe she’d buy something pretty for the servants’ ball on New Year’s Day. A new cap or a shawl.

She’d never much minded wearing her only gown before. When you dressed for coal-stains and dust every day, it was exciting enough to be clean and curl your hair and leave off your cap and neckerchief. She’d always felt pretty. But she hadn’t been married then. She’d had nobody to impress.

John had laughed up his sleeve at her when she’d bragged of Lively St. Lemeston servants’ balls. God only knew what the servants he’d been used to living among got up to at the New Year. They drank champagne, most likely. They owned evening gloves and dancing slippers.

She was tired of feeling small and young and country mouse, and as if John had done her a favor by condescending to marry her. She wanted him to pay her court, and feel smug about
his
luck. She wanted to be better than pretty. She wanted to be beautiful.

Mr. Foley cut a particularly funny caper, and Sukey nearly spilled her cider laughing. The grumpy bookseller’s Quack Doctor was always the drollest part of the mummers’ play.

But all the actors were very gay, capering about with bright patches and strings of spangles pinned to their coats. This year Mr. Whittle from the Lost Bell did the rest one better, sporting an entire coat of bright patchwork. Lord, that must have taken weeks. Did he sew it, or his wife?

It made her think of Mrs. Dymond’s sister, bent over her needle from dawn to dusk through all of election season when she’d come, pregnant and unhappy, to live in Mrs. Pengilly’s attic. Mrs. Dymond’s wardrobe had been unrecognizable afterwards, embroidered and trimmed and dyed to within an inch of its life. Sukey supposed everyone distracted herself in her own way—

That was it! Sukey had meant to go round the shops herself after this, but Mrs. Gilchrist—the girl was Mrs. Gilchrist now, because when you were that beautiful, gentlemen overlooked a little thing like another man’s baby on the way—knew the inventory of every Whig milliner and dressmaker and pawnshop in town by heart, and she’d read enough fashion magazines to carpet Market Square. She’d know exactly what Sukey’d ought to buy.

Sukey fidgeted with her ribbon-trimmed hairpin. It would be a fine excuse to visit, but could she really bear to give it up? She’d had it in her hand the first time she’d seen John. He’d trailed it up her back last week.

She shivered, remembering, and John put his arm around her to keep her from cold, as if the crowded taproom wasn’t the warmest place in town.

“I’ll take you to the Honey Moon after this if you like,” he murmured in her ear. “I’ve heard the mince pies are to die for.”

She gave her hairpin a little pat of farewell, and set her hand over his. “Saturday afternoon is my time to be free of all of you, you know that.”

So when the play was over, Sukey walked up Cross Street, passing the Honey Moon’s delicious smell of brandy and ginger without going in, and waited nervously in the Gilchrists’ kitchen while the maid-of-all-work went to inform her mistress of Sukey’s visit.

That poor girl must be worked to the bone,
Sukey thought, for the kitchen was neat as a pin. Mrs. Gilchrist was the finickiest soul she’d ever had the misfortune to meet.

“Sukey? Happy Christmas. Is everything well with you?”

Sukey recognized Mrs. Gilchrist’s rose gown (which must have been let out at the bodice, for the girl’s graceful bust had never been so large before), but the great gold shawl wrapped about it with such aplomb looked brand new. So did the snowy linen at her neck and wrists and the frothy cap atop her dark hair. Dashing young matron was a style that suited her.

Sukey bobbed a quick curtsey and held out the hairpin, feeling awkward. “You left this at Mrs. Pengilly’s, ma’am.”