Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (51 page)

We huddled in our hammock, venturing out only to relieve ourselves and procure water and bacon from Sam – who was happily holed up in the warm cookhouse. We told him to have Henrietta take food up to Vivian and returned to bed. Gaston seemed quite content to remain in my arms beneath the blanket and nowhere else, even though Sam had graciously offered a place by the only hearth the house possessed. My matelot seemed to be possessed of the mood I had the day before, and I could think of no reason we truly needed to brave the wet and mud: Jamaica and Vivian would be fed and cared for, and even Bella had her fat puppies dug deep in the straw beneath her: we need only see to ourselves for a time.

We told stories of the coldest we had ever been, and considered purchasing another blanket or going in search of a brazier; but for the most part, we dozed and made love. When Gaston was awake and not engaged with me carnally, he was contemplative and not inclined to speak. I let him have his silence, knowing he had much to think about for which I could not offer answers. I concocted a dozen plans for getting rid of Christine, and ruminated on whether my fancies were wishful thinking about things I thought inevitable – both his marriage to her and the need for her to be gotten rid of, if it should come to pass. And I considered whether the marriage could be avoided and how, and whether that was born of selfish desire – or love for my matelot and an intrinsic understanding of his needs and frailties. I at last concluded that I did not wish for him to marry her; but that it was a decision he must make for himself; and if he did marry her, she would have to be sent to France with his father as soon as possible – with or, most likely, without, a child in her belly.

Our retreat and reverie was inevitably disturbed by a knock upon the doorframe. At my call, the visitor announced herself to be Agnes.

“Come in if it will not disturb you,” I called, “but we are naked and beneath a blanket and not inclined to dress.”

“I am well with that,” she said, and escaped the rain to sit in the straw huddled beneath a blanket of her own.

Bella nosed her proffered hand, but seemed disinclined to offer up a puppy from their warm nest, and Agnes did not attempt to dig one out.

“Is anyone about?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Everyone has stayed in their rooms. Well, some came down to break the fast, and the Marquis and Mister Rucker are discussing something in the dining room with their feet by a brazier, but beyond that, all is quiet.”

“Did Pete and Striker come home last night?” I asked.

She nodded and toyed with straw and did not meet my gaze.

“Are you wandering about the house from boredom, or did you come here for a reason?” I asked.

Her wide mouth formed a grim line. “A reason. How did it go with Mistress Garret? Did Gaston learn all he needed of women?”

Gaston tensed behind me, but I chuckled. “He learned a great deal of women, aye.”

“Such that he needs no more lessons?” she said, her long fingers burrowing in the straw.

I abandoned my humor. “Not necessarily. Why?”

“Well…” she said to the straw. “I was thinking that… The pleasuring of women is a thing I would do well to learn of, and perhaps…” She flushed. “I should determine whether I am truly confused about matters of men and women and what I favor, and…” She counted off another point on her fingers. “As you have said I need not marry, then I need not maintain my maidenhead, and…” She sighed and counted off another finger. “Many feel that a girl in my situation has already provided such service to her… patrons.”

Gaston swore very quietly behind me and planted his forehead between my shoulder blades.

“Um…” I managed to say while questioning whether the Gods were beneficent or cruel. “Are you suggesting you serve as a model for Gaston’s instruction?”

“Aye,” she squeaked, and heaved a sigh that must have drained all the air from her thin body. She at last met my gaze, though, and I saw earnestness and fear in her huge brown eyes.

“My dear Agnes,” I said kindly. “That is a most gracious offer, and I will be happy to instruct you in such matters without carnality. You need not…”

“You do not find me attractive?” she squeaked with tears.

“Nay, nay, that is not the matter at all,” I said quickly. I felt completely off balance for the conversation, as if somehow the blanket wrapped about me and Gaston clinging to my back would topple me so that I fell in a clumsy heap of social inappropriateness. “It is just that you need not provide such service. I would not have us take advantage of you in that fashion.”

“But you are not taking advantage if it is a thing I want,” she protested. “I would learn, and you are the only two men I can think of that I would be willing to learn of such things from.”

Gaston moved so that he wrapped an arm around me and brought his mouth to my ear. “Oui,” he breathed.

I squirmed enough to be able to see his face.

He nodded resolutely, and his eyes were calm. “My Horse does not hate or fear her – as long as you are with me.”

My cock sprang to life as the implications of his words and hers took root. I nodded.

I turned back to Agnes. “My dear, we will accept your offer, gladly.

And… If one of us was in a position to marry you, we would. We have long considered it, but circumstances are such that… well, I could not put Vivian out and Gaston’s father…”

She shook her head. “Thank you, but I do not know if I wish to marry either of you, anyway.” She stood and wrung her hands. “What should I do?”My thoughts were scampering about like excited dogs, and yet I still possessed the clarity to realize our current sleeping arrangement would not be amenable to three; and, as Gaston had been at me twice this day, there was another matter that must be tended to. “Let us all move to the bathing room, where there is a brazier and water.”

“We will bathe?” she asked incredulously.

“Aye,” I said and reluctantly slipped from beneath the blanket to find a pair of breeches. “For your first lesson in the matter of sex involving men – though I know that is not what you truly wish to learn – if you plan to tryst with a man who you have any reason to believe has been busy with other men, you must always make sure he washes his prick.”

Gaston cursed quietly – due to his presumably having forgotten this detail in his excitement – and rolled out of the hammock wrapped in our blanket.

“And for that matter,” I continued, as I surveyed the empty atrium and the short distance to the bathing room, and decided I would gain nothing by donning more clothing. “You should always inspect a cock before allowing it entry. There is no sense in playing with a member that shows signs of the pox or other ailment.”

“How will I know what that looks like?” she asked.

“It is usually quite obvious,” I said, “but ours are healthy and yet different, and so they should provide you some basis for future comparison if that should ever be required.”

Gaston had donned breeches and nothing else as well, and left our blanket on the hammock. I was pleased in this, as it would stay dry and thus we would have a warm place to return to.

We sprinted to the bathing room, and I hurried to get the brazier going while Gaston happily discovered that the upper cistern had indeed been refilled since the fire. He filled the tub partway, and the sudden stream and pool of water seemed to suck up what little heat the room had possessed. Even as the brazier finally caught, I thought my choice of locations for this endeavor might have been foolhardy. Agnes handed us her damp blanket, and Gaston and I huddled together on the floor beneath it, waiting for the coals to produce heat.

“Have you had any carnal experiences at all?” I asked Agnes as we waited.

She shook her head sadly.

“Even poor or unwanted ones?” I asked carefully.

This shake was quicker than the last, and her expression was one of surprise that I should ask, without a trace of fear or defensiveness. I was relieved.

“Do you pleasure yourself?” I asked.

She shook her head again, but this time she ended the gesture with a sigh. “I have touched myself,” she admitted. “But… I do not understand the way or why of it. It made me uncomfortable.”

“How?” I asked. “Well… how did you touch yourself, and can you describe the nature of the discomfort?”

“I touched my privates,” she said and flushed anew. “You once told me to do so,” she added quickly. “You said I could discover how to please another that way.”

I wondered when the Devil I had done that, and then remembered her watching over me after I had taken the beating in the tavern. I had been quite drugged.

I grinned. “Aye, I did say that. And you found no pleasure in it?”

“It made me… ache… Not like when I have my monthly, but with…”

She shrugged helplessly.

“With desire?” I offered. “With need?”

She frowned and nodded. “I suppose that is how it is spoken of.

It was interesting for a time, and sometimes I would do it just to feel that, but it seemed to serve no purpose and I have felt I was doing it incorrectly.”

I smiled in sympathy and recalled that it was different for women.

Their sex did not seem to possess a mind of its own that knew damn well what it needed.

“The pleasure comes when you tease or push that desire to the breaking point,” I said.

“So I did not do it long enough?” she asked with concern. “It became painful if I did it too long.”

“Aye, aye,” I agreed. “It is a matter of intensity and varying the sensation. Do not fear, I will teach you. If you are pleased with nothing else this endeavor might offer you, I am sure you will be pleased with that.”

This seemed to warm her enthusiasm, much as the coals had finally begun to do for their corner of the room. I invited her to doff her clothes and join us beneath the blanket. Though we still wore breeches, I was thankful at this stage that my ardor had cooled as I made a place for her to sit within the tangle of our legs. Gaston was hard against my side, though. I pressed closer to him, and his arm pulled me closer still.

She did as I asked; and no surprisingly sumptuous beauty emerged from her shapeless dress. Though she was now nearly two years older, she was still every bit as skinny and under-endowed as she had been when first we met. Her hipbones could bruise a man, and her breasts could barely be cupped; yet there was much of a woman about her, and she would not be confused with a boy by any but the blind.

Shivering, she slipped into the space I had made for her, facing Gaston with her shoulder to my chest and her knees pulled up. I wrapped her in the blanket. Her skin was icy, and I chastely rubbed her arms and legs to warm her until she relaxed enough to lean against me.

For some strange reason that only our Horses understand, I was brought to recall a memory of long ago: not of the last time I frolicked with both a man and a woman, but of a cold and rainy day in a barn with Shane when first we had pleasured one another.

I turned my head to find Gaston and saw worry in his eyes – for me.

He knew me well enough to read my slightest shudder, and I took great comfort in that and the memory receded.

“The first time I ever… played… with another was on a cold and rainy day such as this,” I said to both of them. “We had been riding when the rain came, and we hid in a barn and doffed our clothes and attempted to warm one another.”

Gaston nodded his understanding – he knew the story – and kissed my cheek.

“Was it with a girl or a boy?” Agnes asked.

“A boy,” I sighed. “I was thirteen and he a year older.”

“Is that when you learned you favored men?” she asked.

“Nay, I had realized that before then,” I said with a smile. “The boys had begun to speak and brag of women, and all I thought of was them.”

“Aye, I know that well,” she said. “This is nice; neither of you are hairy.” She frowned at her words. “I mean to say, when I think of men, I think of them as being hairy and sweaty, and I find revulsion in the thought of them being near me. I do not find either of you revolting, and… Being held is nice. No one has held me like this since I was little.”

Tears filled her eyes and I pulled her close in empathy.

“Oui, it is nice to be held,” Gaston breathed. “No one ever held me that I could remember until Will.”

“My mother held me,” she told him. “We were too poor to have a governess.”

“You were blessed, then,” I said.

She smiled and wiped away her tears only to have her eyes fill again.

“I loved my mother and father. I miss them.”

“I am glad I have found my father again,” Gaston said. “I never knew my mother. I did not truly know him until these last weeks.”

She looked up at me. “Your father is a beast; was your mother kind?”

I snorted. “Nay. I had a governess I was fond of, though. She would hold me when I was little.”

She ran an inquisitive finger up my arm to my shoulder, and then she frowned. “What happened to your chest?”

Gaston stilled.

I sighed and decided something akin to the truth was the only thing readily available. “We were frolicking and managed to spill a large amount of wax on me.”

She grimaced in sympathy. “Did it hurt?”

I nodded with a small smile, and quickly kissed Gaston on the lips.

He sighed.

“Does it hurt now?” she asked.

“It is tender, aye.”

She nodded, and her inquisitive finger ventured to Gaston. “And do your scars hurt?”

He held his breath for a second at her touch, and then shook his head.

“They are different in sensation for him,” I told her, and put a finger next to hers to run across the pattern of his scars. “He still feels beneath them, but it is a duller than what he feels on the unmarred skin. Avoid this.” I ran a finger wide around his scarred right nipple.

“It feels odd,” Gaston added. “It is not pleasurable.”

“His other one is fine,” I said, but as his left nipple was pressed against my shoulder, we could not reach it and he did not seem prone to move to allow us to.

“Do you have any places that feel odd to the touch?” I asked as I caressed her cheek.