Chapter 10

10

L ily placed the horse on the bedside table. She grasped both of Ari’s hands in hers, and the strength she conveyed with the simple press of her flesh to his shook him to his very soul. She’d said not a word after his somewhat startling announcement. At least his words should have shocked her, but her expression remained the same, full of compassion and understanding. He was happy she understood, as his understanding of what his life had been had flown at the foot of a hangman’s gallows in Edinburgh. Still, she waited in silence, only squeezed his hands from time to time.

Perhaps it was because he was tired, his body aching from the fight. Perhaps all of the rage and primal instincts that cried out for him to save her at all costs had seeped from his body, washed away by brandy, an abbreviated bath, and the warmth and comfort of a bed and a well-made fire in the hearth. He took a long breath and closed his eyes, unable to take in her sympathetic gaze.

“His was the last case I argued, the very last. He was accused of murdering his master, a well-known peer in Edinburgh. William was a simple, gentle lad of not quite fifteen years. He’d never hurt anyone in his life. It wasn’t in him. I took his case and assured him I would win. I visited him in gaol to let the magistrates and prosecutors know I was involved. My reputation was one of never losing, after all.

He tried to tell me they were visiting him as well. Talking to him, persuading him, offering him things they never intended to deliver. I was too busy and too arrogant to listen to him. Patted him on the head and told him all would be well. I did not discover until he had his day in court that they’d persuaded him to sign a confession, a confession he could not read.”

Ari opened his eyes. “He could not read, Lily. I handed him over to them on a platter made of my pride and reputation, and they hanged him for it.” His throat began to close. “I did everything I could, but they were determined, and he had signed their confession. He carved that horse for me and told me everything would be fine. Said he was ready to go.” His voice on a gasp against the pain. “At fifteen he was ready to go. How can that be?”

“Ari.” She took his face in her hands. “Ari, for some people, life has worn them down so far that death is a relief. You did the best you could. How were you to know what they would do? They are the ones that murdered him. Not you.” She nodded at the carved horse. “No one creates something that beautiful and gifts it to you with blame or malice in their heart. Don’t deny William’s feelings to assuage guilt that is not yours. If you do, you will allow the ones who killed him to take one more thing from him. Something perhaps even more important than his life.”

“What could be more important than his life, Lily?”

“His memory. You will always remember William and now so will I, which means he isn’t really dead, Ari. And you will teach me to read for his sake, which is another reason he will live on.” She leaned in to kiss him slowly and with a tenderness that took his breath away. “Ari, you are a good man. A good and kind man. A rarity in this world. Trust me.”

He slid his hand around to caress the back of her neck. She tugged the blond wig off and dropped it to the floor. One by one, she drew the pins from her hair and tossed them onto the bedside table. She turned to straddle him with her back to him as he undid the tapes and fasteners at the back of her gown. He dragged the bodice down. Her breasts sprang free as she’d worn no stays, no chemise because of the gown’s low cut.

Ari reached around to cup her breasts. She arched into his hands with a soft hiss of pleasure. Whilst he massaged her fullness and then slowly brushed his palms over her nipples, she gathered her skirts and petticoats in her hands. With his help she drew her gown over her head and tossed it toward the foot of the bed. Ari flinched as he did the same with his nightshirt. He pushed the bedclothes down so that her wet cunny brushed against his hard cock. Lily braced her hands on his knees and moved her lush arse back and forth dragging herself across his cock with each stroke.

He leaned forward to press a kiss to the base of her spine. With his hands on her hips, he pressed her down to caress the length of his cock with her engorged nether lips. He nipped her buttocks which elicited a little gasp from her. She braced her hands on the bed and was on her hands and knees facing the foot of the bed as she pleasured herself on the jutting hardness of his eager cock. He let her set the pace and angle, but wrapped one hand around her hip to direct her strokes.

Her scent of lemon and jasmine and the musk of her cunny filled his mind. The pain and sorrow of before was replaced in that moment with nothing but pure animal desire, and he reveled in that desire. He wet his fingers and worked first one and then another inside her. Her rhythm faltered for a moment, and then she pushed hard against his questing fingers. Using his fingers and the steadying hand on her hip he stroked inside her faster and faster. Her breath came in harsh gasps as she pumped against him in search of completion.

“Hmmm,” she moaned. “Ari, please. Please.” She tried to reach for his cock. He knew what she wanted, but he needed her to say the words. He needed those words more than anything.

“Tell me, love. Tell me what you want.” He was already moving from beneath her, sliding around to his knees behind her. “Say it, Lily. Say what you want.”

“Fuck me, Ari. Please. Fuck me.”

He took his cock in one hand and steadied her with the other. Her cunny was wet and ready as he slid the head and then his full length inside her until his hipbones rested against the plush softness of her buttocks. She let loose a soft cry, half moan and half siren call. He withdrew slowly and then entered again with one swift thrust. She set up a rhythm he could not resist. In moments they were gasping and grunting in unison. He felt her fingers as she stroked herself. Her panting breaths came faster and faster and his hands gripped her hard as he urged her harder and higher.

“Yes, Lily. Sweet, Lily. That’s it. That’s it. That’s it, love. Oh. God. Yesss!” He collapsed across her back and continued to pump his hips against her until he felt her shudder, lock in one long spasm before she subsided onto the bed gasping his name.

He gathered her in his arms and turned her to cradle her against his chest.

“Your back,” she whispered as she touched his face. “Ari.”

“My back is the least of my worries, my love. What are you doing to my heart?”

She made him no answer, only smiled sadly and continued to caress his face, as if memorizing his features for some unknown reason. His chest ached, and the pain had nothing to do with the physical but everything to do with the unknown.

“Can I assume, though my invitation to this welcome and delicious breakfast is one I would never be so foolish as to send my regrets, that we are here for some purpose other than to lick our wounds and commiserate by consuming large portions of Mister Charpentier’s matchless culinary efforts?” Derek raised his Sevres cup in salute to the chef who sat to the left of Lady Camilla, their hostess for the impressive morning repast.

Any table set for a meal in her St. James Square home was certain to be impeccable. However, after last night’s failed attempt to thwart the blackmailer, all he wanted was more than the odd three hours of sleep he’d enjoyed before the summons to appear at this meeting had rousted him from his slumber and forced him to shave and dress for the day. Well, that and to have the leather pouch full of no less than five thousand guineas that he’d lost last night returned to him.

“You didn’t call this meeting?” Archer Colwyn asked as he slapped Atherton’s hand away from his plate. “If you filch one more of these magnificent kippers from me, I shall be forced to call you out, Ath. Could someone please bring Captain Atherton his own plate of kippers before we resort to fisticuffs in Lady Camilla’s dining room?”

Lady Camilla beckoned one of the footmen who stood next to the sideboard that fairly groaned with the various dishes that apparently comprised breakfast since Nathaniel Charpentier had moved in with Lionel Carrington-Bowles and his doting aunt. Derek had always known CB’s preference for men, though that preference had never troubled him as it might others of so-called good society. CB had ever been Derek’s defender when they were in school together. He’d never had a brother, but if he counted anyone in that role it was the man who was now, finally, involved with someone who loved him and whom he loved in return. Derek was happy for his old friend and perhaps a bit jealous.

“Fisticuffs in the dining room?” As if Derek’s thoughts had conjured him, CB strolled into the room, dressed in Weston’s finest, but sporting a blackened eye and a split lip. He made his way to the chair across from Charpentier’s, kissed Lady Camilla’s proffered cheek, and fell into said chair with a groan even as he dropped the large, battered leather satchel he’d carried into the room at his feet. “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it Sythe? God, yes, John, coffee would be perfect.” He held up his cup for the footman to fill and caught the piece of toast Stephen Forsythe tossed at him.

“I did not start that particular bit of mayhem,” Forsythe said as he covered his own piece of toast with what looked and smelled like fresh orange marmalade.

“No, Atherton did as I recall,” Derek offered as he waved at Forsythe to hand over the pot of marmalade.

“After Forsythe called me a cankerous whore.” Atherton attacked the plate of kippers in some sort of superior wine sauce like a starving infantryman. “I am not now, nor never have been cankerous.”

“Gentlemen.” Colwyn nodded at Lady Camilla at the head of the table. “There is a lady present.”

“Thank you, Archer. Although I have heard it all before many times.”

“Do they ever not fight?” Charpentier asked Lady Camilla though he gave CB a questioning look and touched his finger to his lip.

“It’s nothing,” CB mouthed.

“Rarely,” she replied. “I saw that, Lionel. Those injuries do not constitute ‘nothing,’ even in present company. As you are the one who insisted on this gathering, I suggest you carry on before someone else ends up with a split lip or worse.”

“You called this meeting?” Derek made no attempt to hide his surprise.

“Yes, and in the interest of expedience I shall speak, and you ruffians shall listen. Agreed?”

“Do we have to stop eating?” Atherton asked.

“God man, does that wife of yours not feed you?” Colwyn asked.

“My wife takes care of all of my needs, I assure you. Well. Very well.” He forked half a kipper into his mouth whilst a heartfelt groan of derision went round the table.

CB cleared his throat. “Whilst you four…” He indicated Atherton, Colwyn, Forsythe, and Derek. “Were allowing a slip of a tavern wench with a nice pair of…accoutrements to relieve Framlingwood of the blackmail money, I was watching a man in black, your blackmailer I presume, observe the entire episode from a chair on the balcony overlooking the river. When you four finally awoke from your bosom-induced stupor and went after the wench, I followed the blackmailer.”

“What?”

“You followed—”

“The devil you did!”

“Are you mad, CB? You could have been killed.” Derek threw his serviette onto the table.

“Framlingwood is right, my boy.” Lady Camilla’s face went white. “You could have suffered much worse than a black eye. What were you thinking?” Charpentier reached over to squeeze her hand. “The blackmailer never saw him. Those injuries came later.” He scowled at CB. “During the knife fight with the men the blackmailer sent to attack Miss Venable and Mister Barker-Finch.”

Derek leapt from his chair. The room erupted into a cacophony of accusations and questions. His head began to pound. CB pulled him back into his seat.

A sharp, rude whistle brought instant silence. “Oy!” Dickie Jones ambled into the dining room from the servants’ door, hands in his pockets. “Stubble it. No one got murdered, just knocked about a bit. ’Cept Jimmy, the butcher’s boy, said Mister Carrington-Bowles here fair broke one of ’em’s leg and split ’is nose wide open in all. Word’s all over the docks, Jimmy says. Told you gents you should have let me come. I’d have seen what Sally Big’uns was about before she got her hands on the gold, wouldn’t I?” He plopped into the seat Nathaniel pulled out next to him. The footman placed a plate of food in front of the boy. “Thanks, John. I’ll have some coffee too.”

Derek still seethed with rage, but seeing the look Lady Camilla gave each of them and her tsk of censure made him feel like a lad of fourteen in that rare way she had. As wrung out and on edge as he was, when he looked around the room the kinship he’d felt with these men when they were boys made him feel, even as hopeless as this all seemed, somehow it would work out.

“Shall I tell you the rest or shall we spend another quarter of an hour shouting at each other?” Trust CB to settle things in short order. He’d been making the peace amongst them for years.

“Go on,” Colwyn said. “Where did you follow the man in black to and what happened to him?”

“To him? Nothing. I followed him to a boarding house on Narrow Street. Three large villainous sounding wretches were waiting at the gate. He told them where to meet a hackney carrying the red-haired actress and the barrister. An expensive unmarked carriage took up the man in black and headed for Mayfair. I sent a friend into the boarding house to make inquiries and followed the hired noisy louts back to Limehouse, helped Barker-Finch defend Miss Venable, saw them home safely and…I believe that is everything, is it not, Dickie?”

The lad chewed his mouthful of food and finally swallowed. “I reckon, sir. ’Cept for what Mean Meg found in ta boarding house.” He pointed across the table at the satchel next to CB’s chair. “Yer man in black were staying there near three months now, so the landlady says to Mean Meg. ’Spect he’s cleared out now seeing as Mean Meg thieved him of all his belongings and gave them to Mister Carrington-Bowles.”

Derek stood and tried to reach for the satchel. CB beat him to it and tossed the leather case down the table to their resident Bow Street Runner. “Sit down, Framlingwood, You are disturbing my digestion. Your blackmailer has been busy. He’s been gathering information about all five of your mistresses for months now. There are missives in there from his employer, no names, of course. Meg gathered every piece of paper in his rooms as she didn’t have time to decide what was important and what was not.”

Colwyn began to rifle through the leather case whilst Derek and the rest looked on in anticipation. It appeared to be stuffed nigh on to bursting with pieces of paper of every size and type. Some expensive writing paper. Most pieces of cut parchment. He pulled out a very nice and costly looking snuff box. When he glanced down the table at CB and raised an eyebrow their friend laughed softly.

“Mean Meg would have kept that for herself,” CB said. “But she recognized the snuff as a special blend only available at Fribourg & Treyer on Haymarket. Your blackmailer has expensive tastes, according to her.”

“And Mean Meg knows her stuff,” Dickie said. “You can wager a monkey on that.”

“After what I said the last time we met,” Derek said, doing his best to maintain an even tone of voice. “Please assure me this one had nothing to do with your adventures last night.” He turned to fix CB with an intent glare. His tether was drawn bowstring tight about the involvement of his friends, about the attacks on his mistresses, let alone his worries about this child’s part in the Scots murder play his life was these days.

“He was here all night, Framlingwood,” Lady Camilla said. She tapped her spoon against Derek’s cup to draw his attention. “Robbing my friends and I blind at vingt-et-un . The boy is a menace at cards.”

This drew a smile from everyone. Lady Camilla was a Captain Sharpe in her own right. If Dickie had bested her, Derek would have to remind himself never to play cards with the lad.

“So, Bow Street,” Dickie called down the table to Colwyn, “can you make something of all that? Or are we still pissing in the wind?”