It was a warm evening. She shook her head. “Am I ever cold in your arms?”
She felt the curve of his smile against her cheek, and his sudden pinch around her breast. The tight silk of her gown imprisoned his fingers, and limited his explorations, forcing his clasp ever deeper. His left arm was around her waist, her back hard against the stone wall. The breeze was no more insistent than his fingers. She closed her eyes and held her breath as she felt his hand push further inside the neck of her gown.
“Trust me,” he murmured. “You won’t fall. The merlons are too high.” His eyes were as blue as the sky. Then abruptly the sky was no longer blue. A streak of ruddy carmine turned sapphire to rose petals. She felt the strange space between his fingers as his other hand pressed against her spine and then down to her buttocks, pulling her to him as he continued to play between her breasts, fingers first gentle around the aureole and then pulling at her nipples. “Your gown,” he informed her softly, “is in my way.”
She thought he might drag it off her, and whispered, “Someone might come past. The guards. One of the pages.”
He grinned. “Not here. We’re not expecting marauders or invasions just yet.”
The sinking sun shot sudden arrows of rich crimson against the darkening indigo. Way above where the hazy, lazy clouds still floated as if on shallow streams, the light remained. But the vivid interruptions sweeping up from the horizon now reflected in the moat and the castle was turning to gold.
Emeline heard his breath becoming strained. Then as his fingers forced within the neck of her dress, his left hand sought entrance below. She felt the sudden draught. He was lifting up the hems of her skirts.
“Open your legs. Let me in.” Now his eyes reflected scarlet.
Behind him, across the rising stone turrets, the Chatwyn banners flew in the breeze and from a tower’s peak, an iron leopard, crouched to spring, swung obediently, pointing in the wind’s direction. The sky was turning to purple as red shot through blue but faded into melted butter and cherry syrup’s sweet trickling pastels.
Emeline stared up at her husband. Now both his hands were beneath her skirts and his fingers were cold on her thighs. She felt the rasping tingle of his jaw against her forehead. His hands crawled higher, pushing her skirts up to her knees. The pads of both his thumbs, smooth and strong, rubbed her inner thighs, then stopping suddenly. His breath was now strained. He seemed to pause, to regain his own composure. Then his thumbs started to move again. Suddenly she felt the scrape of stone against the back of her legs; her skirts pushed higher. His knee was between her knees, his foot pushed between her feet. She leaned forwards against him and he supported her. The wind was on her neck. Both his hands remained beneath her skirts, the silken creases now hitched almost around her waist while his fingers were once again busy.
She whispered, “I love you, Nicholas. I love you loving me.”
The frogs were calling louder now and the shadows were deepening. The sky was soot coloured, but flashes of cinnabar gathered into sunset flames. Something flew overhead, dark and silent. The distant trees became black waving threads in the little wind.
She felt him pause again, one hand moving from her body, and knew he unlaced his codpiece. He entered her without warning, first his fingers and then immediately himself, thrusting hard and deep. She grunted. He caught his breath, then exhaled with a shudder of release into even greater pleasure. “Hold me too, little one. Touch me.”
He had stopped pushing, remaining still and rigid inside her. She could hardly move, hardly think. So he smiled, pressed once more, deeper inside, and took her fingers in his. She felt his hand moist and warm from her own body. The top of her gown was pulled to the side, the velvet trimming becoming unstitched, the fichu quite gone and the cleft between her breasts uncovered. The rich pink circle of one nipple peeped out. She felt the breeze in her hair and knew her headdress was fallings, pins tumbling down to the cold pavings at her feet. The backs of her legs were squashed against the stone, her stockings pulled down, the garters untied, and now her raised skirts, bundled up to her stomacher, left her entirely uncovered. She did not care about any of those things. She could only care about the fire in her belly and the raging desire in her groin.
Nicholas pushed her fingers between his own legs, pulling her hand up to where he entered her. “Now. Put your finger inside yourself,” he whispered. “Push inside. Push against me. Touch me where I touch you. Now, move your finger up a little. Now down. Caressing. Discovering.” His breathing quickened. “I’ll push. But slowly. Very slowly. So use that beautiful little finger of yours, my own beloved. Feel me as I feel you. Feel where my prick pushes and swells. There’s a ridge, and that moves as I fill you.” His voice became barely a whisper. “Touching me in such a moment, you understand the heart of me. And you understand yourself, and how you squeeze and feel inside.”
He leaned down quickly and kissed her hard as though drinking, as though desperate with thirst. She kissed him in return, reaching up to taste his tongue and his breath.
The setting sun slipped unnoticed behind the long crenellated towers. Stabbing ruby and topaz blurred and sank. The long twilight was settling. The frogs still called as the ducks and the forest creatures nosed into their nests, tree holes and burrows, safe for the night. Darkness swept in from the north. A thin pearlised slice of moon peeped.
Nicholas and Emeline saw none of it nor heard the soft hooting of a hunting owl. They remained within each other’s arms, tucked oblivious to the other world, knowing only each other as they neared their own climax.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The curve of the young man’s thigh skimmed the platters, spoons and napkins still neatly tidy, still ordered, awaiting his lordship’s appetite.
Only one toppled candle, not yet congealed, lay out of place. The pale melting wax had oozed into one thin stalactite pointing towards the shadowed boards below. The great table, set for a late supper not yet served, otherwise remained undisturbed for the attack had caused little disarray and no sound. His lordship, placid in his comfortable stupor, had felt nothing but the deepening of sweet sleep.
Yet now the lord of the Strand House, to which he had returned on leaving court for the day, lay silent upon his back, his corpulence in unashamed evidence as the velvet belly proudly rose, the codpiece, a smaller protuberance beneath, now a little askew, and then lay the muscular stretch of the legs, thighs spread apart upon the floorboards, shoes pointing to the small dancing flames of the lit chandelier above.
The Earl of Chatwyn’s heavily jowled face appeared peaceful, but the hole in his throat was ragged and the subsequent bleeding had pumped across his doublet even to the padded shoulders before hardening and turning stiff and black.
David Witton replaced the much stained carving knife on the tablecloth, stood and looked around. It was time to set the cleansing fire, but he was momentarily reluctant.
The house had long belonged to the Chatwyn family; often repaired, enlarged and consistently adored throughout the generations. Lord Nicholas Chatwyn, now the earl although he could not yet know it, loved this house. David would not willingly do what might sadden his master. Every action, every studied detail, every killing and every blazing furnace had been designed only to help his master, and for no other reason. Now Nicholas would no longer be shamed or insulted by his great pig of a father, and could inherit the title he deserved. But he would be sorry to lose this grand house.