In the Flesh

CHAPTER FOUR

In the Pale Moonlight

CHARLIE WEATHERLY BREATHED deep as he exited onto the moonlit terrace and made his way, somewhat shakily, down the broad steps that led to the garden.

His head was whirling, and his heart beating. This evening was not turning out to be satisfactory at all. Not at all. He’d spent a large part of his time avoiding a couple of fellows from his club to whom he owed a considerable amount of money, and to cap it all, instead of behaving with suitable decorum, and attempting to mend her shattered reputation and conduct herself as a suitable young lady for marriage, Bea had been quite clearly seen in conversation with that wretched ladies’ man, Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie.

The man was as disreputable as he was rich and Charlie would have been prepared to overlook the former for the sake of the latter, if Ritchie wasn’t known to be sworn against further marriages. There were mutterings about not one, but two wives lost already. Hints of mysterious circumstances and nefariousness, but all no doubt hushed up due to the blackguard’s obscene wealth.

Charlie frowned, longing for the taste of brandy, even though he was unsteady enough on his feet already. A card game would be a nice distraction too, even if he was likely to lose again.

All that remained was a cigarette. A mild vice, but it calmed his nerves all the same. Pausing to extract his silver case and light a gasper, he turned briefly and realized that, mired in his troubles, he’d walked a considerable way from the terrace and had ended up almost lost amongst a stand of laburnum bushes.

I should be looking out for Bea. I should be protecting her and sheltering her and steering her away from the likes of Ritchie, and that viper Eustace Lloyd before him. She needs a good man with a bit of money, and a proper home and children. It’s no good we two rattling around at South Mulberry Street together. The house is far too costly to maintain, and we’re getting on each other’s nerves.

Poor Bea. He loved her dearly, and his own guilt made him impatient with her. His sister’s nature was warm and wild, and he loved her for that. But it didn’t make her marriageable. Even her undeniable beauty couldn’t offset the trouble she’d got herself into, posing for those photographs. If only she’d named Lloyd in public as the photographer, they might have had some redress. But she wouldn’t do that, claiming that what was done was done. And because the pair had never been officially engaged, there was no question of breach of promise either.

And now a new set of rumors about her and Ritchie would be circulating. Charlie had seen the eyes of the gossips following the two of them, and the whispered exchanges. Women would be fluttering furiously over the china tea and shortbread during their at-homes in the next few days, and men in clubs all over London would pick over the story while they shuffled cards and consumed brandy and roast beef, weaving salacious fantasies of his sister being debauched by that whoreson Ritchie. He’d already heard murmured asides this very evening about her “moving on to pose in another bed.”

If I’d any guts I’d have shot Eustace Lloyd! One minute he’s as good as proposed to Bea, the next minute she’s not good enough because she posed naked for his camera. Goddammit, he’s the one who sold the photographs anonymously, even if he claims otherwise, and now poor old Bea’s the one who’s ended up alone and ruined.

Charlie’s cigarette tip glowed red as he stood in the shadows, dragging on the thing as if he could suck in good fortune with each breath, and then exhale his self-loathing for not defending his sister better.

After a few moments, the nicotine and the moonlight settled him, and as vague plans and resolutions circled in his head, his senses reached out into the garden.

There was someone else here, just feet away.

“Got a light, friend?” The soft, rough voice reminded Charlie of Westerlynne, and a handsome gamekeeper’s lad he’d known as a curious youth. A man stepped out of the deeper shadows, the white tube of a cigarette poised in his fingers. Powerful fingers, steady yet relaxed.

“Yes, of course.” Charlie drew out his matches again, astonished to be shaking. The sturdy, powerful man seemed much closer than before, even though he hadn’t taken another step yet.

The light from the match showed a strong face too, not coarse, but a little rough-hewn, not a gentleman. What was the man doing out here? Was he a servant? A groom? He wasn’t dressed for the ball, but looked well in a plain dark walking suit, and a striped shirt sans collar. His thick brown hair was as straight as wheat, and might have benefited from the comb.

Charlie shuddered, his blood turned to fire. Dark urges welled in his gut. Another reason to be nervous, and yet excited.

They smoked in silence for a spell, the garden air tranquil apart from Charlie’s heart, thumping in the night.

I shouldn’t do this.

And yet senses he barely understood told him the man smoking in the shadows was of the same persuasion as he. Well, if Charlie could be sure what his own persuasion was half the time.

Charles Weatherly was attracted to his own sex. He was an unnatural, an invert. But the fact that he also eagerly desired women too only added to his confusion.

“So, friend,” said the stranger after a long quiet while, “what brings you out here when the rest of the nobs are in there enjoying themselves? You look like a man weighed down by troubles.”

The Charles Weatherly of polite society bristled. He should rebuke this overly familiar fellow for asking personal questions of his betters. But Charlie, perplexed and out of his depth, wanted to spill all … both metaphorically and physically. Orgasm was a path to oblivious forgetfulness of problems, just as drink and the thrill of the card table were.

“You could say that, friend,” he compromised, taking a drag on his cigarette. “I have my fair share of concerns. But what business are they of yours?”

“Just a sympathetic individual, sir.” It wasn’t uttered with deference. “It seems like you’re looking for diversion on a fine night like this … the pleasures of the moment and to the devil with tomorrow.”

Oh, you’re sharp!

Charlie puffed furiously. He couldn’t speak, silenced by the forbidden, dark excitement, and a new emotion, almost unmanning him. Woes of his own making bore down on him like a heavy yoke, and the sudden sympathy of this stranger strummed his nerves.

His new friend laughed softly, the sound drifting low as he reached out, took Charlie’s cigarette right from his lips, and tossed it with his own, end over end, onto the gravel. “You don’t need that, friend,” he murmured, drawing Charlie by the arm, deeper into the shadows and the moist vegetable secrecy of the bushes.

“What are you doing?” It should have come out as righteous outrage, male and stentorian. But instead, his voice seemed light and insubstantial as the moonlight. He opened his mouth again, but the shaggy-haired stranger covered it with his own, suddenly kissing him with firm warm lips and backing him up against what appeared to be the kitchen garden wall.

Charlie’s head reeled, even as the last vestiges of fight made him press against the stranger’s lapels with his fists. But it was an empty gesture. Just as quickly, his hands relaxed against the muscular, well-shaped chest beneath the layers of wool and flannel of his companion’s clothing. In the blink of an eye, he was clutching the very same lapels, his mouth yielding as he silently begged the man not to withdraw.

Or stop kissing him.

A potpourri of tobacco and whiskey on his companion’s lips was intoxicating, and Charlie wondered momentarily where he’d drunk the latter. Was it purloined from his master’s supply? Stolen like these moments of forbidden pleasure?

But when a warm, wet tongue plunged deep into his mouth, Charlie wanted to weep like a girl, deliciously subdued. The man’s large, confident hand closed round his genitals, at the same time, cupping and squeezing with just enough force.

Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release. Hardened to iron, his cock leaped with each tightening.

“Oh good Lord … good Lord,” he gasped when his mouth was suddenly free, then he moaned when deft fingertips found his glans through his linen and squeezed that sensitive tip with particular skill.

“No, friend, not our Lord, just ‘Jamie.’“ His new friend laughed, still continuing his divine ministrations.

Charlie was overcome. Still grasping Jamie’s lapels, he threw back his head, bumping it on the rough masonry of the wall yet barely registering the momentary pain. His knees buckled, and he slumped, his back pressed to the damp brickwork. Biting his lips, he fought to suppress his cries, his hips flaunting forward following Jamie’s teasing, tugging fingers.

“Do you like that, sir?” A redundant question, the impudent honorific, and Jamie’s low laughter only added to the sweet sensations.

“Yes, oh God, yes I do!” Charlie tossed his head against the bricks, aware of the ever-present sooty grime of the city soiling his hair. “My name is Charles … Charlie … oh hell and damnation man, that’s wonderful … oh God!”

“But we’ve only just begun, Charlie,” breathed Jamie, then he stabbed in with another deep kiss, before nibbling on Charlie’s lower lip. “Shall we let the rampant beast see the air now?”

Reality suddenly pierced the hot, sensual haze. Charlie struggled for sanity, for sobriety, and tried to pull away, even though the denying words still eluded him.

But Jamie would not be gainsaid. He squeezed yet harder on the tip of Charlie’s organ, the fleeting moment of cruelty like heaven to a man of Charlie’s sensibilities.

“Oh no, you don’t, sir.” The husky voice was playful yet menacing, “I want a good look at this nice little toy.”

“Not so little, I’ll thank you,” growled Charlie, finding his backbone from somewhere.

“Indeed,” said Jamie, his deft fingers working on the buttons of Charlie’s trousers … and then his linens.

Charlie gasped as the cooler air of the garden night hit his cock. Jamie eased him out of the aperture in his clothing, and he could almost imagine his flesh steaming, hot and hard as an iron bar.

“Fine … very fine indeed,” murmured Jamie, his hand settling upon it.

At first he just held Charlie, his large yet nimble fingers lightly curled as he kissed Charlie’s face in little nips and dabs and busses. It was a delicate exploration, all the more stirring for the intimate hold down below. Charlie wanted to scream at Jamie to pump him.

“Steady, Charlie my boy, steady on.” Jamie’s smile was saturnine as he pulled back a little, staring into Charlie’s eyes, his own hooded and sultry as a finger drummed hither and thither, light and taunting. “I’m not ready for you to spend all over me … at least not yet. You have to earn your satisfaction, my fine lad.”

Luscious fear coiled in Charlie’s gut. He thought of practices performed in certain discreet houses and his organ stiffened harder at the thought, jumping in his lover’s hand.

“You’re a naughty fellow, aren’t you?” purred Jamie, his raw tone revealing his country origins. Despite his desperate state, Charlie felt a rush of warmth, remembering happy times at Westerlynne. “But I’m not doing it all for you, Charlie my lad. Not tonight …” He reached for Charlie’s hand and folded it around his very own flesh.

Blood burned in Charlie’s face and in the hard rod between his fingers. Dark pleasure surged at the thought of exhibiting his private technique. His fingers shook as they fumbled and slid, and his head felt as light as if he’d supped a quart of brandy on top of the several snifters he’d already consumed in addition to champagne.

But the thought of his debts and troubles was all but forgotten, and when Jamie’s hands finally strayed to his own trouser buttons, Charlie didn’t have a remaining care in the whole wide world.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Indecent Proposal

“MISS BEA! MISS BEA! Wake up!”

Sleep had Beatrice in its grip. Holding her down deep, it wouldn’t be shaken off and she was drowning. But not in the sea or the grimy Thames or even the lake at Westerlynne. No, she was lost in a pair of dark blue eyes.

There was no escaping them. And she didn’t want to. Swathed in her dream, and enveloped in heat and sensation, she pressed her soft body to the hard muscled form of a man.

Beatrice’s eyes snapped open as two things impressed themselves upon her.

One was that her maid Polly was leaning over her and shaking her shoulder with far more vigor than most employers would tolerate from their servants.

The second realization brought a furnace of blush to her already warm cheeks. Beneath the covers, her flannel nightgown was bundled around her hips in a twisted, tangled bunch and her right hand was pressed firmly between her thighs.

Damn the man. All his fault. He was debauching her in her dreams now. Heaven help her when …

“Miss Bea! Come on! Please wake up, there’s men in the kitchen!”

“Men in the kitchen? What in goodness’ name do you mean? What men?” Beatrice snatched her fingers from where they’d strayed. Thank heavens for the mound of bedclothes, tucked high up to her chin. She struggled to wake up properly, still blinking at her maid.

“Two men, Miss Beatrice. They just arrived at the area door and Enid let them in. You know how daffy she can be when she’s half-asleep.”

Polly looked flushed, almost as pink in the face as Beatrice imagined herself to be. The young woman’s plain morning cap was sliding awry, as it often did, and one or two wisps of her flaxen hair were already tumbling.

“Arrived for what? What kind of men, Polly?”

A succession of horrid possibilities, all alarming, presented themselves.

When the photographs had first appeared and her notoriety as the Siren had begun, a variety of gentlemen of the lower press had hung around, hoping for a sight of her, or a statement. For a while it had been quite impossible to go out. But then a new sensation had arisen, as they always did, and her journalistic followers had thankfully drifted away, only to be replaced by a threat of another flavor.

Bailiffs!

Oh no, it hadn’t come to this, had it? Just when a solution, however imperfect and insalubrious, had presented itself. And even if it wasn’t the dreaded bailiffs, there’d been some decidedly shady and tough-looking coves loitering in their street the past few days. They didn’t approach in the way the journalists had, but just looked menacing, and Beatrice sorely feared they might be the hirelings of Charlie’s many creditors.

Thoroughly rattled now, Beatrice wriggled her way into a sitting position while at the same time surreptitiously pushing down her nightgown. Erotic fancies must be set aside for the moment in order to deal with hard, cold realities. She just hoped these men could be reasoned with, and persuaded to wait until Ritchie presented his indecent proposal and some money was forthcoming. Reaching for her shawl, though, she was embarrassingly aware that her fingers were somewhat fragrant, and with a scent that Polly would no doubt recognize.

“Have you woken Mr. Charles? I think he’ll want to deal with this.”

He wouldn’t, actually. Charlie would be worse than useless in this situation, and Polly had actually done the sensible thing coming to her first. But she didn’t want to insult her brother’s manhood by coming out and saying he was hopeless.

“No, actually … they … should I say he said to speak to you, Miss Beatrice. The one in charge, that is. He’s brought a letter for you, and he says a reply is expected by return.”

“The one in charge? In charge of whom? What letter?”

Dear heaven, the offer was here already?

And there was only one “man in charge” whose face sprang readily to mind. She could have drawn it in perfect line-for-line detail this very moment. Complete with the narrow wicked smile he’d worn as he dallied with her. The same demonic yet beautiful expression that had been on his face while he’d touched her.

Polly snatched up the tiny silver correspondence tray from the chair beside the bed and presented it as a moment-by-moment memory of all that had occurred last night washed like a waterfall into Beatrice’s mind.

Ritchie’s face. His smile. His hands.

His deep blue eyes, burning like dark coals. The devil!

But even though Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was only a gentleman of sorts, she couldn’t imagine him being content to wait in the kitchen for her answer to his own letter. Especially not with Cook blathering on at Enid, and the smoky range, and dish cloths and tea cloths all hung up to dry, and the general state of disorder that pervaded a house with not enough servants.

Beatrice grabbed the letter. She had absolutely no shred of doubt it was from him. He was just the type to demand an instant reply. The arrogance of him, all hurry, hurry, hurry, dance to his tune. He wanted to buy her body, on terms to suit him alone, and he wanted the agreement signed, sealed and delivered before she’d had time to entertain first thoughts, never mind second ones. It was a wonder he hadn’t sent a solicitor to notarize the agreement. Maybe one of these men was a lawyer? It wouldn’t surprise her.

Yet now that she had the momentous missive in her hand, she hardly dared crack open its seal, despite the fact that Polly was nearly dancing with curiosity beside the bed. To read the proposal was to make it real. Last night, at the glittering ball, she’d consorted with Ritchie, but now all that seemed like a voluptuous magic-lantern show, as phantasmagorical as the erotic dream from which she’d woken.

This letter represented the cold, sordid fact that she was selling her own flesh to get out of debt. She was an “unfortunate” who was fortunate enough to be desired by a man as rich as Croesus. And the fact that he still excited her was the most disturbing thing of all.

“These men, Poll … how long have they been here? I assume they’re servants, not gentlemen? And if they are gentlemen, what were you thinking not showing them into the parlor?”

“They arrived about five minutes ago, Miss Beatrice. Knocking on the kitchen door … Gave Cook a bit of a start, and before I could stop her, Enid had opened to them. I was going to run round next door for Fred, but it didn’t seem worth it. Either one of them would make ten of him.” Mangling her apron in her hand, Polly seemed to be struck by the same mix of excitement and anxiety that gripped Beatrice. “The fair-haired one said he wouldn’t leave until he had a reply, from your own hand!”

Fair haired? Domineering and bombastic? As the master, so the man … or perhaps one and the same?

But then again, Ritchie wasn’t exactly bombastic. More clever than that, he was a subtle, persuasive libertine, and he’d swept her into scandalous and sensual behavior by dint of making her believe that was what she wanted.

Making her accept, nay, admit that it was what she wanted.

Beatrice set the envelope down on the counterpane and tried to concentrate. What exactly had she said last night?

What did I lead him to expect? Why can’t I remember the precise words?

But it was actions she remembered clearly … and reactions. All else was a delicious, slightly alarming haze. Surely she’d not partaken of all that much champagne? Even the glass of brandy she’d so boldly dashed down had been modest.

It wasn’t the alcohol. If she’d become inebriated, surely she wouldn’t have been able to recall the physical details. His touch. What she’d done, and had done to her. It all still lingered in her memory, every second perfect and crystal clear.