Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (60 page)

She shook her head. “I will take your word for it. I just do not understand how…”

I shook my head. “Sarah, you and I, and most men and women, are governed by our reason such that… When I arrived at this party, I was angered by the smugness of some, such as Morgan and others, who would imply that I was… becoming a man, disavowing my boyish ways perhaps, in undertaking this marriage. That I was accepting what all men must, and my holding to my matelot was a foolish fancy that must pass from my life. Upon thinking that of their motivations, I wished to strike them. The thoughts I attributed to their half-smiles are ones that I feel our father holds about me, and… Thinking thusly produces great anger in me. Yet, I smiled politely and bowed and said nothing untoward to these men, because it was not in my interest to do so at the time.

That is sanity. When Gaston is gripped by his madness, and he feels such things as I did this eve, he strikes the ones who arouse it. Reason ceases to reign. He acts on his heart’s desire at the moment, with little care for the consequence. And his heart’s desire is not tempered by rational thoughts, either; one angry thought leads to the next, until he is in a furor that cannot be damped.

“The more trying he finds the circumstances of his existence, the less control he is able to maintain. If he is living in a manner that is comfortable and safe to him, he maintains far more control. He feels safe while roving. Additionally, it offers him the opportunity to vent his violent nature upon a common enemy and not have to constantly rein it in about his allies. This marriage is very trying for him; and as you heard us arrange, tonight we have some of our friends watching him to insure that if his thoughts and emotions do begin to run wild, he will not arrive here with a blade in hand. He is an incredibly skilled combatant, and it takes several men to bring him down. I alone can…

perhaps not control him, but assist him in maintaining and recovering control.”

She had been staring across the room in contemplative silence. “So he is like a drunk man?”

“Somewhat.”

“Has he ever threatened you?”

I sighed. “Aye.”

When her gaze met mine, it was kind. “You love him so much that…”

“It is my madness,” I said.

She nodded. “Thank you for explaining. I see why you place him above all others.”

“Nay, I do not feel that you do. I do place him above all others, but not because he is mad. I cannot express how or why I love him as I do, merely that I love him enough to place him before all other considerations. He is the path I have chosen to walk in this life; and as he is mad, we must live such that we can mitigate the matter and… that chooses the course our path must take around tree and hill and other obstacles.”

“Is love madness?” she asked.

“Perhaps.”

“I do not feel I have experienced it such that I have been robbed of my sanity,” she said slowly. “Even with Shane, even when I thought to defy father over him, it was not a thing of madness, but calculated intent. And today… Well, I suppose today was madness, but I attribute that to lust and not love.”

“Love must grow, Sarah.”

She nodded. “I hope it grows with Striker, as I am to marry him.”

Then she met my gaze and smiled sadly. “I say that, yet love of that nature, the type that poets write of and great tales are told of, is not a madness I ever wished in my life. Yet now I wish for it. I suppose that is the kindling of the true mad love: to wish for madness…”

I smiled and kissed her temple. “You will discover your own path.”

“It had best be with Striker,” she said with sadness I found disturbing. She pushed away from the wall she had been leaning against and walked to the liquor board.

I was about to follow when I noticed a presence at my side. It was Coswold.

“Your… wife has retired to her chamber,” he said discreetly.

“Ah, which chamber?”

“The last door on the right.” He gestured toward the stairs.

“Thank you, my good man.”

He awarded me a compressed smile and slipped away. I noticed the guests had dwindled, and those who remained were intoxicated.

Theodore and Rucker were on a settee talking. Morgan was pontificating in a drunken fashion to anyone who would listen: much to Modyford’s amusement, apparently.

I was painfully sober. I had spent so much of the evening talking I had not taken the time to drink. The liquor sideboard was surrounded by fools I would have to negotiate to locate a bottle. With a sigh, I squared my shoulders and made my way upstairs. I hoped the lack of alcohol would allow me to perform my duties without delay.

I knocked quietly on the last door on the right, and received a curt order to enter from her high and angry voice. She was sitting at the dressing table in a white linen gown that left everything feminine about her to the imagination, as there was naught visible beyond her hands, face, and hair. Even her feet were hidden by the abundant hem. With her back to me, and little else to view, I found myself mesmerized by her honey tresses. They had been released and flowed down her back, golden in the lamplight. I had not seen a woman’s hair unbound in a very long time. The sheen of it was quite lovely, and I found I wished to touch it.

I joined her, and saw that she had an onion bottle sitting on the table. I smelled rum: so one of us was not sober.

“May I?” I asked, and touched the bottle.

She shrugged. She had not moved or spoken at my approach, and now I saw that her hands had the wood in a grip that left her knuckles white. In the mirror, I found her eyes tightly closed and her chin tucked.

Instead of taking up the bottle, I laid a gentle palm on her soft hair, and she flinched so violently she set the toiletry vials and jars to shaking.

For the first time, I thought she might actually be a maid, and perhaps all of her vitriol was due more to fear than bile.

“You have lovely hair,” I murmured, and slid my fingers along its length, reveling in the texture as it cascaded back to her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said tightly. “Must you touch it?”

“Lady,” I said, not bothering to hide my amusement as I continued to stroke her locks. “I am your husband, a thing you seem to wish, and this night I will touch far more than your hair.”

“I did not realize that playing with my hair was a necessary component of what we must accomplish this night,” she said with the lazy enunciation of one intoxicated.

I awarded her an amused sigh, and retrieved another chair so that I could sit near her. I sat with my chest to its back and regarded her over crossed arms. The tension had not left her hands or neck, but her eyes were open.

I took up the bottle and found it contained the concoction of pineapple, coconut, and rum I had been drinking the day I met Gaston.

I took a long pull, as the substance is very easy to drink. The warmth of the liquor was a relief in my empty belly.

“I am skilled at pleasing women,” I said lightly after a second drink.

“This need not be a thing of misery.”

She glared at me. “I do not wish to be pleased.”

“And that, my lady, is the reason some men take mistresses.” I kept my tone light, but it was becoming harder to muster any sympathy in the face of her animosity.

She turned back to the mirror.

I continued. “Not that it will matter in this instance.”

“Aye,” she spat, “you already have a lover.”

“I have heard that it is rumored you are no maid. Did you leave a lover behind, perhaps? One that you miss?”

She whirled on me with ferocity. “Who said that?”

I shrugged. “I care not if you are a maid. I am sorry if you loved another and were forced to leave them for this. I would hate all involved too, if that were the case.”

“I did not lie with him, and I did not love him,” she hissed. “But I liked him a Hell of a lot better than I like you.”

“I understand,” I said and took another drink.

She snatched the bottle back once it left my lips, and drained it defiantly.

“This damned place reeks of mold,” she spat. “There are insects everywhere. It is filled with sodomites and pirates. There are no parties, no balls, no hunts, no theater, nothing of interest. I shall die of boredom waiting to whelp your brats. While you sail off and fuck your lover anytime you please. Every girl knows she will grow up one day and be forced to marry some damn arse, but at least in England I could have amused myself while he fucked about town.”

“You are correct,” I said sincerely. “Let us return you to England, then. There are brides my father could have chosen who would have been happier here, perhaps; but as always, he cares not for the desires of others as long as they meet his ends. The Hell with him. I have already planned as much. I will not add another’s misery to the accounting of it.”

She shook her head. “Nay. I cannot go back. Not unwed. Not without having produced children.”

She looked away bitterly and regarded her reflection. She slapped at the mirror so that it rotated up on its hinges; its bottom edge sent bottles flying. I caught a vial of perfume before it hit the floor.

“Will you tell me why?” I asked gently.

“My father… cares not for the desires of others, either. And he has debts.”

“That my father will assist with?” I asked.

“There is some business involving my father voting on certain matters in the House of Lords. I do not know the details,” she snapped.

I snorted. “It all becomes much clearer now.”

Which was not true: her information muddied the waters yet again. I thought it best not to mention my suspicion that my father had sent her on the expectation I would reject her. Perhaps it was wrong.

“Well,” I said at last, as she seemed disinclined to say more, “since we are both committed to this endeavor, let us do as we must. I will say again, I can make it pleasurable for you.”

She snorted angrily. “And I say again, that is not a thing I want.”

She turned back to me. “Why add to my misery by making it pleasurable when it is a thing I might not have to amuse myself when I wish it?”

The lady had a point. I was a fool. Gaston would never bear for me to become involved emotionally or physically with her in such a way as would be required for it to be truly pleasurable.

“Then let us be perfunctory,” I said.

“Please,” she said with sarcasm.

She stood and went to the bed, to throw the covers back and lie upon it: on her back, with the gown covering her from neck to toe.

“Do as your duty to our damned fathers’ commands,” she said to the ceiling.

“You say you have not lain with the man people spoke of, yet I would know if you are a maid,” I said carefully and added quickly, “I care not if I am the first. I merely wish to know if you will bleed and if I must exercise caution.”

She sighed. “I should bleed, unless something happened that would change that, of which I am unaware.” She chuckled mirthlessly.

I shed my sword belt and clothing and considered her. I consulted my manhood. It was not aware any carnal activity was imminent, and apparently could not fathom what I was considering. The linen-swathed thing upon the bed was not an object of desire, even if it had been quiet and soft in spirit. I thought of firm bouncing mounds with pert nipples and golden curling forests dripping and ripe for plunder. This induced a little stirring. Yet I knew I would have to see those things I imagined, at least in part, in order to truly garner its interest.

Reluctantly I palmed a jar of salve and joined her. She kept her eyes firmly on the ceiling and tensed as my weight indented the mattress.

Despite her intoxication, she now appeared so brittle I thought she might snap if I mounted her.

Though I knew it would not help her in the least, I asked. “Would you please remove that garment?”

“Why?”

I sighed. “A man’s cock may not truly possess an eye, but the head upon his shoulders surely does, and the two share great kinship.”

“You wish to gaze upon me in a carnal fashion?” She hissed. “Why?

You do not favor women.”

I sighed again. “Lady, I have favored a great many women in my life, and likely left a good number of bastards in my wake. I merely happen to prefer men far more. Even if I did not, and I truly favored women above all else, a man’s cock is a creature of its own mind and wishes to see what it will plunder before it girds itself for battle. Occasionally, the mere envisioning of such a thing can give it rise; but this is not one of those times.”

She sighed, and clumsily squirmed about, pulling the gown up her legs and over her hips. I was amused that she did so without ever taking her gaze from the ceiling.

Slim thighs and a delightful mound forested in brown curls were soon revealed. My cock stirred a little but wished for more.

“Further,” I said lightly.

She rumbled her displeasure at a depth that would have done Cudro’s massive chest proud. Yet she continued to gather the gown up until at last her breasts were exposed and the great volume of cloth was about her head and arms.

My cock rose to the sight thus revealed. She was indeed a pretty thing, with long well-turned legs, wide hips, a nicely curved waist, delicate ribs, and cute breasts with pink nipples, quite erect and begging to be touched. I could not resist caressing one taut bud with my thumb, and she squirmed. I found her reaction enticing, and gently explored and massaged her left mound.

“Do not fondle me!” came from beneath the cloth. She spread her legs wide. “Please get on with it!”

My hand dropped to my manhood to reassure it. “You may wish to bite down on some of that gown,” I said wryly. “There will be discomfort, if not pain.”

I slathered salve on my member, which convinced it we were truly going on a romp. As I eased over her, I concentrated on the look of her breasts, and not that I was not allowed to touch them. I tested her womanly opening and found it as dry as any man’s nether hole.

She squirmed at the sensation and an unladylike curse escaped the gown. “Get it over with,” she said firmly. “Put your damn prick where it belongs. On a woman,” she added with scorn.

Like a slap, her harsh words drove my cautious cock from the room like a humiliated suitor. I fingered it a bit more, and was met by further retreat. It had been unsure of the matter to begin with, and now it did not view the body spread before us as a meadow of delight we might frolic in, or even a field we might plow to good intent, but as a battleground of probable painful defeat from which we must withdraw before we were maimed or worse. I had never been with a woman who did not wish for me. I was not in the habit of buying bored whores or…