The Slightest Provocation

Chapter Twenty-five

The sun had long set by the time they’d driven into the main square at Wakefield. Two inns; they chose the George. The one across the square, where the coaches stopped, would be noisier.

Neither place was probably the best in town, but Richard’s aunts the Misses Raddiford lived fairly close by. Anyway, they were convenient to the road home to Derbyshire, in case they wanted to leave in a hurry… At least that’s what Mary imagined Kit’s thoughts to be, as he told Mr. Frayne to stop and Belcher to inquire about food and lodging.

A pity, they agreed, that they’d wasted a night squabbling and throwing things at each other at that splendid inn at Calais. Still, this place wasn’t completely dreadful, and they were impatient to step down from the coach and stretch their unsteady legs. A comfort to have the landlord bustling about, in deference to the elegantly lacquered vehicle with the Stansell crest, griffon rampant, done in gold on the door.

And if they themselves could hardly measure up to the splendor of their conveyance-looking, well, exactly as they felt: a less-than-perfectly groomed couple who’d clearly spent an eventful day out on the road-it took only another extremely haughty glance from Lord Christopher to keep Mr. Frayne respectful and obsequious.

“It’s hypocritical of me, I expect,” Mary whispered, “but I’m grateful to you, with me so disheveled and no maid to help sort me out.”

Perhaps the Misses Raddiford might spare a girl to help, if tomorrow’s encounter were not an absolute disaster. Kit had promised to send a message tonight, requesting to speak to Richard.

“I’d planned to wait until tomorrow to do it. But the sooner the better.” Spoken in his firmest, most responsible Major Stansell tone of voice, though he’d kept his eyes trained on some distant point beyond Mary’s shoulder when he’d said it.

Belcher reported that the bedchamber was small but adequate. The sheets were dry and it didn’t appear that Lord or Lady Christopher would be sharing the sagging bed with anything that crawled about or bit at their ankles.

Ensconced atop the coverlet with Mary’s writing desk on his lap, Kit scribbled away while Mary struggled to pin her gown into a semblance of order, pained groans and muttered imprecations issuing from their separate sides of the room.

“Well, that’ll simply…”

“… have to do.”

“I shouldn’t like to do it every day, but…”

“… Please, oh, please, my lady, may we go down to eat, at long last?”

One might, if one were charitable-as well as ravenous after one’s day’s journey-characterize the pickled salmon and lamb chops served with grayish peas as “honest English food.”

Good enough, in any case, to fill one’s belly with, if one ate it slowly-well, one had to chew the lamb slowly-leaning across the yellowed linen, gazing into each other’s eyes across the table.

At any rate, one didn’t have to make excuses for the ale. Or the pudding, from early gooseberries. Topped with Devonshire cream the landlord had brought out when Mary asked, demurely and yet with a certain earnestness, if there might be a little of it in the kitchen.

“Traveling with you”-Kit’s eyelids flickered dreamily in the candlelight-“one would at least be sure of getting whatever was best to eat that night.”

Mary opened her mouth to reply and then closed it again.

“You were about to say, Lady Christopher?”

She smiled to make her single dimple show, but only shook her head.

“And are you quite finished down here?” he asked.

“Quite. Down here.”

“Ah.”

“I’ll take the candle, Lord Christopher.”

“I’ll have to follow you very closely, then. The staircase is most narrow and uneven.”

And so he did. With his eyes and even (it seemed to her) with his breath. One could become extremely self-aware, she thought, of the movement of one’s own legs and thighs, hips and arse, as one climbed the rickety steps with someone following so close.

So aware of how one occupied the space around oneself that one couldn’t help but sway and even wiggle a bit, in a less than seemly manner.

He caught her at the doorway to their room, arms about her waist, hips and thighs and belly and cock pressed through his clothes and through hers too, hard against her arse.

“We never…” he whispered. “I was afraid I might hurt you…”

“I’m still a bit afraid,” she whispered, “for all that I trust you…”

“Not tonight,” he breathed rather than said it.

“No.”

They’d let themselves into the shabby little bedchamber and closed the door behind them as she pronounced that no. Both of them, meanwhile, noting that some Rubicon had been crossed, and some future plans laid. Some other night, perhaps, if there was ever to be another night like this one.

He began immediately on the hooks at the back of her green chambray gown.

“While as for tonight,” he told her, “I got the distinct impression that you wanted something else to put between your lips.”

“Wherever did you get that impression?”

“Can’t… imagine.”

“And you, Lord Kit? Do you crave… anything?” The gown had fallen to her feet. After all his practice in the cottage, the light stays she wore would hardly present much of a challenge.

“Now that you mention it…” He’d tossed the stays onto a chair, and then did the same with her petticoat. Her shift followed. She pulled his neckcloth open while he wriggled out of his coat and waistcoat.

His boots now. She’d grown so skillful at it, he thought, that she could give Belcher a pointer or two. Slipped the left one off while he caressed her nipples, growing hard and dark under his fingers.

“Your… ah, cravings… Kit?”

“Well, the gooseberries were tasty enough, and the… cream as well…” She’d gotten his pantaloons all unbuttoned, and had taken his cock in one hand, stroking it while she nudged a slow finger up and down the middle of his scrotum.

He’d intended to tell her that he craved something less sweet than gooseberries. Something spicier.

But he’d lost the words for it, moaning softly under her hands, gasping now as she let go of him. He stared most intently at the picture she made lying spread-eagle on the lumpy, saggy, altogether pathetic bed, her eyes on his cock, lips parted, back rounded to tilt her hips upward toward him.

Spicier, saltier than gooseberries.

He climbed atop her, head between her legs, hips suspended over her face.

Her lips still parted-he thought he could feel the warmth of her breath as he lowered himself, her fingertips nudging him into her mouth.

The insides of her cheeks smoother, slipperier than Devonshire cream, she pulled and sucked and gobbled at him as though he were more delicious than berries or wine or even a good strong English Stilton.

Her hands on his arse now, to bring him closer.

Ah.

She needed to breathe very slowly, she thought, and through her nose, to take in all his deepest, saltiest, sourest-his ripest smells as she moved her mouth and tongue and opened her throat to taste him.

While another part of her wanted to kick and buck and writhe under his mouth. Thank heaven he understood this, and thank heaven too for his hands cradling, soothing, holding her still below his lips and tongue-oh yes, for now she could feel the flicker of his tongue, bright wonder amidst dark labyrinth.

Confusion, befuddlement, sweet sea of swirling distraction: she couldn’t tell (didn’t know and obviously was in no position to say) whether she was moving or sensing, doing or done to, lover or beloved or both at once.

Was it possible to be both at once? Could one sort it out, separate the each from the both of them, find the beginning or skip ahead to the ending? While the snake swallowed its tail, beyond words or thought, where there was only the endless circle, the ring of pure light, the blank low sound of ohhhhh, words faded to humming, ecstatic spiral of sensation? After heroine and hero have pushed and pulled, teased and taunted, come and gone and come and come again, to this quick, bright, simultaneous and happy confusion, bonds loosed and boundaries no longer distinct? Where does one pick up the story again, the then and now, he and she, lover and beloved?

In the homeliest things.

In Mary’s slow realization, that time had passed and her feet were cold.

And moreover, that the bruise on her hip had begun to throb. More pleasantly, she knew that Kit was awake as well. For he was kissing her belly, in the places where she knew she’d never again be so lithe and taut as the girl who’d done splits like an opera dancer.

Awakened to time and sensation, and always, most humanly, to need, “Come here,” she whispered, “up with me on the pillow. Come close so we can warm each other.”

Drawing together beneath the covers, limbs entangled, torsos flush between threadbare, much-mended linen, he raised his head to blow out the candle while she drifted off on the happy knowledge that when she woke to find the story continuing, he’d be here to wish her good morrow.