Tight Laced Page 5

  She put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “We only need a bit of warmth and nourishment, and then will be on our way, kind Sir.”

  “But where will you go? The roads north are in terrible shape, and trees are down blocking the route back to Rosehaven. I do not think you and your groom have a choice but to stay here the night.”

  Lacilia’s heart leapt to her throat. She waited for the duke to counter with some grand plan, but when she peered his way, she caught the beginnings of a grin that reached into his very soul.

  The impish innkeeper was quite pleased with himself, that much was clear. He thrust the door open, letting loose a clod of dirt that poofed up in the air and settled on the surfaces of the somewhat filthy room. He exclaimed, “The last couple who slept here created an heir. They brought him round just this past week. I believe the space to be imbued with the spirit of fertility.”

  Lacy’s face crumpled in disgust. She was likely wondering if the room had been swept since.

  Darlington paused at the threshold of the so-called Honeymoon Suite, and turned to his would-be bride. He meant his words to be wry, and expected the good lady to be amused. “Shall I carry you?”

  Instead, the dear maiden glared at him with such opprobrium, he was reminded of Queen Victoria herself.

  “I will warm some water for the stand-up, Your Grace. And after you are settled, I’ll take my leave.”

  With that, the man produced a wink.

  Lacilia watched the small fellow amble down the hall and down the flight of stairs, and then she lit into Darlington, whispering harshly. “I can see that this amuses you greatly, Duke. But I shall tell you right now, you are sleeping in the barn with the team.”

  Darlington smiled, surveying the crumpled linen, ripped curtains and mildewed canopy cover. “It might be tidier in the stable.”

  Lacy’s hands quickly found their way to her narrow hips. The loose gown she wore rumpled at her waist. “This is a wretched situation.”

  “At least we are out of the storm.”

  “We are out of one storm and into yet another. What do you think is going to happen once we are found out?”

  “I won’t tell a soul, Lala, and I don’t think the mad dwarf has much credibility.”

  “Well nothing is at stake for you, is it? Acton shan’t imprison you for prostitution, after all. Also, do not, not ever, call me Lala. I despise that name.”

  “Is that what has your knickers in a knot, my dear? Acton’s men stampeding the countryside, hauling tarts off to the gallows?”

  Lacy seethed. “You are not to mention my knickers. What do you take me for?”

  Darlington grazed her with a lengthy up-and-down, allowing himself the response she’d set up. “An angry, beautiful, confused, utterly exhausted, young lady. In a silly frock.”

  “What? I’ll have you know this dress came from Paris. All the artists and philosophers are wearing the rational gown. Why, even Oscar Wilde—”

  “Oscar Wilde! That rummy young cove?”

  “He is not rummy. I had the good fortune to have met the man at Oxford last season. Mark my words, Duke, he will become one of the most important writers of our era.”

  “You met him? Was he wearing one of those robes? Or perhaps all done up in a frock coat, his moustache waxed tighter than his curls?”

  “He is not a man of whiskers, nor cruelty.”

  Darlington huffed. Surprising himself with pangs of jealousy. Or possibly envy, he had to admit. The Oxford set had always snubbed him. Dukes of the peerage were often sent to Glasgow or Edinburgh for their education, and in Darlington’s case, he’d squeaked by in Aberdeen – thought to be where the dullards were sent. Academics bored him, and academicians bored him even more.

  The innkeeper returned with a kettle and some flannels. He filled the pitcher and steam rose from it.

  Darlington nodded approval, and the small fellow bid farewell. Once again offering a bold wink that, fortunately, Lady Lacilia missed, as her back was turned and her gaze delivered out the smeary glass, into the darkening surround.

  “The happiness of a married man depends on the people he has not married.”

  ~ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

  THE RAIN ABATED, finally, but the chill in the air lingered long after nightfall. Lacilia lay abed shivering and trying not to breathe in the mouldy stench of the room. Darlington had departed after cleaning his face, neck and arms with water and lye, leaving her with a grimy basin of used wash water.

  But she couldn’t really complain, could she? He’d taken his exile like a man, prepared to bed down in a manger on this very damp night.

  The next morning, they’d agreed, they would leave the inn and meet Darlington’s man at the designated spot in Cockermouth. She would then return to Highcastle to face her stepmother’s wrath.

  Lacy’s stomach growled.

  The paltry stale bread along with a modest wedge of cheese and watery soup they’d been offered on arrival was hardly a meal. She’d refused the ale, as it reminded her too much of the steins she shared with her father when they traveled. Now that the adventure of the storm was over, her heartache and grief quite overtook her.

  She’d folded her half-wet rational dress and tucked it under her pillow in case an emergency required her to flee the room in the middle of the night.

  But what sort of emergency would necessitate such flight? Fire? Well, there was no fireplace whatsoever in this room, and the one downstairs had long died to embers.

  Gale force winds? They, too, had long died. As had the threat of flood.

  Robbers, perhaps? Intruders were always a possibility for the traveler, but should bold thieves tear through the Rogue Inn in search of coin or flesh, they would hardly allow her time to dress.

  Lacy’s teeth began to chatter. Her nose was ice cold to the touch. As the rains left, as so often happens at first frost, it dragged in the season’s inaugural spell of chill. And here she was, in a dank bed in her underclothes. The duke had taken back his overcoat, and she’d insisted he take her shawl as well, under the circumstances. He had balked, but in the end, he agreed that with the urgency up North the last thing his family needed was for him to come down with pneumonia.

  She closed her eyes and compelled a sweet memory to the fore. The very outing that culminated in her meeting Oscar Wilde. Her father was often invited to introduce speakers at Oxford. He was thought of as a patron, and when word of his visits spread, many an artist or writer clambered to meet his acquaintance.

  Never had Lacy enjoyed a conversation more. The man seemed to be able to reach into her very soul and speak to it. “We should live our art,” he’d maintained. “It is through art, and only through art that we can realise our perfection.”

  He’d also spoke of love. “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”

  But he’d also said, “One should always be in love, and that is the reason one should never marry.”

  To which her father had held up his pint.

  With that memory, Lacilia drifted into near sleep at last, when the door squeaked open.

  She sat bolt upright, bringing the covers to her throat. “Who is there?”

  “Shhhhh. Lady Lacilia, I’ve come to—”

  Lacy cupped her hands around an invisible dagger. A pretense she’d practiced over the years for just this sort of occasion. “I will slit your throat if you step any closer!”

  She heard him laugh. A voice pealed from the dark, “Slit my throat? How would you explain that, pray tell?”

  He feigned a high-pitched woman’s voice, “’If it please the court, my groom was attempting to offer me sweets in the night, and I never eat sweets in the night.’”

  “Darlington! What are you thinking scaring me half to death?”

  “I surmised you might be hungry and somewhat cold.”

  “I had finally fallen asleep, you scoundrel!”

  “I brought a tea cake…”


  “A tea cake?”

  “I raided the pantry.”

  They were two voices in the night. No light, nothing illuminated, and Lacy, in spite of herself, became curious. “What sort of tea cake?”

  “Lady fingers, My Lady. For your fingers.”

  He came closer. She smelled butter. Confection. Stable dung.

  “I am not decent,” she remembered.

  “I can’t see a thing,” he retorted.

  Darlington was now bedside. Now sitting on the bed, his leg next to hers. It was most unseemly, but the cake! Her stomach growled.

  “The beast has awoke!” he teased.

  “That soup was awful. Is the cake any better?”

  “Why you spoiled lamb, you.”

  “Well, is it?”

  “See for yourself, Lacy.”

  He brought the cake near to her lips, circling near her mouth first, then moving the morsel closer, in excruciating increments.

  Oh! The buttery scent. She could taste the sweetness without it touching her tongue. A hint of lemon – where would the lemon have come from? There being no orangery in sight – joined by the smell of rosemary, or was it lavender? No, definitely rosemary.

  Lacy’s mouth watered. She swallowed. Another memory of Wilde surfaced. Upon digging his fork into a pudding he’d closed his eyes in ecstasy and exclaimed, “Whenever my heart is heavy, delicious food is the only consolation.”

  She could stand it no longer; Lacy snatched the lady finger and stuffed the whole thing in her maw.

  Ambrosia! Such overwhelming delight!

  “Ah,” said the invisible man upon her bed, “quite the appetite you have.”

  Perhaps, in the dark, one was permitted to enjoy sensate experience without feigning indifference? Lacy decided that must be the case, and lingered on the sweet, buttery taste of the cake, and allowed a pleasure moan to escape her full, satisfied lips.

  The sound she made on the bed, in the dark, went straight to his cock.

  He’d meant only to feed her. And return her cloak – he’d noted his handkerchief folded in an interior pocket, and that endeared her to him. But when Darlington fed her the lady finger, and she allowed herself the audible exclamation of pleasure, his body betrayed him.

  “You like sweets, then?” he crooned.

  “Yes.”

  “And…?”

  “And, what?”

  “And, dare I ask, what other treats might you fancy?”

  She didn’t answer directly, but her proximity alerted Darlington to a certain desire. It was as if he could feel a measure of heat rising from her, though the night was chilly. He heard a licking sound, then a swallow.

  “You should not be here,” she whispered.

  “I found my handkerchief in your pocket,” he said.

  “Ah. Yes. I had meant to return it.”

  “Did it serve you well, m’lady?”

  “It did.”

  “In what particular way, if I may ask?”

  She swallowed again. He moved closer.

  “Did you dry your tears with it?”

  After a moment, she said, “The dragon. Tell me of that.”

  “It is the Moore heraldic. I’m told our line got by more from our wits than our brawn.”

  “I beg to differ, my lord.”

  “I am, indeed, an outlier. My sisters do our legacy much more proudly. Dragon duchesses, all.”

  She leaned closer to him. Now her sweetened breath was settling upon his senses. Her voice, so near to him.

  “Your singing, Lacy, earlier. You have a lovely voice.”

  “Ah, well, not as compared to my mother. I understand she could charm birds away from their mates.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  His heart pulsed. His cock beat in similar rhythm. She was calling to him, with every ounce of her flesh. Despite his better judgement, he reached for her, and his fingertips were treated to her silky hair.

  She placed a hand over his. And then she moved his hand. Moved it to her very nipple, which stood erect and unyielding – a stalwart façade to her womanliness – which was now palpating with desire. Another moan escaped her mouth.

  Darlington climbed onto the bed fully, and tore off his shirt. He whispered in her ear, “Lacilia, I wish only to please you.”

  “Let me show you how,” she whispered back, her hand deftly unbuttoning him, then reaching down inside the opening of his trousers. “First, I wish to feel the dragon.”

  Now it was his turn to swallow. Never had a lady (or courtesan) referred to his manhood as a dragon. Her boldness, the way she took him in her hand, her fingers traveling the length of him, all the way to his sac, forced the very beginnings of nectar from his cock – it was nearly too much, and Darlington had to take a deep breath and concentrate on holding back the full effect of his desire.

  And then, with a sharp tug, she pulled his trousers down, freeing his shaft completely.

  This seemed to excite her all the more, and she tightened her fist as he thrust inside of its grip. He groaned, in spite of himself, and just as he felt the rise from which he could not reverse, he stopped her hand from going further. “Take down your hair. Let me unlace you.”

  “I have no laces, my lord. And my hair is free.” She grabbed his hand and with it, traced her face, her hairline, the length of her tresses which cascaded over her breasts.

  “I wish to taste the dragon,” she whispered, shaking her mane so it spilled out and tickled his stomach. His cock.

  Darlington groaned once more. He closed his eyes and felt the surge begin. “No,” he whispered. “Not yet.”

  No sooner had he stemmed his burst of ecstasy when she took him in her mouth.

  “Oh, oh, oh, oh,” he managed as she licked the underside of his shaft with her tongue.

  She took him deeper now. Her head sliding up and down, her tongue moving across and around him. He tunneled his fingers through her tresses, grabbing fistfuls. “Oh, yes, yes,” he murmured.

  And on she sucked. She was so deft. So fast. Her lips pulling and pressing in equal measure. She stroked and sucked and grabbed, and he heaved and bucked. His chest felt tight. He could barely breathe. The desire for her raced up from his hips to his head, his spine tingling and on fire. “Suck me, Lacy, my lady. Suck me dry.”

  His cock filled her mouth completely. She sucked him hard, and he thrust to the back of her throat. He tasted the way she knew he would – of forest and sweat. She wished to have this glorious cock inside of her, but she daren’t.

  Her own body pulsed equally. The flames in her lady parts, so wet with sweetness. Even with his sizeable shaft halfway down her throat, she moaned. She longed to grab onto the power of him. The sheer force of him. She longed to join with this duke, his rage, his seed.

  Lacy was a virgin, and would not give that up, but she could extract the very essence of pleasure without tearing her maidenhead. And she was determined to do so.

  She felt the nearness of his ejaculation, and she slipped her mouth off of his shaft, licking the very knob of him as she did.

  He shuddered, and oozed, but did not shoot the measure of his seed.

  She felt around his face, worming her fingers over his skin. Such a strong chin. A regal nose. She sidled close to his ear. Her lips against his lobe, she cooed, “You may give me pleasure now.”

  “Guide me,” he managed.

  She encircled his hand in hers, and brought them to rest upon his shaft, leading the tip of it to the inside of her thighs.

  “Write your name there.”

  He obeyed.

  “Now,” she whispered, “taste me.”

  Eagerly, he burrowed his head between her thighs and began to work this tongue amidst her folds. Instantly a rush of pleasure spread from her centre, out to her limbs, and she clenched his face between her legs.

  “Oh, Lacy,” he muttered from the small tangle of hair on her mound.

  “Am I sweet?”

  “As fresh as honey.”

 
; “Circle your tongue there. Faster. Harder.”

  He did so, and the friction caused a bolt of lust to snatch her up in its grasp.

  “I am a virgin,” she managed. “I wish to remain so.”

  His tongue ceased and he groaned around words that breathlessly labored from the place between her legs. “And so you shall.”

  He lapped the juices from her valley and deposited kisses all around her pulsing center.

  “Pinch my nipples,” she demanded, and when he did, a bolt of desire pierced her.

  Lacy was near to boiling over. “I want us to reach the heavens at the same time,” she said.

  “I only need your touch, My Good Lady,” Darlington answered.

  She reached her hand around his thickened cock, squeezing it tightly at its base, her hand, as constricting as a vice.

  They pressed their lips together, their sex-covered tongues combining hungrily. He worked his fingers through her patch, against her swollen nub. His shaft thrust against her thigh, and her channel tightened before the sudden squirt of pleasure overtook her.

  She came as she felt his sac spasm, and a burst of hot liquid rode her hipbone, her thigh, the outer lips of her cunt.

  She wasn’t sure if she’d called out when she came, but if she had matched the sound inside her head the impish innkeeper must, at this point, be thinking that another heir would be presented nine months hence.

  Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor coveters, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

  ~ Corinthians I, Ch. 6, vv. 9-10

  WAKING UP NEXT to a woman – a sham wife, no less – was something entirely foreign to Darlington. His dalliances were strictly about carnal release. Never had he invited a girl to lie on his arm after satisfying himself.

  He’d awoken before she. The early sunlight boldly splashing them despite the filthy window glass. When his eyes settled upon her sleeping face, he thought he might still be slumbering. Dreaming of angels and the great beyond. Her arched brows softly framing her closed eyes. Lashes curled up at the end like fronds.