A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (15 page)

“Major Russell,”
the smooth voice of one of those expressionless servants broke in, “if I may be
so bold, sir, Sir Charles has sent for his own carriage for yourself and the
lady. Given that the party will not be broken up for some time, he was not
anticipating to require it so early -“

And for the
first time, the man’s eyes rested on the pair of them with a degree of emotion.
Amusement, which was a little awkward. “The night is yet young for the other
young gentlemen,” he said kindly.

"His
own
carriage?" she said faintly, and Russell gave her a sidelong smile.

"Oh, my
lord Birstall has money, tibber. Have no fear of that. Most of his friends are
bought and paid for. He is still working on those young gentlemen back in
there- though I fear his purse is bottomless enough to manage it."

“You are unkind,
sir,” she murmured.

There was a
rumble of wheels outside, and her eyes widened a little in spite of her
determination not to look like the veriest country bumpkin. “He has more money
than sense,” Russell said, very close to her ear. “Try not to look shocked, my
tibber. It resembles a wheeled bordello.”

It did. Sir
Charles’s personal conveyance was gilded, painted in a celestial shade of
dawn’s roseate hue, and topped with more curlicues and swirls –

“Than his
damnable wig. And probably fuller of fleas.”

“Thankful,
hush
! Someone will hear you!”

“Say what I
like, tibber. ‘S a free country, and I’m known for a perverse humour,
remember?” He helped her into the carriage, and she lay back on the soft velvet
squabs with a sigh of luxurious contentment.

"
He brought me to the banqueting house," she said,
"and his banner over me was love -"

“He
would like to get you home from the banqueting house in one piece, young lady!
Your father would skin me and eat me if he thought you had been drunk in my
care!”

“I
am no such thing,” she said, and curled her hand round the back of his neck,
and pulled him into the carriage after her. 

She
was behaving improperly. She knew it. She liked it. If he was different in this
company, so could she be. “I am going to kiss you, husband,” she said firmly.
“I have been wanting to do so all evening, and now I am going to do it. No –“
and she put her fingers to his lips, “I don’t care if you protest. I am going
to kiss you till you squeak, sir.”

He
said something against her hand.

She
moved her fingers, and he gave her a happy lopsided grin. “I said, madam, am I
known for my squeaking?”

“Absolutely.”

And
she wrapped her arms round him, exactly as he was, and kissed him with a
somewhat wine-flown abandon. (He did not squeak. He did, however, rearrange
himself more comfortably so that only most of his weight was on one knee on the
carriage’s dusty floor, and he was braced on both hands against the cushions
when the carriage jerked and rolled into swaying motion.)

“I
did not tell the driver to move off!”

“You
thumped,” he said, and he looked very pleased with himself. “I, squeak? You
squeaked, madam.”

“I
did no such thing! I –“

“Squeaked,”
he said, and ran his thumb up along the angle of her jaw till she did not
squeak: she murmured, and tipped her head back so that he cupped her face in
his hands. “You squeaked.”

She
probably had. It must be growing late, for despite the fairness of his bristles
his cheek was rough where he rubbed it against hers, and she definitely squeaked
then, because it tickled. He blinked at her slowly, like a great barley-pale
cat, and settled himself into the seat opposite her, lifting her feet into his
lap. 

“Mistress
Russell,” he said with mock severity, “your poor feet, in those wretched slippers,
are like ice!”

And
Thomazine, whose feet were in truth like ice in her silly impractical
high-heeled slippers, let him roll her damp stockings down and rub her
frog-cold toes between his hands till the feeling came back into them. And then
his thumbs started to work little circles of magic on the arch of her instep,
so that all the ache of a night in those -

“Bloody
ridiculous shoes,” he said, and frowned over the red furrow where the
embroidered band of the too-tight slipper had dug into her instep. “Poor
tibber. My poor lamb,” and he touched his fingertips to his lips, and then to
that tiny hurt.

Truly,
she did not mind the little raw patch, much. She had liked being beautiful, and
she had liked having all eyes on her and being on his arm and more than that,
she was growing to like the way his clever, loving fingers on her skin made her
feel. She liked it when they were in bed together, and it was just they two by
candlelight and she could take heaven’s own sweet time in exploring him. But
this -

“Major
Russell,” she said, and her voice sounded odd and drowsy and - womanly, she
sounded like a woman, not a girl: like a woman of the world, and a wife.

He
looked up from what he was doing, though his thumb carried on doing marvellous
things to the cramped flesh of her foot. Looked up, with an expression of such
tenderness that she thought her heart might bump right through her stays -

“Oh,
Thankful,” she said, and her bare foot escaped his fingers and traced, instead,
the solid muscle of his thigh. “You are beautiful, sir.”

He
said nothing, her formal, wonderful, deceptively cool husband. Said not a word,
though his eyes widened a little, and his lips parted like a flattered maid’s.
“Beautiful,” she said again, firmly. “
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his
mouth, for thy love is better than wine
. I have thought so all of this
evening, sir, and I will think so all the days of my life, for you are my rebel
angel, husband.”

"Oh,”
he said. Under her toes the silk of his breeches was smooth, and warm, and quivering,
very slightly. “Thomazine, I -” She wondered what he might have said, had her
foot not been quite where it was. She was not sitting barefoot and abandoned in
a rocking coach. It was the motion of the conveyance that caused her foot to be
caressing him in a most intimate manner. It was merely the swaying of the
vehicle, behind those tight leather blinds, that was making her feel quite so
heated and restless -

“Thomazine
Russell,” he said, and there was that quiver in his voice that might have been
desire, or might have been laughter. “You are a naughty, wanton wench. Come
over here, and give over teasing your poor aged husband.”

“You
would have me sit beside you?” - and her heart gave another great quivering
leap of excitement, for being so close to him was yet a comfort and a delight -

He
leaned forward and took her about the waist and heaved her into his lap in a
great flurry of rustling silks. “No, tibber, I would have you where you are,”
he said, and it was not laughter, and his hands were not on her waist any more.

She
suddenly could not breathe, and there was nothing more she could do but kiss
him, blindly, with her eyes tight-shut. Winding her hands up into his hair, so
that he might not stop kissing her, not now, not ever -

“Thomazine,”
he was saying against her mouth, and she shook her head fiercely - now is not
the time for talking -

not
that he was paying any attention. He was just saying her name for the pleasure
of saying it, and the coach was swaying and jolting on the cobbles -

“Don’t
you dare stop,” she said wildly, and opened her eyes, and bit his lip hard
enough to draw blood.

He
said nothing, but his eyes sparkled - he did not mind the bite, then, for she
thought later that she might have bruises on her backside where he had held
her, hard. He did not think she was made of glass. Not afraid of her passion or
her ferocity, for he had his own.

“Thankful,”
she whimpered, and it was jolted out of her, and he turned his head abruptly
and bit her in his turn, his face buried in the curve of her neck. “Oh. Oh -
Apple
!”

“Zee
- tib - am I hurting -”

“Yes
- no - I don’t - “ and she did not know, only that she would die if he stopped
now, and she pressed his head to her heart and braced her bare feet against the
floor of the carriage and let the world go to pieces.

29

Her hair had all fallen down
loose from its pins and her feet were bare and her lips were swollen, and his
wife looked nothing short of debauched and it was rather marvellous. 

Not
in all his life had he made love to a woman in a moving conveyance, nor even
conceived that such a thing might be possible -

“Oh,”
she said drowsily against his chest, “I had not noticed you taking so active a
role, husband. I thought I had been doing the greater part of the labour -”

“Minx,”
he said, and he hoped he sounded reproving, but suspected he did not. He would
have stayed so all night, for all she was a fine, well-nourished young lady and
she did not quite fit in his lap. A little discomfort was a small price to pay,
for the joy of the softness of her loose hair over his hands and the hitch of
her breathlessness against him.

She
was in some disarray, and he must blame himself for that. He was not aware that
he was looking on her with quite such intent, but the flush on her cheeks
suddenly spread all the way down to the loosened neck of her shift, and she
endeavoured to tuck herself back into her bodice as if she were suddenly
embarrassed.

Or
cold. She had a wonderfully wicked smile, when she realised what he was looking
on. “I trust you are satisfied with what you see, husband,” she said pertly.

“I
am,” he said, and then, a little awkwardly, "And you?"

"Always,"
she said. And the odd thing was, he believed her. Her eyes were very bright,
and she would have said more, but that there was a tapping on the carriage
door. A tapping that was becoming increasingly urgent, as if the tapper might
have been tactfully trying to attract their attention for some time, and
Thomazine looked at the jerking door handle with a look that mingled horror and
sheer wicked joy, before draping herself artistically across his shoulder. 

An
unconvincing moan escaped her lips as the door finally flew open, the blind
rolling up with a fleshy smack.

“Are
you in need of aid, sir? Should I call for assistance?”

“A
ladies’ maid,” she murmured wickedly for his ear alone, “for I don’t think
either you or I can repair this damage unaided.”

And
Thankful Russell, who had been an honest citizen when he was a bachelor, looked
at the earnest, worried countenance of their driver, and claimed that the poor
lady had been taken faint. Grateful, not for the first time, that he had not
taken to drink or gluttony with any abandon for he was still lithe enough to
take her in his arms as if she truly were taken ill, and carry her trailing
like a poor hurt bird across the rutted mud of the street.

(Which
was harder work than it looked, actually. But he wasn't going to tell her
that.)

29

He had thought she had
fallen asleep as soon as he had laid her on the bed, and he was glad she had
not, for she curled herself against him and it was warm and companionable under
the blankets in the dark.

She
wriggled, and blew into his shoulder like a happy horse, holding his hands
about her waist. (Possibly she ought to be wearing a shift. Possibly he ought
to be wearing a nightshirt, in the name of decency. But God knows he had
struggled enough to get the clothes off both of them in the dark, in that
little space, without waking the house, that he might be excused that.)

“Do
you not like him?” she said sleepily, and his arm tightened about her shoulder
comfortably.

“Do
I not like who, tibber?”

“Him.
Charles.”

"Can’t
abide the man. He’s about as much sense as a gadfly, and it turns my stomach to
see a man his age crawling to that pack of shameless little apes. Who loathe
him, so soon as his purse is closed."

“That’s
not nice,” she murmured.

He
laughed, silently. “Says the man my age who would crawl as spinelessly to
retain the favour of a girl no older than my lord Rochester. So no. I cannot
abide him. But I understand him.”

“That
is barely a compliment!”

“I
did not accuse you of meaning to withdraw your favour, tibber. Just that if you
chose not to love me, I should be just as willing to humiliate myself in any
form you should choose, so long as you would only care for me again.”

“Then
you are a big silly,” she said, and nestled her face into his armpit. And then,
“Would you? Truly, Thankful?”

“I
should prefer you not try the experiment. But yes.”