Elisabeth Fairchild (21 page)

Her gaze made him hard again.

“Hungry?” he asked.

They found a bakery, and street vendors, feasted on warm buns, sausages and hot coffee, as they followed the flow of people onto St. Peter’s Field. Their gazes met occasionally in a manner new to them, heavy, humid, and heated--a match for the thick, breezeless quality of the air.

A festive atmosphere prevailed despite the cloying weather. Weavers and spinners of cotton, wool and silk--and the wives and children of weavers and spinners, made up the crowd--all dressed in their Sunday best. Young girls in white dresses danced an entrance to one of the trade unions. Rochdale, Saddleworth, Lees and Royton made their presence known with chants to the tune of bugle, fife, and drum.

Several hundred female reformers clustered together, silk banners dangling limply. “Universal Suffrage” one read. The second, proclaimed in brave scarlet, “Let us die like men, and not be sold like slaves.”

Reporters trolled the crowd, paper and pencils at the ready. The local constabulary appeared in force, cutting a path through the crowd with a host of burly chaps who ringed the hustings, pushing away anyone who crowded too close.

They carried a banner onto the field. “Annual Parliaments” spelled out in red. “No Corn Laws” in green. A wider banner stirred uneasy murmurs in the wake of its dour promise of, “Representation or Death.”

Dizziness washed over Dulcie, draining her energy. Like a pool of rusted iron, a dirty orange cloud hung above their heads, as if the sun made molten the steely intent of these common folk.

In a steady, pulsing stream they flooded, the field awash with humanity, bodies adding to the heat--to her breathless lack of balance.

“A serious lot, this,” she murmured to Roger. “Far more serious than the gathering at Spa Field.”

He bent to whisper in her ear, careful they were not overheard, the warmth of his breath reminding her all too vividly of the liberties she had allowed him. “Sidmouth believes they plan to overthrow the constitution under pretext of radical reform.”

“Treason?” she whispered, the smell of his neck enticing. Their fate compelled her far more than that of the nation.

His hand slid about her waist, firing her loins, firing imagination, infusing her with strength.

“Nothing short of revolution.” He watched the importance of the words sink in, as if he expected her to say something profound, as if he wanted to kiss her.

The crowd crushed closer, bumping them together. He pulled her near, his chest to her back, arms cradling her. She swayed in his arms, in the wake of Hunt as the speaker pushed a path through the packed crowd. Roger might have let her go. Still he clung to her. In the midst of hundreds, in broad daylight, he managed to remind her vividly of her desires.

Voices surged, hundreds singing the national anthem, filling Dulcie’s head, matching the words pouring from her own throat. Through the music, she felt united not with weavers but with England, with their purpose here.

Hunt stood waiting for the voices to fall away, for the clapping to quiet. His white hat gleamed in the sunlight. Fans and hats fluttered, trying to stir a breath of air. Throats cleared, a flurry of coughs stilled. In such a crowd silence never ruled, and yet, this crowd stilled itself. All would hear. All would remember this day, this battle cry.

“Inhabitants of Manchester! The eyes of all England, nay, all of Europe, are fixed upon you! Every friend of reform and of National Liberty is tremblingly alive to the results of this meeting!”

The words dizzied Dulcie. Passion and panic mounted as the crowd pressed Roger more tightly against her, reminding her, too vividly, of the mob at Carlton House, at Spa Field. A flood of disturbing imagery washed through her mind. She leaned into Roger’s arm, plucked at his sleeve.

He bent to study her face, expression troubled. “Dulcie, what’s wrong?”

The crowd spun, Roger’s face swam. The images came fast and furious. “I see horses. Doors!” she said breathlessly. Dizziness, the darkness, claiming her.

She woke to find herself in their room, propped up on pillows, Roger bent over her, her skirt flung above her waist. He tugged at her petticoat, sliding it down over her hips! An alarming sensation!

Too closely did this match the morning’s daydreams. She sat up abruptly, head swimming, something wet sliding from forehead to chest. A wet cloth, parked itself pertly on her breast. Her bodice was unbuttoned! She made a grab for the petticoat as it slid at an astonishing rate down her legs, one word on her lips, one word filling her head.

“No!”

His head jerked up, cheeks flushed, fox red hair falling into eyes, very blue, very worried.

“Lie back!” he ordered, voice harsh. He abandoned the petticoat, leaving it dangling over her feet, she could feel the drag of it. Catching up the wet weight on her chest, he returned the cloth to her forehead, a bit of damp coolness--and pressed her back into the pillow.

“You are overheated. Do you remember fainting?”

Head spinning, she shook it, regretted the movement--pulse pounding inside her cranium as if designed to split it wide.

Through the window came Hunt’s voice, stirring words of freedom, of personal liberties, of a need for action. The crowd responded with applause.

His hands dragged her petticoat off. She pushed her bunched up skirt down, to cover her legs, but he was too quick for her, busy yanking at her stocking tapes, sliding wool down over her knees, firing within her an aching heat.

She bolted up again, clamoring “No!” like a panicked child. The cloth slid from her forehead.

“These must come off. Do not fight me.”

She kicked at him, tried to scuttle away, only succeeded in having her ankles more firmly grasped.

Outside, the crowd cheered.

“They are coming off, trust me!” He let go his hold on her, gentled his tone and repeated, “Trust me.”

She stilled. The stockings came off. Air caressed bared knees, calves, ankles. She moved to cover herself with her upflung skirt.

“Leave it!” he barked. “You need the cooling.” He crossed to the washstand, dangled stockings from the towel bar, took up pitcher and glass, poured her a drink, handed her the glass.

“You had me worried. Fevered, delirious, talking nonsense about doors, and then gone limp, seemingly lifeless.”

The water was tepid. She drank it for him, because he expected it. She felt vulnerable as he loomed beside the bed.

“It happens,” she said.

“This is not the first time?” He crossed to the washstand again, poured water from the pitcher to the basin, the splash drowning out the drone of Hunt. He took up the sponge, set the basin beside her on the sheets, cool porcelain against her thigh. He lifted her wrist, gazed into her eyes, the worry in his not at all diminished. “You are still feverish, still flushed.”

The back of his hand felt cool against her cheek. She wished it might linger.

“It happened that day in the bookstore.”

“I remember.”

“It happened when I told father, that mother was dying.” He took the cloth from her forehead, wet it afresh. “What did I say this time?”

He dunked the sponge, squeezed it, bore it dripping over her hands, each wrist, pooled water in the crook of each elbow, mindless of wetting the bedclothes. “You spoke of horses. Swordsmen.”

She remembered nothing of men or horses, only her morning’s daydream as his hands passed over her.

“Feeling better?” he asked, dunking the sponge again.

“Foolish,” she said, though indeed she did feel better, cooler. She took joy in the water, as he swabbed the wet sponge over her legs, taking time at the pulse point behind her knees, lingering at each ankle, wetting the bottom of each foot, dribbling water between her toes.

“You had the wildest light in your eyes.”

She lost herself in his touch, in the cool dripping passage of the sponge. Her body cooled, all but a flame that burned deep within, a flame his touch kept alive.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “All except here,” the flat of one hand she pressed to her chest. “And here.” The flat of the other she pressed to the junction of thigh and abdomen.

“We shall have to do something about that.” He sounded amused. Lifting the sponge, sopping wet, he splashed water along the fabric of her bodice, in a line down her abdomen.

She gasped, the flow of droplets unexpectedly sensual.

Lifting the cloth from her forehead, smoothing her hair, he knelt to plant a kiss upon the dampness. The intensity of his gaze set her nether regions afire. Tone suggestive, he asked, “Do you still burn?”

“I am fine,” she said softly, all too aware of the danger of her prone position, fingers busy buttoning her soaked bodice, anxious to smooth wet skirts. “I keep you from your work. You had best go down.”

His gaze traveled the length of her sodden dress.

“You would have me go down?” He made no move to go, tracing the path of a droplet as it trickled down her neck, into the valley between her breasts, his face looming closer as his finger continued in a line down the middle of her drenched torso, stopping at her waistband, and yet not stopping. Over the bunched mass of her skirts his touch traveled. When his palm grazed damp fabric above the curled nest of hair that guarded her most private parts, she arched upward with a moan.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I would have you . . .”

He cut off any more words with a kiss.

She fingered the silk of his hair, clasping the back of his neck, holding his mouth to hers. With a groan he sank into the damp sheets beside her, lifting her skirt--not to be stopped this time--and she with no desire to stop him.

They moved together like liquid, time and motion fluid and smooth.

He unbuttoned her bodice. She wanted it so, told him so. Her yeses spurred him to haste. Deftly, he slid his shirt over his head. She helped him, eager to explore the breadth and width of him, hungry for the salted taste of skin, responsive to the damp heat of his skin against hers.

Hands, an echo to the sponge, slid over her limbs, seeking heat, firing her where she had just been cooled. From her throat, as if she no longer controlled her own tongue, flowed a stream of yeses, as clever fingers found the urgent ache within the river of her need.

He moaned when she explored the ribbed satin of his torso. She drew a gasp, a surprisingly satisfying yes from his lips, when her hands slid beyond the boundaries of his breeches. His inhalation flattened his stomach, allowing her easier access.  She touched upon curling hair, then skin, smooth and hot.

When she hesitated, might have withdrawn, alarmed by her discovery, he pressed her palm more firmly against the velvety warmth, his mouth meeting hers. Together they unbuttoned his breeches, colors swirling--beautiful colors.

They went too far, and far too fast and yet she did not say him nay, did not beg him to stop. More she wanted, always more. Her greed surprised them both.

Hunt’s speech forgotten, the drone of the crowd no more to them than the buzz of a fly at the window, they narrowed their attention, focusing on the vivid streams of tension between mouths, bodies, heated nether regions. He was her world. She would explore it.

He guided her hand to assist the warm, velvet-headed prod’s swollen tip into the valley of her greatest need. Better than a finger, this, perfectly suited to the task. Unerringly, the probing heat found her deepest ache, and gently sank into that ready, yearning wetness.

She heard, distantly, the urgent clatter of hoofbeats on cobblestones, their tempo adding to the urgency of his movements, as with searing heat, a delicious friction, he sank a little deeper. “Are you certain you want this?” he murmured.

“Don’t stop!” she cried, unwilling to forfeit the sensation, even as her mind warned her of the approaching danger, even as her deepest senses prepared for violation.

He held his breath, seemed to hold himself in check.

The world sought to reclaim their attention in the distant champ of bits, the jungle of spur and harness, the bark of a military command. Roger lifted his mouth from hers as Hunt’s voice carried to them, shouting, “Don’t be alarmed. Stand firm.”

With a laugh he murmured, “I do,” and bent to meld his mouth to hers, the pressure in her pelvis thrusting deeper, pleasure turned to pain.

She cried out against his mouth, body tensing, arms pushing him away as she blinked back the sudden burn of tears.

“I do not mean to hurt you,” he breathed in her ear, falling completely still but for his chest, which rose and fell as if he ran a race. “It is your maidenhead would block the way to our pleasure. The breaking of it brings a moment’s pain.”

Hunt’s voice drifted into the intensely personal intimacy of the moment. “Let us give them three cheers!” he called.

A lusty cheer from the crowd.

With the sound, the importance of the moment, smote Dulcie like a blow. What did she encourage to transpire, this sensual and private act that had the power to completely destroy her future? An impression of disaster, a wave of imagery rose, vivid and violent.

Another lusty hurrah from the crowd, the whicker and stamp of a nervous horse.

“No!” she cried, rolling away from the bliss of his mouth. “Listen!” she insisted. “Horsemen!”

He stumbled to the window.

Chapter Twenty-Six

St. Peter’s Field

A line of horsemen gathered, animals unnerved--local militia, yeomanry from Manchester, freckle-faced shopkeeper’s sons, freshly trained to put down reformers, newly armed, uniforms stiff, belt buckles, harness and saber hilts gleaming in the sun.

“Damn!” Roger’s shirt slid over his head. “Damn!”

Uneasy, the horses cavorted in response to a round of hurrah’s from the crowd. Champing bit, stamping hooves, their tails a restless tempo echoed the remonstrative kick of a booted heel or the sharp jerk of an elbow.

Roger stepped into his breeches.

High-headed the nervous mounts snorted and wheeled, reforming the broken line. Sweat stained the satin flanks, spoiled stiff collars, wilted hats and cockades.