Temptation (13 page)

In the darkness he moved closer to her and put one arm around her shoulder. “Captain Carterton,” she protested under her breath so the driver would not hear. “That is hardly proper.”

“It is dark. No one can see us. And don’t I deserve a kiss for taking you to the music hall tonight?”

His breath was hot on her neck. If she were to turn her head just a little to the side, she could kiss him and find out just how good he tasted.

He brushed his fingers gently over her cheek. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

“Not at all,” she lied.

“Beatrice, Beatrice. Didn’t I say earlier today that your honesty was one of the things I loved most about you? And then for you to tell such a monstrous fib as that…” He let his voice tail off into a note of ineffable sadness.

She giggled just a little, the happiness at such a wonderful evening having gone to her head. “You are terribly sure of yourself.”

She could feel his answering smile in the darkness. “I’m told it’s one of my best qualities.”

“But I don’t really want you to kiss me. It would not be wise.” She hated having to be wise all the time.

“I can understand your feelings on the matter. I know how difficult you find it to control yourself when you are around me. I can understand you would not want to embarrass yourself.”

“Do not misunderstand me.” She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “That is not the reason at all.”

“You mean you are confident you will be able to keep a lid on your passion? Even if I were to lean over and touch my lips to yours?”

“Of course I can.”

“Excellent. Then I see no reason not to kiss you.”

He pulled her close to him and kissed her gently. The motion of the hansom cab made judging distances difficult, and he bumped his nose against hers. “Damn cobblestones,” he growled. “They were designed by old Puritans who never tried to kiss their sweethearts in a light carriage.”

He solved the problem by pulling her onto his lap, where she sprawled, half sitting, half lying on top of him. “Much better,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her. “Now I can kiss you without worrying I will accidentally break your nose.”

She opened her mouth to protest against the indignity of being plastered against him in the cab, and he took advantage of the opportunity to claim her lips with his own.

Laudanum—that was what he was to her good sense. One taste of him and she forgot all her principles, all her morals. She was no better than an opium addict, a poor soul who would never be cured of her cravings. A single taste of him was all it took to send desire flowing through her body so strongly she could not resist it.

She opened her mouth to his, letting him taste her. What did she care that the hansom cab driver was sitting up behind them on his seat? His eyes ought to be on the road, steering them past the hazards of the London streets, not on what his passengers were doing. And even if he could see them in the gloom, what did she care? No doubt he had seen many a worse things in his travels over the streets.

The captain was not content with plundering her mouth. His hands stroked her thighs and then tugged up her skirts until her boots and stockings were exposed.

They passed a group of revelers on the corner who hooted and catcalled at the glimpse she afforded them of her stockinged legs through the quickly fogging window of the carriage, but the hansom quickly passed them by.

He kept on kissing her while his hands crept up her thighs, making their way unerringly to the slit in her drawers. His fingers had felt so good on her pussy when he had kissed her in the hospital that she had no will to stop him from touching her there again.

Her whole body quivered as his hands brushed over her curls. When he parted her folds and slipped one finger inside her, she thought she would faint with the pleasure.

Dr. Hyde had never touched her in this way. She couldn’t imagine him fondling her in such a public place. She couldn’t even imagine him fondling her like this in the privacy of their marital bedroom. A quick fumble under her nightgown, maybe. That would be all the pleasure she’d get from such a dry stick.

Just then the hansom cab pulled up outside the boardinghouse where she lived. She tried to push him away and sit up, but he wouldn’t let her. “Drive on,” he called to the driver. “Take us to St. James’s Park.”

“But…”

He hushed her with his mouth against hers. “I haven’t tasted nearly enough of you. In the quietness and seclusion of the park we can snatch a few more moments of privacy so you and I can get to know each other better.”

To tell the truth, she didn’t want him to take his finger out of her pussy quite yet. She would agree to anything he suggested as long as he continued to stroke her into oblivion.

The park was dark and deserted, just as Captain Carterton had hoped. The driver pulled up and let the cab come to a stop. The captain scrabbled in his pocket for a couple of guineas and handed them up to the driver. “Take yourself off for a while. I’ll call you when I want you to come back.”

The driver whistled between his teeth as he took the money. “Sure thing, guv,” he said, as he clambered down from the box and headed off into the darkness.

The captain watched him as he wandered out of sight behind some trees.

Perfect. They were alone now, and he could get on with his task of seducing Beatrice into his arms. It was a pity he hadn’t ordered a larger, hackney cab, rather than the smaller, two-wheeled hansom cab. There wasn’t enough room in the hansom to fuck her properly, and the wind was too cold to make lying on the grass a very pleasant prospect.

Next time he took her out, he would order a hackney cab and then make love to her under cover while the driver took them around the streets of London.

For now, he would have to improvise.

“There, now we are all alone,” he whispered. It wasn’t quite true—he could see the eyes of the hansom cab driver glinting in the trees not far away. He was standing in the shadows, watching them, but Captain Carterton didn’t care. The driver could watch all he wanted, but no man but he was going to touch Beatrice’s body. Knowing he had an audience just made him all the more determined not to fail in getting her where he wanted her to be.

His finger was still in her pussy. She was wet, too, and getting wetter. Slowly he withdrew it a little way and then pushed back into her. “Mmmm,” he murmured into her ear. “That feels so good. Do you like it, too? Do you like knowing my finger is inside you? Do you like being fucked by my finger?”

Her cunt had a virgin’s tightness and he had to push hard to get his finger more deeply inside her. Her muscles clenched around him in protest at the invasion. She gasped a little as he thrust harder and wriggled her hips against him. “Yes, I like it.”

He withdrew his finger all the way then, and teased the little nub at the top of her pussy. It was as hard as a pebble, and she moaned as he flicked it. “Or do you want me to stop?” He had no intention of stopping for long, but he would at least give her the illusion of choice.

She thrust herself against his finger, encouraging him to push inside her again. “No, don’t stop.”

He liked having her ask him to make love to her, having her beg him to put his finger into her again. He thrust his finger into her again, harder this time, forcefully pushing through the barriers her body tried to put in his way.

Her cunt was throbbing against his finger, clutching on to him. His cock, which had stayed semi-hard all evening, leaped to life at the prospect of having her intimate muscles clench around him.

Christ, he wanted to fuck her. He wanted to push her skirts aside, rip off her drawers, and thrust into her with all the finesse of a raging elephant. He wanted to fuck her until he came hard and fast in her pussy, and then he wanted to turn her over, take her from behind, and fuck her all over again. He wanted to fuck her over and over until his cock was so drained and limp that it couldn’t stand up again for a week.

But that would be counterproductive. He had to get her eating out of his hand, craving his touch, wanting more and more. He needed to give her a hint of the pleasure she could find in his arms, to make her welcome his touch.

Slowly, gently, he would lead her on until allowing him to make love to her was the next inevitable step. He had already gotten her used to the feeling on his finger inside her, and she no longer quibbled when he touched her there. Little by little he would tempt her into further intimacies with him, until she hardly noticed when he replaced his finger with his mouth, his tongue, his cock.

He guided her hand to the buttons of his trousers, encouraging her to stroke his hardness through his trousers. “Touch me as I am touching you,” he urged her. “Make me feel as good as you feel.”

With tentative hands, she stroked him through the fabric. It wasn’t enough for him. Not nearly enough. He reached down and undid the buttons and slid her hand inside his drawers.

Her hand was on his cock. It was almost enough to make him come right then and there, to spurt his hot seed into her soft hand.

He couldn’t lose control so soon, not when so much was at stake.

Getting to his knees on the cab floor in front of her, he raised her skirts to the waist and undid the ties on her drawers. Then he put his head in between her legs and breathed in the essence of her.

Her hands were tangled in his hair as she tried to push him away. “What are you doing?”

“Tasting you.” He bent his head and licked her pussy, right across the folds that hid her cunt, and swirling his tongue around the hard nub of her clit. She gave a scream of pleasure and the hands in his hair pulled him closer.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the cab driver drawing closer, until he was only a few feet away and frankly staring at them.

He pushed his finger back into her pussy as he licked her nub. His cock was standing up to attention, having forced its way out of his unbuttoned trousers. Licking her pussy was making it as hard as stone, and he could feel his balls tighten and retreat into his body. A simple touch would be enough to send him over the edge now.

The cab driver had his hand in his pants now and was stroking himself as he watched them. Captain Carterton envied his simplicity—he had no shame in spying in them and finding a release that way.

The captain licked at Beatrice desperately, urgently needing to give her satisfaction so he could find his own release. He wanted her satiated, not frustrated and unfulfilled.

With his free hand he reached down to stroke his cock. His orgasm was on the brink of exploding out of him, but he was too much of a gentleman not to let a lady go first.

Roughly now he fucked her with his finger, driving her need to breaking point. He had to get her there. He had to make her come.

Finally she gave a cry and her muscles clenched around his finger. She held herself still, and then her pussy throbbed violently around him and when he sucked on her clit, she shuddered uncontrollably.

Only just in time. With a few strokes, his own seed splattered out onto the floor of the hansom cab. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the driver milking himself of his come, creaming over the wheel of his cab.

Her pussy was so sweet and soft. Even though he’d just orgasmed, he could not resist tasting her again. He bent his head and licked her once again, making her jump as his tongue passed over her clit.

“When you are my wife, I will feast on your pussy every night,” he murmured, as he reluctantly removed his head from between her thighs and allowed her skirts to drop back to the floor of the cab. The hem dragged in his come, lying sticky on the floor. He was perversely glad to see its wetness stain her skirts. When she left the cab tonight, she would carry a little piece of him with her.

“When I am married to someone else, I will never travel anywhere in a hansom cab with you,” she replied smartly. “Or in any other conveyance, for that matter.”

“Dr. Hyde might not marry you if he were to see another man’s head between your naked legs,” he reminded her coarsely. “Men have this funny desire that their wives come to them untouched by any other man.”

“I am still a virgin.” Her voice was tart, though he could hear an undercurrent of worry.

“Not by much. You’ve had my finger inside you twice, and now my tongue. It wouldn’t take much for me to get my cock inside you.” He probably shouldn’t give away his tactics, but her repeated assurances that she was going to marry Dr. Hyde put him out of temper. She was not going to marry anyone but him.

“But you haven’t got your cock inside me yet,” she replied, her voice filled with anger. “If I had any sense, I would marry before you ruin me.”

He bit back the words on the tip on his tongue. Instead, he called to the driver who, after coming on the wheel, had retreated a safe distance away from the cab to tuck himself back into his pants again. “Drive us back to Westminster, on the double.”

The man doffed his hat and climbed back up onto his perch behind the cab. With a crack of his whip, the horses got underway.

The rode in silence through the dark streets. The wheels clattered over the cobblestones, grinding the cab driver’s come into the dust.

Captain Carterton was still stewing over her words when they pulled up to the boardinghouse for the second time that night. As she clambered down from the cab, he held her back with a hand on her arm. “Make no mistake about it, Beatrice. The next time I get you alone, I shall have your skirts above your waist and my cock will be demanding entrance to your wet little cunt. There will be no stopping me. You will not want to stop me.

“Then, when I have fucked you well, you will have little choice but to accept me as your husband.”

The next morning before her shift started, Beatrice unwound the bandages on Captain Carterton’s arm. Though it looked as bad as it had the day before, it had lost its power to horrify her. It was just a wound, and one that seemed to be healing well. He was one of the lucky ones.

She fetched the jar of ointment and began to rub it into his skin, all without looking at him in the eyes. She hadn’t behaved very properly toward him last night. First, by allowing him to be so familiar with her person, and then by upbraiding him for his familiarity.

Not that he deserved her politeness. Never had she met such an unrepentant rake as Captain Carterton. He was the sort of man her mother, if she had still been alive, would have warned her against.

She should never have agreed to go to the music hall with him, however much she wanted to hear Señor Fratelli sing. He had caught her at a weak moment, when her defenses were low. Now he had quite the wrong idea about her. She was not a gay girl to be fucked in the park for the price of admittance to a music hall, but a respectable young woman.

“Does your arm still hurt?” she mumbled ungraciously, as he winced under her less than tender ministrations. She wasn’t
trying
to hurt him, but she wasn’t trying terribly hard
not
to hurt him, either.

“Only when you yank it around like it was a rag doll,” he grumbled back again.

“You could put the ointment on yourself if you don’t like the way I do it.” She was in the mood for a quarrel. Arguing with him was preferable to wishing he would kiss her again.

“I can’t reach it properly. Besides, it hurts less when you do it.”

She smoothed the ointment into his skin, trying not to think about how she had felt when his hands were touching her last night in the carriage. “That’s not what you said a moment ago.”

He was silent as she worked her way carefully around the worst of the gashes. “I still want to marry you, you know. Now more than ever.”

So he had said the night before, but she had only half believed him. “We are in the hospital. Not an appropriate place to discuss such things.” Especially not when any number of other people were clustered around the ward: doctors examining patients, nurses scurrying to and fro on errands, not to mention the patients themselves.

“Then, will you come out to another music hall with me tonight? Maybe to the Alhambra? I hear their dancing girls are quite spectacular, not to mention rather saucy. I shall tell you again there. Or maybe during the cab ride home again.”

He was no gentleman to remind her of their last cab ride together. “I will not be going to any music hall with you in the future.”

“You did not enjoy yourself last night?”

She smothered her gasp of embarrassment with a cough. “The music hall was very fine.”

“And the rest of the evening?”

She wound the bandages around his arm with a savage intensity. “Please, be quiet. I do not want to talk about it. Especially not here, while I am at work.”

“But I do.” His voice was a seductive whisper, pitched too low to carry to anyone else in the vicinity. “I want to talk about how soft your skin was, and how wet you were when I stroked your pussy. I want to tell you how delicious you tasted, and how I imagined it was my cock your cunt was squeezing as you orgasmed.”

His words dripped into her ear like poison, each of them etching away at her conscience until she could not bear it. “I do not want to hear you,” she hissed, winding his bandages so quickly they tangled. “Be quiet and do not say another word or I swear your arm can drop off for all that I care.”

“You do not want to hear how much I desire you.”

“Not at all.” She finished tying up the bandage and tucked the loose end firmly under the layers. “I should not desire you back. I should not. I cannot help myself, but it shames me to lust after a man I barely know. I do not like being ashamed of myself, but that is what you have done to me.”

Captain Carterton strode moodily away from the ward. For every step forward he took, he slid another step back. Yes, he had got Beatrice panting with desire in his arms last night, but she was no closer to agreeing to marry him than before. It was enough to drive a man to drink.

What did he have to do to make her see that he was the man for her, that no other man would do?

He had told her he loved her, and she had thumbed her nose at his declaration of passion. He had shown her desire, and she had acted as if it were of no account. Worse than that, she felt that her passion was somehow shameful, when in reality it was a precious gift, a joy to share with the man who cared so deeply for her.

He would go and see the sergeant-major and pour out his troubles in the ear of his friend. Sergeant-Major Tofts had been around for a long time. Maybe he would be able to give him some good advice on how to win a woman’s heart.

He paused midstep as a thought struck him. Sergeant-Major Tofts was not married, and so unlikely to be full of useful advice on how to woo a wife.

No matter. He would go see his friend anyway. Even if his friend couldn’t give him any helpful tips, he would be no worse off than he was at the moment.

Mrs. Bettina paused for a moment in the door of the private room, looking at the man lying in the bed. So, this was the wounded soldier she was being paid to take care of. His spirits, as much as his body, were in need of nursing, she had been told.

One of his legs was propped up on a pillow. His eyes were shut, but she did not think he was sleeping.

He was just the sort of man her husband would have been, if her husband had lived. Not tall but sturdy and well built, with a craggily handsome face despite his graying hair. A fine figure of a man whatever his age.

Giving herself a little mental shake, she bustled in with the tray of supper she was carrying for him. Her husband, God bless his soul, was long dead and gone. There was no sense in seeing his face in every stray patient who passed through the hospital.

She placed the tray on the bedside table. “I’ve brought your supper, sir.”

He opened his eyes without surprise. She’d known he was just shamming sleep. “Thank you.” His tone of voice was bored, listless, as if he had lost the will to live. A dangerous tone of voice for a man lying in a hospital bed to adopt. It meant he was too close to giving up on fighting. And once a patient had given up trying to fight for his life, the doctors might as well sign his death certificate then and there, for he’d be needing it soon enough.

“I’m the private nurse hired to look after you,” she explained brightly, as she fluffed up his pillows and helped him to sit up. He looked far too nice a man to be allowed simply to give up on life. “Seems some of your army friends weren’t happy with you being in the wards with all the others, and have paid for everything nice for you. Anything you need, you just have to ask.”

“They’re good friends,” he said, in the same I-don’t-care-about-anything-anymore tone.

Now that he was sitting up, she placed the tray on his lap and shook a linen napkin over him. He made no move to pick up his knife and fork.

She waggled her finger at him. “Now then. You’ve got to eat to keep up your strength.”

With a sigh of defeat, he took a mouthful of stew, chewed and swallowed. “It’s good,” he said, the first real emotion she had heard from him.

“Of course it is. I made it myself, so I expect you to eat every bite.”

Under her watchful gaze, he finished his meal and wiped his mouth in the napkin. “I’ll be away now,” she said, as she collected his empty tray. “But I’ll be back in the morning. If you need anything in the night, you can call one of the night nurses.”

“Thank you.” Was it her imagination, or was his voice just a little less defeated? Just a little more full of life and vigor?

Bending over, she dropped a light kiss on his forehead, the sort of kiss a mother might give to a sick child. She could not help herself. There was nothing motherly about the feelings she could have for such a patient if she let herself. “Get better,” she instructed him. “You have too much to live for to give up on life.”

She could feel his eyes boring into her as she walked out of the door.

The sergeant-major was already sitting up in bed when she arrived the next morning—a tray of fresh-baked bread and newly churned butter to brighten up his breakfast. He ate it with relish, his eyes not leaving her the entire time.

On her way in, she had asked a junior nurse to bring her a jug of hot water, a bowl, and some clean towels. The girl brought them in just as he finished eating.

Mrs. Bettina shut the door behind her to give her patient some privacy, then poured some hot water into the bowl and lathered up a washcloth. “How is your leg this morning?”

“Fine,” he said brusquely.

So, he didn’t want to talk about his wound. Fair enough. It would do him no good to dwell on it anyway. “I am going to give you a bath this morning to freshen you up.”

A look of alarm crossed his face. “I don’t want a bath,” he muttered. “I’m perfectly fine without one.”

“Glowering at me won’t get you out of it,” she said, as she removed the breakfast tray and pulled away the bedclothes.

He was wearing a blue-striped cotton nightshirt that came down past his knees, just showing a pair of fine calves.

She swallowed uncomfortably. He was a finer man than her usual run of patients. It was hardly professional of her to be quite so eager to give him a bath.

“Leave the water here and I will wash myself,” he barked at her.

“I am not one of your soldiers,” she replied tartly. “You cannot order me around. You are in my domain here, and you have to follow my orders.”

“Then get one of the other nurses to give me a bath,” he grumbled.

She paused just before beginning to wash the foot of his good leg. “Is there something wrong with me?” She felt unaccountably disappointed that he would prefer someone else to attend to him. Did he not like her around him?

“You are far too…too fine a woman to be bathing an old soldier.” His ears were a fiery red, and the color crept over his entire face. “It is too personal a task for you to do for me.”

His embarrassment made her feel oddly ill at ease, too. “I am your nurse,” she replied stoutly, squelching her unease under a veneer of professionalism. “Keeping you clean is one of my duties.”

Inside, though, her heart could not refrain from giving a happy warble. He thought she was a fine woman? Even though she was nearly as old as he was? Most men his age would take themselves a twenty-year-old woman as their wife if they could find one and not look twice at someone so near their own age as she was.

He let her wash his good leg, and then change the dressings on his wound without another comment. Only when she lifted his nightshirt to wash his privates did he speak again. “You have never told me your name.”

“Mrs. Bettina,” she replied, trying to keep her mind on the task at hand. Her patient didn’t remind her of her late husband in every area. Even at his best, her husband had never sported such a magnificent appendage at that, which lay quiescent under her hand.

He made a choking noise, and she looked up sharply to check that he was not having a fit.

“Nancy?” he said, as if he couldn’t quite believe her. “Nancy Bettina?”

“Who are you?” she asked suspiciously. Few enough people even knew what her Christian name was, let alone dared to address her by it.

“Bartholomew Tofts. Sergeant-Major Bartholomew Tofts.”

Mrs. Bettina stopped dead still, holding the washcloth in midair. “You cannot be.” She could feel the blood drain from her head and wondered if she was going to faint.

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments. The sergeant-major was the first to break it. “You do not look anything like your photograph.” He sounded confused, as if he could not quite work out what was real and what was fantasy.

All the blood came rushing back to her head now and she felt her face start to burn as hot as the inside of her oven. Ever since she had sent him the saucy photograph of Myrtle and pretended it was of her, she had regretted her choice. It had not been fair to the sergeant-major, and she was sure her trick would do her no good in the end.

“I liked writing to you and receiving your letters back again,” she mumbled, looking at the washcloth rather than at his face. “I thought you would not be interested in me anymore if you found out how old I was. So I sent you the photograph of a pretty young friend of mine.”

“Not interested in you?” He made another choking noise. “I had tried to put you out of my mind, thinking that despite your kind words, you were far too young for a grizzled old soldier like I am. Instead I find that you are a thousand times more beautiful than your photograph. A thousand times more suitable in every way.”

She would have suspected his words were flattery, but his body told her he spoke the truth. His member was stirring on its nest of curls, twitching as it grew to an even more prodigious size. She watched it out of the corner of her eye, fascinated. If only she were brave enough to reach out and take him in her hands, to feel the strength of him. It had been so long since she had touched a man that way.

He seemed quite unaware that his nightgown was bunched up around his stomach and openly displaying everything he had to offer a woman. “Did you mean what you wrote in your letters? Or were they just fun to you?” His voice was diffident, almost apologetic.

“I have been widowed a long time,” she admitted. “Your letters brought me to life again.”

“I thought about you all the time when I was out on patrol, you know. I dreamed of coming back to England to meet you. It was thoughts of you, of your warmth and kindness, that kept me alive when I was lying on the bare veld with my leg shot out from beneath me. Without the dream of meeting you to keep me going, I would have given up.”

He had been thinking of her kindly, then? She summoned up all her courage to look him in the eyes again. “You have too many good years left on you to give up.”

“Years of loneliness are not worth having.” Any trace of animation in his voice had faded. “I’ve spent my life in the army, ever since I was fourteen years old. I have no wife, no family, no one to care about me—I gave it all up for Queen and Country. And what has the army given back to me?” He gestured pointedly at his wounded leg. “A useless leg and a miserly pension barely enough to keep me from starvation. I may as well just die in hospital and be done with it. I am no use to anyone.”