The Ghosts of Christmas Past Page 7

  “Why won’t you show my quaint such pleasure?”

  “Your nubbin gets plenty of attention.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know exactly what you meant, and you know exactly why I choose not to plough your furrow.”

  “I don’t belong to him, Vaughan.”

  “Use the wand, Bella. You have the means of achieving your goal right within your hands. If you want to climax, you’ve only to move your wrist. Close your eyes if you like, imagine it’s Lucerne, or Raffe Devonshire, or that groom you used to go for frequent gallops with that is pounding away inside of you. Sprint to the finish line with them, but know this—this hole, this little forbidden portal—” He worked his tongue just inside the boundary. “—this is my domain and mine entirely. None of them ever pleasured you there, and none of them will. And you can deny that you like it, but you’re body tells me otherwise. You crave it, Bella. You want it because you think it’s wrong.”

  “I do not,” she protested, but a small part of her at least believed otherwise. She locked it away and ignored it.

  “We’re wrong for each other,” he continued. “We’re not meant to be. We were never meant to be. Go ahead, deny it. Protest it. I’m still going to fuck your pretty, plump arse, and you’re still going to die a little death because of it.”

  “I hate you,” she snarled, which was just code for “I love you in a way that doesn’t make any sense,” because he was vile and cruel and insisted on using her bottom and leaving her pussy swollen and deprived of relief. Except, of course, this time he’d provided the wand. It was hardly the same, though. A woman deserved to be loved as nature intended at least once in a while. With Vaughan, it occurred so infrequently she could count the occurrences on her fingers. There’d been a few times in the very early days of their acquaintance, and then nothing until the night of his phantasmagoria, when everything had fallen apart and he’d stolen her from another man’s bed in the middle of the night.

  Since then, there’d been one other occasion and then only because it amused him to vex her. She’d found a French letter amongst his possessions and asked him to demonstrate its use. She’d naively assumed that would result in her swift gratification. It’d taken hours to soak the horrid thing to make it flexible enough to put on without splitting, and then between the horrid bow required to hold it in place, and the vinegary smell of the thing, it hadn’t made for very good sport. She’d ended up ripping the hideous thing off him and using her bosom to bring him off. She had no desire to ever repeat the experience.

  “You should hate me,” he said. “I know all your secrets and I ruthlessly use them against you. Deny it all you like, Bella, but you love it when I fuck your arse.”

  “It’s not true.”

  “You give yourself away with every rasped breath you draw, and with every tremble you make.”

  “You mistake disgust for pleasure.”

  He laughed high and sharp. “Is that so? Do go on. Tell me how much I disgust you by insisting on fucking you there. I am about to fuck you there, Bella. You’re all wet and ready and tugging at my fingers.” He had slid one…correction, two digits inside of her and was now scissoring them apart, loosening her so that she’d more easily take his cock.

  “Why should I give you the satisfaction? It’s what you want to hear.”

  He merely continued to smile and stroke her inside in a way that made her ache so badly she was tilting her pelvis towards him, and working the jade wand with a kind of frantic zeal.

  “Like this.” Vaughan angled the dildo towards her belly so that each time she partially withdrew it the shaft massaged her swollen clit.

  It focussed her mind on the simple, repetitive pleasure of the strokes, became almost insensible to everything else. Well, everything besides him. Vaughan both soothed and provoked her at the same time. “It’s going to happen,” he insisted. “It’s as inevitable as the sunrise. There’s only one thing stopping you from getting exactly what you want. I need to hear you tell me how much you want it.”

  “Vaughan, no. I don’t. I won’t beg for this.”

  “You’re already begging. Just not with words. You’re body’s aching for me, sucking at my fingers, clenching that wand. Say it, Bella. Tell me exactly how badly you need me to screw your lovely arse, and I won’t tell you how desperately I wish it was Lucerne’s lily-white cheeks I was sinking between.”

  He’d already poisoned her mind by even mentioning Lucerne. There was no escaping him. He could be on the other side of the world, not just Yorkshire and he’d still inveigle his way into their bed.

  “Does it feel the same when you fuck my arse as it does when you fuck him?” she snapped. “Are you pretending that’s what you’re doing?”

  “Of course not. It’s not nearly the same. Besides, he protests far less.”

  “He doesn’t have an alternative orifice that nature intended for such purpose.”

  Vaughan’s violet eyes gleamed, catching the light of the candles burning on the nearby chest of drawers. “If nature didn’t intend for us to do this, then why did she make it so pleasurable?” He lowered her legs down from his shoulders, supporting them at waist height instead. “I think you’re all ready for me.” He nudged the head of his cock against her hole. “Say it, Bella.”

  “I want you to fill my cunt.”

  He sighed and simply shook his head. “Don’t you get tired of this ridiculous dance?”

  “Don’t you?” she countered.

  “I don’t believe so.” He nudged forwards, so that they were all lined up, but it wasn’t quite inside her.

  “I hate this. I hate you.”

  “What was that?” He briefly cupped a hand behind an ear. “Say it again.”

  “I hate…” She swallowed hard, struggling to form the words as he pushed in and withdrew, then pushed a little deeper, making her ache in a way that was so sublime, it drove her to the edge of reason. “No… Don’t,” she pleaded between long moans of pleasure. It wasn’t just that he was inside her now, swiving her with blissful glee, it was the fact that she was still working the inside of her pussy too. It wasn’t quite as satisfying as when Vaughan and Lucerne had taken her together thus, but after almost three months of love making being merely a two person event it was more than her body could reasonably handle.

  Her climax roared into life, taking her over the edge once, and then hurtling straight towards another fall. She was still begging him even then, though she’d somehow lost track of quite what it was she was asking for.

  “Pull out,” she gasped feeling his motion grow unsteady. “Come over me. Over my belly and tits. I want to see your seed spill from you.”

  “Ah, Bella, I would. I really would.” His lips peeled back from his teeth, exposing the sharp points of his canines. “But this slide is so sweet. I think I need to come right here.” He thrust into her bottom a few more times. Concentration and bliss warred in his expression. His eyes were closed, lips slightly parted. They were temptingly moist. “Oh, yes! Here it comes, my darling…my nightingale. Here it is.”

  He threw his head back, so that his chin tipped up towards the bed canopy and the long stretch of his throat was exposed. His movements were fluid even as orgasm caused him to cry out and he filled her bottom with his come.”

  He withdrew almost at once when he was spent, as was ever his way. He only ever lingered with Lucerne.

  Mentally, Bella prepared herself, knowing Vaughan would close himself off, and distance himself with cold words and viciousness in order to destroy any feelings of intimacy they’d built. She held her breath, waiting for a spiteful remark, but none came.

  Instead, he stood looking at her with a degree of uncertainty about his expression.

  “Darling?” she remarked. “When have I ever been that?”

  “Are you stating an objection?”

  “I…No.” Heavens he was in the strangest of moods tonight. “It’s new, that’s all. Normally, I’m your whore, o
r your mistress, or Miss Rushdale.”

  “Or my nightingale.”

  “Only if you’re feeling poetic.”

  “Then obviously you’ve found a way to inveigle your way into my heart and I’m growing soft and foolish as a result.”

  “What heart?” She crossed her arms. “Vaughan, if this is a plan to drive me away by being nice, it won’t work.”

  His smile dazzled her as it stretched wide his lips and lit the centres of his eyes. “It’s not a ploy. Alas, I hadn’t considered that one. I ought to have done. It worked rather well for Lucerne. He always gave you what you wanted, and you left him in the lurch.”

  “Ooh!” She felt about for a pillow and flung it at him.

  Vaughan picked up the pillow, but instead of flinging it back. He plumped it, and threw it so it landed back at the head end of the bed. Then he unfastened his robe and let it fall to the floor.

  The sight of his body always excited her and this time wasn’t any different. He was hard and wiry, sculpted like a marble statue of a Greek or Roman god. She couldn’t look away, as he rounded the edge of the bed and reclined against the plump pillows. “Come here,” he beckoned. Then splayed his fingers over the top of his chest.

  Bella rolled and crawled up the bed at once, not caring if she was a little soiled and in need of a washcloth, not caring about anything but what he was offering. Vaughan did not ever invite her to cuddle after sex. This was beyond astonishing. It was—she settled against him, with her cheek pressed fast to the centre of his chest where the sparse smattering of dark hairs grew—a dream. She would wake in a moment and find she’d dozed off before the fire in the great hall, and Vaughan had long gone to bed without her.

  “You can stay, if you like.”

  “The whole night?”

  “Until the church bells wake us in the morning.”

  “Vaughan?” she said, but then let all her questions go. Sometimes life surprised you. When it did so, it was probably best not to question its motives too deeply. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I love you.”

  “Go to sleep,” he replied, gently mussing her hair. “And try not to be so absurd as to say it again, or I’ll be obliged to start paying you for your services.”

  Bella prodded him in the stomach. “Don’t you jolly well dare.”

  NINE

  Bella quickly fell into a contented sleep in Vaughan’s arms, but Vaughan sat awake peering into the darkness. He held the locket he’d fished from the moat clasped tight within his hand. He was not about to rush north and force another confrontation with Lucerne. Impulsiveness was unlikely to bring about the desired outcome. Rather, he needed to steer things carefully. Plan his strategy over the course of the coming months, so that when the right moment arrived he could be sure that he’d get what he wanted.

  What he wanted was Lucerne.

  It had always been Lucerne.

  Luckily, he possessed a great deal of patience, which meant he could bide his time. Claiming Lucerne the first time around had been a lengthy affair, because the stakes had been too high to risk mistakes. Losing Lucerne had never been an acceptable option. Therefore, he’d had to coax him slowly, getting him to accept the notion of male love as something precious, not merely a crime. Things had eventually fallen into place in the autumn of 1797. The only thing Vaughan hadn’t account for was the arrival of Bella Rushdale into their lives.

  He stroked a wisp of hair away from her face. She was smiling to herself as she dreamed. He hoped it wasn’t some overly rosy fantasy involving him. Their future was only ever going to be thorny. He couldn’t love her as she wanted, because his heart already belonged to another.

  Vaughan’s attention strayed towards the fireplace and the dying flames, then over to the curious external door that led onto the ledge outside. Years back, on a night not dissimilar to this, he and Lucerne had paced this room. It was in the days when his grandmother had ruled Pennerley. His mother, the marchioness was rarely home. The countryside didn’t agree with her. It lacked people enough to pay her court, so she spent her days in London.

  That particular year, Vaughan had been banished from her side for a cruel misdeed and sent to moulder in the countryside. He’d taken Lucerne with him, and enjoyed one of the best yuletides ever. They’d had a merry old lark hurling snowballs, finger painting lewd designs on the castle windows and generally getting into mischief.

  For the crime of fashioning erect penises for all of cook’s gingerbread men, and arranging them performing libidinous acts, his grandmother had forbidden them from taking part in the traditional Twelfth Night celebrations. Whatsmore, she’d ensured her will was known to every man on the estate. He and Lucerne weren’t to go near the orchard, and if they did, they should be considered trespassers and bearers of bad luck and shot at.

  Given the copious amounts of cider usually consumed at the festivities, even he’d decided against risking his skin. One of the fools would probably have blown his head off.

  That wasn’t to say they accepted the exclusion and turned in for early nights. Oh no, they quickly affected an escape, scrambling along the stonework and over the curtain wall to do so. Then they’d punted across the moat on the raft the gardener’s children used when clearing the reeds, and run like wild things across the fields all the way to the Craven Arms. Well, leastways to the cunny warren to the rear of the coaching inn with the intention of enjoying some wild carousing.

  Carousing certainly occurred, but then fate had led them to a quiet room, and they’d bedded a woman together for the first time, an act that would prove the key to unlocking Lucerne’s heart.

  TEN

  Twelfth Night, January 1789, Shropshire.

  “It’s not me you want, milord, is it?” the wench remarked between coaxing kisses. Vaughan frowned at the observation, uncertain whether she meant it as a genuine observation, or merely a taunt to prompt him into action. The truth was that for all that she had a pretty face, and an amply pleasing shape, no amount of glossy brown ringlets, nor bust would ever compete with the actual focus of his interest—Lucerne Marlinscar, an exquisite gem of a man, with whom he found himself hopelessly besotted.

  Alas, it was a crime to love another man in the way he wanted to love Lucerne, and his friend had shown no inclination for such activity, only a great deal of enthusiasm for fucking women.

  “The way you look at him. It’s quite plain where your interest lies.” The whore inclined her head towards Lucerne, who was draped in no less than three women in various states of dishabille. “You crave the sort of attention he gives to them, but he isn’t even aware of your interest.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re suggesting,” he retorted, tightening his grip around her arm. “He’s my friend. That is all. Take care what you insinuate.”

  “Of course, milord.” She made a great show of planting feather soft kisses on his cheeks and chin, but avoided his lips in favour of teasing his earlobe. “But in my profession you learn how to read a man. It’s your handsome friend you want to fuck. His hand you want on your cock, not mine or that of any of the other maids. That’s not an intimation, merely a fact.” She gave his prick a squeeze through his breeches as if to prove her point.

  Certainly, while such a pinch might have fired the blood of most of the brothel’s clients, it failed to stir his ardour.

  “I could dress as he does, milord, put on some breeches and drop them so you can fuck me from behind as you’d like to fuck him.”

  “No.”

  She pouted, and looked him in the eye, their noses pressed close enough that they were almost touching. “Should I fetch you an actual boy then? You’re not the only man hereabouts that likes to put his prick where the good Lord didn’t intend it to go.”

  “Hold your tongue, wench.” He had no interest in whatever callow youth they employed to run errands, whether he was fresh from the fields with corn yellow hair and sunshine for brains, or wiry black-haired lad with bright eyes and skin perpetually greye
d by coal dust. His desire was for Lucerne Marlinscar alone. Had been from the very moment their paths had first crossed over a year ago. No one besides himself was aware of it, though, until this witch had somehow seen into his head.

  “It’s all right, milord. I won’t spill your secrets. I’m partial to rump sports myself, and there’s plenty who grace this establishment with their patronage that want wickedness that far exceeds a little bit of spirited buggery, even with members of their own sex.”

  “I assure you. You’re mistaken in your beliefs, madam.” He gave her a shove, so as to remove her from his lap, but like any good bawd she hung on.

  “As you say, milord. Obviously, good Jessie here’s mistaken, and you would never demean yourself in such a way, or think for a moment about sucking another man’s privy parts.”

  The little witch could somehow read him as plain as if his every thought were printed in a broadsheet, or being announced by the town crier. One of Lucerne’s admirers was at this very moment, bent between his friend’s knees showing his staff some joyous loving. Vaughan watched her cheeks hollow as she sucked Lucerne deep, and then released him to explore his shaft and crown with her delicate pink tongue. The notion of doing the same, made his balls ache and his own staff awaken.

  “I know a way you can get close to him,” the whore on his lap claimed. “So you can make love to him without him ever suspecting a thing.”

  Vaughan pursed his lips. As if such a thing were possible outside of his imagination. Lucerne was hardly going to fail to notice if he started touching him, and while he could admit a certain curiosity as to the woman’s actual plan, he wasn’t about to risk confirming his interest in order to discover it.

  “What if you were to share a single woman?” she whispered. “Then you’d be taking her to bed, not each other, but while you were fucking her, you’d be almost as close as if it were just you and he rubbing your blind boys together.”