Authors: Marion Croslydon
Chapter
20
Oxford
–
September 1650
I AM BACK IN THE barn where Robert recovered from his injury in the spring. I have not been to this hiding place since I last saw him, when we kissed.
The dark September night covered my discreet escape from the house. Under the feather-filled mattress I sleep on, I have hidden the secret missives my Cavalier has sent me these last three months.
He wrote at least once a week, short letters, sweet messages, tender words, each of them warming my heart and nurturing my love for him.
Tonight, I am here waiting for Robert.
I have tidied up my surroundings as much as I could. Spiderwebs still spread across the corners of the battered roof. A messy mix of shovels, pitchforks and brooms lean against the wall, at the side of the entrance gate. All I can see is the clean straw covering the earth floor, tempting like the softest of blankets.
I have missed Robert so much, and I do not intend to let politics and war block the path to my love. He is my life.
Outside, I distinguish the sound of a horse’s hooves. Through the gaps in the wood I see a man drop from the saddle and make his way to the gate of the barn. Before he lifts the latch I have enough time to run behind the post, where the animals used to shelter.
Robert steps into the barn and I run to his arms.
He lifts me with ease, as if I weigh no more than a single feather.
Together, we spin around and around. When my feet touch back on the earth, I am lightheaded, and my heart pounds like a military drum.
“You are even more beautiful than in my dreams.” His voice is softer than in my memory.
“I was not sure you would come. You must be the fastest Cavalier to journey from Scotland.” I giggle, looking up and down at his riding costume, his blue waistcoat with its wide buttonholes.
“I could not wait to escape the debacle of Dunbar. Charles might now be the King of the Scots, but our cause is lost here in England. We did not have enough time to train the Scot soldiers properly. Cromwell will make us pay for this latest act of bravado.”
“You should have stayed in Edinburgh. I hear the castle is still holding out. It is far too dangerous for you here.”
I want him by my side, as the Lord is my witness, but not at the price of his safety.
“Do not worry yourself, Sarah.”
He takes my hand and leads me to a rickety stool in the center of the barn. I sit on it and he kneels at my feet, holding my hands in his. He smells of fresh air, of wild ridings through the elements. His eyes roam over my face, linger on my throat, but elude my bosom. My skin tingles. More than ever, I wish my attire could be somewhat sophisticated. The low neckline of my mulberry gown is filled in with smocks and a wide linen collar, barely trimmed with lace.
“I am glad you are not wearing one of those nasty hood-like caps. Your hair is too beautiful to be hidden.” He caresses it with his fingertips.
We have so many questions to ask each other. I lose track of time, absorbed in my Cavalier’s adventures. I understand that his tales are expunged of the violence he has encountered, but he fills in the blanks of the last several months.
Robert strokes my palm with his thumb, and excitement vibrates through my core. I want this man with no shame, no guilt. He is the one God has meant for me to be with.
I lean down toward his mouth, and I kiss him. My hands tremble when they circle around his neck. Our mouths brush each other, and his tongue slides between my lips. Pleasure spreads through my being and I long for more, much more.
It is Robert who seizes my arms and softly pushes me away.
“You have to be careful. I am only a man. I care for your virtue.”
“I do not.”
I am speaking the truth, my truth, the only one that matters in this world of lies and power struggles. I see my words have shocked him.
“I understand what I am doing. Who knows when we will see each other again? I want to live every moment with you to the full.”
He casts his eyes downward, and my outburst now embarrasses me. I wrap my arms around my chest, a tight knot caught in my throat.
“Do not feel ashamed. I want the same thing as you. But your wellbeing comes first and foremost.” I start shaking my head in rebellion, but he continues. “Nobody can say when the hostilities will stop. If anybody became aware of your dalliance with a Royalist, your life would be unbearable.”
I place my finger on his mouth, and he stops talking. “I am aware of all the implications. This is my choice. I will not take one single step back.”
I stand and his hand in mine, lead him to the bed of hay at the back of the grange. I open a large blanket and spread it wide on the floor. I lie on it and extend my arm for Robert to sit next to me.
Without a spoken word we have become man and wife, cradled in a cushion of sweet-smelling hay. Murmurs and whispers suffice in the starry September night. No church, no priest, only the two of us.
I will love Robert Dallembert until my last breath. And beyond.
“YES, PLEASE. I’M NOT used to drinking so much wine. I’m a bit light-headed.”
Liar
.
Rupert held her coat, and while she wrapped the scarf around her neck, he put on his navy blue jacket. Outside the Turf, the cold took her aback but he tucked her under his arm. Madison fought her need to lean against his strength, to indulge in being petite, fragile, next to him.
Once they stood on New College Lane, she tilted her head upward to ask him, “Where do you want to go?”
“To my secret place …” His smile and closeness could have made her melt on the spot, despite the polar temperature. “We’re going to break the law.”
Madison was a law-abiding citizen but she followed him along the cobbled streets, passing the Bodleian Library, to Radcliffe Square, all the time wondering if he really meant it. The Radcliffe Camera, with its circular shape and Corinthian columns, stood grand in the center. They were alone on the square, alone in the world.
“Rupert, the Camera isn’t a secret place, and I would prefer breaking the law in a less popular location. I’m sure there are CCTV cameras spying on us
right now
.”
“You Yanks are so conventional.”
He seized Madison’s hand and ran to the other side of the square, alongside the Fellows’ Garden of Exeter College. Pippa had taken Madison into her college. They had walked in its tranquil garden and sat on the terrace overlooking Radcliffe Square.
Rupert took a key ring out of his jacket. After selecting one of the smaller keys, he inserted it into the ancient, wooden door in the college wall and opened it.
Her jaw dropped. “It’s not our college, and even if it were, you shouldn’t have those keys. We could get caught.” Madison checked around her with alarm. “Thank God it’s Christmas and damn cold,” she muttered, following Rupert up the steep stairs leading to the terrace. For the first time in her life, breaking the rules didn’t feel so bad. She relaxed.
Immaculate snow covered the promontory, untouched now that most college residents had left for the holidays.
“So what about that, Mad Hatter? It helps having friends in high places. I bet none of your nerdy clique could have opened that door.” Rupert stood in front of her, with the square’s streetlights shining behind him. He might have been planting his victory flag on top of Mount Everest.
She sharpened her words. “My friends don’t need to impress anyone.” “I’m sorry.” He moved toward her. “I’m a jerk sometimes. Make that
most
of the time.” He sounded as if he meant it.
“My friends are good people,” she murmured.
“I know. So are you.”
“That’s a pretty cheesy comment for a cool guy like you.”
Madison kept her head down. He lifted her chin with his forefinger and looked into her eyes. She had read about those moments when time stopped, when life froze and turned upside-down. Rupert and her, in the Fellows’ Garden of Exeter College, it was one of those moments.
Despite the cold and the snow, the air she breathed felt warm and sticky. The heat in her lungs soon burned her chest and radiated throughout her body.
She had to get closer to him, to bridge the foot-wide gap separating them. But he leaned toward her, lowering his head one inch at a time. His lips brushed hers, he withdrew, then he bent and kissed her again.
His mouth softened and massaged hers, fireworks exploded in her consciousness and ignited micro-braziers along her spine, extending to the tips of her breasts.
Rupert lifted her like a weightless doll against his chest and deepened their kiss. Her body was crushed against his. She wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck and let his tongue tease hers, savoring his taste, minty and salty at once. He increased the pressure and changed the angle of his head. The extra friction sent her into an agony of pleasure.
From far, far away, inner voices warned Madison. He already had a girlfriend. He was out of her league. He had even slept with Pippa. She laid her hand on his cheek and pushed him away. While she struggled to get back on her feet, he squinted, as if extracted from a deep sleep.
“I’m sorry, Maddie. I didn’t want to push myself on you.”
His eyes were clear of any lie, but she stepped back further nevertheless.
“Please don’t go,” Rupert pleaded, and she stopped.
Fleeing was the easiest and safest option.
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.” He shuffled on his feet as if embarrassed by his confession. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. We can just talk.”
“It’s December and freezing.”
Rupert held out his hand in invitation. She walked back and put her hand in his. Relief dissipated the unhappiness in his face.
“Let’s sit on the bench. The view is nice,” he added. “I’ll keep you warm.”
Madison sat and relaxed against his body. While holding her in his arms, he started playing the tour guide, taking her on a time trip as they had done at Stratford-Upon-Avon. He told her how the Radcliffe Camera had inspired Tolkien, and how the author had used it as a backdrop for
The Lord of the Rings
, and then he told her about the novelist and Oxford professor C. S. Lewis and many other stories Oxford had given birth to.
Lulled by Rupert’s voice, she realized her eyelids had closed when he placed a kiss on them.
“Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” he whispered. She straightened up, surprised at feeling so groggy.
“Do you want to go to bed?” Rupert asked, and when she frowned, he added, “It’s not an indecent proposal. I’m not a complete arsehole.”
“You are, Rupert Vance. It’s part of your charm.” She stared at him for a moment. Maybe it was the chardonnay, or the magic of the snowy night, but she had forgotten everything and everyone outside of their warm bubble. “Do you want to go to bed with me?”
Chapter
21
GOOD LORD.
Rupert choked with surprise. That wasn’t the answer he had expected.
“I have to wake up very early tomorrow morning and go to the airport. You could sneak out of my room after I’ve left.”
“I thought you were scared.” He’d meant to tease her, but his voice came out too harsh.
“We’re not going to see each other for a long time and I don’t want to say goodbye… just yet.” Then she said, with bravado, “I’m sure someone as experienced as you can control his baser instincts.”
Madison stood and started toward the hidden stairs. He followed in her footsteps, his brain numb. He didn’t want her to get away.
Once on the square, she took his hand and reversed the roles, hurrying him. They reached High Street and turned on St. Aldate’s. They didn’t talk, but held hands and moved in the cold night air. He looked sideways at her profile to check if she was changing her mind. He could only read resolve in her.
In front of Christ Church College, Madison checked that the porter wasn’t in his lodge. By lucky chance, he had left his post. They rushed through the gate, ran toward her building and climbed the stairs to her studio.
Once they were alone in her room, she stared down at her sneakers covered with flakes of snow.
“I can go, if you want,” he offered, but the thought of leaving her behind was more painful than a full term of training with Coach Bartlett on his back … and Claus Jensen on his boat.
“I’m not used to bringing guys back to my room. I don’t do it very often.” She hesitated. “I’ve never done it … and I’m nearly twenty-two.”
He came closer to her and caressed her flushed cheek. “Don’t be ashamed, Maddie. As you said, I
can
control my baser instincts. For you, I will.” He had never meant anything as much as this promise to her.
“Rupert Vance behaving like a gentleman. Halleluiah.”
As he didn’t have anything to say to defend himself, she walked back toward the door. “I just need to go to the bathroom.” She left, holding her washbag against her chest.
Once in the silence of her room, he screened her possessions and the tidy order of her life. Nothing seemed out of place, unlike everything in his own existence. Whatever happened tonight, he would have to talk to Harriet
asap
. He might not be Prince Charming, but there were things even Rupert Vance shouldn’t do. Sleeping—even sharing the same bed—with a girl who wasn’t your girlfriend was one of them.
Whether or not he opted for full disclosure with Harriet, he would break up with her. He should have done that a long time ago.
Shit
, he shouldn’t have even started anything with her. He’d talk to her, not on the phone, but face to face, when she’d be back from her Christmas break.
With all his clothes on, minus his shoes and socks, he lay on the duvet of Madison’s microscopic bed. A framed picture stood on her bedside table. Three adult women, one of them in her sixties with a darker colored skin, surrounded a young Madison. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, her missing front teeth creating a gap in her smile.
An adult version of the child stepped back into the bedroom, wearing flannel PJs. When he looked up at her, she went purple right to the roots of her hair. He had to smile. Rupert threw open the duvet and shifted to the other side of the single bed. She rushed in next to him and he took her in his arms, the duvet as a chastity belt between them.
Lust challenged his good resolutions. He wanted to have sex with her. Badly.
Not aware of his struggle, Madison pulled him against her, kissed him, her hands caressing the nape of his neck. Through the cover their legs intertwined, and the feeling of her underneath him set his body on fire. The layers of material between them itched like crazy.
His lips abandoned the warm temptation of her mouth to trail down her cheek down to her earlobe. He gave a small bite to it. She giggled.
“Girls usually don’t giggle when they’re in bed with me.”
He could have sworn the pout she gave him melted a corner of his heart.
“Sorry, I guess I feel a bit giddy.”
“Giddy? That’s not an adjective I would use to describe the so very serious Madison LeBon.” He kept on grazing on the skin of her neck.
“What adjectives would you use then?”
“Nerdy, stuck-up…” His tongue was now drawing small circles on the top of her breastbone, just above the first button of her far too respectable PJs. “… hard-on-inducing.”
Her chest caved in, then expanded when she released her next breath. “I’m not sure “hard-on-inducing” is in the Oxford’s Dictionary.”
“I made it up for you.”
Her fingers rummaged through his hair and she dragged his head back to her lips. If he couldn’t make love to
her
, he intended to make love to her mouth. And Madison’s mouth wasn’t playing hard to get. He brushed her lower lip, nibbling and sucking it, then slid through the tight space between her teeth. He sucked on her tongue and she gasped, cutting his exploration short.
Not for long.
She was back for more, this time doing the nibbling, biting and suckling herself. His dick was going to make the buttons of his jeans pop out under the pressure of his erection. He was grateful for the duvet while she moaned and started arching against him.
His control was tested when the duvet started sliding down due to Madison’s little kicks. In one last move, it fell on the floor.
Rupert tilted his head back and took support on his elbows to move his weight and introduce some much needed space between them.
“Maddie, I don’t want to lose control. And I will if you get rid of the barriers between us.”
“I don’t want
barriers.
”
Holy shit.
“Having sex now… It would be wrong.”
She froze and he read the hurt in her eyes before she turned her head to the side, offering him the view of her totally pissed-off profile. “Thanks for telling me I’m wrong.”
“Not you, baby.” His fingertips brushed the fine line of her nose, her swollen mouth. “You are so right. But not on our first night together… Not when I, technically, still have a girlfriend.”
She shut her eyes. He was digging up his own grave, real fast. “I’ll break up with her… she’ll survive, but I can’t do that to you.”
“To me? I’m not the one being cheated on.” She faced him again.
“I’d be cheating on you if I stole away your first time. You deserve the whole shebang, Mad Hatter. You deserve to be in a real relationship, to be in love with the guy, to know him better than you know me right now.”
Rupert had opened up more to Madison tonight than he had… ever.
She shifted underneath him and opened her legs making his over-blown cock nestled against the heated flannel between her hips. “Sometimes I’m fed up with over-analyzing everything. I want to let myself go for once. Just this time.”
She started undulating and thrusting her groin against him.
“Shit…” He couldn’t come like that. What the hell was happening here? A trip down memory lane, back to boarding school and dry-humping with Rebecca Barbers? He had been fourteen then, for God’s sake.
“So, Rupert, are there any other “first times” you could steal from me tonight?” She lifted her chin in an open challenge.
There was no way he would indulge himself tonight. He could take care of the business tomorrow. On his own. But, maybe, there were a few tricks he could play on her. “I can be creative.”
“Please be.” Her hand came and lay on his butt pushing him closer again.
“Only on one condition.”
“What?” she moaned while the tip of her tongue started teasing his fingertips.
“You say “no” as soon as it goes too far for you.”
She nodded.
“Do you have anything underneath those very boring pajamas of yours?”
“My panties,” she answered in a short breath.
“Is that okay if I strip you down to your knickers?”
“Yes, but you need to get rid of this very tight and not boring at all shirt of yours?”
“I think I can do that for you.”
He knelt between her opened legs and unbuttoned his shirt in record time. He was much more deliberate when he took care of the top of her pajamas, one button at a time, his eyes fixed on hers. He slid the sides of her shirt aside revealing her perfect tits to his hungry stare. They were perky and full. And hard. With his hands on her ribcage, he lowered his head and buried his head in her cleavage. He licked her skin and savored her sweet taste, then moved his mouth over her left nipple. His teeth bit gently on it.
“Oh God,” Madison reacted while lifting her upper-body so that his take on hers widened. He flipped her nipple with his tongue. He pulled it, released it, pulled it, released it. The fingers of his left hand took care of her other nipple, twisting the tip of it slightly.
Madison had started purring. The sound had his free hand flew between his legs to readjust his inflated cock inside his jeans. There would be some serious jerking off tomorrow. Or maybe he should use that bathroom of hers for a polar cold shower later.
He palmed her sex next to his bumpy groin. Kneeling again, he pulled her trousers down and threw them on the floor where they landed on top of the duvet. She wasn’t wearing a G-string or anything sexy, just off-white cotton knickers. He liked them and swore to himself they would stay on.
“You’re the sexiest kitten I’ve ever lay my eyes on… and I’ve never been so hard. For anybody.”
The corner of Madison’s mouth lifted. “I stole a “first” from you then?”
“You totally did, baby.”
While she reveled in her victory, he plunged his head between her legs and started licking her through the material of her underwear.
“Oh God,” she cried out.
“You’re repeating yourself, Mad Hatter.”
She didn’t answer but buried instead her fingers through his hair increasing the pressure of his mouth on her.
“I’d no idea it could feel so good.”
He kept his fingers on her inner-thighs. He wanted them inside her, pumping her, but gave up on that invasion. She wasn’t ready for that much. He’d have to make her come with his tongue through her underwear.
The challenge appealed to him but he didn’t have time to test his abilities. Her hold on the back of his head tightened and she pulled him away.
“Can I get on top of you?” she asked.
Startled, he nodded and shifted his body to her side. By the time he was on her back, Madison, shirtless, straddled him, pressing herself against his middle. Her small hand started kneading him.
“Fuck.” He had to shut his eyes. He couldn’t look at her any longer, her tits hard, her breasts so obviously swollen, half covered by wisps of her dark hair. “What are you doing?”
“I need to feel you.”
Then without warning her hips started rocking, her lips encasing his cock through the fabric of her underwear and the denim of his jeans. His whole body gave in to an uncontrollable shaking. The pleasure shooting through him was so deep, so new, he had to see if she was feeling the same.
He opened his eyes again and drowned in the sight of her. Her head was tilted backwards, her mouth slightly open, her tits bouncing while her hips slid over him. Back and forth. Back and forth.
She had never looked so beautiful.
He was lost. Totally, entirely lost to her. And that scared the shit out of him.
Fear jumped inside him and his hands encircled her waist, lifting her up to break the contact between him and her crotch.
“Stop or I’ll come inside my jeans.”
As if he had pulled her from her slumber, she stared down at him through her low-lidded eyes. “Don’t you want to?”
“It isn’t about me tonight. Just you.”
She shook her head. “No, tonight, it’s about us. Just us.”
She landed back on him and the rocking started again.
His trembling hands moved from her waist to her bottom and pressed her harder against his length.
“Come for me. I’ll wait for you,” he promised.
She nodded and closed her eyes. A low sound, a humming, a chanting, escaped from her lips. Rupert knew she was on the edge of the cliff when her muscles tightened. Her thighs, her lower back, her flat stomach, they all clenched hard.
There was no noise when she fell apart above him, her beautiful face so pure and so sexy at once.
When he knew she had reached her climax, he gave a long thrust against her and burst at the increased pressure.
When he exploded inside his jeans, he could only hear her name echoing like thunder around him. The name he was crying out loud.
SHE WAS HOME.
As soon as her Chautauqua Airlines flight landed in good ol’ Baton Rouge, Madison’s life back in Europe morphed into an alternate reality. Everything here was familiar.
Soon she’d be in the cozy cabin she’d shared with her mother and grandmother, next to the bayou. The prospect of a warm shower and a snug bed kept Madison going. Until then, she would ignore the filth of twelve hours of baby wipe cleaning and the weird angle her neck had frozen into.