Chapter 22
Agnes
Agnes headed to her own, new rooms. She was still getting used to them, most of her things in chests after being moved from the guest chambers to the lady’s chambers in the room beside Ash’s. Attached was a single-roomed servant’s quarter which was, she had been informed, no longer in use.
It had been suggested that she staff the room with a lady’s maid, but she hadn’t yet seen fit to do so.
She ought to acquire a lady’s maid soon enough – until now, she had only been assisted by Sara – but she was aware how useful such a private room could be.
She could use it to store her men’s clothes, for one: or as a space to make more.
She stretched out her arms. Her body felt worn and heavy, her limbs settling into an ache, but her mind was still awake. Not wishing to attempt sleep, she grabbed a candle from the fireplace, pushed open the door to the servant’s chamber and headed inside.
She peered around, eyes adjusting to the dark as the door shut behind her.
She could make out furniture: a chest, a table and stool, a bed pressed against the furthest wall.
The room was utterly filthy, but usable.
She would need to air it out, but it was a good size. Perfect for her needs, in fact.
Happy to have found some way to keep herself occupied, she headed back to her chamber, intending to use one of the chests to prop the door open to begin the long process of removing the years of built-up dust.
Agnes pushed the door. It did not move. She twisted at the iron handle. Still nothing. She cursed under her breath. So many years of disuse had clearly taken their toll. She pushed harder, twisted firmer, but the door remained steadfastly shut.
Her heart was beginning to race. She shut her eyes, willing it to calm, as she took a long, deep breath.
And then: a noise. Footsteps. A man’s voice.
Was someone in her room? Surely not: she had locked the door, and no one would dare enter the chambers of the lady of the keep without explicit permission.
But there it was again – a low timbre, the creak of floorboards. She edged away, looking around.
The noise was not coming from her chambers, but the corner of the room.
She walked towards the sound, candle raised.
Finally her eyes focused, and she realised what she was looking at.
Another door, half-hidden behind stacked crates.
As she made her way around the boxes, she could see low light spilling from beneath it.
And then she grasped where she was. This room was not just to serve the bride’s chambers. It joined her chambers to Ash’s – a way for servants to tend both lord and lady. That was his chamber, beyond the door – those sounds were him and Oliver.
A way out, at last, and if this door too was stuck, she could hammer on it until they noticed her and came to fetch her. They would laugh about it. She could already picture the look on Oliver’s face when he realised what she had done.
The door was ancient, the wood swollen and warped with age. It barely fit in the doorway any longer: it jutted from the stone, as if trying to escape. Even the wood was cracking, knots and holes speckling the surface like tiny stars in the dark. No wonder she could hear their voices so clearly.
She was about to beat her fists against it and call to them, when she heard Ash speak.
‘Are you quite done? It’s freezing.’
‘You should come here, then, if you are so cold.’
Agnes stilled. Her heart thudded a little harder. There was a tone to that voice. It was commanding, but playful. It was a voice that dared whoever it was turned on to disobey.
She heard shuffling, footsteps.
‘You are quite right …’ That was Ash. ‘It is warmer here.’
She should call out. Call out now, before this could go any further, or return to the other door and try once more. Hide beneath the covers of the disused bed and plug her ears.
But she did not. She lowered the candle and knelt down until her eye aligned with one of the holes in the ancient wood.
The crackling fire lit the room in glistening golden light. On the fur beside the hearth lay Ash and Oliver. Both were stripped to their braies.
Agnes’s mouth went dry, her lips suddenly parched.
They were lying together: Oliver leaning back on his elbows, Ash holding himself above him.
As she watched, unable to look away, they met in a gentle kiss – one that melded into eager hunger.
She remembered asking Oliver to make Ash’s wedding night a good one.
He heaved himself up, wrapping his arms around Ash’s middle, tugging him closer.
Ash let himself be dragged down as Oliver kissed him furiously.
As Agnes stared, Oliver broke off, trailing kisses down Ash’s scar, across his neck.
He traded lips for teeth, sinking them into Ash’s flesh.
Ash gasped, drowning out the muffled noise that escaped Agnes’s own lips.
Their bodies seemed to fit together in a way Agnes had never known possible.
They moved as one, as if their bodies had been carved for it, as if God had made them for each other and no one else.
When Oliver moved, Ash chased him. When Ash ducked his head to lave his tongue across Oliver’s chest, Oliver leaned back to let him, not a word passing between them.
Ash did something to the crook of Oliver’s neck – Agnes couldn’t tell what – and Oliver arched back, his lips gently parting in a silent escape of breath.
He, too, was beautiful. Agnes knew he was handsome, knew that his cocky demeanour crossed the fine line between outrageous and attractive, but like this he looked like something else entirely.
He grinned, the firelight making him glow.
He resembled a mischievous spirit, sent to doom them all.
Oliver trailed his hands down Ash’s sides to the ties of his braies.
Agnes needed to leave – to turn away, to close her damned eyes – but she could not.
There was a tight ball of anticipation in her chest, bundling around her heart, spreading downwards.
Oliver slipped his fingers beneath the fabric, pulling at it, and the feeling expanded, filling Agnes with heat.
Oliver tore away Ash’s braies with a swiftness that betrayed a well-practised hand, leaving Ash entirely bare.
Agnes swallowed heavily, gaze trailing down Ash’s body before she could stop herself.
His cock jutted from the thatch of hair between his legs, and even from such a distance Agnes could see how stiff and eager he was for Oliver’s touch.
Oliver did not wait to give him what he so clearly desired, wrapping one hand around the back of Ash’s head and his other around his prick as he pulled him in for a ferocious kiss. He squeezed, and Ash whimpered.
Agnes pressed her thighs together.
They remained like that for a moment – Oliver kissing the life from Ash’s lungs, his hand wrapped tight around him.
And then, as if something within him had snapped, Ash pushed Oliver down, and before Agnes had a moment to register what was happening had tugged Oliver’s braies off as well, leaving him naked and sprawled on the fur.
‘Eager,’ Oliver breathed, watching Ash from the flat of his back.
Ash didn’t reply, just bent down, licking along Oliver’s chest, covering him in toothsome kisses.
Agnes watched, the hot tension between her legs near aflame, as Ash moved lower and lower until he reached Oliver’s cock.
He paused for but a second before taking it into his mouth all at once and with such ease that Agnes knew he had done this a hundred times before.
Oliver leaned back, a sigh escaping his lips. ‘Ash—’
Ash pressed one hand down to Oliver’s hip. Oliver gasped, bucking upwards, his jaw hanging open, his hands tugging Ash’s hair.
‘Ash, God, Ash—’
Ash released him, his now-shining cock springing free, stiff against Oliver’s belly. Ash grinned – his teeth flashed in the dark – before sliding back up Oliver’s body and capturing his mouth in a kiss.
Oliver hummed. ‘I know what you want.’
Ash made a low, rumbling noise. Agnes swore she could feel it, vibrating along the boards and through the door and up her legs.
Oliver pressed a sharp kiss to Ash’s lips, then extracted himself and headed towards the bed.
Agnes watched, eyes fixed on him, as he grabbed something before swaggering back to the furs and getting to his knees.
He was holding a little jar. He tossed the lid aside and scooped out some of the contents, which glistened in the light.
He was staring at Ash with a hungry, smug expression.
He reached down, and slowly wrapped his hand around his own cock, slathering it in the slippery stuff.
There was a lump in Agnes’s throat and a tight pressure in her core, tingling through her legs.
She dare not move, dare not disturb the feeling lest it overwhelm her. She squirmed on the spot.
Finally, Oliver spoke, breaking the thick silence. ‘Knees.’
Ash did as he asked, getting to all fours. Oliver grinned, sliding a still-slick hand down Ash’s back, teasing at the cleft of his arse. Ash let out an impatient-sounding curse. Agnes pressed herself so close to the door that the wood scraped her skin.
She couldn’t see all, but she could see enough. Oliver bent low, pressing a kiss to Ash’s back, then righted himself and took Ash’s hips in a firm grip.
Ash let out a long, low sigh as Oliver pushed inside him.
Agnes’s legs shook. Her tongue wet her lips.
Oliver paused, brushing a hand up and down Ash’s back, murmuring something Agnes could not hear.
He pulled back, then thrust into Ash with such force that she half-expected them both to topple over. Ash muttered something, low and needy.
That appeared to be all Oliver needed.
He thrust into Ash again and again, speed building. Ash swore into the fur, one hand gripping at the rug and the other reaching underneath himself, taking his cock in hand.
Now was the time to go. Now, while they were both distracted, while they were both panting and gasping and cursing into the air.
Yet it took all her willpower to move, to force her stiff legs to unfold.
She spared one last, lingering glance through the crack in the wood then rose unsteadily to her feet, hurrying for the door.
It still stuck, but now with adrenaline coursing through her she paused – waited for a moment of noise – and heaved against it.
The door opened at last. Agnes shut it as carefully as she could. She leaned against the wood, heart pounding, thighs slick.
She shouldn’t. But the dredges of her self-control were used, now, utterly spent, leaving only a hot and urgent sense of want.
She made her way to the bed in a haze, sitting on the very edge.
She felt every place her clothes touched her body – not in the painful way they did so often, but like being wrapped in a blanket on the hottest summer day.
The dress crumpled to the floor.
Agnes fell backwards in a messy heap onto her bed.
The image of Ash and Oliver flooded her mind, the sounds they had made in her ears.
She could still see it: Ash greedily taking Oliver’s prick in his mouth, the slow and languid way Oliver had coated himself in slick, playing with himself, before making them one.
Her hand moved almost of its own accord, slipping lower, moving through the curls between her legs to the place between them.
She was already wet – she had been wet just watching them – but now with the attentions of her hand her body was reacting twice fold.
She gasped as her fingers brushed against the sensitive spot below the hooded flesh, a sound that was nearly a name: nearly two names.
What if she had walked in? What if she had been there, with them, watching?
Placing a hand to burning skin, her lips to slick flesh.
She jerked her hips upwards, sliding her fingers lower – one, then another.
The images were painted to the insides of her eyes, real enough that she could be back there, watching Oliver fuck her husband with reckless lust.
When she finally broke, a wave like none other washed through her in great, shuddering crests. She lay panting on the coverlet for a long while, not moving, barely breathing, only thinking.
As she gathered herself and tugged the blanket over her body, it began to rain.