Chapter 7
The road from Oxford
Erasmus pulled back the curtain in his hired carriage for what must have been the thousandth time. The wheels turned slowly, going more sedately than the equipage and team could handle.
The speed had been his own decision, as was traveling with the freight wagon that followed. He was bringing Eleanor and their unborn child home from Vienna at last.
He’d made it back to Oxford before the trains stopped for Christmas. A good deal of money — unthinkable amounts, if he was honest with himself — had roused drivers and their animals in the wee hours of the holiday.
But Erasmus Mangevileyn needed to be reunited with his family after many weeks away, arranging for the safe repatriation of his first wife’s remains.
The sun was breaking on the horizon when they crossed Shillingford Bridge and turned towards the Abbey.
Having been a foreign attaché in Vienna before departing in the grief-filled days after Eleanor’s passing, Erasmus thought he knew what to expect of Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy.
Yet between a Fenian bombing in London in late October, the cholera outbreak in Egypt that summer causing panic at the ports, and alarming, still unexplained delays in obtaining a Leichenpass or laissez-passer for his first wife’s remains, Erasmus’s trip of a fortnight had taken nearly two months.
Two months away from his children and young bride. His heart ached to think of Thea and Phin waiting for his return.
And Amy — oh, his Amy, blossoming into confidence, soft curves, and serene smiles.
She had moments of hesitation and doubts about intimacy, and Erasmus was all too happy to let her decide how they should proceed.
Never could he have imagined that lingering over kisses and whispers would heal his soul so completely.
Saying goodbye had been something akin to carving out his own heart with a spoon.
He didn’t need to tell her why overseeing the exhumation and travel of the zinc-lined coffin was necessary.
He didn’t even need to tell her that delivering on this promise to Thea was more urgent than ever as his feelings for Amy demonstrably grew.
She’d simply slid into his lap one day in his study, when he’d received yet another alarming cable from his contact in Vienna, said that dinner would be waiting when he could return, and promised to write to him in her increasingly confident hand.
He’d been a fool. He’d laughed and told her he’d be back so quickly letters would miss him. Somehow she knew, and her letters had proved a great comfort in those unsettling days of trying to track down officials for the exhumation permit and the bill of lading for the railways.
A great comfort and a significant cause of discomfort.
Erasmus tapped the folded missives in his breast pocket again, reassuring himself that they were still there.
He needed to speak to his wife about some things she’d written.
He needed answers desperately, and he couldn’t have requested them via post.
Erasmus entered the Abbey through the servant’s entrance, nodding to Mrs. Laidlaw, already at the hob and making his way to the bedroom after filling a pitcher with water. He removed his boots outside the door so the noise wouldn’t wake Amy and then went behind the screen to wash up.
When he emerged in his fresh shirt and dressing gown, he finally let himself see what he’d been dreaming about since departing two months earlier. There she was, her hair spread on a pillow becomingly, her pretty lips the barest bit parted as she dreamed.
And beside her, one on either side, were the children. Phin slept in his crib, making little burbles as he kicked his feet while chewing on a wooden sailboat. Thea slept on Amy’s other side, tucked into her belly.
Erasmus suddenly sensed that this might be the best year of his life. He brushed a tear aside as he surveyed his little family after so long away, then carefully lifted the heavier Phin from his cradle and gave the boy a grateful kiss on his hair.
Finding an open spot on that large bed didn’t prove difficult, and Erasmus held the baby to his chest and then pulled the bedclothes over them, settling in for just a moment of rest.
***
He dreamed he rode on a small ship, tossed about by waves, chased by Austro-Hungarian officials who demanded to see the papers for the casket in the hold. The wind and spray from the water lashed against his face, and he turned away to spare his eyes the stinging seawater.
“Careful with your papa,” he heard a warm voice say, from somewhere nearby. “He’s traveled ever so far to return to us on Christmas.”
Amy, his wife, was so close after so much longing.
“But his eyelashes are long,” Thea said before she brushed through them.
The movements tickled, and Erasmus opened his eyes to find his daughter leaning over him, her finger poised just above his eye.
“If that’s not a sight for sore eyes,” he said, holding out his arms to his Thea, who flopped onto him without reserve.
Truth be told, he was shocked. Thea had always been a little withdrawn. But something had changed this year.
Erasmus cast his eyes to the other side of the bed, where he saw the thing that had changed everything.
Amy was looking down at Phineas, drowsily nursing at her breast, as though she couldn’t bring herself to look at her husband.
And then she cast him a brief glance and broke into a grin upon seeing that he was awake.
“Hello, wife,” he said, returning her smile. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Only 1,000 years,” she said, adjusting Phin. “But then you’ve crossed much of Europe to return to us. And on Christmas Day! I didn’t think we’d be so lucky.”
He knew the feeling. To have loved once and grieved most terribly, he’d not have expected to open his heart again.
But hearing those kitten cries and realizing how desperately Amy and Phin needed him set aside all the doubts and wavering that might have doomed a more conventional courtship and union.
It was not so much a marriage of convenience as a marriage of necessity, and he found the term failed to sum up the depth of affection that he had for his new family. For his beautiful wife.
“You’re radiant, Amy,” he said, brushing a bit of hair back from her face so he could see just how pretty his stray bride looked when loved and looked after.
He’d handle all of that personally from now on.
No more long adventures keeping him away; his wife and children would have him at the Abbey from now on.
“I’ve been engaged in a most interesting correspondence, Mr. Mangevileyn,” she said pertly.
She was strutting, the little hen, bringing up those letters with so many hours to go until the evening, when they might discuss them privately.
“I’ve noticed that our bed is rather fuller these days,” he said, nodding to the children.
“Oh, hush,” she said mildly. “It’s Christmas, and their papa wasn’t home.”
“I’m home now, Amy,” he said. His glance must have been more heated than he intended because her cheeks flushed a lovely pink and she dropped her gaze to the counterpane.
It would be an endless day.
***
That night, Erasmus tucked Thea into her bed while Amy handled Phin’s nightly feeding and negotiation into his crib, now back in his little nursery.
When Amy emerged from the room, Erasmus was there, still clothed. He felt awkward about rushing into his dressing gown; he wouldn’t want her to think he expected anything.
But he did expect things. How could he not after her letters unexpectedly sent his heart racing?
“Well, Mrs. Mangevileyn, it seems we are alone.”
“Yes, indeed. Did you enjoy the roast beef?”
“I did. Thank you for so expertly managing the household.”
“It was my pleasure.”
This would never do. They were behaving like two acquaintances at market day, not a just-reunited husband and wife!
“I have some lingering questions,” he said.
She was brushing her hair, having taken it down from its pins. He loved to see her use the silver-backed brush and comb as if she were to the manner born. If Erasmus had his way, Amy would want for nothing.
“What’s that?” she asked distractedly.
He tapped his coat, right over the front pocket. “I have some letters from you, and their meaning was not always clear.”
“You must understand: I am new to writing, and I lack the skill of a more experienced correspondent,” she said, catching his eye in the mirror, her eyes filled with mirth.
“Yet you have mastered the art of teasing your husband from a distance, my little minx.”
Amy rose from her seat, her hair now tied off with a pretty ribbon.
“And another thing!” he exclaimed. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you adding lace to Thea’s dresses and buying Phin toys without putting it on our accounts! I’m of a mind to think that you’ve been using your own allowance for their things!”
She came near, her eyes shy. “I couldn’t use all of that money for myself. It’s an awful lot for one person.”
Erasmus couldn’t stand it any longer. His cock was fattening at his wife’s proximity and coyness, and his brain was struggling to work. “Amy,” he groaned, taking up the end of her braid and gently drawing her closer.
She came into his embrace without hesitation, rubbing her cheek against his chest. Did she too feel a deep need to be close to him? What a miracle, forged from a happy accident.
“I should note that your head rests over some letters I received.”
“Oh, really?”
“Some letters from my wife. Letters that left me uncomfortably hard and longing for our bed.”
“She must be a cruel woman, your wife.”
“The cruelest.”
She hummed.
“She’s clever and kind and lovely no matter the time of day or what she’s wearing,” he said, cradling Amy’s neck to tilt her face up for an achingly soft kiss on those enchanting lips. “How I’ve missed you.”
She went on tiptoe to kiss him back. “And I you.”
Then, on the way back down, her hand brushed over his cock. Erasmus held in a whimper, but just barely.
“Give your loving husband a present he’ll remember,” growled Erasmus into his wife’s ear. “Bare your body and stretch out on our bed.”
She was a good girl and freed herself of everything but the new ribbon in her hair. Quickly, she tossed the counterpane aside and lay on the sheets. Could she possibly be as eager for this as he was?
Erasmus withdrew the letters and set them on the bed before proceeding to remove his shirtsleeves. He took up the pages and handed them to Amy, ready at last to hold her accountable for the angst she’d caused him.
“Read the place I’ve circled on that first page,” he said sternly.
“I suddenly can’t read,” she said, hiding a smile and turning her head into the pillow.
Erasmus came to the side of the bed, turned up the lamp, and poked at the missive. “The place I’ve circled. And open your legs.”
She read and opened her thighs at the most teasing speed imaginable. Erasmus cupped himself over his trousers and waited for a clear view of her slit, stiff and aching despite their night only just beginning.
“…I’d like to report that the little well you expressed an interest in has been producing considerable water,” she said. “Why, some might say it’s overflowing. I think you’ll be pleased when you return to inspect it.”
He unfastened his placket. “And did you think this was appropriate to write? Suitable to tell a man who was thousands of miles away from his loving wife?”
She let her legs fully open at last. Erasmus couldn’t help but gaze upon her spread little puss, that cunny visibly wet, just as she’d promised.
“I was merely reporting on the condition of the Abbey,” she said, a playful finger coming to her nipple to show where she wanted him. This night, after so many aching nights away, he’d give her new places to want him.
“I’m afraid I must away to inspect the well,” he said, making as if to go.
Amy laughed. What a sound, as dear to him as Thea’s increasingly fluent Greek and Latin and Phin’s kitten cries and burbles.
“Or I could,” he said, sliding onto the bed between her legs, “inspect your well.”
Erasmus reached up her body, over her belly, until he took her hand in his.
And then he lowered his mouth to her deliciously red cunny and licked up her wet slit.
“Oh!” exclaimed his wife, convulsing.
“I find I didn’t have enough at supper,” he said, tonguing her nub. “I’ll just have to eat you up.”
The rocking of her hips was at odds with the tormented shakes of her head, all possibility of speech seeming to have escaped her.
Good, it was time for her to be just as sensually afflicted as he’d been by her letters.
Placing two fingers at her swollen inner lips and spreading them so he could see his wife’s little hole, Erasmus finally spoke the words he’d been wanting to say for weeks.
“Read the letter where you told me about the state of the Abbey’s pipes.”