Chapter 6 Alfred
Alfred
Dear Alfred,
A comely patroness? I am shocked you would avow it. She must be very beautiful indeed.
Do be careful, though. She is notorious for a reason. Although, perhaps, you do not wish to be careful. And if she were willing to be discreet…Well, I know your morals are better than mine. So I shan’t jest with you.
You are right that I still run myself ragged in Parliament. Of course, the Crown creates a new abuse in India for every one it purports to fix.
I have had a little more time, however, to think of marriage. And I may have found my object: a Miss Florence Higgins. She is pretty, well-connected, and ardent about politics. I don’t think I’ll be able to do much better. I intend to court her. Wish me luck.
Your friend,
Henry
I put down the letter from Henry, barely able to concentrate on its contents.
I can think only of my ruin.
Well, that is not quite true.
I can think only of my ruin—and Miss de Lacey.
I am in agony.
All of my efforts to be pure for the marriage bed are now blasted.
I have defiled myself with a wicked woman.
And the only way to avoid making my perfidy public is to do more of it.
Worst of all, I cannot truly regret my predicament.
I am horrified. I am terrified.
But I also cannot stop thinking of what she will ask me to do. And yearning for it.
Surely, she will want me to bed her. Properly.
God cannot forgive such an action, but I entreat him anyway.
Dear Lord, I pray, kneeling beside my bed, my cock hard once more. Please forgive me for yielding to temptation that I cannot withstand.
Of course, I receive no response. Some clergymen say they talk to God, but I have never experienced that. Instead, when He answers it is more of a feeling. His approval, His blessing, suffuses my chest with a warm glow.
Nothing of the sort happens now.
I am left empty.
Worse, every night once I have said my prayers, I am tempted to take myself in hand.
Usually, I resist for the Lord.
But now I resist for Miss de Lacey. Because I fear losing my post if she discovers I have spent against her prohibition.
Every night the problem worsens.
I quiet my body enough to sleep—but when I awake in the middle of the night, I am still crying for release.
And I have no idea when she will call me.
Worst of all, I am plagued by impossible, terrible dreams.
When I sleep, I imagine not only bedding her—which will come soon enough, I suppose—but holding her close. I hold her and feel that warm glow of peace that I sometimes achieve in prayer. In some dreams, she is my wife.
Not only do these dreams exacerbate my physical state, but they confuse me. I could never marry Annabelle de Lacey, and she would never want anything of the sort. And yet in the dreams I am happier than I have ever been awake.
At first I think she must summon me soon, but the days pass and I begin to worry about the opposite.
Finally, it is Sunday morning, and I am preparing to give my sermon.
Just as I am about to walk to church, I hear wheels on the drive.
Surprised, I go to the door.
And see the de Lacey livery.
A footman disembarks and walks towards me.
“A message from Miss de Lacey,” the man says, slipping a note into my hand.
“Thank you,” I say, expecting the man to leave.
But he doesn’t. And dread fills my heart. I have a sense of what it means.
Dear Mr. Saintsbury,
Come to the Abbey. Immediately.
Disobey me at your own peril.
A
“But I preach this morning,” I say to the footman.
“I am to collect you, sir. She was very clear.”
He looks uneasy.
I imagine defying this message. I could go to church, preach, and deal with the consequences.
But then I think of my father reading about me defiling myself in the papers. His disappointment would be unimaginable. My shame would be infinite.
And worse, part of me wants to go.
I think of my parishioners, already gathering in their pews. There is no time to send a message to my curate.
“Very well,” I respond, knowing I have no choice.
The footman nods and I follow him to the carriage. He opens the door.
Inside I smell her immediately. That vanilla scent.
And my body is taut with want once more.
I remember the scene that unfolded there four days before, and I am at full mast. I recall her regal beauty, its ethereal power.
I stifle a moan.
When I arrive at the Abbey, I am shown into the dining room.
Annabelle de Lacey sits at the end of a long table.
It is laden with an elaborate breakfast.
“Good morning, Mr. Saintsbury. Please, sit.”
She gestures towards the place that has clearly been laid for me.
My cock is hard. She must be able to see that.
Is she really going to make me eat? I doubt I will be able to manage a mouthful. Anger rises within me.
“I am supposed to be preaching.”
“You will not be sermonizing this morning, Mr. Saintsbury.”
“This neglect is not fair to my parishioners.”
“That is your affair. I woke with a strange desire to debauch a vicar.”
“I don’t believe it. You have called me now on purpose.”
She smiles. That beautiful, cutting smile. An ache blooms in my chest.
“Yes. You’re right. And there isn’t a thing you can do about it, is there? Sit.”
“I am not hungry.”
“You don’t want to eat?”
“No,” I say, deciding to be bold if I am to have no power anyway.
“Listen to me, Mr. Saintsbury,” she says, her tone steely. “You do not make demands here. You are here to please me. I don’t care what you want.”
Rage claws inside me. But I have no choice.
I notice now that her dress is cut low, lower than any I have seen her in yet, and a deep green. Not a mourning garment. The skin above her bosom is cream—and her breasts themselves…My mouth goes painfully dry. They are large, almost too large. In other words, they are exactly what I like.
“Don’t you want to slide inside of me?” she taunts. “To feel my quim tighten around you?”
“Dear God,” I plead, as if God has any role in what is happening between us. My knees feel weak.
“Sit and eat your breakfast. My cook prepared it especially for this occasion. You offend me with your refusal.”
I stumble to the chair. My cock is so stiff that the brush of the fabric of my trousers has me panting.
“Eat,” Miss de Lacey says.
I raise a slice of potato cut thin in the French style to my lips and chew. I am sure it is very good. But I taste nothing.
“Now, I don’t want us to just sit here in silence. I want to talk about your past.”
I swallow.
“What do you want to know?”
I reach for my glass, needing a sip of wine but finding merely water instead.
I look up and she is smiling again. For a moment, I forget anything but the wonder of her face.
“I want you in your senses, Mr. Saintsbury.”
My outrage returns.
“I am not a child. I can control my drinking.”
“I am not taking chances. You will do what I say,” she says. “Tell me about your past. Have you had any lovers?”
“I have already told you. I have had none. Not until—the carriage. The other day.”
“That hardly makes me your lover,” she scoffs.
My cheeks heat. Of course, to her it must seem nothing.
“Then I have had none at all. If you will not count yourself.”
I spear another potato and eat it mechanically.
“It’s a rather paltry history for a man of your looks,” she says, as if talking about my sexual history, or lack thereof, is completely normal breakfast table conversation.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You must know that you are beautiful, Mr. Saintsbury.”
“Please, call me Alfred.”
I don’t like having my surname, my father’s name, here between us. It feels wrong.
“I will call you what I like, Mr. Saintsbury. Have I not made it clear that it is me that sets the terms between us?”
I grind my teeth together but can manage no retort.
“You are too beautiful to be a virgin.”
“I have never considered myself beautiful.”
“That seems odd. Because you are.”
I have never given the matter much thought. My beauty, if it exists, doesn’t have any practical use to me. It could make it easier to marry, I suppose, if it helped a woman prefer me. But having not yet tried to marry, I have no idea what effect my appearance would have in a courtship.
“Perhaps it is only you who thinks so.”
“Perhaps,” Miss de Lacey says, sipping from her glass. She is allowed wine it seems. “But I doubt it.”
I try not to feel an inner glow at her praise, but I do. My cock is already throbbing, but these words please another part of me—somewhere deep in my chest.
“Thank you,” I say stiffly.
She gives that little, harsh laugh from our first meeting.
“You are welcome. Has any woman ever propositioned you? Or was I the first?”
“No,” I say. I have only talked over this history with Henry, who thinks I should have indulged one of the women who came to me unbidden. “On occasion, I have had women approach me. But I turned them away.”
“Tell me.”
“They are pathetic tales. Hardly worth mentioning.”
“I want to hear them anyway.”
I sigh. The stories give me no pleasure to tell. But I am at her mercy. And of all the things we will do, I suspect that this conversation will be the least sinful.
“The first was a whore. At Oxford. A woman many of the students knew. The other young men, friends of mine, used to visit her late at night.”
“Ah,” Miss de Lacey says wryly. “Too young or too old?”
I swallow hard. “Too young.” I can still remember her pale face. She was younger than me by a few years, but she had been at her trade a long while. “She stopped me in the street. She assumed I was a student she had bedded before. She asked me to come back to her rooms. I refused.”
“And the second?”
“She was a serving girl. She offered herself to me.”
While the first time I was more shocked and saddened than anything, this second time I was tempted. Even though she was not particularly to my tastes.
Miss de Lacey nods.
“And the third?”
That last time, two years ago—that had been the worst.
“A friend of my father’s. Fifteen years my senior. She came to my bedchamber.”
Her name was—still is—Mrs. Dalyrample. She was recently widowed and was visiting my father’s vicarage at Hamperton. It was humiliating to refuse her. For her and for myself.
The worst part was that I was so desperate, so deprived, that I wanted to say yes.
But my sense that I couldn’t, that it would be wrong, stopped me.
“Only three women? You are sure?”
“Yes.”
“Hasn’t that been painful? To remain a virgin so long? Many would say it is not natural, Mr. Saintsbury, to have bedded no women. To have turned them away, in fact, at your age.”
My face is burning again. I blush easily, but my current state is beyond a blush. My skin is aflame.
And her question brings tears to my eyes.
It has been painful. To deny myself not just release but the closeness, the intimacy, I desire.
I was made for passion, I am convinced, but also for closeness.
The lower orders marry much younger than we do in respectable society.
And I understand why. It isn’t natural to live the way I do.
“Yes,” I manage.
“Now I am forcing you to abandon such nonsense.”
“It is wrong,” I say. I think of my parishioners, sitting right now in their pews without their leader. Sheep without a shepherd. Shame burns through me. My father would be horrified. He has seldom missed a Sunday in all his years. “I am losing my soul to you.”
She smiles. This time, I am able to tolerate it a little better—but not much.
“That is very severe indeed. And if I feared God or the Church of England, I might think twice, Mr. Saintsbury. But your soul is a price I am willing to pay for my satisfaction.”
I bow my head. I hate myself for the pleasure that pulses through my cock, still hard, still aching, at her resolution. At the knowledge that my resistance is pointless. That I must surrender.
I raise my head.
“I am at your mercy.”
Something flickers across her face.
Her blue eyes go a bit softer and her mouth opens just a little.
Could it be desire?
For the first time it hits me.
This powerful, beautiful woman wants me.
Why else would she go to all this trouble?
I almost come right there. I use all my willpower to keep myself together.
“Tell me, Mr. Saintsbury,” she continues. “Do you do anything else to slake your erotic curiosity? Do you look at dirty images? Do you read depraved books?”
I flush.
“Oh,” she says. “Not quite the innocent in that regard then.”
“No—I—”
“Tell me.”
I have never been so ashamed in my life. It is actually painful. For some reason, discussing my green book here with her feels impossible.
“I command you, Mr. Saintsbury.”
I close my eyes. I must tell. She will punish me otherwise.
“Yes,” I say. “One.”
“Pictures or print?”
“Print. No pictures.”
“And does it describe sexual acts?”
“Yes.”
“Do you read it often?”
“Yes.”
I look up. She does not appear vexed.
“But you said you do not frig yourself.”
“I don’t. Or—not often.”
“So you read this book, become aroused, and do nothing about it?”
I nod. “Usually.”
Her lips part, just a little.
“Mr. Saintsbury, I don’t think I have ever met a man so bent on tormenting himself. How did a man such as you come to acquire such a book?”
This part is even worse. I cannot bear it. I consider lying.
“Don’t lie,” she says as if reading my mind.
“I found it. In a bookstore. In London. Amongst the normal books. I was intrigued by the color of the cover—it is a lovely, uh, green. And so I took it from the shelf. It shouldn’t have been there.”
“And so you bought it?”
I close my eyes.
And hear her short, harsh laugh.
“No, of course not. You could not buy such a thing. You stole it.”
I felt such shame. And yet I did it anyway.
I meet her eye.
“Yes,” I finally say. “I took it.”
She smiles.
“Thank you for your honesty. Come here, Mr. Saintsbury. Let us discuss what you have learned in your little green book.”