“No.”
“Edward—”
“Absolutely not, Eleanor.” Lord Ashwater barked hotly. “I can’t believe you would suggest such a thing.”
“What choice do we have?” His wife pleaded. “Do you begrudge me putting my foot down with Gideon?”
Lord Ashwater’s tone became pained. “The boy deserved to be spoken to that way, you’ll find no argument from me on that front, but you must admit it has put us in a very awkward and moreover urgent position.”
“A position I can get us out of for good. If you’d just consider—”
“I said no, Eleanor. It’s not even an option. It’s disgusting!”
“Oh it’s disgusting, is it?” Lady Ashwater feigned offence. “That’s a shame. I’d rather got the impression you’d become similarly fond of our prototype as I have. Well, maybe not that similar, but anyway—”
“No that’s… that’s different, Eleanor, you know that. That’s hardly the level we’re talking about now. And might I remind you that by your own admission you got extremely lucky even in that case that the whole business has worked out so well.”
“If you’d just trust in my abilities—”
“It’s not a matter of trust, Eleanor!” Lord Ashwater cried exasperatedly, grabbing his wife by the upper ar—
“Hang on.” Sam said through a mouthful of carrot. “You said you was outside the door listening. How do you know he grabbed her?”
“Door was ajar, weren’t it?” Catherine gesticulated with her fork. “I could see their shadows on the wall when they got near the window. Now do you wanner hear this or not?”
“Sorry.” Sam retracted, chewing. “Go on.”
“Right, so he says “It’s not a matter of trust, Eleanor! —”
“— It’s simply not a thing that any man would dare countenance permitting in his own home, as you well know from the last time you risked embarrassing me.” Lord Ashwater grimaced. “And really, to suggest not only that I reverse my judgement in that case, but to encourage a repeat performance on our own… no. Absolutely not.”
“Very well.” Lady Ashwater turned her head away to avoid his gaze. “I suppose, then, lacking as we do other options, one of us will simply have to swallow our pride. Either we capitulate to Gideon and I suffer the shame of him seeing my firm veneer of resistance crumble… or we roll the dice as they are, and you risk him being correct about what lies ahead for your legacy.”
“Yes, well. One of those, indeed.” Her husband’s tone faltered as he turned to leave.
“The latter might be for the best, really.” Lady Ashwater crooned, going in for the kill. “After all, if what remains of our legacy is to be dragged through the mud by an oafish interloper, better that the family name be scrubbed off it all beforehand, don’t you think?”
Lord Ashwater stopped in his tracks at the door and stood very still for a little while, the only outward indication of his thoughts the intermittent clenching of his fists. Finally, he turned to face his wife.
“Damn you.” He spat.
“I promise it’ll all be for the best, Edward. It’s a dramatic step to take, I admit, but one that will undoubtedly make all these little anxieties you have just… fly away.”
“You, Eleanor, are a witch. Do you hear me? A witch, or a devil, or a heathen pagan forest god whose wicked old ways are turned back to by a desperate and unshepherded congregation. Some… beast that men, even as their hearts scream against it, sell their souls to in order to secure the objects of their prideful, fatuous ambitions.”
“I love you too, Edward.” The smile was audible in Lady Ashwater’s voice. “Now, are you going to send the telegram, or shall I?”
~
“Hm.” Sam mused noncommittally as Catherine finished her tale. “I wonder what that was all about.”
“I was hoping you’d know.” Catherine returned to her carrots; her plate much fuller than the other servants’ given the time spent on the other use of her mouth. “It’s obviously summat to do with you, but I can’t make head nor tail of it.”
Sam thought he actually had a very good idea what it might be about, but he pushed down the rising trickle of disquiet in his gut for the moment.
“If you ask me.” Said Mrs Bone the cook, a crowlike woman who Sam didn’t know that well on account of her being a part time day servant who only worked shifts before mealtimes. “It all sounds big and dramatic enough that if it’s meant for the likes of you to know, you’ll find out soon enough, and if it ain’t then it’s as well a business left right alone.”
Sam saw his out and took it. “Quite right, Mrs B. His Lordship’s packed off back to London by now so even if eavesdropping like that were proper I doubt there’ll be anything to hear about it any more, and if it’s for us to know in any case we’ll find out in due time.”
“They was talking about that fella Gideon.” Lottie squeaked from the end of the table. “Do you think it’s about you roughin’ him up, Sam— ow!” She turned forlornly to Marcia, who in an uncharacteristic show of violence to the smaller girl had elbowed her hard in the ribs.
“Marce, leave her alone, she can talk about it s’long as she’s respectful.” Sam chided. “No, Lot, I don’t think so. I think whatever it is is just summat that’s on their minds ever since then. Like I say, not for us to know, and if it is, it’ll all come out in any case.”
The maids all shrugged and returned to eating. Sam tried to drown the sinking feelings of guilt and suspicion in his gut with carrots and thin gravy.
~
“Ah, here you go, nursey, some good news.”
Matron Forbes stopped in her tracks at the sound of Private Wilson’s voice from behind the newspaper he was using to take his mind off his broken leg. “Don’t call me ‘Nursey’, Frank you menace. Anyway, what’d that be?”
“Says here our blokes in Europe have reached Italy, and they’ve taken Milan no less!” The private babbled excitedly. “If the German corridor can hold, that means there’s a good chance of a push on Rome before Christmas.” He flattened the newspaper, revealing his beaming smile with its two missing teeth. “About time if you ask me. Sooner they clap the Pope in irons and all this nonsense comes to an end the better. What’s more, there’s a bit here sayin’ the Portuguese might be giving up sooner than that even! Tryin’ to talk peaceful resolution via their historical bond with England.”
Matron Forbes snorted. “Doubt London will think much of that, Frank. Though—” She busied herself with changing the bedpans. “—it would be nice. I can’t imagine the Timorese having much of the spine to carry on without a strong colonial hand behind them and by all accounts Lisbon barely has that. We could all go home then. Won’t happen, of course. All much more complicated than that. To say nothing of Ireland.”
“To say nothing of Ireland.” Frank and a few of the other nearby bedridden privates echoed in chorus, but further conversation was cut off by the sound of a motor vehicle pulling up outside the makeshift ward. Matron Forbes gave a quick glance of concern at the nearby Nurse Lewis, who hustled with her over to the doors of the vestibule through which casualties were received from ambulances.
The doors at the other end were relatively gently pushed open, revealing two women in military uniform— a masculine redhead and a raven-haired girl of daintier but nonetheless powerful build— carrying a hobbling private between them, his arms on their shoulders.
“What’s happened?” Nurse Lewis bleated in apprehension. “Don’t tell me they’ve started shelling from the bay again, we never heard the alarm.”
“Nothing like that, don’t worry.” The redhead said. “They’re tearing down the wreck of the cannery today and Private Milton here just got his foot crushed by falling rubble, the silly boy.”
“Thank the Lord.” Matron Forbes replied sardonically, stepping forward to take the load of the wounded man from the black-haired woman. “The boats come in today and I don’t think I could take another fortnight of rationing broth if it were delayed. Right then, Milton-me-lad, let’s see what we can do for you. Can you walk if we take the load off that foot?”
Private Milton nodded and the Matron indicated wordlessly to Nurse Lewis, who bent down and pulled a wooden crutch out from under the table in front of the doors. As he hobbled away with the Matron to be processed, Nurse Lewis perked up suddenly, having just remembered something, and turned to the raven-haired ambulancewoman.
“Oh! I almost forgot. There was a telegram for you, Imelda. Came in a few hours ago.” She pulled a small envelope from her breast pocket and handed it over.
Imelda opened the envelope with a raised eyebrow, which quickly turned to an expression of alarm and concern as she read the slip of paper inside.
“Nothing tragic, I hope?” Her redheaded compatriot asked, craning her neck a little to see over Imelda’s shoulder.
Imelda snapped the slip shut and pocketed it. “I’m not sure. It’s quite unfortunate at least, ladies: I’m being summoned back to England immediately, would you believe?”
“Oh?” The redhead mused. “How’s that then?”
“Apparently my presence is required to ‘resolve a succession crisis’. Given it’s my father’s name on the telegram he’s evidently alive, and I think we’d probably have heard if the King or someone like that had carked it, so I’ve got to presume my idiot brother’s gone and got himself killed or disinherited.”
“Aw yeah, that’s right. You’re a proper Lady or somethin’ in England, ain’tcha Ash?”
“I think you’ll find, Roslyn.” Imelda smirked. “That no matter who my Daddy is there’s nothing ladylike about me.”
“Oi.” Roslyn smiled back, retorting under her breath so the patients in the surrounding beds didn’t hear. “None of that for me, you menace. I’m sure if you’re leaving us Agnes here will have more than enough to say to you on the subject.”
“Oh I wouldn’t imagine there’ll be much talking involved.” Imelda’s eyes flicked over to Nurse Lewis, whose face had turned crimson.
“That’s quite enough, both of you!” She chided. “But… yes, I suppose if you’re leaving us there’ll be a report or two to fill out. Perhaps you should come to the office in half an hour, Imelda. When are you going, anyway?”
“Today. There’s apparently a gentleman I have to meet in Singapore on the way. Goodness knows what that’s about.”
“You’re taking the north route? That’s a bit dangerous, surely?” Roslyn raised her eyebrows.
“Well, the boat goes that way either way, doesn’t it? Besides, it’s not incredibly dangerous. They take the west coast route first before swinging up north to Batavia. It’s more expensive, but it keeps well away from papist waters and all the mines and such.”
“Good.” Nurse Lewis permitted herself a slightly vulnerable smile. “I would so hate to hear of anything dreadful happening to you.” She turned and glided away to find the matron and their new patient.
Roslyn turned to Imelda with a slightly graver expression than before. “You’ve… considered, haven’t you, Ash, that they might be trying to get you home because…?”
“Yes, don’t worry.” Imelda nodded. “I’m well prepared to set up the usual wheeze once I arrive in Southampton.”
“Really? Who do you have in mind for the starring role?”
“An old friend named Arthur White. He treads the boards in some minor roles in the West End relatively often- in fact, he’s played a few Australian parts of late.”
“He sounds perfect, how’s his grasp of the accent?”
“Oh it’s absolutely dreadful, but it isn’t like my parents will know the difference.” Imelda giggled. “Anyway…” she lowered her voice. “…one of Arthur’s old flames was an insufferable designer for some furniture firm or other. I only met the fellow once. Well-heeled, and handsome I suppose, for those who enjoy that sort of thing, but a dreadful bore and quite crudely tactless, especially on the subject of other people’s furnishings.”
“Ahh… I suppose your friend Arthur has some talent as an impersonator then?” Roslyn smiled.
“He does indeed. I think an afternoon with Arthur wandering about the house making some choice comments on aspects of the decoration he’ll have to have torn out and replaced with something a bit more modern once it’s his house— all spoken a little too loud and carefully positioned just in earshot of my father, of course— and the subject of me getting married goes away for at least another nine months.”
“You really are a calculating little viper, Ashwater, do you know that?” Roslyn laughed.
“Oh I know.” Imelda smirked. “Amongst those audiences whose opinions I do value it’s rather a prized quality.”
“Ha! I’ll say. We’ll bloody miss you. I always thought you’d end up settling here once the war was over.”
“Here? In Palmerston?”
“All right, maybe not here here, but this side of the world. Sydney, probably, or Melbourne. Happens all the time. English poshos of your, uh, persuasion who aren’t in line for anything flee as far away as they can from home and settle somewhere they’ve no business to become a ‘lady of letters’ with a series of female companions.”
“Who says I won’t?” Imelda laughed. “If the war’s still on once I’ve sorted this business out I’ll be coming right back, and if it’s not… well who can say? I find the antipodean climate suits me rather better than anywhere in Europe, so I’ll be eager to return, in any case.”
“Glad to hear it.” Roslyn said. “Now get out of it. I’m gonna have to talk to control about getting a new second if you’re buggering off home. And speaking of buggering…”
“Nice try Roslyn.” Imelda laughed. “But not the word. I warn you, if you come and visit me in Sydney or Melbourne or what have you, and go to the places I intend to go, looking like that, it might be sensible to brush up on a basic glossary of terms and practise your ‘no thank you’s, just so that you can avoid breaking too many poor young ladies’ hearts.”
Roslyn made a gesture of concession and hurried off back to the ambulance outside.
~
Imelda caught a glimpse of Nurse Lewis’ face hurriedly turning away from the sound of the office door opening before it disappeared into the long streaks of the shuttered blind’s shadow in the mid-morning sun. She stepped inside and gently closed the door behind her. On the desk lay a grubby yellow form, printed off-kilter with the imposing header AANS – Discharge Notice at the top.
“You know what to do with that.” Nurse Lewis said, not really in the form of a question.
Imelda nodded. “Slice any knots with my father’s name or with Admiral Bakersfield’s. But that can wait.” She turned toward the dark corner. “Are you crying?”
Nurse Lewis sniffled. “It’s just a little silliness.”
“Oh, Agnes…” Imelda’s face tightened.
“Silliness, I tell you.” Nurse Lewis turned around, revealing the glistening rivulets staining her face and the effort required to keep it composed. “You never told me much about your family, but I know the type well enough. Always knew it was only a matter of time before they needed to make use of you.”
“Whatever ‘use’ they’re looking for, Agnes, they won’t find it in me.” Imelda said determinedly. “I’ve beaten them off before and I’ll do it again.”
“You can’t run forever, Imelda. I’m not even sure I can.” Nurse Lewis wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “The wheels of the world don’t slow down for stories such as ours. You hop on board before you’re exhausted, or you’ll be trod into the sod beneath them.”
“I will be back before you know it, Agnes.” Imelda stepped forward. “I promise.”
“You won’t.” Nurse Lewis’ face cracked. “You can’t know that. And even if you were, what then, Imelda? Another summons in six months, a year? And what would you come back for? Hardly as if there’s a future for us, is there?”
“Who says there isn’t?”
“The world around us, beloved. The men who run it. The God who rules it. And a hundred other silly little nonsenses besides. What we’ve done together is in its own way beautiful and worthwhile and a repository of great and unspeakable truth. Truth that sometimes I wonder if even that very God understands, though he should. And I don’t regret it at all. But we were only ever a silliness. We only ever could be. Imagine for a moment that the great and beautiful sin that we shared were the way of the world. That quick as you like, easy as any man, you could make a wife of me. Do you think that would have been the only problem in your way? That our match would be approved, sanctioned? That everyone, if they were just freed of the disgust in their hearts for what we are would have no objections to the bond of an English noblewoman and a scrapper’s daughter from Alice Springs?”
Imelda didn’t answer. Tears welled in her eyes.
“It was never meant to be, my love.” Nurse Lewis crooned, smiling through her own replenished tears. “We’re a dream of a different world.”
“A dream… yes, perhaps.” Imelda stepped forward to caress her cheek. “But surely we can dream a little longer.”
“When does your ship leave?”
“This evening. At nine.”
“Hmm.” Nurse Lewis leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Imelda’s. “Then dream a little longer we can. Unless further communiques are likely to turn up from England.”
“I doubt it.” Imelda kissed her tenderly, lip sliding over lip gently. “It’s… what, nine-thirty now? It will just have gone midnight in England…”
~
The new moon was distinctly inconvenient. Sam would much have preferred a full one, so that he needn’t have risked the closely guarded candlestick in his hand. Rationally he supposed he was being overcautious— it was only midnight; he knew that at least Hattie (who he’d spotted coming downstairs with a hamper full of washing) and Grace (Who’d been scrubbing dishes still when he let himself in by the kitchen door and from her approving smirk and nod had seemingly divined his purpose instantly) were still up and about. Most probably Mrs Breadworth and Lady Ashwater would consider nothing indiscreet about his movements upstairs even if they did detect him. But with a salacious purpose came the bedfellow of unaccountable worry— and so creep with a guarded light he did.
He was thankful that Marcia’s room was close to the staircase in the servants’ wing. Sam looked around furtively, then knocked gingerly on the door.
There was a moment of silence, and then the door cracked open. Marcia’s perfect face peeked out, followed by a questing arm that grabbed Sam by the shirt collar and pulled him inside, snuffing out his candle in the rush.
“Mister Hocking!” Marcia giggled under her breath as she shut the door and flicked on the lights. “You appear to have become lost on the way to your own room.”
“How careless of me, Miss Trembley.” Sam smiled, his face twitching only a little from the dull ache of pain in his bruised eye socket. “I do hope it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much to accommodate me until I have the strength to go on again.”
“Well…” Marcia smirked, taking him by the hand and leading him over to the humble bed in the corner of the room, past the chair that bore her discarded apron. “I must confess I was rather hoping you’d have a fair bit of strength right now for purposes besides.”
“I’m sure I could stretch myself to that.”
Marcia let out a peal of joyous laughter as Sam bore her down onto the mattress.
“Hush, you naughty thing. We’re for it if we’re discovered.” Imelda chided through a smile. Agnes nodded, covering her mouth to suppress involuntary noise as Imelda probed further into her cunt, the powerful motions alternating between sliding her ring and middle fingers over Agnes’ clit and slipping the other two fingers down like a fork to massage her undercarriage. The effort was of limited use, however, when Imelda leaned in and began to nibble at her ear, up and down from the lobe to the arch. Agnes groaned and bit her lip desperately, writhing against the wall of wooden filing cabinets. Their drawers rattled a little under her weight and Imelda firmly swung the wriggling nurse out into the middle of the room to prevent further risky disturbances.
Agnes herself struggled dreadfully to squash the squeal of delight that threatened to escape her lips as her lover lifted her off the ground seemingly effortlessly with a hand still deep in her sex. Imelda’s strength astonished her: Agnes was slight, there was no doubt, but as a busy soldiers’ hospital nurse she had hardly escaped building some muscle mass of her own, so the talent was still truly impressive. She writhed around the ball of Imelda’s wrist, stammering out quiet little gasps as bolts of pleasure shot up her body.
The feeling of Imelda’s left hand closing around the nape of her neck and holding on tight to the fistful of tightly drawn hair found there forced a real gasp out of her, however, and Imelda smirked as she felt her lover melt into her grasp at just that touch in the manner of an instinctively reflexing animal cub.
“So.” She growled victoriously. “Last time for at least a while, Agnes. What are you really craving? What do you need me to do?”
“What?” Marcia blinked from her position flat on the bed. “How do you mean?”
“Well it’s just I’ve never really, um.” Sam frowned. “My experience has been limited to what her ladyship demanded of me, and I suppose I could go and fetch the tool for that if you’d prefer, Marce, but I don’t know that you’d really enjoy the kind of performance out of me that’s to her taste. But aside from that, I’m afraid I might be a little out of my depth. I thought perhaps if we started with what you want we could go from there.”
“Well.” Marcia said. “I do have one idea.”
Sam watched in bemusement as Marcia began unfastening and pulling open the button lines of the various garments that formed her uniform. There was a slightly awkward silence for a moment as the practical demands of unsealing two layers of stiff cloth delayed the grand reveal, but eventually the curtains of Marcia’s bodice parted and her corset cracked open to reveal her small, teardrop-shaped breasts. Sam had seen them before a couple of times, catching incidental glances while getting changed in maid school, but back then he had completely lacked the kind of understanding he had now as to the meaning of the feelings the sight filled him with. And there was something different about being shown them as opposed to seeing them that he couldn’t put his finger on. Marcia’s chest was darker than her face by a shade or so, showing more of the slight bronze undertone that betrayed her mixed mediterranean heritage. Sam wondered if being covered up in the day away from the sickly English sun had shielded Marcia’s body from the forces of albionic pastiness that her face and hands had not escaped. He wasn’t completely sure that that made any sense, but the idea of finding out excited him a little, not least because it would necessitate seeing more of her unclothed. He looked back again, closer. Marcia’s skin was soft and smooth, and Sam was a little surprised to see that despite her access only to the same meagre servants’ diet he did her chest was even a little fatty, with pliant-looking flesh begging to be touched and palpated even on the less erogenous areas that he expected were not the purpose she was inviting him toward.
As if in response to his thought, Marcia spoke up again. “Do I need to draw you a map, Mister Hocking?” she teased.
Sam started. “Oh, um, no, no I think I follow you, Marce.” He reached out, a little uncertain, and enveloped each of her breasts in one of his rough, dry hands, plying them outward and rolling the nipples under his thumbs. He eyed her expectantly, and was rewarded with the sight of her smiling widely, closing her eyes and biting her lip as he kept working the flesh of her chest through his fingers. He carefully worked his ring fingers sideways into the shallow groove under the modest mounds, encircling them on a side each to give himself some leverage when it came to teasing them to and fro. It was a well-received bit of improvisation, causing Marcia to moan quietly with contentment, and the feeling was pleasant beneath his fingertips, with just the right amount of resistance meeting his kneading whenever it neared her breastbone or the edges of her chest.
Marcia wriggled a little in his grasp; not the writhing of ecstasy, but rather the squirming of supreme contentment at a light stimulation like the one he was applying. She flexed and knotted and rolled as his fingers and thumbs time and again palpated the soft sensitive skin beneath them.
“That’s it...” She bleated. “Gooood boyyyyy.”
Sam flushed, glad that the pleasure had shut Marcia’s eyes too tight to see.
“But if you could just...” Marcia bit her lip. “I mean... that’s good, but maybe a bit more lechery now, hm? Really cop a feel, go on. I want yer to.”
Sam felt nervous, but obediently squeezed and groped with his hands. It was a harder grip than he thought would be altogether comfortable, and when Marcia’s eyes shot open he was worried he’d gone too far, but then he caught the devilish grin and the more energetic, seductive squirm and realised she had him exactly where she wanted him.
“I’m not sure I’m a lecherin’ type of fella, Marcia.” He laughed nervously.
“Oh I don’t know.” She smirked. “You’re doing pretty well so far. And what if I want to make you into one?”
He started a little. “Um, uh, what do you...?”
“Her ladyship spent a lot of time sculpting you into the kind of man she wants in her bed, so you told us.” Marcia continued, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and drawing him in. “Is that a privilege just for the Missus or do other women get to have a go?”
Sam felt very hot. He was a little afraid of this new and unexpected side of Marcia, but not in the way he was afraid of her ladyship. No... This was a fear most exciting. ‘Devilish’ was definitely the word for whatever had got into her, because he could see the fateful bargain she was dangling in front of him.
“Marce, you’d like... You’d like to take a turn making a man out of me?” His tone was almost incredulous.
“Is that too far?” She raised an eyebrow in what seemed a sincere concern, even if the smirk remained. “I notice you haven’t stopped, so I’m assuming no.”
“I’m not sure.” He replied, but he couldn’t help noticing she was right, his hands were still rhythmically adjusting the groping grip on her tits on their own, as if by instinct. “And you’d wanner... Make me into more of a creeper?”
“Not a creeper, no. Nothing like that.” Marcia mused, tugging gently on the back of his neck with her still outstretched arms to close the gap between their faces. She kissed him warmly and then pushed him back a little and cradled the left side of his head in her hand, passing her thumb gently over the sore, still-bruised skin on the eye socket. “I just thought perhaps if I learned the Missus’ secrets for getting inside that head of yours and rearranging things, I could make you the kind of fella who’s more than happy to get handsy with me behind closed doors. That way, maybe you’d avoid getting socked one for taking issue with fellas above your station outside of ‘em doing it. Cause you’d know you get the real thing later, and like it. Make sense?”
Sam laughed lightly and nodded. He looked down at her tits in his hands. “Makes me feel funny to hear it. The Missus is all business, it was very scary, but you just... Announcin’ you’re gonna mix me up inside the way you like, like redecoratin’ a doll’s house in there...” He flushed and squirmed a little himself. “Well, I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I don’t think I hate it as much as it’d be sensible for me to. ‘specially since you just wanner keep me out of trouble... Or so you say. Makes me feel a little like a mouse in front of a trap, maybe. I should stay away for my own good, but I can’t resist the piece of cheese...” he gritted his teeth as if trying to stop more embarrassing submissive metaphors escaping through them.
“Good boy.” Marcia responded, and another shudder rippled through Sam’s body. He gasped as his tensed jaw came apart.
“Oh good Lord, Marce.” He groaned. “If this is the power you have over me with just those simple words... What kind of hen-pecked husband would I even make?”
“See?” Marcia was relentless with her teasing. “Exactly why I’ve gotter get in the driving seat myself in here.” She tapped his forehead. “And adjust some things to make you a bit more of a fella who takes what he wants, when he’s in private company, of course.”
“Of course.” Imelda nodded, and with a movement so fast it was almost predatory her hand was out of Agnes’ cunt and back in concert with its twin, cradling the base of her skull with the thumbs clambering up her neck, tipping her head back. Agnes moaned ecstatically, the feeling of being brought into tension doing something unaccountable to her that the simple understanding of cunts and breasts could not explain.
Imelda continued, climbing the balls of her palms up Agnes’ neck so as to allow her thumbs to walk up along her jawline. Agnes groaned, her wetness intensifying as Imelda could feel on her bare thigh. Imelda was glad she had shed her uniform, a stain like that would not have been easy to explain. The fingers clambered spider-like around Agnes’ face until her index fingers hung like ornate painted weepings from her lover’s eyes and her thumbs teased the soft, silky lower lip beneath them. In a moment, Agnes obediently opened her mouth just a little, and Imelda’s left thumb slipped in, gently nestling inside her lip like a fish hook in a carp and tenderly grazing the wet flesh inside. Agnes’ eyes rolled and closed and with a muffled mumble she went slack in Imelda’s grasp.
Satisfied her work on the mouth area was well in hand, Imelda returned her idle right hand to its previous position working Agnes’ nethers, which elicited further moans and writhing squirms. She grinned devilishly and popped her thumb out of its place in the nurse’s mouth for the moment while the speed of her work down below intensified.
“Oh Lord, Imelda.” Agnes moaned with a grin. “That’s... Absolutely marvellous. I’m going to miss your touch on my skin so much. But maybe not as much as your touch on my… on my…
“…Well, I dunno what to call it, exactly.” Sam said, his face furrowed and flushed into a crimson frown. “It’s hardly a penis, but I get the feeling that’s what it wants to be one day. It’s bigger and angrier and needier than it’s ever been, and do you know, Marce, I rather have to fight to keep it from making me come over quite insensible every time I see you.”
Marcia smiled slyly up at him from her position flat on her back on the bed. Her perfect perky breasts were laid bare at the foot of his kneeling straddle, and as if to illustrate his point Sam could feel this most beautiful of sights prompt the engorged… thing that Doctor Casement’s masculine humour had made of what was once his clitoris to respond by straining painfully, desperately trying to pull itself further out from his body.
“Oh I don’t know. Perhaps not a penis, yet.” Marcia said, her smirk exposing just a peek of her adorable mouselike front teeth. “But with behaviour like that going on, I’d say it’s far and away already a cock. So whatcher say? You want me to take care of that?”
“Oh yeah Marce.” Sam growled with a grin. “You know I really rather do.”
“Your wish is my command.” She quipped. “But if that’s so you gotter either get off me or move up to my face here.”
“Sorry.” Sam said hurriedly, clambering off her so she could get up.
Marcia flipped over longways in an almost feline action that startled Sam, so that she was now on all fours on the bed with his straining angry-looking cock inches from her face. Sam looked at her apprehensively for a moment before yelping as she lunged forward and took the whole thing into her mouth.
Sam could feel himself making a series of gutteral and rather undignified noises as Marcia’s lips and tongue took hold of his throbbing head, racking him with an overwhelming mixture of pleasure, pain, agitation and relief. Her tongue pushed his hood out of the way— what of it wasn’t already out of the way from being outgrown— and she began to suck and lick in a way that took him incredibly insensibly. The overstimulation didn’t let up, it was torturous, but the pleasure (when it came) was so incredibly exhilirating that his mouth wouldn’t open enough to ask that she stop. He fell backwards in a haze as Marcia’s efforts intensified. He wasn’t sure she knew what she was doing. He also wasn’t sure his cock cared, it was so engorged just to see her. A sudden pang of guilt racked him as he realised that it was at this point an inevitability that very presently he was going to have an orgasm, and there was little to nothing he could do in his current state and articulation to return the favour to his beloved Marcia.
As if she were reading his mind though, he saw her beautiful brown eyes snap open and connect with his. They had a look of utter triumphant mischief twinkling in them, and as he panted and puffed trying to keep himself together he saw her free left hand reach down her skirt, pushing down into the depths inside, the whole time her eyes fixed on his face.
Oh my goodness. Sam realised with a jolt. She’s... she’s strumming herself to me. To the effect she’s having on me. I’ve come over so insensible that the power she has over me is actually... exciting her. His eyes widened with astonishment and a little fear. There were evidently doors previously sealed within shy little Miss Marcia Trembley’s true nature that he feared he might foolishly already have turned keys in the locks to.
Before he could worry any more, however, his mind blotted over as he (and a moment later as he could hear, she) came.
Imelda and Agnes collapsed in a heap onto the nearest chair as the intensity of their climax faded. Imelda slipped her fingers out of Agnes’ cunt and Agnes flexed back from the clambering position that had positioned her bare cleavage right in Imelda’s eyeline. She subsided into a lying position across her lover’s lap, and Imelda obediently supported her head and lower back as the two calmed down with happy sighs. Neither said a word for some minutes, their breathing slowly returning to normal from its panting tempo and their eyelids drooping as they dozed a little in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
“Tell me about England, Mel.” Agnes murmured after she had fully relaxed.
“Hmm?” Imelda looked down at the half-dressed nurse cradled in her arms. “England? Whatever for?.”
“I’ve never been. Tell me. Tell me about the nation pulling my love away from me.”
“Well.” Imelda mused. “It’s wet, but not as wet as everyone says. Cold, but not as cold as everyone says. And unfriendly, but not as unfriendly as everyone says.” She permitted herself a dry chuckle. “A country so ordinary it’s extraordinary.”
“Your family then. Tell me about your home. Is your name a place, is there an ‘Ashwater’ I could visit had I money and the freedom to travel?”
Imelda sighed and smiled. “It’s a village. In Hertfordshire. Not that far from London. My family home is on the outskirts.”
“And your father’s a baron?”
“Yes. But never a very important one historically. Still, being one of the lords— no matter how insignificant— means being in parliament, and the family have always tried to stay active in politics to feel important. Hence why dear old Papa has a position in the war cabinet. That part you well know.”
“What about your brother? You said he was a wastrel.”
Imelda looked up to avoid the gaze fixed on her from her breastbone. “He is. But perhaps he’s only what’s been made of him. Sometimes I think I’m not as unlike him as I’d like to believe. Or as our parents would like to believe.”
“I wouldn’t call you a wastrel at all, beloved.” Agnes shifted a bit to get comfortable again.
“Not like that.” Imelda said, letting out a great sigh. “It’s just… the Ashwater legacy is dying. And let us be delicate and say that my dear old daddy isn’t taking it very well.”
“Money?”
“Yes. And power. Truth be told by your standards, sweet thing, we’re still filthy rich. But there’s… messy business about social standing. We’ve lost almost all our lands over the centuries. It’s just the house, Ashwater village and some woodland now. Impressive by the standards of a knight or a baronet, or especially the prominent socialites of the upper middle class, but hardly the fiefdom of a lord. Not any more.”
“And why does that make you like your brother?”
“Gideon is too comfortable with our new standing.” Imelda pursed her lips. “At least for our parents’ taste. To him, the dignity of being a family of the landed gentry is no matter, and I’m not sure he even thinks such a thing exists for us any more. He would much prefer to rub shoulders with knights’ and baronets’ sons.”
“And prominent socialites of the upper middle class?”
“Exactly. Gideon thinks that being a very rich fish in a merely rather rich pond is a better approach than pretending the Ashwaters haven’t soundly fallen down the social ladder, so he’s constantly at odds with both my father, who soundly disagrees, and my mother, who seems to have accepted it in her own action but would never stoop to admitting it or acting like it. Do you know, she once had the servants wear latex facial affectations and a collection of different outfits and linger where they might be briefly glimpsed; just so that her friends, who of course she hates, would be fooled into thinking we could afford to employ a full staff?”
“You’re joking!”
“I assure you she did.” Imelda smirked. “I was twenty-one at the time.”
“But I still don’t see what this has to do with you.” Agnes laughed, reaching up to poke Imelda on the nose.
“Then you aren’t paying attention, sweetheart.” Imelda chuckled back. “Gideon and I are the same, in that we have little to no interest in our parents’ obsession with legacy and nobility and position. The difference is just that I am better at hiding it than he is. My brother desires freedom from the stuffy restrictions of his responsibilities as an heir and the lingering phantom of his family’s social class. His absolution from these things comes out of a bottle of gin and a baccarat shoe, so there was never much hope it would go unnoticed, but imagine if he had instead shirked the plan for him by fleeing to the other side of the earth and joining the army, or at least doing the closest thing thereto permitted to a woman in this damned pit of a world. Imagine if his talent for schemes and cons were directed not at shifting a dwindling pot of cash around a collection of seedy smoking room types but rather ensuring the question of his ever getting married were pushed perpetually into the future. What might you say of him then, Agnes? My methods may be very different from Gideon’s, but is my aim?”
“I see your point.” Agnes smiled slyly, looking up at her lover’s face and pursing her lips expectantly. “But as to your aim, personally I think it’s right on.”
Imelda smiled and obediently swooped down to kiss her. “Of course, there is the matter of my mother, she’s—”
“—not in prison, no, though I’m sure some the nastier of the neighbours think she ought to be.” Marcia mused sadly. “She doesn’t leave the house much anymore, except on occasion with papa. It’s really quite horrible, Sam. Lots of people in her borough who used to be on good terms with her or even her friends before the war spit at her in the street now.”
Sam squeezed Marcia a little tighter in a tactile show of sympathy. “No chance of her converting, then?”
“Not a one. Papa asked her to once, when they got married. He wasn’t all that fussed about it even then but he thought it might be the done thing. He said once the swelling on his ear went down he learned not to ask again. Nowadays he wouldn’t dream of it. Always says to me ‘What’s the point in having an Italian wife if you’re just going to beat the catholic out of her?’”
“Where’s she from, in Italy?”
“Melfi. I don’t know much about it. She doesn’t talk about home that often.” Marcia mused, absent-mindedly stroking Sam’s arm. “You know, I’m sure she’d love you, Sam. She’s always been worried about my future, always fretting that I don’t look English enough for the people here, especially since the war started. Coming home with a good honest English boy would do a lot to put her mind at rest.”
“Is that what I am now?” Sam smirked and squeezed his sweetheart tighter as she wriggled and giggled in his grip.
“Well… perhaps it’s stretchin’ it a little to call you a good honest boy when you make clandestine visits to young maids’ bedrooms of a night, but she needn’t know about that part.”
Sam thought that there was rather a lot about him that Mrs Trembley ought to be sheltered from knowing lest it spoil her perception of him as a “Good honest English boy”. He decided that when they eventually met he would try to bring attestation of his Englishness, the one of those epithets he could defend with certainty, to the forefront of conversation wherever possible.
The peace of his embrace with Marcia brought a previously suppressed thought to the surface, and he gently released her and reached across her torso to his jacket where it hung on the back of the room’s one spartan chair. Fishing out the scratched and soil-spattered pocketwatch that lurked in the left breast pocket he grimaced, replaced it and returned to the spooning position with a sorrowful look on his face.
“One o’clock, Marce. I should be on my way. Wouldn’t do at all to be discovered in your bed in the morning. Her ladyship’s treating me with a lot more kindness and patience than’s strictly proper these days but I think that particular scandal would still have us both out on our ears, or at least me, and it’d be a shame to risk it now.”
Marcia opened her mouth reflexively to object, but closed it again and nodded. “Mum’s the word. Come and play again, Sam. Not so soon as to cause suspicion, but not so long either.”
Sam smiled at her and knodded, crossing his fingers in a gesture of promise. He rose from the bed, clumsily sloughed his jacket back on (doing up a few of the buttons— he was for it either way if he was seen up this late, but he nonetheless feared that left dangling it might make a noise or knock something over) and stepped into his boots. He sat down on the chair to lace them up and caught a glance of an utterly besotted looking Marcia leaning on her elbow and staring right at him.
“What?” He chuckled quietly.
“Nothing!” She protested. “It’s just... Well... Call me incorrigible Mr Hocking but...
“...I really wish you didn’t have to leave.”
“I wish so too, Agnes.” Imelda said mournfully, buttoning up her uniform and smoothing it out rigorously, hoping those of the creases she couldn’t deal with with mere elbow grease would go unnoticed by Matron Forbes.
“But...” Agnes began, aborting the sentence a word in as she turned away to the blind-shielded window with tears already welling in her eyes.
Imelda turned in askance, seeing only the nurse’s back to her.
“But...?”
“But since you must...” Agnes continued, her voice wobbling. “Since you must, my love... Don’t come back.”
Imelda froze with her hand still on her shirt button.
“Agnes...”
“Please, Mel.” Agnes turned and the diffused light from the blinds caught the moistness in her eyes again. “Please. By all means come back to Australia if you must. To the Territory even. But not here. Not to Palmerston. I beg you.”
“But...”
“We’re a silliness, remember?” Agnes forced a smile. “A dream it’s time to wake up from. And I...” She paused again as a choke entered her voice and she broke her gaze with Imelda.
Imelda’s eyes flicked sideways in anticipation and she began gently reaching forward before Agnes continued.
“I would wait for you my whole life, Mel.” She sobbed. “It’s clear as day to me. I would waste the life I have all the way to my very grave waiting for one with you that could never be. I know I would. And that’s why I mustn’t. Please promise me. Promise you won’t come back here. Promise you won’t be so cruel as that. I couldn’t bear it.”
Tears welled in Imelda’s eyes too. She finally took the half-finished step forward and took Agnes’ hands in hers, pressing their foreheads together and breathing in sorrowfully.
“If I must, Agnes. If you’re sure it would destroy you otherwise, my sweet fragile thing, then I promise. I will never return to Palmerston so long as you’re here, and never to anywhere you are. But I would ask that you let the dream be a dream still, where dreams are meant to be, because I have no doubt I will dream of you always, to my own grave even, and I would consider it a cruelty of the same kind to have that taken from me also.”
“I wouldn’t dare utter it.” Agnes breathed. “I’ve no doubt I’ll carry a similar affliction for all my life. We will always have the dream, my love.”
Imelda clasped her palms over the rough but slender steepled fingers of her nurse, her Agnes, for the final time, caressing them for just a second. Then with a herculean effort she tore herself away, strode with as much purpose as she could muster across the office and with as much false conviction as she could make pretence at grasped the knob in front of her.
Sam pulled open the door and sighed in exhaustion, that sort of exhaustion brought on by waves of contentment and relief and excitement rather than anything more material he could see or feel himself doing. He stepped inside his room, not daring to turn on the light until the door was closed, but stopped in his tracks as he heard a noise from near the end of the corridor. Fretfully he flattened himself against the doorjamb and peered slowly around to look, but there was nothing there, not even the receding remains of a candlelight. The noise, now he thought about it, hadn’t sounded very human. Probably a settling pipe groaning, he now realised, or one of the maids turning over in her bed and creaking its rickety frame.
He stepped fully inside and closed the door, permitting himself finally to turn on the light— he imagined the noise of him tripping over something in the dark would be a greater risk than the glow under the doorframe. Shrugging off his jacket and undoing the shirt buttons he had done up mere minutes before, Sam reflected on his terror at potential discovery. He would have to be more careful. Even with the sparse population of Ashwater house and the potential allyship of the maids (though what any of them thought about it besides Marcia and Grace, if even they knew, he had no idea), he was petrified that even one half-snatched glance of him up where and when he didn’t ought would allow divination of his surreptitious purpose, and then... He scarcely dared think what would become of him if it made its way back to her ladyship or her husband.
Finally ready for bed, Sam thought to himself as switched off the light, lay down and pulled the bedclothes over him that if there was one factor that he did have on his side, both in this messy business with Marcia and the general mess that his life had become since he’d entered service...
...it was the great mercy that there were never more than two Ashwaters in Ashwater House at a time.