The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance Page 7

  “Aye, you did. A paying customer tipping the velvet?”

  He hadn’t paid her yet, nor had she asked him to pay. She shifted a little, into his touch. Encouraged, he found the little dimples above her arse with his thumb, circled his hand on the small of her back, then down again, finding where her arse curved into her thigh. “Never touched anything so soft.”

  “I’m no more so than any other woman,” she said, nuzzling his throat.

  “You are,” he said. “You tasted sweet, too. Sweeter than rum. Sweeter than sugar candy when you smiled at me.”

  She was silent for a long time. Twice, he felt her lips open against his throat, but close again before she spoke. She hadn’t tensed or drawn away, but he could still sense that she wasn’t as close as she’d been a few moments before.

  He shouldn’t have said that she was sweet. She might not like to hear his thoughts. He’d done it because he hadn’t thought first, and because, he realized, he didn’t want her to think of him as just another customer. It was ridiculous for him to feel that way; he’d just met her that day, and they hadn’t even fucked properly. But he couldn’t help how he felt. They had a connection he’d never felt to any woman before.

  He certainly couldn’t say that to her. For her sake, he changed the subject, at least a little. “Did you like it?”

  “Hmmm?”

  She sounded sleepy. Her muscles were too tense for her to be truly falling asleep. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, soothing and warming at once. He asked, “Did you like what I did for you?”

  “You know I did,” she said. Now she sounded cross, and for some reason that made him smile.

  “I liked it, too,” he said, truth but also pushing just a little, to see what she’d say.

  “I should hope so,” she said.

  It should have made him jealous to be reminded she was a professional, but instead it made him laugh.

  She slapped her hand on his chest, not hard enough to sting. “Stop that.”

  “What for?” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. He growled and nipped at her throat, wiggling his fingers against her soft belly until she shrieked and squirmed away.

  “You’re mad!” she said. She’d begun laughing, too.

  Once they’d quieted, he said, softly, “I must be.”

  Betsy crawled atop him, sprawling along his length like a blanket. “Does this hurt? Your ribs, I mean.”

  “Not a bit of it,” he said. He put his hands on her hips and moved her a little. Now it was mostly true.

  “Fancy another go?” she asked. “No charge.” She fondled his prick, already half hard from their play.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Will you be gentle with me?”

  “Do you want me to be?”

  He reached up, wincing as his muscles pulled against his injuries. Luckily, it was dark and she wouldn’t be able to see his expression. Her breasts were right where he’d expected them to be. They nestled into his palms and he squeezed them gently, lifted their round weight, swept his thumbs over her nipples until they tightened and her breathing changed. “Depends,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. She shivered. Before he could comment, she leaned to the side and he felt the fringes of her shawl brush his skin, as she draped it around her bare shoulders.

  “Do you want another go?” he asked.

  “How am I supposed to give you an answer to that?” she said.

  “Would you like it?” he asked. “For you.”

  “You can’t ask me questions like that,” she said, cross again. “I offered myself to you, didn’t I?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly ashamed. He let go of her breasts, letting his hands fall to the pallet. Of course she couldn’t tell him how she truly felt. Her livelihood depended on giving pleasure. It wasn’t fair for him to ask her a question like that when he’d given – or would give – her money for what they’d done.

  Men paid for their wives, it was true. They bought them clothes and housed them and fed them. How was that different?

  It was respectable, that was how. Only a bastard like him would think maybe it was otherwise.

  He said, “You don’t have to. You pleased me right well.”

  She didn’t speak or move for a long time. He waited for her to climb off him and send him away. Then she squeezed his hips between her thighs. “I want to,” she said.

  Her clever hands captured his cock, stroking him in tandem until he was as hard as stone. She enveloped his erection with her cunny in one long, luscious slide; they both groaned, and his fingers locked on her hips, holding on as she leaned forwards and rode him, grinding her little knob against him with each stroke.

  Her cunny’s suck and pull was even sweeter than her mouth. She made him feel safe, protected inside her body, even though he knew that wasn’t true.

  He didn’t mind when her nails scratched his belly, accidentally drawing blood. He might still feel that scratch tomorrow, and it was as nothing to the wound on his ribs. He concentrated on the sting as long as he could, and the brush of her shawl against his skin, the scent of their combined sweat, any sensation not belonging to his cock as he tried not to climax, not to let this end. He almost lost control when she came, her cunny clenching desperate/span> at his cock, but he thought of the cold and managed to hold off for a few precious seconds.

  She started to ride him again, panting now, her fingers for sure leaving bruises. He dug his fingers into the muscles atop her thighs, encouraging her rocking motion, groaning deeply each time she ground forwards against him. He fumbled higher, found her breasts again, pulling and pinching more roughly than he had before. She rewarded him with cries that grew faster and louder, matching the increasing speed of her riding, then shattering into weak cries that told him she’d climaxed once more.

  At her sounds, he could no longer stop himself from thrusting his hips. His rib stabbed him with pain each time, but his senses were so confused it felt like hot pleasure instead, and moments later he was spending in great spurts, every last ounce of fear and pain ripped loose from him, body and soul.

  As they lay nestled together afterwards, she murmured, “Thank you. No one ever …”

  She didn’t finish her sentence. He waited for a long time, but she only turned her face into his chest. He tightened his arm around her and closed his eyes, listening to her breathe. For tonight, at least, he could keep someone safe.

  This time, he didn’t wake until sunlight filtered through a weak spot in the canvas above his head.

  It was morning. She was gone, and he still hadn’t paid her. He dressed and she didn’t return. She’d taken the machine with her; he tried not to think about what she might be doing. A horrible fear rose in his throat that he’d offended her somehow. He waited as long as he could, but she still didn’t return.

  He left coins hidden beneath her pallet, all the shillings he had, and returned to camp. He was due for guard duty.

  He tried to find her again, the next three times he was free, but she was never in her tent or anywhere in the vicinity. He feared she was avoiding him. One of the other women told him she wasn’t often seen. “Pretty thing like her, probably hunts among the officers,” she said, wisely. Weston supposed he ought to be happy for her, because maybe an officer could afford to keep her in style. Jealousy had no place in his feelings. She wasn’t his, much as he wished she could be.

  On his last visit, the whore with the huge bubbies finally took pity on him, and told him Betsy had taken up with a lieutenant of Hussars, describing the boy’s uniform down to the last button. “A blue blood, even,” she said. “How’s about that rum now, lad?”

  Betsy wouldn’t even know she’d taken up with his half-brother. He couldn’t be angry with her. But for the first time, he felt angry with the brother he’d never met, and experienced an unreasoning, clotted hatred for the father who’d abused his mother and done nothing for him.

  The winter that followed struck the re
giment hard. A terrible November storm destroyed the largest part of their supplies, blowing away tents and all their contents, blankets and clothing and even tables and chairs. Wagons were barely held to earth by the weight of the bellowing bullocks harnessed to them; the Prince and the Resolute and many more were sunk in the harbour. Weston was lucky to retain his clothing, as he was wearing most of it.

  After the hurricane, he slipped away in the confusion and couldn’t help himself, he went in search of Betsy, to see how she’d fared. He was unable to locate her, even when enquiring of the officers’ servants. So far as he could tell, she wasn’t with his half-brother any more, not that he’d had any evidence in the first place that she’d become the boy’s convenient.

  The whores to whom he spoke seemed sure Betsy wasn’t dead, but none of them would tell him where she’d gone. Their looks at him were pitying. He hoficers’at meant she’d found another protector, someone with a roof to put over her head, maybe even away from this cursed Russian shore.

  Soon his mind was taken over with more pressing concerns after an inflammation of the lungs brought him low. He wasn’t surprised to finally fall ill. There’d been nothing to eat for a month but scant rations of salt pork, and everyone tried to sleep in the freezing open air, some without blankets; he was lucky to sleep for three hours in total.

  Once he dreamed that his father came for him, raised him up from the ranks and took him to a house with a roaring fire. Betsy waited for him there, dressed in a fine gown with a jewelled pin at her throat, her hair dressed like ladies he’d seen shopping along the streets of London. Somehow he knew, in this dream, his brother had been cast off to wander and starve.

  Weston woke shaking from that dream, which was as bad in its way as his dreams of killing.

  The days blurred into constant numb cold, bouts of fever that were all he remembered of warmth, and ripping pain as he futilely tried to clear his chest. Weeks passed in this fashion. Men and animals died every day, frozen or starved or bayoneted while they slept in a trench.

  Weston never remembered quite how he ended up in one of the hospital bell tents. Damp, chill wind wormed through the tent’s seams and crept beneath. The stale hay on which he’d been laid did little to insulate him from the icy mud, and the blanket atop his shaking form did nothing but trap the sweat from his last bout of fever. His head reverberated with pain and his eyes burned; his throat felt like to crack from dryness. He couldn’t feel his feet or hands. Every cough stabbed like a sword inside his chest.

  If he could have summoned up the energy to move, he would have gotten up and crawled outside in the sleet to die. Anything was better than there. He didn’t think he’d seen a doctor in more than a day, nor had any water or food in that time.

  To his left, a private from the 55th Regiment of Foot died slowly from a gangrenous chest wound, bad enough that it could be smelled even in the cold. Weston couldn’t remember when the man had last been awake, and from his stertorous breathing, thought he would never wake again. To Weston’s right lay one of the Buffs, his cheeks sunken with whatever infection ate him from inside, staring blankly at the ceiling, too far gone even to shiver. The tent’s fourth occupant had been dragged out for burial that morning. Weston had already dreamed that he’d been dragged out with the rest, unable to protest that he was still alive, gasping for breath as frozen clods of earth slapped stinging down on his face.

  Outside, someone called out an obscene suggestion. A woman’s voice responded cheerfully. Then the tent flap was thrust aside, and Betsy entered.

  He was feverish, and dreaming. “How …” he whispered. His throat hurt too badly to say more, and a vision wouldn’t hear him.

  She wore the same dress and shawl as before, and carried a basket in both arms. Hallucination or not, Weston tried to smile at her. He wasn’t sure if his face moved or not.

  She dropped to her knees in the hay and laid a hand on his forehead. The warmth of her bare fingers was painful on his cold skin. He winced and closed his eyes, then realized a delusion wouldn’t hurt him, and opened them again, drinking in the sight of her. She was much prettier than he’d remembered. “Angel,” he whispered.

  She smiled at him. “You’ll be fine,” she said.

  When she removed her hand from his face, he cried out, a wordless croak.

  She ducked her head beneath the cloth covering her basket and murmured softly.

  “Can’t hear you,” he whispered.

  She didn’t repl. A moment later, she emerged with something in her hand. “Close your eyes, Jonas,” she said.

  He hadn’t known that she knew his Christian name. He didn’t close his eyes all the way, not quite. If he did, she might vanish. So he saw her hands approach him, saw the gleam of a pair of scissors. She snipped through his uniform trousers at the hip, then his drawers. Cold air rushed in and he began shuddering again. “What …”

  “Hush, now. I’m not supposed to be here, or be doing this, so I have to be quick.”

  Something pierced his skin, a tiny hot pain that drew all his attention, followed by a wash of heat all over his body, and a physical ease he’d almost forgotten. Even his vision seemed to clear, though he felt woozy and confused, too. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered. “You’re special to me. Don’t go back to my brother.” He wasn’t sure if he actually said the last of it.

  She stroked his cheek, a lingering touch. “I’m sorry,” she said. Then another puncture, and he could no longer stay awake.

  When he woke, she was gone. Or perhaps she had never been there. But he was covered with an extra blanket and he felt much better, stronger, and even less cold. Shortly after, Jennings arrived to bring him out. He spread his extra blanket over the Buff. He never learned if the man survived.

  In January, materials to build wooden huts arrived, and in February winter clothing finally arrived. Weston found himself provided with woollen stockings and a woollen jersey, a shirt and drawers of soft flannel, a woollen hat and even a sheepskin coat. He’d never take being warm for granted again. Guard duty while wearing proper clothing was no longer such a misery, and he regained strength enough to work in the fatigue parties that carried supplies up from the harbour. Unlike some of the others, he didn’t mind it. It was honest work. More honest, maybe, than fighting.

  He thought of Betsy often. Though he tried to talk himself out of building castles in the air, it was difficult not to daydream they might have a future. He thought she might have feelings for him. Hadn’t she come to him when he was ill? If that had been true and not a fever dream.

  One more visit to the baggage train, sadly diminished after the hard winter, didn’t help him, because Betsy was no longer there. He was told, vaguely, that she’d gone to the harbour camp. Further enquiries told him his brother still lived, but he wasn’t able to discover if the viscount-in-waiting kept a mistress. If he didn’t, and he could find her, Weston daydreamed then that Betsy might take up with him instead. He began to take every chance to visit the harbour camp, volunteering for sorties against the defences of Sevastopol.

  It wasn’t difficult to muffle one’s straps and buckles, crawl through the mud in the dark, and then leap upon a pit’s or trench’s unwary occupants with a bayonet. It was hard work all the same. Weston’s hands shook all the time now, and his bad dreams now had his brother mixed up in them, and Betsy, and even sometimes his long-dead mother.

  Because of that, the next time he was wounded, he thought he was dreaming when Betsy came to him. He was in hospital at Balaclava this time, propped on his side so the deep wound above his hip could drain. Occasionally, he’d fall into a fitful sleep when sheer exhaustion took him. When he woke in the wee hours to find Betsy standing over him with a basket and a lamp, he could only stare.

  She stroked his cheek and said, “Jonas.”

  He could have said many things, but what came out was, “That boy’s my brother. Did you know that? He got everything and I got nothing. You should go to him. He’ll take good care of you. I wa
nt you to be safe.”

  She knelt on the floor beside his pallet, setting her lamp side when his eyes winced from its light. “Jonas,” she said again. “This is important. Your brother – do you know him?”

  So it was his brother, after all. Weston forced the words out. “He don’t know about me, I don’t think. And I’m sure not going to tell him. What would be the point?” His arm was shaky with weakness and pain, but he reached out and sighed in relief when she caught his hand and brought it to her lips. Her breath feathered over his knuckles, like moth’s wings.

  “What if you were in battle together?”

  “That won’t happen,” he said, puzzled. “He’ll never even see me.”

  “But if you were,” she insisted, holding his hand to her face, kissing his fingertips. “If a Cossack was about to kill him, and you could save him, would you try?”

  He didn’t have to think about that one. “Course I would.”

  “Why?’

  Weston considered. At last he said, “We’re put on this earth to care for our fellow man, aren’t we? There’s too many as don’t, but a soldier, he can’t ignore that. And the man you save today might save you tomorrow.” He thought a little more, staring at her face. Her gaze was fixed on him, her eyes huge and dark and soft in the lamplight.

  He said, quieter than before, “He’s not but a boy. Sixteen, I think. Only a boy. He’s innocent of what his father did to my mum.”

  Betsy leaned down and kissed his forehead, lingering there.

  Weston said, “Stay with me a little while, love. Before you go back to him.”

  “Oh, Jonas,” she murmured, next to his ear. Then she stretched out beside him, laying one hand on his chest. He covered it with his own and took the chance to kiss her, not a deep kiss but a warm one, to show her how deeply he cared for her, this woman he’d met only a handful of times.

  They lay there for a few minutes, Weston trying to memorize every instant. Betsy drew away a little then, and turned down the lamp to a glimmer so the room was full of darkness once again, and the sound of many injured men’s laboured breathing. He could just barely see her face. She said, close to his ear, “Jonas, I can choose between you and your brother.”