Blooming: Veronica (17 page)

His Veronica. His fragile beautiful sweet blue flower. She was all his. How had he ever gotten so lucky as to have her permanently in his life?

Her licking and kissing and fondling and breathing and tonguing came to an abrupt halt. His bride asked in an aggrieved voice, “Must everything about you be given to gross exaggeration, sir?”

“I beg your pardon? What have I said?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, see there? No cause for complaint then, Mrs. Bowdoin.”

“There is every cause for complaint. Do you have anything about you that is average?”

“My dancing. Average at best.”

“You twirled me on the floor, making up new steps as you went.”

“Only because I had no idea of the old steps. And why are we discussing this now, madam? Hardly seems the correct time.”

She skimmed a finger down his cock, from pubic nest to blunt head. “Everything must be excess with you, sir.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean this, your make is so enormous, I can hardly accommodate the head of your cock inside my mouth.”

He surged at her words, becoming even larger and harder, more impossible for her to take. Hardly his fault. What man would not puff up in pride, given the compliment? “I would suggest you refrain from all such remarks here on out, lest you inspire even greater exaggeration.”

“Are all men as long as you?”

Another surge. “Madam, do not go further.”

“And the diameter. My, my, my.”

He jutted into her face, precum dribbling from the end of his cock, set like a stick of dynamite to go off any minute. “Continue on in this mode, and I shall spurt. Take me into your mouth at once!”

“Ever so much better, sir. I do so prefer vocal enthusiasm to silent endurance.” She grinned up at him and gave him another long, wet, luscious lick, sliding her tongue over and around his quivering flesh until he had all to do not to force the issue by ramming himself down her throat.

Nevertheless, he had ten years of training below his belt, and he held steady, letting her do what she would as he rocked on the bench and recited Homer’s epic poems, the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
, to himself, backward from the beginning, to keep from losing his load.

Not a pleasant experience.

Eventually, when she’d had her fun, she took him into her mouth, a full welcoming.

A full reckoning.

Before, he had been hanging on to his seat for dear life. At her capture. he reached out into thin air. Flailing. Not knowing how to save himself. Somehow, his searching hands found her and he grasped her thin shoulders to steady himself. In this raging storm, she was his bulwark. His lifeboat. His rescuer.

She might also sink him.

He could not resist her, and he had no defenses against her. Lord, but the woman knew how to suck. She turned his testicles inside out.

Not so dignified anymore, was he?

Death was not proud. The little death was completely without shame. His cock gone as straight as a sword he would gladly fling himself on top of if not for it being attached, he started to let go, to convulse, to give in to a scream.

He could see it all now. Guests would come rushing from the ballroom to see who had died out on the balcony. The voyeur would finally get his comeuppance.

But no. She at least spared him that. Calmly, efficiently, she placed a palm over his drawn-back lips and caught one eruption in her mouth and the other within her hand as he experienced his first devastating upheaval with a partner in a decade.

She swallowed afterward, this from a woman who talked about
him
not doing anything in half measures.

After catching his breath, done while watching his wife lick cum from her lips, he knew with a certainty he would blurt out something ghastly, like “I love you,” if they tarried.

Biting his tongue against the truth, he stuffed his cock, still wet from her mouth, back in his trousers, took up his walking stick, and rose shakily to his feet, the shakiness nothing to do with his bad leg and everything to do with bad her as he brought her up with him.

“May I kiss you, Mrs. Bowdoin?”

“In an effort to share the moment as you did with me, no doubt,” she said.

At first, her meaning escaped him. Then he recalled lapping at her cream after finger fucking her. “Naturally, Mrs. Bowdoin. How could it possibly be anything more?” he whispered and kissed her long and deep.

Let her think he only wished to taste his cum upon her lips. The alternative would strip him bare, barer than he had ever been during coupling.

Chapter Twenty-one

Two nights later, Veronica paced her bedroom floor, her new red satin dressing gown, yet another gift from her doting husband, rustling as she circled the perimeter.

He would come to her tonight. Talbot Bowdoin would walk through the connecting door, which separated his chamber from hers, and demand his conjugal rights.

And she would do as her husband bade her. Not out of necessity, but out of curiosity. There could be no other reason. Since childhood, she had always insisted upon knowing how everything worked.

How did Talbot Bowdoin work?

Incessantly, it would appear, though not on her.

After their naughtiness at the party, she had seen little of him. Locked away somewhere in the house, he did whatever it was he did from morn to night.

Regardless of how busy he was, his hours of toil ended tonight. After what happened at the party, how could they not take their marriage one step further and go at it like rutting animals?

Perhaps that was a tad sanguine of her. She would settle for less. Much less. If he could not offer her passion, she would take whatever he could offer her.

It was the smart thing to do. As a matter of practicality, their marriage had to be consummated. This would protect her legally by removing the possibility of a future annulment.

And that was not at all why she wanted her husband to bed her.

She wanted to go to bed with her husband to know what he was like as a lover.

Presumably, he shared her inquisitiveness. After all, he had tried both sexes on for size, a commendable decision in her opinion. Had she any doubts about her sexual orientation, she would have done the same.

Despite his past doubts, he did seem oriented to her now. After rushing her back into the ballroom from their illicit sojourn out on the balcony two nights prior, he had made their excuses to their host, some flimsy pretext about his needing to tinker with one of his inventions, and practically dragged her by the hair on her head from the mansion into the carriage. Then, muttering, “We shall see one another later, madam,” he had returned to Linwood the way he had arrived to the party from Boston—on horseback.

She had seen neither hide nor hair of him since.

Done with waiting like some virginal bride for him to burst through the door, Veronica decided to take matters into her own hands.

She turned the knob, crossed the threshold, and walked into an empty room.

Where was he? Where had her irritating husband gone?

The house was dark and quiet, the live-in staff all abed—servants rose early out here in the country—the ceiling and sconce gaslights extinguished. Never having ventured far from her second-floor bedroom, she made up her mind to do some exploring of Linwood to find her missing spouse.

Taking up a small lamp, she descended the stairway. The third floor housed the servant quarters, and he would not have gone there…unless he was carrying on with a maid.

She knew with a surety that Talbot would never take advantage of anyone in domestic service, anyone who depended upon him for their livelihood. He was just not that sort.

What sort was he?

Of illegitimate birth, her husband had the driving ambition to make something of himself.

What?

What had he made of himself?

It was obvious by the property he owned—and by her father’s say-so—that Mr. Bowdoin had wealth, but how had he come by his money?

Not through the usual means of inheritance. Even his name was fabricated. He was literate, well-spoken and mannered, but other than admitting to having investigated his sexuality as a young man, she had no idea what type of man she had married. The external wrapping, yes, but nothing to do with what made him tick.

“Difficulty sleeping, Mrs. Bowdoin?”

Veronica jumped, then spun round to face the questioner, an older woman by the sound of her mature voice.

“Did I frighten you?” a woman in her late sixties asked. “If so, please forgive me. I am Mrs. Long, housekeeper here at Linwood. We have yet to meet, as I just now returned from Salem. My niece’s lying-in. A lengthy birth.”

Forgetting the difference in their stations, forgetting this unknown woman had startled her nearly senseless, Veronica asked, “Did the baby live?”

“Yes, I am very much relieved to relate. A healthy baby girl pushed out after almost two days of hard labor. My niece would have moved heaven and earth to save that child.”

The lamp Veronica was holding nearly slid from her hand. Would that she had been able to do the same for her baby…or died trying. “I am glad your niece succeeded in giving birth to a healthy baby girl, Mrs. Long. And welcome home to Linwood.”

“Most generous of you. And the same to you. Have you had chance yet to meet your household staff?”

“I only just recently arrived. A bit of whirlwind ever since,” she demurred, furious with her husband for not introducing her and chagrined with herself for not insisting. Good servants kept a house running like clockwork. Bad servants made everyone’s life miserable.

Mrs. Long touched the bib on her neat white apron. “You will meet the servants on the morrow. I shall bring them around to the front hall at noon, if that is convenient.”

“Most convenient.”

“If Mr. Bowdoin could come too, ma’am? We have had a new girl enter service since his last visit to Linwood.”

“He will be there.”

So she said, but how could she be sure? Her wily husband had escaped her clutches for two days. Where was he?

“The master of this house is always so busy with his inventions,” Mrs. Long said.

Veronica finally broke with convention and asked the embarrassing question. “Do you know where Mr. Bowdoin is now?”

“Why, with Sonya, I would imagine. Come nightfall, you will usually find him there.”

Sonya?

The blood drained from Veronica, leaving her chilled all over. Her husband kept a woman?

Not under the same roof as his wife, he did not!

Men routinely had mistresses, but only an unfeeling lout would visit one on a honeymoon, and only a completely unredeemable immoral monster would do so in the same house where his bride had just taken up residence. That whore should have been gotten rid of before Veronica’s arrival.

Veronica spat, “I would very much like to meet this Sonya.”

Mrs. Long laughed nervously. “I should never have said anything, ma’am. I do apologize. Tired from my travels, I spoke out of turn.”

“Quite all right. If you would direct me to Sonya?”

“Downstairs in the basement, ma’am, first door by the kitchens.”

Her husband lodged his fancy woman in a cold and drafty cellar?

Her lecherous husband was even more unfeeling than she suspected. Situating a mistress near baskets of filthy root crops, potatoes and turnips, and bushels of decaying apples was a rotten thing to do. And then there were the mice.

Sonya would not have to endure her rotten lot in life much longer. The whore was getting the boot.

Tonight.

Her spine stiffening, Veronica said, “Go on about your duties, Mrs. Long. We shall meet again at noon.”

Veronica marched herself straight to the kitchen, located a plain set of wooden stairs, and stamped down them, the lamp held high in one hand, her dressing gown held high with the other. Tripping over her hem and spraining an ankle would never do. Nothing must prevent her from having it out with her lying husband.

Tonight.

Despicable cheat. Oh, yes, she had worked herself up into a fine tizzy. In her present state of mind, anything might happen, including breaking the lamp’s glass globe over her husband’s dark head. The reprobate! How dare he maintain a love nest right under her nose!

Muttering under her breath, Veronica stormed ahead.

At the bottom of the steps, the smell of burning coal withered her nostrils. The sooty smell of an overworked furnace nearly overpowered her. And dear God, the heat! Worse than being cooked inside a cast-iron stove.

Linwood was an opulent estate with large rooms and high ceilings. Heating the mansion in the winter would require a tremendous amount of fuel. In this instance, coal. Of course the furnace in the basement would burn hot, and of course when one was in the basement the smoky fumes would be oppressive. There was only one problem with that assertion—this was summer. Why stoke the fire to this degree during seasonably pleasant weather?

As she moved farther into the subterranean space, she noted a distinct difference in the quality of the warmth. Before, the air had felt hot, yes, but also dry and arid, and frankly, heavy with coal dust. Now, as she rounded a corner, a blast of humidity hit her squarely in the face. A Turkish bath would not have been any more moist.

Veronica swiped at her wet brow. Perspiration positively soaked her, causing her satin dressing gown to cling to her skin and her normally wavy hair to curl into tight coils. She could hardly wait to return to the airy coolness of the main level, which she would, just as soon as she found Mr. Bowdoin and let the lying cheat have it.

Not seeing her faithless husband anywhere, she trudged on, shielding her eyes from odd blinking red lights. Did Linwood have electricity?

A few houses in Boston did, but this was the country, far from the city. And even if Mr. Bowdoin had availed himself of a generator of some sort, why only have power down here in the basement? Why not have the entire house wired?

None of this made any sense!

Especially the blanket of misty fog that had suddenly rolled in to surround her. The air was so thick with vaporized water she could barely see, and the bright lamp she carried was no help. In fact, the fog reflected the illumination right back at her, blinding her.