No Will But His (11 page)

To Kathryn it seemed very strange. These caresses she'd enjoyed before, in the dark space beneath the stairs, and they had seemed well enough, or at least none too bad. But now that she could see Manox, she found herself paying less attention to the sensation of his lips on her and the way his tongue quested into her mouth. Instead, she marked how he closed his eyes when he kissed her and how the eyelids that descended over his eyes were so pale and fine that you could see the tracery of veins upon them, like a purple spiderweb.

For some reason the sight put her off and made her feel quite distant and unmoved by those hands that were running up and down her bodice, stopping to cup her small breasts, by those lips that were kissing her fervently from brow to neck and then back up again.

Like this, in the light, it all seemed very contrived. Henry Manox's look of exquisite delight at such a small pleasure seemed to her to be as much playacting as genuine. He looked to her like nothing so much as like her mother's cat when Kathryn had been very small.

Her mother's cat was a small tom, scarred by a hundred street battles. Kathryn had seen the miscreant often  beating up the smaller cats around the house to steal their food, cowing the females into accepting his amorous advances, and ruling the whole house with an inflexible will barely contained in the small, scarred grey tabby body.

But only let the creature go near Kathryn's mother, and gone was the overlord and warrior that everyone else in the house knew, the small demon with the sharp claws. Around Kathryn's mother, the tom was all meek and mild, rubbing on her ankles, and bleating a thousand different complaints about his condition and the harshness of the world.

And regardless of how much Kathryn or her siblings told their mother, she would not believe them. Instead, she would give the cat milk and fish and the best of her plate, for which he would show great and extravagant gratitude and pleasure, until her mother defended the cat to Kathryn saying, "You see, he is such a small animal and so mild. I am sure all the other cats brawl with him, and that he goes unfed and uncared for unless I am here to feed him. Mark how he relishes his food, and how much gratitude and pleasure he shows. The poor creature."

Now, it seemed to Kathryn, that Manox showed gratitude and pleasure in exactly the same way, save only that he didn't purr, and as she watched him—while he kissed the small space exposed between her neck and her dress—she found herself thinking he looked more and more like tom, until a giggle escaped her.

He looked up, surprised.

"I beg your pardon," she said. "It is only you look so much like Tom."

"Tom?" he asked, and there was a sudden stab of something dangerous in the liquid green eyes, as he pulled his head away from her. "Tom Culpepper?"

She could only giggle again and say, "No. An' bless your soul. Tom, my mother's cat."

He looked confused for a moment, then frowned at her. "And in what way am I like a cat, Mistress Howard," he said. "Is it only that you think you run me tame?"

"Oh, no," she said. And her courage failing her to explain that he looked like a cat feigning ill-treatment, she could only say. "No, only you look like tom when he got a tasty morsel of fish."

"Oh is that so?" Manox asked, and arched an eyebrow and smiled, impishly. "But that is only, madam, because you are my tasty morsel, and I would fain devour you."

With that, he pulled up her skirts and tugged roughly at her linen underwear. "Oh, no, Master Manox," she said, as she endeavored to cross her legs. "For you shall not do that here, not in the full light of day."

"It is not full light," he said. "But rather dim. Besides which, you yourself promised me that I would be allowed to do what I have done before, only this time seeing what I do. Can you deny we've often done this before?"

She could not deny it. In fact it was one of the few things she truly enjoyed about their encounters—Manox's skilled mouth upon her most secret parts, the way his tongue caressed her, while the fire and the pressure mounted within her till they exploded in blinding pleasure.

She let him pull the skirt fully up, till it covered almost to her chest, leaving her legs uncovered and cold, lying against the frigid stone behind the altar.

He removed her underwear and cast it aside. She let herself fall back against the stone, willing herself not to think and certainly not to look at what he was doing. If she closed her eyes, she thought perhaps it would be easier to pretend they were still in the safe haven under the stairs and to banish from her mind the image of the tracery of veins on the back of Manox's eyelids and the ridiculous look of exaggerated pleasure upon his face.

She felt his breath on her thighs, and then his lips, their touch velvety soft. She responded to the pressure of his hands against her skin, by opening her legs wider by degrees. She felt his breath touch her open crevice, and then his fingers run its length wonderingly.

"An' I wish," he said, softly. "That I could have your maidenhead."

"For sure you may not, Master Manox, for that is for my husband, and besides, I am sure that it would hurt."

"Oh, but I would treat you so well afterward, that would make you quite forget your hurt."

She started to close her knees. "Master Manox!" she said. "You promised, and on your word as gentleman, yet, that you—"

"Easy, easy," he said, and his fingers caressed the inside of her thighs again, in a coaxing manner, teasing her legs into opening once more. "Only you let me do this thing . . ."

She let her knees fall open and presently Manox's skilled lips returned to their work, and she sighed out a full exhalation of pleasure, as she felt the familiar pressure and heat build within her, demanding release.

"Ah, you slut! Have you no shame, then!" A hand grabbed at her hair, pulling her up. She opened her eyes halfway between being brought off her back and to her knees and then by force of having her hair smartly pulled to her feet.

Her open eyes revealed a ruddy hand on her hair, attached to a ruddy arm, which was a woman's but muscular enough to belong to a working man. And beyond the hand and the arm was the red, screaming face of Mary Lassells, Her Grace's chamberer, who was hurling abuse upon Kathryn's head, shaking her, calling her the worst of sluts and the most abandoned of whores.

Even this, Kathryn thought, dazed, as he undergarments were shaken in front of her eyes and she was enjoined to put them on, even as a slap cut through the air, to sting against her cheek, was far less terrible than what was befalling Manox.

Manox had got Her Grace's attention. And Kathryn, through her own distress, as ready tears sprang into her eyes and rolled down her face, could see that he was by far getting the worst of it.

The duchess had taken the walking stick and forgotten quite that it was necessary to her walk—or that she pretended it to be so. Instead, she was using it as a weapon, raining blows upon Manox's head and face. "Knave," she said. "Seducer. Think you that my granddaughter is for the likes of you. How far has this gone? Answer me! How far?"

As she spoke, she chased the gentleman who tried to escape, and who, Kathryn realized, had his codpiece quite undone, his member bouncing and bogging through the opening, like some self animated thing as he jumped and cringed, trying to evade the duchess's stick.

Pulling her underwear up and fastening it, crying, Kathryn thought that now the duchess would send her back to . . . Her mind boggled at the thought as to where she'd be sent. Though it hadn't been said to her as such, she could tell from the way people spoke of him, that her father must be dead, and she didn't know where her oldest brother was, or what authority he could have over her.

Wherever Charles was, she would warrant he was of no estate to support a sister. Or indeed, anyone, save maybe himself and even that doubtful. So, where would the duchess send her? She could not think and wasn't sure of anything, save only that this would not end well.

Sniffling, she saw that the duchess had brought Manox to bay underneath a niche of the Virgin. He was flat against the wall beneath the niche, and unable to stretch to his full height, for if he tried, his head would strike the pedestal on which the statue stood.

"Tell me how far this has gone, Manox," the duchess said. "Have you had carnal knowledge of my granddaughter?"

"I swear . . ." he said. "I swear by the Virgin an' I have not."

"Meant you to?" the duchess asked, terrible, her walking stick raised.

"I was hoping . . . that is . . ." He sniffled, in turn, and the walking stick came at him from the side and caught him a blow that sounded like a hollow knock, and caused him to half stand and hit his head against the stone pedestal with an even louder hollow sound.

"Ah, you knave, you fiend. You were hoping that while she was otherwise distracted by your caresses you could slip the weapon in and her unknowing."

"I—" he said. "I never thought."

"For certain you never thought, you ill-gotten fiend, for if you had you would know that had you achieved your end there would be nothing for us but to put an end to your existence. For shame on you." She caught him a blow with the stick to the other temple, and again he tried to rise in reflex and hit his head.

And then she was raining blows on him, while he screamed, and then he whimpered. Kathryn, staring, openmouthed, thought only that he seemed very little brave now, and very little manly. Those powerful arms that had seemed so capable of holding her place, that broad chest, well developed with muscles, all of it seemed insufficient to ward off blows from an old woman's stick, and all he could do was snivel and beg that she would stop, and that he would not, in the name of the Virgin and the angels and the whole heavenly host do such a thing again.

"You are right, you will not," the duchess said, her voice full of grim satisfaction as she continued to belabor him with her stick. "For from this day forward you are not to be left alone with my granddaughter at any time. And what is more, my fine cockerel, you are not to darken my threshold nor come sauntering your fine ways over my household. You are a serpent in the garden, young man, and you will not be allowed to tempt the innocents in my house."

At last the duchess stopped, either because her arm had grown tired or because the sight of Manox, beaten and sniveling, tears dripping from his nose and chin, a big scrape on his forehead and both eyes blackened, filled her with a sense of satiated revenge and, perhaps, with just a little bit of pity. "Do yourself up, you wretch, and get out of my sight."

Kathryn, whom Mary Lassells had stopped beating, at least after that first, halfhearted attempt to slap her, had only the chamberer's hand still grasping her hair to remind her that she was not well out of this.

She watched, with half pity and half apprehension as Manox limped from the chapel, his hands fumbling at his crotch. He failed even to throw her a single look as he left.

For a moment the only loud sound in the chapel was the duchess's labored, fast breathing. As that calmed down, she turned to Kathryn and said, waspish, "As for you, my fine lady, you will come to my chambers, so I may speak with you."

Chapter Fourteen

The duchess stormed into her rooms ahead of Kathryn and disposed herself in the largest chair, staring at her errant granddaughter with a frown that indicated she was considering a line of sufficiently horrible punishments and finding them all insufficient.

Kathryn, facing the all-seeing eyes dared not move, till the duchess said, "Sit you down, girl."

Kathryn skittered sideways to fall upon a tambour which happened to be just lower than the chair, making her feel even smaller than her natural short stature, as she looked up at her grandmother. And was surprised. She'd been so shocked in the—at any rate dim—chapel, that she'd not paid any attention to how her grandmother looked. Now she realized there were dark marks under the duchess's eyes, and a look as though she had been crying or were deeply perturbed. Had Kathryn put those marks there?

The duchess stared at her a good long time, dispassionately. "Are you still a maiden, Kathryn?" she asked at last. She might as well have been asking if Kathryn had made a good dinner the night before.

"Yes, Your Grace," Kathryn said, and ducked her head. "I know what it might seem like to you, milady, but . . ."

The duchess snorted. "What it seems like is like a young girl too full of her own affairs and a silly infatuation for a virginal player. Is that what it is, Kathryn?"

Kathryn sighed, then shook her head. "It was him who wanted to touch me," she said. She looked up at the duchess. "He said it hurt him to love me so much and to be gratified, not to have . . . not to have a token of my esteem."

The duchess frowned. "Do you esteem him then?"

"Only as a teacher," Kathryn said "And . . . and as a friend. But it was, you see, that he seemed to suffer so much, and I didn't want him to suffer, and he said if I met him under the stairs of the chapel, where it's full dark and where he could kiss me and hold me, he would be well."

The duchess covered her face with her hand. Kathryn did not know what this meant, but she watched the gnarled, old, but still slim fingers clench tight, then let go, then clench again, as though behind the protective screen of her hand the duchess were rationalizing some violent passion. "Mea culpa," she murmured at last and, lowering her hand looked up at Kathryn. "I should have taught you better. I should have realized how tenderhearted you are. Your mother . . ." She inclined her head and paused, as though considering what best to say next. "Your mother was tenderhearted, too. Soft. I didn't know her well, but what I heard of her led me to believe so. Beware, Kathryn. Better a hard-hearted wench than a soft one. Your mother's soft heart saw her married to your father, who spent her money and wore her out in bearing child after child."

"But he was never made happier, not when I let him hold me, not when I let him feel my privy place beneath my clothes, not even when I let him kiss it."

"And that is as far as it goes?" the duchess asked. "It went no further than that?"