Chapter 3

"I love her and I feel like a fool that I cannot ask her to marry me. Well, I could, I suppose, but to what end?  To be affianced for who knows how many years until my fortunes rise?  Or to ask her to live in some hovel in Chatham or Portsmouth while I am at sea for months on end . . . .”

A fortnight since Lydia had first opened her arms to him, Francis was nearly moaning over his chop at one of the more respectable establishments just off St. James Street.  His serendipitous companion was a fellow naval officer, none other than his erstwhile shipmate in Justinian, Randolph Chadd

“Surely, sir, there must be some solution,” Mr. Chadd offered, a trifle out of his depth but trying to be helpful.  “If the lady cares for you, she will wait, will she not?”  He had carefully arranged his lean, rather saturnine countenance into an expression of sympathy.

“If she cares for me?  If she cares, you say!” Eccleston seemed startled by his own vehemence and lowered his voice to continue.  “Of course she cares for me, that’s not the point.  The point is she’s got a pack of unfeeling, venal trustees that rule her fortune.  I don’t give a fig about her money – it’s long since that I realized I would have to make my own way in the world.  

“But Lydia, Mrs. Trent, is accustomed to a way of life I cannot hope to offer her.  Not at present at any rate . . .  . “  His voice trailed off and he took a healthy swallow of claret and refilled both glasses, his blue eyes watery and sorrowful, though perhaps this was mostly in reaction to the smoky atmosphere of the chophouse.

Chadd hardly recognized the cool, decisive officer he had served with on Justinian. He had always found Mr. Eccleston a fair man, good-humored enough, but hardly one to entertain discernable emotions, let alone give in to them. Clarke’s Seamanship and the Articles of War had appeared to be his colleague’s sole lodestones.  And he was certainly no womanizer, in Chadd’s experience.  Yet come to think of it, Eccleston was so private a person that one might serve with him many a year and know very little about the man himself, as opposed to the officer.  

It had never occurred to Chadd, in fact, to ask his first lieutenant how he planned to spend his leave.  In London himself for a bit of roistering and a visit to his tailor, it was just by happenstance that he had taken notice of the man striding purposefully along St. James late one afternoon, dressed in somber mufti.  Something familiar in the tall form and the set of the shoulders had made him take a second look as they passed, and then turn instinctively on his heel and call out.  It was odd enough to come across his first lieutenant a stone’s throw from Piccadilly, but he was genuinely surprised to be greeted by a wide smile and a hearty clap on the back.

“My father was a member,” Eccleston had confided, tilting his head toward Boodle’s and chafing his hands together in the cold, “but even if I were, a lieutenant’s pay don’t run to it.  Come ’round the corner, though, and I’ll stand you dinner.  I’m pleased to see you, I must say.”

Chadd had hardly said a word since they met, what with the generous amount of wine and food that his companion had ordered up and the muddled tale he had begun to tell, unbidden.  Eccleston had lodgings, he said, at an inn near Covent Garden, but he was seldom there.  Instead, he had been welcomed into a home near Golden Square by a lady who was exceedingly kind to him and who was lovely beyond compare.  Only she had sent him off for a few days because she was indisposed (which Chadd took to mean she was flying the red flag) and he was beside himself to return to her.

The junior lieutenant blinked silently and sawed away at the large chop on his plate as Eccleston went on to declare his desire to marry the lady, his desperation over the apparent impossibility of the match.  In the end, there was not much for Chadd to do other than knock back another bottle of wine and cut into yet another pile of chops as they came round.  He could not help but notice that Eccleston’s appetite did not appear to have fallen off.

In fact, Francis was balanced on a knife edge these days.  His natural restraint and reticence had given way to despair on the one hand, but intoxication on the other.  In Lydia’s company, his lips were never compressed, but relaxed in a broad smile or even a somewhat silly grin.  Indeed, he had never smiled nor laughed so much in his life.  Now that he could eat instead of only fidget, food had never tasted half so delicious.  Wine had never slipped down his throat so easily, had never before reminded him of leafy vineyards, the sun on the Mediterranean.  If he were to lose the source of such happiness, such inspiration, he did not know what he would do.  

A less practical man might take to gaming or betting on horses hoping to run up a fortune.  Having parted from Mr. Chadd long after midnight, Francis walked back toward his lodgings, smiling sadly at the absurdity of such a notion.  Leopards didn’t change their spots, after all.  What he needed was a war and transfer to a frigate, which would mean endless opportunity to earn prize money, to show his mettle, to become perhaps at least a master and commander, and to return to Lydia covered in glory so that he could ask her to be his.  

* * *

By the following afternoon, quite recovered from her temporary indisposition, Lydia too, had managed to settle in for a tête-à-tête with a confidante.  Settled in a gilt armchair in Sarah Rutledge’s glowing little bandbox of a sitting room, she smiled thankfully as Sarah handed her a teacup as delicate as an eggshell.

 “You are looking well, my dear,” Lady Rutledge observed, her voice mild in spite of the way the corners of her brown eyes crinkled with undisguised delight at her friend’s appearance.  

She smiled warmly at the young woman she had taken into her capable care when she had arrived in London after her marriage six years ago.  “Are you as happy as you seem to be?” she asked with straightforward but gentle curiosity.

The two women had developed a genuine bond through good times and bad, and besides that Sarah had no interest in guile.  Lydia understood her friend’s question perfectly well, but gazed upon her silently a moment before answering.

“I am entirely as you see,” Lydia replied, coloring up just a little.

“Your lieutenant is very handsome.  And most attentive.”  

Sarah suppressed any irony from her tone.  The good lieutenant was both of those things, but not the most gregarious of dining companions.  At a late supper the previous week, Mr. Eccleston had tried manfully to engage in polite conversation with Lady Rutledge, but his efforts were truly pitiful and his mind obviously elsewhere.

Oh, his behavior was circumspect enough not to be remarked on by less astute observers, but he could not help glancing from time to time rather feverishly across the table at Lydia, who endeavored unsuccessfully not to react to such attention.  Radiant in pale lavender, she was earnestly trying to focus on discussing an exhibit at the Royal Academy with the foppish gentlemen to her right.  In the meantime, Lady Rutledge was carefully watching Lydia and her lieutenant attempt not to watch each other as she added one and one together to get two.

At the time, Sarah could not resist raising an eyebrow, but took care to hide her rather pleased expression behind her trumpet-shaped wineglass.  Mr. Eccleston reminded her of nothing so much as an overgrown spaniel puppy who longed only to lay his head once more in his mistress’s lap. She hadn’t the heart to chastise him for his lack of attention to herself.   On the contrary,  on account of his unabashed devotion to her friend, she found herself liking him very much indeed.

Now, turning her cup in its saucer to sip her tea, she regarded her companion thoughtfully.  

“You are positively luminous, Lydia.”  It must be love.  Or quite a bit of dashed good rogering.

Her companion flushed pinker, but met Sarah’s gaze steadily.

 “I had no idea . . . .” she said. She fell silent a moment and then went on.  “I did love Harry, you know.  And he was always very tender toward me.  But this is . . . different.  It’s overwhelming.  Is it possible that you understand what I mean?”

“Oh, ho,” Sarah said emphatically, “Indeed I do.”  For Sarah herself had married young and for love, and she and her husband were much of an age.  She had sometimes thought a little wistfully that Lydia, although content in her marriage to Harry Trent, had nevertheless been cheated a bit by her circumstances.

“But what are your plans?  I take it he is not in a position to marry?  Oh, dear, perhaps I presume too much.  Have you spoken frankly on the subject?  I should not ask, should I?  But what about the children?”

Lydia shook her head.  Sarah was without a doubt the nosiest, most incorrigible, dearest friend she could hope to have.  Yes, she had tried to explain to Francis that she did not care about his status.  Her trustees could hang for all she cared, she told him.  Still, she was sure the only reason he did not propose marriage was that he could not afford to keep her as she had lived all her life and she could see what a very great burden that might be to a proud man.  She would simply have to see what could be managed.

As for Harry’s children, they were grown and wanted for nothing, but they could make her position very difficult if they chose.  In fact, she had already had one awkward interview with Harry’s son Jeremy.  When she described her “houseguest” to him, he had merely sniffed and made a stilted reference to the terms of her trust under his father’s will.

“I do not think they mind if their step-mama has a lover,” said Lydia.  “Only consider Sophie’s disgraceful behavior -- which everyone has taken pains to overlook.”  Although being married to Jeremy could be no bed of roses, only last year Sophie Trent had very nearly been publicly labeled as a bolter in respect of a dandified young officer of the Queen’s Royal Regiment.  

“A liaison is one thing, a scandal quite another. I assure you we are discreet; and after all, neither of us is married.  Neither would Jeremy care if I married, as it is only to his benefit. Oh, forgive me, Sarah!  I know it is coarse to speak of money, but I have no one to advise me.”

Sarah murmured sympathetically.  She had a good head for business and fancied she would have made a rather successful lawyer if ladies had been allowed to have careers.  She was, in any case, quite adept at helping her friends manage their lives.

“As matters stand,” Lydia went on, “I have a life interest in my London home, a lovely house on Harry’s family estate and a generous income.  All of this ceases if I were to marry again.”  When Sarah made a face, she said hastily, “No, no. I do not believe for a moment that Harry intended for me to remain a widow the rest of my life; he simply presumed that anyone I would wish to marry would be possessed of a generous income.”

She set down her cup and saucer and smoothed her skirt.  “Sarah, I would be glad to marry Francis on a lieutenant’s pay, but I know his pride will not allow it.  If I must wait for him to be posted captain or whatever, then I will do that, although Jeremy will be insufferable about it in the meantime.  If only he were not one of my trustees as well.  It really does give him carte blanche to be tiresome whenever he pleases.”  

Sarah offered more tea and Lydia fell silent for a moment while her cup was refilled.  “Thank goodness there is dear Cornelia,” she said after a moment.

“Ah, yes, Cornelia,” sighed Sarah, who was not entirely sure she approved of Harry’s determinedly independent bluestocking daughter.  Lydia thoroughly approved of Cornelia, but then Lydia saw everyone and everything in the most glowing, romantic terms.  She had no doubt read far too many of the wrong novels.  She had known grief to be sure, but not a day’s adversity and would have no notion at all of what her life would be on a lieutenant’s pay, nor how long it might take in peacetime for Mr. Eccleston to achieve a higher rank.  It was perhaps just as well that his pride was so great.

“I must be off soon,” Lydia was saying, her face radiant with anticipation.  “Lieutenant Eccleston has been . . . away for some days, but he shall dine with me again this evening.”

Rather more than dine, or I miss my guess, came the impudent retort to Sarah’s quick mind, and she smiled.

* * *

As the carriage traveled in fits and starts from Brook Street to Heddon Street, Lydia stared out the window, thinking of her earliest days as Mrs. Trent.  Even at eighteen she had tried to be a friend to both Jeremy and Cornelia.  It would have been foolish to consider herself their mother, when she was a decade younger than they.

She had hoped for children of her own , but was disappointed month after month.  Harry had been very kind and did not seem to mind, but then he had already fathered children.  She so would have liked a little boy or girl of her own.

The carriage slowed again at the approach to her house.  She looked up with satisfaction at the white steps and smartly painted black door with its brilliant brass knocker.  Francis would be with her soon.  She had missed him so, but in spite of her conversation with Sarah, Lydia herself was not much bothered by the future.  Her happy mind contrived to put away any thoughts of the day her lover would be recalled to his ship.  She was sure that they would be married one day, and sooner than he seemed to think, too.  They would have the rest of their lives together.  In the meantime, she could feel her pulse quicken as she thought about the evening and the night to come.

She was sure he would enjoy the light supper she had planned, but more importantly she had ordered a banyan for him as a present and was full of anticipation to see if it suited him.  She had taken the measurements herself from one of his jackets and spent hours deciding upon the cut and the material.  It would not do to make too much of the thing, of course.  If she just left it in the dressing room he used, she was sure he would have the grace to don it before he came into her room.  

As matters transpired, he saw it at once, hanging upon a hook next to the long looking glass, the deep blue and gold brocade glinting in the candlelight.  It touched him that she would make him such a generous gift, though he was stung for a moment by the thought that he could not really reciprocate as he would like to have done.

Still, he could not help but admire the rich dark material for its own sake and wonder a bit at the dressing gown’s unusual sweeping cut, straight out of the Orient.  Perhaps the best thing was just to put it on and not make a fuss.  Catching sight of himself in the long looking glass, he actually preened a bit.  It was a very flattering garment.

“Oh!,” she breathed as her door opened quietly and Francis came in.  She had not meant to say anything at all, but he did look so very handsome.  A banyan was striking on such a tall man.  It was cut narrowly at the waist and flared slightly as it dropped near to the floor.  The set-in sleeves emphasized his broad shoulders and the color was perfect.  Perhaps it was as well that he had left it open over his nightshirt.  She was not sure she would have had the patience to undo what seemed to be the dozens of little fastenings running down the front.

Lydia was smirking like the cat that swallowed the cream, so that he laughed as he pulled her up out of her chair to kiss her hand.  “You seem delighted with yourself this evening, I must say.  Any particular reason?”

“Mmm,” she murmured as he began to nuzzle her neck.  She reached up to let her fingers play in the soft hair at the nape of his neck, just beneath his tightly-bound queue.  “Who is this Adonis who has entered my chamber?  I swear I have never seen his like.”

He burst out laughing again.  Lydia was so much better at straight-faced banter than he.  He had teased many a midshipman in his day, could hold his own at the mess table, but he could not keep his composure in her presence.  Given the least chance, she taunted him unmercifully and he adored her for it.

“Shall I brush your hair?” he asked quietly, gazing down into her sweet face, surrounded by its riotous chestnut halo. She smiled and sat obediently at her dressing table, as Francis picked up the silver hairbrush and began tending her bright hair with careful strokes.

This had already become something of a ritual for them.  He would begin as though it were a sovereign duty--every movement thorough and meticulous.  His forehead, glimpsed in the mirror, was furrowed with concentration.  But then Lydia would arch her neck back, sigh, wiggle her shoulders with delight, and he would suddenly become aware of his own hastening heart beat, and duty became the last thing on his mind.

He picked up one shining strand after another, holding it in his long fingers to brush each wave or curl, then followed with long, slow brushstrokes that started at her crown.  He wielded the brush gently, using his free hand to ease his way.  After a few minutes of this  delightful attention, she was nearly purring.

Francis’s hands fell to her shoulders and she leaned back to look up at him, but he tipped her head so that their eyes met in the mirror’s reflection.  Lydia took in a quick breath, so taken was she by the undisguised desire in his expression and her body’s instant, thrilling response.  Pushing her still-wild tresses to one side, he bent deeply and pressed his lips, warm and insistent, behind her ear.

She was still discovering, half in disbelief, how much he liked to take his time. It was impossible to ignore the warmth flowing through her, so that she could only marvel at his restraint.  Not even her late husband, at nearly twice Francis’s age, would have been so controlled at this juncture.  With every soft sigh and barely audible gasp, she was telling him that she did not wish to wait.  Just as on that first night, she yearned to jump up at once and throw her arms about him, to push her body against his and feel his unmistakable masculine response.  

Francis, blood thrumming through every vein, yearned powerfully for the same immediate prize.  Left to instinct alone, he would have seized Lydia roughly from her chair, pulled away the loose gown that covered her fine lawn night shift and flung her onto the bed, where he would . . . .

She would not protest in the least if he did, and the more direct part of his own nature had no objection to headlong lovemaking.  However, Francis had realized early on and with no little surprise not only that he could, with effort, control himself in Lydia’s bedroom, but that there was no end to the rewards he would reap – that *they* would reap – if he did so.

A smile playing about his mouth, he stood to his full height and urged her up from her chair, then brought her fingers again to his lips.  She was already nearly breathless but her heart skipped a beat as Francis pressed his smiling lips against her hand, his eyes holding hers.  She broke free only to hold her arms out to him, to be taken into his strong embrace, to stand on her toes and feel the tautness and power within him, all for her.

“I want to see you,” he whispered after a moment, his urgent tone in marked contrast to the deliberate way he turned with her still in his arms and guided her toward the massive canopy bed.  Slowly, he pushed the heavy yellow silk dressing gown from her shoulders, letting its smooth weight slither against his hands as it fell to the floor.

Candles flickering in wall sconces, on her dressing table, and next to the bed added to the glowing light from the fireplace and threw faint, wavering shadows on the bed curtains and the pale walls.  Oh, she wanted to see him, too, but stood quiescent as he gathered her night dress up in his hands, inch by inch.  

He held it bunched just below her breasts, gazing into her eyes.  She trembled for a long moment as he left her lower half exposed to the softly lit room, then raised her arms up so that he could draw the garment up off over her head.  

“Francis . . . .” she began.

“Shh.  Yes, I know, love.  Just be patient.”  She nearly stamped her foot in frustration.  Francis’s increasing self-possession was devastatingly effective at making her lose control of herself, and, what was more, he was maddeningly aware that this was the case.   He pulled her against him once more, the banyan’s brocade slightly rough against her skin, bending his head to claim her lips insistently with his own.

She slipped her arms up around his neck, clasping her hands and arching her body to bring him closer still.  Sweet Jesus, but it was wanton to stand thus, completely naked in his arms while he plundered her willing mouth and pushed his knee between her quivering thighs.  He gripped her bottom possessively and pulled her off her feet so that she moaned desperately, wriggling in his grasp.

Her sex, as yet untouched, was already wet and aching and she moaned again, begging him to alleviate her mounting need.   He was more than ready himself, she was sure.  His shaft was a rod of iron against her belly and she could picture it, thick and heavy, the glorious crown adorned with a single, glistening droplet.  All for her.

For a moment she believed he was to the point of going forward with no thought of retreat, for he set her down carefully and stepped away to cast off both banyan and nightshirt.  Her breath caught in her throat just at the sight of his broad chest and well-sculpted shoulders, the strong rising column of his throat.  When her gaze fell upon his rampant, upward curving affair, her mouth began to water. He was perhaps even thicker than she had remembered, certainly longer, and there was that delicious bead of liquid poised on the head, waiting for the touch of her tongue or her hand.

Francis let her hand close on him for a moment, but that was all, before he took her by the waist and lifted her onto the bend and pushed her back onto the coverlet.  He stood between her legs, just beyond her grasp while his broad palms curved over her open thighs, his fingertips tracing their roundness, his thumbs teasing the tender inner flesh.  Lydia rose up on her elbows, creating a dusky, mysterious valley between the mounds of her ivory breasts and he bent over to nestle into them.  She smelled hauntingly of flowers and grass, impossible in the middle of March.

Even as he buried his nose in her delicious scent, the thought struck him that he was hording his memories of her.  When the time came and he was recalled to his ship, no matter where he found himself, he wanted to be able to conjure each time he had touched her or looked upon her, to recollect every sensation.  She shuddered now and held on to him as he began stroking her shoulders and her upper arms, fondling each enticing breast, brushing her nipples with his fingers and following his fingers with his lips.  

She tasted of flowers, too, and he was lost in time, suckling her, caressing her, covering her tender smallness with his large body.  Perhaps he had become one of the lotus-eaters . . . .

“Oh, God, Francis!” she cried out eventually.  She sounded helpless, but was laughing.  “You are a menace!  I vow you are trying to kill me.”

“Am I indeed?” he said dryly and she was no longer sure he was in a laughing mood.  “I promise that if I kill you by such means, I shall most assuredly bring you back to life the same way.”  He stood again, staring down at the woman he adored.  Her lovely body lay open to him, displayed without shame, eager for him.

Francis paused, breathing deeply, drinking her in.  Because of his height, he could stand just there, by the side of her high bed and take her completely--gently or forcefully, in serious concentration or in laughter, just as they chose--but always, always in his own time.  

She was desperate for him to enter her and, knowing this, he gave her his hand instead.  Cupping the feathery copper curls that covered her tender mound, he let his fingers curl into the slippery, warm cleft, teasing her, driving her to distraction.  Lydia lifted herself up and grabbed his wrist, then let go of it and clasped his arms, staring at him, wild-eyed.

“Do you want me to beg?” she asked, her face flushed and her breath quickening, wanting to curse him for the unbearable tension he had created within her and at the same time wanting to laugh with joy at the lengths he would go to for his pleasure and hers.

“Beg? No, of course I don’t want you to beg, Lydia.  Was this what you wanted?”  And with that, he at last took his stiff cock into his hand and in one smooth movement of his shapely arse slid himself slowly into her silken depths.  Incredibly, her slippery sheath tightened on him at once and she gasped and arched beneath him, gripping him in one explosive contraction after another.

Once she had quieted and opened her eyes, he kissed her lips and her eyelids before he began to move within her, seeking his own pleasure as well as hers.  In these brief weeks he had discovered, for the first time really, that there was a rhythm to it, that angles mattered.  A man and woman making love were not unlike the way a ship behaved upon the sea.  There was a language of movement between two bodies that reminded him of a ship’s pitch, yaw, and roll.  Lydia spoke to him wordlessly, the way the ocean spoke to a vessel under sail, the way the ship herself spoke to the sea.  The waters they sailed upon together were sometimes gentle, sometimes rolling, perhaps even stormy, but always there was a sweet, satisfying end to their voyage.

His stance next to the bed gave him leverage to control each thrust and he used it to find a cadence that suited them both.  Lydia’s soft, needful moans returned and he felt his own breathing begin to go ragged, the pressure in his balls rising as he stroked in and out of her.  

“Mmm, yes,” she was saying to him, her voice low and eager.  “Like that.  Just like that.”  He wanted to go on forever for her, even though the tension was mounting and he could feel his heart pounding and the blood rushing in his ears.  He groaned helplessly when he felt her slick tight little quim begin to spasm around him a second time.  

“Oh! God! Lydia!”

Trembling beneath him, she panted his name as she went over the edge for the second time, each distinct paroxysm causing its own wave of indescribable pleasure.   She was only just aware of the short, uncontrolled thrusts and warm rush inside her that signaled Francis’s own release.  Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him, high on his back, bringing him close to her.  

She wanted to keep him with her, just so, forever.   In her heart, she knew it was not possible, at least not yet.  When he received orders, he would return to his ship without the least complaint. She did not believe he would even allow her to visit him in an English port.  If he did not feel he could ask her to marry him just at present, she would nevertheless smile and wave goodbye.  But one day, she was sure, he would come home to her.  One day he would be hers, and she would be his.

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