“Nonsense girl! You will go to Chalfont St Giles with Mrs. Fearncott and her niece and the three of you will have a marvellous time.”
Avery’s heart sank and he gritted his teeth as thoughts of a summer spent languishing in his newly acquired identity began to dissolve before his eyes.
“But father?”
“But father nothing,” Toby Silver smiled benevolently as he tucked his napkin in. His life was falling in to place at last. A wife to fill his home and someone else to worry after his daughter. With any luck, this break could be the making of the girl. Could he even dare to hope that the child might find a suitor whilst in the country? He played down Avery’s further protests with a shake of his head and turned his attention instead to Jamieson.
“Break out some wine man, this calls for a celebration.”
~o~
As he stormed past Kate two hours later, Avery was in a foul mood. He was dressed and changed to go out within twenty minutes. Kate, alarmed by his mood, was concerned that he would not take the usual care in concealing his escape.
“
Just wait why don’t you? Your father only left a moment ago. What if he comes back?”
“
I have to see someone,” he growled as he paced behind the door. “Will you just please go and check the hall.”
“Who do you have to see?”
she ventured.
“
For God’s sake, Kate, please!”
“
I just don’t see what the hurry is that’s all.” She walked away from the door to look out of the window. “If you could only wait until it was dark...” she squeaked as he grabbed her from behind and pressed her against him.
“
What are...?”
Avery forced his lips to hers. Taken by surprise, Kate struggled and pushed against his chest, moving her face from his.
“Avery!”
He was taller and stronger and easily pressed Kate back up against the wall. She turned her face upwards, as if to welcome his embrace, and he swallowed her lips in his own in a hungry kiss. His hands cupped her face and her heels were lifted from the ground, her back against the wall and her toes at a stretch to meet her tall mistress. Avery felt a powerful urge to push his hands up under her skirts and to grab handfuls of flesh to draw towards him and as soon as he thought so, he felt sick with fear. He knew that Kate did not choose for him to do this to her; that she was reliant upon him for her livelihood and that he was abusing her trust in him. He pushed himself off the wall, balling his fist at the anger that surged in him at his father, at Georgina Fearncott, at his own body. As the temper continued to rise up in him, he saw Kate, her beautiful face clouded with confusion. He knew he disgusted her and he turned on his heels, in a moment he had left the room. Discovery or not, he needed an outlet for his anger and he needed it then.
~o~
“The girl that was with you that night in the alley, who is she?”
Connie looked quizzically at Avery as he watched her re-dress. She was no longer as wary as she had been about his proposition and she found she looked forward to his visits. As yet, there had been no actual intercourse between them with Avery preferring to watch her touch herself and talk loudly of the things she liked and disliked a man to do to her. She had begun to grow comfortable around him and had taken a real pleasure in having him touch her for a change. He took instruction well and she had delighted in being at the centre of her own pleasure for once.
“Sarah?” she asked “Blonde, little thing?”
Avery coloured as her enquiring eyes latched on to the meaning of his enquiry. She laughed as she slipped on her blouse and leant across the side of her bed to retrieve the flask she kept her gin within. Her skirt was still hitched high and Avery looked away as he caught a flash of her dark pubic hair slick with her own juices. It was a pointless gesture as he had just watched Connie spreading them wide before pushing a thick dildo inside herself. For the last twenty minutes he had clambered on the bed beside her and taken the thick baton and continued to stir at her taking a nipple in his mouth and toying with the puckered flesh between his teeth until she grabbed him by the neck and forced him into her chest. He found himself so engrossed during the act that he forgot entirely that the woman was not Kate and the flash of her sex afterwards made him feel shabby. Far from satisfying him, these excursions were replacing his desire with something far more dangerous; ambition This evening he had been close to pulling out the phallus he had had fashioned for himself and placing this inside her but for some reason he was too shy to do it, despite his great urge.
“Sorry, Sarah, yes what of her.”
Annoyed with the way her eyes danced in amusement at his discomfort, he threw the coins he had counted out on the bed beside her.
“
I’d like you to arrange for her services. Here,” he added.
The gesture was crude and Connie was insulted. Although fully aware of the role she played for him, she had felt less like he was a customer. There would never be any trust between them but she was not afraid of him. She was about to snap back at him but she was afraid of losing her meal ticket. Avery had paid double the going rate recently simply to watch her at work with another man, to take lessons or, like today, to simply bring her to a climax while she whispered the same old lines in his ear that she did with all her men. Connie was amused and intrigued by Avery but, most importantly, he paid her well. It was therefore a surprise that she felt a little jealous by his enquiry after Sarah. A far less experienced and sharper looking girl, it seemed like a slight against her and, for some reason, she felt it more keenly from this strange woman than any man.
“And what’s wrong with me?”
She felt hot as her cheeks flushed and she thought suddenly of all the instruction she had been giving him over the last weeks, she compared his inexpert fumblings with how skilled his touch had been this evening and she felt both proud but protective. She glowered beneath her fringe, ashamed at being slighted.
Avery stumbled over his apology not wishing to either offend Connie or threaten her loyalty upon which he depended.
“Nothing”
he said “nothing at all. It’s just…she…”
He was embarrassed that he should be asking at all and he combed his hair with his fingers waiting for Connie to say something. Though she wanted to hear some apology, some reason for his preference, she was also tired and wanted some time to herself for a change.
“Be here next week at 9. I’m sure she would love the opportunity to earn some extra cash.”
Relieved, Avery gathered up the rest of his things and turned to leave.
“What shall I tell her?”
she asked.
“
Tell her nothing and it will be worth some extra cash for you.”
As Avery turned and left, closing the door behind him, he did not hear Connie’s words.
“Oh yes, you’re a man alright. Arrogant pig.”
~o~
As he woke up the next morning, he knew he would have to apologise to Kate for storming out as he had. He was embarrassed about how this would be received. He had expected his actions to have brought Kate’s normally positive and cheerful disposition to a temper yet, to his surprise, she managed to act as if nothing had happened.
“Quite how you manage to get these clothes so grubby in only a few hours in town is beyond me. Why, your father could wear most of his clothes for days without so much as a brush down but then he doesn’t kick them off all over the room like you do.”
“
Kate, stop folding those damned clothes and look at me for a minute.”
The girl’s shoulders tensed and for the first time since she had entered the room that morning, she stopped talking. She turned, clutching the trousers she had picked up from the floor tightly to her stomach. He noticed immediately the dark shadows beneath her eyes as if she had not slept for many nights.
“Kate? Are you alright?”
She looked surprised. This was obviously not the enquiry she had expected, nor was it what Avery had intended to say, but the look of her so drawn and tired had shocked him.
“Sit down. Here.” He stood up and stepped forward to press the girl into a seat. He took the trousers from her fingers and noticed at once that she was trembling. He imagined she was scared of him and the thought made him sick to the stomach.
“It’s okay.” He tried to hold her gaze; to assure her. “Kate I am so sorry about yesterday. I don’t know how to make this up to you. You must think me most shameful. I cannot think how much you must hate me.”
Kate’s eyes met his, fiercely and she reached out to take his hand in her own.
“Avery. I don’t hate you. Oh, I could never hate you.”
The tone of her voice took him aback and he felt his fingers tingle at her touch. He searched her face for a clue as to why she trembled so and he could only see his own desire projected across her trusting face.
“I don’t know why you left so angry yesterday but if you would only tell me what you want I could help you.’ She paused as he turned his face away but she reached up with her free hand and held his face in her direction. ‘Haven’t I shown you my loyalty already? Haven’t I done everything you’ve asked of me?”
“Yes,” his voice was quiet and he waited as she continued with her plea.
“Then tell me what you want?”
Avery was alert to the thudding in his chest as his heart quickened at the sight of her. He was also aware that what he wanted was far from what she had in mind and he chastened his lips tightly before stepping away from her in one swift movement. Whilst he trusted Kate implicitly, there was still part of his own mind that could not accept what it was he wanted. In order to have it, he would need to abandon everything he knew and face an uncertain future. He did not yet know whether he could ask someone else to face that kind of fate on his account.
“I don’t know, Kate.”
His eyes lingered over her for a moment and then he stood, smiling broadly, and declared. ‘I want you to have the day off and I want kippers for breakfast!’
Though she smiled at him in return, it was a mechanical gesture and she offered him no complicity with it. It did not look like she wanted the day off nor to serve him kippers or porridge or devilled eggs, she looked for all the world as if she had not finished with the conversation. Avery, though, had finished and, clearly frustrated, Kate picked up the ewer of water from beside his bed and stalked out of the room without another word, the door closing with an angry bang.
~o~
When Kate returned that evening, though officially due an evening off, she came straight to the drawing room to talk with Avery. She entered the room, looked around to ensure they were alone, and closed the door behind herself, turning the key in the lock.
“We’ve been discovered!” she stated simply.
“What do you mean ‘
discovered
’? By whom?”
It was then that he noticed she was shaking a little, from fear or anger it was hard to tell, but he made her sit down in the chair opposite his own.
“Sit here. I will pour you a drink and then you shall tell me what has happened.”
As Avery handed her a glass of port, she did not even flicker with any recognition of the impropriety that her own mistress be serving her a drink. Instead, she took a long gulp and began to recount her day.
“
I knew Mrs. Druce wouldn’t be pleased with you asking for kippers this morning. She hadn’t planned it and she was in a foul mood. She has been trying to get information out of me for weeks about what you are up to. It’s not gone unnoticed by the rest of the house that you seem to keep to your room most evenings when your father is out. I suppose some of them think you a little melancholic but I have been trying to reassure them that you are reading or having some of your ‘headaches’ again.
“
It’s not as if I should be expected to keep kippers on hand for some girl’s whimsy. If this is how she behaves, it’s no wonder that she has no prospect of a husband. Sure enough how could he keep up?”