“The man you stabbed with a knitting needle.” Theo started whistling, off-tune but cheerful.
“I see. I didn’t know I owed him one. But yes, guess I do.” The dress had a small bustle at the rear, with a broad bow tied over it. Apart from that and a little fussiness of satin ribbon about the bodice, the dress fabric barely registered on her skin—light and shifting easily as dandelions in a breeze. If it flipped up, everything would be on display—the rope of pearls running between her legs and worse things—for the farther they walked, the wetter she became. Impossible not to feel, yet she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore it.
“Uh.” She nearly squeaked as a little jolt ran through her.
Beside her, Theo ambled, unconcerned and stopping to chat with staff.
She set her shoulders. Be damned if he’d get to her. She could do this, easily, to the end of the day; then she’d get this off and maybe ignore him for a little while…before she succumbed to his advances. If the last day was anything to judge by, he’d want to make love to her. Mmm.
He’d bent her over and put his fingers down there.
Her * ached like never before. Right, maybe not so easy. She sighed loudly.
“Something bothering you, dear?” Theo asked politely.
If she could have fried him on the spot with her eyes, she would have, but only for a moment; then the hard set to Theo’s mouth reminded her of the alternative to wearing this thing—the paddle. “No,” she said super sweetly. “Nothing.”
“Hmm.” He smiled back.
If I get aroused, so will he, surely. Maybe two can play this game? Maybe I can tease him?
Inside the barracks entrance, bunks lined the wall to the left. On the right, a man introduced as Dankyo’s next in command waited before a squad of ten house guards.
First in line were Blackman and Ericson. Their faces like stone, they accepted her apologies, replying gruffly, “Thank you, Miss!”
In the midst of such a stronghold of masculinity, she felt exposed. Silly. As if the men could know what she had on under her dress. Yet, the scent of lust and sweat seemed to carry on the air.
Barely past lunchtime and just standing still, breathing in and out, made her focus on her clit. She could map the whereabouts of every pearl down there.
“Dear,” Theo said quietly, taking her elbow, “you’ve been standing there staring at your feet for a long time. Let’s move on.”
Luckily the guards had been dismissed. She bit her lip, hoping they’d not seen her distraction.
Concentrating, she wrestled her feelings to the background. The Vehicle Depot was next.
The largest of all the outer buildings, the House Engineer’s Vehicle Depot boasted double sliding doors of burnished steel. While waiting at Theo’s side, she murmured hoarsely, “When I get this off, you’re wearing it.”
The doors parted by a few feet.
“Wouldn’t fit me, Claire.” Hand at her back, he urged her into the gap.
Landships. Two of them. Riveted steel and brass, wheels and track, stumpy funnels at the top and a large cannon swiveling in a turret at the front. Wow.
This place was almost on a war footing. The proximity to the border—that must be it. Theo’s estate housed a quick reaction force.
A spare, tall man with gray cropped hair and a friendly face leaped down from a raised platform to the left. Past his shoulder, she saw a row of windows into a workshop. The smell of oil, boosted coal, and sulfur assailed her nose.
“Welcome, sir! And Miss!” The man advanced with his hand held out to be shaken.
“This is Henry Twine.” Theo shook Henry’s hand.
When Henry took both Claire’s hands between his, it was like being engulfed by a manic shaking machine. “Glad to meet you, Miss. What do ya think of my ladies? Delilah and Kate?”
“The landships?” She held out her hands, opening and closing them, trying to think of a compliment. “Big? Really big.” They were, at that. “Is that a Hotchkinn six-inch cannon?”
That froze him. “A six—you do know your guns, Miss. It is indeed!”
With little encouragement he showed off his ladies, pointing out features to Claire on the outside and climbing up the side of Delilah to lean in the square turret hole at the top. Keeping her legs together, she followed Theo up the rungs on the side.
“That down there’s the driver’s position,” Harry said. “Gunner. Navigator. Commander.”
“Let’s take her for a run,” Theo said.
“Of course, sir!”
Showed to the gunner’s seat in the bowels of the landship, Claire settled in while the engine fired up. Theo reclined in the driver’s seat. Henry raised the navigator’s periscope and shouted directions.