Hidden Paradise

chapter FOUR



Peter

He balanced his laptop on his knees and ran over the schedule for the next day. The urge to lay the laptop aside and fall into sleep was overwhelming, but he knew that if he neglected this ritual, his night would be haunted by dreams of things left undone, domestic catastrophes and scheduling nightmares.

The shower turned off and Chris entered, shaking his wet hair. He wore his blue pajama bottoms, the ones Peter liked, low on his hips. He patted his face dry and yawned. “You old fussbudget.”

“All done.” Peter clicked out and laid the laptop on the bedside table. He drew back the bedclothes.

“Like an old married couple,” Chris commented. He leaned to kiss Peter. “Uh-oh, what’s up, lover boy?”

He hadn’t even realized he’d turned his face aside to receive the kiss chastely on the cheek. “Nothing. I’m tired. Sorry. Rain check?”

“Okay.” Chris settled into bed beside him, sweetly scented with shampoo and soap, his skin slightly damp. “Not that tired, I see.” He grasped Peter’s semi-erect cock and gave it a quick squeeze. “Inspired by the lovely Alan?”

“Not my type.”

“Sure. Playing genial host, were we?” Chris’s voice was light, but Peter caught an undercurrent of something—alarm? Jealousy?

“Honey,” he said carefully, “we’re both tired. Let’s not say anything we’ll regret, okay? Let not the sun go down on our anger and all that good stuff. I was flirting, yeah. He’s a tad bi-curious, that’s all.”

Chris slid down in the bed, hands behind his head. “It’s not like you.”

“But it’s like you.” Immediately after the words were out of Peter’s mouth, he regretted them.

“Tit for tat?”

“Something like that.” He slid down in the bed. “Honey, you flirt. You flirt with everyone. I don’t. Not usually. So when I do, you notice.”

“Okay, okay.” Chris turned and fumbled with the button at Peter’s pajamas.

He really wasn’t in the mood but he recognized it as a gesture of reconciliation, if not desire. “You don’t have to,” he said, hand on Chris’s wrist.

“Sure. Fine.” Chris released him and turned over, the moment lost, and stretched to switch off the bedside lamp.

“I love you,” Peter said, a little hesitantly, a little too late, into the darkness.

There was no reply.

* * *


Lou

“I CAN’T REMEMBER MY ROOM,” she said to the footman, the good-looking one. They were all good-looking. And she could remember her room, its quiet elegance, the handsome bed, the soft cooing of doves and the scattered shadow from the trees outside. What she couldn’t remember was how to get back to it. “Where it is,” she amended.

“There’s tea, ma’am, in the drawing room.”

“No, too jet-lagged. Too…drunk,” she finished successfully. “I need to go to bed. But I don’t know…”

“It’s okay, I can help you,” said the Georgian footman, a phrase that made her giggle. So wrong, so right.

“How sweet.” She linked her hand through his bent arm and kept going and going, and he straightened her up, supporting her. Rob, she thought his name was. “I don’t normally do this.”

“Of course not, ma’am. Up the stairs, now.”

She stopped, suddenly. “Wait. My gown.” She grabbed a handful of fabric to free her feet.

“You okay, Lou?”

With some difficulty, she turned, grabbing the banister for support with one hand and Rob the footman with the other.

“Mr. Darcy!”

“You’re shit-faced,” Mac said.

“In my cups. It’s mostly jet lag.”

“Oh, sure.” He took a step up the stairs. “I’ll follow behind, make sure she doesn’t fall backward.”

“I really hate it when people refer to me in the third person. You’re not going to grab my ass, are you, Darcy?”

“Frankly, I’m shocked.” He put a hand on her ass and shoved. “Hurry up. You’re more likely to fall if you go slow.”

“It’s a novel experience, being escorted upstairs by two gentlemen,” she commented.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Mac said. “Okay, top of the stairs. Try to walk straight.”

Down a corridor, a turn, dim lights, another turn. “I remember now,” she said, lurching to a stop.

“No, ma’am, not this one,” Rob said. “A few more steps, and here we are.”

He opened a door.

“I can take it from here,” Mac said, taking Lou’s arm.

Rob turned away, with a muttered, “Good night.”

“Take what from here?” She propped herself up against the door frame. Perfectly vertical. Well, maybe not so vertical as she began a slow, relaxed slide against the polished wood.

“Getting you to bed.”

“Don’t for one moment think you’ll get lucky. I can manage. Front-lacing stays. Very sensible.”

“Oh, yeah?” He pushed her forward into the room.

Giggling, she landed on the bed, perched, not sprawling.

He went to the corner of the room.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting you some water. You’ll have a hell of a hangover tomorrow if you don’t hydrate.”

“Crapulous. Bottle bitten.” She took the glass from him. “All of it?”

“Yeah. Try not to puke.”

Three glasses of water later, she found herself lying on her back on the bed, contemplating the tester. “Thanks, Mac. I’ll be fine now.”

He lifted her foot and unlaced her leather slipper, then the other, standing between her spread knees.

She sighed.

“What’s wrong?” He bent and swiped at the side of her face, at the hot, wet tears that spilled from her eyes without warning.

“This could be so damn sexy.” She sniffed. “I thought I’d find him here, but now I’m too drunk.”

“Not tonight, gorgeous. I don’t know why that makes you cry, but heck, you’re drunk as a skunk. Okay.” His hands hovered at her neckline. “Is there some sort of pin arrangement here?”

“No.” She wiped her face messily and stood, hardly swaying at all. “Ties at the back. You called me ‘gorgeous.’”

“Okay, slight exaggeration. Turn around.” She did so, and felt the give and slide as he pulled the two ties undone, and her gown dropped to the floor. She giggled and reached for the drawstring of the petticoat, which followed the gown onto the floor in a soft rush, and then she fumbled at the front lacing of her stays.

He backed away, hands held out. “I’m done.”

“You are?” She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or insulted. “You’re a kind man, Mr. Darcy.”

“Kind? I just undressed you. Your ankles are driving me wild with lust. If you weren’t so damned drunk, my dishonorable intentions would be a lot clearer. Get some sleep. ’Night, honey.” He bent and gave her a quick, swift kiss on the forehead as her stays loosened and fell from her hands. “Sleep tight.”

Oh, great. He was speaking to her as though she was a toddler. But didn’t being drunk reduce you to some sort of idiot infantile state anyway? She watched the door close behind him and tottered in her shift to the bathroom. Her eyes looked huge and shadowed in the dim light—the only lighting was from those cunning fake candles that flickered like the real thing. Much better for the infrastructure, no staining of paint, no guests falling drunkenly asleep and setting themselves on fire.

She dropped her shift on the floor and stumbled naked into bed.

Then it hit her. “Heck, Julian, I could have ended my celibacy with a threesome if I’d played my cards right. What a missed opportunity.” The cool sheets stroked her body, caressed her. “And where are you? Still refusing to haunt me?”

* * *

“THEY’VE GONE RIDING, MA’AM.” The maid, whose name she couldn’t remember, fussed around with last night’s gown, which Mac, presumably, had folded neatly over a chair. Lou couldn’t remember much, only that she’d probably done or said something embarrassing, and that doubtless shameful memories would eventually crowd back. She groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“I’d like to have gone riding. If I wasn’t hungover.”

Di, that was her name, giggled. “We had bets on downstairs.”

“On what?”

“Who’d be most pissed.” Ah, yes, pissed for drunk; the beauties of the English language. “I bet on you but Cathy—Mrs. Saunders—she was pretty far gone, too. I think she was upset with Mr. Saunders ignoring her.” She passed Lou a dressing gown.

“I don’t think this is historically correct,” Lou said, pushing her arms through the sleeves.

“You don’t want to get cold,” Di said diplomatically. “What would you like to wear?”

“I don’t know. You choose.” Lou, decently clad and propped up on the pillows, watched as Di smoothed fabric and imagined herself two centuries back. She absolutely wouldn’t have let two gentlemen—or strictly speaking, one gentleman and one servant—see her in such a shocking state of drunkenness, and the shame of awakening knowing that at least one of them had helped her off with her clothes would have been overwhelming. As it was, she had a slight headache, but otherwise an overall sensation of relaxation. Soon she would get up and test the primitive shower, a cheap plastic contraption in one corner of the bathroom, and in proper Georgian fashion, take the air in the garden. She assured Di she didn’t need help dressing, and the young woman bobbed a curtsy and left with her basket of laundry.

* * *

ONLY THE OCCASIONAL DRONE OF an airplane overhead indicated that two centuries had passed. The garden, Lou knew, had been carefully researched and planned and already the flower beds, with the straggly equivalents of familiar modern plants, were beginning to fill out. There was even a wilderness area of the sort in which Lady Catherine de Bourgh cross-questioned Lizzy Bennet, a shrubbery carefully planted to give an illusion of wildness, and the gleam of a building, a summerhouse, farther inside.

Footsteps, strong and fast, crunched on the gravel behind her.

“Good morning, Mr. Darcy,” she said before she could stop herself.

His pace quickened and he came to her side. “You’re clairvoyant, as well as being a brilliant scholar, Mrs. Connolly?”

“Neither. You can call me Lou if you like.”

“Not here,” he said. He smelled of sweat and horse and leather, and carried a riding whip. She wondered idly if he planned to smack anyone with it. “Here and now, you’re Mrs. Connolly.”

“I guess so. How was your ride?”

“I seem to be getting better. I don’t feel I have to soak my ass for hours after. Our riding master said I was a natural. I have the thighs for it.” He winked. “You ride pretty well, don’t you?”

“Not real well and hardly at all sidesaddle.”

He seemed quite content strolling at her side, tapping the riding whip against his leather boots. “You’re feeling okay?”

“Not nearly as bad as I should, thanks. And I guess I have to thank you for getting me to bed. I’m sorry I was such a mess.”

He nodded. “My pleasure.”

“Really?”

“Well, shit, that came out wrong. I mean, I was glad to be of service.”

“You’re a knight in shining armor,” she said, touching his arm before she realized what she was doing, amazed that as fully clothed as they both were, the brush of her gloves against his sleeve held such significance.

He gave a bark of laughter. “Tarnished armor. Where are we going?”

“I want to see the summerhouse. The boys sent me pictures of it.” As they approached the small building, she heard the murmur of voices. “Oh, Cathy and her husband—I can’t remember his name—are there. They may not want company. I think they’re newlyweds.”

“His name’s Alan,” Mac said. “Well, well. Looks like a lovers’ tiff.”

Sure enough, Cathy and Alan stood in the center beneath the domed roof, clearly visible through the arches that formed its construction.

“I want to go home,” Cathy was saying as Mac and Lou approached.

Mac took her elbow and drew Lou to a halt behind a bush.

Alan gazed at the mosaic floor and kicked one of the marble pillars. “Come on, love—”

“I don’t like it here. I don’t like having to dress up and do what I’m told and not being able to wear knickers, and last night at dinner you paid me hardly any attention at all.”

“But everyone else did,” Alan said. “You practically had an orgasm over that ice cream.”

“What?” Cathy shook her head. “I can’t help it if you—”

“If I what?” Alan advanced on his wife, unbuttoning his coat.

“Uh-oh,” Mac whispered to Lou. “Make-up sex is imminent.”

“I think we should go,” Lou said, unable to tear her eyes from Alan and Cathy, now kissing, Alan pushing his coat off and letting it fall to the floor. “Maybe they know we’re here.”

“So what?” Mac said calmly. “Oh, yeah, here come the titties.”

Sure enough, Alan fumbled at the drawstring of Cathy’s gown, revealing small pointed breasts.

“You know,” Lou said, “I’m tired of being a voyeur. Or should that be voyeuse? Twice in two days, and you’re involved both times.”

Mac’s breath was warm on the back of her neck. Her hair stirred as he laughed softly. “Don’t you like watching people f*ck?”

“Not particularly,” Lou said, but was aware that she wanted to stay and watch this, watch Alan caress and tongue his wife’s breasts, hear Cathy’s soft sighs, and see her head tip back, eyes closed, just as she’d reacted to the ice cream at dinner. Cathy’s nipples had hardened to dark points.

Alan stepped away and tore off waistcoat and neckcloth—at least, his intentions showed some haste, but unwinding the foot or so of muslin took some time. Cathy meanwhile unbuttoned the front flap of his breeches, pushing them down over his hips.

“Damn, I don’t think he’s going to undress her,” Mac said.

“Why don’t you go in there and show him how to do it?” Lou said. “No! I didn’t mean that.”

“I’m shocked,” Mac said. “I think they would be, too. Hey, it’s oral sex time.”

“Shut up,” Lou said. “You’re like an annoying sports commentator.”

Alan pushed Cathy onto one of the stone seats in an alcove of the summerhouse, lifting her legs over his shoulders and burying his face between her thighs. Cathy’s hands gripped the stone and she moaned, her muslin gown folded up around her waist.

Lou involuntarily squeezed her thighs together. Oh, yes, she remembered what that felt like, the luscious wetness, the sight of Julian’s head bobbing between her spread legs and her pubic hair darkening with his saliva and her own juices.

“She’s coming,” Mac whispered. “Look at her face.”

“I can’t. It’s too private.” But she did, and watched Cathy’s head tip back and her fingers clench and whiten on the edge of the stone bench, heard her cry out, her face ecstatic and blank.

The couple was still for a moment. That moment when Julian’s lips would close on her *oris in a slow caress of completion, calming the shocks. Sometimes he’d dart his tongue out to slide it inside her, lapping, promising more.

Alan, breeches now around his boots, stood and lowered himself to penetrate Cathy, his mouth on hers. Taste yourself, Lou.

Did her breathing hitch as Mac’s did? And then guilt and shame took over: What was she thinking, watching this, and watching this in the company of a man who she barely knew? She’d leave. She’d leave now. No, immediately after they’d finished.

Alan’s cock slid in and out of Cathy’s p-ssy, hard red flesh engulfed by glistening pink.

Lou was still here. But she wouldn’t subject herself to any post-game discussion with Mac. Absolutely not.

“Look at her cunt,” Mac said softly. He brushed against her. Was it deliberate? Yes, he had a hard-on. The bulge in his breeches stirred her muslin skirts.

It’s your hormones, she told herself. He wasn’t even someone she liked particularly, or at least knew too little about him to know whether she’d like to know him more. Only hormones. Nothing to do with him, nothing to do with the couple f*cking a few feet away, both of them groaning and Alan’s back shining with sweat. Cathy’s hands left the stone, gripped his hips and pulled him, positioned him, her feet digging into his thighs.

“I love you,” Cathy gasped, and Lou turned her head away, eyes closed. This was too intimate, too painful. Cathy gave that same high cry, followed by a groan from Alan.

Lou kept her eyes closed. No more. Sunlight filtered by branches formed spangled, shifting patterns behind her eyelids, and scents of cool greenery and distant, subtle flowers overlaid with bergamot and male sweat filled her nostrils. Birds whistled and trilled.

“So, Lou.” Mac’s voice was a gentle whisper. He brushed against her again and one finger stroked her neck, the leather warm and soft against her skin. “I wonder what you look like when you come.”