Mermaid of Penperro Page 19

  He went to where her clothes and a towel were hidden, gathering up the bundle and tucking it inside his coat. He found the same safe route to the bottom that he had directed Konstanze to use and climbed down, reaching the shore just as Konstanze herself swam up and pulled herself to a sitting position at the waterline. She looked every inch the mermaid. The fake red nipples were glaring at him from beneath her heavy wet hair.

  “How did I do?” she asked gaily. “I was wonderful, wasn’t I?”

  “What—” he began, then had to take a breath and try again, his temper tied down tight. “What do you think you were doing?” he asked with feigned calm.

  Her brows drew together, her smile fading. “Didn’t I do as I was supposed to?”

  He looked pointedly at her chest. “And what of those?”

  She looked down at her chest, then back up at him, her eyes going wary. “What about them?”

  “Where were they?”

  She pursed her lips as if whistling and looked away, then lifted one of her finned feet out of the water, droplets spraying. “Did you see how fast I swam?”

  “Konstanze!”

  “What?” she snapped back, dropping the finned foot into the water. “What, Tom? Are you going to try to tell me you’re upset because I did exactly what you wanted me to do?”

  “You said you would wear the bodice. You insisted upon it.”

  “It looked unnatural.”

  “But we agreed—”

  “I changed my mind. I decided you were right at the very beginning about how a mermaid should look. I should think that would make you happy,” she said and, turning away, started yanking at the laces on her fins.

  “Don’t you try to ignore me,” he said. “Konstanze!”

  She dropped her hands and turned to look at him from under her brows. “What?” she asked again with exaggerated patience.

  “Do you even realize that we could see you, all of us? We were right up there,” he said, pointing to their hiding place. “You swam not twenty yards away, your bosom in plain view.”

  “Did you enjoy the show?”

  “No, I did not! I turned away. I could not watch you shame yourself so.” He felt the anger draining away, revealing something deeper and more painful. “Konstanze, where has your modesty gone?”

  She shrugged. “What use was it? They would have thought they were seeing my real chest whether I wore the bodice or not.”

  “But I knew.”

  She ducked her head, resuming work on the laces. “You didn’t look.”

  “You couldn’t have known that I wouldn’t.” He knelt down beside her, out of reach of the lapping water, a new suspicion forming. “Or did you mean for me to see?”

  “For God’s sake, Tom, you think awfully highly of yourself! I thought I was too far away to be seen; that’s all there is to it. The bodice drags against the water,” she said, plucking at the wet material. “I wanted to see how fast I could go with the fins. It had nothing to do with you!” Her words were fierce, but her throat and cheeks were red with embarrassment.

  “You swam along this entire section of coast on your back,” he said. “Wherever we were, you must have known I would see you and know you weren’t wearing the bodice.”

  She met his eyes, glaring. “I wasn’t thinking of that. I was enjoying myself, that’s all.”

  “That’s not all,” he said softly, some instinct telling him that she was bending the truth, that she had been aware he would see her and know the difference. “If you want my attention, you don’t have to put yourself on display to get it.”

  “You’re insufferable!”

  “And you’re a bad liar,” he said, touching her cheek with his fingertips. She held still as he trailed his fingertips down to her lips, lightly brushing over their full curves. They parted and then her wide eyes met his, uncertainty and hunger in their depths. He felt the gentle warmth of her breath on his skin, and she leaned toward him.

  She was irresistible. He pulled her gently into his arms and used his lips this time to caress hers, sliding softly across them, kneading tenderly. Her hands were caught flat against his chest; then as he continued to kiss her they slid up behind his neck, digging into his hair and pulling him closer.

  He knew he shouldn’t be doing this; it went against every promise he had made to himself. He knew it could lead to nowhere but trouble, but he wanted her, every inch of her flesh, every thought in her head, every beat of her heart. He wanted to devour her, heart, body, and soul, and when he had done so he would do it all again and again, until there was nothing left of either of them but exhausted satisfaction.

  He traced his tongue along the line where her lips met and they obediently parted, allowing him the freedom to explore as he pleased. He tasted her own timid tongue, stroking it with his as his hand behind her back searched for and found the buttons to her wet bodice. Only one was fastened, and as he continued kissing her he undid it and slid his hand inside to lay it against her chilled skin. At his touch she arched toward him, a muffled sound coming from her throat. Her fingers tightened in the hair at the nape of his neck.

  With his tongue he touched the roof of her mouth, distracting her, her hands loosening in his hair as he continued to play inside her mouth. He slowly pulled the back of the bodice open and then shifted her so that she lay across his thighs. His hand moved around to the front of her waist, massaging her flesh in gentle circles.

  She was every bit as soft and shapely as he had imagined. He trailed kisses down to her neck, sucking on her earlobe, pausing to trace the whorls of her outer ear with his tongue and then touch lightly upon the center of it, setting her squirming in his arms. He moved his lips down the side of her neck, stroking her salty skin with his tongue, his hands moving to draw down the wet bodice, the fabric coming over her shoulders. She did not protest, her head arching back to allow him greater access to her neck and the vulnerable, sensitive point where it met her shoulders.

  He bent his head, nibbling at that tender bend, his hands pulling the bodice all the way off her and flinging it away. She shivered, and he laid his hand against her bare belly, his palm and fingers spanning the width of it. He returned to her mouth, kissing her deeply as he moved his hand up to cup her breast, playing with the erect nipple between his fingers.

  He ducked his head, taking the hard nub within his mouth, suckling at it as his hand went around her buttocks. She held him tight against her breast, deep sounds of pleasure forming in her throat. Far from reluctant, she showed every sign of wanting to continue this course to its natural end.

  He slipped his hand inside the back waistband of her costume. “How do we get this off you?” he asked, raising his head and looking at her.

  There was a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes. He slid his hand down to the top of her buttocks, bare under the wet material, and she blinked at him, her thoughts refocusing as he watched. Her eyes widened, and she suddenly pushed away from him, sitting up, her hands going over her breasts. “O Gott,” she said softly.

  “Konstanze,” he said, reaching for her.

  She leaned away. “Tom, no. We can’t do this. It’s not right.”

  His body disagreed with its every fiber, with every sinew and nerve, but against his wishes part of his mind awoke to echo her thoughts. Rationally he knew that this wasn’t right, but the logic seemed no more than empty words to his heated senses. It was only his own trust in his mind to make better decisions than his body that had him reluctantly setting her off his lap.

  He released a long, shuddering breath. He felt her bundle of clothes still in his coat and pulled it out, placing it on the ground between them. “I had no right to take such liberties. My apologies.” He was not sorry, and knew she had been as eager as he, but the brain knew what was best and he obeyed its orders.

  She snatched up her clothes, unfolding them with her bare back to him, pulling them on over her head. “I am as much to blame,” she said over her shoulder, and then he heard another muffled,
“O Gott!” and realized that her distress was very real, and of a different order than his frustrated desire. She sounded like a woman ashamed of her own behavior, and her shame made him feel sick inside.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said.

  “It is. I knew better than to behave as I did.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “Turn away.”

  He obeyed, sitting with his forehead in his hands as he listened to her trying to dress, her breathing audible, catching on what sounded like sobs. What had he done? He had known that to touch her would be to dishonor her, and to dishonor himself as well. She was married, for all that she had left her husband. All that had kept her from becoming an adulteress was a thin layer of wet green material.

  Her sobs were growing louder. “Konstanze?” he asked.

  “I cannot untie them,” she said.

  He turned around again and saw that she struggled with the fish fins, their laces swollen with salt water. She was wearing her dress, but the mermaid costume was bunched down around her ankles, trapped on her by the fins.

  He knelt at her feet and gently pushed her cold hands aside. “It will be all right. Don’t fret, Konstanze. It will be all right.”

  It will be all right, he’d said. Konstanze pulled the covers up over her nose, her body curled into a fetal position in her bed. She was washed clean of salt, and of the traces of Tom’s mouth upon her body. Still, she knew it would not be all right.

  Something had been happening to her since she’d come to Penperro. She didn’t know who she was anymore. She had always been a good girl, obedient and moral. Modest. Her reputation was above reproach, her honor unsullied.

  What was happening to her? It was as if the secret fantasy life she had once lived was slipping free of the confines of her mind, intent on taking over her real life. The naughty Konstanze, the Konstanze she had always kept safely bottled deep inside like a dangerous genie, was showing every sign of having pushed out the cork and escaped.

  Why had she taken the bodice off, and why had she swum where she knew Tom would see her? She pulled her knees up closer to her chest, remembering that exhilarating sensation of being bare to the world and not caring. She had looked down at her own body and thought it beautiful, and had wanted to show it off to any who would look. She had made excuses in her mind, but that was what the truth had been. She had had no shame. None at all. She had stuffed the bodice in a crevice and reveled in her nakedness.

  And she had wanted Tom to look at her and to want her.

  When he had touched her she had wanted more. It was only when he made to remove her costume that she had come to her senses, and only then because she had recalled her monthly flow, and had not wanted him to see evidence of that. Otherwise she would have let him take her there on the rocks and sand, not a thought in her head except the glorious feel of his hands and mouth on her body.

  O Gott. It was not going to be all right.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Exeter

  “You should be using condoms if you’re bedding down with whores,” Dr. Cox chided.

  Bugg II pursed his lips over his protruding teeth, watching with impatient ill humor as the physician took a sample sheep-gut sheath out of his bag, its red drawstring dangling. They were in a tiny room in yet another seedy inn, this one in Exeter. He had traced Konstanze this far by finding the coaching service that had taken her and Hilde as passengers from London, and felt in his bones that he was getting close. He was running her to ground like a terrier after a rabbit.

  So intent had he been on pursuing her, he had been unwilling to stop and take the time to seek out a doctor. As a result his condition had worsened, his penis dripping a nasty yellow-green substance, the opening at the end an angry, inflamed red. It hurt every time he took a piss—which he found he needed to do with annoying frequency.

  “See, it covers the penis entirely,” the good doctor patiently explained. “You pull the drawstring tight, and tie it around the scrotum to keep it in place. If you use these, you’ll have less need of the services of those in my profession. Even better, though, I’d advise you to find a wife and take your pleasures in one place.”

  “I am aware of my mistake,” Bugg II gritted out as politely as he could manage. The doctor had yet to treat him, and it would be no good to antagonize the man before he inflicted whatever medical punishment was in store.

  He’d spent many hours fantasizing about finding the thieving whore who’d both stolen his money and passed on her dose of the clap as a parting token of her appreciation. He’d kill her. First he’d make her and Konstanze pleasure each other while he watched; then he’d kill her. And kill Konstanze. He’d kill Dr. Cox if he could get away with it. He’d kill every damned inhabitant of Exeter.

  “The treatment is threefold. First, you must rest, dining only on gruel and water until the symptoms have all passed. Do not touch alcohol. Second, hot baths for up to two hours, three times a day.”

  “And third?”

  “Mercury,” Dr. Cox said, “taken by mouth, but also as a solution applied inside the affected member.”

  “Inside?” Bugg II asked, worried. “How do you get it inside?”

  Dr. Cox reached into his bag and took out a large brass syringe an inch in diameter, with a thick, hollow needle six inches long. “With this,” Dr. Cox said.

  Bugg II gave a little cry.

  “I’ll slide it up the urethra as far as it will go,” Dr. Cox cheerily explained, “then irrigate the passage and bladder. You will feel a certain amount of discomfort.”

  “Discomfort? How much discomfort?”

  Dr. Cox handed him a wooden dowel, pocked with teethmarks. “Here, bite on this. It’ll keep you from screaming.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Penperro

  “The woman is a menace,” Matt Jobson said. “It’s gotten so that I can’t take a step in the open without fear that she will swoop down upon me. I’ve come across some bold women in my day, but Hilde—good God, even Admiral Nelson would turn his ship around and flee from the likes of her.”

  Tom played with his pint of cider, twisting the glass in its ring of moisture on the table. They were in the Fishing Moon, the room nearly empty, as it was midday. Mrs. Popple cleaned glasses behind the bar, and her husband could periodically be heard in back, doing the heavy work of moving kegs up from the cellar.

  “I told you she ‘borrowed’ some of my books from my bedroom, right under Mrs. Toley’s protesting nose, didn’t I?” Tom said.

  “I saw them myself, tucked under her arm. I think they were all that saved me. I don’t like to think what would have happened if she’d had both hands free. It was bad enough as it was.”

  At that Tom looked up from the rings he was making on the table, distracted finally from his own troubling thoughts. “What did happen? You never said, specifically.”

  Matt downed half his pint of cider before speaking. “I feel like a teenage girl pursued by an older man. ‘Oh, please, sir, I’m a good girl, please let me be,’” Matt cried in a falsetto. “And of course she has no idea how to stop the man, and may even succumb if he proves persistent enough.”

  Tom stared at his friend. “Do you mean you might?”

  Matt looked into his nearly empty glass, swirled the contents around a few times, then drank the remainder down. “She backed me right up against the door of the church, chest to chest. She’s a little taller than me, did you know that?”

  “No. What did she do then?”

  “She sniffed me.”

  “What?”

  “Like an animal. She put her face right against my neck and sniffed me, and then she made this little growling sound deep in her throat.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “That’s not the worst of it. The worst of it was that I almost enjoyed it.”

  Tom began to laugh. “You’re joking.”

  “I started thinking of shelions and bears and wild pigs, and how they must go about their mating, all that squealing and biting
and rolling around in the woods. They do what comes naturally, and to hell with the consequences.”

  “Wild pigs? You’re aroused by the thought of wild pigs?”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve had a woman, Tom.”

  “Less than a month, by my reckoning.”

  Matt frowned at him. “As I said.”

  “But you would break your fast with Hilde?”

  “Why do you think she makes me so nervous? It’s not the giving in that is so troubling as what might happen afterward. I am somehow certain that should I give her what she wants, I shall never be free of her. I can see myself an old man, still being shaken awake in the middle of the night so that she might have her way with me. She is the type of creature whose hunger is never sated, who will drain a man dry till he is nothing but an empty shell, devoid of ambition or energy. She is an animal.”

  “You say that with a little too much enthusiasm.”

  Matt rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I know.”

  “I shouldn’t worry too much about it. I cannot imagine her giving up her position with Konstanze, even for such a stallion as yourself.”

  “There is that,” Matt said, brightening. “And how is our mermaid faring? I’ve grown quite curious about her. After her performance off the coast the other day, she’s been the main topic of conversation around here. The stories keep getting better and better. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the Preventive crew saw the real thing splashing around out there.”

  “You and half the town. I’ve given up reminding people that she’s Robert Penrose’s great-niece. It’s as if, since they haven’t met her, she doesn’t exist except as the mermaid. I even heard one theory that although she’s been living as a human woman for many years, she was actually a mermaid all along and has now come home, and since she is from these waters she has agreed to help the Cornish people against the foul English.”