Mermaid of Penperro Read online

  She looked down at her belly, then sat halfway up in surprise, her fingers going to the substance spread there. “The ‘milky effusion’! So this is what it is!” she exclaimed, touching it.

  “Don’t do that,” Tom said, coming back to her quickly, a wet towel in his hand. “Here, lie back,” he directed.

  She rubbed some of the substance between her fingers, fascinated, then brought her fingertips up toward her face in the instinctual urge to catch the unfamiliar scent.

  Tom stopped her, grasping her hand and cleaning off her fingers with the towel, then gently wiping clean her belly.

  “I’ve never seen it before,” Konstanze said. “Why haven’t I?”

  “Your husband had every reason to spend himself within you. I did not wish you to risk conceiving a child.” He finished cleaning himself off, and threw the towel back to the dressing table. He got back into bed beside her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her up close to him.

  The feel of his skin next to hers, his smooth buttocks within easy reach of her questing hands, was almost enough to distract her, but the specifics of what had just transpired between them still intrigued her.

  “It was never like this with my husband.”

  “It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad to hear it,” he said, kissing her cheek just below her eye, his hand playing in her hair.

  She slid her thigh between his, and let her hand trail down to his member, much softer now and more malleable. She frowned, holding him in her hand. The sexual knowledge she had gleaned from the Memoirs merged now with her own experience, and she finally understood the basic workings of the male sex. “This is what Bugg felt like, those few times that we were together,” she said. “Sometimes he seemed much smaller, even.”

  Tom’s hand in her hair stilled, and he leaned his head back so he could see her better. “Always, he was like this?”

  “Always.”

  “Konstanze… You said he hurt you the first time you were together. He had to have been erect to have hurt you, to have breached your maidenhead.”

  “I think—” she started, but could not quite believe what her thought meant, and sought to confirm it another way. “Are all men as large and hard as you when they are about to take a woman?”

  “I’d like to say no,” he said, grinning. “But more or less I believe that to be the case. We are none of us soft.”

  She took that in, turning it in her mind with her other knowledge, checking for flaws and finding none. “Tom, I think he never took me except with his fingers,” she said, the words rushing out over a released breath. “That’s what hurt, his fingers prodding at me. His penis was never hard.”

  Tom’s face froze, and then he suddenly sat up, flinging the covers back.

  “What? What is it?” she cried, pulling herself up.

  “Blood. Do you see any?” he asked, getting out of the bed.

  She moved aside, searching with him, then tentatively touched herself, seeking the telltale sign. “No, nothing,” she said, feeling strangely frightened now by the abrupt change in her perception of her marriage, and thus her world.

  Tom shoved his hand through his hair, standing there for all the world as if he were unaware he was stark naked. “Perhaps his fumblings were enough to tear it.”

  “My maidenhead?”

  He nodded; then his muscles went slack and he got back into bed with her, pulling the covers back up and bringing her close to his side. She rested her cheek atop his shoulder, her leg thrown over his.

  “Do you know what this means?” he asked her.

  “You were my first,” she said.

  “Yes. And it means you have grounds to annul your marriage.”

  Konstanze squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that suddenly formed there, but they slipped out regardless, trickling down her cheek and over her nose to drip upon him. She sniffed.

  “Hey there, what’s this?” Tom asked, and raised her chin up so she was looking at him. “Why tears?”

  “I would never have known,” she said. “If I hadn’t followed my heart, I would never have known. I’m so happy.” She gave him a watery smile. The shackles of her marriage could finally be broken. “I love you, Tom Trewella,” she said.

  His stared at her, his amber eyes like those of a fox at bay.

  She gave a hiccuping little laugh and laid her fingertips over his lips. “You need say nothing. I understand.” For this moment it did not matter if he could return her feelings. With her love for him had come the understanding, deep in her soul, that love asked nothing in return. She loved him, and she felt blessed that she could do so.

  She laid her head back down on his shoulder, and let herself weep with the relief of being released from her bonds, marital and emotional.

  She was free.

  Tom lay awake, Konstanze sleeping curled against his side, her hand on his chest as if to prevent him from slipping away from her. He was feeling little of that blissful relaxation that usually came with sexual release.

  After Konstanze had dried her tears of happiness, she had in a broken voice described to him the night with her husband that had convinced her to run away. The thought of her tied up and beaten for an old man’s lecherous amusement set his blood boiling. He was half tempted to hunt the villain down and deliver his own version of physical punishment—a punishment that would leave the man a bleeding pulp of broken flesh. Fear of blood be damned—this was one case where he would manage to stomach it.

  The rage toward the faceless Bugg was only a distraction from deeper matters, though. It was easier to think about pounding a foul goat into the ground than about the delicate state of affairs between himself and Konstanze.

  He had been her first. He had never been anyone’s first before. It brought out feelings of possessive tenderness. That he had been the one to initiate her made him feel that she belonged to him. Not as a slave or as chattel, but more that she was joined to him now through experience, in bonds that time could never break.

  He remembered his own first sexual encounter, with an experienced woman several years his senior. When he had finished she had held him against her with all the tenderness of a mother holding a child. Were his feelings now like that woman’s had been then? Their affair had been brief, but on the rare occasions that their paths had crossed afterward she had gazed upon him with gentle affection. For his own part he could remember his first time in awkward, embarrassing detail, but he had long forgotten whatever passions he had felt for his partner.

  He tightened his hold on Konstanze. With an annulment she would be free to marry, and between her amiable—if slightly eccentric—nature and her pleasing appearance, he knew she would have no trouble finding suitors. He could be one of them himself, and he had an advantage, as she fancied herself in love with him.

  He wasn’t certain if he should believe her declaration, though, coming as it had on the heels of lovemaking and her realization that she would soon be free of Bugg. His impulse was to disbelieve her, and to think that she was confused by her turbulent emotions. He’d been stunned when she said it, incapable of responding.

  He let himself consider that she might have known what she was saying, and meant it. What if her coming to him this evening had been because of love, and not merely desire?

  The very idea made him tense, suggesting as it did that she might be aiming for marriage.

  On the other hand, nothing was ever as one would expect with Konstanze. She might have every intention of sailing off to America, or of heading to London to go on the stage. She might decide she’d had enough of marriage altogether.

  Marriage. He had thought the possibility to be comfortably far in his future. He was content with his life the way it was, with his tidy house and Mrs. Toley to tend to his creature comforts. He didn’t know if he was ready to wed, if he was willing to disrupt his life to that degree.

  He felt as if he were teetering on a precipice, his familiar, stable life underfoot and something new and frightening op
ening out in the vast and empty air before him. Were his feelings for Konstanze strong enough for him to leap and risk falling?

  For all that Konstanze had been shaken by her discoveries of this night, he could not fail to notice that she was the one sleeping peacefully, content amidst the turbulence. She slept as one for whom the path into the future had suddenly become clear.

  He wished he could be as certain of his own wishes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bugg II stood hunched in the dark shadows of a shop, staring across the street and up the hill at the house into which Konstanze had disappeared with the black-haired man. The faint glow of candlelight lit one of the upstairs windows, and for several minutes there had been large shadows moving through it. As the minutes crept by he became more and more certain of what those shadows meant: Konstanze and the man were fornicating.

  He’d expected it of her, of course, but to sit out here and see the reality was surprisingly distasteful. She was no better than a bitch in heat, and likely this was not the first man to make use of her person. She’d probably been supporting herself off the proceeds of such couplings.

  He hoped she got a burning dose of the clap from it.

  She would have to be gotten rid of. Although he had played with the idea of keeping her for himself once Father quit his dawdling and died, knowing she was up there sweating away with another man spoiled what little fun there was in the idea. No one wanted a whore for a wife. With his inheritance he would soon be able to afford much better.

  A trio of rowdy drunks sang their way past, oblivious to his presence. He could still hear the faint sounds of carousing from down on the harbor, but this part of town was quieting for the night. Booths and stage platforms were clear of portable goods, but remained standing in preparation for tomorrow’s continuation of the fair. No one was thinking of anything but having a good time.

  The shadows stopped moving, and he tensed in anticipation. They might be coming back out soon. He felt for the pistol inside his coat, the weight of it heavy. It was big enough that if anyone had been looking, its presence would have been obvious, but no one did look. Even that fool of a Preventive man had not noticed.

  Bugg II shifted, starting to perspire in anticipation of the confrontation with Konstanze and her lover. He didn’t want to confront them alone. What if the man was dangerous? What if the man attacked him? And he still did not himself know exactly how he was going to deal with Konstanze. If he could to do so without risk of capture, he would just as soon shoot her. His hands would be kept cleaner and the risk of repercussions would be much less, however, if he could have her arrested for theft. Let the Crown hang her; it was skilled at execution.

  Time moved slowly forward, and there was no change from the house. Perhaps they had fallen asleep. He pressed his knuckles against his lips and gnawed. Did he have time to fetch the Preventive man, Foweather? And would the man finally believe him well enough to help him?

  The conversation in front of the Fishing Moon had been one of mixed satisfaction. The more Foweather spoke about the “mermaid,” the more Bugg II had suspected that it was Konstanze of whom he spoke. The description of her visit to the church had all but confirmed it. Bugg II knew that one of her favorite outfits was an emerald green dress with a black velvet spencer. She had worn it often.

  However, when he had suggested that the mermaid was actually his runaway stepmother—and a thief— and that an elaborate hoax had been played upon him, Foweather had not reacted well. He had flatly refused to believe such was possible, and had recited at length—for what must have been the hundredth time that day—every detail of his every encounter with the mermaid.

  “I tell you, her mother was an opera singer,” Bugg II had said. “She herself can sing in five different languages, and you’d think she wasn’t human when you heard the notes she can reach.” For a moment he thought he’d seen doubt in Foweather’s eyes.

  But then someone had chided the man not to listen to such nonsense, and to have another drink in honor of the mermaid.

  He’d given up, and wandered through the crowd the rest of the afternoon, looking for some sign of Konstanze. It hadn’t been until after the lighting of the bonfire that he’d succeeded in finding her; and he’d very nearly lost the advantage of surprise in the process. He’d been staring right at her, elated to have finally tracked her down, and then as if feeling his gaze she had turned toward him. He had looked away and hidden in the darkness and the shifting bodies of the crowd.

  He’d followed her at a safe distance, and nearly missed it when she stepped into the shadows of a shop porch. He’d waited not thirty feet from her, watching, and then trying to eavesdrop when the man joined her. They’d been too far away for him to catch their words, and the man had looked uneasy. He hadn’t dared follow any closer.

  There was still no movement or change from the house. Perhaps it was worth the risk of losing Konstanze to go back and fetch Foweather. Even if Konstanze did leave while he was gone, he knew where the house was. The occupant could be questioned. Doubtless the sod didn’t know what a gold-hungry little liar he had in his bed.

  He gave the window one last look, then dashed down the street back toward the harbor.

  Konstanze came awake to the slow stroking of Tom’s fingers in her hair. For a moment she was disoriented; then memory returned and she smiled and nestled closer against his side.

  “Are you awake?” he asked.

  “Yes. How long have you been?”

  “A while.”

  She let her hand drift down to his groin and found his member hard and full. She wrapped her hand around it and stroked down, loving the feel of it against her palm. He groaned, then took her hand in his own and brought it up to his mouth, kissing the back and palm.

  “You’re in no condition for a second time,” he said, “although God knows I’d like to let you try.”

  She rolled on top of him, her breasts flattened against his chest, and wiggled her hips. “I didn’t know that skin against skin could feel like this. I never want to get dressed again.”

  “Konstanze… You’re making this hard.”

  “I can tell.”

  He rolled her over, coming to rest on top of her. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Let’s do it again. I don’t care if it hurts.”

  He made slow thrusts of his hips against hers, his manhood low enough to rub against her. She half closed her eyes and parted her thighs, throwing her arms above her head. “Please,” she said.

  He kissed her, deep and hard, then held her tight against him. She put her arms around his neck and held him close.

  ‘Tomorrow,” he said. “You may not care if it hurts you, but I do.”

  “I’d expected more rapacious behavior from you.”

  “Are you trying to taunt me into it?”

  “Would I do that?”

  He grunted, then rolled off her. “Hilde is going to skin me alive for bringing you home so late.”

  “Probably. Unless she is not yet home herself. I saw her with the vicar in the crowd around the bonfire.”

  “That’s right—I’d forgotten seeing them myself. I’ll be looking forward to hearing all about it from Matt.”

  She gave him a look. “And will you be sharing any stories of your own?”

  He picked up her chemise from the floor and tossed it to her. “Naturally. I shall share each and every detail with any who care to listen. I’m sure they’ll enjoy the tale down at the Fishing Moon.”

  “Pig!” She threw a pillow at him.

  He pounced on the bed and put his face to her bare belly, nuzzling and making snorting pig noises. She bent around his head, laughing. “Stop it! Stop!”

  The rooting turned to kisses, and a moment later they were entwined in each other’s arms, lips caressing and coaxing. Just when she was about to urge him to take her again he pulled away.

  “I always said you would lead me down the road to hell.”

  “I would hardly c
all this hell,” she said on a sigh. He handed her the chemise, which had gotten pushed down to the bottom of the bed, then stood up and reached for his breeches.

  “I’ll go see what Mrs. Toley left us to eat. Come down to the kitchen when you’re dressed.”

  She smiled dreamily at him and stretched her arms above her head, arching her back so her breasts stood out, then collapsing in what she hoped was an invitingly relaxed pose.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” he ordered.

  “I enjoy it.”

  He groaned and struggled into his shirt, then grabbed his stockings and shoes in one hand, the lamp in the other, and fled to the doorway. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I can hardly wait to find out.”

  He groaned again, then was gone.

  “It’s just up here,” Bugg II said, hurrying his step, then turning to check that Foweather and his groggy men were following. He prayed the light was still there in the window.

  “You’re going to regret this if you’re wrong, by God,” Foweather said, without much heat. Like his men, he was still half-asleep.

  The entire town was drunk or sleeping. By his pocket watch he knew it was near three o’clock, and except for a few bleary souls still nursing their cider or beer in front of the Fishing Moon, there was not an upright man to be seen. One of those bleary men had directed Bugg II to the old boat where the Preventive crew slept. He’d woken Foweather and told him what he’d seen, whereupon Foweather had told him to find the constable if it was an arrest for theft he was intent upon making.

  The constable, unfortunately, was a loudly snoring man lying in the middle of the street who refused to awaken. With great annoyance Foweather had eventually given in to his pleas and proddings to come and at least see if the woman was the same as the mermaid, and had dragged half his men with him for good measure. Konstanze might convincingly plead innocence to the charges of theft—which had, after all, taken place far from here and were of no interest to the locals—but Bugg II was counting on Foweather being sufficiently incensed at being made a fool of by a fake mermaid that he would have her thrown in jail regardless of her tears and protestations.