The Decline and Fall of Rowland Graves Read online

  The Decline and Fall of Rowland Graves

  A Devil’s Luck Vignette

  by

  Eris Adderly

  * * * *

  Text copyright © 2014-2015 Eris Adderly

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  I

  Promises, Light and Dark

  “I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.”

  — Edgar Allan Poe

  * * * *

  Bristol, England, 1692

  Pale lashes fluttered their downy kisses over cheeks of blushing ivory. The cool light of an October afternoon made purple shadows play in the well at the base of a throat. Her throat.

  His angel.

  Her breath hitched again and the golden brow tightened into a delicate furrow in time with the skilful movements of his hand between their bodies. The house was empty save for they two; the tufted chaise near the tall window in her bedroom a perfect bed for her sighs.

  “Rowland …”

  He smiled to himself and ignored her, his teeth nipping at her neckline, teasing one of the spring-pink buds out into the open. When she whispered his name it was a seraph anointing him, and he’d hear it again before relenting.

  Drawing the dainty perking tip into his mouth in a careful suckling, Rowland circled his free hand tighter at her waist, pulling her closer. Yards and yards of taffeta, the palest yellow, piled in rustling bunches over her hips. One silk-smooth thigh, the colour of fresh milk, lay draped over each of his while his splayed hand at her waist was all that kept her from falling back against the chaise.

  He rolled at the little bead of pleasure with his fingers, the pearl he knew would release those pretty sounds from her lips, and slid a second finger now into her warmth. She whimpered at his touch and his heart soared. Whatever he could discover to make this perfect creature happy, he would do.

  Her hands were at his shoulders, threading through his hair. Of their own accord, her hips sought closer contact, so innocently answering his call to sensation.

  “Rowland, please …”

  There was nothing more exquisite than his own name on her lips.

  “Yes, love?”

  “Please, I …” His fingers twitched and her plea fragmented into a quiet gasp.

  “What is it you want, Little Dove?” he asked, his voice a gentle taunt. It was rapture when she came unfocused at his touch, and Rowland continued plucking the lovely notes from her as though she were the finest harp, made to sing only for him.

  “I … I … Please! You know what I want!” Her breathy desperation had him grasping for his own self-control now, but he was intent on drawing out her beautiful torment for a time longer.

  “I know,” he said, pushing the fabric of her skirts higher still, “I know what you want. But not yet, love.”

  He slid his own body down the chaise then, out from under her parted thighs, until his face was level with the dewy lips he’d just been exploring with his hand. She was heaven to inhale; tangy and sweet, and he slid a palm under her bottom to bring her closer.

  His angel wanted them to be together, and this he wanted also, but he would taste her first and hear her come undone before he allowed himself to fall apart in the joy of her embrace.

  The first lap at her honeyed furrow brought a gasp and a soft moan of release. It seemed today she’d forget her shame and let him do this: let him paint her with gleaming strokes of worship again.

  Warm, wet flesh smothered his mouth, his nose. His tongue plunged and rasped, finding the places that made her chirp her approval. He brought his fingers back, parting her for a more thorough consumption. When he slid them inside her again, though, her low groan was the first unladylike thing he’d heard that afternoon.

  Lovely.

  She was losing control.

  He set his mouth in a gentle suction over that eager pink button of hers and drew her in to match the rhythm of his stroking fingers. Her hips bucked at him and she cried out.

  Yes, Angel.

  His tempo became more deliberate: fingertips curling and beckoning her towards surrender along with the insistent pulling plea from his lips. Closer now. Closer…

  A breathy crescendo of clipped moans blurred into a wail of release. Her body clutched at his fingers, hips rising away from the chaise. He felt her walls fluttering against him: a song. A promise.

  “Rowland …” She sighed, the tension in her limbs floating away.

  He could wait no longer.

  A man had never pushed aside a pair of breeches so fast. He needed her. Kneeling between her thighs again, he hauled her up into his lap, sliding the heat of his arousal along the wet mess he’d brought about with his tongue. He bent double over her, catching her swollen lips in a kiss.

  “Is this what you want, Dove?” He spoke the urgent words against her mouth. He would always ask permission, no matter how many times she’d given it in the past.

  “Yes!” She arched against him. “Oh yes, please!”

  With a push, he was inside her. His arms circled her waist and he sat back up, bringing her upright with him. For a moment, he did nothing; simply held her there, sheathed in her heat, her love. Something inside her flexed, grasped at him. He hissed.

  “Elinor.”

  Her eyes held his, the palest blue, and her thumb smoothed over his cheekbone. The fabric of her bodice slid under his palms as he pressed the two of them closer. He wanted to thrust into her like a beast, but not as much as he wanted to watch her pluck up the courage herself.

  Their lips were together again, tongues affectionate, questing. Then … it happened.

  She began to move.

  First a shy turn of hips that gripped at his heart, but then a more deliberate roll. He gritted his teeth, trying to be still, allowing her to find her way. The rolling became a grind. Her legs were about him now as she pressed him as far inside as he would go.

  With a final, almost chaste kiss for him, he felt her abandon restraint. She rose up, clenching her muscles to lift herself nearly all the way off, before falling onto him again, burying his length to the hilt. It was Rowland’s turn to groan.

  His Elinor took up the dance then in earnest, the rising away and then dropping back, slamming her confession against him with each maddening jerk of her hips.

  “Love.” It was all he could do to grind out the word. Each dull slap of her body against him sent jarring blows of pleasure straight up his spine.

  “Yes, Rowland?” Her voice was breathy, bouncing out over her own movements.

  “I need …” His breath came short, words hoarse. “I need to …”

  “I know, Love. Take it. Please.”

  She knew. Knew he was going mad to keep still this way, and was ready to help end his torment.

  In a single move, he had her cradled back against the chaise, his body covering hers. Those eyes … those eyes denying him nothing. He plunged home with a primal noise of satisfaction, and she opened wider, giving of herself. He took.

  His hips worked into her with a frenzy, joining them again and again as though there would be no time tomorrow for such boundless delight. Sounds of lust and encouragement forced their way out under his poundi
ng now, and she called out his name in time with their coupling.

  I can’t go on like this! I can’t—

  She tilted her hips just so and Rowland lost his hold on reality.

  “Elinor!”

  He drove in with a final roar of completion, seating himself to the limits of her depth and spilling out his love with pulse after pulse of blinding joy.

  His eyes were clenched shut and his ears rang, but after an immeasurable time, the fog cleared and he sank back down to the chaise. To his angel.

  She smiled up at him, fingertips dusting over his chest, and he twitched within her, his body still shuddering to a stop.

  “I love you, Rowland.”

  He wanted to collapse every time he heard the words.

  “And I love you,” he replied as he always did, brushing her lips in a kiss.

  Their clothing righted again a few moments later, he pulled her back onto his lap and drew his arms around her waist.

  “We’ll tell your father on Friday, yes?” He nuzzled his face into her neck.

  “Mmm. Yes,” she said, curling around his needy affection in welcome. “I can’t bear to wait any longer. We’ll wed in the spring, Love?”

  “Of course,” he said, threading his fingers through hers, bringing her knuckles to his lips.

  How or why Fortune had chosen to favour him, he wasn’t sure, but he at least knew one thing. Elinor Barlow loved him. Beyond all reason, Rowland Graves had earned the love of an angel, and his every day and night with her would be a blessing. He would adore her and hold her every one of them.

  * * * *

  Judith Barlow stood again, taking a silent step away from her younger sister’s bedroom door, the lines of her face hardening. Such a tiny opening to cause her to see such an immense truth.

  A mere keyhole, a furtive whimper, and her walking past just at that time, on her way to her own room to retrieve a forgotten scarf. When the sound on the other side of the door had stopped her mid-step, her first instinct had been to whip open the door and see to her sister’s well-being. Another step towards the bedroom, however, and the noise rang clear, if quiet, as something other than pain.

  It can’t be.

  She’d slid out of her slippers and moved the rest of the way to the door, bending to lower an eye to the keyhole. Now she was no longer certain whether this had been a good idea.

  Her lip turned in disgust.

  Rowland Graves. Spreading my sister out like some whore. Have they both lost their minds?

  He was blind if he thought Elinor the sort of young woman meant to be with someone like him. And she, mad, if she thought because she was the perfect daughter, the innocent one, that Father would ever approve of such a thing. That silly girl didn’t know what love was. The final words she’d heard about a wedding ...

  Their father would hear about this. Oh, yes.

  Backing into her slippers again with silent feet, Judith stole down the hall and back to her original mission of collecting her scarf, her aim in meeting her father this afternoon appended. This business would end, and end tonight.

  * * * *

  “Mr Dunning, will you please escort the gentlemen into the dining room?”

  The women had already filed into the dining hall in a rustling of silks and taffeta, and now the men were moving in behind them, once Abraham Barlow had asked his guest to lead them. Rowland didn’t know this Mr Dunning, but Barlow had been doing a fine job of bending his ear while the guests had gathered in the drawing room to converse before dinner.

  They entered and took seats according to status. Rowland found himself sitting one chair from the end of the men’s side of the table, furthest away from Mr Barlow. It came as no surprise—the men between him and the master of the house were a sampling of his business partners, wealthy financiers, merchants and the like. He didn’t know all their names, and didn’t particularly care to, either.

  Barlow had only invited him due to his role as the family physician, and his seat was so far from the head of the table because he’d only taken over that position a little more than a year ago from his predecessor, who’d retired. Not enough time for him to have built a reputation yet, but just long enough to have fallen helplessly in love with his employer’s younger daughter. And by some miraculous blessing from the Lord, she loved him in return.

  His eyes sought his angel and found her. Elinor sat one seat removed from her father on the women’s side of the table. Only her sister Judith sat closer. Two women could not look more alike and be less similar.

  Judith Barlow was older than her sister by a mere two years and, aside from having brown eyes that tilted at a slightly more noticeable angle than Elinor’s lovely blues, the two could hardly be told apart. That was, at least, until one heard them speak. Then all confusion vanished.

  Where his Elinor was sweet and dainty, Judith was shrewish and biting. One all innocence, the other a thorny bed of schemes and vicious gossip. He pitied whatever poor man that one might set her eye on for marriage, should a creature the likes of her choose out such a victim at all.

  Servants were carrying out the first course, and Rowland had to pay attention lest the trays and dishes being set down over the shoulders of guests bump him and spill out their contents. There was hardly room for the vegetables and stews around the garish sugar sculpture that ran the central length of the table. Aphrodite stood at one end, all in white sugar and almond paste, and a fat Cupid at the other. An out-of-character choice for the sober Abraham Barlow, but perhaps it had been the confectioner’s doing.

  Still, he had eyes almost entirely for Elinor as the meal wore on—what seemed like forever as these affairs were wont to do—with the occasional glance at her father to assess whether the time was right for him to fling his fate to the gods and announce his intentions. How could the man say no? Rowland was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. What more suitable husband could a man want for his daughter?

  The way his Dove handled her knife, the delicate touch of her fingers around the stem of her glass, her musical laugh, like little bells tinkling … He was overcome with love for her and the longer the meal wore on, the more insistent became the thundering heart in his chest. He knew he must say something soon, or run out of time.

  By the last course, dessert, he was nearly shaking in his seat. This was not like his normal controlled surety, but then he had never asked a man for his daughter’s hand before today.

  Even though the dessert course offered guests the opportunity to reseat themselves according to pleasure rather than status, no one had moved.

  They’re probably too bloated and full to want to bother with standing up.

  This left Rowland still at the far end of the table, and it was clear he would have no choice but to stand up and be loud about it.

  Now, Rowland. Do it now, before you lose your nerve.

  His eyes flitted to Elinor, who gave him the shyest of smiles before she looked back down at the table. She knew he was ready.

  He stood, pushing his chair back as he rose, mouth open to address Abraham Barlow.

  Abraham Barlow was coming to his feet as well.

  What’s this?

  The man was clearly about to speak himself, but Rowland had caught his eye. Barlow made a slightly bothered face in his direction and adjusted his coat with a mild tug.

  “Just a moment, Doctor Graves,” he said. “I have some news I’d like to share, and then I’m sure we’ll be more than happy to hear whatever it is you have for us this evening.”

  Rowland gave a small nod and resumed his seat. At least the man had acknowledged him. He only hoped it wouldn’t be a long speech from Barlow so his courage wouldn’t have time to wane.

  “My friends,” Barlow began, laying a hand on the shoulder of the man to his right, who stood at the prompt as though he was already privy to the coming information, “most of you are familiar with Mr Walter Dunning, if not personally, then by his impressive reputation …”

  I’ve never heard of him
.

  Barlow prattled on about Dunning’s achievements and status, and Rowland waited for the man to have done with revealing whatever self-congratulatory business deal the two of them had arranged so he could state his own intentions.

  “And so it is with great pleasure”—the man seemed to be finally putting a cap on it—“that I announce the engagement of Mr Dunning—”

  Oh dear Lord.

  He’d seen Judith grinning that prickly secretive grin of hers all night.

  That poor, poor man.

  “— to my youngest daughter, Elinor.”

  Rowland blinked. Twice. His lower internal organs seemed to be … gone. He was rooted to his chair and his throat felt hollow.

  What?

  Elinor’s eyes were saucers, her lips parted. She stared at her father.

  What did he just say?

  The rest of the room was erupting with applause and cheers and back slapping. His angel turned her wide blue eyes in his direction, giving him a discreet, bewildered shake of her head.

  Engaged to … Elinor? His Elinor?

  The shrew sister dabbed at the corner of her smirking mouth with a napkin.

  His face was growing hot, and the jovial congratulations breaking all around him seemed to dull under the rushing of blood in his ears. Rowland barely heard Abraham Barlow saying his name as he stood to take himself away from the dining room as quickly as he could get his legs to obey.

  “What was it you wanted to say now, Doctor Graves? Doctor Graves?”

  * * * *

  II

  A Terrible Perseverance

  “Rowland you have to calm yourself! How could I have had any idea?”

  The seldom-used guest bedroom was lit only by an opening between narrowly parted drapes and the white hot anger shimmering in the air around Rowland Graves.