Chapter Seven

Content warnings can be found here

Edward woke with a jolt of panic and Peaches’ hot, bony limbs all tangled up in his own. The taste of her was on his mouth, his fingers lay against her clit, and her pert little breasts pressed up against him.

“Bugger,” he said, and scrambled out of the bed, grabbing the watch Hedge had left and almost fainting as all the injuries of yesterday remembered that they still owed him pain. It was twenty to seven.

At least he’d remembered to wind the damned thing.

 “Peaches,” he said, “Wake up. Get up. Quick. Now. Quick.”

“Sod off, Teddy.”

He drove a foot into her delectable rump. There was still a whole headful of glossy black hair scattered over the floor. They’d decided to finish the brandy before they swept it up and... “God help us.” 

“Go back to sleep, you randy bastard.”

“Peaches, get out of that bed or I will spank you.”

She burrowed deeper and wriggled her arse, “Not a threat, Teddy.”

He could still smell her, on his fingers, on his own face. His tarse knew what it wanted to be doing, but instead, he pulled on his blood-soaked shirt and started to hop into his britches. “I’m not joshing, Peaches. Get up. Now. And get your bloody togs on.”

She rolled over and raised a hand to sweep her hair out of her eyes. That was when she noticed its absence. In the light, it looked ragged and patchy. 

They’d finished the job drunk. 

“What time is it?”

“Twenty to.”

“Seven?” She let out a curse that would have done a tattooed sailor proud. But at least she was awake, sitting upright in the bed, grabbing the makeshift bandages and strapping her breasts down. The sight of her there, creamy-brown skin against the grubby white of the sheets made him want to tumble her more keenly that he had done in weeks. His prick had never had an ounce of sense. 

“Good God, Peaches, you’re lovely.”

“Do your buttons up,” she said, tying off the fabric and tucking it in. Underneath the bindings she was slim and lean, and he wanted to feel his hands all over that taut skin. “I can see your cock-stand from here. Where did you put your old shirt?”

“That thing? You can’t wear that, it -”

“It’s what we’ve got. Where is it?”

It was a good thing they were more or less the same size. The cuffs hung long and frayed on her, but the britches clung to her strong, shapely legs and his prick got harder just thinking about it. “Couldn’t we just...?”

“If you’re dressed, grab that broom.” Peaches tugged the lacing at the neck, her slender collarbone vanishing in the dip as though it was begging for the touch of his tongue. “If not, bloody get dressed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes, Waghorn.” She shoved the shirt into the britches, then buttoned them over the inviting black hair of her cunt. “Don’t forget that.” 

“No. No,” he said, putting on his waistcoat, though that was stiff with blood too. “Waghorn. And you call me?”

“My Lord. Bugger.” 

“What?”

“I’ve no boots. My lord, I mean.” Barefoot, she bounded across the room, grabbed the broomstick and swept the pile of her hair under the bed. 

“Have mine.”

She gave the kind of look that suggested another word would earn him a slap.

“No, that’s a bad idea because I’m the master, yes?”

“Yeah. Um, yes, my Lord, I mean. Oh, bugger, this will never work, Teddy.”

“It will,” he said, and grabbed her by the shoulders, kissing her and missing the falling sweep of her raven hair. Her lips yielded to his and she fell into him as though she expected him to protect her. Well, there was a turn-up. “It will, because you are brilliant and you can handle situations that would leave me utterly stumped and you are the most beautiful boy I have ever seen, and we will cope with this. Is that clear?”

She pressed her lips together and she nodded. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“We can do this.”

They settled on her wearing his spare stockings underneath her clogs, and he showed her how to tie them at the knee. 

“This is easier on someone else.”

“Yes, well, that is why people hire staff.”

“Let me do yours.”

“Peaches, sweetheart, you’ll make a mess of it.”

“If I’m going to be your gentleman, I’ll need to get the hang of it at some point.”

“But not right now you don’t.”  He could hear the footsteps coming up the stairs, and the sound of lower doors being propped closed with chairs, because only the bloody bailiffs would come to call this early. “You can do my stock, though.”

She put her arms around his neck, sweeping it around his collar. She even smelled female, and surely the bones at her neckline were too delicate, the soft down on her face a give-away. As she tied his stock with a knack she’d picked up in her time as a whore, her fingers moved with swift, elegant skill; it was those little attentions, she’d told him later, after his fall from grace, that kept the punters coming back.

“Waistcoat,” he said as he pulled on his boots.

Peaches bounded across the room and threw it over to him, so he slipped it on over the shirt and buttoned it while she hunted out his jacket. 

There was the rap of knuckles at the door.

Peaches’ pretty lips moved in what was clearly too vile a curse to utter aloud. She dashed back across the room with his ruined jacket in her arms, and tried to put it around his shoulders the way valets tended to do. Naturally, she made a hash of it, what with it being - to Edward’s mind - something between a conjuring trick and the kind of ability that people formed guilds over. Still, it was on, and she came around the front, tugging the lines of it into something remotely presentable.

Another knock, and Hedge’s imperturbable voice, “My Lord?”, as though it were Forthenby Hall itself and he was in his chambers, not a trollop’s doss at the top of a tenement.

“Enter,” he said, and made a jerking motion to get Peaches to stand behind him, for crying out loud. 

Her eyes went wide, and she made an undignified scrabble for it, standing at his right shoulder in what he hoped was a respectful fashion.

Hedge stepped into the room. Faithful retainer that he was, he did not let a shade of confusion or alarm cross his face, and merely said, “Lucas, go and wait with the carriage. There will not be much to carry.” 

Then he closed the door firmly, and gave a deep bow.