Content warnings can be found here

Later, damp and soft and warm, Peaches turned her head to the side as Teddy kissed her cheek, her neck, and cupped her breasts in his hand. 

“Oh, you’re a marvel,” he said, for the hundredth time that day. His hair was wet on her skin and left long trails of water on her. Naked like this, he was all rough, golden glory, with strong, narrow hips and hard legs covered with golden-brown hair. There was another trail of that hair over his stomach, leading down to his prick. He had bruises, and scars, too, but he wore them like badges of pride. Her fingers picked them out, the pale trace of one on his chest, the long ragged one on his side, the nicks and crescents on arms and chest, and the last - the worst by far - a shattered spider shape on his shoulder. The skin of it was shiny, silver. 

He was beautiful even where he’d been hurt.

When she’d first seen him, it had been like an image from a daydream come to life. She’d been no fool, though. Plenty of the swells were handsome enough, but they were worthless, all the same and at first, she’d assumed Teddy Valance was like the rest. 

Still, just the look of him had put her mind of the stories one of her regulars used to tell her - one of the first she’d managed to attach herself to. That fellow had been a vigorous thing, for an old stick, he’d get himself excited talking about savage warriors from the far past, unable to stop himself from slipping into a lecture on those funny names with too many ‘e’s at the start. He was a Don at some fancy college, and very vivid pictures would he paint of strong, blond warriors in horned helmets slinging pretty wenches like her over their shoulder and ravishing them aboard longboats. 

Peaches had enjoyed the stories, although not so much as the ones she would tell herself, when he was gone and she was frigging herself to sleep, where she was warrior queen, who had one of those strong, blonde men lashed to her chariot wheels, and at her mercy. 

My warrior, she thought, not without sadness, or embarrassment. The very least of things she had never told him. 

“We should get up,” she said, although she didn't want to. “Get down to that common room while they’ll still feed us.”

Teddy lifted his head, but only to run his tongue in a slow circle around one of her nipples and to put one hand between her legs. 

“Teddy,” she said, “I’m hungry.”

“I know. But you’re warm.” His hair dripped on her, that little bit longer than her own now. “And getting out of the bath was hard enough.”

“How about I dress you,” she said, “My Lord?”

“Well, if you put it like that.”

She grabbed the hair at the back of his head, and used it to pull herself towards him. His lips were soft and beaded with moisture, his chest damp and cool. His tongue moved against her own with so much sleepy tenderness that she held the kiss for so much longer than she had intended, breaking away, but coming back, always coming back for more.

“I thought we were standing up,” he said, in one of the breaks.

She shifted her shoulder, “You first, my Lord.”

Slowly, with much grumbling, he climbed off her. “Now. Get on your feet, Peach.”

She stood. “Undressing a gent is easy, but dressing one is another matter. So, give me a hint, Teddy. Is there an undershirt?”

“There is,” said Teddy, “but I’m not going to wear it. There are also small things, and I have no intention of wearing those, either.”

“Lawn shirt, then.”

“If you’d be so good, Peach.” 

She unfolded one from the pile. The cloth was light and fine, running over her fingers like water, the white of it gleaming against her skin. She whistled. “Good eye, that James.” There was a frill at the collar in needlepoint lace, and more of it at the cuffs. She walked over to Teddy and slipped it over him, watching it fall over a chest the colour of dark cream. 

She stood, gulping, at the result.

“Do I look a bally fool?” His throat slid up among the ruffles, long tendons and silk-fine flesh. His Adam’s Apple cast the tenderest shadow.

“Not exactly,” she said. “I just don’t want to do up the lacing.”

“Oh? That good?”

She bit her lip to stop any stupid confessions and nodded, then went and pressed her naked self against him as she adjusted the cross lacing. The thought of his skin, just below that single layer of cloth made something inside her clench. It was a kind of surrendering, a bestowal of power upon him that was heady and thrilling. “What next, my Lord?”

“Stockings,” he said, “then britches.”

So she knelt by his feet to assist him, and felt him stroke his hands back and forth through the soft crop of her hair. 

“You know, you really look most remarkably good down there.” His prick twitched near her cheek. “Frankly I’m astonished no-one else has thought of this.”

“What, having your doxy as your valet?”

“You’re not my doxy, Peaches,” and the reproach in his voice stung.
 
“No, my Lord? So. What am I?”

He hesitated for a moment, as though he were about the break the rules, but instead he said in wry, lofty tones, “Why, you’re my faithful body servant, Henry Peach.”

She did not look at him so that he did not have to see the bitterness in her face. Instead, she adjusted a wrinkle in his stockings. “You’ve never liked me calling myself a whore, have you?”

“It’s not really my place to say, Peaches.”

“No, you’re borrowing my lines. Tell me true. Do it bother you? That I sold knee-tremblers?”

“You never did that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Not especially.” 

She looked up at him sharp. 

For once she could not tell if he was lying. 

“Peaches, I’ve been called a trull often enough to see there’s no bloody shame in it. But no, you’re right. I don’t like calling you my whore.”

“I see,” she said.

“No. Not like that. Lord, must you always take such...” He sighed, then said, more quietly, “Look, you did what you did, for, well, whatever reason you saw fit. It didn’t… I’m not saying it didn’t matter to me. I’m just saying that it was none of my business. It was yours. Your business, I mean, your trade, your life. It wouldn’t be my place to interfere in the life of a friend, now, would it?”

“A friend?”

“Yes.”

“One you paid for sex.”

“If I had a friend who was a vintner, would I expect him to give me free wine?”

“Knowing you, Teddy, yes.”

“Bad example. But, look, if I want a fuck, I can get one without paying for it. But I didn’t just want a fuck, did I? I wanted a fuck with you. Or with one of the other girls.” He shrugged, “If laying down a little gold was the condition you made, then that was your prerogative - lot less hassle than what some people ask. Besides, you’re not so fierce as all that, Peaches, and if you threw in the odd freebie, I was hardly going to complain. Anyway, that was how I saw it. Sorry if I was mistaken.”

“No,” she said, “you weren’t mistaken. Not about me, at least.”

“I didn’t think so. Because when it got tough, you showed how good a pal you can be. You’re royal standard, Peaches. All twenty-four carats.”

She smiled.

“Besides,” he went on, in the same, dreamy tone, “you’d always kiss me. Most girls wouldn’t, you know? Not with a john, at least.”

Her hands stopped, caught. 

“Did you think I hadn’t noticed that?”

She made herself shrug. “So where does that leave us now?”

She was daring him now, pushing him to break her rules, but the rules were lying in fragments about them, and just this once she wanted to hear it - to hear from him own mouth the words she had stopped him from saying a hundred times.

Peaches wrapped the ribbons around her hand and did not look at him.

“Well, I asked you to marry me, damn it. I don’t know how much of clearer statement of intent you want.” But the edge of ardour in his voice did not quite balance out the wryness. “I seem to recall that you refused my suit, and so, like a proper gentleman, I withdrew.” His hand found her hair again, “But just because you wouldn’t be my wife doesn’t mean I’ll start thinking of you as my bawd. Although, if you want to be a doxy, I support you entirely. Turns out the best friend I had in the world was a doxy for a number of years, so I have quite a high opinion of the type.”

“You’re too good for me, Teddy,” she said with only half the bitterness she felt, and started to wrap the ribbons about his calves.

“Don’t talk rot, Peach. I won’t have it from my staff.”

She pressed her lips together, wondering why she felt so close to tears, “As you say, my Lord.”

And, as if he noticed, Teddy’s hand touched her neck and squeezed. “I can handle the rest of this,” he said. “Go on. Get yourself dressed.”