[A/N: Please be advised, this chapter contains mature content. The status of Persuasion in the Pantry has been altered and this may have an effect your ability to read this story. xx Inara]
"You must be joking." Verushka dropped her collected items onto the floor.
"I am afraid not. You are getting warmed up one way or another, and unfortunately for me it is not the way that I would prefer." Cain threw her a look over his shoulder that was steamier than the stove he stood in front of.
Verushka willed her racing pulse into inertia before testing her voice again. "Come on, Cain. It's been a long day and I would much prefer to just sleep."
"You have blood under your fingernails and are now shivering from head to toe. You will get into a hot bath if I have to put you in one myself. And..." he trailed temptingly. "If you do not fight me on this, I can see to it that you have a well bound copy of Northanger Abbey to curl up with tonight."
"How did you know I hadn't finished reading it?" Verushka gaped.
"Well, I am the Governor for the Home Office," Cain smiled enigmatically. "Do we have an accord?"
Verushka thought about the warmth of freshly steamed water seeping into her bones coupled with the tantalising comfort of a book read beneath blankets and she knew that she had lost. Dammit, but the man knew her weaknesses and played them with ease. If the Duchess ever managed to hone her skills she wondered who would win a battle of wits - the man or the maid.
"Fine." Verushka's shoulders sagged. "But if you are going to heat water for a bath then we are going to need a bigger pot." She reached forth and pulled out a large brass cauldron and filled it with water before placing it over the burgeoning heat.
She ignored Cain's grin and strode towards the pantry alcove to relight the oven fire before ducking around the corner into the mudroom. When she came back she was dragging a large round wooden tub.
"What on earth is that?" Cain appeared deeply concerned.
"It's-uff- a- argh- bathtub." Verushka asserted through huffs as she angled the large cylinder awkwardly into the warming pantry.
Cain raised a brow. "It most certainly is not."
"Look, are you going to help me or not?" Verushka collapsed against the alcove archway. "It usually takes all three of us to get this thing in here."
"I hesitate to ask who else was involved in this idiocy, but I'm afraid I can already guess," Cain sighed.
"Hey!" Verushka placed her hands on her hips. "Some of us don't have baths freely available and sometimes in winter it is nice to have a little pool that we can sit in for several hours and read."
"And who came up with this ingenious idea then?" Cain removed the boiling water from the stove and meandered in her direction.
"Well, I believe Liara had heard something about swimming in Turkish spas and found a few bags of special salts to place in the water. Mina brought the snacks and from memory I think I suggested reading to pass the time."
"Well that all sounds about right," Cain laughed a deep, roughened texture that raised the hair on Verushka's arms for reasons other than chill. He heaved one end of the wood up and rolled it swiftly into the pantry space where they had sequestered themselves several times before. He was learning to love the terracotta brick walls and the scent of baked bread. Women could spend hundreds of pounds on perfumes but no simpler an aphrodisiac could be found than in the scent of memory.
The base of the tub slammed against the stone floor with a thud and small particulates of soil puffed into the air.
"Please tell me that this thing doesn't get used in the stables," Cain choked.
"No." Verushka tried to appear innocent. "But, we do occasionally use it wash out potatoes."
"Oh excellent." Cain's face contorted as if he had tasted something foul. "And you would like to bathe in this splinter ridden crate?"
"Yes," Verushka affirmed. "In exchange for my book as you promised, although you have proven yourself sorely unreliable on that point before. Now if you would please pour in the water then you can be on your way."
"Are you seriously going to get undressed in my kitchen?" Cain asked incredulously as the image of her naked and wet in a potato bin still somehow sent a thrill through his body.
"You don't really give me much choice, since we can't lug that water up to my room without the staff noticing. This way it can all be accomplished much faster and in case you hadn't noticed, there is a large brick wall that blocks this alcove from the rest of the room."
"And you expect me to leave you here, alone in a scandalous situation?" Cain loomed over her, the salty tang of sweat from his body a far stronger call than the warm bath promised to be.
Verushka clenched her jaw and raise her chin in defiance to her lusty loins. "That is what a gentleman would do."
Cain's chest rose and fell several times, brushing against the front of her bodice before he spoke again. "I think we both know that I am no gentleman. I play the part, wear the clothes, speak the words, but it is not who I really am."
Cain's green eyes hardened and the tenor of his voice scraped across her skin like freshly laid gravel. And yet, beneath the harsh heat was a soft flicker of light that always lingered in the depths of his gaze. A sun's glimmering rays through dappled forest foliage. Verushka cupped his cheek with her palm gently and stared into the light. "I think that the scariest thing is, that you are. You can lie and spy and perhaps even kill. But at your core, Cain, you are a good man."
The duke's lids slid shut and the tension eased from his body. "There are often times I don't believe that is true, but it is kind of you to say." He exhaled and stepped back with great reluctance, opening his eyes to the new space between them. "I shall lock the door and leave you to bathe."
Turning swiftly on his heel, Verushka watched the door slam shut in confusion at a number of critical issues. One, how could Cain ever think of himself as less than exemplary? Two, the feelings that burned between them needed to be examined given that she had sworn she would not fall in love with the duke. Three, she might already be in love with said duke, and Four, who was going to help her fill the bathtub?
At length, Verushka unstuck her soles from inertia and precariously swayed the heavy urn of hot water to her makeshift tub. A few trips later and it was filled to the near brim with steaming liquid. With a satisfied sigh she treated herself by relighting more of the pantry ovens, after all, she did just save the Queen of England. Then, loosening a brick in the oven alcove Verushka pulled out the solid stone and reached for the small package behind it. Wrapped in a folded sheet of old newspaper was the last dregs of bathing salts Liara had managed to procure. Verushka tossed them into the water and leaned in to smell the rose and lavender fragrance before hastily swiping a small rag and bar of kitchen soap. She removed her apron and bonnet, then hesitated, listening out for any small noise. When no sound alerted her attention she let her dusty, blood stained uniform fall to the floor. She had never been completely naked in the kitchen before, even when attempting to recreate a Turkish spa and the sudden chill that hit her skin brought up gooseflesh across her body.
Verushka peeked towards the alcove entryway again pushing back the temptation to put her clothes back on and race out of the room. She vacillated between the pile of crusty clothes on the floor and the inviting tendrils of steam from the tub. Eventually Verushka succumbed to the temptation of the warm water and slowly dipped a foot inside, testing the depths. Before rationality could regain control of her senses, she quickly submerged the rest of her body. Flourishing heat suffused her bones, nourishing, warming and relaxing every inch. An unbidden sigh escaped her parted lips as her body stilled to absorb the pleasure of the moment.
In time, Verushka collected her soap and scrubbed at her limbs, holding up one leg at a time in the air to enjoy the flow of the rivulets down her skin. When it came to washing her hands, Verushka stopped short at the crud and red tinged dirt beneath her fingernails. Cain had mentioned the remnants of blood on her but it was easy to caste away the harsher memories of the day when she was preoccupied with other tasks at hand. In the confined space, with not even the wind to worry her, every recollection flooded back into her mind. The near missed bullet, the clutching fear in her throat as she lost her brother in the crowd, and the biting manicured nails of Lady Bianca as she died in her arms. Verushka remembered how she had tried to staunch the bleeding but it swelled beneath the cumbersome garments, trickled from Bianca's dainty lips and flowed between the cobblestone cracks.
Perhaps dealing with death came naturally to some, but Verushka felt the sharp scythe of death keenly. Traitor or no. Friend or foe. She watched a woman die today and it was not likely to be an image she would ever forget. That moment Bianca's eyes glazed. The breath that shuddered as her last. They would live inside Verushka forever. Unable to bear the taint, she dug the frayed edge of the cloth beneath each crescent curve and scraped away the filth as if she could do the same with the memory. When it was clean she continued until her fingers came away raw and streams of tears splashed into the bath water to cool them.
"Stop." Cain called solemnly from the door.
Consumed by the ferocity of her own fears, Verushka continued with furious intensity as if she could not hear his calming voice.
"Stop, Ver." Cain approached to kneel beside the tub in a damp pool of water. He reached out to grasp her thin, bleeding fingers, enfolding them in his own.
Verushka heard his voice, saw him before her and yet she could not force herself to lay still. There was blood on her hands. Bianca's blood. She could not make her skin clean again and no matter how she rubbed, no amount of water washed away the stain of death. In the quiet alcove she felt the ghost of Bianca come to haunt her, to whisper in her ear of her complacency in unsolicited death. Verushka saw the blood on her hands spread to into the bath around her until she was surrounded in the crimson dye as it leeched inside her bones.
"Verushka, cease this!" Cain ordered, his voice a near shout.
Verushka pulled frantically, trying to twist her nimble digits through Cain's clasping hands but he held firm. Her breath became ragged and all the emotion that she did not know she had buried deep within her came soaring to the surface. Racking sobs echoed from her lungs and before she knew what she was doing, she felt her nails clutch at the dukes firm shoulders as his strong and sturdy arms came up to hold her to his chest.
Cain dipped his hands into the tepid water and scooped out his maid from the depths of the makeshift tub. He took the long soft cotton robe he had fetched from his rooms and draped it over her shoulders as she clung to him. Yes, the woman he adored was naked in his arms, but more importantly, for the first time her heart was also bare and it broke his own a little more with every tear that fell against his shoulder. The first time he had watched a life ebb from someone's eyes it had altered him immeasurable, and so he held her tightly in the cocoon of his embrace until she too emerged, born anew.
Verushka wept against him until her throat burned with empty screams and her chest heaved from trying to drag enough air for a battle her body was unprepared to fight. The lashes of her eyes had grown thick with tears and the abrasions on her palms stung with every small movement.
With commanding assurance Cain cupped her face within his palms and bid her eyes meet his. "Verushka, look at me."
There was a flicker, a flutter and a spark like the first flames of a rampant fire and the connection was made. Long moments that echoed with harsh intakes of breath filled the warm alcove but never once did either break the tenuous contact they had made. The world could have crumbled at their feet and neither would have moved.
"Cain?" Verushka whispered at last, as her silver eyes glistened with the remnants of tears. There was a softness to her voice, a tremble in her lower lip that matched the wary truth lingering in her eyes and Cain was undone. He knew better than anyone that the remedy to death was what made one feel most alive.
Cain leaned forward and pulled his maid's lips to his, sucking at the fullness of her plump mouth.
Verushka gasped for but a single moment before they moved together in an unpractised, frantic grasping of limbs, beautiful in its own chaotic motion. Verushka's robe slipped unhindered to the floor and Cain pressed her to the planes of his muscles feeling the wet curves of her body soak into him. His lips sought the long slope of her neck, flicking his tongue out to lick a droplet made warm from her flesh. It tasted honeyed- how was it possible for bathwater to sweeten as sugar upon her supple skin?
Verushka arched the column of her throat, yielding to his embrace. His mouth sealed hot and demanding upon her skin, suckling and stroking with the rasp of his tongue. He kissed the ebbing tears that had leaked from her eyes and turned pain into pleasure with leisured strokes of his able hands. Long, sure fingertips danced along her collarbone, flattening into palms that swept over her budding breasts to mould each mound to his cast. Verushka's head swam, her memory turned foggy and all the girlish ideas she had about love-making drizzled out of her ear and onto the floor where her discarded garments lay. She made to reach for them in the vestiges of modest propriety but succeeded only in offering the duke her rear.
"Ohff," Verushka exhaled sharply as Cain pulled her against rich texture of his clothed hips, softening the motion with a slow and subtle rotation until they fit together like a book to its binding.
Cain allowed the gentle loll of his maids head to fall against his shoulder and licked instead at the delicate slope of her ear. He trailed a finger across her shoulders blade, entwining it in the curling ringlets of her golden hair as it fell in waves down her back. The course fibres clung to her damp skin as he cupped and caressed the swells of each breast reverently and with purpose. There was a time for hurried affairs and a time for slow, delicious loving and this was most assuredly the latter. As desperate as he was to claim her there was also a desire to please her as she had never been before, nor would be again.
Verushka felt a warmth unfurl in her belly that no pantry oven could ever hope to mimic. Her lover's hands were deliberate and methodical, finding in her the poetry in the prose. Rough stokes of his hands broke over gentle pressure like the cresting waves of his intonations as he read. Her chest heaved as he delved deeper, half ashamed and half yearning for his touch. When a sharp whimper escaped her throat the indentations of his fingers burned into her hips and she felt the humid heat of his breath moisten her ear.
"Forgive me," Cain groaned, his voice a plea and a prayer as he thrust the tips of his fingers into the moist heat between her thighs.
Verushka arched in his embrace first unsure of his need for forgiveness then enlightened all in one swift movement. Surely they both needed to be absolved. She attempted to count her sins but then his hand was moving inside her and she forgot how to count, she forgot how to speak, but she remembered how to scream.
Cain gripped her hair within his fist and pulled back her head. He sealed his mouth over hers and swallowed the sound of her arousal. It would not do to wake up the household. He was not done with his maid, not by a long mile. The smile he offered her back was lethal, predatory and nothing like the dandy London knew.
Verushka reached behind her to thread her fingers through his hair but he swiftly spun her in his arms and pushed her against the wall with rough abandon. She felt the abrasion of the warm stones bite into her back and found the sensation of the pressure and pain far more enjoyable than she thought she ought. Before she could contemplate the depravities lingering at the corners of her mind, Cain pressed his body into hers licking and nipping at her lips until she opened for him. He drank deeply of all that she offered, tangling his tongue with hers, rolling the slippery taste of biscuits soaked with tea into his own blend of lust. Verushka was not a novice to the act of kissing but Cain made each action appear illicit. He delighted in the exhales of her groans, the whimpers and sag of her body against his until he wedged a well-muscled thigh between her legs to prop her limpid body against the wall.
Verushka thought herself delirious from passion. She coiled herself around him, the wet cloth of his shirt sculpting the muscles she had seen illuminated in sunlight so many mornings ago. Cain was without doubt an accomplished lover, all the maids had said so. Verushka felt a low grumble echo from her throat. What did those girls know of the man who wore a duke's mask? Stories and lies all made to form a concoction of the truth. But Cain, her Cain- the real flesh and blood male set her soul on fire. He was kind and caring and ... oh my, the things he could achieve with his tongue. She had thought that they should stop, known that nothing could come of their illicit embrace except heartache and pain and yet when he touched her she couldn't think at all.
Cain left his own sharp sweet lave of cognac upon her lips, steeped in the cinnamon of expensive masculine cologne. He lifted her arms up parallel to the wall and locked them in place with a whispered word of instruction before his mouth descended once more to her shoulders and neck. When he seized a taut breast in the warm, wet confines of his mouth Verushka bleated like a ewe in season and the game had to begin anew. Cain crossed her hands at the wrist and pressed them into the brick, trailing his palms smoothly along the lines of her body until he knelt before her- a sinner at the altar of a Goddess.
He grasped her foot behind her ankle and swept upwards, cupping her calf to lift the creamy texture of her skin across his shoulder. She gazed down at him with the bewildered eyes of a doe as he took in the full measure of her beauty. Her skin was barely more tanned than the ladies of the ton, no doubt due to hours sequestered indoors reading, but no demure coif rested atop her head, it fell instead in a cacophony of blonde ringlets that matched the wilful fire in her silver eyes. Beneath the soft, supple skin of her body lay toned and corded muscle that belied a life which had begun in servitude and the strength of all that she was. And yet, it was more than skin and flesh and hair that had him enraptured as he knelt before her. He, who could remember every line of every book sought to memorize the curves of her face and every freckle and perfect flaw that Creation had mapped across her form.
Verushka gazed down into his emerald eyes and saw something stronger than desire. She saw devotion heated with danger, passion dusted in persuasion to form a promise just for her. Maybe in the daylight when the sun streamed through the uppermost window of the pantry she would be forced to face the truth that he was destined for another, but in their tiny alcove with only the burning oven for light, he was hers.
"Do you trust me?" A devilish smile played upon his lips as he licked them in anticipation.
"Yes." Verushka nodded. Perhaps it was madness but she trusted him with her life and her heart. She trusted the press of his lips to the curved instep of her ankle and the flick of his tongue at the tender crease of her knee. She trusted his sure hands as he gripped her narrow hips and she knew that she would trust him wherever he wished to take her.
Cain paused at the apex of her thighs, his breath cooling the heat at her core. "You shouldn't."
Then his lips descended upon her with the ferocity of all that life had denied them. It had offered them only a bleak future empty of each other's embrace and so Cain took all the pleasures that life owed to them and gave it back to her tenfold. Verushka thrust her bruised and bloodied fingers through the soft strands of his hair, the pain of their causation forgotten in the sensual song of his touch. This time there was nothing to stop her screams, and Cain found that he no longer cared and for a brief moment in time, neither did she.
~Close that jaw and VOTE!~
A/N:
Sooo.... what did you think? Too much? Not enough?
Sorry to all those who are no longer in the age range for this story. I can only go where my characters lead. To all others, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was not particularly easy to write for me and so has taken some time.
Love and licentious behaviour are only one part of this story though, so I hope you are ready for a meeting with the Queen next!
xx Inara
Glossary:
Mudroom: a small room or entryway where footwear and outer clothes can be removed before entering a house.
Iago: is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello (c. 1601–1604). Iago is the play's main antagonist. Iago hates Othello and devises a plan to destroy him by making him believe that his wife is having an affair.
Bathing: Until the mid to late 19th Century, even for the upper and middle classes, the Victorian bath was made of cast iron. It was a portable affair used in the pantry of most homes, the bedrooms or dressing rooms of the wealthy. By the 1850's the rich, had a pumped water supply and servants to carry the heated water from the kitchen. The claw foot tub originated in Holland was later bonded with porcelain enamel in America and the design spread to England in the late 19th century where it found much popularity among the aristocracy, just as bathing was becoming increasingly fashionable.