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A Victorian Virgin?

By: Sachs



Just a note about this story. It is actually a piece that was cut from a novel I was writing because it got too melodramatic; after all the talking and character establishment it basically comes down to sex, which kind of doesn't fit with the rest. It is set in Victorian London in 1888, I know that it is quite verbose, this was the writing style I took on for this subject to make it contemporary to its times. I hope that somebody enjoys it.

Oh, and starts off in a Psychiatric hospital, that's why Genevieve is a little disturbed. *

Genevieve saw her husband standing in the room beside her bed. His dark hair was carefully cut and brushed back from his smooth and hairless face. His glass-green eyes seemed to glow with love when he gently brushed his large hand over her hair. She saw him unbutton his well-cut jacket and discard it on the floor, next came his waistcoat, tie and shirt. He smiled mischievously at her as he unbuckled his belt. She returned the grin, throwing back the bedcovers and slowly pulling her nightshirt off. She sat up in the bed, now naked, and watched as he unbuttoned his trousers, just as slowly as she had removed her nightshirt. She felt her heart beat like thunder in her chest as he slowly dropped his pants. Her body seemed to slicken with desire as he advanced on her, his manhood standing up proud and erect from inside his drawers. 

Her hands tore at the flimsy fabric until she had it unfastened and around his ankles. For a moment she just stared at the great meaty thing, the glans red and blood-swollen, then she touched it, ever so gently, as a virgin might do. She heard William gasp heavily, so she increased the pressure, lightly squeezing and massaging the tip until she felt the organ shiver under her grip. She let him go, bent down and unlaced his shoes. She felt his hands run over her naked shoulders as she did so. He pulled her to her feet and kissed her slowly, pressing his body against hers. His erect organ prodded hotly into her stomach. Suddenly he was kissing her violently, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and biting her lips. She rocked her pelvis against his until she knew he was very close. Then she stopped and pulled away. She smiled at her husband as she lay down upon the bed and waited. 

William climbed astride her. He gently licked her scarred breasts. His hands massaged her buttocks. She found herself thrusting against him, wanting to be entered. Suddenly he burst inside her tight slit. She quaked beneath him in rhapsody. His hot body fitted against hers like a lock and key. She pressed against him harder and harder until she heard herself cry out...

Genevieve Gore's eyes suddenly opened. She was alone. When she glanced down her body, she saw the mounds of her scarred breasts, one missing a nipple. She was naked. Her bedcovers were thrown back and her nightshirt was on the floor. She felt a wetness between her legs that corresponded with the hot fingers buried in her slick folds. She heard a rattle of keys outside the door. She could not be caught like this. She pulled her nightshirt quickly over her head and thrust up her hips to pull it below her buttocks. The bedcovers were quickly pulled up to her neck.

The lock clicked unlocked and the door slowly opened. Nurse Buckley, a tall, dark-haired woman in her mid-twenties stood in the doorway. "Mrs. Gore, might I warn you that there are people trying to sleep. I heard you shout and I am sure the rest of the hospital did too. What is the matter?" Her voice sounded cold and irritated.

"I'm sorry, Miss Buckley," Genevieve said. "I had a nightmare."

"Really," Nurse Buckley replied. "It did not sound like a cry of fear to me." She strode across the room to Genevieve's bed and jerked back the bedclothes. She saw that Genevieve was wearing her nightshirt and that it was pulled down respectably. The patient herself smelt like lust, Buckley thought. She pulled up Genevieve's nightshirt and ran one cold finger between the other woman's legs. She felt the hot wetness of self-abuse and she saw the pubic region was enflamed, a small red nub pushing from between the patient's hairy lips. It gave the nurse no pleasure to touch another woman like this. Indeed, it made her feel like vomiting, especially when Genevieve gasped and whimpered, trembling like she was enjoying it. 

She extracted her finger in distaste then slapped Genevieve across the face. "Dirty, disgusting, evil woman," Buckley hissed.

Nurse Buckley then leant over the patient and reached for the restraints attached to all of the patient's bed heads. They were nothing but strips of rough fabric, but they were more useful than rope, which could not be tied tightly enough, in Buckley's experience. "Put your hands above your head." The patient complied and Buckley fixed her wrists firmly to the bedstead. The nurse made sure the bonds were so firm that the fabric cut into the skin. The pain would teach the patient a lesson.

"Now lie there and think about what you've done. Keep your legs separated or I'll tie them apart. I'll be by in the morning to remove the bonds. Dr. Hawke will hear of this." Nurse Buckley regarded her patient with interest. She always liked to see them helpless like this. It gave her a feeling of power. As an extra punishment, she turned off the gas-lamps in Genevieve's room, leaving her victim tied to her bed in the dark.

Genevieve felt the darkness descend upon her. Her heart beat with terror. She imagined she saw the man standing beside her bed. His white skin seemed to glow, like the undead from Genevieve's stories. He was born of darkness, he lived in darkness and he waited for her in the darkness. There was always blood spattered across his face and clothing. She smelt it now as he ran a vicious hand over her breasts. She could not get away. She could not make a sound; he had stolen her voice from her throat and now held it in his cold fingers. He laughed at her as she struggled against her bonds. He buried his hands deep into her breasts until she tried to cry with pain, but not a sound came. His teeth clamped to the side of her neck, razoring through her skin. 

She tried to struggle but her arms were firmly adhered to the iron bedstead. The skin of her wrists ripped and tore beneath the rough fabric as she frantically fought to release herself. The creature of darkness, with blood dribbling down his chin, watched and laughed. He leant forwards to touch her. She thrashed wildly to get away, her skin shredding like wet newsprint against her bonds. The man only gripped her face in his clawed hands and held her until his lips touched hers. His kiss tasted of her own blood. She bit his tongue in terror as it slid into her mouth and nearly vomited at the flavor of his foul blood. 

The creature howled in pain as he hastily extracted the organ. His great fists came thumping down across her face and body. Genevieve strained to escape him but it was impossible, her bonds held her at his mercy. Even though she knew it to be an empty mission, she continued to writhe. She strained herself upwards by thrusting down on the bed with her feet and nearly dislocated her shoulder in doing so. She did not care about the warning jolts of pain that ran down her left arm, all she concentrated upon was freeing herself. She brought her mouth up to her skinned right wrist and gripped the fabric in her teeth, scissoring her molars along the bond. It was to no avail; the man gripped her by the hair and smacked her against the bed head. With a rush of acute pain, she felt the fibers holding her shoulder strain to breaking point and seem to rip. 

Tears of agony flooded from Genevieve's eyes as the man climbed astride her, his huge, pointed erection stabbing between her breasts. She tried for a second time to bite through her restraints only to feel her teeth bite into her bloody flesh. It was energetically expensive to keep her mouth against her bonds, requiring the muscle groups of her abdomen and back, her shoulders and breasts, even her neck, to strain and contract, but she fought on oblivious to the dizziness and the pain. She was only aware of the darkness sitting on her pelvis running his hands over her breasts and stomach. She had to escape him, regardless of what damage she did to herself, because remaining with him was infinitely worse.

Genevieve's blood was pounding like the hoof-beats of a thousand horses in her temples. Her breathing was becoming increasing fast and shallow. A cold sweat dripped from every part of her body, especially across her aching forehead, down her straining back and between her breasts. She felt herself slipping out of consciousness with every spasm of her muscles. She was going into the dark realm again. This time she was not sure she would be able to escape.

*

Victoria Buckley sat at the ward-desk for patients forty through to fifty. There were five such desks in Doctor Hawke's Psychiatric Clinic, one for every nine patients. One nurse by night and two nurses by day administered each ward. The wards were a hallway with ten doors off them and a door at either end that was unlocked by day but locked by night. There a rapid turnover in the hospital, generally the gentile ladies that arrived suffering from hysteria or melancholy stayed for less than two weeks. 

Nurse Buckley counted herself lucky, she only had five patients to watch over, instead of the normal ten; not that they gave her much trouble, except patient forty-six, Genevieve Gore. The woman was a menace to society. She should have hung eight years earlier for her crimes.

Victoria Buckley had been on duty for four hours, since midnight. She was tired and longed to go up to her bedroom and sleep. As it was, she seemed to keep nodding off as she sat knitting, so that she dropped stitches and lost her place. The knitting was for her nephew, a nice bonny blue jersey for a bonny wee boy. Victoria had no children of her own to knit for; she was unmarried and unattached, forced to work to support herself. The salary she received from Dr Hawke was better than most and she hoped to remain employed there until she got herself a husband.

She was a pretty girl. Her own high standards had prevented earlier marriages. She hoped to make an advantageous match to a man with sufficient funds to support her for life. She would never have to work again. She would be able to keep up with the fashions and not wear the same boring clothing day-in, day-out. Her children would have a good name and would be educated by the best teachers. So far, she had not ensnared Mr. Right, although the bank teller she was courting seemed promising.

Victoria's time was running out. She was twenty-five years of age, too old by most standards to be unmarried. She might be pretty now, with her blue eyes and dark hair, but in a few years she would lose those looks. Much to her dismay, she had already found several white hairs in her black tresses. Her mother had been completely white before thirty. She knew that she needed to find a husband very quickly. 

In her opinion, her looks were her only bargaining power. She had little money. She was intelligent, but men did not want wives that were smarter than they were. The sands of the hourglass had nearly run through, leaving only a few grains of time to remain. 

Maybe men would like Nurse Buckley better if she were a little more compromising. If she had shown them some warmth, mayhap, she would have a husband now. If she had been ever so slightly more accommodating to affection, somebody might have loved her. Instead, she flinched under a kiss on the forehead, and was disgusted if a man even tried to touch her lips with his. She could not remember a relationship that had gone past a chaste kiss upon the lips. She liked her bank assistant because he never tried to touch her; it seemed that he too was scared of such behavior. 

It was four in the morning. Victoria was still knitting intently. Handcrafts were the only thing that would keep her awake on nights like this. As it was, she was very tired. Genevieve Gore had kept her awake the night before with her crying and wailing. Tonight it was ever so much worse. 

The solitary vice. What a dirty, evil woman that Gore woman was. Her every action seemed immoral and tainted all those around her. Dr Hawke would not hear a word that the nurses told him about that woman. He was infatuated with her. Maybe he would change his mind after tonight. 

Disgraceful, unclean strumpet, polluter of everything kind and good. Things had been so much better before she had arrived. She had stolen the good Doctor's soul, so that his every action was beneficial to her. She alone was allowed art-equipment in her room. She alone went for walks in the gardens and ate dinner with the Doctor. Victoria Buckley hated to think what Mrs. Gore did to him in that time. Her imagination was hardly vast; she would have been shocked if the Doctor had touched his patient's knee. 


At four thirty, Nurse Buckley rose from her desk and walked along the ward to check her patients. She was very much aware of sound at this time, mainly because it had been so quiet before she got up. The stout heel of her boots seemed to clatter across the wooden floorboards like the horse's hooves on cobblestones. The whisper of her skirt around her ankles sounded to her like the roar of a waterfall. The keys on her belt jangled like a miner's pickaxe against metal. Even her breathing seemed excessively loud and rasped. She stopped outside door forty and drew aside the bolt that covered a small window in the door. Patient forty was lying on her bed, asleep. Victoria could see her sheets rising and falling with breath.

Nurse Buckley gently slotted the bolt back across the window. She walked on, checking patients forty-one to forty-four. All was well. She bypassed room forty-five, which was unoccupied, and moved on to patient forty-six, Genevieve Gore.

Mrs. Gore was not in her bed. Where was she? Victoria knew that she had firmly restrained the patient. How could she possibly have left the bed? Victoria felt a shiver run over her body. This was an act of evil; it had to be. Praying to the heavens, Nurse Buckley hurriedly unlocked the door. It was dark within. She heard something move and her heart jolted in her chest. 

"Mrs. Gore?" Victoria asked in a shaky voice. "Mrs. Gore, where are you?"

She heard a stifled cry and suddenly she knew where Genevieve was. Her fear left her. Quickly she turned up the gas-lamps.

Genevieve sat crouched in a fetal position underneath the un-curtained window. Her hair hung, knotted and tangled, around her bloodied face. Nurse Buckley saw that her eyes were red-rimmed and saturated with tears. Streams of dried blood ran from her nostrils across the lower part of her face. Her lips were split and torn. Most horrific of all, in Buckley's opinion, were the meaty, tattered wrists that held her shaking knees. The patient had fought, squirmed and bitten to remove her bonds, all without a sound. 

"Get up," Victoria Buckley told patient forty-six.

Genevieve's face read incomprehension. Her dark eyes seemed to stare right through the nurse to the wall behind. She made no movement to get up.

"Get up," Nurse Buckley said more aggressively. This time, when the patient did not move, she grabbed her by the shoulders. A scream of pain escaped Genevieve's lips. When Nurse Buckley released her grip, Genevieve stopped making the noise.

"I see what you're trying to do," the Nurse hissed. "You want to get me in trouble. You think that by screaming and mutilating yourself, the Doctor will have my pelt. Well, you've got another think coming. Get up, or I will go and find the doctor that is on duty and he will deal with you. Dr Hawke will hear about your behavior in the morning."

The patient neither moved nor spoke. Her eyes continued to focus on or beyond Nurse Buckley's darkly skirted thighs. 

"I will count down from three, if you do not get up in that time I will fetch the duty doctor." Victoria Buckley surveyed the pale, bloody face of Genevieve Gore. Her patient's eyes were dull and incomprehensive of a word she had said. They did not flicker from their focus on her skirt. What a brilliant actress that odious Mrs. Gore was; not only had she been able to convince a jury that she was insane but also Doctor Hawke. Now here she was pretending to be unresponsive. 

"Three..." Genevieve Gore did not even flinch.

"Two..." Still no movement from her patient.

"One..." Genevieve Gore remained in place. 

"Very well," Victoria Buckley snapped. "I will go and fetch the duty doctor." She turned on her heel and swept from the room, locking the door quickly behind her. This time, when she traveled down the hallway, she did not care what sound her clattering boots made. She strode to the door to the "ward" of rooms thirty to thirty-nine. She unlocked the door hastily, not minding the harsh jangling of her metal keys. 

Nurse Patricia Ramsey looked up in alarm as the tall, slim form of Nurse Buckley entered her ward. Buckley's usually pale face was flushed with anger, her high cheekbones enflamed as if by rouge. A heavy frown caused her thin eyebrows to meet above her bitter blue eyes. Her cleft chin was thrust forwards aggressively, echoing the proud point of her nose. The full, chiseled lips that never smiled were pursed in indignation. 

"What's happened?" Patricia asked. She was a buxom girl in her early twenties. Her hair was a coppery brown, curled like an unruly growth of ivy about her chubby face. As she spoke, one became aware that she had a slight speech impediment that caused her s's to whistle through a gap in her upper front teeth. It had always irritated Victoria Buckley.

Nurse Buckley did not have time to go through the history of the last few minutes. She said sharply, "Where's the duty doctor?" Patricia's brown eyes seemed to boggle at the question. "Come on, I haven't got all night, Miss Ramsey."

Of all the nurses Patricia worked with, Nurse Buckley was the only that did not use a fellow nurse's first name when speaking in private. She was also the one that Patricia disliked the most; even the aged and widowed nurses were not so priggish. Indeed, Patricia took pleasure in telling her, "There ain't one tonight."

Ignoring Patricia's underbred language was difficult, but knowing that she needed immediate medical help to show that dirty, false patient in room forty-six who was boss, drove Victoria Buckley to ignore it. "What do you mean there isn't one tonight? Dr Kerry should be here, or failing that Dr Edwardson. And there are always the interns; I don't know what their names are."

"Doctor Kerry's got a bad cold and Doctor Edwardson, well his wife's mother recently passed on. But yeah, now that you suggest it, there is a couple of interns sleeping in the spare rooms in ward twenty, twenty-nine. One of them's Dr Hawke's nephew and they say the other one wants to marry his daughter." If Victoria Buckley had had any interest in gossip, or conversed a little more frequently with her fellow nurses, she would have known these things. She would have also known that the nurses generally gave the interns a wide berth because both liked to grope a handful of arse or tit. As it was, she was completely in the dark about such matters. One of the reasons she preferred night duties to daytime duties was that lack of contact between herself and the other nurses. She had no interest in what she saw as idle conversation and ill-bred language.

Victoria Buckley swallowed her pride once again. Rather than reprimand her fellow nurse for her poor language, she said, "There's a woman in room forty-six. She has made a horrible mess of herself. Go and sit with her whilst I go and find these doctors." As an after-thought she added, "Please, Miss Ramsey. Your patients should all be fine whilst you're gone and I will only be gone a few minutes."


A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 02



Ned Hawke was dressed to impress. Dark grey trousers with matching waistcoat and jacket, pressed shirt and tight tie, dark black coat and matching top hat. He looked like a dandy and a toff, and he knew it. He instinctively knew that these clothes were the prototype of Victoria's fantasy man. Rich, well-dressed but not ostentatious, clothing cut with classic lines in staid coloring. They were hardly his best, indeed, he had had this suit for three years, but they would have the desired effect. He was not going to go all out for the entrée. That would come later, at the dessert. Besides, in an area such as Spitalfields, he would not want to stand out terribly much. He feared mugging, especially whilst there was all that furor about the prostitute killer known as Leather Apron. Although during the daylight hours, he supposed he was safe.

He had chosen this hour to visit because he knew that the man of the house would not be home. He would be out at work, wherever and whatever that was. Victoria would be alone with her sister and nephew. As long as the sister was not an absolute prude, everything would run smoothly. 

He had written several letters to Victoria but had received no reply. He suspected that she was ignoring him and required a more "hands on" approach. Hence, he had arrived at her sister's house. He hoped that she was home after all and had not gotten herself another nursing job. He guessed she had high standards, and would probably be looking for a job in a private clinic, or nursing an upper-crust invalid, not working in a public hospital. If times got hard, she may have to lower her expectations; that would not have occurred yet, it was just over a month since she had lost her position. 

Gathering his coat about him, Ned turned around to pay the cab driver. "Stick around," he told the man, handing over extra funds. "I'll probably be about twenty minutes, and then I'll want a ride home." Home now being his parent's house, after what had happened at the clinic.

Ned descended from the hansom cab with elegance and poise. He placed his hat upon his head, turned and crossed the street to number fifty-six. The land was girded by a peeling wrought iron fence, with a rusted gate. He leant over and unlatched this, letting it whine open. He shut it behind him, causing the entire structure to rattle unnervingly. There was a rudimentary lawn and garden, transected by a cobbled path. He followed this all of about six yards to the front doorsteps. There, he met a weathered, paneled door with a rusted iron knocker. He rapped once, loudly.

"Yeah?" the woman that answered the door had greasy, colorless hair, coiled inelegantly to the back of her head. Her clothing was black and shiny with wear in places of contact. 

"I'm looking for Mrs. Morpeth and her sister," Ned told the woman.

The woman leaned against the doorframe, barring his entrance. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yes," Ned said. "Mrs. Morpeth. She lives here."

"That she does. And yer are?"

"Ned Hawke. I'm a friend of her sister, Miss Buckley," Ned explained. This best had not be the sister. He would have rather she were a prude, anything but this dirty slattern, with her lank hair and worn clothes. 

"Really." Maggie regarded the toff standing in front of her. Even just the hat would be worth a few meals if she pawned it. She wondered what this Buckley girl could have done to get a follower like this one. Rich and handsome, the horrid toad. Look at the way he was watching her now, as if she were some speck of dirt that had appeared on his linen napkin. Bastard. Well, they were two of a kind, him and that Buckley girl. Both of them thought they were better than they were. 

"Can I come in?"

Maggie reluctantly moved to one side. "Yeah, I suppose so. They're on the next floor, door on the right." The toff pushed past her to get to the welcoming staircase visible at the end of the hallway. She stopped him with a greasy paw on the shoulder, her dirty brown eyes gleaming in hunger. "Can I take yer coat an' 'at for yer?"

Ned shook the hand away from his clothing. "I don't think so." I might not get them back, he thought. He took his hat in hand and climbed the staircase. The door on the right was in better condition than the staircase and the front door. It appeared that somebody had recently painted it white, although why was anybody's guess. This time, when he knocked, the door was answered by a much better specimen of womanhood.

She was shorter and more full-bodied than her sister, Victoria, but attractive nevertheless. Her hair was paler, more a reddish chocolate-brown than black, and curly rather than straight. Their faces were practically the same. She had the same pale skin, high cheekbones, classic nose and cleft chin. Her eyes were a similar stormy grey-blue. Her mouth was different; it was smiling, her cheeks carved with lines of happiness. Everything about this woman's appearance read warmth, cheerfulness and satisfaction. That was what made her beautiful. "Hello?" she queried him. He saw uncertainty flicker through her eyes.

"I'm Ned Hawke. I'm here to see Victoria, if she is home," Ned said. 

Charlotte Morpeth regarded the man standing in her doorway. He was tall and fairly well built. His clothing was old but well cut and maintained, made from good quality fabrics. He was handsome in his own way, with a good bone structure, square jaw and classic, chiseled features. His hair was dark, with a thick cowlick in the front and long sideburns to frame his face. The same thick, dark hair was present in the eyebrows, which arched arrogantly above pale blue eyes. "Of course," she said. "Why don't you come in?" She held the door open for him to enter, smiling ever so slightly. 

"You must be Victoria's sister," he said. "I can certainly see the family resemblance."

"Yes, I am," Charlotte replied. "Charlotte Morpeth, at your service. Can I take your coat and hat for you?" Before she said this, she already had his coat from about his shoulders, and the hat from his hands. She hung them on one of a series of hooks behind the door. Ned recognized the cape he had last seen Victoria wearing hanging there amongst other items of clothing.

Now Charlotte Morpeth was pushing him through to a room he took to be the kitchen. There, seated at the table, he found a boy of about six. The child was dark-haired like his mother and aunt, but his eyes were a far more intense blue. He was leaning over a discarded newspaper, a nibbed pen clutched clumsily in his right hand. Above the newspaper was another sheet of paper, this inscribed with a cursive alphabet. The boy was transcribing each letter in large script to his newspaper five times. So far, he was down to 'Pp'. An inkbottle sat slightly above and to the right, so that the boy could not knock it over. Sitting with the boy upon her lap, guiding his actions with a gentle hand, was Victoria Buckley.

When Ned entered, both student and tutor looked up. He was shook to the core by how beautiful she looked in this context. In the few hours that he had seen her before, she had appeared strained and plain; understandable considering what she had been through. Now she seemed softer somehow. Her glossy hair was pinned less severely back from her face so that dark locks ran freely down her back and over her shoulders. Her high cheekbones were flushed with warmth, which made her eyes seem less severe. She was smiling, or she had been until she saw Ned Hawke. Now her eyes shot bolts of razor-sharp ice to sever every muscle that held the easy grin upon his face.

"Dr Hawke has come by to visit you, Victoria," Charlotte said. "Oliver, why don't you come with me? There's something I want to show you."

The child obediently complied, slipping silently to the floor and following his mother. He only turned once to regard Ned with his wide-set blue eyes before Charlotte put her arm around him and lead him into the hallway. 

"He's a very quiet boy," Ned remarked.

Victoria set him with a look of pure acid, the sort of causticity that would dissolve bone. "He's deaf."

"But he-"

"He lip-reads," Victoria interjected. She stabbed Oliver's discarded pen into the inkbottle, all the while following Ned Hawke's movements with mutinous eyes. A crease had formed in the skin between her eyebrows and her brow now overshadowed her icy gaze. She thrust her chin forward aggressively. "Why are you here?"

"You didn't answer my letters," Ned said. 

"I've been busy," Victoria replied, flatly. Her glare dared him to contradict her.

Ned Hawke seated himself beside her at the table. He knew that it would infuriate her that he was not only unbidden to sit down but uncomfortably close also. "Have you found a new situation yet?"

"No."

"What are you going to do?" Hawke asked her. He smiled, widely and even reached across to pat her ink-stained right hand. She flinched under his grip, and then snatched her hand away. 

"I don't know."

"I could ask around the doctors I know and see if there are any positions available. Even if it's just private care of invalids, that would be a start, wouldn't it?"

"I can manage on my own," Victoria said, coldly.

"It has been a month and you haven't done anything," Ned said.

Victoria's temper flared. "I've been trying to find a place. It's difficult!"

"So let me help you. I know people. I can find you jobs that aren't advertised." Ned leaned forward on his elbows so that he could look his nurse directly in the eye. She averted her gaze. "There's got to be tonnes of rich, sick people who want an experienced and well-spoken nurse to tend to them. They would never actually advertise for these employees, but their practitioner is bound to know. I am doctor and my uncle is one also. I am sure that between us we have contacts with most of the reputable practitioners in London. Let me ask around, discretely, and find somebody to employ you. These practitioners may even require an assistant. I'm bound to find you a position that pays as well as the one you had at my uncle's clinic. Just let me try, Victoria."

"Very well," Victoria replied, stiffly. "But why are you doing this?"

Those pale blue eyes bored into her face, piercing her to the soul. She felt her body grow hot with the knowledge that he was watching her. Her heart seemed to skip erratically through its normally monotonic routine. Sweat seemed to drench the skin beneath her clothing and she sensed a strange wetness between her legs. Ned Hawke laughed. "Isn't it obvious, Victoria? I like you. That's why I'm going to try to help you."

Victoria Buckley recalled standing in the dark, trying not to touch his body as she dressed him. She felt herself become even hotter at the thought of her hand brushing across his naked genitals. She had told herself that it was disgusting, but she had not stopped thinking about that moment. She was a nurse; she knew what it meant when he had been hard beneath her fingers; however, she had never found the thought attractive before. It had seemed repellent until she had actually felt that living, hot organ tremble against her skin. That did not mean that she wanted to be writhing beneath him, nor that she wanted his lips on her mouth; at least not literally, the fantasy was strangely compelling. She disgusted herself sometimes. Her thoughts were absolutely filthy and abhorrent. 

His eyes were watching her still. Maybe he knew what she was thinking, she thought. She knew that he wanted something from her. That had been obvious when he held her hand down his trousers. It was dangerous to be around him. Now he said he liked her, that he would help her. He had to want something in return.

"You don't even know me. We spent an hour together six weeks ago. How can you decide that you like me just from that tiny period of time?" Victoria told him, coldly.

Ned Hawke's smile lit his face handsomely. "You meet somebody, you either like them or you don't. I like you. The fact that I know nothing about you can be easily changed. You just have to tell me things. How about over dinner, tonight?"

"I don't think so," Victoria snapped.

"Why not?" 

"I hardly know you. It would not be proper," Victoria replied. She wished that he'd stop staring at her like that. She felt threatened in her own home.

"But if you came, you would get to know me."

"It still would not be proper."

"We would be in a restaurant. There would be people all around us. Do you seriously think that I would touch you inappropriately with at least thirty witnesses present?" Ned said. "Please Victoria, come out to dinner with me tonight. It'll be nothing fancy, just nice food, perhaps a little wine. Nothing inappropriate."

"I-" Victoria began.

"She'd love to," Charlotte said from the doorway. She had not been listening the entire time, but had caught a snippet of conversation as she passed the kitchen on her way down the hallway and had stopped to listen. In her opinion, Victoria needed to get out of the house and find some friends, find herself a husband. This man liked her. He was a doctor and he liked her sister.

Whilst sitting, waiting for her sister to do her hair that night, Victoria accused, "I don't know why you told him that I would go."

Charlotte spat the remaining hairpins into her hand before answering her sister. "We've been over this before, Victoria. You should be honored that Dr Hawke asked you to dinner. The man's of a good family. All you have to do is be a little affectionate and maybe he'll marry you. You'll be set for life. Isn't that what you want?" 

Even her sister's language was becoming common, Victoria thought. Soon she would drop her 'h's' and take to that dreadful slang language spoken by everybody in the area. Why did she have to live here, of all places? The east end, Spitalfields, in this horrid house, with that terrible unwashed woman downstairs and those loud foreigners across the hall. Goodness gracious, her father would be turning in his grave if he knew. 

"Yes," Victoria admitted. She longed to go back to the life that she and Charlotte had had before their father died. She hated having to work and she hated that her sister was forced to marry such a lowborn person as Samuel Morpeth. She herself was never going to make that mistake. She had vowed that on her sister's wedding day, oblivious to the happiness in her sister's eyes. 

"Well, what is the problem then?" Charlotte queried. "The man wrote you several letters, which I saw you burn rather than read, and when you didn't reply he came and visited you. He obvious cares for you, to go to all that trouble. And he's comely enough. What disagreement do you have with him? Because he's obviously not aware of it, and neither am I."

"I do not like him," Victoria muttered.

"Why not?" 

"Well, I-" 

Sam Morpeth burst into the room, a wide smile upon his red face. He rushed over to his wife and gripped her about the waist. "Give's a kiss, love. I'll be back later on." Charlotte giggled as he gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek, then twirled about to face him. 

Charlotte did not resist the lips that played hungrily against hers, nor the hands that roved down over her buttocks. She gave another couple of giggles then pushed her husband away. "As long as you come back to me, I don't care. And you behave yourself." She slapped his rump playfully, then turned back to her sister. 

Sergeant Morpeth gave his wife a last wink and slammed the door, loudly, behind him. He could be heard in the hallway, whistling as he pulled his coat and scarf about shoulders. His keys jangled in the lock as he slammed the front door, snapped it locked and pounded off down the staircase. He was a station sergeant, on duty at nights at the moment, and sleeping during the day. 

Victoria had averted her eyes in disgust at the intimacy expressed between her sister and that man. Charlotte saw it reflected in the slant of her eyebrows and petulant purse of her mouth as she watched her sister in the mirror. The sooner Victoria left, the better. She was a wonder with young Oliver, but pokerfaced around his father. No matter how hard Sam tried, Victoria only sat sullen or said some barely veiled insult. It was embarrassing. Her husband had taken Victoria in. His money paid for the food she ate and the coal that kept her warm at night. He had even given up the place in his bed for Victoria. It was almost understandable that he had taken the night shifts for the past fortnight to avoid her. Sam was a kind man, a gentle man. He could not understand why Victoria hated him so much. It pained Charlotte to see the hurt in his eyes when her sister rejected him.

Charlotte roughly pushed her sister's shoulder, not hard enough to knock her from her stool, but sufficient to give her a short, sharp shock. "Why can't you be a little nicer to Sam?"

Victoria responded in anger. "I didn't say anything!"

"Not right now perhaps, but this morning, yesterday, last week even. He tries so hard to be accommodating to you and you are only impolite in return. It is terrible behavior, and it has to stop!" Charlotte glared at her sister in the mirror.

"I aren't rude to him," Victoria snapped.

"Yes, you are. You don't look at him when you speak to him. You make the most insulting remarks. Sometimes you even ignore him. It is times like that that I am embarrassed to be your sister. All my husband wants to do is be nice to you, for my sake at least. He has allowed you to come and stay with us, even though there are not enough beds and there is barely enough food to go around-"

"That's what you get for marrying a policeman," Victoria responded. Her sister did not wait for any other icy words to precipitate from her mouth. Instead, she turned and rushed from the room, leaving Victoria sitting alone at the dressing table, a lone oil lamp flickering beside her. 

Victoria hadn't meant to hurt her sister, but it was the truth. If she had not married such a common man she would not be having any of the monetary troubles she had now. She deserved better than this poky tenement with its peeling wallpaper and thin walls that barely kept out cold or noise. She had a birthright to at least one servant, a well-paid husband, more than three dresses and a house far better than this. Their father had not raised his daughters to be policeman's wives and nurses. They were born for grander conditions. Circumstance had lowered them to this level and circumstance would raise them, or at least Victoria, back to stage they had fallen from. They did not belong in this class. Life was never supposed to turn out like this.

Charlotte had accepted her lot, in Victoria's opinion, and married as well as she could. Victoria could never settle for that. She did not see the love shared between the husband and wife, only that horrid common man taking advantage of her sister. It was the contact with such people that had made Charlotte give birth to a deaf child. The child could not be blamed for his paternity, and she tried to help him as much as she could. Indeed, Victoria loved him dearly. That did not mean that she dismissed the reality that he would never amount to anything. Paternity had programmed him to be poor, just as paternity had programmed she and Charlotte for a rich life. Charlotte may have accepted what fate had thrown to her but Victoria could not. She would never lower herself to the level of these dirty, rough people.

Victoria rose to her feet and discarded the towel from about her neck. Her dress was made of plain, low-quality fabric. It was Charlotte's Sunday best, hastily altered to fit Victoria. The neckline was high, with a scalloped lace overlay. The bodice fitted tightly to show off her trim, tightly bound waist, before flaring at the hip. She turned about to admire herself over her shoulder. She cut a firm hourglass figure, and her back curved gracefully inward then out again at the point where her skirt billowed outward in a bustle. The bustle was a disappointment, nothing but a loose swathing of spare fabric across a mound made by a roll of cloth adhered to the base of Victoria's corset. It was hardly prominent, almost silly in Victoria's opinion. The fabric was a dark, purplish blue, almost black, and could double as mourning if required (although for whom, Victoria did not know. She and Charlotte were the last of the Buckleys). It was new, Charlotte had said, probably the only new dress she would get that year. 




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 02



That's what you get for marrying a policeman.

Her hair would do if she didn't keep touching it. Charlotte had brushed it back from her forehead, disturbing the normally severe side parting. Victoria was not sure if she liked it. Her slight widow's peak was emphasized, causing her face to appear heart-shaped, which she thought was unattractive. In reality, she was beautiful, but she did not know it. Her eyes were large and widely spaced, her cheekbones high, her lips full and chiseled. 

Charlotte was seated at the table in the kitchen when Victoria entered. She did not look up. "I'm sorry," Victoria told her.

For a moment, Charlotte did not reply. Then she said, in a strange, flat-sounding voice, "Don't speak to me. You aren't sorry, you're never sorry, so don't say that you are. Why don't you go and wait in the front room, away from me." 

"Charlotte-"

Charlotte bit away the sentence that had started upon Victoria's lips. "I said, 'Don't speak to me', Victoria. Go and wait in the front room." She could not trust herself to say anything more, for fear she would say something she would later regret. Victoria had never had that quality. She always spoke exactly what was in her mind. Charlotte was in no doubt that Victoria meant exactly what she had intoned.

"Please-"

"Go to the front room, Victoria," Charlotte snapped.

"Very well," Victoria replied. She stormed out of the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. Her stoutly heeled boots could be heard clattering along the naked floorboards in the short steps associated with the fuse of her anger. 

Charlotte continued to sit at the table, her eyes shut in pain. She would dearly love to flay Victoria with her tongue, strip her bare of her conceited morals and bring her back down to earth. Only the knowledge that this was her sister kept her tongue jailed behind her teeth. The wounds caused by Victoria's tongue on so many occasions were still bleeding. Next time, Charlotte might be forced to strike back to save herself.

Victoria seated herself haughtily in the 'front room'. It was a poor attempt at a parlor, with three shabby easy-chairs, a low table and a paned window with a view of the street. The fireplace was scrubbed clean of soot and never lit; the heat supplied by the kitchen below was usually sufficient to heat this room by night. When it wasn't, the family wore extra clothing or sat in their own kitchen. There was a photograph identical to that in Victoria's own belongings on the mantelpiece, depicting Charlotte, Sam Morpeth and their infant son. Hanging above this was a small painted portrait of their father, salvaged from the estate that they had been forced to sell. His hair was white and receding, with the same classical nose, arched eyebrows and cleft chin characteristic of his daughters.

Victoria stared at the portrait, imagining the proud man who had seemed to put his family first in every action he had made. He had lavished his daughters with everything that they could possibly want. His life had been about spectacle and pomp, a social climber trying to wheeze his way in amongst men far superior in wealth and standing to himself. Everything had been about show, from the ostentatious decoration of his home and daughters to his exuberant spending on his so-called friends. He had over-reached himself completely. Just as his life had been about exhibition, so had his death manifested show. He had gone out with a bang, literally. His life had ended, not hidden away in some back room of his house, but in the foyer of a grand hotel. What he had been trying to achieve was anybody's guess.

A northern man, a businessman, trying to intrude on the lives of the rich and influential. Trying to be something that he was not. He had failed miserably. His friends had taken his money and left. His business ventures had failed. His creditors had been breathing down his neck. He had nothing left, except the gun in his hand. He had taken two other people with him, wherever he had gone from there.

Victoria closed her eyes. Everything would be all right if Father were still alive. Charlotte would not be married to that terrible man and they would not be living in this horrid place. Victoria would not be forced to work. She had had a taste of the good life and would do almost anything to get the rest of the pie. She wasn't sure about Ned Hawke, though. What did he want from her?

Victoria sank into one of the chairs. Her hands were slumped across the fabric-enclosed arms. She ran her hand over the dark burgundy damask. It was finely woven, if a little faded and threadbare. There was one thing that could be said for Charlotte's taste. Although her furniture was old, it was always clean and as good a quality as she could afford.

It was another twenty minutes before Ned Hawke arrived. Charlotte opened the front door. She was not smiling this time, her eyes were downcast and her lips slack. Even her formerly glowing skin appeared grey. "Good evening," she said. Her voice was as drab as her manner. "I'll just fetch Victoria."

She turned away from him to knock upon a door less than three yards inside the front door. She did not even call out her sister's name. When Victoria exited a few seconds later, Charlotte did not look at her, instead averted her eyes to those of Ned Hawke. The glance was strange. He could not fathom what it meant, but it made him feel unnaturally cold and sweaty. Victoria looked about as happy as her sister did, her eyes shooting darts at his. She gathered up her cape and hat and did not even say goodbye to her sister.

"What happened to your sister?" Hawke asked as they descended the stairs.

"Nothing," Victoria snapped in reply. 

*

Ned Hawke seated himself as closely as he could to the woman beside him. He knew that it made her feel uncomfortable. It was probably the only time that night when she could not possibly move away from him without endangering her life. They were bumping down the street at a fine speed now. He should have told the cabby to aim for all the cracks in the road; he seemed to be doing a damn good job as it was. Not that Ned had a clue what the state of the roads were in the East End, he was a West End man himself, only by night of course; he wouldn't be seen dead at any of the places he frequented, during the daytime. 

He and Ron Selby had had some good times there over the years. Some women in those gay-houses would do anything for a few pounds... Of course, he preferred his nurses; he knew that he alone owned them, and he alone touched them. Ron occasionally shared, but he really could not be bothered with virgins. Ron liked nurses that knew what was expected of them, in every sense of the word.

This reminded Ned of the charming creature sitting beside him, stiff and as unyielding as one of those terrible corsets women chose to wear. He sidled closer, hoping at least for the warm curve of a thigh or buttock to be pressed against his leg. He felt the muscle contract under the touch of his leg, not soft and compliant, but as tight as the morals of a cloistered puritan. He wondered whether a caressing hand would be an improved assault on this jailed woman. He was met with fierce resistance and reluctantly withdrew his hand. A challenge was what you wanted, he reminded himself. 

Every now and then, the glow of the gas-lamps that lit the streets highlighted Victoria's face. If lips were pursed tightly. Her eyebrows were only prevented from knitting by the fold of pale flesh mercilessly pinioned between them. When he touched her, she did not relax, instead the tension underlying each muscle group increased tenfold. There was hope yet; at least she did not openly knock his hand away.

Leave it for later, he told himself. He did not want her strung out with the nerves of a racked man now. So he shifted his body back from hers, allowing the nurse to squeeze her body from the corner she had sandwiched herself into.

"You look beautiful," he told her. She did not even bat an eyelid as far as he could see. They drove on in silence for a few minutes, before he attempted conversation again.

"Your sister," Ned began. "She seemed unhappy."

"She wasn't," Victoria snapped in reply.

Ned began to wonder whether he would have more fun extracting his own teeth without anesthetic. What a fool he was to think that he could pursue this woman outside of the hospital environment. He didn't have a clue how to win her over. He couldn't rely on 'accidental' gropes or collisions to break down her resistance. What could he do? Well, he certainly was not going to give up. He had never lost a woman yet.

Victoria leant back into her corner. She wondered where he was taking her. She did not feel so very uncomfortable now. She suspected that she could almost bear to be in the same room as him, as long as he did not try to touch her again. Uneasily, she recalled the feeling of his leg against hers, the blood boiling through her veins like the steam from a dry kettle. It had been a strange experience. Vulgar and disgusting, she told herself. To think that any man could think that he could take such liberties with an unmarried woman. She berated herself for not requesting a chaperone.

"You look very beautiful." She did too, he thought. If she would only stop frowning, she would be exquisite. He would hate to tell her, but if she carried on like that, she would be marked for life. 

"Don't." Those beautiful full lips were pursed in displeasure. He ached to press them against his and remove that tension, to unwind her in his arms until she was nothing but soft, silky and pliant. He pictured her sister's lips superimposed on her face, smiling and warm. The likeness in the family was strong; Victoria could be just as beautiful, if only she relaxed. 

"You are," he said.

"Don't." He could run his knuckles down that smooth, milky cheekbone and brush away the tension constricting her face. The muscles would relax under his expert touch. He could manipulate her with his lips until she gasped for air like a drowning swimmer. There was nothing more lovely than a woman who had just received her first proper kiss. She was beautiful to start with. She would be a goddess then.

Victoria watched Ned Hawke with uneasy eyes. Her skin suddenly rushed icily cold and prickled with the erection of hairs. It felt almost as if a tiny mesh of invisible wires was constricting every muscle of her body. She shivered involuntarily as the cold breath of autumn passed across her face.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Are you sure?" He moved closer to check her face, now cloaked in the shadows. He saw the fabric of her skirt shiver as she jerked her leg away from his. "Are you cold?"

"No."

"No, you're not sure or no, you're not cold?"

"I am fine," Victoria said. Now, just with the movement of his leg against hers, her blood was boiling like a smelting furnace. Her veins began to trill with an increasing pulse. Her heart desperately pumped against her sternum, as a butterfly trapped in a jar might do. She tried to force it to slow, but she could not. The knowledge of his hand slowly gliding up her thigh, made the beating stop. She felt her heart lurch in her chest, leaving the rest of her body feeling uncomfortably empty. 

"Please don't," she whispered, but her voice came out in a ragged gasp. She was frightened now. His hand halted in its path, the fingertips gently circling over the fabric. The soft sensation sent waves of panic through her nerves. Heat diffused to every bodily surface, rushing like a wild torrent of water over her skin. She felt sweat slicken the skin between her legs. Her blood thumped violently through her veins in response to the gentle stimulus of her thigh. "Don't," she repeated.

Ned moved his hand back down to her knee and pressed his thigh hard against hers. "Really?" His hand rose up again, this time taking with it a wrinkle of fabric. His ankle gently brushed against the tiny inch of exposed flesh. He paused and let his fingertips swivel lightly over her thigh. He hoped that she could feel something through whatever petticoats and drawers she was wearing under the smooth fabric of her dress. His fingers arched forwards and hooked another fold of fabric, drawing up until it rested beneath his wrist. He curved his hand backwards and forwards along the outside slope of her thigh.

Victoria felt herself growing more and more sweat laden. The polished cotton of her petticoat clung to the cleft between her buttocks as warmth and desire trickled down the cavity of flesh between the legs of her drawers. She was in danger of losing herself to him. "Stop it," she told him, and herself. His hand continued to rove freely over her thigh. She brought her own hand down on his, pushing him away. "I said stop it."

"I'm sorry," Ned murmured. He felt how wet the palm that repelled his hand was and realized how close he was getting. His own loins were fired with the knowledge. Still, he thought of himself as a gentleman, so delicately removed the pressure of his hot body from hers. 

They rode on in silence. It had been nearly fifty minutes by now. Suddenly, Victoria turned to him and asked. "Where are we going?"

Ned Hawke smiled, more to himself than the woman sitting beside him. "That would be telling."

Something about the way his lips curved arrogantly into the surrounding skin terrified Victoria. "Where are we going?" she repeated, trying to keep the element of fear from infecting her voice.

"For a meal," Ned said. "Relax, I'm not going to bite you."

"I did not think that you would." Something intuitively did not bode well. "Where are we going?"

"Don't worry, it's not far."

"Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise." 

"I don't like surprises," Victoria murmured. 

"Don't fret," Ned told her. He reached across to pat her leg, but saw her face flinch in alarm. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Victoria struggled back into the corner she had wedged herself into earlier. Why had she let Charlotte persuade her to do this? "I'll ask you one more time. Where are we going, Mr. Hawke?" Her voice was as cold and as even as she could make it.

"Calm yourself, we're just going to have a meal together," Ned said.

"Where? We've been in this hansom for nearly an hour. Where are we going?"

"Somewhere nicer than Spitalfields." 

"Where?" Victoria snapped. "Stop circumventing the question and tell me!" 

"It's a surprise. Trust me, you'll like it." 

That was the problem; Victoria did not trust him, or herself. She unfolded her arms from about her chest and rapped on the ceiling of the carriage to alert the driver. "Excuse me! Excuse me!"

"What are you doing?" Ned asked in alarm.

Victoria ignored him as the driver unlatched the trapdoor in the roof to speak with her. "Yes, love?" the man asked. His breath could be seen precipitating in bursts of white air from his mouth.

She took a deep breath as the chilled air of autumn poured slowly into the carriage through the trapdoor. Goodness, it was cold, and it was not even winter yet. "Stop the cab, I want to get out," she told the man, in the most authoritive voice she could muster. 

"Don't listen to her," Ned said. "Keep driving."

Victoria flashed a look of desperation at the driver, sitting so high above them. "Please, stop the trap. I want to get out."

"Shut the hatch and drive on," Ned told the man. He turned to Victoria. "What do you think you're doing?" 

"I want to go home."

"We're nearly there, don't worry," Ned said.

The hansom was slowing to a halt now. Soon she would be able to extricate herself from the corner and get out the cab. It wasn't that she disliked Hawke, indeed she was discovering she liked him too much. She didn't trust his hands or his easy grin, nor did she trust her own judgment. Being near him was becoming dangerous for her liking. Her brain was constricted by all the ideals of morality and puritanistic views on the control of emotion, but her body was not following the commands it was sent. She was terrified of the rapid beating of her heart, the heat rushing over her skin and the wetness gathering upon her limbs. She had never felt this way before, except in those disgusting moments when she let her own hands stray down her body. It was beastly and animalistic; truly frightening that she could allow these passions to flood her mind. 

"All right, miss. It's safe to climb out now," the driver said.

"Where will you go?" Ned asked, frantically. "You're miles from home, you've probably not got any money on you, and even if you did it would not be enough for the trip back. I can't just leave you out on the street in the middle of London." He grappled at her wrists only to have her jerk away in distaste. "Victoria, please. It's not safe."

Victoria had not thought it through. She was, as Ned said, in the middle of London, miles from home, with no money. "I don't know," she said.

"Is my company so bad that you cannot bear to be near me?" he asked her.

The nurse watched him with weary eyes. She liked him, she truly did, but she did not trust him. Guiltily, she recalled the minutes they spent in the sweaty darkness of room twenty-one. Her brain had told her to be disgusted by what her fumbling fingers had touched, and she was, but not as much as she should have been. She knew what he was like, and she knew that should they be left alone, anything could happen.

"Miss, are you getting out or not?" the driver questioned in his coarse voice.

Victoria looked at Ned Hawke. "No," she said. "Drive on."

The cabman left them outside the building. It appeared as a narrow bricked wall wedged between two much larger and taller edifices that seemed to frown down upon it. There were three steps up to a navy-blue door with a polished brass knocker. Ned took this in hand and gently rapped. Almost immediately, a liveried man opened the door.

"Good evening, Dr. Hawke," he said. "Come in." George Thompson was a thin, lean man, with a sharp face. The lips above his pointed chin were thin; consequently, he had grown a large moustache to mask them. His hair was almost excessively oiled and combed back from his forehead. He turned to Victoria, fixing his wide-set brown eyes upon her face. "Good evening, madam." Ned nodded to him, and then slipped inside. Victoria followed him, closely.

The foyer was decorated theatrically with deep burgundy paintwork and imposing portraits of men with powdered wigs. The thick carpet bore a strange patterning of gold and red designs. When Victoria looked up, she saw that the high ceiling was patterned with a raised design of roses and coiled rope.

Another man in livery came and fetched their coats and hats, before yet another man conveyed them down a hallway to a desk with a high wooden counter. Standing behind this desk was a plump woman dressed in a sober black dress. Her curled hair was elaborately stacked above her pasty face. Her brown eyes were embedded in a pit of fat wrinkles and framed with pince-nez glasses that dripped a chain down about her neck. "Good evening, Dr. Hawke," she said, breezily. Her chubby head swiveled on its rolled neck to face Victoria. "Good evening, Miss."

"Hello," Victoria replied, uneasily. 

"I've given you room thirteen. Your meal has been kept heated and will be brought to you immediately," Susannah Price said to Ned. She patted her sweating red forehead with a handkerchief before turning to a door behind the desk. "Lucy, would you please come and assist Dr Hawke."

A thin, blonde woman ventured into the room. Her maid's uniform was well pressed, the apron hanging cleanly from her narrow waist. "Certainly, mum," Lucy said. She took a key handed to her by Susannah and moved out from behind the desk. "Right this way, sir, ma'am."

They were lead to a winding staircase of polished wood. Lucy ascended first, followed by Ned and then Victoria. "What is this place?" Victoria queried as her eyes regarded the ostentatious decorations.




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 02



Lucy gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. She walked on in silence. 

"It's a meeting house," Ned told her.

"A what?"

"Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough." 

Room thirteen was bounded by a white paneled door with a well-polished brass knob. Lucy quickly unlocked the door and handed the key to Ned. As much as she would like to stay around to hear what the Doctor's lady friend said when she discovered the nature of the building he brought her to, she could not shirk her duty. Miss Price would be terribly angry. "Your meal will be brought up shortly, sir." She turned and strode back down the hallway.

"Where are we?" Victoria asked as Ned opened the door.

"I told you, we're in a meeting house," Ned said.

Victoria's heart jolted as she surveyed Room thirteen. The walls were paneled with wood, until about eye-level, where burgundy paisley wallpaper took over to the ceiling. There was a small, round table set with a white tablecloth and linen. The carpet was thick and luxuriously patterned in a Persian design. The only other item of furniture besides the table and two chairs was a huge four-poster bed, draped with satin covers. Suddenly, she understood everything. 

She turned to leave but he caught her by the shoulders and pushed her inside. She staggered through the doorway and heard the key click in the lock. "Why did you bring me here?" she snapped, angrily.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ned said.

"I want to go home." Victoria rushed back to the door and tried the handle. She knew that it would be locked, but that still did not prevent her from frantically trying to turn it. She struck the door with her fist, then turned on Ned Hawke. "Let me out!"


He caught her flailing form in his arms, forcing her hands down to her sides as he clenched her waist. "Calm down," he said.

"I want to go home," she snapped, fighting out of his grip. Her grey eyes flashed angrily beneath pointed eyebrows. Her face, rather than being red with fury, was as pale as china. 

Ned struggled to grip his nurse's body. His hands slid down her back to clench the narrow curve of her waist once more. Her hands were against his chest, pushing and squirming for release. "Calm down, Nightingale. We'll have our meal, and then I will take you home." 

"You don't come to this dreadful place just for a meal," Victoria snapped. Her balled fists broke his grip and she flew across the room to the locked door. "What do you think I am?"

"Nightingale-"

"Don't call me Nightingale. My name's Vic- Miss Buckley!" Her slate-hard eyes shot darts of mercury at the man. "I want to go home!" She wondered where the key had gone. Mr. Hawke had definitely had it in his hand and had managed to lock the door, but where was it now? He had given the man at the front door both his jacket and coat, and now stood before her in shirt, waistcoat and trousers. It was a large key. She was sure she would see it if it was in his waistcoat pocket. All that remained to be checked was his trouser pocket, and they both knew she was not going to put her hand in there.

"Please, calm yourself," Ned said. "I promise you that we will eat our meal and then leave. No hanky-panky, or canoodling or whatever you like to call it."

"I don't believe you. You're repulsive. What gave you the idea to bring me to such a place as this?" Victoria was losing control of her voice now. She could hear it rising like the call of a boiling kettle, louder and more high pitched with every word that passed through her lips. Soon she would either scream or burst into tears.

"I just wanted a place where we could eat and be alone together."

"What made you think that I wanted to be alone with you? You told me that this would be a proper meal, with other people around-"

"To chaperone us? What made you think that we need chaperones? There has to be mutual attraction for anything improper to happen. By your own tongue, I know that you do not like me, Miss Buckley. Since you obviously dislike and distrust me, I believed that nothing could possibly come of this evening. You push me away at every turn. Why would I believe that I could try to bed you? Calm down, Miss Buckley. I won't touch you if you don't want to be touched." He saw the heat rising to the surface of those cheekbones and knew that he had her. She was embarrassed, not by the terms that he had used, but by the knowledge that she was indeed attracted to him.

"Sit down," Ned told his nurse, his little Florrie Nightingale. "Come now, don't be silly. Come and sit at the table to wait for the meal."

Victoria slowly did as she was told, seating herself uncomfortably on the opposite side of the table to Ned Hawke. She must have succeeded. He really thought that she did not like him. If that was what she had wanted all along, why did she feel so disappointed?

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said, glumly. She could not even meet his eyes. She stared at the white, embossed linen of the tablecloth, the shining silver utensils and the luxurious napkins. Everything was placed in an organized manner, everything belonged. She wished that her own life were as such.

His next words jolted her heart to her throat. "You're still very beautiful."

Her eyes rose to his face. The handsome, chiseled lips curved into an easy smile. 

One pale blue eye winked at her from its nest of eyelashes. His dark hair, thick and brush-like, was in disarray from their altercation. Brown strands flopped down from his cowlick across his forehead. Her heart thudded so loudly that she would not be surprised if he could hear it. It was the feeling that one might get if they had stood on the roof of an extremely tall building and nearly fallen. Her body seemed to shake involuntarily with the knowledge that he was watching her. "You didn't mean a word you just said, did you?" Victoria asked.

"I did mean it," Ned replied. He continued to grin, roguishly. "I won't touch you unless you want to be touched."

The air she breathed seemed to choke her lungs. She gave a small, ragged gasp. Her skin felt hot and wet to touch. She knew that her face was reddening as her heart pounded blood to every surface. 

"The problem is," Ned continued. "You do want me to touch you, don't you?"

Victoria found her voice. Her body screamed 'yes', but her mind said, rationally, "No. Please don't."

Ned watched his Nightingale with pale, serious eyes. Her cheeks were red with blood flow, although she had done nothing exerting. He was making her feel very uncomfortable. The knowledge made him hot and hard. He would not bed her today, or next time, or the time after. He had to make her ready, to teach her how to use her passion. "I think you're lying to me and yourself. Doesn't your blood run as hot as boiling water? Doesn't you heart gallop as fast as the hooves of a hundred horses? Do you not feel your heart pounding in your ears, in your temples and your hands? Do you feel your breath tearing from your chest in short, hard bursts? Do you feel both light-headed and giddy stomached? Are you wet with sweat? I think that you are. I think that if I touched you would tremble as your heart increased its pulse tenfold. You'd melt with sweat."

He rose from his chair and came to stand behind Victoria. She shivered as his warm hand gently caressed the naked skin of her hot neck. "Don't," she said, severely. He did not stop. 

He pulled the chair she was sitting in back from the table. She felt his hands returning to her neck, tenderly massaging the smooth skin in tiny circles. She relaxed under his grip. Suddenly, she felt his hot breath against her left ear. "Stand up," Ned commanded.

"You just told me to sit down."

"Stand up," he said again.

Victoria did so. Her legs felt like liquid and she half expected them to tumble from beneath her. He caught his hands about her narrow waist and pulled her close. They were of a height, she being a very tall woman and he being an average height for a man. Blood pounded through her body as his warm breath struck her face. She felt giddy and weightless as she stared into his eyes.

Ned felt the stiff boning of Victoria's corset through the fabric of her dress and damned the man who had invented such contraptions. He wanted to feel the delicate curve of warm flesh on her waist in hands, the soft, full breasts pressed against his chest. He instead encountered the rigid form of her restricting underwear. Those soft breasts were squashed flat, that waist pinched tight, her internal organs displaced horrifically within her body. Why did women allow men to decide what they should wear? These boned jails were as monstrous as anything that had crawled from Dr Frankenstein's laboratory.

He watched her face as she watched his. Lovely stone-blue eyes, observing him in fear through a lens of tears. Her high cheekbones were pink with heat, guilt, or embarrassment. Her full lips were strangely relaxed in anticipation. He brought his hand up and ran his fingers down her warm, smooth cheek. He saw her eyes waver in fright and felt her skin stiffen at his touch. "I won't hurt you," Ned told his nurse. She was his now, he could tell by the way her arms hung limply at her side and her face did not avert from his touch.

He dropped his hands down to her sides and gently picked up hers. Her hands were hot and clammy with sweat. They flinched in his grip as he positioned them around his own waist, forcing her hips forward against his. He felt his own blood boil as he held her hands in place. God, he wanted her so much. He ached to kiss her lips hungrily and rock his hips against hers. Not yet, he told himself as his hardened cock dripped hot lubricant. Not yet.

Ned cupped Victoria's chin with one hand and pulled it forwards. His other hand cradled her soft, coiled hair. His lips moved forwards until they were an inch from hers. "Can I kiss you?" he asked her. Victoria gave a short gasp, then nodded. Her frightened eyes did not leave his.

Gently, delicately, his lips came to rest upon hers. For a brief moment, they touched. Suddenly, Ned pulled away from her, taking the tender hands from her chin and hair. He broke the embrace of the small hands upon his hips. "They're awfully slow with the food. I have a good mind to complain," he told Victoria.

Victoria felt herself melt inside. She was hot and cold at the same time. Sweat ran down her back, under her arms and beneath her breasts. She felt an unusual wetness between her thighs, accompanied by a weak pulse and great heat. Her heart thumped with a strange hunger. They had been so close. Why had he pulled away?

Ned observed the change in his Nightingale's face. She no longer appeared weary or frightened. He saw lust burning in her eyes, disappointment in the droop of her lips. He knew he had her. He advanced on her and grabbed her about the waist. His lips contacted hers with fervor, pushing, pulsing, manipulating as she hung limp in his arms.

When he finally released her, he heard the trademark gasp for air. Her eyes watched him with wonder, he thought. Wait. There it was, the smile, lighting her face like a beam of sunlight in a dark room. She was so beautiful. He felt his own body run with heat at the thought of holding this exquisite creature in his arms. "Sorry," Ned gasped. "I shouldn't have forced you like that. I am terribly, terribly sorry." He released her, once more, from his arms.

"I-" she said. "Please, I-" She couldn't bring herself to translate emotion into words. He was walking away from her, strangely toward the door. She saw him take the glinting key from his trouser pocket. "What are you doing?"

"I'll go and see what the hold-up is with the food. The woman at the desk said that it was being held warm and that they would bring it up immediately. It has been at least fifteen minutes since then. I'm quite hungry, aren't you?" He didn't look at her, merely inserted the key into the lock and turned it with a click. 

"You don't have to leave because of me," ran quickly from Victoria's mouth. Her own hand clutched at his elbow, compelling him to turn toward her. She could not believe that she was doing this. What madness had entered her blood stream and forced her to behave in such a forward manner? What was this lust that beat so quickly in her chest? "I wanted you to kiss me," she whispered, in a strange breathy voice. "I liked it."

He had caught her, Ned knew. "Really?" he inquired, already knowing the answer. He had led her by the nose, although she did not realize it. Now she was his alone.

Victoria nodded. "Yes." She caught him by the hand and guided it down to her waist. The other she held against her breast. She slowly pressed her soft, muscular lips on his, feeling her heart leap in response. Gently she moved her lips as he had done to her, carefully manipulating his skin. Suddenly, she felt him answer her. He kissed her rapidly and hungrily, dragging her body to touch his. His hand left her breast and migrated to her thick, soft hair. She felt his hips thrust against hers. Her hands clenched his hard buttocks, forcing his hips to be still, locked tightly to hers.

Their lips fought and maneuvered for control of one another. Victoria felt herself become more and more light-headed and knee-weak. All she could feel were the hot regions where her body contacted his. She needed air and gasped hungrily for it when he finally released her. They kissed repeatedly, until a knock came from the door.

Victoria jolted from Ned's grasp, so far that she actually crossed the room to be away from him. The knock came again, followed by a woman's voice, "Excuse me, Dr Hawke, your meal is ready. Can I bring it in?"

Ned opened the door to Lucy, the maidservant who had brought them up to Room thirteen. Her eyes flicked from the calm man who answered the door, embarrassed looking woman who stood awkwardly beside the table, to the bed. It hadn't been used yet, but give it time, she told herself. They had obviously been doing something, else the Doctor's lady friend wouldn't be standing there as if there was a poker stuffed up her arse. God, she looked uncomfortable. Lucy smiled at her, wondering whose wife this one was. She had obviously not been to such an establishment before. 

Lucy nodded to the girl behind her, holding the door open so the girl could push the dinner trolley through. Those trolleys were useless. The wheels always stuck when they were forced to swivel to travel around a corner. This one was kept on the first floor, the food being brought up by a dumbwaiter device. One girl had to transfer each dish from the dumbwaiter to the trolley, whilst the other girl loaded the dishes into the dumbwaiter from the kitchen. 

Victoria regarded the meal that was laid on the table by the two maids. It did look and smell very good. There was some sort of meat in a rich sauce, potatoes, carrots, and asparagus. A yellow, creamy soup steamed from its bowls. A carafe of red wine and two glasses was also arranged on the table. Her stomach growled just at the thought of eating such food. 

"Thank you," Ned Hawke said in dismissal to Lucy. 

"There's also a dessert. I can bring that up in half an hour's time, Doctor, and clear away your dinner plates."

"I'm sure dessert will not be necessary," Ned said. "You can collect the empty dishes after we leave."

After the maids had left, they sat down and ate their meal. It was the best fare Victoria had had in a long time, although by Ned's standards it was quite poor. He did not tell her this, when she remarked what a lovely meal it was. Men did not come here because the food was good, he reminded himself. They came here to meet with other men's wives in private, where no servant's tongues could waggle or neighbors could pry. It served its purpose well. The decorations, if a little eccentric, gave an aura of wealth and respectability. The beds were clothed in the best linens and were more than large enough for two people. Of course, he would expect these standards for the large portion of his weekly allowance that he had paid toward the room earlier that morning. 

He was not at all hungry, but he ate as much as she did, just as he prayed before the meal because she did. Everything was going so well. They talked about all manner of things. He reinforced his previous promise to find her a job, although where, he did not have the faintest idea. 

"That was lovely," Victoria said. "I couldn't eat another bite." She delicately blotted her mouth of gravy with a linen napkin. Ned followed suit, leaving his discarded knife and fork resting on his plate. She watched him with worried eyes. "What are we going to do now?"

He stood up and took her by the hand. She rose to her feet and immediately locked herself into his embrace. They kissed ardently, until Victoria pulled herself from his arms. "You put your tongue in my mouth," she accused.

"I'm sorry," Ned said. "I'm guessing that you didn't like it."

"It felt strange," the nurse admitted.

"Could I try again, a little more slowly?" She nodded, as he knew she would.

He kissed her slowly this time, feeling her lips press softly to his. Gently, he parted those lips with his tongue. He dove carefully into her hot, wet mouth. He massaged her slowly until he felt her respond. The passion behind her response shocked him. Her tongue darted into his mouth violently, her lips moving brutally against his. Her small hands came up around his neck, pulling his mouth down hard upon hers. He felt her body squirm in his grip as his hands massaged her warm, soft buttocks. Slowly, he stepped backward toward the bed, pulling her with him. 

Her hands left his neck, combing passionately into his hair. He felt her breasts arch forward against his chest as he took another step. Her lips continued to dance over his, pulsing in a hard, vigorous way. This was far better than he had expected. She wasn't pliant, she was fiery. He had had no idea that so much passion could be kept hidden inside a woman. He was sure that she had never done this before, he could tell by her original, frigid responses, yet she was learning so terribly quickly. It was almost as if she had been waiting for someone with the right key to unlock her. He felt himself grow hard at the thought. 

Ned fell back upon the satin cover of the bed, pulling Victoria with him. Now she became tight and unyielding, struggling frantically to get away from him. "Please," he heard her say. "Please, I can't do this."

He wrapped his legs about her waist, pinioning her hips to his. A bad mistake. He felt her small fists rain down upon his shoulders, arms and chest as she struggled to free herself. She forced her knees upward to contact his buttocks and groin. "Stop it," she cried, frenetically. "Let me go! Please."

He reluctantly disentangled himself from Victoria, also a mistake, as she saw the erection that was almost bursting from his trousers. She regarded him with fearful eyes as she kneeled beside him. Locks of her dark hair had come free of their pins and hung haphazardly about her face. Her eyes seemed shrunken. Those red lips trembled vulnerably. He noted that she had not actually left the bed, indicating that she was not completely aversive to the idea of sex. 

"Nightingale, calm yourself," Ned gasped. "It seems a waste to pay for this room and not actually try the bed, especially when it takes such a predominant position in the room. Just lie beside me; we don't have to do anything."

"I do not think that that's a particularly good idea," Victoria replied.

"Please?"

"No." 

"Why not?" Ned queried.

"It's not proper." Victoria gathered her clothing about her and set about climbing from the bed. He caught her pretty, thin ankle in his grip as she did so, preventing her from moving. She looked over her shoulder at his hand in disgust. "Please don't," she said. "You're being childish." She jerked her foot from his hold and stood up.




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 03



Victoria stared at the untidy, scrawled handwriting on the front of the envelope. She recognized this rambling, acute hand, from the letters Ned Hawke had sent her before. The letters that she had burned. She moved away from Charlotte, who was peaking over her shoulder to see whom had sent the letter. There was no return address.

Decisively, she tore the top corner of the envelope, inserted her finger and pulled downward to cut the side. She was sure Charlotte had no letter opener and she wasn't about to wait until Charlotte came back empty handed. 

Victoria folded the letter back up with shaking hands, having scanned it quickly and found it full of explicit language. She would read it later, without Charlotte weaving around her like a stray cat after raw meat. "Mr. Hawke has kept his promise. I have an interview for a position to care for an invalid," she lied. "I'll have to take the train, and then catch a hansom cab, and I'll-" she reddened at the comments Ned had made about her underwear. "I'll have to get changed. Do you think Samuel would mind if I snuck in and took my clothing? I could change in Oliver's room."

Charlotte regarded her sister's faded grey dress, flat skirted and high-necked. "Your clothing is perfectly presentable, sister. You do not need to change."

"This is gentry I'm visiting, Charlotte. I can't turn up looking like a servant in her third best dress," Victoria snapped. She didn't wait for Charlotte's response, instead she pushed out of the kitchen, the letter clenched tightly in her fist. She opened the door to the bedroom where Sam was sleeping and trod carefully across to the wardrobe. He stirred awake as the wardrobe door squeaked open.

"What are you doing?" he murmured in a sleep-coarsened voice.

"I'm just fetching some clothing. Sorry for waking you," she whispered. Hurriedly she flicked through Sam's clothing to her small allocation of space at the back of the closet. The wire coat hangers whined noisily along the metal bar, giving off the sort of brain-piercing sound that made her grind her teeth together. She found a tailored navy blouse and matching skirt. They were relatively new; she had had them made earlier that year whilst she was working at Dr Hawke's clinic. The skirt was suitably unbustled for the versatility of a nurse's lifestyle.

"You don't need to whisper," Sam grunted, grudgingly. "I'm awake now."

"I'm sorry," Victoria muttered. "I'll be out of here in a moment and you can go back to sleep."

"Why are you getting clothes?" 

"I have an interview for a job with a rich invalid. I need to make a good impression. Don't worry, I'll get changed in Ollie's room." The policeman was now sitting up in bed. His dark hair was sleep mussed, his cheeks showing signs of fresh growth. His nightshirt was split at the neck, the opening currently pulled to one side over his left shoulder. Victoria turned her head away as he climbed from the bed. "What are you doing?" she hissed, quickly.

"If I'm awake, I'm awake. Get changed in here, if you like, I'll go and get something to eat." He groaned as he stretched his arms above his head. His muscles ached with the deadening brought on by lying on his right side for far too long. Slowly, he padded from the room, shutting the door loudly behind him.

Victoria quickly fought her way out of her sober grey dress. She stared at herself in Charlotte's dressing mirror, her white corset cinching her body into the perfect curve of womanhood. 'For something worth more than all the Queen's jewels, don't wear it', she heard repeated in her head. Could she really go through with it? Could she really wear nothing underneath her clothing, her vulgar naked body flopping against the fabric? It was disgusting. Why would Ned want to touch the soft bulges of her body, instead of the firm, tight curves of her eighteen inch, bridled waist? He had been so explicit about it; what was it that he wanted from her?

She put the letter on the bed beside her discarded dress. Decisively, she put her arms behind her back and untied the tight knot at the base of her corset. Her frenetic fingers began to pull loops of the strings out, so that the bridle loosened. She was careful not to let the strings pull through the eyelets; she had only done that once and it had taken her countless frustrated minutes the following morning to rethread. When she was convinced it was loose enough, she pulled and struggled to heave the corset over her arms and head, finally dumping it upon the floor.

Victoria's body was reflected in the mirror, the pale skin lined with red where the corset had squeezed her. Her breasts were full yet pert, weighing like teardrops in profile. The form contorted by the corset remained. Her ribs tapered down to her narrow waist and her hips flared from there.

So ugly, she thought, as she stared at her body. Those large sacs of flesh hanging from her body, that strange inlet on her waistline. The mass of hair poking from the crotch of her drawers, like some dirty smear of grease upon her skin. Why would anybody call these organs beautiful, let alone delicious? 

Hurriedly, she unbuttoned the shirt and inserted her arms in it. As she buttoned it up she realized, that even through the triple layer of stiff, starched fabric, the hard points of her breasts could still be seen, at least to her eyes. She rummaged into her own belongings, stuffed to one side of Charlotte's top drawer, and found a plain camisole of a dirty white color with thick shoulder straps. Quickly, she pulled it over her head, and then struggled into the blouse. Her body was permanently contorted from wearing corsets for nearly her entire life, rendering her figure almost exactly the same shape without as it was whilst wearing one. The only difference was that the blouse was slightly more constricted across the chest area, a minor detail not visible to the naked eye.

Victoria climbed into her skirt and clasped it beneath her blouse, pulling the blouse down over the skirt so it seemed more of a jacket than a blouse. She hung her dress back on the discarded coat hanger. Where was she going to put the corset? She looked around in panic. What if somebody found it? It was her only one, it would be obvious that she was not wearing it if it was found. Quickly, she placed it on a coat hanger and jammed it at the back of the wardrobe, behind all her other clothing. Unless somebody was consciously looking for it, it would not be found.

Victoria checked her hair, dressed in a plain chignon, and decided it was satisfactory. She hurriedly stowed the letter in the top drawer underneath her underclothing, squirreled away to be read later.

*

It was by accident that Charlotte found the letter whilst putting away some of her own clothing. She recalled the guilty, red expression on her sister's face when she had opened the letter, and the sly way she had hidden it from view. Her curiosity was aroused. She imagined it to be a love letter of literary prime from the doctor, nothing particularly improper, just a few words of admiration. She knew how funny Victoria was with male affection, and so expected something of little or no consequence to be enclosed in the envelope. Hurriedly, she extracted the pages from the envelope and read it with feverish eyes. 

There no word to describe the way Charlotte felt; shocked, angry, heartbroken, appalled, she experienced all of these emotions and more. She recalled Victoria's words about changing her clothing, and the blouse and skirt she had departed in, exactly as described in the letter. She checked the drawers but found no corset. It had to be somewhere. She never stopped to think why she immediately believed the worst about her sister, why she instantly took every illicit paragraph to heart. 

Charlotte madly ransacked the bedroom, checking every space in the drawers, under the bed and furniture. She rifled through the shoes at the bottom of the wardrobe and the shelf at the top. Finally, she went to the back of the closet, where Victoria's clothing was kept. There, on the last coat hanger, hung Victoria's corset, as desolate as a dead virgin. It was ultimate proof she needed. She sunk down to the floor, amongst the empty clothing she had strewn about whilst feverishly searching for evidence. Tears tore from her eyes as she clung to the discarded corset as if it was her sister's corpse. Was she upset because her sister had lied to her, or because in her mind her sister was no better than a whore? 

Sam Morpeth found his wife lying in a state of frenzied tears surrounded by a pool of clothing. He didn't know why she was crying, or why she was hugging the piece of underwear as if it was life itself. It wasn't until he read the letter that he knew.

*

Victoria met Ned, as planned, in a hansom carriage outside number fifty-six at ten thirty. She unbuttoned her cape to prove her obedience, the buttoned it back up. He was heartened to see that she had dressed in the way he had told her. He was in control and he knew it. She would do anything to feel the same way as she had the other night. 

They drove to a less opulent meetinghouse than before. His wallet did not have the capacity for two visits to the previous place in one week.

Victoria looked around the room in distaste. There was no table this time, no furniture apart from a lone chair and a bed. The walls were patterned with dull green paisley wallpaper that was peeled and curling with age. The ceiling was a watermarked white, crazed with cracks and clearly flaking in places. White dandruff-like particles from the ceiling formed a fine film on the dark wooden dado rails, below which the wall was paneled in dark wood. The floor was uncarpeted, the boards squeaky. 

The floor space was consumed by a large bed. The bed was four posted, canopied with garish green and purple woven fabric that had clearly seen better days. The coverlet was tasseled and embroidered to match the heavy upholstery fabric used in the canopy. 


The couple in the room next door could be heard enjoying themselves, a continuous thumping causing the thin walls to shiver. Victoria wrinkled her nose in disgust. "This place is revolting." Her words were all but drowned out by the screams of the woman in the next room.

Ned had to agree with her. "We'll go and ask for another room."

They passed back down the unlit hallway, down a flight of stairs, and arrived at a desk administered by a frizzy haired fat woman. She watched them with small green eyes in a sallow complexion. "Yeah? What can I do for yer?"

"We'd like another room," Ned said.

"What's wrong with the one yer've got?" The woman regarded her two customers. Bloody stuck up toffs, the both of them, trying to dress down to fool her. She saw through the plain clothes and hair of the woman and the shabby suit of the man. Both were quality, she could tell by those haughty voices and the way they looked down on her. It served them right that she'd stung them for the room, letting the man think that the price was the going rate. "Not good enough fer yer, is that it?"

"The people next door are noisy." Ned smiled kindly at the horrid woman. He knew he had paid more than enough for the shoddy room she'd given him, that she was rooking him over. If he walked out, he was unlikely to get his money back without an embarrassing scuffle, so he relied on her good humor to give him something slightly better.

"What do yer want me tuh do about it? They're doing what they came here tuh do." Another couple of toffs, those ones. They came in every week for the same room, arriving and leaving separately. Always during the daytime. When they wouldn't be missed, she supposed. She didn't care that they weren't married, or which Lord's wife the one dressed in her maid's clothing was, just as long as they paid her. And pay her they did, very well. The man must have realized the potential evidence for blackmail in the books of this meetinghouse. He was always nice, always paid her a compliment and gave her three times the fee. Not like this toff, who seemed to think he could get by on a smile.

"Perhaps you could transfer us to a room that is less noisy," Ned said.

The woman fixed him with a smile that would have castrated a satyr - a mouthful of yellow, twisted teeth. "There aren't none other rooms in that price range. Yer'll have to pay some extras."

Bitch. Ned was definitely not coming back to this dump again. She'd already overcharged him, now she would probably ask a fifty percent increase in the price. He smiled on despite this, hoping that if he seemed amicable she may not mark the price up terribly high. Perhaps if he told her how much he was willing to pay, she would be prevented from giving too much inflation. "Of course. I'll give you an extra ten pounds," he declared. To emphasize his point he handed her the money. He knew he would never see it again.

The woman took the money. Bloody toff. She got the distinct impression he wasn't going to give her no more after that lot. Very well, she thought. "I'll give yer a fresh room, more tuh yer liking." Where was the key to room four? Ah, there it was. She took the key that the toff had had and handed him the new one. She pointed to the corridor to her left. "Second door, that way." She turned and went back to her backroom, where she could continue to read her newspaper.

Room four was little improved from their previous room. It was larger, with two chairs instead of one. The wallpaper was slightly better adhered but just as dingy, the dado-rail and wood paneling dull rather than shining. The ceiling showed no watermarks, but the molding was scurfily cracked and flaking. The bed was covered in an oyster toned, embossed cover. There was no smell or sound.

Ned threw his top hat onto the chair that was farthest away and turned the gas-lamps up. "That woman robbed me blind," he said, bitterly. 

"I don't understand why you didn't ask the woman to reimburse you after we saw the first room," Victoria replied.

"Those sort of people have bottomless pockets. Once the money goes in, you never get it back." He misinterpreted the look on her face to mean disappointment in the room, not knowledge of a statement that could quite easily describe her father. "It's all right," he said. "Doesn't matter what the room looks like, only that you're here with me. I'm glad you came, by the way." He kissed her chastely on the lips, pulling quickly away as her hands came up about his face. "Not yet. We'll take it slowly."

Victoria watched his handsome face as he slowly unpinned the hat from her head and placed it on the chair beside his own, the hatpin stabbed through the brim. "Remind me not to sit on that chair," Ned joked. "I did that last week with my other top hat. Couldn't wear it anymore so I threw it away." 

Nice for some. She smiled numbly and began to unbutton her cape, but he halted her. "I'll do that, you relax." Reluctantly, Victoria dropped her arms at her sides. She let her wavering eyes follow the nimble, tanned fingers that deftly removed the bonds of her cape, where her own shaking hands had stumbled. He could instinctively tell that she was nervous and troubled by her conscience. Her brain was screaming at her to leave immediately before she did her morals and virginity permanent damage. "It's all right, I won't hurt you." She nodded in reply.

Victoria felt numb inside. Why had she come here? Why was she risking everything for this man? Why had she lied to her sister, the only family that she had? Her skin was stiff with a strange cold. She felt dead. She felt as though she were standing back and staring at herself. This was wrong. This was so terribly, dreadfully wrong. Why was she here? This time she had not been connived or fooled into accompanying Hawke. She had known exactly where he was going and what they would do. So why had she come? Her brain screamed that this was wrong.

His slowly pushed her cape back from her shoulders, letting it fall in a puddle about her feet. She shivered as her frightened eyes focused on his face. Those pale blue eyes held hers, just as his hands held her breasts. She was terrified. What had she gotten herself into? Why had she come here? Her body froze under his grip, rigid as rigor. "Don't," she stuttered, as those long fingers concentrated upon the buttons of her blouse. "Please, don't."

"Sorry." Edward Hawke gently removed his hands. He regarded her in the semi-darkness. Her skin was as stark as sheets, her lips trembling with apprehension. "Are you all right?"

"I- I don't- I think-" Victoria's storm-grey eyes glazed with tears. Her throat was sand-dry. I shouldn't be here, she wanted to scream, but her voice-box seemed sealed tight.

"Nightingale, relax, I won't hurt you. I promise." He fixed her with an easy smile, his hands resting upon her shoulders. 

His lips were soft and persuasive, gently directing hers apart so that his hot tongue could slip inside her mouth. She felt her blood sing with energy as her pulse increased ten-fold. Suddenly she had her hands in his coarse hair, her own tongue snaking around his. Her heart drummed harder, her skin prickling with electricity as his fingers stroked the soft skin of her face. Their bodies clashed, the yielding flesh of her breasts squashed against his trunk. She gave short gasps, her lungs scoured with the force of air pulled into her chest, but still she could not breathe. 

Ned's hands migrated from her cheeks to the sleek chignon of dark hair tightly coiled at the nape of her neck. Gently he flexed his fingers in the tresses, pursuing the hard metal pins she used to secure the hair in place. One pin, two pins, clattered to the floor beside her cape, then another and another. He felt her abrupt intake of hot breath from his mouth and hoped that he had not hurt her. Now her hair was unraveling down her back like a helix of silken rope, all the way to her tight waist. He felt it unwind in his fingers, free and natural, soft yet strong, unbound like her body.

He pulled away from her mouth and struggled from his own coat, throwing it wildly across the chair that held his hat. Next came his jacket and waistcoat, so that he finally stood only in his shirt, tie and trousers. Victoria watched him with frantic eyes, her body wet with sweat. She could see the swelling in his trousers, nearly bursting from its fastenings. She saw him wrench the tie from about his neck and fling it to the ground. His violence both frightened and aroused her. She wanted him to take her in his arms with all the swiftness and ferocity of before, the action so fast that her brain could not keep up with it. 

He was back in front of her now, tenderly combing and positioning her hair until it hung in a swathe of dark waving silk around her pretty face. Her cheekbones were colored with red now. Her lips were hot, wet and inviting. The outlandish blue-grey eyes glowed from between seams of thick, dark lashes, gleaming no longer with tears but with physical need. Slowly, he took the blunt ends of glossy hair between his fingers and gently brushed it across her cheek, painting along the blossoming pink skin. He saw her cheek flinch beneath his touch, the warm lips move as if asking a question. He let the hair drop back to her waist, his mouth now moving gently behind her ear and down the muscular skin of her neck. 

Victoria stood still and rigid as a statue. Her breath was trapped in her lungs. She knew not what to do in response to the hot, moist lips that traveled across her skin. She felt herself melting inside. Now the mouth rose from her neck and his face pulled away. "Are you all right?" Ned asked.

"Yes," rushed from her lungs. She shivered as his hands focused on the buttons of her blouse. "What are you doing?"

Ned's pale blue eyes held hers. Strands of rich, dark hair had fallen across his brow and brimmed upon his left eye. He impatiently jerked his head to free his sight, his hands still resting on her chest. "I want to see your body."




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 03



Victoria's fingers fumbled to please him, but he quickly directed these away. "Let me." Rapidly, he inserted his fingers in the fold beneath each button and wrenched her blouse open. He stared in disappointment at the grainy, grey fabric of her chemise, the pert rounds of her breasts just visible beneath this. This would not do at all. He did not tell her this; at least this barrier of fabric made her feel comfortable in front of him. The blouse was buttoned tightly at each wrist. He jerked these closures open quickly, so that he could slide the stiff, dark fabric down from her shoulders. She shuddered as the cold air struck her skin, her nipples visibly becoming more erect through the thin material of her chemise. Ned did not touch her, not yet. "Now me," he said.

"Pardon?" Victoria asked. She did not remain confused for very long. His hands grasped her wrists once more, directing her fingers to the starched breast of his shirt. He felt the ligaments and tendons of her hands flex in his grip. Her fingers were sticky with sweat. "I-" he heard her gasp. She scrambled with his buttons, just as she had done in room twenty-one of the Hawke Clinic, the tips of her fingers flicking lightly against his chest. Ned had dressed himself today, a rare feat when not working for his uncle; normally his father's valet at least laid his clothing out whilst he stayed at home. Consequently, there was no singlet or underclothing beneath his shirt. The dark curls of his chest hair were revealed to Victoria's sight and touch, cloaking the rigid muscle beneath. 

Ned watched those stormy eyes dilate as he forced her small hand to rest on the hot skin above his heart. As a nurse, she must have seen and touched such things before, but this was different and she knew it. "It's because of you that it is beating so fast," he whispered into the crown of her black hair. "I dare say your pulse is in the same condition." She did not flinch as his calloused hand snaked beneath the neckline of her chemise and held the smooth, soft skin above her breast. Instead, he felt the pressure of her palm increase upon his chest as her lips gently found his. It was a virgin's kiss, pure, soft, the passion locked inside her mouth just as her body was locked inside the chemise.

The doctor held the kiss for a moment, feeling his Nightingale's passion increase with every movement of her lips until her tongue pushed against his teeth, demanding entrance. Now he pulled his handsome face away. His hands departed from her chest to her shoulders. "Why don't you take off the camisole?" he murmured. He saw her hesitate. Quickly he urged her on. "Please, Victoria. I will not hurt you. I just want to see your beautiful breasts."

Victoria felt her insides quiver at the thought of standing before this man in vulgar nakedness. He was regarding her with expectation rather than disgust. She found it strange that he might find her body attractive, unbound or cased by the manipulating fashions of the day. She personally considered her pink-nippled breasts to be incredibly ugly. Why would he want to see such hideous mounds of flesh?

Ned's grin encouraged her. She pulled at the pillow of loose fabric about her waist until the hem of the chemise was extracted from her skirt. Then she struggled to pull it over her shoulders, her breasts jolting as she finally succeeded. She heard him gasp and her heart sank. She was ugly, so terribly, terribly ugly. She swiftly averted her body from his sight. She had ruined everything; her repulsive body had turned him away.

Ned was given barely a glimpse of her full, voluptuous breasts before Nightingale turned away. "What's the matter?" he hissed. He did not care whether he hurt her feelings now. They were too close. He grabbed her bare shoulders and compelled her to turn. His hands forced her arms to her sides as he looked at her beautiful chest. Two well formed, firm, deliciously full breasts, milk-white and blue-veined stared back at him. The nipples were small and hard, pale and pink. Her body curved down beneath those breasts, the stomach flat, the waist tiny. For a moment he could not speak, then he gasped, "God- So beautiful-"

"Beautiful?" Victoria breathed. Her eyes watered and her heart flickered as his fingers gently traced the smooth, white skin of each breast. He weighed them in his hands, cupped them so that they rested in his warm, sweaty palms. He fingered each nipple, feeling the soft skin harden even more under his touch. Then, gently, he lowered his hot mouth onto her left breast and heard her sharp intake of breath. She gasped as he slowly massaged and suckled her with his tongue.

What happened next was a blur. He pulled back from her and tore his shirt from his body. With renewed passion, he advanced upon her, his hasty fingers struggling with the fastening of her skirt, his chest and lips pressed against hers. "Careful," he heard her whisper as she hurriedly unlatched the hooks the held the heavy fabric of her skirt tightly about her waist. The skirt dropped to the ground with a thud, dragging with it the connected petticoats. She stepped forwards from the puddle of thick fabric, tripped indelicately and pitched forth against his chest. He caught her without trouble and guided her to the dirty-white shrouded bed, hoping to God that there were no fleas infesting the sheets.

Victoria fell stiffly upon the coarse fabric of the coverlet, fleas being the least of her worries. She was suddenly, desperately terrified. Here she was lying in the best part of nakedness, only a pair of loose, seamless drawers covering what little modesty she had left. She saw him looming over her, his pale, tautly muscled chest, beastily hairy, she thought. His hands ran over her the fabric binding her legs and she shivered inside, the hair upon her legs pricking at his touch. 

She could not move to respond or deny. She just lay there and waited for the sound of his belt jangling from his waist, for him to mount her, push inside her body and cause her pain. She considered it her own fault; if she did not want him moving inside her then why was she here? All those years of seeing Charlotte acting so happily as her horrible husband nibbled her neck, kissed her lips or patted her bottom. Those nights lying awake in the bedroom next-door, listening to the stifled gasps and grunts through the papery walls, disgusted yet strangely aroused. And here she was. Her limbs were as rigid as the solid rock of a petrified tree.

Ned Hawke did not wrench his trousers down nor did he climb astride his Nightingale. She was far from ready, although at moments she had surprised him, especially when she had actually helped him take her skirt off rather than query what it was he was doing. He attempted to part her legs, but found the muscles clamped tight. Reluctantly, he removed his hands and strolled around to the other side of the bed. "Are you quite comfortable?" he asked as the mattress creaked beneath his weight. "You're not cold, are you?"

"I'm quite all right, thank you," Victoria whispered.

"That's good to hear." Ned rolled to face her, the bedsprings once again making that alarming whining sound. He'd hate to hear them in full thrust, clattering and whingeing as if the entire structure was about to collapse beneath the amorous couple. As it was, it worried him to think that whatever held the bed together was so loose that it moaned and squeaked with every small movement. This place was a hellhole. He would certainly never bring his Nightingale back here again. 

That reminded him of Nightingale lying beside him, her long dark hair flared about her head and over her bare body. His loins stiffened from just gazing upon those soft breasts, beneath that pretty face in her pool of hair. He didn't touch her. He would let her think and wait, perhaps even ask him to continue. Such was his egotism. "I'd never hurt you, you know that."

"I know." Somehow, she knew that he would not touch her now unless she asked him to. She wanted him to. She wanted to push and thrust and ride against him. She wanted his hot mouth to devour hers and that hard man-thing to pulse between her legs. "You wouldn't- hurt me, if-," Victoria stammered. It was too embarrassing, too vulgar to say.

"If what?" Ned gently stroked the skin of her cheek, feeling the soft down of invisible hairs prickle at his touch. He had her, he knew. She was gagging for a fuck; not that she was going to get one. A few kind words, a few kisses and pats, that's all it had taken. It had not been nearly as difficult as he had expected. If she had been any of the other nurses, he would have only felt contempt for her. 

"If we- I'd like it, I think, perhaps-" she could not say the words. She relied on the look in her eye as she turned her head to face his mouth, so close yet so far away.

There it was again. That terrible rattling bed, ruining the moment for him. "What is it that you want? I'll give you anything, you only have to say the word and it is done." 

Victoria leant closer, so that her left breast nestled on his elbow. "I'd like it- You-" How could she possibly phrase such a request? "I want you- inside me," she whispered. Did he understand, from such a stammered, suggestive sentence? 

Her final words, as quiet as a scattering of autumn leaves across bare grass, jolted Ned inside. His heart leapt and he felt an answering movement from deep within the pit of his loins. "Really?" he gasped, already knowing her reply before it left those sweat-dampened lips. 

"Yes." 

Ned kissed Nightingale softly upon the lips and then upon the cheek. He wrapped his arms about her body and pulled her as close as he could. Her silken hair rested between them, like a sheet of whisper-light satin. He waited until he felt her body relax in his grip, skin to skin from the waist upward, fabric to fabric from the waist down. Slowly their kisses became more intense and urgent, until they were the sort of heart squeezing and body encompassing movements that caused them to writhe like sweaty snakes against each other's passion. They rolled together back in the centre of the bed, Victoria's head resting on the slack support of the shabby pillow.

Ned's mouth left Nightingale's and migrated south to savor her beautiful body. He heard her moan as he gently manipulated the sensitive, soft skin of her breast between his lips. When his face rose from the blossoming flesh, he saw her watching him with a bemused expression upon her face.

"What's the matter?" He queried. 

"Don't worry." Her breasts shook with stifled laughter.

"Am I hurting you?"

"No, no, of course not," Victoria giggled. 

Ned lowered his lips tantalizingly close to her skin then quickly pulled his face away. He regarded her with a bright smile. "Then what is it?"

"It tickles." She gave another, strangled giggle.

"You don't like it?" She did like it, and he knew it, but he had to hear it from her mouth. It was far more gratifying that way. He let his tongue lightly touch the hardened tip, hoping for a gasp or a moan as his fingers traveled whisper-soft up the inside of her thigh.

"I-" She shuddered involuntarily. "I love it," she groaned.

Ned sat up and smiled. His unruly dark hair stood uncontrollably out about his head. His eyes seemed bluer. Somehow, the dark patch of hair upon his chest did not seem so unattractive any more. "Well that's all you're getting of that for the moment," he whispered, with an easy grin.

"Oh and why's that?" 

In reply, Ned Hawke shuffled further down the bed, narrowly missing the heavy leather of her boots. Damn it, he should have taken those off her earlier. It was too late now. Gently, he parted her legs with his fingers, feeling the muscles tighten instinctively under his touch. For a moment, he stared at the glistening mass of dark curls poking from the split in the front of her drawers. Then he lowered his mouth and slid his hot tongue past the coarse hair and into the slippery apex of flesh. The skin impulsively stiffened and he heard her gasp as if in pain. He licked her lightly and tenderly, enough to have her gasping and shuddering, but not enough to bring her to a screaming, writhing climax. That was for next time.

Victoria lay back in horror as she felt Ned's kiss upon her most private of parts. What on earth was he doing? It was disgusting. To think that he should want to put his mouth anywhere near that dirty, wet region from which urine and babies were expelled. Why would he gain any pleasure from committing such an act? Why did she enjoy the feeling?

From her vantage point against the drab flat pillow and creaking bed head, Victoria could see the dark hair of Ned's crown nestled in her pubes. Beyond that contorted his back, strange in its musculature in that she would expect somebody from such an occupation as a doctor to be softly cloaked in fat rather than bound in hard muscle. She could see every movement, every twitch of his head and hair. She could feel everything; his hair, his hot breath, his wet tongue, his fingers. She should have been disgusted. As it was, she was embarrassed that she wasn't. Embarrassed that her body was throbbing, hardening and slickening under his mouth. She was sickened that her heart beat louder than rain upon a cavernous space and that she could hardly breathe even though air was swamping her lungs. "Please," she heard herself moan. That's all she could say.

His hunting tongue reluctantly disengaged itself. "What is it?" he whispered, hoarsely. "Am I hurting you? Do you want me to stop?"

"No," Victoria gasped.

"Then what is it?" His voice sounded cross, irritated. She could hardly see his face, but what she could see was a deeply furrowed frown branding his forehead. His fingers tightened their grip on the soft, pudgy skin of her inner thigh.

When Nightingale did not reply, Hawke further detached himself from her body, propping himself back upon his elbows so that he could see her pink-cheeked face. He hoped that he would not have to hold the position for terribly long; he still had a cramp in his lower back from the other night. He was irritated now, not in the mood for this stopping and starting at his Nightingale's every whim. She had gotten under his skin and that was not a comfortable place for her to be. That was the problem. He had seen her as an object, but now saw her as a person. He had thought of her far too often over the past few days. Damn it. It would take a lot of work to purge her from his system. 

"I'll stop if you do not like it." Let her beg him to continue. He knew that she would. It was then that he saw it, a tiny flash of movement in the corner of his eye. Not one, but two, maybe three, so small and fast that he could hardly see them but for the backdrop of Nightingale's white flesh. He instantly felt his flesh crawl, whether from the presence of these tiny pests or sheer disgust, he knew not. "Jesus Christ!" he swore. Frenetically he pulled himself from the bed. "Get up. You'd better get up!"

"What is it?" Victoria asked in alarm.

"Fleas! The bed is crawling with the fucking blighters. Dirty, shitty, fucking hell-hole!" Ned turned from the soft, inviting figure upon the bed, his arousal instantly slackened by the presence of the uninvited, blood-feeding insects. He picked up his discarded shirt and pulled it on so frantically that he lost a button from the cuff. It spiraled, unwatched, to rest beneath the bed. His tie was knotted uncomfortably tightly, the collar of his shirt skewed beneath the strip of fabric. He flashed a look to Victoria, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching him wearily. "Get up and get dressed. I cannot have this. Get up, we're leaving."

Victoria quickly stepped into her discarded skirt and pulled it up about her waist. Next came her chemise and her blouse. Ned Hawke was frightening her with his coarse language and violent movements. She flinched as he threw her cape at her, followed by her hat. The hat-pin, loosed from the hole in which it had been stabbed, clattered to the floor. Ned did not wait for her to pick it up or drape her cape about her shoulders. He was already out the door and down the hallway before she caught up with him.

He rattled the bell at the desk as if it was the head of the woman who had given him the room. He imagined that wrinkled, floppy skinned face lolling backwards and forwards as he gripped her by the shoulders. He did not stop ringing the bell until the woman was standing impatiently in front of him. It was a fight to control his anger, but he managed to speak quietly and coherently, his words edged with blades. "I would like my money back. That room was infested with fleas."

"There's just no pleasing yer, is there?" the woman asked, flashing her mouthful of tartar-walled teeth. In all honesty, she had not been aware of the fleas in room four. Indeed, it came to her as a shock. The sheets were changed regularly, so why should there be fleas in that room? Bloody toff was probably making it up.

"I want my money back," Ned demanded.

"We've never had trouble wiv fleas afore. Are yer sure yer didn't imagine them?" 

The rage boiling inside Ned Hawke became hot, burning steam. "I know what I saw. I want my fucking money back now!" His tightly clenched fists hit the desk to emphasize his point. Damn it. He knew he was losing it. He could have controlled his anger, but he didn't want to. This woman needed to see exactly how furious she had made him. She had ruined everything.

The woman's sallow, yellowed skin paled. Her eyes seemed to retreat into her skull like a snail into its shell. "Calm yerself-"

"Calm myself?" Ned spat back into her face. "The first room you gave us was overpriced, noisy, dusty and smelt odd. I had to pay ten pounds extra to get this room, which was a minor improvement upon the last one. The ceiling was flaky and the wooden panels were unpolished. The bed whined and squeaked as if it were about to disintegrate about our ears. And the bedding was infested with crawling, jumping fleas! I want my fucking money back. All of it."

The woman would have argued further, had she not seen new customers advancing along the hallway toward the desk. Hurriedly, she unlocked the cash-box kept in the second drawer of the desk. Her chubby, yellow-nailed fingers flicked through the money as she counted it out in her head. "Yeah all right, I'll gives yer yer money back. I'm very surry that this 'as 'appened to hinconvenience yer, sir."

"I bet you're sorry," Ned snapped, sarcastically. He took his reimbursed money back and placed it in his coat pocket. He didn't really care about the money, there was plenty more where that came from. He cared that he had taken his Nightingale somewhere that had been substandard. He felt as if he had let her down. Now he gripped her elbow tightly and lead her past the man and woman who had just entered. He did not look at the people, he looked at her. God, she had not even had time to rearrange her hair. It was all crammed, higgledy-piggledy beneath her hat. She'd have to do it in the cab.

He told her he was sorry, helped her dress her hair, and fixed his tie. At least he could give her a decent meal, which he did. Afterwards, they walked down the street, his arm resting almost too comfortably in the crook of her elbow. They stopped to wait for a cab and kissed goodbye.

*

Victoria climbed the steps up to the rooms belonging to Charlotte and Sam Morpeth carefully. She felt unusually light-headed after the last of a series of passionate kisses with Ned Hawke. Her heart was beating faster than any drum and her body felt hot and sweaty from the increased blood flow. The strange, hot, wetness had returned between her legs, accompanied by a dull throbbing. The muscles of her inner thighs clenched as she recalled the sensation of Ned Hawke's tongue running over her flesh. It was not unpleasant. Indeed, she would be lying if she said that she didn't like it. Now she felt that movement again, even though she was alone. Tightening her muscles did not help; it made the sensation all the more enjoyable. Her cheeks flamed with knowledge as she stopped outside the door. 




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 03



She smiled to herself as she knocked for entry. It was a strange feeling to be wanted and loved, something she had not felt before. She would see Ned Hawke again. Next time would be better than this time, just as he had promised. 

The woman that answered the door was an unnatural caricature of her sister. She had the same blue eyes, warm complexion and reddish hair as Charlotte, but her expression was completely different. Gone were the wide smile and dimpled cheeks, replaced by a grim straight line for a mouth and cheeks puckered in displeasure. "Get inside," Charlotte snapped, in an abnormally savage voice.

Victoria felt her smile dissolve in a heartbeat. "Oh God, what's happened?" she asked in alarm. "Charlotte, has someone been hurt? Not Oliver- or Samuel-"

"Nobody has been hurt," Charlotte said, coldly. "Yet."

"Then what? Mother of God, Charlotte, you're frightening me."

Charlotte took a deep breath to cool the hot anger burning in her chest. The air did nothing but fan the flames of her fury. It was as if her sister did not regard what she had just done as wrong. "Go into the kitchen and sit down," Charlotte said carefully through grinding teeth. "We will be with you shortly." 

"We?" Victoria asked. "What's happened? What's going on?" She jumped at her sister's bone-rattling shout of response.

"I told you to go and sit in the kitchen! Do as you are told for once in your life!"

Victoria reluctantly went into the kitchen and pulled out a chair. She sat down and waited for Charlotte to return. She did not have to wait particularly long. In less than a minute, Charlotte's skirt could be heard sweeping the floor about her feet as she entered the room, followed closely by Sam Morpeth's stockinged feet. 

"How was the interview for the nursing position?" Charlotte said in a cold voice. 

Victoria watched her sister carefully. She had the vague impression that somehow her sister knew exactly where she had been. How could she possibly know? Neither Charlotte nor Sam could have seen her in the street with Ned and got back to the house before she did. As it was, Victoria knew that Sam hardly ever left the house in the daytime, and if Charlotte did, it would be only to go to the greengrocers, market or to take Oliver for a walk.

"I-" Victoria began. Her sentence was finished by the dull thud of her corset hitting the table surface, accompanied by the flutter of Ned Hawke's letter.

"I think that you're the one that needs to tell us what's happened," Sam said, quietly. He was uncomfortable about the entire situation. He would have rather left Charlotte to deal with her sister, but Charlotte had insisted on his involvement. Whilst Charlotte was appalled by her sister's behavior, Sam was bemused that cold, critical Victoria could have found someone to melt the ice. As he had said to his wife, Victoria was twenty-five years of age, far too old for the two of them to be playing nursemaids to. Charlotte took a completely different line, but then women were like that. 

Victoria hurriedly snatched her letter back from the table. "How dare you read my mail?" The flash of anger that transformed her benign grey eyes into storm clouds was directed not at Charlotte but at Sam.

Sam stepped back from the table as his wife erupted. "How dare we? How dare we?" Charlotte spluttered. "This is not about our behavior, it's about yours."

"My behavior?" Victoria snapped. 

"My God, Victoria. Your father will be turning in his grave if he heard of this. He did not bring his daughters up to be what you have become."

Invoking her father's name was like holding a hot iron to her foot, for fiercely protective Victoria. She knew her father's actions to have been illegal, but told herself that it was circumstance that caused him to perform them, not any character flaw. She still clung to his past kind words and high ideals rather than moving forth to the future, as Charlotte had done. The blame for her father's death and everything else that had befallen her was sorely rested upon Charlotte, in a strangely twisted logic. "How dare you bring Father into this?" Victoria snapped. Her stormy eyes conjured up thunderbolts and the air seemed to be alive with the crackle of electricity.

Charlotte was just as ready to snap back. "I bring Father into this argument because I am deeply ashamed of you, just as he would be if he was still alive. He had pride in himself. He did not raise his children to-"

Victoria cut across her in rage. "Father did not raise us to be policeman's wives or nurses."

Victoria's comment was like a slap across Charlotte's face. "Our father did not bring you up to be spreading your legs open to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the street. For goodness sake, Victoria, don't you have any pride in yourself at all?"

"I have more pride than you did when you married him."

It was at this moment that Sam decided that he had heard enough. He left the kitchen in search of his son, Oliver. This was Charlotte's business, not his. The sooner she and Victoria got all of their secret grudges out onto the table, the better. They might argue about it and say things they did not mean, but it was better than the constant sniping he had observed between the two over the past month. They would burn themselves and the argument out, probably not speak to each other for days and finally reconcile. At least, that's what he hoped would happen. In the meantime, he would take Oliver for a walk. The boy did not need to be around his mother and aunt for the moment.

As Sam entered Oliver's tiny bedroom, he could hear his wife's voice rising higher and higher, like the call of a boiling kettle. He had never heard her like this before. She was normally the calm rock in their relationship. He was the impulsive one, the one with the fiery temper, not Charlotte.

Charlotte did not even notice her husband leave the room, she was so intently focused upon her sister. Her eyes flashed beneath pinched eyebrows. Her blood ran fiery hot, evidenced in the reddening of her pretty face and limbs. She stood over her sister, looking down and hoping to knock her from the superior pedestal she had for so long occupied. Victoria had insulted her deeply, striking out as she always did when somebody had her backed into a corner.

"How dare you say such a thing? You insult me and my husband in our home. The same home in which you lived free of board whenever fancy has taken you to leave whatever nursing position you are holding. My husband's wage feeds you and keeps you warm whilst you are here. How dare you say such things about him? I don't even know you, you're so different, so completely different to the sister I thought you were. You're nothing but a dirty strumpet, indulging in your disgusting practices behind my back."

Victoria felt seven years of repressed feelings about her sister's marriage come to a head. She was angry and hurt that her sister could accuse her of such practices, when she knew her sister indulged in them also. It was hypocritical and wrong for Charlotte to accuse her of anything improper when she was married to that man. "It's not so dirty or disgusting when you're doing it with him, is it?"

"How dare you!" Charlotte spat in fury. Tears of rage formed a heavy lump in her throat and threatened to spill down her cheeks. Her sister had lied to and insulted her. After everything they had been through together, if she couldn't trust Victoria, who could she trust? She felt betrayed by her own blood, as she had been before. Her mind was filled with images of her beautiful sister in the man's arms, naked and bleeding upon the sheets.

Victoria was oblivious to her sister's pain. All that she was aware of was that she was exposed and threatened. The only way she knew how to protect herself was to lash back. To hurt Charlotte as much as Charlotte was hurting her. To tell Charlotte exactly what had been lurking in her mind for all those years. To give voice to ideas that were thought but should never have been said. "How dare I? Look at yourself, Charlotte. You are the one who should be ashamed. You are the one who has no pride. You could have made so much of yourself, instead you settled for him. Look at yourself. Look at what you've become. You're living in this poky little place that isn't even a house. It's cold, the walls are paper thin, the neighbors are noisy and foreign. It's Spitalfields, for goodness sake. Don't you think that you deserve better than this? You should be ashamed of what you've let yourself become."

"I should be ashamed? I should be ashamed?" Charlotte heard her own voice rise to sharp shrillness then crack like glass under the pressure of the sound. "This is not about me. It's about you, Victoria. It's about you going to some dirty lodging house or bedroom, taking your clothing off, and letting a man have your body, as if you were some sort of cheap-" Here her voice cracked further as the lump of tears in her throat tried to subdue her voice. "Some sort of cheap whore. That's all you are. You have no right to look down upon me when you are nothing better than those that parade the streets at night. Who's going to have you now? What happened to all that talk about high society?"

"Who said that I would go in the first place, Charlotte? I didn't want to go, I told you that. I told you that so many times, yet you made me go. You gave me the dress, you did my hair. You told me if I was affectionate maybe he would marry me-" Victoria knew that this wasn't the truth, but somewhere along the way she was sure Charlotte was someway responsible. Charlotte was guilty for everything bad that happened to her; not that she considered Ned Hawke a bad thing at that moment.

"Don't you dare lay the blame upon me. I said be affectionate. I didn't say go and open your bloody legs for him. Besides, you went this time out of your free will. I had no hand in your actions regarding that disgusting letter. As I said before, who will have you now?"

"Ned will." Victoria said, defensively. 

"Oh, so we're on a pet name basis now. Why don't you smarten up, Victoria? Why would he want to marry you, when you've already given him what he wants? Sure, it will be all fun and games for maybe another month, but then he'll tire of you and leave you. You'll have nothing left. Who will have you then? You'll come whining back to me and my husband asking for a room and free food like you always do."

"He loves me."

"Where have I heard that before? Oh, yes, I recall. Last time, you whimpered that as I held your hair back and you vomited into the lavatory. Do you remember that, Victoria? He plied you with a bottle of champagne. You were practically unconscious when I found you. And what did you say as you vomited? He loves me. Grow up, Victoria. That excuse may have worked when you were fifteen, but ten years have passed and you should have gotten a bit smarter by now." This affront had been held against Charlotte's heart for ten years. It had burrowed away there like a worm in a spongy apple, hidden away until somebody took a big enough bite to expose it. She had sworn to herself that she would never speak of it, not even when Victoria inflamed her to anger. Now it was coming out, bit by bit.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Victoria watched her sister with weary eyes.

Victoria did not remember, not even a little, Charlotte realized. She had thought over the years that Victoria must remember something, else she would not act so strangely in male company. Obviously she was wrong. What about Hawke? Surely he must have noticed, when they- She could not think about it.

"You don't even remember; that's how intoxicated you were." Charlotte's voice was savage. She sorely wanted to hurt Victoria as deeply as she herself was wounded, but somehow she could not let the whole secret slip. As a sister, she could not say it. She might be furious with her sister now, but that would pass like the healing of a graze. Her own wounds would also be repaired with time. But the secret would slice so deeply that the wound might not heal at all.

"I don't understand." 

She might not tell her sister the secret, but that did not mean that she could not take her sister down a peg or two. Charlotte said, "That's the problem, Victoria, you don't understand. You act all high and mighty as if you are the Queen of England instead of the social nobody that you are. You judge people harshly and morally, yet you turn around and do these sorts of whorish acts behind our backs. You look down upon me for marrying a policeman, as if I have somehow lowered myself in doing so. What rights have you to do so, when you are nothing more than a whore?"

"I'm not a whore." Victoria snapped back.

"I'm sorry, I did not hear you. What did you say?" Charlotte said, sarcastically.

"I'm not a whore."

"Oh no, of course you're not, Victoria. Whore is too good a word. You are a liar and a hypocrite and a whore. How could you do these things? You told me you were going to an interview for a nursing position, but really you were going to him, dressed like some prostitute, just the way he wanted you."

"Would you have let me go, if I had said I was going to see Edward?" Victoria asked, almost timidly. She had never seen her sister in such a state before. It was frighteningly similar to the rages her Father had thrown in the last few weeks of his life. Moreover, with the chin and those eyes, God, it was almost as if he was there in front of her.

"Yes. Of course, I would have. You never asked. It was the morning, it still is. I would never have imagined that you would be off doing these sorts of disgusting acts at this hour. You must have known what you were about to do was wrong, else you would not have lied to me about where you were going." Charlotte retorted.

"It wasn't wrong. I didn't- We didn't-" Victoria protested. She hadn't had intercourse, she was a virgin yet. The other things... yes, they could be construed as disgusting, but no more so than anything Charlotte and her husband must get up to.

"Liar! I don't believe one word that comes from that serpentine mouth of yours. You disgust me." Charlotte shouted, but the doubt in her mind shook her voice just as much as her eyes did as she watched her sister's face. She saw guilt flicker in a flush of heat, the eyes waver and the bottom lip tremble. However, all these factors could also spell embarrassment. She had thought that she knew her sister well, but the evidence was piled against her. The corset, the letter. There had been other letters, Charlotte remembered. They had all been burnt. Why had Victoria kept this one?

Victoria's eyes suddenly rose in anger. How dare her sister say these things about her? She had heard Charlotte's stifled breathing in the dark hours between midnight and the morning. She knew that Charlotte liked what the policeman did to her. Victoria might like what she did with Ned, but she had kept her virginity, which was more than could be said for Charlotte. "Well you aren't exactly the Virgin Mary either, Charlotte. When he's not working nights you're at it, sweating and gasping on the kitchen floor. Don't pretend that I didn't hear you, because I did, several times. What were you doing, making more deaf children?" Victoria realized the quip had gone too far as the words escaped her lips. Either she could back down, like a weak child, or she could keep going.

"How dare you say such things in my house!"

"It's not a house and you don't own it. That's what you get for marrying a policeman. Nothing. A new dress every two years, ancient furniture, no servants-"

The small fist struck the side of Victoria's face with such force that she was thrown off balance. The next blow struck her ear and she fell to the cold floor. Victoria's chair crashed down beside her. Charlotte kicked this away as she wrenched her sister upright by the roots of her hair. Her sharp fingers pierced the scruff of Victoria's neck as she slapped her about the mouth, oblivious to the blood streaking from a split lip. She heard her sister scream in pain, but the sound only drove her onwards. Victoria's hands rose to protect her face so Charlotte battered those too. When she was finally spent, she let her sister drop to the floor, her mouth a mess of blood and saliva. "Pack your bags. I don't ever want to see you again," was the last thing she said before she left the room to find out where Sam and Oliver had gone.

*

Sam Morpeth found his wife kneeling in a pool of suds. Her arms furiously scrubbed the floor as if she were trying to clean away the guilt that blemished her conscience. For a moment, he observed the wet clothing, the reddened fingers with white knuckles and the face that was swollen with tears. It melted his heart to see his wife in such pain, yet he knew not how to approach the subject. Finally, he sank down beside her, ignoring the water that wicked into the fabric of his trousers. He took her in his arms and held her whilst she cried. 



A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 04



Ned Hawke seated himself at his desk. He pushed aside the opened books and unanswered letters. His head descended into his hands. Today had been a disaster, a complete and utter catastrophe. He should never have taken Nightingale to that horrible place with its fleas and dust. He had disappointed her, he knew, and in doing so had disappointed himself. He should have felt empty and unfulfilled, having been denied release, but he did not. His heart ached. He thought that he could never feel this way again, after Arabella. He shouldn't feel this way again. It was a game. No emotional response should come into his love-making. It was a pursuit, a chase, a game.

He seduced virgins. He made them love him, just as he had loved her. Then he dropped them from a great height and let them plummet back to the earth, their head no longer in the clouds. It was a game. It made him feel better to hear them moan and cry out as he showed them how to use their bodies. To him they were objects, not people. He did not care who they were or what happened to them after he rejected them, just as long as they were virgins. A whore could lie, a virgin could not.

He shaped them as if they were clay, like some modern day Pygmalion, into his ideals. He kissed them, he touched them, he watched their composure melt. He was the gentleman and the knight, always ready to stop when they asked and listen to tales of their vapid lives. When he made them happy, when he heard them climax, he was fulfilled. At least he could make somebody happy. The feeling was like a drug, the high achieved lessening with every consequent encounter, requiring more and more dosages, until finally he had to find a new one. 

Arabella was his Eve, in every sense of the word. She was his first and she was ultimately the poisoned apple. He had loved her. He had given himself to her like some sort of virgin sacrifice. It still hurt to remember how blind he had been to her true personality. Love and chastity had meant nothing to her. She had warped his mind and appetites, so that to this day he found himself reliving those moments repeatedly. It was the only way that he could satisfy himself. Masturbation had lost its novelty long ago. He needed women. Women that could not possibly lie to him, to whom sex was not a mechanism but a new experience. He used and discarded them, following the example of Arabella.

Now Ned had Victoria. Pretty, hostile Victoria. She was older than most women he chose to bed. A virgin, he was sure, yet strangely fiery. He thought too often about her, those eyes tattooed into his mind, the sound of her voice recorded in his ears. He did not see her breasts, nor her hair or face, just the eyes. Eyes that could change from rain to storm in the flicker of an eyelid, that could flash with lightning or glow with warmth. He loved her, he was sure. More than he had ever loved Arabella.

This was not supposed to happen to him. He was supposed to be unattached to his prey. They were supposed to love him, just he had loved Arabella, but he should never feel anything for them. They were objects, they were clay, they were nothing. 

Ned Hawke loved Victoria. That was one big problem.

He did not hear the door open or the whiff of trouser-legs rubbing over slow footsteps. It was not until Arthur Hawke senior spoke that Ned realized he was not alone. 

Arthur cleared his throat, although it was not foggy. "I saw Stephen today."

"Yes," Ned groaned. 

"Why don't you look at me when I am talking to you?" Arthur ran a hand through his sparse hair, as if checking to see if he had lost any more. It exasperated him that his younger brother, Stephen, had a full head of naturally blonde hair, whilst his was grey and coming loose by the handful. There were only two years separating them, and Stephen's job as an insane doctor must surely be far more stressful than that of a banker. So why was it that he was going bald and Stephen wasn't? On the plus side, Stephen was very overweight, whilst Arthur retained the figure of youth (although his stomach had softened and his muscles had begun to sag). 

Ned turned to face his father. "You say you saw Uncle Stephen." His blue eyes stared insolently from beneath his dark eyebrows, daring his father to rebuke him again.

Arthur took a deep breath, clearing his throat once more. "Exactly when were you planning on telling your mother and I that you had lost your position as an intern at Stephen's hospital? That really is unacceptable, Edward."

"I've already found a new position," Ned replied, quietly. Why wouldn't his father leave him alone? Couldn't he see that he was busy?

"Doing what?" Arthur asked. "If you had kept your head down, your hands to yourself and your dick in your pants, you would have inherited Stephen's position when Stephen chose to retire. That was the plan, remember? Instead, I discover that rather than performing your duties, you've been indulging your appetites whilst you were supposed to be working. For goodness sake, Edward, do you have no sense of responsibility what-so-ever? What if a patient had walked in? Stephen might have been facing some very serious legal proceedings, had that happened. As it stands, I am deeply ashamed to hear about this. I thought that you had grown out of that mind-set a long time ago. If you want intercourse, you go and pay for it. You do not seduce the nurses, especially not whilst you and the nurse are meant to be performing your duties. It is not professional and it is not acceptable."

"It was only once-" Ned protested.

"It did not occur just once," Arthur snapped. His blue eyes seemed to bulge from his reddening face. The pain in his chest was back, arriving as always in the most inopportune moments. Hurriedly, he cleared his throat. "Stephen had had complaints about your behavior before, but he had dismissed them, mainly because you were his nephew. I know you. I know that you would not settle for just one nurse when there was an entire parade of them concentrated into that small area. The complaints are very likely to be true."

"It doesn't matter." Ned watched his father's cherry-colored face. Arthur Hawke senior was grey-haired, balding, red-cheeked, bulbous eyed and pot-stomached. If this was what he was going to age into, he hoped to God that he died young. 

"Doesn't matter? Doesn't matter?" Arthur repeated these words with added emphasis, as if he could not believe his son's arrogance. "It matters a great deal. It was always intended that you would inherit the Hawke Clinic; else, I would never have invested so much money in it. As it stands, Stephen has no successor and you have no occupation. How long did you expect to get away with telling your mother and I that you were on leave from the Clinic? What on earth do you imagine that you are going to do now? I do not have the finances to indulge your every whim. It's high time that you started to take some responsibility for your own actions."

"As I said before, Father, I have already found a new position. I'm going into private practice with another doctor." Ned observed the sweat that trickled down his father's sparse cranium and into his thick left eyebrow. It reminded him of the small drops of tears that used to escape his eyes after a thrashing. Arabella had showed him how to channel has rage, disappointments and shortcomings into areas that were more constructive. She had created his need for sex as a tonic for every ailment.

"And which Doctor would this be?" Arthur asked.

His father might be angry with him now, but he sure as hell could not thrash him across the buttocks anymore. He would not have the strength. Ned was far stronger than his father. He had proved that when he was sixteen. His father had never reprimanded him with his belt again, instead he relied on words. Ned knew very well that sticks and stones could break his bones but words could never hurt him; it was a lie. A few words from Arabella's pink lips had been more painful than any belt strap, buckle and all. 

"Doctor Smales, he was at the dinner party at the Stevens' last week. I'm going to join his practice. I put the first deposit from my savings in yesterday. Until we are 50/50, part of my earnings will go back into the practise," Ned said, quietly. This was it. This was rejection on the biggest scale. Gone was the constant pushing to fulfill his father's own aspirations. 

Ned played the piano and the violin. He could read and speak French, Spanish, German, Greek and Latin. His childhood tutoring had involved advanced mathematics, languages, geography, science and history. His medical bachelorship was defined by very high examination scores. He had been forced to perform like some puppet for his father, thrashed and beaten by both the tutor and his father for failure. His life had been mapped for him. Now he was rebelling. Stuff family, he would go into practice with Smales. He would not inherit Uncle Stephen's clinic.

After a tirade, the old man departed. Ned could finally breathe easily once more. He counted the heavy footsteps receding down the hallway, mentally estimating how far away his father was. His muscles were tensed in anticipation. Adrenalin pounded through his veins, his heart throbbing in his ears and temples. He had been waiting, as he always was, for the command to lie face down on the bed and to drop his breeches. It had not come, nor had it for twelve years. Yet still he heard the clank of the belt unbuckling and felt the stiff leather whip across his flesh. He had soon learned never to show his pain or let his father know that he was winning. It was the same now. 

His face was an impenetrable mask to his true emotions, the out-looking surface changing with his environment so that he gave the appropriate responses when required. He was always playing a role, rather than his own character. He did not even know if he had a character separate from the mask, an embodiment of true self. It was too difficult to separate true emotion from projected emotion. The two were intertwined.

He would like to think that he was strong of character, but in reality he was weak. He hid behind his mask rather than say what he really felt. After the flash of anger toward his father when he was sixteen, he had never felt the need to reassert his dominance. He looked upon the man with distaste and insolence, yet he still allowed the man to push him through medical school and onwards to become Dr Stephen Hawke's successor. He had been rejected by Arabella, but had never told her the way he had felt. Instead, he used other poor, weak souls, as surrogates to punish his own pathetic mistakes. The only way he could derive happiness was by using others.

Then there was Victoria. Ned was not really sure which part of his soul responded to her, whether it be the mask or the feeble soul beneath. They were not that different, he and Victoria, when he thought about it. Both defended themselves with a mental barrier; Victoria's was laced with hostility and morality, whilst his was mannerly and polite. Victoria must have been hurt in the past, for her to display such an outward face of rigorous coldness, just as he had been. Perhaps it was that, and not her body that attracted him to her like some oppositely poled magnet. 

She had beautiful hair, an exquisite face and luscious breasts, but although he responded sexually to those attributes when she was near, they were not the forms that haunted his mind when he shut his eyes. He saw her eyes and heard her voice, not in the empty conversation she made, but in the composite sounds. It was strangely comforting to have.

It wasn't until five minutes after he ceased to hear the last footfall that Ned finally moved from his desk. He did not pick up his coat or hat, instead he slipped into the hallway, dressed just in his trousers and dressing gown. As he did so, he noticed the presence of a darkly clothed form at the far end of the dimly lit passage. He recognized her by the color and texture of her hair, blonde and mist-like. "Cathy," he beckoned.

Cathy immediately turned to face him. Ned got the distinct impression that she had been lingering in the general area in the expectation of accidentally meeting him. Certainly, the dusting cloth in her hand had seen little work; he could tell that from where he was standing. What she was doing upstairs at this late hour of the afternoon could only be explained by the smile on her face. 

She was much shorter than Victoria in stature, and her figure was far more solid. She was a healthy girl who liked her food, or at least that's how Ned viewed her. Her hair was blonde and frizzy but felt like silk in his hands. Her cheeks were full and rosy, her lips and nipples a similar shade. Her eyes were an indeterminate color; Ned had never felt the need to look at them. 

Cathy looked both ways before advancing quickly down the corridor. Her body jumped against her clothing with the motion, reminding Ned of the heavy, yet powerful rump muscles of a horse rippling beneath its tight skin. "I ain't got much time," she whispered as she pushed past him into the bedroom. "I'm s'posed to be changin' the towels in th' bathroom so as the master can 'ave 'is bath later on. I've only got a few minnits afore the 'ousekeeper gets suspicious."

Ned quietly locked the door before turning to the maid. He did not care if she kept her job or not. She was useful to have around, but he did not fool himself into thinking that he was the only one she shared her favors with. It was a nice arrangement they had; both parties involved knew that their only connection was pure, unadulterated sex. No emotion was involved on any level. 

Cathy stood and waited in the centre of the room. She knew by now that Master Ned liked to make the first move. That was part of their routine. She just hoped that he got on with it quickly, because as she had said, she did not have all day. If she appeared to be lax in her duties, she could find herself out on her arse in the street, without references. She was not worried about pregnancy; the sponge inside her body would act as a barrier to any spunk he pumped into her.

Ned's mouth touched hers and she opened her own expectantly. She let him direct her hands to hold his body and obediently opened her legs as he pushed her to the bed. He laid her gently upon the coverlet and set about unbuttoning her bodice. He kissed her ear, then her neck and finally her breasts, whilst she pressed his face against her body. Meanwhile, his careful fingers dappled up the inside of her legs, carefully circling until they found the site deep in its mound of hair. She rocked and gasped as he found the right spot, her own hand holding his in place. His mouth came back to hers and his tongue slipped past her lips as her shaking hands unbuttoned his trousers. He entered her quickly, pushing hard and fast against her body whilst she moaned and bucked beneath him.

When it was over, Cathy dressed herself quickly and departed. Ned lay back on the bed and wondered why he felt no better. Perhaps Cathy had worn out her usefulness. Or maybe it was those stormy eyes that seemed to haunt him wherever he turned. As it was, he did not feel fulfilled or happy; he was tired and spent.

*

8th October It was just after dinnertime. Ned had snuck out without seeing his family. Now he had traveled across London to visit Victoria. He had wanted to see her sooner, but had told himself that it was better to leave a few days in between visits to let her stew. Besides, he had been busy initiating the agreement between himself and Smales. His father had been interfering. 

He did have something to offer her. A job, if she would take it. He had not discussed with Smales the hiring of a nurse as a chaperone for female patients, but was sure that it would be appropriate. He had promised he would find her an occupation, so here it was.

Quickly he passed through the whining, rusty gate, through the weathered wooden door and up the stairs to the white-painted door he now associated with Victoria. He knocked loudly and abruptly and waited to hear the footsteps cobbling on the bare floorboards within. He was just about to rap again, when the sound of running feet came. The door was snatched open before his fist could meet the wood and he found himself staring into the hostile eyes of Charlotte Morpeth.

Gone was the smile that projected enough warmth to heat a room; instead, he was faced with the knitted eyebrows and pursed lips he had associated with Victoria. "You've a right cheek, showing your face here," Charlotte snapped.

"I began your pardon?" Ned asked. Charlotte replied by attempting to slam the door shut. Ned hurriedly inserted his foot between the door-frame and the door. "What's happened?"

"Go away." 

"Is Victoria home? I need to speak with her."

"Victoria does not live here anymore. I would appreciate that you leave before I call my husband," Charlotte said, coldly.

"What has happened? Where is she?" Ned studied those frowning, stormy eyes. Charlotte was able to build a barrier, just like her sister. She was inscrutable; he could not tell what she was thinking. She stared back, unblinking. It made him feel damnably uncomfortable. Quickly he dropped his gaze from her face.

"I don't know where she is, and frankly I do not care. Would you please leave before I call my husband," Charlotte said, coldly.

Ned's eyes whipped back up to the sister's face. "I don't understand. Where has she gone? I need to speak with her."

"Are you not listening to me? Victoria isn't here. Why don't you leave us alone? You've caused enough grief as it is."

A male voice sounded from somewhere within the tenement. "Charlotte, is something wrong?"

Charlotte turned her head away from Ned Hawke, her hands and body weight still holding the door as closed as she could make it. "He's here," she spat as booted feet thumped up the hallway behind her. Suddenly, a male face was staring back at Ned.

Ned finally saw Charlotte's husband, Sam Morpeth. His hair was dark, more coarse than curly, standing about his temples like the bristles of a brush and continuing down his cheeks to form hooked side-whiskers. He had wide, pink cheeks that appeared to be accustomed to smiling. This broadness was counterbalanced by a long, pointed nose. His vivid blue eyes were the sort that immediately arrested whoever looked at him. This fitted with his occupation, because standing snugly around his neck was the unmistakable stiff collar of a policeman's over-jacket. 

Ned stepped backwards from the doorway, freeing his toes from their place of wedging the door open. Mr. Morpeth was a policeman. He would never in a million years have picked such an event. Pretty, sophisticated Charlotte had chosen a man of the law as her husband; a rozzer, a copper, a policeman! Ned had thought- well, he had thought- that the man would be a clerk or a secretary or something of that nature. Not a laborer, or a man that earned his money by walking in the less savory areas of society, that fraternized with the criminal classes. The police represented a workforce that was only slightly better than the men that caught. Not that they managed to capture many, if the recent Ripper debacle played out in newspaper correspondences was true.

"What's going on?" Sam Morpeth asked his wife. His accent was more refined than Ned had expected, certainly not cockney, as he had expected as soon as he had seen the man. It was thick, yet rich like good quality gravy; Ned could not quite pinpoint exactly where it had come from. The North perhaps - he really could not tell. He definitely did not sound like a policeman, not that Ned had met many, he had only been arrested once; he still smarted over the charge.

Charlotte's disapproving eyes flicked from her husband's face back to Ned Hawke. She was glad to see that he looked uncomfortable. "This is the man that- Victoria-" The corners of her mouth tightened with displeasure. "He won't leave."




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 04



"Well, perhaps he should." Before Ned could react, the policeman was beside him, gripping his elbow and aiming him toward the staircase. His fingers were like iron, their clasp as tight as any vice. For all his boyish appearance, this man seemed entirely capable of ripping another man limb from limb. 

Sam waited until he heard the door close and his wife's feet pitter away like light rain on wet soil. Then he let go of Ned Hawke's arm. By now, they were at the foot of the staircase, in the hallway that made up the main entrance of the house. His mouth was dry. He knew not what to say. The words he had read in that letter had not really shocked him. It was the effect that they had had on Charlotte had caused him grief. He had never seen her in such a state before; she was normally levelheaded. "Why are you here?" he asked Hawke, abruptly. It was a straight question; there was no hint of hostility in his voice.

"I came to speak with Victoria. I have found her a nursing position," Ned replied, stiffly. "Where is she?"

Sam clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and mulled the question over. "Is that the only reason you came here?"

"I-" Ned felt like a small, stupid child again. It was that unnerving blue stare, he told himself. Those eyes. What was it about Victoria's family and eyes? "I wanted to see her again."

"Why?"

"Because I-" his voice was stuck in his throat. He was lost for words.

"Do you love her?" the policeman asked.

Pinpoints of heat stabbed into Ned's cheeks. His heart seemed to jolt in its fastenings. He felt his eyes grow moist and his throat become drier than any desert. He more caught off guard than if Morpeth had hit him. The policeman stared back at him, observing perhaps the destruction of his composure. "I think so," Ned admitted, finally.

"Think? You had better be sure," Sam said. He took a deep breath. "Have you bedded her?"

There was no frown in his eyes or inflection of anger in the policeman's voice, Ned thought. It was the same tone as he might use to ask a stranger the time. He had dealt with angry brothers before, but they had never acted as coolly as Victoria's brother. "No," he replied, shakily. "We kissed and touched, but nothing more than that, I promise."

"I'm sorry that I had to ask that. It isn't really my affair what you do with her, just as long as you don't hurt her."

"Did she say that I did?" Ned asked, quickly.

Sam shook his head. "No. She didn't say anything of the sort."

"Then what happened? Where is Victoria?" 

"Women fight..." The policeman took a deep breath and considered his next move. Morally, he should have shown Victoria's suitor the door and left it at that. That was what Charlotte had expected him to do. Sam thought differently. Sam's interpretation of the man's behavior was that Hawke genuinely cared about his sister. The man would not be so red and shaky if he did not. Sam believed him when he said that he had not bedded the girl. From past experience, Sam was good judge of a liar, and so far Hawke had not lied to him. Hawke could not be a debaucher. If he were, he would have chosen some busty, brainless girl with legs as easily spread as jam, rather than cold, stiff Victoria. 

Sam watched the doctor. He had the sort of face that would give him the pick of any number of ladies, should he feel that way inclined, yet he had gone for Victoria. Yes, Victoria was a beauty, but she had a tongue as sharp as any razor and the disposition of a particularly nasty lap dog; the kind that would bite you as soon as look at you. She must be special in some way in order for Hawke to put up with her, barbs and all. Hawke cared for his sister; he was sure.

"Charlotte found the letter that you had sent Victoria," Sam said, slowly. "They had a huge row and Victoria left."

The policeman's words shot through his ears and into his brain. "Shit," Ned hissed. Why on earth did he write that stupid letter? It had been a laugh, a gag, a spur of the moment thing, when he had felt his lowest. Half the words seemed to be aimed at pushing her away, just as he had wanted to do as soon as he realized what she really meant to him, and the other half were his real feelings. As real as he could hope to write upon paper. "I didn't mean- It was just a bit of fun- You know how Victoria is- Get her shocked-" Everything that had gone wrong this evening, from Victoria's absence to Charlotte's stony reception was the fault of that scribbled note. He kicked himself for sending it. Victoria could be in any sort of danger, out on her own in the East End, all because of one ill-conceived piece of paper. "Do you have any idea where she's gone?"

Sam voiced Ned's fears, "It's not safe for a woman to be alone in this area, especially with the Ripper on the loose. I tracked her down when she first left, but she would not come home. I went back the next day. She was gone, as I knew she would be. Victoria and I are like fire and water, whenever I come near, she spits. The current situation just antagonized her further. She thought that I was the one that gave Charlotte that letter, but Charlotte found it all on her own. My wife went right off, I've never seen her in such a state before. I tried to tell her that, well, Victoria's pushing six-and-twenty; it's unnatural for a woman of that age to have no interest in men. She took a different line, as ladies do."

"So you gave up looking for Victoria, after discovering her departure?" Ned asked.

Sam shook his head. "No. I know exactly where she is now-" he saw the flicker of fear in the doctor's eyes, "Don't worry, she's safe. She's in a woman's boarding house. No harm can come to her there. I was going to give Victoria a few days to decide that her new situation was worse than her last and Charlotte some time to cool down. Then I was going to approach her again."

"Which boarding house?"

Sam gave a slight smile. "I can tell you that, but there are some other things that you need to know first."

"Such as?"

"Have you a trap waiting for you outside?" the policeman asked.

"Yes," Ned said. "What's that got to do with Victoria?"

"Go and get in it, drive along until you are out of sight of the house. I'm supposed to be heading off to work. I'll go up and say goodnight to my wife and then I'll come and speak with you. I'll be ten minutes at most."

The policeman was true to his word; less than ten minutes had passed and he was rapping on the door to Ned's hansom cab. Ned heard the latch undo and moved over for the policeman to sit next to him. "Where are you heading for work?" he asked his companion.

"You don't have to drive me there, it's not far," Sam Morpeth protested. 

"We can talk as we travel," Ned replied. "Which station is it?"

Sam gave the street and Ned told the driver. 

"So what are these other things that I need to know about Victoria?" 

"I only know what Charlotte told me when I came home after Victoria left, and if comes from Charlotte, especially in the mood she was in the other day, it's not going to be objective information."

"But it's important?"

"Yes."

*

After their conversation, Ned left Sam at his station and continued on to the woman's boarding house that Sam said Victoria was staying in. He had known that there were unhealed wounds in Victoria's past, but he had never imagined that they would run far deeper than his own. It put his life into perspective, his own experiences paling beside hers. He had not lost everything as she had. He had been beaten, but he had not been raped, intercourse with Arabella had always been consensual. His father pushed, groomed and designed him into his ideals, just as her father had. But whereas Victoria had been exploited by her father for monetary gain - prostituted to multiple suitors in the hope of creating business links through marriage, at least Edward's father loved him. His father hadn't embezzled, lied or cheated to get where he was, and he certainly had not killed others and himself to escape a debt. Sam had known most of these points, having been one of the investigating officers on the case, but he had not known about the rape. It was debatable whether Victoria herself knew. 

He got out and paid the cabdriver. Then he strode across to the shabby, grey building that he took to be the women's boarding house. He stopped and talked to the doorman and discovered that Victoria had only stayed two nights before moving on to somewhere else. Where, the man knew not. 

Ned kicked himself. Where was she? As Sam Morpeth had said, it was bloody dangerous to be a single woman in this area. He hated to think of his Nightingale alone and frightened in some horrible garret of a room, if she had gotten that far. What if she hadn't? What if she'd been attacked or abducted? He had heard stories of respectable women who had been manhandled, drugged and taken to some terrible brothel to work. He had always dismissed them as urban myths, but now they played heavily on his mind. What about Jack the Ripper? This was his stamping ground. Ned had read all the lurid details of the four women who had had their throats slashed and bodies mutilated. And if Jack didn't get Victoria, there were always the drunks, the lechers, the Jews and the foreigners (both viewed as naturally sinister at that time). Anything could happen to her.

He strode down the street with his fists balled in his pockets in apprehension. Where could Victoria have gone? Why had she left the relative safety of the woman's boarding house, a place guarded by a doorman and free of men? He saw the soft, white skin that he had brushed with his hands scratched and bleeding. He saw her pretty, tightly bound hair thrown around her head in disarray, her scared eyes screaming from the shadows cast by her attacker. Blood formed lines like a strand of string, and then beaded like a red necklace before streaming from her cut skin. He needed to protect her. He needed to find her.

The air struck his face like a solid fist of ice. Good Lord, it was cold. Even through his coat, jacket, waistcoat and singlet, it stabbed his ribs like a knife. He was not used to this weather. He thought of Nightingale lying somewhere in the cold, her skin blue and blotchy with impaired circulation. Slipping out of consciousness, beyond the shivering stage...

There were people all around, bustling in and out, carrying on their own private lives at this hour. He kept his head down and did not make eye contact. Any of these people could hurt him, just because he had what they didn't. A warm coat, a top hat, boots that did not leak when he stood in a puddle. They would do the same to Victoria, taking advantage of her inexperience in such a world. 

Where was she? What sort of trouble could she be in? He would search until he found her. But where? There must be a hundred lodging houses and tenements in the area. He would have to enter all of them.

He started to look up at the buildings around him, noticing which ones appeared to hold more than one room and which ones had doormen. He started to ask questions, repeating her name over and over again, but getting no response. It wasn't until he noticed a woman going into a tenement that he stopped.

She had dark hair tucked up beneath a plain straw bonnet. The skin beneath was pale, but not pasty. Her dress was flat, dark and drab, draping a curvaceous form. She held her small, naked hand upon her hip at a suggestive angle, he thought. As he approached her, he saw the chiseled rim of her lips form a smiling pout. "Are yer looking for summat?" the girl asked.

"I was wondering whether you could tell me something." It was a long shot, he knew, but maybe, maybe she'd know something. She looked as if she knew the area well. 

"Oh, and what would that be?" She was a toucher, her hand flickering through the air between them to tap the area above his heart. Her body was now in his space, her breasts resting no more than a few inches from his chest. He saw now that she was in her twenties, her skin already showing signs of age, creased and sunken beneath her dark eyes.

Ned smiled and removed the hand that was clamping his breast. He turned it over in his gloved fingers and palpitated the frozen palm. "I'm looking for a woman."

She gave a silly, high-pitched laugh that shot through the cold air in white blasts of warmth. "Look no further. I'll soon get yer warm." 

Her pink lips loomed closer, barely masking the scent of hops and stale alcohol. It made his stomach rather than his heart leap. Quickly he broke away from her. "I'm sorry, you must have misunderstood me. I'm not looking for any woman, I'm looking for a particular woman."

"Particulee aye? And how's that? I'll take yer cock wherever yer want; in me mouth, me privy, even me arse, if it pleases yer. I'm very accomplished, yer see."

Bile rose in Ned's throat. This womanly figure should have been attractive. She was not ugly or old. The way she peddled herself forward like some ware made him sick. It reminded him all too much of Arabella. "Her name's Victoria Buckley. She's about the same height as you, same hair color, similar figure," he saw the girl's lips prickle in disbelief, quickly he added, "If you can find her, I'll make it worth your while."

Money could always buy out rejection. "How much?"

"More than you'd make if I'd fucked you. But the condition is that you come with me to wherever you say she is before I pay you, understand? I'm not having any shite." His eyes were steely and cold, not unlike the money pressed firmly into his inner jacket pocket (he was not taking any chances; he could not afford for it to jangle and alert a potential mugger). 

They went to three different tenements before the woman finally found somebody who had seen Victoria. It was just after midnight when Ned arrived at her door. She lived on the second storey of a block of rooms belonging to a landlord named Bernard. The staircase that lead up to this floor was within a small room with street access, which was unlocked and seemed to be kept permanently open. Ned's heart raced when he realized that anybody could wander in from the streets and gain access to the rest of the house, and Victoria. From the rickety old staircase, he and the woman walked along a thin, creaking passageway, which ran between two sets of rooms. The walls dividing rooms were paper-thin, permeable to light, sound and the air. They were recent installments used to subdivide much larger rooms to maximize Bernard's profit. 

When he came to room eleven, he gently knocked, hoping that the woman had indeed found the right Victoria. No reply came from within. He banged harder, not realizing that the occupant within was curled up beneath her blankets in fright. He tried the doorknob, causing the heart of the occupant to leap into her mouth. She waited to hear the key in the door, praying that the barricade she had set up would prevent the man's entry. The sound did not come. Instead, she heard a man's voice ask, "Victoria, are you in there?"

Her breathing shuddered through her chest. She could swear that he would be able to hear her heart beat through those horrible thin walls. She tightened the finger-locked grip upon her pillow, pulling it down upon her face to stifle her breath. She heard the man's voice booming through the tiny shell that was her room. She recognized it, she thought. Slowly she pulled the pillow from her mouth. "Who is it?" she said, in a strangled squeak of a voice.

"It's Edward." 

Her body ran with fire. He'd found her. She was going to be all right. It wasn't the other man. She scrambled from the bed and pulled her shawl about her shoulders. Her shaking fingers found the stump of candle that sat in its meager iron dish, and the packet of matches beside it. She struck the flame hurriedly, feeling the sting of heat warm her frozen fingers.

"Victoria?" 

"I'm coming." In the faint, globular light of her candle, she examined the space she called her room. Bare wooden walls, a small iron bedstead, a short table, a set of drawers and a chair, all crammed into a tiny space. Her skirts and dress were draped across the chair, forming a frightening dark shadow like a crouching man. There was no place for them to hang. 

She spat upon her cold fingers and organized her hair back into the long braid from which it had escaped. She straightened her skirt and wound the shawl more closely about her shoulders. She must look a frightful mess, but she had no glass to examine herself. 

Ned heard the sound of furniture grating across the floorboards as Victoria removed the barricade she had placed upon the door. She turned the icy iron of the key in the locking mechanism and pulled the door inwards toward her. 

Her face was lit only by her small candle, but seemed far more shadowed than it should be. He made out the purple blossoms of bleeding beneath the skin and saw the cracks where the blood had escaped from her lips. Her left cheek was discolored with mottled bruises, as was her jaw. The glazed eyes that met his seemed less powerful than before, sunken into the shadows thrown by her lower eyelids. Her smile was slack, the broken lips drooping at the sides.

"My God, what happened to you?" Ned gasped. He watched as her facial composure cracked into tears. It tore him up inside. Quickly he gathered her in his arms, depositing the flailing candle upon the chest of drawers just inside the bedroom door. He felt her body heave with the grief that escaped her chest in a sobbing roar, like a wounded animal. He held the silky dark hair against his shoulder, and did not care about the salty warmth that wicked into his collar. "It's all right now," he heard himself whisper.

The stupid bitch who had found Victoria chose this moment to ask for payment. He whirled upon her, almost in rage for interrupting him, and handed her a handful of change that he been sliding against his thigh through the fabric of his trousers. She said some sort of obscenity, but this was drowned by the sound of the door slamming in her face. He flicked the large key in its lock less than a second later as the fists struck the wood.

He turned back to Victoria. "Don't worry; she'll tire herself out soon."

"Who is she?" Victoria stuttered through her tears. "She looks like a-"

Ned nodded. "She is. But I didn't pay her for that. I paid her to find you," he said, shortly. He watched the bruised mouth sink back into rest. "What happened to you? What happened to your face?"

Her mouth contorted as she tried to hold back a fresh crop of tears. "Charlotte... Charlotte found the letter you sent me... She was so angry- I've never seen her like that... She was so angry, like I've never seen her before. It reminded me of Father, before he died-"

"She struck you?"

"Yes," Victoria whimpered.

"For being with me? Didn't you tell her that we never did anything?" Ned asked.

"No, I never- I got angry. That's why she slapped me."

"She did more than slap you, those bruises are from a beating. God, Victoria, why did you let her do that to you?"

"I deserved a good slapping. I feel so guilty-"

"Why? Because you wanted me to kiss you and hold you? You shouldn't be ashamed of that, it's natural."

"I said some terrible words to Charlotte. I said things that I should never have thought, let alone said aloud. I let my tongue run ahead of my brain and I hurt her more than I have ever hurt anybody. I goaded her and pushed her until she struck back."

"What did you say that could have aroused her anger enough to beat you? She does not strike me as an angry person."

"She's not. Father had a temper, I have a temper, but Charlotte has always been levelheaded. It takes a lot to bring her to rage. It's the sort of anger that builds up for weeks before it finally blows, whilst mine is spent and gone in the place of a day. I'd been needling her for days, I knew it was coming. I just didn't expect her to be so vicious toward me, and to say such things. I'm her sister, we've been together all my life. Sisters should not fight like we did."




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 04



"What did she say to you?"

"She called me whore. She read the letter and she-"

"I'm sorry I sent it."

"She shouldn't have been reading it. He shouldn't have been looking for it."

"He?"

"Her husband. I'm sure he saw me hide the letter. He would have pulled it out, read it and given it to Charlotte, anything to get me in trouble."

"Why would he do that?"

"He hates me and I hate him."

"Why?"

"Because he resents that Charlotte and I had a better life before he came along. He's trained it out of Charlotte, so that she settles for that cheap accommodation, shabby furniture and clothes. She even talks differently when she's around him. It's horrid."

"Do you think he's really like that?"

"Yes. He's horrible."

"Because he was born in less austere circumstance to you?"

"No."

"It seems to me that you're the one with the resentment against him, rather than the reciprocal."

"That's not true- I-"

"You don't like him because he's poor and he makes your sister happy, more happy than anybody has ever made you and more happy than your family ever made your sister. You hate Sam Morpeth, not because of anything he has ever done to you, but because of what he is. That is why you said whatever you said to Charlotte. You wanted to break the happiness she seemed to have, because you did not have it."

"No- Why are you saying these things? I told you I feel guilty-"

"If you do, that is why."

"Why are you being so nasty to me?"

"It's the truth."

"What rights have you to speak to me like this? How dare you?"

"Victoria, please."

"You're supposed to make me feel better, not worse!"

"I'm sorry. It wasn't supposed to come out like that."

"How was it supposed to come out?"

Ned touched the cold fists that were held defensively in front of the woman's body. In the flickering candlelight, he could see that they were pale and mottled with sluggish circulation. He reached further up her forearm, inside the loose sleeve of her nightshirt. The skin got no warmer; instead, he felt the tiny muscles beneath the skin erecting the hairs in response to the cold. "God, you're like ice. Have you been lying here in the cold for all this time?"

"What are you doing?" Victoria snapped, pulling her arm away. She wrapped her shawl more tightly over her body so that the only part visible above her hips was her face, the only thing below, the expanse of white nightshirt. She felt his hand brush her bruised, vulnerable face and jerked her head back.

"It's freezing in here. You don't even have a fireplace-" 

"There's one in the kitchen for everybody to use."

"Have you got a warming pan?"

"Where am I supposed to get one of those?"

"What about stockings, are you wearing any?"

"Of course I am." She felt his hands run up her clothed thigh and flinched. "Don't do that."

Ned's hands retracted. "Have you any more stockings?"

"Yes," Victoria said, suspiciously.

"Where are they?"

"In the chest." 

He quickly fumbled through the drawers, causing the candle seated on top to rattle, the cast light shaky. His hands returned with a pair of woolen socks. "Why aren't you wearing these?"

"I've already got stockings on," she protested as he motioned her toward the bed. "What are you doing?"

"Sit down." His hands pressured her to do so and she did, reluctantly. He knelt before her and took one of her feet in his hands, rubbing it vigorously through the cotton of her stocking. "Rub your arms to get your circulation running, else you'll catch cold and be very sick." It was an overstatement, but she needed the motivation to get herself warm. He looked up at her and saw she wasn't obeying. "Rub your arms, Nightingale, or I'll do it for you."

Having slipped the socks upon her small, cold, feet, he got back up. "Where's your cape? You need to put that on as well."

Victoria's eyes met his in displeasure. "It was stolen."

"When?" Ned asked, alarmed.

"At the woman's boarding house-"

"Didn't you keep it in your sight? It's the sort of thing the people around here would love to get their dirty hands on."

"I'm not stupid, you know," Victoria snapped.

"Then what happened?" 

"I had to share a room with three other women. I put my suitcase in my locker, but I slept with my cape over my bed to keep me warm. I woke up the next morning and it was gone. I don't know who took it. I complained to the keeper, but she didn't do anything. So I left. Now I'm in this shit-hole."

"You shouldn't swear."

"I hate it here!" Her voice was vicious, but brittle. He could see a gleaming ridge of tears building upon her lower eyelid.

"Look, it's going to be all right-" Ned sat down beside her and placed a gentle arm over her shoulders. She shook him away.

"How?" Her voice had lost the vicious conviction and now came out in broken sounds. He saw her try to blink the tears from her eyes.

"I found you a new nursing position, like I said I would." Ned's arm crept back over her shoulder and this time she did not pull away. 

"Where?" she sniffed.

"I'm going into practice with a doctor named Richard Smales. He's a bachelor, so we'll need a nurse as a chaperone for female patients," Ned said.

"What happened to the Hawke Clinic?"

He hadn't planned to tell her, but it came spilling out anyway. "I lost my position there, over a month ago. Immediately- maybe a two days, after you left. Uncle seemed to be in the mood to lose some members of staff."

"Why?"

He took a deep breath and felt his heart palpitate against his ribs. Suddenly, he was not so sure of himself. "One of the nurses complained about me, Miss Ramsey, it was."

"On the night I lost my job, she lied to Dr. Hawke about how long I was away from Mrs. Gore. It wasn't half an hour. It was ten minutes, if that. She's poisonous. What did she say about you?" Victoria whispered, vehemently.

"She told the truth, about me. I harassed her, just as I harassed you-"

"You made her touch you? That's disgusting!" Victoria pulled quickly from his body. It did not feel so safe to have this man's arm about her waist, to smell his man smell and contemplate kissing him. Charlotte's words rose into her mind like bile from her gut. She had told herself that Charlotte was wrong, that Ned was not the sort of man that would use her and then leave her, when every piece of evidence pointed in the opposite direction.

"I touched her- But you have to understand, it didn't mean anything to me-"

"Does that mean that what you did to me didn't mean anything either?" Victoria snapped.

"No, Victoria, no-" He scrambled to get his arms back around her waist but she had pulled from him, and her nails were scratching to get away. He pushed her harder, levering his body weight across hers until he had her pinned beneath him. He heard her give a stifled scream, but he did not stop. "Please don't scream." He flattened her shoulders to the bed and held her wrists in place with his hands. "You have to understand, I love you."

"You're hurting me- Please stop-" Victoria shrieked. She felt his hard erection digging into her stomach. Her abdomen tensed in response. "Don't- Please-" Her voice lowered to a whimper as she felt his hasty fingers scratching to raise the fabric of her nightdress, his hot mouth pinching the skin on her neck.

He saw the fear in her eyes and it killed him. She was like some trapped animal, lying beneath him, waiting for the lash of pain. Quickly, he pulled himself away. Why was he doing this? It wasn't supposed to happen this way. The fear in her eyes drove the tears from his. He left her clenched in a ball upon the bed whilst he sank upon the clothing draped chair, his head in hands. "I'm sorry," he heard his voice say, sounding so distant and coarse. What had he become? He was no better than a rapist. "I'm so sorry. I do love you. I'm sorry."

She watched his body heave as the tears rushed from his body. The brute was gone, replaced by a scared, crying child. "Why are you crying?" she whispered.

The cheeks beneath his eyes ran with water. His eyes were red and bloodshot. "I hurt you. I forced you back- I shouldn't have done that. I'm so sorry."

"I don't understand-"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this. None of it. You weren't supposed to be- I wasn't supposed-"

"You love me?" Victoria said, incredulously.

"Yes." She saw him start to shake as the tears came hot and hard from his eyes. "I'm so so sorry."

Victoria was still confused. "Why are you sorry?"

"I love you. You don't understand. I'm not supposed to love anybody- I can't- But you, I don't know what it is, but you, you're like me and I love you-" His voice broke. "God- I'm sorry I scared you- So sorry-"

The fear was gone as quickly as it had come. Victoria regarded the frightened, crying man who sat hunched beside the bed. Ned's words had lost any coherency, replaced by throat-tearing sobs. One thought gleamed in her mind. Grown men didn't cry like that unless they really thought that they had lost something important. She had certainly never seen her father or Sam Morpeth cry, even when times became especially tough. Ned didn't strike her as especially melancholic. He loved her, or so he said. He thought that he had lost her forever by trying to- Had he really forced her? Wasn't that what she had wanted all along? It was fear at his speed, fear at how he had become like an animal, pushing to take what she would have willingly given him. What about Patricia Ramsey? Should she forget about it? It had happened before he had come to visit her at Charlotte's, she had no rights over him then.

She got up and stood in front of him. They didn't touch. For the first time, she didn't hear a small voice in the back of her mind, cautioning her about her actions. The only sounds that the vibrating bones of her ears picked up was the massive, drumming beat of her heart, her rasping breath and Hawke's tears. Her tongue was thick with emotion, the words seeming to stick to the dry skin of her throat so that her voice was unnaturally husky. "I love you too, I think." It was as if a dam had broken inside of her. Once the words had fallen from her tongue, her own tears fell from her eyes, mingling with his upon the cold floorboards until they were indistinguishable.

Ned's body lurched as if a bolt of lightning had passed through him. The game was over, at last. He felt naked; the protective mask of non-emotion torn from his body by his own buried thoughts. The skeptic in his mind told him to leave now, but his boots remained fused to the floorboards. For a moment, he couldn't look at her, for fear she'd see the pathetic creature that remained now that everything else had gone. His running eyes slowly rose, taking in the shawl-shrouded creature that stood before him in her long, loose nightshirt. He saw the trembling lower jaw, with its small divisive cleft and the tears running from her glittering eyes. She was just as afraid as he was. "Really?" he whimpered.

"I think so." Victoria felt the tight grip of her fingers upon her shawl relax as the woolen fabric slipped from her shoulders. It was strange, that now everything was out in the open, they were both equal. She did not get the feeling that he was looking down upon her, laughing at her, or pushing her anymore.

"What do we do now?" Ned gasped as Nightingale's shawl fell to the floor. She stood before him in her thick nightshirt. The firm mounds of her breasts, mounted by cold-stiffened nipples pushed upon the fabric of her shift. He wanted to reach for her, but he no longer knew how.

"I don't know," Victoria whispered. She wished he would do something to make her feel less vulnerable.

He saw the fabric of her clothing shiver as the body beneath responded to cold and emotion. "You must be freezing," he whispered. "You'll catch your death of cold, if you're not careful." He recognized the warmth of his gray coat, a final insulative layer over his jacket, waistcoat, shirt and singlet. He got to his feet and shrugged the garment from about his shoulders. "You'd best put this on." He had not recognized another person's need like this before. If he was treating a patient, the test of his own knowledge drove him to the cure, rather than any compassion for their condition. If he gave a woman a handkerchief, it was only so that she would be emotionally in debt to him.

Ned stood behind her and helped her into the coat. It was about the right length, but far too broad across the back for her body. At least she would be warm. He then picked up the shawl and wrapped this over the top of the coat. "You don't have to put yourself in discomfort because of me," Victoria protested, but he quieted her with a kiss, tasting the salt of their combined tears upon her warm lips. 

Her arms quickly became intertwined with his as she pulled him against her chest. Her kisses were urgent and violent, her lips pressed to his as if she wanted to contain him within her body. His lower lip became caught between her wet lips as the pressure of her small hands on his neck brought his mouth hard against hers. 

His hands traced the warm, naked curves of her body beneath her clothes, his loins stiffening in the response. She gave an involuntary groan as his hands reached the soft swell of her buttocks and dipped into the hot crease between her cheeks. He heard his own coarse breathing as he felt her readiness. The sudden thrust of her hips in response to his roving fingers drove his arousal upward. In a fluid movement, they were both upon the narrow bed. 

He gently pulled up her nightshirt to expose the milky, white skin of her thighs to the flickering candlelight. They were long and soft, curved and womanly. He ran his hands over the fine hairs of her flesh and felt the aroused prickling associated with the cold. She shivered in response, and his eyes flashed up to her face. He saw the fear, burning as brightly in her eyes as it had when they had argued, only this time, she was unresisting. "I won't hurt you," Ned whispered. He hoped, with all his heart, that that was true.

She was his. He ached to earth himself inside of her, to open her thighs and thrust into her depths. To push and grunt, hear her moan and feel her writhe. Another part of him thought that if he did this, he would hate her, just as he hated the other girls. She would have let her passions get ahead of her and become nothing better than a whore. The love he felt for her, as fragile as a butterfly's wing, would be torn away. He told himself that it was different with Nightingale, but was it? He couldn't tell. If he bedded her, the pull he felt for her might be gone, once she had fulfilled her idealism. But she wasn't ideal, was she? She wasn't a virgin, but she wasn't a whore like Cathy or Arabella. What was she to him? Why did he care that her sister had beaten her black and blue? Why did he want to protect her?

His attraction to the other girls had arisen from a need to punish them, in turn punishing himself, for ever thinking that somebody could possibly love them. For giving away their innocence to somebody merely because that person paid attention to their futile, stupid lives. They were no better than he had been, mooning after the illustrious Arabella because she comforted him and made him smile. What made Victoria any different?

Some element of her being was the same as his. He had felt it, when he had first taken her to the meetinghouse. It was part of the way she defended herself from intruders with barbs of her tongue and flashes of her eyes. There was something about her that was in him. He didn't know what, but it was there. He had always thought that opposites attracted, but perhaps this was an exception to the rule...

Her features hadn't relaxed from the strain of fear, he saw. He was also conscious of how stiff her limbs had become beneath his expert hands. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I've frightened you." He pulled the fabric back down across her nakedness, and moved aside so that his weight rested beside her. He reached for the blankets, but she had already pulled them over their bodies. As she did so, the candle guttered and died.

Victoria shifted her body toward the wall, to give him more space. Her body felt strangely hot, with the tingling wetness between her thighs that she always felt when Ned had kissed her. In part, she was glad that they had stopped. She did not want to, she couldn't, fulfill Charlotte's description of her. She was not a whore. She was (in her mind), and was determined to stay, a virgin. Yet still she felt the arousal burning her flesh, jolting her insides as the tiny muscles within her constricted around her moist orifice. This feeling intensified as Ned Hawke's body pressed itself behind hers, one of his hands passing beneath her body then hooking over breast, the other gently stroking her bruised face.

"You're beautiful." His hot breath caressed the line of her jaw, her ear and finally the side of her neck. She felt his lips close over the skin there, parting so that the warm wetness of his mouth pulled her flesh against his tongue. Her body grew hot with desire, but she remained motionless. Her arousal heightened as he moved his soft lips down the curve of her neck, until she felt herself shiver in his embrace. Slowly, she moved her aching body against his. 

His loins stiffened as he felt her buttocks press against his genitals. He quickly moved his pelvis away for fear he might do something he regretted. At the same time, his hands reached inside the cocoon that he had so expertly made from the coat and shawl and unbuttoned the neck of her nightshirt. She felt his arms form a cross on her chest, as each hand palpitated the opposite, sweaty breast. For moments, his tender fingertips traced the curves of her body, circling in closer and closer to her hardened nipples. Just as she started to shake, he stopped. His fingers rested on her longing flesh. The feeling was somehow comforting and asexual. He kept his hands upon her as he tightened his embrace to her back. She ran her fingers over his hands, holding them to herself as she heard his breathing relax. 

"Are you sleeping?" Victoria whispered. He didn't reply. She burrowed her body further into his embrace and shut her eyes. Sleep was a blessing that she had hardly experienced since she left her sister's house. She tried not to drift away, but she found herself doing so. In the security of his arms, she forgot the terrors of the previous night.

Ned heard her snore and wished that he could sleep as easily. Tears dripped down his cheeks, as he felt her breathe. He hadn't felt as he did now for twelve years. Not since that bitch, Arabella. It frightened him that he did not feel empty or hollow anymore. Victoria had filled the void in his soul. She shouldn't have, but she had. He didn't care that he hadn't had intercourse with her, there seemed to be no rush. Having his arms around her body was all the closeness he needed whilst he slept.



A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 05



When he awoke in the morning, he was first conscious of the warm, rounded figure in his arms. Her back was to him, her braid partially caught under his own head, the rest of her hair a few inches from his nose. It smelt heavily of cheap soap and did not seem so silky in the early morning light. He did not care. His right arm was folded up against her back and he could feel her body expand against it with every breath. His left arm passed beneath her left and rested against the clothed curve of her left breast. 

The next thing he became conscious of was the firm, soft swell of her buttocks pressed against his pelvis. His bodily response was partially brought on by the need to pee, partially by the effects of sleep, but mainly by the knowledge that his dick was only inches from her tight cunt. He remembered the look on her face the night before and moved his body away; the last thing she needed was to awake to a prod in the posterior. As he did so, she rolled over, and her arms came around his neck, pulling his mouth down against hers. He felt himself stiffen in response to the movement of her warm lips and the soft, but firm, mounds of her breasts against his chest. When she finally released him, she was smiling.

"What was that for?" Ned asked her.

"You didn't leave me here." 

It sounded like the line from a fairytale play. But this was no play. He was no hero, come to save her from the abyss that was the East End; he had nowhere to take her. She was no heroine, no Cinderella; her recent falls from grace had been her own fault. They were both flawed and far from idealistic. He worried that, if he bedded her, he might never want her again. It had happened before. He didn't want that to happen. He couldn't let it happen.

Abruptly, Ned pulled away. "Have you got a chamber pot?"

Victoria nodded. "Under the bed."

She watched as he took the small, shining white pot from beneath the bed, thankful that she had emptied her own urine from the bowl the day before. Bodily functions were never supposed to be mentioned, the evidence of them never seen. 

From the corner of her eye, she saw him unbutton the grey fly of his trousers. She knew from previous inspection that he had quite a noticeable bulge there. From within the trousers she saw the white fabric of his drawers and something else, something meaty, edging its head out of the opening in the front of the drawers. She gasped as his hand reached for his thick organ and quickly averted her gaze in fright as his eyes met hers.

"Are you watching me?" Ned asked.

Her head trembled as she gasped, "No- I- No-"

"Do you want to...?" He let the question hang, feeling himself stiffen even more as he regarded her embarrassed, red cheeks. He sure as hell couldn't pee now.

"No-" Victoria felt heat rise to her face and chest like a wave of fire. Her insides were melting, her heart pounding in anticipation.

"You didn't let me finish the question," Ned accused with a smile. "I was going to ask whether you wanted to get breakfast."

"No, you weren't." Victoria's eyes flashed back to his groin, which he had endeavored to cover with a protective hand.

He sat on the bed beside her, feeling the warmed fabric where his body had so recently lain against hers. The lumpy straw mattress beneath pressed through its shabby lining and into his buttocks. He had already inspected the bedding for fleas and found none, thank god. As he lay back, he heard the springs groan beneath his weight, and wondered for the umpteenth time exactly what was holding this platform up. It was only a thin, single bed, perhaps it would not hold two people for terribly long. He felt Victoria's body shuffle from his side.

He moved closer to clasp the soft curve of her waist, knowing that the wall barred her from moving any further away. Her head turned to face his, the soft lips tantalizingly close. "Please don't-" he heard her gasp into his opened mouth. It was a different protestation from the one she had given the night before. The air around her was live with arousal. He could feel it in the trembling flesh of her hip, see it in the sweat forming upon her brow and smell it in the faint, musky smell of the female sex that seemed to cling about her body like a skin. When he kissed her, her lips were flaccid for a moment, then they started to respond strongly. In a simultaneous maneuver, she had turned her body toward his, pulled his mouth down tightly against hers and pushed her tongue inside his mouth. She pressed her full breasts into his chest, her arms pulling him so close that their heartbeats seemed to be one. At the same time, she kept her hips as far from his erection as possible. The fluid movements of her full lips, arching breasts and to a lesser extent, her tightly closed thighs that every now and then jolted his member, were incredibly arousing. It was his turn to gasp when she finally let him go.

He had to pull away. "I think you should get dressed," Ned whispered to Victoria. "We should get breakfast, then I have to go. First I'll urinate, though." He told himself that it was the right thing to do, to leave the act undone, the words unsaid. Then he could never hate her. For a second, he saw her eyes gleam with disappointment, then she turned back toward the wall as he tried to make himself flaccid. It did not work. Quickly, and rather painfully, he buttoned his arousal back into his trousers. She left the bedding a moment later, her face partially obscured by her braid and the lean of her head, so that he could not see the tears ebbing upon her dark eyelashes. With her back to him, she reached for a drab gray dress, which had been draped carefully across the chair before he sat upon it. She took that cage of womankind, the corset, from the top drawer of her chest, along with a fresh pair of drawers. 

"Do you want me to wait outside?" he asked.

"If you like," she muttered, as she slammed her hands against the drawer. A corner of fabric caught in the crack and it would not shut. She pulled the handle back and slammed again.

He caught her arm as she did so, forcing her to face him. He saw the slippery rivulet of tears decorating her bruised cheek and it jolted his heart. "Don't cry."

Victoria shook his arm off. "I'm not," she snapped, without assurance.

"Please don't cry."

Her anger was like a furnace of hot fire, rushing over her soft features and turning them to hardened steel. Her eyebrows angled downward like knifepoints, over narrowed, spearhead eyes. "I'm not crying. Just let me dress myself."

"Do you want me to help you?" he asked, slyly, as his hands caught her shoulders.

"No. I can manage perfectly well on my own." Her words savagely severed his hold on her body as she struggled away. "Leave me be." 

Victoria turned away from the doctor, warm with the knowledge that he was watching her. She shouldn't be so angry with him, she told herself, he had respected her when she had said she didn't want to. But she had wanted to. Her arousal was burning through her body, driven onwards by her thundering heart. She could feel the heat rising to her face and limbs. The hairs upon her body stood erect, as did her nipples. She felt the wetness between her legs increase as the strange muscles down there began to contract. Maybe Ned would notice, maybe he would- but it would hurt- wouldn't it?

There was no ladylike way to undress with a man in the room. It would be best if she did so quickly, would it not? Quickly, she stripped away Ned's coat, then the shawl beneath, and finally her nightshirt, revealing her completely bare body to Ned's eyes. He saw her white flesh, curved like the body of a violin, so close that if he wanted to, he could touch her. The waist so narrow that he could almost contain it within two hands, flared to wide hips with beautifully soft, round buttocks. As he watched, she bent over to climb into her drawers and the cleft between those buttocks gently eased open, the flesh on either side flexing to step into the fabric. He nearly cried out as he saw the plump, pink lips guarding the entrance of her body. His loins pounded with blood as he took a deep breath and tried to look away. He couldn't. 

A flash of white, and fabric covered her bottom. She straightened up, the muscular furrow of her back contracting and relaxing like a snake. The curves of her breasts jutted out as she bent forth and raised her arms to accommodate the neck of her corset. It was loose, but fully laced, he saw, so that she could dress herself without assistance. The bones of the garment strained as she pulled her body upright, her accustomed hands tugging the laces to tightly squeeze her body into shape. As much as he hated those garments, he couldn't help feeling aroused as she trapped herself within her clothing. He imagined what it would be like to release those bonds and see her body, those flattened, soft breasts bulge into their natural form in front of his eyes. 

He noticed that she was having trouble finally securing the laces at the base of the corset. Quickly, he advanced to her side, a gentle hand upon her bare shoulder and took the knot from her hand. As he secured the laces in place, he found his lips tracing the skin upon her naked neck. He felt her skin shiver beneath his mouth and hastily withdrew, his loins stiffening violently. "You shouldn't wear that," he rebuked her, more strongly than he had intended. "Have you any idea what one of those things does to your internal organs?"

She took a deep breath before replying in an acidic voice, "It keeps me warm and ensures that my clothing fits. It cannot be that dangerous or the entire medical profession would be warning all women against wearing such devices."

Ned recalled the unnatural placement of the organs of some of the female cadavers he had dissected and shivered. "Corsetry will do you no good. Trust me."

"It isn't any of your business what I wear," Nightingale snapped. 

He withdrew, quickly. "Very well. I'll wait outside until you are finished."

She heard the door unlock, open and then sweep shut, leaving her alone in the room with her thoughts. She wished she didn't behave as she had, wished that her tongue's sharp edge would be blunted. For some silly reason, her mind rushed back to Charlotte. Charlotte always knew what to say. Charlotte had a husband who loved her. Charlotte put people at ease, whilst Victoria put people's backs up. There was resentment there, there always had been. Try as she might, Victoria could not escape it. If she were Charlotte, what would Charlotte do now? Perhaps it would be best to carry on as if it didn't happen. Victoria quickly dressed herself in the remaining clothing, then brushed her hair. When she opened the door, Edward Hawke was gone.

He was halfway down the stairs to the road before he stopped and wondered what on earth he was doing. Walking away, just like that, pretending that nothing had ever happened. Leaving Victoria and his new hat, and his coat behind. The loss of the latter two belongings was almost as brittle as losing the woman herself, or at least he attempted to tell himself so, lying to himself that he didn't love her.

Victoria. After seeing her bruised face crack into tears, her eyes flowing with emotion, he had wanted to save her. His motives had passed the desire to lay her on her back and give her a good rogering. But now he was afraid of her, because she alone had seen what no-one else had for such a long time, the glimmering soul hidden beneath the mask. Try as he might, he could not dominate her as he had intended, as he had done so to the other girls. He could not even make the words shooting from the tip of his tongue say what he meant. She had a hold over him. It made him uncomfortable.

He couldn't just leave her there. There, in that cupboard of a room, without light or warmth like some plant locked in a closet. He could not leave her isolated in a cage in the wilds of Spitalfields, the masses and murderers and rapists all ready to pounce the minute his back was turned. He could not leave her because he loved her.

It was as if an invisible thread bound them soul to soul. She was part of him because she had seen him for what he really was, just as he had seen her. When their tears had fallen, the chain had been forged. He was dammed if it was broken, even if he did so himself. If he walked away, he would be walking away without his soul. He had gone for years without really seeing or feeling, now he could feel reality like a paper-sharp cut on his finger. It hurt. But then, it was supposed to. If he left Victoria, he would never feel the pain or the pleasure of life again. It was attainder for his self-execution.

Quickly he turned upon his axis and ran up those creaking, narrow steps, back onto the ridged bones of the hallway floorboards. There she was, her face cracked like a mirror, staring into space. In the dull light, facilitated by grimy windows to the left of the stairwell, he made out the yellow blossoms of bruising upon her sallow skin. He saw the dark hollows under her eyes and in her cheeks. Her dark hair was dull as death and did not shine from its coiled chignon. Lifeless shone in her eyes, as if she were eaten from the inside. He had seen the same stare in his own reflection. She was consumed with pain and fear, just as he was. He believed that she would surely die if he left her.

As he neared her, the apparition vanished. Life pumped through her arteries, her capillaries, the surrounding tissues. Her eyes flashed with verve, a quick replacement of the anger and pain that had run through her glance. He saw the betraying crease had formed between her eyebrows and that her lips had formed a hard, sharp line. 

"I'm sorry," Ned whispered. "I don't know why I did that." He pressed his lips against hers and pushed her backward into the room. Suddenly his voice was husky. "We both wanted something back there, but we both pulled back."

"I don't appreciate-" Victoria began, brutally. Then her desire chipped in. Her body slammed the door as she let herself be rammed against it. Her hands tore at the buttons of his jacket, her frantic mouth devouring his lips. She felt the prickle of his unshaven cheek against her skin, a direct contrast to the smooth hands running inside her drawers. She heard fabric strain then rip, perhaps from the button that was now in her hand, or the drawers that were now around her ankles. Her hands were on his naked chest, rushing down to his free him of his belt. At this point, his fingers took over and her eyes flashed up to his face. She thought she saw fear flicker through his features, but it melted quickly away. He thrust against her hips again, and this time she felt his hard, hot flesh contact her thighs. His hands grasped at her legs and she found herself opening to him. The next thrust was not painful but she screamed anyway as she found him suddenly all the way inside her body. His fingers held her cheeks, her skirt was about her waist and her eyes were shut as she screamed once more.

The door banged against its old metal hinges again and again with the force of their bodies. He could feel the hard wood crush his knuckles with every thrust into her body. Her buttocks contracted in his grip as her pelvis drove against his. He'd never picked her as a screamer, but with every movement she seemed to yelp or cry. To be honest, it irritated him. She wasn't in pain and was far from climax. He placed his mouth over hers and caught her hot breath in his mouth as he increased the tempo. He wanted to part her further, to take himself deeper into her body, but she did not seem to understand when he cupped her thighs to pick her up.

It did not last long, she thought, until she heard Ned begin to grunt and felt the organ inside her contract. He pulled out quickly, and she saw a creamy liquid stain his handkerchief. For a moment, he seemed to shake, then he spoke. His voice was coarsened with exertion, "You've made a bit of a mess of my shirt." He was right; when she looked at his chest, she saw that not one, but four of the buttons had been completely ripped from their fastenings.

"You've made a mess of my underwear," she concluded as she regarded the torn fabric of her drawers.

"We're both a mess. I-" What could he say? Biology had finally taken over his brain, and hers by the looks of it. "That was good- That was really good-"

"It didn't hurt-"

"It's not supposed to-" He had to check. He had to know whether Sam Morpeth was correct about Victoria's state. He hadn't felt any barrier, he'd slipped straight inside. But that could have been due to her arousal, or his eagerness. He told himself that he did not really care to know. Indeed, what troubled him more was that he had not felt her climax; that impacted directly upon his own performance.

"What are you doing?" Victoria felt his fingers run along the hot, wet flesh of her inner thigh and almost unexpectedly enter her body. Quickly, he withdrew his hand.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Both of his thoughts had been confirmed. Sam Morpeth was correct and he was damned sure she had not come.

"There's no blood," she gasped, and he could hear the surprise and almost frenzied desperation in her voice. "There has to be." Her hand quickly scraped her body but she the only fluid she found was clear. "I don't understand-" her eyes rushed up to his face and she thought she saw disappointment. "I'm a v- I was- I promise you, you were the first man I'd done that with. Please, you have to believe me. I promise you, I was a virgin- Please-" She could hear her voice cracking as she tore her mind to pieces. How could this happen? It just didn't make sense at all. Her mind filtered back over all her past experiences until it became fixed on one particular horrible night, two nights previous. The man standing beside her bed, touching himself as she slept- But there had been no blood then either, because he had not done anything. Her clothing had been completely intact, just as she had assumed her body to be. What then? When had it happened? Where did she lose her prized virginity?

Ned could see the turmoil in Nightingale's mind reflected through her eyes. She did not know, she did not remember her rape. That was a good thing. She never needed to know. He would keep the same secret that her sister had kept for ten years. "Victoria-" he began. What lies had they told him at medical school to explain the existence of sluts born of clergymen? "It does not matter. Quite often, a woman's barrier is breached whilst she is young-"

Her response was almost violent in its volume, "No! I told you I was a virgin. You were the first man ever- The first man I have ever let do that. I wouldn't just do that with anyone-"

"You didn't let me finish," Ned said, quietly. "What I was going to say is that the hymen- that's what the membrane of virginity is called- is often breached in young girls due to normal everyday activities. That is, running, walking, falls. Oh, and especially horseback riding for some reason." Or because the daughters of clergy are just sluts, he added, internally. "It is most likely that that is what has occurred with you. Not because of any immoral action that you may have taken, but as a natural consequence of movement. That is beside the point. I do not care whether you have done it before or not, in fact it makes it a lot easier when both parties have done it before. There's no pain or mess. Anyway, I love you for what you are, not what your body is. You could be crippled and I'd still love you."

There was a pause before Victoria said, "If that's true, why did you put your hand there? And why did you look so disappointed when you looked at it and saw no blood?"

"I was checking to see whether you'd climaxed. I didn't feel it if you did, but you are pretty wet so you may have. The thing is, let me be completely honest with you, you're the sort that deserves to have love made to her- not that. Especially not your first time. It was good for me, but not good for you. It was me taking advantage."




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 05



She had no idea what half the statements he had said meant, or what he was trying to say. "You didn't take advantage of me. I- I ripped your shirt I wanted you so badly. I would have ripped your trousers as well, had you not unfastened them. And it felt good, it didn't hurt- I liked it..." Her eyes studied his in question. "I don't understand the other things you said, sorry."

They were still standing so close, that had he wanted to take her again he would only have to advance three inches. Her red lips were but a tantalizing handspan from his, her eyes just as far. She had not pushed her skirt back down, and it existed like an umbrella in the space between them, shielding her line of sight from his arousal either the first time around or now. Gently, he ran his fingers over her soft lips and felt the plump ripeness of their form, guarding the wet mouth beneath. He knew that if he kissed her now, he would do her again, just as quickly as before. So instead, he traced the curves of her face and neck with his hand and felt the soft skin. It was almost more arousing than kissing her outright. 

"There are a few things that you need to know," Ned told her, as his fingertips massaged her jaw-line. He could tell by the reddening of her face, the intensity of her breathing and her hot skin that she was aroused as well. "The first is that sex doesn't hurt. That's a lie that they make up to stop girls running off with every Tom, Dick and Harry instead of getting married. Actually, quite a few girls do go off with Tom or Dick or even Harry, or two of them or both of them or maybe even three of them- Let me address the issue once more. The fact is that it only hurts the first time, if the lover is inept and the woman is unready. It also hurts if the woman is forced. Other than that, sex doesn't hurt at all. It feels quite good, don't you think?"

Her answer came out in a ragged breath, "Yes."

"Secondly, what we did just then is what I would call fucking. Or just plain sex. What you needed, and what I should have given you, was lovemaking. That way we would both have been able to savor each other's bodies, you would have been more likely to climax and I would probably have lasted longer. However, I guess we got a bit ahead of ourselves. After all the playing we've been doing, I can understand that. Indeed, perhaps I should not have lead you on for so long. Your frustration has been borne out on my shirt.

"The last thing you need to know is that climax is what I did and you didn't do." By now Ned's fingers had left her cheek and were back down beneath her skirt, slowly massaging the flesh of her buttocks.

"Are we going to do it again?" Victoria asked. Her fingers looped around his neck and pulled his face to hers.

"No." He ran his fingers around her hips until he felt the soft skin at the base of her stomach. With one hand, he drew tiny circles with his fingertips, whilst his other hand traced the line of her inner thigh.

"What are you doing?" Victoria whispered as she felt his fingertip brush the tiny knot of her sexuality. The pulse of her heartbeat seemed to become louder and faster like the pounding hooves of an advancing horse. She didn't know whether she should let the strange muscles between her legs contract or relax to let the tingling feeling of his finger increase.

For a moment, Ned ceased his manipulation. He kissed her tantalizing lips. She responded violently, her lips pulsing against his mouth as if they wanted to devour him fully. She thrust her hips forward against his arousal, her hands drawing him tightly to her body. His eyes flashed up to hers and he saw her excitement burning as bright as the flame of a candle. Pulling away was all he could do to resist entering her again. "No," he heard his lust-coarsened voice say. "Not yet."

He dropped to his knees and drew her skirt over his head. "What are you doing?" she asked, almost in panic.

"Hold your skirt up, so that I can see what I'm doing," he told her. "If you feel like your knees are going to buckle, just lean back against the door."

She seemed to suddenly realize what it was he was about to do. "Wouldn't it be easier if I lay on the bed?"

"No, the bed's for tonight." He stared at the hair of her pubis, so dark and coarse in comparison to the white, soft skin of her belly and thighs. Gently, he nudged her legs further apart, taking in the glistening, pink skin of her arousal. "Beautiful-" he heard himself gasp as his own arousal heightened. He drew his fingers along the wet flesh and parted her further, his tongue stroking her swollen skin whilst she shivered above him. His fingertip slipped into her opening and massaged her inside as his lips began to suckle her arousal. 

Her breathing increased as heat rushed to every surface of her body. She couldn't breathe. She could not draw enough oxygen into her lungs. She heard herself gasping like a fish out of water. She felt her insides jolt and quiver as if they were trying to escape fire. And everywhere he touched her seemed to shiver and grow hot and wet. It was as if she were on the edge of a great precipice. The strange jolting that she felt in her heart was the same feeling she would get if she nearly fell down the precipice. She thrust forward against his mouth, wanting him to contain her completely. She could not control herself. Her body shook and thrust, and strange, unintelligible sounds escaped her throat. She felt a feeling of euphoria, a feeling impossible to put into words, build inside her. She wanted the feeling so badly she found her sweaty hands leaving the fabric of her skirt and holding his face against her wanting flesh. 

For a brief second she was there. Wherever she had been going, whatever she had been building inside herself, she had got there. All at once, she heard herself screaming, felt her knees buckle, and her body contract about Ned's fingers. Then it was gone. She tried to catch her breath. She was covered in sweat. She knew what she wanted. She forced her knees to lock as she helped Ned to his feet. As she felt him enter her body, she knew that she loved him. This time when she felt him begin to contract, she held him within her body. She felt the cream of his body surge into her. She knew not what it was, but she loved it anyway.

*

Ned could not help but smile as he left Victoria at the tavern after breakfast. Everyday she surprised him. He had not expected, had not planned, to have intercourse with her so soon. But it had happened. The attraction between them was explosive. He had always known from the first time that he had talked to her, that she was a woman that would not be pushed around. She could give as good as she got. At the same time, she was extremely vulnerable, if anybody got through that thorny exterior. 

He was reminded of something Sam Morpeth had said. He and Victoria were like fire and water. Yes, that was a good explanation of how explosive the relationship between Ned and Nightingale was. They argued, they annoyed each other, they were too stubborn to back down, yet when they finally came together, it was, literally, fire and water. She was not particularly good at sex, but the passion behind her actions made for explosive activity. His ripped shirt was evidence of that.

He knew not where his physical needs overlapped his psychological needs, but knew that they most certainly did. This was love and sex merged. Physically and psychologically, he needed sex to keep himself sane, just as he needed somebody to love and talk to and make love to. There was a very thin line defining the two. Of late, there had been less talk and more action, however, once the madness of lust passed he would need her as a companion. 

Ned traced his footsteps back to the police station where he had dropped Sam Morpeth the previous night. He was surprised at how well he remembered its location. It loomed above him, an ugly concrete building, lit by a single blue light, signifying that it was a police station. The light of dawn cast the building in a gray light. Ned doubted that the building would be any more attractive by the light of day. 

There were three wide concrete steps from the dirty footpath to the two wide, wooden doors. The doors had six panes of glass each, separated by a wooden frame. Most of the panes had been broken, Ned observed. The bottom-most panes had been boarded over from the interior. The boards showed signs of a recent confrontation with a boot. Now that Ned regarded the rest of the building, he noticed several broken windowpanes. Clearly, crime was a problem in the area.

He climbed the stairs and pulled the door toward him. As he did so, he noticed glass upon floor inside. At least one of the panes in the door had been broken recently. He skirted around the glass as best he could and made his way to the front desk. Behind the desk sat a policeman with blonde side-whiskers. Ned could not tell what the man's rank was, whether it be constable or sergeant. He looked past the man to two empty desks, a door with a sign reading 'Holding Cells' and three other unmarked doors. To his left was a wooden pew, which he presumed was for sitting on whilst awaiting somebody. To his right was an upward wooden staircase. The stairway could not be climbed without passing behind the desk, which the man was seated at.

"Are you looking fuh summat?" the policeman asked.

"Yes, I am actually but why are all the windows broken?"

"Younguns wiv rocks. We get it every now and then," Constable Reece Cummings said briskly. "Anyroad, whatcha want?"

"Is Sergeant Morpeth still here?" Ned regarded the policeman. He looked very young, twenty years old if he was lucky. His eyes were dark hazel, more green than brown. The size of his eyes and the lack of creases that came with age, made the constable appear permanently surprised. His hair was very fair, Ned found himself comparing it to freshly made butter, yet his eyebrows were thick and dark. His bone structure was very gracile. The only features that prevented him looking feminine were his heavy eyebrows and long, brush-like side-whiskers. Ned got the impression that if the man hadn't become a policeman, someone would have made good money off him as a rentboy.

As if he could read Ned's thoughts, Cummings pursed his lips, sourly. "Whatcha want wiv 'im?" 

"I know his sister. Morpeth asked me to come and tell him how she is," Ned said.

"What's your name?" Cummings stared at the man. He talked like a toff, but he needed a shave. Despite the top hat perched on his head, Cummings could see that the man's hair was in disarray. His coat was well made but the shirt beneath was clearly ripped and missing buttons about the neck. His tie was also absent. He looked like a drunk, although Cummings could not smell the reek of alcohol upon him.

Ned didn't like the way the policeman was looking at him. It was almost as if the man regarded him as some sort of unsavory criminal. "I'm Doctor Edward Hawke. I spoke to Morpeth last night about his sister, Victoria Buckley."

"Doctor, is it?" Cummings eyes shone with sarcasm. "Well I shall certainly go and speak wiv the sergeant and see if he wants to see you, Doctor." For a moment, Ned was afraid that the constable was not going to move. Cummings looked down at his desk, and then got up. "Don't you go touching nothing while I'm not 'ere." For what seemed like only seconds, Cummings disappeared behind one of the doors behind the desk, then he returned, followed shortly by Sam Morpeth.

Morpeth regarded the doctor. As much as he disliked Constable Cummings, the man was correct; Hawke did look a right mess. He looked sober, and his smile was as wide as any doorway, but his shirt was clearly torn in one place and he looked as if he'd slept badly, in his clothes. "Doctor Hawke," he said, wondering how to address the man, "Why don't you come through to my office?" He stepped aside to allow the man to pass in front of him, briefly examining him for the scent of liquor or cigar smoke. He found no such smell. 

Ned found himself in a dimly lit corridor. "Which way?" he asked Morpeth.

"Oh, sorry." Morpeth pushed through in front of him, and held the door open. "Third door on the right." 

Ned regarded the small room he had just entered. It was lit by a single flickering lamp upon a wide desk. The desk top was methodically arranged with several trays of papers and several ledgers. Behind the desk were a filing cabinet and a chair. In front of the desk, there was also a chair, which Ned sat upon. "This is nice," he remarked.

"It is not my office," Morpeth said as he seated himself behind the desk. "It belongs to one of the Inspectors; I just use it at night."

"So what exactly do you do here?" Ned asked. 

Morpeth's vivid blue eyes flickered to the ledger upon his desk. "At the moment, a lot of paperwork." 

"Really, I thought that police work was about being out on the streets arresting criminals."

Sam smiled wryly. "That is the part of the work that people see. What they do not know is that every constable on a beat has been assigned that beat by somebody, and that there is paperwork to back up who that constable is and what time he is working and whether he has turned up to work. Every criminal that is arrested, even if they only spend a few hours in the cells, has to be logged into a book. Most of the time that doesn't take much work. However, notes are made about important cases for death inquests and court cases, although most investigations in this area do not lead to anything. If somebody dies they're dead. Their killer is either found around the corner covered in blood and is consequently hanged or they disappear into the bowels of society, never to be caught, or at least not until next time."

"So what are you doing at the moment?" 

"I am supposed to organize the sergeants and constables so that they know where they are going and whom they are supposed to be with. However, more often I seem to have to rewrite reports and back-up the constables on night-duty when they arrest somebody."

"That sounds like quite an important job."

Sam Morpeth smiled widely, lighting his face and eyes, "It's a bloody boring job, that's what it is. I'd much rather be out in the streets catching criminals than caged in here."

"Why do you do it then?" Ned asked.

"Two years ago, I was a sergeant assigned to a station in the west end. I was on what they call the fast track to becoming an inspector. But that wasn't to be. I got myself in a position I should never have been in. I had followed a man down a street I did not know. It was dark and I had no lamp. Someone jumped me, stabbed me twice in the back. I was apparently one of those miracle patients, since both wounds missed my organs, my arteries and my spine. I put Charlotte through hell though. It's because of her that I took this job. She doesn't want me back out on the streets where it could happen again." As Sam spoke, Ned noticed the thickening in his voice and the gleam of tears in his eyes.

"Why here, why Spitalfields? Surely it's more dangerous here than it was where you came from? You only have to look at the damage done to the windows of your station tonight to understand the fierce danger of the area," Ned said.

"What, the stones through the windows? That was just kids. I sent a constable out to see to them. As for why I came to work here, this was the position available. I had to take it. The city paid me a pretty sum for my wounds, but it was not enough to live on. Charlotte had to work during that time. I never want to put her in that position again. She deserves a life better than the one I can provide her with, but the least I can do is ensure that she doesn't have to work to eat. During the six months that I was laid on my front to heal, my old station promoted someone else in my place. So when I was finally better I had to come here. The rent is cheaper and the pay is only slightly better. I could have taken a job with someone else, but I am not qualified for anything else. My injuries mean that I cannot be a laborer. Anyway, enough of my woes, what brings you here?"

Ned was caught almost completely off guard by the sudden change in Morpeth's voice. He was a shrewd man, Ned decided, rambling for a moment, and then shooting a direct question at his listener. "I saw Victoria last night. She isn't at the woman's boarding house anymore because somebody stole her cape. She has moved to a terrible place with cheap single rooms belonging to a man named Bernard. It took me nearly all night to find out where she had gone."

"Did you get in fight with someone during that time?" Morpeth asked.

"No, I don't think so," Ned replied. His eyes flashed up to the sergeant's face. "Why would you think that?"

"The collar of your shirt is ripped, and there are two buttons missing where your tie should be. I noticed you had a tie on last night, but this morning it's gone." 

The doctor's face reddened as his hand plucked at his collar. "Oh yes, I did...um..."

"Did Victoria do that?" 

Ned squirmed further back into his seat, wishing he had left his coat buttoned up fully, as Victoria had arranged it before he left her room. He did not even remember taking his tie off, but knew that it would probably be on the floor somewhere near Victoria's bed. He felt his cheeks grow hot with the knowledge that the policeman was scrutinizing him. What could he say to this man? He was normally so smooth with other people, but Morpeth had once again caught him off guard. The question was not even posed in a hostile voice, yet Ned felt threatened.

"I presume you stayed with her all night, since you obviously have not shaved or brushed your hair, and you are wearing yesterday's clothing," Sam added. "Look, I do not mind if you stayed with her, I just need to know so that I don't wrong-foot myself when I call upon her."

"I slept in her bed with her, but I did not have intercourse with her there," Ned said, quietly. 

Morpeth observed that Ned's eyes would not meet his with the final statement. "Then where did you have intercourse?"

"I didn't-" 

"But Victoria ripped your shirt?" Sam said. "I suppose it isn't any of my business, although as her only male relative-" He broke off and thought about what he was going to say for a moment. "Look, I do not care if you had sex with her, but I do care if she becomes with child. You told me last night that you love her. Would you do right by her and marry her?"

"I can't afford to marry her," Ned replied. "But I will do so when I have the money. She will not become with child until I want her to be. I'm a doctor, I know these things."

Sam overlooked the statement about not being able to afford to marry. If a doctor like Hawke could not afford to marry than how was it that he, Charlotte and their child were surviving? "She's my sister. As much as my wife says she hates her right now, I know that I would be the one on the receiving end if any ill were to befall her and I had given you permission to do it. Do you understand?"

"I would never hurt Victoria."

"Good, then hopefully we will not be having this conversation again." Sam Morpeth smiled. "I bet I scared you then. I'm sorry, I just had to say it. Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"I'm not happy with the room she is renting at the moment. The locking mechanism and door are substantial enough, but the room can be accessed from the street via some stairs, which are not guarded in any way. Her room is the second room you come to after climbing the stairs. Even if she locked the door, I'm sure that if somebody wanted to get in they would get in. If you read the stories in the papers at the moment, you can see that my fears are justified. The other thing is that the room has no window for light or fireplace for warmth. It is basically a box. She has paid until next Friday. I will stay with her every night until that date, then I am moving her out of there," Ned said.




A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 05



"Where are you going to take her?" 

"My friend, Doctor Smales, needs a nurse. He's a little bit eccentric, but he would allow Victoria to live in his home."

"What do you mean by eccentric?" 

"He wouldn't harm Victoria. His fiancé was murdered six years ago, and ever since, he has become more and more strange. He has started buying child prostitutes, for example, taken them into his home and tried to reform them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. All the people that work in his house have at one time been paid for sex. There isn't anything vulgar about it, he does not use them in that way. He also treats street people thrice a week for free. Because of this, he is shunned by society. He still manages to get paying customers somehow. I have not yet determined how that works. Men like him, but they keep him away from their women. I am going into practice with him."

"He sounds like the sort of person London needs more of. I do not think Victoria will like him though."

"No, neither do I. That is why I have not told her of Smales' reputation yet. It may be easier if she did not know."

"So where is she living?"

Ned told him. "Will you visit her?"

"Yes, of course I will."

*

Arabella regarded herself in the glass and pouted. That crease beside her eye was decidedly another wrinkle. Wrinkles! The blight of her age. Folding her clear white skin like the fine linen sheets she now lolled leisurely upon. Well, at least they were not the deep trenches she saw in her mother's suede-like flesh. Not yet, anyway. She would kill herself before she let her skin become like that. She ran her fingers down the milky white expanse of her chest, down to her darkly pigmented nipples, hard, erect, and ready for her lover. If only he had bothered to come and see her.

She placed the mirror back upon the side table and sat up to admire herself in the larger glass, strategically placed opposite the wide bed. She smiled to herself as she coiled her long blonde hair over her shoulders. She was beautiful and she knew it. Her lips were large and full, shiny and red like an apple where her devilish tongue had moistened them moments before. Feeling them begin to dry, she licked them again and gently rubbed her nipples. 

"Good enough to eat," she told herself. She spoke aloud. She did not care if anybody heard her.

Her eyes shone the pure, envious green of absinthe, a perfect match to the dress she had discarded upon the floor. Her skin was as pure and white as ivory, lined only slightly with time. Her cheeks were still radiant with the blush of youth, helped only slightly by a finger-touch of rouge. Unlike most women of her day, she was not above helping nature by emphasizing her beauty with cosmetics. Only a little, mind, nothing terribly noticeable. She was a beautiful rose as it was, she would not have anybody say that this was due to the chemicals she dabbed upon her skin. Or have her mother or mother know that she used such products. They might start to suspect... something her mother had always known.

Gentle fingers roamed further down the narrow curve of her waist, as tight as that of any eighteen-year-old girl. Her belly was flat and soft beneath her touch, but not visibly flabby. Nobody would guess that this body had borne six children, the last being born five years prior. She was always careful what she ate and bound her body as tightly as possible into her corset, even whilst pregnant. She never suckled her children. 

Vanity was her secret to maintaining her youth. That, and ensuring that she never became with child again. She made her lovers wear sheathes over their manhood; if they did not like it, she would not gratify them in any way. Arabella was very good at gratifying men. 

Her husband, Peter Hawke, was another matter. Always groaning, sweating and smelling of alcohol, he pumped into her as if he was stabbing her body. It was almost as if he knew, deep down that there were other men. She was glad when he frequently went away on business, leaving her to enjoy her lovers. In one of his sober moments, he had asked a friend to follow her whilst he was away. Little did he know that the friend had met her that same night for a little fellatio. 

She could not ask Peter to wear a sheath. He seemed to think that it was his right as her husband to get her pregnant as often as possible. Either that or he knew that whilst pregnant she would not be so terribly attractive to men. Although there were some... but that was another story. Lately he had become so bad that she had left the bed and locked herself in the dressing room. He would stand on the other side of the door, whining and crying until she came out. It was pitiful; he sounded so much like a woman that she wanted to laugh. Sometimes she would tell him so, informing him that he was not a real man, only a drunken shadow, sobbing like a woman. Other times she would relent, letting him to take her back to bed to paw her naked body, his eyes wet and his body too eager.

Whilst Peter bedded her, she wore a small, vinegar-soaked sponge inside her body. She did not really like it. It was messy and took preparation. The man could not go as deep into her body as they both wanted, although in Arthur's case she couldn't care less how he felt. So much brandy, sherry or whisky was in his bloodstream that he would not notice if she just took him between her thighs, as she sometimes did.

What she hated more than the horrible, lust-less sex with Peter, was the time after sex. He would lie upon her, breathing heavily as if his heart were about to burst. She had to push him off her body. Then he would start groping at her breasts again, although he was never capable of doing the act twice in one night (Arabella praised God for small miracles, small being the operative word). His hands were sweaty and rough, the tidy fingernails marking her flesh. She hated it, and she told him so, often. Peter would stop, lie beside her for a while, and then begin to mumble. He had never touched another woman (this she believed), he loved her and he would die if she ever left him. She just wished that he would leave the room. He would ask her if she had enjoyed it, and usually she would say 'yes', even though she had not. If she was in a particularly foul mood, she would say 'no'. Peter would then ask her why not, and she would go and lock herself in the dressing room until morning. Such was the ritual of her life with Peter.

He had been away for nearly three months now, up in Sunderland, doing some sort of business. She had not really paid any attention to what he had said. She never paid any attention to what he said. 

He was due back in three days time. Arabella dreaded his return. Back to pawing, sweating and thrusting, at least once a week. She would have to be very careful with her lovers then.

As it was, this lover had not arrived. She had three days left of freedom, the fool knew so, yet for some reason he had decided to stay away. It made her so terribly furious. She would deal to him in a manner he would not appreciate next time they met. Her eager mind shuffled through the possibilities, then discarded them one by one as if they were her clothing, or more appealingly, his body parts. She was fond of him, but this really was too much. How dare he invite her to this grubby, carnal place and not bother to show up himself? She dreaded climbing back into her clothing and trudging down the stairs like some tired whore who couldn't find a customer. 

"Damn him," she hissed to her reflection. She wished his silly face would come through the doorway so that she could throw one of her tiny, yet heavy, boots right where it would hurt. She settled for hurling it at the wall, through which she could hear an amorous couple doing what she wanted to do. "Damn you, Ned," she spat again, as if she was speaking to him face to face.

She saw her reflected lips curl up and contemplated how frightening (and sexy) the pout made her look. She must remember that for when he arrived. Ned was afraid of her as it was. This would push him over the edge... For a moment, she imagined how hard she would ride him, where she would put her fingers, how she would suck and bite and scratch him all over, the noises they would make... and found herself getting aroused, her fingers already stroking the silky skin of her own inner thighs. Then she remembered how angry she was. 

"I'll give you until Big Ben strikes the hour, then I am leaving," Arabella hurled at the mirror. "If you do not arrive in the impending time I'll hate you forever. You won't ever see my bare body again. That is what I shall do to you." Even as she spoke the words she knew she could not abide by them. Damn Ned. Damn him.

In the far distance, the chimes of the clock tower of the house of parliament pealed out over Westminster bridge, the nick-named Big Ben calling the hour of her departure. Arabella reluctantly rose from the bed. What a waste of an hour.



A Victorian Virgin? Ch. 06



Author's notes: I have had to submit this piece in a hurry as I don't want the plot summary to be read. So it's incomplete.

*

Artist, photographer and pornographer, Archie Tennyson, frowned slightly. He nervously brushed his hand through his foppish blonde hair. Rachel Hobson, his dear, raven-haired model, stood before him, also frowning. Her dark expression was reminiscent of her Morgan le Fay series, brooding yet seductive. Her arms were firmly folded over her black maid's uniform. He failed to understand what he had done wrong. Rachel was the best model he had photographed since he lost Mary. Beneath the heavily starched fabric, her body was smooth like polished marble, as lustily curved as Venus herself. Archie had thought his artistic nature had left with his lover, but Rachel's presence had reignited the fiery, passionate flames of creation. He felt the urge to paint scratching his mind, desperate to escape and capture her upon canvas. A painting would leave a warm, glowing impression in a way a photograph never could.

"Please Rachel," Archie begged the pale beauty. "You're so beautiful, so lovely, the gentleman love your pictures. I want to paint you. Please come back to me. I'll up your cut to twenty percent. Come by the studio after you finish working here. I'll put on a nice tea and we can discuss this matter properly. Please, my dear." His overly wide smile and twinkling brown eyes promised his model more than a simple meal. The evening would end with her naked in his bed, but how he would make love to her was another issue entirely. Archie considered the tracing of a beautiful form onto paper, filling in the depths and shadows of her neck, her breasts and thighs, to be a form of making love, as if his pastel was his hand upon her delicate flesh.

The frowning beauty placed her hands on her black-clad hips. "I'm sorry, I really am, but I cannot do it anymore." Rachel was sorry. While her extra earnings had purchased her many luxury items, she would miss her employer more. 

Archie was one of the few men who had treated her with the respect and dignity a richer woman would enjoy on a daily basis. He had constantly praised her body, sometimes kissing each part as he told her so. Archie had dressed her in transparent silks, ropes of pearls, roses and leaves, always careful to show her form in a beautiful, artistic manner, her pubis nearly always covered. Rachel had been Archie's Morgan le Fay, his Artemis and Ophelia. They had had fun together, she smiling for the lens, he beneath the cape of the camera, capturing her beauty forever on card. To top that all off, he wanted to paint her. Archie hadn't painted since he lost Mary; it was a great honour that he offered her the position as model. And Rachel had to turn him down.

Archie caught the maid's shoulders, pinning her to the wall as he studied her face. A white, anaemic skin enshrouded her feline-like bone structure. Her eyes were large, dark and expressive, a feature commented on by many who saw Archie's portfolio. She had a layer of thick eyelashes brimming her eyes. Her hair was long, black and wavy. 

The blank slate of Rachel's pale skin and darkly defined features, was a good starting point for Archie's pornographic representations of a range of emotive characters. Seductresses like Morgan le Fay, Cleopatra and Medea, innocent beauties like Susannah, Iphigenia and various maidens tied to trees awaiting a chivalrous knight. Rachel's photographs always sold well. 

"I don't understand why you cannot pose for me anymore. Why have you been avoiding me?" Archie asked. Rachel had recently left her lodgings without leaving a forwarding address. It had taken him a long time to discover the meeting house where she worked as a maid. "Are they whoring you here?"

Rachel was no prude. She laughed at his suggestion. "No. I just- cannot do it anymore... I'm engaged to be married, Archie. I cannot have my husband being humiliated and ridiculed because of them dirty pictures." Rachel smiled at her employer for a brief second, before lowering her eyes to disguise the tears. Archie had been very clear when she started to work for him that there was no hope of marriage. His heart belonged with Mary.

"Oh," Archie said. He instinctively knew not to push for any details. It would only make their parting moments more uncomfortable for them both. "I can understand your situation. Of course you do not want such smut circulating. I promise you, I shall not sell any more of your pictures," he lied. "And well, good luck for the future. I hope that you are happy."

Numbly, Rachel felt the kiss on her forehead. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was alone. Her back leant against the dark-panelled wall of a servant's hallway in the bowels of the meeting-house where she worked.

Archie had moved so quickly that he soon found himself lost. He would be faced by Rachel Hobson if he turned back, so he pressed forward, finally finding a wooden flight of stairs. He climbed up, two at a time, and emerged in an empty room. The walls were papered with deep, burgundy toned paper. There was a long, rich velvet drape in the same colour, covering some sort of doorway. He pushed through and emerged behind the desk in the entrance hall of the meeting house. For an instant, everything blurred and it was as if he and she were the only people in the room. Mary was as lovely as he remembered her.

Her hair was a lovely golden colour, glistening beneath the gas-lamps. It tumbled loosely down her back in natural ringlets, drawn elaborately up at the top by, he didn't doubt, ornate combs. Fashion dictated that this style was only worn by unmarried women. The silk dress she wore was a vivid green colour, striped with very thin black lines that attempted to mute its beauty. It was a colour that only she seemed able to suit, as a perfect complement to her hair and creamy skin. The neckline dipped low, displaying a brief hint of cleavage, but not so much as to be immodest. The dress would be perfectly acceptable at an upper-class tea party. As Archie watched her, he began to realise that it was not Mary before him. Mary was gone. It was another woman arguing with the fat woman in charge of the books. The resemblance of the woman to Mary was uncanny at first sight, but as Archie observed her, he noticed some obvious differences.

The woman's face rose to scrutinise Archie. He had never seen eyes that colour; they were a clear, slightly blue-toned grass green, as vivid as her dress. He was somewhat reminded of bohemian absinthe, an agreeable strain of the drink he had encountered in his travels of the region. The long lashes that decorated her brilliant eyes were the antithesis of her hair colour, black as night. They emphasised her beauty and drew his eye in to sample more. Above, thin, arched eyebrows mirrored the slightly angled curves of her eyes. Her cheekbones were perfectly padded; not fat, but not gaunt either. A dusting of red along their ridge enticed his sight down to her full, cupid's bow lips. They were an amazingly pure red colour, full and unwrinkled. She looked three-and-twenty if she was lucky. One year younger than Mary would be.

Arabella winked at the young man gawking at her from behind the counter. He had a thin frame, yet wasn't particularly feeble-looking. His dark suit was cut in the season's fashion, an indication that he had money at his disposal and he was not merely a servant of the establishment. His blonde hair was too long by most standards, but framed his face perfectly. It was a nice, deep colour, not faded like the hair of her husband, Peter Hawke. The young man's features were strong and angular, yet somehow boyish. She supposed that was due to the lack of facial hair upon his face. The absence of a moustache, beard or side-whiskers made him appear almost naked; she was accustomed to seeing hair on men's faces. The boy, she decided, had expressive, pink-toned lips, his mouth wide and friendly. His brown eyes returned her wink, but she was too angry to flirt. She turned her attention back to the ugly, pasty-faced hostess, Susannah Price; a woman who was trying her utmost to be difficult.

"I do not know why you cannot put the room's rental on the good doctor's account, as you normally do," Arabella snapped. As she spoke, the man slowly inched himself out from behind the desk, trying not to alert Susannah of his presence. Lord knows where he had sprung from. 

Usually, the customer was always right, in Susannah's books, but not this prickly bitch. She had seen this one, some poor cuckold's slut, at her establishment with at least three other men besides Edward Hawke. Despite her golden hair, perfect figure and youthful face, bountiful experience in her expression matured her customer to at least thirty years of age. She looked as though she was accustomed to getting her own way. Not today, Susannah thought, smiling inwardly. "But Edward is not accompanying you, my dear," she said, gently, even though she wanted to snap back. "I cannot, in good faith, place your use of the room on his account. How do I know that it was he you were waiting for?" 

"Well, he must have arranged the room-" 

"The first I heard about it was when you arrived here, unscheduled, looking for a room. Therefore, it is you that is responsible for payment," Susannah replied. 

Archie lingered, watching the two argue. He had to speak to the woman; her resemblance to Mary was uncanny. He stepped in when the hostess started to push the woman to leave an item of jewellery as she had no money. "Excuse me, could I be of any assistance?"

Susannah had an odd look upon her face as she tried to determine where Archie had come from. Arabella, on the other hand, glared. "No, you most certainly cannot." She did not need to be indebted to anybody. "Here," she told Susannah as she plucked her earrings from her ears. "These are good quality gold and the little stones are diamonds. Keep them, I shall not return." They were an ostentatious gift from Peter; she'd never liked them. Whenever she wore them she was reminded of his bland face and pawing hands. She always got a thrill from wearing them with his brother, Ned, seemingly mocking Peter's pathetic performance by showing him how a real man treated her.

Arabella turned on her heels and rushed to pick up her coat and hat from the elegantly liveried doorman. Today's experience had been a humiliation and she did not take humiliation lightly. Ned was definitely going to pay, she just did not know whether she'd turn the emotional blackmail up, or tie him down and whip him. She preferred the latter idea as it would bring to the surface all the old wounds associated with his father's beatings. After an episode like that, he would be even more frightened of her. He would not try and stray again.

The meeting-house was located in a well-to-do area. As Arabella leisurely walked down the street, the heels of her tiny boots making a clip-clop sound, she passed well-dressed men and women on their way to and from various coffee and teahouses. She let her eyes lazily admire the bulges in various men's trousers and inwardly mocked the vapid women at their sides. Women who had been told all their lives that they were not allowed to enjoy sex, who just lay there and took it. How their husbands secretly hated them, lusting after a more experienced woman such as herself. Still, no-one would wish to change places with Peter and take Arabella as a wife. Men wanted wives that knew nothing, who were frightened of the idea of sex and therefore would not stray. 

It was a gray day, but at least it was not raining. Snippets of conversation wafted through her ears as she searched for a hansom cab to take herself home.

"Excuse me, miss! Miss!" Arabella heard the sound of running feet and knew before she turned who it was. 

"What?" she snapped. "I haven't got time to bother with the likes of you."

Archie Tennyson grabbed her gloved hand as she turned away. "I've got your earrings. I settled your bill." Another puppy, she thought. Should she rein this one in on a leash or throw a bone and send it away?

"Why would you do a silly thing like that?" Arabella had to admit that he did have a nice face. Up close though, she realised she had misjudged his age. She observed permanent creases in his forehead and beside his eyes. "You don't even know me."

Archie smiled as he saw the severe set on her face lighten. "Well, we could change that if you would like to join me for luncheon." Her hat was hardly more than a bunch of lace and silk. It barely covered her head and hair. He bravely brushed a golden tendril off her face. It had a lovely, silky texture and he could not help but run his hands down the entire length. He knew that anybody who walked past would be scandalised by his behaviour toward this unwed girl, but he did not care. His work defied convention everyday.

"Oh, is that the time," Arabella said. She pulled away from him. "I really should go."

He snatched her silk-encased elbow as she started to walk away and laced it in his. He was much stronger than he appeared and seemed to propel her forward along the footpath so quickly that she had to lengthen her stride. "Now listen to me," Archie told her, forcefully. "I've just paid top money to settle your debts. The least you could do is join me for lunch."

The photographer's words did not frighten Arabella. If anything, they aroused her and determined her decision regarding the man. However, she would not let him know that yet. She could never appear too easy. "If you don't let go of me, I'll scream."

Always the gentleman, Archie let her go. "Alright," he said. "Go home."

Arabella had other ideas. She had two days of freedom before Peter got back. The boy would do. Ned would have to wait.



A Victorian Virgin?



"I've only four women to look after tonight, any road," Patricia said. She got up and left her open novel lying face down upon her desk. 

Victoria Buckley passed through the door, down a flight of stairs, and then turned to enter the ward for rooms twenty to twenty-nine. There she found two nurses, Colleen Anderson and Mary Durham, talking in low whispers. When Victoria arrived, they ceased talking and looked up. Colleen was a thirty-two year old woman with pinched cheeks and wrinkled eyelids. She wore a wedding band, so Victoria assumed that there had been a husband somewhere along the way. Mary was twenty-one, with blonde curls and acne scars; a spinster as far as Victoria knew. 

"Which rooms are the interns in?" Nurse Buckley snapped. She was shocked that these men were allowed to sleep in such close proximity to female patients, not to mention the husbandless nurses, such as Mary Durham. 

Mary frowned, and then said, "Ned Hawke's in twenny-one and Ronald Selby's in twenny-eight."

"Why do you want them?" Colleen asked.

"One of my patients is playing up." Victoria Buckley said hurriedly. She felt slightly intimidated by the two women sitting in front of her. She crossed her arms in front of her chest as if to protect herself.

"Which one?" Colleen queried.

Victoria rolled her blue eyes to the ceiling. "Patient forty-six, Mrs. Gore."

"Really?" Mary asked. She ran her hand down her cratered and pitted face. Her skin was pale and milky, the sort that would become pasty with age but at the moment was as fine and sculptured as china, apart from the scars. "I've never had any trouble with 'er. She's very quiet, very gentle. What's she done?"

Both Colleen and Victoria frowned at this statement. "She's a murderer, that's enough for me," Colleen said. "It doesn't matter how she behaves now, she's already damned herself to hell. I treat her with the respect I give any other patient, but I don't let her draw me into conversation and I don't let her touch me."

"That's the first I 'eard of it," Mary said. Her green eyes seemed to widen in horror. "Who'd she kill? Her 'usband? Why's she 'ere? Why didn't they 'ang her?"

"We're not allowed to talk of it. The last nurse that did lost her place," Colleen replied. "All you need to know is that she's done some pretty horrific things, not just murder but adultery too. I don't know why she's here. She's not even English. I presume that she got away with it because she's rich enough to leave America and come here. It's not cheap to stay at this hospital, you know. Why else are there so many empty beds?" 

Victoria Buckley ceased to listen and wandered over to door twenty-one. She rapped cautiously on the door and waited to hear movement within. She heard nothing except heavy snoring. She rapped harder. "Mr. Hawke, are you in there?" she asked. Still there was no reply. She literally pounded the door. Why wouldn't he wake up?

"'E was pretty damned tired." And drunk, Mary thought. "The both of them were. If you wan' 'im that much you'll 'ave to go in and wake 'im up. 'E won't be too 'appy wit' that either."

"Go in there?" Victoria asked. "I don't think so." She was appalled that Mary could even suggest that she go in and wake a sleeping man. He might not be wearing a shirt, let alone the bottom half.

"Well I'm not going in there," Colleen said. "I don't want him yelling at me for waking him up." That was only a minor reason; the major one was that most of the nurses knew that Ned Hawke was as horny as a rabbit. Why else would there be two nurses on this floor instead of one? 

"She's your patient," Mary added. "Can it wait 'til the mornin'?"

Nurse Buckley thought back to Genevieve Gore, with her bloody face and wrists. What infuriated Victoria Buckley the most was that Gore had defied her when she was told to stand. Buckley wanted to make sure she was punished for this behavior most of all. She thought that the woman had injured herself on purpose and was not worried about it causing any serious damage. Dr Stephen Hawke may not see it in such a light, owing to the way that woman had him wrapped around her little finger. Buckley had to be seen to be doing everything in her power to 'help' the woman. She had to obtain all the help available for her patient, which included fetching a doctor. No doctors were available, and Buckley would not dream of awakening Dr Stephen Hawke himself, so the interns were her next best option. 

"No, it can't," Victoria Buckley said. "The woman's injured herself on purpose."

"Attempted to top herself?" Colleen asked.

"No," Buckley replied with an aggressive jut of her chin. "She's just messed herself up, made her lips and nose bleed. I had to restrain her earlier in the evening and she has damaged herself in breaking the bonds." She turned back to door twenty-one and thumped on it loudly with her fists. Still she heard no movement within.

Victoria Buckley took a deep breath and tried the handle. The door was unlocked. She slowly turned the handle and heard the door wheeze open. Immediately she seemed to be plunged into darkness, apart from the chink of light supplied by the door, which had swung to. This room had no windows. The gas-lamps were turned off. "Mr. Hawke," she said, loudly from the doorway. Her voice sounded shaky and came out in a squeaky-off-pitch sound. The mound on the bed grunted but did not move. Heartened, Victoria repeated herself. The reply was another grunt, followed by a loud snore.

Oh dear, Victoria thought. She slowly felt up the wall for the control for the gas, but could not find it, nor could she see it illuminated by the hall light. "Mr. Hawke, wake up," she said again and received no conscious response. She could smell him from where she stood; that strange, unique man scent that disgusted her brain but caused strange bodily responses. Even now, she felt her heart beating on every bodily surface. She told herself it was fear, not excitement. Slowly she tiptoed further into the room, almost tripping over a puddle of fabric that must have been some large item of clothing. She was nearly at his bedside now. His snorts and snores seemed ever so loud now that she was within a yard of him. "Mr. Hawke," she almost yelled. He stopped snoring and rolled over. She thought that he had finally awoken, "I'm so sorry to awaken you but-" his snore interrupted her. She nearly screamed in exasperation. Perhaps if she had he may have woken up.

Victoria couldn't see his face, but she knew it was facing her when she reached over to shake him and contacted the sandpaper stubble of his chin. Quickly she pulled her hand away. "Mr. Hawke," she said, but her voice was only a whisper. She reached for him again and contacted his open mouth. This time she didn't flinch away; instead she let her hand stray up his cheek to the soft skin of his eyelid. She encountered the brush border of his eyelash and then his sleek eyebrow. She quite liked this touching, she admitted to herself, as long as the man was not aware of what she was doing. Realizing this thought sent her jolt to her brain. The man had stopped snoring. She quickly retracted her hand.

"Mr. Hawke," Nurse Buckley said. "I apologize for awakening you but there is a medical emergency." She received a snore as a reply. She felt herself grow hot in the face, which her brain interpreted as anger. "Mr. Hawke!" she finally shouted. Would this man never wake up?

She reached both hands forward this time and, avoiding his face, gripped the exposed shoulder of Dr Hawke's nephew and shook it vigorously. "Mr. Hawke, wake up please. Wake up!"

At last, she got a response, perhaps not the desired one, but a response nevertheless. "What?" Ned Hawke blared in a sleep and alcohol fogged voice. "Who the hell are you?"

Nurse Buckley did not know what to reply to this question. The man was very coarse and vulgar.

Ned sat up slightly in his bed. Surprisingly, at least to him, he did not have the aching head characteristic of excess. Then... who was...? He regarded the figure standing next to the bed; he could tell by her silhouette that she was a woman. This didn't seem to be his room either. Where the hell was he? "Fuck, I didn't think I'd drunk that much," he said more to himself than the woman standing beside the bed. "I s'pose you've already gone through my pockets; I don't have nought to give you, I spent it all."

Victoria Buckley had no idea what the man was talking about, other than the fact that he was cussing in the crudest manner at her. Suddenly she found her tongue. "Mr. Hawke, I'm sorry to awaken you, but there is a medical emergency that I need you to investigate."

"Fuck." Abruptly it all came flooding back to Ned. The beer, the women, the loud music, all still slightly blurred together. The carriage ride from London that should have been sobering had Ron not had that hipflask of absynithe. The hospital at which they would start work once more in the morning looming into view. Not being able to get into the wing where their bedrooms were. Being let into the hospital by the pretty nurse with the dimples, and finally staggering along the ward (Ron with the nurse giggling under his arm) until somebody told them which rooms were empty.

"Can you get up, please?" Nurse Buckley asked.

Ned thought he'd heard that voice somewhere before. Maybe it was the dimpled nurse. "Who are you?" He reached over to touch her breast, but she stepped back from his touch. 

"I hardly think it matters, can you just get up, please. It's an emergency."

"If it's such a big deal, why don't you go bug my uncle's bedside?" Ned lay back down and cocooned himself in blankets. "I'm tired, go away." He rolled away from her.

That was the problem, Victoria realized. Stephen Hawke could not see Genevieve in that state. He would instantly blame the nurse looking after her for her injuries, regardless of the fact that the woman had done it to herself. He would say that Nurse Buckley should have been keeping a better eye on her and should not have turned the light off in the room. The woman was trying to spite her at every turn. "Dr Hawke has been on duty all day, unlike you. You're near the patient, while Dr Hawke is in the other wing. Get up. Get up, now."

Why wouldn't she just go away? Ned was getting irritated now. His Hippocratic oath was never strong on nights like this. "Just fuck off, I'm tired."

Nurse Buckley knew the word was bad, but hardly knew what it meant. She was shocked that a man from such a good family could use that sort of language. Shocked was only a small portion of what she felt. Mostly it was anger. Anger that this man could talk down to her in such a grotesque manner like some low class villain when he clearly was not. It appalled her sense of social values. "There is a medical emergency, get up, please," she hissed. She was very close to stripping the bedclothes from the bed, as she would do to a naughty child; only the knowledge that he was at least partially naked underneath stopped her. 

"Fuck, you're annoying. You don't give up, do you?" Ned groaned. 

"Please, Mr. Hawke. I would prefer that you did not use that word." Victoria said. What was it going to take to make him see patient forty-six?

Ned sat up quickly. He was going to have to go; he knew it. "I tell you what, if I do you a favor now, you have to do me a favor later."

Before she realized she had opened her mouth, the following sentence shot out. "This isn't a favor, it's your job." 

"It's not my job. I'm not on duty 'til tomorrow morning. So this is a favor. If you make me get up in the night, you do something for me in return. Now pass me my trousers. They're on the floor somewhere. Don't worry about my underpants, I'll just hang loose for the moment," Ned Hawke commanded.

"You can dress yourself," Buckley snapped. "I'll wait outside in the hall for you."

"If you're not with me I might decide to go back to sleep. Now, why don't you shut the door?"

"I don't think so." Victoria Buckley told the doctor.

Ned was starting to enjoy himself now. He had always liked nurses. In his opinion, most of them were very accommodating, but you got the occasional prig. Prigs were the best. Uptight virgins who thought that they were the morality police were the greatest challenge of all and provided the best rewards. What was the point of having a woman if everything was offered on a plate? There had to be a hunt, a chase, a capture to keep him interested. His uncle's clinic was the ideal net to catch such beauties; the nurses would never say a word to his uncle if they wanted to keep their jobs (which they did). He never touched patients. 

Now he spoke to Nurse Buckley with added vigor. "You're a dirty one, aren't you? Do you want to see my manhood?" Just to horrify her a little more, he started to inch his out from beneath the sheets.

"I beg your pardon. I most certainly do not!"

"Then shut the door," Ned told her, quietly. "If there's no light you won't be able to see it." He could not risk anybody in the hallway interrupting his fun. He watched her figure as she walked over to the door and slowly shut it. The nurse was tall and thin, but had sizeable breasts, he decided. The hall-light half lit her face as she closed the door, revealing pale skin, high cheekbones and a cleft chin. A sweet enough girl; he had probably seen her before but couldn't remember doing so. Virgins like her had a way of making themselves invisible.

"Good," Ned Hawke said. "Now come back over here."

Reluctantly, Victoria Buckley obeyed. She felt disgusted and angry that she was driven to do these things just for that loathsome Mrs. Gore, not that she was exactly aware of the things Ned Hawke had in mind. It was bad enough that she had to be in the same room as him without a chaperone, much worse that she had to help him dress. She told herself that this was her retribution for the two culpable acts she had committed that night; turning Genevieve's light off, and touching Ned Hawke's face whilst he slept. Both had given her guilty pleasures. Ned slowly pulled the bedclothes away from his body. He heard the nurse take a sharp intake of breath. He liked to have that affect on women, even if they couldn't see his body in the dark. "Hand me my trousers, please," he told her. Ah, the hunt had begun; the trophy prize a blood wound. He would treat her politely, and make her think that she was special. He would use her and discard her, just as he had used so many other girls. He was twenty-eight years of age. He had been playing the game for thirteen years.

Nurse Buckley retrieved what she took to be his trousers from one of several puddles of fabric on the floor. The belt was still attached, and jangled when she shook the fabric. Instead of handing the trousers to him, she threw them his way. "Please hurry, it is an emergency," she said.

"Is anybody going to die if I'm a few minutes late?" Ned asked. He already knew the answer.

"No," Buckley replied. "But all the same, the patient needs to be dealt with. She is being completely defiant." 

"Is there someone with her?" 

"Yes, Nurse Ramsey is." Ramsey, what fond memories he had of her. 

"Then we have plenty of time," Ned Hawke told the nurse. "Why don't you come and help me dress myself?"

Victoria struggled to keep her voice even. For some reason her heart was beating at a very rapid rate and her face felt ember-hot. She told herself that it was anger and disgust. "I'm sure that you can manage on your own, Mr. Hawke."

"Please, call me Ned. What's your name?"

"Miss Buckley," Victoria replied. "Would you please dress yourself? I should not have left Miss Ramsey so long. She has her own patients to see to."

Ned still held his trousers across his lap. He was completely naked apart from his partially unfastened shirt and the socks upon his feet. Sometimes he ached just to take the extra stubborn ones without the chase, but that would downplay the action and remove most of the fun. She wouldn't be giving herself to him out of love. She would be stiff and unmoving beneath him. He liked to teach them how to enjoy themselves and please him first. Otherwise, he might as well find a mortuary, for all the pleasure he got from screwing an unready virgin. 

"Your first name is as much Miss as mine is Mister. Come on, what is it? Is it something ugly like Blanche? Is that why you will not tell me?" Heaven forbid her mother or grandmother's name be Blanche, he thought.

"My name's Victoria. Now will you please dress yourself?"

"What a beautiful name for a beautiful lady," Ned Hawke told the nurse. He had yet to meet a girl that did not blush at that line. "And as for dressing myself, why don't you help me? I'm a little incapacitated at the moment."

"I'm sure that you can manage," Victoria Buckley said, coldly. She could have run out of the room, at any time, but some strange, irrational feeling was making her stay. "Why don't you hurry up?"

"Maybe I won't go at all, I'm quite tired." Ned made as if to lie down on the bed once more.

"Oh, very well," Nurse Buckley snapped. "Just make haste."

Ned Hawke smiled. The chase had begun. He stood up and slowly inserted his legs into his trousers. He pulled them up and held them, unbuttoned and unbelted, at his waist. Then he slowly advanced on the pensive figure of Victoria Buckley. "Do up my trousers," he told her, knowing that she was unfamiliar and frightened and was bound to fumble.

Victoria's heart jolted up to her throat. She felt bizarrely light-headed and weightless. "I really don't think..."

"Please," Ned said. "I won't bite." He was so close to her now that he felt her hot breath on his face. The anticipation of touching her was trilling through his blood; not yet, he told himself. 

Nurse Buckley took a deep breath. "Very well." She ran her hands down to where his waistband was (Thank goodness he was wearing a shirt, she thought, even if it was undone). She was glad it was dark and she could not see much.

Ned Hawke felt those fingers fumble with the first button. She had decided to do it from the top downwards, the crafty girl. He felt every flick and light touch as she tried desperately to avoid touching him any more than she had to. Judging by the quickening of hot breath now directed against his chest, he knew she was feeling some unusual physical effects. A girl like her would probably be disgusted by her body's behavior. That conflict of interests within his prey thrilled him even more.

Victoria finished the buttons and moved onto the belt, still attached to the trousers from the night before. Just as she were about to insert the strip of leather through the buckle, Ned Hawke said, "Aren't you going to tuck me in?"

She shut her eyes in anger and humiliation. "I'm sure that you're perfectly capable of doing so."

"Yes, but I asked you to do it. Do you want me to come and see to this patient or not?" Ned asked. He didn't touch her, even though he longed to do so. "You'll have to button up my shirt first."

"Very well," Buckley hissed. She could have left now. For some reason she wanted to stay, not just because of the patient she did not even like but because somehow this excited her. She quickly buttoned his shirt up all the way to his neck. 

"Now tuck me in."

He felt the tips of her cold fingers pass below the hem of his shirt as she inserted the fabric into the back of his trousers. Slowly, she brought her hands around to the front of his body, flinching away as they drifted close to his groin. Now, he thought. Now. Suddenly he brought his hand down to grip hers. He forced her hand down his trousers and held it against his stiffening manhood. She took an abrupt wavering breath. He felt her fingers squirm and flex in their haste to get away. Suddenly she was pushing him, fighting against him. Then she dashed from the room.




A Victorian Virgin?



Victoria Buckley stood with her back against the wall next to door twenty-one. Her heart was pounding two hundred beats per minute. She felt her face crease as tears began to form in her eyes. She felt used and humiliated, even more so when she looked up and saw the wide smile on Colleen's face. "Why did you let me go in there?" she wailed, but the answer was plain enough. She quickly strode away back to the stairwell door, unlocked it hastily with the keys on her belt, and ran up the stairs, before the hot tears began to rush from her eyes. 

Ned Hawke exited his room less than a minute later, fully dressed in a grey woolen suit. His brown hair was sleep-ruffled and his chin, cheeks and neck were dark with stubble. He regarded Colleen and Mary with pale, blue eyes. "Where did the other nurse go?"

"Back where she came from," Mary said, coldly. She thought Nurse Buckley had gotten what she deserved, but disliked Ned Hawke, as all the nurses did. She had personally been on the receiving end of his attention earlier in the month, but he had soon lost interest in her when she had been all too willing to oblige.

"Which is?" Ned Hawke queried. "She said there was a patient-"

Colleen cut across him. "Mrs. Gore, room forty-six. Nurse Buckley has left all the doors unlocked from here to there, so don't you worry about access. When you get there, you might like to tell her to lock them. Security, you know."

Victoria Buckley was stuck at the door adjoining the stairwell to the ward for rooms thirty to thirty-nine. She was crying so hard that she could not see which key was which. Her hands shook so much that she had difficulties in inserting the random keys she had been jamming into the lock. It was all Genevieve Gore's fault. All of it. She did not think to blame herself for switching off the light in the patient's room, contrary to all the advice Dr Hawke had given regarding that particular patient. Nor did she think to blame herself for leaving Mrs. Gore alone in the room for three hours, when she was supposed to check the patients every half hour. All she could think about was that if it wasn't for Mrs. Gore none of the terrible things that had happened that night would have happened.

The keys were slipping through her fingers as if they were water. Why couldn't she find the right one? She was about ready to scream when she heard footsteps behind her. Quickly she whirled about to face whoever it was.

Ned Hawke saw a woman with black hair, pale skin and a dimpled chin. Her eyes were a strange grey-blue color, rather like an overcast sky on a very stormy day. At that moment, she was not looking her best. Her eyes were swollen, red rimmed. Her cheeks were flushed red and wet. "What do you want?" she asked him in a strangely high-pitched, shaking voice. He saw that she was clutching a metal ring with at least twelve keys of varying size and shape in her hand, brandishing it toward him almost like a weapon. 

"Are you crying because of me?" He asked her. "No, don't give yourself airs," Victoria snapped. She was hurriedly rebuilding the prickly insulation of severity and harsh words she used to protect herself from everybody. 

"I'm sorry." The game was in play once more. He held out his handkerchief, freshly starched and folded from the pocket on the inside of his jacket. He had been saving it for a 'damsel in distress'. 

Nurse Buckley ignored the out-stretched hand and turned back to the doorway. "Of course you are," she said, sarcastically. In an icier voice, she added, "You're dirty and disgusting and I don't like you, so leave me alone." Hardly the way to address a superior staff-member, let alone the nephew of her employer. She stared down at the keys. Her anger at Ned Hawke had cleared her eyes. Now she could clearly see which one belonged to the door. She inserted it in the keyhole, turned it and heard the magical click of the mechanism moving the lock. She took the handle, opened it and rushed forwards along the floor, not caring to hold it open for Ned Hawke. He had to run to keep up with her. Oh yes, the hunt was on. She might run from him now, but she would run to him just as quickly in the next few days. He had her on a string.

She stopped at the next door and unlocked it with the mechanical precision of somebody who had done it hundreds of times before. It was then that she realized she had not locked any of the doors behind her. She'd do that later, she decided.

The door to room forty-six was open. Buckley could hear voices from within; a man's voice to be exact. It sounded like Dr Hawke. She quickly wiped the remnants of tears from her eyes and entered.

Genevieve Gore was seated stiffly on the bed, her bloody hands folded primly in her lap. Her dark hair was draped over her left shoulder, the ragged ends falling to just above her left breast. Her nightshirt was hardly proper; Victoria Buckley could clearly see the form of her pert breasts, especially the hard nipple on the right. Dr Hawke sat indecently close to his patient, a bowl in one hand and a cloth in the other. Water from this cloth had dripped over Genevieve's clothing, rendering it transparent in places. He was carefully washing the blood from Genevieve's face, talking quietly to her as he did so. When Nurse Buckley entered, he looked up sharply and said, "Where have you been?"

"I went to fetch a doctor to examine her," Victoria answered.

"Didn't you know that there was nobody on duty tonight? You should have rung the bell for me, immediately, as Nurse Ramsey did," Hawke told her. He stared at his Genevieve, pale, shivering and unresponsive. Her face was bruised and bleeding, not to mention the terrible condition of her wrists. These physical injuries would heal quickly; he was much more worried about the wounds to her mind. She had not been in this state since she had arrived at his hospital. It had taken months to bring her personality back from the dark hole in which it had hid. He hated to imagine how long it would take this time.

"No, I didn't know," Nurse Buckley replied. "When I found that out, I went to fetch the interns."

"You'd been away more than twenty minutes when Nurse Ramsey contacted me. I have been here five minutes. What have you been doing in the time that has elapsed?" Hawke snapped. "It is an appalling lapse on your behalf, Miss Buckley. Look at the patient. What would have happened if she was seriously injured and you left her here, bleeding? She'd be dead, I tell you."

Ned Hawke came into the room behind Victoria Buckley. She was going to owe him for what he was about to say. "Uncle, you are being rather harsh. Nurse Buckley did not want to wake you because you had been on duty all day long and she thought that the patient's injuries did not warrant your intervention. She left another nurse watching the patient whilst she went and fetched me. She followed procedure exactly. My own lax behavior made her late returning to her patient. She had to wake me and wait whilst I dressed. I am a doctor, even though I have only had a few years experience, I could have dealt with the patient. There was no reason for the other nurse to contact you."

Stephen Hawke's eyes flicked from his nephew to the nurse. "That still does not explain how Mrs. Gore got into this condition. You're the ward nurse. You were supposed to check her every thirty minutes. It would have taken longer than that for these wounds to form. Why did you restrain her? I've checked her charts. All you have written is 'patient restrained'. There is not even a time logged in. This is very negligent on your part, Nurse Buckley."

"Mrs. Gore was abusing herself. I had to restrain her in accordance with hospital procedure," Victoria Buckley said.

"Abusing herself in what way?" Dr Hawke asked. 

Victoria tried to think of a polite way to say it, but she could not think of one. She felt embarrassed that she had to say it, especially in front of two men. "Self abuse," she said.

Stephen Hawke clearly did not understand. "Abuse in what way, Nurse Buckley? Was she hitting herself?"

Victoria tripped and stumbled her way through the sentence. Her face was becoming hotter and hotter. "No. Um- The ar- Solitary vice. I restrained her for it." She averted her eyes from the Doctor's face when she said it. Her legs trembled beneath her like jelly.

"Masturbation," Ned Hawke said, loudly. 

Dr Hawke frowned at his nephew then turned his head back to Genevieve. He tried not to imagine what she had been doing, but it was difficult. He wondered whether it was his fault for the things he had done to her earlier in the evening. "What time did you restrain her?"

"Twelve forty three. I was disgusted; I didn't think to write down the time."

"That's your problem, isn't it, Nurse Buckley, you don't think, do you? It's now nearly five in the morning. It would have taken more than half an hour to cause this damage. You must not have checked her every half hour." Victoria's nod was enough evidence toward that claim. "What else did you not do?" Dr Hawke snapped, sharply.

"I did everything in accordance to the rules," Nurse Buckley whimpered.

Anger rippled through Stephen Hawke's body. It was because of this woman, this nurse, that Genevieve was in condition she was in. She was mute, as she had been before. No comprehension shone in her eyes when he spoke to her. He feared that the person that he had known and loved was gone forever. "Liar," he shouted. "You must have done something else to her. People don't mutilate themselves in this way just because you tie them up. They might scream and shout, but they don't hit their faces against the wall and bite their wrists. You must have ignored her. She must have made some sort of noise."

"Please, she never made a sound," Buckley said. It was the first full truth she had told the doctor.

"Rubbish. You left her tied to a bed for at least three and a half hours. You never checked her, and you're telling me you never heard a sound, whilst she was doing this to herself," he gestured to Genevieve's ragged right wrist.

"She never made a sound," Buckley protested. "Never a single sound. Ask the patients on either side of her. They will have heard no more than I heard."

Dr Hawke was too angry to listen. "You left her tied to a bed for three and a half hours. You did not check on her. You let her do this to herself. You're supposed to stop this from happening!"

"Uncle-" Ned said.

"Oh, stop it, Ned. Don't try to protect her." To Victoria he said, "What else did you do to her?"

"Nothing!"

"That's the problem, isn't it, Nurse Buckley? You didn't do anything to help Genevieve. You left her there, in the-" Reality beamed on Hawke. "I know what you did. You turned the light off, didn't you?"

"Yes," Victoria admitted, reluctantly. She watched in fear as the Doctor's features disfigured into a snarl. His blue eyes seemed to pop from their cavities, pushed outwards by the clenched red muscles of his face. 

Dr Hawke lost it. The nurse was standing there, completely smug with everything she had done, whilst poor Genevieve sat locked in her own mind. He wanted to grab her by shoulders and shake her until her own brain was turned to mush by contact with her skull, much like a chicken's egg shaken in a jar. He wanted to strike her so many times that her bones became nothing but grit within her limbs. God, he was so angry, he wanted to kill her. Only the knowledge that he would lose everything, including Genevieve, prevented him from throwing the nurse across the room. 

"You knew she was afraid of the dark! You had been told specifically that the light in Genevieve's room was to be left on! You knew that there could be dire repercussions if you turned it off, but you did anyway! You left my patient tied to a bed for three and a half hours in the dark! Do you have any idea of the damage that you could have caused to her! You stupid, stupid bitch! How dare you!"

Ned Hawke watched in horror as his mild uncle transformed into a raving madman. The man was completely out of his mind and nobody had even died. Just because of this particular patient, this Mrs. Gore. He had heard about her, of course, but his uncle had never let him have any contact with her. Keeping her for himself, he thought. 

He ran an appreciative eye over the patient. Pity about the bruises and lacerations to the face, she'd be nice enough to look at without them. It was her body that drew his eye. There was little to be left to the imagination with that thin nightshirt she had on, especially where the fabric was wet. Full of breast, narrow of waist and wide of hip, plump in all the right places and thin in the others. He loved working with the insane ladies, especially when they wore things like that. Not that he ever touched them, of course. That would be stretching the Hippocratic Oath a little too thinly. He stuck to the nurses.

His uncle wasn't finished in his tirade. He was beginning to repeat himself now, Ned thought. He'd heard the word 'bitch' about three times, 'you left her alone in the dark' several more times and 'how dare you' numerously. Before this date, he had never seen his uncle angry, even though he had worked with him for two years. It was frightening, to be honest, although Ned would never admit it. He wondered how the delicious Nurse Buckley was holding up.

She was standing with her arms at her side, her body as rigid as bricks. Her eyes were not wet, nor were her cheeks flushed. Her cleft chin thrust forward almost aggressively like a battering ram. Her full lips were shut so tightly together that he thought he could see the muscles about her mouth compress them. Finally, her eyes were clouded over with defiance. "She needed to be punished, Doctor," the nurse said in a lull between skirmishing words. Her voice was arctic cold. "How else would she learn that what she had done was wrong and disgusting?"

Stephen Hawke erupted into another rage. "You restrained her. That was enough for a punishment."

"The restraints weren't to punish her, they were to prevent her from doing any further damage. Had they been removed she would repeat the offence. She needed to be taught not to do it again," Nurse Buckley explained.

"And by turning off the light, you expected to do so?" Dr Hawke asked. "That is ludicrous. You could have told me in the morning and had me speak with her. She was an intelligible woman; she would have understood. Now look at her! Look what you have done!"

"I didn't do anything to her. She did it to herself," Buckley snapped.

"And whose fault is that, exactly? You turned the light off, kept her locked to her bed for three hours. That is serious malpractice on your part, Nurse Buckley!"

"You're basically saying that she has no will, that she had to cause that damage to herself. She didn't have to, she did it on purpose-"

"She did it because she was afraid. She was terrified! She fought and she struggled to get away!" Dr Hawke snapped.

"You are blinded by her," Nurse Buckley replied. "She is pretending that she is ill, when she is not. It is all to defy me. She is a wicked woman! She is a murderess! Yet, you indulge her and give her anything she asks for! She is a conniving witch who is taking advantage of you-"

"Enough!" Stephen Hawke shouted. "Get out! I want you out of my hospital by dawn."

"Very well," Victoria Buckley said. She turned and walked slowly from the room, listening to the solitary sound of her feet on the on the floorboards in the hallway. She snatched up her knitting from the desk, not caring that one needle came free as she did so, causing a wide ladder in the weave. She trod leisurely along the hallway to the door leading to the nurse's wing. Maybe she hoped that Dr Stephen Hawke would reconsider and call out to her. This did not occur.

Instead, Ned Hawke traced her footsteps to the doorway a few minutes later, having tried to convince his uncle to let the woman stay. He was unsuccessful, a thought that incensed him immensely. Ned was one of those determined people that took loss hard and would repeat a process as many times as it took him to master it. He was not ready to give up on Nurse Buckley, not because he liked her personally, but because she was his newest goal. The chase was still on, the hounds still released; he would have to think of a new way to ensnare her, even if it meant traveling to wherever it was she would go to from the clinic. His game was ever evolving; this was just the newest phase. He was rich, bored and had far too much time on his hands.

Victoria ascended the stairs to her bedroom. Having been employed for nearly three years at the clinic, she had been allowed to sleep alone, rather than in a shared bedroom. She was numb with the knowledge that she had lost her job, so much so that her every footstep was automated. She tried not to think about what she would do now. She would never find a position as well paid nor in such superior conditions. It tore her apart, to know that. The tears were flooding her cheeks now, the only physical sign of the raging tempest inside of her. 

She stopped at her bedroom door and unlocked it hastily. She left the ring of keys hanging in the door and rushed inside. Nobody had seen her face, thank goodness. They all hated her, everybody did. She knew that now. Colleen, Mary, even Patricia Ramsey, who had lied about the time she had been away from Mrs. Gore to fetch the intern, Ned Hawke, stretching the elapsed period from ten minutes to thirty. All the nurses hated her. That knowledge was far more devastating than the knowledge that she had no income. 

She glanced about her room. It was nothing but a cell, smaller and older than the rooms allotted to patients. The room was so restricted that she could sit on her bed and put her feet on the opposite wall. Several items of furniture were crammed into the small space. The bed was small and narrow with a gray blanket and white sheets, all property of the clinic. Immediately beside the bed was a chest of drawers, on which sat a photograph of Victoria's sister's family. The wardrobe at the end of her bed was too short for the other dress she owned, causing the skirts to lag on the base. She now opened the wardrobe door, causing the bedroom door to slam shut. There was a suitcase crammed to one side, property of her late father. She pulled this out and threw it onto the bed along with her spare pair of boots, one dress, a cape, a shawl, two skirts and two bodices. The wardrobe was now emptied. 

She was now crying so hard she could barely see what she was doing. Her frantic hands folded the skirts quickly and placed them into the suitcase. They were plain, unbustled or caged in any way, so they packed down firmly. She tore the white apron from about her waist and put that in the case. In went the boots, dress and bodices, the photograph, her knitting, her bible, her brushes and hairpins, mirror, two pairs of woolen stockings, two nightshirts and a bed-coat, some loose drawers and stays. That was everything she owned. Her life fitted into a box. 

Victoria wrapped her black shawl over her clothing, and adhered it in place with a plain hatpin. She climbed into her navy-blue cape and dropped down upon the bed, beside her box. She shook uncontrollably with misery, her hands hugged about her body. Tears tore from her eyes and spattered down her clothing. She had lost everything. Everything.

Ned Hawke wandered along the floor where the nurse's rooms were allocated. He had been here many times before, and was not worried about being seen or questioned about why he was present. Being Dr Stephen Hawke's nephew gave him a free rein, an excuse to be anywhere in the hospital. His own room was located in the separate wing of the Hawke household; he never brought a nurse there, it was too risky, even for him. 

His pace was leisurely. He would let Victoria Buckley work herself into a state before he arrived. Thanks to his uncle, he had his prey in the exact condition he wanted her in. She was upset and vulnerable to attack. Her defenses would be down, the gates opened to anybody with a kind word and a clean handkerchief in hand. A nice, soft shoulder was what she needed to cry on. Ned was the man for the job, his armor polished to shine, his words suave, careful and charming. He would watch her melt before his eyes, right into his arms. 




A Victorian Virgin?



Ned did not know which of the rooms belonged to Victoria, or whether her room was solitary or shared. He hoped to God that she had left some item of evidence in the hallway to indicate her presence, although perhaps if he left her long enough, he may hear her. Not that he was a religious man, mind, but there had to be some greater power to pray to in times like these. Zeus was more his man, but God would do. That was Ned all over, unreligious, unattached and almost hubric in his arrogance. Life was just another game to win. No goal was unattainable. He did not see people personified, merely as objects for him to direct and play with. In his opinion, he had never lost an argument, and he was not about to start now. If Victoria Buckley had to leave the hospital, so be it. He'd follow her to the ends of the earth if he had to, not because he liked her particularly, but because she had become his latest goal. Forget Patricia Ramsey, Buckley was the one.

There were not that many rooms to choose from in that hallway; probably ten or so. He could narrow his search down quite extensively just by remembering which rooms his conquests had occurred in, but he couldn't. There were too many. Molly, Julia, Jenny, Kate; he could not even remember their names, not that they stuck around terribly long after he dropped them. Girls were hired and gave notice all in the space of weeks. The turnover of staff in this clinic should surely have alarmed his uncle.

Conveniently, the last door on the left was slightly open, a ring of keys hanging from the door. In Ned's opinion, the keys were as sure an invitation as a dropped handkerchief. He was going to repondez s'il vous plait, with all the pomp and politeness of the knight in shining armor.

Ned paused outside the door to settle his hair and gather his nerves. He'd be lying if he said that he was not afraid that one day he would be completely and utterly rejected. Deep down, that was what he wanted. That was why he pushed the limits further and further every time; subconsciously waiting and hoping for somebody to end his madness. But Ned was not aware of this. All Ned could think about was his hunt for the prey within the room. Now he tapped on the door, lightly, gingerly. "Miss Buckley, are you in there?" God, he'd look like a fool if it was the wrong door.

He heard a stifled sob within. No, he had the right door. He'd string her along a bit now, make the tension as tight as a violin string (of which he was a masterful player).

"Miss Buckley, may I come in?"

The reply was a howl of sadness. He was in.

Ned pushed the door aside, gently. He saw Victoria sitting on the bed in her horrid, little room. Next to her shaking figure was a closed and battered suitcase. The room was Spartan, nothing but a cupboard crammed with three items of furniture. He suspected that it had originally been a much larger room but had been partitioned off several times over to give several cells like this one. Victoria was lucky in that her compartment at least had a window. He knew of several rooms that did not.

"I am sorry," Ned told her. "I asked him to reconsider, but he would not."

Victoria looked at him in distaste. She would not forget the humiliation she had suffered in room twenty-one easily. She recalled her hand coming in contact with his hot, hard... She could not even think about it. "What do you want?" she sniffed. How dare he come into her room, her private space, and see her in this state? She was so embarrassed she did not stick to her usual high standard of manners.

"I wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier this evening," Ned said.

"Very well," Victoria replied.

"I understand that my actions must have shocked your dignity to the core. It was very unsavory of me. I am very sorry for that. I never intended to distress or displease you in any way. Please, believe me. I am heartily apologetic, not just for my behavior but for my language as well. I was very crude and vulgar in my address of you, when I should have spoken to you with respect. I am sure that you never expected to hear such terrible language used toward you. For that, I am also sorry." Ned smiled his apology smile, the body language that had been known to make some women weak at the knees. "I just thought that I would tell you such before you leave. I would hate it to feel unresolved."

"Thank you," Victoria said, with all the solemnity she could manage when halfway through bawling her eyes out. "Is that all?"

So cold, Ned thought. This was going to be a challenge, thank goodness. "Are you feeling well?"

"I feel perfectly acceptable; I just lost my position of three years. I am not going to find another situation with even closely the same wage. So yes, I am feeling wonderful," Victoria snapped. 

He had her, he knew it. She may be prickly on the outside but she was a mess within. Even when she snapped or snarled at him, he could tell that her mind was in pieces by the way her voice wavered and her eyes watered. She had tried to put the fortifications back up to protect herself but they were as weak as sand, they would crumble before his eyes very soon. "I didn't mean it in that way. I know you can hardly be feeling brilliant. I just-"

Victoria interrupted him. "Just what?" Why wouldn't he just leave? She could not keep herself together much longer.

"I wanted to apologize for my behavior-" 

"You've done that," Victoria replied.

"I wanted to see how you were-"

"I'm fine." There was no conviction behind her voice. Indeed, it seemed to waver between emotions.

"Really?" Ned queried. He kept his eyes intent upon her tear streaked face. She was trying not to shake, he saw, but her folded hands betrayed her, wringing, weaving, twisting in discomfort. Her eyes were packed to near drip-point with liquid. Soon a tear would split away from this fluid, followed shortly by its brothers. It was a chain reaction. The release of one tear would bring everything into play. He would be there for that with his handkerchief and his soft shoulder. 

It was happening now. He watched as what little dignity she had crumbled before his eyes. "No," she wept. "Nothing's all right. Everything's wrong." The tears came hot and fast, just as he had predicted they would. Suddenly he was lifting the box from the bed and shifting a bonnet. He sat down beside her and handed her a handkerchief; the same one that he had offered her earlier in the evening. He did not touch her. She had to come to him. And she did, leaning forward against his shoulder whilst he put his arms about her. 

The hunt was on.