The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 04

James heard her clear her throat and opened his eyes. Her fingers lightly picked up the fork and knife and carved a piece off of one potato before drawing it into her mouth, setting her fork down without a sound as she chewed without hardly moving her jaw. James watched her. How was it that a simple natural born country servant would know how to correctly curtsy, have the table manners of an aristocrat... and read?

"Sophia," he said between bites, startling her as she looked up at him, "I am curious about something you said earlier today."

Please don't let it be about reading... please, God, don't let it be about reading...

"How is it that you learned to read? Do you also write?"

She blanched. He must know. He wouldn't have asked her so pointedly and enticed her with a dress and a meal, her payment for giving away the location of the letter and her right to the farm. Her memories also surfaced. Her stolen childhood came flooding back to her and she fought back the hot tears welling up in her eyes.

"What is the matter with you? It is just a question, a curiosity of mine. Where did you learn how to read?"

"Yes, I also write. I learned from my father," she said, looking away.

James raised his eyebrows at this. So she wasn't just the indiscriminately sewn wild oat of an aristocrat. Everything fell into place as he pictured her early childhood, the babe of a beloved dead mistress given all the fineries of life, only to have it all taken from her as she was shut away at some godforsaken orphanage before ending up... here. His felt a vise close around his heart, knowing that he was just the latest in a string of misfortune for this woman, "Don't worry about it. I'm sorry I upset you."

Sophia looked at him quizzically. He had no compunctions about her crying two weeks ago when he ravished her, but was concerned for her now? She counted her blessings. At least he wasn't pressing the matter any further, and it gave her the opportunity to change the subject, "Can I ask something about you?"

James smiled, "Of course."

"Where did you find Katje and Aletta?"

"Well," he began around a bite of game hen, "My mother's family had several holdings with the farms in the Netherlands, and after her death during the great frost five years ago they passed to me. The De Groot family worked one of those farms. During a blizzard, Mr. de Groot and his two sons went out to the barn to check on their cattle and never came back."

Sophia felt her chest tighten thinking of that sweet Dutch woman losing her husband and sons in one night, "That's terrible. Poor dear Katje..."

"Which was exactly what I thought when I arrived after the weather cleared to find a barn full of cattle frozen solid and a starving mother and child. So I sold their farm and hired them on to come with me, putting them to work at my townhouse in London. Given the threat to my Dutch holdings from the French forces, and that the frost had deadened the land, I certainly couldn't keep them there in good conscience. Katje missed the ways of the farm and detested the bustle of the city; I could sense it. She was delighted when I told her that she was to go to Ashford."

Sophia smiled, even showing some teeth before bringing her hand to her mouth to hide it. The tears returned to her eyes.

"What is the matter now?"

"Nothing; nothing at all. That's just a beautiful story. It took me a bit by surprise is all. I hadn't expected you—" She caught herself short but he finished the sentence for her.

"—to be anything but a heartless rake? Though I believe 'loathsome coxcomb' was your exact wording..."

She sat bolt upright, "I didn't mean it, James. I—"

"Don't apologize. You are right, I am a heartless rake," James said, as she relaxed back into her seat. He watched her face brighten once more. James paused a moment, realizing that he had actually seen Sophia smile. He had never seen her smile before and the look of her eyes lighting up like that made him melt.

Sophia couldn't believe what she had just heard. In a round about way, did he just express regret for ravishing her when they first met? It couldn't have been. Sophia gave him a rueful look, accepting it as the only apology this man was most likely capable of giving her.

"You probably wonder how someone like my uncle would ever entail his holdings to someone like me."

Sophia blanched again. This was where he was going to lower the boom, assert his rights to this place and demand she tell him about the letter so he could destroy it. She was caught in his web, and stared down at her food as she talked so as not to give her hand away. It was all she could do was to play along, "No, but why did he?"

"I'm sure you're well aware that Uncle Davi— my uncle was... fond... of the love that dare not speak its name."

"Yes. But we never talked about it but once. He and I had a pact. I wouldn't ask about that as long as he didn't ask," she lowered her eyes, "about my childhood."

James nodded, "Needless to say he never produced any heirs. My father was dead in an accident before I was born and my mother merely unloaded me from her body so she could go in fruitless search of a new husband in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris before the war, wherever her affairs and dalliances would take her. My uncle and I had a falling out unfortunately when I grew to become a man, but for part of my formative years, he raised me here in this house; hired the best tutors money could buy, taught me the violin—"

"You know how to play a fiddle?!" Sophia blurted, planting her hands on the table, her deep green eyes wide.

"Violin."

"I know it's called a violin, but Dav— Mr. Farthing always called it his fiddle. He would play it often in the evening, and I would dance."

"Really! Well, it is neither here nor there, but yes, I can play; somewhat."

Sophia's eyes danced and she licked her suddenly dry lips. She didn't dare ask him.

"Take me to where it is."

Sophia leapt up from the table and kissed James on the cheek. He was taken aback and shocked for just a moment but as she began to dart away, James caught her mid stride, grabbing her hand and wheeling her to him. He kissed her full on the mouth, his tongue parting her lips as he brought her against him. Sophia's hands rested on his shoulders, feeling the soft wool of his frock and the tensed muscles underneath.

She broke away, a teasing smile curling her lip, "The fiddle?"

"Violin," he said, returning her mischievous grin.

"Fiddle," she said quietly. He kissed her on the tip of her nose.

She grabbed his hand and led him up the staircase, innocently, her mind fixed on her goal. James followed, his mind on his own goal, intending to take this exactly where her path ended. She skipped into the bedroom and flung open the wardrobe in the corner, still hung with Mr. Farthing's clothes. Her heart wrenched for a moment mourning her friend before she turned back to her task. At the bottom was a long, thin, black leather case. She bore it carefully across the room and set it up on the dresser, moving a candle aside before backing away.

James walked over and unlatched the case, folding back the dark red velvet swaddle around the instrument and bow. He put it on his shoulder and played the high A, then tuned the D before tuning the last string and working back up in fifths. He raised the bow to play, watching her tilt forward in anticipation. He paused, "This comes at a price, you know."

Sophia wrinkled her brow at him.

"If I play, you must dance."

Sophia gave him another wide smile, blushing and hiding her teeth with the back of her hand. What James would give to see that smile on her always...

Lifting the bow once more, James started playing the agonizingly slow beginning of Jenny Plucks Pears. Sophia's grin grew even broader when the tempo picked up. Play 'somewhat' her left foot! He closed his eyes deep in the music, touching and fingering the strings, making them sing to her as his bow raked across the frets. Sophia clapped her hands in time to his playing.

"Dance!"

She jumped back in surprise as his playful command. He opened his eyes looking at her as she picked up her skirts and made the first sashay around, twirling, her curls bouncing as she shimmied across the rug, turning and bending, unconsciously flirting to the music. James turned with her, watching her turn the reel as she whirled a circle around him.

The tune slowed again and she curtsied deeply to the motion of the steps, locking her eyes to his, watching them go dark with passion. The tempo picked up again and she sashayed around one more, her skirts picked up in front of her feet. The music came to a sudden stop mid verse. As she swung around to ask why he had stopped playing, she felt his body crush against hers, fingers tipping the bow away from where they laced through her hair and a hand holding the neck of a violin against her back as his lips possessed her.

Her fingers laced around the nape of his neck bringing him closer, mating her tongue with his as she moaned against his mouth. He walked them backwards and set the violin and bow on the chair before holding her against him by the waist, his hands wrapped around the pleats of the gown. His fingers started pulling upward, hand over hand through an eternity of fabric before he reached the hem.

Sophia raised her arms and let him lift the dress off of her. It fell slowly to the rug, pooling at their feet, ignored as James drew his attention to her uplifted breasts. He smiled. This was the part he was familiar with when it came to these stay contraptions. He began by kissing her neck and gliding around her to her back, whispering lustful praises into her ear as his left hand danced lightly across the top of her breasts. His right hand unstrung the bottom of the stay, then the top, loosening it until it too was able to fall down the length of her body to her feet. He lifted Sophia into his arms out of the stay on the floor and delicately laid her on the bed.

The silk chemise clung to her curves, free of the bonds of the stay. In the glow of the room's many nearly-spent candles, the peak of her breasts created almost no telling shadow, but James was fixated upon them, desiring them in his mouth the way a man in the desert would desire a drink of water. He stripped off his jacket and waistcoat as one, yanking at his cravat before kicking his shoes and stockings to the other side of the room. Sophia lay there watching as he disrobed quickly, the awkwardness of his impatient undressing making her giggle.

He threw his shirt over his head and opened the placket of his breeches before pushing them off his waist. He watched her face turn sharply from simple amusement to desire. The last time he had undressed in front of her she had crawled to the other side of the bed like a frightened animal. Now as she lay there, her breathing became ragged and her pupils dilated in lust and memory of what pleasures his cock had wrought on her aching body. He raised first one muscular leg then the other, crawling over top of her, before lying beside her, the heat and hardness of him pressing into her thigh.

His mouth came down on hers once more as a hand kneaded a breast, forming and shaping the liquid flesh in his palm. His thumb and forefinger rolled up to pinch the nipple as Sophia arched her back up toward him, her thigh undulating against his cock. James grabbed her under her shoulder and rolled her on top of him, quickly pulling up the chemise and casting it to the floor, the last to join the pile of cloth now surrounding the bed.

She lay with her head against his shoulder watching the rise and fall of his chest, tracing a finger over its hard surface, down his tensed stomach and into the line of hair just below his navel. She watched his manhood jump as her hands moved, her fingers reaching out to caress him. James groaned as she moved her head down onto his chest, taking in the sight of the ruddy crown staring up at her with a pearl of fluid glistening at the tip.

The tips of her fingers made a furtive run over its length as James struggled to maintain his control. Her hand gripped him and she felt his body writhe. She curled her fingers around and stroked the shaft with purpose, feeling him thrust up into her hand, mimicking the motions of their joining.

"I need your mouth on me," James whispered hoarsely.

She looked up at him, stopping her hand, and stared into his heavily lidded eyes, his mouth partially open.

"Please..." he whispered.

It wasn't a request. He was asking her. Sophia looked down at his engorged flesh and turned to look back up into his eyes, "I don't know how."

"I trust you. Just kiss it at first; at the tip. Please, Sophia, I need you..."

His beseeching was the most erotic thing she could imagine hearing, his need and vulnerability evident. This didn't feel like the demand and conquering she had experienced a fortnight ago but the gentle plea of a lover. Sophia knelt between his legs, overwhelmed. She held his flesh in her upright palm before closing her fingers around the head, stroking downward. A low growl rose from his throat as she brought his organ upright off his stomach and toward her waiting lips.

She bent forward and kissed the tip with just her lips before making her first descent, imitating her favorite part of how he kissed her mouth. She laved the head with her tongue. Pleasure shot up his spine. James tilted his head back, sucking air in through his clenched teeth. Every fiber of him wanted to thrust deep into the back of her throat but he remained still, his hands at his sides. He wanted to run his fingers through her hair but knew that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from pushing her head down further if he did. Instead he let her explore.

She let the head disappear into the chasm of her mouth, watching James arch his hips, "Oh God, Sophia..."

Pulling back, she watched him pitch forward. The peppery taste of his skin mixed with a spice she couldn't name made her hum in enjoyment, his cock twitching in her mouth as the blood in him pumped just below the surface. She remembered when he had his mouth latched on her; how the room had spun and realized that he was experiencing near the same. He needed her in this moment just as fiercely as she had desired him.

Her hands worked the length of his shaft as her mouth bobbed on the crown in rhythm to the rising and falling of her hand underneath. Her motions echoed their coupling. Saliva and the salted moisture that kept slowly forming at the tip eased the path of her hand as it stroked against his shaft. She watched him writhe under her.

James couldn't believe what she was doing to him. He felt himself coming undone in the recesses of her mouth, the tongue lashing out over the rim of the crown, the gentlest grazing of teeth, and the powerful drag on his flesh each time her lips pulled up, swelling him in her hot mouth before she torturously descended again. The sight of his cock disappearing behind the veil of her lips again and again was too much for him. Through the haze of passion he managed broken words to warn her, "I'm going to come, Sophia... my seed will release into your mouth... please don't stop..."

She tightened her hand around him and descended further, enticed by the control she now had over his pleasure. Her eyes met his, treating him to the consciously erotic sight of her devouring his cock.

"I'm coming... oh God, my love I'm coming!"

Momentarily shocked by the word he just used, Sophia steadied and felt him involuntarily jerk upward; his eyes squeezed shut and his face contorted in his cry. She felt two bursts of hot thick liquid hit the back of her tongue before she released him from her mouth, feeling it trickle down her throat. The last pearlescent jet oozed out over her fingers and she brought them up to her lips, licking away the salty evidence of her triumph over his body.

Her tongue rolled over her smiling lips before James grabbed her and pulled her body up to rest on his, capturing her tongue in his mouth and tasting the faintest remains of his seed at the back of her throat. He gasped for air once more, her head resting on his shoulder.

She looked up at him. His eyes were still shut, "Do you want to go to sleep now?"

James heard a twinge of disappointment in her voice, thinking that he would just leave her unsatisfied, "No, absolutely not. Tonight has only just begun. I need to recover for a moment. That was incredible; you were incredible, Sophia. Thank you."

He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair. She played with a few of the sparse curls on his chest, listening to the drum of his heartbeat start to slow down.

He let out a long slow sigh and turned he head toward her, "So I have a question for you that's been gnawing at me all day..."

"Mmm?" she answered.

"How often do you go out to the millpond and touch yourself?"

She blushed, but straightened up and answered truthfully, "That was the only time."

"Touching yourself or going to the millpond?"

"Going to the millpond," she said with a smirk.

He lazily ran a hand over her exposed breast, tracing the curve as it peaked toward the center and turned over her, parting her thighs with his knee as she rested on her back, "So while I was gone, you found a way to... console yourself at night?"

"Yes," she said watching him pinch and roll his fingers over the puckering areola.

"And what specifically did you dream about on those nights?"

"When your mouth was on my... my..." she hesitated, her cheeks turning bright red and flushing all the way down to her breasts.

"You have no idea what that beautiful part of you is even called, do you?"

"It's a sin to even do... this, much less speak of these things."

"There is no sin in celebrating what God designed us to do."

James moved down for a kiss and felt Sophia's lips part for him with a sigh. His hand cupped her breast before descending to rest on her womb, his fingers trailing over her soft skin, making it jump at his touch. Sophia pulled back, "I was never told what to call... it."

"Well, we need to call it something, otherwise you won't know what to ask for when you want me to touch you."

"What do you call it, then?"

"Well the Latin is too formal... vagina. It takes far too long to say in the throes of passion. And the Germanic is too rough for so tender a place," he said, kneading and stroking her lips, his fingers tangling through the sparse blonde down as she throbbed underneath his teasing caress.

"What is your favorite?"

"I prefer the French. La chatte has such a delicate ring to it."

"What does it mean?" she asked, panting as he traced a finger into her folds.

"Pussy."

He watched her eyes widen and a smile curl her mouth then took the opportunity to renew his kiss, locking his lips to hers as his finger wiggled inside her. Her slight giggle at the word changed into a moan as he silenced her with his exploring tongue and hand before moving across and teasing her earlobe with a gentle nip of his teeth.

"Now," James whispered, "What was it that you needed?"

"I need your mouth on me," she said, echoing his words.

"Where on you?" he said, reaching up to run his thumb in a lazy circle over her tightened bud.

"On my..." she looked up at him shyly.

James withdrew his hand completely as Sophia shuddered and crumpled forward trying to rock herself back to his waiting fingers. He whispered against her neck, "You must say what it is..."

"On my pussy! Please, James," the word didn't feel nearly as dirty as she'd imagined. She wasn't embarrassed to give him direction now, knowing that he knew the way but that her words of gentle encouragement were just as erotic to him as they were to her when her mouth was squeezing around the head of his cock.