Page 14 of Pleasured By Her Officers
And so, this time, Lydia spoke more loudly.
“No!”
Wickham finally stilled. “So it’s to be like this, is it?” he asked, drink and the need to show a good face before the men of Meryton keeping his temper in check. “You refuse to come to your husband’s home? Are you abandoning me?”
Lydia looked at Carter, Denny, and Chamberlayne, trying to see what they were thinking. But their faces remained neutral; damn those soldiers for controlling their countenances!
It would need to be Lydia who decided. In the end, she must free herself if the decision was to hold.
“I am not coming home,” she said, resolute and standing as tall as she could. She recalled the bearing of an aristocratic lady she’d once met and found another half inch of height.
“Is that so?”
“I’m not coming home. And you’ll never wager me again, Wickham. I am not yours,” she said.
George affected a laugh. “I suppose you think you’re theirs?” He gestured carelessly to the officers wordlessly observing her scene.
“I don’t know their plans,” she said, her stomach dropping when she realized it was the truth. Perhaps now they had no interest in taking her away. Keeping her. Lavishing her body with endless pleasure.
But she wouldn’t be staying here. And she certainly wouldn’t be staying with George.
“I don’t know their plans,” she said. “But I know mine. And theyin no wayinvolve you.”
Her blow had landed. She could see Wickham’s rage emerge, then get folded back into a drawer like a locked letter. Tuckedaway so that it could be retrieved again in private. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
His face was stony. “I bid you farewell, then, madam,” he said, making a sarcastic low bow and sweeping from the room before she could further denounce him.
Lydia didn’t move. The men of Meryton realized no additional theatrics would be provided by the Wickhams tonight and found their way to the inn’s taproom. Her three officers remained.
“We have something we wish to speak to you about,” said Chamberlayne, “if you would be open to hearing us out.”
Lydia felt her body go cold. She’d heard those words six weeks ago and had fled back to Wickham. Were they really offering for her again?
“Yes?”
“We have need of someone. A woman, a dashed pretty one,” said Carter, repeating what he’d said in the Forsters’ old house after their night of pleasure.
“We require a woman to see to our needs in the bedroom,” said Chamberlayne, “and the inn, for that matter.”
“What do you say, Miss Bennet?” asked the major. “Would you like to serve three officers?”
She’d only just freed herself from an entanglement that had started when she was but fifteen. Would this be another in a series of regrets? With the added complication ofthree mento escape and avoid, should things go badly?
But then she looked at these old friends of hers and recalled their gentlemanly conduct when she was a free-spirited debutante. And how they’d protected and cared for her tonight. How they’d brought her unimaginable pleasure at this very inn.
This could be her reality for a time, living in the protective embrace of three officers, all devoted to her care. They really were dear men. And she wished to discover what other delights might be in store.
“I’m sorry,” she started. Their faces fell, hearing the words she’d said six weeks before. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for me. I…I do want that.”
Denny took her hand in his and kissed her palm. Carter gave a rare smile.
“Shall we be off then?” asked Chamberlayne.
“Yes,” she said decisively.
“So bold!” cried Denny. “What if you don’t like what we’ve planned?”
“You’ve planned something? Already?” asked Lydia.
“Yes,” said Carter, escorting her out of that cursed room. “And we know you’ll like it very much.”
TO BE CONTINUED
