Afternoon Tea
- 2 years ago
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Afternoon Tea Ch. 01 free porn video
A story for all those who stand in bookshops and skim romance novels to get to the emotional money shot. Bugger character development, get to the good stuff!
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Sophie sighed as she watched him through the rain streaked window. She could see Cole was angry even from her seat high above him, looking down on the manor’s driveway. Usually fluid movements were stiff and his mare shifted nervously as he flung himself out of the saddle. Cole squatted to lift one of the mare’s feet, checking it for a stone and, despite her worry, Sophie squirmed. That arse. Firm, high, perfectly shaped. The book in her lap creaked in sympathy under her squeezing fingers.
‘That stupid bitch,’ she muttered. She hadn’t seen him like this for months but had little doubt that his deranged whore of a dead wife was to blame. Bella had been in the eighth month of her ‘cultural tour’ of the Continent when her carriage overturned on an icy Vienna street. Sophie’s best friend Marianne, herself on her honeymoon, had bumped into Bella only a few weeks before the accident. Marianne knew how Sophie felt about Cole and she’d done her best to edit out the worst of the debauchery when relaying tales of his wife’s exploits in Europe . Sophie had read her friend’s letters with a mixture of disgust and incomprehension. Bella had thought two midgets and an Irish Wolfhound were an adequate substitute for Cole?
Since her death, Bella’s former intimates and thrown over lovers – legion in number – had been writing to Cole. Ostensibly, they wrote to express their condolences or enquire after her daughter. Some wrote of Bella’s courage in embracing London’s most seedy elements. Others of her irresistible beauty and winning charm. Yet from every elegantly inked line and curlicue there hissed a thwarted, desperate malice. Even Sophie could admit that Bella had been exceptional. Her arrival in a crowded ballroom was like a rock being tossed into a still pond – her presence would ripple though the crush. Far more telling though, was that which stirred in the wake of the disturbance.
Seeing a groom appear round a corner of the house, she tossed her book aside and rose to hurry downstairs. Sophie had no qualms about Cole being in her private salon on the second floor of Salisbury House, her family’s home. Indeed, the servants knew to show him straight there – she was always at home to Cole. But the idea of Bella being in her sanctuary with them – even if it was only as they talked of her – Sophie was annoyed at the mere thought. Whisking past her grandfather’s library, she paused just long enough to poke her head through the door. The fourth Marquis of Hertford was snoring in front of a dying fire, a newspaper puddled at his feet. Smiling, she eased back to pull the door closed. Hurtling down the last flight of stairs, she sped into the downstairs drawing room and yanked on the bell.
‘My lady?’
When Stevens, the butler, appeared, one frantic hair-patting, dress-righting, breath-steadying minute later, Sophie was seated with some long forgotten needle work. She looked up, trying her best to appear as if she always sat sewing in a room she’d once described to Cole as a worse than a tomb, tombs weren’t usually painted salmon pink and hung with dyspeptic looking ancestors.
Crammed with mismatched furniture and usually deathly cold, it was very different from Sophie’s own cosy chamber. It had, however, been her grandmother’s favourite, a private domain from which she had ruled the local matrons since leaving the opera stage to marry her patron, Sophie’s grandfather. Her death two years ago had shocked everyone.
‘Stevens, if you could please arrange some tea and gingerbread -‘ she glanced up as a spray of rain hummed against the windows, ‘and a towel.’
‘Already on its way, my lady. Shall I show Lord Rochedale in to you here?’ he asked, slowly.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Sophie wasn’t quite sure how he managed to raise his eyebrows whilst keeping his face utterly still but then, Stevens had been a butler a very long time.
Sophie was lost in a rather gratifying fantasy involving aged butlers and well-aimed embroidery hoops when Cole strode in, leaving a trail of water behind him. Dragging a smile onto her face when she wanted to howl at the sight of his soaked breeches moulded to his strong thighs, was hard. Handing him the towel instead of begging him to use her tongue was even harder. Stephens would have stayed to wait on the pair but Sophie waved him out, the butler’s eyebrows were not raised the entire way.
‘Another letter from one of Bella’s ‘friends’?’ she said, pouring two steaming cups of fragrant darjeeling with deft hands. She stared, then winced, at the ferocity with which Cole was scrubbing the towel over his wet face and hair.
‘From whose friends?’ he asked, tossing the damp linen onto a nearby chair and accepting the proffered tea, shaking his head at the plate of gingerbread. He didn’t drink, just gripped the teacup tightly. Sophie eyed his white knuckles surreptitiously, the sudden image of her favourite doll sans head popping into her mind. Cole had been eight years old to her seven and had found himself explaining, over Sophie’s screams, that he hadn’t meant to behead the doll exactly, only that if the doll could see behind her, she’d make a much better look out when it came to watching for pirates. Sophie had found her revenge in Cole’s bedtime cup of chocolate and a bottle of castor oil.
‘Bella’s? Oh… is all well with Bea?’ Sophie thought guiltily of the toy rapier she’d recently slipped to Cole’s adorable four year old daughter, Beatrice. She’d heard through servants gossip that Bea had taken to leaping out of dark corners, brandishing the wooden sword and shrieking ‘Rem’ber Stwasbug!’
‘Bea? No, Bea’s fine. One of the maids has threatened to leave though, something about being attacked whilst carrying a full chamber pot.’
Unable to help herself, Sophie burst out laughing. ‘That’s awful!’ she gasped.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, without seeming very amused at all. ‘Fortunately, replacing the maid’s dress and giving her some coin for a new Sunday hat seems to have convinced her to stay. Strangely, she was at some pains to tell me that she’s never even been to ‘Stwasbug’ by which I assume she meant Strasbourg .’
‘I’ll speak with Bea and her nurse,’ Sophie offered, biting her lip hard. He nodded curtly and lowering his head, took a slow sip of tea. Uneasy at his distant manner, Sophie copied him, peering hard over the cup’s rim and accidentally slopping tea down her chin. Grabbing for a napkin, she dabbed at herself, swallowing back a curse. Feeling her face flush crimson – sometimes she hated the porcelain skin which accompanied her red hair – she licked the tea from her lips and flicked an embarrassed glance at Cole.
She was shocked to see him scowling at her, his hot gaze focused on her mouth. Sophie couldn’t stop her lips parting in an ‘o’ of surprise and Cole’s head jerked back, his tall frame visibly tensing. Sophie barely restrained a flinch as the fragile porcelain cup in his hands was slammed onto a nearby card table. Damp cloth drew taut across muscular shoulders as he folded his arms. A flush of red stained his cheeks and his lips were pulled down into a hard line, very unlike their habitual half-smile. Sophie was suddenly put in mind of a sketch she’d once seen of a judge in a black cap pronouncing a death sentence on some highwayman.
Good Lord, it’s only spilled tea. It was hardly a hanging offence! Although, one might not be too wrong in expecting that a gently born Englishwoman some years out of the schoolroom would be able to operate a teacup efficiently. Is that why he’s angry? Maybe he knows about the sword? Does he think that I’m not ladylike enough and a improper example for Bea?
Sophie’s breath caught at the thought that Cole might be considering forbidding her to see his daughter. Bea was both the little sister she never had and the daughter she lo
nged for – since her birth, Sophie had spent as much time with her as she was able. But as soon as she thought of it, the idea was dismissed. Cole knew how much Sophie and Bea adored each other and though at times Sophie’s love for Cole made her hate him, she knew he could never be so cruel. But then, why was he behaving so rudely? It must be something to do with Bella.
Feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious, Sophie looked away, tapping at her cup with a nail before setting it down carefully. Cole watched from beneath heavy brows. Clearing her throat, she smoothed the skirt of her mint green morning dress. Overhead, the rain’s unceasing drumming was lightening to an erratic patter and a tense silence was unfurling in its place. Sophie pursued her lips and strolled over to a hideous Tudor writing desk, ‘hmm’ing thoughtfully at a tattered copy of Burke’s Peerage. The fire yielded a few minutes of nonchalant prodding with a handy poker. A pearl ear bob was loosened then tightened.
When the gingerbread, a cake that Sophie detested but Cole loved, began to look tempting, she huffed a sigh and turned to face him. He hadn’t moved. Sophie blinked as she realised that she’d been wrong, Cole wasn’t angry, he was furious. Her heart sank.
Again and again, you bring me your hurts. And for every ounce of Bella’s poison I draw from you, I sicken, even as you mend. Oh Cole, why can’t you love me?
A too familiar pain burgeoned beneath her ribs, making her eyes smart and her hands clench. Taking a deep breath, she started, in her best conciliatory tone, ‘Whatever Bella did in the past -‘
‘This has nothing whatsoever to do with Bella,’ he interrupted. ‘So just leave her out of this, will you?’
Sophie shook her head, sure she had misheard him. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let me make it clear for you,’ Cole said, a monstrous insolence turning his words into verbal slaps. ‘Don’t speak of matters regarding which you know absolutely nothing.’
With that, Sophie saw red.
Marisol
- 18.04.2022
- 13
- 0
