The General’s Wife: An American Revolutionary Tale (2 page)

Clara heard the general get up and come toward her. She did not turn around. She stood her ground.

His hands were hot on her shoulders. He briefly and very gently wrapped his fingers around her neck as if in warning, then sought the soft skin of her breasts under her kerchief. He delicately and expertly squeezed her tender nipples.

Against her better judgment, Clara let out a little whimpering moan.

He chuckled. “Why should I choose to marry a whore who spreads her legs for any virile rake demanding satisfaction—” he began in his seductive bass tone as his lips brushed her neck.

Clara stiffened.

“—when instead I can have you whose virginity was certainly no pretense?”

Initial confusion curdled to comprehension. “Those girls … those girls you took into the gardens at dances … you did to them what you did to me, didn’t you?”

He turned her around to face him. “You were the only one who struggled, my dear.” He fixed the lace at her neckline. “If the others cared so little for their virtue that they were so willing to part with it, then none was worthy of being my wife.” He tipped her chin up with his index finger and moved her head side to side as if inspecting her. “Although now I consider the matter with hindsight, perhaps not all of them had done such unseemly acts before. I certainly did not want some other man’s cast-off, but I fear I may have made a few of my own.”

“You monster,” she hissed. “I won’t marry you.”

In one swift movement, the general pressed her against the desk and lifted her skirts, holding them in place just above her hips as he reached between her legs. Clara clenched her thighs shut, desperate to prevent him from discovering her body’s betrayal of her reason, but his heavy boot between her delicately shod feet and his demanding fingers thwarted her defense.

He smirked when he found her heated and moist. He held her eyes as he stroked her slick plumpness, seeking and uncovering her excited nub ready for his insistent touch, raising a brow in victory as she descended into lustful oblivion.

“You, however, were delicious in your pathetic struggle to preserve the only item a woman may truly possess as her own. I shall delight in your embrace in our marriage bed if it will be as exhilarating as that every time. But, as I have already taken your innocence, there will be far less excitement now.”

“You sicken me,” Clara said hoarsely, her mouth dry from her agitated breaths. Her body began its carnal climb, reaching to grasp an elusive sensual summit.

But once again, the general took his hand away. “Of course I do.” He let Clara’s skirts fall, then sucked lasciviously on his dew-covered fingers before her. “In two days’ time we shall be married by special license. Soon after that, we shall leave for America. There you will do your duty and provide me with two sons. I care not for any daughters, you may have ten of those. But you must provide me with two sons. Until you have done so, you will not be allowed to return home to England. I have written that into your marriage contract.”

Clara gasped.
Two sons?
The earliest possible time she could see her family again, even if she were pregnant at that very moment, would be in two years.

She had little time to grieve. Five days later she was on a three-masted ship heading toward America. It was during those weeks at sea she realized she was not with child, and, as her husband rarely visited her in bed, she would not very readily become so. He spent a great deal of his leisure time gambling with the other officers on board. Frustrated that he had not been to her bed in over a week, one night she went to his room only to spy him thrusting into another officer’s maidservant from behind. Betrayed and hurt, she closed the door quickly to avoid any confrontation. She had heard older married women gossiping at parties about such things, never thinking it would happen to her so soon after her wedding.

Once landed, chaos reigned. New York City had been burned and plundered and housing was scarce. Lord and Lady Strathmore would have to be located elsewhere. As most of Manhattan Island was a battleground, they were settled on Long Island. A month and a half later, the general received orders to head a little farther north to the recently captured Fort Washington, renamed Fort Knyphausen to honor the Tory victory. The general, however, did not want to expose his young wife to garrison life, especially not a garrison filled with Hessian soldiers. They were established near the village of Chesterton, a few hours’ ride north along the Hudson River, in a farmstead confiscated from a Mr. and Mrs. Cuyler. They were positioned not far from the neutral buffer zone between the largely republican upper Hudson Valley and British-controlled territory to the south.

Thus they lived as protectors of the reclaimed New York colony. Clara hated the colonies, so far removed as she was from civilization. She was comfortable enough, yes, as she lived in what passed for an elegant house. It was new, stone and wood, but the ceilings were much too low. Although the general outfitted the rooms with mostly imported proper English furnishings, what was not imported was sham and common befitting simple gentry as the Cuylers were. The fireplace had a mantel painted to look like marble; the woodwork was skilled but never gilded. The food was rustic, the fashions austere, and the people unsophisticated.

The Americans—loyalists in Chesterton, certainly not English-hating rebels—were all charming and nice to her in pointed contrast to her husband’s indifference. He had not allowed her to bring her own lady’s maid or any other servants from Cirencester. Instead, he hired the entire household staff himself. They were in the middle of a war, he reminded her, and the colonies were filled with spies. Their staff was kept to a bare minimum.

Her new maid, Annabella, was spirited and the only person Clara knew who could be called a friend. When Annabella wasn’t around chattering away about village life or her betrothed, Redmond, or Clara’s hair and clothes, Clara was lonely. She tried to amuse herself with her husband’s library—which was certainly insufficient as he left the most valuable books back in Gloucestershire—or some gentlewoman’s expected task like embroidery. But what she really missed were the long talks with Mama or the ambling walks with Oliver. Her husband took no interest in her. Had he done so, it might have lessened the pain she felt being away from her true home and family. The general’s neglect only served to heighten her despair and remind her that it would be a long time before she could return to England. She desperately wanted to be pregnant, especially pregnant with the requisite sons.

The general visited her bed once a week, on Wednesday nights, but there was never the emotion of their first encounter, never the tension, desire, or even the fear. His actions were perfunctory, a chore he had to perform. They both wore their nightdresses, never revealing their bodies. Try as she might, Clara could not charm her husband into her bed on a night other than Wednesday, and not just a few times he was unable to perform due to exhaustion or drink.

Then, quite unexpectedly, one Monday night, the general went to Clara of his own craving. He had won a little money at the gaming table, had joked and relaxed earlier with his friends, and smelled like tobacco and Madeira. He was in a playful and seductive mood. That night the general took off her nightgown and his own and, for the first time, touched her naked body. His lips and tongue covered each nipple in worshipful kisses, then trailed to her belly. Before he entered her, potently erect, his fingers played in the curls of her mons, dipping lower to spread the honeyed slickness to the sensitive nub, a feeling so rare and intense her body jerked and she let out a little cry. He calmed her with soothing words, then melded her mouth with his as he penetrated her slowly, letting her experience every inch in her eager, aroused state. For one night, their lovemaking was exhilarating, exhausting, and it was never to be such again.

That was the night, she was absolutely certain, she became pregnant.

When she told her husband, he merely thanked her with a casual air. She, however, was elated. She considered how far along she must be and counted the days, the weeks, the months the baby was inside her, and how many months she had left. She prayed to God it would be a boy, and secretly hoped it would be twins.

Clara spread her hand across the slight swell of her belly and looked down onto the yard. The reds and golds of the leaves were a reminder of summer turning into fall, of time marching forward. For once in this horrible backwater of a place, she was happy. Every day her child grew stronger, and every day brought her closer to home.

Chapter Two

Annabella gaped at her lover as he pointed to the hayloft with a quirk of his brow. “Not there either, Redmond,” she complained, her hands on her hips.

Redmond laughed and pulled her to him, a twinkle in his blue-green eyes. “I can think of no place more secluded to enjoy your luscious body, my sweet.” He greedily kissed her mouth.

For a second, she complied, until the whinny of a horse reminded her where they were. She shook herself free. “I will not go into a hayloft and mess my hair and dress. Lady Strathmore and I will be going to Chesterton this afternoon and I will not look like a harlot.”

Redmond grabbed her at the waist, securing her easily as he tantalized the sensitive skin of her neck with a slow stroke of his tongue.

“I will not lie with you in a horse stall nor a hayloft.” This time her protest was a bit more subdued. If it weren’t for the fact that she would not have time to bed her betrothed
and
fix her hair and dress before doing her duty for her mistress, Annabella would have lain with Redmond anywhere, in any position, damn the hay and smells.

“I have brought a very large, well-shaken, comfortable blanket for you, my love,” Redmond said, his mouth now at her cleavage. “And you may be on top. Your dress will not get mussed.”

He did not wait for an answer but grabbed the aforementioned blanket hanging over a stall partition and proceeded up the ladder to the hayloft.

“Oh, damnation!” Annabella muttered before following him.

By the time she reached the top, he was already lying on the blanket, his hands laced behind his head, his desire apparent from the bulge at his crotch, his lips spread in a devilishly inviting smile.

It was precisely that look that had captured her heart six months ago.

Before she met him, Annabella was just beginning to realize she had something men wanted, and that she wanted something from them in return. From their whispers and entreaties, she discovered her auburn hair, blossoming womanly figure, and new-found coquettishness gave her a certain power with the men in the village, and especially with the soldiers quartered there. And then she caught the attention of General Strathmore. He had come to the village to hire his household staff, his eyes betraying an ulterior motive the moment he espied her. He asked her intimate questions and she responded willingly, ensnared by his seductive charisma. She admitted she was a virgin, and he immediately paid her mother a handsome sum to live in the Strathmore home as the lady’s maid.

It was the general himself who gave Annabella her first kiss and taught her how to provide particular pleasures to a man with her mouth and tongue.

Annabella quickly realized she could get whatever she wanted from a man if she promised him a kiss or allowed him a grope or especially if she offered the services of her newly acquired oral skills. She could also withdraw her attentions to punish the men who worked for the Strathmore house. Annabella held sway over the footmen, butler, and boy-of-all-work—who was really a man at eighteen. Never, though, did she part with her virginity.

Then she met Redmond Moncrief. He was a groom in the Strathmore stables, strong and charming, with chiseled good looks and sandy blond hair, a little older than she—and at first not very interested. Redmond knew the general amused himself with Annabella and grumbled to her that he wanted no part of an illicit affair. Annabella flirted for a bit, then grew indifferent after his unwavering rebuffs. There were plenty of other men to play with.

But Redmond’s very presence weighed heavily. He was always, simply,
there
—saddling horses for the general and his men or harnessing a team to the coach for Lady Strathmore, laughing heartily, complimenting freely. She grew very fond of him, and his smiles let her know he responded in kind. One afternoon he announced he utterly burned for her and could no longer resist her, which was just fine as she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

His kiss was genuine, affecting, so different from all the others. It was not a kiss to satisfy a man’s curiosity as to what it was like to taste her full lips, but a kiss meant to be as pleasurable for her as it was for him. She learned from him that a man may kiss a woman in other ways, a kiss that would keep her virtue intact, but imparted unimaginable pleasure.

But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t take long for her to give in to their mutually pressing desires. It happened in the utter darkness, in the dead of night, amongst a grove of trees far away from the main house. Redmond promised Annabella he would marry her as soon as the general decided he no longer needed her services.

They had to keep their relationship secret, although Annabella accidentally told Lady Strathmore. With that admission, Annabella found herself in the middle of a little intrigue. Lord Strathmore must not know about her and Redmond, and Lady Strathmore must not know about her and the general. For a girl of seventeen it was all very exciting.

And now, here she was with Redmond in the hayloft. She had gone to tell him to prepare the coach when they both realized they were alone in the stable. Nowadays, they took every opportunity they could get, sometimes making love more than once a day, sometimes not for several days.

This time, it had been at least a day since their last amorous encounter and she was on edge.

“I see you’re ready for me, love,” whispered Annabella sweetly. As she crawled to him in the hayloft, her thighs chafed and squeezed her sex, already swollen and wet. She immediately set about unbuttoning his fly, swiftly and expertly, licking her lips as his thick eager cock sprang forth proudly once set free. No words passed between them as she pulled up her skirts and straddled him, holding the head of his prick at her entrance. She teased him, wetting the glans with her own slickness, then taking in just the plum tip. She nipped him with her now-expert muscles, clenching and releasing, watching ecstasy spread across his face as he closed his eyes and lolled his head on the blanket.