The Lamplighter's Love (4 page)

“But Amberherst and I have only just started
taking longer shifts. I thought you still had another year to go at
least,” she protested.

“I’m almost thirty, Mary. I can’t keep the
pace up much longer. No one could, the guild knows that all too
well.” He sounded resigned, but Mary heard a note of bitterness as
well. “It will be a splendid retirement, of course. Land, money, a
title. A voice in Parliament if I care to exercise it.”

That was the well-known reward of the
Lamplighter, to be showered with such benefits. In part this was
recompense for the fact that, after their unique service, many
Lamplighters suffered crippling arthritis and loss of vision before
reaching even nominal old age. But the prize was still tremendous.
And with the recent reforms, even a female Lamplighter could look
forward to holding land and taking a title after retirement. At
nineteen, this all seemed a goal too high to even be dreamed for
Mary, whose parents were stolidly middle-class.

“Will you keep horses? I’ve always fancied
having horses,” she admitted, though she knew it sounded childish
next to the idea of a seat in Parliament.

Nicholas chuckled. “I expect so. I’ll be an
earl, after all. But Mary, more important are the things I won’t
have.”

He must be standing—no, kneeling, she
realized—right before her knees. She felt a distinct warmth where
his body blocked the chill from reaching her forelegs. Mary was
hyperconscious of the bared skin of her neck and chest, the hint of
cleavage she knew was on display right at Nicholas’ eye level. She
was glad for the mirrors that blocked her blush from his view.

“Is the channel still clear, Mary? The storm
yesterday threw the shipping schedule off.”

Wrenching her mind back to the information
before her, Mary focused on the leftmost screen, a third of the way
down. Arrivals and departures, via teletype from the port
authority, and a descending column of potential differences
indicating the precise times at which certain actions must be taken
if event “x” occurred at moment “y”. All the possible futures
calculated, then excluded one by one as the minutes ticked by.

“All clear.”

“Good. Keep an eye on that. But listen.
Because of all the things I’ve told you over the years about this
position, what I have to say now is undoubtedly the most
important.”

“All right.”

“When I leave here, it’s true I will receive
a great many things. And I’ll have the means to purchase anything
else I might ever desire. Lamplighters are too well known by the
guild rank and file to kill us all off, is the problem, but we know
far too much about how the city works to risk our
disgruntlement.”

“Kill you off? They would never!”

Nicholas chuckled but Mary saw little humor
in his eyes. “I hope not. Some of the guild’s historical records
make me think it’s been considered from time to time over the years
though. Especially after Bristol. The politics of the guild are not
always as neutral and benevolent as they would have the public
believe. Or perhaps I’ve just spent too long in the dark, and it’s
made me tend toward dark thoughts. You’ll have to forgive me a
touch of cynicism. The point, however, is that the Crown seeks to
appease us this way, with money and a title to ensure our fidelity.
They have for the past sixty years or so. What none of us ever get
back, Mary, is the one truly important thing we’ve lost, and that
is time.”

“Time? But you’re only twenty-nine, that’s
not so old.”

“Old enough,” he snorted. “But it isn’t a
question of starting a bit late, Mary. It’s all that I’ve missed
during that time. I’ve spent most of the past ten years in this
room. One hour off at noon and six each day, seven hours of rest
and sleep just upstairs. Do you know I was your age, nineteen, the
last time I saw the sun? The last time I shared a meal with my
family. The last time . . .”

She waited for him to resume, but instead of
words she felt a touch, featherlight against her knee. Through the
heavy work skirt she felt it, and then a firmer tug on the
fabric.

“Sir? Nicholas? What . . . what are you
doing?”

“The guild leaders are old fools, Mary. They
think they can change human nature by simply ignoring it. And they
think if they appoint a young woman as Lamplighter, she won’t give
them half the trouble of a man. Because if she’s been sheltered
enough, she simply won’t know what she’s missing. But I don’t think
that’s right. Or fair. You should know what you’re agreeing to give
up. Amberherst already does, God knows.”

“Nicholas,” she repeated, now breathlessly,
“what are you doing?”

She knew what he was doing. He was
unbuttoning the front placket of her practical skirt, the better to
sweep it aside. And now he was pushing her thin petticoat out of
the way to look at her nearly bare legs. And now he was pushing his
body between her knees, parting them and finishing the destruction
of her modesty as the gusset in her drawers spread open.

She jerked at the restraints on her wrists,
feeling for the first time in years a sense of claustrophobia in
the confines of the Chair. But with her hands as good as shackled,
and her head boxed in by the mirrored framework, she could not
escape.

Nor was she quite sure she wanted to.

Nicholas was shushing her gently, stroking
his hands along her calves in a manner clearly calculated to
soothe. Mary stilled, but her internal struggle continued. The
sense of propriety drilled into her from such an early age was
swiftly losing a battle against every girlish daydream she had ever
entertained about Nicholas the Lamplighter. And against the power
of her own burgeoning desires, which she must not have been
suppressing as well as she had thought.

“I’d been with a girl a few times before I
started. But I was stupid. I thought it was love, and that she
would wait and the time would fly by. She married someone else, of
course. I wanted to go after her, to try and talk her out of it.
But my contract wouldn’t allow that. I don’t blame her for it
though. Ten years is a very long time, Mary.”

His hands lingered at her knees, rubbing
softly, the tender pressure nudging her thighs even wider. A sudden
draft struck her with an icy chill, and Mary realized she was
mortifyingly wet between the legs. Her sex tingled, in fact, under
what she imagined was Nicholas’ intense scrutiny. And she wanted
more, wanted his touch on her, so badly she ached.

“My contract included a stipend for ‘needs
of an intimate nature’. A medical expense, that was how it was
listed. Money for prostitutes, or some doxy to keep about if I
could find one who would tolerate my schedule.” Mary’s horror at
this revelation was only intensified by the next one. “But your
contract would not have that provision, of course, because you’re a
woman. Despite all their vaunted policies of equality, the guild
does not see sexual release as vital or even relevant to the
well-being of a woman.”

“I . . . can’t imagine you using a pros— One
of those women. Vital to my well- being?” She wasn’t sure what to
be embarrassed about first, unless it was Nicholas’ laughter at her
obvious consternation. Or his hands working in tandem, creeping
higher to caress her thighs in careful strokes over the muslin of
her drawers.

“Of course you couldn’t imagine that. You
probably know precious little of the whole business. Guild girls
are locked up tighter than Spanish gold until they marry, or until
they become masters and move out. But you’re still two years away
from majority. You can sign a contract for employment, but you
can’t live alone or own property yet. Which is why they think
they’ve found the perfect candidate. One who won’t know enough to
make trouble, and who will cost them a good deal less.”

“And you think I need to know more?” She
knew he wasn’t talking about the engines, but her fingers clutched
within their restraints anyway, as if she could type in this
strange assortment of data and generate a sensible explanation on
one of the screens before her. As though being encased in wood,
leather and brass should give her some sort of protection against
her own rebellious urge to wrap her legs around Nicholas’
waist.

“I think it’s only fair for you to know what
you would be signing away.”

“You can’t mean this. Proposing to teach me
about . . . about
pleasures of the flesh
?”

Her attempt at indignant incredulity was
short-lived. She gasped as he slid his hands boldly up to the
tempting expanse of delicate flesh that extended from the top edge
of her corset. It was a sturdy garment, but made to be fastened
quickly and by the wearer.

For the Lamplighter’s nimble fingers, it was
the work of seconds to unfasten the row of tiny hooks and push the
boned cloth aside, then yank down Mary’s chemise to bare her
breasts.

“In answer to your question, that is
precisely my meaning.” She felt him leaning forward against her
knees. Then his mouth covered one nipple, and she could think of
nothing but his hot tongue swirling over the sensitive, puckered
flesh, the exquisite suction that seemed to pull not just at her
breast but also at the bundle of nerves between her legs. “And now
I have a question. Are you going to tell me to stop, Mary? Because
I will, if you tell me to. If you don’t want this.”

She wasn’t sure she even remembered the
words to tell him what she wanted or otherwise. Something new, he
had promised her, and she was lost in this wholly new sensation the
Lamplighter was demonstrating. No words would come, although in the
dim recesses of her mind she knew she was wrong to allow this,
wicked to delight in it.

“That’s my good, clever girl,” he mumbled
against her skin, and she could have sworn she felt his lips
curving into a smile. “Just let me touch you. I’ve wanted to. Oh,
how I’ve wanted this. I can remember doing this before. And this.
But it’s so much sweeter now that it’s you.”

His fingers were trembling a little as he
touched her quim, pulling a sympathetic vibration from her
clitoris. Either too eager to wait, or too aware of her obvious
arousal, Nicholas nudged one finger inside her tight, wet channel
and groaned as he pushed the digit in to the hilt. His mouth
returned to one of her breasts while his free hand moved to its
mate, and Mary cried out as he worked her nipples in time with the
gentle thrusts of his finger inside her. She tried again to free
her hands, move closer to him,
anything
.

But the Chair was inexorable, and so was
Nicholas in his patient tutelage.

Just as he had taught her the ways of the
engine, he taught her the truth of her body’s own potential for
pleasure. A touch here, a kiss there, until Mary’s need grew sharp
and insistent. Her trepidation gave way under the onslaught of
sensation. The steady pistoning of Nicholas’ finger inside her, the
tap of his thumb against her clitoris and the increasingly
enthusiastic attention to her breasts, overwhelmed her until she
thought she must either swoon or combust. And yet, inexplicably,
she craved more.

More of his touch, more of him inside her,
more of the killing ecstasy that robbed her of her breath even as
it made her feel she was coming alive for the first time.

It did not occur to Mary that the
Lamplighter must also be affected, until he cursed gently against
her stomach and jerked away. He tugged on her legs and she slid
down in the Chair until her bottom was nearly over the edge and her
head was free of the mirrored enclosure. With her arms still
trapped and supporting her, the position was odd but not
uncomfortable. But if Mary had felt exposed to the Lamplighter’s
scrutiny before, she melted under his gaze when her eyes met his,
and found fire and adoring desperation.

He looked young, unsure of himself. And so
very needy. A fervent supplicant before the altar of her flesh.

“Nicholas,” she murmured, because the
Lamplighter was nowhere to be seen.

“Mary, do you know what comes next?” As if
she might not know what he meant, he tucked a finger back inside
her cunt and pressed his other hand against the front of his
trousers, where a sizeable protrusion marred the fall of the
dun-colored cloth against his lean body.

“I . . . I think I know. They’ve explained
it to us.” In clinical, mechanical terms, as inserting one
component into another and initiating a process to arrive at a
particular result. That lesson seemed in no way related to what she
and Nicholas were doing. She knew what he wanted in theory, but the
reality was proving so far beyond the realm of her expectation that
she thought almost anything might happen if he joined with her. If
kisses and caresses were resulting not in shameful regret, but
bliss beyond reckoning, then who knew what wonders coitus itself
might hold in store?

“Would you let me—do you want—” he
attempted.

“Oh yes!” she blurted. Then, embarrassed at
her own urgency, she cleared her throat and tried it again more
quietly. “I do want that.”

“I won’t spend inside you.”

She had no idea what he meant, but as this
was obviously meant to reassure her, she thanked him.

His trousers were undone in the blink of an
eye. Past her lap, Mary could just see the blunt, pink tip of his
member rising up as he took it in hand. A few short, sharp tugs and
then he placed it at the entrance to her body, lining himself up.
She expected a pain then, as he breached her, but instead of
thrusting he petted her clitoris with his thumb until the wonderful
feelings started to curl back into the realm of her awareness. More
quickly this time, as though her body had only wanted prompting to
learn this new, delightful behavior. Shivers of pleasurable need
coursed through her, faster and brighter when he rubbed his fingers
over her pussy. He lingered in the moisture he found there and
gently spread her to accept his cock.