Before the Fire Read online

  England being English, “gentlewomen”, which outsiders presumed Kane and Melea to be, could not enter into the home of a non-family male without escort. Because of that particularly annoying aspect of eighteenth century life, the duty of escorting the women about had fallen into George’s already overworked hands.

  On occasion Chester was able to properly relieve the earl that he might get some of his own affairs in order. More often than not, though, the burden was George’s. Kane understood that it wasn’t fair to him or to the countless people of Blackmore who depended upon him to continue on in this manner.

  Kane rose up from the chair opposite George’s in his study, knowing she needed to leave the poor man to his ledgers. What a good sport her husband was. She circled the desk to stand beside his seat, then leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. He smiled.

  “Where are you off to, my love?”

  “I’m pretty tired, George. I’m going to take a walk in the gardens with Melea to relax a bit, then I’m off to bed.”

  He nodded his approval. “Don’t wait up for me, my dear. I’ve much work to see to.” He picked up a quill and began writing in a ledger.

  Kane flushed guiltily on her feet. She frowned, feeling as wicked as a witch for being responsible for her husband’s increasingly late hours. “George?”

  “Hm?” he asked without taking his eyes from the book he was recording into.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He looked up, curious. “Whatever for?”

  She sighed deeply. “For your lack of sleep. For the amount of time you’ve taken away from your work to help me find the kabitross.”

  The earl smiled at his wife, bedazzling her with the laugh lines around his light green eyes that always made her heart flutter. “Do not concern yourself.”

  “But I do.” She leaned over and planted kisses on said laugh lines. “You will never have to repeat today again,” she promised.

  “Mmmm,” he purred, delighted by the unexpected show of affection. “And why not?”

  She kissed the tip of his handsome aquiline nose. “It’s a waste of time.”

  He pulled his wife down onto his lap to love her properly. “Then what will you do?” he asked, stroking her thigh and buttocks.

  She cupped his erection through the fabric of his breeches, glorying in the sound of his sucked in breath. “I want to return to the country to hunt the lands.”

  He straddled her across his lap and pushed her skirts up to her waist. Finding her clitoris, he rubbed the center of her through her silken undergarments. “How soon?” he asked hoarsely.

  She released her husband’s rigid erection from his breeches, then stroked up and down the length of him. “The sooner the better.”

  “Mmmm.” He tore his wife’s underpants off, thankful she’d never seen fit to don eighteenth century women’s under things that were difficult to get into. “And miss the last few balls of the season?”

  She glided her husband’s thick cock to her entrance, rubbing the tip around her wet folds. “We’re too tired from the long days of library searching to go to them now.”

  He grabbed her hips and lurched upward, entering her body smoothly with one thrust. “Then it’s settled. We go home the soonest,” he gritted out.

  She moaned. “Praise the goddesses.” Her hips began to rotate, gliding up and down on his shaft.

  He groaned. “Prraiseyoouurueemmy.”

  She grinned. He was beyond words. Just the way the countess liked her earl.

  Chapter 27

  “By Jupiter’s fifth moon, Kane, this place is lovely.”

  Kane nodded her agreement as she and Melea strolled through the gardens of the Blackmore London estate. Fresh from her husband’s lovemaking, she was feeling much more invigorated than she had upon returning home this evening. “I’m glad you’ll be here long enough to see our country home. It puts this place to shame.” She smiled whimsically, remembering all of the wildlife and plants in the various country hamlets and shires that comprise Blackmore. “Hard to believe this is the same earth we’ve lived in all of our lives.”

  Melea snorted, disgusted more so than ever by the warring factions of the past that had obliterated it all. “Agreed.”

  The two women walked quietly for several minutes, neither of them feeling particularly pressed to speak. As is always the case between two close friends, silence was never the enemy. Finally, however, it was Melea who felt compelled to break the quiet. “I have to admit that I understand now why you wish to stay here.”

  Kane grinned, her blue eyes twinkling. “For all of the technology the eighteenth century lacks, the beauty of the environment more than compensates.”

  Melea nodded. “True, but that wasn’t what I referred to.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was referring to George.”

  “Ah.”

  “It’s obvious he loves you deeply.”

  “Yes. And I him.”

  Kane bit her lip, worrying about whether or not it was too soon to tell Melea of her impending motherhood. Had the babe been implanted in a synthetic womb, she knew her dear friend would be elated for her. Since that wasn’t the case, however, she didn’t want to worry her needlessly. She was worried enough herself. Still, she needed her friend’s support. Her decision was made. “Melea?”

  “Yes?”

  “George and I are to have a child.”

  The Warrior Woman shot her gaze in Kane’s direction, shocked yet grinning broadly. “Excellent! I would be Guardianne to the babe, would I not?”

  “Of course.”

  She clapped her long time friend on the back in congratulations. “In which chamber does the babe’s womb dwell? I’ve a mind to see the growing little one.”

  Kane cast her gaze to the ground, nervously clearing her throat. “Well, uh, as to that...uh…”

  “Yes?”

  “There is no synthetic womb.”

  Melea arched a black brow, grinning terrifically. She assumed her friend was jesting. “Want it to be a surprise, eh?”

  Kane said nothing. She sighed, looking up to the surrounding trees for nature’s support. Melea’s smile faltered somewhat at her friend’s odd demeanor. “Kane, what is it? What do you hide?”

  Kane impaled the Warrior Woman with her blue eyes, all meaning contained within their depths. “We are to have a babe. And there are no synthetic wombs in the eighteenth century.”

  Melea lost her footing, scrambling quickly to regain it lest she tumble to the ground. She drew herself to an immediate halt, whipping Kane around to face her. “Wh-what?”

  “I said—”

  “By Nuba’s twin moons, I take your meaning!” She slashed her hand vehemently through the air, her tendency to try and dominate situations she found distressing resurfacing. “I won’t have it!”

  “Melea—”

  “No!” She shook her head. “It’s too dangerous! What were you thinking?”

  “I didn’t plan to get impregnated!” Kane countered, her own voice now rising shrilly. “But I did! And I shall carry and bear it!”

  Melea groaned. She ran her fingers through her hair and shook her head in disbelief. “It will hurt, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “And yet you will birth it? You, a high born woman?”

  “Yes.”

  The sigh of the Warrior Woman wafted in the breeze. She took in a deep breath, resigning herself to the fact that the choice was not hers to make. She nodded, giving Kane a non-verbal show of support.

  The two friends resumed their trek through the gardens, each of them lost in their respective thoughts. Unbeknownst to Melea, Kane was thinking of the same matter she was. Both women were contemplating what this news would mean to Melea’s not yet existent physical relationship with the marquess.

  Melea nudged Kane on the shoulder, garnering her attention. “I take it you cannot mount a non-inoculated male in this world without chancing pregnancy?”

  Kane’s gaze considered
her suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

  Melea looked swiftly away, her expression unreadable. “I’ve my reasons.”

  “Ah.” Kane grinned, knowing her reason was called “Alex”. It was ridiculously evident to her that the Warrior Woman was trying desperately to keep Asherby at arm’s length. She’d been studiously avoiding the man since her arrival three weeks past.

  Kane thought Melea’s overt attempts at dodging Alex, then insulting him whenever they did happen upon the other, were unfortunate, for she believed he was just what her friend needed in her life. Still, it wasn’t right to lie. Any relationship she was to have with Alex was Melea’s own affair. “No. You cannot mount a non-inoculated male without chancing impregnation.”

  Melea’s shoulders drooped in defeat. “I see.”

  “As do I,” Kane voiced softly.

  Melea frowned, grunting at her dearest friend’s words. “What mean you, woman?”

  Kane bit her lip and grinned. “Nothing.” She shook her head playfully. “Nothing at all.”

  * * * * *

  Two of the loveliest bitches in creation, the resentful one thought morosely. Envious eyes watched from a distance as Lady Blackmore made her way from the main gardens and headed back toward the townhouse with her friend in tow.

  The dark-haired woman was of no consequence to the earl. She was, therefore, of no consequence to the one who watched her stroll alongside the countess.

  It was the light-haired bitch, the second wife of Lord Blackmore, who was to become the focal point of the ensuing battle.

  The slighted one had taken action once. Action would be taken again.

  Chapter 28

  “No way. Forget it. It won’t happen. Uh-uh.” Kane shook her head vigorously in the negative, her arms crossed over her ample chest. A chest, the earl noted with lusty appreciation, that was much riper since his seed took plant six weeks past.

  “Darling, we’ve no say in the matter. We cannot ignore a royal summons.”

  “Fine!” she spat, her blue eyes burning hotly. “I will go to the Neptune-cursed court, but I flatly refuse to wear one of those unattractive powdered wigs!” She picked up her fork and shoved a piece of breakfast sausage into her mouth. “And furthermore,” she added, jabbing her fork in the general vicinity of the liveried servants standing behind them, “I thought we agreed to let these men have their dignity. Why do they still sport those wigs?”

  If one looked closely, shimmers of amusement could be seen in each of the servants’ eyes. They remained as unmoved as statues, however.

  Lady Julia laughed at her daughter-in-law’s indignation. She winked at a grinning Melea, who along with Chester, was partaking of the Blackmores' Saturday morning breakfast invitation with them. “I’m one with Kane, my lord son. I’ve no desire to don one of those oddities either.”

  “Madam,” George gritted out, turning his exasperation onto his mother, “from Kane I expect this. From you, however, I do not.” He placed his fork on the table and picked up a glass of juice to sip from. “You’ve lived here all of your days and know the way of it in court.” He raised his eyebrows in silent challenge, then downed his drink.

  “My son-in-law has the right of it, love,” Chester argued. “You know the king will be grave insulted if the countess don’t show up in the courtly fashions.”

  George inclined his head to his father-in-law. “Thank-you, Blake. At least some one still harbors a modicum of sensibility around here.”

  Melea, still smiling at the banter she’d grown to enjoy amongst the Blackmores and Blakes, shook her head in confusion. She must have missed something in the beginning of the conversation for she didn’t grasp what the commotion was about. “I do not understand, my lord. What is the difficulty? What must we dress like tonight?”

  George turned his attentions to Melea. He’d truly come to like the tawny-eyed, vivacious woman over the past three weeks. Especially since Kane explained to him why Melea had been acting the bold way she had toward Alex since her arrival in 1776. Like his wife, he would keep the Warrior Woman’s secret. For now. “We’ve been sent a royal summons by the king’s emissary. We must go to court tonight, the lot of us.”

  Melea shrugged her shoulders, still not understanding what one had to do with the other. “So?”

  George sighed. A common occurrence for him since he’d entered the wedded state. “So in England, the royal house dictates fashion.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “The king might find fault with the lot of us if we don’t bow to his dictate and dress accordingly.”

  Melea nodded. “I see. So how then must we dress?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Kane mumbled dejectedly.

  George pointed toward the servants surrounding the table at a distance. “We must all don the powdered wig this eve.”

  Melea took one look at the liveried servants heads and gawked. “You jest!”

  “Afraid not,” Chester muttered. “King George III has a love for the wig.”

  “King George III?” Melea asked.

  “Yes,” Kane confirmed.

  “The insane one?” Melea inquired incredulously.

  “Yes,” Lady Julia confirmed.

  “That explains the wig thing,” Melea muttered.

  Kane snorted her agreement.

  The earl clapped a weary hand to his forehead. ‘Twas going to be a long night.

  * * * * *

  Kane and Melea reclined across from one another in the Blackmore travelling carriage, both of them scowling their displeasure. Kane was dressed in a lovely silk gown of blue trimmed with black lace and delicate embroideries. The gown displayed an ample amount of bosom and hugged her still trim waistline.

  Melea was outfitted in red, the crimson garment relieved only by the white lace garnishing it. Like Kane, her bosom was well exposed, her waist cinched together.

  Atop both of their heads sat garishly unattractive powdered wigs, which matched their garishly powdered and rouged faces.

  They hated it.

  Kane flicked open the fan she’d purchased during one of her many shopping excursions with her mother-in-law and began airing her face agitatedly. “I wish my husband would hurry,” she mumbled.

  Melea narrowed her eyes. “What’s the difference? Whether we leave now or an hour from now, we still look like ten kinds of fool.”

  Kane clucked her tongue. “I don’t think we look like fools. I think we look as insane as the king is,” she mumbled, “but I don’t think we look like fools.”

  “Alright,” Melea allowed, “then we look like insane fools.”

  Kane grimaced, not caring to ponder the truth behind that statement. She patted Melea on the knee, deciding it would be best to put their embarrassment behind them. “You don’t look so bad.” She averted her gaze, not quite able to make eye contact at that bold lie.

  “Oh?” Melea asked, not believing her outrageous claim for a Nero-second.

  “Truly,” Kane replied, nodding her head, but still avoiding her best friend’s gaze.

  “Well,” Melea huffed, smiling wickedly, “you don’t look so bad either.”

  Kane met her eyes then—and frowned. “You don’t have to make fun of me.”

  “I’m not making fun of you. I’m merely giving you the same back-assed compliment you gave me.”

  “Fine!” Kane shrieked. “Do you want me to say it?!”

  Melea waved her hand dismissively, no longer caring to explore the subject. “Never mind.”

  “Oh no.” Kane shook her head adamantly in the negative. “Let’s have the truth. Let’s just say it.”

  Melea snorted. “And which truth might that be? That we look like fools? That we have the same crazed appearance as a couple of frothing-mouthed escapees from the nearest roaming satellite asylum?”

  “There is that,” Kane muttered.

  “That these hideous wigs make us look so unappealing that not even a one-eyed zilch in the peak of his heat would wish to mate with us?”

  �
�Hadn’t thought of that.” Kane frowned.

  “That our faces are so painted with white and red—not to mention these stupid fake black moles we each have on our cheek—that we could pass for the actress in that ancient movie implanted into our memory cells from the data injection?” Melea squinted her eyes, tapping her powdered and rouged cheek, pursing her reddened lips. “What was her name again?”

  Kane shrugged. “My memory cells don’t recall. The name of the show was Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.”

  “That’s right,” Melea muttered. “Baby Jane.”

  Kane glowered at her friend, though out of sympathy over their shared plight instead of anger. “I can tell you exactly what happened to Baby Jane,” she hissed. “She went as insane as we look!”

  The door to the carriage opened before Melea could respond to that claim. A few moments later, George hopped into the conveyance and took the seat beside his wife. He took one gander at her bemused expression, then narrowed his eyes in silent challenge, daring her to comment on his hairpiece. Kane looked away, the corners of her lips twitching against her will.

  Melea scanned the earl’s outfit from his gleaming black boots to his attractively tailored breeches and waistcoat, to his ridiculously gaudy powdered wig. She too felt the need to look away.

  George crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his wife and her friend. “I shouldn’t laugh were I either of you.”

  “I, uh, I’m n-not laughing, dear.”

  George frowned at his wife’s back. “Oh? Then why are your shoulders shaking up and down? Have you some bizarre disease I’ve never heard mention of?”

  The movement of her shoulders eased somewhat. “I’m a b-bit chilly.”

  “In the middle of June?”