Sultry Southern Nights (Closed)

[MadMissJ]

**This is Closed for Light Ice and Myself**


It had been unseasonably warm that summer, a trend that had carried on into the fall. There had been talk, of course, there was always talk always the henpecking at all sorts of events for the well to do plantation owners. She’d remembered Sissy Faulter’s brother had been all over the place with talk of war. It had bored her then, too young to really know what those boys meant, old enough to like the boys that talked about it. More than that fall she remembered that cold winter, in the Baptist church. The talk she’d been able to ignore was a roar, and all her girlfriends could do was tell her how pretty her white dress was. It had been, long and silky, brocade shipped in from France, her mama had wanted the best they could get. It was synched tight at the waist, puffed sleeves and the biggest bell skirt, those hoops had hurt her hips they were so heavy with ruffles and fabric.

She’d been practically shot gunned down the isles toward Augustus McCall. Everyone in the church talked about their abrupt nuptials, her mama had taken ill the last month, her daddy was going to be off they said in January if the pact the senators were keeping held true. At least that’s what the boys buzzed about…

Emma-Jane Williams had only been able to settle her eyes on the bright shining buttons on his uniform. To her they’d been so pretty, her gloved hands held in his just below one of the decorative things. Bright like brass, she swore she could see her reflection in the surface, she’d been so distracted that when the preacher asked her if she did, Gus’d had to take her by her chin to make her look up at him.

Her eyes she knew had been wide as saucers. She had been a gentle young lady of the finest breeding, just the right mix of manners and timidity. Her lip quiver had been perfected and it pouted out when her fiancée plied the question to her.

Did she?

“I-I do. I guess.” Was her response, the audience could have been outside throwing the soirée of the year and Emma wouldn’t have noticed. His grey gloved hand was under her chin, and her eyes were on his, nothing else existed. She was too afraid to look around, he was like a snake that could strike at any moment, and his strike would cut her. It was that thought that almost made her flinch when he’d finally leaned down to kiss her.

The next night, he’d been gone. Maybe they’d thought they’d have more time together to get to know each other. Well, in the more biblical ways. He’d been a friend of her brother’s, long before Ernest had gone to Atlanta. And he was always at the parties she had attended even as a little girl. He’d been nice enough, though she’d preferred John Billings…always had. He was more her type, she’d thought then. A little wild boy, a trouble maker that had won her heart with his petty crimes.

Back then she’d been a naive chit. Head filled up with fluff and any book learning her parents had been able to shove in there. Married too young to appreciate the safety and freedom it gave her during Mr. Lincoln’s War.

-------------

She’d wished she could go back to that.

Currently, Emma-Jane Williams McCall was digging, frantically like a dog looking for its prized bone. Her friend and slave Memmy holding down her huge hoop skirt for decorum’s sake from the back, though the image of a fine lady in her working gown, sweating up to her elbows in dirt, her hat long forgotten as she cursed, pulling up huge handfuls of dirt and pushing it aside.

“Damn this war!” Her voice rang against the side of her shallow hole, the grime settling under her fingernails like a ditch digger’s daughter.

“Damn that Sherman! Makin’ Georgia howl! Howl she did! Howled like a stuck son of a bitch, rolled over and took it!” She plucked forth a silver serving spoon from the dark earth and threw it into the pile at her side, her drawl more clipped with every swear word. Every time she remembered her adventures out in their gardens in the dead of night, burying their valuables that hadn’t already been given up for the war efforts. Gus’ family silver was all over this yard, she’d been too scared to hide it together, frightened that the raiding parties that those nasty Union soldiers sent into southern ladies’ houses would poke a box with one of their long switches, and take it up from the ground like grave robbers.

They’d already done as much damage as she could take. Burned their cotton fields and taken their workers, walked into every house and filled up their bags with food from their pantries and from their tables, taken anything that shined like gold or silver. Not that they’d had much left, any picture frames made from precious metals were taken in ’62, their bare paintings were sitting against walls or leaning on furniture. It had hurt her heart to stand in her living room and watch her own boys, too young in gray uniforms taking a crowbar and hammer to the brilliant golden lion’s heads that had guarded the grand fireplace.

By the time they’d come free they looked like victims of a tragic accident. Dented and maimed. Like her pride, like the pride of every lady that had attempted to keep her husband’s home safe, working and normal.

Could she even be called a lady now? What did she have? A family tomb with too many relatives, a gutted home and larder, tear salted farmland with no one to work it and union soldiers having marched their way through her home town on the way to the sea.

What she had was a sad homecoming for a surviving soldier.

Emma sat in the grass with a sigh, unable to find more of the pieces she’d hidden. There was no telling now how much they’d gotten, or how much she’d forgotten at this point. She took that spoon and plied it to her apron, rubbing the dimness off the piece in a futile sort of way.
On the rounded outside she saw a reflection of herself, dirt smudged nose and rose colored cheeks from the heat. Those fat red curls she’d been so known for were wilting with her efforts and those green eyes were tired. What she also saw was someone coming up behind her.

Memmy and Emma started to stand, the lady hiding their treasures by stepping back, shielding that McCall legacy with her skirts. It was only a split second before Emma was handed a shot gun from her servant, aiming it at the man walking toward her front yard.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t take one more step, Sir.” The gun didn’t even shake in her steady hands; obviously this was a woman who had become very handy with it.

“My husband is due home soon, and he wouldn’t take kindly to someone trying to poach his home, or his wife. If you would please move on, I would certainly hate to kill you so soon after your home coming. But I will.” Her voice was loud enough for him to hear from her the edges of her long walkway; her eyes were narrowed with annoyance. Inside her stomach clinched, the rifle butt was achingly tight against her shoulder, but she did close one eye to look down the barrel.

“One more warning, I aim to kill.” Her voice drifted from behind that weapon.

“Tell me what you want. Then leave.”

[Light Ice]

The sun was going down in Georgia but it offered no relief of any kind. If anything, in the dark, the dangers of the South had only multiplied. The past had scurried under the rug to hide beneath the bodies of the dead men piled upon it and the empty promises of the Union Bosses that had so guilefully laid them down. In a way it could be said that the dark had come when General Lee had surrendered. The back of the Confederacy had snapped like dry Virginia pine then. What was left was the shame of surrender and defeat and all the indignities piled upon them by the Blue Coats.

Or so they'd thought.

No, the horrors of that dark had been hidden to them proper until they'd returned home. Those of the Grand Confederate Army that had legs to walk on had found their homes husks and their women hardened. The Gentle South as they had known and loved had gone like the cannon's smoke beneath the boots of Sherman and Grant.

You could see defeat on the face of every soldier coming home. They'd the great hang of their heads and the shabby state of their attire to contend with, of course, and that would have been enough in itself to condemn them to the very image of melancholy had it not been for the inglorious means by which they had found their release from the Army by which it had been their duty to serve. There were no meals given or dignity in the laying down of their arms to the tables of Union officers. They had been struck and goaded to the lines to pass on their rifles like cattle and branded for the experience by the shame of it all.

Well, nearly all of them.

He had prepared himself for the shock of a ruined home. There had been plantations along the road that had suffered that familiar fate, broken and battered homes that had accepted weary and mournful men into their maws. Even when he hitched his filly to the half-toppled fence Augustus McCall had felt himself with a firm heart and a steady mind. The decision had been made a long time ago, a pact with himself to be truthful, that regardless the ends he would face it with quiet dignity. He had never allowed himself the slightest room for shameful conduct. The pistols on his hips had been gifts by General Hammond and he had kept them from the hands of the Union Army.

He did not draw them now.

Augustus had not prepared himself for the image of his wife, his gorgeous Emma-Jane, with the hard stock of a scattergun pressed into the delicate line of her shoulder. For a moment, brief as it was, he felt a small part of his heart break and weep for what the war had brought on them. She was calling, calling to him from across the yard. The grass had long been trampled down and had died in the Georgian heat. Mud had taken great patches of what had once been green, slurring it a brown that turned neigh on black in the fading light.

She'd not recognized him and he didn't blame her for it. His riding coat was caked with filth from the road and he was unshaven. The squared jawline and rugged masculinity of his face concealed beneath whirls of thick, dark hair that'd collected at his cheeks and jawbones to form a heavy beard. His upper lip wreathed in a coarse mustache. Perhaps, when he got near, she'd see his pale glacial grey eyes and know him. Perhaps when he spoke.

But she did not know him now and it broke his heart again.

Because they'd never really known one another. Not in any true sense. She'd married him but never loved him and he had left before she'd had a chance to learn to. As is the case with all men, of course, he had loved her from the first time he had seen her. With men, particularly well-bred Southern Gentlemen, love was ferocious in its taking and as hopelessly epic in its encompassing. He'd not escaped her for a moment.

But she was there still, taking stock of what had meant to be their home. It'd never been theirs, of course, but his before and hers after. The halls had never been shared by them for any real length of time. They'd hardly a chance to try it on.

"Even with a shotgun pointed at me, Emma-Jane, you are still the most beautiful sight these eyes have seen." He said, only half aware he'd said it out-loud. "But I do believe your days of lifting a gun are over, lest you kill me where I stand."

[MadMissJ]

She stood as if struck, that barreled gun slowly lowering down from her shoulder, inch by painful inch, her delicate, dirt covered finger slackening away from the trigger. She blinked, not because of any misty tears that were gathering in the eyes that even the most crass boys about town had called captivating, but because Emma-Jane couldn’t believe what stood in front of her.

Memmy was quick to take the gun once again from her hands, but still Mrs. McCall stood, nervous hands running down the front of her gown. Where her corset pressed her breasts high against the soft cotton of her shielding scarf, over the little eyelets of cheap lace that wound around an impossibly thin waist and the apron attached, she wanted to wipe the dirt from it, from the black fabric of her skirt. She was thankful to the fading light in that moment; perhaps it would hide the shameful state she was in.

Her mind was going a mile a minute, could this be? Could it really be Augustus? She didn’t remember him this way, not with the growth on his face that made him look wild, like those mountain men she read about that searched for wildlife and precious metals out in the mountains of the west.

She took a step toward him, a shuttering breath breaking her silence as it raced from her parted, pink lips.

“I’m sorry.” The voice was soft, quieter now that she wasn’t trying to intimidate a stranger from taking advantage of her lonely state. Another step taken forward, each aching step was made with disbelief. Was this her husband? Could it be? When she’d seen him last he’d had such a look of pride to him, he’d been a golden hero to her, idolized from afar. If she wasn’t in love with him, she at least had respect for him. Had grown to love the idea of her hero husband, and the man in front of her wasn’t the man in her mind.

Then again, what he must think of his return to his child bride. She’d grown most certainly, but it wasn’t in the ways she was meant to. She’d grown wild and free, left on her own for too long. She was like a rose, her soft petals protected by thorns and hidden away from view because too many feet had tried to trample its beauty.

Now she was close to him, she could see his eyes. Could see the familiar look to them, one that he’d given her what seemed like a thousand years ago. He’d said she was beautiful, he said it in a way that even with her doubts about the truth of it, still flattered and made her smile with pleasure.

“It’s been a long time, Mr. McCall.” Emma couldn’t think of anything else to say, she tried to picture other homecomings, women rushing into their mens arms, perhaps a show of affection that wasn’t at all polite in any circle. She merely stood, a smile on her face, still having to look up at her soldier, her bell skirt swishing over the dim leather of his boots. The redhead leaned forward, bracing her hands on his shoulders tentatively, sliding up on tip-toe and moving her lips toward him. It was awkward for the girl, this strange action of welcoming him home.

In her imaginings she’d kissed him on the lips there in their front yard, perhaps under the weeping willows as they rained down their white petals. Their yard had been lush and green, her dress of the finest fabrics and he’d been dressed in his uniform, weary but happy to be home. He’d picked her up, spun her around…

In reality, her lips brushed against the skin of his cheek, just above the growth of his beard, farther to the right than her imaginings. She leaned back and pulled her hands away, holding them in front of her the way she was taught to do.

“If it pleases you we can go inside…” She was throwing out suggestions, unsure of where to go from there, her dreams hadn’t quite gotten this far, where did one pick up life again?

“I have some tea made…or if you’d like something stronger, I’m sure that we could find something…” Emma was chattering, a nervous edge to her talking.

“Or supper...I’m sure you are starved.” The look that came over her face was soulfully sad, she wanted to reach for him again, her hand had jerked forward to reach for his, but with second thoughts it settled back to her waist, clinched by the other.

“I’m sorry.” This time, not really knowing what she was apologizing for.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you like…otherwise, I would tell Memmy to make it. I hate playing the part of ignorant hostess…or rather...I guess, you could tell Memmy yourself.” A hot blush ran up her neck and over her cheeks, she turned to look away from her husband.

“This is your home after all.”

[Light Ice]

He felt a chill when she pulled from him. It crawled up and down his rugged frame, ghostly and cold. The great empty space between them taking on a life of its own as he listened to her, watched her face with his pale stare. The lawn was overgrown and the fields were stripped bare. His house, the house his family had built a hundred years before, was a ruin of itself. These sad things show the defeat that he felt inside him. The war had laid to ruin the life he'd known. But Emma still was as beautiful as she'd been when he'd left her.

Of all the things that should have felt like home, his wife should have ran foremost. But her unchanged beauty was only more affirming of how little had been established between them. She felt like a stranger to him, more so as she pulled further away. The efforts ran hollow, dictated by the cold hand of obligation.

But he was too drained and tired to argue with it now.

"I need a bath." He said.

He could hear how tired he sounded. Even with her at arm's length he didn't feel the spark from his youth make its return. Instead, in its place, there was a knot of masculine desire and dark, savagely prominent needs that coursed through him. In many ways he hadn't returned to the place of society that he'd left four years ago. He'd simply dragged the war with him.

He was walking then, aware they were following in his wake. The great wooden doors of his home opening against his fingers, hinges creaking. and then the emptiness inside. Already his fingers were dragging the overcoat from his shoulders, laying it over his forearm as he ascended the stairs.

"I'd like to speak to you, Emma. If you don't mind."

[MadMissJ]

“Oh, okay.” She blinked, trying valiantly to keep up with his longer steps. Both the Mistress of McCall Plantation and her servant trailed after their Master, Emma-Jane even making the effort of pulling up her skirts so she didn’t trip on them in her haste.

As they entered the house, Gus was already taking off his dirt caked coat, but he didn’t pause as was the custom to hand it to their servant, he merely started to walk toward the stairs, Emma knew that he’d need hot water for his bath, she’d need to light the fire in the wash room, it had been a good thing she and Memmy had already brought water up earlier in anticipation of Emma needing a bath after her excursions into the gardens. Emma-Jane’s mind was ticking over the list of things he would need when he spoke to her again, causing the girl to startle and shoo Memmy off toward the kitchens with a wave of her hands.

"I'd like to speak to you, Emma. If you don't mind."

“Of course.” She murmured.

“I’ll get everything ready for your bath; you can go get undressed in the Master’s suite.” The girl rushed passed him, under the arm that was leaning toward the handrail, a little like a child trying to escape from a punishment, her skirts, twice the width of her body barely made it possible for the couple to occupy the same stair, but she did wiggle past and was like a hunted rabbit up the stairs, taking them so quickly even if he had wanted to argue, she just flatly wouldn’t have heard.

“I promise you, it’ll be wonderful!” Emma called from the top stair, looking back at her husband with a smile, before hurrying into the room down the hallway where a lone tub sat with a fireplace on one side and a window on the back wall. The paper that covered the walls was fading ever so slightly from the Georgia sun streaming through the panes of glass.

The copper tub was clean, the fireplace free of any soot that should have been collected, it was clear where Emma-Jane’s focus had been. The lady of the house may have overlooked household repairs, but each room was spotless.

There was only a moment before she knelt down; reaching for the flint to take to kindling and start the fire he would need for hot water. It took her three strikes before the stubborn cotton took to flame, and she could shove the puff beneath the ash logs in the opening.

She hadn’t realized how nervous she was. Here she was, on her knees, hands resting on the bent limbs, her eyes looking at the dancing little flames that would heat the buckets of water near its hearth. Her breathing was shallow, her heart fluttering. She’d been in this house a very long time on her own…

There was a creak of the door to her side; she hadn’t expected him to be ready so soon.

“It’ll just take another few minutes…” She said, quiet, still hypnotized by those very wild flames.

[Light Ice]

He undressed. The uniform shed away, filthy with dried grit. It'd been neatly patched, meticulously kept all things considered. His presentation had always been amongst the very best.

But the truth of the war for Augustus lay beneath the layers. He'd left them folded neatly atop the cedar chest in the suite, his broken boots abandoned at its feet. None of it would ever see use again, that much was certain. They felt like someone else's clothes now, reminders that he would see cleaned and stored away. It was surprising that he even cared to keep them, but he did. Some lingering pride, or sense of import, kept him from casting them away.

The reminders he couldn't store away littered his body. Each scar accompanied with its own small story. The small round puckers above his left shoulder where two rifle rounds had punched clean through him. It'd been a mercy, really, that they hadn't gotten lodged there. He'd been grateful for that. Another lay along his belly, interrupting the ridges of his muscled torso. It was a lean slice from top to bottom. A cavalry officer's cutlass. A man who'd barely missed opening him up while he was reloading one of the revolvers he'd been given.

Augustus touched that mark. It was the closest he'd ever been to death and it'd been pure luck that had kept him. The man's horse had started, inexplicably, and jerked back from Augustus' own before he could be bisected.

The last scar was a small semi-circle on his left thigh. A bayonet that had nearly unhorsed him.

The scars were all he wore as he entered the room, palm pressing the door open as he stepped inside. A towel taken to wrap around his midsection, bowing gently to concepts of modesty as he looked down on the soft shape of his wife before the fire.

"I wrote you." He said. Her back was to him. He was speaking into the soft waves of hair that fell along her shoulders. "The post failed early. I kept the letters. They're in my coat. I want you to keep them."

Bending, he leaned past her some. Aware that even the rich earth of the plantation didn't take the sweetness from the way she smelled. Gods, the ache of it. The need for her. He'd spent four years thinking of the moment and now he was locked up, frozen. The only movement he could manage was the touch of the water in the buckets. When they were ready he spoke again, lifting them into the large copper tub.

The wash room was spartan now, but he remembered how it'd been. The pictures along the walls were gone. The finer bathing dishes and towel rings stripped from the walls. His mother had chosen the paper to please his father. An intimate burgundy, meant to be romantic. Inspiring. Under any other circumstance it'd have been sensual. But now, while the moon lifted out the room's lone window, it simply softened the light until shadows stretched over the sparse furnishings.

"How much did they take?" He asked.

An accounting of things. It was not the heart of what he'd needed to say. She'd not answer him with what he longed to hear. But it was safe conversation. It was practical. It conveyed, he'd hoped, his interest in giving back to her the home they both deserved. The war had stolen many things but it would not make a liar out of him. He had sworn to provide and make right for her a home. A loving and safe place. The house was more a cemetery for their dreams right now than it was a sanctuary. That'd change. He'd see it done.

But despite those thoughts he couldn't help but damn himself for being so cold. The awareness of her so near as he let his towel go from his hips and laid it on the tub-side table to climb in had stiffened him, left his length to betray that his concerns lay elsewhere. He should find tenderness, real tenderness in his heart for her now. There should have been an embrace and professions of love. Instead, despite how glad he was to be with her, he was trapped in some dark and stoic place.

The tub's waters lapped him up, swallowing his rugged frame. They clouded instantly as he shed dust from the road and sweat, briskly cleaning himself. The soap on the table was bayrum scented, earthy and pleasant. She was trying. He saw it. The efforts were so sharp they were painful as he failed where she succeeded. The best he managed was to clean himself thoroughly, briskly, so that the sudsy water veiled the lewdness of his hard length and the grim scars along his frame.

All the while he feared the last vestiges of his sweetness lay in those letters, bundled in twine and in the inner pocket of his coat where it lay outside. He wondered if she'd come to read them and wonder what had taken the words away and why, though his love for her was everywhere in his glacial eyes, he no longer had the means to voice it.

[MadMissJ]

She’d done her best to be a good wife. Emma-Jane had been a young bride, just passed her fifteenth birthday when she’d been wed. All of her things had been transported to the McCall Plantation the day of her wedding, She remembered she’d gone to sleep that night, night dress tied at her throat and wrists, she’d watched him undress that night, frightened…alone…and weary from the day she’d fallen asleep before he’d had a chance to come to her.

The next day she was awoken by a gentle kiss, a goodbye in the pre-dawn hours.

Now they were greeting each other at dusk, it was fitting.

She kept her eyes trained on the floor, careful not to slip more than a peak upward. Augustus McCall had always had a fine form. She’d had many girl friends who had been half in love with him. Emma could recall each of their bitter congratulations when their wedding was announced; she’d been unable to see the fuss of it.

But now she did, and a furious blush came to her cheeks. So much so, that Emma had to press a nerve-chilled hand to her face to cool down the blistering embarrassment.

"The post failed early. I kept the letters. They're in my coat. I want you to keep them."

“Alright.” Was her dry reply.

He was beautiful. She didn’t remember that from four years ago. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the lean length of his muscles, broad shoulders, lean hips. Built the opposite of herself. He was lanky where she was curved; he was hard where she was soft.

Emma tried harder to look away from him as he stepped into the bath. She didn’t need to be making comparisons between their bodies. For the good Lord’s sake, he was a war hero.

"How much did they take?"

He wanted to get into this so soon? The man had barely set foot on his land, didn’t he want to wait until he’d at least washed and dried before Emma let him know just how bad this little life had gotten?

She looked up, opened her mouth to question him, but upon looking at his bare chest, his scared shoulder she quickly put her hand from her cheek to her eyes, a little girl playing hide and go seek couldn’t have been quicker.

“I don’t know…I-I…” Emma breathed out with a sigh, taking her hand down and placing it on the side of her husband’s heated tub.

“A lot.” So far her voice had gone from force chipper and soft murmurs. But this tone was tired, sad…so naked that her emotions, had he looked at her face, he would see the impact of each stolen item.

“Some of it was donated. Soldiers used to come and say that your platoon needed supplies. You needed cloth for bandages, gold for repairs…all for the war efforts.” Her throat felt like it was closing; the air forced out of it was rough, as were the tears that threatened to gather in her eyes.

“Then they’d stopped asking.” She’d remembered that fateful night, being forced away from her door when those drunken Yanks had pushed it in. They’d climbed on her, over her, demanding to know where her valuables were. They needed them, the men had demanded them. With no letters she could never be sure what to do; they’d torn that dress as they’d dragged her up the stairs to where she’d promised there might be something of interest.

She’d cried as the men had torn her cameo off her dress, opening it to their view.

“A few times t-the other men came. They were the ones who’d set fire to the fields after…after…coming inside.” There was a tactful way to go about telling her husband about the frightening night. The night she’d finally decided to pick up his gun.

There would be no rapine in their home.

“Your pictures are safe; I took them out of the frames when our boys needed the metal.” She assured him, she knew how deeply that would hurt her, if they had been her family portraits. It was hard losing everything, including reminders of those that you loved.

Though her talking Emma had started to relax, the topic was uncomfortable, but that had been the life she’d lived for all these long years while he’d been away. A life of dragging together the last of everything to make due with what they had. She turned to look at him now as she spoke, her fire-red hair’s highlights dancing with the light of the room.

“I’m sorry you had to come home to this, Augustus. I tried to save everything I could…I took down all the curtains myself, so they wouldn’t take what fabrics we had left, I put your families silver in the garden…” Emma was ashamed of the lengths she’d gone to, how improper her husband must think her. How low.

“I still have your ring, though I haven’t worn it.” It was plain to see on her hand that rested on his tub that she hadn’t worn it in a long time.

“There were these stories of Union soldiers tearing ladies fingers off to get to them…” She paused…looking at his stoic, hard features. Trying to read any signal that he might give her that he wanted her to continue.

“I can put it on now if you like…” Emma told him, taking a hand and reaching it down into the front of her tight dress, having to unbutton three of the buttons there to gain access to her cleavage.

Her hand was pulled free from that pearly skin, with a small band of gold clutched in it, held up for him in triumph.

“Would you like to put it on me again?” She asked politely, offering it to him.

[Light Ice]

She'd asked him, producing the ring from the firm rise of her breasts. His eyes had followed her small hand, mind dumbed by the vision of her softly-curved body to its intentions. He'd felt his prick give a hard lurch when the tips of her slender digits smoothed beneath the valley of her breasts. He'd nearly missed the ring, fixed instead on the silk of her skin and the creamy tops that threatened the top of her bodice. He'd had only a few women in his young life. Prostitutes, all. Expensive courtesans whom had broken him of his youth early. It was that way with all men of society, it seemed. Rushing towards manhood, heroic and noble manhood, any way they could manage.

But they'd never been the vision that Emma was. Kneeled there, beside his tub, with her skirts billowing out around her. The dress was worn. It was dirty from the garden. He could see the wear on it and it broke his heart.

"Yes." He said.

But he didn't let her fingers slide it on. Instead, reaching, he took her soft hands in the calloused stretch of his own and the ring from their grasp. There, finally, the tenderness came. He'd no words anymore. His charm and wit had abandoned him with his youth and naivety during the four long years of war. Augustus had only the honesty of action and the sincerity by which he held her hands, turning them so that the left was cradled in his palm. It'd been over two years since his hands had done any tenderness. They'd been retrained for savagery and survival, hardened from killing and working. For a moment he worried he was not soft enough, not kind enough with his efforts. For a moment he hesitated, waited, his breath catching as the memories of their wedding rushed through him.

She had been so young and so pure then, so untouched by the ugliness of the world that had fallen on them. Her father had bought her a new gown against the gentle protests of her mother. Instead of wearing what her mother had worn, she'd been spoiled on the modern lace and silk of a snow-white french gown.

Augustus had called her his angel in a hot whisper against her cheek.

Now, like then, he pushed the gold ring onto her finger. It glided easily up her slender finger until it grew snug in place. A comical place for him to renew his claim on her. The room's dim light provided by only a pair of small oil lamps. The flames flickering lightly, yellowed glow dancing against the burgundy papered walls. The vision of her kneeled so dutifully beside his tub was a powerful one. His position above her allowing him to see the lay of her silken tresses and the slender column of her throat. The rise of her breasts, heaving gently as she breathed deeply against his touch.

"I'll take care of it and you."

Strange to hear himself. He spoke in flat rumbles, sparse dictations that left him with assertive undertones. Gone was the flowery elegance of the society that had groomed him. Gone was the youthful arrogance and eagerness. Instead, in the dark, she was given only the blunt honesty that he'd clung to. There was no words of tenderness that he could find, nothing he could say. So instead he stroked her hand in his own, gently passing the water slicked digits against her own. His wife. His love. The woman that'd waited for him.

She should never have endured it alone. Not the robbery of Confederate cowards or the brutality of the Union soldiers. He could not bare to ask if one of them had touched her. He didn't need to know that to know they'd still hurt her. The thoughts were enough, alone, to bring that feral darkness into his heart. To chill him from head to toe. The images of his hands doing deadly work on the men who'd brought her to tears or given her that shame were quick as they crossed his mind.

But he pushed them away for now. Enjoying the way she let him stroke her hands and the small smile on her soft, pouted lips.

"Would you help me shave my face?" He asked.

And felt at once his fingers leave her own, keep him from closing his grip on them until she was trapped. The urge to pull her into the waters against him so fierce, suddenly, that the only option was to release her.

[MadMissJ]

His promise rang in her ears.

He would take care of her. That was a lofty goal in her mind. She’d once been so soft, a flirty young girl who had caught the attention of her area’s most eligible gentleman. If she could remember that far back, he’d been so confident in himself; maybe that image had just built itself up in her mind. He’d become more than a man to her, he’d become a paragon of everything a gentleman was. She’d imagined that he’d be so soft with her, never be cross at her, talking in the placating way that her father always had. Perhaps he’d have tender words of love, the look in his eyes would be kind and careful. The man she looked at now wasn’t the same as the husband in her mind’s eye; she could feel it as his hands caressed her own. The rivulets of water from his fingertips drifted and slid back toward the tub across the tender, sensitive flesh between her fingers.

His voice was hard over her ears. Emma-Jane wished she could read his eyes, but they were closed to her, like someone had taken the man she’d married and locked him away. She’d known a few girls in the area whose husbands had come back very changed from their defeat. Whispers of four years away had made them grow apart. But Emma had always thought since they’d never really grown together, perhaps they were being given a chance to do so.

But his voice, that flat tone made her to afraid to ask.

And once he let her hand go, their fleeting moment of connection vanished. Where Emma had been trapped under his spell, eager to please him and answer his questions, once her hand was released any magic she’d experience gave way to insecurity. The little smile she’d had for Gus wisked away with it. At once she realized what a state she was in, the buttons of her plain work gown were undone, giving a harlot's view to Augustus. She raised her hands as he spoke, to push those flat porcelain disks into their holes, covering up her skin once again, inch by inch to her neck.


"Would you help me shave my face?"

She paused, wondering briefly if he actually meant that. Emma couldn’t say that she’d ever shaved a man in her life. Usually there would be a house servant for those tasks. She knew her father had owned one that took the whiskers off his face every morning.

Her elegantly curved eyebrows knitted together before she stood without a word, walking away from him in the small room toward the skinny cabinet that interrupted the reddish wallpaper before the door.

She reached in for the shaving kit that she’d known was there. It wasn’t much, just a small leather box of something labeled “Dr. Hampton’s shaving soap”, and a straight razor with a lovely ivory handle. She picked up the box and walked back to Augustus and opened it.

“I’ve never done this…” Emma bit her lip a little at the corner, catching the pouty flesh with her teeth.

“I mean I’ve seen it done.” She knelt again, this time closer to his side, her dress billowing out behind her with the sudden movement, sending skirts and petticoats fluttering around her.

“But I don’t want to hurt you.” Her green eyes looked into his with more than a little hesitation.

“Do you think I could? I suppose I could call Memmy...though, I'm not sure that we should do this with the state of your..." Emma-Jane's eyes grew a little darker, a little more intense with her next few words, the only sign that something more womanly was beneath her girlish surface.

"Clothing situation."

[Light Ice]

Desire. He knew it well and recognized it in the dark glint fashioned in her eyes. The way her fingers ran up to those buttons, hiding the firm swell of her chest to him, was a quick and proper as a lady could manage. But it didn't matter. Not to him. He'd love and want her if she up and ran herself awash in coarse burlap. His hand touched her own again, thumb gently stroking along the inside of her wrist. Where his words failed his touches attempted to compensate, forge a conduit between them in the grim setting of the war's end. He'd felt the spark that'd been there when his fingers had pushed that gold band into place, felt at once the little hopes they'd once shared (innocent as they were then) rekindled.

A man learned the hard way in war to feel those little sparks and let them push him on. They carried him through the worst of things. His letters to her had been, in a way, his means to capture his sparks and keep them close. To store them away so that when he couldn't summon the feelings by means of memory he could read them, hear his words in his mind and have them all come rushing back.

She mentioned his state of undress. She mentioned their last Servant.

He lost patience at the thought of anything interrupting this moment, his homecoming.

"My mother shaved my father." He said, his eyes turning to her own. "Because he'd never let another woman touch him."

He doubted she understood the many meanings of it. Certain she grasped that he'd meant for no woman other than her to touch him, ever. Certain, at least somewhere, she understood that to him it was proper. But did she understand he'd been without a woman's touch for four years? Did she know the pains it gave him to see her, to think of her, after four years of wanting and not have her?

And he wanted her. Damned, he wanted her. He wanted her love and the feel of her all at once.

He leaned from the tub then, letting his eyes stray into the Master's Suite that adjoined the Main Wash Room. The door out into the upstairs hall was closed, shutting out the sounds of Memmy preparing supper below. It left them here, in the dim light of the oncoming evening, alone for the very first time in a bed they'd never shared.

Augustus took Emma's hand, felt its softness in his fingers again. His touch assuring now as he sat back against the copper to brace himself, to relax and remain still.

"You'll be fine."

And then his hands left her own and his eyes took her instead, holding her stare as his hands scooped warm water onto his face. It splashed the dark fur along his jawline, whirls of scraggly mane that gave him a wolfish, feral look. The droplets ran down his cheeks and dripped on the smooth plane of his chest, past the scars on his shoulder.

And she began, lathering him. The small horsehair brush spreading it along under her fingers.

"Circles." He said softly, coaching her. There was infinite patience. For the first time his tone had broken some, infused itself with a hint of animation. He sounded alive as she spread a thick lather along his jawline.

And finally, when she accidentally dolloped his nose, he laughed. A soft, rolling chuckle against her timid apologies. And he was relieved she giggled happily as she brushed the pearl-white cream from his nose's tip and continued.

[MadMissJ]

She was nervous, though her hand was steady his words circled inside her head, like the sound of his laughter when she’d dotted his nose with the soap.

They were inches away now; his face that had been covered in dark hair was now white before her and the shaving razor. She swallowed the little lump in her throat that formed from their faces being so close. She could feel the breath from her parted lips, brush against her hands, so she knew that as she scrapped the honed edge of the steel against the sloping skin around his first ear that he too could feel it against his exposed flesh.

Maybe it was lucky that she had such a steady hand under nerves. She hadn’t always been that way, but then again, there were a lot of things she was now that she hadn’t been before he’d gone away. As she worked away his beard, under his tutelage and guidance, ear to nose, on each side. She began to speak, maybe it was to fill up the thick silence, her discomfort at her gown starting to grow soggy from each time she dipped the razor in his bath, pulling it out to wipe off the soap on a towel. She could feel the water drip down her sleeves and across the bosom of her dress, dampening her clothing and making her breath catch a little as she continued her work.

“This isn’t as hard as I thought it would be.” Another small movement dragged the metal against flesh, her hands now learning the little, smooth motions the task required.

“But I suppose I understand your father’s not wanting another person to do this. There would have to be a lot of trust involved.” Maybe she was hinting, her green eyes went from where they were focused, back to his gray ones, only holding them for a moment, until she smiled again.

“You can trust me, Augustus. I know that we…that we never…were friends.” It was hard to say, mostly because in the small space, it was so intimate. He seemed so much older and wiser, she was little more than pupil that desperately wanted to learn. But she was also his wife, and knew that afforded her more respect than the common woman.

“But I hope we can become friends, you and I.” Her drawl was lazy, slow like whiskey in the small room, while the night outside stretched on, threatening their golden glow together.

When she finally reached his neck, his face had begun to change back into the man she’d once knew. Emma-Jane could recognize the features she’d long thought about, his high cheekbones, the chiseled jaw line. She leaned forward to finish the skin of his neck, careful now with her long strokes.

“I can be most accommodating, I’ve been told I’m a very good listener, you know.” She chatted on, the irony of her statement wasn’t lost on her, and she did laugh softly before dipping her hand one last time into his bath water.

She pulled out the tool, to run it once again along the cloth, eyes roaming over his face with a look of quiet satisfaction.

“You look very handsome, Augustus.” She breathed, leaning back now, to sit on the cradle of her feet. Her hands folding up the razor and settling on her lap, her left hand felt heavier now with the weight of the golden band there, it was uncomfortable, but welcome.

“Not quite as gruff as you were before.” Emma-Jane looked away, back down at her hands as she paid him the complement.

“I should probably be going; you’ll want to finish your bath. I can go prepare your bedroom, I slept in it…” She confided.

“There was just something comforting about being there. Like having a little bit of you around I suppose.” Emma mused. “But I can have it set for you to sleep in after supper.”

[Light Ice]

Compliments, softly paid. He didn't have a deaf ear for her. There was a gentility present as always, echoed in the soft flowing tones of each word that fell from her lips. She was a woman of society, or a girl rather, who had been bred to the finest of Georgian standards. Those standards had, however, failed to truly touch on the tremendous substance she'd grown to acquire. Her life played out as dream and nightmare, now bound to a man whom for the first time in his life would be forced to build a fortune and not simply maintain it. He appreciated beyond all things the sincerity that hid beneath it all, though. The heartfelt attempts she made to be a wife to him and not more than a finely bred stranger. She appreciated, he knew, that the bonds of marriage were especially important now. She appreciated that they only had each other.

"Wait." He surprised himself with how sudden he sounded.

The lift of a rugged hand from the bath's warm water to claim her wrist, to keep her from leaving. And then, strangely, Augustus felt his mind peel back to allow for his actions. Her dress was not white as it'd been for their wedding. The memory of it was pristine to him, even now. All of their town gathered as the handsome pair were displayed, ode to pomp and circumstance and the tremendous pageantry of the glamorous South. She had been beautiful beyond words then, she was beautiful beyond words now.

He pulled her to the tub's side, drew her close as he leaned along it's copper edge and came toward her. He felt her stiffen, grow rigid. The full swell of her young breasts thrust up by her bodice and then crushed, warmly, to the water-slicked expanse of his chest. It soaked through as their contact lingered on, warm and intimate, forced by his strong hands as the empty one lifted to spread a large palm at the small of her back and keep her there.

He'd wanted her, wanted badly for her. His wife, a marriage left without its absolution, had always been foremost in his mind when his thoughts allowed.

"Augus-" She managed, fear and surprise heavy in her voice.

But he silenced her with a kiss, a powerful press of his mouth to her own. The spiced scent of his skin, fresh and wet with the bath, mixing at once with the gentler, sweeter ones of her hair and skin. Her lips were soft petals against the thin line of his mouth, and he kissed her firm enough to feel her fine teeth beneath them. Her eyes wide as saucers, brilliantly beautiful

He closed his own then and held her to him, the water shedding itself from his slick skin to wet her own. It soaked her bodice. It dampened her hair so that it pressed gently to her cheeks, elegant strands of gold. Augustus kissed her, kissed his beautiful Emma. His young, darling wife, with the longing of a man denied what he'd wanted most for four long years. Kissed her with an urgency that asserted, without question, that there was no way she was leaving him now. That there was no chance they would make it downstairs in time for dinner. And finally, beyond doubt, that there was nothing more he had looked forward to than this and their first night together.

[MadMissJ]

She was frightened.

Her heart beat a steady and frantic cadence against her breast. She was surprised that he couldn’t feel it against his chest as he crusted her against his naked flesh. They’d gone from shy smiles and tender moments to something that she wasn’t at all sure of.

He’d startled her, with his bark of command and the way he’d grabbed for her. Emma had begun to beg off, tell him that he was scaring her. But his hand was solidly against her back, forcing her forward. She whimpered, her hand on his shoulder clinching into a tight, little fist, pushing against him and slipping along his damp skin.

She wanted to pull her mouth away, suddenly her valiant husband was little better than the men she’d told him about. Emma felt the tear prick at her eyes as her mouth opened beneath his, the sting of pain of her teeth on the back of her lips only gaining a reprieve when she did. Emma twisted her head, dragging a ragged, choked breath against his chest, having to turn away from him, even though he still held her in his grasp.

“Please Augustus...” Her voice was clipped, obvious she was trying to choke down just a touch of the shock that warred in her, along with the smooth warmth that had taken residence inside of her where his hand lay.

“I don’t think…this isn’t… Emma-Jane couldn’t complete a sentence, she didn’t dare look up at him, and she could only cower in the circle of his arms, away from the fierce passion that she knew would be in his eyes.

“I don’t know you at all.” That was a whisper hidden behind the screen of her red curls. Her eyes longed to slide upward, she wanted to tell him that if he could just be patient that she could come to accept him, perhaps even the rough way he handled her.

But his hands were so large on her wrist; it circled it like a shackle. She was confused, he’d been so sweet and now he’d seemed to want to push her away with his abrupt actions. For Emma there was no rhyme or reason to it.

“I’m sorry if I did something that made you so angry.” It was only an innocent girl who could mistake his actions for anger, she finally pulled her courage in order to look at him, her eyes were bright with fear and the raising of her anger. She had that temper that after went along with her red hair, though her breeding had taught her to rein it in.

“Whatever it is, it won’t happen again.” She promised to him.

[Light Ice]

She drew away. He rose, shedding water like a slick sheet. It fell from his body into the tub, splashing, leaving him shining in the dim light of the lamps. The flame's flickered against the air he disturbed, throwing their shadows in the room. For all her inexperience, for how foreign they were to one another, he must have appeared immense and intimidating as he stepped from the copper. The impressive length and girth of his erection standing proudly, water running down the column of smooth flesh. It swayed faintly as he walked.

Augustus, like his father, was tall and handsome. The shave revealed the sharp lines of his face, the masculine angles that composed his jawbones and squared chin. His skin was smooth and bronzed from the summer sun, his lips thin and fine. He looked at her with those glacial eyes, pale and intense. The bold look of him strengthened only by his advance around the tub, his lack of modesty. She was allowed the vision of him, every hard inch, without a hint of shyness. And now the words finally came and he spoke to her, the tone soft. He understood more than she knew. The fear. the newness of it.

He knew it. Even now it was there, lingering. But the man in him, the terrible love that consumed him, pushed him on. He had been, for both the child and her parents, the very best choice of husband. His family was proud and he was intelligent and capable. The other girls of society had hoped that it'd be his arm they'd end up on but Emma had always had his heart. And when she turned fifteen, the age of those things, he had gone to his parents and her own and seen that she'd be his.

He'd have noone else. For Augustus there had never been anyone else.

"I love you." He said, quietly now as his movements stilled. She had not retreated. "Emma, I've always loved you. I always will love you."

Did she know that he meant those words? Could she see it in his eyes, in the way he stood before her. It was impossible to tell. He gathered her up like he'd wanted to the night after their wedding, the night before his departure. She'd asked him to wait then, told him much as she did now. He remembered the words, the fear in her eyes. But not tonight. Instead, his arms hooked beneath her to effortlessly cradle her sleek frame against the broad stretch of his chest, he looked into her eyes.

"But I've waited four years and tonight, Emma, you're going to love me."

Augustus, lone survivor of the 1st Georgian Cavalry and the McCall family, ignored protests and struggles. Love was a power and it was not always kind. It had been far from kind to him. Sometimes honesty and sincerity were not tender or sweet. It was with that strength and sincerity that he carried his wife across the threshold to the bedroom they had been meant to share for the very first time. The bed loomed beyond, four posts reaching to the ceiling, carved in the dark Georgian Mahogany that dwelled upon the plantation lands that were still theirs.

[MadMissJ]

A cool frost came over her, something that rooted her into place, her hands beneath her chin, clutched against her breast and pounding heart. The blood drained from her face as he stood, dripping onto the hard, polished wood floor beneath them.

Her eyes were wide, she’d pleaded, something that grated on her pride to do, and he’d pushed it aside, like so much fluff. She gulped down the rising panic; it knotted in her stomach at just the sight of his bare skin. He loomed so menacingly above her, that part of him, the parts that no gentle young woman would willingly put herself in a position to view, not like she’d done. She damned herself for her curiosity, for being lured and tricked.

"I love you. Emma, I've always loved you. I always will love you.”

Emma-Jane’s breathing just shuttered from her chest, in a slow sigh. Perhaps a reprieve from this harsh act of aggression was in order with the words he said to her?

“T-thank you…I” But her voice trilled from meek agreement to shrieking anger as he walked forward and lifted her into the air like she weighed little more than a small kitten.

"But I've waited four years and tonight, Emma, you're going to love me."

“No! You can’t do this to me!” And she squirmed, for the first time with him; her brash anger finally tore through her fear and showed its ugly head. Emma pushed at him, her legs caught up with the hoops and his arm under her knees didn’t make much of a dent in his momentum. Her howling only became louder as they entered into the Master’s suite.

“You! You’re a cad!” She hissed at her husband, trying to think of some way to put him off this duty that seemed so crass and unnecessary.

“How can you say you love me and…do this!” The girl finally pulled free, with the last bit of fight in her, and went tumbling onto the large mattress, nostrils flaring with her deep, ragged breaths that pressed her chest against the bindings of her corset painfully. Emma took a handful of the goose down comforter in an effort to crawl away, but it seemed that her fight was being thwarted by not only her husband, but the room as well. Her hoop skirt was caught up from behind, while her heeled shoes became tangled in their mad escape.

“Keep away from me.” She warned, her eyes making a quick scan of the room, searching with fruitless efforts for a weapon of any kind. But that didn’t mean that she’d given in so easily.

“My foot is caught up.” Emma complained, trying to turn to sit on the bed, but it was almost impossible with his hand wrapped in the skirt of her dress. She was stuck in a very precarious position, on her hands and knees, looking over her shoulder at where that worn satin shoe’s heel had torn into the blankets. She wiggled her foot, trying to free her stockings from their casings with no avail. It seemed as if she were going to be at his mercy…

That made her want to weep.

“You can let go of my skirt.” Her voice was watery with defeat; the look that traveled across her face was a mix of despair and anger.

“I can’t move…and my shoe is stuck, and you are bent on harming me.” The more she spoke to him, the more distraught her voice became. But she did rub away the tear that trickled down her cheek with a brush of her fist, refusing to show it.

“I’ll hate you.” She spoke; her voice was full of venom and bitterness. A snake’s bite couldn’t have held such a killing mixture. But the fight that had been in her was slowly draining away.

[Light Ice]

It was not how he would have had it. There were no flower petals for their bed or love for him in her eyes. She did not unlace the bodice to reveal herself to him, to offer the sweetness beyond to the man that had come to claim it. Instead, she bolted, blind panic wrenching her in the sheets. He'd barely caught her in time, wrenching his hand in her skirts to halt her from putting the large stretch of sheets between them. He'd caught her, barely, and now they were stuck with her slender form bent beneath his strong hands.

Defeat had touched her, he saw it. The start of submission, the gentle bowing to his will and the inevitability of this moment. It was as marriage had suggested. They would share a bed. In his mind he wondered what she had wanted for their first time, if she had wanted it at all. In his mind Augustus wondered if Emma had hoped, blindly, he would take courtesans as many societal husbands took and left her to her own devices. He wondered if that was what she had mistaken him for. He wondered many things with her there, tangled in the linens and in the tremendous grip of his large hand.

Augustus pulled her back toward him with his strong hands, drew her along the sheets until she was close enough that he could free her foot.

"Stand up, Emma." He said.

There were few words, otherwise. Most of them had escaped him again. She resisted, passively, her eyes turning around the room uncertainly before she extended a hand. There was no trust there, none at all. He took it and helped her up, leaving her standing infront of him. For all the fear, all her panic, Augustus saw only fury in her eyes. She'd learned in their four years apart that it was more useful than despair, a weapon and a sharpened blade that she'd jab into him. There was no denying the thought of her hating him wounded deeply, it did. But he did not betray himself and reveal just how deeply it struck.

Instead, he reached up with his free hand to the buttons of her dress. His pale eyes fixed on the jade of her own as he flicked them open, gently pushing the dress's top off her shoulders until they were a soft, bare stretch of skin in the room's dim light.

He touched them, let his fingers brush over the slender slope of her shoulders. Her skin was cool and smooth beneath the rough pads of his fingers. Gentle now, more than before, even.

Oh, the need was strong. His length was still thick and prominent between them, standing from his hips to cross the short space between them and reach toward her belly. He'd never wanted more, never. But there was no anger here, no fury. There was no need to be hasty or harsh. His fingers walked the soft line of her sleek shoulder towards her collar bones, touched gently there, dipped to the rise of her breasts as they thrust up from the confines of her bodice. The caress, languid, passive. A masculine touch that stole from them any modesty and instead encroached them both into a crooked intimacy.

"Let me see you, Emma." He said. But it was not a request. "I don't want to rip your dress."

When had he became so hard? When had the world been so cold that the only means to an intimate space with his wife proved to be with the great and stubborn force of his masculinity. She was not looking at him now, but looking down. Her features betraying the great mournful mess of of her emotions against the intruding power of the moment.

The wall lamp's light danced over them, throwing up its gentle shadows. The dark veiled parts of his corded thighs and rugged hips, partially shielded his hard prick from her view, leaving only the upturned crown and its smooth velvet surface to be fully revealed. She'd wounded him with her words of hate, leaving a scar as clear as the others that criss-crossed the muscled stretch of his torso. The evidence was buried under the stoic surface of the man whom Emma called husband, who after tonight she'd call husband with the more literal strength than before.

There was no escape. But he was tender. Hoping, willing her, to not make his force turn unduly ugly.

[MadMissJ]

She had no choice. Emma could see it now, in the way he commanded her and ran his hands along her uncovered skin. There were many things she could do at this moment; she took stock of what was happening, her mind now settling into cool calculating, instead of blind fear.

Here she stood, topless for him, shielded only in her corset and chemise from him viewing her, there had been a bit of hope that it would stop here, with his fingers trailing along her milk pale skin. But she knew that it wouldn’t, that part of him which was so menacing that threatened her like a dagger, stuck out like it would cut her across her stomach.

She could run, but the best she could hope for was making it to the door. Her husband was quick, unencumbered by clothing he would overtake her and do as he pleased, which he heavily hinted at was ripping at her dress off.

Her hands shook with anger as she reached behind herself then, unbuttoning the loose top skirt and pulling it over her head, throwing it on the ground at her side with as much force as she could muster. Next was the petticoat which met the same fate. She felt like she was shedding more than layers of clothing, she was shedding any self-respected she’d been able to hang onto these long years.

“Don’t touch me.” She barked, trying to unfasten the ties at her sides that held up the skeleton of her hoop. He’d looked like he wanted to say something, but she was past begging for his forgiveness and indulgence.

“If you want it off, let me be.” Her small fingers tore at the threading with jerking movements, unraveling the knots that held up the device that sat on her hips, when she finally freed herself it collapsed to the ground with a thud, indicating just how heavy it was.

It was fast work to slip her feet out of those traitorous shoes, she kicked them across the room with frustration, some small part of her had hoped he would be hit as they went sailing on either side of him.

And still she wasn’t done.

She untied the garters of her stockings, bending as best she could to roll them down, forcing her face toward that part of him that jutted out like a boat's mast. Emma tried to ignore it, and continue about her work of pulling the silken hose from her legs, not even flinching when she knew her curls, freed from all the activity of the day fell over his manhood as she pulled her feet out of her stockings.

It was a quick jerk away and she was standing again. An angry angel clad only in white. Her pantalettes trimmed with lace rested just below the generous curve of her hip, fluffed out but not quite hiding what lay beneath, her hands were resting on an impossibly small waist, the white corset giving Augustus’ wife that shape that all women longed for. Her breasts thrust high, and hips generous.

She stood there, with a frown on her face, pulling at the pout of her pink lips. They were a comical pair, Emma-Jane with barely contained fury, in all of her lacy under things, Gus with his hard edged commands with nothing to hide him from her gaze.

Emma said nothing now, she merely stood and looked at that face she’d revealed in the bath. Something she would remember, because they’d laughed together then, been almost friendly. They’d connected, and the lady now would give anything to go back to that place, when she wasn’t afraid of what he might do to her.

As she stood she thought on the brushes of his fingers against her flesh earlier. His words were cold, but the way his hand moved over her had not been so. She’d been too afraid to look in his eyes, so she’d looked at the ground. McCall confused her, one moment he was being hateful, reminding her that he owned her, not unlike anything else in this room. Since his return meant everything that she’d worked for was now returning to him. The land, the servants, even the shirts in the closet she’d lovingly stitched for him, and now her body.

But he wasn’t cruel with his ministrations. She’d known the difference. But that couldn’t stop the shiver that raced up her spine as she stared defiantly at him. What did he want from her? Did he imagine that she’d be thankful? He’d barely been in her presence for a few hours and was now demanding her body.

She couldn’t hold back her question any longer; it tumbled from her mouth into the space between them, with an exasperated sigh.

“Can you please get it over quickly, Sir?”

[Light Ice]

An angry angel. It was fitting. The defiance and fury, the way her small hands balled fists to rest on the generous rise of her hips. A lioness. A young woman who'd grown from the girl he'd loved. So much of what she was would remain a mystery to him, a treasure beyond his reach. If she had not loved him then she would not love what was left of him now, the remnants of what had once been a well-bred and gentile young man. A courser, harder man than she'd married.

Or so it seemed.

He'd heard the tone, the words. The implications, of course, were there. His strong arm snaked out, curled about the sleek line of her waist to draw her into him. All at once the lace-clad softness of her was crushed to the hard ridges of his body, crushed to the heat there, with his hard length trapped against the smooth face of the corset at her belly. Yes, it'd start now. He knew the movements, ran through them.

But he couldn't keep to the script. In his mind there'd been an order of things, a way to which he'd claim her.

Yet, despite it, he found his hands stroking steadily along the sleek line of her spine. The pass of her body beneath his rough fingers, the way his other hand lifted to gently brush her hair behind her ears and clear it from her face. Lips, soft and pouted in their displeasure, were neglected as his mouth touched her brow. Her cheeks. She did not respond, not that he could feel, but he cared very little. In his mind he could see this bed growing cold after this, staying so after summer finished its turn towards fall and then to winter. For now, for this once, he would ignore her wishes. He would not be fierce now. Not harm her unduly.

The pain would come in time and until then he'd do what he could to ease it.

The strong digits at her back found the laces there, criss-crossing white ties running down the feline curve of her sleek form. His touch was unskilled, unused to delicate bows and small knots. They plucked, struggled at times, before finally seeing them open.

He hadn't wanted to be this way. He'd wanted her to love him. He'd wanted her to rush to him in the garden, to have grown to miss more than the security and company he represented. There was great hope that some part of her would have embraced the way he'd courted her, the dutiful sincerity of his nature. The romantic gestures. But in the end he could have expected this. This woman of society, this angry angel. Love had never been a matter of their marriage or its concept, it never had been meant to be. It was his own secret motivation for wanting her, for wanting this.

"All of you." He said.

There was no malice in his words. Simple fact. The corset loosed beneath his fingers and then the brush of his hands along the round of her firm backside. Youth, delicate femininity, smoothing to the lace about her hips. His strong fingers pushed into the band and pressed them down, attempting to let them fall to her feet.

[MadMissJ]

She was stiff as the brocade, cotton and lace fell about her feet. Perhaps he’d expected her to scream again, rage at him for shaming her so. But she did neither, she stood, so like what Eve must have felt like after eating the apple, realizing the shame in her naked body, where Adam was so ignorant of it. She looked down at herself, the hair he’d tucked around her ears falling over her shoulders again, her curls too tight to hide anything of substance.

Her eyes prickled with tears, her hands resting at her sides, she could look behind him and see herself in the mirror, having never really thought about herself as a clothe less being, it was strange to see herself so. Her watery green eyes started at her feet, they were delicately curved as far as feet went, turning into slender ankles that swept up to slim calves and dimpled knees. Her thighs she noticed were creamy toned from the work she’d done more recently, lean and long leading into the coppery curls over her sex and widening out where her hips met torso.

Emma’s belly was a valley, starting with the slope where her bellybutton, so perfect and round nestled before her skin spread upward and out along her ribcage, high to her breasts, perfect pillows with pert pink nipples, like pale jewels resting on the soft cotton that grew around them. Her fingers were long; the ring on her finger was a stark contrast to everything at the moment, shining and brilliant where she now felt dull and dark. Her sleek arms grew to tight cords of muscles that blended toward her shoulders, impossibly small to have handled to burden of her husband’s leaving.

Her pulse raced at the column of her neck, fluttering along the cords as she swallowed valiantly, her chin tipped with defiance, mouth a pinched line and eyes, when she saw her twin in the mirror were so cold.

She finally looked back to Augustus, she’d demanded he be quick, he’d answered her with kisses. In her heart was brewing a dark mess of emotion, it warred there, her memories of him, his sweet actions and his terrible intentions.

The red head leaned away, finally unable to keep her feet, the bed beneath her taking the weight of her, with a small groan and a ruffle of blankets as she scooted farther up the bed, away from her husband but not with the fright she’d exhibited earlier.

When Emma-Jane reached the headboard, she leaned her heavy head back against it, her defeat more than evident as she brought her knees up toward her and opened them to him, feet flat, hands clutching the pillow at her back.

She closed her eyes, for all her bravery she couldn’t bare to watch, she wanted to leave here, if she could have she would have her soul fly far away from Georgia, out that window and into the night that stretched across the room like a dagger, long and cold and sharp.

“Please, I beg you. If you love me like you promised, make it quick.” Her voice strained with emotion was soft and flat. She had no misconception that he would take her, but hoped that in a moment, it would all be over. If none of her wishes mattered, Emma could request that reprieve, one last time.

[Light Ice]

His wife looked past his broad shoulder, past the scars knit there and his bronzed flesh. She looked past the day they'd been wed, past the war. Augustus could almost see it in her eyes, a flicker of memory and resignation. Women, wives, serving the needs of their husbands before the calloused politesse of a society marriage overcame them. His family had not been different. His father and mother had found a great affection for one another in time, an appreciation for one another sooner. But they'd not loved. Not as he did. Not with the ferociously powerful passion that Augustus had come to feel. She was looking into what seemed like an oblivious future.

He was looking at her.

An angel. It was fitting with the white chemise and pageantry discarded. There had, he was certain, never been a more beautiful creature in all of Georgia. Not once. For the first time since she'd relented to him he began to speak, watching as her lean body curled up at the crest of their marital bed and spread for him. A heart wrenching display of something mechanical and savage, lacking the greater depth of feeling that had so deeply ingrained itself in him. The words came, low and soft. Asserted as he drew towards her, his strong hands claiming the slender turn of her spread ankles as his knees sank into their bed's linens under his weight.

But he did not crawl up to cover her with his rugged frame, though the muscled length of it could so easily have done so. Instead his palms slid inward up her calves, along the inner silk of her thighs. He held them apart with his great strength, holding her as his face dipped.

Freshly shaven, his cheeks brushed along the tender interior of her thighs. He felt her jolt, surprised. Confused. Paid it no mind as his strong hands held her down before she could wrench away. His head dipped, his mouth reaching beneath the soft red curls to deeply kiss the sleek line of her sex. The warm wet of his tongue dipped out, sliding through her soft petals, laying open the sweetness of her as her body reluctantly responded.

She thrashed, protested. And then he found the tight nub of her hooded clit, circled it with the tip of his swirling tongue and felt her shudder hard. With his rugged arms he hooked her lean legs, drawn up about his shoulders rather than his hips as she'd intended. Her fingers tangling, tugging ferociously in the length of his untrimmed mane while his tongue arced sharp lashes against her tender pink folds.

[MadMissJ]

She tried to move away as he seemed to feast on her. Emma-Jane could hear the noises ringing in the quiet room, his hands pushing her back, pulling her legs forward, like a rag doll. Her eyes finally popped open as he seemed to find a button in her that made her squirm.

“What are you doing?” It wasn’t said, it was panted. Her hands that had been hooked around the fluff of pillows were buried in his long hair, she’d had the idea to push him away, but the feel of his tongue as it slipped inside her, slid along where her legs joined, where she’d never dared let anyone near, her sweet, chaste center. But she merely held him to her; Emma’s hands that had fisted were flat now on the back of his head. Gentle, but insistent, not unlike the way her husband’s words had been.

What was he doing to her? Her brain clouded with confused lust, she tried to draw in a breath, steady herself, resist it, and tell him to go. But she didn’t, she couldn’t, the way he was bending her body, twisting her so, lapping at her like an animal, had awoken something in the girl she’d not known was lurking underneath.

Her eyes that had been filled with shamed tears were now, squeezed tight, almost as tight as her thighs wanted to around him, hold him there and never let him leave.

Toes curled as she raised her hips to him, rolling the gentle curve of her firm backside toward him, her mouth opened with a soft moan that was aimed at the ceiling of their shared room. Her cheeks flushed with the complete embarrassment of it all, his being so close…

“Don’t stop.” Was her command, her fingers had been so gentle across his face, now reached further down his back, raking their softly rounded nails across the flesh there. Could she pull him further into her? Her mind was at its most selfish, she wanted more, needed more, and if she had to walk through the most hellish coals to get it, she would. There was nothing that could tame a lioness and turn her into a purring kitten like newly found pleasures.

She drew in hiccups of air, every time she seemed to hold her breath the waves of pleasure seemed to concentrate and roll over her. Emma was at her most innocent in this room, she giggled a little when he kissed the inside of her thigh, trying to force her husband back toward her sex with a movement of her hips.

“Please…” Was said so prettily, elongating off her lips, like begging. She could feel something building, a restlessness that took over her but to what ends she hadn’t quite known until she’d hit the wall, with a scream, bitten off by her hand smacking against her mouth to quiet it, she shuttered and bit into the flesh of her hand. Each touch afterward caused her body to jerk, and eyes to widen with surprise down at Augustus.

“Good Lord.” It was whispered so reverently through her fingertips.

“We aren’t finished yet are we?” She wondered, missing the irony of it as her mind caught up with her own body.

[Light Ice]

"No." A gentle shake of his head. No words otherwise, just the firm sincerity of a man who'd just made his intentions, the weight of them, as clear as he could manage. The slick sweetness of her was on his cheeks, his chin.

Her pleads had goaded him, brought him to raging hardness. The kind of blinding erotic desire that lovers tried desperately to find, many fruitlessly, had come at the breaking of his sweet life as his tongue and lips had centered on her clit and shoved her relentlessly into the grips of her first climax. She had begged for him, for his touch. The hands she'd only so recently resented now gripped as he straightened some from her, laid his rugged body between her slender thighs so the great shaft of him ran up and rested against her smooth belly. The root of his prick resting against the nub that'd been the center of her awakening. He felt her gently rocking beneath him, bucking upward, blindly reaching for the sensations.

There was no attempt to roll his hips down, to center the great crown of his impressive length that the doorstep of her virginity. Instead, Augustus kissed her. Kissed his wife with all the great tenderness, with all the ferocious passion, that'd built in him. His strong hand ran over her nubile frame, her young body arcing against his touch. The smooth skin passing beneath his fingers rising, the swell of her breast beneath each digit. He stroked her peaking nipple to diamond hardness, strummed it with his thumbs while their mouths remained crushed together.

An unspoken conversation, a flood of intentions conveyed in the tender, erotic way he touched her. It was a rush, a surge, a feral expression of carnal things. Her cries had ripped restraint away, left him raw and savage. In that there was no mistaken, not in his eyes, not in their pale depths as he stole looks into the green of her own.

But he loved her. And a man could be both powerful and tender at once, capable and sweet. Care was taken in her pleasure, in letting her explore their first expressions of marriage beneath the canopy of their bed's four thick posts. The Georgian Mahogany framed their nude frames, handsome and young, in the dim light. Awash in a sea of soft white sheets, her slender thighs left to close against the ruffed stretch of his hips as each kiss brought his body rocking against the subtle roll of her own.

He abandoned her breasts, felt her arch, felt her nipples crush into the smooth plane of his chest. Augustus tracked his hand down in the tight space between them, forcing her flawless ass to fall back against the bed under the pressing of his large palm against her belly. It smoothed down, past her navel, between the spread of her thighs so those strong fingers could run their hot caress against the wet slit of her sex.

He parted the petals with his fingers, stroked them up until the point of his index finger stroked her clit. Tight circles, slow circles, dipping now and again to stroke her soft folds.

"I love you, Emma." The words offered against her lips, against the soft line of her mouth as they kissed. Aware that her eyes had snapped open, emerald gems focused intently on his own. Searching. He didn't shy from the look, couldn't. If she only knew that he'd survived on the hopes of this moment, what it felt like to hold her. The lengths he'd take to protect her.

His finger dipped, spread her petals around its thick length before it pressed into the hot wet of her body. It pressed slowly against the velvet of her slick depths, stroking shallow circles against the tight walls grip against his finger. A gentle caress, soft strokes as his palm cradled her slit and his heel gently pressed against the tight bud of her clit.

[MadMissJ]

She stretched beneath him, her arms a tangle around his back, one hooking over to rest on his neck the other looped so it held firm to his hip. Her legs that had been so carefully widened to accept him were now looped around his calf, one foot planted firmly to push herself against his hand, against his long length. She wanted to be swallowed there, if she could somehow crawl inside his skin, that was as close as she wanted to be.

His lips tasted sticky sweet, her tongue hesitantly flickered across his in an effort to find some of the pleasure that he’d just given her. It was different than any kisses before, it was heady and musky, it transferred to her own mouth, and tickled her nostrils. Perhaps she should have been scandalized about where his lips had been, where his hand was now. But Emma-Jane McCall was far too caught up in her husband to feel anything of the sort. She knew that this could last forever; she would never leave his arms.

"I love you, Emma."

She smiled, burying her face in his neck as his finger slipped down her wet sex and entered her, she bit softly into the shaved flesh of shoulder, moaning.

“Oh, Gus.” It was a soft sigh as she was cradled by his palm between her legs and his body around her. His words of love along with the tender actions pulled the feelings from her. She’d never been so familiar with him, but then again, no one had ever been so familiar with her. His nickname tickled from her well kissed mouth to rest on his damp skin, she nuzzled him, leaving soft kisses in her wake along his collarbone and then pressed her lips against his scar, licking along his flesh there, tasting the salt of a fine sheen of sweat and the smelling the scent of her soap on his skin.

Emma couldn’t seem to decide where she wanted her mouth, it traveled from shoulder to shoulder, taking his mouth once and then again, until her lips were against his ear, her breathing ragged with their illicit activities.

“Don’t stop loving me.” Maybe it was as close as she could get in the moment to telling him the feelings he’d stirred up. She kissed the tender lobe of his ear, rubbing her cheek against him like a cat, if she could have marked him as her own like a feline she would have.

Perhaps it was curiosity, or maybe she was just feeling bolder now, empowered by pleasure and his body against hers, but her hand began to wander, first over his muscled flank, finger tips digging along the flesh of his backside and thigh, before curving under his hip, finally acknowledging the manhood that had plagued her with worry and fear, her fingers tickled at the base, where it was swollen against her, one finger used to run up the long length until her finger encountered a ridge and she gently traced it around to the where he was solidly against her stomach.

“Gus?” She pulled back; pleasure clouded her confused gaze as she leaned farther into their large bed.

“I don’t think we are going to…fit together.”

[Light Ice]

These moments, in the dark, he will remember for the rest of his life. The certainty of that is so powerful that within her slender fingers his prick gives a powerful, sudden jolt. His girth, the thickness of him, is perhaps more threatening than his length. But he feels her stroke him once, tentative, and then again. The glide of her hand running base to tip, balls tightening powerfully against the sudden rush of sensation. Four years. Four long years and countless nights picturing this moment was enough, through sheer anticipation, to threaten to shatter what restraint he had.

But he didn't. He counted it a small miracle.

His fingers stroked inside her, unable to help himself. The soft exploration growing more and more intent as his heel rocked firmly into her clit, grinding the tight bud with firm circles while a second finger slipped to join the first and curl against the grip of her body's slick walls. Pleasing her, purposefully turning his explorations inward towards a far more intense moment. Meaning to drive her headlong towards climax, as he drew up her body, looming over her. Powerful and assuring.

His kiss chased after her concerns, finding the pout of her lips more tenderly now. Augustus laid his forehead against her own, his eyes looking into the soft glint of her eyes in the dim light. The tight ringlets of auburn framed her face, beautiful and sweet.

The conduit reforged, the connection embraced. All at once they are back to the place where her hands glide the razor along his skin, back to thick lather on his nose and laughter. She's searching his face again when Augustus frames her cheek against his palm, thumb stroking along the full curve of her lower lip .

"Trust me, Emma." He said.

He was asking so much so soon. Demanding it really. But he didn't want this to be dark, didn't want this to be entirely forced. He wanted her to bend beneath him like a willow and yield to this, to the comfort and satisfaction of it all. The tender under currents carried as his mouth laid a light kiss against her brow, and then her cheek.

She arched, breath heaving. His fingers quickening, stroking a blur against a place just within her, up high. Each press of his digits against it, each time they ground circles there, her walls clenching hard against the digits pushing into her. His heel pressing down as her hips twitched, bucked gently to rock her clit against it. He wanted her release, that satisfaction. The great pleasure to surge through her before he made her his wife.

Outside the rain was coming, thick clouds rolling through the dark sky to open. The beginnings of a storm, swirling, a tempest in pure Georgian fashion. Thick drops of warm water beginning to dance along the fields, empty of cotton and tangled with grass. It detonated against the pane glass of the windows, pattering down, drumming a cadence against the plantation house and continued to build.

A microcosm, a patron, the dim wall lamp's small flame dances precariously along the wick. The flicker, its desperate attempts to shield the pair from the utter black of the summer night, stands and sways while Augustus leads his wife to their first real union.

[MadMissJ]

When she climaxed again, it was with the rolling thunder outside, it was with his fingers insider her and her hand against him. His mouth taking the last bit of restraint she had, with it. She came hard around him, arms and legs gripping him to her as the patter of rain started against their rooftop.

It was in the back of her mind that there was a leak somewhere in the old house that had yet to be mentioned, there were things to take care of, meals to make and a garden to fix before the rain came and made what she’d fixed a field of mud.

But the minute that he slid inside of her, the instant he rolled his hips and inched to break her, everything fled from her mind, but her beloved. At first she felt abandoned, his chest that had been so warm against her was now separated, he knelt between her thighs and she reached for him, surprised by the pain that had come on suddenly. He’d said to trust him, but still Emma tried to wiggle away, back up though there was no place to go. Augustus still stroked her, a thumb petting that spot he’d been so fond of, the part of her that made her purr.

He didn’t move though. She looked up at him and back to where they were joined. He was buried hip deep, his knees on either side of her tight backside. Emma-Jane tried to move around him, find a position that was comfortable, that would alleviate the feeling of being too full, stretched to her limit and torn.

It was with his tender, busy thumb that she rocked again, this time feeling him inside of her, her slick inner walls clinched experimentally, drawing him in further and it gave her such immense enjoyment that she proceeded to do so again, running her hands down her own body, making a small “V” with her fingers and feeling where her husband and she became one.

She touched their joined bodies tentatively, her fingertips questing with interest to investigate this newness. Emma felt the balls below, even being so bold as to cup them gently and searched his face to be sure what she did was alright. With each and every small touch Augustus’ wife seemed to ease and relax. So eager was her exploration that she’d forgotten to keep track of that part of him that had caused her such pain.

Emma rocked her hips once again, this time pulling back with her bottom pressed into the bed, before they sprung back taking him inside her once again. The surprise that crossed her face was one of wonder, she smiled up at him, eyes bright now with delight, before she did it once more, this time slower, she took him deep and let out a long moan.

“I like that…” She breathed, her hands roaming up his arms now and back down, wiggling her hips more frantically. Perhaps the young southerner didn’t know what she was doing, so innocently using her husband’s dick like a harlot would, forcing him into her with a joy that only the very young possessed.

“Do you think you could...?” Emma didn’t know if she could bring herself to say anything more, but she pressed on valiantly.

“Do you think you could pull…yourself out…?” She bit her lip as she spoke, the embarrassment, plain on her face.

“And back in…I like it when you do that.” The girl confessed with a smile, one that was warm and welcoming, in the eye of the storm she didn’t know was coming.