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his last shreds of shame and thrust into the encircling hand,
fierce and wanton and completely debased.
 Ah! Aaah! As though he had purged the devil in his come,
darkness and dismay closed over him. He clung on to Bess s
neck, teeth gritted, his skin crawling as the big man thrust up
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ALEX BEECROFT 135
against him, one hand clamped around his hips, pulling them
for more contact, rough fingers still rolling John s spent mem-
ber painfully between them as aftershocks of pleasure turned
into horror. John began to struggle in earnest just as his partner
pushed up brutally one final time, almost unseating him, then
clung on, shuddering. Hot dampness spread beneath him, soak-
ing into his breeches, wicking up the material like another in-
decent caress between his thighs, meeting his own slick
wetness.
The hand slid through the come on his belly, and he imag-
ined it leaving trails of dirt. It probed backwards, beneath his
balls, slid on, and he yelped in shock and revulsion as it touched
the pucker of his arsehole. Stiffening in fear and horror, ignor-
ing for the moment that his spent prick nevertheless twitched
with interest and a new wave of nauseated need went over him,
he grabbed Bess s wrist. A febrile strength he didn t know he
had in him enabled him to force the hand away, though the big-
ger man resisted. Bess s hand grabbed on hard to his cravat, half
choking him.
 If you do not let me go at once, I swear I will rip out your
balls and make you eat them, John hissed, rage never very far
away coming to his rescue now. He could see his own white
face, drawn with murderous certainty in Bess s widening eyes,
then the man blinked, and he saw only the war of prudence and
desire, and the slow trail of blood over the grimy jaw from the
wound John had made on his lip.
 Alright, princess, no call for that. Bess let go of his neck,
took a covering swig of his beer and watched as John scrambled
off, tidying himself away with shaking, clumsy hands. His coat
covered the stains, thank God.  Weren t gonna do nothing you
didn t want. Maybe next time, eh? You come back to Sweet Bess
next time an we ll try it then.
 There will be no next time.
Bess laughed and leaned back, spreading his legs; fully
clothed but with the flap of his breeches down and his yard ex-
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136 FALSE COLORS
posed for everyone to see. It was, John couldn t help but no-
tice, really quite substantial.  O course, mate. Ain t that what
they all say.
John fumbled the key in the lock, dropped it, and as he was trying
to pick it up again, his landlady opened the door and looked down
on his flaming face with what seemed to him to be a very knowing
look. The moon was shining like a great open eye in the sky above
him, watching, and as he bowed and stuttered out a nervous
thanks, pushed past her and fled up the stairs to his room, he won-
dered if the skirts of his coat properly concealed the damp patch.
He wondered if she could smell it on him, as he could smell it on
himself. He wanted badly wanted a bath, but would not have
the slaves awoken just because he was unclean. Besides, he
thought, closing the door and leaning back against it, barricading
the prying eyes outside, at this hour it would advertise my shame
to the whole house.
He dragged his sea-chest in front of the door, took off his
coat and looked down at himself. Oh God! He was a damn per-
vert! He was stained.
Panting and moving frantically, he stripped off his shirt,
damp breeches, shoes and stockings and stood naked in the
moonlight. In the barren light he examined his hands, his body,
and hardly knew them. Whey-colored in the light from the win-
dow, his skin gleamed, bleached and ghost-like. There was sil-
ver in the palm of his hands, like Judas ten pieces of silver, and
he felt equally appalled at himself. If he could have flung it
away he would have done so, but it was only his own guilty
sweat, glistening with a lunatic light.
A jug of cold water stood by his bedside. He dumped his cra-
vat into it, then washed himself down as well as he could, imag-
ining the soot from Bess hands burrowing into his pores,
scrubbing everywhere he had been touched, and breathing
raggedly, on the edge of tears. After, he set kindling in the grate,
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ALEX BEECROFT 137
slowly ripped up his soiled clothes, and burned them.
The ritual calmed him. Halfway through he found his jum-
bled thoughts had begun to resolve themselves into prayer; to
slow and become something coherent.
Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me. I know that you take away
sin. I know that you can make this as though it never happened.
Cleanse me Lord and I shall be clean& .
For he was not, after all, the only man who had ever sinned,
and if he was abject and unable to resist the demands of his
fallen nature, well, that was the very reason God had intervened
in history. Grace is enough. Your grace is enough for me.
It was a strange lesson nevertheless. One he probably de-
served for being so damn proud of his own chastity. A fine thing
to congratulate yourself for not lusting after women, when you
are made without the attraction. The moment his attention was
called to a sex he did desire, he had proved himself no worthier,
no stronger than any other man. What a self-righteous little bas-
tard he had been!
With the linen burnt and the room full of the acrid reek, he
got up from his knees and put on his nightshirt, sighing as it cov-
ered up his guilty flesh. How he wished he had known what he
knew now, when Alfie needed him to know it. It was a sobering
lesson, but if only it could have come at the right time. He
should not then have been so merciless.
Stirring himself to light a taper, thinking that perhaps he
should write to Lavinia Deane, who would at least find this
amusing, he caught the gleam of golden buttons on his lieu-
tenant s uniform coat, folded in his open sea-chest. Lighting a
candle, he picked the coat up. It lay heavy, scratchy and un-
changed in his hands, and he thought that, after all, she was still
wrong. He had sinned, and he would never, never want to re-
peat such an experience. He knew now what he was missing, and
it was nothing. He still had king and country.
And the sea.
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CHAPTER 12
January 1763, Farrant s Plantation, Jamaica
 He s looking better, Isabella said, pressing the cane of her para-
sol against her cheek as she watched her husband run beside
George s rotund pony. The pony, a shaggy little creature made lazy
by the heat, trotted across the landscaped lawn at a pace Farrant
could easily match, and they were laughing, father and son, as they
passed into the shade of the beeches on the drive.  Less like a man
who has awakened out of a heavy sleep, and drags it around in a
cloud over him all day long.
She smiled as the two burst from shade back into sunlight;
George with a look of ferocious determination, bouncing in the
saddle in an effort to go faster, Farrant keeping pace with an
easy lope. Not a tall man, but so well put together that he made
all others seem overgrown. How she loved the vigor in his ges- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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