#the eternal summer | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

smilingformoney · 3 months

Text

The Eternal Summer

I. Welcome to Australia

Summary: Your husband, Lord Turpin, has been instructed by the Queen to bring the British judiciary system to Australia. You travel with him, and and on arrival you meet his cousin, Elliott Marston, who invites you to stay with him while your husband make arrangements in Melbourne. In return for his hospitality, Turpin offers you to his cousin, and although you're reluctant at first, you come to find you're rather fond of the gunslinging pastoralist.

Sequel to Sins of the Flesh.

AN: Yes, I have started another fic. Yes, I will still finish my other stories (eventually). No, I didn't see a Sweeney Todd/Quigley Down Under crossover coming either, but my pussy is horny and my imagination is wild.

Content/warnings: sharing, non-consensual touching, oral sex, period-typical racism (specifically against Aboriginal Australians), gun violence, consensual infidelity, vaginal sex

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

When your husband told you that the Queen herself had asked him to work temporarily in Australia to assist in the establishment of the British judicial system, you went through multiple emotions over the weeks leading up to your departure. You mourned at first that he would be away from you for so long, until he told you that you were to come with him. Then, you had been daunted by the prospect of moving to such a distant place. A small part of you registered that your brother was in Australia too, but the chances of seeing him were slim.

Finally, as the day of your departure approached, you began to feel excited. You had never even left London, yet here you were travelling to the very end of the world as the lady wife of Lord Turpin, the formidable English judge who would bring peace and justice to Australia just as he did England.

The journey itself was difficult. You spent just over two months at sea, and learned quickly that your delicate stomach wasn’t made for such journeys. You had the greatest of luxury that you could, of course, and the inside of your cabin wouldn’t look out of place in a manor. But even the finest of luxury couldn’t contest with the rage of the sea, and you spent more time than you wished churning your meals back out when the seas were rough.

The worst part was, the onboard doctor advised that to fall pregnant on the journey would be unwise, as your frequent nausea meant your body was lacking nutrients enough to keep a baby healthy, so you were forced to suspend your attempts to have a child. That didn’t stop your husband taking you regularly, however - only that he spilled elsewhere, but you sorely missed the warmth and satisfaction of feeling his seed filling your womb.

It felt like an eternity had passed when you docked at Melbourne, and to feel solid ground below your feet at last was both discombobulating and a relief. You stayed at a hotel for the first night, where your husband was finally able to spill his seed inside you again, and for the first night in a long time you slept through without being woken by your churning stomach.

In the morning, you woke to find your bed empty, so you got yourself dressed and headed down into the parlour in search of your husband.

You found him sitting at a table with a coffee and a plate of breakfast, accompanied by a man whose face was obscured by virtue of having his back to you. William spotted you and smiled, waving you over, and his companion turned to look at you.

You hoped your face didn’t blush when you locked eyes with the man and you were immediately struck by how handsome he was. He had a moustache and the shadow of a beard, and he looked somewhat like your husband, maybe a decade or so younger.

“There she is! Come sit with us, darling. I didn’t want to wake you during your first night on land. Elliott, this is my wife, [Y/n]. [Y/n], this is my cousin, Elliott Marston. He’s a - what was it you called yourself, Elliott?”

“A pastoralist. I own a lot of land and farm it. A pleasure to meet you, Lady Turpin.”

Elliott took your hand and kissed it, his moustache tickling your knuckles slightly, and you gave him a small curtsy.

“Likewise, sir,” you said politely. Elliott laughed and released your hand, letting you sit in the seat that had been left open for you next to your husband.

“You’re not in England anymore, my Lady. No need for sirs, I’m not a knight. Just Elliott will do.”

“Ah, well… in that case, you may call me [Y/n], if my lord husband permits it.”

“Of course I do!” William said with a smile just as a waitress brought you a plate of food. “We’re all family here. Elliott’s father, my mother’s brother, was my favourite uncle.”

“I apologise, my love, I - I must have not heard you say we were meeting your cousin.”

“Well, of course you didn’t hear it, because I didn’t say it. I knew Elliott had moved here, of course, but I hardly expected we’d run into one another in such a large place. Simply a case of good fortune.”

“Yes, well, I heard from Major Ashley-Pitt that they were bringing in a judge from London to establish the judiciary,” Elliott explained. If he was of a similar class to William, he had lost all table manners long ago - he was currently sat slouched on his chair, his legs spread out, a cigarette in one hand. “I mentioned as an offhand comment that my cousin William Turpin was in the London judiciary, and as luck would have it I was told he was the very judge, so when I heard when you were docking I thought I’d come to meet you. Unfortunately, you docked quite late last night, and I was already drunk in the saloon. I came in here to wait for the two of you to awake, only to find William already at breakfast. You should have seen, [Y/n], the look on his face when he recognised me!”

“I almost didn’t recognise you with that moustache and the ridiculous hat. I won’t be made to wear something so outlandish, I hope,” said William, and you decided not to mention how very garish his own judge’s garments were.

“You’ll find yourself choosing to wear the widest brimmed hat you can find once you’re out in the midday sun. It’s nothing like London out here. I always say, the natives are brutal and so is the wildlife, but Australia itself is the greatest killer of them all.”

“Elliott’s invited you to stay with him for a few days while I attend to administrative matters here, darling,” William said to you, as if he were offering you some great prize and not suggesting you leave his side for several days. “Once I’ve ironed out the paperwork and so on, got us a place to live, I’ll join you for a while, then we’ll return to town to move in properly and I can begin my work. How does that sound?”

“Must I go on without you, William? If you’re to stay in town, I’d much rather be by your side.”

William chuckled. “Until we have somewhere of our own, this hotel is all we have to live, and I won’t have my darling [Y/n] resting her head here every single night. Elliott assures me he has a much more comfortable lodging for you with him.”

You bit your lip anxiously. The thought of being away from your husband for even one night was enough to make your stomach churn as if you were back on the ship all over again. You hadn’t ever spent a night without him, not since that first day you came to his house in exchange for your brother’s life.

“But, sir —”

“Are you questioning me, wife?”

“No, sir,” you said quickly, ducking your head slightly. “Only… well, I worry that we may miss our, um… window. For my… medication. We already missed two months!”

William laughed and wrapped an arm around you. “Her womb is struggling to take my seed,” he explained to his cousin, and you blushed to hear him speak so publicly about such private matters. “The doctor prescribed that I should spill inside her often, but her sensitive stomach didn’t agree with sea travel, so we had to suspend our attempts until we reached land. We continued to make love, of course, but last night was the first time I spilled inside her since London.”

“William! We oughtn’t speak of such things —”

“Nonsense! We can speak freely in front of Elliott. Do you have a wife of your own?”

“I did, but she passed a few years ago before she could give me any children. I take the occasional whore back from town, but otherwise I sleep alone.”

“Well, that won’t do. I’ll tell you what - since you’re being so kind as to put [Y/n] up while I stay in town, she’s yours to do as you please until I join you.”

Your eyes widened in shock, and fortunately you had no food in your mouth in that moment, else it might have dropped from your mouth in a rather unladylike manner.

“But William - I can’t - I can’t lay with another man! You are my husband!”

“And as your husband, I am to be obeyed, am I not?”

“Well, yes, but —”

“Then you’ll do as I say and keep my cousin’s bed warm. You’re not to spill inside her, of course, Elliott. She’s only to take my seed.”

“Of course. Very generous of you, William, thank you.”

You could scarcely believe what you were hearing. Your own husband, who had claimed possession of you the very day you met, who had wedded you in the eyes of the Lord and promised faithfulness, was now offering you up for warmth as if you were nothing more than a spare blanket!

And yet, he was also right that your wedding vows had included not only a promise of fidelity, but a promise of obedience too. And here he was, commanding you to lay with his cousin or… whatever it was the stranger wanted you to do. Suddenly you felt like that scared young girl again, who had knocked on Judge Turpin’s door begging for mercy and ended the night surrendering your maidenhood in exchange for your wish. Although your husband had been cruel at first when you resisted, once you accepted that you were his he became kind and you even grew to love one another, and you had almost forgotten that you were simply property.

You tried your hardest not to cry when the time came to depart. Your single bag of belongings was loaded up onto a wagon, and for once William allowed you to publicly embrace him before you climbed into the wooden contraption yourself.

“I shall miss you every moment, William,” you said, holding onto him tightly, as if trying to memorise the feeling of his body against yours.

“And I you, my love. It will be lonely not to share a bed with you, but I’ll follow you as soon as I’m able. Elliott will take good care of you, I’m certain.”

You sniffed, not wanting to think of what kind of care the stranger had in store for you.

William pulled away from the embrace and looked into your eyes.

“I love you, bunny.”

You smiled. “I love you too, teddy bear.”

Reluctantly, you let him go, and Elliott gave you a hand up into the wagon. It was hard and uncomfortable, nothing like the carriages that you shared with William when you travelled around London, and already you understood what the stranger had said about Australian weather. You wrapped a bonnet around your head, and as the wagon departed, you kept your sights set on your husband, watching him shrink into the distance until he was nothing but a speck on the horizon, and then he was gone, leaving you alone with only Elliott, two of his men, and the burning Australian sun.

You were a long way from home.

Elliott’s station was very far away. You were tired of travelling all the time, so when you were told it would take “only” a few days to get there, you resigned yourself to complete and utter boredom.

When night fell, the men made camp for the night, and you gathered around the fire, sitting in silence as the men told stories about hunting dingos, whatever they were, and Aborigines, whatever they were. Although the day had been sweltering hot, as night drew on the air became colder, and you shivered slightly. Elliott, who was sat next to you, shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around your shoulders.

“Thank you,” you said politely, speaking for the first time in hours, although you didn’t look at him.

“Hey, if you’re cold, I got a way I can warm ya up,” said an Irish man who’d introduced himself as O’Flynn, and his laugh with the other man, Hobb, was quickly interrupted when Elliott tossed a rock at him and bounced it off the Irish man’s head.

“[Y/n]’s no whore to be passed around,” Elliott said firmly as the disgruntled O’Flynn rubbed his head. “She’s my cousin’s wife, and back in London she’s a Lady. No one’s to touch her, you got that? Don’t even look at her.”

The men mumbled their apologies, then went back to the game of backgammon they’d brought along for the journey.

“Sorry about them,” Elliott said to you quietly. “With your husband being a judge, I’m sure you know that convicts get sent out here to work off their debts to society. A lot of them come to me, and most of them become honest men, but they’re still scumbags.”

You paused.

“My brother was sent out here,” you said quietly, frowning as if you’d only just remembered.

“Hmm? What was that?”

You looked up at him.

“My brother. He - he was a thief. William was going to send him to hang, but I begged him for mercy so he sent him out here instead. It’s how we met, I… I showed up on his doorstep begging for mercy. He said he’d spare my brother if I gave him my maidenhood. Then he kept me.”

Elliott raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Your brother was a thief?”

“Only bread. We were hungry… our parents were dead and I didn’t earn very much. But a crime is a crime, my husband says, no matter the reasoning. I’m very grateful he showed my brother mercy that day. Now my brother is working to become a better man, just like your men, and I have the most devoted husband.”

Elliott was looking at you with a strange expression on his face, as if you were a curious puzzle he was trying to solve. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short when Hobb let out a whoop of victory as he won his game.

“Well done, Hobb. Now, keep it down, I’m going to bed.”

The men mumbled their discontent and folded away their game. Elliott, meanwhile, stood and offered his hand to you. You took it gratefully, and followed him into the tent he had set up to share with you. There wasn’t a whole lot of space, especially with there being two of you, and you blushed when he began undressing in front of you.

When he was down to his undergarments, Elliott looked over at you, and chuckled when he saw that you were pointedly facing away from him, struggling to get out of your corset on your own.

You twitched in surprise when you felt his hands reach around to assist you in untying the lace that held the corset together. You let him take over, his movements surprisingly gentle for hands so large and calloused, and you kept your head turned away from him, trying to ignore the tickling of his breath on your neck.

“My men may be scumbags, but I’m certainly not,” Elliott said softly. “I think we both know what your husband meant when he offered you to me, but I like to think Australia hasn’t completely beaten the English gentleman from me. I won’t deny, [Y/n]… you are a beautiful woman. William’s a lucky man. But I won’t take anything from you that’s not freely given. Do you understand?”

You nodded tentatively, and Elliott helped you out of your dress, leaving you in only your underthings. You climbed under the blankets, and the feeling of the hard earth beneath you reminded you of the days before you’d met your husband, when you’d sleep on the floor because you could only afford to rent one bed for your brother.

True to his word, even though he laid next to you, Elliott made no move to touch you. You were cold, though, and so you scooted closer to him, and although you couldn’t see it in the dark, he smiled when he wrapped an arm around you and held you tight, glad to have the company of a woman who wasn’t a whore, a kind and sweet lady, with an innocence that seemed vastly out of place in the harsh terrain of Australia.

William was a lucky man indeed.

The next two days passed without much event. You started to wonder if Elliott’s station even existed, or if anything existed. Perhaps you’d simply imagined London, the ocean, life outside the barren desert that was Australia. By day you sat in the back of the wagon, and every few hours Elliott would move you to a different seat. It took an embarrassingly long time for you to realise that he was keeping you in his shadow, blocking you from the harsh rays of the sun with his own body.

The heat made you sleepy, and so you napped for a lot of the journey, and for the time you were awake you watched the world go by, marvelling at the wonders of the outback and listening intently as Elliott told you about the different creatures that you passed.

The strangest creatures you saw were called “kangaroos,” which hopped around on overly large feet and although their arms were short, Elliott assured you that they were stronger than men, and extremely dangerous to approach.

A dingo, you learned, was a type of wild dog, although they looked more like foxes than dogs, you thought. When dingos were spotted, the wagon was stopped, and the men got out to hunt the poor things. You winced at the loud gunshots, and you thought that Elliott was trying to impress you with his gunmanship, but really you were just worried for the poor animals.

The men loaded some of their kills in with the luggage, covering the bodies with blankets to stop the heat cooking them prematurely, and left the rest to rot in the sun. You gave false pleasantries to the men for their impressive hunting skills, and Elliott seemed pleased when you told him you’d watched him the whole time.

“What are the other creatures you said you hunt? Aborigines?”

Hobb and O’Flynn exchanged glances, and Elliott tensed slightly. He’d taken recently to throwing an arm around your shoulder when he sat next to you, and you felt his hand on your upper arm tighten slightly, pulling you in closer, as if to say the very word was to summon the elusive Aborigine, and he had to keep you close to protect you.

“Creatures is one word for them. But they’re people, supposedly. Backwards, primitive people, still stuck in the Stone Age. The Americans have their own primitives too, but they’ve tamed theirs, more or less. But Australia’s one great failure is our inability to domesticate the Australian Aborigine. So her Majesty’s government allows settlers to deal with the matter in their own way. ‘Pacification by Force’, it’s called.”

You frowned, trying to understand. “So you hunt… people?”

“They’re hardly people, love,” O’Flynn interjected. “They might look like people, but they can’t even talk. They just grunt. Stuck thousands of years in the past, they are. Only language they know is violence. Some you can domesticate, and you’ll find some back at the station. But some of ‘em resist, and those, we put down. Survival of the smartest, you see.”

You weren’t sure that sounded right, but you knew not to contradict men, so you kept quiet, though the thoughtful frown remained on your face. The wagon trundled on, and you found yourself relaxing against Elliott, who was still firmly holding onto you, ready to protect you from any stray Aborigine or kangaroo that might appear.

After an eternity had passed, Elliott woke you from a nap to point you towards a speck on the horizon he told you was his station.

“How far have we travelled?”

“About 300 miles,” Elliott replied proudly, “most of it mine. And we’ve hardly made a dent into Australia. Do you know, it’s estimated that Britain could fit into Australia thirty times with room to spare.”

“Wow,” you gasped, wide-eyed, peering into the distance to make out the station growing nearer. “I always thought London was big, but it’s just a dot on the canvas of the world. Is your land bigger than London?”

Elliott chuckled. “Much bigger. I’d offer you the tour, but it’d take longer than you have. Even I haven’t set foot on every square inch of my own land. But I can give you the tour of my station, and perhaps I’ll even take you out to meet some of the animals. Would you like that?”

“Oh yes!” you replied eagerly, looking up at him with the most adorable wide-eyed excitement he’d ever seen on a young woman. “Do you have sheep? I’ve always wanted to meet sheep.”

“Plenty of sheep, so long as the Aborigines haven’t tried to steal them again. Perhaps you could help shear one - cut its coat, I mean. I don’t suppose you see much animal life in London, do you?”

“Only the rats,” you said with disgust. “Stray cats and dogs, I don’t mind them. But the rats are horrible.”

“Well, I can’t promise no rats here, but at least we have the guns to shoot them.”

You glanced down at the gun on Elliott’s waistband - a “revolver,” he’d called it, on account of the revolving barrel containing the bullets - and your stomach twisted with anxiety. Guns were only owned in London by the upper classes - or by the lower classes, if obtained illegally. William had a few of his own, but you never saw them, as he brought them out only for hunting trips and he hadn’t been hunting since you’d met him. And yet, every man out here seemed to have a gun - for protection, Elliott assured you, against wild animals and Aborigines.

That didn’t stop them from making you feel uneasy.

The wagon pulled into the station at last, and Elliott helped you down from the wagon. A few of the men milling around shot glances at you that you recognised only too well, and you instinctively stepped closer to Elliott, as if his proximity kept you safe.

“Don’t you worry about them,” Elliott assured you, wrapping an arm around your waist protectively. “They’re used to the only women arriving here being whores. I’ll make sure they know you’re nothing of the sort.”

Weren’t you? William had offered you to his cousin as payment for his hospitality, after all. It seemed that no matter where you were in the world, you had nothing more to offer men than your body.

Elliott saw you into his house, one arm firmly around your waist while the other carried your bag over his shoulder, and gave you a quick tour of the house before depositing your bag in the bedroom you were to share with him.

“I hope you don’t mind sharing - there’s only the one bed, as there’s only the one of me.”

“That’s alright. I don’t like sleeping alone. Some nights William comes back late, I can’t sleep until he’s home and in bed with me. You’ve been a fine sleeping companion in the tent, I’m sure you’ll be as much of a gentleman in the bedroom too.”

“Don’t be so sure of that, sweetheart,” Elliott smirked, looking down at you with a twinkle in his eye. The arm around your waist pulled you in closer, and his other hand traced your shoulder along the edge of your bodice slowly, as if trying to restrain himself from ripping it off. “I restrained myself in the outback, but here in the comfort of my own home, sleeping next to such a beautiful woman…” He sighed. “I can’t promise much gentlemanly behaviour.”

You knew you should be revolted at such brazen flirting from a man who wasn’t your husband, but you couldn’t deny that Elliott was a handsome man, and you’d spent more than a significant amount of time during the journey wondering what it might be like to kiss him… and your husband had ordered you to keep his cousin warm…

Your eyes flitted down to his lips, as if daring yourself to kiss him, and he smirked.

“It’s been a long journey, sweetheart. Would you help ease my tension with a kiss?”

“I… I’ve never…” You gulped. “I’ve never been with a man other than my husband.”

“Of course you haven’t.”

“I’ve never wanted a man other than him…”

“But?” Elliott prompted with a raised eyebrow.

“But I find myself… wanting to kiss you.”

“Then kiss me, [Y/n]. This is Australia, after all. We take what we want here.”

You leaned up on your tiptoes to kiss him, and he met you halfway, lips crashing against yours hungrily. Elliott wrapped both arms around you to hold you tight, and you responded by threading your fingers through his hair, holding him firmly in place as your tongues danced, the desire that had built up over the last few days of travelling finally coming to a head.

He was different to your husband. He was slimmer, stronger - clearly a man who knew physical toil, whereas William had always known a life of luxury. His moustache tickled your skin slightly, and you longed to know what the coarse hairs felt like between your legs if he granted you that boon.

Their passions were similar, though, and you could feel his pressing into you - unless it was another gun.

Elliott’s hands travelled down to squeeze your bum, a cheek in each hand, and you squealed in surprise, causing your lips to part. He chuckled.

“I told you, [Y/n]… when a beautiful woman like you whips me into a frenzy, I can’t promise I’ll be a gentleman. I’ve been —”

But whatever he’d been would have to wait, because someone was knocking on the front door.

“Marston! You in? Just got back with some news about that sharp-shooter.”

Elliott sighed, and reluctantly pulled away from you. “Sorry, sweetheart, this is important. Why don’t you go to the kitchen and get yourself something to drink? Plenty of water there for you, you must be parched.”

You’d been far too hypnotised by him to notice, but you were indeed desperately thirsty, and the kiss hadn’t helped. You were relieved to discover that Australia wasn’t so backwards as to not have plumbing, and there was even a water tap to which you gratefully helped yourself as, behind you, Elliott spoke to the man at the door.

“He’s coming up with Coogan, maybe a day behind us,” said the man. “Already got himself in a fight, defending Crazy Cora of all people.”

“He can fight whoever he wants, so long as he gets the job done. Get the lodge ready for him.”

”Yessir.”

Elliott closed the door and turned back to you with a smile.

“Well, today’s been good all round. I’m off the road, I’ve got my new rifleman coming tomorrow, and best of all, there’s a beautiful woman in my kitchen.”

“It’d be even better if there was a beautiful woman in your bed.”

Elliott grinned. “It sure would. I’ll just go get one of them whores, then.”

He turned to leave, and when you made no move to follow him, he paused. Looking back at you, he saw that you were looking dejectedly down at the floor, and he laughed.

“I’m just kidding, [Y/n]!”

He walked back towards you and lifted your chin up to force you to look at him.

“The only woman I want in my bed tonight is you, if you’ll join me.”

You blushed, embarrassed that you’d taken his joke seriously. “…I’d like that.”

“Excellent. Come on, then.”

With surprising strength, Elliott lifted you from the ground and threw you over his shoulder. You squealed in surprise and he laughed. When he deposited you on the bed, your hands immediately flew to your bodice, trying to untie it as fast as you could. You’d decided to let him take you, and you wanted to fulfill your task before you changed your mind.

“You waste no time, huh?” Elliott remarked, his eyes firmly on your loosening bodice.

“Neither do you,” you retorted, noticing the way he was already unbuckling his trousers.

“I told you, I’ve been resisting taking you since we met. The hard earth isn’t the most comfortable place for fucking, and I don’t want you to think poorly of Australia because of it. I won’t deny, though, having a little grope before you woke up in the mornings. How could I resist when your tit had fallen out of your garments in the night? Rock hard nipples pointing right at me, just eager to be touched, licked… you may think I’ve been a gentleman on the journey, sweetheart, but I’m anything but.”

Your dress was on the floor now, his gun on the bedside table, his trousers pooled at his ankles. Elliott pulled your bloomers down, exposing you to the air, and you felt a sense of relief. You’d been wearing undergarments again since William had told you you were to sleep next to another man, but you’d gone so long without them that now they felt restrictive. You pulled the rest of your garments off, leaving yourself fully naked before him, and Elliott looked you up and down hungrily.

“Oh, look at you… whatever did my cousin do to deserve you? No matter. We’ve still got a few days before he arrives. We’d better make the most of it, hadn’t we?”

“Yes, sir.”

Usually when you let a sir slip, he corrected you, but he seemed to let it slide this time. Perhaps he liked it, or perhaps he was distracted by the way you dropped to your knees in front of him and reached out to take his cock in your hand.

“Oh, fucking hell,” Elliott hissed, then he let out a small moan when your tongue began teasing at his tip. He was big, but not as big as your husband, and it was no challenge at all for you to wrap your lips around his full width.

“I confess to touching you in the night, and what do you do? Get on your knees and suck my cock. I should have told you much sooner. Should have - ah - taken you on the earth after all. It’s God’s creation, isn’t it? He made the earth, and he made us for fucking… beds are man’s invention. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll take you to see the sheep, then we can fuck out in the open air like God intended.”

You hummed your eagerness around him, sliding him further into your mouth and down your throat, and Elliott gripped your hair tightly as he groaned. Once he was fully hilted inside you, you stayed still for a few moments, adjusting to the feeling and getting used to breathing through your nose.

When he decided you were ready, Elliott began thrusting into your throat, holding your head still as he tugged on your hair. You looked up at him, hardly able to see his face as his head was thrown back in pleasure, but you could see a red flush beginning to form underneath his tanned skin, and his chest was moving up and down rapidly in time with his panting.

Elliott couldn’t remember the last time he’d fucked a throat this good - if ever. You were an expert, more skilled than any whore he’d found in town, and if you weren’t already married he might have proposed to you there and then just to keep you around. If you’d truly been with no one other than William, then either you were a natural-born expert cocksucker, or he’d taught you well. Who’d have known his strict, pious, law-abiding cousin would have such a perfect slut of a wife? Your talents were wasted on him, and clearly if he hadn’t got you pregnant yet, he was doing something wrong.

With that thought in mind, Elliott just had to know if your cunt was as greedy as your mouth. He tugged on the back of your head to pull you off him, and you whined when you became unstuck, as if you’d been getting as much pleasure from it as he was.

He lifted you by your shoulders and sat you on the edge of the bed. You spread your legs instinctively, and he could have cum there and then when he saw just how wet you were.

Elliott didn’t usually bother to pleasure women, but he felt drawn to you, as if some otherworldly force pulled him to his knees to taste you, his tongue exploring everywhere he could, the coarse hair on his face rubbing against your skin sending you wild. You bucked your hips involuntarily, and Elliott responded by probing his tongue further into your folds, searching until he found your entrance and rested there, mere millimetres away from penetrating you with his tongue.

After teasing you until you could be teased no further, he came up for air, panting, and you glanced at him, his facial hair glistening with the desire you were secreting for him. He grinned at you, a hungry look in his eyes, and, so quickly you hardly had time to register what was happening, Elliott stood and slid his cock into you. You cried out in surprise, which quickly turned into moans of pleasure as Elliott began thrusting into you, holding your ankles over his shoulders. His jaw, which was still covered in you, dropped open to join you in a cacophony of moans, matched only by the slapping of his skin against yours, the unabashedly loud squelching of his cock pummelling in and out of your cunt making it clear to anyone that might pass by exactly what was going on.

Any concern you might have had about the morals of taking the cock of a man other than your husband quickly melted away. After all, it was on orders of your husband that you were here in this other man’s bed, and far be it from you to disobey your husband.

Elliott pulled out of you suddenly, and you were about to protest when he grabbed your hips and flipped you over. You instinctively stuck your arse in the air, and Elliott slipped back inside you, resuming his desperate pace, except this time he was pushing into your G-spot with every thrust, his balls slapping against your clit, and when you moaned, the noise was muffled by the mattress beneath you.

Elliott grabbed a pillow from the top of the bed and slid it under you, and you gratefully took it to rest your head on, clutching onto it like it was a life raft.

“Fuck, I could stay inside this cunt all night,” Elliott groaned.

And you’d happily let him, but you could feel your climax building, and you wanted desperately to milk him, to squeeze his cock dry as you came around him and he came with you.

As if he knew what you were thinking, Elliott leant down over you, dropping his weight to his elbows, and you could feel his heavy pants against your neck as he too felt his peak threatening to explode inside you.

“El - Elliott,” you moaned, and hearing his name from your lips only spurred him on, his hips slapping against your arse almost violently. “Elliott, I’m - I’m gonna cum —”

“Yes, that’s it, sweetheart, cum for me, let me hear you…”

“Ah - fuck - El - oh my god, I - I - Elliott!”

Your muscles tensed as your orgasm hit, causing your legs to spasm, and if it weren’t for Elliott’s strong body crushing yours firmly against the mattress, you might have lost your footing.

Your sweet moans and your tight cunt were too much for him, and Elliott cried out your name into your ear as he came, seed filling you with warmth and comfort, and it was only when he collapsed on top of you, both sweaty and panting, that either of you remembered your husband’s firm instruction that he wasn’t to spill inside you.

You let out a small whine when Elliott sat up and pulled himself out of you, and you could feel the mixture of his spend and yours leaking from between your legs.

“You’d better get to the bathroom,” he advised you, his voice still heavy, and you quickly followed his instruction, dashing across the hall to try and push out as much of his seed as you could into his toilet.

When you came back, Elliott was already in his undergarments, although he’d forgone the shirt and wore only the lower briefs. He was sat up in bed, cleaning his gun, which he put down when you crawled in next to him.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

You nodded, avoiding his gaze, but he cupped your face and forced you to look at him.

“I’m sorry, I was too caught up in the moment to remember your husband’s instructions not to spill inside you,” Elliott murmured. “I swear I’ll spill outside next time.”

You smiled shyly, and Elliott thought his heart might just melt. How did you do it, acting a cockhungry slut one moment, a shy lady the next, and making both acts completely believable?

“I won’t tell him,” you promised. “He spills inside me thrice daily and still my womb hasn’t quickened, so I doubt once from you will cause any trouble.”

“Thrice daily?” Elliott repeated. “Are you certain?”

“Quite certain. I’m there when it happens, after all, and usually awake.”

Elliott chuckled and shook his head. “Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t know he had it in him.”

You nodded and bit your lip. “My husband’s quite insatiable. He has been since the day we met. I struggle to keep up with him sometimes, but he’s my husband and I love him, so I let him take me whenever he wishes. Sometimes, if I’m very tired, he’ll let me go to sleep and take me then, although sometimes he does wake me.”

Elliott’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of it. He had thought about it so many times in the tent, taking you in your sleep without you even knowing, but he’d not wanted to risk alarming you if you woke up. And here you were, telling him you were quite used to being taken in such a manner.

“Would you allow me to do the same? If I find you looking particularly delectable in your sleep, might I take my pleasure from you?”

You hesitated, but you nodded. Truthfully, you weren’t overly fond of being woken to find your husband already inside you as it was usually painful, but as kind as Elliott was to you, you were frightened of the gun that lay just feet away, and your husband had instructed you to please him. You’d already disobeyed him once by taking Elliott’s seed - you didn’t want to disobey him again. At least Elliott was asking your permission.

Elliott stayed up a little longer than you to read his book, and he found it endearing the way you nodded off curled up against him like a cat, one arm around his waist, and he knew you were sleeping when your grip on him loosened.

He put his book down next to his gun, blew out the lamp, then settled in next to you, holding you close. He estimated he had another week before his cousin arrived at the station, and Elliott was determined to win your heart in that time. After all, this was Australia, and Elliott was a man who took what he wanted - and by God, he wanted you.

#alan rickman #quigley down under #sweeney todd #judge turpin x reader #elliott marston x reader #the eternal summer

46 notes · View notes

smilingformoney · 1 month

Text

The Eternal Summer

BONUS CHAPTER: In Another Life

Summary: You're surviving but not living since your husband was murdered by Sweeney Todd. Now, his cousin arrives to administer the estate, but nothing goes as either of you expected.

AN: Do you remember when I asked whether Turpin should survive Sweeney's attack and the overwhelming response was yes? What if no? 🙂

Read now on Ao3 or below the cut:

Eight months had passed since the death of your husband, Lord Turpin, and your life had been in limbo ever since. Not expecting to die so soon, he hadn’t drawn up a new will to include you, and so his estate in its entirety was to be passed to some cousin you’d never heard of.

Said cousin was living in Australia, and though a letter had been sent to him on your husband’s death, the months it took for ships to travel to the far-off land meant that the cousin that now owned the house you lived in was nowhere to be seen: until today.

You had found yourself a simple kind of routine living on your own as a widow. You weren’t allowed access to your husband’s money, so you were forced to make your own. You sold some dresses you’d made, and with the proceeds you bought more fabrics to make more dresses, and eventually you managed to establish a steady income for yourself.

You were in Johanna’s old room, which had become a de facto workshop, when you heard a knock on the door.

You peered out of the window to see a man at the door, face obscured by the hat on his head, waiting for your response with a suitcase at his feet.

Curious - and unable to send a servant, since you could only afford a cook or a maid and had opted for the former - you made your way downstairs and opened the door to greet the man.

For a brief moment, you thought you saw a ghost. The man looked strikingly familiar to your dead husband, if he had been a decade or so younger and sported a moustache and goatee. He was also very handsome.

“May I help you, sir?”

“Good afternoon. May I speak with the lady of the house?”

“You’re speaking to her.”

The man smiled and tipped his hat to you. “Ah, Lady Turpin, I presume. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Elliott Marston. I believe I own your house.”

Of course - a suitcase from a two-month journey at sea, a resemblance to your husband. This must be the cousin.

“I believe you do, sir,” you said with a small curtsy. If this man owned your house, he could kick you out at any moment - you had to stay in his good books, no matter what. “Won’t you come in?”

You stepped aside to open the door fully to him, and Elliott carried his suitcase into the hall, looking around at the house he owned but didn’t know.

“Would you like some tea, sir?”

“I’d love some, thank you.”

You showed him into the parlour room, then busied yourself in the kitchen making a pot of tea. When you returned with a tray in hand, Elliott was stood at the bookshelf, looking curiously at one of the books. He looked up as you entered, then placed the book back on the shelf and sat in one of the seats by the fireplace. You placed the tray on the small table between the two seats and poured a cup for each of you.

“Have you just docked from Australia, sir?”

“No, the boat docked in Liverpool, so I’ve just travelled from there. And enough with this ‘sir’ business, I don’t recall her Majesty granting me a knighthood and we are family, after all. Just Elliott will do.”

That took you by surprise; it was frowned upon to call anyone you weren’t familiar with by their first name. Even your own husband you frequently addressed formally, only calling him by his first name in intimate moments. Then again, this man was from Australia - perhaps they did things differently there.

“Well, in that case, I suppose you can call me [Y/n].”

You poured your own cup of tea and sat opposite Elliott. You were unused to hosting; whenever your husband had visitors, you were always to either stay out of sight or to be seen but silent. Making small talk with the gentry wasn’t something you had particular practice with.

“Did your journey take you very long? I hear Australia is months away by even the fastest boat.”

“Yes, it was two months at sea, but I’m used to travelling long distances. I own a lot of land in Australia, it takes days to traverse it. At least on the boat I had shelter from the heat.” Elliott sipped his tea and nodded his approval at your tea-making skills. “This is excellent. Did you make it yourself?”

“Yes, I - I have no maid,” you admitted in shame. “But I have a cook, so if you’d like to stay for dinner, I’m sure he’ll make enough for two.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you. [Y/n], I must admit, I can’t stand formalities and pleasantries. May I talk straight with you?”

“Oh - er - yes, of course.”

“Good. The truth is, I’m happy with my life in Australia and I have no use for a house and its contents in London. When I read the solicitor’s letter, my first thought was to write back asking him to sell it all and put the money towards something good, a school or something. But then I read on, and he mentioned that my cousin had left behind a widow who had no family to support her. Again, I thought about writing and asking everything to be given to you, but the way the solicitor spoke about you in his letter was frankly disturbing. He seemed to imply that he believed you married William only for his money and I worried that if I left it in his hands he’d leave you out on the street, so I decided to come here myself to execute the estate and do whatever I need to do to keep you in your home.”

Your hands were shaking, and you had to put your cup down lest Elliott notice.

“You… travelled here from Australia to ensure I wouldn’t be homeless?”

“Well, of course,” Elliott said with a casual shrug. “We’re family, aren’t we?”

“I… I don’t know what to say.” You’d been so scared of him showing up to claim the house and leave you out on the streets, and yet here he was arriving to make sure that didn’t happen. “You are - you are most generous, sir.”

“Nonsense. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I knew there was a lady out on the streets for the sake of my owning a house I don’t need. A good thing too, because a beautiful woman such as yourself would catch the eye of many an untoward lech. I’ll stay a while, if you won’t mind - it’ll take a while to sort out all the administration, and it’s been such a long journey, I’d like to make the most of London before I set foot on a boat for another two months.”

“Of course! You can stay in the master bedroom, I’ll make another room up for myself.”

“Nonsense, this is your home, I shouldn’t take your bedroom from you.”

“No, I must insist. You said yourself you’ve just been on a boat for two months. The best bed for comfort while you’re here is the least I can do.”

“Well, if the lady of the house insists, who am I to argue? Now, I’m going to get myself to the solicitor’s office before it closes for the day - what time does your cook normally serve dinner?”

“Six o’clock.”

“Perfect! I’ll be back by then. Thank you again for the tea, [Y/n], and for your generous hospitality.”

You stood to escort him to the door and gave him directions to the solicitor’s office. Your heart skipped a beat when he kissed your hand before heading off, and you realised only when he turned a corner and disappeared from view that you were even watching him go.

---

You were actually quite eager to have Elliott for dinner, even though you’d spent the last few months dreading his arrival. But now that he was here, and he’d assured you he wasn’t going to put you back on the streets, you were glad for some company and you found yourself buzzing around before dinner, making sure you and the house looked presentable, and by the time he arrived at a quarter to six, you were already ravenous.

“I forgot how cold this country is,” Elliott said with a shiver as he stepped inside, his hair damp from the rain. “I’m here one day and the Heavens open on me.”

“Is Australia much warmer, then?” you asked as you helped Elliott out of his coat.

“Oh, very much. Even in winter it’s hotter than a London summer. I’m used to the Australian weather, but I suppose to you it’d feel like an eternal summer.”

You led Elliott down the hallway towards the dining room.

“That sounds wonderful! I love summer, when everything’s so bright and warm - except for today, of course. But I assure you it’s usually much nicer than this.”

Elliott chuckled. “I’m sure it is. What’s for dinner?”

“Salmon filet and vegetables. I do hope you like fish, if I’d known you were coming I’d have asked chef for more choice —”

“Nonsense, salmon sounds lovely. I live very far from the sea, I don’t get much opportunity to eat fish.”

In the dining room, Elliott sat down at the table in what used to be William’s usual seat, and you busied yourself with making a fresh pot of tea.

“Have you always lived in Australia?” you asked.

“Ever since I was a child and my parents moved over as settlers. That’s why I was so surprised William left me his estate, to be honest. The last time I saw him, I was a child and he was at university.”

“Well, you’re the only family he had,” you explained. You brought the tray of tea over and poured each of you a cup. “He had no siblings and no children. You were all he had left.”

“He had you.”

You glanced at Elliott and blushed.

“Well… we weren’t married very long. He might have changed his will if he’d had time.”

“Mmm, the solicitor said William’s death was foul play. What happened?”

You told Elliott the story of Sweeney Todd and his plan for revenge on your husband, and you surprised yourself at how easy it was to talk to him. Even though you were talking about something awful, and though you did falter in your storytelling when you came to describe the way your husband had been killed, there was something about Elliott that made the story bearable to tell.

By the time you finished the story, the chef was bringing out your dinner.

“[Y/n]… I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Elliott said gently. “A sweet lady such as yourself shouldn’t have to witness something so awful.”

The image of your husband bleeding out in the barber’s chair flashed before your eyes, and you shivered.

“Yes, it was… quite horrible,” you said in a quiet voice.

“And you’ve been on your own ever since?”

You nodded and picked up your knife and fork, not even noticing that your hands were shaking. Elliott noticed, though, because he reached over to take your cutlery from your hands and cut your food up for you, making no comment on your reaction.

“I’ve been on my own… waiting for you,” you admitted in a quiet voice. “I thought you’d come here and send me into the streets. That you’re willing to let me stay… it means a lot to me, Elliott. Thank you.”

Elliott’s eyes flickered up to you and he smiled. He put your cutlery back down, then placed his hand over yours, and your heart skipped a beat.

“I won’t be responsible for your suffering,” he promised. “Now - let’s see if the salmon in London matches up to the salmon in Melbourne.”

You hadn’t enjoyed dinner so much in a long time, if ever. You’d had good conversation and laughter with your brother Tommy, but never good food. You’d had good food with William, but dinners were always a reserved affair. But with Elliott, you had the best of both worlds - the salmon was delicious, and you had to excuse yourself several times for bursting into laughter with food in your mouth, to the point where you wondered if Elliott was doing it on purpose.

“I refuse to believe there are truly creatures like that in the world!” you exclaimed with a laugh when you heard Elliott’s description of kangaroos.

“There are! I swear on my life. And they’re vicious things as well, I wouldn’t want to get near them. One of my men died from a single kangaroo kick.”

“I’m still not sure I believe you. If only I could go to Australia and see them for myself.”

“Well, maybe you can,” Elliott said casually. He took a swig of his wine, then said, “You could always come back with me.”

“Come… with you? To Australia?” You shook your head. “No, no, I couldn’t…”

“Why not? You say you’re alone here.”

“Well, yes, but…” You glanced around the room. “This is my home. This house - London - it’s all I know. I can’t just… leave.”

Elliott raised a hand soothingly.

“I understand. If you change your mind, the offer’s open.”

After dessert, you stayed in the dining room long after you were finished, talking and laughing, listening to every story he had to tell you about Australia. At some point you moved to the parlour room and rummaged in the cupboards until you found the pack of cards William kept for the nights he played poker with his lawyer friends.

Elliott showed you how to play piquet, and to both of your surprises you picked up the game quite quickly and even began to beat him after a while.

“Are you sure you’ve never played this before?” Elliott said with disbelief as you won your second game in a row.

“No, never! William never let me touch his playing cards.”

“A shame, because if you’re as good at poker as you are at piquet, you might have been his secret weapon. One more round before bed?”

“Alright.”

You won that game too, and you were pleasantly surprised that Elliott wasn’t angry that you’d beaten him, but rather impressed that you’d picked the game up so quickly. After a quick nightcap, you showed him to the master bedroom, then retired to Johanna’s old room, your workshop, to get ready for bed.

Elliott wasn’t used to sleeping in a nightshirt. It was so hot in Australia, he rarely needed to, but in London it was so cold that he had to wrap himself up a bit more. The bed you’d put him in was soft and comfortable, so even though the outside air was cold, he felt quite cozy as he placed his gun on the nightstand and climbed under the covers. It had been a long day - a long two months - and he was ready to drift off as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He was very nearly asleep when he heard a tentative knock on the door.

“…Yeah?” Elliott mumbled, sitting up in the bed.

The door creaked open and you appeared in the doorway, peering around the edge of the door as if frightened to impose - as if he wasn’t the one imposing on you.

“Sorry to disturb you, Elliott. It’s freezing in my room. Do you mind if I take the blankets from under the bed?”

“No, of course not. This is your bedroom, after all.”

“Well, actually it’s yours,” you joked as you slipped into the room and made your way to the other side of the bed.

“Hey, come on, it’s yours,” Elliott insisted. “My house, maybe, but your home.”

You sighed as you looked under the bed.

“Oh, drat, I forgot. I used the blankets to make some coats. Well, never mind.” You stood up. “Sorry to have disturbed you, Elliott.”

“Well, hold on,” Elliott said quickly as you went to leave. “You just said your room’s freezing. It’s warm in here and there’s plenty of room in the bed. Why don’t you sleep here?”

Your cheeks flushed red, and you gaped at him for a moment before collecting yourself.

“I - Elliott - wouldn’t that be… inappropriate?”

Elliott put his hands up in a show of innocence. “I won’t do anything untoward. I just don’t want you to freeze for my sake. Come on.”

He tugged the covers back on your side of the bed and patted the mattress.

”If you don’t get in, I’ll get out and sleep in the cold room, and what sort of hostess would that make you?”

“Well… alright, I suppose.”

You climbed into the bed, feeling warmer and more comfortable the moment you pulled the duvet over you and fell into your usual sleeping position.

“Goodnight, Elliott.”

“…Goodnight, [Y/n].”

When you woke the next morning, you were the warmest and most comfortable you’d felt in months. You had your arm wrapped around your husband’s warm body, spooning him for warmth in the cold winter morning. Your hand instinctively travelled down his torso and felt the familiar hard length he sported every morning.

His nightshirt had ridden up to his waist in his sleep, and so you had no barrier at all when you wrapped your hand around his length and stroked him lazily. You let out a contented hmm when you felt him twitching beneath you, his body responding to your touch.

He let out a small moan, followed by a sigh of your name, and you froze.

Your eyes snapped open, and reality came crashing down on you.

Your husband was dead. The man you were fondling was his cousin.

Before you had time to think, Elliott placed his hand over yours, encouraging you to resume your movements. You obeyed instinctively, not wanting to anger him by changing your mind when you’d already begun… and truthfully, a part of you wanted to keep touching him. It had been so long since you’d touched a man, and his length did feel so good in your hand…

Elliott made such sweet sounds when you rubbed him just right. He bucked his hips into your hand, encouraging more friction, and you obeyed by speeding up.

You knew you should stop. Elliott wasn’t your husband. Yes, you’d had sex with William before marrying him, but you weren’t much more than a glorified whore. You were nothing of the sort to Elliott, just the widow of a cousin he hadn’t seen for years… and yet he wasn’t rejecting your touch.

Your cunt was aching. You’d missed this. Waking up next to a warm body, making gentle love in the morning, both too tired to fuck as ferociously as you had the night before and would later in the day.

You were lonely. You were horny. And when Elliott rolled onto his back, it was instinct more than anything that caused you to slide your hips over his, your bodies pressed together, your height difference allowing you to get away with burying your head against his chest, avoiding looking him in the eye as you tentatively ground your wet cunt against his length. Elliott groaned and placed his hands on your hips just as you raised them, and you truly couldn’t say which of you made the movement that led to his cock slipping inside you.

You wanted to kiss him, but that felt too intimate somehow. Like kissing him, looking at him, would mean acknowledging what you were doing. If you kept your head down, busied your lips with grazing against his neck instead… you could focus on the feeling of his cock inside you as you rolled your hips, the sound of his gentle moans, the feel of his large hands on your hips, helping guide you as you rode his cock. If you didn’t look at him, you avoided the truth of what was happening.

It might not be right. But Lord, you needed it.

It was a chilly morning, but the room quickly warmed up, your moans and sighs filling the air and saying everything that needed to be said about what was happening.

You were both lonely. You both needed this act of intimacy. And you were both choosing not to speak about the implications of it all.

You came around his cock with a long, drawn-out moan, the tensions you hadn’t known you were carrying falling away, and you welcomed his seed as he came inside you, filling you up as his own tensions were carried away into the ether with your own.

You stayed motionless on top of him for a few moments, catching your breath. Then, when you moved off him, Elliott’s hands fell away from your waist and he made no protestations as you rolled out of bed and pulled your nightdress down, covering the sight of the seed running down your thigh, and left the room as if nothing had happened.

When you next saw Elliott at breakfast, you decided to act as if nothing had happened. You chatted amicably about your plans for the day, then cleared up your plates and made your way upstairs to work on your current dressmaking project.

In the evening, Elliott joined you for dinner, and afterwards you invited him to look at the dress you were making, since he seemed to show an interest when you spoke about it.

“I’m very impressed with your creativity, [Y/n],” Elliott said as he examined the half-sewn dress that sat on a mannequin. “Most women of your station would simply buy their dresses. I find the initiative quite admirable. I dabble with some creativity of my own - nothing fancy, mostly recipes - but I find it so much more rewarding than having something presented to me ready-made. Don’t you think so?”

“Oh, yes, I quite agree!” you said enthusiastically. “The ability to create - whether it be food, clothing, art - it’s what sets us apart from animals. It may sound silly, but… it makes me feel I’ve contributed to the world in some small way. So even if I died tomorrow, there would be some mark on the world that I left behind.”

Elliott looked at you curiously and smiled.

“That’s a beautiful way of putting it. Are these your designs?” he asked, pointing to the pile of drawings on the nearby desk.

“Oh - yes, but I’m afraid I’m not as good with a pencil as I am with a needle. They’re rather rudimentary drawings, but it at least helps me remember my ideas. Would you, um… would you like to see them?”

“Please!”

You felt your cheeks blushing harder and harder as Elliott looked through the drawings. You pointed out some of your favourite designs, those that were too extravagant for you to attempt to create, or just plain impossible.

“Remarkable. You truly have a gift, [Y/n].” He glanced up at you and chuckled. “Blush any harder and you might just come to resemble a tomato. You’re not feeling embarrassed, I hope.”

“Sorry, it’s just that I - I’ve never shown these to anyone before,” you admitted. “William… he was never interested. He let me sew because it kept me occupied when he was at court, but he had no interest in it.”

I prefer your clothes on the floor, he had said to you once, but you decided to keep that part to yourself.

“Well, it’s a shame. Are you going to work on it any more tonight?”

“Yes, I was going to put together some more of the bodice before I retire.”

“Might I watch you? Or would you prefer to work alone?”

“No, it’d… it’d be nice to have some companionship, actually. If it won’t bore you, that is.”

“Nonsense. You do what you need to do, I’ll make us both some tea.”

You worked late into the night, later than Elliott could stay up, and he made you promise not to work for very much longer when he retired to bed before you.

The clock in the corner of the room struck twelve, and you realised you should probably retire.

You readied yourself for bed, and shivered when you put your nightgown back on.

You hesitated, thinking. It wouldn’t hurt to share warmth again, would it?

When you poked your head into the master bedroom, Elliott was fast asleep, so you tip-toed quietly to your side of the bed and slid under the covers. Warm and comfortable at last, you fell asleep almost instantly.

You woke up to a soothing presence pressed up against your back, and this time you remembered that it was Elliott who was sharing your bed.

It was Elliott who was fondling your breast.

His arm was under your nightgown, holding you tight against his torso, and his fingers were lazily playing with your nipple. You could also feel his erection pressing up against your bum.

It was clear what he wanted, and you were surprised he hadn’t taken his pleasure from you already. You would often be woken up by your husband entering you in your sleep - he had to dispel his morning erection, after all, and he had to do it before he left for court. He couldn’t wait for you to wake up.

Elliott had no strict timings on his mornings, so perhaps that was why he was taking his time, groping you in your sleep until you were awake for him.

You rolled onto your back, hand reaching out to take Elliott’s length and guide it into you.

He ducked his head to take your breast in his mouth as he let you guide him to your entrance, and his ministrations must have aroused you even in your sleep, because there was no dryness to resist him as his length slid up your walls and settled comfortably inside you.

With each slow but firm thrust, your breasts followed the movement, and Elliott released your nipple from his mouth to let your flesh rub against his cheek. He grazed his teeth against your skin, leaving behind a trail of saliva as he positioned his head in your neck, seemingly as determined as you to avoid eye contact, to avoid the acknowledgement of the strange situation.

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, holding his body against yours, and over his shoulder you saw the movements of his rear as his hips thrust into you.

Elliott let out a small moan with each sensual thrust, his breath tickling your skin, and you responded in turn with moans of your own when he sped up, his movements becoming more firm, more desperate, as you both felt your pleasure climbing.

You were too lost in the pleasure, the intimacy, the desperation of the moment to worry about anything else. For a short while, there was nothing else in the world, just you, he and the pleasure that was coiling ever tighter inside you, and when your orgasm overcame you and your whole body shook, Elliott kept thrusting into you, stopping only when his own orgasm hit and you felt his warm seed filling you up and he moaned sinfully against your neck.

After a few moments, Elliott rolled off you and onto his back, but this time, you made no quick exit. Instead, you let him hold you lazily, both of you sated, both basking in the comfort which existed between you so easily, although you couldn’t explain why.

You still didn’t say a word until breakfast.

You fell into a strange routine. You spent your days as you would - you working on your tailoring, he on the administration of your husband’s estate - and at night you’d slip into bed with him, each time telling yourself it was only because the other room was so cold. In the morning, you’d not say a word to one another as you fucked, usually starting slow and sleepy, and ending with a desperate passion.

On the third morning, you woke to his tongue between your legs.

On the fourth, you were about to lean over to take him in your mouth when he grabbed your hips and positioned you to sit on his face, and you might have worried about suffocating him with your cunt if you weren’t occupied with taking his length into your mouth.

The fifth morning was a Sunday, and you wondered if anything might happen - your pious husband had never fucked you on a Sunday, after all - but your question was answered before you even awoke, as when your eyes opened and your mind returned to the waking world, you felt Elliott was already inside you, though he didn’t begin to thrust until he knew you were awake.

The sixth morning saw you taking him in your mouth before he woke, and words passed between you for the first time when a “fucking hell” escaped Elliott’s lips as his fingers slid into your hair.

On the seventh day, Elliott woke to find the bed empty, and he found you instead in your tailoring room, sitting at your desk and still wearing your nightgown.

“Up early or still up?” he asked as he approached you from behind and placed a hand on your shoulder.

“Up early,” you replied. “I had an idea in my sleep… I had to get it down before I forgot.”

“You gonna come back to bed after?”

“It’s alright, I’m done now.”

You stood up, but before you could turn around, Elliott caught you in his arms, and that morning he took you from behind over your desk - and for the first time, you moaned his name when you came.

You knew one of you would break soon and mention your morning activities during the day, but you were determined to put it off. Talking about it would mean thinking about it, and you didn’t want to confront your feelings any time soon, so you continued your strange routine for another week until one day when a letter arrived at your house addressed to Elliott.

“Oh, it’s from my uncle,” Elliott said in answer to your curious look as he read the letter at the dinner table. “On my mother’s side, no relation to William. I wrote to him when I arrived to tell him I was in England. He’s invited us to visit him in Sussex.”

“Us?”

“Well, he says ‘you,’ but I choose to take that in the plural. Would you like to come? He’s got quite the estate as I recall.”

“Sussex? Isn’t that very far?”

“Not really. About half a day by carriage.”

“That sounds very far to me…”

Elliott smiled at you. “Yes, I suppose it would. Compared to my lands in Australia, it’s no distance at all. Have you ever been to the country?”

“No, I… I’ve never left London,” you admitted. “Though I would love to visit the country, I hear it’s a lot greener than London.”

“Oh, much greener. To be frank with you, London is horrid. All the smoke in the air, beggars on the street, buildings clumped together and the earth hidden beneath cobblestones… I’ve only been here two weeks and I’m craving the fresh air. In fact, if you’ve never left London, then I insist you come with me. It’ll do you good to breathe the open air. Who knows - maybe we’ll even see some sheep.”

Your eyes lit up then, and Elliott smiled to see his words had had the desired effect on you. He’d told you all about his lands in Australia and the different animals he kept, and in turn you had told him how you wished to see sheep, which you always thought seemed so cute from your books.

So that night you packed a bag, Elliott went out to find a horse and carriage to rent for the next morning, and come bedtime you were so excited at the prospect of going to the country that you didn’t even think twice about going straight to the master bedroom with him. Usually you at least fooled yourself into thinking you were going to sleep in the second bedroom, but before you even realised what you were doing, you were both in the master bedroom, getting dressed for bed.

Elliott said nothing about it; he acted as if it were normal, and after he blew out the candle beside the bed, he wrapped an arm around your waist and held you as comfortably as if you’d always slept like this.

“Goodnight, [Y/n],” he mumbled against the back of your neck.

You smiled and linked your fingers in with his.

“Goodnight, Elliott.”

---

The next morning, you had to be up early as you’d be travelling for most of the day, so you were rudely awakened by a knocker-upper in the middle of a lovely dream about winning a cheese-eating contest.

“C’mon, [Y/n], time to get up,” you heard Elliott say a few minutes later, but you just groaned into your pillow.

“Too early,” you complained.

“You can go back to sleep in the carriage, but we gotta get going.”

“I’m trying,” you insisted. “Body won’t move.”

Elliott chuckled, then you squealed when you were suddenly lifted into the air and thrown over Elliott’s shoulder like a sack of flour.

“You want to see the sheep, don’t you?”

“I wanna see the sleep.”

Elliott put you down, though he kept his hands on your shoulders to make sure you didn’t fall asleep standing up. You looked up at him blearily and smiled.

“You’re so handsome,” you mumbled.

“Now I know you’re talking nonsense. Come on, let’s get you dressed. You need a hand?”

You shook your head, yawned, then reluctantly set about getting dressed. By the time you’d laced up your bodice, Elliott had already loaded the carriage waiting outside with your luggage, and was waiting for you on the front doorstep with a cigarette when you finally emerged from the house.

“Still awake?”

“Just about,” you mumbled. “If I sleep in the carriage, will you wake me up when we get out of London? I don’t wanna miss seeing anything.”

Elliott offered his arm to you and led you to the carriage.

“Of course. It’s not very exciting, though. Once you’ve seen one field you’ve seen them all.”

“But I wanna see them all!”

Elliott laughed, then helped you up into the carriage. You shuffled along the seat to let him climb in after you, then once the door was closed, you immediately curled up against the side of the carriage and nodded off.

When you woke up, the first thing you realised was that you were lying down, though you’d gone to sleep upright. The next thing you noticed was that your pillow was strange, slightly rough and harder than usual. Then you realised there was a weight on your head, and when you felt fingers casually caressing your hair, you realised the weight was a hand.

Your eyes fluttered open, and you saw the back of the carriage driver’s seat, but sideways.

You were lying across the seat in the carriage, head in Elliott’s lap. He’d wrapped up his coat and placed it between your head and his thigh for a pillow, and he was gently stroking your hair as you slept.

You closed your eyes again, savouring the moment. Elliott’s coat smelled like him, and his hand on your head made you feel safe and secure. Even though you were lying in an awkward position, legs bent slightly to fit on the seat, you felt a great sense of comfort.

“I know you’re awake,” Elliott said softly.

“No, I’m not,” you replied, your eyes still closed.

“I can see you smiling.”

“Shh… sleeping.”

Elliott chuckled, and he continued his gentle stroking of your hair, both of you choosing to enjoy the moment rather than address it.

“We’re out of London, by the way. Have been for a while.”

Now you did open your eyes, rubbing them as you sat up and looked around.

“You said you’d wake me when we left!”

“I’ve learnt today that waking you up before you want to is impossible.”

“Have I missed anything?”

“Only dozens of identical fields. Take a look.”

He pulled back the curtain that covered the carriage window, and you leaned over him to look outside eagerly.

“Wow,” you gasped. “There’s so much space!”

The fields stretched as far as you could see, intersected only by trees and hedges. There wasn’t a building in sight. You’d seen drawings of the countryside, but it was an even more magical sight to behold in reality.

“You should see my land in Australia,” Elliott said proudly. “Hundreds of miles, it stretches for. I own even more land in Australia than there is in London.”

“You jest!” you exclaimed, leaning back to look at him. “I believe that as much as I believe that there are such things as kangaroos.”

“It’s true, and so are the kangaroos. The world’s much bigger than you know, [Y/n].”

“Yes, I’m coming to realise that.” You sat back down in the seat, though you made no effort to distance yourself from Elliott. He had an arm thrown across the back of the seat, and when you leant back, he placed a hand on your shoulder.

“Is it much farther to your uncle’s house?”

“Another six hours or so. We’re only halfway there.”

“Six hours?! Goodness. What do you to pass the time on long journeys such as this?”

“Talk. Smoke. Relax.”

Elliott’s hand was wandering across your skin, fingers dancing as he traced meaningless shapes across your shoulder, and you smiled when he threaded his fingers through your hair and scratched your scalp.

“You like that?” he murmured softly.

You blushed and nodded. He threaded his fingers deeper into your hair, gently scratching at different spots on your scalp until he found a spot you seemed to particularly like, because you shuddered when he touched it, dipping your head slightly to give him better access.

Elliott withdrew his fingers, gathered your hair in his hands, and moved it aside to hang in front of your shoulder, giving himself access to pepper soft kisses across the back of your neck. You giggled slightly when his moustache tickled against your skin.

“What about that? Do you like that?”

You nodded, hardly daring to speak. Elliott’s trail of kisses moved up the side of your neck, and you let out an involuntary whine when his lips connected with the skin behind your ear.

“Elliott…”

He hummed acknowledgment against your skin, but whatever you were about to say was cut short when he placed his hand on your thigh and your breath caught in your throat.

His kisses were on your cheek now, and you could hear his breathing, feel his hot breath on your cheek. He cupped your face with his palm, encouraging you to turn to him, but despite everything you’d done with him already, somehow a kiss felt just too intimate.

So, when he turned your head, instead of kissing him you continued the momentum of your movement and pushed him back into the seat. You kissed his neck, then his collar, and as you kissed down his clothed torso, you were tempted to unbutton his waistcoat and shirt to give you access to his skin, but there was something arousingly scandalous about doing what you were doing with both your clothes still on.

When you reached his belt, Elliott helped you unbuckle it and grunted with relief when he released his hardened cock from the confines of his trousers. You licked your lips, then took his tip in your mouth, easing his girth into you. Elliott let out a low moan as you skilfully took him deeper and deeper until he was buried in your throat, your nose buried in his hair.

He placed one hand on your back and the other cupped your cheek, gently encouraging you to move. You slid your tongue along his shaft as you lifted your head, and though you intended to retract all the way to his tip, Elliott wrapped your hair around his fingers to hold you still and thrusted up into you. You choked slightly with surprise, but you simply widened your throat as your late husband had taught you to, giving Elliott the room he needed to bury himself inside you again - and again - and again.

At some point, although you couldn’t say exactly when, Elliott released his grip on your hair and let you take over. You wrapped your hand around the base of his shaft so you could pleasure him without choking yourself, and which also allowed you to bob your head faster.

“Ah, fucking hell… [Y/n]…”

Even though you’d been sharing intimate moments for two weeks now, you still hardly spoke during and certainly never mentioned it after, and you’d have expected that hearing Elliott moan your name now would frighten you, making the moment too personal, but there was something about it that shot straight to your core, almost as if you wanted that level of intimacy with Elliott.

You pushed that thought to the back of your mind. That was something to deal with later; for now, you were just enjoying pleasuring him, listening to his beautiful moans as he responded to your ministrations.

What you didn’t know was that while you were trying to ignore the feelings that were growing inside you - which you didn’t want to admit had been growing since the day Elliott showed up at your door - he was revelling in his, savouring every moment of intimacy between you as if he were a parched man and your affection was his hydration. He tried to hold back his orgasm when he felt it climbing, because he didn’t want this to end, to finish your unspoken intimacy and go back to pretending that anything was happening between you.

He tried to hold it back - but you had a way of telling when he was close, and you weren’t one for edging, because it only spurred you on, sucking him off faster until he could resist no more. Elliott grabbed your head and pushed you down his shaft, burying himself in your throat as he shot his load inside you, and though you choked and spluttered, you relished in the feeling of his warm cum bypassing your mouth and filling you up straight down your throat.

You had nothing with you to clean him up, so you used your tongue and licked him clean. Elliott sighed with relief and leant his head back against the seat.

“Jesus, [Y/n]… You are something else, you know that?”

You averted your eyes and blushed, as if you weren’t the one who’d initiated it. Elliott saw your bashfulness and smiled.

“Hey, c’mere.”

He wrapped an arm around you and pulled you in for an embrace. You cozied up to him and rested your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat as he gently rubbed your back. Elliott’s gentle touch, combined with the rhythm of his heartbeat and the movement of the carriage, soon sent you back to sleep. Eventually, Elliott found himself dozing off too, both of you comfortable in one another’s arms as the countryside rolled by.

---

You woke up a few hours later when the carriage came to a halt. You sat up, blushing when you realised you’d once again been sleeping with your head in Elliott’s lap. He, meanwhile, was still asleep; you giggled and pushed his mouth closed for him when you saw he was drooling.

Curious as to why you’d stopped, you pulled the curtain back from the window and saw that you were on a long road, flagged either side by lines of trees. The carriage driver hopped down from his seat, and you opened the door to poke your head out.

“Is everything alright?” you asked.

“Go back inside, m’lady, nothing to worry about. There’s a man injured on the road.”

“Oh, dear! That’s not nothing at all. Here, let me help.”

Ignoring the driver’s protestations, you hopped out of the carriage, lifted your skirt to avoid muddying it, and followed behind him to attend to the injured man. Before the driver could examine the man, however, another man came suddenly from between the trees, punched the driver hard enough to render him unconscious, and the supposedly injured man jumped up to begin rifling through the driver’s pockets.

You, naturally, had exclaimed in surprise when the second man appeared, and as soon as his punch landed, he turned his attention to you.

“Hey, we got a twofer!” the man exclaimed, grinning hungrily. He grabbed you before you could dodge him, and you screamed.

“Unhand me, you scoundrel!” you shouted, fruitlessly pulling against the grip the man now had on both your wrists. He simply laughed and threw you to the ground.

“I been hoping for a girl to rape all day,” he said with a nasty grin as he unbuckled his belt. “Today’s my lucky day!”

BANG!

You cried out in surprise again when a gunshot rang out, and the man’s luck ran out as blood began to pour from his forehead, and if his stunned expression were anything to go by, he was dead before he hit the ground.

His companion, who had up until now been searching the driver’s pockets, went to grab his own gun, but his hand had hardly moved towards his belt when another BANG resulted in blood pouring from his chest, and after a few attempts at breathing through the blood filling his lungs, he too collapsed dead to the ground.

You tried to clambour to your feet, but the ground was slick with mud, and you embarrassingly fell back onto your bum. You jumped when a hand gripped your upper arm and pulled you to your feet, but you felt a wave of relief wash over you when you turned and saw that it was Elliott.

“Are you alright?” he asked urgently.

You nodded, though you were still frightened, but you were otherwise unharmed. Acting on instinct more than anything, you wrapped your arms around his waist and buried your head against his chest.

“Oh, Elliott, thank goodness,” you sighed. “He was - he was going to —”

“Shh, it’s alright,” Elliott said soothingly. His gun was still in his right hand, but with his left he embraced you and gently stroked your hair, seemingly undeterred by the mud that was no doubt all over you. “Nothing’s gonna harm you, not while I’m around.”

You sniffled, and Elliott holstered his gun to allow himself to hold you properly, rocking you and murmuring words of comfort until your breathing had steadied.

“The - the driver…” you muttered, looking over your shoulder.

“Alive, but unconscious - I can see him breathing,” Elliott determined. “We’ll have to wait for him to wake up before we go on. Come on - let’s sit you down.”

Elliott kept an arm firmly around your shoulders as he guided you to the carriage and sat you down on the step to examine you.

“Does anything hurt?” he asked as he gently took your chin between his fingers and turned your head to check for injuries.

“Only my bum from falling back down,” you admitted. “Erm - and my elbows too. I think they took most of the fall.”

“Let me see them. Can you roll your sleeves up?”

“Not in this dress.”

“You’ll need to take it off, then,” Elliott said matter-of-factly, and his hands were on your bodice, pulling apart the lace across your chest, before you could react.

“Is this a ruse to get my clothes off?”

Elliott smirked and his eyes flashed dangerously. “I don’t need a ruse for that, sweetheart. We both know you’d be out of that dress in an instant if I asked.”

You had no reply to that. You blushed hard to hear him flirting with you so brazenly when you’d spent so long not speaking of the spark between you, but truthfully he was right. Even though you were out in the open, two dead men lying in the mud nearby and your carriage driver unconscious next to them, you felt a shiver of desire run through your body as Elliott ran his hands over your chest to unlace your dress.

You glanced down at his waist, where his gun was back in its holster, glistening slightly in the afternoon sun. It had happened so fast, you had hardly had a chance to fully appreciate what had just happened - Elliott had killed two men with hardly a flinch, all to protect you.

Almost instinctively, you spread your legs slightly, and Elliott must have been acting on instinct too when he moved closer to you. Although his hands were firm and calloused, still his touch was gentle as he pushed the shoulders of your dress down, peeling the fabric from your skin until you were able to pull your arms from the sleeves - and, as it just so happened, your breasts were revealed too.

Ignoring his desire to ravish attention on your breasts, Elliott instead focused on examining your elbows, both of which were grazed slightly but otherwise unharmed.

“Anywhere else that hurts?”

“My thighs,” you lied. “Maybe you should check underneath my skirt too.”

Elliott raised an eyebrow at you. “Your thighs? Really?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

You opened your legs a little wider, causing your skirt to ride up your legs, your calves poking out from below the hemline. Elliott put a hand on either ankle and made a show of slowly checking every inch of you for injuries, before sliding his hands over your knees and up to your waistband to pull your bloomers down, giving himself access to your bare skin to ‘check for injuries.’

“Where does it hurt? Here?” Elliott asked, his hands resting on your lower thighs.

“Mmm… higher.”

“…Here?”

His hand moved up to your upper thigh, and he could feel the warm of your core tickling his fingers.

“A bit higher…”

Elliott smirked at you hungrily, his eyes alight with desire.

“How about… here?”

He cupped your heat with his hand, and you stifled a moan.

“It hurts here, does it?”

You nodded. “Hurts ‘cus it’s empty,” you whined.

Elliott closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled.

“[Y/n], you are… fuck, I don’t know what. I’m no good with words. But actions - actions I can do.”

He withdrew his hand slightly to bring his thumb up to your sweet spot, and you gasped his name when he began caressing it while his other hand busied itself with unbuckling his belt.

“You sure you want this, sweetheart? Here and now?”

You nodded desperately. “Please, Elliott. I… I need you.”

Elliott had been aching to hear you express your desires for two weeks now, and though he’d not imagined you’d first speak them aloud in a carriage doorway on the side of the road with two dead bodies nearby, hearing you express not just a want but a need for him… it would have been enough to make him fall in love with you.

It would have, had he not already fallen deeper than he ever thought possible.

He entered you with a groan of relief. Your mouth was exceptionally talented, and he’d treasure the memory of that morning’s blowjob always, but there was nothing quite like the feeling of your walls around his length. He felt as if he belonged there, belonged in your cunt, belonged with you .

As much as he’d wanted to, Elliott had never fucked outside before. In a place such as Australia, it was hard to find somewhere that wasn’t outside, but his first wife had never been one for show, and even after her death, he felt that taking a whore was something to be done privately.

But there was something inherently natural and right about fucking outside. God made the Heavens and the Earth, and he made man, but he never made anything like a building or a vehicle. Those were inventions of man. Humans were meant to fuck, and they were meant to do it outside.

Now that you’d broken the seal that had held both of you back from speaking during your morning trysts, Elliott took the liberty of being as vocal as he liked, muttering your name over and over again, as if making up for all the times he’d fucked you in silence.

“Ohh, [Y/n]… fuck, you feel so good… so good for me, [Y/n]… Lord, if only I could live inside this sweet cunt of yours.”

Elliott’s words danced around your mind like a flame, setting your desire alight, every sense overwhelmed by him. The feel of his cock thrusting inside you, the sound of his muttered praise intersected with grunts of pleasure, the sight of his handsome face overwhelmed with pleasure. Even his smell, his musky smell that lingered on all his clothes, the unmistakable smell of sex that filled the carriage. The only thing missing was taste, but then again, you’d tasted him well enough earlier.

Lord, he was beautiful in the throes of ecstasy. And as your pleasure overwhelmed you, causing you to cry out and fill the carriage with the sounds of your moans as your orgasm washed over you, Elliott thought you were not just beautiful, but something otherworldly altogether. He fucked you through your orgasm, and when he filled you up with his seed moments later, Elliott knew in that moment that whatever you were, you wouldn’t travel north up this road back to London as anything other than his wife.

---

By the time you arrived at Ivy Manor in Sussex, you were feeling a desperate need for a bath. You had cum on your legs, mud on your dress and in your hair, and you were sweating from the summer heat.

All your discomfort fell away, however, when Elliott helped you out of the carriage and you saw the manor house in all its splendour. It was bigger even than Westminster Abbey! And the land surrounding it sprawled for miles; you had certainly ridden at least a mile further past the manor gates before approaching the building itself.

You looked around, eyes wide as saucers, amazed that a building this large could even exist. And this was only one family’s home!

“Ah, there’s my nephew!”

An older man, perhaps a little older than your late husband, came to greet you, wearing a black wool suit with a garish checkered vest, and you wondered if country lords were immune to summer heat, because you imagined Elliott’s uncle should be boiling inside that suit.

The uncle greeted Elliott with a warm smile and a friendly handshake, then turned to you and bowed his head.

“And this must be the cousin’s wife. A pleasure to meet you. Duke Rupert Beaumont, at your service. Forgive me, miss, but Elliott neglected to give me your full name in his letter.”

“[Y/n] Turpin, sir,” you said with a curtsy. “A pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having us in your home.”

“Lady [Y/n] Turpin,” Elliott corrected you.

You smiled coyly. “Yes, well, I don’t see a need for formalities amongst family.”

”Turpin, you say?!” Duke Beaumont said in surprise. “As in Lord William Turpin?”

“Yes, sir, he’s my late husband.”

“Why, I had no idea! Elliott mentioned his cousin was a judge, of course, but not that it was Lord Turpin! And you’re his lady wife, you say?”

“Yes, sir. Did you know my husband, then?”

“Know him? My dear - apologies, my Lady - I studied alongside him at Oxford! A very long time ago this was, mind you, but we’ve written to one another on occasion. I had no idea my brother-in-law was his uncle. I hadn’t known of his passing, though. I’m very sorry for your loss, my Lady, he was an excellent lawyer and a noble man in every sense. Might I ask how he passed?”

“Oh, erm —”

“It was foul play,” Elliott said, quickly sensing your discomfort and placing a comforting hand on the small of your back. “A former convict with a vendetta. A tragedy, of course, but let’s just be grateful [Y/n] wasn’t harmed. In an unfortunately similar turn of events, we were stopped on our way here by highwaymen, and [Y/n] suffered an unfortunate fall. Could we trouble you for the use of a bath, and perhaps a servant to wash her dress?”

“Yes, yes, of course! Highwaymen, you say? Should I send out for the police?”

“No matter, I dealt with them,” Elliott said smugly, pushing his jacket back slightly to reveal the gun on his hip. “Unless you want to clear the road of their bodies.”

“Hmm… yes, I suppose we should clear the road. I’ll send someone out. Well, come along, old chap, let’s get your luggage taken in and we’ll draw a bath for the lady.”

A few hours later, you were feeling much cleaner after a bath, and the room you’d been told you were to stay in was already made up for you and your clothes laid out. You were surprised to find a servant girl expecting you to need her help getting dressed, but not wanting to embarrass Elliott with any faux pas, you allowed the girl to dress you for dinner.

You left your room just in time to see Elliott leave his, which was directly across from yours.

“Well, fancy seeing you here, m’lady,” he said with a smirk. “Are you my dinner date for tonight?”

“I think I must be. Although you’ll have to keep your eye on me to make sure I don’t do anything embarrassing, I know the basics of etiquette but I’ve never done much more than dine with William and Johanna.”

Elliott scoffed. “And you think I have? This is just as foreign to me as it is to you.”

You breathed a small sigh of relief to know you weren’t alone in feeling like a fish out of water in such a grand place. You took Elliott’s arm and he escorted you down the corridor, both of you secretly hoping you remembered the way back to the dining room Duke Beaumont had pointed out to you earlier.

“So, Elliott… your cousin a Lord, your uncle a Duke. Why don’t you have any titles?”

“Oh, we don’t bother with peerages and titles in Australia. A man’s worth is judged on his character and achievements, not his name. Though if we did, then with the amount of land I own, I’m sure I’d be a Lord.”

“Lord Elliott Marston of Australia,” you said in a faux-pompous voice, and Elliott laughed. “No, you’re right, it’s not very you, is it?”

“Definitely not. Mr Marston is fine with me. But Lady suits you very well.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know about that,” you said with a blush. “I come from nothing. I’m a Lady only because of William. It feels strange to call myself a Lady when I don’t have a Lord, that’s why I never introduce myself as Lady Turpin. If I remarry a man of no rank and become a Mrs, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Do you… intend to remarry?”

You turned a corner and succeeded in finding the staircase back down to the entrance hall.

“Well, I must, mustn’t I?”

“Must you?”

“Yes, I mean, if you truly intend to transfer my husband’s estate to me, I can’t very well go on without children, can I? I’ll need an heir to inherit William’s estate.”

“And do you… have any suitors in mind?”

The stairs were steep, so your focus was on not tripping over the hem of your dress, and you had an excuse to hide your blushing face - and avoid seeing the cautious hope in Elliott’s eyes.

“Perhaps,” you said noncommittally.

“Perhaps?”

“Well… there is one man I’d consider accepting a proposal from, but…”

“…But?”

“I’m not sure he’d want me,” you admitted.

You reached the bottom of the stairs and Elliott paused.

“Whyever wouldn’t he want you?”

You looked up at him, your eyes meeting.

“Well… he has no need to marry me for the estate,” you said, choosing your words carefully. “So the only reason he’d marry me is for me. And, well… I’m not much on my own, am I?”

Elliott frowned. He took your chin between his fingers, keeping your eyes locked on his.

“[Y/n]… you’re wonderful. Don’t ever think you’re anything less. Any man would be lucky to have you as his wife, estate or no. William married you knowing full well you came from nothing, didn’t he? No dowry, no estate. Just your kind heart and your gentle soul. He knew that you were worth far more than any lord’s daughter - and he was right.”

“Do you - do you really think so?” you asked quietly, your voice almost breathless as your insides twisted into knots.

“Have I ever struck you as a dishonest man?”

“No, I —”

You were interrupted by the ringing of a bell to call you for dinner, and you glanced away from Elliott’s striking gaze, your face no doubt bright red.

“Perhaps together we can fumble our way through dinner with a duke,” you said, glad for the distraction. You readjusted your hand on Elliott’s arm and let him escort you into the dining room, not realising that his eyes were firmly on you the entire time.

---

Dinner went on much longer than you were used to. There were seven courses, each with a break in between, and after dessert Duke Beaumont’s granddaughter Leanne who had a musical talent played a few songs on the piano. She reminded you a little of Johanna, who sometimes would play the piano in the parlour room, and you wondered where she was and if she was enjoying her new life with Anthony, wherever they were.

It felt strangely reserved, the way everybody sat and listened as Leanne played. Music was best enjoyed with dance, you had always found, and to sit simply listening made you feel as if something were missing.

But you didn’t want to embarrass Elliott, so you sat politely, and with everyone’s attention on Leanne, Elliott took the opportunity to place his hand on your thigh under the table.

You blushed hard, and from the corner of your eye, you could see him smirking.

Lord, how could a simple touch from him make you feel all aflutter?

“Play something we can dance to, Annie!” said an older woman - possibly Leanne’s mother, though you found it so hard to keep track - and so Leanne switched to a faster song, and people began to stand and pair up to dance, mainly in couples, although adorably Duke Beaumont asked his five-year-old granddaughter to dance with him.

“Do you dance, [Y/n]?” Elliott asked.

“Not since my wedding day. We never - we never had a chance to host any social events.”

Elliott stood and held his hand out to you, the same one that until moments ago had been on your thigh.

“Come on, then. I’ll die a happy man so long as I’ve had one dance with the most beautiful woman in England.”

Was his intention to experiment with how much he could make you blush?

You took his proffered hand, stepped away from the dining table, and Elliott gave you a small, formal bow before placing his hand on your waist. You were both a little out of practice, but you fumbled your way into a rhythm together.

“You’re very cute when you blush, you know,” Elliott commented as you danced, “but you shouldn’t feel embarrassed. I told you, I’m an honest man, [Y/n]. I only speak the truth.”

“You’re very kind,” you said with a small smile, looking up at him. “I suppose I’m a shy person, that’s all, and I’m not used to such kind words.”

Elliott chuckled and shook his head. “I’m a lot of things, [Y/n]. Kind is not a word many would use.”

“Then let me be the one to use it.”

“Alright. You can call me kind. So long as I can call you beautiful.”

You blushed and ducked your head with a smile. You knew Elliott had just told you not to be embarrassed, but how could you not be?

The song ended and you broke apart from Elliott to join the others in polite applause for Leanne’s playing. Duke Beaumont announced it was time for the men to have a smoke and a drink, so you decided it was time to go to bed. Elliott kissed the back of your hand as he wished you goodnight, and though you felt yourself blushing, you managed to stop yourself from glancing away this time.

A few hours later, you were still awake, as you were struggling to fall asleep in the unknown bed. You heard the bedroom door open and close; thinking it was a servant, you sat up groggily to tell them to come back in the morning, only to realise by the moonlight slipping through a crack in the curtains that it was Elliott.

He was already in his nightshirt. He slipped under the covers of the bed, wrapped an arm around your waist, and pulled you back down to lie under the covers with him.

“Is your room cold?” you asked.

“No,” Elliott replied, his eyes already closed as he held you, and you turned towards him almost instinctively to wrap an arm around him. “It was lonely.”

Your heart skipped a beat.

“Yeah… mine too.”

“Doesn’t feel so lonely to me.”

“Not anymore.”

Elliott smiled.

“Goodnight, [Y/n].”

“Goodnight, Elliott.”

The next morning, it didn’t even hit you that it was the first morning you’d woken up in bed with Elliott and not had sex. You felt so comfortable waking up next to him, as if the simple intimacy of being in his arms and inhaling his scent was enough for you. You kept expecting him to initiate something, but instead he just held you, his fingers drawing meaningless shapes across your skin.

When eventually you got out of bed, Elliott went across the hall to his own room to get dressed for breakfast. You greeted him in the dining room as if you didn’t know how he’d slept, and as you ate he asked if you’d like to accompany him for a walk around the grounds.

“This place was a lot bigger in my memory,” Elliott mused as you set out side-by-side down a footpath around the manor. “Then again, I was very small last time I was here.”

“I think it’s enormous,” you replied, looking around at the gardens you were meandering through.

“I suppose it would be to you. My land in Australia’s much bigger, though.”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned.”

“On the topic of Australia… have you given any more thought to my proposition on the day I arrived?”

“Forgive me - what proposition was that?”

“Coming back with me.”

“Oh - well, yes, that’d be lovely I’m sure. But if you’re to transfer me the estate, there’s no point in leaving it to gather dust, is there?”

“Well… you wouldn’t have to, necessarily. Here, let’s turn left - as I recall there’s a lovely pond down this path.”

You followed Elliott down the left-hand turn, then he said, “I must admit, [Y/n], I had a slightly ulterior motive in coming here. I wanted to speak to my uncle about his purchasing the estate from me, though of course all the proceeds would go to you. He seems amenable to it - he’d like to purchase it as a wedding gift for Leanne. But I know how important William’s legacy is to you, so I wanted you to come here with me, to meet him and Leanne. I’ll only sell it to him if you permit it, and only if you don’t intend to keep it for yourself. If you want to stay there, or if you don’t trust him to look after it properly, I’ll not sell it to him. It’s your home, after all, and you know I’ll not evict you from it nor leave it with someone untrustworthy.”

You reached the pond and there was a long silence as you considered everything Elliott had said. Although the idea of someone else living in what was supposed to be your family home with William filled you with dread, you didn’t much fancy the other options.

You had known for a while what you wanted.

A part of you felt it was a betrayal of William’s memory. You owed him so much, after all. But he had left you without an heir, and if you didn’t move on, then on your own death the estate would flounder.

“I have to think about it,” you decided. “There’s so much at stake here - for you, for me, for William’s legacy. I must consider what he would want me to do.”

You glanced down at the clear water of the pond, and your eyes widened when you saw the large body of a fish swim by.

“Look, you can see the fish!”

Elliott laughed. You looked at him, frowning.

“And just what is so funny?”

“Nothing, darling. I’m laughing because your childlike wonder never ceases to be adorable. Don’t you live by the riverside?”

“You can’t see fish in the Thames, it’s too dirty,” you said defensively, turning away from him to peer into the water again. “Besides, the water’s too toxic to consume, so I hardly expect any fish can survive in there. Can you see the fish in Australia?”

“Of course you can. But then again, Australia is an untempered land, still in her infancy. There’s nothing to pollute the waters with.”

“Oh, Australia’s a she?”

“Most definitely,” Elliott said. You felt his hands on your waist as he stood behind you, his body definitely too close to yours for propriety.

“That makes perfect sense, actually,” you teased. “The way you talk about it, someone might think you’re in love with it. Why don’t you marry Australia?”

“Hmm, I’d much rather marry you.”

You froze. Time stood still. Your heart missed several beats. When you turned around to look at Elliott, your mouth agape as if you were one of the fish in the pond, suddenly nothing in the world existed but for him and you.

“Do you - do you mean that?”

Elliott blinked in surprise, then laughed and shook his head.

“Perhaps I should have been clearer. What I’m saying, [Y/n], is that I’d like you to come back to Australia with me - as my wife.”

---

You were a little embarrassed at the way you’d excused yourself and almost ran off from Elliott, citing some mumbled excuse about having to think about his proposal.

A proposal! Elliott had proposed to you. You, with nothing to your name that he didn’t have, nothing more than the collateral damage from some ex-convict’s murderous rampage. You, a glorified street urchin, who had only risen to the status of a Lady because Judge Turpin had fallen for you as more than a whore who kept his bed warm.

What could he possibly expect to gain from a marriage to you? William had married you for love only because he knew he had little time left, because if your time hadn’t been cut short you were willing and able to serve him loyally and give him the heir he needed.

Perhaps that was it. Elliott had no heirs either, his wife having died some years earlier from sickness. He needed a wife, and he knew already how well you took his seed. You’d unintentionally spent the last few weeks essentially auditioning your body to him as marriage material.

You were in the empty parlour room, pacing back and forth as thoughts swirled around in your mind, until your reverie was broken by Duke Beaumont entering the room.

“Duke Beaumont, sir,” you said by way of greeting, accompanied by a curtsey. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m in here. I needed a little time alone with my thoughts.”

The Duke smiled knowingly. “Elliott proposed to you, then, did he?”

He knew? Of course he knew - Elliott must have told him that the sale was contingent on your accepting the proposal.

“Well… yes, he did,” you admitted. “I’m considering the options he’s laid before me, sir.”

“Well, let me give you a bit of help with that.”

The Duke reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a letter with its wax seal broken.

“Allow me to give you this - evidence of my nephew’s intentions, I suppose one would call it.”

“Sir?”

You took the letter cautiously, and Duke Beaumont smiled through his beard with a knowing glint in your eye.

“Curious, isn’t it, what a person says about another when they’re not around to hear it?”

With that bit of vague wisdom, the Duke left you alone with your thoughts and the mysterious letter.

You unfolded the letter and read:

Dear Uncle Rupert,

You may be surprised to be reading a letter from me addressed from London; I am just as surprised to be writing it.

A cousin on my father’s side residing in London passed late last year, and as his only surviving relative I’ve travelled to London to administer his estate.

He leaves behind a stately townhouse, containing many extravagant furnishings, books, art and the like. He also leaves behind a widow, a wife he married not long before his untimely death, and therefore he had not updated his will and she had not yet borne children.

My first instinct on hearing of my inheritance was to write back asking the solicitor to simply sell the estate on, but when I heard of my cousin’s lone wife, I felt it my duty to attend London myself to ensure she wouldn’t be left homeless.

On meeting her yesterday, however, my intentions have changed.

I’m not ashamed to say she has bewitched me. She’s certainly beautiful, but that’s only the start of her qualities, Uncle. She has an interest in the world most women don’t possess, and she’s clearly resourceful - having been barred from her husband’s money since his death, she instead has been making money for herself designing and making clothes.

I worry, though, that my cousin was less than kind to her. She seems afraid of men, and it took some time of conversation with her to convince her I wasn’t a danger. I fear, if left alone, she may be susceptible to marry a man who mistreats her, particularly if I grant her ownership of her husband’s sizeable estate.

While in London, as well as administering the estate, I intend to take the time to get to know her, and more importantly, to give her the chance to get to know me and understand that I pose no threat to her.

Then, if she’ll have me, I’ll ask her for her hand and bring her back to Australia with me.

Which brings me to the reason for my letter, other than a friendly greeting. [Y/n] is clearly still very attached to the house and its contents - understandably so, since she still carries my cousin in her heart. I don’t believe she’d wish to depart without certainty her husband’s legacy was being cared for by a trusted person.

I wonder, therefore, whether you, or perhaps someone you know, have any interest in purchasing the estate? The house is located centrally in London (for my cousin was a judge of the High Court) and its contents, if you wish to sell them on, would fetch a pretty penny at auction. I propose to sell it to you at a fraction of its value for the sake of a quick sale to a trusted person.

Please write back to the above mentioned address with your answer. I should also, if you are agreeable, like to visit your home during my stay in England, as it’s been many decades since we last met, and I’d like to meet my cousins you’ve so often written about.

Yours truly,

Elliott Marston

---

While you were considering the choice you had to make, Elliott couldn’t stand to sit around waiting, so he joined his cousins in riding out to shoot some pheasants.

To his frustration, he kept missing them, because his mind was still on you. His cousins teased him, not for missing his marks, but because he was so bewitched by you.

“Well, if she says no, she has to marry someone,” said one of the younger men, Duke Beaumont’s grandson, who was about your age, as the men were tying their kills to their horses. “I’ll gladly have her. Pretty little thing like that with a free London estate and no father to pay a dowry to? Bargain.”

Elliott’s hand twitched over the barrel of his gun, and he had to remind himself that murder was a bit harder to get away with in England than it was in Australia.

“If she rejects me, I hardly expect she’ll have you, Jonathan,” Elliott snarled.

“Oh yeah? I’m not twice her age, for one thing. Better put a bun in that oven before you run out of ammo, old man.”

“I’m forty-four.”

“Yeah, and she’s what, twenty?”

Jonathan’s brother, Samuel, nudged him with a laugh. “Hey, though, grandfather said her dead husband was sixty-something. Maybe she likes them old.”

Elliott stepped towards the two boys - because that’s what they were, boys , hardly men - with a snarl on his face and his hand firmly on the barrel of his gun.

“Speak one more unkind word about [Y/n] and I’ll tell your grandfather I mistook you both for pheasants.”

“Ah, only a jest, cousin,” Jonathan said with a dismissive wave. “I’d not have her really. Don’t want used goods, you know?”

Elliott forwent his gun for possibly the first time ever as his instinct took over and he punched Jonathan squarely in the jaw.

Samuel burst out laughing.

“Ha, that’s what you get, John!”

“Bloody bastard!” Jonathan cursed. “What was that for?!”

“For besmirching [Y/n]’s honour,” Elliott hissed. “Perhaps she does prefer older men, and who could blame her when men her age are nothing but boys?”

Jonathan glanced at his brother, who was still amused at seeing his brother taken down a peg, and so he made the wise decision not to engage Elliott any further.

“Hey, isn’t that her over there?” Samuel said, peering into the distance.

Elliott looked around, and sure enough, you were approaching atop a horse, riding sidesaddle behind Duke Beaumont.

“Grandfather, what are you doing out here?” Jonathan asked. “I thought you weren’t joining the hunt today? We’re just about to leave, actually.”

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m simply the delivery man. Lady Turpin required a ride out here and I was only too obliged to provide it. Off you pop, then, m’lady, and I’ll escort these two ratbags back to the house. Come along, pip pip!”

You slid off the back of the horse, landing on your feet, and the Duke turned his horse around to escort his obedient grandsons back to the house, leaving Elliott suddenly alone with you.

“There might be some pheasants left in the north burrow,” Elliott said. “Though I suspect you didn’t come here to hunt.”

You smiled coyly.

“Not for pheasants, no. I, um… I couldn’t wait for you to get back. Literally - Duke Beaumont practically threw me on the back of his horse. He seems to be quite enthusiastic about you and I.”

“You and I?” Elliott said questioningly, as if he didn’t know what you were talking about.

You pulled the letter out of a pocket (you always sewed pockets into your dresses) and handed it to him.

“The Duke showed me this.”

Elliott took the letter curiously, and when he opened it, if you didn’t know any better you might have thought he blushed.

“And… you liked it, did you?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

“And, er… what was your favourite part, if I might ask?”

You laughed.

“You wanted to marry me from the day we met.”

“Of course I did, I’d be a fool not to.”

“But you… you waited. As if - as if my opinion in the matter was important.”

“Of course it is. I don’t want you to marry me out of obligation, [Y/n]. I don’t want you to come to Australia because you’ve got nowhere else to go. And I certainly don’t want your estate. I want you, and I want you to want me.”

“I want you.”

Elliott’s eyes widened hopefully.

“Then you’ll have me?”

You grinned.

“Yes.”

Elliott wrapped his arm around your waist and easily picked you up, spinning you around on the spot, and you squealed.

“Elliott!”

He just laughed. When he put you down, you were both breathless, and he was grinning from ear to ear.

“Just you wait, [Y/n], you’ll love it in Australia.”

“I’m sure I will. I’ll love it anywhere we go, so long as I’m with you.”

---

You were married the very next day. You didn’t bother with an event wedding - neither of you knew anyone in England who wasn’t already at Ivy Manor. Besides, you’d both been married once before, and neither of you felt the need to wait for another opulent wedding. You just wanted to be wed, and so you married in your nicest dress and he in his best suit either of you had with you, and your guests were Elliott’s family.

Duke Beaumont gave you away, his daughter acted as maid of honour, and your groom was the most handsome man you’d ever laid eyes on.

You weren’t ashamed of the tears that ran down your cheeks as you exchanged vows. Why should you be? They were tears of joy, joy you’d never known you were capable or deserving of feeling.

You made love that night free of the unspoken tension that had pierced your sinful but oh so right premarital trysts. You were his wife, he your husband, and you were free to make love as often as you’d like.

Some confidence came over you and you impaled yourself on your husband’s cock, riding him with a ferocity and passion you never knew you were capable of.

Marriage must have given him a new virility, because Elliott came in and on you five times that night, but not without ensuring you came just as many. He worked wonders with his tongue, his fingers, his cock, and by the time you collapsed, exhausted, into each other’s arms, you were sweaty and sticky and full of his seed in just about every place imaginable.

“If I’d known when we met that this was what you were like in bed as a husband, I’d have married you on the spot,” you giggled. Elliott, although sated for now, was laying gentle kisses on the top of your head as he held you against his chest, as if your scent was a drug he was desperately addicted to.

“I can’t get enough of you, [Y/n],” Elliott mumbled against your hair. “I meant what I said in the letter — that you bewitched me from the moment we met.”

You looked up at him. He was exhausted, sweaty, and just about the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen, because his amber eyes were almost glowing with love as he looked at you.

“I think I knew you in another life,” you said quietly, almost in a daze, as if you were overcome by some kind of hypnotic trance just by looking into his eyes.

Elliott smiled.

“I’m glad I found you in this one.”

#alan rickman #elliott marston #elliott marston x reader #quigley down under #the eternal summer

45 notes · View notes