The Abbey, Quiet Isle, 1882
Her Grace the Duchess of Arryn, Sansa Hardyng- formerly the Duchess of Stormlands, and née Stark- was recently widowed for the second time and, frankly, rather pleased about it.
Her deceased husband's heir, one Bronze Yohn Royce, had waited until just the correct side of decency before arriving at Arryn's ancestral pile, The Aerie, to take residency. He'd paid lip service to the offer he knew he must make to the widow of his very distant relation, Harrold- that of a dower house for her to live in- and hadn't expected her to reply that, yes, she would like to take one of the dependent properties, thank you very much.
He'd expected her to want to return to her very own ancestral pile, after all. Winterfell was the beloved seat of the ducal Stark family, and positively seethed with humanity, most of it related to her. Starks were well-known for taking too seriously the advice that couples should be fruitful and multiply. Sansa herself was one of five (six if one counted the bastard cousin, and Starks always counted the bastard cousin). The eldest, Robb, had married and was seven-ninths of the way to having a third child. The bastard cousin had wed a Highlander and gotten started on what surely would be an absolute passel of ginger-headed wildlings, his wife recently delivered of their second. Even the younger of the Stark daughters had produced a child with her strapping-big husband (yet another bastard).
Bran, in his last year of university, and Rickon, yet in his teens, were both too young to have added to the collection of grandchildren yet, but the former was already affianced so it was a mere matter of time before he, too, contributed to the ever-expanding number of Starks infesting the North.
That left Sansa. Wed not merely once, but twice, and neither marriage had produced so much as a single late day in her woman's cycle. In view of who her husbands had been- the monstrous Joffrey Baratheon firstly, then the less-monstrous-but-still-not-stellar Harrold Hardyng thereafter, this lack of offspring was generally considered to be a boon, for the rest of the kingdom if not for Sansa herself.
Oh, she knew it was for the best. Joffrey's blood had been tainted by greed and malice, and Harry was just, as her sister Arya deemed him upon their first meeting, a 'smarmy rotter' with no concept of marital fidelity. Still, she rather thought she'd like to have children.
She'd like more to have a husband who actually cared for her, however.
Most of all, she wanted everyone to stop hounding her to 'get back on the horse' and find herself a third husband. Married the first time at eightteen, she'd scarcely been out of her mandatory two years of mourning for Joffrey before she'd married Harrold just after turning twenty-two. Now twenty-six, she yearned for some time to herself, some space, some quiet to think and decide how next to proceed.
One thing was certain: she would not be remarrying again for a very long time. Not until she was at least thirty. If her mother's persisting beauty was any indication, Sansa would keep her youthful appeal for many a year yet to come. She had plenty of time.
And so she chose the most remote, far-flung, and boring of Arryn's dependencies as her dower house: the old Abbey, home to a monastery a thousand years ago, on a small island squatting just where the Bay of Crabs began to tighten itself into the Trident. There were rumors it was haunted, which Sansa fervently hoped was the case- would it be a ghostly brother stalking the hallways in his homespun robe? Or some long-slain reaver who'd sailed up the river in search of easy plunder?
Sansa eschewed the train, preferring to make the trip the old way, by coach-and-four, stopping each night at a roadside inn before carrying on the next morning. Sansa enjoyed the mindlessness of staring out the carriage window at the landscape as it rolled by. Rocks and trees and water, the odd hamlet and farm. It was restful, rejuvenating, and after a week's travel, upon her arrival at The Abbey, she felt better than she had in years.
At long, long last, she was free.
Quiet Isle was a small place, grown up to support The Abbey back when it had been an actual abbey, the home of monks dedicating their lives to the Seven. After all the monasteries had been closed a few centuries back, and their assets seized by the crown, it was granted to the Duke of Arryn, and had been one of the duchy's holdings ever since.
Sansa had visited only once before, an overnight stop while traveling from King's Landing after Joffrey's death, on her way to The Aerie to marry Harrold. She'd loved the cries of the sea birds, the gentle lapping of waves against the shore, how the little causeway connecting the island to the mainland disappeared underwater during high tide.
She'd loved the feel of the place, how deeply restful it was, how easily it seemed to accept her. The ancient stone walls, a yard thick and draped with ivy, made her feel as if she had a sworn shield as her bulwark against all dangers, in a way she hadn't felt since childhood, long before she'd ever met Joffrey and had her innocent love of romance and chivalry wrenched away by brutal force.
It was the first thing she'd thought of, the first place, when Bronze Yohn had asked to where she wanted to remove, and now as the carriage rumbled across the slick cobbles of the causeway, she was glad she'd picked it.
A telegram had been sent to The Abbey as soon as she'd decided to come; she knew, as she stepped from the carriage toward the line of servants waiting to greet her, that the place would have been made ready for her.
"Your Grace," intoned the butler. "I am Narbert. We are honored you chose The Abbey as your dower house."
"Thank you, Narbert," she replied, nodding briefly at each maid and footman, each potboy and tweenie, all of whom bobbed a bow or curtsy at her before fleeing back to their duties. "I will change out of this traveling costume and then have tea in the parlor in one hour."
Narbert bowed and left to direct the staff to her wishes. Sansa followed his wife, the housekeeper, up the long, curving stairs, her maid Poppy and a trunk-laden footman trailing in her wake.
The room that had been prepared for her was the lady's suite, meant to be occupied by the mistress of the house. It was elegantly papered in cream flowers on a cerulean background, echoing the colors present elsewhere in the room, in the silks on the bed and the velvets at the windows. Everything was a decade out-of-mode, nicely shabby and lived-in. It felt wondrously comfortable to Sansa, a welcome departure from the stifling perfection of claustrophobic, lavish plushness that characterized her home with Joffrey, and the austere sparsity of bare floor and naked walls and unupholstered furniture she'd suffered at The Aerie.
She felt like Goldilocks: this worn old abbey was just right, and once again, Sansa was stricken by how appropriate her choice had been to come here. Oh, how giddy she felt, to be in her own home, no cold-eyed mother-in-law scrutinizing her every move, no husband countermanding her every command and directing every aspect of her life. She could dress as she liked, eat what she liked, sleep and wake when she liked. If there were a day she wished to walk to the village, she could do that. And if there were a day she felt like doing nothing but sitting at the parapets atop the tallest tower, staring at the water, watching the local fishermen ply their trade, why, she could do that, as well!
With a smile directed down at her feet, Sansa thought with glee of the huge box of chocolates and racy novel she'd brought with her for her first days at The Abbey. She fully intended to establish herself in the house's most comfortable chair, by a cozy fire, with a cup of steaming tea at her elbow, and do nothing but read and eat.
That ideal day was not to be for some while, alas.
By the next morning, Sansa soon realized that the ambiance of genteel neglect had not been carefully cultivated, as per the current fashion, to show a sort of exasperated resignation for one's ancient ancestral home and furnishings. No, The Abbey had genuinely been forgotten, and had scraped by with the bare minimum for a decade or more. Narbert and his wife had not taken salaries in years. Some of the shopkeeps in the village had been extending credit for months, and their patience had begun to wear thin. Sansa's advent to Quiet Isle had come at a fortuitous time, it seemed.
This would not do at all.
Sansa asked Narbert for a telegram blank and wrote out a demand to Bronze Yohn for the entirety of her dowager's portion in careful language and precise lettering. Then she went down to the village and observed it being sent before visiting each and every shop and paying a token amount toward The Abbey's burgeoning debts, to indicate she intended to fully compensate them.
By the time she trudged back up the rain-slick hill, her skirt's hem was damp to her knees and her boots caked in cold mud, but she felt a fine warm glow of satisfaction for having done her duty by the townspeople. Her father had always admonished her to never take advantage of them, that they lived closer to the bone than the upper classes realized and could scarce afford to wait when nobs decided they needed to fritter away funds better spent on fulfilling their obligations.
However, it meant that she was now down to her last two dragons, eight stags, and a fistful of copper stars. She hoped that Bronze Yohn would be prompt in wiring the money to her, and that the larder was well-stocked enough until he did, because there would be few purchases made until then.
"The Abbey is financially embarrassed at the moment, Narbert," Sansa told the butler while unbuttoning her damp pelisse. "We'll have a lavish party once more funds arrive, but until then, we're on rations."
"How do you mean, Your Grace?" Narbert asked, wary. He took the pelisse, holding it with ginger fingertips so as to not transfer its dampness to his pristine self, and handed it to a nearby maid to launder.
"Light meals, no coal at night, and do any of the footmen have talent at fishing? Perhaps one or two could try their hand and see if they can catch us some supper."
In counterpoint to Narbert's dour expression at this, Sansa was feeling rather light-hearted. No one ever starved for eating sparingly a few days, and if it were the price she paid to be mistress of her own home, so be it.
"I'll inquire, Your Grace," Narbert intoned, and made his dignified way down the hall.
Sansa made her way up the stairs to her bedroom, enlisting the assistance of a passing maid to unhook her bodice and help her out of her corset and bustle, changing into another plain black day gown. How glad she would be when her mourning period was over and she could wear colors again! But losing Harry meant she was to be imprisoned in black for a full year, then in gray for another year beyond that.
Twenty-two more months... Sansa wondered if, being so far from anyone she knew, she could chance wearing colors. Nothing bright or pastel, of course, but something drab... brown, camel, perhaps a muted green? She looked terrible in black, and worse in gray, for all that it was her family's official color. And since the main reason she was worth anything to anyone was her looks, when she looked pallid and sickly, it depressed her mood.
Yes, she decided as she smoothed her dark bombazine skirt, tomorrow she would try it and see if the servants would be hopelessly offended by her irreverence.
Then Sansa frowned, because it sounded as if a snort of laughter had come from the other side of the room. A masculine snort, at that, which made no sense because how could there be a man in her room? The only male persons in the The Abbey were the footmen who had taken their unfortunate selves off to try catching fish in this torrent, the gardener and coachman playing cards in the stables since it was too rainy to work, and Narbert, who likely didn't even want to see his own wife in a state of undress, let alone his employer.
It must merely have been her imagination.
She plucked her novel from the bed, the box of chocolates from the table, and settled in for a cozy afternoon.
A light supper of poached fish with potatoes and carrots was brought up, and Sansa ate while continuing to read, even after the fire went out. She had come to a particularly exciting part of the book, where the heroine was being ravished by the pirate by whom she'd been abducted. He was described as a tall and strong man, fierce and brave, and she thrilled a bit at the idea of being embraced by such. Both Joffrey and Harrold had been handsome, but slight, and no taller than she.
How would it feel, she pondered, to be held against a wide chest, and gaze up at the man who was about to kiss her so masterfully? Thoughtful, she closed the volume on a bookmark and wandered to her bed while unbuttoning her shirtwaist. She'd already told her maid that she'd undress herself, and made quick work of it, rubbing briskly at her ribs to sooth the reddened marks left by her front-closing corset.
She stood, nude, in the rapidly cooling air of her bedroom, and enjoyed the freedom from all those encumbering layers. Nighttime was the only part of her life when she felt at ease; no eyes upon her, no constricting clothing. Behind that door, she could be herself. She drew a long linen nightgown over her head and turned the damper on the oil lamp at her bedside.
Sansa lay in the bed for a long while, relaxed but awake. The mattress cradled her body nicely, the sheets were crisp and the quilt, soft and warm. Still her mind felt too active for sleep, her thoughts returning to the romance scene in her novel. What would it be like, to be desired for herself, instead of for what she brought to a union? And more, what would it be like to actually want a man, to be affected by his powerful body, to long to run her hands over his strong limbs, instead of submitting out of obligation?
She pictured herself in place of the kidnapped heroine of the novel, clasped in the passionate arms of her pirate lover. He was dark, she decided, with long unruly hair and a face more saturnine than handsome. There was a cruel set to his lips, but his eyes were blazing with desire. He pulled her close and kissed her deeply, as if he were starving and she the last morsel of food in the world.
Sansa covered her breast with her own hand, pretending it was his that cupped and caressed her, his fingers that rubbed and pinched her nipple. She and her pirate were laying down now, his big body looming as he kissed her, his tongue playing sensually with hers. Her breath came faster and heat streaked through her veins. Desire twisted her belly, and her legs moved restlessly until he covered them with one of his own.
Her hands- his hands- flung off the covers, then slid down Sansa's legs and began rucking up her nightgown. Warm palms skated over her thighs, parting them while she gasped. Long, thick fingers arrowed straight to the heart of her, sliding easily.
Sansa was drowning in heat. Impatiently, she wrenched the nightgown over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her reward was a hot, wet mouth on her nipple, and a finger slipped deep inside. The pirate sucked on her breast, hard, and it was as if there was a red-hot wire connecting her nipple to the locus of nerves between her legs. Her hands tangled in his hair, and she bit her own lip viciously to keep from making noise.
The hand withdrew from between her thighs, pressing them wide, and the pirate's body came to rest there instead. He was so large, it seemed as if he were everywhere, surrounding her. The blunt, rounded head of his shaft stroked up her center and she keened, arching up, begging for more contact.
The pirate chuckled in her ear, a low, sensuous sound, and then he was sinking into her. Sansa struggled for breath; his penetration was masterful, complete, straining the bounds of her capacity. She was shocked, and wildly excited. The pirate's long hair fell around their faces as he leaned in to kiss her again, and his tongue found hers just as his hips began to piston.
Oh, but it was good.
It had never approached this with Harry, though he'd tried, and certainly nowhere near it with Joffrey. Not even touching herself, in the past, had compared to the way lust pulsed through her body, stronger and stronger until she was clutching around his chest, fingernails digging into the rippled muscles of his back as she moved her hips in counterpoint to his thrusts.
Every withdrawal was agony, and the split second before the next penetration seemed like an hour. Sansa had never realized how empty she had been, all this time. Now that she knew what it was to be truly filled, how would she endure going back? She clamped her arms around her pirate, sliding against his chest, slick with his sweat as his pace quickened.
The scent of their sex was thick in the air, and Sansa should have been mortified by the vulgarity of it, the bawdy slapping of flesh against flesh, the way each of his thrusts pushed a cry from her lips. She felt the escalation of her passion, felt the red-hot wire pulled tighter and tighter, and strained against him, chasing after him every time he withdrew.
His big hands framed her face and held her for his kiss, another near-brutal invasion. She nipped his bottom lip, sucked on his tongue, moaned into his mouth. It was about to happen, she was so close, and he never faltered, never slowed down or finished too soon as Harrold had been wont to do. Sansa realized, in wonderment, that he was going to power right through her climax instead of leaving her twitchy and frustrated, as had been Joffrey's usual habit.
And then it was there, it was crashing over her, and she was writhing against him. She could not have stifled her outcries of pleasure if she had tried, and her voice echoed off the room's stone walls. Above her, the pirate was shuddering, driving deeply into her so that her pleasure stretched far longer than she had thought possible. He threw back his head, neck corded with thick muscle that Sansa wanted to bite, his harsh face a rictus of ecstasy.
His hips flew between her thighs, making her flesh feel like it was aflame, and she felt shock as she came again, suddenly, flung headlong into it with no warning at all. She sucked in a breath, needing to scream her satisfaction to the heavens, but her pirate threaded his fingers into her hair- the braid had come undone around the same time as her nightgown- and pressed her face to his shoulder. Sansa took the rounded cap of muscle between her teeth and rode out her climax with the salt of his sweat strong on her tongue.
"Oh, God," she panted when her limbs unlocked and she could breathe again. "Oh, God. Oh, God."
The pirate's feel and scent faded, and Sansa became aware of herself once more. Had she fallen asleep? That had been the most vivid, realistic, and arousing dream she'd ever had. She was damp with perspiration, completely nude, with her legs wide and both her hands between them, one still resting on the button at the top of her split and the fingers of the other- all four of them- plunged deep inside. As soon as she realized, her body clenched around them once more.
"Oh, God," Sansa groaned again, and quickly withdrew them. They were soaked and she desperately wanted to wash them, and wipe off her sweat, but her legs were still quivering and she knew she'd never make it to the wash stand.
She lay there a long time, and flinched when she realized how noisy she had been- might the servants have overheard her? But the walls of the Abbey were a foot thick of stone, and the doors all solid wood. Unless they'd had their ears pressed to the keyholes, they would not have been able to hear her rough wails and harsh gasps. She felt her face flame, embarrassment rolling in a wave over her.
But why should she be embarrassed? she thought contrarily a moment later. She'd been a good and proper wife- twice- hadn't she? Never so much as peeked at another man despite her aversion to her own husbands. And if she sought satisfaction for herself after they'd disappointed her, well, that was only sensible, wasn't it? Wouldn't do to go to bed all achy and unfulfilled, feeling sordid and used after they'd left her in her damp, mussed bed.
Finally, Sansa's breathing returned to normal, and her skin was covered in goose pimples from the chill of the night air on her bare, sweat-damp flesh. When she felt her legs would hold her, she stood and made her wobbly way to the wash stand. The water in the pitcher was cold, but it felt refreshing as she sponged off her body. Once dry, she pulled on her nightgown for the second time, ran a brush quickly through her tangled hair and braided it again.
Sansa had just enough strength to fall back into bed and pull the covers over herself. Her last thought was dreamy amazement at how incredibly, wonderfully realistic her pirate had been. The book had not seemed that excellent a story, nor the characters so compelling, but clearly when inspired, her imagination was up to the challenge of improvising quite a splendid bed partner indeed.
She decided not to donate that book to the lending library as planned.