IX. Lay Lady Lay (definitely M)
It was very late when John Bates finished helping his Lordship ready for bed and began to tidy up. Anna had long since retired to her room, regrettably, so the valet decided to take with him a few shirts to mend. He didn't sleep particularly well, not with the threat of Vera hanging over his head, and he found that keeping his hands busy helped to ease some of the anxiety that consumed him after dark. With one arm full of shirts, he reached for the doorknob to the ante-chamber. It had been fidgety for days, and took an extra jiggle before it opened. He made a mental note to have the door seen to in the morning.
Downstairs the kitchen was warm and inviting, and thankfully the rest of the servants had gone to bed. John wasn't sure he would be able to set across from O'Brien for an hour or two, even if they both kept their counsel. The woman was just odious, and put her cold mood out into the atmosphere for others to absorb. John had enough pressures to attend to, without dealing with Sarah O'Brien's one-sided vendetta.
At the wooden table, he began to rifle through the shirts, looking for the one with the most stubborn stain to begin working on first. If he let it sit for a while, the stain might lift easier. With irritation he sifted through the shirts again and realized with frustration that he must have left that particular shirt upstairs. On a regular day he might have been tempted to bugger it all and go to bed, but the laundry was to be picked up the next morning. It was important to have all the shirts ready to go before he retired for the night.
Leaving the load behind, John headed back up the stairs, moving quite slowly. After such a long day, his leg bothered him all the more and made the trek that much more of an inconvenience. He cursed his own forgetfulness the entire way.
It was late and the house was mostly silent. Fortunately for John, his Lordship rarely slept in his dressing room. The times he did usually coincided with a particularly distressing evening that left her ladyship particularly peevish. Usually by morning his Lordship was in such a foul temper that John dressed him quickly and then bailed, so that his Lordship could take a few minutes to appease his wife before heading down to breakfast.
John was distracted with thoughts of the ways he might make up with Anna, once they were properly wed, so it wasn't until he had closed the outer door to his Lordship's dressing room behind him that he realized the room itself wasn't empty.
Low voices filtered into the small ante-chamber space and John froze. The murmur was so low that he could not make out any particular words so he edged closer to the second door. It was open several inches.
A low, guttural groan had John jumping back as he realized what must be happening on the other side of the door. He backed up as quietly as possible until his back hit the outer door. He turned the handle behind him and pressed, trying to move quickly.
The door didn't budge. The knob turned but the door stayed shut. He jiggled the handle as he had earlier, to no avail. He tried again, turning the knob more sharply then pressing his weight against the door.
No good.
He felt a cold sweat bloom in concert with a full body blush as he realized the full breadth of his predicament.
Trapped. In the ante-chamber of his Lordship's dressing room. While his Lordship and his wife were...engaged...just on the other side of the door.
Many, many years ago under far different circumstances, John and Robert had been...well. Comrades. They were still friends, but there was a pronounced shift in stature that changed the nature of their interactions at Downton. But in war-time, many of those boundaries faded and John thought back to the nights they spent at camp, sitting around a fire. They were men's men, then. Talking, boasting, and mostly drinking. They were lonely men who missed their women, and sometimes the talk was not the most delicate. One evening, after demolishing several bottles of sub-standard scotch, the men sat in a circle and reminisced about the things they missed most with their wives. The talk was quite blue, and filled with guffawing laughter and tall tales as the men recounted their most memorable encounters.
When it was Robert's turn, the young man had laughed and sputtered, but aided by the amount of alcohol in his system, had begun a story of his gorgeous wife. Within minutes Robert had become caught up in his tale, lost track of his audience, as he let slip some salacious details. He was well-pleased with her enthusiasm and her willingness to try new things. It hadn't taken much to convince her to meet him in the empty smoking room during one of his parents more boring dinners. With lips and hands he drew forth her consent, before taking her on one of the very uncomfortable couches. She had come alive in his arms that night. He had told them that she made those that had come before her pale in comparison.
With his story over, the men disbanded back to their tents. Each went to bed just a little frustrated, their predicament exacerbated by Robert's drunken tale, the heat of the fire, the scotch and their own pressing loneliness.
Now John couldn't help but remember Robert's words. The way he had described the alabaster skin he uncovered slowly, and the way she arched into his hands. How she seemed to want him as much as he wanted her. Her sensitive breasts and how she would keen when he touched them, weighing their perfect heft in his palms. How she would call out, not even hushing herself a little bit, encouraging her husband with wordless whimpers and cries.
"Cora," his Lordship's voice was deeper and more gravelly than John had ever heard, and the sound brought him back to his current predicament. He had hoped perhaps they would move into her Ladyship's room, to the comfort of the bed, but no luck. He tried to think of a way out of the situation that didn't involve being discovered or bursting in on his employers as they were intimate.
John moved closer to the dressing room door again, chancing peek to see if perhaps they were moving in the direction of the bedchamber. But the door was only open a few inches and he couldn't exactly tell where they were. One step to the right, however, and he was startled to see them in full body. He jumped backward an inch before realizing he was seeing their reflection in the full-length mirror.
John's mouth gaped. His Lordship had his wife pressed against the door to her bedchamber. One of her thighs was wrapped around his waist and his lordship held it there, using the leverage to drive into her at a very determined pace. Her nightdress was not completely off, pooled above where they joined. His lordship's head was tucked against her chest, buried between her breasts as she clutched at his neck so desperately her knuckles were white. Her ladyship's head was tossed back against the door and already there were a few red marks along the column of her throat. She bit her lip and then cried out again, as his Lordship shifted positions and drove himself even deeper into her.
It had only taken a handful of seconds, and Bates was stepping back away from the door, knowing he could never unsee it, but wishing all the same. He tried the outer knob again, this time half hysterical, and still the latch would not release. The grunts from the room next door became more rhythmic, their moans in tandem with the distinctive slap of skin on skin. John wanted to press his palms into his eyes, wished it was possible to erase a mental image through force of will.
But the sounds went on and then John did press his fists to his ears, turning until his face was pressed into the corner of the small chamber.
"Robert," Her ladyship's voice was strained and breathy, and her words were knocked out of her in a staccato that must have matched the rhythm of their pistoning hips. "Make me yours."
"Mine." His lordship growled, and John began to recite poetry in his mind, anything to draw his attention from the couple on the other side of the door.
"Harder, darling."
"Love you."
It went on. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours. But the desperate sounds of pleasure on the other side of the room continued, only somewhat muffled by the arms Bates had wound around his head. He had to admit, he was somewhat impressed. Considering his age, Robert's stamina was absolutely amazing.
After a time, John realized that the room had gone quiet, suddenly devoid of the sounds of reckless love-making. He hoped against hope that they couple had finished or moved on. With extreme care he unwound himself from the knot he'd twisted into and straightened up. If they'd moved back to the safety of her ladyship's bedroom, he could doze his way through the outer door and escape to the relative safety of the servant's quarters. Stepping up to the dressing room door he pressed his ear to the wood before hazarding a glance back into the mirror.
Lord Robert stood with his wife wrapped in his arms. It was difficult to tell where his body ended and hers began. The lamps in the room had burned themselves low, and the moonlight was slipping through clouds, casting them in ever-changing shadows. Lady Cora's hands made soothing passes over her husband's back as he held her, caressing gently. She dropped feather kisses along his neck and shoulder, as he buried his face in her hair. The frenzied desire of minutes earlier was replaced with a deep and abiding affection and mutual adoration. It was perhaps more intimate than their lovemaking, and John backed away once more.
With a prayer to whichever deity might be listening, he tried the outer doorknob again. To his surprise it opened easily and he tumbled into the well-lit hallway blinking fast. Without pausing to think on the change of his fortune, he made his way as quickly as possible back to the servants quarters, determined to forget everything he'd just seen.
A/N - I don't think Bates is a voyeur, but I'd swear I saw an ante-chamber outside Robert's dressing room door. Ever since then I've been fascinated by the idea of someone getting caught in there. It could happen! Also, you'll never convince me the boys didn't have boy-talk during the war.
I did not intend to write this until AFTER my christmas story was completed, but that one is a MONSTER that gets longer every time I open the file so I figured I would knock this out early.
