Chapter 11
Victoria decided to change some things in the domestic organization of her house. Now she needed to enjoy her relationship with William and that had to be kept a secret. Having Lehzen sleeping in a room next door with a connecting entry and people bursting into her chambers could not continue to happen.
She informed Lehzen that from now on she would have to move to another bedroom relatively close but not communicating with hers. And she established that the entrances into her chambers could only be made after verbally authorized by her. Besides, there was nothing strange about doors locked from the inside. That didn't mean something was wrong.
Lehzen considered it to be an affront, and stated that she didn't understand the reason for such imposition, so different from what had always been. Victoria asked her not to feel that way and explained that she was no longer a child, and that she only wished to have more privacy, to be able to spend more time alone, to be at peace with her thoughts, her decisions and her reading. To be queen was to be too scrutinized and monitored and she didn't want to continue to feel watched, like a prisoner in her own home.
On the other hand, Melbourne was again a regular presence in the palace outside office hours, which obviously could not go unnoticed by the people around. But that was not unheard of, it had always happened in the past.
Whoever was closer and spent more time with the Queen realized that she looked for Melbourne with her eyes whenever he entered a room, that she glowed whenever he appeared, that she had no eyes for anyone else when he was present, that she changed her countenance when he left. But that was not exactly news to anyone either. Their close relationship had always been object of an exchange of views since the beginning of her reign. Perhaps now there were those who sensed even a greater intimacy between them...
That they would continue to call her Mrs. Melbourne was not original, and secretly Victoria even liked to know that they called her that, and that they imagined that she could have an intimate relationship with William, which was in fact true. Actually, that absolutely forbidden relationship, although dangerous and difficult to maintain for both of them, was extremely exciting!
After a few days the menses came. Victoria sighed with relief and reported this to William, who said that from now on they had to be more careful if they had intimate relations to try to avoid pregnancy before the proper time. He would have to withdraw in time to prevent the seed from being deposited inside, thus preventing her from conceiving.
Because of her closeness to the Queen's intimacy, Skerrett had noticed that she was uneasy before the menses came, and that she was relieved after they appeared. Suddenly she remembered the conversation they had had in which the Queen had asked what happened between a man and a woman on their wedding night. And remembered that strange hairdo... Had she had physical contact with someone and so was curious to know how it was before, and then was afraid of being expecting? It could not be! The Queen wouldn't do that! With whom would she do that? There was only one man she truly liked! The man Skerrett had always thought from the beginning - when bets were made in the scullery on whom the Queen would marry - was the only one she liked. Lord Melbourne! And lately Lord Melbourne was, again, always in the palace... So, could they be lovers? Skerrett felt a mixture of emotions. She found it lovely that they loved each other. But she was afraid for them both.
That night there would be a ball. The Queen had received envoys from other European courts and wanted to show the grandeur of the English court.
She was just finishing getting ready with Skerrett's help when a footman arrived with a small silver tray with two white gardenias and said:
"With regards from Lord Melbourne, Ma'am."
Victoria grabbed the flowers, smiled, smelled them and tucked them into the neckline of her dress as Skerrett did her hair.
When William entered the ballroom he swept it with his eyes searching for her, but Victoria was not there yet.
He approached Emma Portman and asked:
"Emma, is the Queen ready yet?"
"When I left her chambers she was ready and the dresser had already left, she must be about to show up. Have patience, William..."
"Can I go see her?"
She sighed with a tender look.
"Come with me!"
Emma walked down the hall with William to protect the potential discovery of the Prime Minister at that hour in a place of access to the Queen's private quarters. If someone showed up, they could pretend to be there talking. Besides, Emma's presence made any supposition of a criminal conversation between the Queen and Lord Melbourne disappear.
When they reached the door Emma looked down the hall and, seeing no one, signaled William to enter.
"I'll stay here and protect your rearguard..."
He went in and closed the door.
Victoria, sensing someone entering, ran to him while saying:
"Lord Melbourne! In the Queen's quarters at this hour?"
They kissed.
"Emma came here with me and stayed outside. I just wanted to be able to say hello to you properly, which I cannot do publicly at the ball."
He noticed the flowers on her cleavage, but made no comment.
They kissed again.
She grabbed his face in her hands and asked:
"Stay with me tonight!"
He grabbed her wrists, pulling her hands up to his chest and asked:
"Victoria, don't tempt me! I can't stay here overnight..."
"William, I want to feel you inside me again!" She pleaded with her hands on his chest as he held them in his.
He felt an increasing excitement at her request.
"Aaaa... Victoria, don't say that, please, or neither of us will show up at the ball! Which seems very obvious to me..."
They kissed.
He wanted her naked! Here! Now! Run his hands all over her body! Kiss her from head to toe! But the damn clothes she wore made it impossible for him to access her body, and he couldn't crumple her dress or hair because she had just finished getting ready for the ball... It was necessary to resist the temptation to undress her...
Panting, he stopped kissing her.
"Stay until the end of the dance. After I leave wait for a while, pretend you're leaving, but ask Emma to help you get back here. Tomorrow we'll find a way for you to leave without being noticed..." She said while trying to calm her breathing.
"It is beyond my strength to reject that proposal, Victoria! I just don't know how I will resist during the dance..."
She smiled and said:
"Now go... In a few minutes I'll be there."
He kissed her again and headed for the door.
He tapped lightly for Emma to open the door and tell him if he could leave.
They both returned to the ballroom.
A few moments later the Queen came in looking for him with her eyes.
She went to Melbourne immediately, pretending not to have seen him before, and with a reason for conversation already prepared to talk to him.
"Lord M!"
She grabbed his hands in hers and said:
"Thank you for the flowers! They are as beautiful as ever!"
He recognized the line from the other ball. He replied as on that day:
"The glasshouses of Brocket Hall are at your service, Ma'am!"
And he completed:
"Perhaps I could have the pleasure of... dancing with you..."
She smiled.
The music erupted in the hall and they began to dance.
"This ball is for you alone! Today I am only yours! I organized this ball so that I could make up to you for what happened in that other one..." Victoria said looking excited.
He thought that, in fact, now she was only his! How had that happened? It was still a dream, it couldn't be real! He pulled her against him with his right hand and squeezed her left hand in his.
"I thought the ball was meant to welcome the ambassadors…" He said.
"That was a good excuse, wasn't it?"
He laughed.
"As queen, it's up to me to choose who I want to dance with, so today, it will only be with you! Let's imagine that there is no one else in this hall, that it is just us!"
"I think we should always keep in mind that there are a lot of people in the hall and that everyone's eyes are on us..."
She smiled.
Despite the warning he himself gave, he knew that he was holding her against him tighter than was necessary for the dance. But he wanted her! Very much!
"And you'll have to dance with other people as well, we need to conceal…" He continued.
"I know... Do you remember my coronation ball?"
"Of course, it was unforgettable!"
"Do you know when was the first time I felt safe that night?"
He looked at her inquiringly.
"It was when you put your hand on my waist and we started dancing."
He smiled and looked at the flowers on her chest.
"I still haven't explained the meaning of the flowers on your chest, have I?"
"No! Do they have a special meaning?"
"They do!"
"What is it?"
"The gardenias mean purity, sincerity, sweetness... And they are also a symbol of... a secret love!"
"William! Was that the message you sent me with the flowers?" She asked surprised.
"It was!"
"And I didn't know?"
"It seems not!"
"I thought they were beautiful, and I interpreted your offer as a gesture of love, after all you only give flowers to someone you like... But I didn't know that specific meaning. And the peonies, your favorite, what do they mean?"
"Sincerity, happiness… ideal marriage."
Victoria smiled at the discovery of this hidden language.
"I'm stunned! All is left is to ask the meaning of the orchids..."
"Orchids can mean love, desire and seduction. But they can have different meanings depending on the color. The white orchid means pure love. The pink or lilac orchid is a flower of seduction!"
"William! I am fascinated by this revelation! And it seems to me that right now the gardenias are the most appropriate. Symbol of our secret love!"
He laughed.
The Queen was reputed to be the best dancer in the kingdom. She was proud of it. She liked to dance until three or four o'clock in the morning, but tonight there was a strong appeal for the dance not to last so long. She couldn't bear to wait... Leaving was the only way to end the ball. There were already few people in the ballroom. She asked Emma to help William put into practice the request she had made to him. Emma warned that he really had to leave early before anyone could see him in the palace at an hour for which there would be no justification.
The Queen left, her eyes locked on him, prolonging the voluptuousness of the moment.
He followed her with eyes full of desire until she disappeared through the door.
The remaining participants began to leave.
Melbourne and Emma stayed there.
He left to dismiss the coachman, saying that he would walk home, and then returned inside, as if he had forgotten something, as the last couple of people left.
He found Emma again in the hall. There was no one else there.
She accompanied him once again down the corridor, empty at that hour.
"Emma, I'm so sorry to put you in this situation!"
"Do not worry about me. What did I tell you once? That I was willing to help you in everything!"
"I just don't want you to come to harm because you are protect us. Imagine that someone thinks you and I are lovers, you are a married woman…"
"Everyone knows we are friends. And I'll take care of my husband. And you also know that he and I have a very open relationship, he doesn't control what I do..."
"But I'm embarrassed by the circumstance..."
"Don't be, William, you're not doing anything wrong."
"And how do I get out tomorrow?"
"The Queen will not rise early because of today's ball, and so the dressers will not come to the room early. But you will have to leave early before there is movement in the palace. The sun rises around 7:30 a.m. You have to leave before that, between 7 and 7:30, and sneak out through the servants' wing and the back. I'll be here at 7:15 to protect your way out."
Having arrived to the Queen's chambers, with no one else in the hallway, Emma waited for him to enter and left.
The chambers were now in the dark, but the bedroom door was ajar and from the gap there came a light. Melbourne locked the door of the chambers and headed for Victoria's bedroom with an expectant commotion in his chest. He felt like a young man in love at a forbidden rendezvous with a young bride. How many years have passed since he last felt like this?
She had heard him come in. The sound of the door closing, then the sound of footsteps on the way to the bedroom. The pace of his footsteps coming towards her was thrilling! The imminence of what would follow!
William slowly pushed the bedroom door open.
Victoria was standing with her back to the door, her nightdress on, her hair down, her shoulders and back uncovered. She waited anxiously for him in that position without turning around.
He moved slowly towards her, turned her hair to the left, and ran his right hand slowly down her naked back, pressing lightly upward.
Feeling his breath behind her was enough to get excited! And now he ran his hand on her back! It was a fire that was burning! Just the anticipation she had went through in the previous hours was already stimulating! And now he was there! She closed her eyes.
Then he ran his hand over her right shoulder, down her arm, grabbed it right under the shoulder, kissed her shoulder, laid his chin on top of it and wrapped his arms around her waist.
She leaned the right side of her face against his head.
He ran his hands over her body, over the shirt. The left hand over the breasts, the right over her right thigh and then the belly, at the level of the uterus, pressing her against his body.
Feeling enveloped by him, Victoria let out a soft moan of pleasure.
Their breathing became more audible.
He pulled her nightgown up.
Victoria lifted her arms and he undressed her and threw the garment to the floor.
She was completely naked, only with the white stockings that reached a third of her thigh.
He hugged her again and pressed her against his body. He ran his tongue and teeth over her neck and filled his hands with her breasts. There were no words! The feeling of having her in his hands like that was indescribable! She gave him vitality and took his strength away! It seemed contradictory, but it wasn't! Everything about her was so young, pure, lush, untouched, forbidden! If he didn't love her like this, viscerally, it would be a sin to touch her like that! He felt her breasts with his left hand as he wrapped her waist with his right arm.
Her body vibrated with desire.
Keeping his left hand on her breasts, he lowered his right hand down Victoria's belly - feeling the flatness of her belly, as he had wished to do in innumerable meetings in the past - then placing it in the middle of her legs.
Victoria's first involuntary reaction was to retreat, but then she pulled her thighs away, facilitating the placement of his hand. She already knew how it was... his long fingers covering her whole.
He stimulated her for some time in that position as he kissed and sucked her neck.
She was jubilating because of what he was doing to her, and felt the excitement of his body glued to her...
"William..." She said, propelling her hips back as he pressed her from the front with his hand and from the back with his own body, trapping her in his arms.
His effect on her was always so powerful! In his arms she lost all control over herself! She wanted to kiss him! She insisted on turning her body and turned to him.
They hugged and kissed each other intensely.
She found the contact of her naked body against his dressed body tremendously exciting! The touch of the coat's velvet fabric on her skin, the buttons of the vest, the chain of the watch...
He suddenly grabbed her buttocks with both hands as she tucked her fingers into his hair and kissed him desperately.
Then she began to undress him. She untied the handkerchief, helped to take off his coat, unbutton the vest...
His mouth seized hers in a possessive kiss.
She undressed his shirt with impetuosity and ran her hands over his belly and chest, as if mapping his body with her fingers. Then over the shoulders and the back.
He unbuckled his pants. He turned her around and made her walk to the bed, flex her knees and climb onto it. He followed her. Always with her in front of him and with her back to him. Holding her, with his left hand on her belly, he grabbed two pillows with his right hand and placed them under Victoria's belly, tilting her to lie on her stomach, her hips higher than the rest of the body. She stretched her arms forward.
He left the bed for a moment, signaling her to remain in that position.
She waited for what would happen next. The other time it hadn't been like that... A horde of butterflies fluttered inside her stomach!
He stripped off the rest of his clothes and took off his shoes. He went back to the bed and stood behind her. He began to gently kiss her left thigh over the stocking and went up, up, passing the buttock and then down to the beginning of her back. In that position Victoria formed a wonderful concavity at the end of her back and just above the buttocks! He went back on the right side, kissing the buttock and then her right thigh.
She felt a vibrating energy running through her.
Then he ran his hands up and down her back, pressing the index finger down her spine. Her skin was so soft! Then he covered her back with kisses, up and down. He alternated between kisses and sweeps with his tongue.
"Ooooh...!" She exclaimed.
He felt and kissed her buttocks on both sides, enjoying the heat radiating to his hands. He found the volume and curvature of her hips and buttocks before him beautiful! He busied himself for a while between licking, sucking and nibbling.
Victoria was burning!
He grabbed her thighs with both hands and strode down with kisses the inside of her buttocks until he reached her entrance with his mouth. He kissed it and ran his tongue over it repeatedly.
"Aaaah...!" She exclaimed relatively loudly. What was he doing? Was that possible? His mouth over there, in her! Did other people also do this?
"Very different today from the day he had given her a chaste kiss on the cheek!" He thought. "This was her taste! He had already tasted the skin, the lips, and now... The smell and the taste of her were... fresh and pure! No other man had been there before, and he had only done it once..."
Then she felt his hands lift her hips, his nose moving down her middle, up and down, and then his tongue coming down and passing slowly, but repeatedly, in that place that when caressed by his hand had an extraordinary effect! Victoria was on the verge of screaming! Not because the sensation was extremely intense, but because it was terribly exciting! She closed her eyes shut and grabbed the pillows in front of her.
He put his body on top of hers.
She sighed. The madness of his skin sliding over hers!
He kissed her shoulders and neck.
She felt brushing on her middle the length of his will, voluminous and urgent! Hot and soft!
He burst into her all at once. It was not very fast, but it was sequential. All at once.
Victoria felt his entrance into her more sudden than the first time. But then maybe it was even more exciting like this! It was, at least, different.
She opened her mouth and exclaimed:
"Oh, William!"
He withdrew slightly. He pushed back deep inside her.
She reacted moaning.
Hearing her moan like that, underneath him, was delirious!
He retreated again only in part. He didn't move forward again, as she expected.
However, she recoiled trying to get him to fill her again.
"Very good!" He thought.
And then... He invaded her body, going back and forth, and that was inexplicably astonishing. The pressure of his body on her made her hips rise even higher and her back bend. That position made penetration deeper. It seemed that he hit some inner part of her body that had not been touched the other time.
He thrust his right hand under her body and grabbed her breasts that, in that position, bulged.
Everything accelerated in both: the breathing, the heartbeat, the speed of their bodies' movement.
Victoria felt her body respond to his stimuli. Her Prime Minister! In her bed! Inside her! She grabbed the pillows in front of her and asked:
"Ah, my love, how can this be so good?"
"You drive me crazy, Victoria!" He whispered in her ear.
She felt herself entering a state in which she was not a queen, nor an ordinary woman, only a female, the whole woman of that man who possessed her!
"Continue!" She asked.
He increased the tossing speed. Then he lifted his body and buried his fingers in her buttocks. The panting, carried by the frenzy. She was delicious! And so reactive! He was possessing the Queen, in her own bed! He felt her begin to shiver around him.
Victoria hit the bliss! She closed her eyes, squeezed the pillows tightly with both hands, and exclaimed:
"William! William!"
He came out from inside her spilling out into the concavity of the end of her back.
Then, stunned, collapsed on the mattress.
"Don't move, my love." He asked.
She would not move any way, as she waited for her body to materialize again.
They stayed for a few moments catching their breath. She on her stomach and he partially on top of her kissing her back. Beautiful, wonderful!
William plucked up the courage to get up, went to fetch his pocket-handkerchief and carefully wiped her back and buttocks while saying:
"We can't allow stains on the sheets; that would raise suspicion..."
Then he lay down on his right side and she did the same with her back to him.
He pulled her to him and put his left arm around her, gently grabbing her breasts.
She couldn't see him, but felt his whole body over hers.
"William... today was a lot more exciting than the other time. The first time was beautiful and was very, very good, but today was more..." She remarked missing the word to conclude.
He brushed the hair from her ear and whispered:
"Primitive…"
"That, primitive must be the right word..."
He kissed her neck and shoulder and said:
"We can always do it in different ways..."
She turned to him and kissed him on the mouth.
"I'm the happiest woman in the world!"
Victoria loved sex! And Melbourne enhanced and expanded that propensity. A woman who once did not immediately understand that a virgin couldn't be generating a child, and yet...
He rose again, blew out the remaining candles on the candlesticks of the bedroom, and went back to bed.
They hugged and kissed.
She was warm and soft in his arms.
He leaned his head against the left side of her chest and Victoria put the fingers of her right hand into his hair and caressed his head with the tips of her fingers.
It was the first time he spent the night with a woman for many years. And with this woman! He just wanted to stay there like this. Deep inside, he needed more of these fingers in his hair, this affection he received from her, than of possessing her body. Well, he had already possessed her body. So now he just needed this. He wouldn't be able to stay there till the sun was up, but he would sleep with her!
"You are a miracle in my life!" He said with closed eyes in a sleepy tone.
She told him nothing more trying not to wake him, but she felt those words as a personal victory over his past pains.
They fell asleep.
Melbourne woke up in the dark.
He shifted in the bed and she opened her eyes reluctantly, though she couldn't see him.
"William..."
"Victoria."
She reached out to him, grabbed him and kissed his shoulder, chest and mouth, barely opening her eyes, half asleep.
"I'll have to go soon…" He informed her.
"Don't go... Stay here with me... It is so good to wake up with you here next to me, with your body's heat and to feel your skin in mine..." She said.
He leaned over her and kissed her mouth and breasts for a while... For how long had he not had this? Waking up in the middle of the night with a woman in his arms. No, she was different! He had never had this! She was a flooding force that had entered his life, a vibrant energy that warmed him and gave him vigor! He felt himself harden.
She spread her legs and he sank into her.
The sense of stretching caused by him inside her was always breathtaking, and the sense of unity that existed between them in each of these moments was exceptional!
They loved each other as dawn progressed.
When they finished, as she moved on the bed, she let out a moan of discomfort.
Then he asked:
"Are you sore?"
"A little..."
"Is that bad?" He asked expectantly.
"No... I think it's great!" She answered laughing.
"It's good for you to remember that I was there..." He said laughing as well.
"I would never forget anyway..." She said as he kissed her neck and chest.
Then she pushed him so that he would lay on his back, lifted her body and put herself on top of him. She grabbed William's head with both hands and began to kiss his face.
One, two, three kisses along the forehead.
He closed his eyes.
A kiss on the nose. A kiss in each of the closed eyes. A kiss on each side of the face, the protruding veins beneath the eyes, and then the expression wrinkles on the sides of the mouth. It was so good to kiss the expression wrinkles on his face! A kiss on the cheek, a kiss on the mouth. She had decorated his face. She had memorized it in her brain and imprinted it on her heart and wished many times she could do that. To kiss his face like that. And now she could do it at last!
Her weight on him was comforting. And those soft kisses she gave him...
She made him lift his arms upward, with the hands near the head, intertwined her hands in his and then lying over him, with the skin of her naked body touching the whole surface of the naked skin of his body, said:
"This is what I am! This woman in the night, undressed for you! Not the queen that everyone sees outside during the day! That is just a character I try to represent in the best way. I needed someone to rescue me from myself, and you did it!"
He rolled her body around, reversing the positions and placing her underneath him.
"And I will continue to accompany the Queen outside, as I have always done, and I will be here all the nights that you want me, available to the woman who lives inside her."
He kissed her passionately.
"Now I have to go before the entire palace wakes up." He said in a tone of regret that he had to leave her so early.
"I'm going to go on sleeping, I'm tired... You kill me!" She exclaimed.
He laughed softly.
"Do I? I think it's the other way around..."
She smiled.
Reluctantly, William got up, got dressed, and came to bed to kiss her goodbye, asking her to go back to sleep.
She buried her body on the mattress and her face on the pillows searching for the scent he had left in the fabric.
He opened the door of her chambers carefully.
There was no one in the corridors still in the gloom. Only Emma, who waited! How embarrassing!
They headed for the servants' wing.
"My husband does not know that I'm here at this time to help you in this situation…" Emma informed.
"I am so sorry about all this, Emma! It will not happen again!" He apologized.
Melbourne left from the back covertly in the presence of Emma, in the event that someone came and an excuse on why he was there at that hour needed. They could say that he had come to bring some urgent information to Emma to be passed on to the Queen.
When he was on the street Melbourne sighed with relief. He walked home on foot. On the way he thought he couldn't do that anymore! At this age, after all the scandals in which he had been involved, sneaking like that from the Queen's bed! If this was discovered, it would be the biggest scandal of all time that had ever been in the papers!
He realized that he was dressed in his ball clothes, for he had not been able to predict the day before that he was going to spend the night with the Queen...
When he was almost home, a carriage stopped at his side.
"Melbourne!"
He turned to the man in the window.
"Wellington!"
The old marshal was coming from Apsley House. But with two million people in London why did he have to meet Wellington that day at that hour?
"Good Morning! I see you are just coming back from last night's ball!" Wellington exclaimed.
Melbourne's wit made him play the game, giving him the answer he wanted:
"You know how it is, Duke... The dance, the drinks... What would be the best way for a lonely man like me to finish the night?"
"With a woman!"
"Precisely! And you know how hard it is for a man to get up from the bed where a woman is..."
"I know, I know…"
Wellington was the widower of Kitty Pakenham, with whom he had had an unsatisfactory marriage, and of whom he had lived away for many years due to military campaigns. A frivolous, laid-back woman who contrasted with Arthur Wellesley, an imposing man on military discipline. Several women had been in his bed.
"An affaire secrète…" Emphasized the Duke.
Melbourne nodded slightly.
"Be careful, my dear Viscount, do not get yourself involved in scandals once again… Have a good day..." Wellington warned and the carriage left.
"Good morning…" Melbourne ended up saying a few moments after the carriage pulled away.
