The last chapter. Enjoy. LL x


Considering what they were doing, his calling her Ma'am – so paradoxical under the circumstances – thrilled her. He coiled his arms around her and held her tight to him so that she could feel his desire hard and long between them. William turned onto his back and moved so that she lay atop him.

'Let us try this. Sit up, astride me.'

She was not used to being dictated to by him, but his dominance only made her crave him more. She ached, actually ached with desire. William had a look of determination that made his eyes brighter than ever. She was heady with lust yet his expression brought out a shyness in her that was unfamiliar. 'I … don't understand …' she murmured.

'Here.' With that he took hold of her hips and lifted her in strong arms so that she was held poised above the searching head of his manhood. 'Kneel. Brace yourself on me and then … sink down.'

'So that … you …?'

'Yes.'

Her breath came so fast she wondered if she could steady herself, but she leaned forward while kneeling over him and placed her hands on the firm rise of his chest. He locked eyes with her briefly and she saw a wicked smirk pass across his face before he turned his attention back to where he was poised to enter her. 'Now … down.'

Guided by his hands on her hips, she sank down and felt him entering her again. He sucked in a breath as soon as he began to be encased in her but his hands suddenly tightened on her hips and she was prevented from descending further. 'Slowly,' he warned.

His manner remained assertive, dictatorial almost. She had heard that tone once or twice when he had defended his political motives or asserted his position as her minister, but hearing him speak like it in these circumstances enthralled her nearly as much as the feel of him stretching her. She exhaled deeply, let her arms take her weight, met her gaze with his and started to move down again, but so slowly this time he would know her compliance.

Down, down she sank until she could go no further and she sat across his hips, encompassing him fully within her. And it was more glorious than ever. She was fixed to the rock steady hardness of him. Victoria settled herself, drawing from him an intake of pleasured breath.

'You are sure it does not hurt?' he asked, his voice muddied with lust.

Her eyes closed, focused only on the stretching fullness of him inside her. She managed to shake her head to refute his concern; this was what completeness meant. This was what she must strive for. She tore her eyes open to lock with his, giving him a lop-sided grin of lazy pleasure.

'Do you like that?' he asked, pushing up a little to reinforce himself within her.

She nodded again.

'Good. Now,' he continued, 'ride me.'

If she was surprised at his abruptly course words, the shock lasted only a mere moment before it was replaced by eagerness. She liked being spoken to with such authority, she knew that, at least by him.

She started to push herself up, as slowly as she could, and watched him carefully, noting every change in his expression. He had a look of concentrated pleasure on his face but kept his eyes fixed on where they were joined. She bit her lip and leaned forward as she rose, then back, finding she could control her own pleasure easily this way. It felt wonderful when she leaned forward and rose up, and it felt even more wonderful to lean back and push him against some glorious place deep inside her.

When she had steadied into a rhythm he let go of her hips and instead cupped her breasts and with his thumbs stroked and flicked the nipples. She inhaled sharply as little sparks of sensation darted from them to combine with the throbbing glow deep inside.

'I like that … I like that,' she murmured, eyes closed to concentrate.

'I like it too … Ma'am.'

She laughed and clasped one of his hands harder to her breast. He obliged by pinching a nipple with remarkable tightness. Her eyes flew open and she gasped but the sudden pang of pain seemed only to translate as more pleasure.

'I … Oh! … The things you do to me, Lord M!'

'An improvement on perusing the dispatch boxes, Ma'am?'

'You are a wicked man!'

'In this instance, I shall take that as a compliment.'

'Please do.' She rolled and bucked on him, her eyes closed in a daze, drifting to some high pleasure plain.

And then, more. His hands had left her breasts and she felt instead something nudging at that tender place between her legs. He had reached down and was rubbing in time with her movement. Their eyes met briefly and he smiled knowingly before concentrating back on his task.

She maintained the fluid rhythm. Her eyes closed again and she simply focused on enjoying this new and extraordinary activity. How had she not known this could be? She cursed herself for waiting so long.

After a while, she heard him chuckle. She looked down. He was staring up at her, his own eyes glazed. 'You are a natural,' he smirked.

She smiled in satisfaction, grinding herself against him and causing him to groan. 'You make it so easy, Lord M.'

'Well, as I always tell you, Ma'am … I am here to serve you,' he moaned through gritted teeth as they worked each other faster.

Victoria threw her head back and laughed in delight, and with that she heard him catch his breath. His fingers gripped her hips so hard she'd bruise, but it only spurred her on. She rose and fell fast now and watched as his eyes widened, staring blankly for a moment, and his mouth hung slack. And then, with a sound propelled from his very core, he closed his eyes and groaned as he released high up into her. Never had she realised men could switch from control to helplessness in an instant, and all due to her. It gave her more sense of empowerment than she ever had as Queen. And with the sound of his rapture echoing in her ears, her own pleasure broke. It washed over her in wave after wave and her exhaled cry rose from her shuddering body. She was grateful to be joined to him for she would have collapsed otherwise.

When every ounce of rapture had left their bodies, she collapsed over him and let her hair fall across his body. He lifted a pleasure-heavy arm and brought it across her back, pinning her to him. Their damp bodies heaved together in tune with the other.

In time, it was her turn to roll off him. She laid her head upon his chest and let her fingers trace a path over the slender firmness of his belly.

'You are quite the revelation, Ma'am.'

'I was always a fast learner.'

'Oh, I know it.'

She considered drifting off to sleep while lying on him – it would be the most perfect happiness – but then realised that time ticked ever on and morning approached, but they rested for a time in silent communion.

'I do not want this to end.'

He did not reply.

'Did you know that my ancestor Charles II had at least fifteen mistresses?'

He cocked a dispassionate eyebrow. 'Could he remember all their names?'

'My forebears are not renowned for their morally upstanding behaviour.'

'Your point being, Ma'am?' They may as well have been back in the state rooms during private counsel, such was his tone. She rather liked the familiarity of it.

'Would it be regarded differently if I behaved similarly?'

She felt his breath catch as she rested on him. He stroked a single finger along her arm and said plainly, 'It would.'

'But why? I am the monarch. Other monarchs have taken lovers whenever they choose, why not me?'

'Because … you are a woman.'

'And why should that mean anything different?'

'I do not know. It should not, perhaps … but it does. Why are you raising this?'

She hesitated and eased her fingers through the soft hairs of his chest. 'Perhaps I wish to take a lover after I marry?'

'I would not recommend it, Ma'am.'

She lifted her head to look at him. 'Perhaps I wish to keep you as my lover.'

'Keep me?'

'Will you not be kept, Lord M?'

A fleeting smile passed across his lips. 'You know I will not.'

'Why not?'

He stroked her face. 'I believe … you will be more than adequately provided for by your husband.'

'In the ways that you are providing for me tonight?'

'Yes.'

'I doubt anything can be as glorious as tonight.'

He studied her with clear adoration then continued, 'I am not claiming these sensations, but revealing them. I do not profess to owning you, Victoria.'

'And yet I wish you did. You know that if you had said yes that day I came here, there would be no Albert.'

He smiled and let her reach up to kiss him briefly. When they parted he pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and said softly, 'But there is.'

She felt a stinging in her eyes and blinked it away. 'I have forgotten him tonight.'

He continued gently, 'But tomorrow you will remember him. And in three weeks' time you will marry him.'

'But what of three months' time? Three years? What then?'

He studied her seriously but said nothing.

'I cannot forget you. I will not forget you,' she stressed.

'I know. I do not ask you to forget me … but you will learn to no longer need me.'

She gazed at him intensely for a time and then said quite plainly, 'And what of you, Lord M?'

'Me?'

'Will you learn … not to need me?'

He smiled gently at her perception and cupped her face, stroking it with aching tenderness. For a while they merely stared into each other, but at length he said, 'No. But I will live with it.'

She lowered her head to kiss him again and he kissed her back with growing passion, rolling her onto her back and moving over her.

'Make love to me again,' she asked.

He pulled back with a smirk. 'You are most demanding, Your Majesty.'

She giggled but held him to her with her left hand while with her right she reached boldly down between his legs. 'Do I ask too much, Lord M?' She felt him stiffening in her hand and thrilled to it.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed back his pleasure. 'Oh … I am sure I can rise to the occasion.'

At his pun, her laughter rippled out of her. The seriousness of their conversation was replaced by light-hearted teasing, and both knew it had to be, for time was too precious. She continued to stroke him, feeling the leaking of his desire onto her thumb. What a curious thing it was, the sexual act and its prequels, but one that she had quickly decided she would embrace wholeheartedly.

He sucked in a breath and his face creased a little. 'Do I please you, Lord M?' she asked with kittenish glee.

His mouth lifted in a smile but his eyes remained closed as he concentrated on what her hand was doing to him. 'Greatly … and you know it.' She continued to ply him to full hardness, her belly twisting in anticipation of welcoming him into her again. 'Your husband will be a most fortunate man,' he murmured.

'But tonight … that man is you. They always did call me Mrs Melbourne, you know. You may be a most fortunate man, but I too am a most fortunate lady.'

She opened her legs for him and urged him forward. He obliged instantly, positioning himself and thrusting up hard into her in one swift stroke. Her back buckled with the force of it and a gasp was pulled from her. 'Again,' she demanded, loving the power of him. He pulled back then drove in to the hilt again in one.

She moaned with pleasure as once again she was completed by him. He moved urgently to assert his placement inside her.

She worked with him, clenching upon him, meeting his strokes, building their mutual pleasure. She murmured against his ear as he rocked powerfully through her. 'I want to keep you inside me. I want to carry you around inside me wherever I go … Can I do that? … Can I carry you within me always?'

He didn't respond but continued moving within her, inhabiting her flesh with his flesh, deep and hard and long.

Would it be this way with her husband? She hoped it would, but no one could take away the confirmation that with this man – her advisor, her friend, her confidante, her lover – she had found something so right, so harmonious, that she barely even needed to speak to him for him to read her and know her, and she him, mind and body.

He moved within her and she felt it. She shifted under him and he knew. She sighed and he groaned. He pressed in and she met him.

Mind and body and soul.

'I love you,' she whispered to him as she tangled her fingers through his hair and felt the warmth of his scalp under them. 'I will never stop loving you.'

'And I love you … I love you, I love you …' With that he was coming with a heaving cry, his body gripped with consuming pleasure as his seed spilled deep inside her. She took it and used it and was tipped from the edge, her own rapture billowing from her to combine with his which still hung thick about them.

And as their pleasure dissipated to linger as understanding, both knew that it was a right and good thing that they had done. Neither would regret.

And now they drifted, limbs still entwined, as dawn started its relentless encroachment. They lay skewed on the bed, joined as long as they could, their arms and legs tangled. An artist drawing them would have been unable to distinguish one body from the other.

But it inevitably, evilly, grew lighter.

Victoria heard birds. She ignored them at first, but something had shifted, something had to shift. And so she said, 'I would love to say that was the nightingale and not the …'

She turned her head to his and he completed her sentence through the shadow of a sad smile, 'Rook …'

She clung to him and he held her so tight she wondered if she would break, but she did not mind.

'You must leave now,' he said, but still neither moved.

'I am not sure I can.'

'And I am not sure I can let you go … but I will.'

She turned her head up and murmured, 'William.' He kissed her again and in that exchange of souls was a farewell.

Victoria smiled tenderly up at him. 'I will go now.'

He nodded once, his eyes bright with dampness. She moved from him, each limb sliding and disengaging from his, each parting touch etched forever between them.

He stared after her as she left his bed. 'You will need my carriage.'

'No. Lady Portman's is returning at 6 o'clock.'

He glanced at the clock. 'That is in a few minutes only.'

'Yes.'

'You had arranged this?'

'You always taught me to use foresight and initiative, Lord M,' she smiled as she stepped into her underwear. He rose from the bed and helped her with her corset. It took some time.

'How does one manage?' he queried, his fingers making heavy work of the intricate lacings.

'A lady's maid.'

'And without one?'

Her brows furrowed in bewilderment. 'Why ever would one not have a lady's maid?' She didn't see his wry smirk as he stood behind and continued to lace her up.

He helped her with the rest of her clothes. She had not noticed that he was still entirely naked, or, at least, their complete contentment together had led her not to question it. But once she was dressed she wished he would put some clothes on. His fine figure was distraction enough when fully clothed. If she were to be reminded of what that body had done to her during the night, she would find it nigh on impossible to leave.

'My bonnet and veil is downstairs. I suppose I should replace it before leaving.'

'That would be wise, Ma'am.'

'No more 'Victoria'?'

The corner of his mouth tugged up. 'I like calling you Ma'am.'

'Even in light of what has happened?'

'Especially in light of what has happened.'

'Very well … Lord M. Go and retrieve my bonnet and cloak.' She quirked an eyebrow. 'You may wish to put some clothes on first,' she teased with a sweeping look over his nakedness.

He grinned before reaching for a robe and throwing it on. He wore it with insouciant ease. His every movement, intensified as it was within the intimate space of his bedchamber, still beguiled her.

William left to get her bonnet and cloak. Victoria inhaled sharply, immediately feeling his absence. She glanced around the room, having barely been aware of her surroundings until now.

It was sparsely decorated compared to the rest of the house, although the walls contained a few paintings of seascapes. There was a bureau to one side on which were scattered some papers. A small portrait of a small boy rested in one corner of it. She supposed it was his son.

When William returned she smiled shyly at him, her cheeks flushed as if she had intruded on something intensely private.

But he approached her and placed her cloak around her shoulders before putting her bonnet on her head.

'There,' he said softly when he had tied the bow beneath her chin. He indicated the veil. 'To the outside world, you were never here.'

'And to you?'

'To me?' He smiled softly. 'You will never leave.'

She reached out her hands and he took them, stroking over them with his thumbs. 'Dear Lord M. Darling William. Dearest, darling, darling.'

He bent down and planted the slightest, most chaste kiss on her lips, but there was such devotion in it that it would last them forever.

He murmured, 'Thank you … my love.'

And she withdrew her hands, brought the veil over her face, and left Brocket Hall.


Dear Lord M.

Love.

Thoughts, if you wish, thank you.

LL x