The Dukes' Christmas Abductions (6 page)

“My
lord, if I may be so bold as to offer an opinion to this dilemma?”

Behind
him Clara snorted again, and Daniel was sure he heard her mutter some sort of
expletive that would have made sailors blush in his time.

“By
all means do, if you know something to shed some insight into this dilemma as
you put it.”

James
smiled again, and took a folded parchment out of the inside of his suit.
Daniel’s heart beat faster when he recognized Kit’s seal on the back of the
aged paper.

“Lord
Danvers did leave an heir. You, my lord.”

Chapter Six

Haversham
House, December 1815

Vicky
wondered if she’d wake up any time soon. She clutched her dead as a dodo phone
and stared at the condoms and the rest of the paraphernalia spread out around
her. She had to be dreaming. Researching for a book sometimes did that to her.
She seemed to remember a storm and a wedding. Of marrying a drop dead gorgeous
guy who liked the same things as she did. Hell, she’d almost finished plotting
the book. The only part of it she didn’t know was how it was going to end.
Maybe this dream would show her?

“And
tonight?” she asked and cursed the apprehension that made her voice wobble.

Kit
gave her a shrewd look, took a deep breath and began to talk.

 
Ten minutes later she had an incipient
headache and her eyes were gritty. Come what may, she’d have to take her lenses
out soon, and put on her specs. Would that freak him out? Somehow she doubted
it. So far nothing she’d said or done had upset his even tone and his level
attitude towards her and her stroppiness. Because, she was uneasily aware,
stroppy was an understatement. But hey, surely she had good reason to be a bit
bratty.

“I’m
sorry if I’ve riled you,” she began. “But ya know it’s a bit much to take in
without a hangover.”

“Riled?
Do you mean roiled?”

She
shrugged. “Probably, whatever I apologize. It’s a lot to assimilate.” Somehow
she’d have to bite her tongue, eat humble pie, and accept any punishment her
Lord and master thought fit. Vicky acknowledged she deserved it. “However I’ll
do my best. So, let me get this straight.” Not that she had any idea how. “I’m
your wife, it’s 1815, and we were at a ball?”

 
He nodded. “The annual estate ball. We were in
the picture gallery.”

 
“So why was I naked?”

He
blinked. “Ah. You like being naked? It’s what we decided on.”

“Not
good enough,” Vicky said, even though those words in his deep commanding tone
made her pussy sting and goose bumps skitter over her skin. She tried to ignore
how she felt and concentrated on what she needed to know. “I surely wasn’t
naked at a ball?” That could have come from one of her novels. The one where
the heroine had a dream and woke up in…
Oh shit … I’m living my book.
“Tell
me I wasn’t.”

He
laughed. “No, that was after you screamed the place down when the storm was
overhead. You were sweating so much I stripped you to towel you down. Then,
well, you know the rest.”

Do
I? Maybe, maybe not.

 
“We were at a ball in when, 2015?”

He
put his hand to her forehead. “You don’t feel feverish.”

“I’m
not. I’m not feverish, delusional or a crackpot. I don’t think.” To be honest
she wasn’t sure anymore. “But will you cuddle me anyway?” More and more Vicky
thought that, crazy or not, this guy loomed large and was important in her
life. She’d always had premonitions and this one became ever more fixed in her
mind. Why else did she know so much about the era without research? Why was she
such a stickler for detail? Maybe there was something in this time travel thing
after all. Either that or the mushroom quiche she’d had at lunch was suspect.

“Okay,
just for supposition’s sake, let’s say it is 1815, and I’m married to you,” she
said, rapidly thinking things out as she voiced her thoughts. “We went to a
ball and it thundered. I imagined it was two hundred years in the future,
grabbed some things and now we’re back in your—our time. I know what I brought
back and you have no idea what they’re for. Have I got that right?”

He
nodded. “Essentially, yes. Except I joined you after you’d gone.”

“Okay
so to go on from there. How did I get into 2015 anyway, and how come you were
with me?" She was half talking to herself but he heard her, because he
grunted in what? Agreement? Dissent? She didn’t ask. “Why didn’t you hold on to
me when I… well whatever I—we—did to get there? And how come I’ve got my lenses
and stuff with me? How did I know what to get?” She pointed at him and poked
him in the stomach. “Ha, you don’t have an answer, do you?” she finished
triumphantly.

He
took hold of her hand and bit the flesh part of skin just above her thumb.
Vicky gasped. “What the?”
Oh my.
That sweet sting was too much sensory
overload for her at that moment. She had enough to assimilate with the fact her
life could well not be what she thought it was, without a pussy going into
overdrive and a need for some lady pads. Did they even have anything vaguely
like them in Regency times? The most she’d ever found in her research was
sponges and vinegar for birth control and one very discrete paragraph about a
wad of linen inserted inside as, she guessed, a very rudimentary tampon for
that time of the month. Was that to be her life from now on?

“You
talk too much,” Kit said. Funny how now his name came into her mind naturally.
“And what you said? Well a lot of that doesn’t make sense,
ma petite
.
Earlier today you went out on your horse. A storm got up and you were thrown.
You only lost consciousness for a short while, and seemed fine. We went to the
estate ball.” His diction was clipped and terse. “Entered the picture gallery
and you changed in front of my eyes.” He gulped, so unlike his normal self that
Vicky gaped at him in amazement. Her next thought hit her like a ton of bricks.

 
Hold on, how do I know what his normal self is
like? This is shit stirringly scary.
“Um, in what way changed?”

He
shrugged. “It’s hard to say. You just left me for a while. Then, well, we had
more thunder, you screamed, grabbed hold of me, and I dragged you out of the
gallery and into here. Back to our room where I held you, and you know the
rest.”

Well,
actually, no she didn’t, but one thing seemed to be clear. It
was
1815,
she
was
married and this hunk
was
her husband.

Where
was the gin when you needed it?

“Then
if this is 1815, and we’re married and I don’t live in 2015, how do I have my
contacts in, a box of condoms, a packet of tampons, and designer glasses to
change into? And where is Clara?”

“Clara?”

“The
curator of the house. The girl I was with when that bloke … that bloke he
looked like you … who was he?”

Kit
turned a nice shade of white, and mumbled something under his breath. Vicky
stared at him as he swayed and visibly collected himself.

"What?”
she asked urgently. “What is it? What do you know?"

"Hockwell?
The tall blond man with me? He's my cousin, and tarnation. I haven’t seen him
since we got back. I’m certain he didn’t follow us. Do you think he's gone
back, forward or whatever with this Clara?"

“What
do you mean?”
Gah, I’m doing the repetition crap again.

"Well,
do you recall always saying that he struck you as odd?" At her blank look
he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Well, you did. Called it
female intuition. You said, and I quote, he doesn't really seem to fit here,
does he? And come to think of it, you're right. Oh, Daniel could play the game
as well as the next person, but I thought it was just because of that strange prophecy
he got as a child."

"Prophesy?"
Vicky echoed.

"Yes,
we got a royal telling off by our governesses, but we'd sneaked away to the
travelling fair, and into the hut of Mistress Allure." Kit smirked as he
remembered. "Her only allure consisted of having seemingly managed to have
lived to one hundred, if you counted the lines on her face. Anyhow, she read us
our fortune. Mine was the usual, as befitting my station. His? Well, she
smiled, turned his hand over, patted his head and said 'Poor child, your place
is not here. Fear not, because all will become clear when you follow your heart
and cross space and time’."

Vicky
was transfixed. “And you? What did she say to you?”

 
He went red and muttered something under his
breath.

“Pardon?
I didn’t hear that.”

 
He muttered again. This time Vicky caught some
of the words. Mainly,
married, seven
and
offspring
. She poked him on the
arm.

He
winced and glared. “Violence is never the answer.”

“Don’t
you believe it, mate. Sometimes it’s the only answer. Did you say what I think
you did? That you reckon we’re having seven kids? In your dreams, buster, think
again. Or violence might well be the result.”

 
“It’s written,” Kit said in a voice that
brooked no arguments.

“Typical
male. In the stars I suppose,” Vicky said sarcastically. “Not a scooby. Stars,
charlatans or charts, and it’s written, bloody well hold no truck with me. If I
write, Kit has his bollocks chopped off with a rusty pen knife would you say
okay, it’s written?”

He
moved his hands swiftly to cover his cock and balls and Vicky nodded with
satisfaction.

 
“Ha, exactly. Hence if you think I’m going to
lie back, think of England and shell out seven kids like peas popping from a
pod you’ve got another think coming. What do you imagine these are for?” She
upended the supersized box of condoms over his head and threw the now empty box
after them, followed by three tampons and, just because they were handy, her
contact lens case and the wet wipes.

His
eyes widened as one foil covered condom hit him on the nose, and a tampon
wedged behind his ear. It looked so like a sketch in an anarchical TV program
her parents had raved about, Vicky bit back a giggle.

“What
in Hades, woman?” His look of rage gave her pause. Vicky took a step away from
him, towards the door. “Ah... I er…” She didn’t get any further. Kit pulled her
back and tipped her chin up.

 
“What was that for?” he asked levelly. “Seven
is not excessive. I need some heirs.”

 
“Some yes.” She understood that. “Surely not
seven?”

“Why
not?” He seemed genuinely perplexed. “You’ll have help.”

 
Everything was going much too fast. Seven was
six more than she’d ever envisaged having. Grief, she knew enough about either
of her personas to know she was no earth mother.

“Well,
if you use those,” she waved a condom at him. “I’ll have even more help. And
hopefully less kids.”

****

“Oufft!
What the—”

“Enough.”
Kit tucked his wife under his arm and dropped her onto the bed before he
followed her and kept her in place by the simple expediency of putting his leg
over her waist. Unfortunately, at the angle he’d landed that put his cock in
line with her cunt.

Down,
boy, not yet.
He willed his wayward pego to behave and concentrate on his
wife.

Her
cheeks were delicately flushed, her lips were slightly apart, and her skin
slicked with the sheen of arousal. She took a deep breath and he braced himself
for her ire.

It
didn’t come.

“You
see that little thing you have in your hand?” she said quietly. “That will
prevent children.”

He
stared at a tiny square packet made of some material he’d never seen before.
Surely she jested? “How on earth?”

She
stretched up and plucked it out of his fingers. As Kit watched in amazement she
tugged and the packet fell to bits.

“See?”
Victoria took out a tiny almost see through… see through what? and shook it.
“Now you put this on and lo and behold no little wrigglies get through and
think aha a nice warm womb to spend some time in. Instead they get caught up
and flushed away, not to live another day.”

“On
where?” With a bit of luck it would cover his big toe or his thumb, but even he
knew neither digit produced children.

“On
your cock.”

Kit
narrowed his eyes. “My cock is not a bantam. That whatever it is wouldn’t even
cover a puppy’s prick and I’m no puppy.”

 
Victoria rolled her eyes. She was very good at
conveying so many different emotions in that one small gesture. “Men and their
bits. Take it from me it’s guaranteed to fit. Hot dog eh? From a chipolata to a
Cumberland. Okay neither of those fit the bill.” She chuckled. “Well I don’t
think so. Argh, that sounds as if I’m dissing your attributes and I’m not.
After all who wants a Cumberland in them? A long curly cock’s not much good.”

What
on earth was she talking about? Kit decided it was high time to wrest the
initiative back from her before she really confused him. He wanted to sink his
cock into her, not discuss its non-human like attributes.

“My
cock is happy as it is, not squeezed into, well whatever that is.”

“A
condom. A prophylactic, rubber, Johnny, raincoat, French letter, willy cover,
whatever, take your pick. Birth control other than the slap hazard manner of
pull out and shoot elsewhere.”

 
He flicked the condom onto the floor. “I have
a linen sheath, but if you remember correctly you said it was, and I quote,
akin to filling you cunt with sand. Abrasive you said was an understatement and
we declared it unusable. If you don’t wish my seed in you, I’ll withdraw and
spill onto a towel.” But why would he need to? They were married and he needed
an heir. “However, you said you loved the feel of me filling you, coming deep
inside you and making you shout out in pleasure. The heat of my seed as it
gathers pace and floods you is a sensation that surpasses all others. Therefore
why deny us that?”

Victoria
wriggled until his cock no longer tickled her pussy, and Kit relaxed enough to
let her. He wanted her as soon as possible in all ways imaginable, but knew at
this moment she needed to set the pace.