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Bertha was in the hall deciding whether she should wait or go up when Alfred Merrick stalked out of the billiards room. She barely had time to clasp her hands together and reply to his polite but rather terse farewell before he was gone, off into the night in a sweep of tailcoat.
It was hours before his evening at their home should have ended.
The grip of her hands turned to a tense wringing. The motion gave away more than she'd prefer to let on, especially in a house full of servants she didn't currently trust, but she had bigger concerns at the moment.
George had been been moody, thoughtful—almost sullen—before dinner. Really, ever since the wedding. But by the end of tonight's meal, his usually wry wit had turned sour, his perceptiveness becoming morose. He'd barely added anything to the conversation, leaving her to do the heavy lifting with Mr. Merrick. She'd thought the topics safe: Italy, the opera, their mutual contributions there—positioning the three of them as allies, patrons of the arts who understood each other. Of course Gladys had come up, but she'd steered the conversation away from the sore topic back to Mr. Merrick's own marital status. It usually made men more talkative—either praising or damning women, depending on their history with the fairer sex—but of course the subject had only led down a dangerous path. Not that she minded compliments, but from the stormy glare George had been leveling at her, he'd read more into Mr. Merrick's words.
Returning to her husband's side might be sticking her head in the lion's mouth, but she'd never shied away from a challenge, so Bertha dismissed the footmen for the evening and stepped into the billiards room.
The sound of the doors shutting behind her echoed in the large room. Only the tap of her heels on the floor, the swish of her skirts, and the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock along the far wall broke the silence as she approached.
"George, what happened?"
If he were any other man, his posture might have signaled defeat. Back hunched, arms braced on the felt of the table until he swept up his port glass and downed the remaining amber liquid in a mouthful. Years of familiarity, though, meant the taut line of his shoulders told her what she needed to know, well before he straightened and turned to face her with fire in his ink-dark eyes.
He was furious.
"What happened?" A careful step took her closer to halt beside him as she repeated her question.
George grabbed the decanter, ignored her hand outstretched to pour for him, and filled his glass, draining it again in a single swallow. "What happened is Merrick isn't going to sell, the stubborn fool!"
"Well, perhaps Clay can—"
"I fired Clay this afternoon."
Bertha froze, blinking in surprise as she wrestled with the news. "Why didn't you tell me?" The rest spilled out before she could stop it, hurt sending the words out of her mouth like one of his trains on its track when caution would have kept them silent. "First I get to find out about Larry's engagement after the fact, not to mention that you're sending him to Arizona, and now this? What else aren't you telling me?"
"Perhaps I should be asking you the same." His dark eyes now returned to fix on her with such contempt that she nearly took a step back. She'd rarely seen that look from him, certainly not directed at her.
"What are you talking about?" She couldn't begin to think of anything she'd kept from him that was of any consequence. Small things here and there, of course, but otherwise, with Gladys in England, what else was there to tell about her that he'd need to know?
That got a laugh from him, quiet and bitter, like there was some joke she was telling that he knew he wasn't in on. But she had no idea…
"I never thought I'd see the day where I'd have to watch my wife fawn over another man so openly at my own table." His voice stayed low and level—but on the last word, he turned and dashed the port glass aside to shatter against the cold, unused fireplace.
Bertha flinched, but the movement left her only more determined not to entertain George's petulance by responding further. She collected herself back into some semblance of her usual confident self. Now she, too, was beginning to become angry—but showing it blatantly would only kindle his ire.
"George, you have to know that was playacting! You told me to invite him for dinner, to charm him so he'd agree to the deal, so that's what I did!"
"Is it?"
"Yes! I can't help it if he was unable to see the sense in your proposal. Why are you acting this way, like it wasn't your idea—"
"It certainly wasn't my idea to have to watch that!" He gestured with a sharp wave of his hand, stalking closer—so close she could practically feel the anger rolling off him like heat. Close enough that if he moved closer still, they'd be pressed torso to torso, or she'd be forced to step back to maintain any kind of distance. Any kind of the control it seemed she was rapidly losing to whatever tempest was raging in him after building on the horizon for weeks. "To have to see the way he looked at you, while he showered you with compliments! And you eating it all up, like you were thinking you'd almost rather have him for dessert!"
"You're being ridiculous!" But she couldn't deny the thrill that went through her at hearing him voice it, even as she argued otherwise. Not that she seriously would even consider entertaining Mr. Merrick's advances, but knowing one's charm hadn't lost its appeal was flattering, no matter the source.
"Am I?"
His tone was no more gentle than the way he grabbed her by the shoulders and walked her back, crowding her against the damask wall until the only space left between them was layers of silk and serge.
"George! Stop it!"
His mouth twisted in a grimace, deepening the lines etched around it. "Tell me I'm wrong, then." His face loomed close, and when he dipped his head, his breath caressed the bare expanse of her neck, the shell of her ear. "Tell me you didn't enjoy how Merrick told you how your likeness haunts him. That you didn't enjoy being praised for your ambition." When she shuddered, he brought his face closer, until his lips were barely grazing the skin of her throat. "Are you going to deny how much that particular compliment thrilled you?"
Perhaps one day she'd learn to be more cautious, but today would not be it. She would not be baited into apologizing for doing the very thing he'd asked her to do.
"Are you jealous?"
At her quiet question, George jerked away, mouth falling open and eyes widening as he was utterly taken aback. Bertha didn't give him time to answer. "When I said Mr. Merrick's past love didn't appreciate him, didn't deserve him, did you think I meant you?"
Wresting her arms from his grip, Bertha planted her hands on her husband's chest and shoved, walking him back until he was pinned between her and the billiard table. She let her hands slide down to undo the buttons of his suit coat."Do you think I don't know who I belong to? I'm yours, George."
"What are you doing?" The anger was still there somewhere, but uncertainty had joined it now in his voice, a wariness belied by how he'd let her take control so easily.
In a flutter of pale chocolate and slate silk, Bertha sank to her knees as fluidly as offering her deepest cursey. Uncaring of how she was ruining a two hundred dollar dress or how her weight crushed glass beads painfully into her skin through the fabric, only the man before her.
"Is that it, George? You think I don't appreciate you?" Keeping her eyes locked on his, she reached for the placket of his trousers, unbuttoning the tab with nimble fingers before reaching for his fly. Four buttons there, she knew from undressing him many times before. After happier dinners when they had the house to themselves, the children off with friends and the servants off to bed.
Transfixed, he only watched her slip the last button free, leaving the crisp white linen of his drawers exposed for her to part as well.
"Let me show you how wrong you are," she murmured.
He might be furious with her, but that hadn't stopped his arousal from building as she'd undressed him, his member already thick and twitching. She had no basis for comparison, of course, but in this regard, she'd never been displeased.
Bertha held his gaze as she pushed his shirts out of her way to be held back by his suspenders, caressing the tanned, downy skin of his stomach as her hands trailed down to grasp his hips. And she kept her eyes thus fixed as she slowly made the first slick, tight push of her mouth over his shaft, until his eyes rolled back to close and his hands gripped the wooden edge of the billiards table in a white-knuckled hold.
The breath he let out was ragged as she withdrew, slow and measured. This was a rare treat to savor, letting her tongue curl around him as she dragged her wet lips back up to purse around the head of him. When she slid forward again, a tremor shook through him, and she felt one of his hands come to her hair, fingers nesting between the combs and pins. Urging her on, but not ungently, as he thrust himself into the damp warmth of her mouth.
The sounds she wrung from him as she sucked and lapped at the most sensitive part of him were exquisite, quiet huffs of breath edging on a groan or sharp inhales when she applied a particularly pleasing technique. This, too, he'd taught her, how to please him in ways she'd hadn't known existed until their marriage bed. She'd never felt more powerful than when she could elicit this kind of reaction from him.
Bertha kept going, tormenting him until George suddenly broke their rhythm, using his grip in her hair to tug her mouth off of him with a sound obscene enough to almost make her blush. She'd barely found her feet before he reversed their positions, wrapping his arms beneath her thighs to heft her onto the table.
"Do you think I would let him take you from me so easily?" George asked, shoving her skirts up, tearing the fabric between his hands where it proved unyielding or her assistance too slow, until he could nudge her thighs apart brusquely with a knee.
She'd opted for only a chemise under her gown, so there was nothing impeding him from jerking his hips forward and burying himself in her to the hilt with a single, deep thrust, aided by the grip of his hands on her buttocks.
Bertha let out a cry of surprise and pleasure, loud enough that she almost cared who might overhear, but the look on George's face chased the thought from her mind.
"You're mine. Not his, not anyone else's," he panted, curls falling loose and sweat-damp onto his forehead as he pulled back, only to thrust deep into her again, and again. It was a lesson she was more than happy to receive.
"Yours, George, only yours…" She was as breathless as he was, from the restriction of her corset and the pleasure building in her as he kept up his relentless paces. She was barely able to hold herself up on shaking arms, her fingernails shredding the felt beneath them.
When she threw her head back, his mouth fell to the swell of her bosom, pressing open, hot kisses and nipping at the skin there, and she didn't care who would see the marks in the morning. A little powder would cover them up, but she'd know. She'd feel every scrape of lace against the bruised skin.
"I want you to think of this, the next time you see Merrick," George told her, over the sound of her half-sobbed whimpers of pleasure. "Think of how utterly undone I've made you. How well you take me, how no one could make you feel as good as I do."
She was close now, rapidly approaching her peak, but he didn't let up, driving her more and more mad with such delicious friction…
"I'm… I'm going to…" It was too much, being claimed like this. She was throbbing, aching, for release.
And she wasn't the only one.
"I want to hear it, Bertha. My name on your lips, as you fall apart. Say it," he urged, a plea as much as an order, like he wasn't about to shatter from the sheer pleasure of this alongside her—
Her climax took her, cresting over her like a wave. She gasped, pulsing and fluttering around him as she managed to cry out, "George!" in a strangled shout that was followed by sobs she could no more quiet than contain. She barely felt him thrust into her once more before letting out a choked, wordless sound of his own and spilling into her, thick and hot and perfect.
His limp weight against her was too much for her arms to bear, and they collapsed together to the table, panting and spent.
Eventually, George managed to heft himself back upright, and her along with him. For a moment, she thought he'd turn and leave without another word. But rather than drop her hand, he brought it up to his mouth, gently pressing his lips to the curve of her knuckles.
"Are you still mad at me?" Bertha asked plainly, and felt his mouth twitch before he straightened with a sigh.
They were both a mess, clothing and hair disheveled, and she'd need a bath after this, but for now, all she cared about was what tomorrow would bring between them: more distance, or reconciliation.
"I don't want to be."
"Then can we mend this? Whatever's gone wrong between us. I'll go to Gladys, and Merrick—" She'd been ready to suggest letting Merrick stew, while George dealt with the others, but that was his business. And half of the reason he was upset with her in the first place, these last few stressful days as the reality of the recession began to truly set in. "Merrick is your business. I'll help however you need me. If… if you still do." It hurt to say, but she had to know.
"Of course I need you. I can't do this without you." When he kissed her now, there was no anger left, only the smoldering embers of their encounter and the hint of possibility that he might return to his usual fondness.
"I love you, George."
"And I you." He looked her over, and the sight elicited a true smile like she hadn't seen from him in days, perhaps weeks. "Now, let me go fetch your maid. We can't have you walking through the house like this."
Bertha laughed. "No, let her sleep, I have a better idea. Lend me your coat."