11. Preparing for the Winter Ball

Dinner that night, our first of the stay at Rogeringham Hall was more formal than we would normally observe. I wanted to make it an occasion, and the staff performed well to make it so.

After dinner I asked that we all gather in the sitting room and explained about the coming Winter Ball. I explained that I wanted a grand affair with all of the local dignitaries, and as many eligible young men as they could think of.

I asked Charlotte and Hermione if they would supervise the guest list and the sending out of invitations, I told them if they needed a courier to use Henry. Margaret and Louise would be in charge of decorating the ballroom and hallways, and I told them that they could recruit whoever they needed from the stables and gardeners. I asked Caroline to create a menu for a grand buffet.

"What is it you wish me to do, William?" Helena asked.

"Supervise, mother. I would like you to offer guidance and suggestions as the girls put this together, but I would like this to be their crafting."

"And what is your function in all of this brother?" Charlotte laughed.

"Mine?" I asked, "Why, I shall be paying for all of this." I laughed.

The questions continued for a while - how many invitations? How much could they spend? Is there anyone that they should not invite? Thankfully, it seemed, the tasks I had set, had been acceptable and by the evening's close I thought that the pathway ahead was clear and each person was comfortable with their role.

"I am curious." My mother asked me later that night, as she lay upon my chest. We had just spent the best part of the last hour making passionate love and now we lay temporarily sated. "Why did you assign all of the tasks to the girls?"

I toyed with her nipple as I framed my answer, watching it swell so that it stood proud from the curve of her white breast, a coral-coloured stud of eager sensitivity.

"It is time that we see - that they see - what they are capable of," I said. "It is about confidence. A person who is confident in their own ability may do anything they set their mind to. I believe that each of these particular tasks is well within their ability but next time we shall change them about and give them different things to accomplish."

"Next time?" Helena looked up, with her hair framing her face she looked stunning and I was moved to lean forwards and kiss her.

One kiss became a second and then a third. Then a kiss became an embrace, and those embraces and kisses became more passionate, until after a while, we breathlessly separated and lay still again.

I returned to Helena's question.

"The ball will serve several functions," I explained. "It is not simply about the girls practising their skills, which is vital for them as women who will hold important places in society, but it is also announcing to the world in general that they exist. So, I want it to be grand and impressive, to get the attention of potential suitors. Once we return to London, or possibly before, perhaps at the turn of the year, we will hold another. We will get as wide a range of suitors as we can, so that each of my sisters can pick and choose as she wishes."

Helena looked at me for a moment, "You have obviously given this much thought."

"Last week when I was meeting with the Barthomley boy, I realised that one of the reasons he is courting Hermione is her connection to the dukedom." I laughed, "I don't think he reckoned on Hermione though. Charlotte tells me that she has him well under control.

"I have no issue with connections," I went on, "They're the way our society works." If the first Duke of Norton's daughter had not caught the eye of Charles II - and he had not used the connection to lend the king a great deal of money, which eventually secured him the dukedom - we would still be simple rural folk. But Elizabeth Rogeringham was nothing more than a pawn in Duke Henry's plans. He pushed her into the king's path, and after she had secured him his dukedom, he married her off to a vicar in Norfolk. "I do not see the lives of my sisters as mere connections for others to use. They all have their own desires from life. Even were they to say that they wanted to marry a shepherd boy, as long as it was the match that they truly desired, I would shift heaven and earth to make it happen."

Helena looked at me, "And here I was, thinking that I was getting what I wanted."

I nodded. "Growing up in the midst of a gaggle of women, I heard so many of their hopes and aspirations."

"And you listened?"

"Yes. You put them under my protection on the day I wore my first pair of breeches," I was seven, "Of course I listened!"

Helena kissed me passionately. "And that is one reason why I am so in love with you." She paused, "Your Grace."

I kissed her back, and soon my mother had climbed up on to my hips and was rocking back and to on my hardness.

She leaned forwards, filling my vision with her marvellous bubbies, I suckled on them eagerly, cramming each teat into my mouth and sloppily licking them. Helena shuddered at the sensation, thrusting herself backwards onto my cock, and forcing it up inside her as her spend came down. She jerked and bounced with its shocks, her lips now seeking my chest as she pressed herself to me.

Up until now, my sport with my mother had generally been respectful and loving. Well - as respectful as finally consummating years of repressed passion can be. But seeing her before me, beautiful and yet wanton looking, caused my passion to swell greater and greater. I could see that she felt it too, as I rose up and laid her back on the bed.

Taking her thighs in my hands, I lifted them up so that her feet rested upon my shoulder. She had had a minor spend and was still groggy from it, so she looked at me confused for a moment, until I lifted her hips and plunged deep inside her.

"Oh William! Oh!" She moaned. "So deep! And - Aaahh! - so hard!"

There are moments in a man's life when the savage inside us comes close to the surface. Rational thought steps aside and brutish lust takes its place. I have known this feeling in battle - a red mist that descends on a man, though being an officer, it is a feeling that must be mastered. But now, with Helena before me, her legs upon my shoulders and her sweet cunny full of my hard prick, I felt the brute in me rising again.

Faster and faster, I thrust, stronger and more deeply. Helena sprawled upon the bed before me, gasping, making half-words that turned into spewed obscenities that fell from her sweet loving lips. "Fuck! Aaaaah! Shit! Yes, fuck me William, fill me!"

I did my best to fill her, to shove my cock deep, up inside her, while she strove to close herself on me, tightening her grip on my thrusting prick.

Her legs fell from my shoulders and I pulled her up into an enveloping hug.

"Oh God! Oh God! Ohhhh, Willeeeeeeeeeeeeam!"

This last was a cry that turned into a scream, as she clung to me as if I was the last solid thing in her world, as I shot up into my mother's womb, and we collapsed onto the bed.

"I think I might have woken the servants," Helena said, with a wry smile.

"I think so too," I told her, laughing. "Barclay will take care of that."

"Your man knows about us?" She looked worried.

"Possibly. Probably. I should imagine it is a racing certainty, but even if he doesn't know precisely what is going on, he will make sure that my privacy is maintained. Don't worry my love," I said, "He is discretion itself."

Helena looked relieved, but decided it was probably best that she return to her own room.

As my mother left, I smiled as I heard her quietly say, "Goodnight, Mr Barclay."

And his equally quiet "Goodnight Your Grace, sleep well."

Moments later I heard his distinctive knock-knock, pause, knock-knock.

"Come!" I called.

"Is there anything Your Grace requires?"

I pulled my dressing gown on.

Initially I said, "No, thank you, Barclay." but as he turned in the doorway to go, I said "Wait!"

"Would you join me in a tot?" I asked, indicating the rum, which sat on a side table.

I indicated that he should sit down and I poured us both a measure. I moved the small table next to our two chairs.

"Your health, Your Grace." He said as I sat down opposite him.

"And yours, sir!" I toasted him.

"So, Joshua?" I very rarely use Barclay's first name, mainly because his name is also his title, he is Barclay and his forename is effectively irrelevant, but tonight it seemed appropriate. "We have come a long way together, from the hills and forests of the West Indies, to the walls and lanes of the Peninsular to the mastery of a great estate. What do you think of the new billet?" I waved my glass to encompass Rogeringham Hall.

"We've had worse, Your Grace," he said with a smile. "Much worse."

"And are you comfortable, Joshua? Are your quarters suitable?"

"I am, and they are, thank you, Your Grace."

"Good!" I offered him a top up. He declined.

"How have you progressed with your 'discovery'?" Wellesley employed 'discoverers' in the Peninsular, intelligent men on fast horses, who sought out information on the enemy, often at great risk. Barclay was acting as my discoverer.

"Not much more than I told Her Grace, sir. The man is not well liked and overly tyrannical, but nothing especially concerning." I nodded. I had come to this conclusion myself.

"However, there was one thing, Your Grace." Barclay paused. "I was with Mr Dives this morning in the wine cellar ..."

"How are you getting on with him?"

"Very well, Your Grace. Mr Dives is a most professional man, sir." I allow Barclay to call me 'sir', rather than Your Grace, because of his position - he is one of the few people in the world, who is not family, that has this privilege. "He understands my role, and I, his. We are both very certain on that."

I nodded, "The wine cellar?"

"I was thinking to find space for some casks of spirits - your rum, sir, and just to get a feel for what was available. So, we went with Mr Roberts, the cellarman to start looking through the stock. Some of it ... Well, some of it seems to have been changed, Your Grace."

I nodded for him to go on.

"In one example, there were supposed to be forty-eight bottles of a fifteen-year-old Madeira. There were four dozen bottles of Madeira, sir, but they did not appear to have been there for more than a couple of months, let alone a year or even fifteen."

"Interesting. Were there any more examples?"

"A subject close to your heart Your Grace. Five cases of thirty-year-old port. There are five cases, certainly, but not from the producer that Mr Roberts's cellar-book says they were from."

"What did Mr Dives say?"

"He was most concerned, Your Grace, he could not understand what had happened or when it had happened."

"What do you think?"

"I would say that the changes were recent ... the last couple of months."

"While Mr. Dives has been in London?"

Barclay nodded. "Mr Roberts has no accounting of the changes."

"Thank you, Joshua, that is most interesting. I shall not need you again tonight. Goodnight."

"Goodnight Your Grace."