Page 27 of 1797 Club 2nd Epilogue Collection (The 1797 Club #11)

R obert had wanted to take Katherine to Pompeii for years.

Ever since she’d talked to him about the subject after a lecture from an archeologist at Lady Lena’s salon in London, where they held a membership.

He’d watched Katherine’s face light up, listened to her talk about her love as a girl for the tragic story of the city.

She was so animated when she was passionate about a subject. Never more beautiful.

Now she was practically vibrating as they made their way up a winding path that eventually led to the entrance of the ruin of Pompeii.

“I know you’ve read about this place for decades,” Robert said. “Would you be my guide?”

She gave him the most dazzling smile he’d ever seen and then slipped her arm through his. “First, you must answer a question.”

“Anything,” he said.

“How did you obtain permission to view the ruin? I know it isn’t open to the public.”

He shrugged. “As with many things, life is much easier when you have money to throw around. I did so, and somehow, as if by magic, permission was obtained. ”

She sighed. “Well, I’ll make it worth the money.”

“It already is to see you light up like this,” he assured her and lifted her hand to his lips. “Now, educate me.”

She laughed but it trailed off as they stepped onto the uneven stone of the streets of the old city.

It laid out in front of them now, long rows of stone houses, and broken buildings, left entirely intact thanks to the ash that had buried them, and their unlucky occupants, almost two millennia before.

“The eruption happened in A.D. 79,” she said softly, reverently. “They didn’t know or understand. The earthquakes had come first, but there were so many of those all the time, they were commonplace. So they didn’t know until the explosion and the ash began to fall.”

They stepped into a small building and looked around in the dim light from the afternoon sun outside. The doorways were arched, the ceilings carefully carved and painted. One wall had partially fallen, but otherwise it felt like a place where one had truly stepped back in time.

“They had little time to escape,” she continued, gripping his hand as they looked stepped back out and down the rugged stone street again. There was a fresco on a wall across the way, a man riding a horse done in shining colored mosaic tile and Robert caught his breath.

“Beautiful.”

She nodded. “Only some survived by running or taking to the sea. The rest were…” She shivered and he put his arm around her.

“The first ruins were uncovered in the 1500s. They were trying to build an aqueduct and found walls with frescos like this one. But they didn’t fully begin to excavate until 1748.

That’s when they found the bodies. Voids in the ash layers that froze them in time.

I think there are some on display here. They filled them with plaster to retain their shapes. ”

She motioned toward another building and as they stepped inside, he took a breath. On a stone bed, there were two of the very remains she’d described. A couple, arms around each other, cradling each other in death.

She looked up at him. “They were people with lives. Loves. Hopes and dreams.”

“I suppose any time we encounter loss like this, it’s a good reminder to value the time we have.” He cupped her cheek. “And see that in the end, what we reach for is love.”

She smiled up at him. “Yes. There’s something comforting that people like this had each other in those moments, isn’t there? I’d want to be in your arms in the end, you know.”

“And I in yours.” He was surprised that his eyes stung with tears. “There is nowhere else I’d rather be.”

She leaned up and kissed him gently. Then she stepped away. “Now that is the sad element. The people and what they lost under the ash. But what was saved is a beautiful glimpse of a life from thousands of years ago. Art and food and sex.”

“My three favorite things to share with you,” he said and followed her out of the house.

“Good, then let me take you to a brothel, Your Grace,” she said with a little wicked smile. “And to find it we just have to follow the plaster penises.”

“What?” he said and started after her down the lane, laughing as she pointed out little plaster penises attached to walls and posts that pointed their way to the famous brothels of Pompeii.

K atherine smiled up at her maid as she slid the brush one last time through Katherine’s locks. “That will be all,” she said softly. “Enjoy your night.”

The servant bobbed out a curtsey and left Katherine alone.

She looked at herself in the mirror at the small dressing table.

It was a fine room Robert had arranged for them.

Tonight she wore his favorite nightgown, a pale blue silk that brushed her skin just perfectly.

She put on the matching brocaded dressing gown and stepped into the main bedroom they shared.

He was already on the bed, wearing only his robe, bare ankles crossed and hands up behind his head. Her heart did the same little leap it always did when she saw him lounging like a king ready to be pleasured. By God, but she did love and want this man.

“Your Grace, aren’t you a vision,” he said as he got up and started across the room to her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, sighed as he molded her to him, and lifted her mouth in offering.

He didn’t take it. When she opened her eyes she found him smiling down at her. “What is it?” she asked.

He stepped away. “Welcome to the Roseford Brothel, Your Grace.”

She wrinkled her brow. “I beg your pardon.”

“The trip today inspired me. And so I present myself to you as your courtesan. At your mercy for whatever you desire.” He motioned to the table across the room from the bed.

“First though, you must look at the menu of the services we offer. My drawings aren’t as beautiful as the ones on the walls of the brothels we toured today, but one only had so much time while one’s wife was taking her bath and preparing for bed. ”

She stepped up and found several pieces of paper on the table with crudely drawn stick figures displaying couples in various sex acts. She lifted a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“Robert!” she gasped.

He laughed with her. “I never said I was an artist, did I? I do hope you don’t hate me for borrowing your charcoal pencils.”

“Not at all,” she said and looked closer.

Heat suffused her cheeks at some of the positions the stick figures were in.

A stick figure woman being taken from behind.

Another pressed to a wall with her stick legs wrapped around the other figure.

And finally a stick figure woman with a stick figure man splayed between her legs.

She pointed at the tiny line coming from his mouth.

“Is that his tongue?” she asked .

Robert nodded. “Yes. Please choose your option and then we can begin.”

She drew her fingertip across each sheet, lengthening the time she took to pick in order to torment him a little. Then she pointed at the figure performing oral sex. “I’d like to start with this,” she said softly.

He nodded.

“And then move on to this.” She motioned to the stick figures engaged in sex from behind. “And finish with your pinning me against any or perhaps every wall in this lovely room.”

“Ah,” he said and shifted even though he wasn’t doing any decent job of hiding his arousal now. “The lady is ready to spend some coin.”

“I am,” she whispered and put her arms back around his neck.

This time he did kiss her, long and deep and passionately.

He backed her toward the bed as he did so, laying her back on the comfortable pillows and covering her body.

He began to draw his mouth downward, taking his time to kiss her through the slick silk fabric that covered her body.

He pushed the hem of her nightgown up and just as he was about to settle between her legs, she touched his head.

“Robert?”

He lifted his gaze to her, pupils dilated with lust, lips parted and slick. “Yes, my love?”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For all of this. For everything.”

His expression softened. The old rake fled for a moment, replaced by her loving husband. “Whatever I do, it isn’t enough to thank you for everything you bring to my life.” The wicked returned and he parted her legs wider. “But I do love to try.”

She flopped her head back with a gasp as he began to pleasure her, her love mixing with desire and sensation and hope and dreams and everything her life had become. Everything it always would be. Forever.