Page 37 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6
‘Give him a moment, it will be all right.’ He darted a look towards the others, over the far side of the kitchen, before waving Pitch closer.
‘What?’ Pitch grumbled.
‘Come here, damn it.’ When Pitch acquiesced, Bess leaned in to whisper. ‘The coat you requested. Lim finished it, and I believe it arrived while you were…’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Occupied.’
‘The Inverness?’
‘Shhhh. It’s a surprise, is it not?’ Bess glanced at Silas, but the ankou was absorbed in his discussion with Charlie. ‘And I’d say it couldn’t come at a better time. A nice peace offering, after being such a cunt.’
A fair assessment. Pitch put up no protest at the insult. He nodded, quietly elated at the prospect of the coat’s arrival. The Inverness he’d arranged to have made may as well be the crown jewels right now. He’d requested an exact replica of the ankou’s beloved coat. The original was far away in Holly Village, likely a home to moths and silverfish, nibbling away at its fetching cape and black trimmings. Silas adored that coat. And in the strange ways of the ankou, he missed a piece of clothing the way Nancy and Ada might miss Tilly. Hopefully he adored it enough to cease being furious with a thoughtless daemon.
Bess returned to assaulting his dough with the rolling pin. ‘Up you go then. And be sure to see if Ronin has found the mushrooms I need. No point making this mushroom pie otherwise. Nothing can top a Mustow Green mushroom, something in the soil.’ He gave Pitch a wink. ‘Nancy said Ada’s partial to mushrooms. If this doesn’t get her eating, then nothing will.’
But Pitch had little interest in Ada’s lack of appetite. He had enough issue with his own. Pitch set down his jar of raspberry jam, glanced once more at Silas and Charlie, who paid him no mind, and made his way towards the door.
‘Tobias, dear,’ Bess called. ‘Do be sure to wash, you are rather pungent, and I’m not talking pond water.’
Pitch made his way along the corridor and into the main section of the house. He passed by several empty rooms, a sitting room where much of the furniture was sheeted, a dining room where candlesticks and condiment jars and a couple of fine glasses still remained from last night’s attempt at a meal. His sock-covered feet made him silent, only the occasional creak of a floorboard to betray him.
Tilly’s giggle announced the changeling’s presence up ahead. He was very grateful to find her far too distracted to notice him pass by the parlour, where she busied herself with arranging an appalling selection of gleaming trinkets in Forneus’s coat.
‘Pretty, pretty puppy,’ Tilly declared, adding a pearl-embellished hairpin to the arrangement dangling from the hound’s shaggy coat.
The child, thank all the gods, had her back to the door and did not notice him pass by, but the skriker did. His red eye followed Pitch’s movement, tongue like a drooped black flag hanging from his mouth. They regarded each other balefully, and Pitch had the horrid idea that Silas’s hound might know exactly how mean-spirited he’d been to the ankou.
‘Fucking dog,’ he muttered, and broke into a jog.
That didn’t last long though. Pitch grimaced, grabbing at his hip, the resistance in the muscles causing him to stumble. Seraphiel had stifled the wildness, whittled Pitch’s flame to nothing, but had left Pitch with this godsdamned dodgy hip. Not so bad as before, he’d barely noticed it on the walk from the garden, but it was still going to be an issue if he could only stroll away from mortal fucking danger and not run away screaming in panic, as he seemed prone to do these days.
He negotiated the stairs with trepidation. But here again the hip was not so bothersome. His legs were just stiff from being contorted as Silas fucked him. And he’d not complain about that.
Pitch turned right at the top of the stairs, heading away from Nancy and Ada’s room, which lay the other way.
Old Bess had claimed the largest of all the rooms, despite the fact that Ada and Nancy and the changeling were rather cramped in their quarters.
He pushed open the deceptively heavy mahogany door and stepped into Bess’s bedchambers. The room was thick with the odour of perfume, Bess’s preferred sandalwood. The curtains were all pulled wide open, allowing in what light the struggling day held, the windowpanes smeared with the incessant rain. The room was considerable, the hearth alone double that of the one in the room he shared with Silas, and the bed…good gods, what exploits could be had in such a space. It had posters thick as small tree trunks and a mastery of carving upon them, vines of ivy brought to life in the rosewood. The bed was covered in blue satin and strewn with enough pillows to bury oneself in entirely.
Pitch’s attention moved to the trunk which took up a good portion of one corner of the room. The steamer trunk had been set up on one of its ends and fanned open to reveal a tier of wide drawers on one side and an open section on the other, where hangers would normally be fixed in readiness for the clothes to be hung. No wonder Old Bess had chosen this particular trunk, for the inside was covered in a floral wallpaper that nearly matched the bright and busy design on the apron he wore.
But Pitch was much disappointed to see the hanging section empty. He’d been expecting a splash of royal blue there, double folded to accommodate the great swath of material it took to cover the ankou. He knelt between the two widened sections of the trunk, and opened one of the drawers. A paper-wrapped parcel sat there, tied with a purple ribbon. He was hit by the pungent odour of fresh-turned dirt and a more resinous waft. Pine needles, he suspected. Ronin had found the mushrooms.
Pitch lifted the bundle from the drawer, the mushrooms soft lumps beneath the paper. There was a bag of sugar too, and a mother-of-pearl inlaid brooch. A gift for Tilly, he suspected. Pitch set them all aside and moved to the next drawer. His eyes widened.
He let out a cry of delight. A corset. Indubitably fine. He pulled it from the drawer, pressing it against himself, rising to his feet so he could admire himself in the mottled mirror over the rosewood dresser. The corset was glorious. A sublime maroon, embroidered with silver lengths of ivy and wheat stalks, and edged with a cream-coloured lace at the top. It flared a little at the hips and tapered down to a long point at the torso. Likely the tip would press at the bone just above his cock. He’d be tightly bound from tits to balls. It was perfect.
Pitch dragged his shirt over his head, forgoing unbuttoning, grumbling as the fabric caught at his earring. He’d take the blasted thing off the minute they left the Sanctuary and Tilly wasn’t there to see it. Shirtless now, he set to putting on the corset at once. Its hooks were sewn at the front, so he needed no assistance to put it on. Another great delight.
He exhaled deeply, ridding his lungs of air, pulling in his stomach, growing a little light-headed as he fought to make himself small enough. The effort it took to bind himself in the corset was far more than it should have been, because he was far less than he should be.
Which would have made him far more irritated had he not caught sight of himself again in the mirror. He was a picture. Pitch breathed in short intakes as he accustomed himself to the tight press at his ribs once more. It had been a good few days since he’d been restrained, but now that he was back in the embrace of a corset, he could not imagine why he’d not demanded one sooner.
He smoothed the satin, ran his fingers over the embroidery, brushed his knuckles at the lace which sat just beneath his exposed nipples. Pitch was pale, he’d not noticed quite how much so before. It must be the particular hue of the fabric. And there were some fine scratches upon his shoulder that marred the perfection of his skin, a bruise too upon his arm. That was likely from Silas, dragging him from the weeds or pounding him into the table. Subtle things, really, that shouldn’t have caused any marks at all.
Pitch turned away from that thought. Back to the corset.
Ronin had done remarkably well in choosing it, not that he would say as much to the tsukumogami, or to Silas.
Satisfied, Pitch returned to the trunk, searching for signs of the coat. He opened the third draw, releasing the hint of strawberries. A handful of strawberry tarts sat beneath a glass dome. They were arranged on an ornate plate, ivory ground with finely crackled glaze, hints of a turquoise and yellow scene painted beneath the tarts.