Evening fell over the farm in a golden hush. Candles flickered in their sconces along the hallways, casting warm light on the ancestral portraits that lined the walls. The scent of roasted duck with wild herbs drifted through the dining chamber, accompanied by the faintest touch of lavender and beeswax polish. The long mahogany table gleamed beneath silver candelabras, and crystal goblets caught the firelight like droplets of starlight.
Lord Ashcombe, freshly returned from inspecting his troops, sat at the head of the table, wine swirling idly in his hand. His uniform was immaculate as always, his eyes sharp beneath his brow. Beside him, Emily reclined in her high-backed chair with feline ease, her décolletage framed artfully by emerald silk that clung to her like ivy.
Thomas sat opposite her, every inch the newly minted officer—pressed tunic, shining buttons, posture straight—but the edge of rawness still clung to him. A man changed in more ways than one. At his side, Lucia sat quietly, her presence softer than before, yet oddly charged. Her eyes lingered on Thomas a breath longer than propriety dictated. Her movements were graceful, showing the formal practice attached with her position.
Emily sipped her wine, then dabbed delicately at her lips with a linen napkin. “We’ve had quite the eventful day in your absence, darling,” she said, her voice light as sugar but laced with meaning.
“Oh?” Lord Ashcombe looked from his wife to Thomas, the barest curve of amusement touching his lips. “I trust the agreement was sealed to your satisfaction, Captain?”
Emily’s eyes glittered. “Twice,” she said smoothly, tracing the rim of her goblet with one fingertip. “Once in the lounge. And again in the bath.”
The silence that followed was brief but electric. Thomas froze with his fork halfway to his mouth. Lucia’s cheeks flushed a delicate pink, but she didn’t look away.
Lord Ashcombe laughed—a single, rich sound, not cruel, but knowing. “Well then,” he said, lifting his glass, “to clarity of intent.”
They drank. The clink of crystal seemed louder than it should have been.
Before the tension could swell further, the door to the dining room creaked open. A servant stepped in, breathless, holding a sealed envelope marked with the wax crest of the War Office.
“Urgent dispatch for you, my lord,” he announced.
Lord Ashcombe broke the seal with his knife and skimmed the contents, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. “I’ll need to return to headquarters first light,” he muttered. “Possible redeployments. Nothing immediate, but… movement is in the air.”
He stood and excused himself to the study, papers in hand, leaving the rest of the table shrouded in a lingering haze of suggestion and unspoken energy.
Once the door closed, Emily rose gracefully and placed a kiss on Thomas’s cheek. “I believe you and Lucia have some air to take in, don’t you?” she said, her voice honeyed with approval.
They did.
—
The grounds of the farm were cloaked in the blue hush of twilight. Gravel crunched underfoot as Thomas and Lucia walked the winding path past hedgerows and quiet groves. The sky above had turned to a dusky velvet, and the village lights twinkled in the valley beyond like scattered gold.
Lucia walked close to him, her arm occasionally brushing his. She wore a simple cloak over her elegant red and black gown that hugged her hips and exenterated her breasts perfectly. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was low and unguarded.
“I’ve never seen her like that with anyone before,” she said. “So… open. So sure.”
Thomas turned to her, studying the soft lines of her face in the moonlight. “You didn’t seem shocked,” he said, not accusing—just curious.
“I’ve served her for years. I’ve seen everything. But she’s never shared it before.” She paused. “Not like this.”
They walked a little further, into the edge of the village, where the evening air carried the scent of bread cooling on windowsills and distant woodsmoke. Children’s laughter echoed faintly from a courtyard. A dog barked once, then fell silent.
Lucia stopped beside a lime wash stone wall and looked up at him, a hesitant smile playing at her lips. “It’s strange,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t feel like a servant. But I do. Only with you. Your simple presence makes me feel like a little girl.”
Thomas stepped closer, brushing a lock of hair from her cheek. “You aren’t.”
They didn’t kiss—not yet. But their hands found one another, fingers threading in a gentle press of shared understanding. The air between them pulsed—not with raw lust, but with the slow, inevitable draw of something new and unfolding.
As they made their way back toward the farm, the sky deepened into indigo, and the farmhouses windows glowed like the embers of something smoldering—something far from finished.
——
The building stood quiet beneath the stars, its great stone frame lit from within by the soft golden glow of oil lamps and hearthfire. As Thomas and Lucia approached from the gardens, the air had taken on a cool edge—autumn brushing its first breath across the hills.
Inside, the silence was deeper than stillness—it was intentional. A kind of hush that came not from sleep, but from waiting.
Lucia paused at the foot of the entrance. She didn’t follow him in but placed a hand on his arm. “You’ll know where to go,” she said softly, and with a final glance—intimate, unreadable—she stepped past him and disappeared down the hall.
Thomas stepped slowly down the main hallway, his boots quiet against the polished stone floor. He passed portraits whose eyes seemed to watch him in judgment or curiosity. Perhaps both.
The double doors at the end of the hall were ajar. A glow poured through the crack—warm and low, the color of firelight on skin.
He pushed gently, and entered.
The drawing room had been transformed. Candles lined the mantel. A low fire burned in the hearth. The heavy curtains were drawn, turning the chamber into a world apart. Lord Ashcombe stood beside a crystal decanter, pouring two glasses of brandy with steady hands. He was no longer in uniform, but in a tailored smoking jacket, his bearing still unmistakably military.
Emily reclined on the chaise, clad in a black lace robe that showed its transparency with her every movement. She turned her head toward Thomas. Her hair was loose, spilling over one shoulder. She smiled—not with seduction, but with something more potent: a calm, knowing invitation.
Lord Ashcombe turned and handed a glass to Thomas. “You’ve made an impression,” he said. “On both of us.”
Thomas took it, uncertain for a moment whether this was a meeting, a test, or something else entirely.
Emily answered his unspoken question. “We have no appetite for lies here. What we do, what we feel, we own.” She uncrossed her legs, the robe parting slightly as she did showing Thomas her freshly waxed sex that glimmered slightly with her unmissable arousal. “You’ve already crossed the threshold, Thomas. This—” she gestured to the room, to her husband, to herself “—this is only the next room.”
Lord Ashcombe sat in the chair opposite her and sipped his brandy. “We’ve fought in too many wars to be afraid of honesty. Or desire.”
The air in the room had weight now. Not pressure—intensity. Like the moment before a storm, or a symphony’s first note. Thomas stood in the middle, between the quiet authority of the Lord and the poised sensuality of the Lady, and realized this was not seduction in the usual sense.
It was trust.
Emily patted the seat beside her. “Come. Sit.”
He did.
The robe slipped slightly from her shoulder, and she made no move to fix it. Her skin glowed in the firelight, her voice low as she leaned closer. “We brought you into this for more than what your body can offer, Thomas. But for the love I have for you and always have. The pleasure your body brings is just a bonus.”
Lord Ashcombe raised his glass in quiet agreement. “Pleasure is the seed of loyalty. If cultivated carefully.”
Thomas looked between them, pulse quickening not from fear, but from the rare, exhilarating feeling of being seen—truly seen—and wanted for more than just utility or status.
He raised his glass.
“To the next room,” he said.
And both of them smiled.
—-
The fire crackled softly, casting gold and amber light over bare skin and velvet cushions. The scent of tobacco, jasmine, and warm brandy hung in the air like a spell. Within the intimate confines of the drawing room, time no longer moved as it did in the outside world. It curled inward, languid and slow, as the rules that governed life beyond the heavy doors dissolved into something more primal.
Emily had moved first—always the axis, always in control. She slipped from her robe as easily as a whisper, revealing the body Thomas had already known but never seen like this: bared not just to him, but to her husband as well. Lord Ashcombe remained seated, eyes steady, neither possessive nor aloof. Just present. Intent.
Thomas felt their gaze on him—both of them—as he stood, breath uneven, caught in the strange, magnetic pull of this shared trust. No command was given. None was needed.
He came to her.
What followed was not hurried. There was no frenzy, no shame—only a slow, deliberate exploration of limbs and mouths, of nerves made electric by the shared knowledge that there were no secrets in this room. Emily slowly removed Thomas’s crisp new uniform, letting it fall in a careless heap on the floor. She knelt before him, taking him into her mouth with wild abandon, savoring the way he swelled to fullness against her tongue.
Raising a hand, Thomas helped her to her feet. She guided him to the chaise lounge, her fingers laced with his. A gentle, playful push sent him reclining onto his back, and with one graceful motion, Emily straddled him. Her lips found his in a slow, passionate kiss as their hands explored each other’s curves. Thomas’s breath caught as he felt her grasp his length, aligning him with her warmth. Her moans were muffled against his shoulder as she sank onto him for the third time that day, stretching around him completely. Her fingers threaded through his hair as he moved within her—her body curving to his like a memory returning home.
Lord Ashcombe rose silently from his chair, moving behind Emily as she rode Thomas with a slow, steady rhythm, her hips grinding into him with practiced grace. His hands slid over her bare shoulders, drawing a soft moan from her lips as her eyes fluttered shut. Thomas looked up, wide-eyed with amazement—this was the first time he had seen any physical intimacy between the two of them.
Justin’s eyes met Thomas’s, and he offered a slow, knowing smile—the kind that suggested a hidden plan. Thomas’s breath caught as he felt Lord Ashcombe’s hands gliding down his thighs, fingertips grazing the sensitive skin near his scrotum, sending a tremor through his body.
Thomas’s eyes widened further as he felt a warm liquid being poured between his cheeks. Before he could react, there was the blunt pressure of intrusion, followed by the sharp, stretching sensation as Lord Ashcombe entered him. The pressure was slow but relentless, until Thomas felt the man fully sheathed inside him. He lay frozen on the chaise, mouth parted in a silent gasp, eyes squeezed shut as his body adjusted to the unfamiliar fullness.
After a few moments, the pain began to fade, replaced by the overwhelming pleasure brought on by both Lord and Lady Ashcombe’s attentions. With every thrust of Justin’s thick shaft into Thomas’s quivering body, his hips bucked upward in perfect rhythm with Emily’s slow descent, driving her down onto his length. The room soon filled with the symphony of their shared moans and the rhythmic slap of sweat-slicked skin.
Justin gently brushed a strand of hair from his wife’s face as she leaned back into him, panting and moaning, her eyes shut tight. He whispered something into her ear—too quiet for Thomas to hear—but whatever it was made her smile, tremble, and arch her back. Then, Justin guided her forward, pressing her body flat against Thomas’s. Grasping Thomas’s legs and lifting them high, he doubled his efforts, his hips pounding harder as he claimed Thomas as his own. Muffling his cries Thomas latched onto one of Emily’s soft, milk-pale breasts. Sucking hard on her gem sized nipple as his hands slid firmly over her round ass, and with practiced ease, he slipped two fingers into her slick, twitching rosebud.
The sudden intrusion made Emily cry out. Her body convulsed with a shattering orgasm that tore through her like lightning. Her pussy clenched around Thomas’s cock like a velvet vise, milking him just as his own climax hit—flooding her with hot release. Every muscle in his body tightened, his back arched, and his ass gripped Lord Ashcombe’s thick cock so tightly it made the already massive shaft feel impossibly large. Justin groaned as he plunged deep and released, his own orgasm crashing through him in waves, sending a torrent of heat into Thomas. The sensation washed over him, drowning everything in a white-hot haze of pleasure.
When it was over—when Emily lay breathless and spent, flat against her lover’s chest—Justin withdraw from Thomas leaving him gaping and stood watching as his seed flowed freely from his wrecked body, he gathered what clothing he could, and excused himself with a soft word.
No one stopped him.
No one needed to.
—-
When Thomas finally returned to his room upstairs it was cool, the fire left untended. The moon cast a silver rectangle across the floorboards, and Thomas stood in it barefoot, shirt open, body still humming.
He sat at the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, staring into the hearth as though something might speak from its cold embers.
What had just happened wasn’t shameful. Nor was it empty. But it had changed him. Again.
He had never been possessed before—not fully. Not claimed so completely and yet so freely given. What Emily had awakened in him earlier was desire. What she and her husband had invited him into tonight was surrender. Not to one person. But to a way of living. A way of being.
And yet… beneath the afterglow, beneath the lingering taste of skin and wine and flame, something stirred. A tension.
Where did he belong now?
Was he a guest, a lover, a pawn, or something more complicated?
He remembered Lucia’s quiet hand on his, her honesty. Her presence felt more grounding than anything he’d just experienced.
He lay back, staring at the ceiling. The weight of the day pressed into him. He’d crossed thresholds he hadn’t known existed. And some part of him thrilled in it.
But another part—quieter, more wounded—wondered what pieces of himself he was giving up, one touch at a time.
—-
The light in the east was soft and pale when Thomas opened his eyes. Sleep had only visited in short intervals, and even then, it had been restless. He dressed quietly, moving through the house as though it might shatter underfoot if disturbed.
The household stirred slowly. Servants passed with fresh linens and trays of tea, but none spoke.
Lucia was in the orangery.
The glass dome above caught the morning sun, casting ribbons of light through dew-dappled panes. The air inside was warm, fragrant with the scent of blooming citrus and earth. She stood near a fig tree, her hands clutching a book, hair tied in a thick single plait just like the morning in which they had met.
He lingered in the doorway longer than he should have. She sensed him before she turned.
“You look like you didn’t sleep,” she said gently.
“I didn’t,” he admitted, stepping into the garden-light. “Not because of regret. Just… a lot to make sense of.”
She nodded but didn’t speak. Instead, she returned her attention to the small book she was reading. When she was done, she lowered the book and walked toward him.
“Sit,” she said, gesturing to the cushioned bench beneath the ivy-covered trellis.
He obeyed, and she sat beside him, curling her feet under her, her eyes on the morning sky.
“I saw you last night,” she said. “Before I went to bed. You were different.”
“In what way?”
“Not sad. Not happy either. Just… lost.” She looked at him now, full and steady. “You don’t need to be anything here, Thomas. Not their soldier. Not their secret. Just… yourself.”
He exhaled slowly. “I don’t know who that is anymore.”
Lucia reached out and touched his hand. “Then let’s find him again. Together.”
There was no urgency in the kiss that followed. It was soft, lingering—less about heat and more about permission. They were not rushing toward anything. They were pausing inside something tender.
For the first time in days, he felt peace.
But it didn’t last.
—–
Later that morning
The great brass bell near the gate clanged once—sharp and sudden.
A rider had come.
Lucia and Thomas reached the entry hall just as Lord Ashcombe strode in from the front courtyard, his boots still dusted with road. He carried an envelope marked with the War Office seal. His face, usually composed in all things, was drawn.
He saw Thomas and motioned him forward.
“There’s been movement at the front. Casualties high. Your regiment is being reassembled. You’re to report to Colonel Beresford by dusk. You march at first light tomorrow.”
Thomas froze.
Emily appeared in the hall, her robe trailing behind her like smoke, eyes wide and disbelieving. “No,” she said softly. “They gave him leave. You sponsored him.”
“I did,” Lord Ashcombe said grimly. “But leave is a ribbon in the wind when war stirs again. We all serve.”
Lucia touched Thomas’s shoulder. “You don’t have to go,” she whispered.
But he knew better.
“I do,” he said, voice low. “Or I won’t be the man I was trying to become.”
He looked between them—Emily’s sorrow just beneath her proud exterior, Lucia’s eyes already brimming.
The house, once a haven, now seemed to retreat from him—its doors colder, its light dimmer. The world had found him again.
And it was calling him back.
