discoveredinalj | Discovered in the Fairylights 4th December

A smidgeon of seasonal smut brought to you with warm wishes by Victorian Fantasies, Inc.

Sitting under the mistletoe (pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

(Mistletoe, Walter de la Mare)

Christmas may as well be cancelled.

Forthwith, thought Mr. Raymond Doyle.

All festivities may as well be struck from the parish record for good and all... because sins of this magnitude surely did not befit the spirit of the season or his own position in the community.

“Dear God,” he murmured, and took an urgent sip of air.

In less than one hour he would be alighting from the carriage outside St. Stephen’s for Midnight Mass. He would lead the family and servants through the wicket gate, up the snowy path and under the arch - and the eyes of the village would turn to him in deference and pride.

And yet here he was, shamefully absent from the assembled company, neglecting his duties as host and incumbent master of the manor. Worse than that, though, he was missing from the side of his soon-to-be-betrothed. Heaven preserve him, instead of toasting her infinite beauty and offering tokens of love, he was pressed against the schoolroom door being stroked to hardness by a man not even his social equal.

“Is she here tonight?”

Raymond shuddered. The voice was as teasing as the movement of the knowing fingertips, drawing his foreskin back and forth with lazy ease. “The prospective mistress of the manor? The charming Miss Holly... is she trembling in hope of a joyous spring wedding, praying for a fat ruby ring?”

He clamped his teeth together. Ann was certainly here. Even now she was perhaps glancing across the drawing-room to his empty seat at the card-table. He could practically feel her anxiety. It was as tight in his chest as the ache of desire in his belly.

“Do not forget that... I am... your employer.” He knew his voice was thin and shaky. Damn it, but he could hardly see straight, never mind speak with any conviction.

The movement slowed and then stilled. “An exceedingly fair one.”

“I am your employer,” Raymond repeated, voice stronger, “and if I order you to stop this, you will stop this.”

“Naturally.”

“And if I order you to... to continue, then, likewise, you will continue.”

A delighted laugh. “Of course.”

Raymond opened his mouth for more air. He felt it cold on his teeth and the back of his throat. And then there was warmth on his lips, a compelling pressure. He laid his head back against the thick oak panel behind him. His eyes fluttered closed as a tongue coiled against his own and then pulled away.

“You may continue,” he croaked, not able to help the motion of his hips. He could hear the rippling sounds of the company drifting up the passage from the drawing-room. Above the jovial deep notes of the men came the occasional tinkle of the women and girls. Someone played on the pianoforte and there was a gale of laughter. Then the delicate chink of crystal on crystal. Some clapping of hands.

Raymond blocked it out, breathing himself into the moment once more. His black peg-tops were already spread open, the twill drawers pushed down, exposing him to the chill. The trousers were brand new, cut from fine-milled black cloth, the same as his evening coat. He was always wretchedly uncomfortable in such formal attire, usually wanting nothing more than to remove it.

As to having it removed... his breast heaved slightly as the last of the three buttons on the mulberry waistcoat popped open. Hands slid immediately under the linen shirt, up his belly and ribs. Familiar palms stroked warmly across his chest. Fingertips pinched his nipples until they felt hot and hard, spreading heat up to the back of his neck and down to the depths of his groin. And all the time his brothers’ Byronic tutor gazed into his eyes with ill-disguised want.

“It appears to be a lively gathering.”

The voice had a sardonic edge, an uncultured, regional lilt. Fortunately its owner was not engaged to instruct the younger ones in diction or public speaking, just a bizarre curriculum of his own that seemed to tend towards military history, poetry and, apparently, bare-knuckle boxing. Raymond could not now remember where they had found him. He was just thankful that they had, else he suspected he might have lost his mind playing the gentleman farmer out here in the Derbyshire heartlands. He reacted to the comment somewhat sharply.

“God in Heaven, man, I do not wish to converse with you.”

This was not strictly true in fact, but Raymond most definitely did not want the hands to stop and the notion of convivial chatter while being pleasured in this manner seemed dangerously inappropriate.

The hands stilled once more, just for a moment, before trailing down to his waist and then his hips.

Raymond grasped for calm. For control.

He had chosen this course and now he must see it through. Every time he said that to himself.   He had freely walked out of the party and come searching the house for secret gifts, for a lover’s tryst with a man banned by rank from the Christmas company, a man adrift between servitude and respectability - and rejected by all.

The tutor’s questing hand slipped back into his trousers, resumed the firm stroking.

“You,” Raymond stuttered, a half-formed notion of reciprocity entering his mind. “Oh God, you... should I...?”

“Hush,” the deep voice admonished. It was strangely tender. “There will be opportunity for that at a later hour, I have no doubts.” A thumb rubbed over the head of his rigid erection. He could feel the pad sliding back and forth, wet with his own fluids. “You are the one with the heavy responsibilities, the one who needs... release.”

“Then finish me off, damn you,” he panted.

“With pleasure,” replied the other.

Raymond sucked in a sharp breath. There was a brief, calming stroke over the slick head of his cock. His balls tightened. The coming climax roared in his ears and he fisted his hands in preparation.

Rushed to the edge, he spilled his seed in a hard, adolescent gush. The force of it shook him head to toe, sent all his limbs into a fine tremble. He could feel the slippery wet coating the hand that held him, gently coaxing out the last drops of his ejaculate and making his fingers curl in on his palms once again. He could feel the wet on his own skin, and daubed on the hem of his shirt. A patch of fabric was now clinging to his stomach and when he picked at it dazedly he heard a low laugh.

“Compliments of the season, sir.”

Raymond laughed with him, sated and giddy. He clutched at the worsted sleeves held out towards him lest he should fall to the floor before he had recovered himself. When the temporary spin of all his senses receded, Raymond felt a familiar calm sliding through his veins. It left him still barely able to keep his feet, but strong arms drew him close. A forehead rested against his for a moment and a heartbeat jumped against his chest.

Peace and comfort draped around him like a cloak. He was kissed, and then kissed again. The mouth that touched his was soft. He returned the attentions. Lips brushed his jaw, soothed the tender ridge of his broken cheekbone, touched his temple. Sentimental phrases drifted against his ear.

Slowly an unwelcome sense of reality returned. As if pulling himself from a dream, Raymond inched upright, squared his shoulders against the inevitable loss of the warm arms. Before him in the half light that slanted through the casement the tutor pulled a handkerchief from his breeches pocket and wiped at his hand and wrist. He looked up with a slight smirk before he tucked it away again. Raymond righted his underclothes, making a face at the dishevelment.

“We could be shot for this, both of us,” he said.

“I don’t intend to be caught.”

“In that case, you had best return to your room, Mr. Bodie.”

“And you to your beloved.”

Raymond frowned. “You know it will not happen,” he said quietly. “It cannot happen.”

An eyebrow quirked up. “Well in that case, we had better prepare to abscond. The entire county is panting in breathless anticipation of your nuptials you know.”

“Let us reserve breathless anticipation for something else.”

Raymond placed one hand on a clean-shaven cheek and leaned in for a kiss strong enough to rock Mr. Bodie where he stood. Which was the intention.

“Sir,” said the tutor, eyes a-glitter with mischief when he was released. For a few moments they gazed at one another, silent. Then he tugged his somewhat faded frock coat straight, opened the door, peered out into the hallway and, military-smart, invited his employer to exit the schoolroom before him.

“Until later,” Raymond said, feeling the light touch of a hand against his back. He watched as the tutor walked quickly away, saw his upright figure melt into the dark shadows of the lower hallway and disappear towards the back stairs.

Suddenly bereft, he stood motionless.

Of course Christmas was not cancelled. It was not even compromised. Instead the celebration was continuing in the drawing-room from where he could even now hear the over-excitable shouts of his brothers. His presence was undoubtedly required and he must play his part.

Moving across the marble tiles, dull with the bloom of age and polish, he passed by the Christmas tree, the first to grace the household. Grown in the soil of his forefathers, hewn by his own hands, placed and decorated under his own orders. It was delightful indeed to see it there, sparkling with candles and fruit and trinkets. To know without doubt that he was the lord of this manor, and master of all he surveyed.

Outside the drawing-room door, he halted again. His eyes were drawn upwards to the profusion of holly heaped into the brass fixings of the wall-lamps. Mistletoe hung from the highest branch, strategically placed by one of the ladies no doubt.

A trill of laughter came from inside the room. Raymond’s mouth felt dry and his heart a little bitter.

In a very few moments he would summon the footman, take Miss Ann Holly’s arm, lead her out to the front steps and hand her into the carriage for the trip to St. Stephen’s. But, he resolved, he would not pause under this doorway first.

For your heart shall be forever entwined with the one you kiss under the mistletoe.

So said every one of the scullery maids, and they believed it too.

Well, Raymond could subscribe to the rulings of the mistletoe fairy, as long as he could do so under his own terms.

Reaching up, he pulled the graceful stem of green and white free. His rational mind told him that its removal made no difference to anything. His destiny would remain the same whether he partook of seasonal traditions or not. Yet his heart thumped with the instinct to kick against his fate. To steal up the back stairs much later with a guttering candle, a bottle of malt whisky under one arm and the sprig of pale leaves in his pocket.

His hand closed around the knob. He took a breath and opened the door.

They all looked up as he re-entered the room.

The neighbours, the friends, the siblings, the dignitaries and the scarcely-known relatives swam into view. They were excitable and a little flushed by roast beef, plum pudding and brandy. And, waiting in the centre of it all, Miss Holly with her porcelain skin, her hopes, her secrets, her pretty eyes and her neat little fairy mouth.

“Friends,” Raymond said and felt a second of guilt. He knew he would one day soon throw them all into turmoil and ferment. They were good people, he supposed, who really only wanted things to be safe and the same. Everyone in their allotted places, playing their allotted roles. For decades so little had changed in these rituals. Their beliefs and expectations were much the same as had been expressed in this room for generations.

It was, in some respects, a shame he would not be able to offer them a spring wedding at the manor. As he stepped further into their midst, he could feel the spots of damp on his shirt and gave them a smile that would be returned by one and all.

No, no Christmas betrothal. And no wedding.

But by God he would give them a scandal.

-ends-

Title: The Mistletoe Fairy
Author: JoJo
Slash or Gen: Slash
Archive Proslib/Circuit/Hatstand: Yes
Disclaimer: Of course they’re not
Summary: Raymond Doyle’s goose may be well and truly cooked...

Discovered in the Fairylights 4th December - The Mistletoe Fairy by JoJo

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