Taboo

Keywords: Abducted, 06, Ch.,

There was nothing more lovely than a woman who had just received her first proper kiss. She was beautiful to start with. She would be a goddess then.

Victoria watched Ned Hawke with uneasy eyes. Her skin suddenly rushed icily cold and prickled with the erection of hairs. It felt almost as if a tiny mesh of invisible wires was constricting every muscle of her body. She shivered involuntarily as the cold breath of autumn passed across her face.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Are you sure?" He moved closer to check her face, now cloaked in the shadows. He saw the fabric of her skirt shiver as she jerked her leg away from his. "Are you cold?"

"No."

"No, you're not sure or no, you're not cold?"

"I am fine," Victoria said. Now, just with the movement of his leg against hers, her blood was boiling like a smelting furnace. Her veins began to trill with an increasing pulse. Her heart desperately pumped against her sternum, as a butterfly trapped in a jar might do. She tried to force it to slow, but she could not. The knowledge of his hand slowly gliding up her thigh, made the beating stop. She felt her heart lurch in her chest, leaving the rest of her body feeling uncomfortably empty.

"Please don't," she whispered, but her voice came out in a ragged gasp. She was frightened now. His hand halted in its path, the fingertips gently circling over the fabric. The soft sensation sent waves of panic through her nerves. Heat diffused to every bodily surface, rushing like a wild torrent of water over her skin. She felt sweat slicken the skin between her legs. Her blood thumped violently through her veins in response to the gentle stimulus of her thigh. "Don't," she repeated.

Ned moved his hand back down to her knee and pressed his thigh hard against hers. "Really?" His hand rose up again, this time taking with it a wrinkle of fabric. His ankle gently brushed against the tiny inch of exposed flesh. He paused and let his fingertips swivel lightly over her thigh. He hoped that she could feel something through whatever petticoats and drawers she was wearing under the smooth fabric of her dress. His fingers arched forwards and hooked another fold of fabric, drawing up until it rested beneath his wrist. He curved his hand backwards and forwards along the outside slope of her thigh.

Victoria felt herself growing more and more sweat laden. The polished cotton of her petticoat clung to the cleft between her buttocks as warmth and desire trickled down the cavity of flesh between the legs of her drawers. She was in danger of losing herself to him. "Stop it," she told him, and herself. His hand continued to rove freely over her thigh. She brought her own hand down on his, pushing him away. "I said stop it."

"I'm sorry," Ned murmured. He felt how wet the palm that repelled his hand was and realized how close he was getting. His own loins were fired with the knowledge. Still, he thought of himself as a gentleman, so delicately removed the pressure of his hot body from hers.

They rode on in silence. It had been nearly fifty minutes by now. Suddenly, Victoria turned to him and asked. "Where are we going?"

Ned Hawke smiled, more to himself than the woman sitting beside him. "That would be telling."

Something about the way his lips curved arrogantly into the surrounding skin terrified Victoria. "Where are we going?" she repeated, trying to keep the element of fear from infecting her voice.

"For a meal," Ned said. "Relax, I'm not going to bite you."

"I did not think that you would." Something intuitively did not bode well. "Where are we going?"

"Don't worry, it's not far."

"Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

"I don't like surprises," Victoria murmured.

"Don't fret," Ned told her. He reached across to pat her leg, but saw her face flinch in alarm. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Victoria struggled back into the corner she had wedged herself into earlier. Why had she let Charlotte persuade her to do this? "I'll ask you one more time. Where are we going, Mr. Hawke?" Her voice was as cold and as even as she could make it.

"Calm yourself, we're just going to have a meal together," Ned said.

"Where? We've been in this hansom for nearly an hour. Where are we going?"

"Somewhere nicer than Spitalfields."

"Where?" Victoria snapped. "Stop circumventing the question and tell me!"

"It's a surprise. Trust me, you'll like it."

That was the problem; Victoria did not trust him, or herself. She unfolded her arms from about her chest and rapped on the ceiling of the carriage to alert the driver. "Excuse me! Excuse me!"

"What are you doing?" Ned asked in alarm.

Victoria ignored him as the driver unlatched the trapdoor in the roof to speak with her. "Yes, love?" the man asked. His breath could be seen precipitating in bursts of white air from his mouth.

She took a deep breath as the chilled air of autumn poured slowly into the carriage through the trapdoor. Goodness, it was cold, and it was not even winter yet. "Stop the cab, I want to get out," she told the man, in the most authoritive voice she could muster.

"Don't listen to her," Ned said. "Keep driving."

Victoria flashed a look of desperation at the driver, sitting so high above them. "Please, stop the trap. I want to get out."

"Shut the hatch and drive on," Ned told the man. He turned to Victoria. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I want to go home."

"We're nearly there, don't worry," Ned said.

The hansom was slowing to a halt now. Soon she would be able to extricate herself from the corner and get out the cab. It wasn't that she disliked Hawke, indeed she was discovering she liked him too much. She didn't trust his hands or his easy grin, nor did she trust her own judgment. Being near him was becoming dangerous for her liking. Her brain was constricted by all the ideals of morality and puritanistic views on the control of emotion, but her body was not following the commands it was sent. She was terrified of the rapid beating of her heart, the heat rushing over her skin and the wetness gathering upon her limbs. She had never felt this way before, except in those disgusting moments when she let her own hands stray down her body. It was beastly and animalistic; truly frightening that she could allow these passions to flood her mind.

"All right, miss. It's safe to climb out now," the driver said.

"Where will you go?" Ned asked, frantically. "You're miles from home, you've probably not got any money on you, and even if you did it would not be enough for the trip back. I can't just leave you out on the street in the middle of London." He grappled at her wrists only to have her jerk away in distaste. "Victoria, please. It's not safe."

Victoria had not thought it through. She was, as Ned said, in the middle of London, miles from home, with no money. "I don't know," she said.

"Is my company so bad that you cannot bear to be near me?" he asked her.

The nurse watched him with weary eyes. She liked him, she truly did, but she did not trust him. Guiltily, she recalled the minutes they spent in the sweaty darkness of room twenty-one. Her brain had told her to be disgusted by what her fumbling fingers had touched, and she was, but not as much as she should have been. She knew what he was like, and she knew that should they be left alone, anything could happen.

"Miss, are you getting out or not?" the driver questioned in his coarse voice.

Victoria looked at Ned Hawke. "No," she said. "Drive on."

The cabman left them outside the building. It appeared as a narrow bricked wall wedged between two much larger and taller edifices that seemed to frown down upon it. There were three steps up to a navy-blue door with a polished brass knocker. Ned took this in hand and gently rapped. Almost immediately, a liveried man opened the door.

"Good evening, Dr. Hawke," he said. "Come in." George Thompson was a thin, lean man, with a sharp face. The lips above his pointed chin were thin; consequently, he had grown a large moustache to mask them. His hair was almost excessively oiled and combed back from his forehead. He turned to Victoria, fixing his wide-set brown eyes upon her face. "Good evening, madam." Ned nodded to him, and then slipped inside. Victoria followed him, closely.

The foyer was decorated theatrically with deep burgundy paintwork and imposing portraits of men with powdered wigs. The thick carpet bore a strange patterning of gold and red designs. When Victoria looked up, she saw that the high ceiling was patterned with a raised design of roses and coiled rope.

Another man in livery came and fetched their coats and hats, before yet another man conveyed them down a hallway to a desk with a high wooden counter. Standing behind this desk was a plump woman dressed in a sober black dress. Her curled hair was elaborately stacked above her pasty face. Her brown eyes were embedded in a pit of fat wrinkles and framed with pince-nez glasses that dripped a chain down about her neck. "Good evening, Dr. Hawke," she said, breezily. Her chubby head swiveled on its rolled neck to face Victoria. "Good evening, Miss."

"Hello," Victoria replied, uneasily.

"I've given you room thirteen. Your meal has been kept heated and will be brought to you immediately," Susannah Price said to Ned. She patted her sweating red forehead with a handkerchief before turning to a door behind the desk. "Lucy, would you please come and assist Dr Hawke."

A thin, blonde woman ventured into the room. Her maid's uniform was well pressed, the apron hanging cleanly from her narrow waist. "Certainly, mum," Lucy said. She took a key handed to her by Susannah and moved out from behind the desk. "Right this way, sir, ma'am."

They were lead to a winding staircase of polished wood. Lucy ascended first, followed by Ned and then Victoria. "What is this place?" Victoria queried as her eyes regarded the ostentatious decorations.

Keywords: Abducted, 06, Ch.,