Chapter 17: A Journey and a Wedding

My plan for the journey to Grantham worked as intended, and Caroline received an invitation from Lord Brownlow to stay at Belton House during her visit. I also received a missive from the noble Lord which 'requested' me:
'To escort Lady Caroline Braxton-Clark and her son, the Tenth Earl of Hungerford, to Grantham to attend the wedding of Colonel Slade and Miss Teazle. As both Colonel Slade and you are members of The Sixty Ninth Foot, the regiment of which I am honoured to be Colonel-in-Chief, I am confident that my request will be observed. The costs of hiring a coach and driver will be reimbursed shortly after your arrival in Grantham.'
Naturally I would not think of refusing a 'request' from my superior, and replied I would be honoured to escort the Earl and Countess of Hungerford, and the only reimbursement necessary would be knowing I had done my duty to my Regiment and Colonel-in-Chief.
I had Rob Crawshay, who would be driving the rig, hire the most resplendent carriage and four horses the Dog and Duck Livery stable possessed.

When nobility travel they do not stay in the common Inns or hostelry's en-route as does the general travelling public. Oh no, they contact the noble families along their route of travel to inform them of their passage through their lands, and are then invited to stay overnight.
I had expected to be sharing a room with Caroline at a convivial tavern each night as we made our way along the Great North Road. Instead I found myself banished to servants' quarters, along with Rob. He thought it a great joke, and constantly referred to me as 'Jack the Postilion' when in the company of the servants of the Great Houses where we spent the nights. Caroline had no more sympathy, and made an elaborate show of having me stow and re-stow her luggage when starting off each morning. Molly and Domina, who as John-Jarvis's nursemaids got to sleep and eat in the Great House, also sniggered and chuckled at my humble status.

We had set off early, on a bright and fresh late September morning, for the 100 mile journey to Grantham. Caroline, John-Jarvis and Domina had travelled up to London the previous day and stayed at the Viscount of Monmouth's town house in Hanover Square – the Monmouths were still away on the Grand Tour. Rob and I, with Molly March as sole passenger, pulled the coach up outside the house. It was then Caroline informed me of my new occupation of postilion-cum-porter.
Our party spent the first night at Hatfield House, and although the Marquess of Salisbury was in London the Marchioness made an excellent and charming substitute host. Rob and I found accommodation in the servants' quarters, where I spent the time on tenterhooks in case encountering Patsy, the energetic housemaid with whom I had relentlessly, ruthlessly and repeatedly galloped in the Hatfield House stables when the regiment had been waiting for orders to proceed to Belgium in 1815.
Rob remarked on my anxious state, and I told him the reason.

"Never fear, Major." When alone he always addressed me with the greatest courtesy, "point out the wench to me, and I shall keep her occupied." As fate would have it Patsy entered the kitchen when we were with the below stairs house servants having supper. She had come to collect some condiments, and had little time to examine who was at table. I pointed her out, and Rob nodded – smiling broadly.

Next morning I spied him with a female, who looked suspiciously like Patsy, coming from the stables. He was leading the team of horses, and she was hugging his arm as if not wanting him to leave. I had no time to question him about it then as Milady had me running about collecting hat boxes, and portmanteaux, and baby clothes from the bedroom. I noted that the large, comfortable looking, bed in her room appeared hardly disturbed, and thought how it would have looked had I been able to share it with her.
I questioned Rob after we left Hatfield House. "You came from the stable this morning with a lass?"

"Aye, that I did sir, and with our horses."

"Did you and the lass spend the night in the stable?"
He nodded. "I thought to do you a favour by keeping Patsy occupied all evening. Although it was far more exhausting a task than I had first thought it to be." He clicked his teeth, and the team speeded up. "I don't think I could have managed another bout with such a lusty baggage. Any man who can satisfy her each and every night deserves admiration."
His remarks brought a glow of pride to my cheeks, and completely took the wind from my sails.
The next night we stayed at Huntingdon, and once again Rob and I stayed in the servants quarters while Milady, her son and his nursemaids, stayed in the Great House of Lord Hastings. After taking in the luggage, which seemed to have increased in quantity and weight since being loaded that morning, I flopped exhausted onto my narrow bed in the male servants' bedroom. Rob was nowhere to be seen, but next morning I noticed him leaving the stable leading our team, with a girl hanging on his other arm. He grinned as he noticed me staring.

"I thought the maid might be another one of your former paramours, Major, so took precautionary measures to avoid the pair of you meeting."

For all of the charade played out when our carriage arrived at a great house once we had put a few miles from where we had stayed overnight I joined Caroline inside the coach. I would, in mock anger, complain of strained limbs from carrying all her luggage back and forth.

"Well Elijah, it was you who insisted that no hint of a romantic attachment between us must be suspected. What better way than having you observed to be nothing more than an escort with a strong pair of arms?" She leaned into me, and speaking in French said. "Think of the pleasure when you are able to place your strong arms around me, and I am able to wrap my equally strong legs around you."
The two girls, Molly and Domina, would glance at us and smile when we spoke softly in French, although I'm certain neither of them understood what we said.
It was a pleasant way to journey. Caroline's head on my shoulder, with my arm around her waist; John-Jarvis either sleeping peacefully in the swaying hammock rigged up in the carriage, or being dandled on one of his nursemaids knees, gurgling and chortling with pleasure. Other times, with the Tenth Earl of Hungerford snorting in his sleep as he rocked gently in his hammock, the girls would talk quietly together or play cat's cradle with a skein of wool. At these times Caroline would order the girls to close their eyes, 'and count to five hundred'. Then she and I would kiss, slowly and deeply, savouring each other's lips and tongues. When the girls opened their eyes Caroline and I would be decorously sitting upright, with our formerly disarranged clothing back in a respectable condition, and smiles of pleasure on our faces.

Occasionally John-Jarvis would be handed to me, and we would regard each other closely – he with the imperturbability of the very young, and I with the awe and wonder of a parent. Then I would make a face, and he would jig up and down on my lap with laughter, as if I was the greatest clown he had ever seen, which was of course the truth.
John-Jarvis, although over a year old, hadn't yet been completely weaned from the breast. Caroline fed him in the afternoon and then again in the early hours. At his afternoon feed I would stop the coach and clamber on top with Rob, and we would proceed at a slow walk until his Lordship had supped his fill. Then would come those disagreeable chores which are part and parcel of the pleasure of child rearing – you can be sure I kept on top of the coach with Rob until all unsightly, and noxious, evidence had been cleared away before re-joining Caroline in the carriage. I would return to the driving bench a few miles from our designated overnight stay, and on arrival at the next great house on our itinerary revert from having been the proud father of an earl, and lover of his mother, to a lowly, luggage lugging, postilion.

It is roughly 40 miles from Huntingdon to Grantham, and I had thought we would reach Belton House, Lord Brownlow's residence, that same evening, but Caroline had other plans. We had entered the village of Great Ponton, which is some 3 miles south of Grantham, when the coach came to a stop. I was in the carriage with Caroline and shouted up to Rob. "Why have we stopped?"
Caroline answered for him, speaking in French. "We're staying overnight at The Blue Bear Inn. Where you and I will share, if not a room at least the night, together."
Caroline and John-Jarvis, along with the two girls, had a large room at the front of the Inn. Rob elected to sleep in the coach overnight. I had noticed one of the tavern wenches smiling in blatant invitation at him earlier that evening so guessed he would not be sleeping alone. I had a small room opposite Caroline's across the corridor. I awaited her visit with impatience. I heard a clock somewhere in the Inn chime ten, when the door to my room opened silently, and Caroline slipped soundless as a shadow into my room. She wore a thick woollen dressing gown, and as we embraced I discovered she was naked underneath. Although my bed was small we were soon entwined and engaging lustily in the rhythm of love. It had been over two weeks since our last assignation, and although both of us were equally ardent and uninhibited we knew the sounds of our abandonment to rapture would wake not only the other guests but also John-Jarvis. Sleeping babes, like sleeping dogs, must be left lying, so all the many cries, sighs, whimpers, shouts, moans and shrieks uttered during those hours of undiluted pleasure had to be pillow muffled.

The clock in the Inn chimed three of the morning and Caroline unlatched herself from around me. "I must go and feed John-Jarvis, my love." She gazed at me intently, as if deliberating, then thrust her naked breasts into my face. "But first I shall feed you." A nipple brushed my lips, and I took the peaked bud into my mouth. "Suck, sweetheart. I want you to drink my milk, and become as close and as precious to me as our son."
I had often kissed and licked Caroline's nipples, but had refrained from sucking on them as the thought of being suckled by her struck me as incestuous, part connected to the same thought I had for Mimi Renoir after learning she had fed me her milk when I was in a coma. However, my tongue licked at Caroline's rigid nipple of its own volition, and I tasted a bead of moisture. Before I fully realised what I was about I had started sucking mightily on the teat. That primeval feeling, of being warm and safe at a mother's breast, became heightened when the first taste of Caroline's warm sweet milk spurted into my mouth. "That's it, my love, suck harder." Her hand held my head tight to her breast, and my lips clamped around her nipple as I sucked as powerful as any babe at the conduit of the sweetest tasting liquid I had ever enjoyed. Caroline's milk was now flowing with ease, and I gulped and swallowed and felt I was consuming the very essence of her. Milk dribbled from my mouth, trickling onto her breast, and she gasped in pleasure, and in the knowledge I had become more securely bound to her than to any other woman in my life. I had been in a coma when Mimi had suckled me, and therefore had been insensible to the feeling of oneness that drinking a woman's milk engenders.

"That is enough for now, my dearest, or there will be nothing left for John-Jarvis." Caroline kissed my milky lips, and I bent my head to lick the residue of milk off her breasts. She turned at the door, before leaving my room. "This will not be the last time I will share my milk with you and our son."
That night marked an expansion and enhancement of the feelings Caroline and I had for each other. We had first been drawn together by the strong sexual attraction between us, which had developed during the night at The White Hart into an emotional attachment – love by any other name. That attachment – bonding – had moved on from physical and sexual, through emotional to spiritual. We were now bound by all those emotions, and each one reinforced the others.

By the time we reached Belton House I had regained my perch alongside Rob, although I had spent most of the three miles between Great Ponton and Belton House in the carriage exchanging sweet kisses with Caroline. The girls had been ordered to close their eyes almost as soon as we left the Blue Bear Inn, and several times en route.
Lord Brownlow stood waving on the steps of his residence as Rob drew the carriage up in a flurry of gravel. I handed down Caroline, and then assisted Domina, who was carrying John-Jarvis. While Lord Brownlow and Caroline exchanged greetings Molly stepped from the coach and stood close to me.