Chapter 8: Epilogue

Jamie Dunrossiter looked around his late father’s study with wry amusement. So many lives were ruined in this room. So many despicable and fraudulent deals were prepared here. It seemed appropriate to begin building something better from there.

That next morning, a fortnight ago, when he had woken to find Katherine draped around him, had been the most momentous day of his life. It was greater even than the day before, when his father and brothers had been killed, since that had simply set the scene for the new life he lived. As he had stirred awake, Katherine’s eyes had opened, and she had greeted him warmly with a kiss that had seared his soul, then she had moved her lips down his body, to take him into her mouth.

Jamie had protested that they must stop, but Katherine had continued, urging him on with her lips and fingers until he had roared out, his hips bucking upwards, and spewed his life’s force down her throat. Afterwards, gasping, he had demanded why she had suckled his cock.

Laughing, his new lover had said, “Well, my darling, if I’m not ripe already, I soon will be, and I don’t think you want me to be with child, do you?”

Jamie had smiled and quipped, “Well, if that were to happen, we could always blame it on the Earl, eh?”

“Perhaps, love, at least one of them, but such a ruse would not work for much longer, not unless the bastard’s cock reached out from the grave.”

“What in God’s name are we doing?” asked Jamie. “This is so wrong. It is the sin of incest and will surely doom us to perdition!”

Katherine sat up in the bed and surveyed Jamie’s naked form. “I have given that some thought, and while I would chance such for the ecstasy I found with you last night, I think you are wrong. Such would be you and a sister, which you do not have, or with your mother, which I am not. You and I are not related, my dear, any more than your father and I were.”

“Not all would agree with that statement, milady,” he had replied with a raised eyebrow. He placed his hands behind his head and looked Katherine’s form over in the early morning light. If anything, she looked even more beautiful than before. “So, are you with child now?”

She shrugged. “I think not, but we will not know for a fact until my courses, love. I do think it best that we gambol in a different fashion for the time being, though, would you agree?”

“As you wish, Lady Dunrossiter. How shall I satisfy your needs this morning?”

Katherine shivered with delight as he called her by her title. Tossing the sheets back, she turned away from him and knelt in the center of the bed. As she spread her legs and raised her arse into the air, she looked back over her shoulder to see his manhood rearing up. “Jamie, I have another spot to place that, don’t I? There is some oil in a vial on the sidetable.” she said, then lowered her face to the pillows. Jamie crawled behind her and inserted himself into her arse. Gwen had introduced himself to this form of play, saying it was the perfect method when she was ripe, and he had enjoyed it immensely, as had she. Katherine seemed to have learned the same lesson!

By the time his breakfast was finished, Jamie’s pleasant morning was over. The day was spent with a vast procession of Important People, from the Colonel and the local magistrate to various barristers and townspeople, even the village priest, all offering solicitudes and condolences, and vast quantities of unrequested advice. It had been well after a late supper that Jamie had managed to retreat to his chambers, in the hope that Katherine might join him.

Instead, when he had answered the knock on his door, it had been to find Gwen and Jenny, offering condolences of a different sort, which under ordinary circumstances he would have gladly accepted. He had declined their offers, but the two girls had simply smiled and raised their skirts to their waists, then fondled their sexes most blatantly until his resolve wavered and he found himself inviting them in. It was afterwards, when he had satisfied both maidservants, that Katherine had felt it sufficiently late and private to wrap a robe around her naked frame and pad down the hall to slip inside. Jamie had arisen from his bed with a start, attempting with little success to cover his nakedness. Katherine had simply laughed and removed her gown, asking if the party was over, or if she could join in. The threesome had made an opening for her to join them, then had concentrated on providing the mistress of the house with every pleasure imaginable.

Still, his trysts with Katherine and the two girls had been about the only joy he had found in the last two weeks. The local garrison of dragoons was still delighting in storming around the countryside, kicking in doors and flogging the peasantry in a search for the perpetrators of ‘The Dunrossiter Massacre.’ Already several people had been sentenced by drumhead courts martial to hanging or transportation. Jamie had tried to mitigate the army’s actions, which had not endeared him to either the military, who thought it damned odd for a man who had just been orphaned, or the local peasants, who thought him lucky to have escaped a justice suitable for anyone named Dunrossiter.

He had attempted to mend fences with some of the peasantry by attempting to atone for his father’s excesses, but this had been less successful than he had hoped. A perfect case in point was with Denny McLaury. Jamie had returned his granddaughter with fifty guineas and a cancellation of her indenture. Denny had returned alone, storming up to Jamie in the courtyard and thrown the money in the dirt, saying that ten times as much was not enough to buy forgiveness for what had been done the girl. Jamie had agreed with the old man, replying that he had no other remedy available, as his father was already answering for the crime to a higher court, but it had not satisfied the man; he had stormed out, leaving the money on the gravel.

Jamie had taken to carrying a loaded pistol in his waistband, which had proven useful at keeping some of the hotter heads at a respectful distance, though it also confirmed in their eyes that he was no different than the others before him. Even this had proved of little consolation.

The English servants, long used to lording it over the Irish servants, now found that the new Earl intended to allow the Irish additional liberties. Jamie simply was trying to turn over a new leaf for the estate, but Clive Tolliver confronted him before a group of the other Englishmen and warned him to return their authority. Jamie had sacked the man on the spot, but Tolliver had become enraged and as Jamie turned and walked away from the conflict, had roared, and thrown his belt dagger at the youth. Seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye, Jamie had leapt aside, the knife burying itself in the side of the carriage house he was next to, then had calmly pulled his pistol, cocked it, and shot Tolliver dead in the courtyard as he attempted to pull forth another knife. Then, as the others stared, he had quietly pulled a paper cartridge from his pocket and reloaded the flintlock pistol, priming it and placing it back in his waistband, before ordering the body disposed of. Several of the servants, both English and Irish alike, had left by the next morning.

Katherine had watched Jamie’s mood darken as he became dejected but could do little more than offer her ample charms to him late at night, after any prying eyes had long since gone to bed. She, Jenny, and Gwen all stayed true to him, but could do little to ease his burden. Once, when they were alone, she had informed him of her love for him, but Jamie had given her a sad smile, saying that he loved her as well, but that if he were to marry her, even if they found a priest willing to perform the incestuous ceremony, it would result in their utter ruin. Several days later, a magistrate visited, and Katherine was summoned to sign several more papers that were not explained to her, but she felt that questions would only darken Jamie’s mood.