Meant to Be fic #2: The Twain Shall Meet (1/2)
This is my second fic for spn_meanttobe, because who wouldn't claim that awesome prompt. So... when I said I read lots of Harlequin as a teen, I may also have read lots and lots and lots of historicals and bodice rippers. And timetravel fantasy semi-historicals which make Thrones look like academic lectures. I think my id is showing.
Also, yes I did write two arranged marriages fics for Meant to Be. Id fic? Moi?
Title: The Twain Shall Meet
Author: Brutti ma buoni
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 17800
Warnings: some fairly extensive blasphemy (misuse of the Song of Songs), background of court decadence, public sex and such like, mild medical kink
Prompt:47. Satan’s Mark: Strictly brought up by her Puritan uncle, Annelise Woodward is much too innocent for the likes of Justin Rochefort, Marquis Saintjohn. When she discovers Justin is her true guardian, and that she must go live with his mother, Lady Emily, Annelise's world turns upside down. Thrust from her modest life into the wicked court of Charles II, Annelise seeks guidance from her handsome new guardian. But Justin is too tormented by his past to help his beautiful ward. Can Annelise help him put aside his pain and look forward to their future together?
Summary Relative innocent Jared meets tired, cynical Jensen, into whose care he has been entrusted - in another world where courts are castles and the Restoration is non-literally replayed. We're talking vaguely fantasy swashbuckling territory with seventeenth century undertones if you spot that kind of thing.
Welcome to Castle Caroline. Abandon virtue, all ye who enter here
Jared tried to tell himself it was purest show and bravado. A sign aimed at scaring the innocent and shockable away from the castle, to keep the King and his court in peace. Unfortunately, Jared was both innocent, and easily shocked, and yet needed to attend the court, for he had no other home.
He knocked at the great iron knocker. It boomed, shaking the vast metal-bound door, almost making the very stones creak.
"Who goes there?" came a voice. A languorous, female voice, dripping vice and temptation. It was as unlike Castle Cromwell's upright rigour as possible.
Jared almost forgot to answer the voice, in his confusion. "- Uh. I- I am Jared. From Castle Cromwell. I'd like to come in, please."
"We do not welcome Cromwellites. You should know it." The voice was still honey, but honey coating stings. Jared almost fled.
"My family is dead. I am left to the wardship of one of your lords. Lord Ackles."
"Ahhhh," said the voice, pleasurably rolling. "The marquis, is it? He'll be glad to meet you, I should imagine. Now prove it." The last three words, snapped abruptly, were quite reassuring. At least the Caroline gatekeepers did their duty.
Jared held out the indenture giving his wardship over. Lord Ackles would hold the other half, and when the two parchment fragments met, his fate would be confirmed. He half hoped that the Ackles muniments were poorly kept, that he would be refused and cast out. But, after a mere half hour of waiting in the wardroom, he was waved through, in to the world of Castle Caroline.
"Lord Ackles, and his mother, are in Tower Royal," said the gatekeeper. "They expect you within the hour, but you may visit House Ackles first, to find your accommodations and dress for the meeting."
House Ackles was far at the end of the outer bailey, and Jared's trip was both hurried and fascinating. Castle Caroline was full of women, of song, of casual chatter. There appeared little organisation to the place. He passed a Tower marked Playhouse, and another Papistry. All decadence here, as he'd been promised. House Ackles sat among others of its ilk - House Buckingham, House Rochester, House Portsmouth, Villiers, Mazarin, Castlemaine, Behn, St Albans… The names blurred. Jared would learn them in the end.
House Ackles was dark. Rich fabric at the windows, tropical woods on the walls and floors. Paintings, of great bowls of fruit, flowers, foodstuffs, spilling with luxury, rotting with decay.
The majordomo accepted Jared's pass. He was expected. His room, an honourable one on the second floor. "Lady Emily sleeps in the south wing. But Lord Ackles is close at hand." The majordomo was not a man for vulgarity, but Jared could swear there was a ribald implication in those words. He chose to ignore it, and his internal tremor. It was of course quite appropriate for the sexes to be separated in such a house. At Castle Cromwell, he had shared with many other males, with the womenfolk far away to ensure continence and decorum.
Jared reflected, internally, that it had not wholly succeeded. But it had been more fitting, at least.
His modest possessions were swiftly stashed, and Jared found himself with time to spare before he was required at Tower Royal. He walked back more slowly, absorbing more of the outer bailey's confusion and riot. They said pestilence and fire stalked the Caroline Court, and it was easy to believe, though none was in evidence today.
At the entrance to the inner bailey, three skulls on spikes. One would be Cromwell, though great Noll was long dead before they captured his corpse and crowned another Charles as ruler of Albion. Jared murmured a prayer in passing, nonetheless.
His pass opened the door to Tower Royal, with a courteous nod from the doorman, but no obeisance. His worth was not high in this court. It was correct, of course, but stinging. Perhaps Lord Ackles merited nothing more.
Three paces into the Tower, Jared's hands were seized. A woman, bold faced and impudent, drew him forward. "'Ere, boys, we got ourselves a new'un. Whaddya reckon to his lights?"
"My dear," said the nearest man. "Too shaming for words. Has he come to convert us to the Light and the Truth?"
"I'm not from House Ranter," said Jared, stiffly. But then, paralyzed, remembered that introducing himself as a Cromwellian would not support acceptance in this place. Fortunately, he had little need to speak.
"He's Ackles' new boy, you fool, Albemarle," said the woman. "Not come to lecture but to live."
"Those clothes, though," said Albemarle, sniffing. "They must go." He was himself wearing a wine-stained shirt, open-necked almost to the waist, tight breeches and hose. Jared looked away from such nakedness, but it sent his eyes back to his lady leader, herself laced up so that her bosom became almost a shelf for her chin, and her nipples peeked and danced in the lace top to her bodice.
It was appalling, but moving deeper into the Tower re-educated Jared's expectations so that within a few minutes, he had forgotten his first revulsion. There was so much more by which to be revolted. Debauchery of wine and gambling and constant indecency, such that Jared's gasps of horror could hardly keep pace with them. It was on the stairs, just past a naked couple making love in an alcove designed to hold a torch sconce, so perfectly illuminated in their shame, that they met a new figure. A tall man, and dark. "Nelly, what have you brought us? Come inside, my unsullied dove, come inside."
Jared found himself drawn into a large chamber on what must be the principal floor of Tower Royal. They had to be close to the Throne Room, he realised, but the low-lit chamber heaved with naked flesh nonetheless. His new acquaintance stood Jared compliant before a candelabra. "Let me look at you. Such innocence! You're too perfect, young Padalecki. And such a structure to you. You must be quite splendid, unclothed. Were you a wench, I'd claim you for mine, I swear. Teach you there's more to life than Cromwellian strictures. But, alas, my tastes lie otherwhere." Jared was still absorbing that this unknown man knew his name and background, let alone the sinful implications of that speech when that same unknown embraced him closely, putting mouth to mouth and even licking between Jared's parted, startled lips.
"Majesty," said a bored voice. "You might let me at least meet my new plaything before you despoil him, don't you think?"
The man - the King - let go of Jared with a shout of laughter. "Apologies, Jensen my sweet. Apologies. You must meet your little boy, and see of what he is made. Come, Nelly, I want a fuck before dinner." He wandered away, towing the slattern with him. She winked as they left.
Jared stood, gaping fishily. The King had met him. The King had kissed him, and defiled him lightly, and taken an interest in his presence. Too strange for words, and that before he met the man who held his fate henceforth.
That man, Jensen, Marquis Ackles, must be this man, taking the King's place in Jared's eyeline. "Stop gawping, you lout," he said, but good-humouredly. "Charles is a good man, in his way, but it's probably not the way you've been taught. Come and meet my mother before she's quite inebriated. She's to have notional wardship of you. I'm quite unsuitable."
That, Jared could believe. Lord Ackles, a man of full years and with at least a decade on Jared's youth, wore only a waistcoat, in tight silk, close-worked with embroidery, and hose hugging his legs like skin. Everything exposed under the clinging fabric once the coat stopped short, and it stopped short of places Jared would never consider showing in public. Following Ackles, he could scarcely look away from the spectacle, and yet all his upbringing urged him to do so with all speed.
The Marquis's mother, Lady Emily, was scarcely less shocking. She must have been fifty, an age when Jared's grandmother had taken to enveloping black with buttons to the chin, but Lady Emily was in a bodice perhaps a half inch more decent than Nell's and sitting upon the lap of a large young man, dark-brown as the panelling of House Ackles, and wearing less than the Marquis. "Sweetheart," she said, "I won't get up, you'd be shocked by just how much of Aldis you would meet on first acquaintance." She gestured at her spread skirts, concealing what must be sexual engagement beneath, and continued to talk to Jared and her son, quite reasonably.
"Jensen, his clothes are ghastly. I can't allow it."
"No, mother." The Marquis said, apparently bored. "As you will."
"The jacket at the very least," said Lady Emily, "And the lacings. I suppose you'll want to keep the breeches? Your shirt would make you decent, hereabouts, but you Puritanites are always so keen to retain nether garments, I've found."
Jared, turning beetroot, confirmed his desire to retain his breeches, but stood passive as the Marquis stripped him of his good top-clothes, sending them back to House Ackles via a servant, and a dismissive, "I suppose one might cut them down for rags, in time of need." Jensen, whom Jared was already struggling to name 'the Marquis', ensured Jared's shirt untucked and part-opened, in Tower Royal fashion.
"Sorry about this," he murmured. "But mother's right. Better to blend in." The flash of sympathy was welcome, and Jared paid Jensen-the-man more attention than he'd had to spare before. A beautiful man, with hair short quite contrary to current fashion. Jared's own hair was longer by far, and perhaps the only part of his appearance that truly fitted here.
Jensen talked with his mother, with Aldis and other hangers on for a while, as Lady Emily rocked herself gently on her lover's lap, and drank three glasses of claret, at the minimum. Talk ranged beyond Jared's predicament, but circled and returned again and again. He was a novelty. They did not, apparently, quite know what to do with him. Which was fair, as Jared had no idea at all what to do with them, his new family.
Lady Emily, slurring now, said, "Jensen, take the boy off. I need to fuck and sleep before the Queen's bonanza tomorrow. Take him to the play, why don't you?"
Jensen's mouth opened, but Lady Emily was moving her hips with more purpose now, and paying him no mind. "Ach," he said, apparently exasperated. "And that's a command, if you missed it. Though the play is not what I'd have chosen for your first night."
"Is it decadent?" asked Jared. He hoped it would merely be a case of females onstage, a scandal of which he was well aware and for which he considered himself adequately braced.
"Exceedingly," said Jensen, with infinite ennui. "I'm finding that it palls, after court, but one can't say so, of course. The King sets the tone." He led the way from Tower Royal to the Playhouse Tower, and into a small reserved area. "Our box. For as much private debauch as we can handle. Personally, I want some decent food and a thirst quencher. Will you join me?"
Jared agreed, eagerly. It had been a long journey on small bread and cheese, and a great deal of new things to absorb since. He was silenced, though, by the quantity of food that appeared. Fruits and sweetmeats, roasted meats, jellies, breads, soups, fish - all for two. A wicked abundance, but undeniably enticing too. Jensen ate, pickily, and drank deep, while Jared gorged, telling himself he would allow indulgence this once, before returning to the ways he had always known. Modesty and restraint were essential qualities.
The play began before he had finished, but Jensen waved for him to continue eating. "…if you can," he added, and Jared was baffled before the curtains opened. The scene which met his eyes, however, explained all.
Naked womenflesh, in abundance. One of them that same red-headed Nelly he'd met earlier. Bodies strewn across the stage, in mimicry of a dormitory. "Oh," cried Nelly. "I have been so good for so long, but I'm so terribly bored in here with all these girls."
"Needn't be bored, my love," said a dark girl to Jared's side of the stage. She approached Nelly, but was rebuffed, with something about Sapphic practice that Jared couldn't understand but which sent the audience rocking. "I shall find another," said the dark girl. "Fancy breaking our vows, Moll?" And they commenced to practice evil debauch upon the public stage.
Meanwhile, Nelly soliloquised on her boredom with Puritan life, her wish for a real man, and suchlike. Jared tried not to yawn, especially when the inevitable Puritan-dressed man entered the dormitory and began to have at Nelly with gusto. It was all so inaccurate, and he had been braced for mockery of the good folk he'd left.
But a glance into the next box had him staggered once more. Two men, eyes on the stage, cocks out, defiling themselves with onanist vice. He shouldn't be startled after the court, but that this was, quite evidently, the purpose of the theatre was startling and quite wrong.
"Not your style?" Jensen asked, in a low voice. His eyes were on the stage, and the couplings thereupon. His hand fell to Jared's thigh, and then slid upwards to his groin, his slack and uninterested cock. "Thought not." The hand was removed, though Jared could mysteriously feel it still, and had Jensen's hand returned it would have discovered a very different scenario very soon. Jensen did not resume the caress, however. "I can usually tell. That way myself, you see. Which makes the King's tit-lust a source of great boredom. This actor, though, he's new and comely. Worth a look, at least. And he'll be in the man-play at the close, which we shall stay for. Would you like more wine?"
Jared nodded, in confusion, although he had already drunk more this day than in his life before. He ate more, as perversion piled on perversion on stage. His mind was elsewhere, however, and not even the feast could distract him entirely from the simple revelation of Jensen's words. That way myself. So Jared wasn't the only man afflicted with this unnatural lust. Perhaps he would learn how to suppress it, here, among those who acknowledged such vice.
The man-play, however, disabused him of the idea. Half the audience left at the scene break beforehand, beefy men loudly proclaiming their lack of interest. Many women remained, however, and a good scattering of men. Many of them dressed as Jensen was, indeed, the embroidered waistcoats forming what Jared came to understand was a uniform of sorts.
Onto the stage walked two men, one large and burly, the other a slender lad, ginger-haired and milk pale of skin. "Well, lad," said the larger. "Show me how you've learned your lessons." The redheaded boy knelt, and drew out the other's cock.
Jared sat, open-mouthed and near frenzied with suppressed lust, as the scene played out onstage. The boy suckled at the man's cock, then bent over a handy stool, parting his buttocks. The burly man felt between, approvingly, "Good lad, been working on yourself, have you? Opening up for me, nice and slick?" And they fell to coupling too.
Jensen's voice said in Jared's ear, "Unless you've more clothing to hand than I suspect, take your cock out before you come. I've a kerchief to hand, nothing need be soiled." Jared gasped in answer, fumbling at the many fastenings of his garments and gasping again as the direct touch stimulated him further. Jensen sighed, apparently with boredom, and Jared climaxed with his guardian's breath in his ear, kerchief in his hand, neatly catching the spill of seed.
They watched the end of the man-play, Jensen yawning, Jared dazed with unexpected sensation and revelation. "Come," said Jensen, as the burly player shouted his completion. "Time to go home." He led Jared out, and towards House Ackles in silence. Jared, confused and exhausted, attempted several wrong turns before Jensen piloted them to the men's' wing.
Jensen paused outside Jared's chamber door. "Sleep, boy. You've had a long day."
Jared said, involuntarily naked in his confession, "It must be sinful, I'm sure. But I didn't know that anyone else-"
"Poor child," said Jensen. Jared frowned, patronised. "But that's Cromwellians for you. Don’t flagellate yourself too hard in penance, infant. Cocks will out, whether we will or nil."
"But-"
"I've no wish to talk more with you tonight," said Jensen, and left him.
Jared retired, a bundle of confusion. Here he might explore sin. Here he might fall into sin headlong, and damn his immortal soul. Here was his home. Here was his only family, since all the rest were gone.
He remembered, just before sleep took him, that he had forgotten to ask the most important question. Why, how, for what possible incomprehensible reason, had his father left Jensen his wardship?
*
Life in Castle Caroline was not quite as Jared's first impressions had suggested. Debauchery was a norm, but not the sole reason for existence. The King and court rode out often, progressing around the nation. Asserting rule, more than anything. Jensen was one of these, and so Jared's wardship fell as planned into the benign grasp of Lady Emily. Eccentric she might be, shocking she undoubtedly was. But also friendly, and with an unexpected grasp of how peculiar Jared might find the place after Cromwell. As a guide, she was fair.
There were moments when Jared understood that some parts of the Caroline way might be better than perpetual repression. The womenfolk were open, part of everyday life, literate and filled with intelligent conversation. The playhouse did not only show debauchery, but also drama and history brought to life, which delighted. His own sense of a sinful nature faded with every sight of men showing affection to other men, or women with women; the nature of the Castle was that his sense of sin faded speedily indeed. He retained his breeches, and the Castle came to ignore this oddity. They did not judge with speed.
The wasteful luxury, though, and the oddity of treating one's most personal, sacred intimacies as public property, these continued to gall. The practice of church attendance on Sundays only, and for services to which few paid attention, caused him greater pain, although he found that priests and courtiers were content to offer more when they recognised his need for regular contemplation and prayer. Indeed, that acceptance was perhaps the core of Jared's realisation that the court way could be godly in its own odd ways: he was free to worship. So were the Papists. And others were free not to. He talked of his forbidden desires with Father Titus, and received counsel which gave him some ease of mind. "Who are we to judge?" was an irregular phrase from a priest, but a welcome one.
He was more shaken by being told to present himself at Tower Physick for inspection (Lady Emily blithely: "One must not introduce any nasty little diseases, must we? They spread so fast in the Castle.") Milady's explanation had omitted the important intelligence that this was in respect of matters intimate, and Jared found himself stripped, inspected for disease and explaining his virginity to an incredulous physician, just at the point when the court returned from a long trip to Castle Versailles and underwent a similar inspection, from the King downwards.
Jared, dressing hurriedly, lest he betray his unfulfilled lust for male flesh in such company, distracted himself listening out for Jensen, and the irritated sound of his guardian's protestations was welcome. "Hyde, I've told you often-"
"This continence, Lord Ackles, it cannot be natural," said the physician, the same that had disbelieved Jared but a few moments before. And he continued to make the routine checks.
"Unnatural, possibly," said Jensen. "But truth. May I dress?"
He caught up with Jared on the way to House Ackles. "You were examined? I'm sorry, I should have told them you were innocent."
"I told Lady Em," said Jared, gloomily. "Seems she didn't believe me."
"No, she wouldn't." Jensen laughed shortly, and turned the subject to Jared's recent weeks, and how he had passed the time. His masters and book-learning, the afternoon theatre, music lessons - all was pleasant.
"Splendid. Etiquette and courtliness next, I think, and then you will have the gamut. We can introduce you to the court proper," said Jensen, startlingly.
"Am I to be a courtier, then?" Jared asked.
"Did you not know? It's your right. Your destiny, one might say. Your father confided you to me with this goal in mind, you know."
"No. I did not. He never spoke of you." Jensen's face paled at those words, and his mouth took on a tight set. Jared blurted, "So I don't know why, my lord. I don't know why I'm here, at all."
But it was too late. Jensen shrugged him off and paced a little ahead all the way back to House Ackles.
*
Lady Emily was no greater help, and a year after arriving at the court, Jared knew no more why his life had taken such a turn. He had polish now, to a point. He had a sense of the Caroline way of things. He was a fixture, of House Ackles and the castle. His foibles were noted, but he was no longer 'that Cromwell boy'. He had had a lover, briefly, and done penance, with some honesty, and he was at once comfortable and insecure, knowing his place and knowing he did not fit. And knowing nothing at all of his future.
Lady Em threw a party for Jared's twenty-first year, with great play of sweetmeats and ribaldry limited to verse (they could hardly not invite neighbouring Lord Rochester, and decided to make him a virtue of necessity). The King's chief mistress, Milady Castlemaine, passed through, dispensing graciousness. "Now you're a man, we must see you settled, must we not? Perhaps you'll be the King's choice to wed that slut." Graciousness with a vicious end, but hardly surprising. House Portsmouth was rising, as the Castlemaine aged, and the one-sided feud poisoned many a court gathering. And it was true, Milady Portsmouth was unmarried, and known to be in need of a complaisant coupling to insure against any early royal demise. Jared gaped at the sudden awful prospect; Louise Portsmouth was a pug-ugly and tedious woman more than two decades his senior, even if he'd wanted to marry a woman at all. And she liked little lapdogs. Ugh.
Before he could panic, he heard Jensen's voice, unexpectedly. Apparently the lord of the House had come home, though presumably not for a tame party for a largely-ignored ward. "Whatever makes you think I intend to give the child up, Barb?"
The Castlemaine gaped at him. "But- Well, we all assumed with your history among the Ironclads, you'd hardly- Well. How daring of you, Lord Ackles. I hope he doesn’t stab you as you sleep."
"He's well dowered and neatly made," said Jensen, calmly. "And more interesting to me than to the Portsmouth, I would think. Don't you consider he's grown up nicely now?" He threw an arm across Jared's shoulders, and added, "In fact, if you're bored, Barb, you might help Mama with the planning." One squeeze of his arm, and he wandered off, leaving Jared and the Castlemaine gaping at each other across the crowded space.
Jared passed the rest of his party in spectacular absence of mind, and only remembered at bedtime that he'd forgotten to eat any of his own birthday cake. This was an omission to be rectified at once, and he wandered downstairs in shirt and hose to consume whatever might remain. Caroline excess continued to shock Jared, but sweetmeats were a weak point. He would do penance, later, and be up swimming or riding each morning for a week. Thus would balance be restored.
Thoughts of cake were to the fore, but thoughts of unexpected revelations were not far behind. Almost as though Jared had conjured him, Jensen was sitting in the dining hall amid the wreck of the feast. He was drunk, Jared recognised. Jensen drunk was a fearsome thing, silent and judgemental, with occasional biting viciousness. It was far from ideal ground, and yet an opportunity Jared could not resist.
He munched on some cake, thoughtfully. "So, we're to marry, milord?"
Jensen swore, quietly. "Must we talk? My head, already- Oh, very well, cub. I think you would be wise to marry me. You're free to petition otherwise. Your wardship won't hold now you're a man, if you choose to upend it. And Charles is a romantic; he'd never stop you following your heart. But you're more vulnerable than you know, without power and lands. And the greater part of your father's lands are mine now, since the wars ended, you know. He sent you to me, in the expectation I'd reunite you with them."
Jared gaped at him. More cake needed. He said, somewhat muffled, "But, it's a sin in Cromwell! Never spoken of! My father wouldn't-"
"I'd imagine your father knew very well what he was doing. His brother Adair was the same as us. We are not rare. Though wise men leave Castle Cromwell and its narrow morals, so I imagine you didn't grow up surrounded by sodomites, as you should."
Jared tried to pick apart what he needed to know from this. His father's possible hypocrisy he left aside; not something Jensen could answer. Who his uncle Adair was - or more likely had been was something to discover later. "Why do you want to marry me? You have lands aplenty and apparently mine are yours already."
Jensen drank deep, and refilled his glass yet another time. He spoke with as much animation as Jared had heard from him in discussing legal technicalities, and somewhat less than when talking horseflesh. "Yes, but I should settle. My mother's ageing, and so am I. The House name hangs by a slender cord these days. I need an heir, but I'm not planning to get one the old fashioned way. Charles would contrive us some infants if we married. He's-" Jensen's mouth twisted. "-Tremendously helpful that way. Half the court is raising his bastards. And one could do worse for the future of House Ackles."
Jared tried to process his future in this picture, seemingly raising royal children for the good of House Ackles. Why on earth had he been studying, for this?
He must have looked bewildered. Jensen shrugged, and curled his mouth round the rest, honey-coated daggers of words. "Besides, you're sweet and pleasing to the eye, you've been well tutored - or so my mother tells me - and you'll be an asset at court. I've no interest in love matches and passion. And, since I killed your uncle, your grandfather and half of Castle Cromwell through base treachery, I feel a certain interest in your future. You're my penance, Jared, so I may as well embrace you."
He stood up, crashing his half-full glass of red wine to the table, where it jumped and spilled. "Damn," said Lord Ackles, and crumpled inelegantly to the floor.
*
"Well, he doesn't like to talk about it, my dear," said Lady Emily. "I'm surprised he mentioned it at all, though of course he's rarely souse-drunk these days, so he's unaccustomed, and you were rather close to the subject. Incidentally, dear, you're going to make him a lovely husband, I'm so glad he'd finally told you of the plan. I've been wanting a larger family for many a year."
Jared waved a hand, uninterested. Marriage was very much less pressing than finding out more about these unexpected revelations which suddenly sprouted at his birthday celebrations. "But, what the hell happened?"
He listened to himself, blaspheming, and noted just how Caroline a short year here had made him.
"I'm surprised you don't know," said Lady Em. "Or were you not interested in history at school? But then, I suppose it's rather painful for you lot. But not beyond memory, I would have expected."
Jared shrugged, and waited for her to start connecting with anything he knew about the late civil wars. "It's how Castle Newbury fell, the second time. Jensen was with the Ironclads, playing the Cromwellite, and he betrayed them to Caroline forces. We were terribly excited, for finally something was going our way, and we thought we should be saved. Though of course it was all for nothing and Castle Cromwell beheaded the old King and all of that." That part, Jared knew, of course. He'd grown up in a Cromwell land, and bitterly feared the effects when Castle Caroline, resurgent, took power once more, though no holocaust had come upon them as expected. But Newbury? That was long ago. It had been a sad loss, of men and territory, but soon overcome.
"He must have been very young," he said.
"Oh yes, much younger than you are now. Seventeen, I think, at the end, but sixteen when he went over. We all cursed his name and declared him outlaw and such, but it turned out to be in a good cause. Though not from your perspective, I suppose. And I don't think Jensen has ever really got over it. He was part of the execution squad, of all those men he'd known quite well, and it's no job for a youth, that." Lady Em sipped tea, composedly, and eyed Jared, seeking reaction. "We fled, of course, when it became obvious that Newbury hadn't been enough. And my husband died on the ship to Middelburg, so Jensen went from being a boy to a lord overnight. And he was still thinking of himself among the Ironclads too. I believe many of them were sodomites at Newbury, you see, sent out from Castle Cromwell as unsuitable types for the heart of the movement, but terribly brave it seems. He had a few lovers among them, though not I think your uncle, which is just as well, isn't it? There are limits to broadmindedness."
She sipped again. "You should have seen Castle Caroline when we came back. Before the King, and so very few people living here. It's been an awful job to get it all straight, you know. Seven years, now, and still the murals aren't right. Perhaps we can fix them in honour of your wedding. June, don't you think?"
Jared thanked her, and left. It was discourteous, but he felt he couldn't hear another word of shattering history today.
Jensen's bitterness of the night before was somewhat explained. But much else was not. Why Jared’s father had left him to wed a traitor was a difficult question still. He wondered whether to ask, whether Jensen really knew, and decided that today was not the time for it. He wondered whether to write to Castle Cromwell, to learn more, but realised just how few people he could ask. Cromwell was not a place that encouraged intimacies.
*
In the event, Jared's world started to change too fast for history lessons to fit. Jensen began to take him to court, as his acknowledged consort. Jared started to learn from men, not from books, just what ruling meant. He attended law courts, rode out in brief retributive justice raids, hunted to fill the game larders, reviewed the navy and the army, sat as the smallest-consequenced, newest, least-useful person in the room when the King of Frankenland's ambassadors visited, bringing with them the King's mother and sister for a joyous and improper reunion.
Jensen had been in Frankenland, and Lowerland, in his exile. Jared asked him about them, and learned more. Papists running nations, Puritans leading nations without kings, different music, different customs. The King's sister was married to the King of Lowerland; her son was a possible heir to the throne, with a union of crowns not impossible.
But Jared also sat, mouse-quiet, in the Privy Council session at which the King named Jamie Monmouth his heir, in the absence of heirs of the body by his little-regarded queen. One of his many, many bastard children, and a loose friend of Jensen's, Jared knew Jamie mainly for his starring role in a number of the more obscene theatrical productions. He tried to feel that this would be an advantage in a King. But then, he found Charles unexpectedly impressive as a monarch despite his debauch, tolerant and weary, but not prejudiced. And certainly not naïve. His court questioning, and interviewing of prospective justices, was rapier-like.
This would be Jared, soon, he realised. Sitting in judgement on peasantry and the lower orders as required. House Ackles and his own lands implied hard work, work Jensen was undertaking for them both at present.
"Will I be a magistrate, after we're married?" he asked, on a rare night when Jensen dined with him and Lady Emily.
"Oh, probably," said Jensen. "If Charles will appoint you - and why wouldn't he? You've lands, and brains, and there's work enough for us all. And better that than diplomacy." He pulled a face. Jensen was wriggling out of an overseas assignment at this moment, albeit in return for taking on a thankless job in exchequer commons. Jensen added, "We really should get married, shouldn’t we? It's holding you back. Next week?"
Lady Em screamed in horror, but Jensen would not be persuaded to leave it longer than a fortnight. Jared started to realise (call him foolish if you will) that the rest of his life was being settled here, and that he had already made up his mind to accept it. He was about to marry Jensen Ackles, a man apparently drenched in the blood of Castle Cromwell.
How utterly bizarre that he did not mind more.
*
"You're not a virgin anymore, are you?" Jensen asked, in passing, three days before their wedding. They were awaiting the royal presence at an investiture in House Mazarin, and could be overheard by at least ten courtiers.
Jared flushed from nose to navel, at the very smallest estimate. "No?" He hated the quaver in his voice, but he hadn't asked Jensen's permission to take a lover, and perhaps he should.
Not by the satisfied nod that returned to him. "Good. Virgins are dull."
"But-" Jared almost swallowed the rest, till he considered just how much more terrifying his wedding night would become if he lied now. "I'm not very- We didn't- I don't know a lot." And he shut up.
"Fine," said Jensen. "So long as I know."
After the investiture, he took Jared to House Physick, for the mandatory pre-marital examination, and to "be prepared for every eventuality", a process involving humiliation, unguents and some articles Jared had never known existed for mimicking the male form. But at least he knew.
*
Despite Lady Em's certainty that marriage ceremonies could not be arranged within fourteen days, they married amid suitable pomp. Mainly because Jensen had charmed the wonder workers at House Haymarket, and a number of courtly entertainments had been repurposed to celebrate the Marquis Ackles taking a mate. The kitchens provided a feast perhaps a fraction more lavish than the norm, and the King's Musick ensured dancing in the inner bailey was joyous and loud.
Lady Em, last seen being double-teamed by Aldis and bad Kitty Fisher at the mouth of the stableyard, had promised to leave them the run of House Ackles for the night. So it was an unusually quiet house that Jensen led him to, when they quit the revels. Jared's heart was beating so hard he assumed Jensen could hear it. The majordomo nodded them in, and nodded again without smirking when Jensen dismissed the entire household for the night. Jensen took a great branch of candles from the hall table and set off up the stairs. Jared followed.
Shouldn't there be talking? There wasn't. He wondered whether he might be sick.
In the gentlemen's wing, Jensen opened the door to his chambers. "Come in. I have had your things moved to my suite. You have your own room, of course. But I would like it if you would come to me tonight, husband."
A choice. Well, that made things easier. Jared nodded, took a pair of candles off to the smaller chamber which was designated his own, and undressed down to his long, untucked shirt. Nothing more, and it would slip off with ease. Which would be suitable, he thought, swallowing the thought of vomiting again.
When he blew out his candles and knocked at the interconnecting door, Jensen said, "Come in."
Jared walked into a chamber full of light, fire banked but candelabra blazing. Jensen was standing naked before the fire. "You made ready?" he asked. Jared nodded. House Physick's tutorial was fresh in his memory. "Take off the shirt. Or hitch it up if you must keep your last claim to modesty." Jensen's voice was hard, sneering. Not like the Jensen Jared had become used to, a surpassingly reasonable man.
"Let me see," he said, nodding towards the bed. Jared shed the shirt, obedient to the challenge, and crawled onto the bed. Jensen walked over behind him, sliding a finger inside almost before Jared knew he was there. "Good. I'm glad you want to make this easy," said the Marquis, and Jared was very much thinking of him that way tonight. "Hurting you is not in my plans." He moved onto the bed, making the mattress shift, and fitted his cock to Jared's hole. "Let's be married, cub," he said, and slid inside. It was perhaps two minutes since Jared had entered the chamber, and he had expected a long night of exotic pleasure, the dredgings of a body and mind brought up in Caroline ways and long denied release. This functional, abrupt entrance took him aback, though Jensen was thoughtful enough with body, if not with niceties. He was taken, and after a while Jensen's hand slipped around to tug Jared to a somewhat unwilling but inevitable climax. He finished himself soon after.
They lay on top of the bedcovers awhile, and in silence. Eventually, cold brought Jared to activity, and he wriggled under the covers. Jensen's head raised, startled. "You're staying? After that?"
"Of course," Jared answered. "We're married."
"Cub, if that's your idea of marriage, you've a great deal to learn."
What to say? Confront or ignore? Hardly a choice for Jared, as apparently Jensen had yet to learn. "I do know better, Jensen, even with my little experience. What I'm confused about is why you'd make it such a small thing. It can be a thing of joy," said Jared, daringly.
Jensen laughed, a bitter thing of no real mirth. "It can. But you're my penance, Jared. Did you not listen? There's precious little joy in penance, or shouldn't be."
Tempting, to take that as a blow, to recoil, to flee. Damned if he would, though. "I shall take that as a challenge," was Jared's only outer response. "Because you're not my damned penance, and I'm not going to live that way." He was a little warmer now, with talking and anger, and kicked the covers away from the two of them. Time to put some of House Physick's teaching into practice.
"They told me," he said, "That there is pleasure to be had from mouths against bodies. And that feasting the eyes feeds the mind and the body, bringing pleasure. I should like to explore, please."
Jensen said nothing, slumped back, uncaring to the external eye. Jared, however, was speaking truth. Exploration was intoxication, freedom he hadn't experienced in brief fumblings with his lone past lover. The grossest playhouse performance could only narrate pleasure, display fornication. Touch, smell and taste were amplifying. Jared worked his way down Jensen's belly, tasting the while, and allowed himself marital privilege by taking cock in mouth without permission. Jensen's pretended indifference long abandoned, Jared felt his fingers tangle into Jared's hair, somewhere between restraint and encouragement.
It would not do to be too forgiving, he thought. There was something that he perhaps should not say, had planned to explore slowly over many weeks until his husband should trust him with such grave matter. Instead, he raised his head, ignoring the protesting press of Jensen's hand on his skull. "They told me you might prefer it if I took you. Is that true?"
Jensen struggled up onto his elbows, looking somewhere between amused and angry, both emotions worlds away from the distance he'd assumed earlier, and far more welcome. "Did they, indeed? Promise you my arse for your wedding present? I didn't know my tastes were so worthy of gossip."
"I think they were trying to prepare me," said Jared. "House Physick is very… thorough…" He paused briefly, as unnerving memory returned of his late lessons. He also did not mention that Lady Em had come to tell him the same, with if anything somewhat more frankness. "So?"
"Oh, very well," said Jensen, grumbling, and rolling over. "But don't tell my mother she was right." Damnation, Jared's face must be a mirror of his thoughts.
That, though, for another time. Now, the prospect of muddling through his first attempt with little help, and a too-little-known husband's scorn awaiting him. Different, though, from the efficient form of his own taking. Jensen had evidently not sought help from House Physick himself. Tightly furled, without salve, his arse yielded but slowly to Jared's determined explorations, and more time passed before his husband started to move as though the rude entry gave him some pleasure.
"Oh, hell, you win," said Jensen, at last. In his bedside table, familiar salve, which eased Jared's fingers' passage, and soon enough found him awkwardly fumbling to fit his (alarmingly large) cock inside an impossibly tiny space. Jensen sighed, and said, "Cub? If you're my penance or not, I'll not be pawed about much longer. Let me-"
He shifted to free himself, rolling back to face Jared. He might sound bored, but a fully-flushed cock, dripping with eagerness, informed Jared that his husband could lie with his tone, but not with his body. He set the thought aside for now, barely holding mind and body together as his wedding night became a complex delight and promise of future pain. Jensen hitched up thighs, high around Jared's waist, wriggling a hand awkwardly to guide Jared to the right place, and to encourage him to persevere. "I promise you will not break me," he said, still bored, but now Jared watched the eager movement of his cock, felt Jensen's body bearing down to open for him. "It may have been some time, but once I was an old hand at this. Ah. There."
Fully breached. Fully seated, Jared, gasping at the unexpectedness of such a thing being possible. He tried to retrieve any dignity and self-restraint, but he had no confidence he could display expertise and stamina. Not this first time. He moved his hips cautiously, watching Jensen's face, trying not to give in to his own body's insistence that he must move, must take, must imprint himself into this willing body. Jensen gasped, so Jared repeated the manoeuvre, and again, and again.
"More," said Jensen, low and gasped. "I’m remembering how this goes. It's good."
More there was, though not indefinitely, and Jared had the satisfaction of watching Jensen complete ahead of him, bare seconds ahead, white seed spurting between their bellies, and inner ripples dragging Jared to his climax.
Not, perhaps, how Jared once envisaged a wedding night, but a memorable one, no doubt. He disengaged, sought warmth in shed covers, and curled into his husband's side. Moderately contented, he thought, with marriage so far.
In the night, Jensen dreamed. Shouted. Woke Jared. Clawed at him, slid from the bed to stand staring and unseeing at nothing.
Jared watched and waited until Jensen's rigidity subsided. "To bed, husband," he said, quietly.
"No," said Jensen, and Jared was suddenly certain he had awoken. "No, I can't. I shall-" he left the chamber, Jared naked in their marital bed, and alone.
Jared lay awake for much of the remaining night. He had thought that physical contentment would bring them closer, but it appeared that there was more to his husband's darkness and distance than one night's pleasure could resolve.
*
An audience with the King was a rare thing, but permissible on request. Jared made the request, more than a month into marriage, with his relations with his husband full of distance and confusion. Jensen would visit him at night, but not sleep, and they barely spoke in daylight. And yet, just occasionally, Jared would see the flashing pain of what Jensen had done, stabbing at the Marquis from the inside. He suspected it was there at all times. It was unbearable to think so.
His audience was granted with terrifying bonhomie. "But, my dear, delightful! How does marriage please you? Your husband is a fine man." The King’s hands, wandering absently, greeted Jared with warmth.
"Yes, Majesty, indeed he is. But a troubled one, I fear. I would like to lighten his burdens, if I might." Strange, to be alone at the court. Certainly with the King, who had a woman hanging off him at all times. Jared felt the strangeness of this quiet, rich chamber sinking into his skin. There was a bed. Perhaps this was where the King slept, for his official bedchamber was public property. Castle Caroline was familiar, nowadays, but Jared still found himself questioning so much.
The King patted Jared's hand, nodding. "Lord Ackles's early years were not easy. We had some part in that. He performed difficult service for us, and was rewarded. I had thought that he was happy again, but it seems not."
"Is that my fault?"
"Noooo, no," the King reassured. "Mine, I think, for returning to my birthright. Jensen seemed happy overseas, among us dissolute lot. Here, he remembers, and it brings pain. But he continues to serve me faithfully, and for that I thank him."
"What did he do for you?" Jared asked. Daring, perhaps, because the King appeared reluctant to talk of it.
The King sighed. "You must understand, we are of a near age. Brought up together, in part, within the royal nurseries as companion to my younger brothers. So Jensen caught the eye of my father the King-" they paused for ritual sombre acknowledgement of the other Charles's fate "-and he was always a reserved type. I used to call him a Puritan. Which tells you how much I knew of Puritans, for he has never been that. But it was perhaps the kernel of an idea. We asked him to betray us. To join you, the Cromwellites, to profess allegiance. To send despatches. He was happy enough; we all believed, of course, in our cause."
The King paused. "It was never supposed to be more. Perhaps an advantage in battle, from knowledge of tactics. But Jensen saw an opportunity, and told us of the vulnerability of Tower Newbury, well garrisoned and with all the elite of the Ironsides at conference there one week. We mined it, and destroyed it, with him safe beside us. The survivors tried to rally, and we were a small party. So we killed them. Many dead. An atrocity, I think. Less known than it should be, for the explosion was assumed to have killed most, and we buried them decently enough."
Jared said, "Jensen did that?" It was a difficult voice, one forced past his larynx. His husband, a cold betrayer. A spy, a murderer. Of Jared's kin, so that his family was now extinguished.
"Oh yes," said the King, coolly. Jared thought there was disapproval in the tone, and Charles’s hands were still, for once. "That is war, sweetling. War is full of such episodes. Never believe it noble. Jensen did, and yet see what he did, for my sake, and my father's." He picked up his glass of wine, and contemplated the dark depths. "Many did, and regret nothing. Jensen, though… He wrote to your father, after, in memory of that fine man your uncle, and in apology for the loss of your grandfather too. Showed me the letter, of course, so that I knew there was no betrayal. He told the truth, and spoke of regret, though also of pride in his cause. Otherwise, I think no one at Cromwell would have known the truth."
"Did my father write back?" Jared had known nothing of this. He'd been a child, of course, but- How extraordinary, to know nothing at all of such a catastrophe.
"Yes, but not for many years, not until my court returned victorious. With the indenture. He confided you to Jensen's family care.” The King quoted, “For I believed him a good man, once, and his actions have denied my son the support of a family. If he is that good man, he will offer my son protection in recompense. It will do Jared good to see there are other ways to live. An extraordinary man, your father. It must have caused a deal of comment in your world."
"Yes. It did." Comment and no understanding at all, for those words had not been on Jared’s half of the indenture. Jared was not interested in the present, for a moment. The impact of the past was too great. Jared pondered. He could regard Jensen as his deepest enemy, if he chose. Undoubtedly, Jared's life was very different because of those actions. But his father's will could not have been that. He was not a vindictive man. Nor would he have sent Jared to suffer. And yet, Jensen saw him as penance. Painful.
The King drank deeply. "One might suggest that confrontation would shake Jensen from his past. Or one might consider it likely to be disastrous. I have an embassage to Castle Cromwell due next month. I will send you. Shall I also send your husband?"
Jared swallowed, mouth newly dry, heart pounding. To go home? "I- Yes. Please do."
A risk. A deep risk. It could be hell for them both. But better to know than to remain suspended in unspoken difficulty.
*
On to part two
Also, yes I did write two arranged marriages fics for Meant to Be. Id fic? Moi?
Title: The Twain Shall Meet
Author: Brutti ma buoni
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 17800
Warnings: some fairly extensive blasphemy (misuse of the Song of Songs), background of court decadence, public sex and such like, mild medical kink
Prompt:47. Satan’s Mark: Strictly brought up by her Puritan uncle, Annelise Woodward is much too innocent for the likes of Justin Rochefort, Marquis Saintjohn. When she discovers Justin is her true guardian, and that she must go live with his mother, Lady Emily, Annelise's world turns upside down. Thrust from her modest life into the wicked court of Charles II, Annelise seeks guidance from her handsome new guardian. But Justin is too tormented by his past to help his beautiful ward. Can Annelise help him put aside his pain and look forward to their future together?
Summary Relative innocent Jared meets tired, cynical Jensen, into whose care he has been entrusted - in another world where courts are castles and the Restoration is non-literally replayed. We're talking vaguely fantasy swashbuckling territory with seventeenth century undertones if you spot that kind of thing.
Welcome to Castle Caroline. Abandon virtue, all ye who enter here
Jared tried to tell himself it was purest show and bravado. A sign aimed at scaring the innocent and shockable away from the castle, to keep the King and his court in peace. Unfortunately, Jared was both innocent, and easily shocked, and yet needed to attend the court, for he had no other home.
He knocked at the great iron knocker. It boomed, shaking the vast metal-bound door, almost making the very stones creak.
"Who goes there?" came a voice. A languorous, female voice, dripping vice and temptation. It was as unlike Castle Cromwell's upright rigour as possible.
Jared almost forgot to answer the voice, in his confusion. "- Uh. I- I am Jared. From Castle Cromwell. I'd like to come in, please."
"We do not welcome Cromwellites. You should know it." The voice was still honey, but honey coating stings. Jared almost fled.
"My family is dead. I am left to the wardship of one of your lords. Lord Ackles."
"Ahhhh," said the voice, pleasurably rolling. "The marquis, is it? He'll be glad to meet you, I should imagine. Now prove it." The last three words, snapped abruptly, were quite reassuring. At least the Caroline gatekeepers did their duty.
Jared held out the indenture giving his wardship over. Lord Ackles would hold the other half, and when the two parchment fragments met, his fate would be confirmed. He half hoped that the Ackles muniments were poorly kept, that he would be refused and cast out. But, after a mere half hour of waiting in the wardroom, he was waved through, in to the world of Castle Caroline.
"Lord Ackles, and his mother, are in Tower Royal," said the gatekeeper. "They expect you within the hour, but you may visit House Ackles first, to find your accommodations and dress for the meeting."
House Ackles was far at the end of the outer bailey, and Jared's trip was both hurried and fascinating. Castle Caroline was full of women, of song, of casual chatter. There appeared little organisation to the place. He passed a Tower marked Playhouse, and another Papistry. All decadence here, as he'd been promised. House Ackles sat among others of its ilk - House Buckingham, House Rochester, House Portsmouth, Villiers, Mazarin, Castlemaine, Behn, St Albans… The names blurred. Jared would learn them in the end.
House Ackles was dark. Rich fabric at the windows, tropical woods on the walls and floors. Paintings, of great bowls of fruit, flowers, foodstuffs, spilling with luxury, rotting with decay.
The majordomo accepted Jared's pass. He was expected. His room, an honourable one on the second floor. "Lady Emily sleeps in the south wing. But Lord Ackles is close at hand." The majordomo was not a man for vulgarity, but Jared could swear there was a ribald implication in those words. He chose to ignore it, and his internal tremor. It was of course quite appropriate for the sexes to be separated in such a house. At Castle Cromwell, he had shared with many other males, with the womenfolk far away to ensure continence and decorum.
Jared reflected, internally, that it had not wholly succeeded. But it had been more fitting, at least.
His modest possessions were swiftly stashed, and Jared found himself with time to spare before he was required at Tower Royal. He walked back more slowly, absorbing more of the outer bailey's confusion and riot. They said pestilence and fire stalked the Caroline Court, and it was easy to believe, though none was in evidence today.
At the entrance to the inner bailey, three skulls on spikes. One would be Cromwell, though great Noll was long dead before they captured his corpse and crowned another Charles as ruler of Albion. Jared murmured a prayer in passing, nonetheless.
His pass opened the door to Tower Royal, with a courteous nod from the doorman, but no obeisance. His worth was not high in this court. It was correct, of course, but stinging. Perhaps Lord Ackles merited nothing more.
Three paces into the Tower, Jared's hands were seized. A woman, bold faced and impudent, drew him forward. "'Ere, boys, we got ourselves a new'un. Whaddya reckon to his lights?"
"My dear," said the nearest man. "Too shaming for words. Has he come to convert us to the Light and the Truth?"
"I'm not from House Ranter," said Jared, stiffly. But then, paralyzed, remembered that introducing himself as a Cromwellian would not support acceptance in this place. Fortunately, he had little need to speak.
"He's Ackles' new boy, you fool, Albemarle," said the woman. "Not come to lecture but to live."
"Those clothes, though," said Albemarle, sniffing. "They must go." He was himself wearing a wine-stained shirt, open-necked almost to the waist, tight breeches and hose. Jared looked away from such nakedness, but it sent his eyes back to his lady leader, herself laced up so that her bosom became almost a shelf for her chin, and her nipples peeked and danced in the lace top to her bodice.
It was appalling, but moving deeper into the Tower re-educated Jared's expectations so that within a few minutes, he had forgotten his first revulsion. There was so much more by which to be revolted. Debauchery of wine and gambling and constant indecency, such that Jared's gasps of horror could hardly keep pace with them. It was on the stairs, just past a naked couple making love in an alcove designed to hold a torch sconce, so perfectly illuminated in their shame, that they met a new figure. A tall man, and dark. "Nelly, what have you brought us? Come inside, my unsullied dove, come inside."
Jared found himself drawn into a large chamber on what must be the principal floor of Tower Royal. They had to be close to the Throne Room, he realised, but the low-lit chamber heaved with naked flesh nonetheless. His new acquaintance stood Jared compliant before a candelabra. "Let me look at you. Such innocence! You're too perfect, young Padalecki. And such a structure to you. You must be quite splendid, unclothed. Were you a wench, I'd claim you for mine, I swear. Teach you there's more to life than Cromwellian strictures. But, alas, my tastes lie otherwhere." Jared was still absorbing that this unknown man knew his name and background, let alone the sinful implications of that speech when that same unknown embraced him closely, putting mouth to mouth and even licking between Jared's parted, startled lips.
"Majesty," said a bored voice. "You might let me at least meet my new plaything before you despoil him, don't you think?"
The man - the King - let go of Jared with a shout of laughter. "Apologies, Jensen my sweet. Apologies. You must meet your little boy, and see of what he is made. Come, Nelly, I want a fuck before dinner." He wandered away, towing the slattern with him. She winked as they left.
Jared stood, gaping fishily. The King had met him. The King had kissed him, and defiled him lightly, and taken an interest in his presence. Too strange for words, and that before he met the man who held his fate henceforth.
That man, Jensen, Marquis Ackles, must be this man, taking the King's place in Jared's eyeline. "Stop gawping, you lout," he said, but good-humouredly. "Charles is a good man, in his way, but it's probably not the way you've been taught. Come and meet my mother before she's quite inebriated. She's to have notional wardship of you. I'm quite unsuitable."
That, Jared could believe. Lord Ackles, a man of full years and with at least a decade on Jared's youth, wore only a waistcoat, in tight silk, close-worked with embroidery, and hose hugging his legs like skin. Everything exposed under the clinging fabric once the coat stopped short, and it stopped short of places Jared would never consider showing in public. Following Ackles, he could scarcely look away from the spectacle, and yet all his upbringing urged him to do so with all speed.
The Marquis's mother, Lady Emily, was scarcely less shocking. She must have been fifty, an age when Jared's grandmother had taken to enveloping black with buttons to the chin, but Lady Emily was in a bodice perhaps a half inch more decent than Nell's and sitting upon the lap of a large young man, dark-brown as the panelling of House Ackles, and wearing less than the Marquis. "Sweetheart," she said, "I won't get up, you'd be shocked by just how much of Aldis you would meet on first acquaintance." She gestured at her spread skirts, concealing what must be sexual engagement beneath, and continued to talk to Jared and her son, quite reasonably.
"Jensen, his clothes are ghastly. I can't allow it."
"No, mother." The Marquis said, apparently bored. "As you will."
"The jacket at the very least," said Lady Emily, "And the lacings. I suppose you'll want to keep the breeches? Your shirt would make you decent, hereabouts, but you Puritanites are always so keen to retain nether garments, I've found."
Jared, turning beetroot, confirmed his desire to retain his breeches, but stood passive as the Marquis stripped him of his good top-clothes, sending them back to House Ackles via a servant, and a dismissive, "I suppose one might cut them down for rags, in time of need." Jensen, whom Jared was already struggling to name 'the Marquis', ensured Jared's shirt untucked and part-opened, in Tower Royal fashion.
"Sorry about this," he murmured. "But mother's right. Better to blend in." The flash of sympathy was welcome, and Jared paid Jensen-the-man more attention than he'd had to spare before. A beautiful man, with hair short quite contrary to current fashion. Jared's own hair was longer by far, and perhaps the only part of his appearance that truly fitted here.
Jensen talked with his mother, with Aldis and other hangers on for a while, as Lady Emily rocked herself gently on her lover's lap, and drank three glasses of claret, at the minimum. Talk ranged beyond Jared's predicament, but circled and returned again and again. He was a novelty. They did not, apparently, quite know what to do with him. Which was fair, as Jared had no idea at all what to do with them, his new family.
Lady Emily, slurring now, said, "Jensen, take the boy off. I need to fuck and sleep before the Queen's bonanza tomorrow. Take him to the play, why don't you?"
Jensen's mouth opened, but Lady Emily was moving her hips with more purpose now, and paying him no mind. "Ach," he said, apparently exasperated. "And that's a command, if you missed it. Though the play is not what I'd have chosen for your first night."
"Is it decadent?" asked Jared. He hoped it would merely be a case of females onstage, a scandal of which he was well aware and for which he considered himself adequately braced.
"Exceedingly," said Jensen, with infinite ennui. "I'm finding that it palls, after court, but one can't say so, of course. The King sets the tone." He led the way from Tower Royal to the Playhouse Tower, and into a small reserved area. "Our box. For as much private debauch as we can handle. Personally, I want some decent food and a thirst quencher. Will you join me?"
Jared agreed, eagerly. It had been a long journey on small bread and cheese, and a great deal of new things to absorb since. He was silenced, though, by the quantity of food that appeared. Fruits and sweetmeats, roasted meats, jellies, breads, soups, fish - all for two. A wicked abundance, but undeniably enticing too. Jensen ate, pickily, and drank deep, while Jared gorged, telling himself he would allow indulgence this once, before returning to the ways he had always known. Modesty and restraint were essential qualities.
The play began before he had finished, but Jensen waved for him to continue eating. "…if you can," he added, and Jared was baffled before the curtains opened. The scene which met his eyes, however, explained all.
Naked womenflesh, in abundance. One of them that same red-headed Nelly he'd met earlier. Bodies strewn across the stage, in mimicry of a dormitory. "Oh," cried Nelly. "I have been so good for so long, but I'm so terribly bored in here with all these girls."
"Needn't be bored, my love," said a dark girl to Jared's side of the stage. She approached Nelly, but was rebuffed, with something about Sapphic practice that Jared couldn't understand but which sent the audience rocking. "I shall find another," said the dark girl. "Fancy breaking our vows, Moll?" And they commenced to practice evil debauch upon the public stage.
Meanwhile, Nelly soliloquised on her boredom with Puritan life, her wish for a real man, and suchlike. Jared tried not to yawn, especially when the inevitable Puritan-dressed man entered the dormitory and began to have at Nelly with gusto. It was all so inaccurate, and he had been braced for mockery of the good folk he'd left.
But a glance into the next box had him staggered once more. Two men, eyes on the stage, cocks out, defiling themselves with onanist vice. He shouldn't be startled after the court, but that this was, quite evidently, the purpose of the theatre was startling and quite wrong.
"Not your style?" Jensen asked, in a low voice. His eyes were on the stage, and the couplings thereupon. His hand fell to Jared's thigh, and then slid upwards to his groin, his slack and uninterested cock. "Thought not." The hand was removed, though Jared could mysteriously feel it still, and had Jensen's hand returned it would have discovered a very different scenario very soon. Jensen did not resume the caress, however. "I can usually tell. That way myself, you see. Which makes the King's tit-lust a source of great boredom. This actor, though, he's new and comely. Worth a look, at least. And he'll be in the man-play at the close, which we shall stay for. Would you like more wine?"
Jared nodded, in confusion, although he had already drunk more this day than in his life before. He ate more, as perversion piled on perversion on stage. His mind was elsewhere, however, and not even the feast could distract him entirely from the simple revelation of Jensen's words. That way myself. So Jared wasn't the only man afflicted with this unnatural lust. Perhaps he would learn how to suppress it, here, among those who acknowledged such vice.
The man-play, however, disabused him of the idea. Half the audience left at the scene break beforehand, beefy men loudly proclaiming their lack of interest. Many women remained, however, and a good scattering of men. Many of them dressed as Jensen was, indeed, the embroidered waistcoats forming what Jared came to understand was a uniform of sorts.
Onto the stage walked two men, one large and burly, the other a slender lad, ginger-haired and milk pale of skin. "Well, lad," said the larger. "Show me how you've learned your lessons." The redheaded boy knelt, and drew out the other's cock.
Jared sat, open-mouthed and near frenzied with suppressed lust, as the scene played out onstage. The boy suckled at the man's cock, then bent over a handy stool, parting his buttocks. The burly man felt between, approvingly, "Good lad, been working on yourself, have you? Opening up for me, nice and slick?" And they fell to coupling too.
Jensen's voice said in Jared's ear, "Unless you've more clothing to hand than I suspect, take your cock out before you come. I've a kerchief to hand, nothing need be soiled." Jared gasped in answer, fumbling at the many fastenings of his garments and gasping again as the direct touch stimulated him further. Jensen sighed, apparently with boredom, and Jared climaxed with his guardian's breath in his ear, kerchief in his hand, neatly catching the spill of seed.
They watched the end of the man-play, Jensen yawning, Jared dazed with unexpected sensation and revelation. "Come," said Jensen, as the burly player shouted his completion. "Time to go home." He led Jared out, and towards House Ackles in silence. Jared, confused and exhausted, attempted several wrong turns before Jensen piloted them to the men's' wing.
Jensen paused outside Jared's chamber door. "Sleep, boy. You've had a long day."
Jared said, involuntarily naked in his confession, "It must be sinful, I'm sure. But I didn't know that anyone else-"
"Poor child," said Jensen. Jared frowned, patronised. "But that's Cromwellians for you. Don’t flagellate yourself too hard in penance, infant. Cocks will out, whether we will or nil."
"But-"
"I've no wish to talk more with you tonight," said Jensen, and left him.
Jared retired, a bundle of confusion. Here he might explore sin. Here he might fall into sin headlong, and damn his immortal soul. Here was his home. Here was his only family, since all the rest were gone.
He remembered, just before sleep took him, that he had forgotten to ask the most important question. Why, how, for what possible incomprehensible reason, had his father left Jensen his wardship?
*
Life in Castle Caroline was not quite as Jared's first impressions had suggested. Debauchery was a norm, but not the sole reason for existence. The King and court rode out often, progressing around the nation. Asserting rule, more than anything. Jensen was one of these, and so Jared's wardship fell as planned into the benign grasp of Lady Emily. Eccentric she might be, shocking she undoubtedly was. But also friendly, and with an unexpected grasp of how peculiar Jared might find the place after Cromwell. As a guide, she was fair.
There were moments when Jared understood that some parts of the Caroline way might be better than perpetual repression. The womenfolk were open, part of everyday life, literate and filled with intelligent conversation. The playhouse did not only show debauchery, but also drama and history brought to life, which delighted. His own sense of a sinful nature faded with every sight of men showing affection to other men, or women with women; the nature of the Castle was that his sense of sin faded speedily indeed. He retained his breeches, and the Castle came to ignore this oddity. They did not judge with speed.
The wasteful luxury, though, and the oddity of treating one's most personal, sacred intimacies as public property, these continued to gall. The practice of church attendance on Sundays only, and for services to which few paid attention, caused him greater pain, although he found that priests and courtiers were content to offer more when they recognised his need for regular contemplation and prayer. Indeed, that acceptance was perhaps the core of Jared's realisation that the court way could be godly in its own odd ways: he was free to worship. So were the Papists. And others were free not to. He talked of his forbidden desires with Father Titus, and received counsel which gave him some ease of mind. "Who are we to judge?" was an irregular phrase from a priest, but a welcome one.
He was more shaken by being told to present himself at Tower Physick for inspection (Lady Emily blithely: "One must not introduce any nasty little diseases, must we? They spread so fast in the Castle.") Milady's explanation had omitted the important intelligence that this was in respect of matters intimate, and Jared found himself stripped, inspected for disease and explaining his virginity to an incredulous physician, just at the point when the court returned from a long trip to Castle Versailles and underwent a similar inspection, from the King downwards.
Jared, dressing hurriedly, lest he betray his unfulfilled lust for male flesh in such company, distracted himself listening out for Jensen, and the irritated sound of his guardian's protestations was welcome. "Hyde, I've told you often-"
"This continence, Lord Ackles, it cannot be natural," said the physician, the same that had disbelieved Jared but a few moments before. And he continued to make the routine checks.
"Unnatural, possibly," said Jensen. "But truth. May I dress?"
He caught up with Jared on the way to House Ackles. "You were examined? I'm sorry, I should have told them you were innocent."
"I told Lady Em," said Jared, gloomily. "Seems she didn't believe me."
"No, she wouldn't." Jensen laughed shortly, and turned the subject to Jared's recent weeks, and how he had passed the time. His masters and book-learning, the afternoon theatre, music lessons - all was pleasant.
"Splendid. Etiquette and courtliness next, I think, and then you will have the gamut. We can introduce you to the court proper," said Jensen, startlingly.
"Am I to be a courtier, then?" Jared asked.
"Did you not know? It's your right. Your destiny, one might say. Your father confided you to me with this goal in mind, you know."
"No. I did not. He never spoke of you." Jensen's face paled at those words, and his mouth took on a tight set. Jared blurted, "So I don't know why, my lord. I don't know why I'm here, at all."
But it was too late. Jensen shrugged him off and paced a little ahead all the way back to House Ackles.
*
Lady Emily was no greater help, and a year after arriving at the court, Jared knew no more why his life had taken such a turn. He had polish now, to a point. He had a sense of the Caroline way of things. He was a fixture, of House Ackles and the castle. His foibles were noted, but he was no longer 'that Cromwell boy'. He had had a lover, briefly, and done penance, with some honesty, and he was at once comfortable and insecure, knowing his place and knowing he did not fit. And knowing nothing at all of his future.
Lady Em threw a party for Jared's twenty-first year, with great play of sweetmeats and ribaldry limited to verse (they could hardly not invite neighbouring Lord Rochester, and decided to make him a virtue of necessity). The King's chief mistress, Milady Castlemaine, passed through, dispensing graciousness. "Now you're a man, we must see you settled, must we not? Perhaps you'll be the King's choice to wed that slut." Graciousness with a vicious end, but hardly surprising. House Portsmouth was rising, as the Castlemaine aged, and the one-sided feud poisoned many a court gathering. And it was true, Milady Portsmouth was unmarried, and known to be in need of a complaisant coupling to insure against any early royal demise. Jared gaped at the sudden awful prospect; Louise Portsmouth was a pug-ugly and tedious woman more than two decades his senior, even if he'd wanted to marry a woman at all. And she liked little lapdogs. Ugh.
Before he could panic, he heard Jensen's voice, unexpectedly. Apparently the lord of the House had come home, though presumably not for a tame party for a largely-ignored ward. "Whatever makes you think I intend to give the child up, Barb?"
The Castlemaine gaped at him. "But- Well, we all assumed with your history among the Ironclads, you'd hardly- Well. How daring of you, Lord Ackles. I hope he doesn’t stab you as you sleep."
"He's well dowered and neatly made," said Jensen, calmly. "And more interesting to me than to the Portsmouth, I would think. Don't you consider he's grown up nicely now?" He threw an arm across Jared's shoulders, and added, "In fact, if you're bored, Barb, you might help Mama with the planning." One squeeze of his arm, and he wandered off, leaving Jared and the Castlemaine gaping at each other across the crowded space.
Jared passed the rest of his party in spectacular absence of mind, and only remembered at bedtime that he'd forgotten to eat any of his own birthday cake. This was an omission to be rectified at once, and he wandered downstairs in shirt and hose to consume whatever might remain. Caroline excess continued to shock Jared, but sweetmeats were a weak point. He would do penance, later, and be up swimming or riding each morning for a week. Thus would balance be restored.
Thoughts of cake were to the fore, but thoughts of unexpected revelations were not far behind. Almost as though Jared had conjured him, Jensen was sitting in the dining hall amid the wreck of the feast. He was drunk, Jared recognised. Jensen drunk was a fearsome thing, silent and judgemental, with occasional biting viciousness. It was far from ideal ground, and yet an opportunity Jared could not resist.
He munched on some cake, thoughtfully. "So, we're to marry, milord?"
Jensen swore, quietly. "Must we talk? My head, already- Oh, very well, cub. I think you would be wise to marry me. You're free to petition otherwise. Your wardship won't hold now you're a man, if you choose to upend it. And Charles is a romantic; he'd never stop you following your heart. But you're more vulnerable than you know, without power and lands. And the greater part of your father's lands are mine now, since the wars ended, you know. He sent you to me, in the expectation I'd reunite you with them."
Jared gaped at him. More cake needed. He said, somewhat muffled, "But, it's a sin in Cromwell! Never spoken of! My father wouldn't-"
"I'd imagine your father knew very well what he was doing. His brother Adair was the same as us. We are not rare. Though wise men leave Castle Cromwell and its narrow morals, so I imagine you didn't grow up surrounded by sodomites, as you should."
Jared tried to pick apart what he needed to know from this. His father's possible hypocrisy he left aside; not something Jensen could answer. Who his uncle Adair was - or more likely had been was something to discover later. "Why do you want to marry me? You have lands aplenty and apparently mine are yours already."
Jensen drank deep, and refilled his glass yet another time. He spoke with as much animation as Jared had heard from him in discussing legal technicalities, and somewhat less than when talking horseflesh. "Yes, but I should settle. My mother's ageing, and so am I. The House name hangs by a slender cord these days. I need an heir, but I'm not planning to get one the old fashioned way. Charles would contrive us some infants if we married. He's-" Jensen's mouth twisted. "-Tremendously helpful that way. Half the court is raising his bastards. And one could do worse for the future of House Ackles."
Jared tried to process his future in this picture, seemingly raising royal children for the good of House Ackles. Why on earth had he been studying, for this?
He must have looked bewildered. Jensen shrugged, and curled his mouth round the rest, honey-coated daggers of words. "Besides, you're sweet and pleasing to the eye, you've been well tutored - or so my mother tells me - and you'll be an asset at court. I've no interest in love matches and passion. And, since I killed your uncle, your grandfather and half of Castle Cromwell through base treachery, I feel a certain interest in your future. You're my penance, Jared, so I may as well embrace you."
He stood up, crashing his half-full glass of red wine to the table, where it jumped and spilled. "Damn," said Lord Ackles, and crumpled inelegantly to the floor.
*
"Well, he doesn't like to talk about it, my dear," said Lady Emily. "I'm surprised he mentioned it at all, though of course he's rarely souse-drunk these days, so he's unaccustomed, and you were rather close to the subject. Incidentally, dear, you're going to make him a lovely husband, I'm so glad he'd finally told you of the plan. I've been wanting a larger family for many a year."
Jared waved a hand, uninterested. Marriage was very much less pressing than finding out more about these unexpected revelations which suddenly sprouted at his birthday celebrations. "But, what the hell happened?"
He listened to himself, blaspheming, and noted just how Caroline a short year here had made him.
"I'm surprised you don't know," said Lady Em. "Or were you not interested in history at school? But then, I suppose it's rather painful for you lot. But not beyond memory, I would have expected."
Jared shrugged, and waited for her to start connecting with anything he knew about the late civil wars. "It's how Castle Newbury fell, the second time. Jensen was with the Ironclads, playing the Cromwellite, and he betrayed them to Caroline forces. We were terribly excited, for finally something was going our way, and we thought we should be saved. Though of course it was all for nothing and Castle Cromwell beheaded the old King and all of that." That part, Jared knew, of course. He'd grown up in a Cromwell land, and bitterly feared the effects when Castle Caroline, resurgent, took power once more, though no holocaust had come upon them as expected. But Newbury? That was long ago. It had been a sad loss, of men and territory, but soon overcome.
"He must have been very young," he said.
"Oh yes, much younger than you are now. Seventeen, I think, at the end, but sixteen when he went over. We all cursed his name and declared him outlaw and such, but it turned out to be in a good cause. Though not from your perspective, I suppose. And I don't think Jensen has ever really got over it. He was part of the execution squad, of all those men he'd known quite well, and it's no job for a youth, that." Lady Em sipped tea, composedly, and eyed Jared, seeking reaction. "We fled, of course, when it became obvious that Newbury hadn't been enough. And my husband died on the ship to Middelburg, so Jensen went from being a boy to a lord overnight. And he was still thinking of himself among the Ironclads too. I believe many of them were sodomites at Newbury, you see, sent out from Castle Cromwell as unsuitable types for the heart of the movement, but terribly brave it seems. He had a few lovers among them, though not I think your uncle, which is just as well, isn't it? There are limits to broadmindedness."
She sipped again. "You should have seen Castle Caroline when we came back. Before the King, and so very few people living here. It's been an awful job to get it all straight, you know. Seven years, now, and still the murals aren't right. Perhaps we can fix them in honour of your wedding. June, don't you think?"
Jared thanked her, and left. It was discourteous, but he felt he couldn't hear another word of shattering history today.
Jensen's bitterness of the night before was somewhat explained. But much else was not. Why Jared’s father had left him to wed a traitor was a difficult question still. He wondered whether to ask, whether Jensen really knew, and decided that today was not the time for it. He wondered whether to write to Castle Cromwell, to learn more, but realised just how few people he could ask. Cromwell was not a place that encouraged intimacies.
*
In the event, Jared's world started to change too fast for history lessons to fit. Jensen began to take him to court, as his acknowledged consort. Jared started to learn from men, not from books, just what ruling meant. He attended law courts, rode out in brief retributive justice raids, hunted to fill the game larders, reviewed the navy and the army, sat as the smallest-consequenced, newest, least-useful person in the room when the King of Frankenland's ambassadors visited, bringing with them the King's mother and sister for a joyous and improper reunion.
Jensen had been in Frankenland, and Lowerland, in his exile. Jared asked him about them, and learned more. Papists running nations, Puritans leading nations without kings, different music, different customs. The King's sister was married to the King of Lowerland; her son was a possible heir to the throne, with a union of crowns not impossible.
But Jared also sat, mouse-quiet, in the Privy Council session at which the King named Jamie Monmouth his heir, in the absence of heirs of the body by his little-regarded queen. One of his many, many bastard children, and a loose friend of Jensen's, Jared knew Jamie mainly for his starring role in a number of the more obscene theatrical productions. He tried to feel that this would be an advantage in a King. But then, he found Charles unexpectedly impressive as a monarch despite his debauch, tolerant and weary, but not prejudiced. And certainly not naïve. His court questioning, and interviewing of prospective justices, was rapier-like.
This would be Jared, soon, he realised. Sitting in judgement on peasantry and the lower orders as required. House Ackles and his own lands implied hard work, work Jensen was undertaking for them both at present.
"Will I be a magistrate, after we're married?" he asked, on a rare night when Jensen dined with him and Lady Emily.
"Oh, probably," said Jensen. "If Charles will appoint you - and why wouldn't he? You've lands, and brains, and there's work enough for us all. And better that than diplomacy." He pulled a face. Jensen was wriggling out of an overseas assignment at this moment, albeit in return for taking on a thankless job in exchequer commons. Jensen added, "We really should get married, shouldn’t we? It's holding you back. Next week?"
Lady Em screamed in horror, but Jensen would not be persuaded to leave it longer than a fortnight. Jared started to realise (call him foolish if you will) that the rest of his life was being settled here, and that he had already made up his mind to accept it. He was about to marry Jensen Ackles, a man apparently drenched in the blood of Castle Cromwell.
How utterly bizarre that he did not mind more.
*
"You're not a virgin anymore, are you?" Jensen asked, in passing, three days before their wedding. They were awaiting the royal presence at an investiture in House Mazarin, and could be overheard by at least ten courtiers.
Jared flushed from nose to navel, at the very smallest estimate. "No?" He hated the quaver in his voice, but he hadn't asked Jensen's permission to take a lover, and perhaps he should.
Not by the satisfied nod that returned to him. "Good. Virgins are dull."
"But-" Jared almost swallowed the rest, till he considered just how much more terrifying his wedding night would become if he lied now. "I'm not very- We didn't- I don't know a lot." And he shut up.
"Fine," said Jensen. "So long as I know."
After the investiture, he took Jared to House Physick, for the mandatory pre-marital examination, and to "be prepared for every eventuality", a process involving humiliation, unguents and some articles Jared had never known existed for mimicking the male form. But at least he knew.
*
Despite Lady Em's certainty that marriage ceremonies could not be arranged within fourteen days, they married amid suitable pomp. Mainly because Jensen had charmed the wonder workers at House Haymarket, and a number of courtly entertainments had been repurposed to celebrate the Marquis Ackles taking a mate. The kitchens provided a feast perhaps a fraction more lavish than the norm, and the King's Musick ensured dancing in the inner bailey was joyous and loud.
Lady Em, last seen being double-teamed by Aldis and bad Kitty Fisher at the mouth of the stableyard, had promised to leave them the run of House Ackles for the night. So it was an unusually quiet house that Jensen led him to, when they quit the revels. Jared's heart was beating so hard he assumed Jensen could hear it. The majordomo nodded them in, and nodded again without smirking when Jensen dismissed the entire household for the night. Jensen took a great branch of candles from the hall table and set off up the stairs. Jared followed.
Shouldn't there be talking? There wasn't. He wondered whether he might be sick.
In the gentlemen's wing, Jensen opened the door to his chambers. "Come in. I have had your things moved to my suite. You have your own room, of course. But I would like it if you would come to me tonight, husband."
A choice. Well, that made things easier. Jared nodded, took a pair of candles off to the smaller chamber which was designated his own, and undressed down to his long, untucked shirt. Nothing more, and it would slip off with ease. Which would be suitable, he thought, swallowing the thought of vomiting again.
When he blew out his candles and knocked at the interconnecting door, Jensen said, "Come in."
Jared walked into a chamber full of light, fire banked but candelabra blazing. Jensen was standing naked before the fire. "You made ready?" he asked. Jared nodded. House Physick's tutorial was fresh in his memory. "Take off the shirt. Or hitch it up if you must keep your last claim to modesty." Jensen's voice was hard, sneering. Not like the Jensen Jared had become used to, a surpassingly reasonable man.
"Let me see," he said, nodding towards the bed. Jared shed the shirt, obedient to the challenge, and crawled onto the bed. Jensen walked over behind him, sliding a finger inside almost before Jared knew he was there. "Good. I'm glad you want to make this easy," said the Marquis, and Jared was very much thinking of him that way tonight. "Hurting you is not in my plans." He moved onto the bed, making the mattress shift, and fitted his cock to Jared's hole. "Let's be married, cub," he said, and slid inside. It was perhaps two minutes since Jared had entered the chamber, and he had expected a long night of exotic pleasure, the dredgings of a body and mind brought up in Caroline ways and long denied release. This functional, abrupt entrance took him aback, though Jensen was thoughtful enough with body, if not with niceties. He was taken, and after a while Jensen's hand slipped around to tug Jared to a somewhat unwilling but inevitable climax. He finished himself soon after.
They lay on top of the bedcovers awhile, and in silence. Eventually, cold brought Jared to activity, and he wriggled under the covers. Jensen's head raised, startled. "You're staying? After that?"
"Of course," Jared answered. "We're married."
"Cub, if that's your idea of marriage, you've a great deal to learn."
What to say? Confront or ignore? Hardly a choice for Jared, as apparently Jensen had yet to learn. "I do know better, Jensen, even with my little experience. What I'm confused about is why you'd make it such a small thing. It can be a thing of joy," said Jared, daringly.
Jensen laughed, a bitter thing of no real mirth. "It can. But you're my penance, Jared. Did you not listen? There's precious little joy in penance, or shouldn't be."
Tempting, to take that as a blow, to recoil, to flee. Damned if he would, though. "I shall take that as a challenge," was Jared's only outer response. "Because you're not my damned penance, and I'm not going to live that way." He was a little warmer now, with talking and anger, and kicked the covers away from the two of them. Time to put some of House Physick's teaching into practice.
"They told me," he said, "That there is pleasure to be had from mouths against bodies. And that feasting the eyes feeds the mind and the body, bringing pleasure. I should like to explore, please."
Jensen said nothing, slumped back, uncaring to the external eye. Jared, however, was speaking truth. Exploration was intoxication, freedom he hadn't experienced in brief fumblings with his lone past lover. The grossest playhouse performance could only narrate pleasure, display fornication. Touch, smell and taste were amplifying. Jared worked his way down Jensen's belly, tasting the while, and allowed himself marital privilege by taking cock in mouth without permission. Jensen's pretended indifference long abandoned, Jared felt his fingers tangle into Jared's hair, somewhere between restraint and encouragement.
It would not do to be too forgiving, he thought. There was something that he perhaps should not say, had planned to explore slowly over many weeks until his husband should trust him with such grave matter. Instead, he raised his head, ignoring the protesting press of Jensen's hand on his skull. "They told me you might prefer it if I took you. Is that true?"
Jensen struggled up onto his elbows, looking somewhere between amused and angry, both emotions worlds away from the distance he'd assumed earlier, and far more welcome. "Did they, indeed? Promise you my arse for your wedding present? I didn't know my tastes were so worthy of gossip."
"I think they were trying to prepare me," said Jared. "House Physick is very… thorough…" He paused briefly, as unnerving memory returned of his late lessons. He also did not mention that Lady Em had come to tell him the same, with if anything somewhat more frankness. "So?"
"Oh, very well," said Jensen, grumbling, and rolling over. "But don't tell my mother she was right." Damnation, Jared's face must be a mirror of his thoughts.
That, though, for another time. Now, the prospect of muddling through his first attempt with little help, and a too-little-known husband's scorn awaiting him. Different, though, from the efficient form of his own taking. Jensen had evidently not sought help from House Physick himself. Tightly furled, without salve, his arse yielded but slowly to Jared's determined explorations, and more time passed before his husband started to move as though the rude entry gave him some pleasure.
"Oh, hell, you win," said Jensen, at last. In his bedside table, familiar salve, which eased Jared's fingers' passage, and soon enough found him awkwardly fumbling to fit his (alarmingly large) cock inside an impossibly tiny space. Jensen sighed, and said, "Cub? If you're my penance or not, I'll not be pawed about much longer. Let me-"
He shifted to free himself, rolling back to face Jared. He might sound bored, but a fully-flushed cock, dripping with eagerness, informed Jared that his husband could lie with his tone, but not with his body. He set the thought aside for now, barely holding mind and body together as his wedding night became a complex delight and promise of future pain. Jensen hitched up thighs, high around Jared's waist, wriggling a hand awkwardly to guide Jared to the right place, and to encourage him to persevere. "I promise you will not break me," he said, still bored, but now Jared watched the eager movement of his cock, felt Jensen's body bearing down to open for him. "It may have been some time, but once I was an old hand at this. Ah. There."
Fully breached. Fully seated, Jared, gasping at the unexpectedness of such a thing being possible. He tried to retrieve any dignity and self-restraint, but he had no confidence he could display expertise and stamina. Not this first time. He moved his hips cautiously, watching Jensen's face, trying not to give in to his own body's insistence that he must move, must take, must imprint himself into this willing body. Jensen gasped, so Jared repeated the manoeuvre, and again, and again.
"More," said Jensen, low and gasped. "I’m remembering how this goes. It's good."
More there was, though not indefinitely, and Jared had the satisfaction of watching Jensen complete ahead of him, bare seconds ahead, white seed spurting between their bellies, and inner ripples dragging Jared to his climax.
Not, perhaps, how Jared once envisaged a wedding night, but a memorable one, no doubt. He disengaged, sought warmth in shed covers, and curled into his husband's side. Moderately contented, he thought, with marriage so far.
In the night, Jensen dreamed. Shouted. Woke Jared. Clawed at him, slid from the bed to stand staring and unseeing at nothing.
Jared watched and waited until Jensen's rigidity subsided. "To bed, husband," he said, quietly.
"No," said Jensen, and Jared was suddenly certain he had awoken. "No, I can't. I shall-" he left the chamber, Jared naked in their marital bed, and alone.
Jared lay awake for much of the remaining night. He had thought that physical contentment would bring them closer, but it appeared that there was more to his husband's darkness and distance than one night's pleasure could resolve.
*
An audience with the King was a rare thing, but permissible on request. Jared made the request, more than a month into marriage, with his relations with his husband full of distance and confusion. Jensen would visit him at night, but not sleep, and they barely spoke in daylight. And yet, just occasionally, Jared would see the flashing pain of what Jensen had done, stabbing at the Marquis from the inside. He suspected it was there at all times. It was unbearable to think so.
His audience was granted with terrifying bonhomie. "But, my dear, delightful! How does marriage please you? Your husband is a fine man." The King’s hands, wandering absently, greeted Jared with warmth.
"Yes, Majesty, indeed he is. But a troubled one, I fear. I would like to lighten his burdens, if I might." Strange, to be alone at the court. Certainly with the King, who had a woman hanging off him at all times. Jared felt the strangeness of this quiet, rich chamber sinking into his skin. There was a bed. Perhaps this was where the King slept, for his official bedchamber was public property. Castle Caroline was familiar, nowadays, but Jared still found himself questioning so much.
The King patted Jared's hand, nodding. "Lord Ackles's early years were not easy. We had some part in that. He performed difficult service for us, and was rewarded. I had thought that he was happy again, but it seems not."
"Is that my fault?"
"Noooo, no," the King reassured. "Mine, I think, for returning to my birthright. Jensen seemed happy overseas, among us dissolute lot. Here, he remembers, and it brings pain. But he continues to serve me faithfully, and for that I thank him."
"What did he do for you?" Jared asked. Daring, perhaps, because the King appeared reluctant to talk of it.
The King sighed. "You must understand, we are of a near age. Brought up together, in part, within the royal nurseries as companion to my younger brothers. So Jensen caught the eye of my father the King-" they paused for ritual sombre acknowledgement of the other Charles's fate "-and he was always a reserved type. I used to call him a Puritan. Which tells you how much I knew of Puritans, for he has never been that. But it was perhaps the kernel of an idea. We asked him to betray us. To join you, the Cromwellites, to profess allegiance. To send despatches. He was happy enough; we all believed, of course, in our cause."
The King paused. "It was never supposed to be more. Perhaps an advantage in battle, from knowledge of tactics. But Jensen saw an opportunity, and told us of the vulnerability of Tower Newbury, well garrisoned and with all the elite of the Ironsides at conference there one week. We mined it, and destroyed it, with him safe beside us. The survivors tried to rally, and we were a small party. So we killed them. Many dead. An atrocity, I think. Less known than it should be, for the explosion was assumed to have killed most, and we buried them decently enough."
Jared said, "Jensen did that?" It was a difficult voice, one forced past his larynx. His husband, a cold betrayer. A spy, a murderer. Of Jared's kin, so that his family was now extinguished.
"Oh yes," said the King, coolly. Jared thought there was disapproval in the tone, and Charles’s hands were still, for once. "That is war, sweetling. War is full of such episodes. Never believe it noble. Jensen did, and yet see what he did, for my sake, and my father's." He picked up his glass of wine, and contemplated the dark depths. "Many did, and regret nothing. Jensen, though… He wrote to your father, after, in memory of that fine man your uncle, and in apology for the loss of your grandfather too. Showed me the letter, of course, so that I knew there was no betrayal. He told the truth, and spoke of regret, though also of pride in his cause. Otherwise, I think no one at Cromwell would have known the truth."
"Did my father write back?" Jared had known nothing of this. He'd been a child, of course, but- How extraordinary, to know nothing at all of such a catastrophe.
"Yes, but not for many years, not until my court returned victorious. With the indenture. He confided you to Jensen's family care.” The King quoted, “For I believed him a good man, once, and his actions have denied my son the support of a family. If he is that good man, he will offer my son protection in recompense. It will do Jared good to see there are other ways to live. An extraordinary man, your father. It must have caused a deal of comment in your world."
"Yes. It did." Comment and no understanding at all, for those words had not been on Jared’s half of the indenture. Jared was not interested in the present, for a moment. The impact of the past was too great. Jared pondered. He could regard Jensen as his deepest enemy, if he chose. Undoubtedly, Jared's life was very different because of those actions. But his father's will could not have been that. He was not a vindictive man. Nor would he have sent Jared to suffer. And yet, Jensen saw him as penance. Painful.
The King drank deeply. "One might suggest that confrontation would shake Jensen from his past. Or one might consider it likely to be disastrous. I have an embassage to Castle Cromwell due next month. I will send you. Shall I also send your husband?"
Jared swallowed, mouth newly dry, heart pounding. To go home? "I- Yes. Please do."
A risk. A deep risk. It could be hell for them both. But better to know than to remain suspended in unspoken difficulty.
*
On to part two