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Adventure in Little Cheatham	By : sweetelysium Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Sherlock Holmes > AU/AR Views: 3669 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on the Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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After a long wait, here’s a new chapter! Smut within, I swear. I believe this may now be NC-17. Oops!

I don’t own Sherlock Holmes, but the story herein is my own creation.

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As it was very late, we did not meet Lady Elizabeth that night. We were, however, met by the housekeeper, Mrs. Jones. A fearsome lady she -- I do not doubt that our own footman (or, more accurately, man-of-all-work) Robert would have been hard-pressed to match her in foreboding expressions. In the entry hall she stood short and plump, stalwart as a bulldog. Despite being nearly midnight, she looked neat, all surfaces of her costume smooth and un-creased.

Her expression was stern and deeply graven on her face, giving her an air of permanent disapproval. It seemed to me that should I so much as blink in what she deemed an unseemly fashion, she would have me ceremoniously drawn and quartered in her private demesne, the service areas of Loudon Hall. The butler would do well to view her with healthy fear.

“Mr. and Mrs. Holmes,” she said, without preamble, “allow me to show you to your rooms.” Turning smartly on her heel, we were left to follow, pondering her diction -- allowed? Permission had not so much been given by us as it had been forcibly removed.

I did not bother to tell her that it was Mr. and Dr. Holmes.

The rooms we had been given were more than sufficient. We entered from the hallway into a comfortable sitting room, furnished with a writing desk, two wingback chairs before a fireplace, and a not a few bookshelves. All was done in good, sturdy English woodwork. Beyond this, there was a bedroom with a large four-poster hung about with heavy draperies. Flanking it was a matched set of small tables, each containing a single drawer and holding a lamp. On the wall opposite was the entrance to a dressing room. Here were the expected toiletry articles -- chifferobe, dressing table, washstand, and, most wonderful of all, a slope-backed tub, big enough for two to do more than merely bathe. Much more than bathe.

Well, we had been married for only a short while.

“If madam wishes it, a maid can be sent up to help madam undress.” Mrs. Jones stood stiffly by the door, hands clasped at waist level over her key belt, as if she expected an attack at any moment. Her tone again matched my first impressions of her. She spoke of the maid as if she were another piece of furniture, conveniently able to move and speak and help with dressing and cleaning out fireplaces. A cold woman or one who knew how her world worked? The answer will come soon enough, with time.

I declined and removed my bonnet, hair snagging on the straw and becoming loose. Mrs. Jones nodded and left.

Immediately upon the heels of Mrs. Jones’ departure, our luggage arrived. I attacked it and unearthed our nightclothes. Beginning to unbutton my polonaise, I asked Sherlock, “What now? What has your mind discovered?” The fifth button on this bodice always stuck, the hole being slightly too small. In bending my head down, my hair tumbled, the loose twists unraveling and spreading around my torso and face. I went into the dressing room, searching for a ribbon or some lacing to tie it back, as nothing could be done with it slipping constantly around my shoulders and tangling in my hands. All my own were packed quite tidily in the bottom of one of my valises.

Sherlock followed me and sat down on the bench to the dressing table. He undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt cuffs. “There could be many explanations. He could have been a groundskeeper, caught in the rain.”

I paused in my pursuit. “At eleven-thirty, Sherlock?”

“Well--”

“In the woods surrounding the hall? No, if he was a groundskeeper, he was far out of bounds.” I gave up on the ribbon. I would have to cope.

Frustration.

He was breaking his own rules.

My husband reached to his collar band and released it, then shrugged his braces down his shoulders. His face was in its thinking expression -- brow furrowed, eyes hooded, lip caught between his teeth and worried in the absence of his calabash*. We both continued to undress and by the time I had rid myself of nearly all my many layers, Sherlock had not spoken nor had he done more than unbutton his shirt.

“Is it so bad to have been outsmarted by your wife?” I asked, aiming for levity.

“No, but . . damnation, Johanna!” His voice was hoarse and much louder than it needed to be. “It was a strange event all around -- the light, the shadow . . . tricks of the eye and mind. It does not fit in my philosophy.” He subsided and asked, as if realizing for the first time that I was standing in only my undergarments, “Do you need to be unlaced?”

“Yes, but I would appreciate having my boots off first,” I said stiffly. How I hated yelling. I was suddenly much more tired than I had been a moment before.

Frustration.

He motioned me to sit at the dressing table and crouched in front of me. Lifting my foot into his lap, he plied the buttonhook. “I think, perhaps, I was more shaken than I like to admit.” One boot gone. He rubbed my ankle; he knew these boots pinched. “I am sorry for shouting. It was not towards you.” He undid the other boot. I touched his hair and his head sagged momentarily lower. “Funny that after years of levelheaded thinking, one can suddenly be scared by the appearance of a man’s face in the dark.” He stood and pulled me up.

I untied the laces of my corset in the front, where the excess was knotted. Sherlock lifted my hair over my shoulders and began to unlace the wretched contraption. I had previously been suspicious of his skill in undoing me in the evenings, but had decided not to linger on it. Now, lost in thoughts of the carriage ride, I chalked what had barely amounted to an argument up to leftover adrenalin, caused by the . . . specter? Lost stranger in the night? It had been too real to be imagination and yet too strange to be truth.

Yes, a night dedicated to absurdity.

I caught my corset just before it fell from my body, all the laces slack. I had been aware of them coming undone and of Sherlock’s fingers setting off tiny waves of sensation along my spine. The moment it became too loose to stay up, though, I had not been paying attention and now my hand clenched around the top of it, resting low on my stomach.

Sherlock’s hands were at my ribs, chafing the skin beneath my chemise, creased and sore from the pressure of the corset. “Oh,” I said, breath caught in my throat.

He pressed a kiss to my temple and said, “Are you still tired?” I knew he meant, “Are you angry?”

“No,” I said, thinking of the way his pulse had fluttered in the carriage. Of the way he had walked up the stairs and down the hallway, tense, on cat’s feet and with cat’s ears pricked up. His hand at my back as he paid close attention to everything in his late friend’s ancestral home. His hands now at my sides, stroking up and forward to . . . my breasts? Oh, my darling, I thought, yes. Take the advantage. Drive away the phantoms of the evening.

But no. His hands retreated and lingered over my abdomen, just above my navel. Butterfly wings. Inside and out, butterfly wings. Sketching light and delicate feeling on both my skin and inside my belly. His hand moved lower and I released the corset, letting it drop to the floor. He pulled me back to his chest and I covered his hand with my own where it rested just above my mons pubis. Sherlock began nuzzling my neck and shoulders, the neck of my chemise fallen wide. As our breathing slowly accelerated, his hand pressed more firmly on my lower abdomen, drawing my bottom against his thighs.

Common sense attempted to rear its ugly head. “Darling,” I said as he continued to be very attentive to an especially sensitive area just below my ear, “it’s very late. We need to sleep.” One hand crept up to my breast and grazed my nipple. I gasped. “Sleep. Bed. Terribly important to go to bed.”

He turned me in his arms and lingeringly kissed me on the mouth. “Yes,” he said simply, “bed.” I gave up, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing myself along his full length. He drew me up along his body, so that his growing erection was pressed against my own wetness. Our lips collided once again, this time with a desperate hungriness. Where before his movements had been meant to entice, he now met me with a mutual purpose to drive the last traces of cold from our bodies and minds.

We stumbled toward the bed, shedding clothing as we went. Sherlock’s stumbled as his pants tangled with his shoes, causing us to fly onto the bed. He impatiently kicked them off and returned to push my chemise up and over my head, to land at the side of the bed. He followed its path with his mouth, starting at my lower belly and diverting from the course to kiss both of my breasts.

I reached out to touch whatever part of his body I could -- his face, his shoulder. I captured his hand and kissed the palm of it. He replaced his palm with his mouth and I kissed that. His hand, newly liberated from my grasp, made its way down my body and began to stroke my inner thighs as his lips began a well-known dance with my own. They clung and broke free, his other hand alternately holding my cheek and tangling in my hair.

“I want to touch you,” I said against his mouth. I felt him shake his head “no”, then utter that disappointing syllable. His hand ceased its restless caressing of my thighs and moved to their junction. He caressed and teased, hesitated and went straight to the heart of things, only to withdraw.

Frustration!

I heard myself making little incoherent sounds and half-sentences. Sherlock seemed to understand what I was saying, however, for he moved to part my legs and entered me. He began to move with a new urgency and I moved to meet him in it. Those same firings of sensation that his idlest touch set off in me, only increased a hundredfold, crested and broke. My husband stiffened and then relaxed against me, letting a satisfied moan out against my neck.

We stayed as were for a moment, one of my heels resting against the back of his thigh. I had not realized that I had done that. Sherlock shifted himself to lie next to me, untangling our limbs. He kissed the back of my hand and I brushed the damp hair off his face.

As we lay together, my head resting on Sherlock’s shoulder and our hands clasped together over his heart, we drifted lazily towards the softy and sandy shores of sleep. The closer I came to them, however, the more my feelings of restless discontent with the case returned.

“Sherlock?” I said. “I hope this is solved quickly.”

A moment of silence.

“So do I, my love,” he said, his voice rising out of the dark above my head. “So do I.”

***

In the creeping gray hours just before dawn, I was shaken awake by Sherlock as he cried my name.

“The most amazing realization has come upon me as we slept, Johanna,” he said when I had only a few dregs of sleepy confusion remaining. “It bolted me awake.”

“What is it?” I asked, still a little misty.

“The man, the man by the carriage tonight. I know why he disconcerted me so.” He paused and licked his lips. “He was the very image of David Loudon as I remember him from school.” He laughed shakily. “If pressed, I would even swear that it was Loudon himself.”

“Sherlock, that’s complete nonsense. First, David Loudon is dead. Second, he was in school nearly fifteen years ago -- nobody remains unchanged for fifteen years. Third, the man we saw was tall and you yourself have said that Loudon was only of average height. Fourth . . . there doesn’t need to be a fourth. David Loudon is dead!” I stopped and let a frustrated breath out with a snort.

“I know, I know.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But I know what I saw. It has to have been him. His features were so singular.”

“But, Sherlock, dead men don’t walk with the living.”

“I know that as well as you.” He was silent and then suddenly smiled widely. “It appears, however, that I am not the only one whose mind works clearly and swiftly and in the early morning.” Still smiling, he lay back and drew me gently against his side. “I am perfectly aware that what you say is as logically sound as anything I myself have deduced. But it has to have been David Loudon.”

With that last declaration, we lay awake until the sun rose, and only then did we continue the dreamless sleep that we both so needed.

* A calabash is the big curvy pipe Sherlock Holmes is always portrayed with.

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Writing a love scene is first person is very vexing, if ultimately rewarding. Please, please criticism. Constructive, preferably, but random “You suck!” comments will be . . . deleted, actually.

Sherlock is being obstinate and extraordinarily out of character. He will not behave himself. If he wasn’t a man, I’d swear he was PMSing. *takes a huge bite of chocolate*

Ah, goddamn it. It’s me. Hershey better watch his back; I’m about to eat him out of house and home.

COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT!!!

Thank you for finding the typo, hercat. It is very fixed.
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Adventure in Little Cheatham