The Most Loved of All

Chapter 1-2

From Nairobi we had wandered to South Africa, since Charlie wanted to revisit it, and we got by doing a bit of this and a bit of that—as the little brother of a missionary, I didn’t have many skills, although Charlie saw that changed—and spending our nights locked in each other’s arms. Often I woke with his prick buried deep in my arse, or his mouth industriously working to drive me to an overpowering orgasm.

He was older, more experienced—he’d fought in the Boer War, afterward remaining in Africa and becoming the captain of the battered riverboat called the Nile Goddess. Because he’d done so much more than I in his lifetime, he was the one in charge in our partnership. There was no doubt of that, and I never wanted it any other way.

While in South Africa, we came across a patch of hilly land that didn’t look very appealing, but something about it intrigued him, and so we bought it—well, he bought it and put my name on the deed along with his. It didn’t cost much, but we didn’t have much, and we about mortgaged our souls for it. After almost seven years, we were only a little closer to owning it outright.

Charlie returned that night to the little cabin we had built with our own hands, and he was so excited I expected him to dance a jig all over our kitchen.

“Little Rev.” This was a pet name he had called me for years, from even before our adventure down the Ruzizi on the Nile Goddess.

I was washing myself on the tiny veranda that fronted our home. After a long afternoon on the Veldt my torso was streaked with sweat. I turned to smile at him. “Yes, Charlie?”

He caught his breath, and his gaze roamed over me. My skin was bronzed now, and my body had toughened from the constant physical labour. Whatever he had been about to say was lost in the heat that appeared to sweep over him. He tossed his slouch hat onto the veranda, and seized me, his mouth ravenous on mine. I could feel the hard length of his prick pressing against my groin.

Something had made my partner unusually randy—possibly the fact it had been quite some time since we’d last made love.

“Charlie.” I laughed. “Can’t this wait until after dinner?”

He dropped his hands to my arse and squeezed and kneaded my buttocks, which had become more muscular over the years. “Not tonight, sweetheart,” he muttered. “I have to have you now.”

I leaned forward to run my tongue over the side of his neck, savouring the salty taste of his skin. “All right, then.” I took his hand and tugged him after me into the house, my free hand already working the buttons of the canvas trousers I wore. “How do you want me, love?” Almost eight years, and I still couldn’t get enough of him. I kicked off my boots and stepped out of my trousers.

He licked at my mouth, and then took my lower lip between his teeth, worrying it gently. He reached down, and his long fingers encircled my shaft. The crown was already peeking above my foreskin and was leaking that clear fluid he so effortlessly drew from me. He gathered the moisture on his thumb, pressing hard against the slit at the tip, obtaining the gasps he’d made obvious from the very beginning that he loved to hear.

Charlie walked me backward to a wall, his mouth devouring mine, and dropped his trousers. I was so lost in a fog of lust that I didn’t even notice when he picked up the jar of Vaseline. He turned me around and worked quickly to lubricate my passage. I thought he meant to take me that way, but he spun me back to face him and slid his forearms under my thighs.

Raising me up, he spread my legs wide and held me open, his shaft nudging the crevice between my buttocks. I leaned back against the wall and waited breathlessly to feel my love breach my opening.

We had learned on our wedding night that if I teased him, the results for us both were very well worth it. But it had been too long since the last time he had taken me, and neither of us was in the mood to play. The rough material of his shirt tantalised my prick, and I shuddered. “Charlie.” I groaned, so impatient I could barely hold still. “f**k me.”

He laughed softly and then moaned as he felt the tight ring of muscle surrender and he slid balls deep into my body. I clenched my muscles, enjoying the hard length that impaled me.

“Yes.” He nuzzled the side of my neck. “Sing for me, little Rev.” He wrapped my shaft in his loving grasp and stroked me in time to his thrusts in my arse. Normally he would take his time, but tonight he urged me higher, made me hotter, drove me faster, and then I did sing for him as I exploded over his shirt and my naked chest.

I sagged in his embrace, my inner muscles contracting as he climaxed, and I milked him of his hot essence, relishing the feel as he filled me with his heat. “I love you, Charlie.”

He started to say something, but broke off as a fit of coughing seized him. His prick jerked out of me as he dropped my weight, and I winced from the sharp sting.

“Sorry…” He wheeled around, covering his mouth as the coughing almost seemed to overpower him, “S-sorry…little Rev. Did I…hurt you?”

“Don’t worry about me, love. What’s wrong?” I had seen the blood that streaked his sleeve as he wiped his mouth.

“Ah, hell. It’s nothing, Roddy. I swear. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

I knew better than to press him. For the past six months that cough had been getting progressively worse. The only time he had ever struck me in the face in our years together had been when I’d insisted he see a doctor. Afterward, he’d been appalled and had apologised profusely, but he’d been adamant about not seeing the doctor.

He did up his trousers, barely taking the time to clean himself off, and went to the iron range that took up most of one wall. A pan of beef stew had been simmering on it all afternoon. Charlie poured a scoop of it into a bowl, making sure none of the vegetables joined the chunks of meat.

I reached for the scrap of blue blanket that had followed me from England to Udjidji to South Africa and used it to wipe myself off. Once that was done, I pulled on my trousers and did them up, washed my hands, took Charlie’s bowl and added the vegetables, then filled my own bowl and sat down at the table.

“We may not be able to keep the freehold, Roddy,” he said abruptly.

My head shot up. In the same amount of time that things had been off with Charlie, I had noticed the farm not doing well either. The land wasn’t really conducive to growing things, and whatever cattle we had seemed to vanish from one day to the next.

“Will we be able to salvage anything from it, love?”

He shook his head. “If things remain the way they are, it will be gone by the end of the year.”

“All right,” I said. In my twenty-six years, I’d had four homes—our tiny house in London, where Brother and I had lived with Mama and Papa; the cottage I’d shared with Brother in Udjidji after he’d come to German East Africa to convert the natives; some of the happiest times in my life on the Nile Goddess with Charlie; and finally, here on our little farm. I’d heard somewhere that a body could move up to seven different times in his life. If we needed to move again, I was willing. As long as I had Charlie, I’d always be willing. “In that case, we’ll just move on. We can always hire ourselves out to the other farmers if we must.”

“No, Roddy. I’m getting too old for that.”

“You’ll never be too old.”

“You sweet-talker, you.” He smiled and reached across the table to ruffle my hair. “But that’s what I’ve got to tell you. I have a plan. I got in touch with an old friend of mine, an English archaeologist, name of Howard Carter. He’s going to be doing some excavating in the Valley of the Kings, and he’s hired me on.”

“The Valley of the Kings?” I repeated.

“It’s in Egypt.”

“In Egypt?” All I seemed able to do was repeat him stupidly.

When he looked away, I could tell he was uncomfortable. “I’ll…be there about three months—I’ll be gone six, all told. Carter promised me enough to cover what we owe on the farm.”

“All right, Charlie.”

“All right? You’re not going to try to change my mind?” He sounded a bit disgruntled, but I brushed that aside.

“No. If you want to go to Egypt, who am I to gainsay you? When do we leave?”

“Now just you hold on there, little Rev. Who said anything about you coming along?”

“Oh?” I c****d an eyebrow at him. “Whither thou goest…?”

“You can’t go with me.”

I didn’t say anything.

“One of us has to stay and run this farm.”

I looked at him, keeping my gaze flat and steady. I knew it was just a matter of time.

“Roddy!” He jumped up and came around the table. “S’welp me, I’ve a mind to tan your hide.” He pulled me up out of my chair and into an embrace, giving a huff of laughter. “We leave at the end of the month.”

“Wait a minute. Were you planning on taking me with you all along?”

“I’m sorry, little Rev. I shouldn’t have teased you like that. Would I go anywhere without you? I love you, sweetheart.”

I hugged him tight and kissed the spot under his ear. “I love you, too, Charlie.”

But dear God, I was worried.

* * * *

Just before we left, Charlie asked a trusted neighbour to keep an eye on our farm. I could understand why he felt it would be three months before we arrived in Cairo. First we travelled north into the Syrian Desert, where he tracked down a band of Bedouins from his roving, younger years. The sheik embraced him heartily, and Charlie sent a sheepish glance my way. I suspected their relationship went a little deeper than casual friends, and when the swarthy desert-dweller presented us with a pair of his finest horses, a chestnut stallion and a dapple-grey mare, I was certain of it.

Wisely, I refrained from saying anything. I was secure in my marriage to the older man, and I knew that whoever was in his past was just that—in his past. We stayed with the tribe for a few weeks, and I could see the sorrow in the sheik as he realized his old comrade’s health was not what it should have been.

“There may come a time you no longer have need of these beauties,” the sheik told me, regarding the horses. “When that time comes, you will return them to me. You will find me in Damascus. Meanwhile…Have a care for him, my young friend.” We watched as Charlie climbed laboriously into his saddle. “Or by Allah, I will hunt you down and slice the flesh from your bones.”

I touched both hands to my forehead to signify my acceptance of his decree. To my surprise, he enveloped me in a hug, and then brusquely stepped away, signalling for me to mount my mare.

“And what will you call her, this drinker of the wind?” he asked, stroking her strong, sloping shoulder as I gathered the reins into my left hand.

“Hubini—my beloved.” But my gaze was on Charlie as I said this, and the Bedouin gave a grunt of satisfaction.

“He has chosen well, the friend of my youth.” Uncomfortable with the show of emotion, he changed the subject. “What does he call his steed?”

“George.” I bit my lip to prevent myself from laughing. “For our king.” The other man looked as if he had bitten down on a particularly tart lemon. Then he laughed, and with a light slap to Hubini’s rump to start her on our journey, bid us farewell.

* * * *

We met up with Howard Carter and Edward Cramdon, a young expert in translating hieroglyphics, in Cairo.

“Lord Carnarvon isn’t here?” Charlie asked. He’d told me the earl was backing the project.

“No. He’s remained behind in the Valley of the Kings.”

“Oh?”

Mr Carter shrugged. “Mostly it’s to keep an eye on the men. There have been some rumours…”

“Rumours?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe what those heathens are willing to accept as truth,” Cramdon said with a supercilious smirk. “The earl’s presence keeps them in line.”

“That will do, Cramdon. Charlie, I have a list of supplies we need to stock up on. Would you mind getting them? Cramdon and I have some paperwork we need to fill out with the Egyptian authorities.”

“Sure.” Charlie took the list from Mr Carter, glanced over it, and handed it to me. “It won’t take us long to fill this order.”

“Us? Oh, yes, your young friend. Well, get hopping.” Mr Carter and Cramdon left.

“Doesn’t Mr Carter know we’re married?” I ran my thumb over the circle of my wedding ring.

“No. Our kind aren’t looked on too kindly.”

I was aware of that, and while I resented it—why should it matter to anyone who I loved?—there wasn’t much I could do about it.

“And…” He avoided meeting my gaze. “I think it might be a good idea for us to sleep in separate tents.”

I wheeled to face him at that. “But why?” In our almost eight years together, we’d never slept apart. Not to be beside him, even if we couldn’t have intercourse…that hurt worst of all.

“The men we’ll be working with aren’t enlightened. They’d look on us sharing one tent with suspicion, and I’d fear for your safety. It’s better this way, trust me.

“But—”

“Humour me, Roddy?”

I sighed and agreed, and dropped the subject.

The two of us began to scour the city for mules and camels, ropes and timbers, shovels and pickaxes, and more men to work the dig.

After supper that evening, Mr Carter pointed us in the direction of the hotel we’d stay at. I thought since Charlie’s friend and the young expert were staying with friends of Mr Carter, Charlie and I would have the opportunity to spend the night in the same bed.

“I’m wiped out, little Rev.”

“We don’t have to do anything,” I hurried to assure him.

“You’re too tempting. I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you.” He touched my cheek, then opened the door to my room, which was adjacent to his, handed me the key, and waited until I entered to say, “Lock your door and put a chair under the doorknob.”

“Yes, Charlie.” I didn’t bother protesting he’d taught me to do that years ago.

“Sleep well, little Rev.”

“You, too.” I offered him a smile, but I didn’t shut the door until he entered his own room.

I closed my door and did as my love had instructed, then stripped off my clothes and climbed into bed.

And sometime during the night I began to dream…