Free The Specimen by Martha Lea

little more specific as to the nature of this domestic matter?”
    A: “I believe it was some quarrel that had occurred. Mr Pemberton made an accusation against the man regarding his wife’s—the prisoner’s—honour, sir.”
    Q: “Which part of the dispute did not make sense to you?”
    A: “Mr Pemberton seemed to think that a murder of some sort had been committed.”
    Q: “Which, it so happens, had, in fact.”
    A: “Aye, sir. Unfortunately, it turned out to be so.”

Chapter X
    Helford Passage. June, 1859.
    There hadn’t been a single moment when Gwen had found herself thinking that she ought not to carry on. She did know, really, that this sort of encounter, might, in
certain circumstances be dangerous but she didn’t care. He was more than she could have ever hoped for. Better than that, he made her feel—without sliding into cliché, she
thought to herself, as she slipped on the steep path between the bamboo thicket and grabbed at the yielding green poles—alive. It made her laugh, to think of all the ridiculous introductions
she had been through under the gaze of the Fernly household. Pointless, all of them. Apart from the fact that she had used the money from the sale of her gowns to buy the microscope. Freddie would
never have understood her attraction to Edward, and she was glad that she hadn’t told Freddie about him, though there had been several times when Gwen had found herself almost on the point of
confessing her secret.
    No one was watching her. No one knew. No third party expected anything, and nor could they disapprove. He wasn’t exactly any kind of romantic hero. For one thing he had the most peculiar
sticking out pale hair she had ever seen and his skin was pale: freckled under his shirt and blotchy where the sun had caught his forearms. She stopped where she was amongst the stands of bamboo.
This garden, she thought, we’re hardly managing to keep abreast of it. In fact, there were parts of the garden which were virtually impenetrable. Murray and his lad, they kept the paths down
to the beach clear; and they kept the top lawns well. But still, more than three quarters had run wild. She was trying an experiment with two goats, tethered under a massive magnolia. They looked
like stupid animals and by the end of each day they had managed to get themselves tied in knots under the tree but they did eat everything. There was a sort of scruffy clear patch now. This was
where she was heading, along a winding path which took her in a zigzag of steep gradients to the place where there had once been a lawn, nestled in the scoop of a valley. It was sheltered from the
wind but rather too much goat manure had spoiled the ground, so they couldn’t sit down.
    Last time, they’d moved the goats away from the magnolia and tethered them in a very wild patch, so that they’d been hidden. Only the goats crashing about and their silly bleating
disturbed them for a while. They’d talked, exhaustively, about the stupidity of goats until the animals had settled.
    He’d pinned her against the tree, because of the ground being so littered with the dark pellets. Well, not pinned exactly. More supported. He’d kept her there anyway (perhaps, yes,
she had been pinned, now she thought about it, because of her skirts being pushed up and to either side of her); and his head, she’d gripped his head to steady herself. None of it seemed
wrong. The thrusting and the panting and the wetness between her thighs afterwards. He explored her with his fingers, running them back and forth until she was slippery and pliant in his hands and
eager for anything that he would do, that he might think of doing; and then he would slip himself between her thighs. Make her keep them together, very tight, and he would delve there, and moan
words in her ears that she hadn’t heard before she’d met him, and still didn’t know the meaning of.
    She didn’t like the smell. The runny then glutinous liquid which came out