The Freedom to Take, the Freedom to Choose

by SuaviumSanguineum

Summary:

The Viscountess Elena Brackenford craves freedom, confined to the monotony of her estate. So when she finds herself with the most charming and curious of enigmas, a stableboy on her estate that does not appear to be what they say to be, she decides to have a little fun with it. All for the sake of feeling free, if only for a moment.

Notes:

• For Ezray.

Based on the prompt: Aristocratic Lady noncons Girl She Found Crossdressing as a Stableboy (F/F)

Publish date updated with author reveal.

Elena spurred her horse on, feeling its body heaving with each mighty breath, and she with it. Together, they were free. For a moment, she was flying across the grasses of the estate, and not bound to them. For a moment, she was not the Viscountess Brackenford, but a wild, untamed beast. For a moment, she felt powerful.

But cresting the hill, the estate came back into view, and the horse ducked its head towards the stables. She sighed, tugging at the reigns. Slowing to a canter, she stalles the inevitable. Neither of them wanted to be go back to their stalls. Groomed livestock, bartered, traded, bred.

She reached out and patted the horse's neck. Shouts came from within, alerting the hands of her return and one of the stableboys came to greet her. A slight, wispy boy with auburn hair beneath his cap and androgynous features scuffed with dirt. Elena eyed him thoughtfully, humming to herself. She imagined him growing into his form, shoulders broadening with manhood, jaw thickening and stretching the peach bow of his lips.

The image ruined the fantasy, and she grimaced. He reached for a set of wood steps and she waved him off. "I can handle myself." Tossing the stableboy the reins, she dismounted with practiced ease, ignoring what the packed dirt, straw, and manure did to her heeled boots. "Tell the groom to take good care of her. Extra oats, she earned them today," Elena added with another stroke along the mare's neck.

"Yes, my Lady," the stableboy said, and something about their voice made her hand pause. It had a husky, warm timber. Not gravelly, but like the rasping that smoothed the horses' hooves. It was delightful. She wondered if she could make it break. The impish thought plucking her the corner of her mouth up into wry smirk.

"Very good care of her," she said purposefully, making sure her voice dripped with innuendo as she reached out and set her hand on a slender shoulder. "She needs the extra attention, do you understand?" Elena purred, delighting in these little moments. She craved more of that power, more of the freedom out there where she wasn't bound to these rules, station, corset, or anything else. Her hand fell across the stableboy's chest, and her attention so focused on how those angelic features turned pink she barely registered the thickness of the fabric beneath his shirt and the slight swell before her hand fell away.

"Y-yes, I understand," the stableboy said, voice fallen to a whisper so faint she had to cock her head to hear, letting a few of the black curls unraveled from her ride spill across her shoulder.

"Pardon?" She stepped closer, letting her hip brush against the stableboy's front as she leaned in close. Inappropriately close. "I didn't catch that," she lied, and barely repressed the grin that threatened to ruin her little game as she waited for the boy to fluster and retreat, or feel his swelling presence against her curve as she remained intoxicatingly close.

Yet, the stableboy neither retreated, nor stiffened. At least, not in the way she'd hoped. He stood frozen, only his chin bobbing in a slight nod. "I understand, Lady Brackenford," he repeated, voice somehow regaining its strength.

Elena hummed and eased back where she stood before, hip sliding across and away from him and skirts swished about her ankles. "Good." She turned away, amusement and curiosity both lingering as she left the stables and headed back towards the main house.

---

The amusement left quickly once she was back within those walls. that infernal prison of dark polished wood and rippling glass. She missed Spain: the fresh salt of the sea, the high mountains, the warm sun, and the follies of youth. Granted, she was glad to be in England and not dealing with the rot Napoleon left in his wake.

The curiosity lingered, preoccupying her mind while the only alternative was tedium or trite exercises in forced civility. The tense and puckered mouth and downcast eyes that contrasted so sharply with the still, almost imperious posture of the stableboy left her grasping, wanting to know more. She'd see the wretch around the stables many times, at least since last season, but always in passing.

Finally, the gnawing need for answers got the better of her by afternoon tea, and she swept up her lily yellow skirts that so wonderfully highlighted the deep tan of her skin. She marched to the back stairs between the lower kitchen and the servants' quarters in the attic. She'd never bothered to explore them, she realized, and found them distressingly steep. Nonetheless, she climbed. Nearing the top where the roof pitched low, she nearly ran into one of the maids.

A recognizable pinched face and mousy hair, though the name escaped her. Mary? Ann? One of the two. Almost all the women had names like such.

"L-lady Brackenford! What are you— I mean, are you in need of something?" Mary-or-Ann stammered.

"This is my house, I go where I please," she stated with a lift of her chin. Though as she pushed past the maid and stood at the top the cramped hallway lined with small doors, she already felt the heat making her brow shine and the tightness of her dress stifling. She spun back to the maid. "Tell me, where do the stableboys bed?"

"My Lady?" The maid questioned, her brow furrowing and voice heavy with confusion, "Do you mean the coachman?"

Elena grit her teeth. She meant what she meant, but stared down the maid, waiting. It was true, discussing someone as trivial as a stableboy was well beneath her. So instead, she gestured at the maid to continue.

"The coachman's quarters are above the stables, my Lady," the maid said slowly, still unsure, and Elena could see the growing skepticism, no doubt wondering why the Lady of the house would seek out one of the servant men's sleeping arrangements. It was foolish, and full of all sorts of sordid implications.

"Yes, yes, how daft of me. My mind is elsewhere." Elena then rolled her lips, and stepped back towards the maid with an arched brow. "Can you keep a secret?" She asked, knowing before even uttering it she had the girl caught on her hook.

"Of course, my Lady!" And it was all the maid could do to not sound too excited, eyes gleaming in the weak light of the stairwell.

"I fear one of the grooms or stableboys may be a thief. A necklace of mine has gone missing and I believe I took it off in the carriage," she brought her hand to touch her bare throat. "I hoped to find it and settle the matter discreetly, since its my fault for leaving such temptations about. Can you keep this between us?"

The maid agreed all too quickly, "Yes, my Lady! Not a word to anyone, I swear!"

But Elena knew she was lying, though didn't care. Let her go spread the false tales of thieving servants and a naive, forgetful Lady. "As I knew you would. Thank you," she said and brushed past, descending back down the stairs and out of the sweltering confines of the servants' hall. Even as she did, she heard the maid's hurried footsteps retreating, no doubt already on her way to spill lied secrets.

The evening light was beginning to fade before Elena had a chance to escape the house for a constitutional. Her husband, the dottering oaf, had taken the carriage to visit one of those social clubs he fancied, and she expected the stables to be largely empty. Empty expect a stableboy, perhaps. She slipped in the back door, far from where the horse stalls were.

There, the small set of stairs led up, but to her right was another room one might mistake for a horse stall, except more narrow and less kempt. Windowless and musty, a small bed and trunk lay in the space. The bedding was likely no more than wool stuffed with horse hair and straw. She ignored it, and crouched before the trunk. The rusty hinges groaned, and she glanced back over her shoulder. When no one came, she turned back to the tidied clothes stacked within, digging through them.

Beneath the trousers and folds of a winter blanket, Elena found what she was looking for. Things no stableboy would possess. Thin strip of leather and buckle, perhaps taken and repurposed from an old disused bridle—that alone would constitute theft and be all she'd need. But there were the strips of folded linen that went with it, stained deep shades of rusty brown. Things no stableboy would have need for. A stable girl, rather. No, she thought, these pads were well used, boiled repeatedly and stained through with many bleeds. A woman, well and truly.

Elena scoffed, and threw them back into the trunk.

She rose and stepped back with a snap of her skirts, boots scraping on the rough hewn stones beneath straw. Leaving the stables, her stride was quick but unrushed, warranting no more attention than her foray had already attracted, all the while wondering what to do with this information. It would be easy enough to have a thief and liar hanged, but she had far more interesting things planned.

---

Once Elena managed to get out of the house without notice, the rest was easy. She walked the path in the dark. She'd taken it countless times and knew it well. Past the coop and granary tower, she moved through the stable yard and around, beneath the small windows above where the coachman lay and into the rear entry of the stables, just like she had earlier that day.

Now, however, the drafty hole not fit even for her horse was occupied. She stood there for a moment, letting her eyes adjust as best they could as only the faintest silvery light found its way into the room. The elfin figure lay on their side, lashes kissing cheeks and auburn hair almost a bronze in the filtered starlight.

Elena looked to the stairs up, waiting. Hearing nothing, she stepped quietly in until she found herself standing above the stableboy, though she knew that title was quite false at this point. Still, she wanted to make sure as she settled down onto her knees. Fingertips swept back the tousled hair, nails dragging lightly across their scalp as eyes fell across the sleeping form. Her other reached for the blanket, and slipped beneath it against the warmth of the sleeping body. She felt the rise and fall of shallow breathes, and then through the linen shift, the unmistakably feel of pert breast.

"Mmmh," pink lips parted slightly with the husky sound that spilled out, and eyes fluttered before stilling again. It was a calm, contented sound, and Elena couldn't help but let the smirk grow across her own full, ruby lips.

Her touch emboldened, fingernails now drawing a circular pattern through the fabric until she felt the quickly stiffening nipple pressing up through the shift. Hand moved back up, across the collarbone, and then forced down the neck of the shift to her wrist. She grasped hold of the woman's bare breast, feeling the nipple hard against her palm.

The moan rolled out before light brown eyes snapped open, "Wha—"

The hand in those glowing bronze hair quickly snapped down, clamping over her mouth even as finger and thumb caught the nipple and rolled it. The stableboy began to struggle, reaching up to grab her wrist and arm, though then froze. Elena realized she didn't expect to be holding the slender wrist and elegant arm of her Viscountess.

"This," Elena purred, leaning in closer and pinching the nipple that throbbed with a hammering heartbeat, "this is not what I expected to find today."

The whine that was muffled beneath her hand rose from its sleep-laden husk to a high, desperate sound. "As much as I would love to hear your cries, dear, you'll need to be quiet if you don't want to be swinging from the gallows come Sunday."

Elena could see those doe eyes widen, shimmering perhaps with unshed tears in the depths of the shadows. She nodded. A quick, desperate little gesture.

"Good," Elena sighed, feeling the weight of her breast mold to her fingers as she squeezed, and then her hand moved to cup the other. "I never would have guessed you were hiding this. Now tell me your name," Elena said, pulling her hand back slowly from that mouth that left its breath hot and moist against her palm.

"Taylor."

Not Mary, nor Ann. Elena was relieved. Taylor was perhaps a surname, but it didn't really matter to Elena, not when she could see the glisten of lips freshly licked and how they made a little 'o' when her hand fell deeper beneath the blanket and fisting up the long tunic she slept it until the bare warmth of a trim thigh was under her hand. Then she pushed her hand higher to where the bone of a hip turned to the slope of waist. Her touch traced the indentation at the bend, drawn to the downy curls and the distinct lack of manhood. Instead, she was greeted with a surprising heat.

"You are lucky it is I that knows your secret, Taylor. I cannot fathom if a man knew. The things they would do." Elena clucked. The hand which had covered Taylor's mouth now stroked it, thumb tugging at her bottom lip. "Such pretty holes they'd use," she admired and then forced her thumb into it, dragging the pad of it across the edge of teeth and then against the tensed wetness of tongue. Remembering then that mouths had other purposes than to suck, she pulled her thumb free, smearing saliva across freckled cheek so it, too, gleamed in the quiet night.

Taylor's face turned away from Elena, yet it let the light wash across the edge of her visage so Elena could see how they twisted, torn with some inner struggle and flushed. Whatever burden she wrestled with finally broke, and her hoarse voice mumbled out, "George knows."

"George?"

"Your coachman," Taylor said, and Elena dare say thought there was a slight disbelief in Taylor's tone as eyes flickered up past her, towards the rafters. The nerve. Elena tipped her head up as well. So many faces. She couldn't be bothered to remember all their names. Taylor, though. That was a name she would remember.

"George. Right," Elena mused. He did seem like a kind hearted fellow. Older, but not infirm. Fatherly. Perhaps that was all an act. Perhaps they rutted out here among the beasts like they were themselves feral. "And why has he not told the Viscount?" Elena insisted, and as she did her fingers curled, drawn to the heat of Taylor's sex. Her fingers stroked along her opening and was rewarded with the clenched quivering of thighs around her hand and the sound of air sucked sharply in.

"Please," Taylor gasped softly, and Elena found that she had turned back and stared up at her now. "He's done no wrong, my La—Lady." Her voice caught as Elena casually spread Taylor open with ring and index finger so the middle could curl up into her sex.

Not please stop. Not please don't. Not please, I'm sorry. Elena dipped in closer, smell the musky, sweaty smell of horse, straw, but a light floral scent beneath it all. Exhaling the scents, hot breath lancing over Taylor's jaw and neck, making her shudder even as the wetness grew, coaxed out from caressing touches. Elena had no interest of feeling Taylor's core squeezing her fingers. No interest filling those pretty holes as she had insinuated. Not when this was so much more fun.

Elena sampled her like a sweet bit of candy, tongue rolling up across the skin that already was smeared with Taylor's own saliva, and now bathed in a light trail of her own as she licked up the side of jaw and cheek. "Why?" The word spilled out onto Taylor's ear, and Elena was rewarded with a squirm of those hips beneath her hand. It was an open ended question. Why did he know? Why did she pretend to be a boy? Why did she not ask Elena to stop? Elena wondered which she'd pick.

Silence stretched on between them, the only sound was ragged, panted breath. It turned into a sharp, stifled cry when Elena's fingers drew the dew up from petals and swirled her fingers across that sweet spot. Taylor's whole body stiffened again, and she spoke through clenched teeth. "I'm hiding from a husband that would rather hurt me than love me."

The answer to all three question, perhaps. The hand that circled Taylor and dragged such sinful little noises out of that mouth almost froze. The words were a bucket of cold water, and she pursed her lips. Would she do that to escape? Would she be willing to become a stableboy, a nameless little thing, if it meant being free? Elena cocked her head to the side, staring down at the auburn hair that she now ran her fingers through again, petting the writhing woman who was too scared to move or make more than a strangled sound.

That fear was her answer. Taylor wasn't free. She'd just traded one master for another. Perhaps a more negligent one, a longer leash, but she was no more free. And at least as a Viscountess, Elena got to have these quiet moments of freedom, however brief they may be.

"Don't worry," Elena cooed, "Your secret is safe with me." Of course, they both knew that wasn't entirely true. Safe so long as she played along. Taylor wasn't free—not by a long shot. Fingers tightened, taking a fistful of the messy hair and yanked just enough to draw the scalp taut while her other hand continued its relentless spiraling. The pressure was constant, so too the speed. Only now the circle she bore down against Taylor grew tighter, and so too did the woman's core with quickening, gulping little breaths.

"Lady—Lady Bracken—" Taylor's eyes searched for Elena's in the darkness, and they were like black pools, blown wide with desire. "Brackenford. S-stop. I'm—"

Elena did stop, but not because Taylor wanted her too, but because it was too easy. Too short. Her hand slid up, nails raking across pelvis, stomach, pulling the long nightshirt up higher as the light scratches now reveal skin so pale it practically glowed. She then rose and in a single fluid motion tossed her leg over Taylor's thighs and the thick weight of her skirts settling over them.

"Elena," she whispered, lips brushing against Taylor's forehead, "when you are begging me, you will call me Elena." She did not want Taylor begging to her lineage, her title, her marriage. No, she wanted Taylor to beg to her.

Both hands then swept up across Taylor's breasts, pushing the shirt all the way up past them as she teased and tugged until those husky little whimpers returned, even more needy than before. It wasn't until the hips beneath her writhed, and she felt thighs squeezing together, desperate for some pressure, some sort of friction, that Taylor spoke again, "Elena… please…"

And then she was ducking down, thick black curls spilling over her shoulder, the ends of her tresses tickling across Taylor's ribs before her mouth latched onto one of the aching, overstimulated peaks.

The plaintive cry that escaped now was quickly gagged as Elena clamped her free hand back over her mouth, squeezing her chin even as her tongue swirled and cheeks hollowed. She felt Taylor wriggling, taking handfuls of her skirts to fight off the impending release, but Elena refused that mercy. Teeth grazed and fingers clawed, leaving crescent moons on the flesh that would not soon fade.

Taylor broke under her. Near silent now, but she convulsed, bucked, back arched against her mouth and fresh tears were felt warm on Elena's hand. And for a sweet, lingering moment, Elena felt free. She felt powerful as any man, any God. But as always, it was too short. With a wet pop, she came back to the ragged puffs of breath from Taylor's nose across her hand, the sticky sheen of sweat across the body beneath her, the stench of the room, and she pulled herself upright.

"Good girl," she sighed, "tomorrow, when the Viscount attends his meeting, I will come here to the stable wanting a ride," she pauses, fingers tracing the outline of Taylor's mouth, "and you shall make yourself scarce. Because while I shall have my horseback ride, I expect one from you, as well. Wait for me in the copse on the other side of the hill."

Disentangling herself from the mess, Elena rose to her feet. She smoothed her skirts and settled her hair. Taylor, thankfully, said nothing. She just lay there, breathless and no doubt aching, raw from the memory. Elena hummed contentedly, then turned to leave.