The House of Guinness smut - The letter.
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Disclaimers: This is unintentionally rather long compared to my other posts, slow burn, eating out, fem receiving, finger in v, semi-public, slight implications of fear of getting heard/found, brief mention of infidelity.
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Like any other day, the brewery is awake before the city is. Like any other day this past week, Edward is awake before the brewery is. His restless nights are plagued by the texture of Ellen's hair, the brightness of her smiles, and the stubborn, almost painful hope that maybe, just maybe, they were so bright because they were for him.
Pipes hiss, barrels groan, and the air thickens with that warm, yeasted breath that clings to Edward's collar long after he's left the floor. He moves through the noise, noticing new details about the brilliant machinery with every step he takes. It is almost as though she has shoved him into this strange dream in which he is more awake and vigilant than he ever was before, where aloofness makes him gravitate towards tiny, marvellous things about life that had gone completely unnoticed before. Even the scent of malt that remains unchanged from the day prior seems somewhat special, although he cannot remember the last day it wasn't there. A little sweeter perhaps.
Men tip their caps. He nods, truly nods in response, not the mechanical nods that took care of his public image. Nods from Edward Guinness. Not his neck. There's satisfaction, of course, in the scale of it all. The rows of copper stills, the neat line of apprentices loading crates stamped Guinness Export. He imagines those same crates on ships, rocking toward America. The new frontier. A land that does not yet know his name, but soon will.
And yet. Something gnaws. Something he can't really pinpoint, hollow but full at the same time, unreachable but omnipresent. He turns to the window. The fog outside is pale and restless. It moves like breath over the yard. Somewhere beyond it, Dublin blinks awake.
Somewhere, maybe even at this hour, she might be awake too. Ellen. He cannot bear saying it out loud, so he murmurs her name silently. Almost as if he were a little child reciting a forbidden prayer.
The memory of her returns uninvited. It crashes down on him, the way her fingers pressed the air before touching him, as if asking permission, though her eyes did not. The way she had smiled, not kindly, not cruelly, just as if she had already seen him undone. He catches himself smiling despite the electrocuting shock of living it all over again condensed in a vividly concentrated second. It is a lot of desire, doubt, fear and affection for a single heartbeat.
"Mr. Guinness," says a voice. It's Mr. Rafferty, the foreman. "There's the shipment report you wanted."
Edward blinks. Takes the paper. Signs where he should. The lines swim a little. Mr. Rafferty hesitates.
When the man leaves, Edward folds the report neatly, presses the crease. The gesture steadies him. He tells himself it's only fatigue, that he's working too hard, that his wife, Adelaide, will be home by evening, that they will dine, and talk politely about nothing. Though he is being cynical here. Adelaide understands and tries. She does not care but she still tries, because trying is what one does in a marriage. And she will keep trying and failing, as Adelaide's trying does not quite touch Edward's heart the way Ellen's trying does. It bounces back.
By noon he's riding toward the harbor, the horse's hooves muffled in the mud. The sea lies ahead, slate and wind-whipped. The glamourous side of city peels away into gloomy, dust-covered buildings. He thinks of his father. ‘Remember, Edward. We do not chase novelty. We export legacy.’ Legacy. The word tastes like dust on the buildings lining his sight.
At the docks, barrels are being rolled up ramps, ropes creaking, men cursing-scolding themselves. Edward stands at the edge, watching his ambition made solid, hundreds of gallons sealed and ready for America. And yet still, that gnawing feeling still prevails within him.
He catches, for a second, a figure among the workers. A woman, hair tied, moving with quick certainty, skirt hem darkened with sea water. Of course it isn't her. Ellen would never come here. Or perhaps she would, precisely because she shouldn't.
He squints. The figure disappears behind a stack of barrels. When he turns to leave, something loosens in him. The possibility that it could have been her is enough to undo his composure.
By the time he's back at the carriage, the ache has sharpened into resolve. He will see her again. Not out of longing, he tells himself, but out of the simple necessity of clarity. He needs to understand why she has remained inside his mind like a taste that will not subside, and the only solution to this, you may ask? He was going to write her.
The note comes folded like a secret that already knows it will be discovered. Ellen finds it on the sill of her window, tucked under the thin porcelain pot that holds the last rose Edward brought her. Up close, traces of fresh crimson remain. She did not like the gift. The money should have been put elsewhere. For worthy causes and not that of a lost cause like her. Besides, it was unnecessarily fancy and pompous and smelled far too akin to false promises for her taste. Anyways, turning her attention to the letter, the ink is dark and deliberate, and the letters are curved with a masculine patience she recognizes instantly, though his name is nowhere to be seen.
She reads it once. Then again, slower.
Tomorrow, the hotel, for tea. Though we both know you prefer Guinness.
A command disguised as an invitation.
The morning thickens with rain. She dresses plainly, ties her hair low, moves through her rooms with the quiet efficiency of someone both restless and unwilling to admit it. The mirror offers her a reflection she neither trusts nor dislikes, a face still young, but seasoned with too much seeing.
She thinks, absurdly, of his hands. The way they must be hovering over maps, ink-stained but careful, each vein laced with a glossy trail of mottled blue and black, as though the weight of empire rested beneath his fingertips. And the other night, no, not night, she corrects herself, moment, when those same hands had trembled against her skin, uncertain whether to worship or to own.
She should not go. She knows this. Knows the whole city would agree.
But she knows too that propriety is a consolation prize given to those who have never been truly alive.
By mid-afternoon the rain lifts, leaving the streets raw and shining. Children splash through puddles, women haggle over vegetables, carriages hiss by, wheels glistening. The brewery looms in the distance, its smoke blending into the gray sky. She does not look at it. Instead, she walks toward the hotel. Her hair is a mess. She is a mess. And the worst is for the first time in her life she wants that to change.
She stops in her tracks as she steps inside the hotel. Inside, the air smells of soil and green sweetness and every corner of the grand room is so heavily vegetated she cannot help but giggle sadly at how far away she feels from the splendid lilies, poised orchids, and proudly curled ferns. And yet, as she comes closer, she smirks as the ferns start to resemble curling fists.
She sits. The chair is cold. She listens to the mundane and monotonous gossiping of four upper class girls with fancy hairstyles at the next table, and she is awfully glad that what is inside her head is worth more than what springs from it. Maybe not for long, however, as she can't seem to remember anything else than the way he looked at her the last time, eyes soft, almost devout, though she could sense the sin trembling underneath.
When he finally appears, it is wordless.
He stands by the entrance, coat still damp, hair darkened by the mist.
For a moment, he only watches her. As if afraid that any movement might break the fragile architecture of the scene.
He inclines his head. "Miss Cochrane."
Her name in his voice, precise and disciplined, sends something through her she would not call pleasure. More like recognition, the ache of having been seen too clearly. They both go through great lengths to avoid touch, and they both go through even greater lengths to pretend they aren't aware the other is doing the exact same thing. Instead, he moves toward a potted lemon tree, and brushes his calloused fingers over a leaf. "You shouldn't have come," he says, but the words lack conviction.
"You invited me," she replies.
"Yes." She smiles. "And still."
He looks at her then, properly. The air between them changes. The hum of the conversations grows louder. The plants seem to pulse with their shared awareness.
"You've been well?" he asks, a question too polite for its urgency.
"The same. The accounts, the ledgers, the endless numbers you love so much."
He almost laughs. "You mock me."
She tilts her head, studying him. "You haven't changed. Except perhaps you have learned to pretend better."
He wants to ask what she means, but does not. He already knows. The lie of composure, the weight of his ring, the knowledge that desire, once named, refuses to die quietly. Rain begins again, soft against the grand windows of the hotel. She looks upward, eyes tracing the droplets as they run down like tears that never fall.
When she speaks, it's almost to herself. "Do you ever wish you were someone else?"
His breath catches. "Constantly."
Silence again. Dense, fragile, absolute.
There is a bug on her wrist that flew from a plant nearby, but she does not move. He takes one step closer. She feels the air alter. Their reflections overlap on the fogged glass, two figures blurred into one. Still, she does not move. Neither does he. Something in the restraint feels almost holy.
Edward stepped closer—not enough to touch, but close enough that the heat of him gathered around her like a forbidden facade. Ellen inhaled, and his scent—whiskey, warmth and winter cloves—slipped through her composure with silent precision.
“You have been avoiding me,” he said.
“I have been preserving propriety,” she corrected, though her voice quivered like a harp string plucked too sharply.
“Propriety,” he murmured, “is for those who feel nothing.”
His words struck her with a stark intimacy so unanticipated her breath stalled. The fire snapped, casting molten light along the line of his jaw. Edward’s gaze did not wander; it fastened—ravenous, unwavering—upon her mouth.
“Edward…” she whispered, and the name—stripped of title—darkened his eyes with unmistakable delight.
He circled her, slowly, as though studying a painting he had long admired but never dared approach. His hand did not touch her, yet every inch of her felt… noticed. Cherished by proximity alone.
“You dismantle me,” he confessed, voice low, almost hoarse. “Every sensible impulse I possess fractures whenever you so much as lift your chin.”
Ellen’s pulse skittered wildly. “You think I do this intentionally?”
“I think,” he said, leaning just enough that she felt his breath graze the sensitive edge of her jaw, “that you have no idea how utterly devastating you are.”
The warmth of him pressed closer—still not touching —yet the space between them grew unbearably charged, humming like the air before lightning strikes.
Ellen, emboldened by a force she did not recognize as her own, tilted her face toward him. “Perhaps,” she said quietly, “I am not the only one undone.”
A sharp exhale escaped him—half laugh, half surrender. His hand lifted, hesitated, trembled with the effort of restraint, and finally came to rest near her cheek, his thumb brushing the air just above her skin.
“Miss Cochrane,” he breathed, her name a confession, a plea, a sin. “If I touch you, I will not stop.”
The admission hung in the air, ferociously intimate.
Outside, the storm broke at last. Inside, they stood braced against something far more dangerous than thunder. Ellen stepped into the narrow space between them—so slight a movement, yet so irrevocable it stole both their breaths.
“Then don’t,” she whispered.
Edward’s composure shattered. His hand cupped her cheek with exquisite restraint, his forehead lowering to hers in a gesture so tender, so incendiary, it felt more intimate than any kiss ever shared between the unlikely pair before.
When he finally spoke, his voice was velvet-destroyed.
“God help me, Ellen Cochrane… I desire you like no other.”
And in the quiet fury of that confession, the world outside the hotel—or the consequences within it—ceased to matter. His forehead still rested lightly against hers, their breaths entwining in an intimacy so profound she feared it might unmake her.
“Edward…” she whispered, though she hardly knew if it was a warning, or a surrender.
He pulled back just enough to see her clearly. The firelight painted his irises in molten shades of amber and shadow, the kind of gaze a man possessed only when all restraint had been exhausted.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
Elen’s heart fluttered painfully. He was offering her the final chance at propriety—one crack in the door through which she could still escape with her reputation intact. She had never wanted anything less. She lifted her hand—steady, deliberate—and placed it against the sharp line of his jaw. His breath caught, a quiet, shuddering sound that sent heat spiraling through her.
That single syllable broke him.
His hands rose with a kind of reverence, as though he feared she might vanish if he moved too quickly. One slipped to the small of her back, the other to the side of her neck, his fingers splayed against her skin, warm and trembling with suppressed hunger.
“Ellen…” He breathed her name like a vow, a surrender, a catastrophe.
And then he kissed her. Again.
Not with the inexperienced urgency of youth, nor the careless entitlement of a man used to taking what he wanted—but with a slow, devastating thoroughness, as though he had imagined this moment a thousand times and still found reality more exquisite. The world dissolved.
The kiss was deep, ardent, and impossibly tender; it tasted of storm winds and forbidden longing, of every unspoken word that had hung like ghosts between them for weeks. Her fingers curled in the fabric of his waistcoat, drawing him closer, answering every restrained ounce of him with her own unguarded need.
He broke the kiss only to breathe, his lips brushing hers as he spoke, voice unsteady.
“You have no idea,” he murmured, “what you do to me.”
Ellen’s reply was a soft exhale, her forehead touching his once more. “I know exactly,” she whispered. “Because you do the same to me.”
A quiet, helpless laugh escaped him—half joy, half disbelief. He kissed her again, slower this time, a kiss meant to memorize her, to claim nothing but the moment.
Outside, the storm dissipated entirely. Inside, they had created one of their own. And neither made any attempt to outrun it. Edward seized Miss Cochrane’s hand and sauntered urgently toward the hotel lavatory.
After checking that the cubicles were deserted, Edward impatiently ushered himself and Ellen between the dangerously close walls.
“Edward, this is scandalous.”
“I assure you no one shall come across us, just keep quiet for me and we should be beyond discreet.”
Before she even had time to respond, Ellen was whisked off of her feet in an instant, her legs wrapped tightly around Edward's waist. Edward desperately gathered her skirts at her waist and trailed his thick hand from Ellen’s face to her core, which was inevitably soaked and waiting for him, almost as if the tension had been too much.
“I want you to look at me as I pleasure you.”
As soon as he received her nod his fingers plunged dangerously inside of her. He learns her fast, her rhythm, her sounds, what makes her fall apart. And he doesn’t stop.
His head is lowered, his mouth looming dangerously close to her opening, waiting impatiently to indulge in her sex. The minute his tongue makes that intimate contact, Ellen cannot help but gasp. Her head leans back harder into the wall as her hips angle intricately to match the position of Edward’s nose, the tip of it brushing her clit just enough to make her legs twitch.
His tongue is patient but thorough. Intricate. Teasing and stroking until Miss Cochrane deemed it vital to grip his hair to cope, pulling gently at the nape of his neck.
“Edward,” she whispers, almost a warning, but it comes out shaky, wanton.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs back, muffled from down below, his hand gripping Ellen’s momentarily before joining his tongue, prodding at her entrance.
She moans when he pushes his finger in for the second time-, exploring her heat, experimenting with every twist, every thrust and curl, and one that particularly makes her squirm, arching her back slightly.
He smirks, gently hitting the same spot repeatedly, groaning when he feels her tugging at his hair once more.
Cutting her off, he fits her clit between his tongue and upper lip, sucking on it fervently while he pushes yet another finger inside. Cochrane cries out, voice breaking with that familiar hoarseness as the pleasure rips through her like lightning - hot, uncontrollable, deadly.
Her thighs close around his head -almost crushing him- trembling through her orgasm while he just laps at her release, eyes still locked on her as she comes undone right in front of him.
Whence he finally pulls away from between her legs, her soaked heat, his lips still glisten and a thin string of wetness connects him to her before it breaks. He licks his bottom lip, slow and deliberate, and then straightens his breaches, a small, boyish grin tugging at his mouth as he wipes it with the back of his hand, savouring the scent of what just occurred.
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