The Gilded Cage - The Wake

Rachel misbehaves at her husband’s funeral

The story starts here

Author’s Note: The Gilded Cage is different from my previously published stories; it is neither a lighthearted romp nor overly sexual. It deals with themes of coercive control, loss and death, but at its heart it is a thriller.

The serial will run to twenty plus chapters. The first two chapters will be free to read; the rest will be behind the paywall. If none of that has put you off, settle down for what I hope you’ll think is a good read.

The funeral director’s limousine swept back down the driveway and Rachel opened the door to the house. There was a muted babble of conversation from the large drawing room on her left.

Clementina emerged from the throng. “Rachel, darling,”

Rachel smelt expensive perfume as she was enveloped in Clementina’s arms.

“Thank you for doing this,” Rachel said. “Sometimes I think you are the only friend I’ve got.”

“Don’t be foolish.” Clementina released her and held her at arm’s length.

For a moment Rachel saw her mother standing there, explaining to her that she would not be able to take care of her for much longer. Her death had been painful. Now Michael was gone, but the sensation was so different.

“You have so many friends,” Clementina smiled. “It’s just that they have had to stand back whilst…” She paused. “They are still out there waiting for you.”

Rachel glanced into the drawing room. “They seem to be enjoying themselves. Do you mind playing hostess for a while? I’m just going upstairs to freshen up.”

“No problem. They might be multi-millionaires, but they are all tucking into the free food and drink like it was their last meal, so take as long as you need.”

She turned and disappeared back into the throng.

In the bedroom, Rachel was shrugging off her coat when there was a soft tap at the door. She opened it a crack; Peter smiled at her.

“Come in.” She closed the door softly behind him and turned the key in the lock. She felt the roughness of that morning’s hasty shave as she turned and kissed him. “You’ll ruin my make-up,” she said.

“God, you look hot in black.” He was almost panting.

“And you don’t look too bad in a dark suit.” Her hand brushed the bulge in the front of his trousers.

She could almost see his brain trying to work out what to do next. She gave him a clue by kissing him harder and squeezing the swelling in his trousers. He scrabbled at her dress until his fingers touched the soft, naked flesh of her thigh.

“Stockings.” He sounded like an excited boy on Christmas Day. He eagerly pulled the dress higher to reveal black lacy French knickers. He glanced down. “You’ve even got black underwear.”

“Well, it is a funeral,” she said, sliding a hand inside his trousers.

Peter stopped. “Don’t you think this is a bit . . . well . . . disrespectful?’”

She could feel the blood surging through her. Why did dealing with death always make you feel so horny? Perhaps it was some primal urge to prove that you were still alive; to celebrate that it wasn’t you in the cold ground.

“You’ve been fucking me for the past two years darling, I think we’re way past disrespectful.” She grabbed at the hard, white flesh protruding from his trousers and, pulling him across the room, perched on the edge of the dressing table. Dragging the silk knickers aside, she slid him into her.

The perfume bottles on the dressing table started to rattle and then clattered on the glass top as they tumbled over and rolled onto the floor. Rachel entwined her fingers behind Peter’s neck and crossed her ankles behind his back, locking him into a union with her, enjoying the luxurious feeling of impalement that sex always brought. She heard herself making short, sharp sounds like a runner reaching a peak until, with one final effort, she felt the familiar surge of excitement. She tensed her legs, forcing him to erupt deep inside her. Breathing heavily, she held him there, luxuriating in the contact.

She giggled. “That was naughty.” She sniffed; the room smelt of expensive perfume and sex. “I think we smell like a Turkish brothel.” She pushed him away and patted his cheek. “We’d better get downstairs. You go first and don’t forget to do your flies up, or everyone will know you’ve been comforting the widow.”

He turned and obediently sneaked out the door.

Rachel rearranged her underwear, straightened her stockings and smoothed down her dress. She looked in the dressing table mirror; her lipstick needed replacing. She was tempted by Scarlett Rose but decided she’d been immodest enough and applied a touch of Nude Fuchsia to her lips. She imagined Michael spinning in his grave, or rather his urn and yelling, unheard from the afterlife, that she looked like a tart.

“Well darling,” she said out loud, “Now you know I’ve been behaving like one as well.”

She checked her appearance in the full length mirror and pulled the grips out of her hair letting it flow down over her shoulders. She made sure she’d got her grieving widow face on and headed downstairs.

At the bottom of the stairs she stumbled; for a moment she had thought one of the voices from the drawing room was his. In her mind she saw him turning toward her as she entered, his face smiling but his eyes betraying his mood. His look always reminded her of the headmaster at her school and the look he gave you if you were late for morning assembly. There was never any criticism, but the whole school knew you were in trouble, just from the stare.

“Don’t be stupid,” she muttered.

She turned right toward the kitchen. A couple of waitresses buzzed back and forth as the caterers replenished the canapés and refilled the wine glasses. Rachel smiled at the organiser.

“Everything OK,” she said as she casually picked a large wine glass from the cupboard and filled it from an already open bottle in the fridge. The man nodded as Rachel took a gulp from the glass and closed the fridge door to reveal the dour face of Mrs Reynolds.

“Oh, good grief - you startled me. What are you doing here? I thought you had the day off today?”

“I just thought I’d check.” Mrs Reynolds looked at the wine glass.

Rachel noticed that at least she was not wearing her apron. “

I’m sure the caterers can cope.” Rachel defiantly took another large gulp from her glass. “Why don’t you go and . . .” She nearly said enjoy yourself. Rachel tried very hard not to snigger. “Go and have a drink.”

“No thank you, madam, I . . .” she stressed the word I “. . . don’t drink. If you don’t mind I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

“Suit yourself.” Rachel drained the rest of the glass and placed it on the counter.

Rachel picked a small glass of wine off the waitress’s tray as she walked into the drawing room. She looked around; groups of men in expensive suits stood talking quietly, networking. Probably trying to work out who could team up with who to take over Michael’s empire. The vultures have gathered, she thought. Those that are not here to pick over the meat from the corpse are here to dance on the grave. Between the men, clusters of women that were neatly divided into age groups gathered around the canapes.

It was obvious that the over-fifties who had hung onto their husbands, usually because they were the source of the money, had no intention of fraternizing with the under-thirties who had secured a place in a wealthy man’s bed. There were perhaps only half a dozen couples that were together and seemed to genuinely act as couples.

Rachel felt the familiar mask slide over her face as she began to manoeuvre her way through the torrent of ‘so sorrys’. Her brain working like a walking card index, plucking little facts about each person out of its encyclopaedic recesses to reply, “Thank you. How is Mathew doing at school?”

“Has Alice recovered from chickenpox?”

“Are you enjoying your new house?”

Perhaps this was the reason Michael had married her; had he just needed an attentive hostess; someone to smile at his enemies and make them relax, to charm their wives and girlfriends? Another pawn on his chessboard to distract them so they did not see his queen coming. It had occurred to her that maybe she was just an entry on the credit side of the company spreadsheet.

She found herself standing in front of tall, blonde-haired man with an easy smile. The index in her mind was blank; she was sure they had never met before. He had a craggy handsomeness and she guessed he was American?

“Hi,” he held out his hand, “I’m Alexander Mason. Your husband and I talked about working on a project in Vancouver shortly before his death.”

His handshake was firm and confident and she could feel a roughness on his skin. At some point, if not recently, he had worked for a living. She looked into his blue eyes and found herself thinking of the Mediterranean on a summer’s day when the gentle ripples invite you to dive in.

“Thank you.”

Only an expert observer would have noticed that she held the contact for several seconds longer than with the other guests.

“Well, I was in the UK . . .”

“No . . .” She touched his arm lightly. “Thank you for not starting the conversation with ‘I’m so sorry.”

He laughed; there was a drop in the volume of the babble of conversation in the room, a few heads turned. “Nobody knows what to say at these things, but you don’t look like you’re about to turn into a wailing widow if I say the wrong thing.”

“I’m not.” Rachel smiled.

“Michael talked a lot about you.”

“Did he? I’m surprised. And what did he say about me?”

“That you’re intelligent, independent and . . . beautiful.”

Rachel giggled. There was another drop in the chatter in the room. She leant forward and gripped his arm. “Why, Mr Mason,” she said in a mock Southern American accent, “You are a liar, and I think you are flirting with the widow at the wake?”

Alexander smiled.

Rachel drained her wine glass. “Quite frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

“Well, my dear, take heart,” Alexander replied.

Rachel looked at him; her eyes betrayed a slight confusion.

“You’ll have to look it up.” Alexander smiled.

Rachel paused as she turned away and deftly placed her empty glass on a waitress’s tray before scooping up a full one. She looked over her shoulder at Alexander. “Phone me. I’d like to know more about Vancouver.” She turned away and glanced across the room to see Peter glaring at her.

She spotted Michael’s queen; Claire was standing quietly in the corner of the room, nursing a small glass of wine and scanning the guests. Thanks to her assiduous research, Claire probably knew a lot more about most of the people in the room than Rachel did, and certainly more than they would have been comfortable with. Her abilities had propelled her from Michael’s personal assistant to partner with such rapidity that malicious tongues had been sure that she must be spectacular in the bedroom. The only problem the gossips had was why?

Michael’s money and his handsome maturity had ensured that a gaggle of potential trophy wives had thought they could turn the hunter into the hunted. Most had discovered that what was between their legs only held his attention for a night or two, if they were lucky. Like a wily pike, he would devour the body of the bait and never the hook.

Claire was pretty, in a librarian sort of a way; a couple of inches shorter than Rachel and probably a few pounds heavier, which gave her a rounded, heavy-breasted, figure reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, but that was not the attraction. Michael had loved to boast to Rachel that Claire had a hard drive full of files detailing hidden bank accounts, secret lovers, and the immoral and, in some cases, downright illegal little habits that his competitors hid from their spouses, their shareholders and the authorities.

Chapter Three will be published later this week

Want something at little lighter, a little sexier? Explore my serial stories

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December 30, 2025

My stories are about strong, confident, often dominant women. Even if they submit, it is on their terms as they explore new experiences, new relationships, new passions.