The Lady and Her Secret Lover

by Jenn LeBlanc

  “I don’t suppose you would hold the jabberwocky, would you?”

  Ellie laughed at that. “No, I shudder to think of something like that and I quite draw the line at jabberwockies. No, that animal I would not attempt to coddle.”

  “Good thing, that,” Louisa said with a horrified look.

  “Though he probably needs a hug as well. Perhaps the knight could attempt it? He has armor.” Louisa laughed, and Ellie took her hand and pulled her to a settee in the middle of the library. “I couldn’t wait to see you again, and I’d no idea when that would be. I thought to send a missive, but I didn’t want to be too presumptuous, and certainly didn’t want to annoy your father’s wife. She seemed a bit put out by my mother. Which is understandable. I honestly don’t see why I’ve been so popular this season, come to think on it. I mean, I have callers every day, all day. I—”

  “You don’t understand?”

  “No I don’t. Certainly I have money but nothing else to recommend me. There are plenty of titled girls with good dowries— What?” She stopped as Louisa’s gaze turned enigmatic and she lost her train of thought. “Louisa?”

  “Ellie, I can tell you exactly why they flock to you, and it isn’t your money, though to be sure that is what’s making it acceptable for the flocking. I believe even without it they would, Ellie. They would all want you. They all do want you.” The last bit came on a breath and Ellie stilled, watching Louisa’s lips as if it would help her to hear better. She startled when she felt a fingertip sweep a curl from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear.

  “Louisa,” she said.

  “Ellie, you are… I don’t know that there are words for what you are. To see you is to see the sun shining in a dark world. So out of place and yet welcome, warming, beautiful. And that’s not even taking those devastating eyes into consideration. You could floor a man with your eyes closed and a gentle smile on your lips.”

  “A man?” she asked as her belly tightened.

  “Any man,” Louisa replied.

  “I don’t want any man,” Ellie said then, and she lifted her gaze to Louisa’s and held her. “I don’t want…” Ellie breathed through the fear. “I don’t want a man,” she said without the slightest bit of breath to force it, for if she took a breath now, she may just cry.

  Louisa

  Louisa’s heart jumped between her ribs, as though it fought, stretching between the bones to leave her body and latch on to the woman next to her. Ellie doesn’t want any man. She shook her head, enough to shake the stray thoughts away and concentrate. Ellie doesn’t want a man. Ellie seemed pale and a bit panicked. Louisa couldn’t see her breasts rising against her corset and wondered if she breathed at all.

  Then, and Louisa wasn’t sure who had done it—perhaps it was the two of them drawn together as if on a wire—but Ellie’s mouth was the softest, sweetest… Louisa pressed against her harder, and Ellie didn’t pull away. She reached out and took one hand, and Ellie wrapped her fingers with hers, pulled the tiniest bit, and Louisa sank into the sensation, their hands intertwined, their lips together. She closed her eyes, no longer worried she’d frighten her.

  Ellie’s lips fell open. And when Ellie swept her tongue against her upper lip, Louisa thought for sure she would die. “You taste of sweetened lemon,” Ellie said against her. “You taste of—” Her tongue reached into her then, touched her tongue the slightest bit, slid across the roof of her mouth toward the front, then retreated, skimming once again across her upper lip. “Spice and…sugar, so sweet.”

  And Louisa knew she would live and die a thousand deaths that night as she remembered this moment.

  “Lou?” She said her name against her lips, and Louisa felt the vibration all the way to her toes. Ellie’s hand tightened on hers, and Louisa’s chest compressed, her breath hitching. She realized, moments later when Ellie’s hands took her face and she sipped the tears away, that she was crying. They kissed. They kissed and kissed and…it sounded such a tawdry word of a sudden for something that seemed so much more, like a prayer, or a curse.

  She let out a breath and it was shared as she twisted her hands in the back of Ellie’s dress and pulled her tight and they tasted, licked and, yes, kissed. Like they hadn’t ever before, and she hadn’t truly. She’d been kissed but she’d never…she’d never given of herself like this. She’d never wanted to know the truth of a person by the flavor of their tongue. This was so, so much more than a mere kiss. She tasted salt and knew they were both lost. They would never be able to return to the ball if they didn’t stop.

  Louisa froze, broke the connection between their mouths, and dipped her head. Ellie’s lips kissed her forehead, and she leaned into her, attempting to catch her breath.

  “I’m frightened,” Louisa said then. “I don’t understand, I’ve never felt this before and I never expected it with—”

  “A woman?”

  Louisa looked into those magical eyes. “Yes. This, what we have here, I feel more for you than I ever have. Women are meant to be friends.”

  “They are,” Ellie said. “And aren’t we friends? Whatever we do, we can seem no more than friends to the world beyond.”

  “Is that what we are then? More than friends?” Louisa asked.

  “I think…yes. Louisa, I don’t feel very friendly toward you. What I feel for you is decidedly more than that.”

  Louisa wanted to scream, to cry, to curl into a ball and hide…to stretch long against Ellie with the beat of her heart against every inch of her skin, but then she thought about what Hugh had said and it worried her. “Perhaps we should remain no more than friends, Ellie. There’s so much…there’s so much danger.” My father…

  “Is that what you want?” Ellie’s voice was so patient, at complete odds with Louisa’s racing heart.

  “No,” Louisa said. “It’s not what I want.” She tensed at the thought and brought Ellie flush against her chest. “That’s not at all what I want. I may not know what I do want, but I know that that…is absolutely not it.” She looked back into Ellie’s eyes, attempted to trace the threads of deepest blue and violet she knew were there, but the room was too dark. She wanted to learned the pattern as if it a puzzle, she wanted to remember, to be able to recognize, possibly duplicate it in a painting or drawing, perhaps simply in her mind. She wanted enough time, staring into Ellie’s eyes, to learn them.

  “Louisa?”

  “Yes?”

  Ellie reached up and skimmed her hand down Louisa’s cheek. “You’re so lovely. I’m blessed to have found you.”

  Louisa had no response to that. She watched the other girl, her eyes searching in the way she knew her own were at that very moment. Because Louisa felt as though she’d been found. As if she’d lived the whole of her life at the back of a very dim cave, people standing in the light yelling at her to do, to be, to think, to behave, in so many certain ways. Then Ellie came along, wove easily amongst them, shifting the light at the entrance to the cave before ducking in, blocking the light and allowing her to adjust to the new reality.

  She allowed the adjustment. Allowed the full weight of it to come down around her like a heavy shroud. It weighed not just on her body but her heart, and her soul. Louisa shrank against it, the prick of tears sharp in her eyes as she stared into those deep pools of Ellie’s. Louisa watched as that weight seemed not to transfer, but to encompass Ellie as well and it pulled at her even more. Her hands tightened to white knuckles of pain.

  “But… we both must marry. This is not good,” she said.

  Ellie

  Ellie looked away, the immensity of their realizations taking on such a tangible power between them she could no longer bear it and Louisa’s hold on her loosened. They wrapped their hands together. She traced a tear down Louisa’s cheek with only her eyes, then watched it fall to their joined hands, the intense pressure of the knot of them painfully tight.

  “We should have stayed friends.” She heard the words and nearly believed she hadn’t spoken them, so detached was s
he from her own self. She felt a twist as something wrenched in her belly and grew sour. Their hands released, exploded from each other as though they’d only realized they were still connected. Impossibly connected, and the separation had to be violent in order to be realized.

  Ellie clasped her hands then, rubbed the blood back into them as she thought.

  “We must… you and I both must marry,” Louisa said, and Ellie realized the voice came from behind her, not knowing when she’d turned away.

  “So we must,” she replied.

  “My father—”

  “I understand. Believe me. Don’t think I don’t wish it weren’t true, because I do more than anything. They expect me to marry a peer, to gain a small step into your world through that union. This is my responsibility to the family.” Louisa’s hand skimmed down her arm and she reached for it, pulling her back toward Louisa. Louisa took both of her hands, then watched her thumbs circling the back of her hands.

  “I wish for a small life,” she said. “I wish for a small house—a single room would be sufficient even. A cottage. I wish for a cottage, with a large garden, a patch of sunshine far from London where I can grow some vegetables, some herbs, some flowers.”

  “I would like a cat,” Ellie replied, and Louisa glanced up then. “Because I do not like mice.”

  Louisa smiled. “It would be nice to have a small barn, perhaps a single cow and a few chickens. Occasionally raise a pig. I’ve heard people do that. I’ve read about it in books. I’m certain I could do that. They share them with other families, or with the local butcher, who takes a cut to sell in payment for his services. Because I could never kill an animal.”

  “I couldn’t either. I could give it a good life while it was here, but I couldn’t end that life,” Ellie agreed.

  “We could buy meat. Keep the cow for milk. Eggs would be fine. We can have chickens,” Louisa decided.

  “Perhaps a goat to tend the weeds,” Ellie said as she leaned into Louisa’s shoulder, searching for warmth. “We’ll need a strong fence to keep him from the gardens.”

  “Whitewashed, of course,” Louisa said.

  “With a bell on the gate?” Ellie wanted a little bell that would go off throughout the day for the goat, or visitors.

  “Absolutely.”

  “And a spring on the hinge to keep it shut.”

  “Is there another sort of gate?” Louisa grinned up at her and a shiver ran her shoulders and down her arms.

  Ellie shook her head. “No, not for a cottage, in the country, away from London, only used for keeping a goat from the gardens.”

  “I wish…” Louisa said again.

  “As do I,” Ellie replied.

  Louisa

  Louisa hadn’t slept at all that night, and it wasn’t just that she’d brought herself off thinking about how lovely Ellie was. It was that kiss. That hard clash of teeth and tongue. Something she’d never experienced. Oh, how she wanted to be with her. Her mind turned, trying to find viable ways they could disappear as spinsters together, and the life they would live, quiet and happy far from London and society in their little cottage with the bell on the gate.

  She couldn’t concentrate on anything the following day either, and her cross stitch was suffering to the point that Lady Mayjoy was becoming annoyed with her. Louisa wasn’t sure what she should do. She was mediocre at cross stitching to begin with but this was ridiculous; she’d be lucky if she didn’t stitch herself to her work, as distracted as she was.

  In all her life, Louisa had never sought another woman for the kind of love and companionship she was taught to want from a man. Yet here she was. She wanted Ellie, wanted to spend her life getting to know more about her…she hardly knew anything at all but what she did know was of such kinship to her she shuddered to consider how deep their bond could go— how deep it would go. Never had she felt this. She’d no basis for comparison. Part of her wondered if it was merely the need for companionship, a closeness she certainly lacked with any other woman, but another part of her knew that whatever this was, it was not simply friendship or companionship.

  Never would she have assumed that Ellie felt this way as well. Louisa would have held herself back forever, if only to remain close enough—but they’d kissed, and if there was one thing she knew, it was that it had been no kiss borne of friendship. It was more, so very much more. She stabbed herself with the needle and sucked air between her teeth, bringing it to her lips as she bit the tip of her finger.

  “Louisa.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “What has you so distracted?”

  Damn. What was she to say? Louisa was not one who could think on her feet.

  “What happened at the ball last night? You disappeared for quite awhile. Were you perhaps with a gentleman?”

  “In the gardens, yes, for a time,” Louisa said. It wasn’t a lie.

  “Perhaps there’s a bit of hope for you yet. Go clean up that mess before you bleed on my silk chaise. The ladies will be here for tea soon.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She stood and carefully set aside her work, which was awful enough to not warrant using such caution. “Am I expected at tea?”

  “Yes, that woman and her daughter are coming. You’ll be needed to entertain the daughter so I will only have to deal with the one of them.”

  Louisa froze. More adequately, her heart skipped a beat, stopping her blood and freezing her muscles beneath her skin. She was quite unable to move. “Yes, ma’am.” She forced the words, and the woman’s eyes narrowed on her in consideration.

  “Perhaps you begin to understand the difficulty of dealing with the new-money types in London. Go now. I can’t have guests see you behaving in a such a manner.”

  Louisa curtseyed and moved to the door.

  “And Louisa?”

  She turned back. “Yes, ma’am?”

  Lady Mayjoy didn’t look at her. “I saw you leave the ballroom with her last night. I warned you, Louisa, have a care.”

  Louisa turned and rushed toward her room, all the while attempting to catch her breath. It was as if she’d fallen and had the wind knocked from her—it simply wouldn’t come. She wasn’t sure what would happen. Lady Mayjoy must know something—but Ellie was being allowed to tea today. Was it a trap?

  They’d left each other the night before cautious and nowhere near optimistic. They’d dreamed aloud together of a lovely home, the two of them, their garden and their goat. Things Louisa couldn’t find a way to. She had to marry, they both did. She would never be free of her father. Even now, three years into society, and he still held her beneath his thumb. She had no friends to take pity on her and give her a room, no family to run to beyond London. Save Ellie, she was alone.

  Ellie

  “Maitland, you must sit still.” Her mother yanked her skirt again to get her attention.

  “Yes, mama.” She held her knee and concentrated on keeping her heel from rattling against the floor. She hadn’t expected the invitation to tea and wasn’t sure why it had come about, but honestly she didn’t care. She simply couldn’t wait to have Louisa alone in that beautiful gallery again.

  The carriage pulled up to the front walk and the liveried servants opened the carriage door, assisting her. She waited for her mother, breathing in counts of three to settle her nerves. What if Louisa thought she’d been too forward? What if Louisa realized how dangerous a mistake it was for them to pursue this? What if Louisa had been shocked and had only gone along with the kiss at the time? What if Louisa— Oh, what if what if what if… Funny how distance played such terrible tricks with the mind.

  Ellie closed her eyes and remembered the last moments from the night before. That kiss, that amazing kiss, had been the both of them. She hadn’t much experience in kissing, but that the kiss was amazing was a fact simple to decide. None of these concerns should be of concern. Everything was as she wanted, as she believed it to be.

  What if Louisa wasn’t planning on being here for the at-home today? Her eyes snapp
ed open. Well then, she’d found a concern that was valid.

  The front door swept open and Ellie followed her mother into that incredible foyer. She couldn’t help it; her head fell back and she gazed at the massive glass dome so far above as it sprinkled down rainbows on all who entered her keeping. She saw a dart of green on the upper-floor balcony and knew Louisa was in fact home. Ellie smiled. She couldn’t stop even when the butler cut a glance from the corner of his eye. Apparently the servants disapproved of her demeanor as well. Fantastic.

  She followed her mother up the stairs to the first-floor landing, where they would turn to the left to continue to the parlor, and she would need to control her want to go to the right instead, toward the gallery. The butler stopped there and spoke softly to her. “Miss Present will meet you in the gallery,” he said, then turned and continued on with her mother.

  Ellie paused, watching as they left her behind, and her heart raced. She looked to her right, the short set of steps that would bring her to the upper landing and the gallery. Lou had gone down a hallway here, not into the gallery. She heard the rise of voices as the door to the parlor opened and her mother was announced and greeted. It actually warmed her heart that her mother was welcome here. Well, somewhat welcome. Ellie understood how the ton felt about her family, that they weren’t of the establishment and weren’t particularly wanted in upper society. She further understood her distinct purpose in this, that Louisa’s father, the Viscount, was searching for backing for a certain action he wished to see come to pass in the House. It all came down to money. It always came down to money.

  Yet without it, where would she be? She shuddered to think. Certainly nowhere near Louisa. But money was also what would keep them apart, because they both had to marry in order to meet their true worth as daughters of powerful men. Tokens. Chess pieces. Chattle.