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The Infamous Bride (Juliet's story) Excerpt
R.J. had been walking for only a few minutes when he heard what at first could have been mistaken for an angel come down to earth to soothe the troubled ears of those still trapped in their mortal coils. After a moment of listening in muddled wonder and staring at the stars in the night sky, he recognized Juliet's voice.
His pace took on a more purposeful speed as he searched the garden for her, wondering, with a rush of jealousy, which of her young admirers had captured her interest enough to be gifted with such a hauntingly beautiful song.
But he could not catch sight of her until he raised his eyes again, to the stone walls of the east wing, and saw that she stood high upon a second-floor balcony. After a moment's observation, he realized she was singing to no one but the moon.
Propriety called for him to turn his gaze away once he saw that she had retired to her room and thought herself private. But he did not. Nor did he turn away.
R.J. savored the sight, feeling as if fate had meant it for his eyes only. He peered up at the balcony, mesmerized by Juliet standing there in her nightdress. There was a pensive look in her eyes as she gazed upward and sang her clear, sad song. Her voice was low; the song was for no one but herself and the moon.
He did not recognize the tune and could not make out the words. Still, he could sense the sadness, and it stirred something unnamed yet restless within him.
What made the flirtatious, shallow Miss Fenster sad this night? She had her triumph. The feel of her lips were still imprinted upon his. Did she carry the imprint of his mouth upon hers, upon her soul?
No, of course she did not. She claimed it had been an accident. But he had seen in her eyes that was not the truth. Perhaps she had for one moment allowed herself to forget that he was not Freddie? Such a thought made his head ache.
He called up to her, striking a pose that he thought would have done the real Romeo proud, if there had been a boy so foolish ever in the span of time.
"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
Her song stopped abruptly. She peered down at him, a frown marring the smooth skin of her forehead, which he could imagine would be silken under his fingertips. Her eyes searched the darkness, reminding him that he stood in the shadow of a yew hedge. What would she say if he were to reveal himself? Would she know that he had been spying on her?
He stepped into the moonlight.
Her searching gaze caught him as soon as the moonlight struck him. "Mr. Hopkins?"
Her voice was flat with disappointment, and he held the fleeting hope that his appearance was not the cause. "Indeed. Were you expecting another?"
"I was expecting no one." As if she realized her dishabille, she drew her arms across her chest protectively. "Least of all you."
He had his answer. He was not welcome. He should leave, he knew, but he could not make himself walk away. He asked, though he cared nothing for the answer, "Why are you not celebrating your triumph?"
"My head thrums with pain, to be honest." For a moment her shoulders dropped with genuine weariness. But then she shrugged and added lightly, "I will never undertake such an enterprise again. I am only grateful that the play is finished."
He wished he shared such a sentiment. Instead, he felt empty. Hollow. Almost mournful. She was so far away, yet he wanted to touch her. "Your performance was magnificent."
She paused before answering, until just as he was certain she would end the improper conversation, she asked, "Not passionless, then?"
He laughed aloud. "No. Master Shakespeare would have allowed no one else to play the part if he had seen your performance."
She smiled but said in return, "Should I be flattered that you have changed your opinion? Or should I be wary that you speak falsely?"
He remembered then that he spoke to an accomplished flirt. A woman who knew how to pry a compliment out of a stone. Some of the joy of the moment faded. "Once you came from the stage, your admirers must have reassured you that I speak nothing but the truth."
She hesitated before she answered, moving so that the moonlight no longer shone full on her face. "A compliment from you is worth hundreds from any of them."
"But you no doubt received thousands tonight." He might have known she would seek out some sign that he was now one of her smitten beaux. "I saw the eager flock surrounding you."
He had expected her to laugh, but she did not. "You did not seem to lack for admirers, either." Surely that was not a touch of jealousy he heard in her voice. Impossible.
He thought of the married women who had approached him, licking their lips as if he were a plump eclair to be coveted and devoured. "Why do you think I sought the peace of the garden?" All he wanted was to escape their unwanted attention.
"Then you understand why I am here, too." The confession surprised him. He rarely saw her when she was not surrounded by admirers. Did she not crave the attention she received? Or did it wear on her more than she allowed to show?
He had tired of it after no more than a few minutes of lascivious looks and guarded invitations. Could she feel the same about the young men who surrounded her? Nonsense.
Juliet Fenster had made a practice of displaying her nectar to attract the buzzing bees that followed her. She had not discriminated between gentlemen of sixteen or sixty. With the solitary exception of himself, he recalled. Until tonight's performance she had done little to win his admiration.
He shrugged. "But you knew from our rehearsals that I would play the part well. I had no such inkling that you would be as magnificent as you were."
"Magnificent, you say?" She looked down upon him, and he felt a shiver pass through him. The moonlight shone bright ivory on half her face and shadowed the other half. "You have used that very word twice tonight." She appeared ethereal and unreal. "Even if I choose only to believe you hold the sentiment half true, that would still be a far cry from passionless, I give you that."
"Is that all you will give me, then?" He had meant to speak wryly, but some devil in him threw the words out with the same heat that coiled within him as he stood on the ground beneath her balcony.
"You would dare ... just because I ... " With a sniff of disdain, she pulled back from the balcony until her entire face was shadowed. "A thousand times good night!" she answered in anger, as if he had spoken aloud his wish that she come down from her balcony and couple with him in the soft, sweet grass of the darkened garden.
He did not want her to withdraw. "Nay, say it is not so, maiden. Can you not see it is I, your Romeo?" He wanted the two of them to stay this way forever. He wanted to imagine her in his arms, only the thin lawn of her nightdress between his skin and hers. He would never admit such a thing aloud, though. Perhaps she had read the desire in his face? He stepped out of the moonlight, back into the shadows of the yew.
She came to the edge of the balcony again then, still shielding herself from his eyes with her arms. Her chin was tilted high, but there was a bud of a smile on her lips as she replied, "I can see nothing, but I hear a jackass braying in the dark." Her voice vibrated with emotion through the darkness of the night. But was she more amused or annoyed? He could not tell.
She had not retreated inside. He would take that as encouragement. He sighed theatrically. "That sounds more like Kate berating her Petruccio than sweet Juliet speaking to her Romeo."
Her eyes shifted restlessly as she searched the darkness of the night. "Perhaps I sound so because you, sir, are like Kate's unfortunate suitor, seeking a woman with a fat dowry to take back to Boston. You need to be taught how to treat a lady."
"I am certain you are mistaken." He had never been accused of offending a lady before. Had his words been improper? "Let me prove myself to you."
"Prove yourself to me? What do you think you have done all these weeks? Keeping your sister from me as if I carried the plague? Chiding me for my pretty, useless buttons? Calling me passionless? Just ho
w could you redeem yourself?"
She had dropped her arms and leaned upon the balcony, looking down into the darkness, which no doubt made him as shadowy to her as she was to him. Only their voices had substance here. Which was why, perhaps, he dared say what he did. "I would kiss you as you were meant to be kissed."
"A kiss?" Her laughter should have wounded his pride. Instead, the blood rushing through his veins increased with every mocking word she spoke. "Your success has made you mad. I assure you, you are no Romeo to turn this Juliet's head."
He knew what the true Romeo would do. But he was R.J. Hopkins. Practical. Sensible. Rational.
Which was why he was startled to hear himself proclaim boldly, "If I were to climb up to you — to press a kiss to your lips as you did to mine earlier — perhaps you would not be so quick to stab me with your sharp tongue, my lady." His words provoked an unexpected image of her tongue stabbing sweetly at his mouth in passion, not anger.
She leaned over the balcony's edge and spoke softly into the night. "What makes you think I want your kiss?"
"Are you not Juliet? Am I not Romeo?" For the first time, he said his own name without a twinge of shame. His mind was filled with an image of himself kissing Juliet. Was an image like that what had fueled Shakespeare as he penned his passionate lovers?
"Are you, Mr. Hopkins?" R.J. closed his eyes and gave himself up to his own imagination for the first time since he was a small child in his mother's arms. Perhaps, as she said, he had gone mad. Surely it was madness to continue to dream of sliding his lips down the silken skin of her neck until his head was cradled on her shoulder and he inhaled the warm scent of her skin.
He opened his eyes again and moved into the moonlight beneath the balcony. Madness. After all, she stood so near and yet so far away. Why didn't he end this torture? Why didn't he walk away? He reached for the ivy-covered trellis and shook it as he stared up at her. It would hold his weight.
She leaned over farther to gaze down at him. At his hand on the trellis. "Will you dare it?"
"Tell me if you wish a kiss from me."
"How can I?" She laughed softly. "I won't know if I want you to kiss me until you do."
He began to climb. "Tell me you want me to kiss you, Juliet."
There was only the rustling of the ivy and the raggedness of his own breath in his ear as he continued his climb. And then she asked, "Do you think I want a kiss from a man like you?"
There was a sadness in her voice that echoed within him and made him answer boldly, "I think you need a kiss from a man like me."
"What makes you think such a thing?" He could hear the tension that built in her voice as he climbed.
"The moon hanging in the sky tells me so." He looked upward. He could nearly touch her face where she bent toward him over the balcony railing. Only a few more steps and he would touch her for real, as he had in his mind. But did he dare? He felt as if he, like the moon, were hanging on the edge of something momentous. But what? Reason? Passion? Madness?
The lawn of her nightdress made a soft sound as she pulled away from the railing and backed out of his sight. "The moon hangs so every month." He could hear no disapproval shading the husky tremor in her voice through the silken black of the night.
"I have never noticed it before, then." He climbed the last few feet of the trellis, the ivy crisp and springy under his hands as he grasped the firmly nailed latticework.
The balcony was narrow. She stood as still as the night air. Her feet were bare, he was surprised to notice, as he grabbed onto the railing to pull himself over.
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