by Rose Lerner
Would she want to live here anyway, amid this grandeur? John seemed to view it as she did the woods near Lively St. Lemeston, lofty and pleasant but naught to wonder at. He’d walked past gilt and painted ceilings, tapestries and marble floors, and seen only the dust. His mother had shown her a vase worth three years’ wages. How could Sukey dust a thing like that?
“This is very fine,” she lied, swallowing another bite of asparagus on toast. “What’s in it?”
“Oh, it’s just a light fish béchamel. With poached eggs, obviously. I like the undercooks to practice their techniques while the family is away. I hope your asparagus isn’t mushy.”
Sukey didn’t like asparagus, mushy or not. She’d never heard of béchamel, but supposed it was the white, fishy sauce coating her tongue. She gulped the mouthful down. “No, it’s perfect.” I just hope I don’t get indigestion.
At Tassell Hall, there’d be a parade of sophisticated French ladies’ maids under John’s nose, whose accents were elegant and who liked eating fish sauce. What if he… She couldn’t even think about it.
I want to go home, she thought. Take me home. I want my mother, who serves me penny pies for dinner. But not every responsibility could be pleasant and a source of saintlike rapture. John had come with her to see her father. She had to stick it out here, not push him to turn his back on his parents and a small fortune besides.
Would he even do it if she asked him?
* * *
“The other day I was cleaning Lady Tassell’s portrait by Sir Joshua—I clean the best paintings myself, and I learned that from harsh experience, I promise you—and the cramp in my foot put me in such agony I nearly tumbled off the stepladder. I’m just glad I didn’t pull the painting down.”
The blood froze in John’s veins. He set down his forkful of poached egg. “You were on a stepladder?” His father had been catching John up on everything that had happened to annoy him in the last six months, ranging from his favorite pencil manufacturer going bankrupt to a nasty pamphlet written about Lord Lenfield during the recent county election.
“I’m sure her ladyship would rather pay to repair the painting than your skull,” Mrs. Toogood said sharply. “That’s false economy if I ever heard it.”
Mr. Toogood waved this away. “You worry too much.”
“My grandmother was a martyr to cramps in her foot,” Sukey said, as if oblivious to the tension in the air. Ever the peacemaker, his wife. “She found that folding a strip of red flannel seven times and wrapping it round her next biggest toe did wonders.”
John winced inwardly, knowing how his parents would take this.
Mr. Toogood regarded her blankly for a few moments. “That’s an old wives’ tale, my dear. I don’t credit it in the slightest.”
John opened his mouth to defend her, but before he could speak Sukey said, “Oh, no, but it cured my grandmother. There’s naught magical in it. She said it made her hold her foot differently.”
“Then why must it be red?” Mr. Toogood inquired sardonically.
Sukey paused, then laughed good-naturedly. John was in awe at her restraint. “I suppose that part is superstition. I never thought on it, for it’s the easiest color to get anyway. The grocer sells bits of red flannel for just such a purpose. If you want to hear real old wives’ tales, I could oblige you! My mother’s aunt, you know, saw a friend cured of a wen on her neck by the touch of a hanged man’s hand.”
“And was she really cured?”
Sukey grinned. “Well, everyone said it was much smaller afterwards.”
Mr. Toogood snorted. “Amanda, do you remember when your sister gave Johnny powdered mouse ash in his jam?”
Since that was a traditional remedy for pissing the bed, John flushed and put a hand over his eyes. When he dared to look at Sukey, she was watching him, eyes dancing.
“I was five,” he said hopelessly.
Mrs. Toogood shook her head ruefully. “Well, it didn’t do him any lasting harm.”
“Tell that to the marines, for the sailors won’t believe it! The poor lad had nightmares for weeks that the mouse was crawling about inside of him. Of course you helped matters splendidly by pointing out that he ate cows and chickens all the time.”
John had forgotten that until this moment. But now he could clearly picture the cedar wainscoting in the chapel, and hear his father’s voice explaining with absolute authority that no matter what anyone said, there were no ghosts; souls went to Heaven or Hell. A mouse once dead could not be resurrected except by the direct intervention of Christ, and Christ would not put a living animal inside a person. No, not even if they were very sinful.
It was startling to remember that his father’s firm assurances had once been enough to quiet any doubts. John had ceased fretting over the mouse that very hour.
“Since none of them had ever crawled about inside him yet, you can see how I thought it would reassure him,” his mother said, laughing.
“You thought? Ha! You said the first thing that came to your mind, as always.”
John had decidedly not missed family meals. “Leave her alone. Don’t you ever get sick of being right?”
“Oh, don’t mind your father,” Mrs. Toogood said. “He can’t help himself.”
“He might help himself, if you didn’t take his side.”
Below the table, Sukey put a restraining hand on his leg. “Don’t speak to your mother that way,” Mr. Toogood snapped.
Your hypocrisy beggars belief, John thought.
After supper, they sat eating Portugal cakes with hot cider. John tried to include Sukey in the conversation, but despite his best efforts and her heroic readiness to try again after each rebuff, talk kept turning to the past or to news of mutual acquaintances. When her cider and two cakes had vanished, Sukey pushed back her chair. “I beg your pardon, sir, ma’am, but I’m asleep on my feet.”
John stood, but Sukey gave him a wan smile and said, “No, no, you stay.”
“Yes, do stay, John,” his mother said. “It will give us a chance to get reacquainted without boring your wife to tears. Do you remember which room you’re in, dear?”
Sukey nodded.
“If you need anything, Tamar and Camilla’s room is just down the hall. Some of the girls are in the habit of sewing there in the evenings.”
John was about to insist on accompanying her, at least to unlace her stays—but he caught her relief as she headed for the door and hesitated, afraid she might be eager to escape him as well as his parents.
The door closed behind her, and her footsteps retreated through the kitchen. John knew he should go after her, but he felt ashamed—of his parents, and of himself for not knowing how to manage them.
“Poor girl, she’s so intimidated by the house,” Mrs. Toogood said. “I tried to make her feel at home, but I know it’s not at all what she’s used to.”
“I suppose not many people are used to a house like this. You like her though, don’t you, Mother?”
“Ye-es. Of course I do. She seems a very sweet, well-meaning girl.”
“Mother.” They both knew that in Mrs. Toogood’s lexicon, that translated to It’s not her fault she’s empty-headed.
“I just always imagined you’d marry a bluestocking.”
“Mother.”
She shrugged resignedly. “I suppose I was naive to think I’d brought up a boy who would care about his wife’s mind.”
John set down his Portugal cake, queasy. “Sukey isn’t stupid. Don’t be snobbish.”
“I don’t care about her accent, John,” his mother said indignantly. “You know me better than that. But she doesn’t read. And she’s so young. A man doesn’t—” She stopped talking. “Never mind.”
“Yes?”
“A man doesn’t marry a woman half his age because he imagines her his intellectual equal,” she said flatly. “You
never said she was so young in your letters.”
She isn’t half my age. But the calculation was only off by two years. “You—” John tried to clear the fury from his voice. “You think I just married her to have someone to feel superior to?”
Her eyes widened. “Of course not. That isn’t what I said at all.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You tell me why you married her, then.”
“Yes,” his father said. “Enlighten us.”
He didn’t know what to say. If he told them about Mr. Summers and the job, it would hardly be the defense of Sukey he wished. If he tried to explain that she was beautiful and witty, that she’d looked like a fairy and made him feel that life could be exciting, it would only sound to his mother exactly how she imagined it: that he had married a pretty girl out of lust and a pitiful desire to feel young and looked up to.
“I married her because I fell in love with her,” he said tightly. “And because I liked her better than anyone I’d ever met. She’s a marvel, and you’d see that if you bothered to look.”
“Then I’m sorry to have misjudged you,” his mother said, not very apologetically. “I’ll try to be more open-minded tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” John stood. “It’s been a long day. Good night, sir, madam. I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Oh, Johnny, don’t be angry,” Mrs. Toogood implored at once, catching at his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“You see your mother for the first time in half a year and you’re going to go off and sulk?” his father said.
“I’ve had a long journey,” he said, conscious that he was sulking. “I’m tired. Besides, how often do I have the luxury of going to bed early?” They all laughed rather awkwardly, and he made his escape.
He entered their room quietly in case Sukey was really asleep. She was curled up in the bed, so small and wistful that John was ashamed of the wave of desire that went through him at the sight of her tip-tilted blue eyes, her bedgown tied shut across her small breasts, and the lithe angles of her body.
In truth, she was five and a half feet tall, taller for a woman, even, than average. But her elusive air, the way she had of darting a wicked glance up through her lashes—she always seemed more diminutive than she was.
“Sukey, are you sure it doesn’t bother you that I’m older than you are? You don’t feel that I’ve taken advantage of you?”
She rolled away from him. “Why, is that what your mother thinks?”
He was appalled by the bitterness in her voice. He wished he hadn’t said anything. “Yes, rather.”
“She thinks I’m stupid,” Sukey spat out. “Just because I don’t know a load of Frog words or like eating cream and butter in everything. My piss stinks from asparagus, and I’ve been sitting here trying not to be sick. The cows for that quaint little dairy we saw today must have sore tits from all the milking!”
“Do you want to go?” Please say yes. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning if you do.”
She rolled back to face him, curling into a tighter ball. “No,” she said, sounding defeated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything. They love you and they just want what’s best for you.” She plucked at the pillowcase.
“They don’t want what’s best for me. They want me to have exactly what they had. I’m sorry they haven’t been more welcoming.”
“They love you,” Sukey said stubbornly. “Why do you quarrel with them? It only makes things worse.”
He felt as if a door had been slammed on his nose. He’d been defending her. “You’d like me to sit quietly while they—” He snapped his mouth shut before he could repeat his mother’s comments. It might get Sukey on his side for a moment, but later she’d realize he had been unkind and spiteful. He felt unkind and spiteful. How easily anger rose, and how hard it was to stuff it away again!
“They’re your parents. It can’t have been easy for them to bring you up themselves, here. Not everybody would have done that.”
“So I’m ungrateful?”
Sukey’s crooked mouth pursed. “My father left me, and my mother had to send me out to work when I was twelve. You’re asking me to be up in arms because your parents are a little crotchety?”
His head pounded. “I have never told you how to behave towards your own family,” he said, jaw tight. “I might easily have excused your father’s conduct, but I did not. And now you—”
“You might have excused him?” Sukey said incredulously. “For bigamy? How?”
“Anybody can think of reasons to defend anything. That’s not the point. A little crotchety? Do you remember that story my mother said was a trifle, about the overcooked roast? He brought it down to the kitchen, gathered the entire staff around, and made my mother eat a piece! And then he said, ‘Perhaps you ought to have done that before you sent it up.’ She wept, and the damn thing was perfectly cooked. I have been trying to get along with him for eighteen years longer than you’ve been alive. Staying is not the only measure of a good father.”
And there went all the insight and compassion of the day. His father wasn’t a monster, yet John realized he had half-hoped Sukey would think him one. He’d wanted, finally, someone who would take his part once and for all as his mother never had. But a wife wasn’t an echo.
“And how long ago was that?” Sukey asked.
“More than twenty years ago,” he admitted grudgingly.
“I’m sorry.” Sukey’s eyes filled with tears. God, now he’d shouted at her and made her cry. He hadn’t been able to help himself. A chip off the old block indeed.
That was the worst part. As he told her the story, he could imagine himself in his father’s place, fancying himself an avenging angel of roast beef. It seemed a small enough step from things he had done.
“It’s only that I’m jealous.” Her tears spilled over. “I can’t help it, it’s eating me up.”
Chapter Eighteen
John went and gathered her to him.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again.”
“No. Don’t apologize. I should apologize for my stupendous selfishness.”
Sukey snorted. “Selfish? You?”
“Yes, me. Cry as much as you like, please.” John felt awful. Sukey had hurt his feelings last night, and he’d barely spoken to her since. He’d been wounded and self-doubting because he couldn’t make her feel better—but how could he have expected to? Her father had left her and she was sad, and he’d wanted that to be healed in a day, so he could feel proud of himself.
And then he’d wanted her to heal him, to say what he wanted to hear about his parents and thereby make forty years of love and resentment go away.
His parents, this position as butler, Tassell Hall: they were his burdens and—despite his virtuous resolutions never to do so—he’d divided them with her without thinking twice. He’d dragged her somewhere he didn’t even want to be, hoping she’d make it bearable.
Even now, weeping and miserable, she comforted him. The heat and weight of her in his lap, her hair tickling his chin, her long legs arched over his made him feel that something, at least, was right with the world.
His mother knew him better than anyone. She was entirely wrong about Sukey, but she was right about him. He’d married Sukey for his own gratification.
“Will you clean my boots tomorrow?” She sounded uncertain. Surely she couldn’t think he’d refuse her such a small favor.
“Of course. I meant to anyway.”
She tilted her head up. “Will you kiss me?”
He obliged her. “Ask me something harder,” he murmured against her mouth.
She ground her arse into his cock. “I will in a minute.” She twisted round so her back was to his chest. “Hold my breasts.”
“If you insist.” He squeezed them in his hands.
They ought to talk, but God, he couldn’t stand it. He wanted to forget everything. He wanted to feel that she wanted him the way he wanted her, that she was his family, that they were one flesh. He wanted to join with her.
She dragged his hand between her legs under her nightdress. When he drew his fingers lightly across her most sensitive place, she moaned and spread her thighs wider, her sharp shoulder blades digging into his chest. “Tell me you want me,” she said.
“I want you.” It wasn’t enough. But everything he thought of was poetic, mannered, nothing to do with this need to be close to her that scorched his throat and stopped his breath. “I want you desperately.” Woefully inadequate.
She pushed him farther back on the bed, following so she sat snugly in his lap, facing away from him.
“I w—” He undid his buttons and drew out his cock—and before he knew what she was about, she pushed herself up and sank down onto it.
He choked on his words.
“John,” she said intently, pushing herself up with her feet and letting herself fall, her hands on the back of his neck holding him close. “John, John.” She speared herself anew each time she said his name, until she was bouncing, chanting furiously. The bed creaked noisily, and there was a bevy of maids just down the hall. He almost stopped her—but he didn’t want to. Let them hear.
“Sukey,” he answered, quietly but not whispering either. “Sukey.” His pleasure was brutal, ripped from him. “I want you.” No, it was all wrong, and he knew what he wanted to say instead. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I adore you, Sukey.”
She gasped for air, arching her back with a keening moan, and he didn’t know what that meant but he didn’t care because it was the truth. The only word that would suffice.
He ran his hands up her arms to where she clasped his neck. Taking hold of her wrists, he held them in place, held her so she couldn’t get away. He turned his head to kiss her forearm. Her movements gentled and shallowed; she rocked insistently against him. “I don’t want to spend. I just want this.”
