by Lydia Joyce
“There are certainly worse vices in a wife,” Colin said. “But perhaps you should leave the initiation of lovemaking in my hands, at least for now. However satisfying a fit of giggles might be, mon ange, it leaves much to be desired for the purpose of beginning an intimate encounter.”
“You are quite right,” she said, still smiling. “Please, then, exercise your superior abilities and sweep away my better self in the heady surge of your passionate embrace.”
Colin snorted. “Your better self?” he asked, looking down at her. Her hair, for once, was not in a state of collapse. That was swiftly rectified, however. Colin’s arms were on either side of her, pinning her to the bed, the back of her head even with his hands. He reached under her head and began pulling out her hairpins one by one.
“My better self,” she repeated airily. “Every woman is an ethereal spirit, unconcerned by fleshly matters unless dragged down by a degenerate male.” She grimaced. “Why are you taking down my hair? This is the first time it’s been properly arranged in days.”
“Because I am a degenerate male who much prefers the way you look when your hair is fallen like the worst kind of slattern,” Colin said firmly.
She laughed, this time without the edge of hysteria, and threaded her fingers behind his neck. “Thank you,” she said, her voice scarcely louder than a whisper.
“For what?” Colin asked, pausing in puzzlement.
“For liking it when I look slatternly,” she said. “For not shunning my failings.”
“Imperfections,” Colin corrected. “Imperfections and differences. They are what make you interesting.” He kissed the tip of her nose lightly. “They are why I discovered what it is like to be alive.”
The words hit Fern in the gut, causing a strange, sideways lurch that she couldn’t identify. She started to say something but could think of nothing that would express what she felt—nor was she even entirely sure exactly what it was that she did feel. So instead, she pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed it hard.
Colin kissed her back thoroughly, devastatingly, his mouth moving hard over her own as he unfastened her dressing gown with one hand, holding her head still with the other. At his urging, she sat up, wriggling so that he could pull her dressing gown and nightdress off. His mouth moved to her body, teasing and tasting with increasing insistence. Her hands urged him on, her nails digging into the flesh of his back, which was still faintly marked from their previous two nights together. Unpredictably, his mouth moved across her skin, never letting her body find its rhythm, challenging her with a new touch, a new sensation every time she began to adjust so that her nerves quivered with reaction, raw and discordant.
His lips followed the line of her collarbone down, then moved across to circle the delicate skin of her breasts. Anticipation formed a hard, hot knot in her center, dimming her vision and making her head light as everything became sensation. Her hands tightened on his shoulders, and he took her nipple in his mouth, the sudden damp heat of it sending a coil of need through her frame. She gasped, her hips tilting hard against his stomach, her thighs lifting to clasp him. His tongue rasped across the sensitive tip, once, twice, and she shivered hard, her breath growing raw in her throat. Leaving that breast abruptly, the sudden chill almost as shocking as the heat, he went to the other, rolling her nipple in his teeth as it rose up in a hard nub. Sensation radiated out through her at each movement, curling though her body and leaving it suffused with need. He closed his lips and began to suck, and the sensation gained a new urgency, a new demand.
“Hurry,” she urged him hoarsely.
He did not reply but released her, leaving her nerves tingling as he moved across her belly in a way that should have been ticklish but was now anything but. He moved up again, between her breasts and up her throat to her mouth.
“Roll over,” he murmured against her lips.
“What?” The dazed word escaped, for she could make no sense of his demand.
“Over,” he repeated, putting action to word as he urged her to turn.
Her head swimming, Fern obeyed as he pushed off her to give her room. He grasped her hips and pulled downward, sliding to the edge of the bed until her legs hung off. Breathing the musty counterpane, she fought the confusion and anticipation that rose within her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, feeling his muscled flanks between her legs.
“This,” he replied.
His hands on her hips lifted slightly, angling them up off the bed. Before she could respond, she felt the hard tip of his erection pressing against her, entering her and filling up the aching hollow inside. She gasped against the pressure as it pushed against new parts of her, her hands bunching in the covers. He moved, and the novel sensations again took her unawares.
“Good?” The breathless word had a ragged edge of laughter in it.
“Yes,” she said, and he thrust again. “Oh, yes.”
He built up a rhythm then, fast and insistent, driving her to the edge and over in a sharp, blazing climax. Her body burned with it, the surge taking her and pulling her apart. Before the sensation had fully receded, he withdrew and urged her to turn back over, joining her on the bed.
She scarcely registered what he was doing until he entered her, his air-chilled erection sending a shock through her body—already she was on the edge again. She pulled him against her hard as he began moving with slow thoroughness inside of her, kissing and biting him in a near-frantic counterpoint to his slow movements. But he would not be urged to greater speed, and she felt the heaviness build up, higher and higher, inside of her, until it collapsed into a release under its own weight. The sensation was marrow-deep, shaking her soul with every wave, as heavy and inexorable as the sea. Her breath left her as she sank into it, darkness closing over her eyes. It rolled again and again across her, until the only things in the world were herself, those inky depths, and Colin, moving against her.
Gradually, she rose up again, and gradually, she realized that Colin was now lying beside her, his arms still holding her against him. He radiated heat into the shadowed room, and though she was not cold, Fern basked in it.
She did not say anything. Nothing needed to be said.
Chapter Eighteen
Colin woke to darkness and the sense that there had been a noise. He tensed as a flood of memories of his abrupt awakening the night before shot through him, but the noise came again—muffled, and from the blankets beside him.
He rolled over. The coals from the fireplace cast just enough light for him to be able to make out Fern’s face, creased in a troubled frown. He kissed her forehead, pulling her toward him. Her frown deepened and she shook her head, but then her body changed subtly to wakeful tension, and she opened her eyes, blinking blearily.
“It’s you,” she said, and her frown cleared instantly, replaced with such relaxation that it jerked something inside him.
“Always,” he said, not even sure himself what that meant, yet meaning it completely.
She snuggled against him, and he stared into the darkness for a long time after she had slipped back into sleep.
*
A knock on the door roused Colin. Dull gray daylight seeped in the window overlooking the bog. He was about to call for whomever it was to enter when he remembered that the door was still barred, and that recollection brought back the whole of what had happened the night before—Reston’s fit as well as the long, entirely satisfying night that followed.
Fern did not stir, her face as still and smooth as porcelain. He swung his legs out of bed as the knock repeated, slightly louder. He cast around for some clothing and found a fresh pair of drawers and his sporting trousers and got them on and loosely fastened, reaching the door as the third knock patiently came.
He lifted the bar and cracked the door cautiously, his shoulder braced to block any precipitous entry. Abby stood there, a bucket and kettle hooked over one arm and the other raised to knock again.
“Come in,” Colin said softly, openin
g the door to allow her admittance. “Mrs. Radcliffe is still asleep.”
“No,” came a groggy voice from the blankets. “I am awake, Colin, but thank you.”
“Where is my valet?” Colin asked as he retrieved a clean vest and pulled it on, buttoning a fresh shirt over it.
Abby placed the bucket beside the basin, pouring the fresh, steaming water into the ewer and pouring the used water into the bucket. “Old Jim’s below in the kitchens still, sir,” she said. “His gimpy leg’s bothering him today, so he’s working out the kinks over a pot of tea before trying the stairs.” She began to gather up the dirty dishes from the night before.
Colin was not glad that the man was in pain, but he couldn’t help but feel a certain gratitude for the fact that he wouldn’t have to face the man—and his razor—first thing upon waking.
Fern sat up with a suppressed groan, holding the blankets over her body with one hand. Though Abby had taken in his bare chest with equanimity, she now blushed and rattled the dishes a little louder. Fern caught her reaction and reddened as well. Colin supposed that Abby had assumed that he had been caught in the middle of dressing, while Fern’s nakedness left no doubt about what their states had been before the maid had knocked on the door.
To spare them both, Colin found Fern’s nightdress and tossed it to her. With a look of gratefulness, Fern pulled it on over her head before dropping the covers and slipping out of bed. She picked her dressing gown up from its pile of froth on the floor and pulled it on, primly fastening the buttons as her blush subsided to mere pinkness.
“What is for breakfast, Abby?” she asked, studiously ignoring all reference to her appearance when the maid arrived.
“Toast, eggs, rashers, ham, and tea, m’m,” Abby said, seeming glad for the omission. “It shall be ready any moment. I’ll go check on it now, shall I? And then bring up some more peat vor the fire.” With that, she took the slop bucket and the dishes and ducked out of the room.
“I am afraid you embarrassed her,” Colin said.
“I embarrassed myself,” Fern returned, making a face. “And your chest … I hope she thought you fell through a thicket!”
“I think that she very carefully failed to look at it,” Colin said. He tucked in his shirt and fastened his trousers all the way. “I don’t think I care for old Jim’s help today. I’d much rather shave myself.”
Fern shuddered. “I cannot find fault with that sentiment. You have a stronger nerve than I to have borne it the first time.”
Colin didn’t answer, shrugging on a tweed waistcoat to match his trousers and fastening the top button.
“Are we being rustic today?” Fern asked.
“I doubt we will succeed at looking refined,” Colin countered. He paused, remembering the knives under the mattress, and slipped a hand beneath, sliding the length of steel into his coat pocket.
Fern’s expression turned shy. “Will you help me dress? I know that Abby is here now, but …”
An involuntary reaction stirred at her request. “I prefer to undress you, but given the choice of putting your clothes on or allowing someone else to do it, I will help you gladly.”
She colored slightly again. “I am glad.”
By the time Abby returned with breakfast, both Colin and Fern were washed and fully clothed. Their conversation was subdued over their meal in the presence of the maid, full of allusions and significant looks. When Abby finally finished dressing Fern’s hair and left, Colin said, “I plan to watch Reston work today—and to arrange for a coach to come as soon as possible to pick us up.”
“I cannot wait to leave,” Fern said. She put her hand on her pocket. “I have the letters here for safekeeping.” Her face grew troubled. “I never wrote my family last night. I need to do so this morning, to get the letters out in today’s post.”
“I shall have an eye on Reston, so you shall be safe enough going to the vicarage alone,” Colin said. “I’ll leave you to your writing. I doubt you want a husband hanging over your shoulder.”
“You wouldn’t be a bother,” Fern said, but Colin could tell that she was glad enough to have some privacy for the task.
“I shall see you before luncheon?” he said.
“Certainly,” Fern said, then amended, “If Reverend Biggs does not end up keeping me for a long tea.”
Colin bent down and kissed his wife softly on the lips. “Until then, mon ange.”
Then he left the room with a feeling, despite everything, that was bordering on cheer.
Colin edged carefully down the long staircase and then passed though the kitchens, which echoed with the activity of washing up from breakfast. Reston and his crew of village men were already at work in the Tudor wing. Colin could hear them as he reached the first floor. A glance down the corridor revealed that more of the ceiling had given way in one of the two rains, half a dozen timbers now protruding through the stained plaster. He frowned, wondering how much more rot was concealed in the walls.
At the top of the attic stairs, he emerged into daylight. The collapsed rafters, with the heavy slate roof now mostly pulled off, looked like tangled ribs against the gray sky, the freshening wind blowing through them. Reston stood braced on two of the timbers, shouting orders down to the men below. To Colin, he looked haggard, with blotchy purple circles under his eyes and a sallow cast to his skin.
When he saw Colin, he stretched his mouth in an expression that was more of a grimace than a smile.
“Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Good morning,” Colin returned coolly.
“Have care of the vloor up here—it’s none too solid. Charlie already vell through and broke his wrist. He a-went home.” The man continued to show far too many teeth.
Colin simply grunted, leaning against the corner of the wall for the stairs. He wasn’t exactly sure what he had been anticipating with Reston—wild-eyed mania, perhaps, with a full-scale looting of the Tudor wing. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t this. However surly, the man appeared in full charge of his reasoning faculties, such as they were. Then again, there was also notably little paper in the attic to set him off.
Colin resigned himself to a dull morning of watching the men work. After a few minutes, he let his gaze wander out over the moor and bog to the horizon, where darker clouds were massing, and down to the village. A spot of violet caught his attention among the grays and greens of the fens, and he watched as Fern came around the corner of the building with an umbrella hooked over her arm and a bonnet perched upon her hair. Colin had the sudden foolish urge to call down to her, but he suppressed it, watching instead as those swaying violet skirts slowly traversed the distance to the church, disappearing around its side as she went back to the vicarage.
With a grimace, he returned his attention to the work of Reston’s crew.
*
It had taken Fern no small amount of effort to devise something appropriate to write to her parents. Faith’s letter had taken a mere matter of moments—it would not occur to her sister to question the motives behind any action one’s husband took. But Fern’s parents and most especially her sister Flora were less blindly trusting. They would fear the worst, and the strangeness of Colin’s sudden retirement could not be hidden from them. But Fern did her best, explaining that the social pressures of Brighton had proved excessive for her and that Colin had therefore decided to move to a “country retreat.” It was a retreat, indeed, in the sense of fleeing Brighton—Fern hoped that the word would also carry the implication of a sanctuary, as well, without her explicitly stating such a falsehood. She carefully refrained from telling her parents not to worry, for that was the surest way to convince them that there might be something worth being concerned about.
She had slipped the letters into her pocket next to the packet of antique documents and had taken an umbrella—as the sky was ominous out over the distant tors—and strolled around the manor house and down the road toward the village.
The vicarage looked almost welcoming, whi
ch was, Fern decided, more of an indictment of the manor house than a virtue of the comfort of Rev. Biggs’ home. She knocked, and this time, a scowling Mrs. Willis answered, her sleeves rolled up and dark smears of blacking across her apron.
“It ain’t time vor tea,” she said ungraciously, opening the door just wide enough for Fern to pass through.
Fern suppressed a surge of irritation as she edged inside. She was growing tired of these Reston relations, all of them. “Please show me to Reverend Biggs,” she said, not deigning to argue with the housekeeper.
The woman sniffed and closed the door. Her wide hips all but brushed against the wall and staircase as the two of them passed down the narrow corridor on their way to the back of the house.
Rev. Biggs was in his tiny study again, the remains of his breakfast sitting at his elbow and his shabby slippers propped upon his ottoman as he perused a journal by the light of the narrow window. He looked up as Fern entered, unannounced by Mrs. Willis, who disappeared into the kitchen. Fern sat quickly before he could do more than swing his legs down in preparation for trying to rise.
“My dear Mrs. Radcliffe!” the old man said in his curiously sonorous voice as he settled back in his chair. “What a pleasure to see you again.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Fern said, smiling with genuine warmth. “It is so nice to see a friendly face and to have a pleasant conversation in Wrexmere.”
Rev. Biggs chuckled, blinking owlishly at her. “You have had a dose of the Restons, I understand?”
Fern made a noncommittal sound, embarrassed at being so transparent, and the vicar chuckled again.
“After our last conversation, I looked through some documents that I have here—my predecessor was quite mad for the village’s history and wrote a number of monographs for the shire’s historical society and even had two hundred copies of a book about it printed up, for one pound apiece.” He looked wry. “There are still one hundred seventy-four in the attic—I counted when I first arrived, and have since sold three. Anyhow, he goes into quite a bit of detail about the time period surrounding the unification of the Radcliffes and the Gorsings.”
