by Amelia Nolan
Evan pretended to cough in order to hold back his laughter.
Pemberly looked taken aback. “O-ho! So it is to be a duel of wits, then?”
“I do not fight unarmed men, m’lord.”
Evan had to turn his head away to hide his hilarity.
Pemberly’s expression lay halfway between indignation and pure delight. “I say, listening to her insults is like listening to a parrot. One can almost mistake the utterances for signs of intelligence.”
“Whereas with some people, there are no signs at all,” Marian answered.
Evan started choking.
Whether Pemberly was actually annoyed, or only feigning it at this point, he turned to Evan. “I say, Blake, do you always allow your servants to run roughshod over courtesy?”
“Pardon, m’lord – I thought I was only running roughshod over you,” Marian said with a curtsy.
“Are you going to stand for this brazen impudence? Allowing your servants to insult a guest?” Pemberly demanded.
“I thought this was a duel of wits,” Evan snorted with laughter.
“Oh. I did not know it had begun,” Marian said, stifling a yawn with her hand.
“Enough! I shall not stoop to insult my intellectual inferiors,” Pemberly said pompously.
“If ever you stooped to insult your intellectual inferiors, m’lord, you would find no one to insult,” Marian smiled sweetly.
“I – you – ” Pemberly stammered, then turned to Evan. “All right, that was a good one, I have to admit.”
Evan wiped a tear from the corner of one eye.
“Now that we are done with the pleasantries,” Pemberly said with a cocked eyebrow, “what is it that you write?”
For the first time since walking in the room, Marian seemed abashed. “I… novels, m’lord.”
“Similar to what?”
Marian glanced at Evan, as though she were worried about his reaction, and hesitated.
“All I had to do to shut her up was ask her about her writing!” Pemberly remarked to Evan, then turned back to Marian. “Well? Cat got your tongue?”
“She has read a good deal of Voltaire and Defoe,” Evan said, trying to help Marian in her distress.
“Wonderful. If I want to publish novels in the style of boring old men, I now know whom to seek out,” Pemberly quipped.
Finally Marian found her voice. “I am a great fan of Les Liaisons dangereuses. Also Le Diable amoureux, Le Sopha, conte moral, Thérèse Philosophe, and Les bijoux indiscrets.”
There were a few seconds of silence. Evan looked slightly shocked.
“Those works are a far cry from Robinson Crusoe,” Pemberly commented.
Marian looked worriedly at Evan, who seemed to regard her in a new light. “But not so far from Candide.”
“Voltaire might have had something to say about that, if he were still alive.” Pemberly turned to Evan. “Do you know what he said on his deathbed when the priest asked him if he renounced Satan? ‘Now is no time to be making new enemies.’ Ha! Now those are final words to live by!”
Marian and Evan said nothing, just took turns looking at one other and then dropping their gaze to the floor.
Pemberly glanced back and forth between them, then finally tired of the silence. “Yes, well, this was a delight, although I think Voltaire would be a better conversationalist, even given his present circumstances. Miss Willows, was it? I will be happy to look at a manuscript of your choosing, just make sure there is more Merteuil and Valmont in it than Crusoe and Friday, hmm? I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon. Be sure to get it to me before then.”
“Thank you, m’lord.” Marian curtsied and walked out, with one final worried glance over her shoulder at Evan.
Pemberly studied Evan carefully as he watched her go. Once Marian was out of the room, Pemberly let loose his true reaction.
“Good God, man, you look like a lovesick dog.”
Evan was startled – and indignant. “The deuce you say!”
“Not that I blame you. She’s – how shall I put this without offending your delicate sensibilities? – a fine, fine specimen of the female form. Ah! Alliteration!” Pemberly announced to no one in particular, as though he had found a charming surprise next to his wine glass.
“She is a servant,” Evan said.
“Yes, more’s the pity, since we both know you won’t pluck her. Would you mind if I have a go of it tonight?”
Evan’s face suddenly became dark and violently angry.
Pemberly smirked. “Don’t worry, old boy, I’m not about to embark on a suicide mission. It would seem she has eyes for only one of the two gentlemen seated here.”
Evan’s fury subsided. “I think you are mistaken.”
“How so?”
“There is only one gentleman seated here.”
“So there is! And he hasn’t filled my cup in the last five minutes,” Pemberly said, holding out his glass.
“So you will look at her manuscript?” Evan asked as he poured.
“Yes, yes, for God’s sake. You’re worse than my mother with your nagging.”
“I have to be. Her nagging never influenced you at all.”
“No, thank Heaven for that.”
“I trust my nagging will at least prompt you to read the poor girl’s work.”
Pemberly sighed with exasperated self-pity. “The things I do for you, Blake. And for your most excellent wine.”
8
Though the hour was late, Evan walked through Blakewood’s gardens to clear his wine-addled mind. The moon was full and the air was warm, humid, and filled with the perfume of flowers.
Pemberly, bless his corrupt soul, was a miracle worker. He had turned the usual dull dinner hour into a raucous affair. Not only had he prompted Andrew to appear, treat Evan civilly, and laugh uproariously, but he had even pried loose a smile or two from Lord Blake with his bawdy tales of life in London. Before he saw it with his own eyes, Evan would have sworn such a thing impossible: the old man was even more miserly with his smiles than his gold.
Pemberly recognized the monumental nature of it as well. “Tonight I have performed the Thirteenth Labor of Hercules,” he hiccupped as he dragged himself off to bed.
But once Pemberly had retreated to his room to sleep off the wine, Evan had been left alone again with his thoughts.
Of Marian.
Just seeing her would have been enough to set his mind spinning. But add to that the things she had said in the library! Not the witticisms and barbs, which were priceless; Pemberly’s tongue was sharp as a dagger, and to see him taken down was almost as rare as one of Father’s smiles.
No, the things that troubled Evan were the books.
He had thought of her all this time as an innocent, a young woman with no knowledge of the world, a naïf whose advances toward him were the play-acting of a child.
But those books!
Le Diable amoureux, or The Devil in Love, was actually little more than a fantastical romance. But Les Liaisons dangereuses was scandalous, with its tales of wanton seductions used as weapons between dueling aristocrats. Le Sopha was the ribald tale of a man reincarnated as a sofa, who then relates the various sexual consummations that take place upon his new form. And Les bijoux indescrets, or The Indiscreet Jewels, was about a magic ring that made women’s… um, privates talk so they could tell the stories of their sexual escapades.
Editions had floated around boarding school and university, with everyone desperate to get their hands on a copy. Evan knew from his own experience that, behind the solitude of a locked door, one hand soon found its way around something else, as well.
The idea that Marian had read these things – much less enjoyed them and emulated them in her own writing – raised a storm of emotions in Evan.
First and foremost, it excited him. He saw that as a fault within himself, but the truth could not be denied: the idea of her reading those books… and what she might do to herself as she read… aroused him terribly.
/> And distressed him terribly, too. Her innocence was one of the main reasons he had not touched her.
If her innocence was only an illusion… what then?
He knew ‘what then’: it would be even harder not to touch her.
She was still a servant in his household, though.
But… if she had read those books… and if she did not care that she was a servant… why should he follow his damned rule anymore?
He walked more quickly down the garden path and untied the cravat around his neck. He was finding it harder and harder to breathe.
He supposed the vicars and priests of the world would have looked upon her as some sort of fallen woman, corrupt and sinful. Actually, most men would – and the more ‘respectable’ and ‘moral’ the men, the more savagely they would condemn her.
But why should Evan judge her any more harshly than himself? Or more harshly than he would judge a man, for that matter? Men did whatever they pleased in secret, then harangued women publicly for the exact same actions.
Likewise, men put women on pedestals all the time, then excoriated and despised them when they turned out not to be immaculate statues of marble, but humans with earthly desires.
He had seen it innumerable times. After a while he realized that men were often petty, insecure children, and that they feared women. They feared the power that women had over them, whether the women knew it or not.
And the only way to regain power over a thing one fears is to tear it down and revile it.
Evan had enjoyed women and their desires too much to ever do such a thing.
Although the power one particular woman had over him now was becoming too much for him to bear.
As he walked through the moonlight along the garden path, he suddenly heard a voice cry out in panic, “Who’s there?”
Her voice.
Evan froze.
He wanted to say nothing, to turn and run in the opposite direction –
Actually, no, he wanted very much to stay and do things that would make the author of La Sopha blush.
Which is why he knew he should turn and run in the opposite direction.
“Who is it?” she asked again. He could hear the fear in her voice.
“Marian, is that you?” he finally asked, though he already knew it for a certainty. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded slurred from all the wine.
“Mr. Blake!” she gasped.
She stood up from a bench half-hidden by a rosebush. The moonlight spilled over her skin like milk, and glinted off her hair like silver.
His heart hammered against the anvil of his ribs.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
“I… I was just out for a walk,” she said feebly.
“As was I,” he said, his mouth dry.
“I will leave you to it, then,” she said. “Forgive me for interrupting you.”
“Actually…” he said, and tried very hard to stop himself.
He failed.
“…would you care to join me?”
He swore he could see her tremble in the moonlight.
“If it pleases you.”
“It… would please me very much.”
She walked towards him tentatively. He offered his arm to her, and she put her dainty hands upon his sleeve.
He knew it was ridiculous, offering to go on a walk with a servant girl. What would the gentlemen of London say, if they could only see him now!
A fool, and a discredit to his family name!
He also knew that it was scandalous – a midnight walk with any woman, servant girl or not.
But he forgot all that when she touched him. The pressure of her arm on his crackled like electricity, and pierced to the very core of his desire.
He felt that the night air had suddenly become several degrees warmer.
“Shall we?” he asked, and they started off down the path in silence.
Every time her dress rustled against his leg, he felt his excitement grow. Her fingertips brushed against the top of his hand as they walked, and that simple touch was more erotic to him than the naked embrace of any other woman he had known.
“Thank you,” she said.
For a second, he was quite thrown. “For what?”
“For introducing me to Lord Pemberly and telling him about my writing.”
“Oh. Of course. It was my pleasure.”
“It is not always in this day and age that a person keeps his word, so… whether Lord Pemberly likes my work or not, I thank you.”
Evan thought of his ‘word’ that he would not touch a servant in his own household, and grimaced.
“As I said, it was my pleasure. And I am sure Pemberly will find your writing quite satisfactory. Whether he will publish it, I cannot say, but that may be out of his control. He was telling me his business will soon be dictated more by… market forces than by his own personal opinions.”
“What market forces would those be, sir?”
The need for scandalous, prurient, and titillating material, he thought, but did not say it out loud.
“He was not specific.”
“I see.”
They walked in silence for a few more moments before she spoke again.
“I would also like to… apologize,” she said quietly.
Her words broke through his haze of desire. “What? Why?”
“For misleading you before, when we met. I mean, about the books I have read…”
He imagined her again, in her bedroom back in London, reading some scandalous novel while her fingers slowly pulled up the edge of her dress, then crept up the silky skin of her thighs…
“Think nothing of it,” he croaked, trying to force the image from his mind.
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That you would think less of me.”
If you only knew how I think of you, you would think less of me, he said silently.
“I do not, I assure you. Think less of you, I mean. I was merely… surprised.”
There was a hint of anxiety in her voice. “Why, if I may be so bold?”
“Well… you seem like a very… innocent young woman.”
The anxiety changed to amusement. “And what do you think of me now?”
“I must confess, I… see you as a bit more… worldly than I had originally imagined.”
The tips of her fingers glided like silk over the back of his hand. It nearly drove him mad with longing.
“And is that a good or a bad – oh!”
She suddenly stumbled.
Evan reached out in a flash and caught her with his other arm.
Unfortunately, in doing so, his hand pressed firmly against her breast.
He did not realize it until he had hoisted her fully to her feet. Then he realized that he could feel the swell of her bosom beneath her dress, firm yet yielding to the touch.
He jerked back his hand as though he had touched a hot iron.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his face scalding hot in the moonlight.
“Yes,” she breathed… then began to sway dangerously. “No.”
He stepped forward just as she fell against him, her body pressing hard against his.
He flung one arm around her waist, the other pressed against her back.
Her head tilted back in the moonlight, and her eyes fluttered open.
He gazed into them. They were deeper than the night sky, more beautiful than the stars.
Her lips parted, soft and moist.
Her breath was sweet as strawberries.
He could not help himself.
He leaned down and kissed her.
Soft at first, so soft. But then, when she returned his ardor, he kissed her harder, his hunger growing, his appetite monstrous.
She tasted like the ripest fruit of the harvest, bursting with sweetness.
He devoured her.
She gasped for breath and he pulled away. He took the opportunity to run his lips light as a f
eather down her neck, then back up again. He brushed his lips across her ear, tracing the curves down to her lobe. He breathed just barely, so that she heard only a whisper of a sigh as she felt him tickling her skin.
She moaned and clutched her fingers in his hair, then drew him back to her lips and kissed him, doubling his own passion, a wild animal released.
As she drank in his kisses, his hand crept to her breast and he cupped its softness. Under his thumb he could feel the nipple stiffen beneath the cloth. He rubbed around it softly, spiraling slowly inwards, until it hardened even more beneath his gentle touch.
She groaned and arched her body against him.
He pulled back to free his hand, so that it would be free to roam and undo her dress –
Her dress.
His wine-bleared eyes focused on the black cloth and white apron of her uniform.
A servant girl, in my own house.
He stepped back in horror at what he had been about to do.
Her upturned face went from ecstasy to confusion. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. “I should not have done that.”
She raised her arms out to him, silently imploring him to return to her.
He stepped back again, shaking his head. “I… I am sorry. I should not have done that.”
And then he was stumbling as fast as he could along the garden path, back to the house, the taste of her filling his mouth, the heat of his desire threatening to engulf him in flames.
9
Marian was miserable.
She lay in bed for hours, unable to sleep, with the aching, unfulfilled throbbing between her legs the only thing to keep her company.
She cried a little, too – silent tears that trailed down the sides of her face and wet her hair as she lay on her back, staring up the ceiling.
One question kept circling through her mind, over and over:
Why?
Why did he stop?
It had started out so marvelously.
Actually, no, it had started out abominably, with that rude little imp of a man in the parlor drunkenly insulting her.
Before she could stop herself, she threw the insult back in his face.
It had been like that her entire life. When someone was rude to her or to someone she loved, the affront seemed to bypass her commonsense, and she just let loose her tongue without thinking. It had landed her in serious trouble in the past.
