Arden's Act

by Elizabeth Thomas

  They caught Bonnie still lighting a fire in Arden’s room, though she had already tucked Helena into her crib for the night. She almost dropped the poker when she saw Courtenay behind Arden. Though she recovered the implement, her entire face matched the blaze she’d just coaxed into existence. “I-I-I’m done now,” Bonnie stammered, “so I’ll get out of your way.” She turned and fled, first to the hall and then to the room she shared with Helena. She closed her door firmly behind her without slamming it.

  “She seems to know what I have in mind,” said Lord Robert. “Have you lost your shyness before her?”

  “I am about to,” Arden replied softly, before his lips sought hers again.

  “Good,” he murmured. “One should not care so much for the opinions of servants.”

  “She is—” began Arden, objecting breathlessly as Courtenay scooped her up in his arms.

  “A poor relation, I know,” he finished, carrying her to the bed. “What does one do with them?”

  “One cares for their dignity and treats them with respect,” returned Arden. She found it difficult to get the words out through the shivers Courtenay produced by kissing her neck.

  “If they deserve it,” Courtenay said gruffly. “Oh, don’t worry, love, I don’t mean Bonnie.” He laid her down gently on the quilt. “That bastard I left you to deal with in my absence,” he explained. He loosened the drawstring of her cape, pushing it from her shoulders, stroking them tenderly as he did so. “I’m so sorry about that, love.”

  “He’s related to your—?”

  “Never mind who he’s related to. He’s gone, now.” He held himself above her on the bed, one of his knees between her legs. An intimate posture, despite their both remaining fully clothed. Shifting his weight onto his left arm, Courtenay worked with his right hand toward remedying the clothing situation.

  Bonnie had lit a few candles as well as the fire. Looking up, Arden could see Lord Robert much better than she had in the hedge. Truly God had made him to satisfy a woman’s sight. Those smoldering eyes, dark to the point where Arden had difficulty distinguishing brown iris from black pupil. The high cheekbones; mustache and brows dark and silky as a raven’s wing. The strong chin under a wide mouth with sensual lips. Those lips smiled with her as she laughed, recalling to her the other senses he could satisfy. In almost an instant, however, his expression changed. A touch of anger glimmered in Courtenay’s eyes as he stared down at Arden’s dress.

  “Mourning!” he snapped, grabbing the edge of the stiff fabric covering her breasts. He tore it with a swift, strong pull. With another quick, catlike movement, he stood again beside the bed, finishing the tear he had begun.

  “Oh!” Arden cried. The fire had not been crackling long enough to prevent a shocking chill. Lord Robert had torn the shift beneath her dress as well. Arden stood up beside him, trembling, wondering if his vehemence should frighten her. As she searched his face to find desire had replaced temper, the remnants of her garments slipped from her. Shivering, she stepped out of her shoes and moved closer to him, closer to the fire.

  “By God, you are even more lovely than before,” Lord Robert whispered.

  Arden reached for the fine white silk of his shirt, which ripped easily with the first effort of her fingers. “Only fair,” she told him. She freed the ends of it from his breeches. He obligingly shrugged out of the silk, as well as the open velvet coat that had covered it. Arden generously left the latter intact. She pressed herself against his bare chest, savoring his warmth. “Now the rest,” she asserted. The material of his breeches proved thicker and covered Courtenay more tightly than what she had just destroyed, but Arden accomplished the task.

  Now that they both stood naked, she found him more than ready for her. His manhood brushed her belly as they embraced, and Arden could not keep her hands from roving all over the surface of his skin. Her fingers moved from his face to his shoulders, his chest, sides, and buttocks. Nor could Lord Robert restrain himself, except that his fingers stroked her nipples with exquisite gentleness. Little of the heat running through her came from the fire, now burning higher in the fireplace.

  He carried her back to the bed then, lifting her so that they faced each other, his arms supporting her thighs and his hands cupping her buttocks. They were not yet joined as he carried her, but the touch of his warm skin on hers promised it quickly―the perilous nearness, the immediate possibility that he could so easily be inside her as they crossed the floor tortured Arden deliciously.

  He laid her back down, and covered her with his body. Arden expected his immediate entry. She yearned for it. She did not think she could stand another moment’s delay, but Courtenay seemed intent upon teaching her patience. He began with her brows, kissing them softly, while caressing her breasts with a slow, firm hand. He took her mouth more roughly, simultaneously muffling the cries of desire and pleasure he provoked from her. He moved to her throat, to the hollow it made on the way to her heart, sending more hot shivers through her with his lips and tongue. When he reached her breasts, when he sucked the hard peaks of her nipples, he also moved his fingers to stroke her much lower. A loud gasp had escaped her merely at the sensation of his mouth on her, but when she felt the expert sliding of his strong fingers, she could not keep herself from moaning.

  Arden stiffened, however, when Courtenay lifted his mouth to whisper: “Your milk tastes sweet, my love.” Immediately sensing her discomfort, he moved his hand to caress her hip reassuringly. “Don’t, Arden. Please don’t be embarrassed. It was just enough to taste, and you can have no idea how much you move me.”

  “Show me,” she said, recovering. “Come into me. Now. Please.”

  Wordlessly, simply, Courtenay obeyed her. She had been so hungry, so hot, so eager. Now, with him filling her, she wanted to go slowly, to savor him. She reached up to touch his face, to feel his lips with her fingertips, and she lifted her hips to take him in all the further. He pushed more deeply into her each time he pumped, and what began as a leisurely rhythm gradually escalated. While she still maintained enough control to look up at him, she looked into his eyes. He returned her gaze with a warmth and desire that seared her heart with their intensity.

  “Oh, God, Arden, I’ve missed you!” he whispered, before their breathing came too quick from them to allow more than the briefest, sharpest cries.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes!” She began to lose control then, no longer able to keep her eyes open against the waves of sensation rushing through her body. All she could manage was to hang on to him, to hold him to her with her arms, and with her legs. To hold his heat within her as tightly as if she gripped life itself.

  He drove into her again and again, and even after her first explosion rocked her, Courtenay continued. He softened her cries with his kisses, taking her above as thoroughly as he took her below. When he allowed her to breathe, she moaned, “Robert! Robert!” as he brought her to another peak. She no longer had the strength or the mind to put into words the disjointed thought that she might die from this. That he might kill her with the passion he provoked from her body. As the shocking pulses of pleasure threatened to engulf her for the fourth time, his mouth again sucked hard at her left breast. Arden bit down on his hard, smooth shoulder to keep herself from screaming. To hang on even tighter as she threatened to dissolve utterly. As she did, Courtenay finally cried out, holding her tightly as well on the point of his release. “I love you, Arden,” he told her breathlessly.

  “I love you, too,” she admitted shakily, trying to catch her own breath.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Courtenay awoke suddenly, and reached for Arden in vain. The other side of the bed was empty.

  “Over here,” said a quiet voice, before he had much time to wonder. The dim light of the newly-lit candle revealed Arden in a rocking chair opposite the foot of the bed. Cloaked in a white silk robe, loose dark hair framing her heart-shaped face, she nursed their child.

  He edged as close as he could to them without leaving
the bed. He had not exactly forgotten his daughter this night, but the stark, ravening need he’d felt for her mother had overwhelmed his desire to see the babe.

  “A wonder you didn’t hear her,” Arden whispered to him.

  “Maybe I did,” he answered, smiling. “Perhaps it just took me longer than you to rouse myself from sleep. I did work harder than you, you know.”

  Arden’s face glowed with quiet laughter. “I know nothing of the sort.”

  “How is she?” Courtenay asked. The baby looked lovely in the candlelight, and sucked vigorously enough, but he knew himself to be largely ignorant of children.

  “She is well.” Arden’s smile held no hesitation, and Courtenay nodded his contentment. The pair of them made such a wondrous picture. Perhaps his thought blasphemed, but he knew he had never studied a painting of the Madonna and Child more beautiful in any of the foreign palaces he toured during the King’s exile. Even remembering the way Arden had loved him a few hours before did nothing to diminish the association.

  He laid his palm against his daughter’s cheek, and a startled chuckle escaped him. Beneath the smooth delicacy of her skin, the facial muscles working for her nourishment moved with surprising strength. “Good, my sweet Helena,” he murmured to her. “My beautiful little babe.”

  To Arden he said: “She’ll never want for anything.” As soon as the words sounded in his own ears, he regretted them. So hollow. So inadequate to what he felt for her. To what he felt for her mother. He attempted to improve upon his last utterance.

  “I meant what I said, Arden. I love you.”

  Though her countenance remained mild as she looked up at him, the smile had vanished from her full, rosy lips. “You meant it,” she sighed, “but what does it mean? You are betrothed to a high-born lady.”

  “A high-born girl,” he corrected. “Besides, Arden, marriage is a mere institution.”

  “I’ve never been to Bedlam, so I couldn’t say.” A smile returned, far too wry to suit him. Helena had fallen asleep at her breast, but she gently shifted the baby to her shoulder anyway, patting her small back with a sure hand.

  “Seriously, Arden. Even though I became betrothed purely upon the will of my father and hers, I had intended to have any pleasure I wanted until Mademoiselle Braquilanges grew old enough to be a wife. But then I meant to stop―to make the best of the marriage that I could. Even after I met you, I intended that we should enjoy each other until I was married, and no longer. I would have left you provided for.”

  “Would have?” Her eyebrows raised, the only part of her face betraying expression. Helena belched softly in her sleep. Arden kept the baby at rest against her shoulder.

  “Everything has changed,” he said. Courtenay could not keep himself from telling her these things, these things he had just begun to fully realize. “While at sea, while in port, while performing my duties to the King―I thought about you constantly,” he continued. “I longed to be back, and longed to make love to you. When the King told me you had married Malley, I could not believe my loss. The thought I could never hold you again hurt more than I had ever imagined it could.”

  “Kitty gave me the impression you were angry,” Arden said. He could not quite match the look on her face with any known emotion.

  “I was angry,” he admitted. “I know now why you did it, though, and I have only myself to blame. But Arden―and I say this with no malice toward Malley―I am so glad to have you back again! And I will not give you up.”

  “I meant what I said, too,” said Arden. “I love you. But I am not the same innocent girl who thought you had come to court me at Davenant’s. I know you don’t intend to break the betrothal.”

  He sighed. “No,” he agreed. “But many men have marriages that are matches of land and money, while keeping their true loves much closer than their wives. Do you think that Charles Stuart will be true to the Infanta when he marries her?”

  “I meant what I said,” Arden repeated, “but how am I to feel when Lady Courtenay bears you a son, knowing what will have passed between the two of you to get one?” This time she was the one to sigh before continuing. “Let’s not talk of it any more, Robert. Let’s be content for now, just to be with each other.”

  “All right,” he agreed, grateful for the respite. He looked again at his daughter, sleeping peacefully on Arden’s shoulder. “May I put her to bed for you?”

  “You may carry her as far as the door,” Arden whispered, “but Bonnie would not care to have you intrude upon her room.”

  He chuckled.

  “Careful you don’t wake her,” Arden cautioned, handing him his daughter. He could not believe the love he felt for the tiny bundle. He walked slowly to the maid’s door, cuddling Helena. He reluctantly handed her back to Arden, and she disappeared into the other room. She returned alone, her face now clear of trouble.

  “Come back to bed, Arden.”

  *****

  Arden did not know why she awoke. With all she had done during the better part of the night, she should have been completely unconscious. Beside her in bed, Courtenay slept peacefully. She tried not to disturb him as she sat up, her back against two of her fluffy pillows. The room was still mostly dark; dawn had not yet arrived. Without any real purpose or thought, she raised her glance to the rocking chair opposite, in which she had nursed Helena a few hours before.

  Brian sat in it, smiling.

  Except, of course, that he had completely changed. He appeared to be composed solely of bright, blue-white moonlight. Though everyone knew that ghosts―if they existed― were tormented souls, one step above the damned in Hell, Brian continued to smile at her. He appeared not to be tormented in the least.

  I am imagining things, thought Arden. If I blink, he will be gone.

  Slowly, carefully, she blinked.

  Brian still smiled back at her.

  “Why have you come back?” Arden whispered. She had no wish to wake Courtenay. She could not know if she feared he’d think her mad, or if she feared his full presence would make Brian’s disappear.

  Brian didn’t answer. He remained completely motionless, yet Arden would have sworn before a judge that whatever he had become looked at her with Brian’s eyes.

  “Won’t you talk to me?” she tried again.

  No reply from the brilliant white Brian in the chair. Arden sensed, however, that he loved her.

  Her eyes stung with sudden tears. “I’ve missed you, Brian,” she whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  Again she paused for an answer that did not come. Then a sudden thought occurred, and she quietly asked, “Can I touch you, Brian?”

  As she leaned toward the rocking chair, hand out-stretched, the smile flattened at the ends. He disappeared.

  I did not even ask him if he is all right, she thought. She put her hand over her mouth to prevent the sob that shook her from making any sound. In his sleep, Courtenay rolled over and placed his hand on her thigh. Arden lay back down, seeking his body warmth, but her sleep had vanished for the night.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  As soon as Courtenay left her the next morning, Arden sent Bonnie to Madame Davenant’s to discreetly inquire when Father Fernaut was next expected to minister to the theatrical community. On the chance her intuition―or hope ―proved correct, and the priest was available, she spent the time waiting for Bonnie’s return feeding and dressing Helena and herself.

  Courtenay had apologized for depriving her of her rest. When Arden looked in the small mirror hanging above her wash basin, she could certainly understand why. Her skin was pale―though not as white as Brian had been―and dark circles lay under her slightly bloodshot eyes. She smiled ruefully at herself, remembering Courtenay’s naive pride. “Depriving me of my rest, indeed,” she chuckled. “If you only knew.” Her smile remained, however, as she recalled Robert’s solicitous concern for her.

  “Stay in bed the rest of the day,” he had advised. “Let Bonnie take care of Helena while she’s not nursing,
and try to get some sleep.”

  Arden pursed her lips. Perhaps he was not so disinterested in his concern for her. He had mentioned the possibility of his return in the late afternoon. “Well, this probably will not be the last time I go against your father’s wishes,” she said to Helena as she applied a fresh nappy.

  Arden herself put on another black dress. Though a good widow wore black for a year, it was not so much for Brian as for herself and her daughter that she chose it. “I must tell your papa of the natural advantages to this shade,” she confided to Helena. “None but friends notice or recognize me when I don a simple black dress.”

  Arden had the babe on a large old quilt on the floor, with a few hardy toys ready to hand, when she heard Bonnie’s tread on the stairs. Helena could not crawl yet, but she could hold her head up. She could also roll over, and Arden knew moving beyond the confines of the quilt was not far off in her daughter’s future.

  “You were right,” Bonnie said upon her entrance. “Father Fernaut happens to have arrived at Madame Davenant’s just last evening. He is to say the Mass this afternoon, but he will see you before then, if you wish.”

  “Well,” said Arden, “Helena is fed and changed; she shouldn’t give you any trouble until long after I’m back. Would you mind, Bonnie?”

  “Not at all. It’s your business if you want to become a Papist.” Bonnie smiled, softening her words.

  “Well, your cousin was,” stated Arden.

  “And Lord Robert is,” teased Bonnie.

  “I have no intention of converting. I just find Father Fernaut very helpful to talk with at times.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Bonnie asked.

  “No,” Arden said. “Nothing other than looking after Helena.” She had not spoken to Bonnie of what she had seen the night before. She did not want to upset her husband’s kinswoman until she had spoken with a theological expert. Arden realized that she could go to the priest in her own church. Somehow, though, she felt better about Fernaut, felt he would not call her crazy or—call this bad in any way.