by Matilda Hart
“You seem very sure of yourself,” she said.
“When I said I led a retiring life, I did not mean I sat in a chair all day. I know the grounds, the road, the village very well. I visit the tenants and check on needed repairs with my workmen and overseer. I go to market days, of course. But I spend my leisure time here in the gardens.”
Manuel paused by a flowerbed planted with roses. A few were blooming, the rest in tight buds awaiting warmer weather. Most were white, with a few pinks. The largest blossom, pure creamy white, seemed to gleam in the wash of moonlight. She bent to take in its perfume.
“You like roses but you complained of my perfume!” she teased.
“I like real flowers, not counterfeit. You should smell like a woman, not a plant. Be what you are, however you desire. I have no need of false scents on you. Curls and rouge are wasted on a blind man. I care only that you have your brilliant personality, your curiosity and strength.”
She was struck speechless. He liked her for who she was, not for her outward beauty. Aileen froze, stooped above the white blossom as if she had no idea what to do next.
“Thank you,” she said at last, “I’m curious, though. Why do you plant flowers—which are grown for show, to look pretty—when you can’t see them yourself? Is it for their scent?”
“Don’t you know? I have been growing them all these years for you. Not a bouquet, but an entire garden of roses for my bride,” he said expansively, his handsome face serious, earnest. Aileen could not contain herself then. She got to her feet, flung her arms around him and kissed him—his cheeks, his forehead, his lips—in a flurry of affection. He laughed fondly.
“That is very much the response I had hoped for,” he said. Aileen withdrew from him again, growing a little embarrassed at his laughter, indulgent though it sounded.
“Forgive me, my lord,” she said quietly.
“Never. I am your husband, the man who grew these flowers for you. I am not his lordship who must forgive you. I don’t stand in judgment over anyone…apart from the people in the marquisate obviously…”
“What?”
“I’m the sitting magistrate. Justice being blind traditionally…feel free to laugh. I decide boundary disputes and broken engagements and how the goods of a dead person are to be dispersed.”
“I didn’t know that marquesses held jobs like the common man!” she said.
“Hardly. I’m not a marquess. My father is, and long may he live. I work with the overseer to make sure the tenants have well-maintained housing and that they’re feeding their livestock and caring for them properly. I hear petty arguments and arbitrate to the best of my ability. It’s a service to our people, Aileen. Just as you will find a way to serve when you’re ready. This is a substantial change for you, from living without a care in the world to being married to someone like me and trying to find your path.”
“I wasn’t aware that there were paths for women, respectable ones at least.”
“Touché. I would have you know that my mother, before her health prevented it, did much work with the poor of our parish. She arranged for a communal garden where the poorest could work one day each week in exchange for a basket of produce to feed their families. She brought the first doctor into the marquisate. Before that everyone relied on the apothecary because there was no surgeon within a day’s ride. Anyone of means went to Manchester or London if dire care was needed, and the rest simply suffered. She could tell you tales, could my mother.”
“I haven’t had the honor of meeting the marchioness. When may I?”
“I do not think it wise. She suffered a series of strokes when I was nine years old—it was in childbed, the babe was lost. It was a terrible time all around and she lost her power to speak. She does not walk any longer. A nurse cares for her and I visit her, but, knowing the proud and generous woman she was, I do not expect she would want her son’s bride to meet her in such a state.”
“Oh. I had wanted to pay my respects to her. I had envisioned her in sickbed.”
“It is worse than sickbed, for there might have been hope of recovery if that were the case, not this long, empty half life she has to lead. It is a grief to my father and myself.”
“I’m sorry, Manuel. I did not mean to give you pain.”
“I know,” he said, “I should not have kept you so long from your sleep. I was lonesome for my wife, but I fear the maudlin tenor of our talk has not been what I hoped for. I will bid you good night,” he said and took leave of her at the door. Bemused, she found herself unable to sleep, wondering if she might be bold enough to open that door to his room, to go to him. She found she lacked the courage.
Chapter 4
In the coming days, Aileen felt ill at ease. She retrimmed a perfectly lovely bonnet, fussed with the curling tongs before supper each night—all for naught because he couldn’t see her and the only lures she knew that attracted men were skin deep. She had no experience with such a man, a man who thought and felt things deeply, who was interested in her mind more than her face and figure. She tried to entice in the only way she knew—by making herself more beautiful, more desirable to look at. In truth, with the bloom in her cheeks and the brightness of her eyes as she followed his every gesture, she had never looked lovelier. It was lost to the man she loved, though, the very man who produced such a tangible reaction, such a visible transformation in her.
At supper one night, she told him of the idea she had devised to help her find her path, as he called it, and ease her transition from the life of a pampered daughter to that of an active, helpful wife and future marchioness. She smiled sweetly, though she knew he wouldn’t notice—perhaps it put sugar in her voice, “Manuel, I had wondered if you might be agreeable to having a ball here to celebrate our marriage. We could invite our relations and I’m sure your father has a vast acquaintance who would love to share our joy and see a happy gathering here at the manor. You have a wonderful ballroom that has fallen into disuse.”
“I have told you before I am not fond of large gatherings due to the noise and crowds. I find it unsettling. If nothing will please you but to have a party, then have one with my blessing. I shall stand with you to greet our guests and accept their good wishes,” he said.
“Thank you, my lord. I thought perhaps it would be good to try my hand at being hostess in my new home. I did arrange small dinners for Father and his friends but I have never had the opportunity to throw a ball with supper and flowers and every good thing!”
“I hear the excitement in your voice and it pleases me that I could make you happy by granting so slight a request. Only choose the date and order the invitations from a stationer. There is a good one at Leeds. I’m sure James can provide you with the name,” he said.
Aileen set about preparations, and the marquess himself was eager to supply his new daughter with a list of peers who must be included. Extra kitchen staff was engaged temporarily and two more scullions for the heavy cleaning. Draperies were taken down for cleaning and carpets were dragged outside and beaten in preparation for the day. The Duke of Kilmartin came in due course and was first to arrive. Instead of spending the day before the ball with his daughter, he went round the property with the marquess and took port with the men after supper—a custom the marquess and Manuel never kept, --leaving Aileen, the lone woman in the party, to sit in the drawing room with a book at her knee, wondering what they said about her.
The day of the ball dawned and Aileen felt the sizzle of excitement. The fine, cavernous manor would be filled with fashionable aristocrats eager to welcome her into their circle. She couldn’t wait to be in a crowded room of admirers again, accepting offers of a dance, accepting glasses of wine punch and compliments. Too much solitude had made her moon over her own husband, a blind man who grew flowers whose blooming he would never see. A magistrate…an enforcer of rules, when she fancied herself a rule breaker, uniquely above the fray.
That afternoon was a flurry of preparation. She bathed in scented water, brus
hed her auburn hair one hundred strokes. Her ball gown was one she had never worn, a ruby red silk with a creamy colored net lace overlay, richly embroidered. The cut of the gown was daring, screaming for attention. Her hair was caught up at the nape of her neck with jeweled hairpins. Any man with eyes—she winced inwardly at the thought—would be gagging for a chance at her tonight. Any man would worship her, take her to bed. Any man but the husband who could not see her and would not, it seemed, ever make an advance toward her. It was a lonely marriage—a few exciting conversations sprinkled through weeks of quiet as she waited for she knew not what. For the storm to break, she supposed.
She was a bit breathless from the tight lacing of her corset, which made her décolleté swell appealingly with every little gasp. She sipped a glass of wine as she waited for her guests to arrive. A pair of perfect white roses arrived from her husband, brought by her maid with a note asking that she wear them for him tonight. She obliged, having the blooms secured in her hair becomingly. She looked like an empress, she thought as she looked at her reflection.
Aileen waited at the foot of the grand staircase to receive the first arrivals. Manuel joined her, handsome in evening dress. He told her that she looked lovely and she scoffed.
“I’m certain you do look lovely, Aileen. My lady. I do not need eyes to tell me you are beautiful. I hear what you say, and the breath between your words where you conceal the things you are loath to share. In time you will trust that and stop trying so dreadfully hard,” Manuel said.
Two earls with their countesses, an admiral and his wife, the guests arrived seemingly all at one. They were all admiration for Aileen’s beauty, declared she would be an ornament West Yorkshire and that it was delightful to be invited to the manor that had not seen a ball in decades. She welcomed them warmly, smiling as Manuel introduced her as his wife, the Lady Aileen, future marchioness.
“I cannot wait for our first dance as husband and wife. Let us open the ball. I have chosen a reel. You told me you had dancing lessons as a child so you mustn’t feign ignorance and try to avoid dancing with your bride!” she said.
“You must dance it with the marquess, then, if you had planned to open the ball thus. I do not dance. My balance is not good without the sense of sight. My ebony cane is not merely for show. I wish you had consulted me as I hate that you got your hopes up only to be disappointed. Father, I’m sure, will oblige you, or else ask the duke,” he said, “I have done my duty. Enjoy your party.”
She watched helplessly as Manuel left her standing alone, retreating to his library and his quiet. She forced a smile and appealed to the marquess, who agreed to dance the first with her. He was as charming as she had found him at her coming out, clever and merrier than he had been since she’d lived there. The party did him good, she decided, even if his son decided to be a hermit instead of conversing and enjoying himself. She danced the next with an earl whose wife was in her confinement and had remained at home. She found the man dashing and told him so. He whispered irreverent things to her as they danced and she laughed aloud.
Aileen made sure all her guests were well supplied with punch and growing jolly with music, dancing and wine. The dowager had come from Dublin to attend and praised Aileen’s arrangements of flowers and choice of dances. A group of young ladies just out of their first season and still seeking husbands sought her out and remarked with awe at her lovely home, her most fortunate marriage—for though he was only to be a marquess, it was well known how wealthy the family was.
Only men commented on her gown, calling it most becoming, extraordinary and vibrant. Women refrained from referring to the daring choice. As she caught her breath after a particularly quick country dance, sipping another wine punch and giggling at nothing in particular, the earl from the first quadrille sought her out.
“You look as if you could use a breath of air. We don’t want our dazzling hostess to collapse of heat and fatigue. Do allow me to escort you to the gardens. You can show me your flowers,” he said, offering his arm and guiding her out of the crush of the ballroom.
Aileen swatted at him with her fan when he called her by her Christian name. He only told her to call him Benjamin in return. They stepped down from the terrace into the rose garden. He touched the blooms in her hair.
“Did you grow these, too?” he asked, leaning in close to whisper, his breath warm on her skin.
“No, my husband tends the roses himself. I know little of plants.”
“Ah, so he can give you flowers but cannot dance with you or stay by your side—what other needs does he fail to meet?” Benjamin asked in a low, suggestive voice. She felt a blush of shame, the secret knowledge that Manuel had tried to take her to his bed, had never said or done anything to indicate that he desired her at all. She couldn’t meet Benjamin’s provocative gaze.
“It’s as bad as all that then? Did you have the party to conceal the—coldness of the marriage?” he pressed.
“No, not at all. We wanted to celebrate—I did. I wanted to celebrate,” she corrected grimly.
“He had his father stand in for him in the reel. Does he expect another man to supply his place elsewhere? Because I know a man who would gladly do so,” Benjamin said, his mouth at her cheek, her ear, her neck. Aileen shuddered with revulsion and drew back.
“I should go check on my husband, see how his headache is,” she demurred and rushed back indoors as if she were being pursued. She reached her husband’s library and knocked at the door, almost afraid he would not admit her.
“Yes?” his voice came.
“It’s—Aileen, my lord, may I come in?”
“Yes,” he said. She found him much as she had that first day she arrived, sitting in an armchair, one of his books across his lap, the sort with raised print that were so costly, but were the only ones he could read on his own. She remembered reading to him one day from a volume of poetry, how he had complimented her low, expressive voice. It gave her a pang of thwarted desire, of knowledge that she was already in love with a man who didn’t desire her.
The corsetry made her unable to sit in a chair, so she stood at his elbow, uncertain for a moment. Then he took her hand in his and the thrill of his touch gave her courage.
“Don’t you want me at all?” she said, her voice coming out plaintive when she had meant to be practical, “You’ve never touched me, never come to my—my bed.”
“I came to you on our wedding night and you grew all prickly and said you were exhausted. I have respected that, have waited in vain all these weeks for you to give me some sign you had come to care for me as I care for you. I thought in the rose garden that night, for a moment, that you liked me despite my defect. But you pulled away so quickly, as if repulsed,” he said ruefully.
“No!” she said, “not repulsed. Afraid! Afraid that such a man would not want me, would think I was soiled and unworthy because of my conduct and my reputation. I lay awake so many nights desiring your—your touch, Manuel. Are you so cold toward me? How could you think that I was repulsed when I trembled any time you touched me?”
“I was never sure that you weren’t merely making yourself endure my touch, my company. I would make you my wife in an instant, I would show you how I am not cold to you. Lock the door, woman,” he said. She swept to the door and turned the bolt with satisfaction. Turning back to join him, she found him behind her. Aileen bumped into him by accident and he threw his cane aside, gathering her in his arms, crushing the ruby silk dress, his mouth hot on hers. She felt the heat of his hands through the silk of her gown, heard the tear of the delicate net lace as he pushed the sleeve down so he could kiss her shoulder. She gave a soft cry as Manuel’s palm cupped the swell of her breast. She opened his shirt, her hands eager for his warm smooth skin against her palms. She wanted to remove her dress, but the corsetry, the lacings were too intricate for a blind man and she could not see or reach them herself. She whispered to him as much and he smiled against her mouth.
“I’m a resourceful man, Aileen,
” he said, pushing her skirts up and reaching for her drawers, pulling them down. She kicked them away, gasping in shock and excitement as he put his hands on her bare legs.
“Oh!” she squeaked as his hands made their way up her thighs. Her legs trembled, her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t get enough of his touch, of the feel and taste of his skin. Even now she set her mouth to his throat, wondering idly where they could consummate their weeks-old marriage in this library. The floor seemed too cold, too sordid, but neither was she willing to leave off and go seek a bedroom. Outside the door, she could hear the clamor of the ball going on without them.
“Make me your wife. Here,” she said, breathless, opening his breeches with eager hands.
“Here? As you say, my lady,” he said, shoving her skirts up and stepping between her knees.
He lifted her by her thighs and pressed her back to the sturdy wooden door she had just locked. She squealed in surprise and wanton delight as he kissed her full on the mouth, his tongue parting her lips as he thrust into her. Aileen’s cry of pleasure and pain was sharp and brief as he seated himself within her. She clung to him, her legs clamped around his hips, groaning with each powerful stroke. Her nails dug into his back as swirls of icy pleasure blotted out her vision, starting low in her stomach and rolling over her in waves as she climaxed with a shriek. Manuel pushed into her a final time and found his release, his arms going around her as he lowered her to stand. She was sobbing from her release and from the intimacy, the closeness she had experienced, unlike anything she’d ever known.
