Kiss Me Darkly

by Cecilia Gray

  “Go on,” she said.

  Dinah’s eyes were nothing like a summer day. They were a cold, country storm, he decided. He rubbed his arm and continued the tale, until he reached its climax. “Finally, her voice joined in the music. A mezzo-soprano, lovely. She brought each note to life. Ow! Is that really necessary?” He yanked his arm back after she’d pinched him again.

  “Continue,” she said.

  He placed both hands back on his knees. “Listening to her, I felt all my cares lift away.”

  “Cares?” She stopped her slow perambulation. “What cares?”

  He’d normally never share such concerns with a woman. He’d certainly never plague poor Lily with such pedestrian and depressing thoughts, but he knew Dinah could manage them. “I fought in the Battle of Salamanca and had misgivings about my time there. Not about the battle itself, but my actions in particular. The lives I took.”

  She stood before him, chewing her lip contemplatively. “I suppose notions of your service to your country do not assist your conscience?”

  “To some degree. I am not plagued like some who experience nightmares or fugue states, but I returned feeling as if I were no longer myself, because as myself, I would never have taken a single life.”

  “And so it is,” she said. “You are now a different person and can never recover the person you used to be. I mourn for you, too, but please know, the person you are now is still quite capital.”

  A vague sense of peace stole through him at her simple words. He had once shared his feelings with Savage, who had clapped his hand on Graham’s shoulder and assured him he was still the same person. He had felt inclined to argue but couldn’t without seeming disagreeable. Yet, Dinah’s truth was as he knew it to be: he was not the same person. It was a relief not to be argued with.

  “I appreciate your assessment,” he said.

  They exchanged smiles, but as the moment lengthened, he felt anxious again, as if it would be impossible to sit still a moment longer. As if he must stand and go to her if he didn’t speak. “Let us not tarry,” he said, breaking the spell before he did goodness knew what. “At the time, I was in a darkened mood and attempting to hide it, but my feelings only rotted beneath. When combined with my estimation of my place in this world, I must confess to a melancholy I wasn’t able to escape until the moment I heard her sing.”

  “What was the song?”

  “‘The Soldier’s Adieu,’” he said.

  She walked behind him and he got up to follow her to the far wall, against which rested a dusty, battered pianoforte, one for the servants’ use. She opened the top, which groaned in protest.

  Her fingers tapped on the piano until she found the starting note. She played the first three notes but the fourth struck a sour tune. “Give me a moment.” She tried again and again, making it a few notes further each time. With a sigh, Graham walked over to her, sat next to her on the bench, and bade her scoot over.

  She moved an inch but he still felt her against his side as she leaned over to study the keys. He rested his hands over them and began to play. As music swelled through the room, he could recall that night.

  “She was wearing white. Her voice was sweet and mellow. It was impossible not to—Ow!” Graham’s fingers slammed against the keys, and he jerked away, rubbing his arm where Dinah had pinched it yet again, even harder this time than the two before.

  She studied his reaction, her lips pursed. “Again,” she said.

  “Are you mad?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I’m thorough. I already explained how this would work. We must repeat the triggers for your romantic feelings and associate them with unpleasant memories.”

  He thought he must be mad because he remained on the bench next to her and began to play once more. Dinah pinched him. Yanked his hair. Pulled his ear. His fingers slipped to foul and sharp notes.

  Upon a particularly sharp jab to his shoulder blade, he abruptly stopped playing and swore so creatively he considered writing it down for later use. Finally, through the fog of discomfort, he shouted, “Shakespeare! Shakespeare!”

  He turned his head with a scowl and caught Dinah’s gray eyes as wide as the moon, with her mouth open in a surprised O.

  “Seeing you speechless is nearly worth the pain,” he grumbled.

  “I see I am not the only one besides the Bard who can make up words.”

  He sighed and reached over his shoulder to rub his back, wincing. “You could give Christian a run for his money. Fists like hams or not, he’s no match for your fingers.”

  “You must take notes.” She scooted close enough that he could feel her warmth seeping into him. “I cannot conduct this study on my own. I shall likely not see you for many months, possibly longer, and we cannot allow the length of time between treatments—”

  “Treatments?” he said with an amused grin.

  “—to be too long. I suggest weekly desensitization, at the least.”

  He drew his finger along the keys in a long trill, his arm crossing in front of her. “Do you really think it will work?”

  “I think we must try.”

  “I will admit that for the past ten minutes at least, I have not thought of her without great discomfort.” He shot her a grin. “It’s quite difficult to entertain amorous thoughts when one is being assaulted for another’s pleasure.”

  “For science,” she amended. But he caught a flicker of a grin at her lips.

  He let his fingers take up the keys again, this time quickening his play and turning out a bawdy Scottish bar song he’d heard over and over during one drunken sojourn.

  “What is that?” she asked, leaning closer.

  “This is a song for you,” he said, “about a woman who breaks men’s hearts.”

  “I would never—”

  “I know,” he interrupted with a knowing smile. “But the lyrics remind me of you.” He paused a beat. “I wish I could be like you, Dinah.”

  “Yes, well, being me does have a fair number of benefits.”

  He lifted his fingers from the piano and studied her soberly. “I meant I wish I could see the world as you see it. With logic and reason. To you it does not make sense for my feelings to continue, so they should not. What most people in the world wouldn’t give for such ability. You know your feelings and you act accordingly. You have no need to give false friendship, nor to alter your feelings to accommodate others. I daresay you’d be just as happy alone as in a room filled with people.”

  He couldn’t recall ever paying a higher compliment, but she did not thank him. She rose sharply.

  “We should return to the party.”

  Before he could agree, she had quit the room. His closed the piano, surprised he wasn’t more grateful for the end to her painful little experiment.

  * * *

  Miss D.,

  I confess I have not willingly continued your experiments. I enjoy not being in pain—not, I’d like to think, more than the average person. I am presenting you with a copy of my favorite Shakespearean sonnets. In rebuttal to your claim that his work merely reflects coy descriptions of female beauty, might I offer Sonnet CXXX. Here the poet is clearly enamored of a woman who is not beautiful, but in whom only he finds beauty. Hopefully even you can see the poetry in that.

  G.

  * * *

  Lord G.,

  I am disappointed to find you unwilling to continue my experiment. However, in fairness to you as the subject, I am embarking on another line of inquiry with which I believe you will find no fault. I am still reviewing the scientific literature to ensure its sound application.

  I thank you for the book of poetry but must disagree with your analysis of the poet’s intent. While you have interpreted the sonnet to declare love for a woman, I believe it to be otherwise. The poet writes his ‘mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun’ and ‘coral is far more red than her lips’ red.’ I actually believe this to be a satirical address to other styles in the vein of the ode, specifically by Shakespear
e’s rival at the time, Edmund Spenser, who may have been guilty of such comparisons.

  D.

  * * *

  Miss D.,

  While I would normally bow to your greater intellect, in this I must disagree, as I believe your intellect is searching for analysis where there is none. While I admit there is something to be said for the choice in syntax and meter that does mock the style of Spenser, it is still, at its heart, about loving a woman who could be loved by no other: poetry in fact, if not in words.

  G.

  * * *

  Lord G.,

  You will be glad to know I have consulted several experts at Oxford and am able to declare us both correct! Surely a feat never to be repeated. Mark the day.

  D.

  Chapter Four

  Second annual Belle birthday crush

  July 2, 1818

  Woodbury, England

  It was the second annual Belle birthday crush, and Graham watched as a dozen horses were made ready for the hunt. Ladies tied favors—ribbons and such—to the saddles in mock tribute to their favored rider. The dogs strained at their harnesses.

  “Will you not join us?” Savage asked as his man secured his sleeve buttons.

  Graham shrugged. “I do not feel the need to ride.” If he were to be honest, he had only one desire and that was to see his way to Dinah’s side. He hated to admit he was dreadfully curious about what she had up her sleeve.

  “But so many have remarked that they desire your pleasant company as in years past.” Savage smirked. “Not that I am in agreement of their assessment of your character, but who am I to correct their misperceptions?”

  A rude gesture was Graham’s retort.

  Savage laughed as he set one boot in the nearest stirrup and hoisted his other leg over his horse’s back. “It’s so unlike you not to be accommodating. You’ve no need to play the host.”

  “There are hosts enough at this party, yes.”

  “As you wish, my friend,” Savage said, giving his horse a nudge forward.

  Graham waited until the horn blew for the hunt before he made his way around the pond to the gardener’s cottage. He and Dinah had not made any plans to meet, but he felt certain she would be there, nonetheless. How strange that their relationship should transform such in so short a time. True, they had known each other for years, but in actuality, when the minutes of their interactions were quantified, they were few, indeed. At least, that’s how Dinah would see it.

  A relationship had begun as a series of polite interactions, yet he felt an intimacy with her based on their correspondence that he could not claim with another. A friendship, as it were.

  It was novel. It was nice.

  She was waiting when he arrived, just as he’d suspected. She was pacing the cottage kitchen but smiled upon laying eyes on him. “You came! I was worried.”

  “That I would not come?”

  She nodded. “I recall your displeasure at our last meeting.”

  His body fairly throbbed at the memory. “I cannot listen to Dibdin without flinching.”

  She clapped with delight, then stopped suddenly. “You needn’t lie to accommodate my feelings.”

  “I am not lying,” he said. “I daresay that should you wish to pursue a line of scientific inquiry by creating bad associations with works of art or music, you will have a robust practice.”

  “I shall certainly bear it in mind. However, for today, I believe I have another line of experiments to attempt.” She gestured toward the kitchen table and went to sit. He followed her, noticing that she had laid a series of items upon it, including several pieces of chocolate, a glass of red wine, and the book of sonnets he had given her.

  “Did you enjoy it?” he asked, flicking open the worn, brown cover. He tested the pages. They had all been cut. The corners had been turned in. Her neat scribble marked the margins. Slips of other pages and thoughts had been placed between the leaves. His chest nearly puffed out from pride that he’d chosen his gift well.

  “From an academic standpoint, there is much to learn of the English language from Shakespeare’s sonnets,” she said. “And once I discovered his writings were more than their surface meaning, I found it an interesting study, indeed.”

  “Not my intention,” he admitted, closing the book, “but I am glad of it.” It had been well worth the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. He had wanted to give her a volume from the Bard’s home—not that he had disclosed that detail—but it gave him pleasure to know it. His gaze passed back over to the chocolate and wine. “Are we to imbibe and read? Will you flay me while I am unawares? I worry I shall choke.”

  “These are some of your favorite things,” she said.

  He realized that in fact it was true. “I understand the book of poetry, but how do you know I prefer this vintage? And chocolate?”

  She shrugged. “You always select a glass of claret when it is offered, and I’ve seen you sneak this chocolate off your own brother’s plate.”

  “Sincerely, if the Crown does not employ you, all hope is lost.”

  “Nonsense.” Her cheeks warmed with blush as she glanced away. “To return to the subject, over the course of the past year, I have made the acquaintance of Mary Somerville.”

  “Vice Admiral Fairfax’s daughter?”

  “Yes, the very one. She has pursued several interesting inquiries into science with the assistance of her husband, Dr. William Somerville.”

  He shuddered. “Doctors,” he muttered, as though it were an expletive.

  She did not roll her eyes but he felt the effect just the same. “As I was saying, she is quite well known in medical and scientific circles, so I sought her advice. Upon sharing my experiments with her—”

  “When you say sharing,” he interrupted, “might I inquire as to the level of detail you are providing?”

  “Your identity is quite anonymous,” she said.

  He reached for the wine, but she slapped his hand, not altogether an unpleasant sensation, if he was to be honest. Her fingers did have a light touch about them when they weren’t pinching.

  “While Mrs. Somerville admired my reasoning, she also indicated that love was such a powerful emotion, such a positive one, that it would be impossible to overcome it with negativity.”

  He gave her a deadpan look. “Please tell me this is information you only gathered yesterday and not last year. Surely I have not spent the past fifty-some weeks participating in self-harm to no end.”

  “I thought you had chosen not to continue.”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps from time to time I indulged to accommodate your research.”

  She waved his comment away as if it were about the weather and not his personal well-being. “I stand by my assertions that providing negative associations to your positive memories will still assist your recovery. However, I believe it is now time for the next round of inquiry.”

  “Which is?” he said warily.

  “We disrupt your positive feelings for Lady X, replacing them with more positive emotions.” She gestured to the table again. “So there you have it.”

  He glanced back at the table. “You wish to equate my love for Lady X with my taste for wine, chocolate, and poetry?”

  She scowled.

  “Because while I would never fault your personal appreciation for wine, chocolate, and poetry, rest assured that my feelings for Lady X far exceed them.” He cocked his head to study her bewildered face. “You’ve no notion of romantic love at all, do you? Of passion? Of what it does to you? By God, it would do you good, Dinah.”

  Her head tilted as she stared at him with those guileless gray eyes, taking in his words. She was so cool, so unaffected. He was gripped by the need to see her shaken, her breathing rapid, her eyes dilated. It was such an unexpected feeling that he closed his eyes and turned away so she wouldn’t know the direction of his thoughts.

  He willed his mind back to the task at hand, to Lily especially—her mesmerizing voice, her appreciation for art and all thin
gs beautiful. Still, the image pressed into him—Dinah, her head thrown back, her lips parted.

  “Are you all right?” Dinah said. “I didn’t make you cry, did I?”

  And there it ended.

  With a sigh, he looked at her, ever practical in a simple green silk dress with kid gloves that reached up past her elbows. She was the guest of honor at the ball, yet wore a tenth of the pomp and circumstance of the other attendees. And she believed him the weakest of men, which, for some reason, bothered him. “I am not crying.”

  “You were squeezing your eyes shut.”

  “I was thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Currently, strangling you.”

  “Nonsense.” She patted the chair at the table and gestured for him to sit. Then she walked around the table to take the seat across from him.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Now,” she said, “we make a happy memory.”

  * * *

  Dinah studied Graham across the table. He was even leaner than he had been last year. She could make out the strength he’d developed in his shoulders, where his coat strained against his muscles. She mourned the roundness of his friendly cheeks but seemed to be the only one. She had hastened to the cottage after overhearing a gaggle of ladies commenting on his newly chiseled jaw.

  He sat there with a pinched expression and stared at the objects of pleasure as if they were words in a complex foreign language he couldn’t read. “How am I to just make a happy memory?”

  This was her experiment. She should know how to proceed. Yet, she felt at a loss. She’d often read scientific journals for pleasure, but she zipped through the details of their procedures: how the scientists readied their subjects and the tests that were performed. These segments were given a cursory review so she could skip to the segment she cared about most, the observations. Results. Progress. Ideas.

  It had never occurred to her to consider the process leading up to those results, which was now necessary with her own test subject in her own experiment.