The Secretary

by Brooke, Meg

  She closed her eyes and allowed the water to wash away her aches. She did not notice when the door opened and closed—she was quite near to falling asleep. But when Anders pressed a soft kiss to her brow, she opened her eyes and smiled up at him, too tired even to feel self-conscious at being seen in the bath.

  “Go back to sleep,” he said.

  “Mmm. The water’s getting cold anyway,” she replied, holding out her hand for a towel. He handed one to her. “You know,” she said, “as much as Lord Sidney complains about having to discuss it in the Lords, there might be something to allocating those funds for repairing the turnpike roads. I feel black and blue all over.”

  As she stood and wrapped herself in the towel, Anders dropped into the chair in the corner and watched her. “Are you sure you’re not sore for a different reason?” he asked.

  She flushed. “Libertine.”

  “I believe,” he said, rising from the chair and crossing to her, “it takes two to behave wantonly enough to earn that epithet.” He took the corners of her towel in his hands and used it to pull her closer.

  “Then I suppose we are both shameless libertines,” she said, feeling a little foolish standing there in nothing but her towel when he was fully dressed. She reached up and tugged at his cravat. “You have too many clothes on.”

  “Perhaps you can help me remedy the situation,” he said, and he dropped his mouth to hers, dropping the towel at the same time.

  Instantly Clarissa was on fire. The feel of his coat and shirt as her body pressed against him was agony. She reached for his cravat again as his tongue delved deep into her mouth. When she had it loose, she slid her hands inside his coat and pushed it off his shoulders. He let it fall. Her fingers found the buttons of his waistcoat and began working them, and in short order the garment joined his coat on the floor. She pulled his shirt free of his trousers and broke their kiss so that she could tug it up over his head, though he had to help her because she was not tall enough to pull it off. Then his hands were slipping back around her waist and he pulled her against him so that she could feel his arousal.

  “No,” she whispered, and she put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. He looked rather bemused until she said, “I want to be in the lead this time.”

  He smiled, his dark hair falling over his face as he regarded her. “Very well,” he said, his voice very low and breathy.

  She kept her hands on his muscled chest and pushed him gently back until his legs met the bed and then she shoved him down onto the coverlet. She climbed atop him, straddling his legs, and leaned down to kiss him, brushing his hair back from his face as she did so. She trailed kisses down his chin and neck and over his chest. When her lips neared his nipple she heard his breath catch in his throat, and she knew what she wanted. Delicately, looking up into his eyes, she stuck out her tongue and licked.

  “Oh, God,” he moaned. She blew softly and then bit him gently. He whispered her name. She moved lower, kissing over the taut muscles of his stomach until she reached the waist of his trousers. She did not fumble with the buttons this time, but when she had them free, she paused and bent down to tug his boots off. Then she slid back up, reaching to pull at his trousers until he sprung free.

  Clarissa stared at him for a moment, not quite believing what she was about to do. But when she looked up and saw him watching her, she knew that he wanted it. She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his erection and then licked him from base to tip, her fingers trailing her tongue.

  “Clarissa,” he hissed. “I don’t think I can wait any longer.”

  She smiled up at him. “Neither can I,” she said, and she settled herself atop him, taking him inside her. The friction was delicious. Slowly, she began to rock, finding the rhythm that made both their hearts beat faster. He put his hands on her hips as she rode him, sliding his hands up to her breasts and then back down her ribcage. She continued to rock until she was gasping for breath, and then the pleasure broke loose inside her and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. He grasped her hips and thrust up into her, hard and fast, until she felt him spill inside her. Then she collapsed onto his chest, his arms coming up to cradle her against him.

  When they had both caught their breath, he said, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked up an appetite now.”

  She laughed. “Me too.”

  When they had both dressed again, they went into Anders’s chamber, where supper had been laid out. They fell onto the food with gusto, devouring every last bite of the hearty fare. When they had eaten their fill, they relaxed back into their chairs.

  “Do you think...” Clarissa began, but then she trailed off, looking sheepish.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you suppose we might be able to visit Stonehenge tomorrow? It’s no more than a mile out of our way, and I’ve longed to see it ever since I read Stukeley’s treatise when I was a girl.”

  Anders knew he was staring at her. “I don’t see why not, but truly—you read Stukeley when you were a child?” He had not been able to wrap his head around the work of the noted antiquarian until he was at Cambridge.

  She shrugged. “I read anything that was put before me, Anders. It wasn’t as though there was much else to do, and my father forbade me nothing.”

  He chuckled at that. “Of course not,” he said. He was beginning to understand her a little better. She was not really a bluestocking, but a girl who, without other children to befriend, had found childhood companions on her father’s bookshelves. Still, he wondered at the odd things he was learning about her formative years. “Did you never have a governess when you were a girl?”

  She shook her head. “We had a housekeeper who also did the cooking. I called her Nanny Bab, and she was the closest thing I ever had to a governess. She tried to teach me to sew and embroider and do the things refined ladies did, but I’m afraid she failed miserably. I was not interested, and Papa refused to force me. Still, I was never unhappy with my lot. Cynthia had a governess when she grew older, and I never envied her the hours she spent over an embroidery hoop. Her father was determined that she would do well in society one day. In fact, he and my father had a great row about it once.”

  “Did they?”

  She nodded. “They were quite close once, I think. But when I was about nine or ten, my father began to say that he didn’t approve of the way Cynthia was being raised. I think he confronted her father about it, because there was a very loud argument in his study one evening, and after that I didn’t see him for nearly a year, though Cynthia and I still played together.”

  “Your father subscribed to the ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft, then?”

  “Do you know any true abolitionists who do not also believe that women must have rights equal to those of men?”

  Anders felt a little out of his depth. Suddenly a conversation about her childhood had evolved into a discussion of the great women thinkers. “I suppose not,” he admitted.

  “My father wanted me to be a liberated woman,” she said proudly, “and I think he wanted the same for Cynthia, though she was not his child. I think he looked on her as a beloved niece, for Roger Endersby with like a brother to him.”

  “A liberated woman?” Anders asked.

  She blushed. “And here I am, liberated as the day is long. But soon I will be a married woman, and my liberation will be at its end.”

  “I hope not,” he said, and her eyes grew a little wider. “I hope you will always feel comfortable sharing your thoughts and opinions with me. It is what I treasure most about you—I would hate for you to become a simpering society wife.”

  She rose from her chair and came over to him. There were tears at the corners of her eyes. “That may be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said, and she kissed him gently, her hands resting on the arms of his chair.

  “I will have to brush up on my Wollstonecraft,” he murmured against her lips.

  He did not want to let her return to her room after supper, bu
t she insisted that they could not spend the night together. “You’ll just have to dream of me,” she giggled as she left.

  He stared after her. He would be lucky to sleep at all.

  “Listen to this, Anders,” Clarissa said, not looking up from the pamphlet she had somehow managed to acquire in Amesbury before they had gotten into the carriage that morning, “‘The site is an ancient pagan holy ground, constructed for mythical purposes. Geoffrey of Monmouth discovered convincing evidence that the stones were transported from Africa to Ireland by giants and then relocated by the Merlin himself.’” She scoffed. “Geoffrey of Monmouth indeed. What rubbish.”

  Anders stared after her as she tromped up the hill towards the stones. Ever since the carriage had left the inn-yard that morning she had talked of nothing but Stonehenge. He had seen her excited before, about abolition and children’s rights and Irish independence, but this was something different.

  He reminded himself that she was an academic, that she was naturally curious, and that this was what he so adored about her. But he also couldn’t help but find her enthusiasm for what seemed to him to be a rather unremarkable circle of rocks rather amusing.

  He trailed after her up the hill. By the time he caught up, she was standing in the center of the circle, a look of fascination on her face. “Has anyone told you that you’re quite lovely when you’re analyzing historical sites?” he asked, coming to stand behind her.

  She frowned at him. “Anders, someone will see you.”

  He looked around. Stonehenge sat atop a low hill, and the countryside all around was visible for miles. There was no one in sight—not even a herd of sheep.

  Clarissa had turned her attention back to her pamphlet. He took another step closer so that her back was pressed right against him and rested his chin atop her head. He could feel the pins in her hair through her wig.

  “So Uther Pendragon is buried here?” he asked, reading along with her.

  “Apparently. Also Constantine III. I wonder how they came up with this rot. It’s laughable.” She closed the pamphlet and stuffed it into her coat pocket. “All this tripe when the purpose of this place is clear as day.”

  “Is it really?” he asked. She pulled away and turned to face him.

  “Close your eyes,” she said. He stared at her. “Please, Anders,” she said. He kept his gaze firmly fixed on her face. “If you close them, I’ll let you kiss me,” she offered. He shut his eyes at once. “Thank you. Now listen.”

  He listened. He heard nothing but the wind rustling through the trees and the faraway cry of a bird. “What am I listening for?” he asked after a few moments’ silence.

  “Don’t you feel that?” she asked. He opened his eyes. She had a strange look of rapturous elation on her face. When he said nothing, she added rather feebly, “It’s magic. Well, not exactly magic, but it’s that feeling that we aren’t alone. The millions of people who came before us and the millions who will come after leave something behind, a small piece of themselves for us to see and touch. Don’t you ever feel that way when you sit in the Lords? Like you’re doing something that will touch the lives of everyone who comes after you?”

  He blinked at her. Who was this woman? “What have you done with my rational, sane Clarissa?” he asked.

  She grinned. “Just because I read Mary Wollstonecraft, I’m not allowed to believe in a little magic? That’s why you couldn’t enjoy Iphigenia. It was the magic—the power of Athena that made her forget her brother, only to find him again. Can’t you allow for a little touch of the divine in our world?”

  “If you give me that kiss you promised me, I’ll believe in anything you want.”

  She smiled and stepped into his embrace, turning her face up for a kiss. As his lips brushed against hers, he felt the now-familiar thrill that swept from his toes to his fingertips every time he touched her. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps there was such a thing as magic.

  But as they walked back to the carriage, he couldn’t resist asking, “What next? Elves and wizards?”

  Clarissa stretched out her legs and rested her feet on the bench across from her, where Anders was dozing. He looked years younger when he slept, she realized. All the cares that weighed him down seemed to lift. And it was an added bonus that when he was asleep, he could not tease her about druids and fairies.

  She had made quite a cake of herself at Stonehenge, she thought. But it had been inevitable. All throughout her childhood, she had been discouraged from believing in magic. When her father had discovered the game she and Cynthia played, about their mothers having been spirited away to some magical realm, he had become quite angry—perhaps angrier than Clarissa had ever seen him in his life, except for the day when he had broken with Roger Endersby. Enlightened young ladies, he said, did not believe in fairy princesses. They believed in making their own fortune. So the game had ended, and that little piece of magic had left her life.

  But she had indulged her desire for a small, sparkling dose of something irrational in secret, hiding copies of Wordsworth and Mary Robinson and Malory under her mattress. Once, when both of their fathers had been down in London and Clarissa and Cynthia had been alone in the house, they had staged their own dramatic interpretation of the life of King Arthur, complete with appearances by Morgaine le Fae and Lancelot.

  But everything had changed when her father had decided to stand for Parliament. Suddenly the duties of secretary and personal aide had fallen to Clarissa, and there had been no time for magic and wonder. So she had given it up, shoved it aside and forgotten that there could be such things in the world. And then her father had died and it had seemed at though all the magic had vanished.

  She had been too embarrassed to say it to Anders, but as she had stood in the center of that ring of stones, she had felt her father’s comforting presence. She knew it was him. It wasn’t like the dream she had had. It had felt real. And she had kissed Anders there to show her father that she was not alone, that there was still love in her life.

  That was the true magic.

  As the carriage rattled through Wiltshire and into Berkshire, Anders slept on. Clarissa dug in her case until she found the book she had borrowed from the library at Ramsay, reasoning that she would bring it back when they returned. It was Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, another perennial favorite. It had been so covered in dust that she had imagined it had sat unread on the shelves for many years. But when she opened the cover, she saw that there was an inscription on the flyleaf.

  To my Benedick, from your devoted Beatrice, on the day of our wedding.

  BAR to FGR May 1, 1801

  She ran her fingers over the fading ink. FGR was Anders’s Uncle Frederick, of course. She wondered what his wife’s name had been. And she wondered at the meaning of such a gift. Had Frederick and his young wife squabbled like the main characters of the play? Clarissa had always admired Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship, rocky though it was, because it was honest and true, and they did not hide their thoughts and feelings from one another. Perhaps it was that honesty that Uncle Frederick’s wife had cherished. Clarissa knew that it was one of the things she valued most about her bond with Anders.

  As she settled back against the bench and turned the page, Anders put his hand out in his sleep and rested it on her shin. Then he sighed and turned his head a little, not waking but drifting deeper into his slumber. Clarissa smiled to herself and began to read.

  Anders woke late in the afternoon to find that Clarissa had drifted off to sleep with a book in her hands. Leaning across the carriage, he saw that it was another volume of Shakespeare.

  As the carriage jostled them along, the book fell from her hand and onto the floor. Anders scooped it up. It was Much Ado about Nothing, another play he had never read. He opened the book.

  There, on the flyleaf, was an inscription from his Aunt Beatrice to his Uncle Frederick. Anders read it over a few times.

  He had always been told that his uncle had loved his wife to distraction. I
n his youth he had considered Uncle Frederick rather foolish to allow himself to malinger over a long-dead spouse. Later, when he had seen how much falling in love again had changed his mother, he had come to understand a little more what Uncle Frederick must have gone through when Aunt Beatrice died.

  But he had never really thought about whether she had loved her husband just as much as he loved her.

  Where had Clarissa gotten the book? She must have found it in the library at Ramsay. He chuckled to himself to think what she would say when she realized he had discovered she had borrowed it. In the dimming light of the afternoon, he opened the book and began to read.

  TWENTY

  The carriage rolled to a halt, jostling Clarissa awake. “Are we in Reading already?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

  “We are,” Anders answered, and he got down out of the carriage and went to find them rooms. Clarissa stepped out, too, and stretched her back a little. There were times when it was good to be a man, and this was one of them. Ladies were not permitted to stretch in public. “Bad news,” Anders said. “There’s only one room available. I’ve taken it, but you’ll have to sleep on the sofa,” he added, and then he winked.

  Clarissa flushed to the roots of her hair. “Of course, My Lord,” she said.

  They went into the taproom and had supper. Clarissa actually took a few sips of ale, though the taste was not much to her liking. Anders did not drink very much either, she noticed. All around them, people laughed and talked, ignoring them.

  “We will not be able to sit like this again,” Clarissa said. “In a public taproom.”

  He smirked. “Perhaps we will have to keep the wig,” he said. “It has come in useful thus far.”

  She returned the grin. “Perhaps,” she agreed.

  They went up to the single room, which was apparently the bridal suite. There was, indeed, a sofa, and the innkeeper had thoughtfully laid a blanket across it. But once the door was closed and locked behind them, Anders made it perfectly clear where she would be sleeping.