The Duke of Ice

by Lisa Andersen

  But she could not.

  The card, which she had placed in her desk, called out to her. She found herself, in the infrequent quiet moments, retrieving, unfolding it, and rereading it. She imagined him at his desk, pen in hand, writing the note. She tried to imagine what he had been feeling. Was he as astonished as her? He must have been, more so even. He had not expected the kiss, let alone the effect the kiss would have.

  Or perhaps he wanted to call upon her to chastise her, to call her a slattern, a fast girl, an embarrassment. Perhaps he wanted to shame her. With Rebecca gone – and with her that vital essence of playfulness – Roma could hardly believe that she had gone through with it. She was not, after all, a wild woman. She was simply Roma Burrows: bookish, quiet, supercilious.

  But she could not ignore the card. That was clear by the end of the day when she was closing the store. She quickly wrote a reply and paid a lad who ran errands around the neighborhood to deliver it. A half-hour later, the lad returned and told her that Mr. Bates would visit her tomorrow, after the store had closed.

  Roma nodded as though a job had been completed, a task. She no longer needed to worry about it. But all that night all she could think of was Casper, and his lips, and the energy that had buzzed between them.

  *****

  Casper could hardly sleep that night for anxiety. He kept waking and staring at the ceiling, the only sign that time had passed the beams of moonlight that moved slowly across the room. Was this woman a sorceress to captivate him like this? He had only kissed two other women in his life, and both times he had felt dirty and distrustful, and was glad when those women had gone off and married other men. He was now four-and-thirty, and for five years he had steadfastly kept a distance from women. Father had needed him in his ill-health, and now Father was dead, and he was a wealthy man. Off to America he would go, to treble his fortune!

  But this woman called to him; he had sighed with relief when the lad brought a reply. On the morrow, he would see her. But the morrow was taking an infuriatingly long time to arrive.

  Finally, after what seemed like years of pacing, smoking, reading, dwelling, the appointed time came.

  He hailed a hansom and rode it to the bookstore, which was at the other side of their suburb, in the smaller marketplaces of lesser London. When he alighted, he was overcome with the desire to flee. What if she laughed at him? He wanted – nay, needed – an explanation. He needed to know why she had kissed him, and he needed to know how it had provoked within him an utterly inexplicable reaction.

  He opened the door, the bell rang, and Miss Burrows emerged from behind a small desk. “Mr. Bates,” she said.

  “Miss Burrows,” he replied. The pause seemed to stretch; the silence elongated. Casper had never been able to tolerate awkwardness and had learnt early in life to jest and joke and play a fool to soothe it. He donned his arrogant smile. “If you wish to kiss me again,” he said, “I will understand.”

  She smiled, and then the smile widened. After a moment, she giggled. “I think I am quite alright.”

  *****

  The man was arrogant, but he also seemed awkward. Roma could not recall seeing the same traits in the same man in the same moment. She could not help giggling. The absurdity of the situation was heightened by his absurd remark. Kiss me again!

  “Would you like some tea? I have a room in the back where we can take it.”

  “That would suit me fine.”

  They retired to the back room which Roma used for bookkeeping and general office work. Papers and pens lay scattered across a small desk in the corner, and pinned to the walls were receipts. “It helps me remember them,” Roma muttered when she saw that he was observing them. “I am afraid a love of literature and an aptitude for business do not always go hand-in-hand.”

  “You seem to be excelling,” he said.

  Roma inclined her head, brewed the tea, and then sat with him at the other end of the office, near the door. “You wanted to call,” Roma said, sipping her tea.

  “I did,” Casper said. “And I am glad it is just the two of us if that does not seem impertinent to say. Your friend has gone to France, I believe?”

  “Yes, she has quite abandoned me,” Roma said, only half-joking. “I have a brother—somewhere. Father and Mother are long gone.” She didn’t know why she was telling him this. Why did she want this stranger to know about her life? “My brother is in Australia, last I heard,” she went on, unable to stop herself. “He sends letters every so often. But he has always been wild. And the time we live in has only facilitated it. Just look at me, sitting here, in a store I own, with a man I do not know, unchaperoned. My grandmother would weep.”

  “Times have changed,” Casper agreed. “Votes for women soon.”

  “That bothers you?” Roma said.

  Here was something she could latch onto. If he did not want women to get the vote – if he thought women unsuited to having a voice – then Roma could distance herself from him. She was not a suffragette, but she thought that every reasonable person should see that half the human populace deserved the same rights as the other half. Perhaps it was living here, alone, which made subjugation seem joke-worthy. Yes, if he despised the idea that women should be able to—

  “Women should be able to vote,” Casper said easily. “Of course, they should. It is strange that they cannot vote already. Of course, I mean strange in the selfish sense. Strange to me. In the grand scheme of things, women have been treated rather harshly. If my father heard me talking in this disgustingly progressive way, I would be a poorer man today.”

  “He would disinherit you?”

  “Oh, yes.” Casper sipped his tea and then leaned forward slightly. The atmosphere in the room shifted. The wall seemed closer. His eyes seemed paler, almost translucent. “Why did you kiss me, Miss Burrows?”

  “I fear it will wound your pride,” Roma said. She had no intention of withholding the truth. She saw no reason for it. And it was the only rational way of explaining completely irrational behavior.

  “Wound it, then,” Casper said, with an easy smile.

  Roma told him of the bet, keeping her voice as neutral as possible, and not alluding to the startling pleasure she had felt.

  When she was done, Casper leaned back in his chair. His beard was growing wild. If it were not well known that he was a wealthy man, some may have called him scruffy. He stretched it and then nodded. “That makes sense,” he said.

  “Does it?” Roma said. For some reason, her palms were sweating. She could not help looking over his body as he leaned back. It looked rather powerful, like a lion’s. She found herself wondering what he did for exercise.

  “Yes, now I can see why you did it,” Casper said. “But I wish to ask you something else, something that has captivated me.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why, Miss Burrows, did you enjoy the kiss so much?”

  Roma coughed. Tea flew across the room in droplets and dribbled down her chin. She jumped to her feet, mortified, and fled into the main part of the shop without a word. She found a handkerchief, wiped her chin and checked her clothes. Luckily, none of the tea had marked her. When she turned, Casper was standing in the doorway. “Are you going to deny that you enjoyed it?” he said. “I will not. No! I enjoyed it a great deal. It was a surprise to me. A huge surprise. It was as though you reached within me and activated a lever.”

  Roma backed against the bookshelves and looked at the door. “Mr. Bates,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice. “Would you please excuse me? I am feeling quite faint. Yes, quite faint indeed.” She was feeling faint, but she was not ill. This man was casting some kind of spell upon her. Impure thoughts entered her mind. She was suddenly aware of how alone they were. “Please?”

  “Of course,” Casper said. “But may I call upon you again, tomorrow, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” Roma said. She would have agreed to anything to get him out of the door. “Yes, yes, fine.”

  “Good—”

&nb
sp; Roma shut the door on him, quickly locked it, then fled to the other end of the room and threw herself upon the chair. Her legs were shaking, her heart—was beating madly when he left the shop.

  He wanted her, he decided. He could not deny it. He wanted her badly. He wanted her and the realization washed over him in a torrent. What was it about her? Could such mad lust be inspired by a simple kiss?

  He knew one thing for certain.

  A kiss was not enough.

  *****

  Roma had decided, in the dark depths of the night, to cut off all contact with Casper. There was nothing, she decided, that could be gained from a lengthy association with him. It was altogether too dangerous. The feelings within her were like a whirlpool, and she was aware that at any moment she could be pulled completely into them, to be lost somewhere distant and dangerous. What would be become of her if she gave herself wholly to these feelings, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t keen to find out. That was what she thought in the night.

  But when the afternoon came, and then the muggy London air turned toward dusk – when Casper walked through her door once again – the conviction she had felt in the night seemed puny. He strutted into the bookstore as though he had visited it a thousand times before, and smiled warmly when he saw Roma as though they were fine friends, and had met more than twice. She rose from the chair and tried to say the words. I no longer want to see you, she said, in her mind. I no longer wish to know you. It is no fault of yours. I simply no longer wish for us to be known to each other. I am sorry if this causes you distress.

  But she didn’t say those words. Instead, she stayed silent and watched him.

  “How are you today, Miss Burrows?”

  “Fine,” she answered. “I had forty customers. The renovations and the advertisement seem to have done some good.”

  “It is a profitable business?”

  “Yes, for now.”

  Casper nodded. “That is good.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish to say something,” Casper said, moving closer to her, “but I fear it may offend you.”

  “Let me speak first!” Roma exclaimed. The words he would speak – whatever they were – could damn her. “I have something I want to say.”

  “Of course,” Casper said.

  “I—” she paused and was about to back out of it when something within urged her forth. “I do not think we should see each other again. I think this should be our last meeting. You are going to America, are you not?”

  Casper regarded her for a few moments, and then breathed heavily. “You are scared,” he said matter-of-factly. “Yes, you are scared, scared of what you felt when we kissed. You are scared because society would have us believe it is monstrous for a man and a woman to feel that way. But listen, Miss Burrows, I feel that way, too. We are committing no crime.”

  “We are unmarried,” Roma whispered, but the words sounded petulant to her own ears. What did that matter in the face of such profound pleasure?

  “We are,” Casper agreed. “And yet that does not stop us feeling this way.”

  “It was just a kiss. Just one kiss. It means nothing.” She tried to make her voice hard, cold, and tried to wound him. She narrowed her eyes and made her face impassive. “Are you so pathetic, to dangle upon one kiss like this?”

  “You want to scare me away,” he said. He moved closer, and closer until Roma was backed right up against the desk. Casper was so close to her she felt his breath upon her forehead. “You will not scare me away,” he said, with conviction.

  “What will you do?” Roma said, looking up at him. “Will you hurt me?”

  “Hurt you?”

  “Yes, you are scaring me.”

  “Tell me again that I am scaring you – that you want me to leave and never return – that you never want to see me again – that you never want us to kiss again – and I will leave this instant. Upon my honor, I will.”

  Roma tried to will the words, tried to force them from her lips, but they wouldn’t come. She could see that he meant it. If she told him to leave, he would. But that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You wanted this man away from you. Ha! What folly! If she wanted him away from her, every nerve in her body would not be straining closer to him.

  She remembered the kiss, remembered the unleashing of pleasure, and now it came alive to her.

  “You won’t say it?” he said, with relief.

  “I won’t,” she muttered. “I—I cannot.”

  “Why?”

  “Hush,” she said. “Hush, Mr. Bates, and kiss me.”

  He did not delay. They were almost kissing anyway. Their lips, somehow, had come within inches of each other. He leaned forward, closing the gap, and their lips touched. Roma breathed in the scent of him, manly and strong, and placed her arms on his shoulders. She felt the muscle through his shirt, felt his powerful body. He kissed her deeply, pushing his tongue into her mouth. Energy buzzed between them once more. Roma’s body lit up with sensations, in her chest, down there in her womanhood, in her buttocks. She wished he had one-hundred hands, so they could all be upon her.

  His hand moved down her front, past her breast, down to her womanhood. She should stop him, she knew. This was improper, mad. This was something Rebecca would not even do. Roma was the quiet friend, the sane friend. But she didn’t stop him. She hopped onto the desk and opened her legs slightly, making it easier for him. Still, they kissed, gnashing teeth. She bit his lip.

  His hand pushed her dress aside and moved up her leg toward her womanhood. A man had never touched her there. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears. She broke off the kiss and buried her face in his neck by some primeval instinct. She kissed his skin, over and over. He moaned and moved his hand higher and higher up her leg.

  “I want to touch you there,” he said.

  “Do it,” she moaned, hardly recognizing herself. “Do it. Yes, do it.”

  He pressed his middle finger on the outside of her womanhood, on the hot-spot, the spot that generated otherworldly pleasure. Roma moaned into his neck, burying her face into him lest she scream and the whole of London hear her. He moved his hand softly at first, in circles around her, and then faster and faster. Her whole body gyrated. The new desk creaked slightly; the old desk, Roma was sure, would’ve collapsed.

  He rubbed her harder and harder, and then she was no longer in the bookstore. Everything paused, built up—and then released. She screamed into his neck, screamed loudly and wildly. Pleasure unlike anything she had experienced seeped through her every pore. It was like his hand was on fire. She squeezed her legs around his arm, willing him to keep going, desperately afraid that he might stop. And then it passed, and she was lightheaded, and felt like giggling.

  Casper moved back from her, looking her up and down with wide eyes. “Did you …” They both knew of what he spoke. Friends of friends had experienced it. Rapid women had experienced it. But never nice women. Never women like Roma. But she had. Yes, she had. And she had discovered that it was nothing to be feared.

  “I did,” she breathed.

  “And?”

  “Amazing. Absolutely amazing.”

  He nodded as one does when a theory is confirmed. “I can do it again if you like. Or …” He trailed off, laughed at himself, and then went on. “I have heard of a new method. I could use my tongue if you like.”

  “Your tongue?”

  “Yes.” Casper nodded. “I could use my tongue on you.”

  Roma’s breath quickened. She didn’t know how many times one could experience that kind of pleasure. But at the mention of his tongue, down there, her body responded, piqued. “Would you mind?” she said.

  “Mind? It would be a pleasure.”

  “What should I do?” Roma said.

  “Stay as you are. Relax. I will do everything.”

  Roma was still aware that what she was doing was wildly illicit. She knew that if this were to escape the confines of the bookstore, she would be branded a hussy. But in this moment, she d
idn’t care. Her suffragette friends talked of freedom. Did that not too mean sexual freedom? Was she really a lesser creature for desiring this man’s tongue upon her womanhood? Those were the intellectual concerns. Of bodily concerns there were none. She desired it greatly and knew she would regret it if she stopped things here.

  “Okay,” Roma said.

  In her excitement, Roma had risen from the desk. Casper placed her upon it once more and then knelt before her. He nudged her legs open, and then pulled her stockings down to her boots, and then over them. Her legs were bare, her dress hiked up around her hips. The air of the bookstore touched her womanhood, tickled it. “I want you to have it twice more,” he said. “Can you do that for me? You look so beautiful when you have it? You bite your lip and you look as though you might explode.”

  “Twice? I do not know if I can.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I will help.”

  He brought his mouth close to her womanhood. His breath was hot on her lips. With his fingers, he parted them, baring the pleasurable spot. Then he trailed his tongue slowly up one of the lips, brushing the spot of pleasure, and back down again. Roma squealed and then clamped her hand over her mouth. Casper grabbed her thighs and licked harder, harder, faster.

  Roman keeled forward, placing her hands upon his head, pushing him into her. He licked her faster and faster. She did not know how he could move his tongue so fast. It seemed impossible. But he kept going, on and on, and Roma barely had a chance to get used to it before it happened again. Thirty-one years, and I am only feeling it now! Women, I weep for you! This one was quicker, more brutal, and left before she could truly enjoy it. The next one lasted longer, seemed to blossom from the tip of his tongue and spread through her, from her womanhood upward. She clamped her eyes shut and saw only red.

  “You have done it to me twice,” Roma moaned. “Twice! Oh, Casper, twice with your tongue.”