Part VI: The Aftermath of Christmas
Chapter Seven
Anne slept soundly, better than she had in years. When she awoke in the chill of the morning, she did so with a golden imprint of light upon herself. She felt bathed in warm golden light. She smiled secretly as she beheld herself in her mirror, studying her own naked reflection without feeling the chill in the room at all. It was obvious where the warmth came from. She remembered her lover’s large strong hands gently holding and teasing her and then the hot scorching passion of his thrusts within her. Until now she had not understood how much she’d missed being held and made love to. She had not known that lovemaking could be so gentle and at the same time so fiery.
Henry. She spoke the name softly to herself. Not His Grace. For this Christmastide he would be just Henry. Her warm, sun-kissed lover.
She supposed it was selfish and silly of her to indulge in the moment, with no further thoughts of what the future might bring when all this was over. However, she desperately felt the need of living the moment. She knew there would be a whole life of morality and respectability that lay ahead of her. Not a bad life really – the life of a governess, where she could love children and where she could be loved in return. She hoped she would be able to love her future charges as much as she did Georgie and Jane. Yet she shook her head. She refused to think of the moment she would part from them. Enough of the future. She had until Twelfth Night.
She did not seek her lover’s company, but decided to take a warm cloak and explore the west wing, which, at this time of the year, was practically deserted. Somehow, a part of her knew that her lover was rather vexed with her for her confession last night. She could not blame him. It was sometimes hard for a gentleman to acknowledge the fact that a woman might harbour similar notions of lovemaking as men did. She supposed it was probably immoral of her to take such a callous perspective. An immoral woman – that was what her brother had told her that she was. Perhaps Henry now thought her immoral. He had been definitely vexed that she did not fit the notion of the proper sensible Miss Archer that he had formed in his mind. But he was to blame after all. It was he who had prompted her to reveal some of her true self. She harrumphed. True self indeed… Did anyone really know one’s true self?
She did not know how she’d managed to reach the ballroom, whose doors were surprisingly unlocked. Strange – given the fact that it had never been used in all the years she’d been a governess here. His Grace did not like balls and such entertainments. It was not that he disapproved of them – he just did not see fit to involve himself in such activities. She smiled. She had the feeling that quite soon his daughters would prevail upon him to open the ballroom. The bleak deserted room would be soon full of laughter and merriment and music, of Georgie’s infectious chuckles while she waltzed around, and of Jane’s ironic remarks concerning those who were dancing.
She closed her eyes, picturing the dark room suddenly lit by a thousand candelabra. Keeping her eyes closed, she began to waltz around the room. She loved dancing. Before the dancing master had arrived, she had been the one to teach the girls their first steps. They often had fun and danced together outside on the meadow when the weather was fine, but they’d never danced in the ballroom.
She waltzed with her eyes closed until she felt her head spinning. Thank God the ballroom was immense. Otherwise she would have ended up bumping into walls. Laughing, she finally stopped and opened her eyes.
She did not see him clearly at first – just a tall silhouette in the semiobscurity of the ballroom. His steps started echoing on the marble tiles as he advanced towards her, and for a brief, foolish moment she thought that he meant to ask her for the next dance.
“You’ve been watching,” she said, remembering to feel embarrassed by her earlier display.
“The servants told me you’d gone to the west wing and I thought you’d catch your death in this cold. I came to fetch you,” he told her in what seemed to her to be a ducally displeased manner.
She felt like a silly schoolgirl, although she’d felt so free earlier. She now remembered all too clearly that he was her employer. This was his ballroom and she was just the governess. A governess should never know what the inside of a ballroom looked like. She prepared for a reprimand, although, in truth, although he’d been her employer for eight years, she did not remember him ever reprimanding her for anything or making her feel like a lowly servant. Somehow, however, the fact that they’d lain together had put a strain between them and now made her feel her inferiority to him much more keenly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should not have come here. It was silly of me.”
The look on Anne’s face was one of intense disappointment and Henry hated himself for trespassing on what had obviously been her private enjoyment of the dance. She was a true nymph, he thought, remembering how her graceful figure had mesmerizingly twirled about the room on silent music. He had heard the music in his head and, although her steps had been those of a waltz, this was not the melody that he had imagined. The music had been far more ancient than a waltz. Pan pipes. Music made by pan pipes – which enveloped that earthy foresty comeliness that was hers. The darkness of the ballroom suddenly recalled to him the darkness of the primeval forest that he had pictured in his mind. He did not tell her though, but attempted to maintain his ducal persona.
“It is chilly. And I see you have discarded your cloak,” he chided.
The cloak lay indeed crumpled on the marble floor, some distance away from them, he thought in vexation. The dance might have warmed her, but it was not wise to linger as she did, in this cold. Without pausing to think any further, he did the only thing that he could think of. He warmed her by taking her in his arms. He did not kiss her though. Somehow, he could not really understand why, he still felt rather vexed with her.
She surprised him by saying, shyness mingling with laughter in her voice:
“I thought you would never ask me to dance.”
It was indeed an ideal position for a waltz, but he still felt strangely vexed with her.
“Oh, so you did not think I could dance?” he asked her.
She shook her head, laughter still in her eyes.
“Can you dance?” she asked him rather brazenly.
She deserved to be punished for such insolence, he thought and, without giving her the chance to guess his intentions, he suddenly lifted her in his arms and, holding her by the waist, twirled her about in the room. When he stopped, they were both breathless and laughing.
“I cannot dance,” he told her truthfully. “Not very well, that is. I have two left feet.”
“That’s why you hate balls?” she asked him.
He shook his head.
“No. Not really. It’s not dancing that I have anything against. It’s the people who attend the balls. Most of them, that is.”
She then did something that took him by surprise. She kissed him on the mouth. Not hard. Tentatively. Shyly. He deepened the kiss and thought he could make love to her now and continue to be vexed with her later.
Almost too late he recalled that he had told the servants that he was heading towards the west wing. He silently cursed. Of course, they would know where both he and Miss Archer were. While he did not care about the gossip, he did know that such gossip might do irreparable damage to Anne’s reputation. With regret, he broke their embrace, telling her that they should after all head towards the warmth of the east wing.
“When was the last time the ballroom was used?” she asked him, as they were making their way back to warmth.
He shrugged. He could not quite recall.
“Probably when my wife was still alive,” he said, suddenly remembering that there had been a ball a year before she’d taken ill.
“I’m sorry”, she said. “The room must have stirred memories of her.”
He looked at Anne, uncomprehending, then remembered that everyone thought he had become a recluse due to his wife’s death, and that his obstinate refusal to remarry sprang loyalty to her memory. He had always been too embarrassed to correct this assumption. He found himself speaking, although he did not know why he would wish to share such a thing with Anne.
“I do not have fond memories of my wife,” he told her.
She looked at him in shock.
“But everyone assumes…”
He sighed.
“I never loved my wife, nor she me. At first we tolerated each other. We were both young and had been taught to obey our parents. The match had been made by our families. We grew to resent each other. I suppose neither of us would have chosen the other, had we been free to choose. We were far too dissimilar.”
He found he wanted to tell her more. He had never spoken of this to anyone and it felt strange to unburden his soul to the governess that he’d just turned into his lover.
“Violet was a good-looking, well-bread woman who knew her duty. There was no particular fault that I could find with her. But she was cold. I suppose she could never find it within herself to be otherwise.”
He did not tell Miss Archer about the bored distaste with which his wife had viewed his lovemaking, nor of his own disappointment in himself for being unable to make her enjoy his touch. He did not tell her how dutiful his wife had been when she’d told him that she’d submit to him in order to beget an heir, nor of the tactful way in which she had suggested, after her confinement, that he could after all find consolation in the arms of a woman who was trained to take care of a man of his needs. Of course, this chapter of his life was entirely too embarrassing to share with Anne. He did however choose to share with her the thing that he’d found most painful in his marriage.
“She was cold to the girls,” he told her bitterly. “I suppose she had been raised that way…She was, you see, extremely disappointed that she had not produced the male heir that everyone had expected of her. And our families were indeed disappointed.”
“And were you disappointed?” she asked him.
He laughed ruefully. Of course he had been utterly disappointed the moment he’d heard his wife had produced twin girls instead of the much-expected son. He’d received the news with a sinking feeling in his heart, knowing and dreading the fact that he would have to go back to the bed of a woman who suffered his touch stoically, just to beget the male heir that was required of them.
“Yes. I was disappointed when I heard the news,” he told her. “But then…then, when I entered the room…”
She smiled at him. She knew of course.
“From the first moment you saw them, you adored them.”
He smiled back. His world had changed when he’d first set eyes on his two perfect children. It had changed so much that he’d no longer cared for his duty to produce a son, so much that he could no longer be coerced by his father’s displeasure or by his wife’s begrudging acquiescence to their families’ fervent desire. The girls had become his world. And nothing and no one else had been able to touch him ever since.
He shrugged.
“I’ve been besotted with them ever since. Perhaps too much for their own good…Still, it was not something that I could help. My wife resented this though. She resented my behaviour. And she was cold to the children. Harsh. Sometimes even uncaring. As if it was their fault that we did not end up having the boy everyone expected.”
“But, surely, you were both very young and there was plenty of opportunity for more children…” Anne said in surprise.
He did not say anything, not wanting to reveal more about the strain that had always loomed over his marriage. The silence strangely weighed on him. He was surprised when he eventually heard her speak softly.
“Ah…It was not only to the children that she was cold.”
He raised his eyes, amazed at her astuteness, and heard her stammer.
“I…I’m sorry. It was an improper thing for me to say…I should not have spoken…”
He did not feel offended by her boldness though. It was strange that after years of being so formal to each other, they both found it so easy to be intimate. He smiled. Not so strange after all. They’d shared a house for these past years. And not only. They’d shared a bond – as they both loved the girls. Confiding in her was easy – almost a relief.
“I did not love my wife. And I had grown to resent her. Still, I did mourn her death after my own fashion. She was an honourable woman. She was the mother of my children. And it is to her that I owe my happiness… I regretted her passing away, but I could not bring myself to miss her.”
“Yet you did not remarry,” she pointed out.
“There simply was no room for someone else in my life. The girls were all that mattered,” he answered.
She nodded and it seemed that she understood. It was easy to share his greatest fear with her and not feel ashamed or embarrassed of such thoughts.
“I am afraid,” he told her. “I am very afraid that they will go away…”
She squeezed his hand and patted it reassuringly, as if he were a frightened child, and he supposed that this was what he was.
“I too am afraid,” she told him steadily. “And of course they will eventually go away. This is what all children do. They go away from those who raised them. To walk among people. What won’t ever go away is how you feel about each other. Nothing and no one will take this away.”
He felt peculiarly reassured by her words, as if she had imparted some great wisdom that he had not known about. He noted that they had reached the east wing, and for the rest of the day, under the watchful eyes of the servants, they strived to become again Miss Archer and His Grace.
It was after all Boxing Day. And all eyes were upon him, as he did his ducal duty and handed the servants their money gifts. There was of course general merriment and a festive atmosphere that made him feel even more keenly the absence of his girls, who must be having a grand time now at his aunt’s house, perhaps even flirting with insipid youths under the mistletoe. Still, he did not feel entirely despondent. Anne Archer was there and she was an unexpected Christmas gift – a gift he had every intention of savouring tonight.
And he did. Later that night in her room, after he’d kissed and stroked just about every inch of her body, he decided to have a taste of that female core that lay between her legs. He began by shamelessly laving her female folds with his tongue, the way a wolf might do to his mate.
“Whatever are you doing?” he heard her ask tremulously and thought he’d gone too far and truly shocked her nearly innocent sensibilities.
He lifted his head, the taste of her female essence still on his lips. With relief, he saw that her eyes were not filled with shock, but with curiosity. A pretty flush had spread on her cheeks.
“I shall stop if you tell me no,” he told her in earnest.
She was such a passionate responsive lover that he’d forgotten how innocent she really was. And maybe it was too soon for such intimacies.
“Is that a thing that lovers often do?” she asked, curiosity filling her voice.
He nodded.
“Lovers sometimes do that.”
Her eyes widened and she was silent for a while, as if she were considering this.
“So, do it then”, she finally told him softly.
It was the invitation he had been waiting for. He flicked his tongue against the kernel of her pleasure and had the satisfaction of hearing her gasp. He kissed and nibbled it until it swelled with desire and she was gushing for him. She peaked against his mouth, moaning, and after that lay exhausted with a sated expression on her countenance. He smiled. He felt proud to have been able to satisfy a greedy nymph’s appetites. Now it was time to satisfy his.
He grabbed her hips and entered her swiftly. She was slick, which made his entrance smoother than last night, but she was also still wonderfully tight. He gritted his teeth. He was quite aroused, but he certainly wanted to postpone fulfilment.
“So,” he asked her teasingly, while he remained still and embedded within her. “Did you like this lovemaking of mine?”
She looked at him with half closed eyes, shadowed with passion.
“It was wonderful. Almost as good as having you inside me,” she replied.
Almost as good…He smiled. She really was a dream come true.
“So you like having me inside you?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she told him through moist, parted lips.
“Good,” he said softly. “I like being inside you…”
He slowly slid out of her, then thrust again, deep, to the hilt. He took his time to savour the sensation of keeping still inside of her, and gritted his teeth against the urgency that was coming upon him.
She was already breathing hard, but she thoroughly surprised him by asking in a ragged voice.
“How does it feel for you? Being inside me…”
She would be the undoing of him, he thought.
“Warm…” he managed to whisper then mindlessly started pumping hard and fast inside her.
Through hooded eyes, he watched her arch her back and give her own cry of ecstasy.
The climax hit him hard, transporting him to his ancient woods. Yet again, he barely remembered to withdraw from her body before giving her his seed.
He keenly felt the smell of wet boughs and of the rich black earth. If you ever try to escape me, nymph, I’ll imprison you inside your laurel. I’ll keep you for myself forever, the sun god inside him whispered.
Her eyes were still wide open, gazing into his own, as if she wanted to drink the whole of his soul.
He claimed her twice more before dawn came upon them. He did so with the same hard and fast urgency that she had stirred inside him earlier. She did not object. She was as fierce as he was in loving, her responsive body urging him to keep thrusting fast and deep inside her warmth. She was indeed one of those women who ignited like fire, Anne Archer. He wondered at his own stupidity for ever thinking that she was just a level-headed female. She was recklessly playing with fire.
Part VII, The Spectre of Twelfth Night, is already here.
