by Lily Hammond
Dot sidled into the room, not knowing whether she ought to or not, but there was only so long she could stand in the scullery eavesdropping.
Clemency glanced at her. ‘Evening, Dot,’ she said, then straightened. ‘I believe I’ve cause to thank you – for taking such good care of Eliza.’
Dot’s eyes widened. ‘You’re very welcome,’ she stammered before recovering herself. Clemency really wasn’t such a bad egg. Not at all like the Libby woman. ‘Is Miss Armstrong really leaving?’ she asked.
‘She is,’ Clemency said to both Dot and Riley.
‘What about Eliza?’ Riley asked.
‘She is not,’ Clemency said firmly.
There was silence in the warm kitchen for a moment, and then the timer rang out like a shrill little alarm clock. Dot jumped and reached out to turn it off. Riley opened the door to the oven and peered inside.
‘I made casserole,’ she said. ‘Seemed like a good choice for a chilly evening such as this.’ She wrapped her hands in her apron and brought it out of the oven, putting it on the tile set ready on the table. ‘And custard and steamed rhubarb for dessert.’ She set her hands on her hips and nodded at the others.
‘Good food for Eliza while she’s not feeling the best,’ she added.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Eliza woke during the night, eyes opening to a pale wash of light from a burning lamp and the sudden knowledge that she was warm, and that someone lay against her under the covers. She reached out with her fingertips and touched the night-crumpled fabric of a nightdress, and then she found dream-warmed skin. She knew this skin, and she smiled into the darkness, realising that Clemency had, some time while she was asleep, slipped between the covers to lie stretched out beside her. The knowledge made Eliza’s heart full, and she buried her face in Clemency’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of her, the solid truth of her warm limbs tangled so casually in Eliza’s own.
‘Hey,’ Clemency said, voice sleepy. ‘You’re awake. How are you feeling?’ She blinked in the darkness, feeling Eliza move in the bed next to her.
She found herself looking up into the pale moon of Eliza’s face, surrounded by a burnished cloud of hair that tumbled down over bare breasts. Eliza smiled down at her.
‘Something tells me you’re feeling a great deal better,’ Clemency said, unable to stop herself from running her fingers lightly over the night-marbled skin.
Eliza’s smile was beautiful and easily seen in the light Clemency had left on in case needed during the night. Clemency smiled back at her, everything about her suddenly wide awake and humming. It was, she thought, as though she’d plugged herself into an electric socket. It had been a long time since she’d felt this way.
But there was also something new, and she let the sensation wrap around her. It was a satisfaction, she realised, a feeling of being in the exact place she was meant to be. For a moment, she prodded at the feeling with her mind, then backed off, smiling, content to let it be, to let it all spool out as it should. Instead, she saw herself here in the bed, in that deep hour of the night, Eliza leaning over her, lips curved in a beatific smile, and she took a mental snapshot of it, knowing it was beautiful.
Picking up a strand of Eliza’s long hair, Clemency twined it idly around her finger. ‘We should get this cut,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t bear it if you got it all taken off.’ She tugged on it so that Eliza had to lean closer and used the strand like a paintbrush against Eliza’s bare skin.
‘I’ll trim it myself,’ Clemency said, and her voice was loose, relaxed. ‘That’s what I’ll do.’ She tugged on the strand again, and Eliza came tumbling towards her, smile gleaming in the low light. Clemency patted her own belly. ‘Sit here,’ she said.
Eliza smiled wider, and lifted a leg over Clemency, who reclined on her back, still holding the strand of hair. She settled her bottom on Clemency’s thighs, and widened her legs a fraction, tilting herself so that she was pressed against Clemency. Her head was clear, and she felt well again, perfectly well, as though her fever had only been a passing thunderstorm and had gone the way of the rain outside, the wind blowing it off over the hills and out to sea. She closed her eyes for a moment and tilted her head back, soaking up every sensation as though she were a sponge. Every sensation, from the swelling pleasure between her legs, to the sound of Clemency’s indrawn breath, to the ticking of the clock on the dresser – to the welling, billowing bloom of love and desire in her heart, under her ribs, in her chest – she felt it all in exquisite detail. Never had she been more present and she smiled more broadly, because she also felt as though she were big and wide enough to fill the sky over the entire harbour, as though some essential part of her belonged everywhere at once, was part of everything around it, and she opened her eyes and looked down at Clemency and felt the rush of Clemency’s breath, the beat of her heart, the heat from her skin, and it was good. All of it was so very good.
Clemency looked up at her, and perhaps she picked up on something of the ecstasy Eliza was experiencing, because her body was at once both light and heavy, and her mind slick with thoughts and empty of voices. The air in the room was cool silk and she was intensely aware of every little sensation. Eliza was damp where she straddled her, damp and hot, and just the thought that Eliza was pressed against her like that made Clemency breathless. She tickled the strand of hair against one of Eliza’s nipples and grunted with pleasure when Eliza squeezed her eyes shut at the sensation.
‘Feel good?’ she asked.
Eliza nodded.
Clemency drew circles and spirals over Eliza’s breasts, then sifted forward a sheaf of hair and let the soft silk of it run over her own skin, stretching and sighing under the feeling of it. ‘Feels good,’ she agreed, then pushed gently at Eliza until she was sitting up straighter.
Clemency looked at her, at the way the golden lamplight cupped her curves, and followed them with her hands, losing herself in the warm satin of Eliza’s skin under her palms. She ran them over Eliza’s breasts, feeling how full and heavy they were, then felt for the curve of Eliza’s waist, the flare of her hips. She felt Eliza grow wet where she sat against Clemency and she smiled, drunk with lazy arousal.
‘Beautiful,’ she murmured. ‘You have an exquisite shape.’
Eliza smiled, relishing Clemency’s strong, sure hands on her skin, and raised her arms above her head, stretching out, showing off, knowing that Clemency watched her, and the knowing making her sure in her own responses. She rocked her hips, rubbing herself against Clemency, while Clemency’s hands once more roamed over her body.
‘Mmm,’ Clemency murmured. ‘That feels good. Keep doing it.’
Eliza looked down at herself, at her legs splayed over Clemency’s thighs, at her breasts, held in Clemency’s hands, the nipples squeezed tight between her fingers, and her mouth parted in a smile. She shifted and reached between her legs to her fingers to the top of Clemency’s thighs. Clemency parted her legs at once, and gratified, Eliza slid her fingers into the wetness there, touching the swollen and sensitive parts of Clemency’s sex.
Clemency groaned, let the fingers roam for a minute, her hands kneading at the softness of Eliza’s breasts. She half closed her eyes and Eliza seemed to glow where she sat, and her movements looked secret and urgent.
‘Come here,’ Clemency said, and Eliza looked at her, fingers pausing in their pleasurable rubbing.
Clemency nodded. ‘Turn around on top of me, so that I can reach you with my mouth.’
Eliza stared at her, and Clemency pulled her forward so that she was on all fours and took a tight nipple in her mouth for a moment, before pushing her gently to turn around.
‘I want to put my tongue on you,’ she said. ‘I want to slide it inside you.’ Her voice was heavy, aroused, amused. ‘And I’m too lazy to move. Put your knees beside my head so I can taste you.’
Eliza did so, and the touch of Clemency’s tongue on her made her cry out soundlessly. She closed her eyes, and everything was sensation, waves of
pleasure rippling through her as though she was the ocean and Clemency swam through her waves.
‘Put your mouth on me, if you wish,’ Clemency said, and Eliza opened her eyes, seeing the v of Clemency’s thighs spread under her, inviting. She dipped her tongue to Clemency’s wetness and her juices were sweet, like honeysuckle.
What happened next, as her climax swept through her, the taste of Clemency on her tongue and lips, Eliza had no words for. She slipped deep deep under the surface of everything until she was transformed, bathing in the delight that carried her home to Clemency’s arms where she emerged gasping, her breath quick, her body full of spasms and clutching gratification.
They rolled together on the bed, coming up breathless, bodies slick and shaking, hands reaching to embrace each other.
They lay with their heads close together on the pillow, breathing in tandem, hands entwined, bodies warm with contentment. Outside the circle of light from the lamp, a bloom of stars appeared above the branches of the old beech tree that spread its fingers towards the bedroom window and when Eliza saw them, she gasped, and pointed, because the sky was the same velvet, sparkling darkness she’d swum in when Clemency had put her mouth to her.
Clemency took her hand and kissed Eliza’s fingers, one after the other until she’d kissed them all, and then she pressed Eliza’s hand to her chest.
‘Feel how my heart beats,’ she said, her voice low on the still air that floated in the room. ‘I believe it had almost stopped beating before I met you.’ She looked at Eliza, seeing the bright and dark of her face in the dimness and turned on the bed until she lay facing her. ‘It was drying up,’ she said. ‘Turning into nothing but an empty coconut husk.’
Eliza stared back at Clemency, wondering only briefly what a coconut husk was. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know – the meaning was clear. She reached for Clemency, touched a finger to the skin under Clemency’s throat, ran it lightly down until she felt the leap of Clemency’s pulse underneath. She removed her finger and kissed it, then pressed the kiss to Clemency’s pulse.
Clemency closed her eyes, feeling the light pressure of Eliza’s hand on her, and let herself drift in the completeness of the gesture, wondering, how could one small thing mean so much?
And how could she have done without it so long?
They drifted in and out of sleep, reaching for each other whenever they woke, and twined themselves around each other as the silken night wrapped them in its rich embrace. When the first touch of dawn brightened the window looking out upon the tree outside, Eliza fell panting onto her pillow, her mouth wide in a smile, eyes dancing. She turned her head and looked at Clemency, who lay as if stunned into paralysis, her short hair damp with sweat against her forehead. Eliza leaned over and planted a kiss against Clemency’s cheek, and poked her in the ribs, giggling.
Clemency turned her head, her whole body humming, and looked at Eliza. When Eliza giggled, it was soundlessly, but her body laughed instead, breasts jiggling, shoulders curling in as though to cup the joke and squeeze every little bit of amusement out of it. It made Clemency smile in a delight of her own. She rolled over on her side and scooped the laughing woman into her arms.
‘We need a bath,’ she whispered. ‘And a strong pot of coffee.’ She dropped a row of kisses across Eliza’s forehead. ‘And I’m starving. Why am I starving?’ She grinned.
Eliza lifted her shoulders in a shrug, her expression suddenly coy, and Clemency laughed quietly out loud. Patted her bottom.
‘Come,’ she commanded. ‘Run a bath for us, and I shall raid the kitchen for a dawn feast.’
Both of them clambered from the bed, and Clemency stopped in the middle of putting on her dressing gown to watch Eliza, her nude body silhouetted in front of the window, the curtains of which they’d neglected to draw closed the evening before.
‘You’re beautiful,’ she said. ‘I want to photograph you.’
Eliza looked over her shoulder at Clemency, her face in the shadows.
‘I mean,’ Clemency said, ‘I want to photograph everything I see. It’s the way I am with the world, I think.’ She looked around the room and back at Eliza. ‘I think in pictures,’ she admitted.
Eliza blinked in the growing, rosy light. Her brows knotted as she considered what Clemency had just told her.
Clemency had said she thought in pictures. Eliza had never thought about how she thought before. How did she think? She looked over at Clemency, who had sat back down on the edge of the bed, the tie of her dressing gown knotted loosely around her waist. The robe was blue, and in the slim light of dawn, it looked deep and watery, and Clemency’s fair hair swam above it. Her left leg stretched out and Eliza looked at the long line of it, the fine knob of her knee, and she wanted to go over to Clemency and kneel down on the rug and put her lips to the pale, tender skin just above Clemency’s knee.
She did just that, and Clemency’s skin was smooth and cool on her lips, and Eliza could smell the musky, animal scent of her. She looked up at Clemency and thought hard.
Eliza thought about this room, how the light filtered in through the window, how it would be doing that too through the mermaid window outside the bedroom, lighting the glass into jewel colours, how it touched now upon the fairness of Clemency’s skin, her hair, how it made her eyes glow, their dusky greenness like undersea opals.
She wished she could tell Clemency all this. She looked at her, unblinking. Maybe she thought in pictures too, she decided, imagining herself showing Clemency inside her head, where she would see herself, see how beautiful she was, how much Eliza loved her.
She thought in pictures and feelings, she knew, and sat back, satisfaction on her face. She would find a way to ask Clemency to teach her to use a camera, and then she could show Clemency all the things she could not say.
Clemency gazed down at Eliza, stroking her hair, watching the fine features on Eliza’s face, wondering what she was thinking.
‘We need a way we can speak with each other,’ she said softly.
‘Maybe with our hands,’ she mused. Her voice was quiet, but rough with feeling. She wanted to know what was going on behind those lovely eyes more than she’d ever wanted to know anything.
Eliza blinked, and her red lashes caught the light and gleamed. Her coral lips pursed, and then she nodded. But, she put a hand up, palm flat – can we learn to talk like this? She flipped her hand over and shrugged.
Frowning, Clemency tried to unravel the gesture. She tapped a finger on Eliza’s shoulder. ‘There must be a way to do it.’ She nodded, almost to herself. ‘An organised way, that I can learn too.’ She thought of Helen Keller, for everyone had heard of the deaf, blind, and mute girl and how she learnt to communicate. ‘It must be able to be done. I shall find a school for the deaf, and we shall learn sign language – have you heard of that?’
Eliza shook her head. She sat on the floor, between Clemency’s legs. Flipped her hand up again and shrugged her shoulders, holding them squeezed in tight for a moment before letting them go.
‘It’s pretty much just what you did there,’ Clemency said. ‘We can learn to talk to each other using our hands instead of our voices.’
Eliza’s eyes widened. They could talk to each other? She touched her hand to Clemency’s chest, and then to her own, eyes round, ears disbelieving. Had Clemency just said they could learn to talk to each other?
Clemency laughed, and as she did so, the first birds woke in their perches in the trees and joined in, lifting their voices in a glorious good morning greeting.
Eliza heard them and turned her head towards the window. Quardle oodle ardle wardle said one of the birds outside, its face towards the freshness of the new day. And inside the warm, dim bedroom that smelled of tangled sheets and lovemaking, Eliza pointed to the window then made her hand speak like the bird.
Quardle oodle ardle wardle.
Chapter Fifty
‘What about Greymouth?’ Riley had never been there. The coast there was wild, people said, a
nd the town as grey as its name. It rained a lot. Almost every day, people said. Probably it was beautiful, but it didn’t sound it.
‘No Greymouth,’ Clemency replied. ‘Where she knows no one.’ She took a breath. ‘She’s had such a hard time since she’s been here. We can’t let her go through even more.’
Riley stared at Clemency, and something in the set of Clemency’s mouth worried her. ‘Bring your coffee,’ she said. ‘Let’s step outside and finish this conversation, shall we?’ She blinked. ‘I need a few apples from the tree for a pie.’
Clemency knew perfectly well this was a manufactured excuse, but she seized on it and nodded. Then smiled to herself. There would be apple pie for dessert tonight, she would guarantee. Riley would not make a liar of herself.
Outside, the clouds had cleared as though they’d never come in the first place. The day was new-minted, polished to a golden shine. Clemency sighed in pleasure, the grass dewy and soft under her bare feet as they walked slightly towards the orchard. The salty breeze lifted her hems and played like silk against her legs.
‘All right then, now we have a modicum of privacy, although at this hour, we’re probably the only ones up,’ Riley said. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking?’
Clemency took a sip of her coffee before answering. ‘I don’t think she should be sent away somewhere new.’
Riley snorted. ‘You don’t want her sent away somewhere new.’
‘That too,’ Clemency admitted with a graceful lifting of her shoulders.
Riley stared at her, deciding nothing would be lost by loosening her tongue and laying the truth out between them. ‘How do you think it’s going to work, when you’re sleeping with her too? What will her position in the household be?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Clemency replied.
Exasperated, Riley shook her head. ‘Don’t play coy with me, Clemency. I brought you up. You can at least be honest with me.’