Tallie's Knight

by Anna Gracie

  Magnus.

  Oh, God. He groaned in despair and tightened his hold on her.

  He did not know how much time passed, but eventually she left his arms

  and went behind the screen to wash her face. He lay on the bed,

  listening to the sounds of splashing water, imagining her movements.

  He felt exhausted, and for one cowardly moment thought of sneaking off

  to his own chamber before she returned. That way he could take the

  night to decide how best to deal with the situation. He had just eased

  himself upright and was preparing to slip off the bed when she

  returned, clad in a fresh nightgown. The look of soft expectancy in

  her eyes sent his spirits plummeting. She climbed onto the high bed

  and settled herself beside him.

  "So..." She blushed rosily, unable to meet his eyes.

  "If Laetitia was wrong..." She ran her finger back and forth along the

  hem of the sheet.

  "How...? I mean, what should I...? How do you wish me to behave when

  we... you know?"

  Magnus felt his throat tighten. He felt trapped, panic-stricken. What

  the devil should he say? Visions of the various women he had known

  flitted through his mind. Courtesans, sophisticated married women,

  widows--with painted faces, vulgar minds and quick, clever fingers.

  World-weary women, skilled in pleasing a man, who could calculate a

  man's needs and desires as quickly and efficiently as they calculated

  his income.

  He did not want to teach his wife the tricks of their trade. He could

  not bear to imagine his innocent little Tallie earnestly and diligently

  learning how best to please him in bed as those women had.

  But he had to say something, offer her some guidance to replace

  Laetitia's poisonous advice. Only what? How? His mind was a complete

  blank.

  "Magnus?" she prompted.

  "Just..." He wiped a hand over his suddenly damp brow. Lord, who'd

  have thought marriage would be such a quagmire? It had seemed so

  simple and straightforward just a few weeks ago.

  "Just be yourself," he heard himself saying.

  "But..."

  "All I want from you are your honest reactions."

  She looked back at him, clear-eyed and doubtful, waiting for him to

  explain further.

  "Don't hide anything," he said, feeling suddenly as though he had

  stepped onto even more dangerous ground.

  "Do and say exactly what you wish to. Honesty. That's all I require."

  "Honesty?" she said hesitantly.

  "That's all you want from me?"

  He nodded.

  She beamed at him, and it was like the sun breaking through the morning

  mist.

  "Then that will be easy."

  He stared back at her, uneasy at her apparent confidence. If she could

  be honest with him, then she would do more than any other woman in his

  life had done, his mother included.

  "Easy?" He raised his eyebrows in doubt.

  "Very easy," she said, smiling radiantly and wriggling her fingers into

  his warm grip.

  "A great deal easier than the multiplication tables, I can tell you. I

  am always making mistakes--especially with the eights."

  Magnus blinked for a moment, then from somewhere deep inside him he

  felt laughter begin to well up.

  "The eights?" he gasped, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her

  down to the bed with him. His laughter echoed around the room and she

  rolled with him, clutching him and laughing with him. After a few

  minutes the deep chuckles slowed.

  He lifted his head and looked at her again, shaking his head.

  "The eights?" he repeated.

  "Utterly impossible," she giggled.

  His eyes darkened and became intent.

  "Then from now on," he said in a deep, slow voice, "I suggest you

  concentrate on nothing but addition, starting from one plus one." And

  he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Tallie awoke very late next morning. Sunlight streamed through the

  open curtains and lay in slabs of gold across the floor of her chamber.

  She stretched and watched the dancing dust motes, feeling dreamy,

  pleasantly lazy and filled with contentment. She was alone in bed, but

  she did not feel lonely. Her husband had woken her at dawn and made

  love to her again. And then he'd kissed her and told her to go back to

  sleep and he'd gone out.

  She had learnt many more things about the marriage act that night. The

  most important by far was that once she stopped fighting her own

  reactions it was utterly, thrillingly, splendid. She knew now why the

  vicar had said marriage was a holy estate, for there had been times,

  when her husband was making love to her, Tallie had known there could

  be no more wonderful feeling in heaven or on earth. And afterwards,

  when she I had lain silently in her husband's warm strong arms, his

  hand caressing her hair while she listened to the beat of his heart

  slowly returning to normal, it had felt as if she was floating on a

  cloud, like the angels did.

  She had been a little frightened at first about the extremity of her

  reactions, but Magnus had reassured her and encouraged her and

  continued that marvelous caressing and stroking. And then he had

  become rather extreme himself, she reflected, smiling a secret feminine

  smile. It was very exciting to think that a magnificent being like

  Magnus could be brought to such a state by ordinary little Tallie

  Robinson, she thought, snuggling into the pillows. She could still

  smell his scent on them, and if she shut her eyes she could imagine he

  was still here in bed with her.

  "Milady?"

  Tallie opened her eyes. Her new maid, Monique, stood there.

  "Milady, your breakfast awaits you." Monique indicated a tray

  containing Tallie's favourite French breakfast--sweet, flaky pastries

  and a large pot of hot milky chocolate. Reluctantly she sat up, then,

  blushing, clutched the sheet to her, recalling her nakedness. Monique showed no surprise, but came forward

  with a wrapper.

  "Votre peignoir. Milady."

  Tallie supposed that a dresser was used to seeing people without a

  stitch of clothing; it was she who had to get used to being seen. She

  was a long way now from Miss Fisher's establishment, where pupils had

  dressed and undressed beneath their voluminous nightgowns behind

  curtained screens. Married women had no privacy at all.

  "Milor' d'Arenville said you are to go shopping after breakfast,

  Milady. I have ordered the bath, and laid out a gown for you. I

  thought per'aps we go first to the milliner, and then later to the

  glover, and after that..."

  "After that we shall see," said Tallie, deciding she needed to be firm

  about this shopping business. It was all very well to shop, but she

  wanted to see more of Paris, too. She wanted to experience as much as

  she could before they left for Italy.

  "Where is my husband, do you know?" she asked, picking up a pastry. "E

  'as gone out, milady.

  "E say to tell you 'e will back in time to escort you to dinner."

  Dinner? She was to wait until dinner to see him? Tallie was crushed.

  She did so want to see him now, after all
they had shared during the

  night.

  "Oh, but-' We 'ave Claude, the footman, to escort us, milady," Monique

  assured her.

  "Milor' d'Arenville 'as left instructions that you are always to 'ave

  'im as your escort, so you need not worry. All 'as been arranged by

  mil or

  So it seems, thought Tallie, disappointed. Escort indeed! A paltry

  footman instead of her magnificent husband. She did not want to

  explore Paris with a maid and a footman--she wanted Magnus.

  "Very well, then, I suppose we will have to waste the whole day

  shopping," she said dolefully.

  "Perhaps if we hurry we can get it all finished and out of the way

  today."

  Monique gave her an odd look, which Tallie ignored. She finished her

  pastries and the chocolate, had her bath, got dressed and went

  downstairs. Her new personal footman, Claude, awaited her in the hall.

  She blinked in surprise.

  Claude was a most unlikely-looking footman. He was short, with a

  barrel chest and long arms which hung down like a gorilla. His face,

  too, had a simian quality; most of his teeth were missing and his skin

  was badly pitted with the pox. He was quite the ugliest man Tallie had

  ever seen in her life.

  Wondering what on earth had possessed her husband to hire such an

  odd-looking footman, Tallie allowed herself to be escorted off in

  search of feminine falderals, Monique tripping beside her, Claude

  trudging heavily in the rear.

  Hoofbeats pounded over the cold ground, echoing in the dim silence of

  the Bois de Boulogne. The hooves of the sweating horse tossed up

  clumps of grass and damp earth. Branches swatted its sides. But the

  rider held his mount with a firm hand and pressed on, faster, harder,

  as if to outride the devil himself.

  But it was not possible to outride one's own thoughts and fears,

  thought Magnus, even as he spurred his horse to greater speed. He was

  on the brink. She'd driven him to it. He rode onwards, oblivious of

  his surroundings.

  Was this how it had started with his father, too? With a declaration

  of love from an innocent bride? A lifetime of control, shattered in an

  instant. He pulled up his sweating horse, dismounted and led it to a

  stream.

  The horse drank thirstily. Magnus leaned against the warm, heaving

  flank and stared into the fast-flowing water, listening to the burble

  of clear water over smooth round stones. Her eyes were like that, he

  thought--dappled with colour, clear and bright and glowing with life.

  He groaned. Had his father also felt this aching chasm open up in

  him?

  This void, this abyss of need. Was this how it had begun for him?

  He knew how it had ended--a slow, inevitable descent into hell. A

  strong man of honour and dignity reduced to. what? A beggar at his

  wife's gate. A slavish worshipper, whose happiness well-being and

  position--whose very honour--depended, in the end, entirely on his

  wife. A wife who cared for nothing but riches and the pleasures of the

  flesh--with whomever her roving eye descended on.

  Magnus could not remember a time when his parents had not fought,

  lavishly and long. The bitter recriminations and violent rages. And

  each time ending with his mother giving his father that sultry

  come-hither smile, the smile which had invited him to her bed once

  again. And his father gratefully accepting--honour, dignity and

  self-respect forgotten--until the next time he discovered her with a

  handsome footman, a good-looking stable boy one of his friends or even

  a passing gypsy.

  Magnus had grown up swearing he would never let a woman make a fool of

  him that way. He'd resolved never to marry, never to allow a woman

  close enough to cause such damage. He'd thought it no hardship. until

  he'd held a sleeping toddler in his arms and realised he was depriving

  himself of children. And so he'd married. Thinking he could handle

  it. Believing he could keep his wife in her proper place--at arm's

  length.

  But he'd chosen Tallie, naive, innocent Tallie, who needed a protector

  more than any female he knew. Who'd undermined his de fences from the

  moment he married her. No, from even before that--he would never

  forget the sound of her sobbing in the maze that day. He should have

  walked away then. only he hadn't been able to leave her alone and

  unprotected, to fend for herself in the world.

  Bedraggled little orphan that she was then, he'd never suspected how

  much he would come to desire her. Magnus closed his eyes in despair.

  He had never desired a woman so much in his life. And that had been

  prior to last night. last night, when she'd accepted his embrace with

  a joy and a sweet, loving passion that had left him shaking inside. And

  even now, hours later. He'd thought he could slake his desire for her

  he only craved her more.

  Man of the world that he was, thinking he'd experienced everything a

  man and woman could do together--he'd never known it could be like

  that, two coming together as one, an explosion of sensation and emotion

  filling a void inside him he had never known existed.

  When one blurted, tearful declaration of love had shattered a

  lifetime's resolution and sent him spinning towards the abyss.

  I love you, Magnus.

  Magnus remounted his horse and spurred it onwards.

  He returned in the evening. Tallie was overjoyed to see him, and

  hurried forward for his kiss, but he turned away to remove his coat and

  hat. When he turned back to face her his visage was impassive and

  coolly polite.

  "Did you have a good day?" he said, walking past her to a sideboard

  and pouring himself a drink.

  "I... all right," she faltered, a little thrown by his coolness.

  "Enjoy the shopping?"

  "N... I ... er, yes, I suppose so. We did a lot of it. Monique

  insisted."

  "Very good. It is almost time for dinner, so I suggest you make

  yourself ready. We have been invited to dine with friends of Laetitia

  who are also visiting Paris--Lady Pamela Horton and her husband Lord

  Jasper. Shall we say one hour?" And with that he laid his glass

  aside, stood up and left the room, leaving Tallie staring after him.

  What had happened? Was he angry with her for some reason? Why was he

  treating her as a polite stranger would? Where was her husband of last

  night? The man who'd called her sweetheart--twice--and held her

  tenderly in his arms while she wept? And then made magnificent,

  glorious love to her--not once, but three times in one night. Four, if

  you counted the wondrous morning episode.

  Hurt and confused, Tallie allowed herself to be dressed in her new

  finery. As Monique added the final touches to her hair Tallie stared

  at herself in the mirror and ordered herself to stop moping. She

  should be thrilled--she was going to dine out with her husband and his

  friends. In Paris--the most romantic and exciting city in the world.

  And she was wearing the finest and most fashionable clothes she had

  ever worn in her life.

  But she didn't feel thrilled at
all. All she could do was wonder what

  had gone wrong, why Magnus was acting so distant and cold towards her

  when only that morning he had made love to her and kissed her goodbye

  so tenderly. Oh! It was foolish to repine, Tallie told herself

  sternly.

  It wasn't his fault if he did not love her--it was a marriage of

  convenience, after all. He hadn't been cruel--not even cross or

  irritable. Only reserved and distant. And very polite. It would be

  foolish in the extreme if she allowed herself to fall into a fit of the

  dismals merely because her husband was polite to her.

  On that bracing thought Tallie left her chamber and joined her husband

  in the entrance hall.

  "Lord and Lady d'Arenville." The footman's announcement caused a small

  stir in the spacious and elegant salon. Lady Pamela, a tall, elegant

  woman dressed in a ravishing green dress, came forward and greeted

  Magnus warmly.

  "Magnus, you wicked man, you're late. And this is your little wife.

  How do you do, my dear? " She cast a quick, indifferent glance over

  Tallie, who at once felt small and plain, despite her fashionable

  dress.

  "Now, Magnus, there are a dozen people who wish to renew acquaintance

  with you. Oh, and here is Jasper. Take care of Lady d'Arenville, my