by Lara Blunte
Hester nuzzled his face with her nose, pressing the spot between her legs against his hip. She had a sensation of need and pleasure that she had known on her own, but it was much more powerful now. Now it was taking over her as nothing ever had.
She felt a greed for him, but he was unconscious, asleep. Her tongue came out of her mouth, and lapped at his blood.
Half of her wanted him to stay unconscious, and the other half wished violently that he would awaken, and that he would want her as much as she wanted him.
Twenty-Two. What Is the Use?
John had understood that Hester wanted him.
He knew that she had probably never been with a man, but that she was being overwhelmed by her own desire, and he understood it was the reason she had decided to work for him and live on his land. He thought that she knew this herself, and had come to his house in the same deliberate way she did everything else.
In the month after she had arrived and, admittedly, been able to help him accomplish more things than he had thought possible with her knowledge, hard work and perseverance, he had become grateful to her.
Yet, her proximity had begun to disturb him, as the proximity of an attractive woman would disturb any man, even a man deeply in love. It was all the worse because he could tell that her sensuality would be wild -- and silent.
She probably knew that she was appealing to a darkness in him that was difficult to control, or constantly watch over. It took only a moment to lose one's head, after having kept it ten thousand other moments.
He had been able to successfully avoid her, but since the day of the storm, when he had fallen off his horse and she and Abby had nursed him, she had become bolder. She followed him constantly with her eyes, and stood too close to him when they inspected the crops or the books. He could see her almost undulating like a serpent inside the house, as she tried to find any excuse to go near him, to bring his dish, or take it away to the kitchen, or pour his wine, even though Abby was there to serve them.
She did not have the innocence that Georgiana had had, years ago, when he had first kissed her. Georgiana's sensuality had been an entirely different thing, radiant and unaware of itself. She had not known what she was feeling, and she certainly had not known what a man might be thinking or wanting. Georgiana had been playful in her ignorance, teasing him, wanting him without knowing what she wanted, or what she was provoking. She had been a joy and a tender torment to him.
This woman was an entirely different thing. He had met brazen ladies before, ladies who were usually married, bored and vocal about what they wanted. Hester was not like them. He suspected that her nature was so passionate that it gave her no respite, but she was not an innocent as Georgiana had been. She knew, as a woman who deals with the land always knows, what was meant to happen between people, she knew that she was deliberately provoking him. She wanted him to be brutal to her and match the violence that she had inside.
If he threw her on the bed and used her she wouldn't demur, she wouldn't hide, all of her would be there to meet him. He knew she wouldn't regret it the next day, or cry, or pretend that she had not understood what might happen. She would just want more of him in her relentless way.
But John was a strong man, and he knew what he wanted. He wanted Georgiana, and had wanted nothing but her for years. To give in to this woman, even once, would forever lose him what he loved the most: he could not, having the slightest heart and some honor, deflower Hester and then send her away to a destiny that would be uncertain at best, and tragic at worst. He could not do that to any woman, not if one day he were to be with Georgiana.
Hester was trying to pull him to some private hell of hers, a place from which he would not easily emerge.
And yet there she was, day after day, standing close to him, following him, looking at him.
"Don't stand so near me," he snapped at her during supper, when she had leaned over him to get his plate.
She took a step back, staring with her black sorceress’ eyes. "I beg your pardon!" she said, with the sudden politeness of a gentleman's daughter.
They were alone in his house, as it was Abby's day of rest and she had gone to town. John stood up abruptly and Hester did not move, but he could see that her eyes, which hardly ever blinked, had flinched a little.
"Don't be always so near me," he repeated. "You are an unmarried woman working with a man and living on his land."
She felt no apparent shame. "I have told you before I don't care about scandal."
"It's not the scandal," he said. "You know exactly what I am talking about."
Hester, as always, was troubled by his height, his body, by the heat emanating from him. She had been watching his hands all evening, his elegant, powerful hands, and she craved to have them on her.
Even as he told her to move away from him, she had begun to slink along the walls, her palms against the stone, to stand right underneath him, with her face turned up to his as if they were already lying in bed. She said, "I don't care about any of it!"
"Well, I do!" he said.
He turned his back on her and would have walked away, but she suddenly couldn't help herself. "What is the use?"
He stopped at the door and she could see his profile, the anger already on his face. She had no fear of his rage.
"What is the use of you waiting for her? She will have a child soon, and that child will be the Earl. Don't you know that after that everything will become impossible? She will have to do her duty by the child, forever, after Hugh dies too -- if he even dies before her."
He had now fully turned towards her.
"What do you know of anything?" he asked in a low voice.
She smiled. "I know a great deal. I know that after she came back from being with bandits he waited till he saw that she had conceived no child, then he sent everyone away -- everyone, except me, because I was almost a servant -- and then he did nothing but make love to his wife."
She saw his expression, and knew that in another moment he would be capable of murder, but she didn't stop.
"He went to her room every night. I heard them! He is determined to get her with child, and he is enjoying it. You should see how he takes her arm and kisses her on the shoulder, almost in front of everyone! You should see –"
Hester couldn't continue because John took a step forward and, grabbing the edge of the heavy wooden table, he threw it across the room. The table flew against the window pane, breaking it. The high evening wind could now be heard howling outside, and it moved his hair as he approached her.
"You dare say that to me!"
She put her back against the wall and for a moment she thought that he would beat her, or try to strangle her. Even that she would take, because he wasn't a man who could use violence against a woman and not regret it. She just wanted his hands.
But he only put them on either side of her as he visibly took hold of himself and said, "I don't want to throw you out because you have nowhere to go, and something very bad would happen to you. But you will stay the hell away from me. And you will never talk about Georgiana." He bent his face sideways, as if to make sure they were really looking into each other's eyes, and that she understood him. "You will be quiet, and modest, or I will make you sorry, and not in the way you are hoping!"
He backed away from her and left the room. She heard the front door opening and closing, and not long after she heard his horse thundering by.
And still she did not despair.
Twenty-Three. A Bandit
"But do you love him?" Georgiana asked Cecily.
Hugh frowned impatiently, "What does that have to do with anything? A man with four thousand a year, a solid family that I would not hesitate to connect myself to… I think it will be enough if she likes him!"
Cecily was blushing but she smiled, taking Georgiana's hand, "I like him!"
Georgiana knew it was a lie. Mr. Burke doubled Cecily in age, and he was already an old man in demeanor, fussy about his food and the temperature of
the room, and fond of droning on about ships and agricultural machinery.
Cecily wanted to do what was expected of her, and not be a burden to Georgiana anymore. And Georgiana did not want either of her younger sisters to be sacrificed as she had been. There would have been no point to what she had done, what she still had to bear, if Cecily and Dotty were to know the same fate as she – with men less attractive than Hugh, who with his fair complexion and lean frame could still seem dashing to girls easily blinded by an Earldom, like Bess.
Hugh wanted to get rid of two problems and did not understand what the fuss was about; Cecily had received a wonderful proposal which could not, must not be refused.
But there was Georgiana soulfully looking into her sister's silly romantic eyes and asking her if she felt any love.
He stood up impatiently, "I expect this proposal to be accepted, and soon!" he said, walking out with the large Dalmatians that went everywhere with him when he was at Halford.
Cecily was trying not to cry, but her eyes had nevertheless filled with tears.
"We will find a way to refuse him," Georgiana whispered to her.
Bess, who had been leaving the room, stopped and pricked her ears. She had not heard what had been said, but she knew Georgiana would try to free Cecily. Bess wanted all her sisters married to rich man, as she could no longer marry anybody and would need help later in life.
Besides, she needed tales of insubordination and betrayal to carry to Hugh, so that he would forsake Georgiana's bed once again.
The Countess had not yet conceived, after three months of vigorous attempts by her husband. Her distaste for his performances had made him bitter once again; she had not been able to help showing her lack of enthusiasm. Things were worse than before, for now Bess hated her ten times as much, and became incensed when she was ignored in favor of her sister, though her position had become so precarious that she dared not trouble Hugh about it. She remained sweet and alluring to him, while taking her rage out on the other girls, and could not stop taunting Georgiana with the fact that the mysterious Hester had managed to go live with John.
"He must have forgotten you completely," she told the Countess, who did her best to hide her despair.
"Why do you tolerate Bess, Georgiana?" Cecily asked now, following her eyes. "She is never kind to you."
Georgiana shrugged. "I always think of what papa would say."
"Even he would tell you to throw her out!"
"He wouldn't, because she has nowhere to go."
"She did that to herself!"
"It doesn't matter. That doesn't change anything."
"You should at least tell her that should she continue this way..."
"I can't threaten my sister," Georgiana frowned. "Something happened to her, but I can't forget that once she loved me, and was patient with me."
"That was long ago!" Cecily insisted, frowning.
"Still, I can't throw her out, I won't, and I won't fight with her all the time. But now, as to you, be as pretty as a picture tonight, and as demure and silent as one – dance with Mr. Burke and listen to him, but if he presses you for an answer say that you still need a moment to think!"
It was Cecily's turn to sigh, "Giana, sooner or later I will have to say yes to someone!"
"Let us make it later," Georgiana said. "Let us see who else appears. One never knows!"
She did not want to add that Cecily could not understand the horror of being in bed with a man she did not love, and the bliss of being with the one she adored. She only smiled and patted her hand.
That night a ball took place at Halford, and Mr. Burke was there with his pudgy hands and watery eyes, and Cecily listened to him, afterwards taking a lot more pleasure in dancing with some dashing officers.
Georgiana sparkled with jewels as she led a minuet with her husband.
It was a long, tiresome evening, with no pleasure in it for Georgiana; it only had the virtue of tiring Hugh as well, so that instead of trailing after her, or of pulling her by the arm to his room, he said goodnight as he yawned, looking three parts drunk and one part asleep.
His wife sat in her room as the maids removed her finery and brushed the powder out of her hair. After she dismissed them she looked at herself and thought that life had become a matter of what was less bad, rather than what was better or worse. It was less bad that she should sleep alone in her enormous bed than that she should have to bear the presence of her husband.
She was deep in reflection as the door behind her opened, and she turned around in fright, thinking she had summoned Hugh by dwelling on how much she wanted him to stay away.
The breath caught in her throat as she saw John enter. Was this a dream?
She leapt up from the vanity table and ran towards him. He caught her in the air, and they began kissing hungrily.
"How did you get in?" she asked in a whisper.
"The trusty old tree outside the nursery. I used to climb it to visit my father after he had gone to bed," he said, and still holding her he moved back to the door and locked it.
They stood kissing, and Georgiana pressed against him as if she were afraid that he would disappear in thin air. "You said you would never come to me! If you knew how much I needed to see you tonight..."
"I do know, my love. I do know."
"Oh, John, I wish all broken oaths were this sweet..."
"We must be quiet," he reminded her. "Or I might have to kill that idiot husband of yours after all..."
"Yes, yes," she replied, removing his jacket.
They lay down on the bed, and held each other's faces to kiss till their lips hurt. Soon John was in her; she couldn't help crying out with how much she wanted him, and he whispered, "Quiet!"
She tried to be quiet, but she wanted him too much.
Twenty-Four. True Nobility
Three weeks later, an urgent matter occupied everyone's thoughts: an outbreak of smallpox killed several people around the countryside, halfway between John at his farm and Georgiana at Halford.
The dreaded illness was easy to catch, and quick to kill. It seemed that the great estates had taken precautions, such as minimizing the number of servants who were on attendance, and not letting them go back to their homes or villages. They also did not allow almost anyone to go to them. Fear of contagion kept most people from traveling.
John worried about Georgiana and her sisters, but thought that, through the precautions the estates were taking, they would be safer than most people.
The opposite was true for him and those on his farm, as they were near the beginning of the infection and dealt with people in Woodbridge for provisions, and with others who came through.
John decided that he would get a procedure called variolation which, as he explained to Hester, Abby and William, was risky and could, in fact, bring the disease rather than prevent it. He also added that, if they were not inoculated, it was best that they should go away until the outbreak was over.
Hester immediately said that she would get variolation too, because if John were risking himself she wanted to do the same thing; also, she would not be sent away. Abby was too afraid to do something that went against her common sense and left for town, as did William.
John and Hester went to Shaftesbury, where a Dr. Hopkins was an advocate and practitioner of inoculation. It was a terrifying thing to have the liquid from an infected pustule rubbed into a small cut between their thumb and finger, but Dr. Hopkins explained that the infection he was giving them came from a mild case of smallpox, and would be localized. They would develop symptoms in the next few days, but being strong and healthy at the time of variolation, they should neither succumb to the disease nor undergo scarring.
They now needed to go home, withstand the symptoms that would follow, and afterwards be healthy enough to do the work of four people.
Both became feverish within a few days, John in his house and Hester in hers. He saw that he had developed sores around his hand, but they did not seem to spread. He rode
out the fever, the malaise and the headache, and then the sores became pustules, but still did not spread. The sores grew scabs within a few days and fell out, and he was left with a few marks on his hand and forearm. When he felt better he went to find Hester, who was feeling more ill than he had been, though her sores had not spread any more than his.
He sat by her, made her drink a little beef broth, and carefully wiped the sweat from her face and neck, trying to make her feel more comfortable. Hester almost wished that her sickness would last, even as she was overwhelmed by nausea and chills, because John would be there, looking at her with compassion, touching her.
But she was a strong, healthy being, and in a few days she was better, and John was back behind the walls of his house, avoiding her as before unless it was time for work.
John had sent a note to Cecily, which he hoped would not be confiscated, asking her and her sisters to be inoculated, giving her Dr. Hopkins' name and urging them to trust him.
He did not expect an answer to the note, but there was one. A groom from Halford appeared a few days after the note was sent, as John had his mid-morning luncheon after returning from buying provisions in town. He saw the man through the window and ran outside. He knew the groom, who lost no time saying, "Master John, your note to Miss Cecily was delivered, though she is not at Halford. Her ladyship the Countess had her sisters taken to a convent for safekeeping, but..."
"What, man?" John asked impatiently. He feared the man's flustered look.
"Miss Blake -- Miss Elizabeth Blake, that is -- has died, sir. And her ladyship, who nursed her, has fallen ill as well..."
Hester had silently come to stand behind John. He had frozen in horror as the groom continued.