Judith Ivory

by Black Silk

  Graham looked over at Submit. She lay beside him, naked, one knee up, the other dropped, any pretense to decorum wiped out by exhaustion. She was soundly asleep, her thick hair all over the pillows. His eyes lingered on her. She was covered in fine hair, silver-gold, velvety. Beneath him, an hour ago, he had wiped sweat from her temple into her thick, curling hairline. Let down, her hair dominated the tiny bones of her face. If he wove a palm next to the scalp, it was warm, as humid as breath. If he combed his fingers through the heaped mass of hair, it became as cool and impersonal as a heavy armload of soft yarn. Looking at her pleased Graham not only sexually but aesthetically as well—and gave him also a surprising, sneaking contentment. She lay there, ravished and decimated in Henry’s private bower.

  He hadn’t meant to lie to her last night, when he’d said it meant nothing that this was Henry’s room. It was just that daylight always brought different perceptions. Graham couldn’t help but love the images of the night before superimposed now on the fact that what they had done they had done on Henry’s linen sheets, in the alcove of Henry’s bed-drapes and canopies and bedposts. Whether for ego or a kind of exorcism, the sight of her there—so thoroughly loved—brought a solid satisfaction.

  Graham kissed Submit lightly and got up.

  Twenty years, he discovered, had seen Henry’s dressing room converted into a huge bathroom with a large porcelain tub and no faucets—there was a dumbwaiter, presumably in place of plumbing. Graham sent this down. To his surprise, it came back up a few minutes later bearing a bucket of hot water. Meanwhile, he opened heavy, musty draperies to let in some light. Over a basin, set in the middle of dark wallpaper (green and brown pheasants taking flight), he discovered Henry’s razor and brushes and soap, undisturbed. It occurred to Graham, by the way these were set out, that Henry had shaved his own face. Graham frowned, wondering when the change had come about. He could remember, growing up, a barber arriving every morning at eight. Like Graham, Henry appeared to have given the practice up, each man opting for the simplicity of serving himself. With the water, Graham began to shave in front of a large round mirror.

  Graham paused, Henry’s razor in his hand, Henry’s soap all over his face. It suddenly struck him what it meant to be raised by Henry: that, for all his protests, his basis was Henry. He liked the same foods, the same music, the same plays—though Henry had never liked these quite so much as to want to leap onto the stage and be part of them. Graham knew he ran his house like Henry, kept his finances in the same sort of columns. He paid his servants on the same schedule, saw his tailor with the same regularity, though he bought considerably different items. They read the same books, though siding with different authors. And then there was the enigma of their strong attraction to the same woman. Wonderful, mysterious Submit. Like her vocabulary, he supposed, little syllables of Henry’s life had worked their way into him until they were indistinguishable—inextirpable—from himself.

  He caught himself staring at the face in the mirror. In that moment, it was the twisted, serious mouth of a man trying to shave his jawbone without taking off his ear. Though even relaxed, it was not the face of a happy man.

  Henry had not been happy, Graham knew, at least not when Graham had known him best. Then later with Submit, Graham suspected, Henry wore his happiness like a torment, afraid of losing it—to a younger man, to the frustration of a diminishing life span. To a sense of having found happiness too late or of not deserving it. To the worry of stealing his happiness from Submit’s storehouse. To the guilt over making a realist out of a romantic young girl.

  Graham wanted to make Submit a romantic again. And he would like to be happy. All his life, it had been perhaps simply this: Not wanting to be different from Henry so much as wanting all he had in common with Henry to total a different sum—a happy existence.

  He went into the bedroom, toweling off his face, and found Submit still asleep. Still utterly naked. He went over, thinking to cover her, then didn’t. Instead, he lay down beside her. He would wake her, he thought, and make love to her again. But neither he nor Submit had slept much last night. He had no sooner brought her into the crook of his body than he drifted off.

  It was hours later when Submit opened her eyes. She opened them slowly, to the sight of a moss green canopy overhead, to the weight of a man’s leg over her, the sound of a man’s even breathing. For a moment, her sleepy mind fell backward through time. When she turned, she expected to see Henry. But she saw instead a dark, naked man of superior proportion. The sight was unsettling.

  Against the tangle of sheets, Graham’s brown shoulders seemed out of place. His leg thrown so casually over hers looked foreign, as if she were a spy nested down cozily now with the enemy who’d conquered the camp. A sense of alarm grew. She looked around a room that was quintessentially Motmarche. It was made up of stone walls covered in tapestries, marble floors covered in carpets; Henry’s taste first, only to become hers. Her eyes traveled over dark, heavy furniture, some of it as old as the name Motmarche itself. As she lay there trying to account for the previous night, she could bring back only wisps of the remembered euphoria—which promptly evaporated into a cloud of angst. The only clue to her feelings now seemed to be a sense of loss and guilt. Her unease was vague but more than an excuse, no matter how Graham might lecture; it was as solid as Henry’s wardrobe standing in the corner. Submit lay back and stared up into the shadows. She could not avoid thinking, What in the world have I done?

  She jumped when a voice beside her spoke.

  “After such a wonderful honeymoon,” Graham said, “perhaps we should consider getting married.”

  Submit groaned.

  “Let’s not announce banns or anything else. Let’s go straight to London, get a special license, and have a magistrate do it.”

  She threw her arm over her face.

  “No-o—” He pulled on her arm, trying to roll her to him.

  When she wouldn’t cooperate, he touched her hair and murmured, “What’s wrong?”

  She made a sweep of her raised arm. “Oh, Graham. This was all a huge mistake. Really—” She started to get up from the bed, but he wouldn’t lift his leg.

  “Good heavens.” He laughed. “This is no mistake.” He drew her snugly into him, her buttocks against his unaroused genitals. He felt so fragile and unprotected, so human. She let him put his arms around her.

  “Look,” she said. She made a feeble gesture to indicate where they lay. “It’s Henry’s bed.”

  “Mm, yes. I noticed that.”

  “It’s awful. I have just made love—all night, in ways I am horrified even to consider—”

  “It was wonderful,” he contradicted and nudged her neck.

  “Stop it. To a man who drove Henry positively wild. And I have done it in Henry’s very own bed.” Her lips began to quiver. Lord, she was going to cry. The prospect was humiliating.

  Graham’s tone grew more serious. He spoke gently in her ear. “Submit,” he said, “don’t pretend you can know Henry. Henry might, wherever he is now, be jumping for joy. Two people he loved very much are both terribly happy with each other.” The idea cheered her a little, though not so much as it seemed to cheer Graham. He continued enthusiastically. “Whether he wanted to or not, Henry left you to me. And I want you. I want you to marry me.”

  She twisted partway around to look at him. He was smiling, relaxed, oddly wise, though it was hard to credit such a thing to a man so handsome. It occurred to her that Henry might not have exactly “left” her to him, but that Henry had left a myriad of ambiguities behind that simply couldn’t be worked out. One thing wasn’t the least bit ambiguous, however. With or without Henry’s imprimatur, she approved of Graham Wessit. Indisputably. Very much.

  “Say it,” he told her.

  “Say what?”

  He only rolled his eyes, while lower against her hip what had seemed vulnerable and human a moment ago was nudging its way into a distinctly more manly presence. “You haven’t said it. Tell me yo
u love me.” His expression took on a wicked glint. “Tell me you love me wildly, beyond control, that you simply can’t fight it any longer.” He said the last on the breath of a knowing laugh, no doubt at his own excessive demands—and perhaps at the excesses of his seemingly insatiable body.

  Submit blinked, pressed her mouth. “I, ah—” She frowned. “I, um—” Why did he need her to say it? When she loved him and he knew it? He’d already said as much himself. “Oh, Graham,” she tsked and gave up. “I can’t right now. Don’t be so insecure.”

  He rolled her shoulder and then her buttocks till he turned her to him. “I’m not being insecure. I’m torturing you. You can’t say it. You can’t let your feelings out, let them show. But I want you to.”

  She pressed her eyes closed again. Of course, she could let her feelings show. She took a breath, then muttered, “I, um, love you.”

  “Wildly,” he corrected.

  She opened her mouth—to protest—then a laugh escaped instead. “Um—” She felt her own smile pulling up at the corners of her mouth. “W-wildly.” There. She’d done it.

  “Beyond control. You simply can’t fight it. Say it.”

  She thumped him once in the chest.

  “I’m not letting you go till you tell me. Tell me what you feel.”

  This made another laugh erupt from her. Oh, she could say what she felt between them fairly accurately: a long, ever harder erection. She wiggled her eyebrows and smiled seductively, to say as much.

  He smiled, but shook his head: not good enough.

  “Oh, all right, I love you,” she said quickly. It came out with ease, all but startling her, in fact. “Wildly. Beyond limit, beyond control or the first bit of common sense, quite beyond reason.” What a surprise. It felt so wonderful to say it, she said it again. “I love you wildly.” The truth, as she heard her own voice utter it, seemed to sing up into the canopy and spread out into the silence of the room. She loved him. Wildly. It was true! Her heart sought his as passionately and relentlessly as her body reached for him as her mate. She couldn’t resist adding, “So there, you arrogant, insane man. You have completely undone me. Are you satisfied?”

  “Yes.” He hugged her to him. “Enormously.” He added in a murmur against her ear, “And, yes, I am quite proud of myself, since you asked.” After a moment, “So are you going to be my wife?”

  “Yes! Oh, yes. I want to marry you.” She leaned back enough to find his mouth, then kissed him quickly, liking this new prerogative. “I want to marry you and leave Motmarche for good. It’s never been the best thing for me perhaps—I think I have loved its old stones too much—”

  “Oh, dear.” Graham interrupted, pushing her back. “You’d better read something first then, if you’re marrying me to leave it.”

  Over the edge of the bed, he found his coat, rummaging through its pockets. “Here.” He handed her a paper with an embossed seal.

  Submit unfolded it and read:

  We have the honor of informing you, Your Lordship, that, upon the death of Henry Channing-Downes, the eleventh Marquess of Motmarche, and as the only son of Lucille Wessit née Lucille Channing-Downes, the only other grandchild to Archibald Channing-Downes, the ninth Marquess of Motmarche, the tenth Marquess being already in demise and his only child, the eleventh Marquess, having no legitimate issue, you are the immediate and full heir to the title, privileges, and properties associated with the English Marquessate, the lands, castle, and moneys entailed in the name of Motmarche, yourself being its twelfth Marquess.

  She looked up at him in disbelief. “How can this be?”

  He shrugged. “It seems the title has come through my mother, which I would never have dreamed. So far as I know, Motmarche has always gone through a male line. But then, I’m not familiar with the title too far back. And certain titles do pass down through the men and women of the family alike—we do, after all, have a woman on the throne.”

  Submit looked at the letter, with its signature of the Home Secretary. “You,” she said in utter wonder. “You inherit Motmarche?”

  He shrugged. “Henry must have known. Though I don’t know how far back. Even as he took me for his ward, perhaps. Even,” he teased her, “as he tried desperately to conceive a son.” He was amused, not upset. “Surely”—he cocked a wry eyebrow—“as he sent his wife to straighten me out.”

  “That’s not what he did.”

  “As I said, who knows? In any event, you are currently in bed, naked, with the marquess of Motmarche.”

  Submit was dismayed. “Oh, dear.” She smiled slightly, feeling the beginning of untold delight. “You know what people are going to say? That I schemed to get the same marquessate twice.”

  “Which we both know you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She looked at him, her eyes widening, a huge smile coming. “I want to marry you. But, oh, Graham, it gives me goose bumps just thinking I don’t have to give up Motmarche.” Her smile became vocal, a deep, true laugh from her belly through her chest. Then this became wickedly teasing. “The real question is, Can you stand that I will enjoy marrying you a little because you are the marquess of Motmarche?”

  “Absolutely.” He rolled himself on top of her, then the smart aleck grinned. “The real question is, Can you stand that I always wanted to do depraved things to the marquess of Motmarche’s wife?” Which made the new marquess of Motmarche laugh out loud—till her mouth on his stopped him.

  Graham thought he was joking when he said he loved making love to her partly because she was Henry’s wife. Submit suspected he was joking less than he knew. To a degree, she would always be Henry’s wife—his rib—in ways that had nothing to do with sex or loving. She was Henry’s creature, his creation, the product of cohabitation with a forceful and appealing personality. She didn’t mind if Graham liked her for that. It was part of her.

  Here was Graham’s happy ending, she mused, the one he’d wanted so many weeks ago. Two people in love. The only problem she saw was that these two people were so different they might well drive each other crazy, if they didn’t kill each other first. The only saving grace of such a match was that they were both probably mean and contrary enough to survive whatever the other threw at them. She wasn’t sure their future looked very rosy.

  In the interests of peace and happiness, she made a few private vows. She would not buy Graham a proper suit of conservative clothes. She would not put pressure on him to do so. She would not praise him effusively for running his finances at a profit nor tell him how nice he looked reading a book. She would not make him stop drinking champagne nor stop rowing in rowboats. She would not point out that a man who plays with explosives might one day blow up. She would try to enjoy Graham for himself without attempting to “fix” him. Poor, silly Henry hadn’t been able to do this. But she could. Then Submit laughed at herself. No, she couldn’t. Not perfectly. She would always be a little snobbish, a little smug, a little instructive. She understood suddenly why she was marrying someone so different from herself.

  Graham, with his strong ability to maintain and voice his differences, was the bravest bid she could make to stay tolerant, open to life’s diversity, and honest with herself.

  Author’s Note

  For those interested in historical accuracy, I must mention a few stretches of fact I felt at liberty to take in the course of creating this fiction. The largest liberty in which I knowingly indulged is the fact that the pillory was abolished as a form of punishment in England in 1837. Thus, two years must be ignored to allow that young Graham actually served a sentence in such a contraption. The whole notion of being pilloried, however, seemed so central to Graham’s problems and resentments, I blithely locked him in, hand and foot.

  The cure for this, of course, would have been to set the book earlier, but from the beginning the ideas of this book were already straining at the other end of the time line. Discovery-inventions, such as photography and aniline dyestuffs, pulled at Graham’s “flashy” character in his early st
ages of creation. Ideas, such as those of Marx and Darwin and Freud, tugged on Submit, pulling her firmly into the second half of the century. Rosalyn and Gerald of course needed the liberalized divorce laws of 1857. (My apologies for using the color magenta a year ahead of when it would actually be called so, but magenta simply seemed better than any other color for introducing Rosalyn as she made her way through the crowds.) The year 1858 was a compromise, a year intended to represent a fictional time frame in which nascent twentieth-century sensibilities, the likes of Submit’s and Graham’s, might truly have existed.

  Thus, errors a few years in one direction or the other are hereby acknowledged, though with very little remorse. It was pure fun making up this world from the facts, the above-mentioned having been bent a little to suit. It is my sincerest wish that it should be pure entertainment in reading the end result.

  Judy Cuevas

  February 1990

  About the Author

  JUDITH IVORY’s work has won numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America’s RITA, Top Ten Books of the Year, and Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice. Judith holds two degrees in mathematics. The Romance Reader and All About Romance websites list her books among the “Top 100 Romances Ever Written.” To contact Ms. Ivory, you may write to: P.O. Box 56-5484, Miami, FL 33256. For more information, visit her website at www.judithivory.com.

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