by Rose Lerner
She followed his eyes. Cream, butter, cheese, and more cream. “I’m sorry. I should have eaten dairy. I’ll be all right with what’s on my plate.”
“Oy, Palliser, pass the calf’s-foot jelly,” Simon called across the table. “And some of those beetroots, Geoff.”
The beetroots tasted mostly of pepper and burned her mouth, but she ate them all and smiled at him. He smiled back and turned the subject by launching into a rambling, rather awkward explanation of the process of designing a Gothic folly, and Maggie thought she might be a little bit in love with him.
She thought again of Skeffington’s mother, who had given up her people and her history and let her children dissolve into the sea of proper ingleses so she could sit at a grand table like this for every meal and not feel so foreign while she did it. Or had she done it for love? Either way, Maggie couldn’t even imagine wanting that. I’m going to marry a Jew, she promised herself. My children will grow up knowing exactly where they belong, and being proud of it.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy being a little in love with Simon Radcliffe-Gould for a while, though. He looked terribly handsome in a dark coat and white everything else, crisp as if he’d been cut out with a diamond. “...We’ll begin tomorrow by walking the property in search of a likely location, and—”
“Simon, you can’t wander about sketching tomorrow,” said Lord Throckmorton, who had been rhapsodizing about Simon’s previous brilliant designs to his other seat neighbor, a blond man of about forty who didn’t look very interested. “I’ve arranged a treasure hunt.”
This was why Simon had brought her. To protect him from this. Maggie took his arm, giving him her warmest, happiest smile. “I think we’ll find some way to amuse ourselves.”
He blinked uncomfortably.
“Come on, Simon, give me one day before you start working,” Throckmorton said. “You deserve a holiday. Besides, some of the clues won’t make sense without you.”
Simon seemed to gird himself for deceit, swallowing and squaring his shoulders. But when he smiled back at Maggie, it was very convincing, bright and boyish. “If I grow bored, I’ll just sketch something other than towers and ruins,” he said, his voice rather husky.
There was a chorus of crowing laughter around the table, and Lord Throckmorton subsided unhappily. His blond companion looked amused.
Maggie’s face burned. It was only a lie, or a joke, or something in between. But if Simon asked her to strip naked in the middle of the park so he could sketch her, Heaven help her she would do it. “I’ve never been an artist’s model before.”
Simon laughed. “You were born for it.”
Maggie wasn’t sure, but he might even have meant it as a compliment.
* * *
Maggie couldn’t sleep. She kept going over the conversation at dinner about her eating habits and thinking of wittily acerbic things she could have said, and Simon was in bed next to her smelling absolutely delicious. It felt terribly intimate to know he smelled of port from his after-dinner drink, cedar from the traveling trunk that had held his nightshirt, a whiff of cloves and myrrh from his tooth-powder. It brought to mind a line from a Hebrew love song Meyer had taught her, that he’d translated: Who is that coming out of the wilderness smelling of myrrh and frankincense?
She had thrilled to learn the words, imagining an Israelite king riding out of the desert in a swirl of sand to claim his beloved. But Simon sleeping with his mouth open, yesterday’s pomade sticking his black hair up haphazardly from his head, with absolutely no desire to claim her, was somehow every bit as mysterious and enthralling.
It had been days since she’d bedded anyone. She was ripe and ready for it; her breasts tingled, and she was agonizingly aware of her nightdress riding up to expose her cunny to the bedsheets. He could take her at once if he’d a mind to, push her face-down into the mattress and spear her without even having to push aside her skirts. Her thighs rubbed together when she rolled restlessly onto her other side, very nearly catching her womanly folds between them but not actually doing so.
If she could spend, it would calm her enough to sleep. But she’d promised to spend the night in his room. Would it wake him if she frigged herself? Probably, and then they’d both be embarrassed and he’d feel justly put upon. Your appetites are unhealthy, he’d say, or That’s revolting, and...
...she wouldn’t be able to stop, because it felt too good. She’d desperately chase her pleasure, writhing, while he watched in disgust as if she were a spider who’d crawled into his bed...
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. This could not go on. Pushing the counterpane back, she eased herself out of bed and tiptoed across the floor.
* * *
Simon opened his eyes to see Maggie wrapping herself in her banyan and creeping to the dressing room, presumably to use the chamber pot. She eased the door closed behind her, not quite all the way so the latch wouldn’t click and wake him. He turned over and tried not to be woken.
But the almost-closed door must have slipped open, because all at once he heard panting, the faint creaking of a chair, and—damn it all to hell—a low, bitten-off moan.
Simon gritted his teeth. He’d asked her not to leave his room at night, so she was trysting with someone in the damned dressing room where he could hear them? Of all the things he’d been glad to leave behind at university, having to listen to other people copulating was at the top of the list. He remembered plenty of nights with a pillow over his head, trying to decide if Clement was that vocally enthusiastic with him too, or if he was moaning loudly on purpose to make Simon jealous.
He was an adult now, and so were Maggie and whoever she was entertaining. He wasn’t obliged to suffer in silence. Throwing back the covers, he stalked through the door, saying in a furious undertone, “For God’s sake, you couldn’t go one night without—”
She yanked her great tent of a dressing gown over herself, sitting bolt upright with such force that the winged chair squeaked and thumped against the wall. But Simon could not unsee what the moonlight had revealed: Maggie with one leg hooked debauchedly over the arm of her chair, a hand working furiously between her legs while the other toyed with the breast that must still be naked beneath the silk of her banyan.
It had been a perfect breast, soft and round, with a taut little nipple she’d been tugging on. Simon wanted to get his teeth on it and bite. He wanted to shove her back into that chair and make her sorry for her lack of manners, and her shapely legs, and her damn yards of gold brocade that hid them from him.
She giggled. “Ai meu Deus, I’m so sorry, I—” Another breathless giggle. “I thought you wouldn’t hear me. I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t mean to be rude. I really could not sleep, and I just thought—I’m so sorry. I’ll, er—” She moaned again, this time with comical disappointment. “Damnation, I was so close.”
He wasn’t going to be able to sleep now either. For a mad moment he thought about saying, Carry on, I’ll just be in bed doing the same. But that was depraved, and an intimacy, and if he did it, in another few nights he’d be fucking her, ‘just so we can sleep.’
“Tomorrow night I’ll retire half an hour after you. Will that suffice?” Of course, that didn’t solve his problem. But he would just have to manage.
“I think fifteen minutes would suffice,” she said, nervously amused. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.” She stood up and went back into their room. He shivered when the hem of her robe brushed his feet.
* * *
Despite her midnight embarrassment, breakfast went easier than dinner. Maggie drank chocolate, ate buttered toast with a variety of excellent preserves, and chatted with Miss O’Leary about her professional ambitions. In payment for the young woman’s attendance at his party, Lord Throckmorton was leasing her a box at the Opera for the coming season, which she hoped to use to attract a better class of customers. By the time Maggie’s third slice of toast had been consumed, she had invited Miss O’Leary to visit Number Eighteen, and receive
d an open invitation to view the Opera from her box. Excellent professional opportunities for both of them.
“You, too, Mr. Radcliffe-Gould,” Miss O’Leary said with a sunny smile. She wasn’t a beauty in the ordinary sense, having nearly invisible eyebrows, crooked teeth, and more freckles than face, but she’d never lack for admirers. She was one of those girls you liked instinctively, for no particular reason, and she had a splendidly husky, lilting voice. “If you like the Opera.”
To Maggie’s surprise, Simon grinned at Lord Throckmorton. “I don’t know, Clement, do I like the Opera?”
“Simon adores the Opera,” the viscount informed them. She didn’t find him any too handsome either—ruddily English, with rather protuberant pale blue eyes and sandy hair swept back from a high forehead. Nor did she find him especially charming, although perhaps in other circumstances she would have. But he was undeniably the center of the gathering. “How many times did we go to see The Barber of Seville this spring?”
Simon’s grin turned sheepish. “...Ten?”
“A conservative estimate,” Throckmorton said, launching promptly into a song in Italian. Simon glanced round the table in embarrassment and, again to her surprise, hesitantly joined in. His gruff tenor was not stage-ready, but it charmed her to death, and he did indeed know every note of the aria by heart.
He leaned forward, eyes alight and fixed on Throckmorton, and Maggie saw suddenly that however frustrated he might be with his friend now, once they had been a couple that could draw all eyes when they walked into a room. In fact, they were drawing all eyes now. Most of Throckmorton’s friends looked jealous to one degree or another. She knew how they felt; this spring was more recent closeness than she had expected. “Do you remember when you drove us to town for every performance of Catalani in La Clemenza di Tito?” Simon asked.
“Not quite every one.”
Simon laughed. “Yes, yes, I know, I insisted we actually study the night before our Latin exam.”
“You could have studied in the curricle,” Throckmorton said with mock indignation.
Suddenly Maggie missed Meyer so much it hurt. She missed how confident and safe she felt with him, how when they spoke, she felt as if she glittered and glowed, as if everyone in the room must envy their laughter. Throckmorton might be an overbearing egoist, but she didn’t blame Simon for not wanting to let that feeling go.
She looked down at her beloved chemise dress, with its ruffled bodice and broad rose-colored ribbons at the sleeves and waist. She remembered finding it in a sack of clothes Mr. Gobetz brought from a widow’s estate: how delighted she’d been by the little ties at the back, how she’d made Meyer do them up at once. In London, she looked splendid in it. Here, on her own, she felt foolish and a little overdressed.
What would she do if Meyer didn’t come back from Rotterdam? And was she so afraid of it because he was her friend and she loved him, or because she didn’t know who she was without him?
Simon stood. “Shall we tour the grounds, Miss da Silva?”
“I’d love to. Let me fetch my things.”
“But we’re going to play charades on the terrace,” Throckmorton protested. “You love charades.”
Simon looked hunted. “I know, but I really ought to get started on your Gothic ruin. You do want a Gothic ruin, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I want your company too. Just stay for an hour or two, until we begin our treasure hunt. Surely that won’t make any difference.”
“I suppose not, but I’d like to see how the gardens look at different times of the day.”
“You’ll start early tomorrow.”
“Miss da Silva didn’t sleep well last night,” Simon said, and blushed furiously. Maggie’s pulse quickened. “I promised her we would take it easy today.”
Throckmorton widened his eyes in a playful pout. “Please, Simon,” he said in not much of an undertone. “Darling is ignoring me and I want to make him jealous.” That was the older blond clergyman he’d sat with at dinner and who hadn’t yet come down to breakfast, she thought. Simon’s lips thinned.
Santo Deus! Throckmorton wouldn’t take a hint, and Simon wouldn’t do more than hint. Maggie stood up. “Lord Throckmorton, we are going on a tour of the grounds.” She held his gaze unsmilingly until he looked away, which didn’t take very long.
“I only thought it would be fun,” he muttered, looking hurt.
“Thank you,” she said evenly. “We’ll see you at dinner.” She turned to the footman by the sideboard. “Would you have a luncheon made up for us to take with us, please? Simon, do you need to fetch anything from the room? Pencils or drawing paper or...something?”
He darted a wary look at the viscount and nodded. “No pork, please,” he called after the footman, and escaped upstairs after her.
* * *
Simon shoved a notebook and pencils into his satchel, feeling like an idiot.
Maggie was putting her own things into a pointy, tasseled purple reticule. “I begin to see why you wanted me to come with you,” she said.
He felt worse. “It’s contemptible, I know. I’m a man grown and I can’t extricate myself from a room.”
She took up a fringed parasol of sea-green silk, folded so as to dangle easily from her hand. She was all of a piece, everything matching; she knew so clearly who she was, while he knocked about from place to place like a billiard ball. A vivid memory of jeering murmurs, the brush of her curl against his shoulder, and his helpless erection filled his senses like the scent of tuberoses.
“But you knew that already,” he said with an ill grace. “Or I’d never have let Henney deal that faro game.”
Her expression changed from pity to annoyance. “You asked me to come.”
“I know.” He slung his satchel over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here.”
He felt a little better with sunlight and a breeze on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said again, more earnestly. “None of this is your fault.”
“I could teach you to say no, if you liked,” she offered diffidently, and stared out across Clement’s lawn as if ready to let him pretend she hadn’t said anything.
“I...beg pardon?”
“There’s a trick to it. I could teach you.”
It was patently absurd, but his chest swelled with hope like a fringed parasol catching the wind. “All right,” he said, quashing his embarrassment and preparing to learn.
They were passing a greenhouse with a sharply tilting roof, doors open to let in the summer air. As she led him inside, he removed his hat to keep clusters of unripe grapes from knocking it off. The light was dappled, green, almost murky. In her ruffled white dress she looked like Venus rising from a sea-foam of embroidered handkerchiefs.
“May I touch on...sensual matters?” she asked.
Heaven help him, he nodded.
“You’ve gathered I enjoy...rough treatment.” She seemed to be picking her words carefully, to avoid embarrassing him.
“For God’s sake. You can speak plainly. I’m hardly a blushing virgin.”
“Well, you are blushing.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement, the light turning them very green. Instead of feeling stung by her mockery, it charmed him.
“It’s a warm day,” he said primly, just to see her smile widen.
“Very well then,” she said. “I like men to be unkind to me in bed, and generally they know it. So sometimes when I say no, it’s a game. But sometimes it isn’t, and I need them to know the difference. So imagine I say to—Meyer.” She faltered, and he realized she’d almost said say to you. “Imagine I say to him, ‘No, no, oh God, please don’t!’”
She said it breathily, shrinking back with a note of panic in her voice. He imagined it, holding her against the brick wall of the greenhouse as she struggled insincerely. His cock twitched in his small-clothes.
“Maybe I mean it, but maybe it’s only part of the game. But now imagine I say—” She put out a hand and met his eyes squarely, her face unyielding. �
�Stop it. I mean it, I don’t like that and I want you to stop it right now.” Her voice had no give to it.
He hadn’t done a thing, but he took a step back.
She smiled at him. “See? How did you feel?”
“Abashed,” he admitted.
She beamed. “There you go! Of course it isn’t magic, but a well-meaning person would have difficulty misunderstanding. And here’s the trick: for that moment, you’ve got to not care even a shred what they think or how they feel. You don’t care if you sound like a shrew, or if they’re angry with you, or even if they hate you. Believe me, they can feel it, just as you did. It’s like a bucket of cold water over the head. And most people want to avoid feeling that way again. You saw Lord Throckmorton earlier. Of course he ought to have listened to you at once. But probably he told himself you really wished for an excuse to stay and enjoy yourself, that you didn’t mean it, that you only wanted a little persuasion. The best way to counter that is to remove any ambiguity.”
Simon thought of all the times he’d given in to Clement’s persuasions. All the times he’d pretended to enjoy himself, and all the times he really had. It struck him that he likely would have remained a virgin for several more years if Clement hadn’t talked over his shame and his shyness. With a sudden hot flush of guilt, he remembered how he’d silently begged Clement to ignore his protests then. Maybe Clement did believe Simon just needed an excuse to be happy.
He thought of Clement’s hurt earlier at Maggie’s utter indifference. Half his heart went out to Clement—and half felt glad. The truth was, Simon had a cruel streak; he had always tried not to give in to it. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t say it was easy.”
He slumped against the wall. “I’ve hurt him so much already. At school...I was mad for him. I still am, honestly, even if sometimes it feels more like a habit than anything else. But then...I thought I could make him happy. I wanted so badly to be the person that made him happy. I thought if I loved him enough, if I was loyal enough, he’d stop being jealous, and stop being lonely, and stop needing to be the cynosure of all eyes. And then all at once I couldn’t breathe, and when I tried to say so, to explain that— He was jealous of Catalani, for Christ’s sake. I was never any nearer her than Clement’s box! But talking to him about it only made it worse. I don’t know what I could have done.”