If he hadn’t drunk that rum, and if he weren’t feeling tired, and occupied by more pressing matters, he might deliver a lecture on how those societal rules she so cavalierly dismissed were really but a codified version of caring what individual people thought. Of taking pains, and inconveniencing oneself, so that Porters near and far would not think ill of you. Do you see now why we bother with propriety? he might say.
But not only was he tired, and rum-headed, and busy trying to find a decent way out of their predicament… he also wasn’t so sure of his lecturing authority as he’d been even a day ago. So vividly he remembered that feeling of envy, in the barn, as she’d declared the fact of her father’s trust. He’d felt there might be things he was missing, abiding so carefully by rules as he did.
So he’d omit that lecture. He had something more pointed to say. “I might yield, if I shared your assessment of this as an insignificant transgression. But it wouldn’t be insignificant for me.” He left the window—he’d begun to be cold there—and went to crouch before the fire, moving the screen aside and holding his palms out to warm them. “There’s been too much familiarity between us. Much of it was forced upon us by circumstance; some by our own laxity. But all of it—make no mistake—changes the implication of our being alone in a room.”
“I don’t understand.” The waver in her voice told him that she did understand at least a little.
“I don’t mean that I would presume on that familiarity. I have sufficient command of my behavior to ensure you would be safe.” He turned his hands to warm the knuckles. His face was warm already, from the indelicacy of this conversation. “I have less command, however, of my thoughts. And if I were to spend the night in this room, that night would be filled with thoughts that did me no credit.”
“Surely you’d be asleep, and not thinking anything at all.”
“Dreams that did me no credit, then. If you must have that level of detail. And that’s presuming I was able to sleep.”
There was a silence. Perhaps she wasn’t familiar with the bodily manifestation of desire in men, and how it could distract to the point of discomfort. Perhaps she didn’t know what he meant about dreams.
Perhaps he oughtn’t to have let the conversation go quite so far down this path.
Finally she spoke. “As long as your behavior did you credit, I wouldn’t hold you culpable for your dreams or your thoughts.”
“You might not. But I would.” He twisted to speak over his shoulder. “Personal honor runs deeper than one’s actions. That I refrain from ruining you merely proves I’m not an outright villain. It’s a pathetically low standard by which to declare oneself a virtuous man. And though you may find it quaint, or frivolous, I do put some stake in virtue.”
She shifted her position on the bed, angling round for a more direct view of the fireplace and of him. “I’d think a man who has sinful thoughts, yet conducts himself decently, is a better exemplar of virtue than a man who’s never tested by such thoughts at all. But I suppose my understanding of sin and virtue must be rather simplistic. I don’t know very much of Scripture beyond what I happen to have heard in Sunday services.”
“It’s not even to do with church or Scripture, really. Not altogether.” He was lecturing again. He’d try to keep it brief. “It’s simply that there are things that are right to do, and things that are wrong to do. Thoughts and behaviors that become a gentleman, and thoughts and behaviors that don’t.”
“That’s rather like what Papa says. Like what Mr. Hume said, about morality and the smallest grain of natural honesty.”
No, it wasn’t. Not at all. That business about superstition and moral scaffolding was arrogant blasphemy, whereas the point he was making, about concepts of virtue that prevailed irrespective of one’s church attendance…
“There might be certain similarities, I suppose. Superficial similarities.” He pushed weary warm fingers through his hair. He had neither the energy nor the acuity for this conversation.
“Well, whatever the state of your thoughts or dreams, I think you have a better chance of sleeping here than you would downstairs. Only think of it: even if you can find a bed, it surely won’t be made up. And there won’t be a fire. You might freeze.”
Lord. She was right. He’d been too tired to think of that.
“Think of all you have to do tomorrow.” She’d slid to the very edge of the mattress, toes on the floor, as if at any moment she might spring up to give more force to her argument. “You’ll want to be well-rested for the journey to Downham Market and back, and all the business with the wheelwright. And think how disappointed your brothers and sisters will be if you arrive home for Christmas only to nod off into the pudding.”
For so slender an acquaintance as theirs was, she certainly did know his weaknesses. And hadn’t he had a lesson this very afternoon, when the carriage went over, about how a zealous devotion to honor and principle might leave him useless to the people who depended on him?
“It’s a large bed.” She gestured to its expanse, as though he hadn’t taken thorough note of all its dimensions during his first few seconds in the room. “Two people might lie near to their respective edges and have such a space in the middle as—”
“Miss Sharp, I am not going to sleep in that bed with you.” He took a breath. “Be satisfied with my abandoning decency so far as to remain in this room. I’ll be staying here by the fire, fully clothed.” The bricks were warm, at least, and the warmth would linger for some time even after the fire died out. He could use the nightshirt Mr. Porter had sent along for another layer. She might have something in her trunk he could use as a makeshift blanket, too.
He’d made his decision. Now, the awkward particulars. He turned to face the fire once more. “I’ll step out into the hall when you’re ready to dress for bed. You come tap on the door when you’re finished. Then I’ll count to thirty before I come in, to give you time to get into bed and draw the curtains.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid that won’t work.”
“No? What part of it won’t work?” Besides the part that had him lying on bricks all night, tormented by her desirable presence in a bed mere steps away, that was.
“I’m sorry.” The fact that she apologized twice made it clear he wouldn’t like what was coming. “I can’t undress on my own. I’ll need you to unlace my stays.”
For a moment the room itself seemed to be holding its breath. Then a stick broke in the fire, and the flames leaped and capered, merry as could be at the mess he’d got himself into now.
Andrew covered his face with his fire-warmed hands, and prayed for strength.
* * *
He’d obviously never undressed a woman before. If his refusal to meet her eyes in the dressing-table mirror hadn’t made that clear, his befuddlement when confronted with her stay-laces surely did away with any doubt.
“Do I take the string completely out?” He frowned, his gaze running up and down her back as he puzzled out how to undo Perkins’ handiwork.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Be sure to take note of how it was threaded, so that you’ll be able to thread it again tomorrow morning.”
He nodded, ducking his chin far enough to prevent even a peripheral crossing of his glance with hers. They hadn’t spoken until now of the fact that he’d need to attend to her partially clad form again in the morning, and perhaps that fact had not yet occurred to him.
His fingers brushed over the linen of her shift as he began picking apart the knot near her waist. He scowled, his brow lowered in concentration and also no doubt in disapproval of this enterprise and his part in it. You’d never know, to look at him, that behind that stern face lurked wicked thoughts and dreams.
“Did I pinch you?” He glanced up, finally meeting her eyes in the mirror.
“No. Did I flinch?”
“You shivered.” His fingers worked on, teasing the un-knotted string through the lowest eyelet.
“Ah. There was a draft, I suppose.” Now sh
e was the one to look away, dropping her gaze to the tabletop. “It’s a bit chilly, this far from the fire.”
“So it is. I’ll try to be quicker with this.”
“Not too quick, though, or you might not take thorough enough note of the threading scheme. Then tomorrow when it comes time to do it all up again you’ll be lost.”
“Of course. I’ll take note.” The shortness of his reply suggested he knew very well why she didn’t want him to hurry at his task, and equally well why she’d shivered. The set of his jaw, when she dared a glance at the mirror, told her such sentiments would receive no encouragement from him, regardless of the nature of his thoughts and dreams.
Well, she had those thoughts and dreams too, sometimes, though she’d never considered whether or not they did her credit. Anyone approaching the age of marriage must necessarily begin to contemplate the duties and privileges of the state. It was only natural, just as it was natural—and surely it must be—for a girl with the privacy of her own bedroom to acquaint herself with the places on her body she’d best like a husband to one day touch.
It had never occurred to her to count the backbone among those places. To number light accidental touches, through a layer of linen, among the rewards that awaited a woman after marriage. Perkins performed this same task every night, and yet it wasn’t the same at all.
“There’s the last of it.” He drew the laces through the final eyelet, wrapping them round his large hand as he went. He set the resultant coil on the table and stepped back. “I’ll be in the hall. Tap at the door when you’re ready.”
Disappointment, stupid misplaced disappointment, washed through her as he left the room. What exactly had she hoped would happen? She didn’t want to be ruined. Even a smaller liberty—a single slow kiss at the nape of her neck, for example, or some deliberate caresses up and down her spine, now that the stays had been put aside—would surely have led to such self-reproach on his part as would have rendered the remainder of their time together unbearably awkward.
He might have unpinned her hair innocently enough, though. That would have been pleasant.
Lucy sighed, and set to taking the pins out herself. She took down her hair, plaited it, and changed her shift for a nightgown. Took a pillow from the bed and set it on the floor by the hearth along with two flannel nightrails from her trunk, the best she could do by way of blankets. Then she tapped at the door and crawled into bed, closing all the curtains save for one small gap to let her hear the door and follow Mr. Blackshear’s progress through the room.
Not that there was much to follow. His footsteps went to one candle and then another, the room growing darker with each stop. When only the faint glow of firelight remained, his boot-heels sounded on the hearth’s bricks.
She pulled the covers up to her chin, and up to her ears on either side. She missed the warming pan that always heated her bed at home, but she mustn’t complain, even to herself. Not when the Porters had put themselves out so much already, and not when Mr. Blackshear lay on the floor, with only makeshift covers, before a fire that must sooner or later go out.
* * *
Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed. He couldn’t even count the hours. He only knew the clock was mocking his sleeplessness just as the long-gone, keenly lamented fire had mocked his predicament of being shut up alone with Miss Sharp.
Andrew folded his arms and tucked his hands between biceps and ribs, that his fingers might not freeze and snap off. What an ignorant ass he’d been, supposing lustful temptation to be the great trial he’d face this night. He was so desperately tired, he’d occasionally drop into slumber for a minute or five at a time, only to be woken from the inside out by a cold that had penetrated all the way to his marrow.
His bones had turned to icicles. He couldn’t stop shaking. His ears felt brittle, and prone to shatter at a touch.
He took his somewhat-warmed hands out from under his sleeves, tugged up one of the flannel gowns serving as farcically inadequate blankets, and covered both ears, to thaw them. Thus he didn’t hear any rustling from the bed, nor the first few footfalls on carpet. Only when Miss Sharp spoke did he realize she was even awake, let alone standing but a few feet away.
“Mr. Blackshear, I cannot sleep for hearing your teeth chatter.”
“I assure you I don’t do it deliberately.” He didn’t even have the energy to be piqued. She exhausted him. The cold exhausted him. The hard floor exhausted him. This whole Yuletide misadventure, every bit of it, exhausted him.
“I mean I cannot sleep for knowing how miserable you are. Won’t you please come and sleep in the bed?”
For two seconds he allowed himself to imagine the soft mattress, the covers, the curtains, the warmth of another body in that space with his.
“What if tomorrow you undertake to do some service for the Porters—to chop them some firewood perhaps—and injure yourself because you’re impaired by exhaustion?”
A wisp of laughter rose in his chest, dissipating before it got out into air. She’d successfully used this same tactic to get him to remain in the room; why shouldn’t she try it again? “I thought the danger was my falling asleep and pitching face-first into the pudding. I didn’t realize things had grown so dire.”
She didn’t laugh. “Haven’t you sufficiently appeased decency in the hours you’ve already spent on the floor?” More rustles in the darkness as she came down to a crouch. “Think of my comfort if you won’t think of your own. How am I to sleep when I know how you suffer?”
“Don’t think of it as suffering.” He folded his arms again, this time to fortify his refusal. Mr. Porter’s nightshirt—his outermost layer of clothing—had gotten bunched on one side and he couldn’t seem to get it straightened. “It’s an inconvenient discomfort, merely. Not worth your losing any sleep.”
Her soft breaths laced the darkness as she apparently considered her next move. “You leave me no choice, then.” Another bout of rustling, and suddenly she lay on the floor beside him, arm against his, foot touching his boot, head on the same blasted pillow.
“For God’s sake, Miss Sharp.” He twisted away from her. “Are you completely incapable of taking no for an answer?”
“I’m incapable of watching you wrong yourself for no good reason.” Bold as could be, she wriggled herself across the few inches he’d opened up between them, and laid her arm against his again. “If you don’t come to bed, I’ll lie here in indecent proximity to you for the rest of the night.” By the last few words her teeth were chattering.
“Go back in the bed. You’ll freeze.” She wore only a nightgown and her feet must be bare.
“I imagine I will. Think how terrible you’ll feel. You’ll probably never enjoy Christmas again. It will always remind you of the year you let a poor girl freeze to death because your notions of propriety meant more to you than her life.” Her arm shivered against his.
He swore. Not out loud. In his head, though, he loosed a long, thorough, gratifying stream of invective.
Then he was ready to speak. “On the contrary, I’m bound to remember this as the year a heathen with no sense of decorum manipulated me to within an inch of my life and left my self-respect in tatters.” He sat up. “You stay on your own pillow, and keep all your limbs on your side of the bed.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll turn my back to you as well. You won’t even know I’m there.” She was scrambling to her feet as she spoke, clearly eager to get under the covers and out of the cold.
He followed her to the bed and wrested off his boots. He was disgusted with himself and with her. He was. But his muscles and frigid bones were fairly screaming out for the comfort of that mattress and those covers. And when his clumsy cold fingers finally got the nightshirt sorted out and his jacket off, and he slid down into the sheets, disgust trickled away under a deluge of sheer fleshly gratitude.
All that fretting for nothing: now that he was here, he hadn’t the energy for even a spark of bothersome lust. He gave himself up to warmth and s
oftness, and within two minutes he was sound asleep.
* * *
Even his dreams were innocent, at first. His sleep-drunk, warmth-wrapped brain took all the bliss of the mattress and sheets, and shaped it into visions of sweet sensory pleasure.
He dreamed of lying in a fragrant meadow on a summer afternoon. Of sprawling on a parlor sofa while some unseen person played the pianoforte, its notes shimmering through him like falling stars. Of swimming among clouds, warm and pleasingly substantial clouds that buoyed him like saltwater and gratified every inch of his skin.
Probably it was inevitable that the gratification should come to center on certain inches of skin in particular.
Possibly inevitable too that the clouds should give way to long limbs that tangled with his; hands tracing ardently over the muscles of his back; eyes laughing up at him; a mouth shaped for sin.
And hair. Rivers and rivers of midnight hair a man could drown in, and be nothing but grateful for his fate.
“Mr. Blackshear,” whispered the woman to whom all these virtues belonged.
He laughed. “Surely this is no occasion for the formality of surnames,” he said, or tried to say, but his tongue was dream-thickened and the building pleasure trifled with his breath. Things were moving along very quickly of a sudden.
No matter. She understood. “Andrew,” she said, and he couldn’t help noting the lack of fervor in her voice; the lack of ravenous, desperate surrender. She wasn’t nearly as far along as he was, and he might not have it in him to slow down and help her as a lover ought to do.
“Don’t worry.” Every word was a struggle now. “I’ll see to you afterward. I know what to do.” Spend any time among men, at a university, for example, and you couldn’t help overhearing such information. He’d always felt a little guilty for remaining in the room when those discussions started, but now he’d be glad of his knowledge.
“Almost there,” he assured her through gritted teeth, and he closed his eyes and bound his arms round her and gave himself up entirely to his body’s dictates; to the rhythm and the hot wet friction and the deliciously sinful misrule of it all.
A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5) Page 11