The Slightest Provocation

by Pam Rosenthal

  But none of that was really the point.

  Not, at that moment, that she was exactly sure of what the point was. Something about envy-of a girl who’d recently become so beautiful as to think that anything was possible (if you could call it thinking-well, then to believe it, which was all the worse). Suddenly, Fannie felt an awful pang-of loss to herself and bitterness toward Elizabeth. Suddenly, she found herself wanting a passionate devotion as well, while just yesterday she’d thought such things were only consolations-for the plain, like Philamela, or the odd and quaint, like the Penleys.

  Was she simply envious of how Elizabeth looked these days? Not just the physicality, but the power, the magic of it. When a girl looked like Elizabeth, she might be able to set her own rules-of conduct, and who knew what else?

  Or perhaps… but no, she couldn’t credit it, for he was a younger son and-well, one had heard the speculations about his mother. Still… after all, he had (had he not?) expressly mentioned that he’d be seeing their charming guest as well. Yes, she was sure of it-Lord Christopher had said that Fannie was charming and hadn’t said a thing about Elizabeth. And one could even make the case that it was at that moment that his lips had curved so provocatively and his eyes had-could one say they’d flashed? Well, if eyes of such a moody, fascinating hue could flash, his had. The color made one feel-well, the first word that came to mind was womanly. But she rejected it-her mama was womanly; everybody’s mama was womanly. Womanly wasn’t what she wanted.

  The truth was that Fannie didn’t know if English had a word for what she wanted. Not proper English anyway, and not the French they’d parroted at the Misses Duxbury’s either. It was all a bit disorienting.

  But even with her mind on a tear and her emotions on a wild, unaccustomed ramble, Fannie’s hands had remained firm and quiet. The horse trotted through the gate and up to the house; she climbed down and handed the reins to the groom waiting to take them from her-while a certain flare of light seemed to make her very dizzy.

  The sun might be poking its head out from a cloud; Miss Kimball might be making her nasty little dormouselike sounds of waking; Fred and Lord Ayres might be strolling by-she might have heard them say something about the wondrous fireworks display they were planning for Midsummer Night.

  Elizabeth might be staring at her in some confusion.

  Fannie wasn’t sure of any of this. Nor did any of it matter, except, of course, for her astonishing latest thoughts.

  “Fannie?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Miss Grandin?” Lord Ayres had his hat in his hand.

  “Cuz?” Fred reached out his hand to assist her. She shook him off.

  Smiling vaguely at the company, she heard herself apologizing, protesting a certain sudden exhaustion. “From the heat,” she added faintly, “the oppressive humidity.”

  She must go, she told them. She needed rest and solitude-perhaps it would comfort her to take a look at the pictures in the album she’d borrowed (yes, thanks, Miss Kimball, I can manage it). Grasping the large book in both hands, she hurried down the gravel path to the house, leaving them all quite bewildered, she expected, for she’d never been known to be ill or even faint for a moment in her life.

  Nor was she now, except for wanting the rosemary water rinsed through her hair.

  And-on sober reconsideration-there certainly wasn’t enough of it to share with Elizabeth. Nor was there room in the little alcove off the bedchamber where Fannie was staying for two girls to get their hair washed and their heads cooled. Which was just as well, because Fannie needed all the space she could get, to think through the remarkable thing that had just happened to her-and to see if she could figure out how those confusing footpaths at Rowen really connected one to the other.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “We should have done the reading first.” Mary adjusted the gold wire of her spectacles down over the bridge of her nose.

  “Indeed we should’ve,” Kit agreed. “I’ve never made love to a lady in spectacles, and I’m findin’ it deuced difficult, Lady Christopher, to restrain myself…”

  Allowing herself a final giggle or two, she picked up the portfolio of spy correspondence from the bedside table.

  “… from grabbing the papers out of your hand and ravishing you in your current fetching state.

  “Ravishing you once again,” he added.

  “I need to concentrate,” she told him. “Go stir the fire. Oh, and after we finish, I’ve a document to show you as well.”

  She drew the quilt up over her naked breasts. He watched until they were quite hidden, then shrugged his shoulders and slid out of bed. Just as well to turn his thoughts away from her and whatever she’d make of the papers she was reading-not to speak of whatever document she’d mentioned. Anyway, the room could do with a bit more heat. For even on a warm day like this one, the cottage tended toward dankness, situated as it was in so overgrown a part of the forest.

  But the fire could wait until he dealt with the room’s rather distressing state of disarray. Though he couldn’t suppress a small, rueful smile at the mess they’d made, hurling themselves at one another, tugging and peeling at their clothing in a frenzy not to waste precious time.

  He’d learned to tidy up after himself a bit while living in primitive conditions in Spain. Not that he liked doing it; he doubted that anybody liked doing it. And Mary, it was clear, had never for a moment considered applying herself to the matter of physical order. But now that he’d managed to assemble the rest of what he’d been wearing, where the bloody hell was his other stocking?

  Of course, where else should it be? Strewn over the book on the table, as though marking some phantom reader’s place, the book still open to the eternal question of whether a man or a woman got more pleasure from lovemaking. Damned if he knew the answer: probably it came out about equal if you played fair. At least he hoped so (not that he was complaining), though Ovid had it that the female sex was privileged in this area. But a poet wouldn’t know more than the next man. Idly, Kit wondered whether every man cherished a secret unspoken fear that his lady was getting the better end of the bargain.

  The floorboards nearest the cottage door were caked with mud they’d tracked in. He or she might try sweeping it, he supposed. With a broom-the slightly decayed specimen standing in the corner would answer for it. And damn, his stocking was stained with mildew from the old book he couldn’t bear to throw away.

  For though it might seem a romantic idyll, their meeting secretly in such a picturesque setting (gurgle of swift rushing water, doves cooing against the rustle of wind in the trees), and though at one time this cottage had actually been a sort of paradise for them (being the first bed and the first roof they’d shared), the truth was that these days (well, at his advanced age, at any rate) the arrangement left something to be desired.

  Come live with me and be my love-an old lyric she’d liked to sing, words and cadence coming echoing back now from behind his thoughts. Pastoral, a shepherd’s love song: giddy swain wooing his lady with promises of beds of roses, food served al fresco on silver plates, and absolutely no messes to worry about. Poetry, in a word.

  While reality was quite a different matter, especially if you were accustomed to having servants clean up after you. Astonishing, Kit thought, how smelly a linen sheet could become and in how short a time, at least when subjected to such excellent usage as this one had been getting. The odor had been piquant at first; at this moment one might call it earthy. Give him and Mary an additional sweaty day or so of pounding each other so delightfully, and the only thing one could honestly call it would be stinking.

  Come live with me and be my love

  And we will all the pleasures prove

  On stinking sheet in chilly air…

  It scanned well enough, warbled softly (so as not to disturb her) in his middling tenor while he sprinkled wood shavings around the boards he’d placed in the fireplace. Perhaps she’d be able to think of a clever last line. Later, after they’d settled the aff
airs of the nation.

  Squatting naked at the hearthside, he fanned the low flames up toward the kindling. Too bad he hadn’t brought that second quilt with him today, not to speak of the sheet he’d cadged, just before the girls from Beechwood Knolls had come calling. Very kind of them, he thought, to show such solicitude for Wat and Susanna. But they were young and inquisitive and would naturally have wondered at his carrying a bulky package of linen under his arm; as things stood, he’d had to chart a complicated journey for himself among connecting footpaths to give the impression of heading in the direction of farm rather than forest.

  He shivered, blowing on the fire and on his hands too. Sneaking a look at her over his shoulder-why was she rearranging his neatly sorted papers? She looked thoughtful: picking up various of them, spreading them out in her lap and comparing them. Anyway, he needn’t be so circumspect with his glances; she was so clearly intent on what she was doing as to have no attention whatsoever left for him. Using up the whole damn bed too. And what was taking her so long?

  Warm orange glow, pleasing whoosh of air and soft, low roar of flame: the last of the ash wood he’d brought from Mr. Greenlee’s workshop finally caught fire. Kit basked in his moment of pride and primitive wonder (passionate shepherd, noble savage cozy and contented in his hut with his woman). Of course, he’d need to fetch more wood if they were to spend any additional time here. Which would rather depend upon whatever she was making of those papers he’d shared with her. Noble savage’s quiet, compliant helpmate, bed partner, and skilled gatherer of acorns (for they’d have to eat something, wouldn’t they?). He grinned at how singularly inapt his fancy was when applied to the lady with gold spectacles, brow knit in concentration, and beautiful round breasts once again visible as the quilt slipped down around her.

  He spread out his hands in front of the flames. First things first: his hands weren’t the part of him that most needed warming. He rose and turned to face her, sighing and arching his back for the pleasure of toasting his arse against the excellent little blaze he’d brought forth (and perhaps, he thought, for the pleasure of showing himself to her, scars and all). She looked up, smiled in a rather abstracted manner (the fire’s glare bounced off her spectacles; he wasn’t sure she’d seen him at all), and turned her head back downward again.

  To hell with it-he was coming back to bed. Surely she couldn’t need all that space just for a few pieces of paper. Anyway, it wouldn’t kill her to finish reading while he curled up beside her-even if she would groan and complain about his feet being cold, and his hands too, if he clasped them around her waist.

  Yes, much better, with his hands around her middle, thighs pressed up against her leg, belly curved around her bum, and his cock-happy to be somewhere soft and warm-briskly waking up from its hibernation. Not-it seemed-that she was taking much notice, intent as she was on whatever specious argument she was doubtless preparing to toss in his face.

  Nonsense. There was absolutely no need to worry. The truth was all on his side. Facts were facts, Traynor’s accounts confirmed by Benedict’s.

  But it seemed she was finally finishing up. High time too: she was gathering up the papers, sorting them back into the order he kept them in. She laid the portfolios down on the rickety bedstand now and turned onto her side to face him. He let his hands slide around to the small of her back; she sighed and snuggled closer, drawing the quilt tightly about them and grazing her breasts against his chest.

  “Gracious,” she murmured, “it’s quite a different thing, seeing you close up with my spectacles on. It seems I’ve been missing quite a bit…”

  He’d have none of her blandishments. Fascinating as it might be to wonder what aspects of his face or body she could see through those lenses that she hadn’t seen before…

  He lifted his head onto his elbow.

  “The letters.” His voice a bit strident now, even to his own ears. Come on, Mary. I need-I deserve-to know what you think. Even if it wasn’t the most prideful way to ask it of her.

  “Yes, well…”

  “Well, tell me, dammit. I’m correct, am I not? And I’ve been correct too. I’ve been right all along to be attending to the seriousness of this situation.”

  She nodded, slowly and a bit abstractedly. “Yes,” she whispered, “you have.” She bit the corner of her lip.

  He wouldn’t crow over it; it was enough of a victory to have her coming around to his way of seeing things. And (who could say?) as events unfolded, perhaps even Morrice might be brought around to understand…

  “Of course,” she continued-softly, so that he had to lean forward to make out what she was saying, “there’s no evidence that they’re gathering large stores of weapons. A pistol here and there, I shouldn’t wonder…”

  “But there’s no evidence that they aren’t.”

  “Yes, I expect you’re right about that as well.”

  As well-she might have proclaimed him Prime Minister and Archbishop of Canterbury. You’re right as well-perhaps he could get her to put her signature to it; never before had she capitulated so readily in an argument. He relaxed his head onto the pillow and drew her closer. A celebration was in order.

  “Though surely”-her voice was muffled and yet insistent-“you’ve realized that there’s only one London delegate and not two. Rather odd, it seems to me, even if I can’t see how to assign any significance to it…”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her eyes shone, very large and keen, behind the ovals of her spectacles.

  “You mean you didn’t see that this Hollis and this Oliver are clearly the same man? Ah, I should have kept the relevant papers out to show you, but I thought for certain that you’d notice for yourself…”

  Bloody little know-it-all of a bluestocking, even without the pigtails and pinafore. Yes, now that he’d sat up and had a look for himself-yes, she was quite correct. And no, he’d completely missed the singularity of it. For if you compared the informers’ descriptions of the two rabble-rousers from London, they readily coalesced into one tall, well-spoken, red-bearded man in Wellingtons and a brown coat. Same one who’d flirted with Peggy, and same one whom Kit had begun to imagine he knew personally.

  “You see”-she pointed to certain passages in the documents-“the meetings are set for different nights, here and in Nottingham.”

  Except for the last set of meetings, when Hollis (or should one call him Oliver?) had made a brief but rousing speech at midnight in Nottingham and then hurried on to Grefford to deliver the same set of remarks to Williams and company, down the lane beyond the foundry, in the dimly lit and dangerous hours before dawn.

  “It would take him just about that long, don’t you agree, to walk from Nottingham to Grefford, though chances are he would have begged a ride on a wagon or cart.”

  Kit shrugged. “I expect you’re right. He does seem very much the itinerant.”

  “Both occasions when Peggy encountered him,” Mary said, “he had just disembarked from some public coach or another. And it’s rather striking, don’t you think,” she continued, her eyes wide and thoughtful, “that he doesn’t appear to be afraid to travel in broad daylight.”

  What is she suggesting? But he knew her well enough to know that she was merely speculating on the possibilities. Unluckily for him, she didn’t seem to have any agenda at all.

  Wait, why unlucky? It would only be unlucky-her knowing so much of his business-if he were to persist in seeing her as an adversary and not (why, he wondered, did he find this so bloody damn difficult?) as an aide-an associate, a confederate.

  A colleague? Well, colleague might be taking it a bit far.

  “An interesting point,” he told her. “But not, as you say, one that yields much significance. Except perhaps to show that your… um, I mean the London Committees are thrifty, and have sent only one representative to this part of the Midlands. Perhaps he’s simply the best man they’ve got, and in excessively high demand.”

  “He’s continuing on toward Manchester
, it seems.”

  “Nonetheless. The fact remains that he represents the London Committees-who are busy preparing for an insurrection.”

  She nodded, winced a bit. “Yes, except…”

  Just let it go, she thought. Allow him to get on with things for once, can’t you?

  For it did seem clear that something was going to transpire. The reports, the words she’d overheard from Nick Merton… everything seemed to point to some sort of conspiracy.

  Stupid to rehearse the feeble truth-that the thing simply didn’t feel right to her. Stupid, useless… especially when his arm around her felt so exactly and precisely right, clasped tight about her waist, his body so firm against hers, in their cozy cocoon of warm, if slightly ripe-smelling, air. A part of him rather more than firm, in truth-especially after she’d afforded that he’d been right about a few things.

  Couldn’t she let the trivial demurrals go? What was she trying to prove anyway?

  “It feels… inaccurate to me. I don’t understand what’s happening, but there’s something else-something rather singular.”

  An anticlimax. Their limbs disentangling, cold air rushing into the widening gap between them. Neither of them even had the heart to throw anything at the other.

  She expected that it was a lucky thing that he’d tidied up-made it easier, at any rate, to find her clothing.

  “It’s all right.” His voice was leaden. “I’ll lace you. You needn’t go home to dinner looking like something out of a naughty engraving.”

  Neither of them, she thought dully, had ever found much amusement in naughtiness, their shared sensibility running more to the conundrums of power and the mysteries of intimacy than to silly cartoons of portly people with their huge breasts and arses hanging out. For all the good, finally, that sensibility had done them. And not that it mattered anymore.

  Except that it did matter. It mattered terribly.

  And so, he thought, that’s the end of it. For if she were to persist in maintaining her illusions, her stupid, radical, bloody pastoral faith in the stout, simple, loyal workingmen of quaint, unchanging, picturesque Grefford… if she couldn’t trust him enough… if she weren’t willing to face reality with him at his side…