The sun danced on me, as if it was awakening me to myself again, restoring the rush of sensuality and the tranquillity I had a right to expect in my life. I undid the buttons on my blouse. Each one unbuttoned released another burden, freed a little more of me to the world. How refreshing that was! With each button undone, I thought I’d stop there, but instead, each one encouraged me on, until every one of them was loose, and I pulled the blouse from my skirt and parted it completely. Pulling my chemise down, my breasts were bare. I rubbed them freely, letting the sun kiss the skin with warmth, and a light that made them glisten. The purple pink nipples, brushed by the tiniest chill, shrunk up into two sensitive buds. Ah, for some lover to kiss them now!
As I caressed my breasts, one hand strayed back to my pussy that was still wet and waiting. The sensations there weren’t adamant or unrelenting. I knew this could take a long time, and I’d be happy, and the glade would be happy, the sun wouldn’t disagree. We’d have this entire place contented and filled with all the peace I needed to restore myself.
I played with myself as my best lover. Fingers pushed inside my vagina, others pinched my nipples, and then traced lines along my thighs that made me quiver. I pushed away the small insects that joined me, and then simply lay there with myself exposed to let the breeze tickle me playfully.
Little by little the desire built in small increments, raising me to what became a feverish pitch. I hadn’t anticipated the way it swept over me so quickly, when it seemed that I could take forever doing these things to myself. But suddenly, it was on me, that fierce demand that threw my churning hips against the hand that invaded my cunt like a prick. My body sought a ready finish. I squeezed down on myself as I’d done with Adrian’s prick so many times, and Phillipe’s and even William’s in my naive first tries at sex. I’m as good a lover to my body as any of them, I thought, snickering to myself. And far less trouble.
The climax was strong. Seizing me way down inside, I held tightly for a long extended moment, until I relaxed at last, and the flood of feeling that followed was as lovely as all the rest.
And then the peace, the infinite nothingness came next.
I heard birds singing behind me, the insects buzz and the howl of some animal in the distance. I heard nothing else but the melodic tones of the brook babbling in my ears, and the sound of my own gasping breath.
My eyes were closed for the longest time.
I was thinking of William when I opened them again. His reappearance in my mind took me off guard. Thoughts of him so real and present, it wouldn’t have surprised me to look up and see him, just as it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d been waiting for me in the glade that day. Neither was true, my thoughts were just running away with me. And they continued to run on, to the idea of finding him again, laying with him, loving him, feeling him consume me as he had before.
At one time it was out of the question altogether. But was it now? Or was William Sage the best possible solution for my life? Hadn’t I always felt connected to him? Was there something beyond time and space that connected us even still?
He was a solution perhaps, but not a plausible one. I shook my head remembering the way my uncle sent the man away. The likelihood of his return to me was remote at best.
It took some courage to drag myself away from the glade. I could have dispensed with all my clothes, and remained for hours. But I didn’t want to have my uncle worrying, and I certainly didn’t want him pursuing me. I wouldn’t have him invading me here, not in this place that I considered mine alone.
Restoring my clothes to their proper places, rebuttoning my blouse and tucking it inside the waistband of my skirt, I gave my hideaway one last grateful glance, and then took a leisurely journey back to the estate grounds and to the house.
I wanted another look at the cottage too, but there wasn’t time. I could see by the sun that it was late afternoon, and no doubt my uncle was already worried.
***
“Where have you been, girl!” my uncle greeted me anxiously at the back door. Surprisingly, he wasn’t angry.
“A long walk. Is there some problem?” I asked.
“No, indeed not. Your fiancé is here. He’s been here an hour.”
“Adrian?”
“Of course, Adrian. He’s waiting for you. Get on …”
He was happily nudging me toward the drawing room, while I was still trying to return my conscious mind to reality, feeling very much stranded in the intoxicated world of my imagination, and my body pleasure.
I quickly scooted toward the drawing room, wondering if these men would guess what had been occupying my last hour.
Adrian stood when I entered the room. “I was getting worried,” he said. Moving briskly to me, he planted a kiss on my lips, and tried to put his arm around me. I pulled away gently, and taking his hand led him back to the settee.
“Oh, Isabella, London has been terrible without you,” he said.
“It has? I was hoping it would be easier for you.”
“Easier?”
“What happened to the gossips, and your parents, and all the hubbub about my unsavoury reputation?”
“I have to forgive it, Isabella. I can’t allow it to bother me. We must get beyond it somehow, even if we have to make accommodations.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means I want to put last week’s horror in the past. I can’t let it concern me anymore. I’ll even give up my friends for you, though I don’t think my true friends would ask that. The world is changing, mores are changing. We’ll just change too. Those that care about me will have to understand.”
I inspected his face for sincerity and firmness. I could see sincerity. Firm? I wasn’t yet sure. “What about your parents? Can you take me to meet them?”
“I will,” he said.
“Right away?” I asked.
“There has been a glitch there, but I’m determined to get beyond it.”
“And how’s that?” I asked.
“Well … “ he was starting to get excited, which for Adrian was quite charming. He was a bit like a kid at such times. “I thought, since I have the money and a few days time, we’ll take off for Paris together, get married, come back, the deed will be done, and I can say to hell with anyone that wants to dampen our joy, including my parents.”
“Elope?”
“Exactly.” His eyes were lit stars on a June night.
“And you think everything will be perfect? No one’s going to shun you, or me? We’ll live happily ever after?”
“And why not?” he said.
I thought this news should make me glad. All the way back to my uncle’s on the train, I had thought of nothing else, but Adrian coming to his senses and sweeping me away to just such a union, something small and unimposing, and the two us would be lovebirds in his London flat forever. In one version of the story, I’d even imagined that Adrian would dispense with the idea of marriage altogether and we’d live a strictly bohemian life, no marriage, no ties to family, just the lust of our body appetites to please us. I knew that vision was absurd as soon as I thought of it, even if was the most appealing.
“Do you think the judgment will go away?” I asked.
“It’ll be out of people’s minds. It was only a ripple on the surface of things as it was. I think I was making more out of it than I should have. Of course Monsieur Gordot safely on his way back to the continent helps.”
“What if he returns?” I asked.
“Why should that matter? Unless there are more secrets you haven’t told me.”
“No. There’re none,” I said. “I’m afraid that this is as sordid as I can get.” I smiled.
Adrian wasn’t sure if he should smile or not.
I almost wish there had been more secrets, more juicy shameful acts to report, even things that would make me a despicable liar, a unrepentant floozy. I could tell him of my masturbation in the glade, but then he’d only get aroused, and want to run off with me there for a
good welcome back love making. I wished there was something to put a damper on his eagerness, it seemed so hurtful to discourage his moment of glory.
“I appreciate your change of heart, Adrian. I really do. And if you’d come to me a day earlier, maybe I would have jumped at this chance to be with you again. But I’m afraid, I can’t accept the offer.” This time I did pull his ring from my hand. I put it in his warm one, and closed his fingers around it. “I’m not sure of this Adrian, but I have the strongest suspicion that if we were to try and begin again, we’d only find another way to fail. Something else would come between us. And that wrath and discontent that your parents have would certainly come down on us. I’m not sure I want to bear that. Maybe I’m a coward, but I don’t want to put up with their scorn.”
He hadn’t expected a negative response.
“You don’t want to marry me?” he asked.
“No, I do not.” I couldn’t believe I was saying it. The wealth of emotion that I’d attached to this man was extraordinary, but it seemed to vanish, and so quickly, I wondered if it had been real at all. In what forest of the night had I dreamed of him, in what unreal world had he existed? And now, to what remote corner of me had that dream of him disappeared? I couldn’t conjure up the feelings for him again. It was puzzling to me, as much as it was to him; but it was nonetheless true.
He stared at me for some time speechless. I suppose he was trying to understand my decision.
“I imagine this surprises you, Adrian. In a way it surprises me too. But thinking of it, I know that you’re better off putting me in your past with other lovers, and finding a woman less tainted than I am. I’m not likely to be a good wife, not if I’m true to myself. I’m afraid that I’d perpetually be an issue for you to deal with. That might well make you resentful, and me angry, and eventually pull us away from each other. That’s not the vision I have of marriage. I wouldn’t want to do that to you or me.”
“I don’t understand, Isabella. You were loving me just a week ago, just before that awful blackguard filled everyone with such stories. I could kill the man!”
“Please, Adrian, don’t think that. This is not about Phillipe. You may find it strange, but we might be thankful that he stopped us from doing something foolish.”
“Marrying you foolish! That’s absurd.”
“Please, let’s not argue.” I realized that there was no explaining my sudden change of heart. I could have broached the enormous hurt I’d suffered from him. Adrian’s stinging indictment of me shook my faith in him. I could have thrown that in his face as further explanation for my decision. But I didn’t want to hurt him needlessly.
Perhaps our life had been all too pleasant, born in the unreal world of the protected English countryside ease, and nurtured by a tiny society in which Adrian and I could frolic together unhampered. In a broader light, it didn’t fare so well. Perhaps, I was expecting too much of Adrian Mannerly, wanting him to be a bigger man than he was. But in any event, it was clear, the passion I’d once felt was so squelched, I wasn’t sure I could ever resurrect it. I certainly wouldn’t pretend to have what wasn’t there.
“Maybe you need more time,” Adrian suggested.
“Maybe in time, but certainly not now.”
“It’s that horrible way I treated you in London, isn’t it?”
“It’s many things, not the least of which is my abiding affection for my first love. Coming back here, that has recurred. I don’t know what to do with it, since that man is no longer here, and I’m likely never to find him again. But you certainly wouldn’t want me pining for another man, while married to you.”
He said nothing. I could see his mind working, gears grinding like an old mantle clock. I was sad, very sad. I’d broken his heart, just as life had broken mine, just as my own flagrant character had dealt me another foul blow.
***
When Adrian left, Uncle Andrew confronted me in the foyer. I’d just closed the door on my broken young man, and would liked to have cried my eyes out upstairs, but I was required to answer to this man first.
“Where’s he gone?” Uncle Andrew asked me anxiously. “The least you could have done was invite him to dinner. I expected that he would have stayed the night. Why so inhospitable to the man you’re going to marry?”
“I’m not going to marry him, uncle.”
“You’re not! Good heavens, why?”
“Some hurts cannot be mended easily.”
“But in your case, you’d damned well better mend yours, and resolve to behave. It’s not many women who would get a second chance.”
“I don’t want a second chance. I’m perfectly content to leave the estate as we’d planned. I find the idea of making my own way in the world a delightful prospect. Getting away from all these horrid upper class rules is exactly what I need.”
“Are you mad!” My uncle’s face was turning beet red, the hue of his bulbous nose positively purple.
“On the contrary, I’m relieved. Adrian is better off without me, and I’m beginning to believe that I’m better off without him.” In that instant, I was above it all, looking down at the whole charade of life from the vantage point of pure wisdom. I don’t imagine that happens too often in life, but it was certainly happening this once. I couldn’t see one thing in my future; it was as clouded as any future I’d tried to imagine. But there was something liberating in that reality. No fantastic dreams, no unreal hopes. And I was relishing it!
I skipped off to my room like a child, leaving my poor bewildered uncle to wonder if his niece had suddenly gone mad.
Chapter Thirteen
It was a perfect day for a journey. There was a bright sun shining, though I suspected there would be rain before the day was over. The dark clouds lurking suggested a stormy night. I wouldn’t have minded it, sun or rain. Leaving for yet another chapter in my life was driving me, and there was nothing human, or of nature, that would get in the way.
I stopped in the nearby village to make my inquiries.
“You were familiar with a Mr. William Sage? He worked for a time at Haverhill Manor?”
“Yeah, I remember him,” one tavern owner told me. It was the third place I stopped and I was afraid of another disappointment. “Strong silent fellow, I’d say. Very bold, dark eyes, could be nasty, could be kind.”
“You knew him well.” I was impressed by his appraisal. “So do you know where he is now?”
He thought a moment. “Disappeared quite abruptly. But then he wasn’t one to leave a trail of explanations. You know what I mean?”
“You haven’t heard anything about him since, like where he might have gone?”
“Don’t think so. I’ll ask the missus. But what’s a young one like you asking after him.”
“He was a kind friend, and I miss him.”
“Sure.” He nodded, and left to get his wife, asking her the same question I’d posed of him.
“Ah, he was sweet, I remember him well,” the stout graying woman said, as she came from the back of the tavern. Always had something nice to say to me, to any of the girls. But don’t get me wrong he wasn’t being forward, just kind, you know. Women can use that sometimes. Just a little kind word.”
“Do you know where he might be now?”
“Little village just about ten miles north, Invershire. Just a wee spot, but there’s a country gentleman there that had him training his horses.”
“How’d you know that, Bess?” the tavern owner asked his wife.
She blushed. “You know, the attractive ones. Word gets around. Lots of girls would have been happy to have him for a husband.”
The man gave his wife a strange look while she continued to blush. I left, giving them a brisk and heartfelt thank you for their time.
I made my way north, to Invershire, thinking this estate where he’d been working horses must be well known. However, for all my searching and inquiries, I was unable to find any trace of William Sage. I left my name and my final destination with all the folks
along the way, but I was certain that as soon as I was out of sight, my slip of information would be crumpled and thrown in the trash.
It dawned on me that perhaps William Sage didn’t want to be located, that his vanishing was as deliberate as my leaving my uncle’s house. It made his brief moments in my life like some unreal dream. Coming out of the forest that first time, that was how I remembered him.
After two days of searching for him, I gave up, thinking it would be easier to establish myself in my new home, and then, when I had more liberty, I might try again.
***
I found the position that my uncle had secured me at the hotel, in a little seaside town to be more pleasant that either of us had figured. For my uncle’s part, I’m sure he envisioned it my punishment. In my mind, it was to be a respite from the all the people that had caused me such abiding pain. It turned out to be neither of those places, but rather, a bustling business, that was in need of two good hands to help out. I thought I’d end up scrubbing pots in the kitchen, or washing floors, but instead, I was given a gentlewoman’s job, working at the front desk of the hotel, arranging rooms and employee schedules. When I was not busy with that, my skills in running an estate house came in useful, planning meals with the cook.
I was a little lost when I first began, and thought that my uncle had far oversold my talents. I’d never worked a day in my life, real work. But I did enjoy the position, and was regarded by the entire staff of the hotel as a welcome addition, though it was still a bit of a mystery exactly how my uncle had arranged this.
I had the strange feeling that while he was terribly angry with my sexual misdeeds, and even more angry when I turned down Adrian’s reconciliation attempt, he had found me a position that would befit a wealthy gentleman’s niece. I even had the feeling that after a time, Uncle Andrew would come to get me, announce that my exile was over, and I was again welcome in his home. As much as I believed that was true, I was determined to make a life as a working woman, and put the estate in my past.
In the Forest of the Night & The Barmaid and the Blacksmith Page 10