Somewhere in France

by Jennifer Robson

  A tug at her waist told her that he had loosened the string of her single petticoat. It puddled around her shoes, and as she went to step free of it he took her hands to steady her.

  It seemed odd to still be wearing her shoes, so she kicked them off, pushing them aside with one foot. Now she wore only her stockings and combinations. They were clean, thank goodness, but bore no resemblance to the pretty lingerie she knew men expected to discover at such moments.

  “You don’t need satin and ribbons,” he said, somehow guessing her thoughts. “You’re perfect as you are. Everything about you is perfect.”

  She steeled herself for the moment when he would begin to unfasten the bodice of her combinations, but instead he sat on the bed and pulled her into his arms, his knees drawn wide so he could embrace her fully.

  “Why aren’t you wearing a corset?” he asked, his face pressed into the curve of her neck. The stubble on his cheeks felt wonderfully abrasive against her skin.

  “I used to. But it got in the way. Do you mind?”

  “God, no. Corsets are an abomination.”

  He pressed a single kiss to the pulse at the base of her throat, his lips a brand upon her skin. Then he pulled away, reached for the hem of his undershirt, and pulled it over his head.

  Lilly had never been so close to a man’s naked chest. She knew men had nipples, knew they sometimes had hair there, but the difference between knowing something and actually seeing it was awfully large.

  Hair the color of spun gold covered Robbie’s chest, stretching from nipple to nipple and narrowing to a thin line at his navel. She touched him tentatively, marveling at the softness of the hair, at the way it tickled her fingers.

  He was so warm. She let her fingers trail along the corded muscles of his shoulders, then his arms, which he spread wide for her, inviting her inspection. Her fingers drifted lower, skipping over the flat planes of his belly, tracing the curve of muscle at one hip, then the other.

  His nipples had drawn up on themselves, just as hers did when she was chilled, though it was far from cold in the room. His skin shivered, too, wherever she touched him. Perhaps she was doing something wrong. Perhaps she ought to stop, or wait for him to direct her.

  “Lilly?” he asked, his voice gentle. She glanced up and saw that his eyes were closed.

  “Yes? I’m getting it all wrong, aren’t I?”

  “Quite the opposite. Let me hold you some more.”

  His arms enveloped her, holding her so tightly that it was difficult to breathe properly. She could feel his every breath, almost feel his pulse racing. And she could feel something else, pressing insistently against the juncture of her thighs.

  So this was what Bridget and Annie talked of after lights-out. This was the something that nice girls only discovered the truth of on their wedding night.

  “Lilly?” he prompted, his voice infinitely soothing. “Do you know what’s next?”

  She nodded her head, a little frantically. “Annie and Bridget talk about it, quite often. Although there are some, ah, parts that I’m not entirely sure about. And I was never brave enough to ask.”

  “It’s not the easiest thing to talk about. Few people do.”

  “What if I make a mistake?”

  He laughed, softly, and pressed a reassuring kiss to her mouth. “It’s not a maths exam, Lilly. And I promise there’s nothing to be frightened of.”

  “My sisters . . . I overheard them talking about it once. They said it was unpleasant. Revolting, even.”

  “You should pity them, Lilly. For they’ll never know the truth of it.” He looked up at her, his eyes glittering. “Now, what about these clothes? Shall we try getting rid of them?”

  Chapter 46

  He stood, one arm curved about her, and pulled back the bedcovers. Then he picked her up, cradled her briefly in his arms, and laid her upon the bed.

  He unbuttoned his flies, turning around as he shrugged off his trousers and undershorts. His bottom was very nice, Lilly thought. Certainly as fine as the bottoms she had seen on the marble statuary in her father’s gardens.

  What did Annie and Bridget call a bottom again? A bum—that was it. She giggled despite herself. It was a rather comical word, after all.

  “I hope that’s not at my expense,” Robbie said as he stretched out next to her. She closed her eyes, though she was curious to see the rest of him.

  “I was thinking of the way Annie and Bridget say ‘bum’ not ‘bottom.’ That’s all.”

  “Well, you’ve seen my bum. Do you want to see the rest of me?”

  She nodded, but still could not bring herself to open her eyes.

  “Look at me, Lilly. Please.”

  At last she complied. As long as she kept her eyes on his face and chest, she would be fine.

  “I know you’re curious, Lilly. There’s no need to be shy. Not with me.”

  She forced herself to look lower, past his navel, her gaze following the skein of golden hair that led toward . . .

  Whatever she had expected to see, it had not been that. His, his . . . she couldn’t bring herself to even think the word for it. His . . . it, then.

  She’d seen plenty of nudes: her father owned countless portraits and statues in the classical style, and she’d spent many hours wandering through the British Museum with Charlotte. But all the its she’d seen before had been inconsequential. Hardly worth noticing. Unthreatening.

  “Do I meet with your approval?”

  How on earth should she answer? With the truth? That it was, frankly, terrifying?

  “It’s, ah, larger than I expected,” she said, hoping he would not be too insulted. But he seemed unaccountably pleased with her comment.

  “You’re very kind.” Seeing that she did not share his good humor, he began to stroke her hair. “Are you worried?”

  “A little. Will it . . . will it hurt?”

  “Yes,” he answered gravely. “But only for a bit. And if you want to stop, at any point, we will stop.”

  Still he stroked her hair, not moving to touch her anywhere else. Long seconds dragged by. Just what would happen next? What would he do?

  Her answer came with the touch of his hand at the bodice of her combinations. One, two, three, the tiny buttons came free, and then he was easing the soft cotton down her shoulders, down and down until she knew, without looking, that her breasts lay bare to his gaze.

  He said nothing, offered no compliment, but his sigh of admiration was enough. He bent his golden head, his lips dancing over her collarbone, then lower and lower, until they closed over a nipple and he began to suckle at her breast. It was shocking and alarming. It was wonderful.

  With every soft pull of his mouth, her unease abated, replaced by an unfamiliar sensation. She felt warm, as if she were bathed in sunlight, only the sunlight was coming from within, from a place at the very center of her.

  She felt his hand beneath her, and she realized he was pulling off her combinations. His mouth left her breast as he turned to unclasp her stockings from the garters at her knees, long seconds that left her bereft and restless. She shifted, squirmed, desperate for him to continue.

  “Robbie . . .”

  He made no answer, simply returned to her breasts. She felt the delicious rasp of his stubbled cheeks against one breast, then the other; then the surprise and delight of his clever fingers, tweaking and pulling and delicately pinching at her nipples.

  “Bridget’s tin—where is it?”

  “In the drawer of the writing desk.”

  He rolled away, leaving her trembling, alone, but returned before she could grow cold. She felt the edge of the mattress depress as he sat down, his back to her.

  She heard him open the tin, heard the sound of paper unfolding. More sounds, entirely mysterious to her, followed.

  “May I ask . . . what is a French letter?”

  He laughed softly, still intent on whatever task needed to be accomplished before they could continue.

  “It’s a sheath t
hat I wear. Some are made of rubber, but this one is of lambskin. I wear it to ensure you won’t fall pregnant.”

  If only he knew how little she really knew. He turned, caught a glimpse of her face, and she knew then that he understood the depth of her ignorance.

  “When a man makes love to a woman, he leaves behind some . . . ah, some seeds. Those seeds can help make a baby. This sheath will prevent me from leaving behind the seeds.”

  “I see,” she said, still not entirely clear about how, exactly, the seeds would be left behind. That had not been part of Bridget and Annie’s primer. “How do—”

  “I’m happy to tell you, but wouldn’t you prefer that I show you?”

  Apparently satisfied with the French letter, he stretched out upon the bed again. He turned her toward him, so they lay face-to-face, and began to caress her back, his fingers drawing circles upon her skin. The circles twined lower, then lower, until they spiraled over the curve of her bottom and the sweep of her thigh.

  And then she felt his fingers at the backs of her knees, soothing the ticklish skin there, leaving behind shivers as he skimmed along the line where her legs pressed together, wooing them open.

  A nice girl would have clamped her legs together, begged him to remove his questing fingers. Then again, a nice girl would not be lying naked in bed with a man who wasn’t her husband. She left her legs as they were.

  It was hard not to flinch, though, when she felt his precise, confident touch sweep over her hip, trace along the crease at the top of her thigh, and, even more shockingly, brush over the triangle of hair that flanked it.

  And then the mad urge to shrink away simply vanished, replaced by a surge of curiosity that engulfed every instinct she had. Something was happening to her, something so new, so remarkable, that she feared it all might end before she discovered the truth of it.

  “What is . . . ?” she whispered.

  “It’s supposed to be like this. Don’t worry, Lilly. Just let it happen.”

  She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the astonishing sensations his fingers were producing. He had pushed between the hidden folds between her legs, into a place so unknown to Lilly that she had no name for it.

  A nearly unbearable sense of something was building, rushing toward her. But even as she rose to meet it, pushing wildly against his fingers, it eluded her. Nothing ought to feel this wonderful. Nothing had ever felt this wonderful before.

  He’d taken his hand away—why had he stopped? She opened her mouth, the question on her lips, but before she could speak he kissed her and the words were lost.

  He rolled her onto her back, kneeling between her thighs, pushing them wide, and she felt his touch between her legs again.

  “This is the part that will hurt, Lilly. Are you—”

  “Don’t stop,” she ordered, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

  She felt his fingers, beautifully gentle, but then they were replaced by something else, and it was pushing inside her, inside a place she had scarcely known existed, and it hurt, hurt terribly, and she was so disappointed that tears rushed to her eyes.

  He kissed them away, murmured soft endearments to her, but he didn’t stop, just kept pushing forward, and she felt something pulling, tearing, giving way. He was really inside her now, which had to be impossible, for how could it fit all the way inside?

  She was trying not to squirm; she knew, from the conversation between her sisters she had overheard, that men disliked it when women complained about lovemaking. So she lay as still as she could and waited for him to finish.

  He had stopped moving, now that he was buried inside her, and when she opened her eyes she realized that he was looking at her, an expression of heartfelt guilt on his face.

  “I’m so sorry, my darling. I promise it will get better.”

  She nodded, wanting to be brave. The important thing was to please him; she knew that much.

  He leaned to the side, taking his weight on one elbow, and just as she began to wonder what he was doing she felt his hand searching between them, and then an electric jolt of awareness as his thumb touched her there.

  He brushed his thumb back and forth, hardly moving it at all, caressing her so delicately that a feather would have felt rough in comparison. Not for an instant did he stop; and so the feeling built and built within her, until she had very nearly forgotten about the pain and the disagreeable sensations of a minute before.

  His hips pulled away from her, and then pushed back, and she realized with a jolt that the pain was gone, or if not gone then set aside. All that mattered was the feeling of his hand between them, and the insistent, mesmerizing friction of him, of Robbie, as he moved within her.

  She clutched at him, her fingernails digging into his back, but he didn’t seem to notice, didn’t so much as flinch.

  Everything seemed to gather within her, every beautiful touch and sensation and thought, until it was a tight, tiny sphere, revolving within her, threatening to shatter at any moment.

  “Lilly, open your eyes. Look at me.”

  “Robbie, I—”

  “This is perfect. You are perfect. Let it happen.”

  So she was meant to embrace it, then. A deep breath, a plunge into the pool, like the time she’d jumped into the lake at Cumbermere Hall when she was little.

  A breath, a heartbeat, and then an implosion, deep inside, as the feeling spiraled outward, carrying her up and up. It was so intense, so all-consuming, that she feared she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

  Her reaction seemed to have affected him, for he was pushing into her faster than before, harder than before, and she knew he was about to reach the place she had just discovered.

  “Lilly,” he gasped. “My Lilly.”

  He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, his arms embracing her so tightly that she could feel the tremors coursing through him, the raging torrent of his heartbeat, the erratic rhythm of his breath.

  She lay still, not wanting to disturb him, content to rest in his arms as he recovered.

  “Lilly?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  He dropped a kiss on her mouth and another on the tip of her nose, and then pulled away from her.

  “Don’t fret,” he soothed. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  She heard the pad of his feet on the carpet as he walked to the bathroom, then the sound of water running. She didn’t attempt to move; the sense of lassitude enveloping her was too great an impediment.

  The sweep of a warm washcloth across her inner thigh told her he had returned. “Shall I?” he asked. “Or are you feeling shy?”

  She shook her head, though in truth she was feeling shy again. He washed her carefully, sponging away the flecks of blood between her legs, pressing the cloth to her like a warm compress.

  “You’ll be a bit sore tomorrow,” he told her. “I am sorry.”

  “And I’m not,” she retorted. “That was . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “As you said. Perfect.”

  Chapter 47

  He’d forgotten to switch off the desk lamp. Much later, well into the wee hours, its light woke him. Hovering at the edge of his dreams, remote and golden, it beckoned him, teased him, and at last he opened his eyes, though it was nowhere close to dawn. He lay in the half-light, blinking sleepily, reluctant to free himself from the cobweb remnants of his dreams.

  Robbie looked down, to the woman nestled in his arms, and felt his chest constrict at the sight of her. He knew he ought to feel some sense of remorse about what they’d just done. What he had done, if he were honest about it.

  She’d been a virgin; had known nothing, or close to nothing, of the mechanics of lovemaking. He had taken that from her, without the protection of his name or even the promise of his name. He had made love to the sister of his dearest friend even as that friend was lost, lying dead or slowly dying, in the horrific wastes of no-man’s-land.

  And he hadn’t even thought to te
ll Lilly that he loved her.

  He’d been nervous, of course. He’d never made love to a virgin before, and had been preoccupied with making the experience a pleasurable one for her. His roster of romantic conquests was slight compared to that of most men his age, or so he imagined. In the main, they had consisted of nurses at the London, modern women with a healthy interest in sex and an understandable disdain for the career-ending confines of marriage.

  Marriage. The only honorable thing to do, now that he had compromised Lilly so thoroughly, was to ask her to marry him. He’d never before considered marriage; had never met anyone with whom he could imagine spending a lifetime. And yet, as much as he yearned for her, he couldn’t shake the fear that it was the wrong thing to do.

  He had come far, it was true. To his peers, he was a respectable professional man, a surgeon with a promising future ahead of him. A successful member of the upper middle class. But he was also the son of a dustman and a laundress, born in a slum tenement in Glasgow. A man with no family, no fortune, no connections. A man with nothing to offer but himself.

  And his postwar prospects were limited. He had a gentleman’s agreement with the chief of surgery at the London Hospital that a position would be waiting for him when he returned, but no more than that. And he’d no savings to speak of, for he’d long sent every spare shilling he had to his mother.

  If he and Lilly were to marry, it would be years before they could afford a house of their own. Until then, they’d have to lease a property. No mansion in Belgravia for them, but perhaps they might be able to afford the rent on a house in one of the garden suburbs. If they were very careful with money, they might be able to keep a maidservant. But Lilly would probably have to do most of the cooking on her own, and care for their children without the help of a nursemaid.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t mind. Perhaps after living so simply, so roughly, she might be content with a modest, middle-class life.

  Or she might be well and truly sick of it, and more than ready to return to the bosom of her family and the life of privilege they offered. She was angry with them still, but that was certain to fade in time. If that were the case, his offer of marriage could only cause her grief, for she would forever be pulled between two worlds, never properly belonging to either.