Not Quite a Husband

by Sherry Thomas

  She didn’t know why she was here. In the morning there had been a letter from her solicitor, informing her that the house had been sold at last and the buyers would take possession within the week. Then there had been a note from Leo saying he would be slightly delayed as he had agreed to pay a call to Will’s old employer. A few minutes later she’d found herself climbing into a carriage, the spare key to the house clutched tightly in her hand.

  A complete mistake. What she wanted was to forever close the door on the past, the way one looked upon the deceased one last time before lowering the lid of the coffin. But here, the past hunted her, with clammy tendrils and cold arrows.

  Here was the dining room in which they’d given their last dinner together. Such had been his effervescence and charisma that those seated near her had strained mightily toward him, desperate to catch his bons mots and clever remarks. Her feeble attempts at conversation had not only gone unheeded, they’d gone unheard. She’d sat in a room full of people, completely ignored, completely alone—and had known in her heart that he had meant for it to happen precisely as it did.

  Here was the bedchamber in which their lovemaking had gone from merely awful to disastrous. The last time he’d come to her while she was still awake, she’d shaken so much that in the middle of it he’d scrambled off the bed and left, throwing a lamp halfway across the room on his way out. There, that dent left by the shattered lamp, still there.

  And here was the study in which she had had to sit and read the letter from Bettie Young, an actual written record of the day her happiness died.

  This was the house in which her hair turned white from grief and despair.

  She ran toward the front door, desperate to get out. And almost ran smack into the door itself, which suddenly opened. And in the doorway stood Leo.

  “Bryony! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m—I’m—What are you doing here?”

  “I was at Mr. Somerset’s house paying a call on his wife—did you not get my note? They live right down the street. I had to stop when I saw an Asquith brougham on the curb.” He took her into his arms. “Why are you here, of all places?”

  “I received news that the house has been sold. So I had this daft idea to come and bury the past. Except …”

  He kissed her temple. “Except what?”

  “Except the past is not quite dead.” She shook her head. “And I was literally running away from it.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  “Worse.”

  He let go of her and walked past the foyer into the morning room. There he took a long, slow look. His path led him into the study next, with her trailing uncertainly behind, barely containing an urge to call out to him to be careful and venture no further into the house.

  What must he be remembering? He’d bought everything for this house, from furniture and china to paintings and carvings to door stoppers and coal scuttles—things he must have planned to use and enjoy for the rest of his life. But when he’d left, he’d taken little more than his books and his clothes. The rest had been sold off in lots, the proceeds sent to him by her solicitor.

  He climbed up the stairs. She could only lean on the newel post and cry out silently, No, no further, no higher.

  The next floor contained the dining room. There he had tried—for far longer than she had thought he would—to talk to her. Every day he’d asked her how was her day at the hospital, did she see any interesting cases, and was she perhaps interested in a new play at Drury Lane that they could attend together or a lecture at the Royal Zoological Society? And day after day, stewing in her bitterness, she’d returned nothing but monosyllables.

  The floor above that contained their bedrooms. Please don’t. Don’t go there. But he did, his footsteps echoing across the bare floors.

  What’s the matter? Is there something I’m doing wrong? Please tell me what I can do for you. He’d asked and asked. And she’d refused to help him, refused to participate in any way that might make their marriage functional.

  Suddenly she was running up the stairs, as if the house was on fire and she must drag him out of it.

  “Leo! Leo!”

  He met her on the stairs. “I’m here. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

  “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here. I should never have come.”

  He draped an arm around her. “We can’t disown it, Bryony. This was us. This was our life together then.”

  “Then what are we to do? Carry it with us always?”

  “We will carry it with us no matter what. The only thing we can do is not to let it have that sort of power over us, where we can’t see the future for the past.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  He looked at the bare stairwell—there once had been photographs of faraway places he’d visited going all the way up to the third floor. “You know what I remembered as I was walking through the house?”

  She was afraid to ask. “What did you remember?”

  “I remembered the last time I saw this house empty. You’d just bought it and I came to take a look by myself. I was surprised at how well I liked it. As I walked through the rooms, I could already see how they’d look when they’d been properly furnished.

  “I also remembered how I’d felt the first few times I made love to you when you were asleep. I was so elated. I walked on clouds.

  “And do you know what else I remembered?”

  “What else did you remember?” she murmured.

  “The microscope.”

  “On the day I asked for the annulment?” Her voice shook.

  “It was a beautiful microscope. And I’d bought it for you because my hope was undiminished.” He tilted her chin up. “As long as we were together, there was always hope in my heart. And nothing that happened in this house could ever change that.”

  Now it was her heart that shook. “How do you do this? How do you find the grace to face the shadows?”

  His lips grazed hers. “I made a choice before I reached England. I decided I would put my faith in you.”

  “In me?” her words echoed incredulously. “But I’ve done nothing to earn your trust.”

  “Trust is a choice. I choose to trust your love and your stalwartness. I trust that should there be a day when either the past or the present overwhelms me, you will be there to guide me past that dark moment.”

  She was without words. She could only cover his face with kisses as her heart broke into little pieces. A sweet and worthwhile heartbreak: Sometimes limbs must be rebroken to set properly; her heart too needed to shatter anew before it could truly heal.

  She was largely quiet on the train journey to Cambridge, even though Leo had tipped the guard to make sure that they had a first-class compartment to themselves. Halfway through to Cambridge, she came to sit next to him, and rested her cheek on his shoulder. For the rest of the trip, the fat plume at the back of her hat tickled his ear pleasantly.

  He wanted to show her Cambridge, the Great Court of Trinity College, where he studied, the soaring Gothic facade of the chapel at King’s College, and The Backs, a contiguous stretch of greenery along the banks of the river Cam, formed from the sweeping back lawns and gardens of half a dozen colleges. They’d come at the perfect time: Michaelmas term had not started yet; the sprawling acreage of the university would be quiet and un-crowded.

  But she wanted to see his house first. So they went from one empty house to another. But the Cambridge house did not feel at all the same: It was merely empty, not neglected.

  “It smells clean,” she said.

  “Will must have had people come in recently, since he knew I was coming back.”

  She walked to a window in the dim parlor, drew back the curtains, and opened the shutters. Bright clear autumn light flowed into the room, revealing butterscotch-colored parquet flooring and whitewashed walls. In what little time he’d spent in Cambridge after the annulment, he’d ordered the house redone. He’d grown weary of the dark, somber tones of the London hou
se—there hadn’t been much of a choice, given the sooty qualities of the air—and he’d wanted something completely different.

  “It feels like a cottage,” she said.

  “Do you like cottages?”

  She flashed a smile at him. “I’m beginning to.”

  They went through all the rooms on the ground floor—another parlor, a study, and the dining room—Bryony drawing back all the curtains and unfastening all the shutters, until the house felt almost as bright and open as a sun-drenched bungalow on the Subcontinent.

  In her black mourning dress, she was the dark focal point of the house. Quiet and beautiful, she stood in front of each window and looked over every square inch of the walls. At first he thought she might be looking for flaws in the construction. Then it suddenly occurred to him that she was seeing possibilities—a house that was no longer empty.

  Sometimes it was impossible not to grow misty-eyed.

  “Do you want to go out in the back and see the cherry trees?” he asked. “And the river?”

  “May I see the rest of the house first?”

  “Of course.”

  He showed her the upstairs, which had several bedrooms and another sitting room. And then, the shock. In the last bedroom, there was a bed, a large four-poster bedstead, handsome and sturdy, with crisp white linens over an enormous feather mattress.

  He blinked his eyes to be sure it wasn’t a mirage.

  “I had nothing to do with this,” he said.

  She smiled, the first coy smile he had ever seen from her.

  “No,” he said slowly. Bryony?

  “I asked Will to arrange it,” she said, still smiling.

  “When?”

  “I telephoned him after I reached home last night. You were in your bath.”

  “Is that why he asked me to call on Lady Vera today? To have more time?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Will works in mysterious ways.”

  She slipped past him into the room, let in the light, skimmed her hand across the bedsheet, then sat down close to the foot of the bed, her arm wrapped around a bedpost. The satisfied smile lingered around her mouth for a few seconds longer, but her expression eventually turned solemn.

  “In our old house this morning—was it as terrible for you as it was for me?” she asked, her voice subdued.

  “I hope not.” He did not want it to have been as terrible for her as it had been for him. “But probably so.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it ever since we left.” She rubbed her thumb against the turned grooves on the bedpost. “I never understood what a coward I have been my entire life. Whenever things become too difficult, I’ve always run away—away from Toddy’s memory, from my family, from our marriage. From you, when you wouldn’t let me play chess with you by correspondence. And from our house, if you hadn’t stopped me today.

  “I despaired for a while during the rail journey-how did one deal with such ingrained cowardice? Then I realized that there is no such thing as courage in the absence of cowardice. Courage is also a choice: It’s what happens when one refuses to give in to fear.”

  She rested her head against the bedpost and gazed at him. “Your trust gives me courage.”

  He understood her perfectly. “And your courage gives me faith.”

  She smiled a little. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” he answered without any hesitation.

  “Then trust me when I say that we will be all right.”

  He trusted her. And he knew then that they would be all right, the two of them. Together.

  She undid her hat ribbons and removed the elaborate mourning hat from her head. Running her fingers along the curl of fat black plume atop the hat, she glanced at him. “Now, I don’t suppose you still wish to see me naked, Mr. Marsden?”

  His brow rose. “Have I ever expressed so ungentle-manly a desire in my life?”

  She just restrained a smile. “In Chakdarra you did.”

  “Well, that. That was when I thought we were on the verge of giving up the ghost. Of course I wouldn’t wish to harass you suchly now.”

  She felt her jaw slacken a little. “Are you sure?”

  He laughed. In a fraction of a second, he was kissing her, with joy and abandon. Happiness flooded her. She’d missed him so, as a honeybee missed the spring, as a migratory bird missed its warm southern home when the breath of autumn chilled the air.

  He took off her jacket and dropped it to the floor. The buttons of her shirt he opened one by one, kissed the skin he exposed as he went along, until he came to the scooped neck of her combination. Then he peeled off the shirt, kissing her shoulders and arms as he went.

  Her corset fell next, followed by her skirt and petticoats. He knelt down on one knee to take off her city boots and her stockings. And bit her lightly at the back of her knee.

  She gasped.

  He straightened and kissed her again, holding her face in his hands. “Bryony,” he murmured. “Bryony.”

  At the last hurdle, her combination, he slowed. He played with the slight ruffle that trimmed the neckline of the combination, kissed her at the rise of her breasts, and toyed with the buttons. She became so impatient that she swatted his hand aside and unbuttoned the combination herself, pushing it past her hips to fall into a puddle of merino wool at her feet.

  Her breaths came rather hotly as she stood before him, without a stitch, without even her hair down for modesty. And he, with his starched collar, his necktie perfectly in place, and the fob of his watch just so, as if he’d just walked in from the street and caught her in a state of complete undress.

  Lightly he ran his fingertips down her arms. Then, more provocatively, the back of his hand across her already excited nipples. Her breath quivered. He caught her by the shoulders and tumbled her into bed. When he kissed her again, the kiss was ravenous, his body pressed hard into hers, his weight at once exhilarating and terrifying.

  He shed his own clothes. Now she could at last dig her palms into the smooth muscles of his back. Now she could at last kiss his throat and shoulders. Now she could at last have her heart beat next to his.

  He had become as impatient as she. They forewent all other preliminaries for the joining. She did not need lovemaking. She needed only him. The physicality of him. The vitality of him. The strength and power and intensity of him.

  They broke together like a summer storm, heat and motion and pent-up energy releasing in wild bursts and electrical torrents.

  She checked on his scar. “Everything is fine?”

  “Everything is fine. I can walk. I can ride. I’m going to postulate that I can even dance.”

  She lowered her head and nibbled the length of the scar. He held his breath. He was hard again already. She took him in her hand. He stared at her lovely breasts—God be praised, he was finally seeing her naked—and licked his lips.

  “I know a great deal about the penis,” she said. “I can name its every last component, from the fundiform ligament that anchors it to the pubic bone, to the fascia that covers and binds the entire structure.”

  “No,” he said. “Not my wife. Never.”

  She laughed. “Now, the column of the penis is composed of three cylinders—a pair of corpora cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum, which is this ridge along the length of the penis.”

  She rubbed her finger along that ridge. His poor captive member jerked with the stimulation. “Blood comes down the aorta, flows into the internal iliac artery, passes under the pelvic bone via the pudendal artery, and finally enters the common penile artery for engorgement. Then, through the corporoveno-occlusive mechanism, the veins are blocked and the influx of blood kept in the penis, thereby maintaining the firmness needed for penetration.”

  Ah, penetration.

  She batted her eyelashes at him. “Don’t you want to know how I know all this?”

  “No.”

  She laughed again. “Anatomy classes. Muscle and blood vessel diagrams. And dissections.”


  Not dissections. He moaned. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  She lovingly wrapped her other hand about him. “I used to think the penis very boring, tedious and of no consequence whatsoever.”

  “The ignorance of our educated women is absolutely shocking.”

  “But now I have been re-educated.” She smiled, almost coquettishly. “Now I look upon it as a feat of flesh-and-blood engineering.”

  He pulled her in for a kiss. Then quickly flipped them around so that she was underneath him. “My turn.”

  “Your turn for what?”

  “For doing what you just did to me, a scientific examination of a certain body part.”

  “No!”

  It was his turn to laugh. He used one hand to push her knee down, preventing her from clamping her legs together. “You know what I think about when I’m alone and you are far away?” he murmured. “I think about you, naked, under the sun.”

  He licked her nipple. She whimpered.

  “Not the English sun, mind you, because it is never adequate. But the sun over the Arabian sea. Or the sun of the south of France. Light brilliant enough to shatter mirrors. And you, naked, in that light, your thighs open this wide—”

  He pushed her thighs apart so much she gasped again. And then panted, the sounds of heightened arousal. Music to his ears.

  He took off his hands and sat back. She trembled, but her thighs remained open as he’d arranged them.

  She was truly beautiful all over.

  He kissed her there, inhaling her hungrily. His kiss turned into an openmouthed possession. She moaned and undulated, her hips soft, her thighs even softer, and her mysterious center the most heart-poundingly soft place he’d ever encountered.

  And she came so beautifully, at once almost bashful and with complete abandon. He could not hold back. He was inside her in a heartbeat and immediately towed under by those currents of pleasure.

  She traced her finger over his brow bone. “You know what I think?”

  “What do you think?”