She gave him that open, curious look again, and he felt like squirming on his seat – this was painful, this edging around the topic.
“You are lucky – I would delight in a collection of books like that.”
“Perhaps I could… show you some of them? And get your… opinion?”
Dash looked to Alex again, feeling a little desperate. Alex grinned, and Dash suspected that he was stifling laughter, then he rose, and reached for Selina’s hand. She allowed him to pull her up, raising a querying eyebrow as she did.
“Selina, there is something I need to show you, I’ve just remembered. I am sure that Mariel can keep our guest entertained for a short while.”
Mariel looked at Dash, then at Alex and Selina. Dash was quite certain that she thought them all complete nodcocks at that point, but she smiled politely.
“Of course – you know full well that I can talk about books for hours on end, given that I spend half my days in your library!” Alex gave her a little bow, then led Selina from the room. Mariel turned that intense violet gaze back to Dash, and her eyes narrowed. Before he could conceive of what to say next, she spoke. “I know that there is something unusual about what you collect, and I know that you needing someone who speaks Russian is part of it – so, please tell me. I don’t like playing games, and I am not easily shocked.”
Dash almost fell off the chair in his surprise at her words. He was beginning to see, perhaps, why Alex thought she might actually be suitable for helping him. Her attitude, although blunt and alarmingly candid, was also refreshing. He swallowed his nervousness. Best to simply tell her – about the books, at least. He was not sure that he had the courage to mention the other parts of his collection to her… yet. She was simply waiting, studying him, and he suspected that a cascade of his emotions had shown on his face.
“Perhaps I am more easily shocked than you, in some matters. You are remarkably well informed, Mariel.”
“Not well enough! Please, tell me what you collect, that requires such secrecy.”
He laughed at her expression, and shook his head.
“Very well. The books that I collect are all related to a topic which most would regard as far too scandalous to even be mentioned to a gently reared young lady. A topic mostly the preserve of men, and even then, discussed generally discreetly. I hesitate to name it, outright…”
She shook her head, looking completely annoyed.
“It is so unfair! Why does society have such different rules for women, compared to men? And why does everyone seek to keep young women ignorant of so much, as if we are far too fragile to cope with knowledge of almost anything! Let me make it easier for you. Let me guess what topic you refer to. I suspect, from what you have just said, and from your hesitation, that the books you collect deal with the human body, with the act of copulation, and the… various interests… that relate to that?”
Dash felt the world turn upside down. She had just said… she had, he had heard it distinctly. He met her eyes, and saw great amusement there, as she watched him come to terms with what she’d said.
“Umm… to be succinct, yes.”
“But that is wonderful! I have only a few books like that, and they are so hard to find, especially as men hide them from women. I find them fascinating – there is so much to learn. But please keep that secret – only Alex and Selina know of it.”
“And now me. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. Those books, one book in particular, is what has led me to this conversation today. For that one book is written in Russian – which I cannot read any of at all. I know that it is a book of the type that I collect, for it has illustrations – rather detailed and explicit illustrations, somewhat in the Persian style. I want someone to translate it to English. I was hoping that such a thing, scandalous as it obviously is, would not be too…”
He got no further. Her eyes lit up with utter delight, and she leaned forward, grasping his hand between hers, full of excitement.
“Yes! I will do it, I’d love to. And no, I will not be shocked, horrified, faint, run from the room or anything like that. I can’t wait to see those illustrations – the books I have do have some pictures, but many are rather… stylised. Seeing new ones would be wonderful. I do not, at all, care that doing it is scandalous, although, obviously, we will have to work out a way for me to do it, where no one knows that is what I am doing, and where I at least appear to be being chaperoned – not that I think you would do anything untoward, but people make such assumptions, if one even looks sideways at an unmarried man!”
“You, Mariel, have just given me the most delightful gift. Even if only part of it can be translated, that will be more than I had dared hope for. You are a most unusual young woman, most unusual indeed.”
“I will take that as a compliment, Dash. That you are capable of even considering giving me this opportunity makes you a most unusual gentleman, too. You cannot imagine how glad I am that you chose to offer me this.”
He found himself with a feeling of warmth at her words, at her obvious approval of him – something he rarely saw in so unalloyed a fashion, from those who knew of his collecting.
“Then perhaps we should discuss the practical aspects of this with Alex and Selina, so that you can start as soon as possible?”
“Indeed, we should. And Dash… I have realised – there is something that I have found, here at Fortescue Grange, which I have not even discussed with Alex yet – something which I suspect you will be very interested in. I’ll say nothing more for now, until I ask Alex about it privately – but I will ask him, and soon.”
Dash looked at her, at the thoughtful expression which had slipped across her beautiful face, and for a moment, was filled with the desire to lean forward and bring his lips to hers. He refrained, but part of him wished that he’d done it.
“I’ll remind you of that – probably incessantly, until you tell me about this oh so mysterious thing.”
She laughed, and released his hand, sitting back with a smile.
Chapter Six
“I’ve set up this room for you, so that you have your own private study in which to work, and a place to lock the book, and anything else you need, away, when you are not here. Do let me know if you need anything more.”
Mariel looked around the small room, which was well fitted out with a couch, a table, some chairs, a bookshelf, and a large desk, with a number of lockable drawers. The desk was placed to one side, where the light from the window would fall on it for the majority of the day. It would do very well, as a place to work on the translation. Selina moved past her, and went to settle on the couch.
“It will suit very well, thank you, Dash.” She went to the desk, and dropped into the chair, then looked up at him with a smile. “Now – the book, please – I can’t wait to see it!”
He laughed at her eagerness, then came to stand beside her. She was acutely aware of his proximity, of the heat and scent of him.
Leaning past her shoulder, so close that they were almost touching, he produced a key, and unlocked one of the drawers, then pulled it open. Inside lay a leather-bound book, its covers worn with age, and the gilt which had once embossed it worn away in many places. Mariel reached in and lifted it, almost reverently, and placed it on the desk before her. Selina rose, and came to stand on her other side. Mariel felt oddly like an actor, or a magician, as she opened the book under their watchful eyes.
The front paper was beautiful – thick parchment, with marbled swirls of fading colour. She slowly turned the pages, considering the title, and mentally translating. It said, if translated colloquially, rather than directly – ‘A Manual of Instruction for Achieving Pleasure of the Body by Diverse Means’. She licked her lips, and turned more pages, until she came to the first illustration.
Even with her previous exposure to explicit pictures, this one made her blush slightly. But she leaned forward to study it, as did Selina, looking over her shoulder. Dash reached forward again, over her other shoulder, and
delicately traced a finger over part of it.
“The work is of the highest quality. These curling decorations around the edges suggest to me that it is a copy of an original from Persia, or nearby, for they resemble Persian script – although I don’t think these actually are script. The solid frame drawn around some of them also evokes the Persian style, as does the way that the people’s faces and hair is presented, and their clothing – where there is clothing, of course.”
“So, you think that this work is a copy of an original which may have been in Persian, but that the artist did not know that language?”
“Exactly.”
“I think that I agree – for some types of the Persian language are written using the same letters, almost, as Russian – and those decorative swirls could almost be Russian letters – but are not close enough to actually say anything. If you look at the text on the page, the letters are far more structured and upright – less swirly. Oh! I am going to enjoy doing this so much!”
She turned more pages until she found another illustration. She studied it, struggling initially to determine exactly what the people depicted were doing, and then felt her cheeks heat a little again as she worked it out. This illustration had a caption beneath it, and Mariel read it, the Russian words coming back to her slowly.
There were, however, a couple of words that she did not know. Whilst she had expected that to be the case, for some things, she was faced with the dawning realisation that there would likely be far more words she didn’t know.
Words for things that grandmothers were not at all likely to teach a ten-year-old girl – words for parts of the body, which were not discussed openly in polite company, and more. Words for, most likely, objects – like the ones that she had found in the secret room in the Fortescue Grange library, for which, annoyingly, she did not even know the English words!
She swallowed. This was going to be extremely educational, and far harder than she had at first thought. Dash cleared his throat and spoke quietly.
“Do you… do you think that you can translate it?”
“Yes – although it may take rather a long while.”
He gave a sigh of relief.
“I have provided a stack of good quality bound journals for you to transcribe into, and this section of the desk is stocked with many bottles of ink, and dozens of pens – enough, I hope, to keep you well supplied. There is also a large bag of sand for drying the ink, in the bottom drawer.” Mariel looked up into his face, and felt something pass between them as her eyes met his. He reached out, as if unaware of what he was doing, and gently traced the side of her cheek with a finger, before letting his hand fall back to his side. Heat shivered through her at that touch. “Thank you, Mariel, for being the person that you are, and for doing this for me.”
“It will be my pleasure.”
As she said the words, she realised how easily their meaning might be taken a second way, and she saw his eyes light with amusement – obviously he had noted her unintentional double entendre too.
“I most certainly hope so…”
On that note, as Selina gave a little strangled snort of laughter, he turned away, and Mariel felt suddenly acutely aware of everything around her. She turned her attention back to the book before her, and began.
~~~~~
They had taken to spending some hours of each day at Longwood Peak, with Mariel working diligently on the translation, and Selina keeping her company, as, officially, a chaperone.
In reality, Mariel doubted that Selina would make any attempt to limit what she chose to do, at all. When Mariel took regular breaks from the translating, her head positively spinning with the images which filled her imagination, not just from the illustrations in the book, but from what the words described, they discussed not only the book, but the broader subject of Dash’s collection. Both Selina and Mariel were convinced that his collection contained many things, beyond books. He had only mentioned books – but Mariel could not imagine him stopping there – his fascination with the erotic most likely meant that he had collected objects too.
Selina agreed, and they had both developed a burning desire to see more of that collection – they just had to work out where it was kept – for Dash seemed determined to keep them isolated from all of it but the one book. Obviously, he was still coming to terms with the fact that they did not have the same attitude to such things as most women of the ton.
But, after a week or more, what Mariel found even more frustrating was her lack of words. As she went through the text, she could work out, usually by context, and sometimes with the assistance of the illustrations, what object, device, or activity a word referred to – but she still could not write it correctly into her translation, for she did not know the English words for those things. And a text which ran ‘the man then inserts his (missing word here) into the woman’s (missing word here)’ simply was not clear, nor did it arouse quite the same emotion in the reader as it would with correct words in those places.
For working on this translation definitely aroused emotion! And produced the kind of dreams from which she awoke feeling heated and aching.
This particular afternoon was even more frustrating than any before. She had reached a passage in the book where the text described a series of sexual acts, both directly of the body, and using additional objects. It was quite complex, and just reading it, even without having the proper words, had left her feeling flushed, aching at the juncture of her thighs, and with her breasts feeling somehow more sensitive than usual within the confines of her gown. She could not help but imagine what such acts might feel like, if done to her own body.
There was no compass for dealing with this, in what was a normal aristocratic young lady’s education. And she was also beginning to see that the few stolen kisses she had experienced were no guide to this territory – rather, what she was reading had simply convinced her that most young men of the ton were as uneducated on the subtleties of such matters as she was.
She needed words.
And the only way that she could see to get those words was Dash. As a man, she was quite certain that he would know the words which she needed, especially given his collection. But to ask him would require that she read him the translated parts, and that she describe to him the function of the things she did not know the name of… which would be incredibly embarrassing…
She was going to have to do so. There was no other way forward. She set down her pen, and capped the inkwell, squaring her shoulders in determination.
“Selina, do you know if Dash is here at present?”
She asked, because Dash seemed to disappear for long periods of time, to somewhere unknown.
“I believe that he is. I think that I heard him in the foyer, talking to Chalmers, only a few minutes ago – while you were staring intently at the page, chewing your lip, and oblivious to anything else. Why?”
“Because I am going to need his help. And this is going to be difficult – he’ll probably be even more embarrassed than I am going to be.”
“Embarrassed? Why? You are not so easy to embarrass, in my experience.”
“Because… I need words. English words for things that are mentioned repeatedly in this book. Things like certain body parts, and sexual actions, and… objects which are used for sexual pleasure. I can work out what, from the context, mostly – but I have no words to describe it in the translation…”
Selina burst into laughter.
“Oh dear! I see your problem rather clearly. I think you’re likely right – he will find this difficult – but he badly wants this translation done, so he’ll just have to cope, won’t he? And… I might be able to help you with some words – I have been… learning rather a lot, since my marriage.”
Mariel breathed a sigh of hopeful relief.
“Then, please come and sit beside me, and I’ll show you some of the passages that I am struggling with.”
Selina came to her, and Mariel turned to the first troubling passage i
n her translation, and the relevant page in the original book, laying them out side by side on the desk. As she showed it to Selina, Selina’s cheeks heated a little too. Half an hour later, they looked at each other, and simultaneously shook their heads.
“You’re going to have to ask Dash, Mariel. I just don’t know enough words to help. But my, this is educational – it makes me feel inclined to rush home to Alex…”
Mariel sighed.
“Don’t be cruel, Selina! I would like to explore some of this too, but I don’t have a husband to explore with….”
Selina laughed, shaking her head.
“We’ll have to find you one soon, then – one with a very open mind and an interest in erotica, preferably.”
“And just where am I likely to find someone like that, who is also a reasonable person that I can come to care for?”
As the last of those words left her mouth, Dash entered the room, almost as if summoned. Selina looked at Mariel, then at Dash, then back to Mariel with a raised eyebrow. Was Selina implying…?
“Good afternoon ladies. How is the translation progressing?”
Mariel took a very deep breath, as Selina vacated the chair beside her. Determined, she met Dash’s rich amber eyes. He waited, a half smile on his face, as if wondering why she hesitated.
“It is progressing… quite well… but…”
Bother! How was she to say this? One did not just come out and ask a man to name his bodily parts, in detail!
“But?”
Mariel indicated the seat beside her.
Perhaps it would be easier to say, if he wasn’t looming over her, while she sat. He gave a tiny bow, and came around the desk, dropping onto the chair with an enviable loose-limbed grace. She twisted in her seat to face him.
“But I find myself lacking words. Both Russian words, and English words. For the same things.”
His brow furrowed, and he gave his head a little shake.
“I am not sure that I take your meaning…”
Lady Mariel's Scandalous Love: Regency Romance (Regency Scandals Book 2) Page 5