by Millie Adams
Oh, yes, she was discovering new pieces of the world.
She looked out at the pile of pastries, and the great brick of butter on the platter.
She smiled as she thought of Briggs.
He was... He was not gentle. It was what she enjoyed about his touch. It made her feel strong. He did not treat her as if she was breakable. When she was in his arms, she felt like a warrior. Like what she had always longed to feel like. But he was purposeful. Never once did she feel as if he might push her beyond that which she could stand. He seemed a man innately in touch with her limits. She trusted him implicitly.
* * *
When she had finished eating, her maid came into the room and told her that His Grace had requested she have a bath.
There were new scented oils to put in the water, and she luxuriated in them for a long moment, until she emerged soft and smelling like a rose garden. She was perfumed down beneath the first layer of her skin, and there was something about it that thrilled her. Because Briggs was preparing her for his touch. And she wondered... Would he strip her completely bare tonight? Press his body against hers. Would he be...?
She had yet to see him naked, and she wished greatly to do so. She had thought him beautiful all these many years, and to see the promise of all that beauty fulfilled...
It was a prospect that sent a thrill of need straight down between her thighs. She did not enjoy feeling cosseted, not usually. Because she associated it with being put away. Kept cloistered in her childhood bedroom.
This was different. She was being exceedingly pampered, but it was in aid of being presented to him tonight. And so she allowed herself to revel in it in a way she never had.
She took her lunch on the terrace that overlooked the garden, the solitude beginning to press in on her. And she wondered when he would arrive to speak with her.
She did not fully realise when she began to understand. That this too was part of it. This anticipation that he built. The way that he positioned her, so that she spent these many hours wondering when he would appear, and exactly what would happen. The way that she obeyed him, even though nothing was stopping her from going wandering through the house and searching for him.
It was practice. For tonight. For the ways that she would need to obey. Because as he had said earlier, if she could not trust him in these sorts of things, then she would never trust him enough for the two of them to engage in greater intimacies.
She read, and lounged, and found indulgence in the act. Did not feel like a prisoner. Rather, she felt like royalty. She tried to see to her usual tasks. Spent some time with William and coaxed conversation from him about the sights he had liked best so far in London.
And all the while the anticipation built, excitement twisting her stomach, and also firing up that space between her legs.
Briggs.
His name was like her heartbeat. And, oh, how she wanted him.
* * *
Finally, at four o’clock, he came into her room.
He looked positively disreputable with his shirt collar open, and his strong chest visible there, a smattering of dark hair sprinkled over his muscles.
She was transfixed. By that white shirt, the tan skin beneath, the tight, black breeches, and his leather belt.
‘You’ve been enjoying your day?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Good. You did exactly as I asked, which is also good.’
She felt replete with joy beneath his praise.
‘Have I pleased you?’
‘You have not begun to please me.’
He walked over to the bed. ‘Explain to me all you know of the mechanics of what a man and woman do together.’
‘Only what you have said. Only what we have done.’
‘I see. So you do not understand that a man puts his cock inside of a woman and spills his seed in her and gets her with child?’
‘I... I did not. No.’
‘Where you were wet for me.’
She shifted. For she was wet. For him.
‘I see.’
‘That is the limit. We will not do that.’
‘Oh,’ she said, feeling hurt and disappointed, even knowing that she shouldn’t.
‘Last night, you were satisfied, were you not?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘We will continue to endeavour to find your satisfaction, it is only that we will not fully consummate the union. Out of deference to your health.’
‘I find that greatly disappointing.’
‘We will recover. You may have my mouth there. Fingers. Mine and your own. I will pleasure you. And you will pleasure me.’
‘And how might... How will I do that?’
‘I will teach you to use your mouth on me.’
‘You said... You said you might punish me.’
‘Yes. Most especially for this situation we find ourselves in. I find that should be appropriate. You will tell me if it becomes too much.’
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘I am not jesting. I will take you under my hand, and I will do so firmly, but if you do not tell me when you have been pushed to your limits, there can be no trust between us. And if there is no trust between us these games do not work. You and I must have the utmost respect for your limits or we cannot push you to them at all.’
‘I promise,’ she said, thrilling at being able to offer him this promise. At telling him the truth. He was very proud of her for all of the times that she had been truthful with him before. And she would continue to please him in this way.
‘Then we will see one another again at dinner.’
She wanted him to stay. She wanted it to happen now. To push forward and get it over with.
She wanted the mystery unlocked. She wanted all to be revealed.
But he was going to keep her suspended in the rapture of anticipation, and she could not decide if it was brilliant, or a sort of torture. Perhaps both.
‘Your brother cannot know,’ he said.
‘Do you honestly think that I’m going to speak to my brother of such things? He cannot even speak to me of the sorts of medical procedures that I have endured. For it all involves breaking open my skin and bleeding and things of that nature. And I dare say he does not wish to know so much about his own sister’s body. He would not like to know what his friend wishes to do with it.’
To her surprise, Briggs chuckled. ‘Yes. I suppose that’s true. But I have no wish to be called out.’
‘You’ve married me.’
‘Your brother knows what I am. He knows how I am. He tolerates me, though he finds me to be debauched beyond what he personally would ever...’
‘My brother is no saint, though he might conduct himself as one in public. I’m not a fool, Briggs. He could not maintain a friendship with you and remain a spotless lamb. It is only us ladies that are expected to be so.’
‘By comparison to your father, Beatrice, believe me when I tell you that Hugh is exemplary.’
He defended her brother with great ferocity.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I apologise. I should not have spoken out of turn about your father.’
‘It is true, though. My father was a libertine. And perhaps... If I’m very honest, Briggs, I believe that there was more than enough information to be found around my house, and if one looked too deeply into the nude nymphs in the books at Bybee House, to educate me well enough.’ She saw the real truth in that now. She had brushed against it earlier, but it hit her deeply now. Along with the reality of what her mother must have felt.
I want him and despise him in equal measure...
That made her ache, for she knew what it was to want now.
What her mother had lived with, always, was the reality of what she’d felt when Briggs had abandoned her for the brothel.
&nb
sp; But Beatrice had been too sheltered then to know.
Her mother had known.
No wonder Beatrice had done her best to shield herself then.
She breathed out, a shaking sigh. ‘But when it came to anything my father was involved in, I did not want to know. I sensed somehow that whatever capacity he... He disrespected my mother greatly. He disrespected the title. It is something that Hugh has worked a great deal to undo.’
‘You are correct,’ Briggs said. ‘He has worked very hard to fix what your father has done, but it is not why I hold him in such esteem. I went to school late, as you know.’
‘Yes.’ She confirmed this with some hesitance, for he had mentioned it before but she could see now that she had missed something.
Something of what he had been trying to tell her.
‘I did not know the other boys. I was the son of a duke, it was true. But I had not been raised around children, and I did not... I did not find it easy.’
She could not imagine that. Briggs was one of the most charming men she had ever known. At least, when he was intending to be. He could also be hard, and frightening, it was true. She liked him that way, if she were honest. But when he was engaged in discourse in public, he was nothing if not the consummate rake. Witty and delightful, and jolly good company.
‘I did not find it easy,’ he repeated. ‘I did not understand how to speak to children my own age. I was left largely to my own devices, and my interests were... My own. Hugh practically trained me to make friends.’
‘Hugh did? It seems to me that you are the one most likely to make friends of the two of you.’
‘I am a fast learner,’ Briggs said. ‘A good study. A brilliant mimic.’
‘Modest as well.’
‘No. Never that. I will always be grateful to him. I will always owe him a debt. And this... Is surely a poor way to repay him.’
‘Or,’ Beatrice said, ‘it has nothing to do with him. I should like it if what I want could be separated from him and what he wants. Utterly and absolutely.’
He looked at her, long and hard for a moment, his dark eyes glittering, darting back and forth as though he was doing some sort of mental calculus. ‘I see you as a whole person, unto yourself,’ he said. ‘Please don’t mistake me. But your brother will not. And... As I said before... He knows a bit too much about me for... For him to avoid making assumptions about our relationship should he discover we have one.’
‘Of all the things, Briggs, who would’ve thought that the scandal you truly wish to avoid is someone thinking you have shared intimacies with your wife.’
His lips curved up at the corner. ‘It only shocks you because you know so little about me.’
‘You can tell me more.’
‘We will speak after dinner.’
‘I should hope that we will speak at dinner,’ she said.
‘Yes. But that is where people will see. And who we are away from others... That is where true honesty is, is it not?’
She shivered. He spoke the truth. She knew that he did.
It was as he’d said before, about polite society. All of these people who enforced proper behaviour... They did not necessarily engage in such behaviour themselves, and what was more, they knew fully that beneath the glittering veneer of the surface, many others did not. It was meant to corral the innocent and the powerless, more than anything else.
But who they were when they were alone... That was freedom.
And as long as she got a taste of it... She could endure it being between herself and Briggs only.
In fact, it felt lovely. Like a secret. No, not a secret, like a precious gem that you might conceal, so that it is not stolen or tarnished by anyone else. Like something too beautiful to give away.
And then he left her. And she knew that now, she had only to wait until after dinner.
Where he would make good on his promises, and she would find...
She did not know what exactly. Only that there was a certainty, bright and burning in the centre of her soul, that told her tonight she would find a piece of herself.
Chapter Thirteen
Dinner was a study in torture. But Beatrice had come to accept that torture was a part of all of this. At least, between herself and Briggs.
That feeling that she was guarding something precious and rare intensified. Yes, she was disappointed that he was going to withhold... Certain things from her. Not even thinking further down the road that he would be withholding a baby from her, but that there was an intimacy that was... That he was not willing to give.
But she had the sense that it was a common intimacy. Perhaps, the most common. And that what was about to take place between herself and Briggs was not common.
They ate dinner across the table from each other, and she did feel as if they were strangers, observing customs that simply didn’t matter. That had nothing to do with the two of them. With Briggs and Beatrice and all that they could be. All that they would be.
For the first time she felt... Special. Not like she might be less, but that she might be more.
She was careful not to overfill herself, and when dinner was finished, she stood.
‘I am ready to retire,’ she said.
He looked up at her. ‘Is that true?’
‘Yes, Your Grace,’ she said, using his title making her stomach tense. It should not. Only that there was a way he seemed to enjoy hearing it. And it was different, different to the way it was spoken in common conversation, where it was just an observation of his title, an expression of what was due to him. There was something else. Something deeper.
She went to her room, and her maid helped her dress for bed. She looked at herself in the mirror, and she wondered. If she was truly enough of a woman to entice him.
It had been one thing in the beautiful ball gown, with all those stars in her hair. She had been bewitched by her own reflection, so she imagined that she had a much better chance of bewitching Briggs in that state. But now... She just looked very much like herself.
The night that he had left the brothel, he had gone to engage in these activities, but had not done so. So no doubt that had played a part in his enticement towards her. That was why the nightgown had been sufficient then. But would it be enough now?
Would she be enough?
Or would she fall short?
No. You will not fall short. He trusts that you will not.
She looked at herself, and straightened her shoulders. He did not see her as an invalid. And she would not behave as if he should. This was what she had always wanted. For someone to see her as strong. As whole. Even recognising that he must... That he must behave differently with her... He was still not keeping himself from her entirely.
And that must be a testament to his desire. And to the way that he saw her.
And then the door opened. And he was here.
He was dressed fully for dinner, rather than in that state of partial undress that he’d been in when he had come into her room earlier today. For some reason, it gave him a look of unfettered authority, and that excited her all the more.
This man who seemed to be the embodiment of all she had ever wanted. It made her bold. If he was all she wanted, perhaps she could be all he wanted as well.
‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘all of my life, men have stood in authority over me. I suppose that is the fate of all women. Whether it be my father, my brother, or the physicians who attended me when I was ill, men have always dictated my fate. And so I cannot fathom why it is your authority that I find so beautiful.’
He paused, a muscle in his square jaw jumping. ‘There are two reasons. The first is that you know I will exert my authority in ways that will bring you pleasure. I take no joy in causing pain for the sake of it. Nor do I exert my will simply because I can. I was born with a title. I was born with authority. England is filled
with spineless men who have been given power because of the structure of the world. And women must subject to this authority because of how they were born. You... You willingly submit. And that is what gives me the power. That is what makes it mean something. And I will not abuse that. The second thing is related. Choice. You choose this. You choose it because it is something you want. And I granted it because I know it is something you can handle. It is not the de facto power a man has over his wife. Nor the power society gives a man over a woman. Rather this is something we choose. Something we make the rules to. Yes, in this bed, you give the power to me. But when it comes to the rules of the game, the ultimate power lies with us. Not what anyone tells us we might have. And that is intoxicating indeed.’
She shivered, absolutely and completely held captive by his words. For he was right.
This was power, the likes of which she had never known. For the fire inside him was stoked high, taken to a place that he was not in utter command of. She had command of his desire. He was here because he wanted her, and she did not doubt it. She did not need stars in her hair or a dress that flattered her bosom. She simply needed to be her.
The right fit to who and what he was. And that was innate inside her. The same as the illness that had threatened to take all the joy from her life. It made her grateful for herself. For strength, for the innate pieces of who she was. All that she could be.
Beatrice was enough for this moment. And after being wrong, not enough, not strong enough, according to all of the people that surrounded her, for so many years of her life, it was more than a revelation.
‘The first thing I think you are strong enough to handle, is learning to please me.’
He closed the distance between them, his gaze fierce. ‘Turn around.’
She obeyed, turning her back to him, and she flinched slightly when he wrapped his fingers around her braid. But he did not tug her hair, as he had done before. Instead, he gently released it from its fastenings and let it fall loose around her shoulders. His touch was gentle, and it made her shiver. Because it wasn’t gentle as if he was afraid she would break. It was gentle like a gift. The calm before a storm that she knew would rage and push them both to a breaking point.