Page 33 of A Lady's Wicked Revenge
It was as though the immensity of their kiss was such that it cast a long shadow over her memory, blotting out less massive events. Or, on further thought, she considered that it might be the inverse of that case, that the memory of the kiss was so blazingly bright that she could see nothing but its radiance in her mind’s eye.
Then again,she thought with a grim smile as she lay awake and overwarm atop her bedclothes late that night,it could be I simply enjoy thinking on the kiss itself too much to be able to cast my memory elsewhere.She lifted her fingers to her lips, feeling where Colin’s mouth had pressed against her and felt a quake of anticipation deep within her womanhood.
“He kissed me,” Diana said aloud in her silent bedroom, the words swallowed by the pillows and plush curtains. It felt good to say the words, lending substance to what now felt that it must surely be nothing more than a fantastical invention of her imagination, so she said it again in as many permutations as she could think of.
“Colin kissed me. I kissed Colin. Colin and I kissed. We kissed.”
She took a long, slow breath, unsure if she was excited or frightened by how her body shook when the air left her frame. The implications of what had happened in the garden were enormous, she was sure. The world was a very different place this midnight than it was the midnight previous.
But as certain as Diana was of this conclusion, so she also knew that justhowthings were different was utterly unknown to her. It was as though she were staring at a palimpsest in an old, illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages, she thought: just beneath the surface she could see something was written on the page, but it was made illegible, even unimportant by an immense brightly-coloured illustration of a knight slaying a fire-breathing dragon.
What a thoroughly unhelpful analogy, Diana said to herself, frowning. She turned onto her side and closed her eyes, even though she was certain sleep would not be swift in coming to her. Indeed, instead of sleep, she was visited by a hundred answerless questions.
Will he try to kiss me again?
Do I want him to do that?
Do I want him to do even more?
What does this mean for Uncle James’ plans for marrying me off?
Around and around, these questions swirled in her mind. All the while, it was underscored by the ceaseless rhythm of her pounding heartbeat beating its own reply, one that gave Diana no solace though it answered every one of these questions at once. She found herself so terrified of what she heard sounding steadily in her chest that she clutched her pillow tighter, beckoned to sleep more anxiously … anything but give voice to what her foolish, unthinking heart was telling her.
It was a singular moment because it was my first kiss,she thought angrily, hoping she could reason herself into sleep.No other kiss will be the same because no other will be the first—that is all that has made this special. There will be no other singular, never-to-come-again kisses like that. From Colin or from any other man …
Sleep did eventually come, blessedly, and with it dreams more sublimely wonderful than words could ever describe.
* * *
Summer slipped inevitably into autumn. Diana’s life continued much the same as it had, with all the same routines going on as ever through the changing of the seasons. It occurred to her once or twice that she had been forgetting to carry out her plan of surveillance on her guardian in his study; each time she resolved to adhere more strictly to this plan, and each time she forgot it as soon as she clapped eyes on Colin Mullens at the breakfast table. And every night, she was beset by the same maddening question:
How can a singular moment happen again and again?
For that was exactly what went on. Most of her life was unchanged, the routine she had constructed for herself nearly identical in most respects … but as she had sensed that first happy, lonely night after that one singular kiss, everything was changed. Each morning she would go downstairs in the pale blue light of early morning, stepping on quiet feet through the sleeping house, to find Colin waiting for her at the breakfast table.
They would walk together on the grounds if the weather were fair, then Colin would go off to speak with his stepfather, while Diana passed her time writing letters to Leah, visiting Priscilla Leeson or Missus Fessler, reading novels, trying not to fall asleep in the company of Gerard Dunn. Eventually, she would share a meal with the Leesons and Colin and try not to provoke Uncle James too acutely, then retire to her bedroom to begin another difficult hunt for sleep. In short, it was all just as it had been.
But at the same time, now there was a world of difference made by that one little kiss. Now her breakfasts with Colin were charged with anticipation; their conversation was stilted, quiet, full of odd starts and embarrassed blushes from both of them. Now Diana found herself re-reading the same page in her novel over and over, unable to focus her mind sufficiently to remember the words. Now her dinners were awkward affairs in which she and Colin would meet one another’s gaze or blush furiously after an errant word in the conversation reminded them of what had happened on that morning’s walk, of how desperately she had craved that they could be free to strip themselves and succumb to their base urges there on the table.
And their walks …Oh!
In truth, Diana was unsure whether Colin really did know a thousand small, secluded corners of the Leeson grounds. It seemed impossible considering the size of the estate. Really, he could have been bringing her to the same scenic bench every morning, and she would not have noticed; her mind had no room for flowers or landscapes. Their walks were even more pregnant with expectation than their breakfasts.
There were times she felt nearly possessed by whatever demon had taken up residence inside her—a dozen times or more, she had to restrain the urge to push Colin against the hedges and tear off both of their clothes in a mad fit of passion. To hold fast against these indecent thoughts, she tightened her fingers into fists, which gave her some measure of control over her lust … but then Colin would subtly take her hand in his when they were safely out of sight of the groundskeepers or curious eyes from the windows, and all her self-control would collapse once again.
After what felt like an eternity of anticipation, when she and Colin did finally arrive at whatever private copse or twist in the garden path they had settled on, their conversation was of a markedly different character than their previous battles of words. Diana had always had little truck with flirtatious or explicit conversation with men; that had been Leah’s forte in their mutual appearances in London society.
But now, she gave voice to a thousand secret things she had sworn during her solitary night-time fumblings never to share with another soul. Colin would listen attentively, smile that smile of his, crack a good-natured joke or two, and sheepishly confess some of his own secretive thoughts and doings. They spoke in soft, hushed voices, their eyes always rushing to follow any suspicious sounds as their words died in their throats.
Then, after a few aching moments of waiting to make sure they were alone, words were abandoned altogether in favour of a different, more animal sort of communication. Every one of Diana’s senses felt alive with electricity, making the rest of her existence feel like a feeble imitation of this true human experience.
There were long moments when the two would gaze into one another’s eyes without a word passing between them, and it was these moments when she felt she came closest to understanding the true Colin Mullens. She could never seem to get enough of the way Colin smelled, either—it was by no means an offensive scent, especially as he was apparently most assiduous about bathing regularly, but there was something undeniably bestial about it, and she felt herself grow wild, untameable as she drank it in greedily.
But the true appeal of their garden retreats was in the touching. Though Diana was not a prudish woman by nature, her occasional giggling rule-breaking with boys had been limited to clandestine hand-holding at dinner parties. As a result, she found herself completely overwhelmed by the stupefying variety of kissing that the human body seemed to be capable of, and she thrilled to the lessons that Colin gave her in this art.
The feeling of his lips brushing against her neck was an epiphany that nearly sent her into an ecstatic paroxysm right there amid the marigolds. His hands, too, proved most capable at uncovering loci of pleasure on Diana’s body that she had never noticed before. For a time, Colin had to cease using his fingers to trace the invisible line from her ear to her collarbone, as the moans that escaped her lips could not be silenced with any amount of effort.
All this secrecy served not to stifle their lust but to enflame it further, an effect only increased by the occasional appearance of Christopher, the gardener, and once of Colin’s mother, Priscilla. Diana felt herself redden with shame when the latter nearly caught them mid-kiss and vowed to give up this exciting new endeavour at once lest both Colin’s and her own reputations be ruined needlessly. This vow was stridently adhered to for a full three minutes, at which point it was abandoned with great relief as Colin swept her up in another earth-shaking embrace.
