Page 14 of Joy to the Earl
“Though I had no wish to further disturb what was well and truly buried, I did need a more public and conclusive ending, so I had a headstone made for the family graveyard here in England and held a small funeral for her a few months after she died.I told her parents and siblings that I’d paid to have the body disinterred and shipped back to England, but the fact is I just had the gardener dig up the soil and mound it in the usual way.For myself, I don’t care in the least where her bones are resting.All that mattered to me was that it be well understood that she was gone, and thus I was no longer linked to her, except through the presence of our son.”
She took a while to digest all that, thinking that Douglas’s title hadn’t shielded him from pain entering his life.And though she might have taken some vindictive pleasure in his misfortunes before, now she could feel only sympathy.The Douglas of her imagination had been a heartless bastard.The man who stood before was simply a man, imperfect and complicated and impossible to hate.
Joy finally said, “I can’t claim to have had anything in my life near as dramatic as that.My husband was older, and he had already sown his wild oats—many of them—so when he got around to marrying, he really just wanted an ornament, and the respectability that a pretty wife would give him.He was always very clear to me that I had been chosen for my physical attributes and the fact that I had no scandals attached to my name.He didn’t care about my lack of dowry, because he himself had quite a bit of money.I cannot complain about the way in which I was kept.I had more than adequate pin money.He often gave me gifts of jewels or other pretty things.He made sure that my wardrobe was enviable, because my main purpose was to be paraded around in front of his friends and family so that they could see that he had a pretty young wife, and assume that he had a great many other things as a result of that.”
She went on, “He was intensely jealous, and he guarded my virtue as if it were as important as the money in his bank vault.Not that I ever attempted to have an affair.I was less than impressed with the aspect of marriage that occurs in a bedroom, so the idea of seeking that out with an entirely different man seemed like quite a lot of effort for a not terribly desirable outcome.So I remained faithful to my husband, largely through the lack of desire to be anything else.”
“You say you were unimpressed, but the way you’re talking makes it sound worse than that.Did he misuse you in bed?”
“No, other than perhaps the first few times when my ignorance and his indifference led to some clumsiness.But the fact was that he didn’t think about me at all.If not for a sympathetic housemaid, I would probably still be quite ignorant about what a woman’s body is capable of feeling.”
That earned a raised eyebrow.He said, “I trust she didn’t attempt to benefit from her intimate knowledge of you?”
“Calm down.She didn’t seduce and blackmail me with the threat of revealing sapphic tendencies.Nor did she ever expect favors or special treatment, other than perhaps the special treatment that we shared when my bedroom and bed were otherwise quite cold and empty.She was a friend, if you can believe that of two women of differing classes and backgrounds.There are people in this world who seek to ease pain when they see it.Not everyone is a cynical opportunist.”
“Oh, you mean like I was when I selected my first wife?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know, Joy.But trust me, I’ve thought it about myself plenty of times.Anyway, go on.”
“As I said, my husband was considerably older than myself, and he had never been a man interested in his health.Still, he denied the reality of his sickness for years, and that probably hastened his end.I was forced to become his nursemaid more than his wife.For the last two or three years of our marriage, he never touched more than my hands, and the only intimacy we shared was that of a nurse and her patient.He became thin and weak as he found it difficult to eat or to walk.Increasingly, he was forced to remain in his room and then in his bed, though his voice was strong to the end.He was a quarrelsome man from the very beginning, but became more so as his ailments grew.When he finally died, I think everyone in the household breathed a sigh of relief.It wasn’t that he was cruel.It was just that we all needed the quiet.We hadn’t experienced a moment of true quiet or peace for months, so that first day and night when he was gone, there was this ringing silence throughout the house.It was the absence of his demands, the absence of his complaints, that created a new sound in itself.
“I think I was in shock for a month, I had no idea what it meant to do things for myself, because I’d spent so long merely being an extension of him.Ready to jump up should he need water, or hurry and fetch a biscuit or a piece of bread at an odd hour.Always alert in case he wanted or needed the doctor.I hadn’t slept a full night as long as I could remember.
“And then all of a sudden, nobody wanted anything from me.Nobody needed anything.It was as if when he ceased to exist, so did I.Eirlys—my maid—was the only person who spoke to me every day.She was the one who made sure that I remembered to take my meals, she was the one who told me it was time to take a turn about the garden or to stroll through the park.There were visitors, of course.The condolences demanded by politeness.There were a few solicitors carrying out their duty.But I became so aware of how small my life had become after my marriage.I had no real friends of my own anymore.I of course had no children.It was as if I was on a sea without a shore.”
“I am sorry that you had to endure that,” he said, running a finger gently over her cheek.“I wish I had known.”
“You had your own trials.”
“What did you do?How have you lived your life since then?By your account, he must have died nearly four years ago.Did you never think to marry again?”
“Why should I have wanted to do that?Though of course there were men who assumed that I would be quite eager to jump back into the ring, or to put on another ring.You see, my husband had become quite well to do, thanks to some investments or other that I’ve honestly never really paid attention to.But the solicitors who visited me made it quite evident that I would be comfortable for the rest of my life, and I suppose I should be grateful for that.I must emphasize that my husband was never knowingly cruel and certainly never offered abuse.But the fact remains that I am far happier as a widow than I ever was as a wife.And any man who assumed that I was longing for the marriage bed once again were disabused of their notion.Even those who did not offer marriage, but rather a discreet arrangement suitable for a mature lady and gentleman, walked away quite empty-handed.”
“You say that he never mistreated you, but I think it’s quite clear he did.You should not have such a bitter view of something that is meant to be sweet.”
“I have had my share of sweetness, though it was never a man who offered it,” Joy said.“All the pleasure of the bedroom that I experienced during my marriage was thanks to my maid.Do I shock you?Are you quite repelled by my admission?”
The question was issued as an outright demand, but Douglas said only, “I’m glad you were able to find some comfort in what sounds like the most unhappy situation.”He paused, then said with a note of curiosity in his voice, “Is she at the inn now?”
Joy laughed.“Oh, no.Eirlys left my service about six months ago.She returned home to her family in Wales, since her mother was ailing.She wrote to me not long ago, actually, and informed me that she has married a man she knew from childhood.She sounded quite happy and content, and I wish her joy.Well, all the joy that she may have without my presence.”
Now Douglas laughed a little bit, catching her play on words.He reached a hand out, and curled his fingers around hers, his touch warm in the cold air.“I wonder that you tolerate my presence at all today, considering how my selfishness and shortsightedness led to years of pain in your own life.”
“I wasted so many tears over you.But you’re not responsible for my life.I made the choice to accept the proposal from the man who became my husband.Though it may make one feel better to lay all the causes of misery at another’s door, the fact is that the only one living my life was me.Perhaps I might have run away from my marriage, much as your wife did in yours.Not that I had a lover, but I could have simply packed a bag and walked out the door, and went in search of a different destiny.Though that’s largely a false dream for women.Having no real income of my own, even if I had taken some jewels along with me, like your wife did on her jaunt, they would not have supported me for very long.Probably I just would’ve ended up coming back and hoping that my husband would accept me.Or I would’ve been forced to find another benefactor, and ended up playing the role of wife again, but without the legal benefits of the label.”She sighed.“I suppose in the end we make the choices that we are suited for.I am not a dramatic person, and never have been.I was brought up to believe that marriage was the natural state of a woman of my class.I have never been good at rebellion.And I fear that at my age, I am long past pleasure.”
He pressed her against the tree and leaned into her, even as he tilted up her chin and tipped her head so that her hood fell back a little, exposing her face.His eyes were the deepest green, and he said fiercely, “You are not past pleasure.You are pleasure.”
And then his mouth was on hers, hot and questing.She opened her own lips, and he seized the wordless invitation, his tongue sliding against hers, so that she felt the heat pour all the way down her throat into her belly and then pool between her legs, a molten heaviness that grew with every passing second that the kiss continued.
His hands cupped the side of her face, his thumbs caressing her jawline.Then they moved lower down her neck and to where her collarbone met her shoulder, the pressure in his fingers both gentle and coaxing.She gave herself up to the feeling that his touch and his kiss created in her.
And truly, it was not one kiss anymore, but many, one after the other, some quick and darting, others heavier and longer.But all of them skillfully demanding her response, which her body was eager to rise to; though she had just spoken with scorn of her supposed lack of desire for a man’s attention, she absolutely wantedhisattention.She found the break at the front of his great coat and slipped her hands inside, so that she could explore the warmth of his body underneath.Past another layer of the wall that was his jacket, and then against the thin linen of his shirt, so that she could feel the contours of his torso beneath.She didn’t know why it was so important to be able to touch him, but she knew that that was what she wanted, and based on his muttered encouragements, he wanted it too.
Heedless of the rapidly cooling air as clouds again covered the sun, they tangled their hands and mouths together, indulging in a desire that had simmered for years undetected, unacknowledged, until they’d been thrown together again.
She felt his hand grazing downward underneath her cloak, past her breasts, and then across her stomach and to her hip, where he hitched her upper leg over his thigh as he pressed against her.Though they were both fully clothed, it was clear in his movements that despite the cold he was in some places very hot…and hard.He ground himself slowly against the softness of her inner thigh and edged to where her legs met, even as he continued to kiss her, sucking on her lower lip and then finishing with a gentle nibble.“If you find me presumptuous, you can say so.”His voice held a note of amusement, but more of desire.
