A Lady Awakened (20 page)

When the papers were all properly folded, and the cats of the world given their due, Mrs. Weaver at last emerged from her bedroom looking somewhat less drawn, perhaps, though not very much more civil.

Mrs. Russell got quickly to her feet. “I fear we’ve overstayed. I was so charmed by your Carrie here, I quite lost track of the time.” She reached for the basket. “I brought a few things with me. I’d be honored if you’d take them. I hope your children like cake.”

How kind of you. I can’t thank you enough for getting the baby to be quiet. Please forgive me for falling asleep in the middle of your visit
. Mrs. Weaver said none of these things. She eyed the pile of pleated paper and said, “Christine does that to all the paper in the house.” Like everything else, the subject seemed to weary her.

“Well, I think I may have—here.” She rummaged through her basket. “It’s a book of fashion plates, altogether useless to a lady in mourning. You could take out the pages and give them to your girl. Then your bills and account-lists might be spared.” She put the book down next to the cakes and other food she’d unloaded. “It was so nice to meet you all,” she said, and little Carrie, at least, looked sorry to see her go.

“I’ll deal with the pig, shall I?” Theo got up from the table. He could find no words of civility for Mrs. Weaver or any of her brood.

On their exit they encountered no difficulty from the pig, who now seemed more than a little in awe of him and in fact walked at his side across the yard and to the gate. Very good. Three visits here and he’d succeeded in making one favorable impression, with a creature who sat on its young. He latched the gate behind them.

“I’m ignorant,” said Mrs. Russell when he turned. “Disgracefully so.”

This was an unpromising start to any conversation. He raised his eyebrows and made a noncommittal sound in his throat.

“How could I think to bring books and cake? I knew they were parish poor. I ought to have brought meat, and milk.”

“They might welcome milk. They don’t keep a cow.” He wouldn’t touch the subject of meat. Too clearly he remembered that last packet, heavy in his bag, as he’d made the long walk back to the house after his previous call on the Weavers. “And at least one of the books did come in useful. You’ll have to work up to
Waverley
, that’s all.”

“Those people don’t want
Waverley
.” She strode with even more vigor than usual, swinging the heavy basket as though it were a kind of ballast. “I’d be surprised if the children can even read. I didn’t see a book in that house. I ought to have anticipated as much.”

He stopped her by catching hold of the basket as it swung by. “Don’t berate yourself so. I don’t want to hear it. You were mistaken in what you expected, and now you know better. We learn that way, don’t we?” She’d said something to that effect, once.

“All I’ve learned is the extent of my naïveté.” She hadn’t let go of the basket, and they stood facing one another, each gripping on to the handle. “I’ve been that family’s neighbor since I settled here. I ought to have known their circumstances before now. I ought to have interested myself in that oldest girl’s welfare.”

“Let me propose a bargain.” He pulled gently at the basket until her hand released its grip. “If you cease blaming yourself aloud, I’ll submit to whatever sermon you want to make on education. You may take up the whole of our walk to your house in telling me what ought to be done for the children on my land.”

Her smile went through him like a fever-chill. What a strange, strange thing, to give a woman such pleasure without touching her. For the second time that afternoon he had to avert his eyes, and then he had to speak gruffly, as well. “But I advise you to put the best bits up front, because you’ll only have as long as it takes us to finish this walk. When we reach your house we’ll have other things to do.” And he set off in full stride.

A
NDREW,” SAID
Mr. Mirkwood when the coupling was done and he lay stretched out beside her. He lifted one lazy hand and counted off on his fingers. “Andrew, Katharine, Nicholas, and William.”

They’d got back to the familiar routine. He’d enjoyed himself without proposing anything untoward, and she’d enjoyed his enjoyment. That was what she’d wanted, of course. If some small part of her had hoped he might build upon the liberties of yesterday, well, that part must learn forbearance. “I’d be more impressed if you recalled what I told you of my curate’s school,” she said now.

“Shhhh.” Without turning he touched a finger to her lips, finding his way by feel. “I’m missing one name.”

“No, those are all my siblings.” But her heartbeat skittered. She knew what he meant.

“My name is Theophilus.” Now he did turn, addressing her as if he were a mannerly boy at a birthday party, albeit a naked one nearly six feet tall. “Though only my father calls me that. Brothers and sisters and intrepid ladies call me Theo.”

“I know your name already. A servant told me.”

“Then you have the advantage of me.” He waited. He didn’t tease or demand. He took a strand of her hair between thumb and forefinger and twisted it slowly round the finger, like a python’s lapping coils, bringing his hand ever closer to her head. His eyes, patient and pacific, stayed trained on hers.

What would she give up, if she gave him her name? He might think himself her intimate, and he wasn’t. For all the commerce of bodies, for all that he might intrude into some of her private thoughts, they were not intimates.

“Martha,” she said nevertheless. “Andrew, Kitty, Nick, Will, and Martha. In that order. Our family name is Blackshear.”

“Martha,” he echoed on the softest breath. His lips wore the ghost of a smile and his eyes chased here and there as though attempting to see every part of her at once. “It suits you.”

“I should say so. A plain, solid name.”

“If you wish it to be. Or music, if you prefer. All composed of breath and murmur, and sounds that never stop until you want them to.”

Was that true, about the sounds? Why, so it was. “Such things you notice! I’ve lived with the name for one and twenty years, and never noticed that.”

In reply he only brought his smile to blossom, and settled his hand against her head as his wound-up finger made its final twist.

Chapter Nine

M
AY I
ask you something? I fear to offend you, but curiosity is getting the better of me.” Three days later they were out of doors again, this time walking the long way, over the road, from her house to his. Mr. Mirkwood was to tramp about with Mr. Granville, reviewing all the land he might enclose, and he’d taken it upon himself to invite her along.

“I didn’t realize you were capable of that particular fear. Your question must be grave indeed.” She could speak so to Mr. Mirkwood. They’d attained an unexpected ease with one another, a black-humored camaraderie, perhaps, in the absurdity of their misalliance.

“Not grave, exactly.” In the pause she could picture him rummaging for the proper words—her bonnet, constructed after the fashion of a horse’s blinders, prevented her seeing the picture firsthand. “Blunt, though. Forgive the bluntness. Why don’t you enjoy yourself with me? In bed, I mean.” From the trajectory of his voice she knew he’d turned toward her in asking the question. “I put it down to dislike, at first, but I don’t believe you truly dislike me anymore.”

Discretion
must have a different meaning among the married ladies of London, if he’d made his reputation there. She swiveled to look about her.

“No one is near. I looked, already. And I’ll keep watch as we walk. Of course whether to answer at all is your decision.” His voice reassured in four or five different ways at once. He’d looked. No one was near. No topic was beyond discussion, if they wished to discuss it. And if she shrank from his question, he would let the matter drop.

She filled her lungs, settling her eyes on the far horizon where verdant green ended and blue sky began. She would start with the truth least slighting to him, awkward as it would be to say. She angled her bonnet a few degrees toward him and lowered her voice. “That particular act, I find, does not produce the proper sensations in me. Not as it does in you. Or in other men. Or in other women, I suppose,” she added before he could supply this point out of his own experience.

“Improper sensations would be more to the point than proper ones, I should think.” Yes, she’d known he wouldn’t be able to resist that. “But you do have an idea, then, of how it ought to feel?”

“I do.” Now he might guess at her private habits. Better that than to have him think her ignorant and pitiable. “I believe there may be something irregular in how I am made up.”

Her half boots and his top boots had a dialogue of their own in the ensuing pause, creaking rhythmically as they struck the hard-packed earth. What a poor, old-fashioned road this was, pure mud when the rains came and impassable some days. Someone ought to see to putting down rocks, as was done on the larger roads. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m not quick. You’re speaking of anatomy?”

“Anatomy. Yes.” She would be blushing ferociously if she’d said this indoors. Out here, it had all the significance of a single leaf on a single tree in the distant great Weald.

“Forgive me again. You mean, because your chief pleasure-point isn’t on the inside?”

He was quick enough on certain topics. “You’ve encountered this before?” Her bonnet canted several more degrees his way.

“It’s common. Not at all irregular.” He spoke with an authority that left no room for dissent. “Most ladies require a bit of attention there to reach a proper climax. Some require more than others.”

Well, really. One couldn’t think much of whatever planning process had resulted in human reproductive design. Men with their parts dangling like stockings on a washday line. Women with their pleasure put away from the main event. One might easily conclude people weren’t really meant to—

“There are things I could do.” His words came out low and intent, freighted with hope, but cautious, too, because he knew her well enough to guess at her probable response.

“I know.” She’d dwelt altogether too much, recently, on the things he could do. “But my conscience would object.”

A bird was calling somewhere nearby. Three high trills and a low one, counterpoint to the tireless rhythm of their boots. Mr. Mirkwood made a soft throat-clearing sound. “I don’t mean to argue. But I don’t understand. Surely you and your conscience must have come to terms before you engaged me.”

Now he would think her foolish. So be it. “My conscience permits me to do what is necessary to get a son, because the good that will come of that outweighs the transgression. More people than myself will benefit, I mean. If I were to seek my own pleasure, this bargain would be something else. Something unworthy of the person I have tried to be.” A quick glance round the brim of her bonnet caught his profile, scowling into the distance. “We’re very unlike, you and I, and I don’t expect you to understand entirely.”

“And so I do not.” His stride had lengthened, so that she must work harder to keep up. “To my way of thinking, if you must offend against your principles by lying with a man, you ought at least to have the pleasure that’s meant to come along. There’s meant to be pleasure, Martha.” It was the first time he’d used her Christian name since gently prising it from her grasp.

“It’s not so simple for me. First of all, I only laid eyes on you two weeks since.”

“Two weeks and two days.”

“Sixteen days, yes. We’d scarcely consider ourselves acquainted, in normal circumstances. And acquaintance may be sufficient for you—well, obviously it is—but for my part, I should have to know a man very well before making that surrender to him.”

“Must it necessarily be a surrender?” He’d got a bit ahead of her and now turned to peer over his shoulder, plainly baffled by her notions.

How could he ask such a question? Men. So caught up in conquest, in the thrill of the hunt and the chase, they never paused to consider what might be the experience on the other side. “I think it always is, for a woman.” She met his gaze steadily until he dropped back beside her, his gait more leisurely again.