Forbidden Love (Sapphic Historical) (3 page)

BOOK: Forbidden Love (Sapphic Historical)
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“We’re of a similar height,” I shrugged.

 

“True enough but you’re a narrow thing. Take that off and try this,” she threw a slightly faded black dress my way.

 

I slipped out of my gown awkwardly and pulled Helen’s dress over my shift, my eyes trained to the floorboards in embarrassment the whole time; I’d be damned if I voiced my discomfort at casually undressing before her and earn her mockery.

 

“Those dresses you wear don’t do you any favours, you know,” Helen sounded surprised as she assessed me. “You’ve got narrower hips but we’re about the same up top,” her eyes slipped to my chest. “Did you get any bother today?” she asked then.

 

I thought of the boy who’d suggestively offered me his services this morning and the resulting cool looks I’d received from him and his friends whenever I’d chanced upon them.

 

“None at all.”

 

“Well that ain’t what I heard,” Helen mocked. “Do you want me to give Harry and his lot a talking to?”

 

So that was the boy’s name, I mused, shaking my head. “I don’t need mothering.  I can handle him.”

 

Helen arched a brow. “Suit yourself,” she shrugged.

 

While she went off to the bathroom, I hurried to bed, eager to get to sleep before she came back, which, judging by how exhausted I was, would be soon enough. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to Helen pressed flush against me in this small bed. It was just my luck that this long forgotten so-called cousin of mine was beautiful, I thought on sigh.

 

I considered what she’d said earlier – that we had similar sized chests. Judging but what I could feel when she lay against me, and what I’d seen on those rare occasions when my hateful eyes would stray, her breasts were rather a bit larger than my own. I felt the familiar heat low in my belly as I thought of Helen’s naked breasts. I was no better than my brother! I pounded the pillow a little and shifted about, hating my train of thought.

 

***

 

“You’ll freeze out here!”

 

“Oh, I’ll be alright…” I looked over my shoulder at Mabel, the cook.

 

I was currently hopping from foot to foot by the servants’ entrance, waiting for Helen. It was well past ten o’clock and I’d been hovering here for a good twenty minutes already where usually I’d depart earlier with the rest of the staff who didn’t board at the manor – but I’d stayed a little later than usual today to help old Mabel prepare some of tomorrow’s food, missing the usual ride that took the others back to the village.

 

I’d been working at the Moreland manor for almost four weeks now and in that time I’d gotten the hang of things quite well, glad that I’d established a tentative friendship with the older woman since she gave me first pick of the left-overs when it came time for the staff to eat.

 

“Waiting for Helen, I suspect,” the older woman nodded sagely. “Go on in and get her, for goodness sake. The girl works too hard by half – she’s not like the other lazy chits who do the bare minimum. She’s picking up young Lydia’s slack owing to the girl’s head-cold so I suspect she’ll be up in the laundry room.”

 

I nodded and thanked her, hurrying through the warm kitchen.

 

were few servants milling about as I discreetly made my way to the laundry room, tucked away at the back of the house, the household having died down owing to the Moreland’s dining out tonight.

 

As I reached the laundry, wary to tread quietly, as Lydia, the young girl who’d been frogmarched into showing me the ropes on my first morning had said, I heard my cousin’s disembodied voice drifting over as I entered the steam-filled laundry. 

 

“We can’t, Liz,” Helen sighed. “It ain’t right – not with your being married now.”

 

“Well it
feels
right enough. We can meet tomorrow at-”

 

I stilled as I rounded the corner and spied the two women who’d been furtively talking before, watching in stunned surprise as a brown-haired maid I’d seen briefly during my time here reached around Helen’s front, cupping her breasts, squeezing them through her dress.

 

While I was certain there was no breath left in my body at the shocking sight – and conversation – something must have alerted the two women to my presence for they were turning in alarm, staring at me wide-eyed as I hovered by the door.

 

“The cook said I’d find you here but I…I wasn’t sure how much longer you’d be staying behind tonight. I-I’ll leave you to it,” I said quickly, clumsily turning away.

 

I moved through the silent house quickly and I was glad of the cold evening once I exited the manor, the chilly air soothing my burning cheeks.

 

It could not be
, I thought.
I must have been mistaken in what I saw
.

 

“Wait up!”

 

I stopped, glancing over my shoulder as a pale figure jogged towards me.

 

“You certainly walk fast!” Helen panted, shaking her head as she reached me. “Well – aren’t you going to say anything, then?” she asked on sigh after we’d made our way around the back of the building, waiting for one of the riders to ready a cart and take us back to the village.

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” I shrugged, stopping in the stables.

 

I turned away from Helen to stroke the horse beside me, running my unsteady hands over its quivering body.

Helen snorted. “Pull the other one – your face said you
’d been nosy for long enough-”

 

“No!” I defended, lowering my voice even though we were quite alone for the moment. “I did nothing of the sort, I-”

 

Helen flapped a dismissive hand. “No one ever comes to the laundry at that time but we were silly to have been so careless. Will you tell, then?”

 

The question was asked in such a nonchalant way that I found myself relaxing in spite of the awkward situation.

 

But I hadn’t a chance to reply for a good-humoured man was jogging up to us, gesturing for Helen and I to mount the cart.

 

“Stayed late again tonight, Helen?” he called over his shoulder as he urged the horse into action.

 

Helen replied, shaking her head as he continued,

 

“Will you come out with me Friday night? We can walk along the sea-front and-”

 

“No, thanks, Andrew,” she said firmly, and his broad shoulders lifted in a shrug.

 

“‘Nother time, then,” he nodded, and Helen said nothing.

He drop
ped us off a little way from Maypole Street and we closed the gap to Helen’s house in silence.

 

After a quick chin-wag with my tired mother, I washed and dressed for bed, my body heavy with exhaustion. The monotony of my new daily routine was almost pleasant.

 

Helen was already in bed once I left the bathroom and I slipped in beside her – my pallet had arrived shortly after my arrival here but it had been so worn and stained that my aunt had been mortified, and I’d ended up sleeping with Helen ever since.

 

I whispered after a moment of debating with myself whether I should bother: “You may think me coddled and an eavesdropper but if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a gossip,” and then I turned onto my side and closed my eyes.

 

“You mean it?”

 

Helen’s quiet reply hung in the air for a moment and though I’d only known her for a short while, her sudden soberness struck as uncharacteristic and I found myself hastening to reassure her.

 

“Of course. Is she – are you together?” I blurted out then, knowing that if I didn’t ask now that the topic was at hand, I’d never be brave enough to chance it again.

 

“Liz is married,” Helen said after a moment. “I know it ain’t right – I mean,
isn’t
,” she corrected on a huff of laughter, and I smiled at her impressive mimic of my mother’s cut-glass accent whenever she’d correct Helen’s speech.

 

“Is that why you haven’t married?” I murmured.

 

“Never will, either,” Helen declared boldly, though she whispered as I had. “I love women and that’s that. I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?”

 

“I daresay you have, but not for reasons you expect,” I muttered.

 

“Well, what’s that supposed to mean?” I heard the scowl in her voice and laughed.

 

“I – well, I am aware that there are women who like women…and men who like men,” I added.

 

“Well I’ll be! That’s what they’re teaching you in the schoolroom, is it? There I was thinking you’d swoon at what you walked in on!”

 

“I’ve seen a few paintings that would have succeeded in that job were I the swooning type,” I said dryly.

 

“Dirty pictures, you mean?” Helen sounded quite interested.

 

“I suppose you could call them that...”

 

“Of women together?” she persisted. “Doing what?”

“Hmm?”

 


The paintings-”

 

“Oh,” I opened my eyes to darkness, face feeling warm, stomach fluttery as I recalled the Gustave Courbet painting I’d seen in Paris a while ago of two women lying nude together, limbs entwined, on an unmade bed.

 

I’d attended his salon with a friend of mine – we’d evaded our maids to make the trip to see the man’s scandalous paintings, his name famous around all of Europe. My friend had tittered in mortification at the paintings, but I’d been stunned at that particular one, hardly daring to believe that he’d been bold enough to paint such a thing – to paint what I’d fantasised about without quite releasing it. Suddenly, I hadn’t felt quite so alone in my secret desires. Since then, I’d seen a fair few erotic drawings of both men and women together though it was those depicting two women that I’d always paid special attention to.

 

“Too shy to say, eh? Was they muff licking?”

 

“Helen!” I groaned in mortification.

 

“Well, no point beating about the bush, if you’ll pardon the pun,” she laughed.

 

“As a matter of fact, I have seen such pictures,” I declared quietly, hoping to shock her at my inability to shy away from her goading. “They were quite beautiful.”

 

I thought – and suddenly hoped – she hadn’t heard me, but eventually she spoke, sounding quite surprised despite her rejoinder:

 

“Always the quiet ones, ain’t it?”

***

 


I reckon it’ll just be us tonight,” Helen said as we trudged into the house, shutting the door on a street lined thickly with snow. “Our mothers will likely be staying up at Jones’ manor for the night with the other domestics – same with the older boys. We were lucky to get home before the worst of it started.”

 

“What about young Simon and Harold?” I said, wiping snowflakes from my cheeks, and Helen flapped a hand.

 

“Mrs Morris down the road looks after them in the daytime; it’s best we leave the toads there tonight since she has two young ones and they’ll be surly if we take them from their friends.”

 

It was a little over a week since I’d walked in on Helen and her friend – and since I’d more or less revealed my desires to her – and the Moreland residence had been so busy since then with Christmas preparations underway that Helen and I had barely seen one another, waking early and coming home later than usual. Depending on the day, I found myself relieved over this one day but disappointed the next; I knew I’d be mortified to discuss my desires but at the same time, knowing there was someone else out there who knew was comforting.

 

I helped Helen boil some water for our baths, the two of us shivering in our sodden clothes, and afterwards we sat huddled in the kitchen, sipping tea.

 

“How will we get to work tomorrow?” I asked on a shiver, looking out of the kitchen’s tiny window at the thick snowfall.

 

“We’ll see – likely it’ll get worse overnight,” Helen sighed, and then she rose, taking our cups to the sink.

BOOK: Forbidden Love (Sapphic Historical)
5.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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