Grahame, Lucia (28 page)

He shook his head.

"A little more," he said. "Between your lips."

I feared the potion would have a very bitter taste: With a slight
frown, I lifted a hesitant hand toward my mouth.

"Not those lips," he whispered.

I let out a little sigh of protest and assent.

He was still draped lazily over the chair. With an inward shiver,
I poured a droplet from the vial onto my fingertip and brushed it over the
tender hidden flesh. I wished, suddenly and violently, that the brief touch
were not my own.

"Be generous," said my husband softly. "Why deny
yourself?"

Our eyes met and held. Instead of taking the obvious meaning, I
chose another one.

I handed him the vial.

But he seemed not to understand me, for he merely took it from my
fingers, replaced the cap, and laid it upon the table beside the lamp.

He unhooked his leg from the arm of the chair and stretched out
both feet.

"Would you mind?" he said, with just a trace of his old
diffidence.

I unlaced his shoes and slipped them off. He curled his toes and
smiled at me, perhaps somewhat more warmly than before.

I did not smile.

The silent night held its breath.

With a somewhat moody and restless air, he then stood and wandered
about the room. He lifted one of the panels of lavishly flowered chintz from
the window where I had stood earlier, gazed outward for a moment or two, and at
last let the hanging fall back.

Next he strolled over to the bed, raised up Mrs. Ward from among
the pillows, shook his head slightly as he examined her for a moment, and then
lifted his eyebrows at me and his hand to his mouth in a pantomime of a yawn.

Against my will, a smile forced itself to my mouth. Well, how not?
There
was
something wickedly amusing in his expression.

He let the virtuous matron fall and filled his arms instead with
the pillows where she had lain. These he brought close to where I still knelt,
now with my arms folded about me. He laid the pillows before the hearth.

"Lie down," he said.

With mingled reluctance and eagerness, I unwrapped my arms and
attempted to arrange myself as modestly as possible among the lush hummocks of
pale blue satin. I expected my husband to reclaim his seigneurial position in
the chair, but instead, rather to my surprise, he removed his coat, laid it
upon the chair, and lowered himself to the thick carpet at my side.

Regrettably, my unprincipled flesh still felt poised to welcome
his touch; however, it was not to be. Slowly he removed his tie and loosened
the high collar of his white shirt. The fear, or perhaps the wish, that he
might bind me interestingly with the tie shot across my incorrigible mind. But
he did not. He merely watched me quietly and thoughtfully, until I longed to
snatch his coat from the chair and cover my persistent blushes.

"What is the trouble?" he said at last.

I shifted my posture slightly in a futile effort to better conceal
myself amid the pillows.

"Ah," he said. "You feel yourself to be
insufficiently clothed. I have something for that. If you'll go to my bedroom,
you will find a small carved wooden box upon the mantelshelf. I'd like you to
bring it to me."

I didn't move.

After a short while, my husband sighed, pulled out his watch,
glanced at it with a frown, and threw an inquiring eye at me.

Thus rebuked, I stood up uneasily and took a step toward my
dressing room, hoping to gain it, and a dressing gown, without interference.

My husband, alert as a serpent, shot out his hand and caught my
ankle firmly.

"That's not the way," he said.

"But it will be cold out there," I protested, not
wishing to voice my real objection.

"Yes," he agreed thoughtfully. "I think it may
invigorate you."

There was nothing for it but to reveal my true concern.

"But... what if... if someone should...?"

"No one will see you," said he rather impatiently.

Still I could not move.

"No one will see you," he repeated, now with a real edge
to his voice. "No one is even remotely close by. It is one of the great
pleasures of being the master of this house. I can depend on everyone to do
exactly what I tell them. Even you."

This was a curious remark: My husband's behavior toward his
servants had never given the smallest indication that he actually savored the
power of ordering them about. In fact, despite the veneer of calm assurance, I
had always thought his air suggested quite the opposite.

But my husband was proving that still waters may indeed run very
deep, and I knew it would be unwise to provoke his anger.

I stepped into the dim passage that led from my rooms to the
gallery and made my way, under the haughty painted stares of countless
generations of Camwells, along the gallery's polished oak floorboards to my
husband's rooms, in which I had never set foot.

If I had harbored any curiosity about his unknown bedchamber,
there was hardly enough light now to satisfy it. The gas was low and the fire
unlit. The chilly air from the open windows nipped at my skin.

I made my way to the mantelshelf and found the ornate little box.
It was no more than four inches square and fastened with a little brass lock.
Trying to envision a garment made of gossamer so fine that it could be folded
into that tiny chest, I shook the box gently and heard a muffled jingle. I
could have speculated all night on what lay inside, but I decided to return to
him quickly and put an end to my curiosity and the charade.

My husband lay comfortably in the fire glow, resting on his elbows
with his legs crossed. He lifted a lazy hand to take the box.

"The key is in the pocket of my coat," he said.

I found the tiny object and gave it to him.

Then, once again ensconced among the warm satin pillows, I watched
him unlock the box. He drew out a piece of cotton wool and unrolled it to
reveal a glittering tangle of delicate chains hung with miniature bells.

"Hold out your hand," he said.

I extended my arm. Slowly he glided his fingertips along the
inside of my arm from elbow to wrist two or three times; then he brought them
to my shoulder and traced the whole length of my bare arm. Slowly, slowly, he
repeated those light, hypnotic strokes as I eased back among the pillows. My
eyelids drifted downward. Just as I let them fall shut, persuaded that nothing
in all the world could ever really destroy my peace again so long as that
gentle, rhythmic touch continued, he clasped a tinkling bracelet around my
wrist.

"Now the other hand," he said, and fastened the second
flimsy manacle.

He got to his knees and moved along my body.

"Lift your foot."

The third little shackle claimed my ankle.

"This one."

But now, instead of merely engaging the clasp of the last of my
fetters, he began to stroke my leg, as he had my arm, first only from knee to
ankle, then extending his tender explorations along my inner thigh. I sighed
and stretched involuntarily and jingled. His hand glided back to my foot. I
felt the anklet snap shut around me.

"Now," he said, looking down at me with a smile,
"every time you quiver, all your bells will tell me of your hungers. Even
if
you
won't."

I lifted my right wrist slowly and examined it.

By this time, I felt so captive to my longings that he might as
well have hobbled me in irons. But my new adornments were not iron—they were
not even silver. They had been fashioned of the most tawdry material
imaginable— white brass. I do not say this with scorn: Amid all the ancient
splendors of Charingworth, they seemed like a lovely little breath of life.
They sang and chattered among themselves, cheerfully indifferent to the haughty
disapproval of the frigid, aristocratic diamonds at my throat.

"What has made you smile?" whispered my husband.

I recomposed my face and did not answer.

With a little sigh, he got up, and began to wander about the room
again with his hands in his pockets. At the table beside my bed he paused and
eyed the crystal dish thoughtfully. He looked at me and back at the dish. Then
he uncovered it and popped one of the hard mints into his mouth.

I almost laughed. Perhaps the poor fellow was not quite so
confident as he seemed! Perhaps he imagined it was his
breath
which had
once made his kisses unwelcome! He needn't have worried; his mouth was as warm
and sweet as a summer pasture.

He strolled back with a sly, wolfish grin to where I lay. Then he
knelt upon the pillows at my feet. He pushed my thighs apart gently and, with
his mouth, deposited the mint between my legs, pressing it firmly with his
tongue into the little crevice of flesh. I gasped and jingled.

"Ah," whispered my husband, lifting his head. "I
think you are beginning to make your wishes known."

My knees tightened further; my hips rose.

He bent his head back to me and began slowly to lick the mint.
Lost in strange and delicious sensations, I pressed my knuckles to my lips. But
no matter how well I muffled my cries, those gossiping bells would not be
silenced.

How sweetly did my husband's warm mouth console the tender skin
where the menthol burned with a cool, distant flame, like melting ice. Slowly,
slowly his tongue eroded the little mint; his languid concentration proclaimed
that he was entirely absorbed in his own pleasures. Mine, although almost
uncontainable, seemed purely incidental.

Yet I forgot everything except the promise of rapture. I could not
have told you his name, or my own.

And then he took his mouth away and, with it, the last trace of
mint.

I watched him stand up and bend to pick his tie from the carpet
and his coat from the chair.

"What are you doing?" I whispered.

"I'm off to bed," he said with a little yawn. "You
seemed disgruntled earlier at having been... awakened. I won't rob you any
further of your sleep."

I rose to my knees. I could feel my face growing dark. I wanted to
wrap my arms and legs around him. I imagined the faint scratch against my skin
of the fine wool that covered his legs.

I watched him hang his tie around his neck without knotting it,
fold his coat over his arm, and move toward the door.

Words of protest trembled on my lips—I couldn't have said whether
I was struggling to push them back or to force them out.

And then, although I believed myself to be entirely petrified with
confusion and dismay, the little bells spoke for me.

My husband, whose hand had just fallen to the door handle, turned.

"Did you say something?" he asked.

Everything that had made him seem almost warm and approachable
earlier was gone. There was not even the hint of a smile. His face might have
been carved from ice.

"Oh, don't go yet," I said helplessly.

"No? Why not?"

The four syllables I had spoken had exhausted my supply. He
watched me for a short while with barely concealed irritation and then, with a
shrug, turned and reached again for the door.

"Wait," I said.

He didn't even pause. He pulled the door open and stepped into the
gallery.

"Please," I whispered desperately.

He began to draw the door slowly shut.

I was bereft of words, but desire pulled me to my feet and across
the room. The bells made a soft clamor. I caught the door before it clicked shut.

With a sigh of exasperation, my husband stepped back into the room
and closed the door behind him. He looked at me for a long while with an
expression of severe disapproval.

Finally, he said, "I asked very little of you tonight. Would
you agree?"

"Yes," I said, falling back from him.

"Did I force myself upon you unpleasantly in any way?"
he asked.

"No," I whispered.

"Did I require anything that was objectionable to you?"

"Not really," I said, although I had not especially
appreciated being asked to fetch things.

"And even so," he continued, "in one or two
instances, you did not show quite as much alacrity as I have every right to
expect from you. You know what I am referring to, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, reviewing my little failures.

He took a step toward me. I took a step back.

"You have disappointed me more than once tonight," he
said. "When I express a wish, I like to see it fulfilled instantly, even
with enthusiasm. I know, of course, that you are half dead and can feel no
enthusiasm for anything, but I would have preferred an imitation of it, at
least. Do you understand that?"

"Yes." I closed my eyes, too overwhelmed by confusion
even to look at him.