Chapter 38 #2
Pen could feel him, the way she’d felt a man a few times before.
Men might be quite eager for many reasons, but this was a particular truth, in context.
The details might need decoding, but the message was there.
She let her hand soften a little against him, and felt him shift a little.
Nothing crude, nothing demanding, but it was like a cat or a dog settling in, confident of being petted the proper way.
Pen could not look up at his face, and she couldn’t look at where her hand was, either.
Instead, she found herself looking at the knitting along his chest, quite small and tidy stitches.
Into the quiet, Edmund went on, his voice catching at the beginning.
“Mmm. I am enjoying this a great deal, so you know. Most of all, when I think of you, I like how I feel with you. Comfortable. Excited. Like I’ll never be bored, but also as if we can be quiet together. ”
Pen swallowed, even less sure what to do with that information.
Finally, warily, she looked at his face.
What she saw there confused her even more, like she was deciphering something in a completely unknown language.
There was vulnerability there, an openness she hadn’t expected from him.
He was choosing to be that way with her, rather than all the show of perfection he gave to everyone else.
Slowly, she drew her hand away, pulling it back to her lap. She watched his expression shift, his eyes closed for a long moment, and he took a breath. Before he opened his eyes, he spoke again. “New information. I won’t ask you to choose anything about it just yet.”
“What....” Pen swallowed hard. “What are my choices? I mean, what are you offering?”
“That depends on what you are willing to consider. I would like very much to see how we get on together. To court you, in whatever ways you might find agreeable. We needn’t rush about it.
There’s no sense in my marrying before I finish my degree.
It would complicate some things. But that simply gives us time to decide how we want to do things.
” Two years and a month or two. Greats was a four-year course.
“And what does courting look like to you?” Pen wasn’t sure what she thought of it, but he was at least forthcoming with information.
“Time together, in ways that do not put you at risk with your college. We’ve privacy here if we can sort out some hours.
Over the hols, as well. I’ll be away for six weeks in the long vac, but home at the other times.
” Pen had that fleeting memory of annoyance at realising he was going to travel, and now she didn’t know what she felt about it.
Except that she’d miss seeing him, that was clear.
He went on firmly. “And we’ve other options, if being at Ytene and around Mama and Papa and Uncle Alexander would be too much. At least one of my sisters, too.”
That might, in fact, make her too nervous to enjoy much of anything. “And what might we do in private?”
“That is for you to choose. Though I believe I’ve made my general interests clear.
If that’s the sort of thing you’d prefer to save for marriage, I’d understand.
I’ve certainly experience tending to my own body, as needed.
” He kept his voice even, but she could see him twitch slightly toward her, another unguarded movement, before he looked at her, deliberately focusing on her eyes.
“Have you, I mean.” Pen swallowed. “I walked out with a few men, but we had no privacy at all. So, the sorts of things that creative people can arrange with a blanket and a reasonably remote field. Clothes on, and such. Nothing that lasted more than half a year or so.”
It had meant quite a bit with fingers and hands and mouths, but nothing that was quieter and more intimate in the ways she’d really wanted.
On the other hand, it had meant she hadn’t had to decide how much of Grandfather’s morals around sexuality she was going to go against when it came to the more specific steps.
Then her eyes widened. “Wait. Why are you good with babies?”
It was a good thing she was watching him, because she’d never have figured out his expression from his voice. First, he smiled, his eyes crinkling up in pure and unguarded amusement. “Ah. You saw me with Kenna, then.”
“Cammie said you’d never explained to anyone why you’re good with children.
You’d— that’s the kind of thing you’d tell me.
If I mean. If, courting.” The last bit was stammered.
Here she was, accusing him of having hidden children.
On one hand, it would be another explanation for his unreasonable kindness to Circe.
She didn’t actually think that was the cause, but now the idea was in her head, shouting at her.
He spoke gently now, responding to her stammering without mentioning it.
The words came out deliberately, but with no hint of ducking the question.
“During the war, I had relationships with two different women, six months and nine months long. Both widowed in the war, a bit older than I was. They were thirty and thirty-two, to my nineteen or twenty. They had young children, both of them. Both were secretaries where I worked, with arrangements for people to watch their children during the day.”
He shrugged. “War makes odd bedfellows, isn’t that the phrase?
I’d be over there in the evenings, perhaps all night, depending on what was going on.
Sometimes there’d be an air raid, or something that woke the little ones in the night, and we’d all troop down to the bomb shelter.
” He rubbed his nose. “Major Manse knew. I mean, he pays attention to that sort of thing. But we’ve never discussed it.
You’re the first person I’ve actually told. ”
“What happened to them?” Pen felt a certain need to know. “Will I run into them?”
“They’re both non-magical. You might meet them, I suppose, if you continue doing cryptographic work.
But most of that sort of thing gets handled elsewhere.
They’ve both remarried. An army man, a navy man.
I get Christmas cards from each of them.
They’re happy. The children are happy. Their new fathers treat them well.
I’d still lend a hand if they needed it, if someone wasn’t.
I hope that’s not a problem for you.” Then he shrugged again.
“Sometimes I’ll see one or the other if I’m in the office.
It’s good and steady work for them, and the hours are vastly more predictable now. ”
That penultimate sentence particularly caught Pen’s attention. “If you’re— that's the present tense.”
“It is.” Edmund considered. “I said I’ll be away for six weeks over the long vac.
I’ll be travelling in Greece and Italy, partly as a benefit to my studies.
But also to meet with a few people of interest. An excellent cover story, you see?
” Now his voice had that earnest note again.
“Also, it’s a chance to establish what I might do.
I can’t take on full-time work there after I leave Oxford.
It would mean extended postings away from Albion, and I can’t do that. ”
“The land magic.” Pen said it and got another flashing smile from him.
“See, you are entirely clever enough for conversation. I might take on consulting, or doing that kind of trip, where I’ve a good reason to wander about asking apparently innocent questions. Mama and Papa have done it for ages, both of them. This trip is a good trial run on several sides.”
Pen swallowed hard. “Oh.” She’d have to think much more about that, what it would be like to be with someone doing that sort of thing. And what it meant that the trip was a cover for such things. “Could you talk about any of it?”
“Not the details, unless we’re under the same oaths and agreements.
But that much? Probably. Or if you were interested in helping, like Mama and Papa did, that’s easier on the sharing.
You’d certainly have your own skills to offer.
The fact that you were where you were in the war would be a help.
They’ve already vetted you significantly, of course. ”
Pen felt overwhelmed. Now she had to close her own eyes. “And right now? Today? This week, soon?”
“I would very much like to kiss you. Nothing more just now, I think. You need to get back to Somerville. I rather hope that once we explore a bit, we won’t want to stop. That’s a Saturday sort of thing with arranging for you to stay. Or hols.”
The tone of his voice made her snort. Then she took a deep breath. “Show me what you think about kissing, then.”
Showing was the right word. Edmund had been so careful about direct permission so far, but he took that as permission to do what he’d wanted.
He twisted on the sofa, his leg pressing against hers, then his hand came up to cup her cheek, then rested on her shoulder.
Edmund leaned into the kiss, not rushing it, waiting to see how she reacted.
She could feel an eagerness there, somehow, like a horse wanting to gallop rather than go at a sedate walk, but reined in.
It took her longer to figure out how to respond, whether to open her mouth or not, how to angle her head a little better.
But as soon as she did, as soon as she made space, he was pressing a little closer, letting the eagerness show.
That desire was utterly contagious, in a way that would be dangerous indeed if they went further tonight. She’d never want to leave these rooms.
They went on like that, little pauses for breath and a shift of angle, until they both mutually pulled back. “You’re right.” Pen managed, not quite stuttering. “More tonight, and I’d be sent down from college.”
“Can’t have that. May I walk you back? Entirely appropriate in public, of course. A quick peck on the lips when I leave you at the gate.” Edmund’s eyes were lit up again, dancing, something utterly joyous there. “And then we can anticipate something more, when we’ve world enough and time.”
Pen snorted. “And now you’re quoting poetry. Relevant poetry. Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress.”
“Mmm. Not all my references are classical.” Edmund leaned back against the sofa, watching her through half-lidded eyes. “Agreeable?”
“The anticipation might kill me, but I suppose I’ll manage.” She glanced across the room at the clock. “We needn’t rush, but I think it's better to walk back now. Or I’ll want that distraction again, and then I will be late.”
“As my lady wishes.” That turn of phrase might, in other mouths, have been a poetic one.
Pen was, however, suddenly certain that he had been deliberate about it, naming a thing that might come to be if all went well.
She did not comment on it, she couldn’t possibly.
But she accepted his hand up, his offer of additional meringues in a suitable small tin, and his arm as they walked back to Somerville.