Chapter Nine
The following morning Phillip sent a note to Wilhelmina asking if he could call upon her after the noon hour. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, he then sat at his desk in the library trying to think of what he might say to her.
Just past the hour of one he was ushered again into her blue salon in Russell Square and by the same butler he had met a few days prior. He was pleased the house seemed quiet and that the servants he had caught sight of on his first visit were nowhere to be seen today.
She was standing by the mantel dressed in a white gown decorated with small blue sprigs of flowers. Her hair was bound in a loose way and fashioned low on the back of her neck.
When he shut the door behind them he felt like Eros, the trickster God of carnal love and sensuality. She looked nervous, so he came straight to the point.
‘I would never hurt you. I hope you know that.’
She nodded but he could see caution in her eyes.
‘I will never lie to you, either.’
She was magnificent standing before him. A woman who on her own terms had come to this moment without pretence or deception. He could only give such courage back.
‘There is a lot about me that you do not know, Willa, but I think you also keep your secrets close. Sometimes that is all one can do to be able to live and I shall not ask you for those confidences. But what we do need is the truth between us from now on. Is that something you might agree to?’
‘Yes.’
Thank God they were older, he thought then, and that they had both been married.
He did not offer love or falsities but he did offer himself and perhaps that was enough. In time they might tell each other things that could wrench them apart but for now he would keep it simple.
A contract of the body perhaps? It felt more attainable. It felt possible with the shimmering feeling of last night’s confession of ‘delight’ hovering around them.
He was pleased the door had been shut by the butler after he left the room, for such privacy was welcomed. Moving forward, he gently rested one hand against the curve of her neck, feeling the pulse and measuring its quickness.
‘We shall do only what you want, and at the speed that you want it. If you ask me to stop, I will.’
Still she did not look at him and the pink already in her cheeks had now flared to crimson. Tipping up her chin, he made her see him, the gold in her eyes sharp with something he did not recognise.
His brave and bold warrior woman was shaking in her boots.
His thumb rested on the beat of her heart in her throat.
She knew it would be racing…she knew there was nothing she could do to hide her fear, which was not ideal.
She needed him to pull her towards him without thought or word or question.
She wanted her part in the whole thing nullified because she had no notion as to even where to begin.
She hoped he might stay silent, the language of the body kinder than the alternative.
She did not seek sense or promises or logic.
She wished it was night-time with the darkness covering all that she did not want to show him.
She worried about the scars on her thigh and the gash on the shin, improperly healed after it had festered.
She was nothing like his perfect, beautiful dead wife Gretel or any of the other stellar lovers a man like him must have known before he married.
He stepped forward now, his eyes not leaving hers. He did not speak. He only looked as his hand moved up to her cheek, his fingers fanning out and drawing her in. And then his mouth came across hers, opened and seeking, soft and questioning.
She felt him move so that he could be closer still, to taste her, to know her, to let her understand in such a kiss there should not be fear but only delight.
It was his gift to her and she took it.
Worry was abandoned for this moment and at this time he was hers, the heat of lust taking over.
A new woman and an unrecognisable one, she wanted everything he might teach her and more.
Tipping back her head, she opened to him further, the echo in her body making her breath come faster and her need grow stronger.
And if Lionel had always been selfish, Phillip Moreland was not.
His other hand cradled the back of her head as he lowered his mouth to her neck and the skin above the lace in the bodice of the gown, and her breath simply held as she understood for the first time in all her life that she was not the empty woman she had been told she was but a sensual and responsive one, wanting more, aching for it.
Her fingers ran through his hair, feeling the length of the darkness and pulling him closer, and when his teeth skimmed the top of her breast, she could no longer control anything she felt.
She hoped he might lay her down on the carpet to take her hard and fast, so that she had no way to make it wrong, no misstep or blunder.
But he was only gentle as he edged away the soft material and released one breast. She felt her nipple tighten in pleasure and tighten again as his mouth covered her, sucking and lathing, every nerve in her body centred on the movement. Hers. To keep. To feel. To know.
She shook with the craving of it and with the waves that came, releasing every uncertainty written in her bones and understanding finally that a woman’s body could be played like an instrument of music by a maestro who would take the time and care to do it.
She burst into tears then, large sobs of thankfulness, her breath uneven, the echoes of passion inside still very much present as she buried her face into the fine wool of his jacket.
His arms came around her as she cried, trying to regain some composure.
When she felt she might cope she took in a deep breath and moved back a step and he let her go without comment.
‘I did not expect a kiss would be like that.’ It was all she could say.
‘It usually isn’t,’ he gave back, his words honest.
‘I am not perfect…’ she began but one finger came across her lips to stop her.
‘To me you are.’
‘I’ve never felt much before when…’
He stopped her. ‘I know. You told me.’
‘But I’ve wanted to.’
He smiled.
‘Have dinner with me tonight at my town house, Willa.’
So much more was implied in his words and she was grateful.
He would not rush. He would not spoil the anticipation.
She had waited years for this, wanted to savour all that he might show her, and it seemed he understood.
She had been wrong to wish it over so quickly and to negate her own part in it.
‘I would like that.’
He bowed slightly and moved towards the door.
‘Then I will send a carriage for you just before eight.’
As she nodded he left, closing the door behind him. Even that courtesy was appreciated because it gave her time to put herself together, and one glance in the mirror showed her the extent of her dishevelment.
Was this what delight looked like on a woman, the flushed cheeks and lips that were suddenly more full?
Her eyes looked different too, the gold in them far more noticeable and languid.
With care she rebound the tendrils fallen from her chignon and readjusted the line of her bodice.
She’d seen the paintings of Delaroche and Reubens and the Arcadian pleasures of the Rococo paintings in the forbidden books the McAllistair sisters held dear from their father’s collections, images where the viewer was invited to gaze voyeuristically upon the sleeping nymphs and pleading lovers.
She’d never quite understood the allure until now, when the possibility of abandonment and relinquishment of her own sexual being was so very close.
Tonight after dinner. In the darkness. Away from this house. Glancing at the clock on the far wall, she counted down the hours. Six and a half hours. Four hundred and fifty minutes. Her hand pressed against her stomach to try to stop the growing need there and she rocked back and forth.
Delight. It was going to be hers. And she would take it without question.
Half an hour later the doorbell chimed again and for a moment she wondered if Phillip Moreland was back to rescind his promises and retract his invitation to dinner.
But the aristocratic diction of the McAllistair sisters was suddenly audible, and within a moment they were ushered into the salon.
Miss Jean, the oldest sister, spoke first, a tumbling torrent of words, each more unbelievable than the one before it.
‘We are leaving London, dearest Willa, and you shall be the first to know of it. Our father’s cousin’s son has claimed the London house and the estate to the west and in a show of good grace has bequeathed us a beautiful cottage in Royal Tunbridge Wells with a garden and a stream and trees all around.
It is just too good of an opportunity to pass up and of late we have found London dreary, cold and busy. ’
‘So we will travel down next week as the place is furnished already and there shan’t be a thing to do to get it ready.’ Christine added this as her sister stopped, her face full of joy. Even the least talkative sister, Mildred, seemed charmed by the change in their circumstances.
‘Our second cousin has left two of his staff to see to our needs, a cook and a butler, and so if we take Genevieve with us as our lady’s maid we will be all set up.
Our benefactor has arranged accounts at the local shops as well and asked for all of our expenses to be passed on to him.
I know it is a quick turn in direction but we have made our minds up to do it and at our age such an offer is not to be turned away.
One must take risks sometimes, do you not agree? ’