Chapter 35 Pleasures of the Flesh
Pleasures of the Flesh
I gasped as he crushed me against him. And again as his hand came to my face and pulled my lips to his.
I felt no needle pricks of pain, only the soft fullness of his dark mouth, like a ripe plum. Unlike when he’d fed on me, I wasn’t slipping deliciously into a dream. Awash in fiery new sensations, I clung to his coat lapels, worried that at any moment he would remember himself and this would end.
Our mouths were greedy, slipping against each other and tasting, as if cleaning honey from a spoon. My body shuddered into his, and a sound came from him that was low and almost animal. Our mouths opened wider, tongues probing deeper.
His hands glided down to my waist, fingers pressing into the flesh just above my hips. He tugged my body closer still, kindling flames low in my belly. He stepped me backward until my backside came to rest against the edge of the table.
The kiss broke, leaving both of us gasping. His head dipped to my neck. Feeling the tip of his nose under my ear—just above where he’d bitten me—I froze.
My tensing woke him, and with a last squeeze that let me feel how taut and hard his body had gone, he released me and stepped away. Drunk on his taste and smell and feel, I stumbled, and he muttered an oath as he reached out to steady me.
Our eyes met. “You’re not wrong to question what I feel under these strange circumstances, Mina. But I need you to understand—I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life. And even so, if my life were to end without me ever having more of you than that, I would die happy.”
A nod was all I could manage. It struck me how right he had been.
How difficult it would be for us to live together yet never truly be man and wife.
I wouldn’t be lonely anymore, but how I would burn for him.
I now began to see how that could be worse.
And if his strength failed him, what then? Could mine hold?
And this is Goosevar’s gamble.
His fingers came to lightly brush my cheek. Then he let out a breath and moved to the window that faced onto the garden.
The smell of browning crust filled the room, and I went to take out the pie. Still breathless, still holding on to the previous moment while I tried to carry on in the current one.
The pie’s filling bubbled as I scooped servings into two dishes—though I’d yet to see Harker eat.
Setting the food on the table, I said, “I’m not sure it will be edible. I’m not used to so much . . .”
He turned. “Distraction.”
My face went hot. “Aye.”
He joined me at the table. I wondered what he’d do, and he did pick up a fork and take a bite. “It’s delicious, Mina.”
He was being kind, but it was hot and filling, and I found I was famished. “Eat as much or as little as you like. I know our appetites . . . differ . . . and you won’t offend me.”
But he ate it all, and once I’d had my fill, he stood and reached for my dish. “Why don’t you sleep now and let me clear up?”
“Just leave it for the morning,” I protested, rising slowly. I knew he was used to doing for himself, but I didn’t yet feel comfortable with the lord of the manor washing my supper dishes.
“It will give me something to do,” he insisted. “The pump is out front?”
Now that my belly was full, my eyelids were drooping and my limbs felt heavy. So I gave in. “It is. There shouldn’t be anyone else about at this hour. Will you not sleep?”
“I think it’s best if I don’t. I don’t need much anyway.”
I couldn’t argue. If Jack did come home, there might be trouble. I felt a hard pang of regret over the fact we wouldn’t share a bed on our wedding night—or, most likely, ever.
Reading me again, he came close and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Perhaps we’ll meet in your dreams,” he murmured.
I made fists to stop myself from reaching my arms around him.
Throat tightening, I said, “Good night, Harker.”
I climbed the ladder to the loft with a heavy heart.
I undressed and crawled into bed, so weary I thought I’d be asleep in moments.
But the sounds of Harker setting the kitchen to rights kept me from drifting off.
Once the task was finished, I lay awake wondering what he was doing.
What he was thinking. If he was lonely. How it was that longing for someone could cause an actual pain in your chest.
I flopped onto my side, sighing, and then I heard a sound I hadn’t in a very long time. Harker must have taken down Da’s fiddle. It hung on the wall next to the back door, as far away from the heat of the hearth as possible. The plucking noises of his tuning took me back to my childhood.
I recalled Harker’s broken fiddle, and the teacher he’d fallen in love with. The teacher he may have killed. It came to rest in my chest, cold like a stone.
Yet as the plucking stopped and Harker began to play, no cold feeling could hold.
The melody washed over me like water in the bath.
This music was like nothing we’d had at home.
Da knew jigs and old ballads, and Mum had taught him sad Irish tunes.
Remembering how her sweet voice had sometimes risen to the loft after Jack and I had gone to bed caused the tears to spill from my eyes.
I had no category to place Harker’s song in. It wasn’t joyful, or sweet, or even sadly romantic. The long, slow, somber notes seemed to contain every sorrow from the history of the world—including mine and his.
Yet somehow it brought me peace.
When the gray light woke me, all in the cottage was quiet but for the wind moving in the thatch overhead.
I got up and quickly dressed, braided and pinned my hair, then paused at the top of the ladder. All of yesterday felt like a dream. Would I find Jack below, instead of Harker, still asleep in our parents’ bed? Then my gaze fell on the russet gown, which I’d draped carefully over a chair.
It’s all real.
There was no sign that Jack had returned, but Harker was there—asleep, sitting on the floor propped up against the wall.
Da’s fiddle lay across his lap. I stepped lightly, hoping to let him go on sleeping.
But as I began to move around in the kitchen, lighting the stove and putting water on to boil, I heard him stirring.
An unexpected shyness came over me—as if we’d had our wedding night—but I smiled and called, “Good morning.”
He raised his hand, rubbing the back of his neck. “Good morning.”
“You should have moved to Jack’s bed. You can’t have passed a very comfortable night.” We had a couple of chairs and stools near the hearth, but nothing like what he was used to.
He set the fiddle carefully aside and got to his feet. “So much for keeping watch for Jack.”
I frowned. “No sign of him, then.”
“None, unfortunately. But try not to worry. He won’t be fool enough to go after Goosevar again. He’ll be somewhere close.”
Grasping at his hopefulness, I replied, “Yes, we’ll find him.”
He walked to the back door and hung the fiddle on its pegs.
“Your playing last night was beautiful,” I said, filling the teapot with hot water.
He met my gaze, a small smile on his lips. “You are kind. The instrument needs new strings, and I haven’t played in years. Was it your father’s?”
I nodded. “No one’s played it since he died.” We met at the table and sat down. “It’s nice to hear it in the house again.”
The porridge I’d made sat cooling on the table. I poured him a cup of tea, my heart thumping as I worked up to what I wished to ask him.
“Would it . . .” His eyes came to my face, and my courage flagged. I spooned the porridge into bowls.
“What is it, Mina?” he asked gently.
I set a bowl next to his teacup, and I picked up my spoon. “Would it cause you too much pain to talk about your teacher? You told me that . . . you said she was . . .” Sighing in frustration, I put down my spoon.
“You have a right to hear it,” he said.
My hand trembled as I lifted my teacup. Why should this woman frighten me so?
Because he loved her. And because he might have killed her.
“Mrs. Rowe,” he said. “Ruby Rowe. I don’t think it was her real name. My father first brought her into our home when I was ten years old, and for a decade I saw her once a week. I knew little of her history, only that she’d worked in a traveling theater company.”
Frowning, I said, “Da took us to see theater on the green at midsummer sometimes. Is that the kind of thing you mean?”
“Very likely. Though this was many years before you were born. She left the company to work for our family.” He folded his arms and rested them on the table. “It would have been a far better life for her. I wish she’d kept to it.”
I took a bite of porridge, not tasting it, as he continued, “Ruby was sometimes ill. I didn’t think anything about it at the time.
My mother had died young, and so had my father’s mother, so I suppose I had gotten the idea it was normal for women to be unwell.
But as I approached my change, my father told me what I was.
What I would become. And it was around that time I also learned Ruby was being paid for more than teaching me the violin. ”
His eyes came to my face, and my breath hitched as I saw that they shone with tears.
“One day after my lesson, I had left Ruby and gone out to skip stones on the pool on the heath. I had behaved foolishly that day, taking advantage of an opportunity to steal a kiss.”
He hesitated, studying me, and how my heart raced.
“Ruby played the violin with passion. Lost herself in it completely sometimes. She was beautiful, and although before my change I was sometimes allowed off the estate, she was the only woman I’d ever been alone with.
I believed I was in love with her. That day she had thoroughly rebuffed me, and I stalked off humiliated and ashamed.
” He took a deep breath. “So I threw stones, and I watched columns of dark clouds massing on the horizon. When my emotions had cooled, I ran back to the chapel so I might watch the approaching storm from the battlements.”