Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
After weeks of the sweetest kind of torture, Thomas finished reading the Iliad to Harry.
They sat in stillness for a moment, she in her usual position on his lap, head on his chest.
“Helen must have been very beautiful,” Harry said.
“Celestial charms,” Thomas murmured.
“Was she redheaded, do you think?”
Thomas laughed. “I have always imagined her with dark hair, olive skin. Greek, you know?”
“There are many things I don’t know,” Harry said slowly. “I suppose, in a lifetime, one can learn a small amount about many things or a great deal about a few things. I have chosen quite deliberately to learn a great deal about a few things.”
“Yes.” He took the liberty of resting his chin on top of her head.
“This has made me very odd in many ways. I think there are many things about people I don’t understand. I even think there are many things about myself I don’t understand.”
Silence.
“For instance, here, with our position, I am not surprised to feel an occasional hardness under me, in your lap.” Thomas shifted slightly.
“You made me aware as per our discussion before our marriage, and I am now familiar with the phenomenon. I don’t say this to embarrass you,” she looked up at him and he looked away, “but I think I have embarrassed you, and for that, I am sorry. I meant to dis-embarrass you, if there be such a word.”
“I am not embarrassed, exactly.” He tried to laugh and it came out as a cough. “I have been worried about offending you.”
“Oh, don’t worry about offending me. Alternatively, I suppose one could think I should take your hardness as a compliment, since you have, after all, likely bedded the most beautiful whores in England.
But you told me the flow of blood to your organ is just a reaction in response to pressure and friction and even just a night’s sleep.
So don’t worry. I know I’m not the cause. ”
“I-I don’t know what to say,” Thomas stammered.
Harry sat up straight, her face gleaming in the firelight, the top of her breasts straining against her dress.
“Yes, it is a conundrum. You can neither say yes, it is a mechanical reaction because this implies I am hideous nor can you say I have caused it because one cannot imply a nice young lady is an object of lust.”
He was tired of her thinking meanly of herself. Would she believe him when he told her he thought she was beautiful? She would likely snort and get up off his lap. And he did not want her to do that.
Years ago, when he had been foolishly unaware of his father’s financial straits, Thomas had staked a thousand pounds on a single hand of cards. That gamble was a trifle compared to what he did next.
He reached out and cupped one of her breasts with his hand. She was not wearing a corset, and of this he was glad. And as he had anticipated, the breast filled his hand perfectly.
“You are not hideous,” he whispered. He rubbed his thumb over the breast and was delighted to feel the nipple harden under his touch.
“No,” she said and shuddered. “I am convenient.”
But she did not move away. He took heart from this and chose to ignore her jab.
He leaned forwards and kissed her very lightly on her collarbone.
He continued to kiss her collarbone, slowly working his way to her neck, gently massaging her breast. “And,” kiss, “you are,” kiss, “not a nice,” kiss, “young lady,” kiss, “you are,” kiss, “my wife.”
Harry grabbed Thomas by his hair and pulled his head away from her neck.
“Remember. No kissing.”
He blinked at her, willing his forehead not to wrinkle into a frown. “I thought you meant your mouth.”
“I did. As long as you remember.” And then she shivered and leaned into him.
But she didn’t leave his lap. She lay against his chest again, and he repositioned his arms around her tightly. No, by thunder, she was not going to leave his lap. He had touched her breast through her dress and kissed her collarbone, and she had not flown into a fury. She had stayed.
She played with the buttons on his waistcoat idly. “I fear this conversation has gotten off the point. I brought up your member not because it was poking me but as a way to talk about my member.”
Thomas was confused. “Your member?”
“I don’t know what it is. But I have to beg you not to interrupt me, or I will never get through telling you. I could wait until I went to London again to ask Mama Katie about it, but I feel it is rather important. If you don’t know the answer, I can ask Dr. Andrews.”
“No,” Thomas said quickly. “Ask me.”
“The last several months, I have been troubled by dreams. As I have eaten more and walked more and gotten stronger, the dreams have come. My monthly courses have come back, too. You know women bleed, Thomas, even though no one talks about it in public?”
“Yes.”
“I hadn’t bled since before Papa died. But because I have gained weight, I believe my body now has the wherewithal to bleed again.
In fact, the first dream I had, I just thought my courses had come earlier than usual.
But that wasn’t it. I woke up and was wet.
But the fluid wasn’t blood. It was like water.
I thought perhaps I had waited too long to use the chamber pot, but it didn’t smell like urine.
And I felt a peculiar satisfaction the rest of the day, quite like I had solved a very tricky proof in my sleep. And it keeps happening.”
Thomas thought it likely Harry was now having a long-delayed ascendance into puberty after starving herself for years. He had not known women could have dreams that resulted in emissions, but why not?
Thomas cleared his throat.
“You may speak,” Harry said.
“What do you dream of?” Thomas asked quietly.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you that.” She buried her face in his chest.
Thomas’ heart sank. She did not dream of him, her husband, or otherwise she would say so, would she not? He took comfort in the fact that she had mentioned asking Dr. Andrews about her dreams. Perhaps that meant she did not dream of him, either.
“You spoke of a member?”
Harry kept her face against his chest. “Sometimes I have dreams when I am awake, and there is the water between my legs, and I want pressure or friction or something. I don’t know.”
“Harry, look at me.”
Harry sat up and gazed at Thomas. She looked so troubled. He tried to relax his brows, to make his face kind, to gentle his voice.
“Harry, those feelings are normal.”
“Even for women?”
“Yes, for women.”
“Because I am a woman, Thomas, not a child.”
“Yes. You are a woman.”
“Why is there no mention of these womanly feelings in books?”
“Perhaps because the books are written by men.”
Harry nodded seriously. “Just so.” She was silent for a moment. “Thank you, Lord Drake.”
Thomas smiled. “You are most welcome, Lady Drake.”
“Thomas.”
“Yes, Harry?”
She grabbed his hand resting on the arm of the chair and pulled it down roughly, pushing up her skirts as she did so. She put his hand between her legs.
He felt her maidenhair. He felt her crease. And he felt wetness on his fingers. He groaned inwardly.
“This is what I am talking about, Thomas.”
He didn’t move his hand. She looked at him.
“Just so, Harry.”
“I need . . . to know what to do. Can you . . . will you . . . ?”
He found her hooded button at the top of her crease and ever so lightly touched it with his middle finger.
She moaned. He had never heard a sound like it before. It came from deep within her belly. It had none of the screechiness of the courtesans he had bedded. He increased the pressure ever so slightly and began to move his finger in a circular pattern.
“It . . . is . . . what is it?” She almost growled. She threw her arms around his neck as if she were drowning.
“Is it good?” he asked and again increased the pressure and quickened his circling.
“It is good,” she gasped, now hiking her skirts up still farther and looking down and watching his hand move. Thomas, for his part, was watching her face. She was biting her lower lip and her breath was quickening and a beautiful flush was rising up over her breasts to her face.
And down below, he could feel her button engorging and hardening and leaving its hood and rising up under his finger. She began to move her hips, to push herself against his finger.
“Should I do it harder, Harry?” He increased the pressure once again and changed the circling motion of his finger to a rhythmic pulsing.
“Uh.” Her speech was gone. But she continued to gaze down at his hand where his middle finger flicked quickly over what she had called her member.
She started to shake, her chest heaved, and her thighs tightened.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
A throaty and feral howl. Thomas stilled his finger and felt her quiver as her wetness covered his hand.
She slumped against him, breathing hard. He could see the sweat glistening on her neck, tendrils of hair now damp. Her intoxicating odor filled the room. He inhaled through his nose and waited.
She raised her head finally and looked at the fire.
“I think that was the answer I was seeking.”
He smiled. “I’m glad.” But when he went to take his hand away, she clamped her thighs together and trapped his hand.
“I think now you’ve shown me, I might be able to do that myself. But maybe you better show me again.”
“Again? Right now?”
“Yes?”
“You’ve had your pudding and you want another right away?”
“Is that not normal?” She frowned and relaxed her legs.
Thomas laughed and kept his hand where it was. “Harry, when have you ever worried about normal?”
“I have. Before. Worried. But it takes so much energy to be normal that often I have to just let myself be. But I am very interested in this and would like to be normal.”
“Well, I think your interest is a sign of a very healthy and very normal appetite. And I think you should undress and go to bed like a good girl.”
He held her to his chest as he got out of the chair. He carried her over to the bed and deposited her there carefully.
“Thomas?”