Chapter Eleven #2
“You’ll wake the household,” he said as she spilled into his arms in the aftermath, but there was a smile in his voice instead of a scold.
“You have turned me into a lusty creature,” she replied, taking his earlobe in her lips to drive him a little crazy.
“I have turned you into a lusty creature? My dear Mrs. Bellamy, you are the one who demanded I consider your point of view.” He emphasized this by pulling her closer against his body.
She wanted him to call her Martha, but she hadn’t yet found the courage to ask for it. It was such an intimate gesture, far more significant than finding mutual pleasure in each other’s bodies.
If he began calling her Martha, it suggested she expected they would always be in a position for him to be so familiar. And on the other hand, if she asked him to call her Martha and he declined, she would hardly be able to face him again.
She wished she had an in-between name, like he did with Preston, but she was not a woman blessed with honorary titles and Christian names that stretched on for days.
Another reason she didn’t want to bring it up: perhaps the courtly ladies of London did not ask their lovers to use their first names, and Martha’s request would only serve to remind him of all the ways she did not fit into his world.
She pacified herself by kissing him deeply for a little while. With one hand fastening her hip in place against his groin, he threaded fingers through her hair. They were spent and tired, so this kissing would lead to nothing but the warm feeling that had her sleeping through the nights.
Eventually, however, even the kissing came to an end, and this time, Lord Preston withdrew, nestling his cheek on the pillow close—but not close enough—to her face. “The cold is going to come before we know it.”
She snaked her feet between his. “We can keep each other warm.”
“Yes.” Smiling, he pushed some errant hairs from her brow. His hand rested on her neck in a lazy, possessive curl. “But I am a little worried about your travels. Wouldn’t it be better to arrive at your niece’s before winter makes the roads dangerous?”
They had not mentioned such practical things in weeks. Martha rolled onto her back, looking to the canopy above her bed for the right reply. “Her name is Georgina.”
He withdrew his hand. “Do you think you should write to Georgina again? Perhaps your last note got lost in the mail.”
Though the possibility had occurred to Martha, too, she did not want to admit to the necessity of writing again.
“It is not a simple thing to take in another family member. You may forget what it is like for us common folk, but our houses are not made of endless rooms and the hearths aren’t filled with coal.
Taking me in might mean the family goes hungry this winter. ”
“Yet family has a duty to care for each other, even when it is difficult. You deserve to be welcomed by your family.”
Tears threatened. Martha shut her eyes and indulged herself in a deep, silent breath.
Lord Preston added, “I only want what is best for you. If it is a question of money, then I could settle something upon you—”
Martha kept her eyes closed as she cut him off: “Like a discarded mistress?”
The comment was too sharp. Martha felt consumed by the word mistress—a brazen woman, a stupid woman, a heinous woman. She didn’t notice Lord Preston roll away until she had banished her tears and discovered their bodies no longer touched at all.
On his stomach, staring down at his pillow, he said stiffly, “I did not mean to imply such a thing.”
But he didn’t need to imply, because the truth was, the only thing distinguishing Martha from a mistress was the matter of money.
“And I don’t mean to be ungrateful in the face of your generosity.
I wish to cleave our actions from financial matters.
You are not in my bed because I want your money.
Nor am I in your bed so you may control me with the promise of it. ”
“I do not want to control you. I want to do right by you.” These last words barely came out as he slammed his fists into the pillow. Martha startled backward on the mattress. “I’ll stop trying,” he growled. “All I manage to do is fail.”
“You have hardly failed. We are only having a conversation.”
“I have failed enough people to know when I am about to fail another.”
Which was when Martha recognized his emotions: they were the same ones that had sent him careening to the mantelpiece when Caroline had deserted their Sunday dinner.
She reached out to rest her palm on his bare back.
“I am not dependent upon you, Preston. I have money to take rooms at an inn until I hear from Georgina, and if I never hear from her, then I shall take in mending and make do. So you see, you cannot fail me, because I am not asking for anything from you.”
He turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “I made you feel indecent.”
“You have many powers in this land, sir, but even you cannot control how I feel.” She had managed to make herself feel indecent all on her own.
For a moment, he was silent—though he turned on his side to mirror her, and his hand found hers as her palm slid from his back to his hip. “Still, you were upset, and it is because of what I said.”
“It is because you reminded me of a reality I do not want to face.”
“That was the last thing I wanted to do.”
She did not believe him: he had wanted her to consider the practical question of Georgina, or else he would not have introduced it. But she did believe that he had not wanted to bring tears to her eyes. “I forgive you.”
Holding hands, they inhaled and exhaled together.
Soon would come the next ritual of the evening: his departure.
Martha would walk him to the door for one last kiss, and she would leave it cracked, just in case he wanted to slip back in.
She would brush her hair again and braid it in two plaits.
She would wash her face, her armpits, her happily exercised muff, and she would wrap herself in their blankets and sleep until sunrise.
But she didn’t have to go through that yet. He was still in bed with her, and Martha could lean forward to claim another kiss. Which she did. It tasted all the sweeter for having survived their argument.
“I’ve never known a person like you before,” he said, holding tight to her fingers.
“What, a lusty old widow?”
His smile carved a dark line in the dark room. “A person whose kindness is honesty. You make everything seem clearer and simpler.”
“Not simple, just not quite as complicated as you make it.”
Tugging her close, he said, “Whatever happens in the end, I am so grateful to have you as my friend, Mrs. Bellamy.”
She didn’t like his talk of the end. She didn’t like being called a friend, even though it was her own term to replace mistress or courtesan or whatever else a person might rightfully call her.
But for whatever reason, she only made one objection: “Don’t you think it is about time we leave Kenneth out of it and you call me Martha instead?”
“Martha.” He drew it out so it sounded like a poem. He kissed her fingertips, making her a queen. “I am so glad to know you, Martha.”
“Yes. You should be.” And, before he left, they laughed together again.