Chapter 9
Chapter nine
After a week of meetings, traveling, and unavoidable late dinners at the office, I’m more comforted than I expected to be waking up on a Monday morning at home.
Home. I hadn’t realized the estate had fully become home again in my subconscious, but clearly, all the effort that Potts has made to accommodate me hasn’t gone to waste.
I stretch and turn my alarm off before it can ring, don my swim trunks, and head to the lap pool.
Reminding myself that I’ll be home for dinner with Katarina tonight, I’m feeling more energized than usual for my first swim of the week.
I open the door to the indoor pool for my swim to find it occupied.
My wife, I assume, is gliding through the water at a brisk clip, making the turn at the far end of the pool to swim freestyle back to me.
She would look positively Olympian with her swim cap and goggles if not for the fact that rather than a sporty one-piece, she’s wearing a…
less sporty two-piece. It’s not a string bikini by any means, but whoever designed it obviously had both form and function in mind.
It’s a dusky blue, which I can imagine setting off the hue of her eyes to perfection, and is both containing and presenting her assets in a way that has the room feeling twenty degrees warmer than it is.
Seeing me as she approaches the near end of the pool to turn, she slows and gives me a beaming smile.
“Good morning Henry. It’s nice to see you,” she says brightly, and although I’m confused by her presence, I can’t help but smile.
“Good morning to you as well, Katarina. It’s nice to see you, but may I ask, what are you doing?”
Her response is lost to me as she lifts herself effortlessly out of the side of the pool, eschewing the stairs, to stand, dripping, beside me.
Pulling off her goggles and swim cap, her ice-blonde braid falls behind her to her waist. I was devastatingly correct about the color of her swimsuit, her violet-blue eyes popping as she looks up at me.
“Swimming, of course! It’s one of my favorite ways to start the day.
You came at a great time, I was just finishing up to head to the sauna for a bit,” she says, turning and torturing me with the view as she walks to fetch a heated towel from the warmer.
Her shoulders are sculpted, like the rest of her, and I wonder what other activities are a part of her regular fitness regimen.
I know about jujitsu and fencing, but maybe pilates?
Perhaps weight lifting? I hope she’s seen the home gym this week.
“Henry? Are you alright?”
She’s standing before me again, wrapped in a towel, as I realize I’ve been lost in thought and staring. At her biceps.
I’m not sure how long I stare, only that I can’t stop. My wife is dripping, rivulets of water trailing from her neck down, through the valley of her breasts, around the peaks of her muscles, off the end of her tiny nose…
She’s not for you to ogle, my subconscious tries to tell me.
But a deeper, dormant part of my soul reminds me that she is.
She is precisely mine to ogle and no one else’s.
Reaching into the corners of my mind, I try to remember why I was leaving her alone, why I’ve been nothing but a gentlemanly existence promising friendship.
Pulling my gaze all the way up to meet hers, I imagine a flash of fear under the weight of the no doubt predatory gleam in my eyes, replaced swiftly by heat.
I need to be careful, lest my brain continue attributing feelings to Katarina’s that aren’t actually hers. But if I didn’t imagine the heat in her gaze, if she was actually lusting after me in any capacity…
My mind becomes a flip book of scenes, tearing her swimsuit off and having her here on the edge of the pool, in the sauna, sweat mixing with tears as I ravage her mouth, over my desk in my study, in my bedroom, my shower…
I’m saved as she clears her throat, pulling me out of my trance before I do something rash, like drag her over my shoulder to my bedroom and chain her there forever.
“I’m fine,” I cough out, taking off my shirt and enjoying the way her eyes widen as I do so. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone to be in here. Nobody ever is. Obviously. Since I used to live alone.”
“Oh,” she says, her face falling as she turns to leave. “I’m sorry, I can come later in the day when you’re done.”
“Katarina, no. I’m…” I sigh. “I’m sorry.
I’m just getting used to having someone else here who isn’t staff.
It’s nice to see you, and you have as much right to use any room in this house as I do.
Please don’t adjust on my account. In fact, there are two swimming lanes, so you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. We can both fit in the pool.”
Giving her a soft smile, she pads slowly back over to me.
“Thank you, but I really am done today, and I do want to sit for a few minutes in the sauna. I’ll keep that in mind, though, about both of us fitting here.”
With that, she’s off, and I’m into the pool, trying to focus on my swimming form and not the thought of my wife in the sauna, dripping with sweat.
“Potts, may I have a word?” I ask, pulling her from the kitchen into the butler’s pantry.
Following me quickly, she looks concerned. “Of course, Mr. Sinclair, whatever is the matter? Is Mrs. Sinclair ok? I told her the first time would likely be somewhat…”
“What? No, she’s fine,” I say, and Potts has the grace to look abashed. “At least, I have every reason to believe she is. She was fine at our swim this morning, but that’s beside the point. I wanted to ask how she was when I was gone last week.”
“How was she, sir? She was fine. She met the staff, took walks along the grounds, settled into her rooms…” Potts looks at me as I gently hold up a hand to stop her.
“Not what she did. How was she?”
Brow furrowed, she continues. “As I said, she was fine, sir. I do think she was a bit lonely, and she really didn’t enjoy shopping or have much interest in that, although she had a marvelous time ordering swimsuits. Overall, she had a peaceful week, I should think.”
“Alright, Potts. Thank you.”
Leaving her in the kitchen to no doubt finish making my breakfast, I make my way to my study to read my paper. I’m just finishing a droll article on the history of the local golf course when I hear the door open.
“Thank you, Potts, I appreciate…” Pink-painted toenails appear in my line of sight below my paper as my breakfast tray is placed on the table, and I lift my head to find my wife, not Mrs. Potts.
“You’re not Mrs. Potts,” I observe astutely.
A small laugh is my reward for my dry humor, and I relish it.
“No, not Mrs. Potts. Mrs. Sinclair,” she says with a smirk. “Or Kat, as I’ve tried to insist.”
“I’ll stick to Katarina since you insist,” I tease back, enjoying her smile and resolving to be responsible for it more often, before blurting out a question. “Where is Potts? Why did you bring me breakfast?”
Her smile falls, and I know I was curt. I wasn’t trying to be cold, I’m…I don’t know what I am. Confused. I don’t mind her presence; in fact, I quite enjoy it, but nobody but Potts ever brings my breakfast. She’s truly got me on my back foot.
“I’m sorry. I suggested to Potts that I bring it in so we could read the paper together, and I think there’s an article on page eight you’ll find amusing, about the…”
“Golf course,” we finish my sentence together, and I place my paper down to give her my full attention. “I apologize, I didn’t mean…Well, it’s not in my nature to…”
I don’t really have an excuse this time, so I opt for the truth and a plea.
“I don’t have an excuse for being short with you.
Please feel welcome to stay and read the paper and have breakfast with me.
I know I gave you the same reason on Monday at the pool, but it’s still true that I am adjusting to having you here, just as you’re adjusting to being here.
I promise to continue to try not to be a complete ass.
” My sheepish smile and self-deprecation seem to work as she laughs, pulling over a chair to sit closer to the table while leaving me plenty of room.
“I forgive you, Mr. Sinclair, unlike the patrons of the golf course and the concession company. Can you imagine?” she asks, pulling the silver dome off two plates of eggs and a third plate with fruit.
“A generational feud over a cheese sandwich? No, I certainly cannot imagine…”
Our discussion continues as we eat and read our papers, and for the first time in recent memory, I’m late to work.
“Well, I agree, but I do think the beavers have a right to build their dam somewhere. We can’t just continue to relocate the beavers every ten years. How can they pass their homestead down to their children…what’s wrong?” Katarina asks, as I stare at my plate.
She’s right about the beavers, and her shrewd opinions about the news of the day have become more and more apparent as we’ve shared more breakfasts over the past few days.
“Are these different eggs?” I ask. The texture is perfectly creamy, reminding me of my boarding school days. The refectory always had the perfect eggs, and I’ve not wanted to offend Potts by telling her that hers were never up to snuff.
Looking up, I see a slight blush on my wife’s cheeks.
“Well, yes. They are different,” she says, fully blushing now. “I thought I noticed the last few days that you never finish your eggs. I asked Potts if you even like eggs, and she said yes, you’ve always liked them, ever since boarding school.”
I continue to stare as she speeds up her explanation.
“And then I thought that perhaps the boarding school eggs were special in some way, so I decided to just call, easy enough…”
“You called my boarding school?”
“Yes.”
“In England.”
“Well, hopefully so.”
Ignoring her cheek, I continue my line of questioning.
“To ask about their eggs, and if they do anything special to them?”