Chapter 8 #3
The quiet after that exchange held neither agreement nor distance. It held the fact that both had named the structure before asking desire to enter it.
Henry felt the laudanum moving through him more clearly now.
It had not made him senseless. It had reduced the shoulder’s demand until other sensations could occupy the body: the heat of the room, the loosened collar against his throat, Margaret’s presence a few feet away, and the memory of her mouth behind the musicians’ screen.
He said, “I would like to kiss you.”
She remained in the chair. “Is that the medicine speaking?”
“No.”
“Can you distinguish the difference?”
“Yes. The medicine makes the lamp less offensive. It has not invented wanting you.”
Margaret’s gaze went briefly to his mouth. “Do you expect anything after the kiss?”
“I expect my shoulder to object if I behave foolishly.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No. I expect nothing you do not choose separately.”
She rose.
The distance between the chair and the bed required two steps. She took them without haste and stopped before his knees.
“May I sit beside you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The mattress lowered beneath her weight. She arranged her skirts so no fold pressed against his injured arm, then turned toward him.
Henry did not reach for her until she lifted one hand to his face.
He kissed her palm first.
The act had not been planned. Her skin smelled faintly of rosemary and soap beneath the camphor filling the room. She touched the scar upon his cheek with the pad of her thumb, not tracing it as an object of fascination but acknowledging where his face had changed.
Then she kissed him.
There was no laughter in this kiss. The gallery had carried relief and anger; the musicians’ screen had made secrecy playful. Here, with his coat cut open in the next room and medicine already entering his blood, Margaret began slowly enough that every change required notice.
Her lips brushed his once, withdrew, and returned when he followed.
Henry placed his left hand at her waist. The right remained supported against his body. Margaret leaned nearer without pressing the shoulder, and her hand moved from his face to the open edge of his collar.
He felt the pause in her fingers.
“May I?” she asked.
“The shirt?”
“Yes.”
Henry looked at her. “Yes.”
She opened the first button, then the second. The linen separated across his chest, exposing the beginning of the scar where it crossed toward the shoulder. Margaret’s eyes followed the altered skin without apology or reverence.
Her fingertips touched below it.
The contact was light, but the upper edge of the wound remained too sensitive. Pain flashed across the muscle before Henry could prevent the response. He covered her hand with his left and moved it downward.
“Not there,” he said. “The ridge above the scar is worse than it looks.”
Margaret allowed him to guide her palm flat against the uninjured portion of his chest. “Here?”
“Yes.”
“Pressure?”
“A little.”
She pressed more firmly.
The heat of her hand spread through him. Henry released her fingers, but she kept her palm where he had placed it. No embarrassment entered her face, and no apology turned the limit into an injury against her.
He kissed her again.
Margaret undid another shirt button. The garment opened farther, though she did not attempt to draw it over his shoulder or expose more than the body permitted. Her mouth moved from his to his jaw, then to the skin below his ear.
Henry’s hand tightened at her waist.
She stopped. “Shoulder?”
“No.”
“Knee?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
“You.”
The word altered her breathing. She returned to his mouth with greater pressure, one hand against his bare chest and the other braced upon the mattress.
Henry drew her closer with his left arm alone. Margaret’s body met his without spectacle: warm wool, firm stays, the soft weight of her breasts against his chest, and the strength in her waist beneath his palm.
He kissed her until the laudanum, pain, and restraint ceased arranging themselves into separate categories. Want remained clear. The room around it had begun to soften.
Margaret shifted beside him, turning so he did not need to twist the shoulder. Her hand travelled down his chest toward his waistcoatless middle. When her fingers reached the band of his breeches, she paused rather than assuming the direction.
Henry kissed the corner of her mouth. His left hand moved from her waist to the curve of her hip. She leaned into the touch, and the response went through him with enough force that his body answered before judgment.
Margaret felt it.
Her eyes lifted to his.
Henry cupped her breast through the wool of her gown. He did it slowly, giving her time to alter the contact. She placed her hand over his and pressed it more securely against herself.
The deliberate permission nearly ended his restraint.
He kissed her throat. Margaret tipped her head, allowing the angle, and her fingers tightened at his waistband. The mattress shifted as she moved closer. Another inch would place her across his lap, and the thought arrived with complete physical clarity.
The lamp behind her blurred at the edges.
Henry stopped.
He kept his hand where it was for one breath so the cessation would not feel like recoil. Then he eased it back to her waist.
“Margaret.”
She stilled at once. “The shoulder?”
“Partly.”
“Has the pain worsened?”
“No. The laudanum has.”
She looked at his face, assessing pupils, speech, and whatever else she had learned from Sarah or soldiers’ sickrooms. “You are speaking clearly.”
“I am. The room is no longer entirely trustworthy.”
Her hand withdrew from his waistband but remained upon his open shirt. “Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
Margaret waited.
Henry forced himself to answer the question she had asked rather than the desire underneath it. “Yes. We must stop.”
The admission cost him more than refusing Christopher had done. He wanted her with a directness that made every legal clause in their marriage feel both necessary and remote. He also knew pain had narrowed his judgment for hours, and laudanum was beginning to loosen the edges that remained.
“I will not make our first choice of more than kissing while I am drugged and injured,” he said. “I do not want to wonder tomorrow whether either of us followed the moment because stopping required greater effort.”
Margaret’s palm rested over his heart. “I know my own choice.”
“Yes.”
“You are not protecting me from it.”
“No.” Henry met her gaze. “I am protecting the conditions under which I can trust mine.”
Understanding changed her expression without making it gentler. “Then we stop.”
She leaned forward and kissed him once more, slowly and without escalation. The kiss marked the boundary rather than protesting it.
When she withdrew, her hand remained upon his chest.
“This is not rejection,” Henry said.
“No.”
“I do not want you to think pain makes desire unwelcome.”
“I do not.”
“The medicine has not made me regret asking you to stay.”
Margaret’s mouth curved. “You are attempting to complete several accounts before closing the ledger.”
“I prefer arrears recorded.”
“Then record this one accurately. I wanted you before the coat was cut. I want you now. We are stopping because wanting is not the only fact in the room.”
Henry closed his eyes briefly. Relief could be as exposing as pain.
Margaret fastened neither his shirt nor her expression into formality. She helped him move farther onto the bed only after asking, arranging pillows so the right arm remained supported and the shoulder did not roll backward.
She reheated the linen and returned it to him. This time Henry placed it himself with his left hand while she steadied the lower edge.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“Do you want to sleep?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what do you want?”
Henry settled against the pillows. “Sit beside me without solving anything.”
Margaret looked at him as if the request were written in an unfamiliar currency. Then she removed her shoes, placed them beneath the chair, and sat against the headboard on his left side.
She did not undress. She did not lie beneath the covers or transform the stopped encounter into another form of consummation. Her shoulder rested lightly against the uninjured side of his arm.
For several minutes they listened to the House settle.
A door closed along the corridor. Someone carried a coal scuttle down the back stair. Far below, furniture legs scraped across the ballroom as the last sale table was returned to storage. No servant entered the private rooms.
Margaret said, “Dyer writes to the banker in the morning.”
Henry opened his eyes. “Yes.”
“Lady Georgiana believes the old account books remain above the former counting house.”
“She would be offended if the bankers had moved them without permission.”
“She described the blue portfolio precisely.”
Henry looked toward the dressing room.
The cut coat lay across the chair beyond the open doorway, its pale lining visible beneath the lamps.
Beside it, the valet had left a narrow blue cloth used to wrap the medicine case.
The color was duller than the object moving at the edge of Henry’s memory, but it gave the memory somewhere to begin.
Blue leather. Two brass corners. A clasp that made a small double click when opened.
He had seen it in his mother’s morning room.
Henry straightened before the shoulder objected. Margaret moved at once but did not touch him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The portfolio.”
“You remember it?”
“Not from the wedding. I was not born.”
“I had accounted for that difficulty.”
Her dry answer kept him within the room while memory arranged itself.