CHAPTER EIGHT #5
"In point of fact," Constance said mildly, "there is no law forbidding women from taking their pleasure with each other.
The only thing a woman may be found guilty of is usurping a man's place – that is, making use of a counterfeit member, made of wood or some such.
" At Isabel's startled look, she gave a wry smile.
"I've had occasion to learn. It is good to know which laws you may be breaking before you break them. "
The images suggested by the phrase counterfeit member – much less what Constance may have been doing with one – made Isabel feel as though she had been whisked out of a snowstorm and plunged suddenly into a hot bath.
The effect was dizzying. She had to dig her fingers once again into her thighs to centre herself; this was no time to be carried away by visions of what she and Constance might do, if they threw caution to the wind.
The entire point of this conversation was to not throw caution to the wind.
“The danger is greater for Peter and Jack,” Constance went on, “for the church may well put them in the pillory, if they were caught out. But they are careful not to be. And the only person who knows what passes between them is me, and they know I will not betray them.” She gave Isabel a searching look. “Well. Me, and you as well, now.”
Isabel understood the implication – she had been given a confidence, and one which would bear dire consequences if she betrayed it.
Constance was telling her that she held her in high esteem indeed.
But she could not think on that, just then: she was too busy reeling from this latest revelation.
Peter and Jack? Constance bore the name of the man who’d taken her brother as his lover?
But even as she thought it, she realized it made sense: as Constance had said, they were all of them safer so long as their arrangement was kept within the family circle.
Did that mean that Constance now counted her as a member of the family?
It was too much to grasp. She fell back, instead, on courtesy.
“I have no cause to speak on such matters to anyone else,” she managed.
“Especially not when they do not concern me.” It was a nicety, but she also meant it.
What were Jack and Peter’s affairs to her?
They may do as they pleased without her presuming to inform the Church.
“But as to you and I – the risk remains.
Hilda most likely does not know that it is permissible by law – and I doubt she would be moved by such an argument, if it was presented to her.
She and Piers would consider it a shame to the family, in any case. "
Constance nodded, looking thoughtful. "Well, then," she said, "it seems the most important thing would be to ensure they don't find out."
Isabel blinked several times. When Constance said it like that, it seemed so simple, and yet – "Not find out?"
"I don't see how it would be difficult," Constance went on. "You've been coming here for nearly a month, and they've shown no interest in why, have they? We can go on as we have been, and they will never be any the wiser. They don't demand an accounting of your time, do they?"
"Not – usually," Isabel managed. "But –"
At Constance's raised eyebrows, she faltered.
She had been so certain, when she planned out her arguments, that there was no way she could accept what Constance was offering – much less offer the same in return.
Even with Constance's unflappable confidence that it was possible, it still didn't seem so.
Yes, she had been able to visit Constance thus far without any objection from Hilda; yes, she would most likely be able to go on as she had been without raising suspicions.
But her thoughts still stuttered and halted at the prospect of actually doing it.
For over ten years, she had been quiet and demure and obedient.
She had avoided drawing any attention to herself, first to avoid Geoffrey's taunts, then to refrain from giving Hilda any reason for ejecting her.
She had tried her best to live up to the role she had clawed her way into, and if she had not been an overwhelming success, she had at least not failed so obviously that anyone outside the household had commented on it.
Everything had been done in accordance with her goals: first to secure Matthew's future, then to safeguard her own, and finally to protect Walter's.
She couldn't remember the last time she had done something simply because she wanted to.
It was so outside the scope of her experience, she could not begin to imagine what it would look like.
"I," she began, looking down at her hands again. "I had not – that is, there are other considerations –"
"Which ones?" Constance's tone was gentle, but it was also inflexible. "What we spoke of before? I hope you know I meant what I said when I said it was no matter to me."
"You did say that," Isabel said. "And I suppose you meant it. But I do not believe – cannot believe – that you understood the meaning of it." She twisted a bit of her skirts between her fingers. "After all, my husband thought I would please him. At first."
A dark look crossed Constance's face, then. "I do not ask much of you," she said, "and I have taken no offense at the things you say to me – but do me the courtesy, at least, not to compare me to him. I think I have earned that much."
"That isn't what I meant," Isabel said. Truth be told, even after years of Matthew railing at Geoffrey every chance he got, it still gave her a shock whenever someone spoke ill of him.
It wasn't that she held him in high esteem herself; it was only that she had spent a very, very long time pretending to.
After awhile, the pretense took on a semblance of truth, if only out of habit.
It was difficult to defer to someone every day of your life without coming to believe that you were correct in doing so.
"I mean to say, when I was first wed, I thought – I believed I could be a good wife, a willing one. But when the moment came –"
Her fingers spasmed, clenching in her skirts without her willing them to do so.
She had built a careful and sturdy carapace around that memory in the ensuing years.
It had not been an easy feat, when she was so often called upon to go through the same motions over again, but she could at least protect herself from the pain and the fear and the horror of that first time.
Certainly, she had spoken of it to no one.
The things she had said to Constance were the closest she had come to acknowledging it at all.
And now, to not only acknowledge it openly but to explain what it had meant to her –
"I was – frightened," she said at length.
"I froze. I believe I would have fled, if I could.
And I – well. You heard what I said, when I was ill.
I did not find the experience . . ." She swallowed.
"It was painful. And I fear, if I agree to this, with you – I may find myself similarly unable to . . ."
She couldn't finish the sentence. Just the effort of saying as much as she had had taken all her strength.
She felt as though she had clawed into her chest bare-handed, ripping the words loose like roots from the earth.
It half-shocked her that she wasn't bleeding from the effort.
She could endure a great deal in silence, but speaking was another matter entirely; it had left her spent.
"Isabel," Constance said. "Will you look at me?"
Isabel shook her head. Constance had taken her hand away; now it sat on the table instead. She focused on that. Her fingers were all slightly bent at the knuckle, pearlescent nails tapping away at the wooden tabletop. The rhythm of it was soothing, so that was what she watched.
"Isabel," Constance said again, "if you were to find it painful or unpleasant, or even merely unsatisfying – it would only take a word from you, and we would stop. What I'm asking for – what I'm offering – is only that we try. I would never ask you to carry on if it distressed you."
Isabel coughed, a wet sound. "This conversation has not been – not distressing."
"That's different," Constance said, and Isabel knew it was; she knew she was being unfair.
It was simply the last line of defense she had before she was forced to confront a truly terrifying possibility: that Constance did mean what she said, that they could do this, that there were possibilities before her that could offer real joy, if she was brave enough to reach for them.
Hope, she was finding, was more painful by far than resignation.
She lifted one trembling hand from her lap and lay it on the table next to Constance's.
She didn't cover Constance's hand with her own, but she nudged their little fingers together and hoped that Constance understood what she meant.
"I," she said, "I may not – at first, it would be too much, too quickly – if we could –"
"Go slowly?" Constance nudged back with her own little finger, but made no attempt at anything more. "I would never knowingly ask of you what you weren't prepared to give. I promise you that now."
"And if . . ." Isabel was no longer sure if she was attempting to make an argument against the entire arrangement, or fumbling for ways to make it work.
"If I offer something – and then I realize, after, that I don't – that it's too much –" Memories rose up behind her eyes once again.
She blinked hard until the visions were replaced by black spots.
"Then we will stop." Constance made it sound simple, and perhaps it was.
"And I'll not ask it of you, or bring it up again unless you want me to.
It will be your decision, all of it." She brushed their fingers together again.
"And I think – forgive me the presumption, but I think it will do you good, the choosing for yourself. To know you can."