Speak Its Name: A Trilogy (23 page)

Miss Pelham blushed deeply and the woman behind the counter laughed behind her hand. I had no idea what I said to cause such hilarity, and no one seemed willing to enlighten me.

“Not
this
fabric, I think.” Lady Pelham said, but she did smile at me, which left me encouraged enough to play the dashing suitor for the rest of the day, and I left them at their door with promises to collect them later. If it hadn’t been for the disturbing memory of Adam Heyward and the heat of his mouth against my lips, I would have had not a care in the world. In fact, as I ordered the carriage to return to Union Street so I could buy the shawl Miss Pelham was so admiring, I was the very image of the eager lover.

~

My father was positively bursting with pride that as we walked into the Rooms that evening. The buzz had most definitely travelled before us and it was obvious that people were talking of the upstart with no pedigree who was daring to push himself up into a higher social sphere. My father was actually cut by one or two grander gentlemen, but if he noticed, he was sensible enough to ignore it.

We settled ourselves in a good position, and as was expected of me, I escorted Miss Pelham up to the first two sets. She looked fetching, if a little pale.

“Are you quite well?” I asked as we took our place, the music started and our conversation was limited to the times when we could easily speak together without being overheard. I was almost disturbed by the size of her gloved hand in mine; it was so small I felt it could slip away at any time, or that I would crush it in my fist. How awkward it felt, stiff and unyielding in comparison to the natural way that Heyward’s hand had curled into mine.

She smiled and for a second I was reminded of Heyward’s smile. “I was rather chilled after our excursion,” she said, and coloured prettily before she continued. “You must think I am rude for not thanking you for your gift before now, but I wanted to have you to myself before I did.”

I was all confusion, as I was quite unused to buying lovers’ tokens, and so was unused to responding to thanks. I changed the subject. “Your cousin; he will not be joining you?”

“I do not expect him,” she said, as I passed her down the promenade. “He does not dance and expresses distaste for such large gatherings. But you must allow me to be grateful, Major Chaloner, it was a thoughtful gift. I... would have worn it this evening but... I had this dress already arranged and it would not go.”

The colours looked dashed similar to me, but I let it pass. I had no idea of such things, that was plain. I admit that I felt a pang of disappointment that Heyward was not in attendance, but the feeling passed as we danced on, and the evening went by without any incident more exciting than a dropped fan and the raised eyebrows and glasses as I accompanied Miss Pelham into a daring three sets (thereby sealing my intention, as far as Bath was concerned). I found that, away from her mother (who seemed unaware that her daughter had the capacity for speaking for herself), and once she seemed confident in my abilities as a partner, she was quite pleasant company.

If I were to be forced into marriage, I reasoned to myself as I handed her from the carriage and asked to see her on the morrow, I could do a lot worse in manner and agreeable conversation. Under it all, though, in the pit of my stomach, was a cold creeping guilt; I was the most pathetic lover, in truth. I had not once had the desire even to press her hand to my lips, had not thought even to catch a glimpse of ankle as she descended the carriage. Something had even prevented me from giving her hand the slightest encouraging pressure as I bade her goodbye. To her eyes, I was sure—although she knew well of my intention—I was not cutting much of a dash.

I was only grateful that such subtleties were not obvious to my father, for he would complain of their lack. I only assumed that these things, these... desires... would come when, as there now seemed no obstacle, we were betrothed and were allowed some time to ourselves.

My father’s voice broke on my reverie as we deposited our gloves and cloaks. “I assume from the lack of girlish vapours that you have not asked yet?”

“I have not.”

“What’s the matter with you, boy?”

I led the way into the study and poured us both brandies.

“Well, sir? What’s your excuse? You’ve said you like the girl well enough. Gad, if you couldn’t help but scandalise the Rooms tonight. You’ve as good as eloped, now, you know. And then you don’t ask the girl!”

“I fully intend to. But I haven’t asked Heyward for his permission,” I said. It was an excuse, I knew that at the time, some sneaking cowardly reason I’d worked out during the evening. Although the man had given me permission to woo, I reasoned he had not yet actually said that I might have her, and that would mean another visit, another chance to see him, one last perhaps before I was bound to Miss Pelham irrevocably.

Wrong? Yes, of course I was—but I made sense to myself, my self-deceit masterful. Somehow I had brushed aside the act we had indulged in, and had transmuted it into a bond of friendship, one that must be broken once I was tied to his cousin. It was an escape, and Miss Pelham would be my sanctuary.

The next morning, in my best dress uniform, I presented myself at the Pelhams’ lodgings and requested an audience with young Heyward. I found him already in the drawing room and was shocked at his appearance. He was paler yet than his cousin had been the night before. Dark circles showed a lack of sleep and his appearance was less immaculate.

“So, you are decided that you will have her?” he asked, almost before the door closed. “Despite your... inclinations?”

“Inclinations that I did not have,” I lied, “until you attempted to pervert me. Be plain, Heyward, either you will let me have her, or you will not. I could take her without your approval.” It was a shallow threat and we both knew it.

“You might take her by force,” he said carefully, “but to have her willingly still requires that I tell her I approve of you. And I don’t. I don’t trust that you are the open book you appear to be. I want assurances that your newly acquired activities will not make Emily unhappy.”

“And if I refuse to give you such assurances?” I was becoming angry with him. We would not be having such a ridiculous conversation had he not used such a corrupted and corrupting manner of proving a man’s nature.

“Then it might not only be Emily who learns of your inclinations.”

The anger swelled around me. “I haven’t got time for your riddles and nonsense, Heyward.” His eyes were devilish and I kept my distance. I had learned my lesson well and I would not put myself in that position again. I felt my ears go pink as I remembered the feel of his hand on me, but I lost what colour I had when I saw him smile at my discomfort. He had no proof of what we had done. It would be an officer’s word... against a gentleman.

No proof.
But the scandal by itself would be enough to ruin me. Just the allegation of such predilection would cost me my commission. What would follow after that was not a matter I wished to speculate upon.

His mouth quirked up at the edges. He walked back into the room and leant against the fireplace, resting his arm along the mantlepiece. I knew him well enough now to know his staging ways, that every move he made was deliberate. I noted that for all his apparent ease, his knuckles were white around the handle of his cane. I was learning to read him. I followed him, and for a moment I really thought I would strike him and damn the consequences. The wave of emotion surging through me at his statement was almost overwhelming. Anger at the base of it, the sting of injustice riding the crest. I took a deep breath and completely forgot what I was planning to say.

“You... I...” I spluttered.
Damn
the man. Somehow he always managed to turn the tables, leaving me floundering and somehow in the wrong. “You instigated this and then you threaten me with blackmail?”

“Did I?” he asked. “Or was it you who made me do something so
unnatural
to my nature?”

“Un... To
your
nature?” I couldn’t remember being so angry—except maybe that rare pagan state that I’d learned to work myself up into before a charge, pacing the floor and turning myself into some sort of killing machine. My men had spoken of the way that my face drained of colour, as I marched the lines after the time of attack had been announced. I heard from my batman, one drunken night in Madrid, that my men would follow me into h—, but they’d rather walk into that fiery pit alone than to interrupt me when I was pacing.

I stepped forward to him. “Your nature,” I said, between gritted teeth, “has been nothing but unnatural since the first moment we met.”

He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t take his eyes from mine; for all his apparent fragility, he certainly didn’t appear to be intimidated by me.

“Perhaps,” he said, almost idly, as if he weren’t being towered over by a furious and insulted major, “it takes one to know one.” It was as if our intimacy had not taken place and we were swapping insults in a card room.

I grabbed him then, with hands long schooled to denial; not to take what they wanted, not to fire at civilians, not to touch what it should
not
touch. I crushed him to me; I heard his cane fall to the floor and felt him waver in my arms as he struggled to support himself. All this in a moment, and all I had registered from him was the sudden intake of breath. No complaints, no barbed wit, no exultation—nothing that I had expected.

I felt nothing of the giddiness I had heard poets sing about. I felt like Hercules, his last task completed. I felt fierce and victorious, swept away with the madness of the moment. His hair was against my cheek, the scents that had haunted my dreams were more real and more delicious than I had remembered. He clung to me; his right arm around my neck for support, his left arm snaked around my waist. I shuddered in pleasure as he turned his face a little and his skin touched my face. Gooseflesh sprung around all over my body as he touched my cheek with his lips.

There was no thought in what happened next; I remember every second of it, but I remember most clearly of all that I made no decisions in my actions. Everything I did was ordained, or some deep held instinct to act only, not to think. I lifted him an inch above the ground, and he wrapped his arm further around me and murmured something I couldn’t understand, buried his face in my neck. He was, and I find it difficult to make my meaning clear as to exactly how I felt—how
he
felt—like something alive within me. Perhaps it was the feel of his fingers at the back of my jacket, the fingertips moving in slow sensuous circles over the small of my back, perhaps it was because I had him entirely supported and he was willingly allowing me to hold him thusly. I don’t know. But although we were separated by layers and layers of cloth, I could
feel
him. I could feel his heart beat, feel the warmth of his skin, his breath on my face.

From my description, it sounds like we were cleaved together in this way for many minutes but it was not so, the process took seconds, but it held such a world of sensation that I would that it had continued for all that long afternoon. I loved the weight of him in my arms, loved that he was dependent on me and wasn’t moving, loved the sweet stolen intimacy of it. I don’t think I’d ever been as close to a living human being in my life before. My breath was coming shallow and fast as my body reacted to the warmth of his fingers on my back, and my blood, already fired up at his teasing, seemed like it would boil over.

I shook him backwards, my arm in the small of his back. He was boneless, it seemed, and had it not been for the rush of colour to his face, the wide smile on that beautiful slanderous mouth, and the pressure of his fingers against my neck, I would have thought him insensible. His head lolled back and it wasn’t until I found myself tearing at his cravat and then burying my lips in his neck that I wondered if he’d done that deliberately. His skin was rough with stubble and my tongue dried with the tang of the scent he used.

It came to me gradually that since the first time I’d seen him, I’d wanted him like this, helpless and mine to do with as I would. Every encounter we’d had he’d been master of, leaving me gasping for air, wordless and helpless. No more. I was the master of my fate and I was the master of him, at last.

I spun around and marched him towards the couch; he struggled a little. “Geoffrey,” he said as I carried him, but I wasn’t letting him go, not now. What he had coming, he’d asked for, even though I hardly knew what to do myself. I was in the grip of something primal, and instinct took over.

The only men I had ever undressed had been dead men, but I was fast and experienced at that. He lay still, the only movement the rise and fall of his chest and the glimmering brightness of his eyes. Perhaps if he’d said anything I might have stopped. Perhaps he knew that. In seconds I had wrenched his trousers from him, (I wanted to complain about the foppish items—I did later—but that was certainly not the time) and had pulled open his waistcoat and tugged his shirt over his head. All the while he lay there, acquiescent; shifting only when it aided his disrobing, but he gave such a sigh when my hands reached his skin that it sounded like he’d been waiting for me all his life.

Madness. It was madness, but I must have been mad. Possessed. We could have been disturbed at any time, and I had not even checked the door.

He was as slight as he had felt in my arms; almost a boyish physique, and I stared stupidly at him in wonder, stopped short from my bullish assault. His skin was a pale cream and without blemish. His shoulders were wide, though, his upper arms developed, due, I realised later, as I had little thought processes at the time, to his having to support his weight where his leg could not.

His legs were long and slender, one foot slim and perfect, the other twisted, the leg shorter than the other.

“Don’t,” he said, as my eyes devoured every inch of him, but in answer I leant down, and, without taking my eyes from his, I kissed the poor little foot. I did aright, I think, for Adam smiled at me. My hand was trembling as I touched him, just below his chest and above his navel and his eyes closed, finally, his head tipping back, as if just my touch was delirium for him. My eyes roved over his body, noting the slender hips, and a dark line of dark russet hair which led my eyes downwards to where his cock waved cheekily at me, as full of devilment as Adam himself.