Another evening, another dinner. Regan had been seated beside Lord Polmerol, always a gregarious fellow, and so found the meal slipped away rather quickly while adorned by the gentleman's dry witticisms and bon mots.
Her eyes, of course, would not stay as focused on her dinner companion as she would have liked. Several times throughout the meal she found herself glancing down the length of the table, where Mr. Cranmer had been seated a half dozen places away from her. He seemed to be in amiable spirits, chatting with a Miss Fahey, the daughter of a baronet and in possession of a sizeable dowry that had crowned her as one of the finest catches of the year. Mr. Cranmer's interest in the young woman appeared to be nothing more than what was required of him for the sake of politeness. Regan dipped her spoon into her soup and castigated herself for allowing a spark of jealousy to flare to life inside her.
Mr. Cranmer could speak with whomever he pleased, and with however much joy and animation on his face he wished to display. Matters would be far simpler, she told herself, if the young man would take his interest for her elsewhere and allow her to focus on the task of helping Katherine in her quest for a husband, though with her eldest daughter already falling for Mr. Winthrop, Regan was beginning to feel as if her purpose here was rendered obsolete.
After dinner, the ladies and gentlemen parted ways, the women retiring to the drawing room as always, with Miss Lane seeking out the pianoforte in the corner, her fingers dancing absently over the instrument until the gentlemen rejoined them and she once again took up her playing in earnest.
Regan kept herself to the back of the room, near a window that had been left open several inches in order to alleviate some of the stultifying atmosphere of the summer evening. When Lord Hays entered, Regan attached herself to Lady Tempest, the mother of Miss Fahey, and the two of them spent several minutes discussing the perils of watching their daughters grow to womanhood and the stress of foisting them onto a society that could welcome them or spurn them, depending on how the proverbial dice landed.
Lord Hays, she noticed, situated himself quite near Miss Lane and the pianoforte. The latter graced him with a smile, and at a nod from Mrs. Lane, accepted his offer to turn the pages of her music while she regaled everyone with a song. Mr. Cranmer, she noted, did not appear.
And all through this, Katherine sat in a small group that included Mr. Winthrop, though their body language implied that the two of them were only paying attention to each other. A cannon could go off outside the window, Regan thought, and neither of the two lovers would be stirred from their conversation.
Lovers... She let the word roll about in her head, while Lady Tempest spoke about the latest fashion in ladies' hairstyles coming out of London. There was nothing obviously affectionate about Katherine and Mr. Winthrop's behavior towards one another. Indeed, they looked to be enmeshed in another discussion of historical matters. There was no particular warmth in the glances they gave one another. No discreet attempts at brushing one's thigh against the other or not-so-accidentally touching hands as they elaborated on an archeological detail.
But Regan knew her daughter. This was how Katherine showed her passion for something, through the intensity of her expression, the focus she paid to Mr. Winthrop's every word. Katharine might not be in love with Mr. Winthrop - she had hardly known him long enough for that - but there was a passion forming for him, and for the interests he held most dear. If the man indeed were to make an offer at some point in the next several weeks, Regan did not doubt that her daughter would accept him.
It was partway through this pondering that Regan realized she had a headache. It was nothing serious, but enough that something in her demeanor must have attracted Lady Tempest's notice.
"You should take yourself to bed for the night," the other lady commented, and patted Regan's hand. "This is a beastly business, shepherding our little lambs around in search of an eligible match. And don't fret over your daughter," she continued, seeing Regan's glance in Katharine's direction, where she continued to sit with Mr. Winthrop. "I will keep an eye on the child, make sure nothing untoward occurs," she added with a smile and a knowing laugh.
"Thank you," Regan said. She made her way over towards Katharine and told her of her intentions to retire early for the night.
"Oh, do you need anything, Mama? A glass of wine, perhaps? Or... or..."
Regan waved away the offer. "I believe rest will be enough to see me returned to my former self." She wished her daughter and Mr. Winthrop a good evening and walked up to her room. Away from the drawing room, the house was quiet, and remarkably cooler. She wiped at perspiration she hadn't realized had formed on her brow and her chin, then pressed the fabric of her gown against her bosom, her shift soaking up the sweat that clung to her skin in beads between her breasts.
A fire had been built in her bedroom, but she immediately crossed to the window and opened it as far as it would go without sliding shut again. She considered calling for her maid to help her undress, but the dull ache at the back of her head made her wish for solitude more than anything.
She pushed a chair over towards the open window and collapsed into it, her legs stretched out before her and propped on a cushion she'd taken from the bed. The bed was too near the fire for her to want to lie there yet, and so she put her head back against the plush upholstery, her face turned towards the curtains that shifted slightly as the cool evening air drifted into the room.
She would only close her eyes for a minute or two, she thought. Only until the sweat dried and she could be bothered to tackle the row of minute buttons between her shoulder blades in order to undress for the evening.
The room was considerably darker when she opened her eyes again. Her vision blurred from sleep, she blinked at the gilt-edged clock on the mantelpiece until she determined that two hours had passed since she'd fallen asleep. A groan slipped out of her as she sat up. As wonderful as the air from outside felt this near to the window, her body had not enjoyed its nap in the chair, and she was forced to arch her back forward until a satisfying crack of sound erupted from her spine.
Her headache, she realized, was gone, leaving only a strange hollow feeling where it had been. She stood up, regretted for a moment not having removed her gown and stays before settling into the chair, and paced from one side of the bedroom to the other until proper feeling returned to all her limbs.
Once she trusted herself to move without tripping over anything, she went to the door that separated her room from Katharine's and knocked lightly with the back of her hand. At a lack of response, Regan opened the door and peeked inside.
Her daughter's fire had already been banked for the night, and there, in the bed, lay Katharine, already asleep with only her closed eyes and the dark curls of her hair visible above the edge of the blankets.
"Well, then." Regan resisted the urge to tip-toe into the adjoining room and kiss her daughter's cheek. She would soon have to grow accustomed to the idea of Katharine being a grown woman, one who no longer needed kisses and hugs and the sweep of her mother's hand brushing the hair from her forehead as she slept. Katharine might not need them at least, but Regan wondered if she would ever be able to fully part with them.
She glimpsed the corner of a book on her daughter's nightstand, and stepped back into her own room with an idea forming in her mind. No doubt a fair number of the household and its guests were still awake, so there would be nothing untoward in Regan walking down to the library to select a few books she could read and hopefully cajole her body back towards slumber. Picking up a light shawl, she wrapped it around her shoulders as she left her bedroom and started down the corridor towards the main staircase.
The low murmur of conversation from the direction of the drawing room told her that she was indeed correct in her summation that a few of the guests would still be up and about. She walked past the door, down another corridor, and followed the line of candles lit in sconces on the wall to the library, or where she hoped the library was, if her memory of the brief tour Lady Polmerol had given her the previous day was not in error.
She entered without knocking, as the door stood partially open. More candles burned in their holders on the walls, while a freshly tended fire glowed brightly on the other side of the room. Regan tugged at the corners of her shawl - a window was open somewhere in the room, letting in a cool draught of air from outside - and started searching the first shelf she came to, tilting her head sideways to read the titles on display.
A fair amount of blinking met her efforts, and she wondered if she would soon need spectacles to see properly in dim light. She walked past one shelf and then another, finally pausing at a small section of novels she noticed were less dusty than the rest, and more in the way of what she suspected were Lady Polmerol's literary tastes.
"If you're looking for something to put you to sleep, I doubt a ghost story will do the trick."
Regan gasped and spun on her heel. Mr. Cranmer sat in an armchair near the fire. Though 'sat' was probably not the most accurate of words. He lounged, more than anything, one leg slung over the side of the chair while the other was stretched out towards the fire burning in the grate.
He must have been there the entire time, she realized, watching her squint and blink at the books while he waited for the perfect moment to surprise her. "Mr. Cranmer," she said, and gave him a brief nod. She did not mean to come off as curt, but her heart was still beating erratically in her chest from his reveal. "You are not with the other guests?"
"Not tonight, no." He closed the book he held on his lap - careful to mark his place first - and swung his left leg down from the side of the chair in order to sit up and regard her properly. "There are some, I think, who can tolerate being in the company of others for hours at a time without relief. After dinner, I found that a bit of solitude was preferable to a continuation of the same chatter that accompanied the meal."
She nodded without realizing it. Even keeping herself from society as she had the last several years, she knew how it felt when the constant company of her children became too much, and she needed even a few minutes on her own to better organize her thoughts or simply catch her breath.
"I had a headache," she confessed, her mouth running ahead of her before she could stop it. "I excused myself from the drawing room early and went up to my room to rest. Now I find I've napped long enough to rid me of the headache, but also to prevent me from going immediately back to sleep."
"We would be better served to return to the ways of our forefathers," Mr. Cranmer said, setting his book aside and shifting forward in his chair. "Have a first sleep, wake up for a few hours, and then go back to bed for the second. My grandfather used to pass his nights in such a way, and he is someone I never heard complain of having difficulties sleeping."
"Mmm, there are some days..." She thought of Jack and Maria, of various evenings when they'd run her so ragged she'd been near to nodding off over her soup before the sun had even fully set for the day. "I do not see it as a trend returning to the higher echelons of society, however. Can you imagine if everyone decided to retire to their rooms at dusk? The whole of the peerage would suffer a dreadful collapse!"
He laughed at that, and she let herself join in with him. She liked that about him, that he made her feel comfortable enough to smile, to laugh, to think less of how she was expected to behave and more of how to simply... be.
Ah, but that was a dangerous road, to muse over what she liked of Mr. Cranmer. She cleared her throat, covering up the last of her laugh with a cough and turned back to the bookshelves.
"Is there anything in particular you are looking for, Lady Griffith?"
He had abandoned his chair, walking several paces towards her. She thought of their previous encounters, when they'd found themselves alone together. Another dangerous road, and so she turned to face him, a new question sparking to life inside her head.
"What do you know of Mr. Winthrop?"
She was right. The question stopped him in his tracks, his brow furrowing before he gave her an answer.
"Mr. Winthrop? The archeologist?"
Regan nodded. "The very same. I saw you speaking to him earlier during the shooting. Are you well acquainted with him?"
"I know him a little from various trips to London, though he is not one to spend much time out and about in society." He watched her from beneath dark eyebrows, one of which climbed higher on his forehead. "You are thinking of making a match between him and your daughter?"
A laugh slipped out of her, one tinged with frustration. "I've made no effort in that particular direction. Any progress there lies solely on the heads of Katharine and Mr. Winthrop. They immediately took to one another from the moment they met, and I cannot..." She shook her head, dropping her chin until it nearly touched her chest. "Here I was, prepared to guide her towards matrimony, and she seems to have no use for me."
Once the words were out, the truth of them pressed heavily against her chest. This was supposed to have been the one last thing she could've done for Katharine before her daughter went off and began running her own household, her own family. And even this was already taken care of, Regan simply waiting for Katharine to come bounding into her bedroom one evening and announce that Mr. Winthrop had made an offer.
"But what you do know of him," Regan pressed on, unwilling to let the subject drop. "Is he a good man? If his interest in Katharine becomes... becomes something more, do you believe he will make a good husband for her?"
"He is not cruel," Mr. Cranmer said, and leaned against the bookcase, somehow managing to eat up a little more of the distance between them in that deft maneuver. "He is quiet, studious, most likely a bore to some. Everything I have seen of his behavior matches what you yourself have witnessed. To be perfectly honest, I never imagined the man to have an interest in marrying. He always seemed too wrapped up in his studies to notice anything beyond that. A compliment to your daughter, then, that she's managed to make him take notice of something not wrapped up and tucked away in a gilded sarcophagus."
"And do you not think - " She cut herself off, worried about how he might take what she'd been about to say. Do you not think he is too old for her? she wished to say, but every argument in that direction sounded frivolous and absurd, especially coming from her own lips. "You do not think he will grow weary of her... her exuberance?"
"Her exuberance?" Mr. Cranmer appeared genuinely confused. "I had not thought her exuberant. She seems quite calm and -"
She waved her hand, brushing his words out of the air before he could finish speaking them. "Is she too young for him?" A blunt question, but she needed to hear another's opinion. She needed to know if she was the only one making a fuss about the difference in their ages. Though considering the way Mr. Cranmer tended to regard her, perhaps he was not the best person to query on such a matter.
"Do you mean that should he only look at ladies as creaking and dusty as the ancient tomes he pores over so frequently?"
"No, I didn't mean-" She shut her eyes and pressed her palms against her forehead. It was precisely what she had meant, though she would not have thought to put it in those exact terms. "I don't want to see her hurt, that is all. And you can call me foolish if you like. I'm sure Katharine already has. But to marry an older man, to watch him succumb to a malady that is so much rarer in a younger gentleman..." She looked up at Mr. Cranmer. He watched her, his expression one that she could not decipher. He did not smile, nor did he seem irritated or bored by her confessions. He merely listened to her, and when she thought she might cry, when the first tears stung at the corners of her eyes, he did not scoff or treat her as some missish creature.
I am sorry, she nearly said. But she did not. She was not going to apologize for her words, for how she felt. With the back of her hand, she wiped away her unshed tears. There would be more, she was sure. Yet she needed to do something, to... to...
"Lady Griffith?"
And there stood Mr. Cranmer. That maddening young gentleman who had stirred her up inside with only a few words and a burrow into the bushes in search of a bird's nest.
"Should I fetch you something to drink?" he asked. "A glass of sherry, perhaps? Lord Polmerol does keep a few bottles tucked away in nearly every room of the house." And then he smiled. And she realized she did not want any wretched sherry or to sit by the fire and talk over matters she'd already gone over a thousand and one times inside her head.
She stepped forward, while Mr. Cranmer still leaned back against the bookcase. Onto the balls of her feet, she gripped his shoulder with one hand, cupped his cheek with the other and turned his head towards hers before she kissed him.
If she had intended it as a gentle kiss, all of that fell away as he pushed himself away from the bookcase, his own arms wrapping around her, his hands gripping her bottom as he pulled her fiercely against him.
God, he was young, she thought. All long limbs and lean, taut muscle. And then there was a slight shift of his hips, and she gasped into his mouth when something else long and taut slid against her.
But she did not stop kissing him. Instead, she bit at the corner of his bottom lip, eliciting his own intake of breath that allowed her to taste him, the hard smoothness of his teeth, the warmth of his tongue as it found hers. She had been scared before, worried over so many things that seemed so inconsequential now, pushed away like the faint hum of conversation from another room. She tilted her head as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, as his hips pushed forward, matching that same movement of their mouths.
"Oh," she said. It was all she could say, all her voice could manage as he pulled his head away only long enough to reach down, to tug at her skirts, dragging the front of them upwards until the cool touch of his fingers skimmed across her thighs. And down his hand went again, knuckles brushing across the tops of her stockings before they travelled upwards, cupping the center of her, rubbing, teasing before he bent his head down and kissed the side of her throat just as he slipped a finger inside of her.
The edge of the bookcase dug into her back, and she realized he'd managed to turn her around, the shelves supporting her as his strokes deepened, his thumb working in tandem while she buried her face in the curve of his neck.
She breathed in deep, revelling in the warmth, the sheen of perspiration above his collar. She wanted to lick at him, to bite him, to taste the salt of his skin on her lips, but something held her back. A thought struck her, pushing through the haze of lust every thrust of his fingers incited. That this was too much, that her age, her status as a mother and widow made it inappropriate. That she had never behaved like this with Edmund, like a wanton thing, her back arched against the bookcases while her hips curved towards him, inviting, desperate for more.
Quick and fierce, she came, her cry muffled by the folds of his neckcloth. Beneath her bunched skirts, his hand stilled, then stroked her once, twice more as her hips jerked, her thighs trembling.
"Oh... damn." She swore against him, her eyes shut tight. She could hardly catch her breath, did not dare trust herself to attempt to stand without something supporting her for several more minutes. "You bastard," she said, and a laugh bubbled out of her from deep inside.
He kissed the top of her head, her forehead, then tipped her chin up to kiss her lips. A soft kiss, almost sweet, and the gentleness of it made her begin to tremble all over again. "I'd do more," he whispered, his voice a deep rumble that vibrated across her cheek. "But I believe we've already taken enough of a chance with an unlocked door."
Regan gasped and glanced towards the door. It was shut, yes, but not locked. Lord in heaven, anyone could've walked in on them. And then...
He pulled his hand out from beneath her skirts, smoothing them back into place while she adjusted her hair, the lace around the collar of her gown. What had she done? What had she done? It repeated itself over and over again, and all while part of her still wanted more, while she did everything to avoid looking at him for fear that she'd simply latch the door and allow him to tumble her over an armchair to better finish what they'd begun.
"It is late," was all she said, taking care to brush out any last wrinkles in her skirt he might have missed. "I should return to my room. No doubt Lady Polmerol has another dozen activities planned for tomorrow." She moved to step sideways, out from between the bookshelves and Mr. Cranmer's body. A body she was much too aware of at the moment, and so she dragged her eyes away from his hips, the quite obvious bulge in his trousers and pinned her attention on the door.
"Lady Griffith?" He reached out to take her arm, his fingers sliding down the length of her sleeve to grasp her wrist.
She turned, then. Fool that she was, she turned to look back at him.
He stood there, backlit by the fire, only one side of his visible in the illumination of a candle that had almost burned itself out on a nearby table. His dark hair, black as ink in the room's poor light, was mussed, a few curls sticking out every which way. She wanted to smooth it down, or tangle her fingers in it, or... God, she didn't know what she wanted. More of him, she realized, and tried to push the thought away before it could take hold.
"Regan," she said, and licked her lips. "When we're together, I'd like you to call me Regan."
His eyes glittered, their color indeterminate, only the shine of them all she could see. "Sleep well, Regan."
"And you... Thomas." She pulled away from him, letting his name hang in the air while she walked towards the door, hesitating with her forehead pressed against the heavy oak for only the length of a breath before she opened it and stepped out into the corridor.
An empty corridor. She did not know what she expected, what she feared. That there were would be a passel of servants and house guests huddled around the keyhole, watching Mr. Cranmer as he pleasured her?
Her hands continued to smooth the wrinkles from her gown with a compulsive movement as she found her way back to the stairs, and then up, up again towards her room. No one had seen her. She looked at the clock on the mantel. Less than a half an hour had passed. Her attention shifted towards the bed, and she wondered if she would indeed be able to sleep at all this night.
Again, she licked her lips, remembering the feel of his own on hers, of his tongue thrusting, of his fingers... stroking...
No. No, she very much doubted she would be sleeping at all. But that didn't mean she wouldn't dream.
******************************
Whew!
Chapter Ten will be posted on Friday, August 16th!
As always, thank you all for the reads, follows, adds, comments, and everything!
Quenby