A/N: I was chatting with an 82 year old about her wedding night, and it was a rather scary conversation. She had apparently been allowed to get married without having any of the facts about 'expectations' or even raw mechanics explained to her.
She was fairly upset when she saw her mother the day after the wedding night. Her mother cried over it when asked why she'd let that happen.
My acquaintance then marched her younger sisters into a room and explained all. I would have to believe her version of 'the whole of it' was not really positive.
I guess I had some of that in mind when I wrote this.
/ / /
Lunch was spent sitting close together and chatting about the estate and the war. She felt he did understand her. She revelled in knowing that he did not think less of her ideas because she was young or a woman.
"Enough dour talk," he pronounced once they stood from the table. "I think, as your host, it is my responsibility to lighten the mood now." He was a different man here at his estate. More confident. More lively, she saw. And she enjoyed seeing him this way.
They spent the next hour in his sitting room, laughing over a game of cards. "You cheated," she pronounced. "And you cheated to let me win."
He took the deck from her to prevent her inspecting it and did not release her hand then. Quietly, he told her, "I like seeing you win." He drew her hand to him and kissed it.
"But, I need you to forgive me now, Edith," he continued.
"Why? What is it?"
"I had my butler telephone your mother. I couldn't stand that they might worry over you. Really, I would have you here indefinitely. But they expect you for dinner," he said almost impishly.
'I would have you here indefinitely.' The words were flirtatious. The whole day had been a wonderfully sensual change from a relationship marked by too much practicality.
"I was going to finish checking the grafts in the orchard," he told her then. "Do you want to come with me? Or would you rather stay here and relax? Or I could take you home right now?"
He was still holding her hand, and it was that and the soft look to his eyes that made her say, "I wouldn't care where we were going. I'd just like to be with you. You have made a truly rotten time in my life unbelievably pleasant, Anthony. I don't know how you did that. When I got here this morning I was so... despondent."
There was a long silence then while they regarded each other. Finally, he leaned in to kiss her. It was the softest of kisses. A test. A request for a reply. When he paused, she stayed close to kiss him further. He obliged her one more time and for far longer.
"That was lovely," she murmured before she realized she had said anything out loud. She blushed now and tried to turn her head away. But he petted at her check, and she saw that he was smiling happily. With his touch, he was asking her if she wanted to kiss him again, she knew. And she did.
'God, he is marvelous at this,' she thought as his lips travelled from her mouth to her throat. He moved slowly, as if in question. With quiet deference should she want him to stop.
But she wanted to do some of the kissing, she decided. She nudged his chin gently so she could find his lips. And she leaned in eagerly. She parted her lips in answer to the way he kissed her, then nearly groaned to feel him deepen the kiss.
Just as she worked up her courage, he eased back.
"Did I do something wrong," she whispered. "I don't actually know what I am doing. I've never ..."
His touch and the look on his face were reassuring then. "Shh, no. But, I shouldn't continue without telling you how fond I am of you. How lovely you are to me. I shouldn't take these liberties without telling you, I'd like you to be my wife."
"Would it be like this?" she blurted out. "Afternoons together. The kisses?" She felt like such a child that she did not understand these things better.
"Would you want that? To have me kiss you like this every day?" he ventured.
"I think so."
She leaned in then to have him kiss her again.
He wrapped an arm around her, and she found the courage to put her hand at his waist.
The contact made her feel liquid inside after the initial fright. She knew she had trembled.
"You are worried about something," he surmised, as he pulled back.
"I know all marriages are not the same. Everyone has their own expectations." She avoided his eyes then, feeling embarrassed. But she continued, after the briefest pause for internal panic. "I've seen outsiders make assumptions about some marriages being loveless ones. Or merely a good match. 'Any port in a storm,' I've heard a likely man called... But what would our marriage be like?"
He considered that, his mouth gaping for a moment. He was obviously lost as to how to answer.
He offered her a hand up. "Let me show you the rest of the house, perhaps, while we talk?" he told her.
She was silent, and looked confused, but she walked with him.
"You are thinking that I am an odd sort that I would give you a tour of the house while proposing marriage. It is not pure practicality," he then whispered as they headed up the stairs. "There are two bedrooms here," he said, indicating the doors on one side of the upstairs hallway. "They are joined by another room. Let me show you," he said, as he pushed through the first door.
She turned in a circle and smiled as she took in what was obviously his room. She approved of the bookish quality to it. "It is just as I would picture it," she told him.
"But it isn't this room that matters," he told her quietly. He led her through the adjoining dressing room to another, larger chamber.
"And this bed room, if you accepted me, I would expect you to make up as it pleased you. To decorate and change it as you would. But I would hope we would not adhere to staying in our own rooms... alone," he said pointedly.
She looked at him. And then at the bed. And then walked for the window.
"What is it you are unsure of, Edith?" he asked softly.
"I am completely unequipped to answer even that, suddenly."
"Play house with me a little more then. Come here," he called from the far side of the bed. He sat down on the mattress and motioned for her to join him. Once she was sitting across from him, he surprised her by lying down on the coverlet. His hands were clasped across his stomach now and his ankles crossed.
She laughed. It was not at all a lurid bedroom pose, and she had to silently thank him for that.
"Now you," he encouraged.
She lay down as well, a bit stiffly, and with a nervous look on her face.
They were not even touching. Despite their sharing a bed, they were actually further apart than when they had kissed, she realized.
He took her hand then. "If we were married, I would like to lie with you like this at the end of the day. And we could talk. About everything and anything. I would tell you how lucky I was that you had married me, and you could agree," he joked.
"And perhaps, I would kiss you?" she prompted in a small voice.
He rolled onto his side then to look at her, and he breathed deep before he told her, "I would most definitely want to kiss you."
"What about that part? The whole of it, I mean..."
"Did you mind kissing me before?" he wondered.
"No."
"So, the problem isn't that it's me?"
"No!" she objected quickly.
"What have you heard, Edith, that has you worried...about 'the whole of it?'"
She didn't answer. But she didn't need to.
"I am a careful, patient man, Edith. There is the getting past the newness, is all." He saw a bit of doubt in her eyes. "Really," he told her with a little laugh. "I would kiss you and wait for you to want it, too. And I would know that you were ready."
She sensed his words were a bit coded.
"What do you mean? 'Ready,' quite specifically," she asked, sounding too analytical.
"I think maybe we have been specific enough for today." He moved to roll out of the bed, but she stopped him with a hand to his sleeve.
"Yes, Anthony. Yes, I will marry you. And soon, if we might?"
She kissed him then. Wrapped her arm around him and drew him closer to feel him all along her. They kissed for long minutes.
She pressed her head into his chest then.
"We are in dangerous waters now, Edith. Let me take you home."
"Soon, but not now," she tried to barter. She pressed tighter against him then, enjoying the warmth and intimacy of it.
He moaned. "Now," he scolded. "I think we have teased each other enough."
...
They pulled up outside Downton Abbey in his car. Neither moved to leave the vehicle, however, even long after it was stopped.
"I feel all... queer inside," she told him finally.
He looked at the house and then back at her. He squeezed her hand where it lay between them.
"Perhaps, it's turned all funny because things felt as if they had changed when we were alone. But being home, you think maybe things can't change at all? It's all right to be unsure," he told her softly. "Just tell me what I'm going to do when I walk in there. I will understand if you need more time to think about this. So, Edith... am I merely returning you home, or am I informing your father we'd like to be married?"
/