Thanks to theglamorfades for making me a stinking liar.
"So, Mr. Bates is...?"
"His Lordship's valet." Mrs. Hughes' brogue answered Miss Claremont, her Ladyship's new maid.
"Mr. Barrow doesn't seem to think much of him." The woman responded to the housekeeper.
Mrs. Hughes humphed under her breath. "There are a great many things Mr. Barrow doesn't think much of. Mr. Bates is a very kind man, very professional. Compared to Mr. Barrow, Mr. Bates is very...restrained."
Anna had stopped in the hall to listen to the conversation when she heard her husband's name mentioned. He had been in London for the past three days with his Lordship, and Miss Claremont had yet to meet him. She smiled at Mrs. Hughes' description of him. Kind and professional she agreed with wholeheartedly. Restrained? Anna grinned, if only they knew.
She hadn't actually realized how restrained he was until they had married. He had been restrained throughout their whole courtship, allowing himself only small kisses in the courtyard, an occasional hug to pass between them. She had married him thinking him to be an even tempered man. She learned differently on their wedding night.
The wolfish grin he had given her when he walked through the door of their borrowed honeymoon room had been her first encounter with John Bates unrestrained. Before she even had time to speak, he had caught her up in his arms and was kissing her with a hunger she hadn't known he possessed.
He had been as gentle and kind with her naiveté as she had expected him to be, but he had surprised her with the depth of his desire for her. By the time they were finished making love the first time, there was not a place on Anna's body that hadn't been thoroughly caressed and kissed. She remembered his eyes that night. Normally dark, they had looked as black as coal.
He had whispered unrestrained words in her ear that night, telling her how much he loved her, the things he wanted to do to her, the things he wanted her to do to him.
He had been unrestrained two days later, when he declared to her, in front of the whole staff that he loved her as they were clamping the handcuffs around his wrists to take him to jail.
He had been unrestrained that horrible day at the prison. That moment they thought would be their last to spend together. A lesser man might have let the sentence beat him and have felt sorry for himself, but John had kissed her without sadness, just tenderness and unrestrained love.
He had been unrestrained that first day in their new cottage, as they inspected the dingy walls and broken furniture left from the previous tenant. He had approached her with unmistakable intent and made love to her in the broad daylight on that broken old settee. Anna had been almost sorry to see it leave when they replaced it.
Yes, John Bates was a restrained sort of man, but Anna liked it that she was the only one who realized the depth of that restraint.
Later that night, Anna was still ruminating about the word "restrained" as it applied to her husband as she made a pot of tea, awaiting his imminent return from his trip with his Lordship. She heard the door open and shut as she was maneuvering the heavy teapot to the table. Before she could set it down and turn to greet John, she felt him pressed against her back, his arms coming around her waist.
"Hello Mrs. Bates." He whispered in her ear, kissing the lobe gently.
Anna was pleased to see him and answered brightly. "Hello stranger. Would you like some tea?"
"No, not tea." John removed his hands from around her and went to work on the buttons that ran down the back of her dress, his mouth latching on to every newly uncovered inch of skin.
"Mr. Bates," Anna teased, "you're just back from London. Don't you want to relax and shake a bit of the dust off?"
"Later." He muttered against her back.
When he had her buttons sufficiently undone, he turned her around in his arms and laid hot kisses against her collarbone.
"Don't you think we should move upstairs?" Anna asked, his attention making her a bit breathless.
John pulled back only slightly. "Not strictly necessary, but if you prefer." He pushed her gently through the door towards the stairs, patting her bottom playfully as she climbed them.
Much later, Anna lifted her head from where it rested on his bare chest. "You know, today, I heard Mrs. Hughes describe you as restrained. What would she say if she had seen the way you conducted yourself this evening? She'd have been shocked."
John just grinned at her, looking thoroughly amused. "I am restrained." He insisted. "I restrain myself from punching Thomas' teeth through his skull every day. I restrain myself from being wholly improper with you while we're at work. Think of all the times you offered to be my mistress, before we married! It took great restraint to refuse you, let me assure you."
"But," Anna leaned up and kissed his jaw softly. "You aren't restrained with me anymore."
John laughed, rolling them over so that he was on top of her. "No my dear, I take great pleasure in being unrestrained with you now."
As Anna succumbed to his advances for the second time that night, a fleeting thought ran through her mind; Mrs. Hughes didn't have any inkling of just how right she was in her assessment.