Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire – 7 pm

Where she was drifting, the world was delicious, at the sheerest of peace.

Ella had become one with her clouded bed, melted deep into the silks and satins of the air around her, the arms that held her in her dreams. She smiled into the pillow of her wrist and then yawned as she woke. The brightness was removed and candlelit shadows prevailed. The room—when she realized she was in one and not in the sky—was warm and grand, though in too many ways lonely. She sat up slowly, craning her neck and back against the comfortable stiffness, and stretching her legs for miles beneath the gold embroidered blankets. Her eyes fluttered tiredly and her yawning persisted, even as she slid from the massive bed and began to step around the ornate chamber.

He wasn't there, the man she'd been dreaming about. The doors were shut and the thick curtains drawn on a dozen or more floor-to-ceiling windows. She walked to one and pulled back the drapes. The view was one she'd not expected, of a darkening English countryside rather than a bustling city. She breathed in surprise, eyes wide and hand sliding from the curtain when she heard the familiar tinkling of piano keys playing Fur Elise again at a distance. Ella turned back on her heels, only then realizing the change of wardrobe she'd had, from Frederick's wrinkled shirt to a form fitting, crème lace chemise. She stopped mid-step in the giant golden room, touching the fabric at her navel, before looking up to find a replacement awaiting her.

Lain across the settee at the end of the bed, was a dress. And really more than a dress, it was a gown, a work of art if ever she'd seen one. Her mouth was agape as she tiptoed closer, hand outstretched as she knelt before it. Against the orange candlelight of the room, the color was the richest of wines, embroidered with as much detail as the chair it sat upon. The ebony beading matched the satin ribbon around its waist where she ran her hand in awe. There was no invitation for her to claim it, but the point was as good as there, a blatant but charming one. Ella smiled brightly and lifted the dress from the chair, holding it to her front.

It's too beautiful to wear, she thought with a sigh.

On the dresser, folded silk bloomers, a petticoat, corset and matching gloves, all lay in wait, all her exact size.

How could he have known…?

The bawdy thought brought more smiles to her face as she hurried to dress in what she could, before accepting the assistance of a maid from the hall. The woman hardly said three words to Ella, but even with a somber expression, she did wonders with corset ties and the satin buttons of the gown's bodice and lastly her hair. It was a perched web of tangled chocolate curls on top of her head, held together seamlessly with a single scarlet ribbon.

Ella stared at herself in the mirror once the woman left the room again. She was hardly able to breathe at the bone tightness of her bodice. She touched the accentuated spill of her breasts at the slope of the dress, and gasped with a small laugh. It was surreal. It was as if she had returned to Paris suddenly, the center of attention in a room of wanting, mostly married men, all of them complimenting her dancing to avoid speaking out on her sinfully delicate shape. The memory hurt, so she pushed it away and turned from the mirror to avoid her own beauty.

The music had changed two dozen times when she finally reached the door of the room and exited to the equally candlelit hall. She hadn't seen so many candles before. She wondered if he had never heard of incandescent lighting. Ella was fascinated by the hanging cloth murals of ancient years, the cherry oak of the walls as she walked between them, the skirts of her dress clutched safely in two gloved hands. She wandered, aimlessly, around corners, down stairwells and through archways, following the sound of the piano.

But when she arrived at the room where the grand, forest black instrument sat, she found the space silent of tune and empty of the man in question. Her heart skipped a beat in fear.

She turned about the room in nervous study of an endless collection of clocks. They began at one end of the room, and continued on until she had reached the next corner, or the following side. All of them ticked, some faster than others, some minutes ahead or behind. Some were old, some newer, large, small, hanging or standing. After minutes of spinning in their midst, confused and alone, Ella began to notice their ticking take on a lyrical form. They were music, with or without the piano, and she smiled in the palm of her satin glove at the sound, never once aware of the stalking company in the hollow of the room.

Not until she felt a sudden breeze, an impossible gust sweep her half exposed back, did Ella still herself. A hand was crawling along the lower waistline of her dress from behind, fingers woven through the ebony bow, and toying with each tiny button of her bodice. She forced herself to breathe. She moved her hand from her mouth and touched her bound stomach. She planted her heels in the rug, trying to remain as calm as possible when she felt the cool air replaced by something even cooler; a kiss on the nape of her neck. Her fingers dug into the beading and silk as she felt him pull her closer, deeper into his embrace, which was hardly there at all. It was a whisper of a cuddle.

"My dear Mistress has a heart," he hummed poetically in her ear. "Soft as those kind looks she gave me." Ella turned in his arms, staring into his endless eyes. "When with love's resistless art, and her eyes, she did enslave me. But her constancy's so weak, she's so wild and apt to wander, that—" John paused to touch her cheek, his fingertips softly crawling along the bone and her powdered pores. "My jealous heart would break, should we live one day asunder."

His arm was strong around her waist and his chest hard against hers, pressing for the warmth she seemed to always hold over him like an untouchable gift. He was ice cold, but she couldn't imagine a more comfortable place in that moment. She still could not properly explain why that was, why it was she felt so at ease with him, a stranger, an unknown force, and a blisteringly cold one at that. The chill seemed to run the length of her spine, preventing her from falling away. She was frozen in the midst of his blackened stare, and beneath the hover of his stone lips as he continued with the sweet utterance.

"Melting joys about her move, killing pleasures, wounding bliss." Ella moved her hand to his cheek, melting the cold with the heat of her palm and watching his eyes close, wholly contented at the touch. "She can dress her eyes in love, and her lips can arm with kisses." Their mouths did not tangle the way she had hoped, not then. It was a simple whisper of his lips across hers that brought him to conclude, "Angels listen when she speaks, she's my delight, all mankind's wonder. But my jealous heart would break, should we live one day asunder..."

Before she knew what had come over the moment, her eyes were open to nothing but the glinting tick of a million and one clocks. He was gone from her warmth, her arms, her whole touch, though not far. Ella shifted around carefully, the column of her spine suddenly weak without him and her legs wobbling beneath the heavy skirts of her dress. He was at a faraway window, turned from her, his hand pressed to the glass and his slender body hunched as if he were angry. She felt her stomach constrict. Her heart seemed to tumble inside of her chest, all set in by nerves.

"John?" she whispered meekly.

He did not move, or move to speak at first.

"I've done something wrong."

Ella watched his hand slide from the dark glass, leaving no streak or cloudy imprint from the February cold. It was impossible.

"Tell me."

"It is of little consequence." He turned back to find her eyes, her coming form, and he walked from the window to meet her before she could him. His hand went immediately to her face, brushing away a loose curl. "You are what you are, sweet Ella. And I am what I am. That is all, a means to an end. Though I should like to end it," he grumbled.

"You should like to end what?" she asked softly, her hand pressed to his chest.

John's eyes wavered for a moment longer before settling inside the forest of hers. When he was hidden in the midst of it, far too gone to remove himself properly, he lifted her hand from his chest and brought it to his mouth. His icy lips touched the pulsing center of her palm and he kissed it, in study of the way her eyelashes fluttered and her cheeks brightened to a sated pink. He watched the life boil inside of her, jealous and yet so transfixed, that he could have easily stayed there in that moment of ticking clocks forever.

"I should like to end your famine," he said, changing the subject teasingly.

Ella smiled as she felt her feet hit the floor again and her heart slow.

"Come with me, my darling."

He tucked her arm safely in his and carried her through the room on what Ella could have easily sworn was a cloud, one she only felt when she was with him. In fact, she was so tightly woven into his presence, that she hardly thought twice of his effort to move her past the grand dining room of the estate. He continued to walk, beyond a dozen more rooms, deep into the farthest corners of the house, where he eventually stopped at a doorway that seemed to be long since abandoned by regular company. John opened it and led her through to the music of another clock and candle assembly. This one was less threatening, softer in nature and light.

Ella swept the train of her gown inside the door and stood idly by, looking from one corner of the room to the next. She saw a small table, immaculately set with roasted duck and all necessary vegetables, sauces, and wines. Then centered at the opposite wall, was a towering bed. Her eyes were fierce upon the dark silken linens when she heard the click of the door's lock and jumped in her skin with a tiny gasp. John smirked at the effect and moved to her, one hand on the buttons of her dress as he led her towards a chair, a glass of wine to match and soothe her.

"Thank you," she gulped.

But before she could take the glass from his hand, she noticed his mouth falling down to where her lips were tucked away nervously. He found them before she could protest—knowing she wouldn't either way—and he kissed her roughly, the way she had wanted it all along. His lips were cold, but lukewarm once they were tangled with hers, and his chilled tongue flicked at the parting of her mouth, but never begged further entrance. He pulled away with a wicked smile on his face and a hovering glare that she knew was stirring the heat between her legs.

"Eat," he murmured. "Then I'll show you what I've brought you this distance for."

"Answers to my questions, I presume."

With a sigh, he flew to a chair beside her and began piling food onto her plate—but never his.

"You have the intention of enlightening me on who you are."

"Indeed."

"And are you trust so little my ability to dine and interrogate at the same time?"

John slowed his movement of platters and dishing forks, to shift his eyes to hers, where he found her smiling, taunting him. His entire body went rigid with pleasure at the sight.

"Witty Eloise," he replied.

And she fought back, the way he adored. "Yes, witty and desperately curious."

"I prefer you desperate."

"Am I to be surprised?"

He bit back a laugh and shook his head.

"Not surprised. Merely enlightened, as you say."

"Very well then," Ella returned as she lifted a bit of the duck onto a fork. "I am at odds with understanding your need for so many clocks. Care to explain that?"

His smile was twisted as he leaned into his chair, slumped, with hands crossed on his lap, eyes intent on nothing more than the roasted meat being devoured by her hungry lips, the way he wanted to be, under her careful path.

"I care, yes. And yet, I keep them as a reminder of their terrible point. I detest their reasoning. To keep time which only a majority of men can even feel to take advantage of."

Ella was confused, as he knew she had been from the start. It was a welcomed confusion though, for each of them.

"A broken clock is a comfort," he added. "For how magnificent a thing to not be burdened by a single tick between lost breaths. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes. I suppose I would."

"Without time's limitation, a person can go on forever as they choose. They can expand beyond nature's walls. They can endlessly entertain themselves."

A tiny frown came to Ella's mouth as she turned her eyes to his and swallowed food.

"Eternity would be a lonely gift, would it not?"

Relief washed over John then, the kind he had silently pleaded for. She understood what he did. She saw the bane of sacrifice even before it was voiced. And so he reached out to her, his hands sliding along the silk of her gown, lightly claiming her legs for his fingers hold. His face came nearer as she tried to settle her glass of wine on the table. His body was everywhere again, all of a sudden, without warning or need for it. Ella was accepting of whatever he was willing to reveal, or do to her then.

"Eternity is only a lonely prize, when man is left to suffer it alone."

"Yes," she accepted quietly under his touch. "And is there no solution to save such a man?"

He smiled. "There is, pet. Believe me. There is."

Ella was lost, rightfully so. She was lost in his breathless breath and his unwavering hold upon her body. She was lost in the things he was speaking about, the understatements to his claims and the hidden meanings to his obvious intentions. She was so far beyond the realm of knowing what was real and what was not in that moment, that she also found herself silently accepting her true feelings for the man before her. She felt her heart aching with something much stronger than all previous desires, something that was equal and yet strangely dissimilar to what she'd offered Frederick only just that morning.

Her love.

It hadn't been possible with John, she had sworn it. He was too tempting to be her heart's weakness, only her hunger. He was too uncertain, mysterious, a glowing sort of energy, otherworldly perhaps, but in no way stable enough to be what she had always thought she wanted of a true match. And yet there he hovered, lips inches away and still so far, his eyes burning her skin with ice rather than heat, his hands caressing her flaming flesh beneath the silk of her dress, and all of it coming together as one conclusion.

Ella was in love, so suddenly, with two men.

And as breathless as she was, she managed to ask, "Will you show me now, what you wish to?"

"Aren't you hungry at all?"

"Yes," she sighed as she dropped her wine glass to the table. "But not for this."

"Well." John chuckled hungrily and brushed his nose over hers. "Let us begin nourishing your curious mind properly then, Miss Rousseau."

(Poem - "My Dear Mistress Has a Heart" by: John Wilmot)