Chapter 21
That morning she asked to see the rooks.
He led her on foot to the place they both knew so well – next to a square-based stone pedestal that supported the sculpture of a huge vase – where there was a colony on the top of some trees.
Getting back there was still an experience of mixed emotions for them both, after all.
"At this point the males are looking for the best place to nest. The mating season is about to start." William explained.
Victoria looked at him and smiled. They had also mated, in tune with the rooks.
Among the sounds emitted by a large number of birds, he continued the explanation:
"Soon there will be three to five small speckled eggs in the nests, and the males will feed the females while they incubate them."
"And when will the nestlings be born?" Victoria asked interested.
"After 16 to 18 days of incubation."
"There is something of divine in the cycles of nature, and in all new little creatures that are born..." Victoria remarked looking at the behavior of the birds.
William turned his face to look at her, sensing an underlying meaning in what she had just stated. He agreed:
"It's true, Victoria! All little creatures that are born are a divine blessing..."
"Do you come here often?" She asked.
"Since you were here for the first time, it's rare."
"Was it hard to come back here?"
He gave her his hands and sat down at the base of the pedestal, making her sit next to him.
"What I did that day was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. You, whom I love to the point of exhaustion, had the courage to come here, so determined, so convinced, to say that you loved me... and I heard the only thing I could wish for you to tell me... and I had to find the courage to send you away..."
She got up, stood facing him, wrapped her arms around his head and neck and leaned his face against her belly.
He wrapped his arms around her hips.
"My dear William!" She said, tears welling up in her eyes. "Now I'm here, I'm yours and I will stay here forever!"
Victoria leaned over and kissed his head.
"I know. You've said it before, more than once. But it was not easy for you either, what I did..."
"No, it wasn't. I left here crying, though I didn't want you to see it. I cried all the rest of the day in Buckingham, I cried the next few days... Even when my tears didn't fall I cried inside. I thought I would never be happy again... But then you sent the orchids... At first I thought they were a provocation..."
He pulled away and lifted his head to look at her.
She put her hands on his shoulders.
"No! I wanted to compensate you, I wanted to give you something beautiful and from which you realized that I cared for you, that I really liked you..." He explained.
"Yes, then I understood. Emma helped telling me that you only reopened the greenhouses because of me, and that to make me believe that you cared only about your wife's memory was just what you wanted me to believe..."
"At the Masquerade I tried to be clearer, but I couldn't be too concrete either..."
"I understood... You know, in a weird way, even my mother helped me understand why you didn't reciprocate my feelings. She was very sad when Conroy went to Ireland and I told her I knew she missed him and that I understood, because losing someone we care about is very difficult, and she answered me: "No man would give you up, Drina… unless he knew that it was his duty." Victoria recounted.
"And she was quite right..."
"She must have sensed what had happened; she saw how I cried after I returned from Brocket Hall that day..."
"And after that day, in fact, I didn't feel like coming back here. I must have been here twice. Hmm…! You know, it's weird... I've been here these times because, deep inside myself, I secretly wished you'd come back one day, and imagined that if there was a second chance I would reciprocate... But I was convinced that would never happen." William explained.
"But it did!"
"It did?" He asked confused. "Have you ever been here before that I didn't know of?"
"No, William! Not here, at this location, no. But I went back to Brocket Hall! In that day…"
"Yes, of course, I understand… And it was precisely because I remembered what had happened here in the past, when I watched you walk away with your back to me without my doing anything, that's when I felt I couldn't let it happen again, that I couldn't let you go away again, and that I had to reciprocate..."
Victoria noticed again the sound of the birds.
"You told me in this place that rooks mate for life and that, like them, you had only mated once. Considering that you ended up marrying me; that was just a way to keep me away at that time..." She remarked waiting for him to specify.
"At that moment it was the best way I found of showing you that I couldn't reciprocate your feelings without being brusque in my denial. I tried to do it as smoothly as I could, even though I knew it would hurt you anyway..."
"I understand."
"However when a rook becomes a widow, she can mate again for life! That's what some of these rooks are doing and it's what I'm doing with you." William concluded with a smile.
Victoria laughed and said:
"Me too!"
He got up and kissed her.
In the afternoon they went horse riding, an activity that was a pleasure for them both, and that allowed Victoria to know the limits of the property.
They were crossing the bridge over Broadwater Lake when William said:
"I'll take you to Melbourne Hall next time."
"Ah yes. I'm curious to know your other property. The one that is associated with your titles of Viscount and Earl."
"It's a beautiful property, too!"
"Actually, your title also names the town of Melbourne in New South Wales, founded in 1835." Victoria recalled.
"It was the Governor's idea, Sir Richard Bourke, who wanted to pay me homage in the year you ascended the throne... But that is only a small settlement..." He devalued.
"You will see that one day it will be a great city..."
"If my name will be associated with a large city, your name will have to designate a state... Who knows, you could designate an era..."
Victoria laughed and said:
"Well... who knows...?"
She spotted a cluster of trees some distance away and felt like challenging him:
"Shall we see who's the first to reach the trees?"
Having said that she urged the horse and set off in a race.
He was caught unawares, but reacted immediately.
His horse was bigger and faster than the mare she rode, and he could reach the trees first if he wanted to. Even having started slightly later. But he wouldn't demand too much of the horse. He was afraid that in her attempt to win she would rush in and suffer a fall. And it would be nice for her to let her win! He spurred the horse just enough for her to have him at a distance that would stimulate her adrenaline!
Victoria arrived first and pulled the reins of the mare laughing with happiness for winning the race.
He loved to see her laugh like this! Just to have the pleasure of seeing her laugh like that was worth losing the race.
"I won!" She exclaimed, turning the mare around to face him.
"I think this race was not fair! You took off first!" He complained smiling at her.
William got off the horse and came to help Victoria get off the mare. He then bound the two animals to the trunks of two trees. When he was finishing she grabbed him from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist, leaning her face against his back and said:
"Sometimes it seems like a dream that we're both here."
She let go of him and he turned, grabbing her arms.
"It's a dream for me! For sure!"
Victoria searched the trunk of a nearby tree to sit on the ground and lean against it. He followed her, sitting on her left side, leaning against the same trunk.
What a pleasure to be able to sit on the floor! And to have William by her side in the same informality! To be just a woman, and not have to play the role of queen. If she could, she would live forever in Brocket Hall. That space, beyond all that it meant, represented freedom!
"And have your nerves of the wedding day passed or do you think they'll come back in other situations?" She asked.
"Maybe they'll come back when I have to publicly play my role as the Queen's husband... You'll have to be patient with me..." He said with a smile.
"Always! Just like you were with me. My only goal, almost since I met you, has always been to make you happy..." Victoria said looking at him with affection.
"And you can be sure that you are already granting it. But sometimes I also have other fears..."
"And what are those fears?" She asked, slightly concerned.
"I wonder if I will be, in fact, a good husband, if I will live up to your expectations, if I will make you truly happy..."
"William, please don't ever doubt that! Just continue to be how you have been so far so that I can live in the clouds... I need nothing more than what you have given me so far."
"And I also wonder if things between us, in months or years, will continue to work, if this idyll will remain... It's not the first time that I marry, as you know, I have seen this happen before, at the beginning everything is wonderful, but then..." He exposed openly.
"Surely you're not afraid that I'll behave like your first wife..." Victoria remarked rather abruptly, regretting immediately what she said! She didn't doubt that he thought that, the remark came out simply.
"No, Victoria, that's not it! There are countless reasons for a marriage not to work. Even when people love each other madly. It is possible to love someone deeply and yet make it completely impossible to live with that person..."
Victoria didn't understand how that was possible... But, at least in theory, she realized that he was talking about other reasons that could lead to a ruptured marriage that was not adultery.
"I see..." She replied.
"When you have had a bad experience it is only natural that these questions arise. Sometimes people have habits, behaviors, excesses, faults... that make it impossible for the other member of the couple the daily life together... even if they both love each other. And I have no doubts about our love."
Victoria remembered that Emily had told her that she had to be patient, that he had been very hurt... She also knew that this was true... But she knew nothing about marriage. She had only been in that condition for two days. Once again she was going to have to learn quickly, now how to be a wife. She would have to develop the ability to perceive what he felt in this new relationship they now had, and she would have to be able to guide the boat for both of them. Surely he would, too. She knew he would.
"Then we'll both have to act to better articulate our lives in this new married condition. Our relationship has always had a variety of facets and we have always managed them without problems, without even realizing it. Now there's just this new facet to integrate." Victoria ended up saying.
"I would deeply regret that because of this new step, marriage, our relationship would change. It has always been so wonderful that it would be terrible if it ceased to be so. You know that sometimes the more you love someone and the more you want to be with that person – making the relationship evolve into a marriage, as we did –, the more you know characteristics from each other that start to bother you. Then things begin to reverse, there is distancing, indifference, rupture..."
Turning her body toward him she placed her right hand gently on William's left cheek and said:
"That will not happen!"
Then he said:
"You are the person I have loved the most in my life!"
William wrapped his arms around her young wife's waist and kissed her tenderly and gently.
When they parted from the embrace, Victoria looked up at the sky. The clouds had become denser and denser, and some darker ones threatened rain.
"Maybe we should go back. It looks like it might rain." She remarked.
He got up from the ground and gave her his hands to help her to her feet.
Victoria shook her skirt and was helped to get back on her mare by her husband, who then mounted his own horse.
They headed toward the house, with Victoria to the left of William. The distance was not too long, but soon a few drops of rain began to fall. A slow and pulverized fall, but of great drops of water. However, the slow fall quickly became a more rapid and more concentrated precipitation that began to soak their clothes more seriously. Both spurred the horses to get home faster.
Skerrett, who knew they had gone out with the horses, observed from a window that the Queen and Lord Melbourne were back. She ran to the door, thinking that Her Majesty could need help getting rid of the wet clothes.
When they reached the front of the house, William dismounted quickly.
Victoria had never seen any other man dismount with the agility and elegance with which he did it, passing his right leg over the horse's neck and jumping immediately to the ground on the left side of the animal.
He grabbed her urgently to get her out of the horse, while a groom approached to hold the reins of the two animals he would send to the stables.
William gave his gloved hand to Victoria and ran with her to the entrance of the house.
The Queen entered the hall as she removed her hat and laughed, amused by the unexpected.
"Do you need help, Ma'am? Shall we get this wet outfit off?" Skerrett asked, showing sincere concern for the sovereign's well-being.
Victoria looked at William, who had just taken off the tall hat that had protected his hair, but from where a few drops of water dripped from the ends, and who was shaking raindrops out of his coat. Then she looked at the dresser and said:
"Thank you Skerrett, but I think that I and His Highness can change our clothes on our own. Just make sure the hats can dry."
The dresser bowed and, with her eyes on the floor, couldn't help but smile. She then received the hats from their hands.
Victoria held hands with William and they went upstairs. They walked to the bedroom and closed the door.
The fireplace was lit, as were all the other heating structures in the rooms of the house they were using.
The circumstance prompted them both to act the same way by taking off their gloves, and unbuttoning and undressing their coats.
Then he sat down in a chair and took off his riding boots so that he could undress his wet pants.
She undressed the skirt and shirt that had caught water in the chest area.
He took off his vest.
She took off her boots and released the strand of hair that fell in a braid.
Victoria looked at William.
William looked at Victoria and walked over to her.
She wrapped her arms around his waist as he adjusted a few strands of hair that had loosened from the sides between her forehead and ears, looking at her with total veneration.
He loved being able to just stay looking at her, and she loved him looking at her like that! Feeling that at that moment she was the only focus of his attention.
William grabbed Victoria's face with both hands and kissed her tenderly. Then he turned her back to him so that he could untie her corset, while she put her arms back to untie the ribbon that held the petticoat around the waist, which made the piece fall to the floor.
"I never understood why women insist on wearing so much clothing." He stated provocatively as he untied the laces from the corset.
"Men don't wear few clothing, either."
"But women are trapped inside these infernal things..."
"But that only happens because we have to maintain elegance to please our husbands!" She exclaimed smiling, opening her corset in front and tossing it to the floor.
Then Victoria came out from the petticoat that she pushed aside with her left foot and turned to him.
He stripped off his shirt staying with a bare torso, and she did the same, revealing her breasts.
He undressed his underwear and took off his socks, and Victoria repeated the same procedures.
They stood naked in front of each other.
The rain outside had intensified. As a result the day had darkened, but since it was not night yet there were no lighted candles inside the room, whose light was less intense than usual at that time of the day.
William hugged and kissed Victoria tenderly.
They headed toward the bed, keeping their bodies together.
Victoria felt William's virile member erect against her belly, and was tempted to grab it by wrapping her fingers around the axis. She felt it react in her hand!
Oh, this was exciting! For both!
Arriving to the bed, she tried with her left hand to pull the bedspread partially down, but the pressure of his body over her made her lie down before this attempt was fully achieved...
The rain hit the windows' glass. The world stopped. It stopped spinning. They were isolated in a dome where the only noise they heard was that of the rain and the branches of the trees that were stirring outside, with the force of the wind that had formed, and the sounds of pleasure exhaled by both.
Lying on her back, it was splendid to feel the volume of his body between her thighs, brushing her skin with each throw inside her. Victoria wrapped her arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist.
For years he had imagined that silken touch of her legs, surrounding her body in a caress. He dragged his right hand along her body from her face, past her shoulder, then her arm over to her elbow. Waist and hip. He circled her buttock by slipping his hand underneath, which allowed him to fill her with firm, soft, voluptuous flesh.
With the agitation her braid had broken down and her hair was spreading over the pillows.
There was nothing more comforting than to have him imbedded in her, she wanted him to use her, to enjoy her, to possess her without limits.
"Fuck me, William!"
He squeezed her left buttock and speeded up the collision against her.
They moved together forming a same mechanism of coupled parts. A well-tuned machine whose sole purpose was to produce pleasure.
As always, it was beautiful to contemplate: Victoria attaining ecstasy, glide, embedded in him!
She enjoyed watching the veins of his neck become more evident when he was coming inside her, and the sounds he produced in the rapture of the moment.
It was over.
The rain fell more slowly now.
After some time lying down, now covered with the bedsheets, the rain stopped outside.
Victoria got up and went to the hanger to get the robe.
He watched her moving around the bedroom naked. Hair down to the waist. A breathtaking sight!
She put on her robe and went to the window, curious to watch the weather outside. There was a comforting sensation of being there in that bedroom, next to that man she loved, while the weather outside had been a bit harsh.
William followed her steps. He put on his robe and went to the window. He stopped behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and placed his chin over her right shoulder.
The rain and the wind had stopped and the sun seemed to want to rise again behind the clouds, even though it was already getting late. But the leaves of the trees still let drops of water fall to the ground. A ray of sunshine crossed the glass and illuminated them. For some mysterious reason, it seemed that the weather had changed to allow them a moment of isolation and love. Now that the moment of sharing was over, the sun had returned.
Suddenly there was a familiar sound and a couple of rooks crossed the space between the trees.
Victoria turned her face to look at William.
He smiled and kissed her forehead.
Third night in Brocket Hall.
William, in his nightshirt, sat on the bed leaning back.
She walked over to him also in a nightgown, climbed up onto the bed, leaned over him, and they hugged each other. She came closer to the heat that he released through the fineness of his shirt's linen. She put her left hand on his neck and ran up his soft skin, running her fingers over his jaw and lips.
They stood there, caressing each other.
They kissed.
He ran his hands over her body: back, buttocks...
She thought it was lovely to stay like this, leaning on his lap, to be in contact with his chest, to have his arms around her waist, his hands on her back...
He started kissing her neck and undressing her left shoulder and kissing it...
"William... Do you mind if now we don't..."
He looked into her eyes.
"Of course not, my dear. We were together a few hours ago and in the previous 24 hours we did it three times..." He remarked.
"I really like it, you know..."
"Oh, yes... My shoulders and my back know how much you like it..." He said, laughing.
She laughed too.
"Judging by the way you clench your fingers and nails on them... And other parts of me also know how much you like it…" He continued in a good-humored tone.
She continued to laugh, now more audibly, putting her face on his chest. He was disconcerting!
"But tonight I feel tired and drowsy, I need to sleep." Victoria explained.
He smiled tenderly at her, and with his right hand he tucked her hair behind the left ear and stroked her head.
"Actually, I need to sleep too…" He admitted.
They laughed again at the understanding of what he said.
"You know I haven't had this rhythm for a long time... And even though we're married, that doesn't mean we have to do it every day... And don't worry because most couples sleep most nights. Which will not be our case!" William concluded.
They slid down the bed headboard and lay down, hugging each other.
The next day, the last at Brocket Hall, they asked for lunch to be served outside. A table and two chairs were placed in the area where the green grass surrounding the house was lower.
A long lunch, talking for hours, wishing the day didn't pass by. But time was running and soon it would be necessary to return to London and face political maneuvers and official commitments.
When they were tired of being seated, William took Victoria's hand and they began to walk away from the house holding hands.
So good! To be there in that place, to have his hand in hers, to enjoy his presence full time, to speak with him for days and nights in a row...
William couldn't feel happier than he was. She was there with him, at his house, she was his wife! He felt like a young teenager in love, a sense of lightness and impunity that he had never thought possible to experience again in life.
They went down the green grass to the shore of the lake.
They were approaching an area that had a few oaks.
Then she dared to do as she once felt like doing in Windsor when they had gone horse rising in the woods. She let go of his hand and, without him expecting it, began to run through the grass laughing and turning back, daring him to follow her.
William laughed. She looked like a happy child! He would have to follow her. He ran after her.
Part of her hairdo fell off and the back of her hair fell over her back.
When a few yards after she let him catch her, William grabbed her by the waist and knocked her down on the grass, falling over her.
She continued to laugh.
He kissed her like there was no tomorrow!
She put her hands on the sides of his head, but he grabbed her hands, pushed her arms back until they lay on the grass, stretched out in parallel with her head, and gripped her wrists firmly, impeding her from moving as he continued to kiss her.
When she could speak, still breathless and caught by his hands on her wrists, she said:
"Do you think this is a decent position for the Queen of England to be seen?"
"In my house I do what I want, and the person who is here under me is not the queen, she is my wife!"
"When it suits you that I be the queen, I'm the queen, and when it suits you that I be an ordinary woman, I'm an ordinary woman."
"You do the same and use, as you please, each of my identities..."
She laughed.
Then he looked serious at her. But a seriousness that showed that some idea was in his mind, and that he was preparing to do something next...
William let go of Victoria's arms and she could bring them forward again and put her hands on the sides of his back.
"I want you! I want you... here, now." He said at last.
She was a little apprehensive.
"Now? Here?" She asked, raising her head and leaning on her elbows.
"We're a long way from home. There is no one else on the property besides the servants who are there. The trees cover us up. And we just have to remain as we are, dressed. With just a little arrangements and we can do it."
She didn't say yes, but from the expression on her face he realized she was predisposed.
He kissed her on the neck and chest.
She returned by grabbing his neck and kissing his face.
He pulled her skirt and petticoat up and removed the central opening of the underwear she wore. He traced her body with his hands as they continued to kiss. He unbuttoned his pants and inserted himself inside her wildly.
She liked that!
William grabbed Victoria's arms again and pulled them up. With his left hand he fastened her wrists together tightly to the ground. He possessed her with intensity! There, in the middle of the grass, in the light of day, in contact with nature.
He had done that once with Caroline, a few months after they were married. Elsewhere. He wasn't doing it with Victoria as a memory of this past time, nor to search for any connection with Caro. He did it only because that memory passed through his brain, because Victoria herself brought this episode to his memory when she had run away from him, causing him to grab her and knock her to the ground.
He was wonderfully tender and gentle, but she liked it when he was rough in possessing her! And this revealed the deepest and most unknown side of him! Victoria loved it! Because it was done where it was not supposed to, his aggressiveness, her tightness in the corset and the fact that she was caught by the wrists and couldn't move. This man was a novelty every day! It served her a menu of alternatives. She thought that marriage with Albert would never have been so ecstatic.
In the end he stepped off of her, straightened his clothes and lay on his back to her right.
Victoria also straightened her clothes.
They lay in silence, next to each other, looking at the treetop above and the scraps of sky that peered through the branches.
After a few moments she asked:
"These things you do to me... Did you do the same to women of bad reputation?"
He was surprised and troubled by the unexpected and the content of the question.
"Victoria, please! What a question…"
She turned her face to him and raised her eyebrows in a gesture of insistence for an answer.
He thought it was normal for her to ask, and he would only have to respond with straightforwardness, as he had always done. William sighed and said:
"Yes, Victoria, I did the same with these women you're talking about... Although there are different ways of doing it, as you have already seen, the procedures used are the same regardless of the condition of the woman in question..."
"Am I as good as them?"
Now he was perplexed by the question! As if there could be any comparison...
"No." He replied simply and inexpressively.
"No?" She asked with a worried look as she turned her body to him and leaned on her right elbow to face him more directly.
"No, you're a thousand times better than them!"
She laughed in decompression and realized that she had been humorously deceived by him.
He turned his body to her and explained in a tone of slight rebuke:
"Victoria! These women only have one thing to offer, which is their body, physical pleasure. And that's the only thing that men find in a brothel, there's no meaning there." And then he continued in a more tender tone: "But you represent everything to me! What I have with you, besides the pleasure of the flesh, is an emotional pleasure inexplicable by words. It is strong, deep, extensive and true. And you are pure, delicate, sweet... You are incomparable! I feel myself melt every time I am with you!"
She smiled tenderly at him and concluded:
"You once said that what we have in bed doesn't exist in a brothel... That's what you meant..."
"Exactly, Victoria."
She put her face on his chest and wrapped her left arm around his waist.
William wrapped his arms around her.
They were silent, but after a few minutes he said:
"You know, there's a story about this tree we're under..."
"A story? What story?" She asked curiously, lifting her face to look at him.
"According to the memory that has passed for generations, Queen Elizabeth used to sit beneath this oak tree when she visited Brocket Hall..."
Victoria asked surprised:
"Oh! Is that true, William?"
"I don't know, it's a story that is told... I don't even know if she's ever been to Brocket Hall..."
"That's why you said you had something else to tell me about Elizabeth..."
"That's right."
She smiled and laid her face on his chest again.
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