Many Mansions
Chapter 5
By Pharoah's Cat
Author's note: First, I wanted to thank everyone for their kind and often insightful reviews. And thank you all for tracking this story down. I have just learned that if you rate a story 'M', FF doesn't place it within the 'canon.'(no pun intended.) In fact, this last, and final chapter, is the only one that deserves an 'M' rating. Looking at the arc of the John and Victoria relationship, it seems to me that Victoria must have come into her marriage as a virgin. I base this on the times, (the 1870s or so), her character and her deeply held religious faith. And that, it seems to me, must have added yet another potentially 'fraught' element for them both to navigate.
A few days later, the Cannon/Montoya clan was just finishing dinner. It has been a relaxed evening. For a change, things had been quiet at the ranch and the ongoing business of building a cattle operation had proceeded with a minimum of interruptions. Victoria's dinner had been especially well received by all and she was in the process of serving the pie she had made for dessert. She had served the four men, and was just cutting a piece for herself when the knife slipped and sliced into her thumb.
"Oh..Mia Madre!" She exclaimed quickly bringing the wound to her mouth to suck some of the blood away and then staunching it with a napkin. "Estupido!"
"Are you alright, Ma'am?" inquired Blue with genuine concern.
"Oh Si…finish the pie…I will just go and get a bandage. Eat, eat…" She smiled at them, but there was a catch in her voice as she retreated to the bedroom.
The others quickly went back to their pie, but after a bite or two, John stood up abruptly and followed his wife.
John watched Victoria from the door of their bedroom. She was standing with her back to him, fumbling with a small strip of linen as she tried to tie it around her wounded thumb, frowning in concentration.
"You know," he said, startling her, "you have proven yourself a wonderful nurse several times, but I don't think even you can tie a bandage on yourself with only one hand. Here…let me," he said, stepping into the room.
With great care, and surprising delicacy for such a big man, he knotted the bandage deftly around Victoria's thumb. Victoria looked up from the finished bandage to find John staring down at her with that intensity that always caused a warm flush to overtake her entire body. As often happened in such moments she found herself lost in the different shades of blue that mingled in his eyes; from cobalt to lapis to sky.
He kept hold of her hand, and gently kissed the palm. And then the inside of her wrist. And then he leaned down and kissed her on the lips; softly at first…and then with a growing passion. He tasted of the whiskey he had before dinner, and coffee and the cinnamon she had put in the pie. Victoria wove her arms around his neck and returned his passion with all of the desire that had built up since the very beginning of this strange marriage of inconvenience.
Years of marriage to Annalee…and even his time with Victoria…meant that John was no stranger to the fastenings of women's clothing and he easily…if slowly…began to work her blouse loose and off, while she went to work on the buttons of his shirt.
He stopped abruptly when he realized she was trembling.
"You're shaking," he said tenderly, as the blouse slipped from her arms.
"I am not afraid!" She looked up at him defiantly. But then she looked away. "Perhaps just a little nervous."
John sighed and smiled ruefully.
"So am I." he admitted.
"You are!?" She was utterly astonished.
"Victoria, I was married to the same woman for over twenty years and I was faithful to her. She was the only woman I was ever with. Unless…well, unless you count that time at the brothel that Buck and I stumbled into when we were kids. And to tell the truth, I doubt very much whether the woman there thought what happened counted…for anything. "
Victoria giggled slightly as she saw him blush.
Gently, he led her to the bed and they both sat.
"Didn't your mother tell you anything about…" he hemmed and hawed…"this?" He gestured vaguely to the bed they sat on.
She didn't look at him at first. "My mother died when I was 8 years old. " She lifted her chin and looked at him as she continued, almost by rote, "My duenna told me that it would hurt and there would be blood but it was every woman's duty to her husband." She hurried on, "And then in school, some of the older girls said other things but I don't think they knew any more than I did. When Mano and I were in Europe I heard some things but…." She looked back down again.
John took a deep breath. He really had no idea how to continue. As young newlyweds, he and Annalee had more or less fumbled their way to a satisfying physical relationship. But they had youth, mutual ignorance and time on their side. And trust. This was different. He was the older and more experienced partner and he knew that this moment was crucial in however his marriage to Victoria was going to evolve.
He also knew that it was possible he might actually explode with embarrassment in trying to work his way through this particular thicket. What happened between a man and a woman in the privacy of a bedroom was barely acknowledged…let alone spoken of aloud. He did not have the slightest idea how to help her…or himself…forward. But he had to try.
Gently he laid his hand on her arm. And she jumped nearly a foot. Now it was John who was the one with the skittish horse who might bolt at any time. But he kept his hand in place, and she turned to face him, though he eyes were still cast down.
"Well," he finally said, "I won't lie to you. For the woman, it does hurt and there is blood. But only a little blood. And it only hurts and there is only blood the first time."
"And, he continued, "after the first time, well, it should be about pleasure and the most wonderful kind of closeness between two people." He lifted her face to his. "I promise; I will not do anything you don't want me too and if you say stop I will stop." Though even as he said the words, given the way his body was responding to her nearness, he wasn't totally sure he would be able to stop. But he would try, even as his nearly overpowering desire vied with his very real fear of frightening or hurting her.
She nodded. Carefully he pushed the straps of her slip down her arms and found his breath taken away by her sheer beauty.
To his surprise, Victoria went back to loosening his shirt buttons and pulled his shirt up and out of his pants. She tried to do what he did…pushing his undershirt down over his arms…but his shoulders were too broad to accommodate the gesture. She surprised him again by simply tearing the shirt down the front and pushing it off. With the lightest of touches, she traced a long scar that ran from his shoulder, diagonally, half way down his chest.
"You will tell me about this scar someday?"
"Someday."
John swallowed hard as he reached to unfasten her hair, the black waves cascading down. He kissed her in the hollow of her collarbone and then just in front of her ear.
She gasped as his warm breath tickled her ear.
Victoria took his face in her hands and leaned into him with a whisper of a kiss. She placed both palms on his chest and slowly drew them down, until they rested on his belt buckle, gazing at him now with utter self-possession.
"I do not think I will ask you to stop. Ever."
Afterword
The next morning Mano paced and fidgeted in the house and between the bunkhouse and the house. After John had left the table last night, and when neither he nor Victoria had come back, he and Buck had exchanged a glance and taken themselves and Blue off to the bunkhouse. For a poker lesson they told him. The house has been quiet and dark when they returned several hours later.
Neither John nor Victoria were up at the usual hour, so the 3 men went back to the bunkhouse, without comment, for breakfast. Blue was puzzled, but wise enough to hold his own counsel and back neither Buck nor Mano into an uncomfortable corner.
Now however, Buck and Blue were outside, where John could be heard barking orders at the assembled hands. But Mano continued to fidget…going back to his room several times to retrieve things he had, in fact, not forgotten in the first place.
He was in a state of acute discomfort. He felt like some sort of perverted ghoul; waiting to hear about, what he was almost certain, was his sister's real wedding night. He didn't know for sure of course; but John's abrupt departure from the table, the fact that neither had re-emerged from their bedroom, and that both had not appeared for breakfast at the usual hour, made the scenario likely.
And even though he squirmed with embarrassment at just the thought, he could not leave. He loved his sister dearly and was deeply concerned for her welfare. He did not think John Cannon was a cruel or even thoughtless man, but he also did not think he was an especially sensitive one either. He had seen John… after grabbing a cold biscuit from the kitchen… leave the house to talk to the hands. Was his step a little lighter? Did his bark contain perhaps a little less bite?
He did not really know; for if Mano baffled John, then John was an enigma to Mano. The older man's rigidity…his 'block of granite' mien did not allow for much insight. Just occasionally, Mano had glimpsed more than the obvious courage and relentless honesty; often insight, sometimes compassion, doubt, and even occasionally a dry humor. But it was like having a window suddenly flung open to the real character of the man…only to have it slam down again before he could fully assess what he thought he had seen. And how was his sister…his beautiful 'old maid' sister to get through such a night with such a man?
And then there was his father. Just before they left Rancho Montoya to come here, Don Sebastion called Mano into his study for a hasty conference. "Please Mano…you must take care of Victoria!" His father seemed genuinely worried. Normally, anything that discomfited his father was manna from heaven for Mano, but this was different.
"Ah, Papa, has it just now occurred to you that you have given your only daughter to a complete stranger who does not even want a wife?"
"I did not give her…" the old lion started but Mano interrupted him with a derisive raised eyebrow.
"Yes, well, of course, I wanted the alliance…sort of…I wanted to test him….but I never thought he would actually accept and still less did I ever think Victoria would agree!"
Mano had mirrored his father's expression of surprise. And yet, he knew, even back then, that Victoria would never allow herself to be traded like chattel. She had wanted to go with this stranger. And she had confirmed that desire several times since their arrival at High Chaparral.
Still, his father had begged him to take care of her, and so he had, and so he would continue to take what care he could. Even if that included lurking outside her bedroom door to make sure she was all right.
Just at that moment, Victoria stepped quickly from the bedroom, adjusting her skirt as she came out. She bumped right into her brother.
"Mano! What are you still doing here!? It is late!"
"Si, Victoria…you are very late this morning." He said, pointedly.
Neither one of them could think of a single other thing to say.
Mano watched as his sister blushed ….as he felt his own face reddening.
Suddenly, she flung her arms around him and whirled him around til they both nearly toppled down the steps.
Laughing, she pulled away from him. He thought she had never looked more beautiful or happier.
"Oh, Mano!" She exclaimed, "why didn't anyone TELL me?!"
Fin