Dedicated to Lady Spotted Horse with much love and affection and hoping that she's feeling better very soon.
And apologies for the delay. I think we all rather exhausted ourselves over Andith Fest...but many, many thanks to everyone who has left a review. I am so pleased you have enjoyed this little romp.
This chapter moves up a notch to M...
Edith was sitting on the bed in a flurry of silly nerves and anticipation when the door was flung open.
There, on the threshold, stood Sir Anthony Strallan dressed as a highwayman: white silk shirt with a lace jabot, long embroidered waistcoat, velvet frock coat, tight black breeches, stockings, patent leather shoes with silver buckles, and a tricorn hat upon his head. He looked really, really embarrassed.
…
Anthony didn't move. He seemed frozen to the spot with shame...until he suddenly lurched into the bedroom as though he had been pushed from behind. He scowled over his shoulder briefly as the open door was seized by a hand that looked suspiciously like Stewart's and was quickly shut before the baronet could escape.
He turned to his wife. Edith's puzzled expression jerked him back to the plan. He squared his broad shoulders and drew himself up to his full height.
"My lady!" he exclaimed taking a few steps towards her, "my love, my darling! At last we are alone!"
"Wha..?"
Anthony dropped to his knees in front of her.
"My sweet one! My own!" And that was the end of his prepared 'speech'. He paused. From now on, he'd have to improvise. As a result his mask fell, revealing the awkwardly expressed heart of Sir Anthony Strallan, twentieth-century baronet, rather than what Anthony thought an eighteenth-century highwayman-Earl might say.
"My sweet one! My own. You are my entire life, Lady Edith. When I'm with you I feel…I feel full of love…no, I feel overflowing with love. I would do anything to bring you happiness."
"Then, for goodness' sake, get up and stop play acting!" she wailed turning from him annoyed, and feeling guilty for feeling annoyed because he was obviously doing his best.
This wasn't the reception Anthony had hoped for. But he did as she asked and rose from the rug, standing quietly, waiting respectfully. Very soon she faced him once more.
"I think it's about time we talked about The Black Moth. I knew I'd upset you by reading that book, but I hadn't realised how much. I'm sorry."
"You didn't upset me, not at all. I…I just knew something about it meant rather a lot to you, that it was fulfilling a need, a need that was probably something that I should be able to fulfil for you…as a husband…and that I'm not doing it...or can't." He took his tricorn hat off as he spoke. "I thought perhaps that need was a desire for excitement…or escapism. That's why I am dressed...well, like this. But I see now that it's something else. Am I right?" he asked gently.
"Yes…and no." She couldn't face looking him in the eye. She had brought about all this misunderstanding by reading that wretched book.
"I'm sorry; I don't know what you mean. What else could it be?" he prompted, hoping for some clues out of the situation he had caused by his fancy dress...and by his failings. But she looked at him with sad affection and sighed.
"You are a very good husband, Anthony. I have no complaints. Let's just go to bed and forget all about it, shall we?" She smiled at him as best she could.
There might be some areas of human relationships and emotions that Anthony had had no clue about prior to this week due to his Victorian upbringing and an unsatisfactory first marriage. But he was not stupid. He knew when someone was hiding something. He needed to know what he was missing, to make his wife as happy as she deserved to be. As she walked past him to her side of the bed, he seized her carefully but firmly around the waist. He kept his voice controlled but commanding.
"No."
"Anthony?"
"No. I will not allow you to let me get away with whatever is hurting you. I cannot bear to think that I'm not giving you the life you really want. Because it's hurting me too, do you see, to know you're so sad? What am I doing wrong? Or is it something I'm not doing that I should be? Edith, I beg you, tell me."
"Anthony, please, it really doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does matter. It matters very much. I do not want our marriage to be like they were expected to be in my youth: all hidden feelings and duty and propriety...the wives feeling unfulfilled and caged, and the husbands getting away with anything they desired because society told them they were entitled to it. Edith, you are my wife! I thank Providence every day for it! I want you to be happy! And I have come to realise from reading The Black Moth and...and other more informative works...that there are more dimensions to a healthy relationship than I was ever led to believe before, although from my own experience I suspected...I had hoped that there would be." He paused to get his breath. "I thought you would be happy that I want to honour your feelings and desires. I did not expect you to feel that you had to sweep your desires under the carpet to keep the peace like this. Is that your automatic reaction...caused by how you used to be treated at Downton? Or am I so dictatorial that you feel like that?"
"No! That's not it at all. It's just that...you see...well, to tell you the truth…"
"Please do, Edith, that's precisely what I wish."
"... I have realised that I find talking about these things difficult, perhaps even more so than you...because girls are trained to be modest to such a silly extent." She looked up at him and drew courage from those ridiculously blue eyes. "But I am willing to try if you are."
"I so want that: to be able to talk about these things, at the very least. And it'll be a good start if we decide to go any further" he smiled...with a tiny, hopeful twinkle in his eye.
That remark slightly concerned her...and reminded her of something else he'd said.
"You've read The Black Moth?"
"Yes. I went to Ripon to buy a copy so as to avoid tittle-tattle in the village."
"What else have you read, Anthony, that has given you such insights into a woman's desires?"
"I hope I have always been sensitive and caring...but recently...well, um, Stewart took me to see The Sheikh, which was more alarming than instructive…"
This prompted an image in Edith's mind of Anthony at the flicks, and she couldn't help the little giggle that escaped her. But she stopped very quickly when she saw her husband's pained expression.
"I expect so. I think you were brave to go at all. Go on."
"But the book I've been reading most recently has been amazingly instructive. It's by a Dr Stopes, and…"
Now Edith didn't even try to hide her astonishment. Her husband...prim, proper Sir Anthony Strallan was reading...
"Married Love? You're reading Married Love?!"
"Yes" he replied defensively. "Having read it, I believe it to be a huge stride forward; such welcome progress in loving relationships and society as a whole. It merely tells the layman willing to learn what academics in this area have known for years! It does not deserve the denigration it has received. And as for America banning it, well…"
Edith couldn't think of a moment when she had loved him more. He was not tethered by convention, even when he upheld it. His actions and behaviour were dictated by his own freethinking and strong sense of justice and compassion. He did not break convention for it's own sake, but was not afraid to do so when he thought is necessary or advantageous.
Typically, he misinterpreted her look of admiration.
"You...you think less of me for reading it?" he asked haltingly.
"God, no! I think you're amazing, Anthony. Truly."
"Really? Do you really?" She could see a modest pride swelling his chest.
She sat down on the bed, bringing him with her.
"Tell me what you found most revealing."
"Lots of things...but I suppose what gave me most joy and hope was discovering I was not alone in believing that insisting on ludicrous standards of formality and propriety in a marriage is a recipe for disaster...that men and women in love really should share their inner lives with one another, and encourage each other's pursuits, in order to nurture a strong bond. And that they should share anything of their inner lives that they want to."
He looked closely for any sign that he'd gone too far.
"True intimacy." She looked up at him.
"Yes. Does that...appall you?"
"Of course not. That's exactly what I have been feeling we are missing. You won't even talk to me about your undergraduate memories, let alone...any more physical preferences!"
He flushed slightly at that.
"Only because...because...well, talking about my youth makes me feel old, and I don't like to be reminded of that fact. I don't like to remind you of that fact either!"
"Oh darling, how can I convince you that I don't see you as an age" Edith whispered fondly, "I only see the man, the breathtakingly handsome and amazingly wonderful man I married."
Anthony blushed. "That's very nice of you to say. I...I would be a hypocrite if I asked you to work with me on our marriage, to talk to me more about your needs, and then didn't discuss parts of my life that interest you. Tomorrow, we will go through a few photographs, I'll tell you what King's was like, and you can ask me any questions you wish, and I shall answer them."
"Thank you, Anthony." She made to rise, but he held her arm.
"Now, my dear, sauce for the goose...I know you have been working industriously at something. I also know you read quite quickly. So whatever you've been doing in your day room, it hasn't just been reading Miss Heyer."
In the space of a few moments, Edith turned from a confident modern woman discussing her marriage with her husband, to a rabbit of a girl being scolded by her grandmother. But Anthony was learning what to do for best. He slipped his arm around her waist once more.
"I want to know because I know it is bound to be charming and admirable, my dear. I am not going to frown."
"I...I enjoyed reading The Black Moth, but I thought there were too many artificial plot devices, too many two-dimensional characters. I wanted to see if it was possible to write in Miss Heyer's style, in that genre, and challenge oneself to make the story and people more realistic. That's all."
"You...you're writing a novel?" His eyes glowed with pride and excitement. "May I read it?"
"Oh goodness...it isn't finished…"
"When it's finished to your satisfaction, then? Before we send it to the publishers."
"WHAT?!"
"I'm sure it will be good enough, my darling...but we'll leave that up to you, of course."
She calmed a little.
"Yes, well, all right."
With that, Anthony thought it best to leave the discussion at that successful point. He stood to leave.
"Now, my sweet one, I ought to find Stewart to help me get out of these confounded clothes. The shirt is so figure-hugging that my arm causes problems...and…"
This was her chance for a delectable revenge, and she seized it wholeheartedly.
"Oh no, I don't think so, Sir Anthony!" She rose from the bed less like an English lady, and more like a panther stalking prey. "If you have any need of assistance, I think I should provide it...in light of our discussion." She looked him up and down appraisingly. Anthony's eyes widened, but he licked his lips unconsciously.
"Really?" he squeaked. "Um...yes...perhaps."
"Definitely." She ran her fingers over his broad velvet-clad shoulders, and sighed deeply.
"Where...to...begin…?" she breathed. She smoothed her hands under his frock coat, then eased it down his arms at an unnecessarily slow pace. She did the same, even slower, with the waistcoat. When she flicked her eyes up to his, they were several shades darker. Suddenly his breeches felt rather too small for him. He was struck dumb. When he had been putting these clothes on after dinner he had thought that, if everything went well tonight, at the very best he might possibly get to make love to his wife playing the part of Miss Diana Beauleigh, pleasing her while playing his own (improbable) persona. What appeared to have happened, to his astonishment, was that they had taken their already happy marriage to another, higher level, with the promise of so much more, and he was being seduced by his wife in the guise of...well, his wife, with no charade, albeit a different side to her that he had only glimpsed before.
Well, if she was brave enough to reveal some of her desires, it was only fair that he did the same.
As Edith began working out how to deal with the troublesome shirt, he murmured "Rip it!"
She looked up in surprise. She was more surprised, and delighted, and a bit frightened by what she saw in Anthony's look...more confidence than usual...and, was that unhidden lust? Raw lust! That look travelled from his eyes to hers and then directly to her core bypassing her brain completely.
"Really?"
"Rip. It." he repeated. So she did.
That simple action of rebellion against propriety had an effect of psychological release for them both. Anthony grabbed his woman around her body and lifted her so her torso balanced on his chest. Edith giggled her delight. He carried her to the bed, where Anthony in a feat of strength threw her down on the sheets, following himself a moment later. He seized her mouth with his own in a blazing kiss, then seared his kisses down her jaw and neck to where her nightdress protected his targets.
He knelt above her. "Come. Undress me." No 'please' or any other pleasantry as he usually would. He let his voice express his request: demanding, adoring.
With fingers shaking a little, Edith sat up and did as she was bid. She divested him of the ripped shirt, pushed him playfully onto the bed to take the breeches, stockings, and shoes. And gasped at the size of his potency. Then she sat back.
"My turn, I believe." Her words were at odds with her quivering voice.
Anthony took the hem of her gown and lifted it over her head, with a reverence that would shame the most pious priest unveiling the Holy Grail. Casting the cloth aside he gazed intently into her eyes ignoring her other assets now on display quite deliberately, convincing her that his ardour was not all lust. He raised his hand, and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. He gasped "I love you, Edith. Dear God, I am breathless with love." He bent down to worship her body, signalling the end of conscious thought for them both.
During their wedding night, Anthony had thought that he would not, could not ever be so happy again. He had been wrong. Their shared acknowledgement that their marriage could be worked at, deepened, and made more satisfying for them both had brought them together so, and in a strange, almost mystical place.
Where before he might have tried to guess what she liked, now he would try but also ask whether it pleased her. She too had found a new feeling of quiet assurance in asking him if he liked it when she stroked his chest or nibbled his earlobes. And the more she discovered what he did like, the more she felt powerfully in control of what she did, taking the initiative and contributing to their shared pleasure in each other. No longer would she be a passive partner for fear of what her husband would think of her if she did anything more.
They were both aware that they had only just begun on this journey of discovery. They were excited at what lay ahead, and took each new step slowly, enjoying what it had to offer. Consequently, their lovemaking took much longer than usual, and when their joint bliss overtook them, together, it was higher, and more intense than ever before. Anthony moved to one side after how many minutes he didn't know and couldn't care less to count. Edith cuddled into his side, utterly content. Just as she was drifting off to sleep, Anthony's sudden bark of a laugh startled her.
"What? What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing my darling. I'm sorry I disturbed you. It's just…"
"Go on."
"The morning after I saw you reading the book, I couldn't for the life of me think of anything comforting or constructive to say. I tried out all kinds of comments in my head, but nothing felt right. I almost said to you 'Would it help if I dressed as a highwayman and rescued you from leering Dukes before ravishing you?' Which I thought was totally ludicrous at the time. But I actually have, haven't I? I dressed up as a highwayman and ravished you. My happiness is complete!"
"This is a marriage of equals, yes? So it would be truer to say that we ravished each other."
He rolled over to face her.
"You, my sweet one, are right, as always. I share everything I have, and everything I am, with thee."
"And I with thee, darling Anthony."
"Thank you."
"Including sleep?" she yawned gently.
"Especially sleep" he answered, settling her head against his chest, where she could hear his heart.