As Anthony led her up the stairs, the full realization of what they were going to do hit Edith, and her heart raced anew. She watched him from a step behind, still holding onto his massive hand. He looked different somehow. He was tranquil, poised, staring straight ahead. Triumphant, Edith supposed, was the word she was looking for. He looked like a victor, she thought, not at all the downtrodden man she'd known since the war.
The stairs were dark, lit only by the moonlight from the great windows in the entry hall and the rare dimmed lamp. She admired his taste. Nothing opulent or exceedingly ornamental, his homes were solid and warm and clean; very much like him. She looked at the large paintings on the walls in tidy, gold frames, and the heavy rug that ran the length of the hallway. In each occasional turret there was always a comfortable looking wingback chair and a shelf of books, as though he would stop and read almost anywhere the mood struck.
She nearly ran into his back when he stopped at a door near the end of the hall. He turned to face her then, both of them somewhat calmer after the short walk.
"Edith. It's not too late. If you wish to reconsider, I mean. But if we go into this room I'm afraid I'll be rather beyond the capacity to be reasonable…" He gestured between them.
Edith leaned in close, reaching past him for the knob, and let the door swing wide open behind him.
Edith had never undressed a man before. Just as she'd imagined, the buttons on her dress were simple work, even for a man with only the use of one hand. It had fallen to the floor with a swishing sound, the satin lining sliding effortlessly over her underthings. But his shirt and waistcoat and cuffs and tie all needed dealing with and were a great deal more complicated. The fact that Edith was shaking with expectation and anxiety did not help a bit.
"You're trembling," Anthony whispered. They stood close together in the center of what Edith presumed was his room. It was large, but not abundantly so. She imagined there were bigger bedrooms in the house, but it was very like Anthony to choose the one that just met his needs. The bed was turned down, the cream sheets looking invitingly soft under the deep green duvet. Part of her wanted desperately to be under the protection of those linens.
She didn't realize she was frowning until Anthony's hand lifted her chin. "Darling, you're supposed to be enjoying this. If you're uneasy, we can simply go to sleep," he offered. He kissed her forehead as though he might wash away the creases himself. She sighed, and dropped her hands from his collar.
"I am not uneasy. I am nervous, though, to be perfectly honest."
"Nervous?" He urged, undoing the bowtie himself and starting in on the buttons of his shirt. Clearly he'd had practice doing these things one-handed.
"You've been here before, and you know what to expect," she muttered, looking away. "And I am decidedly at a disadvantage."
"To what disadvantage are you referring? I have been married, but never to you. And I can assure you I have never felt like this, even here," he said with emphasis. He did not mean in the room.
Edith sighed and turned her burning brown eyes on Anthony. Never failing to surprise him, she stood on her tiptoes to wrap her arms tightly around his neck, and hugged him. Anthony held her tightly for a long time, feeling her breath like a feather against his ear as she pressed into him.
"It is my experience," he whispered into her shoulder, "that everything new is frightening. But if we never did what scared us we would never change. And generally the most terrifying experiences turn out to be the most exhilarating and rewarding of all."
"Oh?" she murmured into his neck.
"I'm not talking just about making love, Edith. I'm talking about life, about marriage, about people. Do you know the most scared I've ever been in my life?"
"I imagine it has to do with your injury."
"It was the day I asked you to the concert. Do you remember?"
"What?" she asked, shocked. She stepped back so she might see his face.
"It's true. Because I knew just from the few days we'd spent together that if I took you to that concert, and to dinner afterwards, that I would fall in love with you. And I was right. I did fall in love with you. And I've been terrified ever since."
"Terrified," she repeated, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
"Yes. That I would lose you, that I would fail you, that I didn't deserve you, that you would get sick, that I wouldn't be able to keep you safe, that you wouldn't love me back. I'd never felt so much all at once."
"But Maud," Edith said meagerly.
"Maud was a good friend and a good companion, and I was devastated when she died. I still miss her sometimes. But Edith, I didn't know what it meant to love until I met you. I had no idea."
Edith didn't have the words, or the capacity, to respond. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, finishing the buttons on his shirt and tossing it to the floor beside his sling and the rest of his effects. The trousers she managed on her own, and he kicked them off with his socks.
"I've never seen your feet before," she said plainly, looking down at where their toes nearly met, contrasting against the thick, dark carpet.
"My feet?" he laughed. "Darling, I would have shown them to you any time. If that's all you wanted we could have done this years ago and saved you the trouble of undressing."
"You really are terribly funny," she said, pulling him towards the bed. "No one ever gives you credit for it, but you are."
"You only think so because I'm standing in my underclothes. In a morning jacket and trousers I'd be dull as dust."
"Not so," she smiled, climbing onto the bed. She knelt so that they might face each other. The bed was high enough that it almost brought her eye level with him. She waited, boldly, and watched his eyes wander over her. The silk knickers she wore were new, French, especially chosen for this occasion. They were short but loose, in a nude pink that complimented her skin, and trimmed with a very fine gold lace. A matching vest with lace along the deep neckline deliberately showed off her assets.
"I seem to remember there being more ties and clasps to these things," Anthony teased, running his hand over her ribs possessively, admiring the scant article.
"Progress, darling," she whispered, pulling him to her.
"Ah, is that the sort of progress your columns are about?"
"Mm-hmm," she hummed, trailing kisses along his ear and down his neck. She felt him tense just slightly when she brushed over his puckered, white scar. She kissed it most affectionately, letting her hand slide down his injured arm to squeeze the one he loathed.
Anthony's breathing was getting more labored, Edith noticed, and her whole body seemed to buzz with a sort of electricity. When his left hand traveled underneath her camisole to the skin of her lower back, a shock went through her. And when he deftly ran a single finger under the very edge of her shorts, Edith lost all sense of time and space.
Together they were all hands and lips and giggles. She had wanted to remember it, every bit of it, but there was no telling when exactly her underthings were slipped over her curves, or who did the slipping exactly. She was laying on the pillows and then she was bracing herself over him, dipping her head greedily for more kisses, and then she was on her back again. The only thoughts she could hold onto were of Anthony, of how deeply she loved him, and how utterly wonderful each new sensation was.
And then the time came, when the whole of existence shrank to the space between her arching hips and his, between their chests rising and falling with breathlessness, between his lips and hers only a breath apart.
"Edith," he whispered, as if grounding himself. It was a prayer and a plea and declaration.
"I'm yours, Anthony. I always was," Edith whispered into his neck, pulling on his bare shoulders until she felt the warmth of his body against her breasts. Anthony kissed her, softly and carefully and with restraint, and with a slow and deliberate movement, finally made it so.
To Edith, it seemed so new and yet so natural. She'd heard the standard horror stories—surely this is not what those women had described. They watched each other intently, neither in a hurry, both saying so much in their silence. Until finally something built so intensely in her that her eyes closed of their own volition and her body shuddered against his and her hands dug into the firm plane of his back. With one final push they both exhaled, neither realizing they'd been holding their breath.
Anthony tried to resituate, but Edith held him for a moment, squeezing him with her knees.
"Are you hurt?" He asked, slightly winded but concerned.
"No," she said, and suddenly she was laughing. A delirious laugh, one she hardly recognized as her own. "Dear lord, no. Far from it." And then he was laughing too.
"Is it always like that?" she asked frankly, finally turning so he could lie beside her.
"We're very lucky," was his answer, amused a bit at her bewilderment.
"I'd say," she giggled.
There was no hint of bashfulness between them. They were simply Edith and Anthony, as they always should have been. Lying there together, drowsy and sated and nude, a tangled, panting heap, and neither had ever been so happy.
"That was years in the making," she mused, running her hand in sleepy circles through his chest hair.
"Worth the wait, my sweet, dearest Edith. Well worth it."
"Just don't make me wait another seven years before the next time, alright?" she teased, tucking in close to him and relishing in the warmth of his body wrapped around hers.
"Whatever you want, dear," he laughed again, kissing the top of her head.
And there, awash in the pale light from the waning moon, Edith and Anthony fell into the most satisfied sleep either could ever remember having.