Please forgive the months-long delay on this. I am still on my hiatus, but I had to get this out of my life before it proved to be a true distraction. I hate to make you backtrack, but you may want to reread Chapter 5 before continuing on. Feel free to hit up your music-listening service of choice to play Sonata No. 8 in C minor, op. 13, "Pathetique" by Beethoven. And please refresh yourselves with the following:
But now their only witnesses were the leather-bound tomes of the small library. They cocooned the couple with page after page, of words of joy and happiness, of longing and respect, of heartbreak and humanity. And in the hearts of those hallowed volumes were the stirrings of the couple's friendship and love.
Clever turns of phrase and stunning visions from well-thumbed volumes had entered into their souls in a secret language. They had lain dormant, housed in their sharp minds until those passages transformed into something precious, something that connected their minds to their hearts that increasingly beat for one another. And when their hearts were ready, those secret words were decoded and voiced when neither could hide any longer from the plainest and dearest of truths.
She couldn't halt herself from surveying his face. There was something particular on his mind, filling it with the intrigue that comes with an irrepressible thought.
Even during the last fortnight, it had become incrementally easier for words she had never dared to hope hearing to spring forth. And so she continued appreciating his handsome face, gazing briefly on his slightly-parted lips, and waited.
They moved closer to the middle of the room as he positively teemed with pleasure.
At last, he finally spoke. His tone was intimate – teetering on the edge of the lowest octave he could manage and a whisper. She had heard it before, when his proposal was breathlessly offered. But now – now she could feel his voice vibrating through his frame to the very fingertips of her left hand. She was left thrumming.
"So this is what you meant," he observed mysteriously with twinkling eyes. The breathlessness was gone, having transferred to her at the sound of his voice.
She blinked rapidly, and his regard only became more apparent. "And what is it that I am supposed to have meant," she questioned.
"Daring us to live a little – this is what you meant."
She beamed with a pearly smile and an upturned face. The music had taken a turn for the adventurous, becoming slightly stronger in volume and purpose. Elsie Hughes was inspired.
"What I meant was to show you that getting your feet wet wasn't such a terrible thing. That it got you all the way to the point of proposing and dancing about the library is quite the bonus."
On any other day he would have at least attempted to appear unimpressed. But the way the light had highlighted her cheeks, how her eyes held an absolute hold over him overrode his rote responses. Everything about her on this eve kept him from repressing his gratefulness for the way she kept after him, inspired him to better himself whether she was aware of it or not.
Instead, he chuckled and smiled in earnest as her soft laughter filled his ears and his heart.
Their rhythmic movements slowly ebbed from waltz time to a slow rocking from foot to foot. Nothing could bother them from their intent focus on one another, even the song that led them to move in unison.
The music had seemed endless, lasting for an eternity with piano fingerings that seem to feed off the humble truth of their love. But now it slowly receded with quiet chords echoing in their ears as they gazed upon each other, bodies flooding with warmth with each passing moment. Still locked in their dancer's embrace, their movements stilled even as their hearts beat with increased vigor.
Only the faint crackle as the record was pulled from the phonograph on air could be heard, and still it did not move them. But the muffled voice of the radio announcer identifying the musical composition and signing off for the night finally roused them from their reverie. The uttered title had put a name to their moment outside of time.
And then, the moment turned.
With reluctance, Elsie Hughes retreated from her betrothed's embrace by running her hand down his upper arm to his elbow.
His eyelids closed and opened languidly, as if he awoke from a dream. But her scent filling his nostrils was very much his touchstone with reality.
Her movements were efficient as she powered down the wireless. He was captive to her movements, the graceful reach forward to place the manual behind the infernal machine. Even in the relative darkness of the room, he could discern more of her stockings encasing her fine legs. Her narrow waist was set off against the darkness and he cursed himself for not exploring it as they danced (at least as far as his sensibilities would allow).
Shaking himself at the thought (she was his betrothed, but how uncouth, he berated himself), Charles Carson moved to turn off the few lamps that had illuminated their temporary dance floor.
Sensing his movements, Elsie Hughes turned to open the small library door. Their path was mostly dark, but they knew these halls as they knew each other. The air was cooler in the front hall, tingling her cheeks as she waited for him to join her.
He regarded her shyly before transitioning to the front door, securing it for the evening. Something else was on his mind and she wondered if it mirrored her own. Her breaths grew faintly shallow as they turned towards the hall.
Striding towards the green baize door, he sighed enough for her to hear it as they transitioned towards landing.
She could sense his thoughts – the dread of having to walk down to his pantry to secure his keys – and looked upon him with an empathetic smile.
"You don't have to join me. You should head on up," he intoned even as his eyes unconsciously entreated her to follow him.
Truth be told, she was loathed to part from him tonight and wasn't sure how to express that fact. They had come so far in expressing themselves, but it had only taken them so far.
"What's a few more steps," she admitted, finding solace in the way his smile reached his eyes.
The door now open, he was half a step behind her on the landing as they started down the stairs. She inhaled upon feeling his long fingers softly grasping her elbow on the way down, instantly glad she joined him.
There was no need to wander about in the dark when he arrived in his pantry. It was clear she had wandered in there earlier, leaving the small lamp with a red-fringed shade near his key cabinet illuminated to greet him upon his return. He smiled as he crossed the room to place the keys in the wall cabinet.
As she did all evening, she observed him move through familiar spaces, taking pleasure in the exuded elegance, masculinity, and confidence. She loved to see his long arms sway. But now she knew the joy of them embracing her as they danced.
She regarded him knowingly, even smugly for a moment. And as he crossed towards the mantle, she berated herself inwardly at her raging emotions. Here they were on the verge of retirement, had never shared a lingering kiss, and yet she felt as out of control as a young maid.
Oblivious to her turning thoughts, he felt the burn of her gaze as he went to retrieve the box for his tie pin. In the small mirror above his mantle, he spied her, eyes now downturned towards his desk.
But it wasn't her visage that captivated him. It was her hand, raised towards her captivating neck. He shivered at the sight of her nails softly scraping against the delicate skin along her collarbones, as if she touched him beneath his confining collar.
Soon, his shivering turned to a flush, a rebuilding of the desire that had threatened to overtake him before the evening began.
He was unable to halt from turning towards this goddess. The moon might have been burning bright in his window, but his own Selene* stood before him, her skin glimmering.
Finally, she observed him again. Even in the dim light, she could spy that something was off, strained.
"What's the matter?"
He swallowed and his jaw clenched noticeably at her voiced concern, laced with a husky… something.
"Nothing," he insisted as his eyes betrayed a growing alarm.
Terrible liar.
"Perhaps you should sit down for a moment," she suggested, moving to tug at his forearm and guide him gently towards his reading chair. In a moment, his large frame had sunk uncomfortably with his knees uncharacteristically apart from each other.
Now she stood in front of him, her skirt brushing those out-turned knees. He could hear the fabric glide across his trousers and her heels echoing across the stone floor. But that wasn't what set his heart racing. His eyes were now level with her trim waist. He couldn't look away.
She was alarmed at his widening eyes, thought nothing of reaching out to cup his cheek with her right hand. Perhaps I better sit with him.
He wanted to ask her something. Wanted to say something. Needed to do something.
After their clandestine few weeks, and after that dance, he still felt a stranger to romance outside of his own mind. What was worst, so he believed, was his increasing inability to tame the unbridled feelings she evoked in him. He was proud and guilty as he encapsulated her right hand with his own and gazed unceasingly into her eyes. What must she think of me? How can I tell her?
Little did he know he was already articulating his unspoken thoughts – the intense gaze, the delicate pressure of his right hand sliding down the inside of her exposed forearm to cup her elbow, the way his tongue darted out as he unconsciously licked his lips. All of it spoke to her, voicing what he had yet to reveal from his secret heart.
Her eyelids fluttered shut for a moment; her breath held unconsciously as she felt his fingers caress her sensitive skin. The clock beat steadily, but it was already outpaced by the speed of her rapidly-beating heart.
And in that moment, she knew exactly what was the matter.
The change in her was palpable, he realized with a pained swallow and another lick to his lips.
More than being caught in her gaze, he felt the gravitational pull of its growing, beckoning darkness. And all at once he wasn't sure who began to venture closer to whom.
In the haze, her corseted-clad torso daintily bent forward as he propelled himself incrementally forward in his chair.
But as his eyes landed squarely on her lips, the implications of what was to come caused his right hand to quickly impede her progress.
Halting at the sight of his raised hand, it occurred to her that her bent-over advance was perhaps inappropriate. Vulgar, she wondered.
But his need echoed her own – she could feel it in his touch and the way he savored her form that evening. And she shook off the thoughts of vulgarity with a single truth: nothing vulgar could ever come from this, this thing between them.
He whispered hastily, even as his need was plain to his betrothed, "I should ask if I may…"
And before he could finish, a single hand on his cheek snuffed out his burning question.
"I should answer that you best be about, then."
Even in that flickering spark of mischief, he could sense the tremulous nature of her thoughts despite the certainty they both felt in that moment.
Concerns were instantly allayed even as his breath caught at her goading entreaty.
Still, his right hand gently guided her to bend towards him as he continued his seated climb to be closer.
Her right hand returned to his cheek as his hands found a home on her upper arms.
And at once it was awkward, her half-bent and him straining to connect with her parted lips.
This will never do, she discovered with exasperation.
The flash in her eyes, though, did not signal something was amiss to her betrothed. It displayed only her determined spark, which called out to him to respond innately, his fingers clenching involuntarily, pulling them towards another milestone.
Her breath left her in her quick descent.
And somehow the intimate tableau, of her perched on his left knee as her own knees brushed intimately against his right, wasn't arrested by thoughts of propriety. For vulgarity had nothing to do with their darkened eyes or their parted lips. It didn't tinge his hand spreading across her back, lowering in a teasing diagonal track until it gently but snugly curled around her hip.
This was impromptu. This was pure.
And all the madding thoughts, of exasperation and organization, of propriety and purity, quieted at the hush of their lips finally meeting.
Somehow they knew to tilt ever slightly as they kept hold of their breaths, unwilling to disturb their forward progress inside this brave new world of the lush and pliable.
Lips that kept feelings at bay for decades began an act of blissful penance.
A single hand, a hand that would one day wear a golden ring, found a home on his chest - to steady and be steadied.
And that contact sent a sound wave from through them, a low and rumbling quality. And soon their breaths came in waves across their fevered cheeks as they reveled in the variety of hard and soft, of unhurried and frantic.
His right hand had kept to to her shoulder, grazed daringly (he thought) across her cheek. But after pulling apart briefly, he was caught by the sapphire-lined darkness of her gaze - quite unlike anything he had ever seen before. And there was nothing to console his lips and his wandering right hand, squeezing gently down her arm until he realized he had come in contact with her thigh.
Stricken, he returned his hand to her cheek, only to pull apart from her becoming lips reluctantly.
Shock colored his features, that is until she inclined towards him, her forehead gently resting against his. His skin was still blazing with the heat of their exertions. But her fierce whisper sent a pleasant chill down his spine.
"I love you."
Inhaling sharply, he consumed the air that conveyed her confession, filling his lungs and very soul with blessed completion.
And with that air he breathed back, reverently, "I love you."
Stillness pervaded the pantry for untold moments, an equilibrium decades in the making.
"Thank you for our dance," he whispered as she pulled away, however minutely within his shroud of warmth and strength. She felt as breathless as he sounded.
Jokingly, she responded, "Perhaps I can talk you into a wireless when we've finally retired."
"I still say it will give you a shock," he persisted despite his wry grin. His chest flooded at the thought of them retiring together after he thought it would never occur. "How about a phonograph and our first record a certain sonata?"
She could feel every word he spoke, her eyelids rapidly responding to that fact.
"I'll consider it," she conceded with a long breath unsuccessfully disguising a yawn.
The nearness of her temporarily displaced his sense of decorum as he conceded, "If we don't go up now, we never will."
His eyes widened after he processed his spoken thoughts. "My Lord," he muttered to the sound of her breathless chuckle. Future wife, or no, I just propositioned her. He was mortified.
Gracefully, she ignored his moment of panic for now as she moved to rise. Her whole torso cooled in the evening air and she wondered on the keen loss of the security she felt in his arms.
"It will be a long day tomorrow, if we don't. I'd like to a have a sherry and a quiet evening, myself," she admitted with a tilt to her head as she regarded him fondly.
He flashed to their future, of evenings that didn't have to be contingent upon avoiding any number of skirmishes, to be constrained by formal structure. It was a future to which he could look forward with sublime anticipation.
From the way Mrs. Elsie Hughes looked back at him, he could tell she felt the same way.
A/N: Selene was a daughter of a Titan god (Hyperion, god of light – the physical and wisdom varieties). Selene was a Moon goddess later known to the Romans as Luna.
A/N: I was going back and forth on whether to include this (that and I could not figure out how to get them into proper make-out mode). Some on tumblr and FFN wanted more, others thought it was fine how I ended on Chapter 5. They may be right, but I did want to add this as a "bonus," if you will.
Please let me know what you think of this now completed diversion into a pre-S6 world.