Many people see Lady Agnes as a light on a pedestal, Blanche knows this. The way she carries herself in public is different from the way she walks around at home. She's ramrod straight walking out the door, one foot in front of the other— she's been taught this, that it was important. Blanche much prefers Agnes when she is inside Eaton Place and they are not entertaining and she pads around the house in stockings that slide down on one ankle and the way she sighed when she took her tea by the parlor window.

Blanche loved the imperfections, the little cracks in Lady Holland's facade. She loved Agnes.

Mostly she loved Agnes in her bed. It was too small for the two of them, the guest room at the back of the house. Never the master bedroom. Too many memories. So she'd climb into Blanche's instead. She doesn't remember when the kisses started. But she does remember the first time they—

"How do I touch you?" Blanche doesn't understand the question and is loathe to move away from her attentions against Agnes' collar bone and the breathless sighs that escape from her mouth every time her tongue finds somewhere sensitive. Agnes' lips are well kissed, swollen and parted as she wriggles in earnest away from Blanche and shoving her hands into her lap. "What do you mean?" her eyebrows knitted together. Agnes went pink in the face.

"I mean how do I touch you…intimately?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "The same way you'd touch yourself."

"What?"

"Take yourself in hand."

Still nothing. Oh dear. "Masturbation, Agnes."

"I don't do that." a sigh. Blanche rubs the bridge of her nose, pulling the hem of her night gown back down from where it had wandered up her legs. "Would you like me to teach you?"

"I…" Agnes is quiet for a long while. "Yes." She looked determined. As determined as a small dog shivering at the end of her bed.

"Come here." the younger woman crawls back up the bed cautiously, sitting back on her heels, curiosity getting the better of her. Blanche managed to get her to lean forward, stealing another light kiss. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." it's the most determined she's heard her sound in a long time. Blanche tugs the hem of Agnes' night dress up until it bunches around her thighs, a cream colored drape that she slipped her hand under, trailing her nails down the soft expanse of inner thigh. An aphrodisiac it was to hear her breath catch, words caught in her throat.

She wants to ask if Hallam has ever done this for her, but knows better. The pain that would fill Agnes' eyes is not worth it. Blanche can tell that if he did, it was not often. Men. Agnes looks at her through half lidded eyes. "What-what's next?"

"You have to be very gentle, dear. We are finely tuned creatures you and I."

"Show me."