Out with Lanterns, page 16
The clinking of pebbles under the water alerted her to movement before his voice did. Ophelia opened her eyes and blinked a tall figure into focus. His familiar face was upside down, shaggy hanks of golden-brown hair framing his high cheekbones. His careful smile was a lopsided question mark. She thrust her feet down, pitching awkwardly to stand. Water streamed down her body, her wet hair pulling at the back of her head, and she clutched her arms across her transparent chemise.
“How long have you been here?” She gulped, adding as she came to her senses, “Pass me my tunic, please.”
Silas moved to step backward and lifted the tunic from the pile. Passing it to her with averted eyes, he said, “Only a moment. You heard me as soon as I stepped into the water.”
She fisted the fabric in front of her before clutching it around herself. “I rose late and thought I might clear my head,” she said, gesturing to the creek behind her.
Silas nodded. “I came across this spot a while ago myself. Mind if I stay and dip my feet, too?”
She shook her head and watched as he toed off his boots and slid his socks from his feet. He stepped gingerly over the pebbly bank and hissed when he stepped into the water. “Jaysus!” he yelped. “How’d you get your whole body in this? It’s bloody freezing!”
Ophelia laughed aloud, the sound loosening her body. Silas took a tiny step forward, and Ophelia watched his feet, long and palest white, in the green water. He wriggled his toes, and the flex of tendon and bone under vulnerable flesh sent a wild flash of tenderness through her.
“I want to say again how sorry I am for reading your telegram, Silas.” She wasn’t sorry to have discovered the truth behind his enlisting, but she was sorry about how it had come out. He was silent for so long that she raised her head to look at him. His eyes were dark and serious, roaming over her face. She felt her shift clinging and cold. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck, beginning to curl slightly at her shoulders. Unaccountably, she felt shy. He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets, and his shoulders lifted and bunched under his linen shirt.
“It’s alright, Ophelia, honestly it is. I do wish I’d told you sooner. Having it all inside has been killing me.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been an arse, I know. I feel like I’ve no bearings anymore, like all the things I thought about being a man, a person, no longer apply. I believe in suffrage, I truly do, and I’m also a bit lost about where it leaves me. I truly thought I was doing right to shield you, to not bring the problem to you, only a solution, once I had one. But you’re angry about it, I can see you feel betrayed and I’m not totally certain how I should have done it differently. Honestly, I feel a bit angry about it all, too.” His face was stern, a furrow of unhappiness carved between his dark brows, his mouth drawn down at the sides. “I don’t mean for you to solve it or pat me on the head, of course, only I wanted to tell you, well, tell you that I want to do better. That I’m trying so hard to figure out if being here with you will harm my family and how I might change that.”
Ophelia wasn’t sure what to say for the space of a breath; her heart and mind couldn’t seem to agree, to say nothing of her body. She was covered in gooseflesh, somehow freezing and burning at the same time. She clenched her fists in the tunic. “It wasn’t until I left the estate that I realized I had been existing on the periphery of my own life, and I promised myself I’d never feel that way again. I know it’s entirely presumptuous of me, as I’ve no idea what we are to each other, but I wish you’d spoken to me. At least let me know my father’s part in it. Asked if I might have been involved, rather than wondered.”
He was quiet for so long that Ophelia thought the discussion was finished. Looking up, she found him watching her. “What we are to each other?” he echoed quietly.
Her rabbiting heart leapt wildly in her chest and she looked down, focused on his pale watery feet, the hems of his pants clinging, sodden, to his ankles.
“I only meant, here in this situation, this time.” She was babbling now and she hated how unsure she felt. “I think that what we felt for each other that summer is still here, but we are different people, want different things . . . and some days I don’t even know what those things could look like.” Drat. This had gone off course quickly, and Ophelia wasn’t sure how to get back onto safer footing.
“I suppose they could look however you’d like them to,” Silas said. “I hadn’t imagined a farm run entirely by women before the war, but now I can’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be the norm. Perhaps all the things that feel impossible to us are only that way because we’ve not seen it done yet? I think if people let themselves experience an unfamiliar thing before judging it, we would all be better off.”
She nodded, looking over at him, still standing in the creek. His arms hung loosely at his sides, hands gentle, face open. His green eyes were dark today, like moss in the rain, and they skated over her face, the weight of their gaze like the brush of fingertips. She stepped toward him, the water moving against her ankles. A stilt-legged plover dashed along the bank behind Silas’s shoulder, and for a second its movement distracted her from his hands coming to rest gently on her biceps. The touch moved like a current over her damp skin. Her lips parted, and his pupils flared darkly. Almost without thinking, she pitched forward and his arms slid around her. The tunic slipped from her hands into the water between them. Her breasts, cool and pebbled, pressed against the broad expanse of his chest. He straightened, made to step back at the contact.
“Might I hold you? I should have asked,” he said quickly, moving to release her.
“You might,” she said, leaning back into the contact, letting the warm scent of him fill her senses.
The linen of his shirt was rough, and a button pressed into her cheekbone, but the thud of her heart in her chest drowned out everything else, and she let her arms rise to circle his broad back. He made a contented hum in the back of his throat, pulling her closer, and Ophelia thought she had never felt so secure in all her life. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the green, wet scent of the creek, the hint of nearby farms, and over it all, Silas. The only other man she had ever been this close to was her father, and he always smelled of stale tobacco and too-strong cologne, but Silas smelt of sun and fresh air, of tea and fire, leather and new earth. Freedom and future, she suddenly thought. She pressed her nose into him, breathing deeply. His large, warm hand came to the back of her head, stroking her hair and down her back. The familiarity of it shocked her, the rightness of it, even more so.
“Fee,” he rumbled under her ear.
“Mmm?”
“Could what is between us be one of the things that we haven’t imagined yet?”
“Oh, I’ve already imagined it,” she blurted before her brain could stop her mouth. Heat flushed her body and she groaned with embarrassment into Silas’s shirt.
“So have I, if we’re being honest,” he said, huffing a laugh.
Raising her head gently between his hands, Silas stroked his thumbs across her cheekbones, his warm, rough fingers sending a cascade of heat through her. She felt it pool, golden and warm, in her belly, and turned her face to press her lips to his palm. Everything in her moved toward him. Leaving all the complications of the situation behind, she could only think of deepening his caress, that he might even kiss her again. Her breath stuttered at the thought, seesawing in her chest, filling the space between them.
Seeming to read her thoughts, Silas lowered his head, whispering against her lips, “May I kiss you, Ophelia?” She felt the question as a rush of air against her mouth and nodded uncoordinatedly. She realized in the seconds before his lips met hers that everything had been leading up to this. All the pent-up feelings, the surprise that it hadn’t been so odd to see him again, that they did work well together, that really in this moment, she was just not kissing him. She tilted ever so slightly toward him. He took a steadying breath, and she saw that his chest rose and fell almost as rapidly as her own. How incredible, she thought, to be stumbling in a haze of desire, together. Was it always like this when one was to be kissed? She thought not. And then she didn’t think anything at all as the first brush of Silas’s lips against hers obliterated everything.
Tenderly, he pressed a soft kiss to her upper lip, so lightly she found herself chasing the touch as he drew back. His hand rose to smooth down her cheek and along her neck as he leaned back in, taking her lips with his, exploring their plush warmth. Ophelia’s blood sang through her, hot and heavy, coiling languorous and bright along her limbs. Her hands fisted in Silas’s shirt, giving her pleasing leverage to draw him closer. He grinned against her mouth, and she was overcome by the feel of his firm, soft lips. He nipped gently at her bottom lip, then drew a fiery line with his tongue to the corner of her mouth. She felt explosive, full to the brim, sensation pouring over her skin. Opening her mouth as Silas ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she obeyed an instinct she didn’t recognize and caught his tongue with her own. He made a heavy noise in the back of his throat and deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers in the wet heat of their mouths. Power and hunger surged through Ophelia. She sighed and pressed herself to him, incandescent, voracious. She could feel Silas’s desire, tightly leashed, emanating from him, and she revelled, head spinning, in their mutual abandon. Releasing Silas to draw breath, Ophelia pressed her fingertips to her lips, exploring their stinging, tingling surface. She felt reborn somehow, new to the world, new to herself. Silas shook his head and laughed, resting his head lightly against her shoulder. A low “Hmm” was all he managed before pressing a gentle kiss to the curve of her neck.
“I,” she began, “I . . . wanted that so much.” She was as surprised as she was sure.
“God, so have I,” Silas muttered, the words slurred when his lips caught against the damp skin of her neck. “And you feel even better than the first time, Fee, which is impossible.”
She felt herself blush and pushed closer to him. She hesitated then lifted her hands to run them through his sandy hair. Had she always wanted to do this? To feel the cool silk of his hair in her fingers? It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea how she had lived before being able to touch Silas. How had she never reached out to run her hand down his sharp cheekbone or press her fingertip to the perfect bow of his top lip as she did now? He sucked that fingertip into his mouth and every nerve ending in her body exploded into life. He drew the sensitive pad of her finger deeper into his mouth, and she felt her breasts grow heavy, nipples tightening against her shift. His eyes had gone dark with desire, and she felt her mouth slacken as every flicker of his tongue coursed through her like molten honey. Ophelia felt the drugging pull on her finger deep inside and, lost to sensation, only dimly registered the evidence of Silas’s erection pressing firmly against her belly.
This was not at all what she expected when the ladies’ manuals had warned against “loose behaviour.” Nothing about Silas’s hands and mouth on her felt loose; she was drawn tight as a bow, but more importantly, Ophelia realized, she was directing the action as much as he. This did not feel like being taken advantage of—it felt like being set free. No, that wasn’t right. It felt like setting herself free. Releasing her finger, Silas pulled back, stroking a hand along her jaw. Their chests moved like bellows, harsh breath mingling in the space between them, eyes glassy with lust and surprise. Ophelia loosened her hold on Silas’s shirt front, smoothing the fabric over his chest, and laughed unsteadily. She felt wobbly, like all her joints were filled with warm liquid.
“You’re getting cold,” Silas said sternly, taking in her pebbled skin. “Here.” He guided her out of the water and reached for his discarded coat. Wrapping it around her, he chafed her arms and back, heat blooming through the heavy linen. It smelt of him, a now almost-familiar scent, and Ophelia sucked in a lungful, already greedy for more of him.
“I should get back. I’ve not done a thing yet today,” she said, apologetic, and felt her cheeks heat at the breathiness of her voice.
“Right . . . o’ course.”
He drew her, clumsy in the oversized coat, back into his arms. She sagged against him, wrung out from everything that happened in the last two days.
“I don’t want to let you go,” Silas said into her hair. “I wish we could stay here forever.”
She didn’t reply, only nodded against his chest.
“I know it’s uncomfortable, but please, let’s talk when things are hard,” she said. “We should have done that before, and I regret it.”
“Yes. I promise.”
She wanted to be able to talk about what was between them, as soon as she figured out how she felt about it. But before she lost her nerve, she said what was weighing on her. “Silas, do you think it possible to want a relationship with someone and also to want independence? Could a person have both?”
She pushed back from his embrace to look at him. Reluctantly, he let her slide from his arms.
“I don’t know,” he said carefully. “Could one not have independence within a couple? Surely there are marriages that are happy and equal?”
“I suppose I was more wondering whether marriage is a requisite for every relationship.”
“I don’t know how else people could truly have each other, Fee, out in the open,” he said. “For all its failings, marriage is the only way I know of for a man to provide for a woman he loves or a family.”
She felt disappointed. Unaccountably. “You had parents who were good to one another, but for those of us with no such model, marriage can seem like a risk. Even more so now that I’ve realized the possibilities of suffrage. Can you not see that there must be some other way for two people to love one another? A way that doesn’t involve subjugation of one party to the other?” He was silent while she felt her irritation grow. She crossed her arms, hugging the soft warmth of his coat to her one more time, then shrugged out of it. She didn’t bother with her corset, but pulled her breeches on over her chemise and shrugged into her still-wet tunic.
“I would never see you that way, Ophelia, in case we are even discussing the two of us in a marriage.”
“I know you wouldn’t, but others would. Women are expected to exist as foils to their husbands, the homely little wife tending to her husband while he is free to go and tackle the outside world. People expect women to stop being interested in their own lives, to be satisfied with cookery and birthing babies. Society expects it, and then men wonder why it shouldn’t be that way after all.”
“I think you’ll find that I’m the last person who’s interested in what other people expect. I’ve had enough of other peoples’ expectations and ideas to last me a lifetime and more.” He stood, still ankle-deep in the water holding his jacket loosely. “You don’t want me to make assumptions about you, so I’d ask you for the same courtesy.”
He was right. She had assumed she knew what he wanted, had let everything become about her own worries.
“Do you want those things?” he asked, his eyes clear and calm. There was no pressure in his question, only curiosity. “The cookery and the babies?”
She felt caught between honesty and the fear of what it might cost her. “I . . . things were not easy growing up. I don’t see myself wanting children in the future,” Ophelia said, her voice growing quiet. “I am sure I want a life, one of my own choosing, my own direction.”
He watched her quietly and she was forced to admit that it hadn’t occurred to her that a man could feel constrained by expectations, too.
“Do you want those things, Silas? Not cookery, but babies?”
“Babies,” he said quietly. “I don’t think so. I had always thought so, before, but I don’t know that I want to bring a child into the world that I have seen. There is so much to repair for the people already here, I suppose I’ve been thinking that might be work I could do. Cookery though . . . perhaps I might try my hand.” He said it with a smile and his voice was light, but Ophelia felt the weight behind his words, the choices he had already begun to consider. She was embarrassed she hadn’t asked him sooner.
Silas still felt punch-drunk from their kiss, the taste of Ophelia heady and cool on his tongue, but he forced himself to think about what she had asked. Was marriage the only way to live as a couple? Of course, it wasn’t literally the only way. He knew that, knew there were men and women who lived outside the bounds of what society gave its assent to, knew there were spinster friends who cared for each other their whole lives, bachelors who shared rooms with their lifelong friends. But he didn’t “know” any of those couples, wasn’t sure they would be welcomed at respectable tables or in the circles of people he had encountered. Don’t be an arse. Your circle of experience is laughably small, and just because you don’t know them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Still, the thought was a barb in his chest; he feared an arrangement without marriage would push Ophelia to the very margins of society, and he couldn’t imagine her there. She belonged in the very centre of things, not society per se, neither of them had any use for that, but amongst friends, able to move freely, without worrying about judgement. He wanted her to have everything she wanted, but he wasn’t sure he could give her this.
“I don’t know, Fee,” he said at last, slipping unthinkingly into the nickname. “Suppose you’ve come across a great deal of new thinking since you left Wood Grange, but I’m not sure I’m such a modern man, as it were.”
“I think at heart you are, Silas. Perhaps your habits of mind need time to catch up with your instincts.” She gathered her gaiters, stockings, and boots into her arms and straightened once more. “I’m sorry I sprang all this on you. It’s a lot, I know . . . I think I’m more than a little wrung out from last night. Everything feels a little intense at the moment.”
Silas nodded, thinking that that wasn’t all that had inspired the conversation, the brand of her lips on his still as present as the conflict between them. It cut him to the core to say it, but he wanted her to know that he held her under no obligation or assumption. She was free to kiss him and have nothing come of it, reputation or relationship be damned. He didn’t want that, of course. He realized as the words hung between them that he wanted to kiss her again and again, to run his hands over her body, to have hers hot on his own skin. To explore what was so tenuously growing between them, to hold on to this new thing with both hands. Instead, he schooled his face into neutrality and tried his best to believe the words he said aloud. “If this conversation has made you feel uncomfortable about our kiss, you need think no more of it, Ophelia. It will stay between us and need change nothing. You have my word.”
