Out with Lanterns, page 18
“It’s not nothing to me, Fee,” he said, seriously. He looked up from their hands, his mossy eyes darkening. “Everything you do is something to me.”
He stroked once more over the pulse at her wrist, then letting her hands go gently, he raised a one of his own and skated it along her jaw, cupping her head with a large, warm palm. She felt herself sink into the pressure of his fingertips against her skull, her breath ghosting over her lips. He leaned closer, his eyes on hers, lips parted. Then he pulled her gently to him, letting his hand stroke down her spine to settle on her hip. She pressed into him and fitted her mouth to his just as he leaned into her. She felt his fingers flex on her hip, his mouth sliding open to admit her seeking tongue. The suction of his mouth on her tongue drew a whimper from her even as she widened her stance, notching herself closer to Silas. He sucked harder on her tongue and smoothed his hand down over her behind, hitching her tight to his thigh. The darkness of his mouth tasted of warm tea, a surprising tang when his tongue slid against hers. She felt herself getting wet, the heat pooling between her legs, and she moved against his thigh to ease the ache. Silas returned the movement and then pulling back, his teeth scraping her lips as he withdrew, he whispered, “I forget myself when I’m with you,” against her mouth.
Ophelia nodded, belatedly releasing the grip she had taken on his biceps. She murmured a hasty apology and brushed the wrinkled linen of his shirt down smooth, stepping back from the warmth of his body. “So do I.”
Good God, but she didn’t want to stop, wanted to push herself closer into his arms, wanted his mouth on her neck, her breasts, anywhere she could think of. Instead, she smoothed her own tunic and picked up her abandoned teacup. It shook very slightly as she lifted it to her lips, the tinny music of china on china loud in the small kitchen. He leaned back against the edge of the Welsh cupboard and crossed his feet at the ankles. The movement gave the impression of relaxation, but Ophelia could tell he felt nothing like casual; his body vibrated with their kiss, just as hers did. He looked at her with a strange, dreamy quirk on his lips.
“I should say good night, Silas,” she said sheepishly.
“Sleep well, Fee,” he said, nodding and straightening from his place against the cupboard. “Sweet dreams.”
He chuckled as he made his way down the hall. Sweet dreams indeed.
CHAPTER 22
May Day dawned bright and warm, the slightest breeze stirring the still, soft leaves on the trees and setting the heads of cow parsley dancing at the edges of the lane. Having fed the animals and laid the table for dinner when they got home, Hannah, Bess, Ophelia, and Mrs. Darling dressed for the day. Ophelia was glad she had impulsively packed her favourite dress when she had left the estate. She had chosen it, a lifetime ago, for its delicate handwork; the botanical imagery in the lace detailing had always made her feel ethereal. The ankle-length skirt fell in tiny gathers from her waist to three bands of lace and embroidery at the hem. The puffed-sleeve top had a slightly outmoded silhouette, but she loved the pin tucks and the insertion lace that decorated the bodice. She extended her arm to admire the delicate balloon of batiste fastened at her wrist with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons. The whole thing was a frothy confection entirely different from the khaki uniform she now wore daily, and a reminder of the things she used to enjoy as a lady of leisure.
Getting dressed had been unexpectedly enjoyable, donning her prettiest shift and drawers, lacing herself into her good corset, remembering the delight of ribbons and silk against her skin. Surveying her reflection in the looking glass, she faced a woman with a tanned face, unbound hair, a straighter set to her shoulders. The fit of her dress was not quite right due to the leaner and broader figure her new muscles had given her, but Ophelia was enjoying the feel of her changing body too much to fuss about snugger shoulders or a looser waist. She felt the changes in her spirit, too, an easy anticipation of a simple day with her friends, not to mention spending all day with Silas. At Wood Grange, there had been so much leisure, so much time doing nothing that the teas and dinner parties had blended together into a blur of disinterest. Looking forward to the fete today was a real change from her working days. She fished a small reticule out of her top drawer, placed a few coins and a handkerchief inside, and headed downstairs to meet the others.
Hannah stood in the kitchen, the wing-like sleeves of her blue gingham dress swinging. Her hair was looped up into a graceful knot on top of her head and her narrow ankles were sharp in polished black boots. She leaned over the sink to scrub at her hands with the small brush and muttered, “I’ll never get all the stains from my fingers, but that’ll have to do for today.”
“Oh, Hannah, you look lovely! It’s going to be so much fun.”
“Indeed, ’twill be lovely to have a day with no thought of forage,” she said, smiling. “It’s been ages since I’ve been to a May Day celebration. When I was in service, the cook used to sometimes take us parlour maids to the fetes, and I always loved those days. Just to wander and look about . . .”
She let the rest of the sentence fade away, then moving quickly, she took up her shawl and held out her arm for Ophelia.
“Best get going then.”
Ophelia slid her arm through Hannah’s and they made their way down the hall to the kitchen door. Ophelia felt a thrill of nerves, excited by the prospect of the day out and the thought of spending more time with Silas. Her face heated when she let herself sink back into the memory of their kisses. She was slightly surprised to realise that the heat had nothing to do with shame or regret, but with a slow-burning desire to explore more, everything, with Silas. But she still couldn’t tease apart being together and being someone’s wife, someone’s property, and she had sworn to herself when she left the estate that she would never allow that to happen, never allow herself to be in a relationship like that of her father and mother’s.
All around her, she had seen evidence of the way women were expected to disappear into their marriages, abandon themselves for their husbands, and she knew that she could no longer ignore that prospect in her own life. So independence meant being alone; it had to, didn’t it? No matter how much she wanted Hannah’s words to be true, Ophelia feared they were not. Look at Mrs. Darling, Ophelia thought, she has run this farm on her own since her husband passed, and Hannah lives as she chooses exactly because she is unmarried. Even Bess, who longed for love, was considering how to balance her burgeoning career with marriage. It seemed obvious to Ophelia that if she and Silas continued to circle around each other, they would be forced to make some kind of decision. She didn’t want to become a mistress any more than a wife, but she wasn’t certain of any other options. Silas wasn’t conservative and could be considered a suffragist by any measure, but she knew that he held his parents’ marriage close to his heart, having grown up in the shelter of their love. He worried about the implications of an unconventional relationship, and she found herself wondering if there was any way to bridge this divide.
Hannah tugged at her arm, pulling her into the bright sunlit day. At the edge of the yard, next to the clump of volunteer hollyhocks, Bess swayed happily, the embroidered hem of her walking skirt swinging around her ankles.
“I never thought I’d miss wearing a dress and all the bits, but I have to say it’s lovely to be out of that uniform. Drab does nothing for my complexion,” she said, smile bright.
Ophelia laughed. “Lord, you’re so right, Bess. I feel stones lighter without my tunic and jacket. What a day we’ll have, dressed up with somewhere to go.”
“Somewhere, indeed,” said Hannah with a wry smile. “Funny that Banbury should feel like a destination all of a sudden when we see it all the time.”
“Oh, but being on our own time makes it all feel more celebratory, doesn’t it?” Bess said.
“It does indeed,” Mrs. Darling said, closing the door behind her and poking a hat pin through a wide-brimmed hat trimmed with velour and satin flowers and a faded ribbon. She swung a small basket onto her arm. “I want you all to have a lovely day and enjoy the break. We’ll be back in harness as soon as that wheel is repaired, so throw yourselves into the day with abandon.”
“Thanks, Mrs. D.,” said Bess. “And what a day we have, bluebird skies and everything!”
Her loose curls waving, Bess headed down the lane, Hannah in tow. Their voices floated above their heads as they disappeared down the dip in the lane.
Mrs. Darling called into the barn, “Mr. Larke! You joining us today?”
Nothing for a moment, and then Silas poked his head out, pulling on a light linen jacket, his hair, still damp, tucked behind his ears. He had shaved and wore a clean shirt in slightly better repair than his usual work shirt, and Ophelia caught her breath at the sharp, smooth line of his jaw and neck against the crisp white collar. Letting her eyes travel down, she noticed he was wearing trousers in a fine herringbone wool, grey on dark grey, and that he had polished the toes of his boots. Looking back up to his face, she saw him noticing her perusal. His mouth softened, and his eyes grew so dark Ophelia feared she would drown in their depths, but instead of speaking to her, he turned to Mrs. Darling.
“Pass inspection, ma’am?” he asked, clacking his heels together playfully and tugging at the lapels of his jacket.
Mrs. Darling laughed, a long, loud cackle ringing out on the cobblestones, and saluted him under the floppy brim of her hat.
“With flying colours, sir,” she said, smiling. “Now let’s be off. Mrs. Perkins’s sponge won’t last long with the vicar milling about, and then we’ll be left with those awful bricks Mrs. Oliver tries to pass off as biscuits.”
Ophelia laughed despite herself, and Silas gave her a broad wink behind Mrs. Darling’s back. He was so handsome she felt a bit fluttery in her stomach. Like some agrarian Apollo come to earth to celebrate a hedonistic day among the country folk. Self-conscious in the clothing she had not worn in so long, she smoothed down the pleats at her waist, straightening the embroidered lawn and fidgeting with the ribbon belt she had added at the last minute. Silas was suddenly in front of her and took her hand in his, his thumb rubbing in a gentle circle.
“You look so lovely, Fee . . . quite takes my breath away, you in that dress. Though, in truth I like your trousers a great deal,” he said, his voice rough as stone, dark as midnight.
“Thank you,” she rasped. “It’s strange to be back in these clothes. I’ve not worn a dress in so long now, it almost feels unnatural.” They both laughed at her word choice, and Ophelia thought of all the times she had heard and read men complaining about the “unnatural” suffragettes and WLA workers. It still rankled to be judged so weak-minded as to be corrupted by two columns of fabric.
“Looks perfectly natural,” Silas said. “I quite like the contrast, if I’m honest—knowing how you look in trousers makes it a little exciting to see you in skirts again.”
“Silas.” She actually giggled, impossibly charmed by his comment. “I was a little nervous to dress today . . . I thought that, well, you might prefer me like this, or maybe that I would prefer myself like this.” She felt nervous to admit this to him, to say aloud how much his opinion mattered, but she didn’t let herself look away.
He nodded, thoughtful for a moment. “I prefer you however you feel most yourself, Fee. You take my breath away in trousers . . . all that strength and capability.” She watched as two patches of pink rose on his cheeks. He swiped a hand through his hair, sending the strands into disarray. “Honestly, I feel the same about you in a dress. It’s not your clothing I care about, it’s you.”
She could feel her smile, giddy and wild, before she snapped her mouth shut, heat creeping up her neck and across her cheeks. She felt herself tilting toward him, a sunflower toward the sun, pulled ever closer by the charge between them, by his earnest desire to learn more and do better along with her. She wanted to pull him into her chest, to feel his arms around her, to press her mouth to his again, and it all made her feel wildly out of control, insufficiently serious about her desire for independence. Tension roiled in her stomach and she could feel Silas’s eyes upon her, the warm scrape of his callouses over the back of her hand, and all she wanted to think about was a whole day in his company, away from work and the worries of the farm. She didn’t know how to answer the sweetness of his words, so instead, she looked up at him and noticed how similar in height they were now that she wore her higher heeled boots. She could almost meet his eyes straight on, and she liked the sense of equality it gave her.
“It feels surprisingly luxurious to wear a dress again, though as Bess said, I didn’t really expect to miss it.” She fingered a sleeve and said, “The fabric feels lighter and softer than our uniform, but it feels strange to have my legs bare again.”
There was a noticeable pause as they both processed the image of her bare legs under the frothy lawn skirts of her dress. Silas made a choked sound in his throat and muttered, “Christ, Fee,” under his breath, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.
“Sorry, I didn’t—I only meant—”
“No, no, ’tisn’t you. I find myself drunk with you these days, hardly able to focus on anything else. You only spoke aloud what I was already contemplating in some detail.”
“Oh,” she said. Lord, was this to be her only reply to anything he said? She frowned, then said, “I see.”
“I’m not sure you do, Ophelia,” Silas countered. “Have you any idea how beautiful you are? Truly? How entirely distracting that cloud of embroidery and filmy fabric is on you? I pride myself on being a man capable of restraint, but now I know what it feels like to hold you in my arms, kiss you . . . and, well, my restraint is in what might generously be called tatters.”
She opened her mouth, felt at a complete loss for words as Silas’s admission swept through her, and closed it again. Her chest felt hollow and too tight at the same time, each breath dragged from deep within her. Silas extended his hand to her, a soft smile on his lips.
“Let’s go before Mrs. Darling comes back for us, or I find I can no longer resist you.”
Ophelia laughed and swatted at him, but slid her hand into his. They made their way down the lane toward the road in companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts, their palms pressed warmly together. The verge was lush, alive with nodding bluebells and delicate clusters of lady’s smock, and Ophelia felt sure she had never felt more alive, wandering along next to Silas. It felt completely right. Did she dare to dream of this for her future? She pushed away the worry and squeezed Silas’s hand. He squeezed gently back. They reached the bottom of the lane and turning out into the road, saw Mrs. Darling’s tall silhouette ahead of them in the distance.
Emerging from the dark of the barn into the bright sunlight of the May morning, all Silas had seen ahead of him was a halo of pale light, Ophelia at its centre. Now moving down the pebbled drive to the winding lane that led into town, Silas couldn’t totally remember what he had said to Ophelia once he had blinked her into focus. He glanced down at her now, her dark hair swept up into loose rolls looping away from her face, gathering in a soft cloud at the base of her neck, and found his throat tight with longing. She strode along beside him in a dress so fine it might have been made of cobwebs, the shiny toes of her good boots swinging into view with each step. She was slightly taller than usual, her shoulders only an inch or so below his own, so when she turned and caught his gaze he found himself close enough to see the marine blue of her eyes shot through with gold and grey. She blinked and the fan of her inky lashes gave a momentary reprieve. He tried to gather his thoughts to make conversation, but his mind refused to provide him with anything but images of Ophelia in this disastrous confection of a dress. The tissue-thin fabric clung to her curves emphasising the swell of her breasts, the easy glide of her waist into ample hips. He noticed that it was a little snug around her biceps and recalled with pleasure the muscles he had felt flexing under her skin when they kissed. Her shoulders were broader, and she held them more confidently, straight and powerful, even as she looked shyly at him, so many questions in her eyes.
He couldn’t remember ever noticing so many things about a woman’s dress before; the way the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons caged Ophelia’s slender wrists, or the way the blue satin ribbon she had tied at her waist had him thinking of positively bone-melting things he could do with it, or the way the high collar ran all the way up her graceful neck highlighting the freckles that ran across her cheeks and disappeared into the prim, lacy fabric at her throat. He felt entirely unmanned by the vision of Ophelia in a dress now that he had seen the outline of her legs in breeches every day and could imagine their naked contours under the thin layers of linen and lace. He wondered if it had been wise to let Mrs. Darling start off ahead of them, leaving him stranded like a sailor before his own personal siren. He focused on the feel of her hand in his, grasping for a foothold, like a drowning man at sea. Don’t maul her like an animal, Larke. She deserves better than a mangled wreck like you, still haunted by the war, casting about for a purpose. But he couldn’t make himself listen. He wanted to be certain she was real and not his most fevered fantasy come to life. Her skin was warm under his thumb, and he felt the pulse at her wrist fluttering unsteadily against his fingertips. And when he told her that she was beautiful, a vision in both dress and trousers it was because he could not yet say the words that were in his heart, the truth. That he was already half in love with her, that he could think of nothing but her lips on his, that he felt at the end of every rope he used to keep himself bound to his better nature, that every moment away from her felt like a lifetime.
Before he could blurt out any of his ill-advised thoughts, he tugged her along the lane, following the others as they made their way to the fair. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he caught a ghost of disappointment flit across Ophelia’s face, but then it was gone and she fell into step beside him. The warm glide of her palm against his was wonderful, and though their hands were both a little rough from the farm work, he loved that Ophelia’s smaller, fine-boned hand fit perfectly into his larger one.
