And what would have become of us then?
But I couldn’t look away, and I watched in surprise as the clergyman face drained from his body, to be replaced by an aching tiredness.
As much as I couldn’t resist looking, now I couldn’t resist coming in the door. He heard me coming, and I saw him smile tiredly at me.
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Collins, I didn’t hear you there. How are you doing? What a magnificent creation of a cap you are wearing!”
“Oh, William!” I said impulsively. “You don’t have to pretend with me. This is a horrid cap, and I’m only wearing it because it was a gift from Miss de Bourgh! You look tired. Was Mrs. Thornton so awful today?”
“Certainly she has a remarkable amount of agility and vigor for a woman of her age,” he acknowledged.
“Was she after you again about your sermons?” I asked, feeling annoyed.
“She did rather mention that my sermons occasionally have moments of levity,” he admitted. “And she did expand on the topic, saying levity has no place in either a clergyman’s sermons or his heart.”
“Pay her no mind!” I said, impulsively, moving to stand in front of him.
I put my hands on his shoulders. They felt so broad and thickly muscled under my hand. One of his big hands came up to gently take mine, and I felt my heart begin to beat faster.
I didn’t really know how to seduce my husband, and I definitely didn’t know how to seduce him on a Thursday, a day that Lady Catherine had declared should be “wholly free from all fleshly activities.”
I felt so nervous that I turned and would have gone away, but then his big hand gave mine a quick, comforting squeeze.
I looked into his eyes, and suddenly I wasn’t sure that he would be difficult to seduce after all.
Impulsively, in a movement wholly unlike my usual deliberation, I bent down and kissed him.
He kissed me back eagerly, and I shivered as his big hand, the tips rough with his gardening work, went around the back of my neck to pull me closer to him.
Suddenly it seemed wholly natural that I should be sitting on his lap, and he should be tearing off my cap to tangle his fingers in my thick hair, his other hand wrapped snugly around my waist.
I felt a strange wild fire sear through me, my husband’s kiss making me feel strangely warm despite how cool his hands were.
He was kissing me so thoroughly that I felt a little dizzy at the feeling of his hands on me. He was making low noises of a most unclergyman-like nature, too, and I felt suddenly bashful. It was almost like he found kissing me to be the most enjoyable activity imaginable.
I had a sudden, wild thought.
Even though it was not the day for marital activities, would he want them?
I felt a thick length that I knew was my husband’s underneath me. I had never felt it from this position before, Lady Catherine having deemed that all other positions besides flat on my back were suspiciously unchristian.
Therewas something almost. . .wicked-feeling about the position. It felt almost indecently pleasurable, my body grinding down on his.
But I liked it.
There was a moment when his hips lifted up in the air, and I gasped aloud.
And then there was a brisk, ringing knock on the door, and it was Cook’s assistant, wanting to know if we were ready to eat.
I climbed off my husband’s lap in some confusion, and I heard his heavy breaths.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. I know it is not healthful today. My apologies, my dear.”
“It is fine,” I said in a small voice, so quiet I wasn’t sure if he heard me. But he was master of himself again, and he swept meinto dinner and he firmly adhered to Lady Catherine’s precepts on health for the rest of the night.
7
“Husbands and wives should spend time together, within reason.”
