Beth raises her glass and then takes a sip, letting the fizz of the bubbles against her palate attempt to ground her back to earth. Her mother is making eyes at Lord Havenfort and he’s turning his head to mumble in her ear, like they’re—
“Going rather well, isn’t it?” Gwen whispers.
Her breath against Beth’s ear makes her shiver. “Yes,” she manages.
This is what they’ve wanted, and it’s—it’s like it’s working.
She puts her glass down shakily. Gwen seems to relax beside her, her hand landing on the bench seat between them. Beth can feel the delicate weight of it against her skirts—the lightest pull of fabric. She could so easily reach down and touch Gwen’s hand—hold it, even, and who would know?
She thinks Gwen would like that too—thinks about all the times they’ve held hands in the past weeks—of the way it always made her feel safe and just a bit tingly and she never put it together. She could feel like that now if she just—
Mr. Wilton appears from the kitchen with a frankly enormous platter, placing it down onto their table with a flourish. All thoughts of illicit touches fly out of Beth’s head as she stares down at the excessive spread. Crab and shrimp and toast points. Tureens of sauce. Skewers of cheese. And what must be oysters there all around the edges, swimming in butters and sauces and brines.
Mr. Wilton spends a few minutes explaining each dish, but Beth can’t quite keep up. They’ve been eating mostly vegetables and soup with lean meats, and now here’s a platter of abundance just for them. She’s salivating.
“Beth?” Gwen asks.
Beth blinks. Mr. Wilton has left them and Lord Havenfort and Mother are already taking their first samples.
“I... don’t know what to try first,” Beth admits softly, overwhelmed by all of it.
Gwen smiles. “Oysters first, then we’ll do crab. Ooh, gosh, Father, did he say that was caviar?”
“It is,” Lord Havenfort says around a mouthful of something. Mother whacks him and Beth laughs, coming back to herself.
“Which kind is best?” she asks Gwen, gesturing to the oysters.
“Try the garlic butter first,” Gwen says, reaching out to daintily pluck one of the dripping oysters, offering it to Beth.
Their fingers brush as Gwen passes her the oyster and Beth nearly fumbles it into her lap, her cheeks flaming. But Gwen only smiles, reaching out for her own oyster, and Beth forcesherself to focus. She needs to observe, since she doesn’t know how to eat it. Do they really just—
She swallows hard as Gwen slurps her oyster from its shell, tipping her head back to get the rest of the sauce. The bob of her throat and the line of her neck and the way her tongue snakes out to rim her lips—dear God, that was perhaps the most arousing thing Beth’s ever seen.
“Go on,” Gwen says, laughing softly.
Beth shakes herself and tries to sip her oyster as gracefully as Gwen managed. It’s a bright pop of salt and brine and the tang of the garlic. Slightly slimy but pleasant all at once, it bursts in her mouth and glides down her throat. She hums, delighted.
She opens her eyes and finds Gwen staring at her, flushed, eyes wide. Beth smiles, surprised. It sends a surge of something through her to know Gwen’s as undone by all of this as she is.
It wasn’t an aberration, a champagne-fueled mistake. Gwen wants her, just as much as Beth wants her back.
Her mother groans and Beth drags her gaze away from Gwen to find Lord Havenfort feeding her mother an oyster, both of them looking rather heated.
Is this some kind of illicit adult pleasure she’s never heard of before—feeding oysters to a—what, exactly? What are they all to each other now?
“Good?” Gwen asks, her voice tight and low.
“Ye-es,” Beth says, blinking and looking away from their parents. It feels like she’s intruding somehow.
And yet, she suddenly, desperately wants to feed Gwen an oyster. It’s improper for Lord Havenfort to do it for her mother; it would be beyond scandalous for Beth to do that with Gwen. But shewantsto.
She wants to spoil and savor and touch and kiss and dote on Gwen the way she sees Lord Havenfort doing for her mother. She wants tobewith Gwen, in all ways. Slurping oysters, and exchanging kisses, and going on walks, and reading quietly in the library. Just—living with her.
The thought is big and bright and broad and Beth reaches out mechanically for another oyster, wanting the sensation of it to wash away the burning desire to haul Gwen into the back and kiss her senseless.
It sort of works. The salty brine chased by a horseradish reduction certainly brings her back to the current moment. And then she and Gwen are tasting all the options. She’s trying caviar for the first time, in its bursting brine with smooth goat cheese on a toast point. She’s cracking crab clumsily while Mother, Lord Havenfort, and Gwen seem to do it with poise. But she doesn’t care. She’s swimming in butter and laughter and lust, and if she could stay right here forever, she just might.
Her mother giggles at something Lord Havenfort whispers in her ear. The four of them clustered around oysters is the happiest she’s seen her mother in—long enough it would be sad to consider too closely.
