“Is this what the jungle is like?” Charlotte asked, her voice a solemn whisper. She had been in orangeries before, but they had always been tidy, organized affairs. This was a jumble of fronds and posies spilling everywhere.
“A fairy-tale version.” Matthew’s quiet words danced across Charlotte’s heated skin, and she could not stop the shiver. The movement caused Banshee to cling tighter to her as the capuchin stared with deep, bottomless eyes at her surroundings. The fur on her cheeks bristled in anticipation, trepidation, or perhaps both.
“You look as nervous as Banshee,” Matthew said. “Do not fret. Banshee might take a bit to adjust, but she will love it here.”
Charlotte did not wish to admit that it was an altogetherdifferent emotion that had triggered her quiver. Instead, she distracted herself by turning toward a wooden, lattice-like screen that walled off a substantial chunk of the room.
“The monkeys’ portion of the hothouse?” Charlotte asked as she began walking over to the divider. Banshee, however, objected with a shriek. Clearly, the capuchin did not want to go any closer to her new companions. At least not yet.
“Aye,” Matthew said. “That partition is permanent. The one that the lads erected in the outdoor cage is only temporary.”
Matthew reached for Banshee, and the capuchin screamed with a range impressive enough to make an opera singer absolutely green with jealousy. How the creature managed such a piercingly loud sound with such a tiny body, Charlotte had no idea.
Matthew took a step backward, but still Banshee howled. Charlotte reached up to pet her, but the monkey shrank away. With a show of teeth, she nimbly scaled Charlotte’s head as if ascending a tree. Howling the entire time, she settled on the crown of the shepherdess hat.
Charlotte helplessly lifted her hands to her ears, but that did little to block the earsplitting stream of complaints. Over the indignant cries, Charlotte shouted, “Is there a way to calm her?”
The question caused Matthew to turn a deep shade of red. He nodded reluctantly. “Aye. There is.”
“What?” Charlotte asked desperately as Banshee began to jump in a tight circle. Although Charlotte could not hear the straw crackling over the shrieks, bits of it dug into her scalp.
“It is a, er, a song.” Matthew shuffled his feet sheepishly.
“Then sing it!” Charlotte demanded as golden flecks cascaded from her brim.
“It is, well, rather inappropriate, given the current company. It was sung by her former owner who was an old salt…”
“There is a monkey destroying my hat and possibly my hearing. I do not believe we need to concern ourselves with propriety.”
“Very well,” Matthew said. Then he paused, swallowed, and paused again.
“Go on.” Charlotte fluttered her hands.
Matthew spluttered out a sound that seemed somewhere between a choke and a groan. Then in a smooth, almost tender baritone, he began to croon one of the bawdiest ditties that Charlotte had ever heard—not that she had listened to many. They weren’t exactly staples in the musicales that she attended.
“A lusty young smith at his vice stood a-filing, With a rub rub rub, rub rub rub, in and out, in and out, ho!” Matthew intoned. “When to him a buxom young damsel came smiling, And asked if to work at her forge he would go…”
Banshee, however, continued to screech. When Matthew reached the second “With a rub rub rub, rub rub rub, in and out, in and out, ho!” Banshee finally lowered the volume of her yowls but only by a mere fraction. Instead of jumping frightfully in a circle, Banshee’s feet now landed on Charlotte’s head in a distinct pattern… a pattern that mimicked the tune.
“Why isn’t it working properly?” Charlotte asked, barely listening to the words as a small foot broke through the bergère’s wide brim before the appendage disappeared back up the hole it had created.
“I don’t know,” Matthew said, his voice a bit strained. Red stained every visible inch of his upper body, reaching his hairline and disappearing into his cravat.
“Do you think I should try to sing it with you?” Charlotte called over Banshee’s yowls.
“Ergh” was the only response she received from Matthew.
For the first time, Charlotte began to pay close attention to thelyrics. When Matthew sang about, “Red hot grew his iron, as both did desire,” she suddenly understood exactly what “iron” the song was referring to, and it wasn’t metal that the smithy was working with. The realization made her want to giggle.
When she joined Matthew singing the repetitive verse—“With a rub rub rub, rub rub rub, in and out, in and out, ho!”—she could barely stop her laughter from bubbling out too. This was the song that calmed Banshee? No wonder poor Matthew had turned the color of a scarlet ruby.
Unfortunately, the entire next stanza spoke of nothing but the blacksmith’s vigorous and apparently prodigious “iron.” As poor Matthew sang, “Six times did his iron, by vigorous heating, grow soft in the forge in a minute, a minute or so. As often, ’twas hardened, still beating and beating, but the more it was softened, it hardened more slow,” Charlotte kept snickering. Even Matthew’s voice began to quake with mirth, but somehow, they both managed to sing “rub rub rub” without losing the rather salaciously suggestive rhythm.
Matthew began the ditty anew, and Banshee finally started to calm. Charlotte, however, felt enlivened. Mirth and something even sweeter and fierier burst through her very veins. In the middle of the next stanza, Matthew lifted Banshee from Charlotte’s hat. His chest brushed against Charlotte’s breasts just when they reached the line about, “They stripped to go to’t, ’twas hot work and hot weather, she kindled a fire and soon made him blow…”
Matthew’s voice cracked, and Charlotte’s went high, but they did not miss a single word, even if a few of Charlotte’s warbles ended with a snort or two, or three. While they both continued to croon, Matthew placed Banshee in the crook of one of the exotic trees. The capuchin hugged the trunk and watched them with bright black eyes. Whenever either of them tried to step back, she shrieked.
So Matthew and Charlotte stood shoulder to shoulder singing in the middle of the lush orangery about an enthusiastically copulating couple. Amid Charlotte’s giggles, another sensation percolated, filling her with something she could only describe as an urge. It left her prickly and wanting more, craving more.
