In present day, Mischa and Perch seemed to try to spend most nights seeing if they could be louder than the previous night. Helena may have been more ladylike, but she too was in the clutches of her own affair. I walked across the landing to the dormitory one night and found Thatcher cradling her face and begging her to come share his bed. I hid in the stairwell to avoid her seeing me see her put up little protest. Catrin reported daily that Peregrine visited his mother. I suspected he had not been so dutiful of a son before our friend became his mother’s lady. River had convinced Quinn to hold her hand in front of others and Quinn even allowed her to kiss her on the cheek one evening. This last pairing was hard for which to hold jealousy. Seeing Quinn at peace melted my heart.
Only my darling Maureen seemed immune to lovesickness or sex.
But, halfway through that fall, proof of my husband’s bodily desire for me was handed to me in the form of my shameless eavesdropping. One morning, before the sun had fully made itself known, I woke. Thinking Alric had to already be gone, I rolled towards the center of the bed to splay my limbs out. My husband was not only still in bed, he was in the middle. My rolling into his frame woke him and he put his hands out defensively as I tried to pull away. His right hand fell on my breast which was nearly out of my nightgown. Against my hip, I felt his hardness. For a beat, we both froze and together, we pulled away from the other.
“I am sorry,” he said, his voice full of formality.
“Well, that was bound to happen,” I said, shocked at the lightness in my tone.
He repeated that he was sorry, got out of bed, pulled on his clothes and left.
I stood up from the covers and went to the desk, pulling out the drawer for the skeleton key. I pulled my teal dress over my nightgown, gathering up a shift and stays and moved to open to the door, seeking the peace of Gareth’s bath, when it swung inward, almost hitting me.
Alric stood in the doorframe looking at me.
“You forget to knock more and more,” I teased.
His voice came out strangled. “I came for the skeleton key.”
“Oh,” I said, holding it up. “I did not feel like conversation with other women this morning. But you take it.” I held it out to him.
“No need,” he said gruffly, spinning and taking the stairs downward with speed.
I made my way down to our private bath and wondered if his morning’s hardness was simply male or meant for me. I chided myself for this. I had to put it out of my mind.
And then as I began to lather up the soap, through the wall that bordered the men’s baths, I heard my husband say,“for gods’ sake, I just want to be alone in here.”
“He’s jerking off,” said Perch’s voice. Thatcher laughed. The splash of bodies moving through water echoed through to me.
“He doesn’t like to jerk off in the privy. He thinks it’s too dirty,” Thatcher said.
Perch made a hmm noise and then said, "He’s precise about everything else, so why wouldn’t he be precise about where he gets hard?”
Thatcher replied, “I think if he were being especially precise as to the whereabouts of his prick, he would like to be hard inside his wi—”
“Can you please not subject me to your animalism?” said Alric.
There was the sounds of them washing, the swish of the water on stone and flesh.
“I think, brother,” said Thatcher, “you got used to your lady wife being gone and being all alone and being able to jerk off to her in your bed, with her scent all over your sheets—”
“Gods, Thatcher,” said my husband, his exasperation seeping through.
“That’s why he is in here so early,” said Perch. “To jerk off before everyone else wakes. Clever, actually.”
“Are those two words the only ones you know?”
Laughing, Thatcher said, “He gets condescending when he’s not had a good jerk.”
“Why are the two of you here so early?” my husband asked.
“I like to leave my bride alone in my room,” said Thatcher. “Soon she will see it as her own.”
“Mischa kicked me out of bed,” said Perch. “I don’t know what I did to upset her.”
I snickered to myself.
“You do seem to piss her off more often than not,” said Thatcher.
