Pam Rosenthal - The Slightest Provocation

She hadn’t been eager to have a guest before they’d gotten the furniture in proper order (though in truth, they never really got the furniture in order). But Richard professed to find it refreshingly informal. He brought a Meissen clock for the mantelpiece, played with their dog, praised the turtle soup, and in all ways made them feel quite the clever pair for having run away together.

He’d shared his reminiscences as well. Lord Kit had gathered a certain notoriety at school, Richard said, for never crying when he was caned-and given how many times he’d been caned… well, he must have set some sort of record, for the lower forms anyway. And so I was obliged to make him my fag, send him on errands and so forth, just to keep him out of the way of fighting and mischief.

Kit had bowed modestly, and Richard had winked. He’s good at errands, he said; don’t hesitate to set him fetching and carrying, Mary. And who would have expected-he raised his glass, sentimental or perhaps just tipsy-that such a skinny, scrappy little chap would go get himself such a trump of a wife.

After which the three of them were often seen in town together. A bit timid with members of the opposite sex, Richard hadn’t seemed to mind when Mary and Kit would begin making eyes at each other around three in the morning, to disappear soon after. Anyway, he’d soon be going home to Yorkshire, to become squire and magistrate, master of the hunt, and husband to the nice enough young woman everyone expected him to marry.

It hadn’t worked out that way. Aimlessly at first, he’d begun a course of reading, his lodgings cluttered and later choked with pamphlets and periodicals from obscure bookshops, broadsheets picked up along the street.

Well, one can’t play and carouse all the time, can one? he’d asked.

One can try, Kit had said, drawing Mary closer to him. She laughed and kissed his cheek, and Richard had laughed too.

No, really, Kit had insisted. Better to carouse than bury one’s nose in poisonous screeds that wish you and me and our families dead or at least starving.

Why not?

In his modest way, Richard had been remarkably logical-minded. If you were going to frequent dangerous neighborhoods in the hours before dawn, he asked, why not also entertain some dangerous ideas? As for reading, best to try something that would shake you up a bit, make you think about your place in the world and how others saw you.

Which is all very well for Richard, Kit had commented to Mary later that evening. Because Richard’s never felt a moment’s real doubt about anything.

How somber he’d looked. When just a moment before he’d been so charming, pulling off her stocking with his teeth and running his tongue from her knee to her instep; it was all she could do not to nudge his head back downward.

But no matter how seductively she kissed, stroked, and nuzzled at him, her senses heightened but also befuddled by the opium they’d been eating-it seemed that he would talk, about the things nobody talked about.

He’d stared into space. Richard, he said, has never had to wonder about himself or his origins, or… anything.

His place in the world, he’d added, in a very low voice.

It doesn’t matter, she might have replied.

She might have winced, with the guilty knowledge that marrying her hadn’t done much for his place in the world. Or perhaps she’d laughed. Isn’t the world agreeable enough? You’ve got the Stansell name, there’s plenty of money settled on us, and you’ve got me wanting you, at this very moment, more than I can fairly stand.

But most likely she’d made a small moue of impatient desire.

The opium set a strict order to one’s wants. And uppermost among hers right then had been the absolute necessity that he remove her other stocking, the pink silk being so constricting against her skin and the color so… well, so jarring and out of place against the more subtle and gorgeous hues of his and her naked flesh in the lamplight, the stocking being the only item of clothing either of them was wearing at the moment.

Please, darling?

And so he’d shrugged, dipped his head downward, and proceeded with the serious business of making elegant, complicated love to his very demanding wife.

Even as Richard continued scandalizing his fellows at White’s with dangerous ideas. Pamphlets gave way to slender and then thicker books; he allowed his club membership to lapse at the time (as he confessed much later) he’d come to fancy himself in love with Mary.

Which also had been when Kit had almost stopped coming home at night, and Mary became quite frantic and in need of all the attention and affection she could get.

What a relief, she’d thought, to have Richard to pour out her rages and fears to. What a comfort to confide in someone who knew Kit as well as she did.

And what a pleasure that there was someone who obviously still found her pretty. For she was only twenty-one and she was still pretty, even if her bloody damn husband preferred to spend his nights with garishly painted doxies and had got a nasty inflammation for his troubles.

Could it really be taking such a long time to heal?

She’d wept and wailed, drenching her handkerchief and quite ruining Richard’s coat, her head against his shoulder and the rest of her body shuddering in his arms.

Until her sobs subsided, and he and she drew back to opposite ends of the settee, each staring at the other as they smoothed hair and straightened disordered garments.

Richard didn’t call for the week after that. Good, she thought, for she wouldn’t be inviting him. Even better if she took a holiday. She’d go to Glasgow as soon as her nephews got over whatever illness Julia had written was keeping them bedridden and wrapped in flannel this time.

She congratulated herself upon these excellent resolutions until the day when Kit didn’t come home at all. Half past one in the afternoon: she’d been weeping and wringing her hands since shortly after midnight.

No use continuing to agonize over his safety. He was probably passed out in a gutter somewhere-or sleeping off his inebriation in the arms of… but even thinking the name of his soi-disant actress felt like grasping a fistful of nettles.

Kit deserved to feel as miserable as she did. Not that he actually would be hurt; well, how could he be? He was never home anymore. And not that she’d want to hurt him-but if he did saunter in, well, she’d like to see the look on his face when he saw what she was capable of, in her own bed and with someone who admired and appreciated her.

Though of course she hadn’t liked it at all when, in the way of a folk tale’s wishes coming horribly, literally true, he’d strolled upstairs with torn coat, dirty, grinning face, and scuffed boots. She could remember all too well his words in the hall as he’d approached, “And so I says, ‘Please, sir…’ ” doubtless the beginning of a wickedly entertaining tale of fisticuffs and night wardens, just before he reached the bedroom door and did, indeed, get his eyeful of what she was capable of.

Even now, she could hardly bear the memory of how his words and grin had melted away, mouth fallen open, unshaven cheeks caved in and red-rimmed eyes like ice, before he stumbled backward and disappeared from her sight, and she began pushing at Richard and screaming and pleading for Kit to come back.

She could summon up Richard’s image with equal clarity; how young, how pale and frightened he’d looked without his shirt and neckcloth. But they’d all been young, at least until that moment. It rather robs you of your first youth, to comprehend how cruel it is to use someone you don’t love, to take revenge on someone you do.