Pam Rosenthal - The Slightest Provocation

“But there’s nothing in our homely British Isles like the Colosseum at twilight. In Rome, you know.”

“Yes, I imagined you must mean the Colosseum in Rome.”

“When I was there,” he told her, “I caught a glimpse of Lord Byron, silhouetted against the pillars. I recognized him immediately, even from a distance, and hurried to pay him my regards and to invite him to dine with me. Very decent he was too, very apologetic that he’d be leaving in just two hours.”

As Byron often did when confronted with eager young devotees. Unless, of course, he was particularly strapped for pocket cash, and in need of a good dinner.

“A pity he couldn’t stay,” she murmured.

“I’d wanted his opinion on some little scribbles of my own.”

Even if penniless and ravenous, Byron would be off when the devotee was a would-be poet .

“Still, he thought we might well bump into one another again. And more than once-after that… do you know, Lady Christopher, that we almost did bump into each other again? Several times, at some particularly poetical venue, I’d arrive to find that he’d just departed-well, the demands upon his time, you know, the exacting standards that genius must answer to…”

The important thing at this moment was how to turn the conversation, or she’d be in for a look at those scribbles herself. Luckily, her bootlace had come loose. She bent, with a tiny sigh, to tie it.

“But you’re tired from your ramble. Would you like to ride up to the house? I could lead you back.”

Which was generous and even rather charming of him, if a bit excessively picturesque. And if Elizabeth’s antiquated relative were to show a bit too much ankle, perched up on his saddle, she couldn’t imagine any harm in it.

“Yes, thank you,” she told him. And he led her back to what turned out to be an excellent dinner-a fine sensible English version, in fact, of the marinated capon dish.

After which she was happy to retire early.

To hum carelessly, as Peggy wrestled unhappily with her stays-for the knot Kit had tied could evidently have held down the rigging of a warship.

And, “No, nothing tonight. I think I’ll sleep quite well without it.”

He’d stayed behind to watch her walk down the footpath. And then to fiddle with his neckcloth, straining to catch his reflection in a windowpane.

She was right. Delicious as the day had been, they wouldn’t be able to continue in this way. Yes, they still enjoyed pretend fancies-and he’d already had some thoughts about the “contrivance” he’d be working up for their next time together.

But he also very much wanted to tell and ask her things. Real things. Trivial things. Cisterns. In the army, he’d known a chap who was an engineer. Interesting to try to explain it to her, though; all quite new.

Was that what happened when you grew up, made a place in the world for yourself?

Years ago when there’d been no other place for them, they’d found each other here in the cottage, away from the world’s gossip, petty rivalries, minor and not so minor injustices. Curious and alert, ignorant and volatile, they’d made a place for themselves where no one knew where to find them. Running, rambling, wrestling-touching, kissing, making love-fleet and changeable as the woodland creatures in the myths.

What, who, were they now?

He shrugged. Time to be getting back; he patted at his waistcoat pockets to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind.

His watch. No longer on the table where he’d left it. Must have gotten knocked off, rolled behind the book that had been peeking out from under the bed. He retrieved the watch and the book too. All the creatures of myth and legend, bound up in a witty, powerful, and thoughtful volume.

Mildewed almost to a brick. But when he did get it open, it opened to the very page.

They’d gotten quite proficient at kissing by that time. Kissing, and in truth, some other things as well. They weren’t children anymore.

Weren’t adults yet either. He needed to make something happen, and so he’d come here early, set the book out on the table.

“Hullo,” she’d said. “Been busy?”

He’d shrugged. “Rather. Bit of a problem with my Latin.”

“Let me see.”

The Tiresius story begins, as Ovid begins so many of his stories, with the gods at celebration. Jupiter is rather in his cups, jesting with his wife, Juno, as to whether…

“But you can construe this perfectly well, Kit. You know that what he’s asking is whether a man or woman gets more pleasure …” Her voice had trailed off.

“You were saying?”

“Voluptus… from making love.”

He’d tricked her into saying it.

“We shouldn’t be talking of such things,” she’d said, even while she’d allowed her wrist to be caught and immobilized.

They’d shared a level, if frightened, stare.

“Yes,” he’d said. “We should. We need to. And to do more than talk. About such things.”

And now, today, it seemed they’d come full circle. Now it was time to talk of everything else.

Her plan had been to get to the cottage before him. To have a calm, uninterrupted time while she made her indispensable preparations (indispensable, at least, to an “eddicated lady” who wasn’t about to risk a pregnancy).

But first she’d needed to run down to the kitchen-and on the way she’d overheard a conversation that she’d have to consider at her leisure. After which Jessica wanted her opinion on a few additional candidates for the cistern committee, and Lord Ayres needed a book from her father’s library. And, of course, neither of them would have found it very convincing that she must hurry off immediately on a ramble in the forest.

And so she made her preparations in her dressing room at home-sponge doused in the vinegar solution and pushed up inside her as Jessica had taught her so many years ago. She was always careful about this (though she couldn’t deny that she’d also been very lucky). Important, indispensable, she repeated to herself, as she hurried through the little ritual.

No surprise, then, that she got to the cottage ten minutes late, and a not a little out of breath.

“Kit?”

A nervous quiver started up in her belly. Couldn’t he have waited? Or hadn’t he come at all? Perhaps he’d simply decided to give the whole thing up. Well, he had every right… She should check to see if there was a note on the table…

No doubt it was her nervousness-if not the fact that she was still trying to catch her breath-that had prevented her from considering if he might be holding himself still behind the door she’d opened. Nor had she heard a squeak of hinges or an intake of breath as he tiptoed out to grasp her from behind.

Shouting OH-HOH.

Or what-ho or ahoy.

Or some ridiculous thing a child might imagine that sailors or pirates were wont to cry out-he sang it out into her ear as he caught hold of her arms and bent them behind her waist.

Binding her wrists together-quickly, deftly, taking advantage of her surprise.

She laughed out loud at the broad, crude silliness of it. Though in truth, he hadn’t tied her so crudely as all that, her hands were immobilized. He’d used his neckcloth. The linen chafed against her wrists. Her only feeble recourse was to kick her feet when he picked her up and carried her the few steps to the bed. Oh, and to bite at his neck where the shirt was open, before he dropped her onto the mattress and climbed onto the bed to straddle her.