Anna Godbersen: The Luxe

“I didn’t think you’d come, to be honest. I mean, given that the only good thing about me is my greenhouse,” Henry teased her, and Diana was reminded of how different he’d seemed when she had furiously uttered that phrase. “I thought you’d want to come, but ”

“But you didn’t think I’d find a way? I’m a crafty girl, Henry.” She gave him a wink, and he smiled in return. Neither of them could seem to stop smiling. She pushed the hood of her cape back now and waited for him to take it off. He did, after a minute, unbuttoning it at the neck first and then lower down, until she was standing there in the simple dotted navy batiste dress that she had chosen so that, if she were caught, she wouldn’t look like she was going anywhere.

“I’m glad you are.” He gazed at her appreciatively until she began to blush. He put his fingers to the neckline of the dress, where the little white buttons began. She felt her blood rush to that tender spot.

“I didn’t want to be nicely dressed in case of ”

Henry stopped her with a long kiss on the mouth. His arms reached around her and brought her close, so that her body was pressed against his. She was exquisitely aware of the pressure of his palm against her back. The kiss was moist and it had its own rhythm and it lasted and lasted. She feared the flutters it was giving her might be too much for her untried little heart. When he pulled back, she saw that Henry was grinning, but there was a new softness to the curl in his lips.

He took the top button between his fingers and twisted it. Diana felt her chest rise and fall, and then he pushed the button out of its loop. He unbuttoned the next one and the next, all the way down her torso. The bodice of her dress fell around her waist revealing the sheer, ruched chemise below. She pressed her lips together in the hope that that would calm her restless breathing. Henry kept his eyes on her as he pushed the dress off her waist. It fell to her ankles, and she was left standing, in the middle of a greenhouse, in nothing but her underclothes.

She tilted back her head and let a sparkle cross her dewy, dark eyes. “So you lured me here to ruin me?” Her voice seemed to have grown husky in a matter of seconds.

Henry kissed her neck, on the opposite side from where he had yesterday, and then loosened his grip on her. “No, I promise I won’t do that,” he said. Diana tried not to look disappointed as he fell back on the bed and folded his arms behind his head to make a pillow. He was wearing a pale yellow button-down shirt, and he looked long and slender against the bed. “I lured you here so that you could ask me all those questions you tried to ask me the first time we met. Any question at all, and I swear to answer honestly.”

Henry gave her one of those winks that made her heart slow and warm again, and she felt relieved, just a little bit, that she wouldn’t have to do that thing she was always thinking about. Not yet, anyway. “Anything?” she asked, sitting down on the bed next to him.

“Anything you want.” He reached over to the bedside table, pulled a cigarette from the small gold case there, and lit it.

She took Henry’s cigarette from him, dragged on it, and then handed it back. Her eyes wandered up to the ceiling as she exhaled, and glittered when they fell back on him. “All right…if it’s really anything …then tell me what you think of me.”

Henry chuckled and took a thoughtful drag. “I think that you are the most naturally lovely girl I have ever seen. When you get that mischievous look about you, I want to know exactly what is going through your head, and then I want to plot something devious with you. I like the funny little way you walk and the way you seem always to be too big for the room you are in.” Diana took a deep breath of warm, earthy air to slow her breathing. “To put it succinctly, Miss Diana” he took her hand and kissed it “you are more alive than anyone I know.”

Diana bit her lower lip and felt the blood rising to her cheeks. “I like this game,” she whispered.

“I could go on complimenting you all night, but you’d get bored of it quickly. Ask me another one.”

“Have you really broken as many hearts as they say?” Diana was conscious of the strap of her chemise slipping down her white shoulder, but she didn’t do anything to stop it.

“I have broken hearts, but not nearly as many as they say.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Yes,” Henry said firmly, looking almost pained. “Once.”

“Who was she?”

“Now here is where you must promise not to repeat what I am about to tell you.”

Diana took in an excited breath, and then lay down, so that she was on her side facing Henry, her head propped against her fist. “I promise.”

“She was a daughter of New York like you, and her maiden name was Paulette Riggs, but when I knew her she was already Lady Deerfield.”

“Paulette Riggs! She’s nearly thirty ,” Diana couldn’t help but exclaim. “And married to a lord .”

“I know.” Henry laughed wistfully. He lifted his hand and maneuvered it deftly under her chemise to the rise of Diana’s thigh. “But I was eighteen and she was the most worldly thing I had ever seen. She spent that season in Newport, because her father was ill that year, and Lord Deerfield went off on so many hunting trips that I suppose she got lonely.”

“How did it end?”

“Badly.” Henry sighed, and let his fingertips press into the flesh of her leg. “She just tired of me after a while, and I of course kept on writing her letters and trying to arrange meetings like a real ass.”

“Do you ever miss her?” Diana was a little frightened to know that this woman, who she remembered as having very white skin and very red lips and carrying herself like royalty, had once been Henry’s lover. But of course she still wanted to know everything about it.

“Not anymore. Seems like a long time ago, now. She had a way of looking at me, with those moody eyes…sort of like you, actually. But no. I stopped missing her a good while ago now.”

“And she was the only one you have ever been in love with?”

Henry nodded, and drew his hand back and forth along Diana’s thigh.

“How many have you… loved ?” Diana fixed her eyes on him, even through her embarrassment. He seemed to be smiling faintly at her lack of vocabulary.

Henry paused, whether to count or to reconsider his promise to answer anything she wasn’t sure. “Five,” he said at last.

“Were they all married to English lords?”

“No! Nor were they all well-brought-up girls like you. But I had good times with each of them.”

“And who was the last girl to be loved by Henry Schoonmaker?”

Henry shifted, bringing himself up to rest on his elbows and bringing his hand away from her thigh. He met Diana’s face, and he worked his lips in agitation.

“You said anything!” she exclaimed, and wondered whose name could give him such pause.

He would not meet Diana’s eyes as he pronounced a name she knew quite well. “Penelope Hayes.”

“No…” Diana wasn’t sure whether to admonish him or giggle. “She must have been angry about…” Diana trailed off, realizing that she wasn’t ready to bring up Elizabeth just yet. Henry rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh of agreement. “No wonder she’s been acting so bizarre lately. And you…you… her .”

Henry grabbed onto Diana’s thigh again, this time with a firm grip. She was very close to Henry now, and she could feel the slightest movements of his body.

“She’s one to…well, she’s more savage than I thought she was at first.”

“Oh.” Diana could feel the conversation growing heavier, and she didn’t mind. She wished she had a way to tell him that she liked being serious with him, too. “Well,” she said, “I guess I know all about you now.”