Remembrance

I stood up straight and glared at him. “Can’t, can you?” I taunted. “If you divorce me and marry Fiona how will that help you? If you can’t with me, you can’t with her.”

I knew right away that that was the wrong thing to say. His face turned into a rage that was frightening. Where did Edwardian men stand on the wife-beating question?

He didn’t make any attempt at physical violence, I’m happy to say. He just turned his back to me but I could see he was shaking with his anger. “You go too far,” he whispered and from that I knew he had a “problem.”

I think the media in America has made us all feel too guilty if we don’t care about everyone’s problems, so even if this man was scum, I felt sorry for him. Impotence is a very big deal to men, in any time period.

I went to stand by him. “Look, sometimes these things can have a cause, you know, a physical cause or maybe it’s psychological. Maybe if you talk about it, maybe we could find the reason for your…your inability to perform and finding the cause would solve the problem. In the meantime I’m sure this doesn’t mean you’re less of a man just because you can’t—”

His laughter stopped me from going on. I really hate being laughed at. And I especially hated the smug, condescending way he was laughing at me.

“What a child you are,” he said. “What an innocent child you are.”

Smug doesn’t begin to describe his attitude. “I don’t think I’m quite as innocent as you think,” I said, beginning to get angry all over again. You should have seen the way he was looking at me! He looked like a painting on a romance novel cover—and who should know better than I what that looked like? Impeccably dressed (I hate that term!), snowy white cravat (ditto), broad shouldered, slim hipped, elegant, long-fingered hands on his hips. His gorgeous head tipped back and looking down his long, aristocratic nose at me. So smug. So arrogant. So sure he, big macho male, knew everything and little micro-waisted me knew nothing.

“Are you not so innocent, Catherine?” he said as he advanced on me, moving toward me with the unshakability of a tidal wave in slow motion. “Are you not?”

I could see that he meant to kiss me. I wanted to stop him, because part of me echoed Catherine’s fear of him. But I couldn’t have moved myself any more than I could have moved the house a few inches to one side.

Just before his lips touched mine I remembered that Nora had said, “If you were to kiss him you would feel a merging of spirits.” I don’t remember what question I had asked to get this answer, but I do remember that response.

When his lips touched mine, I don’t know if it was a merging of spirits or not, but I’d never felt the way he made me feel while kissing any other man. It wasn’t as though the kiss were confined to just our lips; it was as though our bodies were trying to merge into one. I wanted to sink into him, to become him, to blend with him in a way that was not physical so much as…as…

Oh, who cared about trying to describe it? All I can say is that when he kissed me I lost myself. I wasn’t me or Catherine or anyone else; I was just part of him.

I think my body collapsed; my legs gave way under me and we went flowing back onto the bed. I say flowing because by that time I felt more like the consistency of mercury than I did of something supported by bone. He went with me, falling down on top of me, his mouth fastened onto mine, his heavy body moving on top of me.

I had felt lust many times in my life. There were many men who’d inspired me to…well, to do things in bed that are no one’s business but my own, but they were nothing compared to this man. Desire such as I’d never known existed flooded me, filled me so there was no room for thoughts or other feelings. I was just aware of him and nothing else.

I had to have him. I wanted him as close to me as nature could achieve, and at that moment I thought that sex was not exactly what I wanted from this man. I wanted all of this man inside me; I wanted all of me inside him.

There are no words to describe what I felt for him. Maybe he felt the same about me because he was kissing my neck as though he’d die if he didn’t kiss me. I leaned my head back and the only word I fully understood was, yes. Yes, whatever he wanted. Yes, whatever I could give him or do for him. Yes to anything and everything.

His hand was on my breast; my hands were on his back, his chest, in his hair, everywhere that I could reach of him. Never in my life had I wanted anything as much as I wanted this man.

But it was then that I put my hand between his legs, and there I felt nothing. Oh, he had all the correct equipment all right, but, at the moment, it wasn’t working. At least it wasn’t working at the touch of me.

The instant I touched him, he rolled away from me and put his hand over his eyes so I couldn’t see the anguish in them. My body was vibrating all over and I felt bereft at the absence of him. Maybe I should have cared about him, but all I could think about was me.

“Is it just me?” I whispered. “Only with me?”

“Yes.” The word came from somewhere deep inside him and I knew that admission caused him pain.

Turning my head, I looked at him, and even with what I had felt, I couldn’t make myself believe that he “couldn’t” or that we should stop. I wanted to touch him. Actually, I wanted to remove his clothes with my teeth and lick all the color off him.

“Tavey,” I said and rolled toward him, placing my mouth on his chest where his shirt had come unfastened. Under my lips I could feel his heart beating; I could feel his warm, dark skin; I could feel—

He pushed me away, then looked at me with mocking eyes. “Can you not see that I do not want you? I have never wanted you. You are undesirable to me.”

I have mentioned that I have a lot of pride, and at those words my pride was hurt, but it did not rear up and protect me. I was quivering with how much I wanted him. My body felt as hot as though I were running a fever, yet no matter that he was saying horrible things to me, had he held out his hand

for me, I would have taken it.

“We can try,” I said, my body longing for his as I lifted my hand toward him. “Perhaps we can—”

He got off the bed, then stood over me, his eyes laughing, ridiculing me. “Catherine, I married you for your money and I have used that money to put a roof on my house and horses in my stable. Now I should like to put sons in the nursery and I will never get them from you. I will speak to my attorneys tomorrow and begin to dissolve this farce of a marriage.”

He gave me one last look of contempt. “And do not try such as this again. It will not work. Such behavior only debases you.”