By His Command (House of Submission 2)

He put my hands up to his heart. I felt it bump against my fingertips.

‘You’re going to stay with me, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘As long as you want me.’

‘What if I said for ever?’

‘Jasper …’

But his mother came back into the room with the tea tray at that crucial and rather heart-stopping moment, so the conversation had to be deferred.

‘So,’ she said brightly. ‘How did you two meet?’

We spent the afternoon chatting and wandering through the house and grounds. It was a reassuringly normal way to pass time, and yet it all seemed rather other-worldly. It wasn’t my world, anyway. Jasper had been brought up to believe he could do anything, to be absolutely confident in his choices, and yet he, like his mother, was a reclusive type who only brought out his natural charm when he wanted something.

I liked their life and their way of opting into the world when it suited them. It was a privilege, yes, but one I wished I had.

‘You realise now,’ said Lavinia to Jasper, after pointing out the carp lying mysteriously in the depths of an ornamental pond, ‘that you’ll have to get married.’

‘What?’ I said, looking between Lavinia and Jasper, laughing with horrified embarrassment. ‘Why?’

‘I’ll sound old-fashioned, but it’s the honourable thing. In my day, it meant a chap marrying the girl he got pregnant, but in our new-media age I think this situation translates.’

‘I’ve got her into trouble, you mean,’ said Jasper.

‘Exactly. If you split, she’s the one who’ll get all the whispering and bitching. Nobody’ll say a thing to you, Jas. Double standards – not a sexist thing. A fame-and-influence thing. You have it. Sarah, although I’m sure you’re a wonderful historian, you have to admit that you’re not a power broker.’

‘Well, quite,’ I said, still laughing. Was she joking? It all seemed a bit heartless if so.

‘He’ll get away with it. You won’t. Actually, perhaps it still is a sexist thing. But I don’t know. If it was a famous woman and an obscure chap, it’d probably still be the same. Jasper, I wonder at you. I brought you up to respect women.’

‘I do respect Sarah,’ he protested. ‘Of course I bloody do. We’re just a little bit different in the way we pursue our relationship.’

‘Ah,’ said Lavinia with a beatific smile. ‘The words I have dreamed of hearing from your lips. “Our relationship”. So it is one?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve had so many flings, Jasper.’

‘It’s not a fling.’ Jasper unwrapped the scarf he was wearing and looped it around my neck. ‘See. She can’t get away from me if she tries. She’s stuck with me.’

I put my arm around his waist. I felt a bit faint, so it was as much to prop me up as anything.

‘And are you happy with that, Sarah?’ asked Lavinia. ‘To be stuck with him?’

‘More than happy,’ I said.

The light was failing and a wind was gusting up, shaking the trees overhead.

‘We should be getting in,’ said Alison. ‘Supper’s in a couple of hours. Perhaps you two should go upstairs for a bit of a rest.’

We didn’t need telling twice.

In the bedroom I went straight to the window and knelt, looking out of the leaded panes at the grounds beyond.

Jasper came and crouched beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder and rubbing it.

‘I think we have her blessing,’ he said.