No Fury

Now: Thirty Seven

The shed beside James' cabin becomes my home for several hours each Saturday morning. Harry and I spend lazy hours together there, bare and honest, and each minute feels like a tiny gift to be slowly unwrapped, peeled away a strip at a time.

I sense the time is equally precious for Liam and his secret love: he watches me dress, we eat together in quiet, excited silence, and then I kiss his cheek at the door to our home.

"I'll see you for the noon meal," I tell him

I won't be back early, I mean.

"I'll have bread and soup here for us both," he tells me.

I expect you to stay away until then, he means.

There is no jealousy, no possession.

We have no secrets between us but the details.

And then I tear from the cottage, lifting my skirts so I can run through the tall grass to James' cabin, where I burst into the shed, breathless and sweaty.

Inevitably, Harry is there, already pacing.

He pulls me up into his arms. His lips are parted before they even touch mine, gasping, speaking. His fingers fumble for my belly, finding the difference there, measuring.

And then he smiles at me.

There is an itch beneath my skin, kindling in my chest that is ignited when he looks at me that way — proud that he has put a child in me, even with the maddening circumstances of it all — which cannot be doused until he is over me, behind me, beneath me.

It is nearly always fast, and messy. Teeth knock, nails scratch, he slips from my body in his wildness. I've taken to biting his chest to leave my mark; he has taken to biting my thighs to leave his.  But nothing in our lives is more real than this.

We collapse together. His cheek finds my breast and my fingers find his hair and only then does he tell me the mundane details of the week before: waking, bathing, dressing, eating. Meetings with his father, meetings with his advisers. More eating. More dressing. More eating. And later, time alone in the libraries with Maria, before they retire to her rooms.

She pretends to read, he tells me, while he finds himself genuinely — and blessedly — lost in a book. But then, he remembers himself and takes her hand to lead her miserably upstairs.

The rest is left unsaid, though I am often tempted to ask him for more.

I want to know the mechanics of it, the expression her face when he is over her, and the weight in his heart when he takes her only to spill inside . . . but it's the masochistic piece of me that longs for it. I imagine the same is true for him about my life with Liam. The dark, creaky parts of our minds hunger for the painful details, but we don't really want to give them more space.

We try to imagine who it is Liam loves, why it is he is so kind. We try to understand if he loves another why he continues to claim my body at night. We try to understand how long he has planned to be my protector.

And I starve all week long for the bites of this frankness, this complete access to Harry, for the way we share nearly everything — the smallest, most mundane details.

But, we do not discuss Douglas.

Harry trusts his steward, I do not; it is the only point that ever feels sour between us.

"He went to fetch Paul to help you," he insists when he's mentioned Douglas and I turned my face away at the name. "But I was very harsh with him at the banquet. He knows I do not approve of how he responded."

I nod, and do not say more. And that is the end of it.

Harry kisses me, and helps me to my feet. We are both hungry, and tiptoe naked to the small shelf in the corner, finding some plums and almonds in a bowl.

I notice how he gazes at my stomach and then blinks away, lost in thought. I could ask him what he is thinking, and he would surely tell me, but something quiet has blanketed the room. The sun filters in through stars of dust dancing near the windows, and just the mention of Douglas has pulled us from our fantasy life. The sun climbs above the trees in the yard, telling me we have only minutes left together.

This is the part I hate the most: the rising, clawing panic in my throat over letting him out of my sight for another week, especially when our time in our bed ended in such a low place.

Our child flips inside me and I gasp, clutching my midsection.

Harry is against me in a heartbeat, hands covering mine. "What is it?"

"He moved." A grin breaks across my face and as it appears, it is mirrored on Harry's.

I imagine tiny feet; a wiggling, dancing green-eyed boy.

Harry's laugh bounces off every dusty wall, and the room feels much brighter.

"You'll be able to feel him soon," I tell him.

He removes one hand from my stomach to lift a plum to his lips, taking a bite as he looks up to my face. 

"I will be able to feel him soon," he repeats, and his smile is broken somewhere along the curve of his perfect mouth, but no matter how carefully I study it, I cannot figure out where.

He pulls me in, kissing me with plum-flavored lips.