Ceasebury: Chapter Five

As naïve as I knew it was, I couldn’t help but feel that Valentine understood me. He stared at me with eyes that seemed to see me, really see me in a way no one who had simply looked at me had seen me.

“I’m sorry, I can’t marry Gabriella for you. I could never marry a girl like that. She’s the kind of giggly unthinking person that would be the kind of wife a man would dread to share a bed chamber with. I could never marry a girl like that.” He sat down on a little thatched chair that had been painted white.

“So, what do men want in a wife? If you don’t like Gabriella.” I questioned him.

“I like someone who has read a book, I like a woman who would actually talk to me and drink with me and argue about philosophy and literature until we fell asleep in a Summer House on a hot July night. That’s what I want in a wife. What do you want in a husband?” He stared at me.

“Well, I guess –“I was cut off by a soft bang on the wooden floor of the Summer House. I looked down and saw Mr Jameston’s novel which I had had stuffed into the pocket of my underskirt laying on the floor. I felt my cheeks flush red.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” Valentine laughed, bending down to pick up the novel “Is this what you read?” his eyes met mine.

“Yes, well, no, sometimes, I was reading this today, but I read other things too, I have lessons with Gabriella, and we learn about Shakespeare and Blake, not just books like this.” I blushed.

“What? You are learning about this book? That’s so very modern.” He waved Mr Jameston’s novel at me.

“No, Gabriella and I learn about books in general, not this book. No one knows about these books.”

“Well, I do.”

“Oh, please don’t tell them, Valentine. I could never explain it to my mother or to Gabriella. Gabriella doesn’t even know what this sort of thing is, please don’t tell them.” I pleaded with him, my heart beating rapidly in my chest.

“I would never tell anyone your secrets.” He paused, staring me in the eye “Hang on, Gabriella doesn’t know about what?” he looked bewildered.

“Sex.” I whispered quietly, almost expecting someone to jump out and catch me from behind one of the potted plants that grew around the Summer House.

“What? How old is that girl? Why is she on the marriage market?” Valentine looked shocked.

“She’s eighteen. It’s just that no one ever told her.”

“How? You don’t need to be told what love making is in the same way you don’t need to be told at birth how to breathe or how to see, you just know. God, well, thank you for telling me, that’s yet another reason why I could never pledge myself, my life, my name and my soul to Miss Gabriella Kingston.” He looked half relieved.

“Really? A lack of awareness about sex in a lady bothers men?” I questioned him, intrigued.

“Yes, well, it certainly bothers me.” He said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Really?”

“Oh, God, yes, I couldn’t stand to share my bed with a girl who was oblivious to her own sexuality, or at least one that seemed totally uncurious about it.”

“That’s amazing, I always thought that men thought that girls who knew too much about what awaits them in the marriage bed were harlots.” I smirked.

“No, where did you get such a silly notion as that?”

“Society, I suppose.” I looked at the floor, slightly embarrassed at my own apparent foolishness (although, I was more embarrassed that I had divulged my curiosity so readily).

“So, anyway,” he took a brutally long pause “I wish to return to my original question; what do you want in a husband?”

“Well,” it suddenly dawned on me that I had never been asked such a question as that, no one had ever thought to ask me what I would want in a man who I would share the rest of my life with. “I don’t know.” I finished bluntly.

“I know what you want.” He stated “You are a woman who wants to be free, that’s why you read those novels, you are seeking freedom. That’s what you want in a husband; a man who will let you be free.”

“Yes,” I paused. “I suppose I do.” A sudden wave of realisation came over my body and I couldn’t help but relax to Valentine somewhat.

“Well, I don’t think you should be so quick to marry Dorian then.” He stated, “I’ve known Dorian since boarding school and I don’t think I could have met a less free person.”

“Well then what would you have me do?” I questioned him.

“I would have you marry me. We could wed and be happy.” He stared into my eyes piercingly.

“But I can’t, you need to marry Gabriella.”

“I can’t do that. It would kill me to marry Gabriella as it would kill you to marry Dorian. No, we shall have to find another match for Gabriella.”

“You’ll help me?” I questioned, surprised.

“Of course, I will, I am to be your future husband, after all.” He smiled.

Valentine slipped his hand into mine gently as the sun went down from the darkening blue sky to its resting place behind the tall mountains that marked the edge of the valley. Valentine’s eyes were the same blue as that sky. Deep. Pure. True. He seemed to understand me in a way I was so unused to being understood.

“Theodosia, all this will be okay. We will find someone for Gabriella. I will give you my address so that we may correspond on finding her a match, someone kind and gentle. I promise you that.” I leant down and kissed my hand lightly. His lips felt soft, not like I had expected, not how I imagined Master Kingston’s lips to be. Master Kingston: the man who hadn’t visited his sister in five years even though she lived just a walk away. I looked into Valentine’s eyes and felt safe. He kept me safe.

“So, do we have a deal, Theodosia?” he questioned “I will court you with the true intention of marriage and together we will find Gabriella a husband?” I couldn’t deny it seemed like the perfect solution. I would get a wonderful husband and Gabriella would not be alone and trapped in these empty, endless halls.

“Yes, Valentine, I suppose we do.” I smiled.

“Good.”

“Hang on, was that your version of a proposal?” I questioned.

“Oh God no, that was our version of the agreements our fathers make when they sit in dusty old rooms in dusty old halls with portraits of their sons and daughters, arranging in stately tones who will get who and for what and when. When I propose, I will do so with far more grandeur than this.” He smiled.

“Good.” I replied.

“Now, come here.” He beckoned. I took a step a little closer to him.

“Have you ever been kissed, Theodosia?” he asked me.

“I can’t say that I have, Valentine.” I looked away from him.

“Well, I think you deserve a kiss for being such a lovely Summer House companion tonight.” He whispered.

“How perfectly wonderful of you to say, Valentine.”

“Do you want me to?” his eyes met mine. He had a little fleck of brown in his left eye which matched his thick chestnut waves which hung just to his ears, neatly placed back out of his face.

“Yes, I think I do, Valentine.”

“Okay, Theodosia.” he slipped his right hand under my jaw and leant in slightly. His ruby lips met mine in a matter of seconds, although I did notice a slight pause from him in which our lips were just a pin prick away from each other, a slither of light hiding between them, and then he let himself go and kiss me. It felt like heaven. It was like nothing I had known before. He moved his hand feather-lightly to my exposed neck and kissed me a little more deeply. It was at that moment just as he broke away from me that all the shutters broke themselves open just as the double doors of the Summer House were flung open by the force of the summer breeze and Gabriella opening them, standing on the other side, still in floods of tears.

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