Chapter 6: A Useful Couple

Before sending his family off to Suffolk, Lionel thought to hold a dinner for both families.

They invited the Fosters, the Strouds, The Dorwiches, the Standishes, Mother, and George. Twelve sat down to dinner.

“I suppose we should leave politics out of the discussion,” Foster said over the cigars.

“If we do not,” Stroud said, “I shall leave the argument to my son. He enjoys argument.”

“Milord, I wish you health and a long life.” They laughed, and went on to horses.

When Anne had led the ladies out to the parlor, she turned to Lenora.

“You did very well on your first dinner,” Lenora said.

“Could I come to you for advice in running a household?” Anne asked. “This is all new to me.”

“Certainly. Before you do, however, you need to consult your husband as to what your budget is. He knows what the two of you have coming in. Then, too, he has expectations on entertaining.”

“I had not thought about a budget.”

“If you will pardon me, Anne, you thought about one thing. Being a matron is about many things.” It was, among other things, she thought, about how publicly one asked advice from one woman when a mother and mother in law were in the same room.

After luncheon the next day, Anne took the issue up with Lionel.

“You knew I had not as much income as a Tarleton when you accepted me,” he said.

“I ask not to disparage you, but to control myself. You have income, and I am determined that our household shall not stretch that income. Until I know the amounts, however, that is a determination I cannot fulfill.”

Lionel had lived on a budget earlier, and he laid that out now. “Then, I had no need for a woman’s clothing, but I did lay aside for Sophia’s Season. These days, we may spend what comes in.”

“If we shall have no children.”

Lionel had a vision of Anne rounded with his heir. This distracted him, but he managed to agree that they must save for educating boys and dowering girls.

When Anne visited Lenora, she was reminded that children have expenses well before they go to school or dance at balls. She met with Lionel again and set a slightly lower current budget.

Lionel thought that wagering only from a special, limited gambling purse would remind his friends that he was attached to the Tarletons now. Besides, he had no great desire to spend much time gaming in the clubs.

He kept reminding himself that Anne had been a virgin quite recently. He should do nothing to shock her. The truth, though, was that she never expressed shock at his sexual advances.

Anne discovered that Lionel would kiss her whenever she had an excuse, and she kissed him goodbye whenever she visited Lenora or her mother. She had made so many other visits right after her marriage that she did not feel the need for more right then. She never instigated more than a polite peck on the lips, but she wrapped her arms around his neck for as long as he kissed her more deeply.

Socially, they were not one of the more shining couples of the Ton. They became, however, quite a useful one. When Anne wore a pastel gown from before her marriage to a ball, several mothers in law pointed out to their new daughters in law that if Stroud’s daughter could wear a maiden’s gown, then their sons did not need to pay for an entire new wardrobe while the Season wound down.

And Lionel, who made it a point, after the first dance, which he took with Anne, to ask a few wallflowers, was popular as well.

While the rule was that a guest at dinner was expected to invite his host to dine in return, there were many exceptions. Lenora explained to Anne that her parents were many times as often hosts to James and Lenora as they were their guests, and that Anne should expect that of them, and of James and Lenora as well.

Then Lenora explained to her father that he should be another exception. Anne was, in some way, family.

It is true that she delayed this explanation until the Baron had Walter in his arms. His grandfather tended to agree to anything while Walter was in his arms. That might have been an unnecessary precaution, though.

The Baron was, even now with a Tarleton son in law, a mere outlier of society. Spaces at his table were not in demand, and he was happier eating in his own house. The Grants shown in the company he entertained, if not in the Ton.

The French ambassador often complained to his wife, though only under the bond of marital secrecy, that these English all insisted on speaking French to him. Some of them could speak it well, but the couples who could usually included one who had been born in France, and that often raised political issues.

Both Anne and Lionel spoke excellent French, and they soon were on the short list for English guests outside the political and commercial circles.

The ambassador, of course, did not expect a reciprocal invitation; he accepted invitations only for official purposes.

All in all, the Grants had a full social life without breaking their food budget or draining their cellar.

When Anne confessed that she preferred the taste of his kisses when he had not smoked a cigar, Lionel stopped smoking after the few dinners that they had by themselves.

Lionel listened without comment when his friends spoke of the boredom of marital sex. He had never had such an arousal in England as his wife could evoke with a simple kiss.

She was lovely; she was shapely; she truly responded to him. She even seemed to want him. That was much better than a woman who would do it for a price and to get in out of the cold.

Anne did want Lionel. If she did not want their joining as he seemed to want it desperately at the end, she wanted his presence; she wanted his kisses; she wanted his love. If she could not have his love, she enjoyed having his desire.

What he feared to show her, she gloried in perceiving. The Grants did not argue, and Anne did not scold. The single struggle inside their marriage was this contest over his desire.

Parliament rose, the Season ended, and the ton scattered to their own counties and their own houses.

Anne rode beside her husband in their new coach with Joyce and Samuel in the seat facing them. The first stop was Stroud House. Charles greeted them from horseback.

“Welcome to the caravan,” he said. “Do you wish to transfer any luggage to the cart or any servants to the omnibus?”

“I see no reason to do so,” said Lionel.

Anne could see a reason. While Joyce had wiped the remains that Lionel left on her off that morning, as most mornings, she would rather kiss her husband without Joyce as a witness. And Samuel’s presence stunted even the desire to kiss. She suspected that the man disapproved of her. But whether they rode with their servants was Lionel’s decision to make. They spoke of their travel experiences, mostly Lionel’s travel experiences. Her second trip in a coach had been in the opposite direction late last summer. Her first trip had had the same destination as this one, perhaps the same route, when she was a few months old.

They stopped at an inn for luncheon. Lionel learned that Stroud paid for everything. Anne learned that Walter was a remarkably fussy traveler. It was raining when they came out of the inn. Charles asked to ride in the Grant coach. Samuel was relegated to the omnibus. Lionel found Charles a charming companion, who had been somewhat behind him in Cambridge. Lionel told of his journeys.

“I envy you and James,” Charles said. “You two know the world. I barely know England.”

“Paris is hardly the world (although you could receive a challenge for saying that there). Your brother knows more of the world than I do. France, Germany, the Russias. I once planned to go beyond France, but the Latin pronunciation I learned is different from the Latin pronunciation of other countries. I would have no speech in common with them.”

They passed from that to comparing Lionel’s time at Eton with Charles’s at Winchester. Anne could relax, abandoning any need to draw out the men while simultaneously finding much new information about her husband’s past. She also learned some details about her brother, although she regarded that information as less valuable. They rolled into the drive at Stroud Hall an hour before dinner, as they had known they would. The western sky had not yet quite darkened, as they had not predicted. They had made quite good time. Baths were prepared for each of them. The tubs were already in the rooms, and they were filled as soon as the footmen had delivered the luggage. The company for dinner was only those who had traveled together, being unbalanced in sex with four men to three women. Charles sat between Lenora and Lionel.

Lionel and Anne had adjoining rooms with no others on the floor -- no others in the wing, for that matter. The rooms, however, had doors only on the hallway. Samuel waited for Joyce to finish, as she had offered to show him belowstairs and introduce him to some of the staff. Anne counted to ten after they left and walked down the hall to Lionel’s door. She knocked.

“Oui, ma femme.” Lionel had hoped for her appearance, although he had also feared that her parents’ presence would reinforce her modesty. The long ride beside her under the eyes of others, especially those of her brother, had exacerbated his desire.

“The chairs look unable to support both of us,” Anne said. “May I join you in bed?”

“You are always welcome in my bed, perhaps more than usually welcome this night.” He kissed her, plundering her mouth as his hands readied her for his entrance. His release was explosive. They cuddled together under the covers. The fire was more than they needed in the spring weather, though. Sometime in the night, one after the other pushed the sheet and quilt away until the covers were mostly on the floor.

Margaret, the chambermaid assigned to fires in the north wing, swept the hearth in Lady Anne’s dressing room and made the fire up She lit it. The fire in Lady Anne’s bedroom had never been lit, so she went on to the next room. Lady Anne and her husband were curled together, looking a little chilled with the quilt off them. Margaret covered them to the neck with the sheet and then the quilt. She went on to prepare the fire and light it. Finally, she did the same for the next room.

Anne woke in her husband’s arms. Samuel was rapping at her door. “Lionel.”

“Hmph!” he snuggled more tightly against her and clasped her breast. She held her hand over his.

“Lionel!”

“Oh, sorry.” He removed his hand. He also moved back so his erection was not touching her.

“Samuel wants to wake you.” After he went out, she got her night rail and robe on and went out after them. Samuel was following his master into the dressing room. Joyce was waiting patiently outside her bedroom door. “The dressing room, I think.” In the dressing room she drank her first cup before Joyce washed her face and her second while she washed her thighs. “Do we have anything I wore last summer?”

“Not here, milady. I could get it from your old room.”

“Never mind, then. A riding habit.” After breakfast, she persuaded Lionel to join her for a ride. They went to the stables where Josiah, the head groom, selected two mounts for them. They had brought their saddles with them, although their mounts were left in London. She took him for a tour of the nearer sites of her childhood adventures. He seemed pleased with her description. Back at the Hall, she left him for a visit to Aphra and Walter. They were both at the breast.

“She gets jealous every time he sucks,” the wet nurse complained. “She was supposed to be weaned and her own nurse took other duties when I arrived.” One of the rewards of working as a wet nurse for the Tarletons was that one got the offer of other employment when the babe no longer needed that service.

Knowing that this was activity that should not be distracted by a visitor, she went down to find Lenora.

“Let us walk the grounds,” she said. “Your children are more interested in food than in an aunt.” In servant-infested Stroud Hall, the only privacy was out of doors. When they were well away from the Hall, she said, “Lenora, you once told me that you could help me make my husband love me.”

“I believe that I told you that you could not. That you should not believe that what he felt was under your control. At the time, I thought I could help you make it more likely. And, for all that I can see, he treats you kindly. I am no longer so sure that I would be of any help at all.”

“He treats me very well. He is kind, generous, and courteous.”

“Which is not all that you desire?”

“Is that not selfish of me?”

“Perhaps. My husband is kind and generous. He also loves me. Note that I make no claim to courtesy.” Anne nodded and smiled.

“What I saw then was that every man wants two women,” Lenora continued. “He wants a wife to fill his nursery and grace the end of his dining table. He wants a mistress to excite him in bed. Men are loving creatures, however unloving most men behave on occasion. If you are the only woman in your husband’s life, he is likely to come to love you. His mother and sisters are no threat; he loves them in another way. So, the way is to stand outside in the thunderstorm of your man’s emotions and hope for the lightning of love to strike ... Please forgive my wild imagery.”

“I forgive any imagery, if only you will give me a suggestion.”

“My suggestion was that you become not only your husband’s wife but his mistress. On thinking more deeply, I see no way to do that. You dare not instigate new sexual activities. Men are the instigators; they lead and we follow. They do not want their wives to know anything which they have not taught them. You must have him teach you how to be his mistress. Even were I to tell you what James likes, which would embarrass me greatly and bring shame to my marriage, it might not be what Lionel likes.

“Nor can you bring up the subject of mistresses. A man thinks of a mistress as someone other than, someone different than, a wife. Ask a new-married man what he wants in a mistress and he will deny that he wants one -- especially if he is speaking to his wife. He is answering the question of whether he wants another woman. So I do not know whether I have been any help at all.”

“But you stand by your concept?” Anne asked. “All men want both, and I can be both?”

“I stand by it.”

Anne trusted Lenora’s insight. For all that she was married to James, and was thus to be pitied, she had the sort of marriage which Anne envied. Two years ago, when they were more than a year married, she had come upon James and Lenora kissing in the wood. This was a couple who had a suite of rooms, an entire wing of the Hall, where they could kiss privately. She was damn lucky to get a kiss from her husband for which she had not asked. So, all she needed was a method to have Lionel want her as a mistress and teach her how to be one. That might be difficult, but Anne rose to a challenge. Well before Luncheon she returned to her dressing room and rang for Joyce.

“I want some of the clothes I wore last year. Any gown which would be appropriate for luncheon, anything else which would be appropriate for daytime wear.” Anne knew that none of her clothes from the previous year were appropriate for a matron to wear for dinner. “And have I some petticoats still which we did not take to London?”

“Milady, they were torn or dirty. Not good enough to wear now.”

“Be that as it may, bring me two.” Her order was large enough that Joyce got a footman to help her carry the load. “Thank you, Owen,” Anne said.

“Anything, Lady Anne,” replied Owen. The staff liked Lady Anne, who had never reported their misdeeds and had played much fewer pranks than her brothers.

Joyce dressed her nearly from the skin out. The company at luncheon was the same as had dined the previous night. They learned, though, that dinner invitations had gone out for this night. Anne renewed acquaintances among the staff, and then lay down for an hour before preparing for dinner. While her body rested, her mind schemed.

Lionel learned that the guests at dinner included most of the aristocracy within traveling distance for the late meal. Some of them would drive back home for three hours after they left. When the gentlewomen left, the men’s interest all centered on himself. He thought that he acquitted himself decently. There was another hour of social niceties from the time that the men joined gentlewomen until the first guests took their leave. Lord Stroud came back from seeing another three guests off nearly an hour later. He looked around.

“That is it, then.” Couples, and Charles by himself, took themselves to bed. Lionel kissed Anne outside her dressing room before ringing for Samuel. He did not expect a visit from Anne considering the lateness of the hour. There was, however, a knocking at his door. Anne’s knock, not Samuel’s.

“Come in,” She entered wearing a dressing gown and carrying a candle, which she set down beside the one still burning on his night stand.

“Mon mari?”

“Oui, ma femme.” The answer was automatic.

“That is just it,” Anne began. “I am your wife, the church made us so. But I want to be your woman. What you call me, your woman. Now, I have never been anyone’s woman. I have never been with a man before.”

“I know.” Her blood had told him, not that this had been any surprise.

“You, however, have been with women before. Some of them have pleased you. Show me how to please you. I beg this of you; but it will benefit you, as well.”

Lionel thought that she did not know what she was asking, and that she attributed much more experience to him than he really had. Certainly, some women had ‘pleased him.’ But they were filles de la rue. His experience with ladies was precisely equal to her experience with men. It was the same experience.

“What I have experienced with women has no application. They were bought conveniences. I would never treat you like that!”

“Did you hurt them?”

“God, no!” He remembered Marie’s stories of men who used riding crops on their women. And then he thought how silly that claim was to this person. “That is...”

“That is, you have only hurt one woman, although you have pleased several. And several have pleased you. Why not show me what pleases you and does not cause pain? If I dislike those actions, then we can decide whether your pleasure or my dislike should rule in that particular action. But you limit me by what you think are my limits. Let me find out, at least. Here.” She shed her dressing gown. Underneath, she was wearing a petticoat. Her torso, including her small, sweet, breasts, was bare. She pulled back the sheet and lay down beside him. “Is there something you enjoy about my breasts?”

He enjoyed the sight. He could not deny that, and the touch on the smoothness was even more delightful. The reaction to his touch was delightful, as well. Her nipples rose and hardened as he stroked the sides of her breasts. Somehow, as that was happening, both he and she moved. They went from her on one elbow beside his supine frame to his leaning over her body while she lay flat on her back. When he cupped the top of one breast, she covered his hand with hers. Rather than push it away, she held it there. When he sucked the tip of one breast, he had reached his breaking point. He pushed the sheet off them, swept the petticoat out of his way, and clambered between her legs.

“Husband,” she said, “I shall never deny you.” He kissed both nipples before moving up to kiss her mouth and then to enter her. He rested on his elbows, as he had been taught, and cupped a breast in each hand. The entry was exquisite. The experience was intense, if brief. The completion was explosively draining.

Anne felt more aroused by his attention to her breasts than she had ever felt before. The arousal only grew as he stroked within her, but she did not peak when he did. Still, her love for him was more intense than ever before. She hugged him, or his head at least, to her chest as she had hugged dolls not a decade before.

“Oh, Lionel,” she said.

When Lionel returned to awareness of his situation, he was held between those sweet breasts he had stroked so diffidently. He kissed the skin he could reach, and -- when she relaxed her clasp -- he kissed a trail quite slowly up to the nipple. Forgetting his resolution to avoid shocking action, he stroked her thigh. Her only reaction was to raise her leg to give him easier access. For a minute, he had his hand right between her legs and her entire pudenda fitting into his palm. Then, he slid a finger between her lips and began stroking. Her only reaction was to kiss the top of his head. He tore his mouth away from one nipple to reach the other. He teased it with his tongue before sucking it. His finger found the tiny nodule at the top of her cleft. She hissed, but made no resistance. He felt his erection returning. It extended far enough to touch her thigh. Suddenly she spoke.

“Let me see it.” She pulled up his nightshirt and drew back from his mouth. “Oh. My mother told me that it got hard and stuck up. I should have realized that this was a process.” She watched as he hardened. “It looks lovely.” Which was not a description he would have used. “Does that mean that you want to do it again?” He kissed her deeply, exploring her mouth and returning to her tongue again and again. Then he knelt back between her legs.

Anne’s excitement, which had waned very little after Lionel’s completion, was refreshed and intensified by her husband’s kisses and caresses. His strokes within her sent her feelings soaring. Each one increased her tension, and he seemed to deliver more than he ever had before. Suddenly, lightning struck her!

“Ah!” she cried. Her belly pulsed with her heart beat. She gasped, but the sensations kept flooding through her. Finally, he thrust against her and deep into her. He throbbed in a counter beat to her pulsation. As he collapsed on top of her, she stopped feeling anything. Indeed, her next experience was of his lying beside her. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Lionel.”

Lionel had never been as sensitive as he was to the sweet, wet, heat he entered. And yet, he had never taken so long to climax. His feelings seemed to become more and more intense. He had to move; he had to possess her; he could not finish. And, then, when she clutched around him rhythmically, he drove into her and pulsed his seed out, pulsed himself out. “Oh, Lionel,” she said.

“Oh, Anne, dearest Anne,” was his gasped answer.

Margaret prepared the fire in Lady Anne’s dressing room. This morning was so warm that Mrs. Tallmadge had told her not to light the fires. She entered Lady Anne’s bedroom far enough to see that the fire she had laid two days before had not been used. The fire in Mr. Grant’s bedroom was nothing but ashes. She thought of covering the couple in the bed better, but it would mean waking Lady Anne. She had her arm outside the sheet holding it around her. Her hand was tangled in the sheet. The sheet showed enough bare skin to reveal that Lady Anne was wearing no nightgown. The way the sheet lay showed that Mr. Grant’s hand was between Lady Anne’s hand and her breast. Margaret swept out the hearth very quietly. She left for Mr. Grant’s dressing room.

When Lionel woke to Samuel’s rapping, his hand was on Anne’s breast. What was almost better was that Anne’s hand was holding it there. He kissed the back of her shoulder before untangling himself. “Try this room,” he commented to Anne’s maid who was knocking patiently on the next door. Then he went to his dressing room. Shaved, dressed, with a cup of tea in him, he went down to breakfast. Anne was already there. She was dressed in a frock which looked rather juvenile for a London matron.

“Good morning,” she said when he came in. “The kidneys are hot.” And so they were. He took both and some toast. He sat across from her. “I intend,” she said as she left, “to see whether the harpsichord is in tune.” He thought the day too fine to spend indoors. Outside was warming rapidly, although it was yet May. He took his cloak, but knew that he would soon shed it. He had much to ponder. He had recognized the climax when Anne reached it. He was experienced enough to know which doxies were faking. He had thought no virtuous woman ever reached a climax. Was he mistaken about Anne’s previous innocence?