Getting a bit naughty

These two scenes are a tiny bit out of order. I haven't yet written the scene where Deirdre comes into the story and I haven't got a link between them. They are both pivotal to the tale, though, and have been on my mind for a while. I'm not really sure how well I can write this material (yes, that does mean that comments would be appreciated). I do want to write up a post about the MENAWCA conference last weekend (in case you aren't sure - I don't believe for a nanosecond it will be as sexy as this even if this isn't sexy). I enjoyed it and it was interesting, even if very tiring.
Anyway, here goes.

The door opened and Deirdre (slinked, slank, slunk?) in. Gagging for it, said the voce in Jack’s head. Bollocks, thought Jack, she’s here to tease.  He was fast developing a strong dislike to this child. She might be physically older than him, but he’d met more mature nine-year-olds. He gave her a questioning look, making sure his face didn’t give any sign of his feelings.

“I saw your light. Wondered what you might be doing  up at this time of night.”

The top three buttons of her nightdress were undone. Warm tonight, he wondered, or unfastened just before she came through the door?

“Oh, I couldn’t sleep, so I’m reading Jane Austin, do you know this?”

He held up the book to show the cover. She undulated closer, playing with a lock of hair.

“A girl comes into your bedroom late at night and the only thing you can think of is talk to her about Jane Austin?” She tutted and sat down on the edge of his bed.

Jack closed the book, a finger inside to mark the page, and gave the matter a show of serious thought.

“A girl, with the top three buttons of her nightdress undone, comes into my room in the middle of the night. Can I think of anything," he paused and looked her in the eye, "Fun to do?”

A moment’s thought and then a nod.

“Yes, actually, I can think of a number of things.  They'd all be more fun.”  He opened the book again. “But I’m not going to do 'em. “

 “Scared, are you?”

He closed the book, the finger placemarking again, and considered the question.

“Of your mother… Umm, me caught in your room by her and yes, I'd be scared. I can picture your mother doing things with a horse whip if she caught me in your room at this time of night. Of course, since this is my room, I don’t think I’ve got so much to worry about if she hears voices and comes in to investigate. She’ll find me reading and you out of place.”

He leant forward.

“If I were the sort to look for my fun in the risk of being caught, I might, might try something inside the house, but I’d do it further from the bedrooms even then. Risk is one thing, you see, near certainty quite another. “

He looked her straight in the eyes.

“I’m the sort who regards getting caught as an interruption of the fun, not the cause. If naughtily inclined, I’d manage to accidentally run into a young lady of  similar mind somewhere out there.” He nodded out of the window. “Miles and bloody miles of Devon, full of quiet places where you can have lots of privacy, lots of time and no need to whisper at all. Yes, if I was naughtily inclined, that’s what I’d do.”

Deirdre didn't know how to take this, by her expression. She moved onto the defensive, wrong footed here.

“How?” she asked.

“Oh, depends on the young lady, really. I might have to follow her when she went out some time and catch her up in a spot where no one would find us. Or then again, just make an arrangement to find a place. She probably knowing more of 'em than me. Then we might see,” he looked her straight in the eye for the space of two heartbeats, “what we might see.”

He opened his book again. Deirdre hesitated. Jack had outflanked her. She hadn't expected the dance to go this way and now had either to make a virtual promise of…. Or back out and admit she wasn’t ready to go so far.

“In the meantime, of course, I’m going to discuss Jane Austin with you. Partly in case there's a third insomniac who might drop in on us, but also because she's so good. Do you know this story?”

She admitted she didn’t, glad of the change of subject.  Jack read her excerpts he particularly liked and was gratified when she laughed and began comparing the Bennets to families she knew in the area.  Deirdre’s stories confirmed Jack's own prejudice - rural Devon hadn't changed much since Austen’s time. The place only needed a decent chronicler and best-sellers would fall off the presses. The conversation went on for longer than he’d expected and both were laughing when the door opened and Miss Brampton entered.

Oh God, thought Jack, she’s been watching the villain in far  too many melodramas.

Deirdre froze, painfully aware she’d been caught in a boy’s bedroom after midnight and probably thinking of her mother and horse whips too. Miss Brampton stalked up to the bedside and pointed an imperative finger back towards the door, righteous indignation personified.

“To your room miss!” she hissed, “I will talk to you later and your mother will hear of this in the morning.”

Deirdre opened her mouth to protest, but her governess jerked the finger again. “Not a word. Go!”

Deirdre rose and scuttled out. Jack realized Brampton intended to stay and have a go at him. She’d enjoy her power, threaten and try to cow him. He'd no great fears of Lady Ambridge’s reaction. It was his room and he'd probably get her to believe they’d been innocently talking about literature. Umm, depending on how well she knew her daughter. He didn’t feel like it, though. Brampton rubbed him up the wrong way and needed taking down a peg or twelve.

As Deirdre ran out he rose from the bed, planting himself with care and as unobtrusively as possible between Brampton and the door. Cut her line of retreat.

“And where do you think you’re going young man?”

“Nowhere Miss Brampton, but it’s hardly mannerly for me to remain seated when a lady enters the room, is it?”

She smirked at him. She really has this coming.

“You don’t imagine that you can get around me by pretending to be a gentleman, do you?”

Jack shook his head.

“No, Miss Brampton, I don’t.”

He stepped forward and grasped her shoulders firmly then pushed with the left hand and pulled hard with the right, spinning her around. Before she had a chance to even gasp, he put his left hand over her mouth and the right into her solar plexus, preventing her from taking in enough of a breath to be able to scream. Her legs had crossed when she spun, making turning her towards the bed and pushing her face down simple. He pinned her to the blanket by lying on her back.

His arm partly under her trapped her right arm wile his elbow blocked her left from moving from her side. Her feet were off the ground and she couldn’t get leverage to push up with her knees. His hand and the bed sheets muffled any attempt to make a noise and his weight immobilised her. Miss Brampton could wriggle, and did, but couldn't escape. Jack gave her a second or two to appreciate the fact.

He spoke quietly and calmly into her ear. “I will apologise for this behavior in a moment Miss Brampton, but I really don’t believe you were going to give me a fair hearing. You took my options away and left me with only this choice. Now, what you walked in on might have been more appropriately done, I accept. Deirdre shouldn’t have been in my room at this time of night, but neither of us could sleep, she saw my light, came to ask me how I was and stayed to talk about Jane Austin. Nothing more untoward. I have to insist you believe me.  Please consider. You would have told Lady Ambridge about me holding a book, not Deirdre, and us holding a conversation, not an orgy.

Now, I want to take my hand away so we can talk, but I have to warn you against taking my options away again. Should you make any noise, I will raise the devil’s own row. I guarantee everyone in the house will wake. When they come in,  they'll find you and I,  on the bed, together, in a state of disarray. Deirdre will be gone and I’m sure she'll deny ever having been here. Of a certainty, I'll swear she wasn’t and that it was you who came to my room with bad intent. I’m not sure how you'll explain, but I don’t think it'll look at all good.”

He paused a moment to give her time to think. She froze beneath him and he decided she couldn’t see any positive way for the situation to be interpreted if it were her word against both of theirs. Jack’s tone told her she'd been promised not threatened. He’d do exactly what he said.

For her part, she had time to decide this boy would not have let her catch him doing anything wrong and that she’d been about to commit a terrible faux pas. A scene in which she denounced Deirdre to Lady Ambridge and Jack quite calmly proved her to be an hysterical fool seemed very, very  possible. 

“Forgive me for the rough treatment, but I’m going to take my hand away now. Can you promise me you won’t cause us all distress?”

She nodded. He removed his hand. She let out a shuddering breath.

“Please do believe me Miss Brampton, I have no intention of causing anyone any trouble, you included. If I did allow you to complain to Lady Ambridge, I think I'd come out of the row well. You…I don’t know. After all, what could you say other than you found us sitting on a bed talking? In my room, not hers. Deirdre could be in trouble, which she doesn’t really deserve, this time anyway. I might be wrong of course, and then I might be seen as having offended against a house which has offered me hospitality. I don’t do that anyway, but I've no intention of getting involved with Deirdre. Not to make too fine a point, but she isn’t my type. Having all of the above because of a misunderstanding would be a tragic error, so I apologise again, but I couldn’t allow it.”

There was a pause, a time when thought was clearly taken.

“No, I, I think, I think  I must be the one to apologise. I was about to do something silly and, and you have stopped me doing that. Deirdre… she can be…just sometimes, she is…”

“A royal pain in the arse, I’d imagine.” There was a sharp intake of breath at the vulgarity, followed by what sounded like a quickly suppressed snort of laughter. “She came here to tease, I’d swear. I can easily imagine her being a handful and taking pleasure in making your life difficult."As he said the words, Jack surprised himself with how true they must be. Deirdre probably gave Brampton hell. "I can’t blame you for coming to the wrong conclusion and I wouldn’t object to her being taken down a peg or two, but, there was nothing going on and I don’t want a scandal”

“Yes, yes I do appreciate that. She’s been quite awful since, well, always, but especially since my fiancé left to join the Army. I think I’ve been rather on edge with her and, erm, perhaps, perhaps I owe you something of an apology. I feel I’ve been rather, erm, rather er, stiff with you since you arrived here. I, I..”

Bugger, thought Jack, just when you think you’ve got people pigeonholed… Brampton put up with Deirdre all of the time and had a fiancé in the trenches. No wonder she was tense and tetchy.

“Um, would it be possible for you to let me up now?”

Jack realised they were still lying together, his arms around her, his mouth close to her ear, his nose tickled by a cascade of clean –smelling hair.

“Ah, yes, sorry.”

He wriggled a hand, which had been resting over her lower abdomen, low over her lower abdomen, out from under and rolled to one side. Miss Brampton sat up, straightened her hair and nightdress and put one hand in another, looking for something to say.

Before she found it she saw Jack’s crotch and a gasp escaped her.

“Ah, yes. I think you lit a small candle.” said Jack, discovering that lying on top of the governess, with his loins in direct contact with her buttocks, had provoked a reaction. He reached over to pick up a pillow and cover his erection.

“My apologies for him. Both he and I regard you as an attractive woman. He’s a touch uncouth about his way of expressing it, however.”

Miss Brampton’s hand covered her mouth and she blushed, finding it hard to suppress a giggle. Jack was so utterly casual and unashamed. She didn’t know where to look (was finding it hard not to stare at a candle which hadn’t seemed so small to her) or what to say. How was this boy so much more at home with this situation than her? His action with the pillow looked more a gesture of politeness to her than one of embarrassment for himself, while she felt hot to the tips of her ears. And more. She realized, to her mortification, there was more than a touch of dampness… down there. She was wet between her legs. Oh God. She needed to leave before anything showed.

“Um, well, er, perhaps I should, umm.”

“Yes, would be for the best. We don't want someone else coming in and starting this whole misunderstanding again, do we?”

Miss Brampton realized she was in a young man’s bedroom, in the middle of the night, in her nightgown, with her hair down and her nipples hardening. She decided to leave at once. Not being able to explain this to herself made her feel she’d have a poor chance of doing so to anyone else.

In an effort to take back control of the situation she stuck out a hand. Jack hesitated a beat, then took and shook it. She didn’t let go, nerves blocking control of her actions.

“Well, er, goodnight then. I, erm, I hope you sleep well, Jack.”

Jack nodded and was about to take his hand back when she stuttered out.

“Perhaps we can start again from tomorrow and, and. Well, I’d like us to be, er, friends.”

The word sat there looking improbable and unsure if it was dressed for the occasion. Can’t see that in a million years, thought Jack, but replied, “Yes, Miss Brampton, that would be nice.”

“Oh, please. Call me Fanny.”

“Of course. But I really think it’s time, now Miss.. Fanny.”

She left. It was far from being a triumphal march, but not quite Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow either. She was flustered, sure she could have handled the situation better and rather unsettled by her body’s reactions. She wanted a cold bath, but she settled for a wet flannel against her forehead, cheeks and neck. Her dreams that night were vague and suspended somewhere between embarrassing and very, very pleasant.

Jack peed into the chamber pot while his erection waned. Automatic reaction, he thought, though he had to admit, Fanny, with her hair out of those rope-like braids, was a good looking woman. She’d a good figure, too. One he hadn’t minded getting so much closer to. Bugger, where were the strange white shapes in the trees when you needed them for distraction?

 It took a while before he slept.

Jack munched his apple, looked at the water and thought, sod it. The chances of anyone seeing him were slim and he didn’t much care anyway. He was hot, the water was cool and he wanted to swim. He stripped, folded his clothes and put them under a bush, then slid into the water. There was the sharp chill and gasping shock as his overwarm body cooled too quickly, but then the water simply refreshed and re-awakened him.

He turned upriver, thinking it better to go further from the castle and enjoy the current on his return rather than fight it when tired. A gentle breast-stroke carried him slowly up the stream. There’d be places here where you might tickle trout, he thought, and decided to try later – Bridie might appreciate some fresh fish and it hardly counted as poaching.

A few strokes of front crawl persuaded him that he wasn’t in the mood for anything strenuous, so he floated on his back for a while, holding position by sculling. The sky was that perfect blue, the water sang in his ears and the world held him in a cradle. He’d enjoy his own company today and commune with his own thoughts. Sometime he’d love to get a rowboat from the boat-house and explore the length of the river. There’d be places for picnics… Nah. Who would he go on a picnic with?

A trace of melancholy waiting at the end of the thought. One he didn’t want to meet, and so turned over and swam away from. The river here wound in tight arcs, its bends hiding secluded nooks. He marked them as good spots to come read and enjoy shade and the sound of the water.

Tight around the next bend and…

“Oh, hello.”

There on the shore, five or six paces from him. Fanny Brampton, combing her hair, her feet dangling over the water. She’d taken off her stiff woolen dress and ankle boots and was clothed in…What would you call that, Jack wondered, female undergarments being a linguistic mystery. A one-pieced garment of… white cotton, he guessed, that covered her from opened neck to ankles. Looked like a summer dress, or the nightgown she'd been wearing in his room, though it was thinner, almost see-through. Wide skirt, just showing her calves, and loosened top, a hint of cleavage, demurely hinting.

She started a little on seeing him, clearly having been enjoying the same peace and quiet. Anyone else coming on her like this and she'd surely have screamed, or rushed to cover herself, or… or something. Jack, though… She didn’t get up or rush to her dress,  so he put his feet to the bed of the river and stood to talk. It seemed the thing to do. After all. He was covered to the navel and the water hid the fact he wasn’t covered beneath it.

“ Good morning, Jack.” She blushed just slightly, then stood up. Once up, however, she couldn’t think what else she wanted to do and went back to brushing her hair, her eyes on the river bank. The brushing, to Jack,  suggesting someone trying hard to be occupied with something else.

“Sorry to disturb you. I hadn’t expected to meet anyone else here.”

“No, nor I. It’s been so quiet here of late. One hardly ever sees another soul. It’s so hot today, I felt I could risk my underclothes without danger of interruption.”

“I can move on if you’d prefer, but I’m hardly dangerous.”

Fanny, memories of the night before still fresh, almost disagreed, but stifled the remark and almost stopped herself looking at him. Jack had strikingly wide shoulders and his stomach was flat with muscles lying across it like fish on a slab. She wanted to count them and wanted not to look anywhere near. She pulled her eyes away and they, disobedient children, snuck back. She brushed her hair more vigorously.

“The water looks rather cold, aren’t you worried about catching a chill?”

“No, it’s very refreshing. Perhaps you should come in?”

She laughed and tried to put the thought of herself in the water, and nearer him, out of her mind.

“Oh, I rather think not. A little too forward, I think.”

“Well, at least dip a toe in to test it.”

Fanny almost did. Then, worried she’d be exposing too much ankle, shook her head and brushed harder.

“Scaredy cat! Here.”

He flicked a handful of water at her. A few drops fell on her and she shrieked. The look she gave him shone with happy indignation, though, so he flicked more. She jumped back, slipped and fell against the slope of the bank. Jack caught a flash of legs as she went down and a laugh behind the shrieks and splashed more, soaking her.

Fanny regained her feet, dropped her hairbrush to the ground and ran into the water, fully intent on dunking him under. She slipped just as her hand caught his head, though, and barreled into him. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Jack, reflexively grabbing and pulling her towards him.

Neither knew later who started the kiss, but they were locked together in it as he got his feet back on the river bed and  pulled her, with her legs wrapped around his, up and even tighter in.

When drowning, they say, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Perhaps. And perhaps not. Certainly, you have time for thoughts, for thoughts happen with a speed like light's. Fanny, engrossed, overwhelmed and enraptured with being kissed, with kissing, with being held tight against a male body, with holding that body with her legs, between her legs, and feeling all of last night’s full orchestra of sensations starting again with a thunder like the 1812 overture; found, although she did not want it,  time for one.

This shouldn’t be happening.

She pulled her mouth away from his, gasping, “No. No, Jack. We must stop. We must stop!”

I would say that there is more, but that's not true yet. There will be. This scene isn't finished yet, but it's late, I'm tired an there is a lot of work to do on this yet. Till next time.