A Week To Be Wicked

"Oh no. Oh God. I couldn't possibly be so stupid."
"Don't limit yourself. You can be anything you wish."

Truly? That whole determined, dangerous saunter across the room was for me? In that case, would you mind going back and doing it all over again? Slowly this time, and with feeling.

She stared at him, horrified. And thrilled. And horrified at being thrilled.

"Don't you do that." She turned away from the mirror, toward him. "Don't you dare make a joke. It took a great deal of courage to say what I did. And you don't have to speak a word in return, but I will insist you be man enough to take it. I won't have you making light of my feelings, or making light of yourself, as if you are not worthy of them. Because you are worthy, Colin. You're a generous, good-hearted person, and you deserve to be loved. Deeply, truly, well, and often."

He squeezed her hands. "I love you. I love that you're clever and loyal and curious and kind. I love that you're often so fearless and bold and strong, but I also love that you're occasionally not, because then I can be strong for you. I love that I can tell you anything. Anything at all. And I love that you always have something surprising to say. I love that you call things by their right names. That you aren't afraid to call a tit a tit, or a cock -"

Certainty becomes you.

So odd. Most women of his acquaintance relied on physical beauty and charm to mask their less-pleasant traits. This girl did the opposite, hiding everything interesting about herself behind a prim, plain facade.
What other surprises was she concealing?

Mr. Sand, do you think it's possible to fall in love in the space of a single day?"
He smiled. "I wouldn't know. I only fall in love at night. Never lasts beyond breakfast, though."

She couldn't "heal" him. No woman could. Events that far in the past just couldn't be undone. But perhaps he didn't need a cure, but a lens. Someone who accepted him for the imperfect person he was, and then helped him to see the world clear. Like spectacles did for her.

A better man wouldn't play this "sweetheart" game with her when he knew very well it couldn't lead to more.
But he wasn't a better man. He was Colin Sandhurst, reckless, incorrigible rogue and damn it, he couldn't resist. He wanted to amuse her, spoil her, feed her sweets and delicacies. Steal a kiss or two, when she wasn't expecting it. He wanted to be a besotted young buck squiring his girl around the fair.
In other words, he wanted to live honestly. Just for the day.

He quietly groaned. Again and again, he'd witnessed this phenomenon with his friends. They got married. They were happy in that sated, grateful way of infrequently pleasured men with a now-steady source of coitus. Then they went about crowing as if they'd invented the institution of matrimony and stood to earn a profit for every bachelor they could convert.

The words burned on her tongue, but Minerva couldn't give them voice. What a hopeless coward she was. She could pound on his door at midnight and demand to be respected as an individual. She could travel across the country in hopes of being appreciated for her scholarly achievements. But she still lacked the courage to ask for the one thing she wanted most.
To be loved, just for herself.

"What on earth are you wearing? Did you take orders in a convent since we spoke last?Little Sisters of the Drab and Homely."

Men never hesitated to declare their presence. They were permitted to live aloud, in reverberating thuds and clunks, while ladies were always schooled to abide in hushed whispers.

He laughed. A strained, ha, ha, ha, I may die of this laugh.

"For the love of ammonites, man! That's just stupid. Why on earth would the Society need to protect unmarried women from bone-dry lectures regarding soil composition? Do your members find themselves whipped into some sort of dusty frenzy, from which no delicate lass would be safe?"
Mr. Barrington tugged on his coat. "Sometimes the debate does get heated."
Colin turned to her. "Min, Can I just hit him?"
"I think that's a bad idea."
"Run him through with something sharp?"

He lay on the bed, freshly shaven and washed, legs crossed at the ankles and arms propped behind his head. His posture said, Yes, ladies. I truly am this handsome. And I don't even have to try.

Minerva considered herself a reasonably intelligent person, but good heavens . . . handsome men made her stupid. She grew so flustered around them, never knew where to look or what to say. The reply meant to be witty and clever would come out sounding bitter or lame. Sometimes a teasing remark from Lord Payne's quarter quelled her into dumb silence altogether. Only days later, while she was banging away at a cliff face with a rock hammer, would the perfect retort spring to mind. "as for Diana . . . sometimes I think the kindest thing I could do for my sister is ruin her chances of making a "good" marriage. Then she might make a loving one." Amazing, then, how with that one remark, he made a mortifying situation thirteen times worse. This is the normal way with birthdays, see? Amazingly enough, they arrive on the same day, every year. Mama's gaze pierced her. As a girl, Minerva had envied her mother's blue eyes. They'd seemed the color of tropical oceans and cloudless skies. But their color had faded over the years since Papa's death. Now their blue was the hue of dyed cambric worn three seasons. Or brittle middle-class china. The color of patience nearly worn through. She'd always wondered what it would feel like to stand on one end of a ballroom and watch a handsome, powerful man make his way to her. This was as close as she'd ever come to it, she supposed. Standing at Diana's side. Imagining. "Thank you," she forced herself to say. "I would be most . . . relieved." He led her to the floor, where they queued up for the country dance. "Relieved?" he murmured with amusement. "Ladies usually find themselves 'delighted' or 'honored' to dance with me. Even 'thrilled.'" She shrugged helplessly. "It was the first word that came to mind." One more minute of this, and she'd be a certifiable simpleton. "That's it," she said, balling her hands in fists. "I'm not letting you out of it this time. I insist that you take me to Scotland. I demand you ruin me. As a point of honor." "This is true valor, I hope you know. Legends have sprung from less. All Lancelot did was paddle about in a balmy lake." She smiled. "Lancelot was a knight. You're a viscount. The bar is higher." "It's all right," she said. "You're through." "Jesus," he finally managed, pushing water off his face. "Jesus Christ and John the Baptist. For that matter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John." Still not enough. He needed to reach back to the Old Testament for this. "Obadiah. Nebuchadnezzar. Methuselah and Job." "Be calm," she said, taking him by the shoulders. "Be calm. And there are women in the Bible, you know." "Yes. As I recall it, they were trouble, every last one." "It's like a lizard's foot," she said. "With a footprint that size, that deep? That would have to be one bloody large lizard." "Sweet heaven." She swallowed back a lump in her throat. "You must do this all the time. Night after night, you tell women your tale of woe . . ." "Not really. The tale of woe precedes me." ". . . and then they just open their arms and lift their skirts for you. 'Come, you poor, sweet man, let me hold you' and so forth. Don't they?" He hedged. "Sometimes." At times like these, patience came at a premium. Jesus. Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Delilah, Jezebel, Salome, Judith, Eve. Trouble, every last one. Add Minerva Highwood to the list. "I'll be damned," he muttered. "Most likely." She folded the blanket with efficient snaps. "And I may be joining you, after what we just did." "This Sir Alisdair fellow." Her cheeks blushed crimson. "I'm just saying, he's likely older than Francine. And less attractive." "I don't care! I don't care if he's ancient and warty and leprous and hunchbacked. He would still be learned, intelligent. Respected and respectful. He would still be a better man than you. You know it, and you're envious. You're being cruel to me to soothe your pride." She looked him up and down with a contemptuous glare. "And you're going to catch flies in your mouth, if you don't shut it." For once, Colin found himself without words. The best he could do was take her advice and hoist his dropped jaw. "What? You mean to travel almost five hundred miles alone? No. I can't let you do that. I . . . I forbid you." It was Colin's first attempt at forbidding anyone to do anything, and it worked about as well as he'd expected it to. Which was to say, not at all. It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he'd witnessed one of those small, everyday miracles of spring. Like a licked-clean foal taking its first steps on wobbly legs. Or a new butterfly pushing scrunched, damp wings from a chrysalis. After spending all of her girlhood fervently wishing she could run away from home,  she'd actually done it. "A man might engage in flirtation with disinterest, or even disdain. But he never teases without affection." He speared her with a look. "Those are my words. That is blatant plagiarism." "I think you've more than made up for lost time now. In fact, I'm certain you've exceeded your teasing quota for the day." "I can't borrow against tomorrow?" "No." "Is that a nautilus?" he asked. "Close, but no. It's an ammonite." "An ammonite? What's an ammonite? Sounds like an Old Testament people overdue for smiting." "Ammonites are not a biblical people," she replied in a tone of strained forbearance. "But they have been smited." "Smote." With a snap of linen, she shot him a look. "Smote?" Grammatically speaking, I think the word you want is 'smote.'" "Scientifically speaking, the word I want is 'extinct.' Ammonites are extinct. They're only known to us in fossils." "And bedsheets, apparently." "You know . . ." She huffed.  "Anyhow," she went on, "so long as my mother forced me to embroider, I insisted on choosing a pattern that interested me. I've never understood why girls are always made to stitch insipid flowers and ribbons." "Well, just to hazard a guess . . ." Colin straightened his edge. "Perhaps that's because sleeping on a bed of flowers and ribbons sounds delightful and romantic. Whereas sharing one's bed with a primeval sea snail sounds disgusting." Her jaw firmed. "You're welcome to sleep on the floor." "Did I say disgusting? I meant enchanting. I've always wanted to go to bed with a primeval sea snail." "You know," he said, "this design begins to appeal to me after all. Sea slugs aren't the least bit arousing, but logarithms . . . I've always thought that word sounded splendidly naughty." He let it roll off his tongue with ribald inflection. "Logarithm." He gave an exaggerated shiver. "Ooh. Yes and thank you and may I have some more." "Lots of mathematical terms sound that way. I think it's because they were all coined by men." "'Hypotenuse' is downright lewd." "Quadrilateral" brings rather carnal images to mind." She was silent for a long time. Then one of her dark eyebrows arched. "Not so many as   'rhombus.'" Good Lord. That word was wicked. Her pronunciation of it did rather wicked things to him. He had to admire the way she didn't shrink from a challenge, but came back with a new and surprising retort. One day, she'd make some fortunate man a very creative lover. "We have the oddest conversations." "I find this conversation more than odd. It's positively shocking." "Why? Because I understand the principle of a logarithm? I know you're used to speaking to me in small, simple words, but I did have the finest education England can offer a young aristocrat. Attended both Eton and Oxford." "Yes, but . . . somehow, I never pictured you earning high marks in maths." "So there's an . . . an etiquette to raking. Some seducer's code of honor. Is this what you're telling me?" Is it truly so unfathomable, that an imperfect girl might be perfectly loved? Think of it like running down a slope. If you attempt to slow down and choose your steps, you're bound to trip up and stumble. He was right. They could have a whole conversation without exchanging a word. And the conversation they had right now went like this: Colin, shut it. I don't think I will, M. Then I'll make you. Really? How? I'm not certain, but it will be slow and painful. And I won't leave any evidence. "Eventually, a governess realized I needed spectacles. When I first put them on my face, I can't even tell you . . . it was like a miracle." "Finally seeing properly?" "Knowing I wasn't hopeless." A knot formed in her throat. "I'd believed there was something incurably wrong with me, you see. But suddenly, I could see the world clear. And not only the parts in the distance, but the bits within my own reach. I could focus on a page. I could explore the things around me, discover whole worlds beneath my fingertips. I could be good at something, for once." "I don't know. What do people see when they gaze at the sky? Inspiration? Beauty?" She heard him sigh. "Truth be told, this view always intimidated me. The sky's so vast. I can't help but feel it has expectations of me. Ones I'm already failing." He was silent for a long moment. "It reminds me of your eyes." Perhaps, she thought, people were more like ammonites than one would suppose. Perhaps they too built shells on a consistent, unchanging factor, some quality or circumstance established in their youth. Each chamber in the shell just an enlargement of the previous. Growing year after year, until they spiraled around and locked themselves in place. And even if she could discern what future she wanted . . . How would she bear it if that future didn't want her? There were a dozen reasons why she might refuse him. But they were all someone else's reasons. Her mother's, her peer's, society's. She'd already left all those expectations behind. "this native people he lived with, deep in the jungle, their language had dozens of words for rain. Because it was so common to them, you see. Where they lived, it rained almost constantly. Several times a day. So they had words for light rain, and heavy rain, and pounding rain. Something like eighteen different terms for storms, and a whole classification system for mist." "Why are you telling me this?" His touch skimmed idly down her arm. "Because I'm standing here, wanting to give you a fitting compliment, but my paltry vocabulary fails me. I think what I need is a scientific excursion. I need to venture deep into some jungle where beauty takes the place of rain. Where loveliness itself falls from the sky at regular intervals. Dots every surface, saturates the ground, hangs like vapor in the air. Because the way you look, right now . . ." His gaze caught hers in the reflection. "They'd have a word for it there." "Words for everyday showers of prettiness, and the kind of misty loveliness that disappears whenever you try to grasp it. Beauty that's heralded by impressive thunder, but turns out to be all flash. And beyond all these, there'd be this word . . . a word that even the most grizzled, wizened elders might have uttered twice in their lifetimes, and in hushed, fearful tones at that. A word for a sudden, cataclysmic torrent of beauty with the power to change landscapes. Make plains out of valleys and alter the course of rivers and leave people clinging to trees, alive and resentful, shaking their fists at the heavens." A hint of sensual frustration roughened his voice. "And I will curse the gods along with them, Min. Some wild monsoon raged through me as I looked at you just now. It's left me rearranged inside, and I don't have a map. He couldn't compare a woman to a torrentially beautiful monsoon, and then look surprised that he'd gotten wet. I would rather die a spinster - poor, ruined, scorned, and alone- than suffer that heartbreak daily. This is ideal, you'll see. We do everything backward. It's just how we are. We began with an elopement. After that, we made love. Next, we'll progress to courting. When we're old and silver-haired, perhaps we'll finally get around to flirtation. We'll make fond eyes at each other over our mugs of gruel. We'll be the envy of couples half our age." "I'm so sorry we'll never meet," she whispered, laying her posy atop the late Lord and Lady Payne's grave. "But thank you. For him. I promise, I'll love him as fiercely as I can. Kindly send down some blessings when you can spare them. We'll probably need them, from time to time." Looks fade; gold doesn't.