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Excerpt from Dedication
The Dedication basement tapes
From Reader, I Married HimHere's a very short extra from The Rules of Gentility that doesn't appear in the book--the hero, Inigo Linsley, reflects on his experience with the fair sex...
I think about the types of women I have encountered thus far in my life:
1. Jolly, willing women like Lucy the milkmaid, who offered to do to me what she did to the cows (with a difference in anatomy), for a shilling. I was fourteen, and for many years after receiving her accomplished services would become inconveniently aroused at the sight of a milk-jug.
2. Professional women like Mrs. Bright and her ilk who will become, for the right price, whatever you want them to be for an hour or two.
3. Women like my sister-in-law Julia, with whom I can talk, and share an easy affection. My only sister died young, but I am sure I should have had a similar relationship with her had she lived.
4. Fanny. Now my dear friend, and once my passionate lover, and not quite yet an ex-mistress. I know eventually she will find another admirer, and would have a better chance of doing so if the father of her child did not sniff around still. We are both very discreet.
5. Philomena. She, I have to admit, has me stumped. I thought her an empty-headed, silly little thing at first, and I am quite sure she thought no better of me. Possibly her opinion of me has not changed. She becomes more of a sweet mystery with every day that passes, and while that is most romantic and poetic, it is also damned annoying. A fellow cannot tell where he stands with such a woman.
Think that couple on the sofa look too well-behaved? Here’s a scene between Adam and Fabienne, the hero and heroine of Dedication...
“Well, Mrs. Craigmont, to be quite honest, I should very much like to see this matter of the letters cleared up before I proceed any further.” Adam yawned. “That is a most attractive scarf in your hair. It is from India, I suppose?”
“Yes, it--what--?” She struggled against him as he whipped the scarf from her hair, grabbed her wrists, tied them together, and looped and knotted the ends through the carving of the back of the sofa. It happened within a heartbeat. One moment she was lulled by the smooth, deep cadence of his voice; the next she was his prisoner.
“My son's a sailor,” he said, as though in explanation.
“Indeed. He teaches you to tie up women?”
“No, no, he's only a sweet, innocent lad. He taught me the knots. Don't struggle, Mrs. Craigmont, you'll tighten them.”
“You whoreson! I'll scream for help!”
“Do, if it makes you feel better. Everyone is out tonight, I believe.”
“Bastard!” She twisted to sit sideways and aimed a kick at him. For good measure, she opened her mouth and let out a piercing shriek.
He winced. “My dear Mrs. Craigmont.” His voice was a soothing rumble. He turned towards her, hooking his leg around hers, and trapping it against the edge of the sofa. Her other leg was still bent at the knee from her ineffectual kick, her foot resting near his thigh.
He stroked her ankle and removed her slipper. “The letters, if you please, Mrs. Craigmont. All you need do is tell me where they are, and you'll be released. It's quite simple.”
“You think to frighten them out of me? How very ungentlemanly.”
“No. I plan to pleasure them out of you.” He cradled her stockinged foot in his hands.
“I beg your pardon?” She drew herself up with as much dignity as she could, and stopped as she realized the action parted her legs. “You mean to force me?”
“Of course not.” He laughed. “You forget our history, Fabienne. I made you do a lot of things you'd never dreamed of doing, once. And you weren't unwilling. You were very willing, in fact. And you can protest all you like, but I know what you look like when you're roused, and I can see it in you now.”
“Oh, you are mistaken. You are very much mistaken. How dare you--”
“Do you remember the time I--”
“Stop!” She managed to thud her heel into his thigh and was rewarded with his grunt of pain.
“Oh, Fabienne, don't fight me.” His hand moved on her ankle, pushing up her gown and petticoat, his fingers tickling around the back of her knee and above. She became still, scarcely breathing, and watched his fingers peel off her stocking--he took the time to examine her garter, nod approvingly, and drop it into his pocket. As his hand slid down her leg and his fingertips traced the arch of her foot, she sank back against the sofa, appalled at her reaction. Yes, he was right. Damn him, he was right. She was angry but she was also aroused.
His hand moved on her foot, a torment, fingertips teasing.
“Adam?” She could barely speak.
He gazed into her eyes, his voice low and seductive. “And the letters?”
“Pig.” She gasped for breath.
“You're enjoying it, aren't you? How about this?” He raised her foot to his mouth, and she felt his breath and then his mouth. It was shockingly intimate, wicked, his tongue curling on her skin, the wet, hot suck of his mouth. He stopped just long enough to murmur, “Tell me, sweetheart.”
When he nipped her toes with his teeth she shuddered, no longer caring that he saw her reaction. He raised his head and danced his fingertips over the sole of her foot. “I wonder if you'll come first. You look as though you could.”
“You filthy pervert!” she gasped. Heat pooled in her belly, simmered at her nipples. She arched her back despite herself and panted, trying to draw her foot away. “I won't tell you.”
“No? Come, Fabienne. Tell me. Release your secrets for me.”
The doorbell rang.
Neither of them moved for a second, frozen.
“Oh, good heavens, it's Elaine, it must be, back early. There's no one to answer the door. For God's sake, let me go.” Fabienne struggled against him as he leaned between her outstretched legs and pulled the scarf loose.
He was laughing, God damn him.
“My stocking, where is it?” She bundled her hair up and tied the scarf around it.
Adam plucked her stocking from the floor and tossed it onto her lap.
“And the garter,” she snapped.
“No, I'll keep that.”
“You will not. Give it to me, if you please. How can I put the stocking on if I do not have the garter?”
The doorbell jangled again.
“It joins my arsenal,” he said. “I'd be happier still if you gave me its fellow, and in heaven if you gave up the letters. Have pity on a poor, lonely widower. Think of it as fairly won in the jousts of love.”
“You intend to tie it around your lance?” She was mortified by his burst of ribald laughter. Furious, she stuffed the stocking into her pocket, found her slipper on the floor and jammed her foot into it. She took a quick look in the mirror--God, she looked half-ravished, her cheeks flushed and her hair in wild disorder--then ran downstairs to let in Elaine and Susan.
Dedication went through a horrific number of rewrites, and this is a discarded scene I'm very fond of. Adam, after he and Fabienne broke up the first time, has fled to the country to sulk and get married. It's the 1790s.
"I'll be a good wife to you, Mr. Ashworth." Margaret had said the words over to herself many times before, sometimes by candlelight in front of a looking glass, and then held a finger to her lips, imagining his kiss. Sometimes she murmured them at the height of summer, when the scents of rose, lavender and honeysuckle hung bewitching on the air. Now she uttered them in a voice that was almost a squeak from nervousness, laced tightly into her best satin gown, with a pin at the waist scratching when she moved, in the chilly air of the parlor.
"Your servant, Miss Hodgefield." He bowed.
She flushed. His words made a mockery of hers, made hers as equally polite and meaningless.
She looked at him properly for the first time since he had entered the parlor. There was a thin line of crusted blood on one side of his neck, under his ear, from shaving, she thought, and shadows under his eyes. He looked older and more serious than when she had seen him last, two years ago before he left for the grand tour. His clothes were finer than any she'd seen the neighbors wear, a dove-gray velvet coat with dark blue embroidery, fine lace at his neck and cuffs, gleaming black riding boots. She wondered if he compared her gown, that this morning she had been so proud to put on, in a conspiracy of giggles and whispers with her maid and mother, to the fashions in London and Rome and found her lacking. She'd seen only the day before in a fashion sheet some six months old that pale colors and shockingly diaphanous fabrics were the rage now, a simulated nudity that reminded her of her own shifts.
"Will you sit down?" She asked.
He shook his head. "Thank you, no. I should go... I have business to attend to on the estate."
"Mr. Ashworth, you don't have to..."
"To what, Margaret?" He smiled a little then, a faint imitation of the frank, open smile she had liked so much about him. The smile did not reach his eyes.
To marry me. To stay in this room with me. To be polite.
"Nothing." She smoothed the blue satin of her skirts down and blinked back tears.
"Your father has agreed that the banns should be called, beginning next Sunday," he said. "I trust that is agreeable?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir. Thank you for telling me, sir."
"Well." He wandered towards the window and stood, tapping his riding whip against one boot. "I shall bid you farewell, then. Good day, Miss Hodgefield."
"Good day, Mr. Ashworth." Her voice was a breathy squeak again. She could have stamped her foot in irritation and humiliation.
He crossed the room to her, took her hand and drew her towards him. His kiss was light and quick on the corner of her mouth, and her heart gave a great leap at his nearness. He smelled faintly spicy, a whiff of nutmeg or sandalwood. A lock of hair escaped his queue and brushed her cheek.
"Oh," she said, and took a quick step away from him.
"It's all right, Mags," he said, and almost smiled at her.
Mags. He had called her Mags. Maybe everything would be all right.
* * *
Margaret, their maid Polly, and her mother sat amongst billows of creamy linen and cotton, sorting and folding. Mrs. Hodgefield squinted at her needle as she held it toward the light to thread it. "Lud, they made needles better when I was a girl," she grumbled.
Margaret looked up from embroidering the initials MA, Margaret Ashworth, onto a pillowcase, and smiled. "I'll do that for you, Mama," she said.
Mrs. Hodgefield relinquished the uncooperative needle and thread to her daughter and sighed. "'Tis a lot we have to get done, daughter. And I was wondering ..."
"Mmm?" Margaret applied herself to the curve and flourish of the A.
"You don't have to marry him if you don't want to." Her mother glanced at her over the top of her spectacles.
"But I do! I do! I've always wanted to marry him." She stabbed the needle into her finger, leaving a small dot of blood next to the embroidery. "He's the only one I ever wanted as husband."
"Ah." Her mother sighed and dipped her needle into the fabric. "He's changed, you know. Even your father noticed it. Cold he is, now, and there's tales of what he was up to in the city and abroad and such. It'd be no shame to you--"
"No!" Margaret swiped at her eyes. Why was her mother doing this? And her father, too. If he told her she could not marry Adam, there would be nothing she or her mother could do.
"Don't take on so," her mother said. She patted Margaret's hand. "Maybe wait a little, do you think? His father's barely in the ground, that was a shock to him, I'm sure."
"Then he needs a wife to comfort him," Margaret said, hoping that would be an end to the conversation.
"I used to think he was a good man," her mother said. "Innocent, maybe, with all that book learning and counting. But now, I don't know. You can't tell anything on his mind now, for all his fine manners and London ways."
"I want to marry him," Margaret said. "I said I would. And I will."
"Well, it's all arranged, and if your heart's set on it ..." her mother pursed her lips. "Just you remember, you make your bed and you lie on it, Mags. Don't come crying to me that he won't take notice of you or treat you badly."
"He won't. Adam wouldn't." Margaret sniffed and wiped her eyes on the sheet she embroidered. Not Adam, who she'd first met as a gawky ten-year old, shy and serious, who had climbed with her into an apple tree and explained some complicated mathematical theory to her. She had smiled and nodded, and stared at his long eyelashes and his hair spilling out of its ribbon.
"Do you understand?" He asked.
"Yes," she lied.
"So, now you explain it to me."
"I shall not." She giggled, jumped from the tree and ran through the orchard, pausing to pick up windfalls to throw at him.
They had ended up, nibbling on sour, underripe apples, at the pig sty, where the pigs eagerly devoured their apple cores.
"When I am a grown man I shall marry you," Adam said. "My father says it is to be so. Will you like that?"
She considered it. "Maybe. Will you always talk of those things?"
"Probably. May I kiss you?"
"No!" She ducked away from him.
It had taken twelve years for him to try to kiss her again.
What if...What if it were Mr. Rochester who was imprisoned in the attic? And what if other characters in Jane Eyre were not as they seemed? Here is a PG-rated excerpt from Reader I Married Him.
Reader, observe.
Through the icy vastness of space, down to the hazy blue sphere set against velvet darkness, further in and further to a small triangular island, dark smears of smoke indicating its cities, but much of it still green.
Further in, narrowing down to a wilderness of gray and green, a brown track of road running through it, and the insect-like figures of men at work who pick up their tripod-mounted instruments, and step aside as the London coach goes by.
These land surveyors don’t realize the work in which they engage is for a daring new enterprise that will make the stagecoach and its way of life obselete, the stuff of legends. In a few years their children will run out to see the iron horse, shrieking amidst its bellows of smoke, roar by.
A jolly bluff sailor king is on the throne. Only one man in five can vote. Anyone, man, woman, or child, may be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. The slave trade has been made illegal, but slavery in the colonies still thrives, and in those smoky cities children of five labor long, dangerous hours in factories. At the London clubs, fortunes and estates are gambled away.
It is a time of contradictions, change, secrets, passions, and cruelty.
And now let us look inside the coach, creaking by at its efficient average of ten miles to the hour in a gust of horse dung and sweat, as the surveyors turn back to their work.
The occupants of the coach, a man and a woman, are even less aware of the gigantic changes about to sweep the country. They have more pressing business. Tell them that in only a few years the man’s most recent crime will earn only a short spell in jail rather than the hanging or transportation he has so narrowly escaped, and they’ll laugh in your face.
And then they’ll empty your pockets, one way or the other.
The interior of the coach held the stale stench of too many people and their food and drink for the journey packed into rather a too small space. Now they were the only two passengers left, she could spread her skirts, crumpled from the journey, over the seats, and watch the man opposite sleep. Occasionally she looked out of the window, wondering at this alien landscape--mauve, gray and tan, with bright green in patches, which, one of their fellow passengers had told her, signified bogs. It was a landscape of massive cragginess, stern and uncaring. If she walked out into this loneliness, she might disappear, her gray, mauve and beige clothes swallowed into the landscape.
She lowered the window and inhaled air unscented by coal smoke.
The man opposite stirred and the prayer book clasped between his fingers tumbled to the straw-covered floor.
She bent to retrieve it. It had fallen open at the frontispiece, signed S. Rivers, Merton College, something he had bought at a bookseller’s stall outside St. Paul’s. He had shaken his head when she asked why.
He mumbled something.
“Simon?” she guessed.
A brief shake of his head. He said the word again.
“Sinjun?” It sounded foreign to her.
“St. John. Pronounced Sinjun. Very aristocratic. Very Church of England. The Reverend St. John Eyre Rivers.” His eyes opened a little. He smiled. “And you. My companion with a beautiful pagan name. Diana Rivers.”
“Mrs. Diana Rivers?” She tested it on her tongue.
“Miss Rivers. My very respectable sister.”
A sister. It was as she expected.
She placed one gloved hand on his knee.
He didn’t stir.
Doubt worried and tugged at her. She needed a partner, not an invalid.
Oh, he looked the part all right. It was his specialty, playing the swell, the gentleman, all beautiful manners and refinement and charm. He took to the role with the ease of one returning to a life where clean linen was a necessity, and the outside world lived to serve you. She was better suited to portraying servants, the occasional whore; rough, forthright women. Playing the reverend’s sister was a step up for her in the fantasy world they were about to concoct, and one she was not happy with.
Under her palm his knee felt too bony. His face still had the prison pallor. She had been shocked when she embraced him the first time after his release, and felt how thin he was, how his body vibrated with nervous tension. He had ignored her and demanded water, hot water, soap. Helpless, she had watched as he scrubbed his pale skin raw, trying to wash away the prison stench. When she had tried to help, he pushed her hands away, as if her touch was that of a stranger’s.
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