Chapter Text
She closes the book with a slam, its pages crushing together under the force of her shock.
“My god,” she whispers into the pale light of her bedroom. Her breathing is heavy, her chest fighting for air. The pin pricks of heat that sear through her body almost hurt in a way she’s never felt before. It were wrong, she tells herself not for the first time. Wrong. Women like her reading the things she just had. It just wasn’t the done and proper thing.
It wasn’t.
What would her mother say?
Mrs Pumphrey?
Helen?!
Out of shock she pushes the book onto her bedside table, the small light wobbling unsteadily as she does so. She knows in her heart she needs to get as far away from the book's contents as she can and put it back on the shelf well hidden from prying eyes. To even have such a thing in the house feels wrong and her mind swirls with the consequences of its discovery. What would people think if they knew? What would people think of her? Them? There were kiddies in the house.
The shame.
She isn’t one to curse the dead but what on earth was Evelyn Farnon thinking bringing something so scandalous into a family home. A book like the one inches away from her with its pages full of lust and sin shouldn’t be anywhere near a respectable place such as this…
And yet…
There it still is..
Sitting on her bedside table…
For the third night running…
Its mere presence is rubbing angrily at her soul and yet deep down she knows she’s the same as all those who’d read it before her.
In truth? The book's pale dust cover, a handwritten dedication to EF with love from DHL 1928 on the inside, the postcard she had found slotted between the pages and the folded down corner book marks, hasn’t moved more than an arms length away from her possession since its discovery.
Embarrassed at her own behaviour, she throws herself back against her pillow, covering her eyes with her arm while willing herself into sleep. Not for the first time she curses Mr Lawrence for even putting pen to paper. How dare he? She snaps angrily into the silence of the night. How dare he write those words, how dare he describe such acts, how dare he have her feeling such lustful thoughts!
She takes another deep breath to steady her nerves. Her heartbeat is now rallying wildly once more, wild enough that it might burst through her skin if she isn’t careful. Out of instinct she places a hand within the valley of her breasts, her palm covering the thud of her heart. Innocent at first, her fingers then betray her by brushing the edges of her nipples, sending a lightning bolt around her bones she is unable to stop.
“Noooo,” she breathes out. This isn’t the reaction she is looking for from her body.
And yet…
Words and letters swirl around her brain. Fingers, hands, kisses, lips, touches, the idea that people could… together as one. The thought brings a heat to her cheeks. The gamekeeper and the Lady. Instant, sudden, passionate. The woods, the hut, the house…
Frustratingly her fingers seem to have a mind of their own, lazily tracing their way across her skin, circling the hardness of her nipples and the softness of her belly. A light pinch to the hardened skin of her breasts has her stifling a sharp moan.
A second harder pinch sends a bolt of lightning through to her core and an attempt to anchor herself to the bedsheets.
Now silent and in shock, she curses at her own weakness, her own need to gather relief. She tells herself a stronger woman would stop right now. A stronger woman would be able to distance themselves from these feelings and words on a page…
The house is empty though. It is quiet. Not a soul about. It’s almost too tempting.
She takes another deep breath.
It’s not a familiar act to her, touching her body in this manner. She’s rarely done it before, unable to face herself or anyone else the morning after in case she makes a sound. Her marriage to Robert brought nothing of the sought and the few fumblings before that with fleeting suitors had only given her a glimpse of what she was capable of.
Only one man had ever touched her in this way and he was a mere memory up against a harbour wall before he sailed to Belgium that evening. He’d found it though, that spark and while her mind is still very much cursing the ghosts of Evelyn Farnon, DH Lawrence, Mellors and a lady lost with her life, her fingers continue to drift lower and to the centre of her core.
She’s slick now, damp with lust. Her hands push softly against her most private place and a quiet moan escapes into the darkness. A finger gently slips inside her and even though it’s by her own doing the act takes her breath away. Retreating slightly, she discovers the same bundle of nerves the man had and runs her thumb lightly over the hardened bud. The effect is everything and more that she needs. With each pass of her thumb something is building inside of her. Her chest tightens, her breath hitches, her legs slowly pull up against her body. Then without any care to her surroundings or who might hear her a moan escapes.
When it finally arrives it hits her hard. A crescendo of words, feelings, cries to god, and emotions tumble out of her. Sparks rush through her body and suddenly there is light, glitter, stars and then peace. In between breaths she senses that the air suddenly feels lighter around her, her space more centred, her body while still charged with power is less heavy. There’s a sheen covering her skin, and her legs are like jelly.
Through a small gap in the bedroom curtain a star can be seen falling from the sky.
Every word she’s read in that damn book is ingrained into her soul. There’s something else though, something more and now she knows what it is. It’s not about the book on the bedside table. It’s not about the words within it either.
It’s about her and her alone.
____________________
At the bottom of the stairs sits a man in his stocking feet, one hand covering his mouth the other holding a pair of discarded shoes, his heart beating a crescendo. He takes a deep breath and releases it as quietly as he can. He’s fairly sure what he’s just heard was not for his ears. It was for no one's ears except hers, and yet there is it, out in the wild rushing over the dales and up wards towards the God she’s pleaded for.
He stays sat at the bottom of the stairs for longer than he should and lights his pipe in an attempt to control his heart rate. He knows he needs to be the better man and wills himself not to think of the sounds he heard.
The excuse he gives himself when he’s still in the same spot a good while later is that he is a man, and a weak one at that. A weak man who needs to consider where to lay his head for the remainder of the evening. His bedroom does not hold the same attraction as it did over an hour ago while standing in a cold barn. She would hear him undress, climb into bed, and settle down, while no doubt worrying if he’s overheard her.
That, he would not do her.
Eventually he pushes himself into one of the comfortable chairs and covers himself with a blanket. His body has a muted vibration settling upon it, a sensation he’s never felt before. It’s painful yet filled with pleasure, something deep rooted, something unknown.
It’s her that's caused it, he finally realises as his eyes begin to close.
Her and her alone.