Pillow Talk

“Rumour has it Sir Rodney is no longer the only man to grace Miss Abigail’s chambers.”

The Earl of Carlisle hums, noncommittally. He rolls one shoulder and continues to undress for the night. 

Across the bed, his wife, the Countess, arches a single, plucked brow, and continues. 

“Rumour also has it, that of all the heads she turns as she walks, yours is the neck that twists most.”

Carlisle seats himself on the edge of the bed. His voice is even when he answers, smooth and just barely amused. “Is that so?” he asks, and now it is the Countess’s turn to shrug.

“They say,” she says, dryly, “that it is no wonder you let your gaze drift, saddled with such an ill-tempered and disagreeable crone as you are. Though that I think was solely the opinion of Lady Montagu, and she never has quite forgiven me for snubbing in turn her dress and then her person, when we were first coming out together at fourteen.”

“I don’t recall this story. Surely your words were not in such bad taste that they linger, decades on? And over a dress, no less. What was so wrong with it?”

“The dress was fine, it was my disregard for her general being that I believe she took offence at.” She is now sitting, as well, combing her fingers through her thick, dark curls.

“Ah.” He turns a little, the better to see her in their dim, candlelit room. He faces her back, watches as deft hands divide the hair out into equal parts and begin to twine them together.

“Let me,” he says, and her hands still, as he reaches out and replaces them with his own.

He has to undo the few turns she’s already made, but then it is a simple matter of letting his mind drift as he works from physical memory alone. He doesn’t do this often - indeed, it has been many months since he last offered, though the Countess braids her hair every night - but his body remembers the simple actions with ease, and here, in the gentle light, the easy mood, he feels content, as his fingers work through soft tresses.

The Countess exhales, a long, unweighted sigh, a breath of being, unfatigued and unburdened.

They sit in silence, and when he is done she ties off his work with a small piece of ribbon. In harmony, they both settle beneath the covers. The Countess reaches for the candle at her bedside, and with two swift fingers extinguishes the flame. And then they lie in darkness.

Night fills the room, and the hour is late, but though both lie content, with minds untroubled, neither fall asleep.

The Earl moves his hand under the covers, searching. The Countess meets him halfway, and links their fingers together.

“So,” he says, tone light, and just more than a whisper. “What else do they say of me?”

Her laugh is a single puff of air. “They say,” she says, lengthening her words, letting them linger in the air. “They say, that Miss Abigail has aspirations above her station. That she is not content with the match she has secured, and hopes to ensnare a much grander prize. That she visits in part to do away with any obstacles in her path.”

“Ah, my dear, you know there can be no other, for me.” His speech is saccharine, oversweet, and this time her chuckle is more bodied.

“I shall inform Buckingham at once,” she says, voice dry, and a comfortable silence fills the room for a moment.

Eventually, after some period of time has elapsed, Carlisle speaks again. “Besides, you do her a disservice. She’s intelligent, and utterly unpossessed of delusion. But she is engaged and alone, and glad for some, friendly companionship, to pass time whilst Rodney is away. You know Rodney, perhaps better than anyone, and you know his heart. He is hardly like to mind.”

She hums in passive agreement. “Still. Society talks. You’ll ruin the poor girl.”’

He snorts, loud and undignified. “She is hardly a girl. Five and twenty years grown, yet you coddle her as if she were a child.”

She grumbles, garbled nonsense. “I coddle her as I wish she were my child.”

“Alexander still vexes you?”

“In all his life he has done nothing of worth, and he does not even care. He has no aspirations, not for marriage nor military nor court. For every advantage he has been awarded in life, he chooses the path of indolence and sloth, and if I believed I could successfully trade him for Miss Abigail I would in a heart’s beat.”

“No you would not.”

She sighs. He can hear a small smile in her voice. “No. I would not.”

At some point in the conversation the two have turned, curling into each other. Their bodies are no more than vague outlines in the dark, but he can still make out her exaggerated, full-bodied shiver as he says, almost hesitantly, “We might have had another, had you not insisted.”

“I am glad we did not. My whole life I have sympathised with Eve, but in those months I cursed her with all the depth of feeling my heart and mind could muster. No, my dear Alexander shall have to be enough.” She says those last words with a smile to soften them, and he knows she is not being serious.

He smiles too. “I think your judgements are much too harsh. He is not hopeless, as you make it seem.”

“Perhaps.” 

He thinks for a while, contemplating. “It is true, though. He is a far cry from who I was at his age.”

“True. He has that in his favour, at least. My influence, I’m sure.”

He huffs. “I have changed my mind. I shall marry Miss Amelia and live a wonderful life with her, and leave you to lament your woes with Sir Rodney ad infinitum.”

She snorts. “You would have to fake your death to do so, and then your lands and wealth would come to dear Alexander, and he would not leave me destitute. You would have nothing, and meanwhile I would remain here and hold revel with Buckingham and the Duchess of Lorraine.”

“You make a compelling argument. Perhaps it is best I stay.”

“I am honoured, I’m sure.”

The Earl laughs. He leans in, stretching his neck out slightly, and briefly presses their foreheads together. 

The mood sobers, slightly. He opens his mouth as he pulls back, closes and then opens it again. “We’ve done well, haven’t we?”

She nods her head, and he can hear it through the “It’s a good life.”

“Did you ever imagine we would find ourselves here?”

“We were married at fifteen and have been so since, I hardly imagined I would be anywhere else.”

He gives no response, but she knows that he wants something more. 

“We have had each other for the better part of our lives. Perhaps not always entirely in the ways we imagined, but in all the ways that are truly meaningful. Though what we may be and may have been may change, I have confidence that at least will not.”

“That it won’t.”

“And we are happy. What does it matter if it is not precisely in the manner our younger selves imagined for us.”

He smiles, and lets the words sit in the air. The Countess settles herself down, nestling deeper into the bedding and closing her eyes to finally sleep.

“I love you.”

She does not open her eyes, as she answers. “I love you too.”

And they drift off, their smallest fingers still locked beneath the covers.