Alicia (8 page)

She closed her eyes for a moment, hesitating, before she opened them wide and surveyed her body minutely. Her collarbones were prominent and her shoulders slight. Her arms were thin and sparsely freckled, ending in narrow, shapely hands. She was most interested, however, in her breasts, which swelled out gracefully and ended in the buttons of her nipples. The waist was narrow and the legs long and sturdy, with well-turned ankles and shapely feet. Felicia’s eyes ascended again to the curled auburn hair at the beginning of her legs. She felt a flush spread over her cheeks and refused to meet her own eyes in the glass.

Tentatively she reached one hand up to touch the swell of her breast, firm and soft at the same time. She touched a finger gently to the nipple and felt a strange sensation run through her body. Fascinated by the unusual feeling, she experimented further with her breasts, aware that an aching developed lower down in her body. She met her eyes in the glass; they were shining and rather moist. The blush had not altogether faded, but she was no longer concerned with it. Her breathing was coming more rapidly now, and it frightened her a little, but she felt elated somehow and did not wish to don her clothing until she had satisfied her curiosity.

Instead she laid down on the bed until her breathing became a bit calmer, though she retained a feeling of urgency. Cautiously she rubbed her breasts again and then moved one hand to the site of the aching between her legs. The motion of her fingers there intensified the aching until it reached such a pitch that she could no longer choose to continue, she
had
to. And then her body acted on its own, rhythmically lifting and gripping, as she moaned. Amazing how light and beautiful she felt.

She lay on the bed for some time experiencing the unique sense of release. Then she rose and walked in her nudity to the basin on the stand. It was while she washed her hands that the shame stole over her. One was not supposed to touch one’s body. Felicia wondered rebelliously why not, when one’s body could provide such exquisite pleasure. She began to gather up her clothes and redress herself carefully. It was some time before the thought occurred to her. Like a stallion with a mare, that was where a man with a woman... But then would not the woman receive such pleasure with a man? It was difficult, and Felicia eventually gave up the distressing effort, to visualize a man with her mother. It was unthinkable! It was no less unthinkable to visualize a man with herself. Her body was private, a special thing of her own. There was no man she would think of allowing to touch it!

But children were born every day. Then every day men were touching women. Men like Mr. Tackar with his insolent gaze resting on her mother’s fully clothed body. Felicia’s skin crawled at the thought of such a man touching her body. Even Mr. Harper, the landlord, pleasant as he was; it would be disgusting. She found, though, that if she wove a cozy fantasy about the young man she had passed in the street on her way back to the inn that she could almost imagine it. Not quite, of course, but almost. Someone you cared about, and who knew your dreams and you knew theirs. Almost then she could picture allowing him to touch her breasts, with her clothes on, of course. She saw herself in a sunny dale, lying amidst the violets...

“Felicia, are you all right?”
Her mother’s voice came through the door.

“Yes, Mama,”
Felicia answered absently.

“You might let me in then,”
Alicia suggested with some asperity.

Felicia sprang to the door and unbarred it hurriedly. Her face was stained with a ridiculous blush, and her mother surveyed her anxiously as she entered the room. “Are you sure you are feeling quite the thing?”

“Oh, yes, Mama. I …I was just sitting thinking.”

“Are you ready for something to eat?”

“Yes. Well, no, not just yet, Mama. I …I should like to talk to you for a moment.”

Alicia seated herself with relief and drew off her gloves. She waited patiently for Felicia to speak, but the girl merely studied the closed door. “Has something happened? You did not see Mr. Tackar, did you?”

“No, no. Mrs. Harper says he has left. I felt relieved.”

Alicia sighed. “Yes, that is good news. Now it seems so silly to have burdened you with my problems.”

“You had to, Mama. I had to know.”
Felicia stopped speaking again and tried to meet her mother’s eyes but could not. She unwrapped her parcel and gently stroked the material.

“Something is the matter. Can you not tell me?”
Alicia asked softly.

“I...thought about what you explained to me last night.”

“About men and women? Did that distress you?”

“It was strange to think of, but it interested me,”
Felicia admitted.

“I see.”

“Well, when I left the shop this morning it was so beautiful and I felt very happy. And then I thought about it some more.”

“And...”

“When I got here I barred the door,”
Felicia said with a heightening of her blush, “and I took off my clothes in front of the glass, and I...touched myself.”

Alicia regarded the bent head affectionately, a tiny smile on her lips. “And did you feel anything?”

“Everything,”
Felicia responded simply.

Alicia gave a gurgle of laughter and her daughter raised surprised eyes to her face. “Had you never done so before?”

“Oh, no. I had never thought to do so,”
Felicia answered, eyeing her mother warily.

“Obviously I have been remiss in your education,”
her mother replied, unable now to contain her mirth.

“But, Mama, is it not wrong?”
Felicia asked incredulously.

“So they say,”
Alicia admitted between gulps of laughter, “but I have always found it immensely comforting.”

Felicia ran to her mother and hugged her as the two women enjoyed their laughter, Felicia’s of relief, her mother’s of genuine amusement. Eventually Felicia drew a little away, a frown gathered on her forehead. “And does that not happen with a man?”

“It should, I suppose,”
Alicia admitted. “But I have not experienced it. Perhaps you will. Perhaps you will have a kind husband who will be gentle and understanding. Certainly I hope you will have a fond regard for him, and that should make you at ease. But you see, my dear, we are all reared to think of our bodies as very private, to be hidden and ignored. I remember not understanding what my mother was talking about when she spoke of her duty as a wife. She sent me into marriage unprepared. It might have been different otherwise; I cannot know.”

Felicia received a good deal more information from this speech than her mother would have liked her to. Alicia had been hesitant always to speak with her daughter about such matters, for she felt wholly negative on the subject and did not wish to taint her daughter with her own judgments. Lord, what a job was raising a daughter when one had to hide so much. The previous evening Alicia had had to mind her tongue carefully so that she would not let slip that Mr. Tackar had killed her husband in a duel. There was little she could say about these intimate matters between men and women which would not reflect her own sorrows.

“Mama, what I did this morning ... it is what the vicar calls self-abuse, is it not?”

“Yes, dear, but then I should not let that bother me overmuch. The vicar has disagreeable names for almost everything, and is a most un-Christian sort of person to boot. I can see no harm in it, but you shall have to decide for yourself. I forget sometimes that you are nearly grown up now. In another two years you will be thinking of marriage yourself. Pooh! This is altogether too serious a discussion for such a beautiful day. Shall we have luncheon and ride together for an hour? We can talk more then if you would like to.”

After luncheon Felicia proudly presented to her mother the little mare she had ridden the previous day, but Alicia insisted on choosing a different hack. She was an experienced horsewoman and chose a spirited mount while the ostler eyed her skeptically. “I promise not to bring him to grief,”
she assured Hodges as she brought the horse’s frisking under control.

They rode north this time through a stretch of forest and on past the hedgerows and fields. The lane was empty and they determined to race to the copse ahead. For all the little mare’s endeavor Felicia was not able to win, but she had rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes from the ride. “Lord, how I have missed that,”
Alicia sighed.

“Lady Gorham urged you to make free with her stable, Mama. Why didn’t you?”

“Because she does not like to ride and I wished to spend my time with her. I do enjoy her company and these last weeks I knew we would be leaving soon. She has promised to visit us, you know, but I rather hope she will think better of it. Not that I should not love to see her and Cassandra, but I should hate to be an embarrassment to them.”

“You could never be that, Mama. I cannot believe Lady Gorham has a stuffy bone in her body!”

“Perhaps not. In any case, it is lovely to have a gallop again. I should not be gone too long, though, for poor Mr. Allerton must bear the load alone.”
Alicia directed her horse back to Tetterton and asked over her shoulder, “Did you wish to speak further of what we discussed?”

“There was just one thing. Do other women touch themselves?”

“Truly, Felicia, I could not say. It is not the sort of thing one discusses over tea.”
The very thought of it sent them both into whoops, and that is how the Stronbert Court party found them when they entered the lane from Mr. Tooker’s farm.

Lord Stronbert had his son and daughter with him for the call he had paid on an elderly former tenant. The sound of laughter made him turn his head just as the Coombs ladies rounded the bend behind them.

“Look, Papa, it is Lady Coombs and her daughter. Shall we wait for them?”
Miss Helen asked.

“Certainly,”
he replied easily as he watched Lady Coombs acknowledge their presence and attempt to stifle her mirth. Her daughter was not so successful and was still chuckling when the two parties joined.

Alicia, a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth, spoke first, “Good day, Lord Stronbert, Miss Helen, Master Matthew. I do not believe you have met my daughter, Felicia. Felicia, Lord Stronbert. You will remember his mother, the dowager marchioness.”

Felicia, who very nearly had her laughter under control, dropped her eyes at this mischievous gambit of her mother’s and was barely able to utter a greeting.

“Unfair, Lady Coombs,”
Stronbert retorted. “We are indebted to you, Miss Coombs, for Helen’s enchanting bonnet. You may have noticed that she is unable to part with it.”

Miss Helen was indeed wearing the bonnet, the ribbon beneath her chin tied jauntily under her right ear. “And she has already made an improvement in it,”
Felicia said with a grin.

“I knew you would think so,”
Miss Helen said proudly. “Grandmother was fit to be tied when she saw what I had done, but I like it.”

“Such language, young lady,”
Stronbert cautioned his offspring with a mild but meaningful glance. He turned then to Alicia, as carelessly graceful on horseback as on foot. “You are headed back to town?”

“Yes, I have deserted my post for far too long, but I could not resist a ride on such a day.”

“You certainly seemed to be enjoying it,”
he commented.

“I was,”
she replied, then caught the gleam in his eye and added, “and I still am.”

They rode off, Lord Stronbert and Alicia in the lead, Felicia and the children close behind. Alicia could hear her daughter chattering with them about the town and about the shop and about the Grange with its marvelous rides. “My mother said your daughter was a beauty. She did not understate the case,”
Stronbert remarked indolently.

“Thank you.”

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen.”

“You must have been wed from the cradle.”

“Very nearly,”
she replied tartly.

“Oh, dear, now I have said something personal again.”
His contrite countenance and bowed head were belied by the twitch of his mouth. “Can you forgive me?”

“Not when you do not wish to be,”
she said, her voice mournful.

Stronbert regarded her closely and a note of concern crept into his speech. “I did not intend to...”
This time he did not miss the laughter lurking in her eyes. “It could be frightfully difficult to carry on a conversation with you,”
he said ruefully.

But Alicia had recollected that this was a stranger, a thing which she had somehow momentarily forgotten. He was a marquis and she a shopkeeper and she could hardly carry on a bantering conversation with him such as she might have with the men in the neighborhood of the Grange. She had not done much of that, either, after she had met Mr. Tackar. Men had begun to seem very dangerous game to her. “Mr. Allerton mentioned to me yesterday that there are several standing orders from the Court. They appeared to be from a bewildering variety of people. Do you suppose they would wish them continued under my management?”
she asked a trifle stiffly.

“What sort of orders?”
he inquired curiously.

“The dowager marchioness has required a half dozen linens every three months, but Mr. Allerton says they are usually sent back anyhow.”

Stronbert could not tell this time if she was mocking him. He waited for her to continue. “A Miss Agatha Cummings has the shop send a new parasol each month, whatever is just arrived.”

“Good Lord. I wondered where they all came from,”
he muttered.

She ignored him and continued, “A Miss Carson has us order chalk and notebooks regularly. A general Granat has a standing order for military hairbrushes every four months. A...”

“Please spare me,”
he begged. “I am sure there will be no change in the standing orders.”

“As you wish. You might just mention to these people about the change in ownership, and they could let me know if they wish any alteration to be made.”

“I said there would be no change.”
There was an undeniable firmness about his voice.

“I beg your pardon. I did not mean to contradict you.”
Alicia felt and sounded mortified.

Stronbert gave an exasperated sigh. “You will find, Lady Coombs, if you have not already, that the charges for all those at the Court are sent to me for payment. Therefore I am in a position to assure you that there need be no change. I did not mean to snap at you.”