Listen to the Moon (30 page)

“I married her because I fell in love with her,” he said tightly. “And because I liked her better than anyone I’d ever met. She’s a marvel, and you’d see that if you bothered to look.”

“Then I’m sorry to have misjudged you,” his mother said, not very apologetically. “I’ll try to be more open-minded tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” John stood. “It’s been a long day. Good night, sir, madam. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Oh, Johnny, don’t be angry,” Mrs. Toogood implored at once, catching at his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You see your mother for the first time in half a year and you’re going to go off and sulk?” his father said.

“I’ve had a long journey,” he said, conscious that he
was
sulking. “I’m tired. Besides, how often do I have the luxury of going to bed early?” They all laughed rather awkwardly, and he made his escape.

He entered their room quietly in case Sukey was really asleep. She was curled up in the bed, so small and wistful that John was ashamed of the wave of desire that went through him at the sight of her tip-tilted blue eyes, her bedgown tied shut across her small breasts, and the lithe angles of her body.

In truth, she was five and a half feet tall, taller for a woman, even, than average. But her elusive air, the way she had of darting a wicked glance up through her lashes—she always seemed more diminutive than she was.

“Sukey, are you sure it doesn’t bother you that I’m older than you are? You don’t feel that I’ve taken advantage of you?”

She rolled away from him. “Why, is that what your mother thinks?”

He was appalled by the bitterness in her voice. He wished he hadn’t said anything. “Yes, rather.”

“She thinks I’m stupid,” Sukey spat out. “Just because I don’t know a load of Frog words or like eating cream and butter in
everything
. My piss stinks from asparagus, and I’ve been sitting here trying not to be sick. The cows for that quaint little dairy we saw today must have sore tits from all the milking!”

“Do you want to go?”
Please say yes.
“We’ll leave first thing in the morning if you do.”

She rolled back to face him, curling into a tighter ball. “No,” she said, sounding defeated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything. They love you and they just want what’s best for you.” She plucked at the pillowcase.

“They don’t want what’s best for me. They want me to have exactly what they had. I’m sorry they haven’t been more welcoming.”

“They love you,” Sukey said stubbornly. “Why do you quarrel with them? It only makes things worse.”

He felt as if a door had been slammed on his nose. He’d been defending
her
. “You’d like me to sit quietly while they—” He snapped his mouth shut before he could repeat his mother’s comments. It might get Sukey on his side for a moment, but later she’d realize he had been unkind and spiteful. He
felt
unkind and spiteful. How easily anger rose, and how hard it was to stuff it away again!

“They’re your parents. It can’t have been easy for them to bring you up themselves, here. Not everybody would have done that.”

“So I’m ungrateful?”

Sukey’s crooked mouth pursed. “My father left me, and my mother had to send me out to work when I was twelve. You’re asking me to be up in arms because your parents are a little crotchety?”

His head pounded. “I have never told you how to behave towards your own family,” he said, jaw tight. “I might easily have excused your father’s conduct, but I did not. And now you—”

“You might have
excused
him?” Sukey said incredulously. “For bigamy?
How?
”

“Anybody can think of reasons to defend anything. That’s not the point. A little crotchety? Do you remember that story my mother said was a trifle, about the overcooked roast? He brought it down to the kitchen, gathered the entire staff around, and made my mother eat a piece! And then he said, ‘Perhaps you ought to have done that before you sent it up.’ She
wept,
and the damn thing was perfectly cooked. I have been trying to get along with him for eighteen years longer than you’ve been
alive
. Staying is not the only measure of a good father.”

And there went all the insight and compassion of the day. His father wasn’t a monster, yet John realized he had half-hoped Sukey would think him one. He’d wanted, finally, someone who would take his part once and for all as his mother never had. But a wife wasn’t an echo.

“And how long ago was that?” Sukey asked.

“More than twenty years ago,” he admitted grudgingly.

“I’m sorry.” Sukey’s eyes filled with tears. God, now he’d shouted at her and made her cry. He hadn’t been able to help himself. A chip off the old block indeed.

That was the worst part. As he told her the story, he could imagine himself in his father’s place, fancying himself an avenging angel of roast beef. It seemed a small enough step from things he
had
done.

“It’s only that I’m jealous.” Her tears spilled over. “I can’t help it, it’s eating me up.”

Chapter Eighteen

John went and gathered her to him.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this
again
.”

“No. Don’t apologize. I should apologize for my stupendous selfishness.”

Sukey snorted. “Selfish? You?”

“Yes, me. Cry as much as you like, please.” John felt awful. Sukey had hurt his feelings last night, and he’d barely spoken to her since. He’d been wounded and self-doubting because he couldn’t make her feel better—but how could he have expected to? Her father had left her and she was sad, and he’d wanted that to be healed in a day, so he could feel proud of himself.

And then he’d wanted her to heal
him
, to say what he wanted to hear about his parents and thereby make forty years of love and resentment go away.

His parents, this position as butler, Tassell Hall: they were his burdens and—despite his virtuous resolutions never to do so—he’d divided them with her without thinking twice. He’d dragged her somewhere
he
didn’t even want to be, hoping she’d make it bearable.

Even now, weeping and miserable, she comforted him. The heat and weight of her in his lap, her hair tickling his chin, her long legs arched over his made him feel that something, at least, was right with the world.

His mother knew him better than anyone. She was entirely wrong about Sukey, but she was right about him. He’d married Sukey for his own gratification.

“Will you clean my boots tomorrow?” She sounded uncertain. Surely she couldn’t think he’d refuse her such a small favor.

“Of course. I meant to anyway.”

She tilted her head up. “Will you kiss me?”

He obliged her. “Ask me something harder,” he murmured against her mouth.

She ground her arse into his cock. “I will in a minute.” She twisted round so her back was to his chest. “Hold my breasts.”

“If you insist.” He squeezed them in his hands. They ought to talk, but God, he couldn’t stand it. He wanted to forget everything. He wanted to feel that she wanted him the way he wanted her, that she was his family, that they were one flesh. He wanted to join with her.

She dragged his hand between her legs under her nightdress. When he drew his fingers lightly across her most sensitive place, she moaned and spread her thighs wider, her sharp shoulder blades digging into his chest. “Tell me you want me,” she said.

“I want you.” It wasn’t enough. But everything he thought of was poetic, mannered, nothing to do with this need to be close to her that scorched his throat and stopped his breath. “I want you desperately.” Woefully inadequate.

She pushed him farther back on the bed, following so she sat snugly in his lap, facing away from him.

“I w—” He undid his buttons and drew out his cock—and before he knew what she was about, she pushed herself up and sank down onto it.

He choked on his words.

“John,” she said intently, pushing herself up with her feet and letting herself fall, her hands on the back of his neck holding him close. “John,
John
.” She speared herself anew each time she said his name, until she was bouncing, chanting furiously. The bed creaked noisily, and there was a bevy of maids just down the hall. He almost stopped her—but he didn’t want to. Let them hear.

“Sukey,” he answered, quietly but not whispering either. “Sukey.” His pleasure was brutal, ripped from him. “I want you.” No, it was all wrong, and he knew what he wanted to say instead. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I adore you, Sukey.”

She gasped for air, arching her back with a keening moan, and he didn’t know what that meant but he didn’t care because it was the truth. The only word that would suffice.

He ran his hands up her arms to where she clasped his neck. Taking hold of her wrists, he held them in place, held her so she couldn’t get away. He turned his head to kiss her forearm. Her movements gentled and shallowed; she rocked insistently against him. “I don’t want to spend. I just want this.”

He struggled to breathe. “I’m sorry. I can’t last much longer.”

“Can we go on afterwards?”

“Anything you want.”

“I want you to tease me until your cock can stand again, and then fuck me again.”

“I can—I can—” The word turned to a gargling noise as he spilled into her. He fucked her through it, going until he started to soften. Then he laid her on the bed, kissing, licking and stroking her everywhere but between her legs. When she squirmed, he held her down, suckling at her tits until she sobbed. He rubbed a thumb over the crease of her inner thigh and kissed her just above her triangle of hair.

“It feels so good,” she whispered. “I’m on fire.”

“You’re so brave,” he said, dipping his tongue into her navel. “I always feel foolish talking about this.”

She smiled, running her fingers through his hair. “You shouldn’t. I like it when you growl at me.”

Growl? John had always thought of his voice as—stentorian, he supposed. Suitable for cutting through a busy servants’ hall or announcing callers in a clear, dignified manner. Animals and sailors growled. But if she liked it… He pressed his open mouth to her belly and made a mortifying, animal noise low in his throat. She giggled and shivered at the same time.

When he entered her again, her head fell back and she mewled. “Oh, God, it’s too much, it’s—damn, I’m going to, no, I don’t want to—” He slowed, but she wrapped her legs around him. “Harder, harder, I want to feel it—”

A moment later she convulsed around him, her nails scoring his back.

“Should I stop?”

She shook her head. “It’s too tender, it hurts, more…”

Christ
. “You don’t know what you do to me,” he told the pillow. It was maddening, her hitches of breath, her little sobs, the way she twitched away from him and curled her dainty feet around his ankles. He was glad he had spent once already, so he could enjoy it a little longer.

* * *

Sukey lay there, tired out with pleasure, and somehow her face still felt tight. For a few moments she’d felt close to him again, so close nothing could come between them.

He’d said he loved her, and she was afraid to say it back even though it was true. That was a false economy, that was. Hearts weren’t meant to be pickled and kept on the shelf for a hard winter. “Remember when I told you I was sick of living at Mrs. Humphrey’s, of everything being weighed and measured?”

She felt his nod in the pillow. “You said you wanted to be where people were generous with one another.”

He remembered. He’d listened to her. That seemed like a good sign. It hurt to swallow, her jaw was so stiff. “I don’t know how to be generous,” she said quietly, tears welling up in her eyes again. “I don’t know how to share.”

“Darling, that isn’t true—”

“It
is
,” she said fiercely. “Don’t tell me what’s in my heart. You said I never talk to you, and you were right. I don’t know how. I don’t want to. I want to keep my heart for myself, because I feel as if, if I give it away, I’ll—I won’t have it anymore, and I need it.”

“That isn’t how love works,” he said, low and kind. “The more you give, the more you have.”

And she remembered that, how much she’d loved taking care of him, how every time she did something for him or gave him something, she felt strong and rich. She took a deep breath. “When I think about my father…I know he didn’t want me, and no matter what I do, I can’t change that. It doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t matter, but it’s awful. I feel as if the awfulness could drown me, as if I’m fighting to stay above water.”

“That sounds frightening,” he said, not making any sudden movements.

“Aye.”

He tried to put his arm around her. She twitched away, and he pulled back.

Part of her had hoped, secretly, that he’d know how to make her feel better. But he couldn’t. Nothing anyone said could do that. Still, she thought suddenly of what it would have been like to see her father without him. Of how she’d feel if she were sleeping alone tonight. He was here, and he’d listened, and he wanted her. He loved her.

She turned and buried her face in his chest, curling into him. He was warm and solid and didn’t try to put his arm around her again because he knew she didn’t want it, and all at once she loved him again. Her heart overflowed with it and it felt good, not as if it would drown her at all.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“No, thank
you
.” His voice was tender and amused.

“No, no, sir,” she said, starting to smile, “it is I who ought to thank you.”

“I really must insist, madam—”

They started giggling, the bed quivering with their relieved laughter. John buried his face in the pillow, but high-pitched sounds emerged at odd intervals.

She’d wanted to make him giggle, at the servants’ ball. She’d finally managed it, here at Tassell Hall where everything seemed to make him frown. She felt very proud.

“I do love you,” she said. “I do. Dunnamuch.”

He pulled her tight against him. “Who cares what our families think? You’re my family now, and I’m yours.”

She nodded. That sounded nice.

* * *

John woke long past his usual hour, feeling cheerful and very hungry. He dressed, took up Sukey’s boots, and made his way to the larder, where he cut himself a slice of bread and slathered it with butter and jam. His mother was in the kitchen, training the kitchenmaids in the proper preparation of consommé.

John did not envy them the orgy of cheesecloth that was to follow. “Good morning, madam. Is there coffee?”

She smiled at him. “Yes, in my sitting room. I’ll pour it for you.” Giving the girls instructions to occupy them in her absence, she let him escort her into the next room, where she poured his coffee and settled herself in a chair. He ate quickly and self-consciously, sensing that she wanted to talk to him on a significant subject.

At last he couldn’t take the silence. “What is it, Mother?”

“I’m sorry if I was slighting to your wife yesterday. She seems a very nice girl, and I should have got to know her better before forming any opinions.”

“Thank you,” he said warily.

“John,” she appealed to him, leaning forward. “I’m not one of those mothers who are always asking their children for things, am I? I don’t earwig you to visit more, or demand you produce grandchildren to suit me? When you decided you wanted to be a valet and not a butler, I supported you, didn’t I, even though it meant I never saw you?”

“You’ve supported me in everything.” Fear and love struck John’s heart together. Was she sick? “I’ve never met anyone with a better mother. Mama, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Her face set. “You
must
take over your father’s position. You must.”

John went numb with shock, pins and needles as if his heart had stopped pumping blood to his extremities. On the one hand, he’d been plagued by a growing sense of inevitability ever since speaking to Lady Tassell. On the other, he’d almost made up his mind to tell his father to stop showing him notebooks, because he wasn’t staying. He’d thought of them as the ones it would be hard to tell, not his mother.

“I know you made up your mind not to want it when you were a little boy, but you’re a grown man now. Johnny, I want to retire. I’m seventy-five, I’ve worked my whole life, and I
deserve
to retire. So does your father. He’s given his life to this house, and he deserves some peace and rest.”

“Mother, I’m going to be honest with you. Sukey and I came because Lady Tassell agreed to pay our way, and I wanted to see you. I didn’t wish to reject the position out of hand. But I don’t—”

He didn’t know what to say.
The idea of the position makes me feel as if I’m made of lead?
Would he really give his mother pain only because he wanted to
enjoy
his work? “Besides, I’m married now, and I ought to consider my wife’s comfort. I don’t think Sukey would be very happy here.”

“I knew it,” she said bitterly. “I knew she’d poisoned you against the idea. You listen to her, when you’ve never listened to me about anything.”

“That’s entirely unfair,” he said, losing patience. “You know I’ve always had the highest respect for your opinion.”

“You don’t. You’re just like your father. Neither of you listen to me.” Her mouth trembled. “I’ve begged him to leave, but he won’t, not until you take his place. He’s always been so proud of giving you a good start in life, and a sure future, one you didn’t have to fight and sacrifice for the way he did. The work he does is an honor! Lady Tassell and the Whigs rely on him. Why don’t you want it? I know you, John. You might be enjoying an easy, idle position now, but you’ll be bored in a twelvemonth and wishing you’d listened to me. And by then it will be too late. Your father will be
dead
.”

“He’ll be what? Why?”

Her answer was forestalled by his father’s shouts echoing through the house. It was a familiar sound, but Mrs. Toogood was up and racing through the kitchen. John followed, soon outpacing her. He found Mr. Toogood in the great hall, red-faced and screaming obscenities at a cowering maid who was mopping up a spilled bucket of soapy water. The sound of his father’s anger still made John’s hair stand on end—but he’d never heard his father curse in the presence of a woman before.

“What happened?” his mother demanded, coming up behind him, breathing hard. “Are you all right?”

“This stupid slut left her pail in the middle of the floor where anyone could trip over it, that’s what happened.
Think
before you do things, for Christ’s sake. If you’ve
got
a brain rattling around in there. I’ll be black-and-blue tomorrow.” There was a great wet stain all along the old man’s side.

“I’m that sorry, Mrs. Toogood,” the maid said, tears in her eyes. “I tried to warn him of it, but he was going so fast. He took the fall with his body to save the decanters, madam. I’m that sorry. Let me see your arm, sir, please, I—”

Even through John’s horror, part of him noticed that she was just spreading the water around.

“Why would I trust you to see to my injuries when you can’t even see to a floor? Look at this mess. The whole thing will warp.” Mr. Toogood snatched the mop out of her shaking hand and set to efficiently containing the spill.