Tallie's Knight (22 page)

And he marched out,
leaving Tallie fuming. A sickly constitution indeed! This from the man who’d
called her sturdy! And how dared he criticise all her old clothes and then give
the modiste orders to ensure she looked just as dowdy in her new ones? Suddenly
Tallie felt perfectly comfortable with the new French fashions, flimsy or not.

“You will ignore my
husband, if you please, Mademoiselle Celestine. Men do not have the least idea
of fashion,” she said firmly. “The gowns will be as we agreed.”

Mademoiselle
Celestine smiled knowingly.

“Ah, but you play
with fire, milady. Alors. Perhaps we make the necklines a little higher, here.
And then we take a slip, like so.” She took out an opaque underdress and held
it up. “Many women wear flesh-coloured stockings also. And of course there are
your beautiful pink drawers, quite warm enough for the most fragile constitution,
and yet, when the gentlemen look, they see only the colour of flesh… and they
wonder… ah, oui, they wonder…” She laughed and pulled a very expressive face.

“Tres chic and yet
tres respectable, so your so-jealous husband is almost —but not quite— happy.
Husbands must be taught their place, non?”

She and her
assistants laughed again.

Tallie smiled
vaguely, distracted by the modiste’s words. Her jealous husband? That could not
be right, surely. Still, he had told all those dreadful lies about her delicate
constitution. She felt a small glow in the region of her heart. It was a start,
perhaps. By the time the modiste and her chattering assistants finally left,
promising to have a beautiful gown ready for her by the morning, and many more
au plus tot, Tallie felt exhausted.

However, her husband
had not simply arranged a modiste but also a hairdresser, Monsieur Raymondo, a
small, dapper man with an elegant waxed moustache. He prowled around her
shrinking form a dozen times, muttering under his breath, bunching her hair
this way and that and exclaiming in raptures over its texture and natural curl.
Magnus ventured into the room just as the hairdresser picked up his scissors.

“Don’t you dare shear
off all that beautiful hair!” he roared, and Monsieur Raymondo dropped his
scissors in fright. A long discussion ensued over exactly how much Magnus would
tolerate being cut off.

Tallie took no part
in it; she was in a small, happy daze of her own.

Beautiful hair! He
had lied about her fragility, now this, about her very ordinary hair.

In the end Magnus and
Monsieur Raymondo reached a compromise. Short, feathery curls would cluster
around her face, while the rest remained quite long. It would please her
husband, yet still have the required classical look about it —the new fashions,
like the new French Republic, paid homage to the Ancient Greek and Roman ideals.

Tallie could hardly
believe the reflection which stared back at her from the mirror when Monsieur
Raymondo had finished. Her face seemed quite a different shape; she looked
elegant… almost pretty. Her eyes seemed larger, her horrid nose not so pointy, and
curly wisps of hair caressed her cheeks and highlighted her cheekbones.

Monsieur Raymondo
showed Tallie several ways to arrange her hair. She could put it up and hold it
with a crescent, like the goddess Diana.

She could wind a
spangled scarf around her head, wear it in long, snaky ringlets a la Sappho or
in the unique style Monsieur Raymondo had invented for her. Milady was now
completely a la mode. Tallie expressed some concern that she would not be able
to manage the new hairstyles, but her husband called a smartly attired young
woman into the room and introduced her as Monique, Tallie’s new maidservant and
dresser. Tallie’s mouth fell open. She had never in her life had someone dress
her.

But she didn’t have
time to question anything, for then a shoemaker arrived. He measured her feet,
produced a pair of jean half-boots and two pairs of smart kid slippers for
immediate wear, and promised to send a dozen new pairs within the week.

Finally, Magnus
announced that if the dressmaker delivered as she had promised, Monique could
take Tallie shopping on the morrow, so that she could be fitted out with all
the other falderals women found so indispensable. Tallie’s head was aching by
this time and she took umbrage at his tone.

“I do not wish to go
shopping tomorrow,” she announced. “I have done without falderals quite happily
—well, almost happily,” she amended honestly, “for all my life.”

She took a deep
breath and faced him, her hands clasped to her chest.

“I do not wish to
sound ungrateful, indeed I am truly very grateful for all these beautiful
things you have bought for me—”

Magnus stiffened uncomfortably.
So much for wishing for a grateful wife. He found he did not want gratitude
from her at all.

“It must have cost
you a tremendous—” She flushed suddenly and muttered, “I am sorry. I know it is
vulgar to refer to money. But I do thank you for all the purchases you have
made on my behalf. I cannot remember when anyone gave me—”

She broke off and
scuffed her foot against the Turkish rug on the floor. Her eyes were bright
with unshed tears, Magnus noticed, before she ducked her head down to hide them
from him. There was a short pause before she resumed.

“It is only… I do not
want to waste any more time in shopping for… for things. I want… I want so much
to see Paris. Already I have been here a full day and a night, and I have seen
nothing except this room. Could we not—” Her eyes fixed on his, wide with
entreaty. “If I wore a cloak, no one could see my clothes and you need not mind…”

Magnus stood up,
affronted. She thought he was ashamed of her clothes, ashamed to be seen in her
company. She thought he had hidden her away until she was fit to be seen. To
his chagrin, he found there was an element of truth in the unspoken accusation.
Though he was not ashamed of her —he just wished her to feel equal to those
clothed in the very finest.

“It is too warm to
wear a cloak,” he said, “but if you wish it, there is still time for us to see
something of the city.”

“Now?” she blurted,
surprised.

“Yes, immediately. If
you are not too tired.”

“Oh, no, I am not,”
she said, her eyes shining. “Oh, Magnus, thank you. I will just fetch my hat.”
She hurried from the room and returned in a moment, fitting an old-fashioned
bonnet to her head. He watched her tie its strings.

“I wished only to
please you,” he said stiffly. “I did not think of how you must feel, cooped up
in here all day, when you have looked forward so eagerly to our arrival.”

Her face fell.

“Oh, no, I did not
mean to criticise—”

He interrupted her.

“Shall we?” he said,
presenting his arm.

Tallie was enchanted
with Paris. She loved the narrow streets and the incredibly tall stone houses —some
as many as seven storeys high. She admired the public buildings with the
slogans of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and Indivisibilité written on every
one. She especially loved the wide, elegant boulevards, so thickly planted with
trees the branches almost met in a cool green arch. And under those branches
there seemed to be a constant scene of festivity.

Parisians did much of
their socialising out of doors, and Tallie adored the outdoor cafes, where it
seemed a thousand happy people sat, quaffing lemonade, wine, cider, beer or
coffee. They strolled through parks where she was delighted by the “Theatres
for the People” as they were called —outdoor booths with conjurers, puppet shows,
menageries and music, always music playing somewhere, on an organ, fiddle,
harmonica, tambourine or flute.

And when, finally,
night fell, and she thought they must return to the hotel, Magnus took her to a
place where a thousand lamps sparkled like fireflies in the branches of the
trees, and a hundred flickering candles lit tiny intimate tables. There he
ordered champagne and a meal, and Tallie ate her first dinner in Paris out of
doors, totally enraptured. The food was delicious, but she could not recall afterwards
what it was, for she was entranced by the sights and sounds of Paris all around
her, and by the sight of her handsome, silent, considerate husband, who had so
splendidly made amends for his earlier ineptitude.

And afterwards they
strolled back to their hotel.

And Magnus came to
her room.

Tallie braced herself
and gritted her teeth. The tension was unbearable. She couldn’t stand much
more. Her body was sheened in sweat. She clutched the sheets on either side of
her stiffened body and imagined them shredding under the pressure. She knew
exactly how they felt —if sheets could feel, that was.

“Oh, for heaven’s
sake get it over with,” she gasped. “I can’t take much more of this!”

Magnus, naked and
sweating from his labours, froze. He stared at his bride of two weeks,
outraged. Never, never had any female dared to suggest he was less than
adequate in the bedchamber! And this chit, barely out of her virginity, was
daring to criticise! He swung himself away from her body, and she gathered the
sheet against her to cover her nakedness.

Tallie stared at his
furious face, appalled at her own lack of tact.

She hadn’t meant to
say it —it had just slipped out.

“I’m sorry—” she
began.

“So I should think!”
he rapped. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”

“Well, but—”

“Do you think it is
easy for me, making love every night to a bride as cold and unmoving as a
corpse?”

“I have no idea,
never having considered… the matter, although it seems to me you do not exactly
dislike the procedure. In any case, it is very difficult for me, too!” Tallie
was incensed by his criticism. “You have no idea how difficult. It is pure
torture!”

“Torture?” Magnus’s
grey eyes glittered with rage. “Torture is it?”

He was mortified.
Furious. He had half a mind to storm out of the bedchamber and abandon her then
and there. He glared down at her. It would serve her right if he throttled her
where she lay, clutching that sheet so inadequately, provoking a response from
his body despite his fury. He wanted to rip the sheet away and tumble her until
she cried for mercy!

Except that she
already had!

He was her husband,
for God’s sake! And she was his wife! His wife!

He had every right to
take her when and how he liked! And besides, she owed him children.

“Well, madam wife,”
he said stiffly, “I am afraid you must endure more of that torture until you
are with child.”

“I know it!” she
retorted.

“And if you care to
recall, I did not tell you to stop. I said to hurry up and get it over with. The
sooner I am with child, the better, I say.”

“Very well, then,” he
muttered grimly, and, ripping the sheet from her clutches, he returned to his
labours. By God, he would wring a response out of her if it killed him!

He used every skill
and technique in his repertoire, stroking, caressing, teasing, his hands and
mouth fully occupied.

“Enough!” she
shrieked, pushing him off her at last. “I can do it no more.”

“Do what?” he
snarled, frustrated. “You’re doing nothing.”

“Well, of course I am
doing nothing —what else would I do? And it takes every bit of concentration I
have. Why can you not simply get on with it? Why must it take so much time?”

Concentration? Magnus
swore. And was she complaining about the amount of time he took? If so, she was
the first woman in his experience ever to complain of that. He started to pull
on his clothes. He had no intention of staying in a room with her any longer,
otherwise he might find himself strangling her. And it was simply not done to
murder brides on their bride trip. Not in his family, at any rate.

“I understand now
what my cousin meant. It is inhuman to expect women to endure that night after
night,” said Tallie rebelliously, wrapping the sheet tightly around her.

Magnus paused, one
leg sliding into his trousers.

“What do you mean —what
your cousin meant?”

“My cousin warned me
that my marital duties would prove to be difficult and painful.”

He frowned.

“Painful? I am
causing you pain?”

“No… not pain,
precisely. It… it is just… unbearable.”

She continued
muttering angrily into the pillow while he finished dressing. Magnus attempted
to block out her ugly words. So his lovemaking was unbearable to her, was it?
Then his ears picked up one sentence and he was riveted.

“—to be forced to lie
there night after night, not moving or uttering a sound, while a husband
creates wondrously pleasurable sensations.”

Wondrously
pleasurable sensations? Magnus dropped his shirt.

“What did you say
just now?” he demanded, his voice harsh.

She blinked up at
him. There were tears in her eyes.

“You said, ‘wondrously
pleasurable sensations’.”

Tallie sniffed and
dropped her head.

“Yes, well…” She
turned a deep, fiery pink.

Magnus stared down at
her with narrowed eyes. Part of him wanted to storm out and give vent to his
injured masculine pride. The rest of him wanted to solve the mystery. It seemed
to hinge on one point —my cousin warned me.

He sat down on the
bed.

“Tell me, Tallie.
What exactly did our dear cousin Laetitia tell you about your marital duties?”

With much blushing
and hesitation Tallie attempted to explain what her cousin had told her
concerning her marital duties.

“And I have tried to
remain still and dignified, truly I have…” She hung her head. “I am sorry I
have found it so difficult, but the… the things you do to me… well.”

Wide amber eyes,
awash with tears, met his in a quick, fugitive glance, and she dashed a small
hand across her wet cheeks.