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May 19 - June 5, 2025
Is that what Gwen wants? Is that what she wants with Beth? The gnawing in her gut, the unsettled feeling of jealousy—is it because she wishes it were them on that countertop, giggling and flushed and kissing?
And Father—Father what? Approves? Worries for her?
She wishes it made her feel more. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her, other than that something certainly must be. She’s being envied around the garden, she can see it.
And then her lips crash onto Beth’s. Beth gasps against her mouth, frozen in shock. Her mind goes totally blank.
This is what it’s supposed to be. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. Swoony and bright and everything.
She didn’t know anything could feel like this. Hot and soft and hard and fierce and beautiful. She wants to stay like this forever, her hands twisted into Gwen’s skirts, Gwen’s stroking at her collarbones.
She’d let the whole world watch for another minute pressed against these aging barrels with Gwen’s lips on hers.
Beth struggles to find the words—more, please, soon—can’t explain how desperately, how ardently she wants to stay like this forever.
“What’s your poison of choice?” she asks, hoping to entice Lord Montson into one of his longer monologues so she can turn off her brain again and simply keep track of the rain sliding down the windows.
But how is she to settle that in her head, when she feels nothing for Lord Montson and everything everything everything for Gwen?
“Was there something you wanted to ask?” Mrs. Stelm smiles at her, gentle and open, like she used to when Gwen had questions as a little girl. How do bees sleep? Why is the sky blue? Why do trees lose their leaves? But her question now feels too big for her tongue.
“If it’s consensual, two people touching that way should always be nice,” Mrs. Gilpe adds.
Word
It feels like there’s no turning back, like somehow this conversation will cement a reality she’s not sure she wants to face. But she’s already started it. Already pressed herself to Beth and taken her mouth—would have taken more if she could.
“It was our wish to find a way to be married together,” Mrs. Gilpe tells her, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
Im crying
“Regardless, you are a lovely young woman, and anyone would be lucky to have you. Whether or not it’s as you’d wish it to be, there are arrangements that can be made,”
“There’s many a young wife who has a constant companion, or one who visits often throughout the year. And many more a husband and wife who sleep separately. You can live your own life, should you find the right match. Your station could put you in a good situation to orchestrate a lifestyle.”
“Yes, he did seem very excited to take Lady Demeroven out on a date.” Gwen’s head swims for the second time. “This is a date?” “Oh, you are rather hopeless, aren’t you?” Mrs. Gilpe says.
But their smiles are soft, and she loves them so dearly. More dearly than she even thought she could—sisters in some other world than they are in now.
And something as simple as browsing a fish market sounds so fun because Gwen would be there. She makes everything fun. Everything is better with Gwen, from the kissing to sitting here listening to their parents bicker.
“To the health and safety of women everywhere, and the good health, happiness, and cheer of the three beautiful women I have with me tonight,” Lord Havenfort says.
She swallows hard as Gwen slurps her oyster from its shell, tipping her head back to get the rest of the sauce. The bob of her throat and the line of her neck and the way her tongue snakes out to rim her lips—dear God, that was perhaps the most arousing thing Beth’s ever seen.
She opens her eyes and finds Gwen staring at her, flushed, eyes wide. Beth smiles, surprised. It sends a surge of something through her to know Gwen’s as undone by all of this as she is.
It wasn’t an aberration, a champagne-fueled mistake. Gwen wants her, just as much as Beth wants her back.
She wants to spoil and savor and touch and kiss and dote on Gwen the way she sees Lord Havenfort doing for her mother.
Gwen nearly groans, slouching in her seat. And then she jerks forward, straight-backed again. Beth’s gloveless fingers brush at her knee, glancing against the bend beneath her skirts. Gwen sucks on her cheek, trying to continue looking unaffected even as she holds her breath, slipping off her own gloves. Her heart hammers as she lowers her hand.
Beth’s wide eyes and flushed chest at dinner soothed her worries, but now, with their fingers threaded together, knuckles knocking, shallow breath rising and falling almost in tandem—Beth wants her back.
There’s nothing innocent about the invitation, is there? She can hardly believe Father’s allowed it.
“You don’t stay up too late daydreaming about Lady Demeroven then,” Gwen tosses back. Beth stifles a gasp at the impertinence. She can’t imagine ever saying anything like that to her father. But Lord Havenfort just chuckles and shakes his head.
“So you don’t want the guest room, then?” Gwen asks, breathless. Beth pulls back to meet her gaze. “Did you invite me over to put me in the guest room?” Beth asks, surprised by the strength of her voice. Her whole body feels like melted chocolate.
She didn’t know women could be rough together, could be playful together, could be heated and wanting and clutching together until Gwen kissed her at the party. And now, now she’s about to know all the other things they could do together.
She wants to know what Gwen tastes like everywhere.
They move as a team, sorting their hoops into organized piles by the armoire and picking up petticoats.
“Christ,” Gwen mutters, giggling as Beth squirms against her, the sensation as playful as it is arousing. “Here, sit up.”
Gwen could settle here, stay just like this for the rest of her days if she could simply live in the press of Beth’s hips and the arch of her back and the soft delight of her flesh beneath her tongue.
Eager for the hips grinding into her own and the promise of them completely bare together.
She blinks her eyes open only in time to see Beth’s fingers slide from her mouth. She groans at the very thought—to have missed it, for it to have happened.
Gwen wonders how anyone ever leaves their bed, if this is what it is to know someone else, to give and receive pleasure, to kiss and squirm and sigh. Why do they leave at all? Why not simply live like this forever?
They can simply assume Gwen and Beth were up talking all night. Which they were, of a sort, in between all of the . . . decidedly not talking.
“I want to be loved,” Beth says without hesitation. “I want to feel more than bland fondness for the man who’ll be in my bed and own me.”
You’ll have to tell me what you told Lord Havenfort last time. I can say the same to Gwen.”
would and perhaps will be grateful someday for the ability to seek an end to an unhappy marriage without needing to approach the church—but
“Miss Demeroven went for a walk in the topiaries, if you’d like to see her,” Albie says, offering it casually, though she can see some glimmer in his eye. Is it obvious to everyone how attached they’ve become?
Gwen meets his eyes, finding nothing but a twin sadness and understanding staring back at her.
she must put away her heartache to be happy in the face of his joy.
She thinks there’s no way Lord Montson won’t see it. That he’ll know, by looking into her empty eyes, that this isn’t what she wants. She’s desperate for him to see it—the aching sadness that she thinks permeates every inch of her face—she wants him to see it, to acknowledge it, to take back his promises.
She and Beth could be just like Albie and Meredith if the world were different.
She shouldn’t have to feel like this, not when Beth’s chosen someone else. Not when Beth and her mother tossed the Havenforts aside like trash in the face of some money. And protection, and stability.
“You’re not terrible at this,” she decides thirty minutes later as they sway through their fourth dance. “You’re horrid,” Bobby says without remorse. “But Albie says you’re sad, so I’ll let it slide.”
What anyone does in the privacy of a bedroom, or shrubbery, should be their business she thinks.
But Beth isn’t hers to save anymore, and her toes will just have to get used to being stepped upon.
