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It was a testament to the Duke of Avon's sangfroid that, upon walking into his wife's bedchamber at midnight to find her caressing his second-best sword, he said merely, “Ah. Do you plan to murder me tonight, infant?”
The Duchess knew well he was teasing, but she plunged into impulsive speech nonetheless. “Monseigneur, no! Never, never, never!”
“Well, then.” He leaned elegantly against the doorjamb, his dressing-gown folding silkenly upon itself as he did, and he lifted an equally elegant eyebrow in question.
“Well, but I have been so very, very good for so long,” she said as she danced up from her chair. The sword rested, loose but ready, in her hand. “And so, since you are so delightful a husband, and so generous, and so--”
“Easily flattered, it seems,” he murmured.
“No!” The sword clattered onto the floor as she leapt at him. He, with a speed perhaps surprising in one of his middle-years, caught her.
As he helped her lock her legs around his waist, his fingers drifted over the breeches she wore, which had been hidden by the sweep of her robe. At the touch he frowned. “Leonie, what have I said about these?”
Locking her arms around his neck, she leaned back just a little to twinkle at him. “You do not care for them.”
“And yet--” his palm drifted over the swell of her buttock -- “you are wearing them.”
“But that is my point.” She darted a kiss on his cheek. “I would like to wear them, Monseigneur. Oh, but only as you allow.”
“Which would not be now,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but we are discussing such eventualities!” she said, and looked at him through her lashes. “I sought to remind you of my appearance in my page-clothes--”
“I had not forgot, ma belle.”
She received the dryly spoken endearment with a blush and a frown. Then, gallantly returning to her line, “It is just that every now and again – now, in fact – I would like to play with that memory. I would like to fight with swords in a friendly way, Monseigneur, and I would wish to be your page again, and be free.”
Despite her cajoling tone, the smile in his eyes disappeared. To replace it came a look only a very select few had ever seen.
It was vulnerability. It was openness. And behind that open look lay hurt.
“I was afraid of this,” he said softly, as if to himself. “Not enough...”
Leonie, her connection to him deepened in the two months since they'd wed, caught his meaning at once. “Oh no, Justin! I am always free with you, always!”
“But that is not what you said, my love.” The usual teasing note in his smooth voice was gone.
“Yes, but that is just stupid Leonie, not clear, not clear at all.” She laid her lips against the corner of his mouth, kissed, kissed again because she couldn't help it. “You know you saved me, Monseigneur. You know. And I am greedy because I want everything you have taught me. Everything.”
“You are grown somewhat heavy with all the things I have given and taught,” he said, and then shifted her weight, and then walked with her to the bed, and then sat down. She settled her weight on him, her breeches-clad knees digging into the bedclothes, and then ran her palms down his chest to his waist. He allowed this, even smiled, but his eyes were still troubled.
She peeped through her lashes again, and then sighed. “Oh, Monseigneur. I would do anything to take back the bad speaking. I should cut out my tongue before I hurt you.”
“That I utterly forbid. I am fond of that part of you,” he said.
She repaid this drawled statement with a demonstration of why he might feel such fondness – a kiss, long and sweet, where his and her tongues swirled and tasted and enjoyed. Then, her mouth reddened from his lips, she said, “I shall not ask again, Justin. It was just that... oh, I have joy when I play the page. But I have more, more joy when I am with you.”
He looked down – at her folded legs tight against his thighs, visible there under the froth of silk; at her hands, petting him low on the belly, teasing lower. Meditatively, he drew his thumb across her center, and was rewarded by a sigh and a melting. He repeated the move, and she sighed and melted further.
“Perhaps,” he said, “on special occasions, you and I alone – alone, I say, infant – may cross swords in the library. But only on special occasions, upon special pleading by you.”
“Justin,” she said soberly, even as she made a small circle with her hips just where he might enjoy it most, “you are always Monseigneur, and I love you.”
He smiled, hurt gone, mask gone. “And I assume thus that you wish to play tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Monseigneur.” She leaned forward to swallow his gasp of pleasure, to trail kisses down his neck. “But first, let us play now.”