Chapter Text
Handsome, clever, and rich, Emma Woodhouse had lived twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. The operative word being 'little', which meant that sometimes, said vexation came in the form of her steadfast friend and occasional critic, George Knightley.
"It’s not like I can ask any other man in my life to pose shirtless for me!" she exclaimed, her blonde curls bouncing in exasperation.
It would have been a very ordinary Friday afternoon, much like all others that had passed without her having to resort to begging for a show of nudity in her father’s drawing room, except today it was incumbent upon her to finish a figure drawing she was due to submit in art class. Which—of course—proved difficult, since Knightley was arguably the only person who could neither be moved nor wiled into following her (admittedly many) whims. Despite his staunch reluctance, however, she was determined to finish the assignment within the day, and what Emma Woodhouse wants must come to pass.
Knightley gave her a pointed look in response. "What about Frank, hm? Surely he'd be the exact kind of man to fancy a naked likeness of himself?"
Emma could not even disagree because Frank was exactly the type of person to find it quite diverting.
Unfazed, he continued to thumb through a very tedious tome that he had dug up from her father’s library. The image of him, reading with such a distilled concentration usually reserved for the venerable, conjured up a memory of Harriet remarking on his odd habit of being cooped up at Hartfield on most evenings. “He’s twenty-six—he should be at the club.” Harriet, bless her heart—having only known him in passing at that point—had looked so sad for him that Emma had to assure her that this aspect of his nature was such an immovable fact that not even God himself would be able to drag him to a club if he willed it.
“I already told you, he's to stay and take care of his ill aunt at Enscombe in Yorkshire indefinitely—I think,” she said, adding the latter afterthought as a sort of disclaimer, as she vaguely recalled Frank’s latest Instagram story taken at a very posh restaurant in Chelsea, of all places. She had assumed that it was a late post, but one could never be too sure when it came to Frank's whereabouts.
She left out the part that in truth, Frank had not even occurred to her as an option. When it came to finding a man up for any task, Knightley always stood first in her regard.
Come to think of it, next to her father, he was always first in her regard for—well—anything, really. In many such occasions of attempting to dissect why this was, she would ponder at the cause, but would inevitably dismiss it as a result of growing up in a small town with only her doting father and her decidedly undoting friend as the most prominent male figures in her immediate circle.
“I don’t suppose he outqualifies the entourage of medical professionals at his aunt’s beck and call…” Knightley mumbled in reply, his eyebrows raised in a manner that Emma knew was supposed to be disapproving. His genial nature never did fully extend where Frank was concerned—he had always thought him foppish and irresponsible, and thus had never quite readily given Frank’s character any credit as he would another person.
“I would acknowledge his merits, but I hear of none, except that he is well-grown and good-looking. When, pray tell, would he deem it a good enough time to grace us with his presence?” he had once argued, after Emma had read to him one of the innumerable missives Frank had sent, seeming to be on purpose to visit Highbury in time for his father, Mr. Weston’s remarriage last autumn. Although written very prettily, these promises all turned out to be for naught. It was only recently, when he finally did arrive—his presence withheld for long enough to be considered a slight to the new Mrs. Weston.
She would admit to being disappointed—after all, it was her who had made the love match between the newlyweds (much to Knightley’s chagrin). Especially on behalf of Mrs. Anne Weston—formerly Miss Taylor to the Woodhouse girls whom she had taught and cared for as a governess in office, but little short of a mother in affection.
However, despite his faults, she was ready to give Frank a wide berth on this front. Sure, she had never met him at that point, but she had always felt an innate affinity towards him for the symmetry between the lives they have lead. They both lost their mothers when they were very young, and he had his aunt to care for as she had her father. She understood what it was to be duty-bound to stay at home and keep his ailing aunt company. It was not as though he had shirked his visitation purely by some flight of fancy. Whether or not Mrs. Churchill’s illness was as contrived as what the general consensus of the rumour mill made it out to be, she was still at least a little sick, was she not? It only made sense that he would dote on his aunt who had raised him as her own during a time when his father could not.
Emma felt compelled to contradict Knightley on his previous comment, but it would not do to be her usual argumentative self today. Today, she needed to be her most supplicant and agreeable. Suppressing a sigh, she plastered on the most angelic expression she was able to muster.
With clasped hands, she did the most un-Emma thing she has ever done in her life. She pleaded.
“Please, oh please, ever gracious, darling Mr. Knightley, would you do me the rare honour of having your nakedness exploited in exchange for my class credits?” She made sure to use her best angle (right side, tilted just slightly down) and bat her eyelashes in a most winsome manner.
“Now Emma, what would your father say if he found his beloved daughter begging to get a man naked in his own home?” came his ready reply, spoken saucily and with ill-concealed mirth, his speech wobbling as he held back the beginnings of a laugh. A few moments passed, but Knightley made no sign of yielding. Amused he may have been, but not won over—yet. She inferred then that she would have to offer up some concession of great value.
“I promise I'll finally read that book you suggested that I've been putting off for forever.”
“But then that would require you sitting still for more than two hours, Emma.”
She stifled an indignant huff. It was times like these when Emma wonders if they simply must spar about everything. Any other person would have indulged her by then, but God forbid the two old friends ever have a straightforward conversation that did not meander like a braided river. And, heaven help her, what a long river this particular exchange was turning out to be.
“And I'll visit the Bateses for tea and a chat every other day for one whole week…?” she added with some hesitance.
It was not that Emma did not already visit or chance upon them in town regularly. However, this proposition would be a considerable undertaking, since Miss Bates had taken to reporting to anyone with an ear the minutia of her niece, Jane Fairfax's goings-on as of late. If she does but once decide to take Chamomile instead of her preferred Earl Grey, one hears of nothing else for a week. After all, why would she deliver one single, concise statement when instead she could prattle out at least six and not nearly get to the point?
But she would worry about the logistics of her promised visit to her well-meaning but impressively loquacious neighbour later. Knightley was always trying to get Emma to be more affable towards the Bateses, and she knew that it would take an act of altruism on her part to get through his steadfast resolve.
“Alright, alright,” he said, as he held up his hands in mock surrender. He smiled fully then, a rare, well-earned one that deepened his dimples and transformed his face into something too lovely by half she could hardly hate him for making her grovel for it.
“But only for an hour. I need to come by later at Abbey Mill Farm and ask Robert how the new crops are faring. And don't complain about my lack of abs. Not everyone can travel back and forth to London to avail of a gym membership or a haircut or something,” he said, as he gingerly twisted his father’s heirloom signet on his little finger.
✵
There was a lack of swimming pools (or any varied activity) in Highbury, and the last time Emma had seen Knightley naked was when they were still children. This was when they could both fit in the inflatable pool that her older sister, Isabella, had begged their father to purchase one summer. No later than a week after its installation, however, the valetudinarian Woodhouse had learned about all the types of microorganisms that could inhabit bodies of water—and thus, ultimately cause his daughters' demise (which, to him, seemed the only end point of any remotely harmful thing). Any activities related to being in contact with water in any of its large and/or untreated forms had been prohibited since.
So that was silly.
The whole exercise was supposed to be silly. In fact, Emma had originally planned to come up with a quip or two to rile him up about having to take his clothes off.
But then he did.
He hooked his long fingers into the hem of his jumper, and suddenly all her planned attempts at wit and all notions of humour evaporated. A heady rush of warmth bloomed at her cheeks, her breath catching at the notion of how intimate it was, having the liberty to observe him as he undressed—and so closely that she could hear the faint brush of wool against his skin.
It felt so strange—not unpleasant, but new—to have a sudden awareness of his physicality. It reminded her of the time she saw a photograph of the Apollo Belvedere in an encyclopaedia and marvelled at the male form. Only this time, Knightley was right there—not of marble but of flesh; all freckles and tan lines and strong sinew born out of years and years of work in the fields he so loved. It was just so like him, to have a body that carried his same inherent roughness in its definition, but at the same time a gentleness in its curvatures and slopes—both strength and tenderness in equal measure.
He stood with his limbs aloft like he did not quite know what to do with them. “Should I, er... pose?” A flush had crept up from his neck to the slant of his jaw, but his unrelenting eyes stayed fixed on her.
She suddenly felt a sense of having been caught—acutely aware of his gaze as she inwardly cursed him for being so intent with it. Then again, he always was, when they argued and teased, only this time it was less of a challenge and more of an open curiosity, and she was not entirely sure if she liked the way it made her falter.
She instructed him to sit on a stool facing partly away from her, which he obliged without much protest, except for a request to continue with the book he had been reading earlier—something about ancient agricultural practices (which, of course, how Knightley of him). “Please be as relaxed as you possibly can,” she said, more to herself than to him.
She wondered then, how, in all their years of friendship had she unconsciously avoided ever asking him to sit for a portrait.
As she began to map out his shape on paper, she began to understand why.
✵
Emma had always considered herself a good artist—her strokes were decisive, her practice was diligent, and her marks were consistently decent—but somehow the task at hand seemed arduous as her thoughts became progressively more impertinent.
She briefly pondered at the ethics of the predicament she found herself in. What self-respecting artist wondered shamelessly if the sitter's skin would feel as warm as it looked, should she press her fingers to the dip above his collarbones? Repressed country maidens, she supposed. The kind that have admittedly always found their very platonic (emphasis on platonic) best friend objectively handsome. Damn him and his straight nose and thoughtful blue eyes and impeccable posture. (Not that she took particular notice or anything of the sort.)
She worked—or at least pretended to work—at the portrait for what seemed like the longest hour of her life until Knightley asked if he could perhaps look at it. He absolutely could not, because she had barely shaded any definition to it. If it was because she was transfixed by the way his arms would move every time he flipped a page of the book, she would certainly not own up to it (at least not to his face). She was quite sure that he would take one look at it and surmise that she had drawn his shoulders with a touch too much attentiveness.
But alas, after his second request, she was persuaded to say yes anyway, because this was Knightley, and—try as she might—she could never truly hide anything from him.
So when the clock struck four he rose from his seat, and Emma tried in vain not to map the freckles on his torso as he walked towards her and her easel. As he neared her, she became increasingly aware of the fact that he had yet to put his jumper back on. She secretly hoped that he would not.
“Emma,” she faintly heard him say, in that distinctly familiar, deliberate way he always did, and she was suddenly hit by the realisation that she cannot remember the last time she called him by his first name.
There was a time when they had to distinguish two Georges by their last names. George Morris' family had left Highbury some seven years ago, and George Knightley had since reverted to being called his Christian name by the rest of the villagers but somehow not by Emma. She had secretly enjoyed the vexation it caused and the argument that followed when he realised that she would not quit with the incessant Knightley-ing.
“George,” she tried then, with a certain degree of effort and consciousness, the letters feeling foreign from disuse. It almost felt as though she was unearthing a secret language she had no recollection she spoke.
She turned around to gauge his reaction, only to belatedly realise that he had been standing behind her closer than she thought. The length of her upper arm grazed his abdomen, and the contact leaves her feeling singed. She thought she might have heard a sharp inhale, but the sound had disappeared so fast she scarcely had enough evidence it was there at all.
It was in that moment that the door suddenly swung open with an unceremonious creek, the sound prompting the pair to jolt away from each other. Knightley proceeded to put his jumper on so incredibly fast, Emma worried he might have strained a muscle or two.
“Has anyone seen my spectacles?” Henry Woodhouse inquired as he strolled leisurely inside the drawing room. If he was aware of how red both his daughter and Knightley's faces were, he did not comment on it.
“Surely it wouldn't be here, Papa. You never read in the drawing room,” Emma replied—half disappointed, half amused that he should have such abysmal timing. “Perhaps in your office, the library, or the dining table?”
“Ah, yes. Terribly large windows here. Best shut it now before either of you catch a cold, or, God forbid, inhale too much pollen! Don’t even get me started on these horrible springtime allergies…” Mr. Woodhouse grumbled as he left the room and an unresolved trail of tension in his wake.
Knightley had stayed quiet throughout the whole exchange. Emma cast him a sideways glance and saw that he was staring resolutely at some faraway spot on the herringbone parquet. As if sensing her gaze, he raised his eyes to catch hers across the room. They shared a dry, awkward laugh.
“I best get going, then,” he said, running his hands through his already dishevelled hair, his expression unreadable. He looked so painfully closed off in that moment that it broke Emma's heart a little—how very unlike him, to be so reserved around her.
He was already headed for the door when she called out after him on impulse.
“Knightley!”
She wanted to say something, but she could not exactly ask him, “Hey, did you feel like you just had a potentially life-altering experience back there? No? Just me?”, and be met with confusion, or worse, indifference. So instead, she said, “Your jumper—it’s inside out."
“Oh,” he said, and his entire posture deflated, like maybe he was hoping she would say something entirely different.
“I'll see you tomorrow at dinner.” He took his leave then, walking out into the afternoon sun with his jumper still reversed.
✵
Outside, the tender flowers of late March swayed in full bloom; for both the earth and hearts kept long asleep in the winter, it was a time for spring.