Work Text:
| Current mood: |  contemplative |
| Current music: | plants growing |
| Entry tags: | fiction |
FIC: Betty's Brush
DISCLAIMERS: Rochester belongs to God. I do not own him.
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Betty Barry has a moment's reflection.
Betty got out of bed and went to her dressing table.
He was fast asleep, finally worn out between protestations of love, punctuated with breathless explosions of foul-mouthed wit; arch observations of friends and foes that made her laugh despite herself.
Her eyes focused on her own reflection, pale, plain and a little drawn from too much time in his company.
She pursed her lips and wet a towel in the basin, dabbing her lids and forehead. The water was rain-barrel soft and scented with geranium. He was spending too much again and she watched her eyes become avaricious, a fleet shadow. They narrowed as she memorised the expression; the feeling of it; the way her muscles pulled and exactly where the sensation began in her chest.
He had taught her better than himself.
Asleep, his face was free of the warping restlessness that made him so damned enchanting when he set her teeth on edge the most. It was always worse when he returned from his infrequent visits to Adderbury. The mother-in-law was stirring up trouble again.
Betty shrugged and started her nightly brush as the morning sun crept across the floor, stealing on him, sprawled across the bed, his nose twitching as the dark curls drifted over it.
She lifted her own mane of chestnut hair, her only real beauty and methodically brushed out the tangles, lock after lock. Really, his lordship was exhausting. He had all the energy and passion of a stable-hand she remembered with a sly smile. He was also monumentally funny.
Betty Barry was not prone to easy laughter. It wasn't her nature at all. She was rather a sullen girl, aware of her physical lacks and the burn of her first humiliation had not been appeased in the slightest by her recent adulation.
The man responsible for slicing through her defensiveness started to snore softly.
She worried at a particularly bad knot and glared at his reflection.
A little of the creamed lotion on the table, fresh with thyme and rosemary helped ease the tangle and her strong jaw softened. She didn't notice the avarice in her eyes this time.
It was too sudden, and too overwhelming for her not to be suspicious, angry and now, resentful.
Wilmot was a god. He was powerful, the wittiest man in the King's confidence. He was reputed to be rich, but that was all his wife's, and damn if he didn't show some conscience about it.
Betty shook her head and kept brushing. The lotion reminded her of the country, green and untouched by greasy paint and stinking footlights.
He was the same, country-bred and she always thought his fine City friends fools for never seeing it.
She supposed that it wouldn't have been quite so galling that he'd been right and had truly given her the keys to the art she adored if he hadn't been such a conspicuous star in an accessible orbit. It was such a simple thing, but, with his customary abruptness, he ran all conventions and theatrics through and cut to the heart of the stage.
Duality.
He had words for it, and, if he knew how often he left her, in a daze, searching out a dictionary to make sure of three dozen words, all stored in her keen memory during their time together, he would have spouted some lazy epigram on her studiousness. Then he would have a very fine dictionary with a leather binding and fancy endpapers sent to her.
He drove her mad.
It was like being harnessed to a spring lamb, jumping about in maniacal glee, then, just as suddenly at rest.
When at rest, and not spinning in circles from Court, he was different. Not at all the conquering rake, anxious to lay claim to any woman he chose and dismissing it all with a laugh. He was tentative in those times, watching like a wary child, eager to share something of himself, but afraid.
He had good reason to be.
Betty braided her hair and used a dab of the lotion on her forehead. She cursed her looks and his. He had no need of them and was distractingly beautiful. She had every need and was plain as ditchwater.
She knew what was said about her in his circles; God only knew she would have had to be deaf and blind not to, but he never went after her with his acid pen. He skewered Lady Castlemaine, his own kinswoman, with a vicious delight that made everyone pity her. He attacked Lady Portsmouth with delicious venom and was perfectly capable of toasting her with left-handed compliments that made the King laugh while Louise seethed under her smiles. No one was safe from him, and all were so busy laughing at each other that they never saw their own scars. Only she seemed to be exempted from his ripostes and the entire Court was too wary of him to do more than whisper.
He said he loved her and she didn't believe a word of it.
He didn't love anyone, least of all himself. He played with people, but he never cared. At least that's what she thought, ripping the brush through her hair in a temper.
What right had he to mock her with words of love?
He rolled over and sprawled across the bed, and she glanced at his face, soft with sleep.
Damn him and his words and his perfect cheekbones and dark eyes. He was too bright for his own good, always ruffling someone's feathers. Hers might be plain, but she liked them smooth, thank you very much, your Lordship.
His eyes opened sleepily and he grinned at her, then the brush lay on the floor, unheeded.
FIN