Chapter Text
warning: language
ꜰᴏʀɢᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʏ
SUNLIGHT WAS A CALL, AND THE BODY ROSE TO ANSWER IT, but the lure of company—of spending another moment in the presence of his beloved—had Emery clinging to his simple bed even as the morning sunlight began to graze the bottoms of the bedposts. He had no need for the heat of daylight; the warmth of she who laid beside him was a hundred times as comforting and sweet as that of the blazing sun.
Emery wrapped his arms around her—clung to her with the strength of desperate adoration. He could feel the line of golden sunlight advancing, marching up the sheets like a determined army—a steady disease, threatening to take from him what little time he had left in his wife’s company.
He felt her stir—sensed the mattress and blanket shift when she moved—and without thinking, he tensed. His arms grew firm and tight around her, and he buried his nose in her hair and tried to ignore the growing brightness of the room by hiding in the shadows cast by her form. The prideful sun could advance as far as it wished, but when in the comfort of shade, it could not blind him.
“Emery…”
He heard her voice—the soft sound that poured forth only from her lips—quiet and muffled by space and cloth, but still undeniably intelligible. He heard her call his name, the way in which her tongue and gums fit around the syllables, and her teeth chewed the letters, but in response, he was silent. He did not move; he did not flinch or twitch or make any motion that could have been interpreted as a sign of waking—of awareness. He merely laid there, quiet and content beside her, willing enough to simply bask in her presence.
Ignorance was euphoric—delightful. It meant remaining content and comfortable in a warm bed, curled around the shape of a woman lovely and wondrous. Here, he could disregard the loud sunlight—the day, so bright and raucous—and instead immerse himself in the shade’s quiet satisfaction.
“Emery,” she murmured his name again, and he felt something brush against his arm. Her hand—it was her hand, her fingers and palm, moving to press against his skin, curling around the shapes of his wrist and forearm.
Her touch was soft and her flesh warm—warm enough to melt into. He wanted to press into it—inundate himself with her, until he drowned in her heat—but then she would know his closed eyes and steady breathing were a farce.
He heard a long and winding sigh slip from her lips and felt her shoulders fall as the breath left her lungs. She curled her fingers around his wrist, and the warmth he’d attempted to bury himself in started to pull away.
“Would you…mind letting go, dear?” He heard her murmur, but again he made no move to reply.
Minding was all he could do, but when she moved, the sunlight that advanced on the room slipped into the corner of his right eye, and the muscles in his face tightened and constricted. A grimace wrinkled the skin of his forehead and nose, and suddenly he tensed and turned his head—tried to find a comfortable dimness to rival the gaudy sunlight.
His bluff was called.
She made a noise—a sigh or a grunt—and the fingers she’d wrapped around his wrist curled tighter about his skin. “It’s morning, dear. We have things to do.” She pulled against him, and when his embrace did not wane, he felt her turn—felt the shape of her spine and back shift and move until it was replaced by the sensation of her chest against his own. “I need to get ready, Emery.”
He felt her stare—her eyes, watching his face, awaiting his response, for surely he would respond—but silence was all that met her words. A steady, purposeful silence, broken only by the quiet sounds of breathing.
The line of sunlight moved steadily up the bedsheets, and the winding song of paper-boned birds began to bleed into the tense quiet that filled the bedroom. He felt her chest rise and fall against his as she breathed, and every now and again the warmth of her breath would wash the crown of his head. The rhythm was steady and sure, like a lullaby—a song, sung to carry him back to sleep.
“Emery,” she hummed. Her voice was clear and smooth, now that there was less space to muffle her words, and he felt the buzz of it in her breast, how it hummed against his chest. “I know you’re awake.”
Something grabbed at his lips—itched and prodded at them to curl upwards, to fit into the shape of a smile—but he fought against it, or made to. The urge was strong, welling up in his chest with all the colorful buoyancy of amusement, and it pulled at his lips with a fierceness difficult to battle.
He heard her laugh, and the sound of it—of the delightful peal that curled up from her throat and breast—only bolstered the grin that was rising to his face.
“See? I know you can hear me,” she chuckled softly, her voice smooth and golden with amusement. “You’re smiling.”
The satisfaction folded pleasantly around his chest grew warmer, too warm to simply settle into, and despite the luring call of the shade’s siren song, he peeked open one shining eye, and then, after a moment, let open the other. The sunlight had advanced to their chests, but his love was leaning on her elbow, and her form kept the brilliant dawn from burning his sleepy eyes.
The daylight outlined the shape of her—her head and shoulders and arms—and glowed softly in the locks of her beautiful hair. It covered her like she was an angel, a being divine and good and otherworldly. She wore it like a shawl—a veil, like the one she’d been dressed in on the day they were wed—but if he were to let her go, then the light would surround her and melt over the curves of her flesh like a gleaming white-and-golden robe.
“Good morning,” he murmured. The smile that had played at his lips now curved them into a gentle grin, and a delightful affability shone in his gaze when he met his wife’s eyes. A short hum buzzed in her chest at his innocent greeting, but a small amused smile was breaking across her face, and it was upon that grin that Emery focused.
“‘Good morning’, hmn?” she echoed. An inquiring lilt dusted her voice, and he watched how the sound moved her lips and curled her tongue, but then he felt a hand on his chin—soft fingers, their pads pressing against the skin just under his chin—and his eyes fled back to hers. She was watching him—observing him with limpid, careful eyes narrowed by a smile. “It is a good morning, isn’t it?”
His mind was hazy with delight—with a golden euphoria so cloying it turned the world yellow—and the grin that decorated his lips grew wide and full with his shining teeth. He hummed in pleasant agreement, and then he lowered his head and pressed his cheek against her chest. The tip of his nose brushed over the skin of her collarbone, and the steady beating of her heart sank into his ear, and there he mumbled into her flesh, “It’s always a good morning with you.”
A sudden tenseness constricted the muscles in her body. It was like a flinch—a twitch, rocking over her—and a frown almost pulled at Emery’s lips, but then her muscles relaxed, and the moment was gone just as quickly as it had come.
“That’s so sweet. You’re so sweet.” He heard her sigh. He felt her warm fingers slip from beneath his chin and closed his eyes when they came to rake through his short hair. “So sweet and kind. Mother would have loved you…” Then she mumbled something, but her voice was so quiet and his mind flush with such decadent warmth that he caught only a short, “—she was right.”
He began to settle back into the bed, his head laid comfortably atop her chest, but then she spoke again, and the hum of her voice buzzed in the bones of his skull.
“Oh no you don’t,” she chastised, and the fingers that ran through his hair stilled. “It’s time to rise and shine; the morning’s too good to waste.”
She pulled against his grasp, and her body moved just so, allowing the line of advancing daylight to fall across Emery’s face. The sun turned the world that was once pleasantly dark a bright, bloody red, and the smile that had curled Emery’s lips soured to an unpleasant grimace. All hopes for slumber had been dashed, mutilated by a stubborn dawn, and he forced his eyes back open to squint at the traitorous window.
She was climbing free of the covers the moment Emery’s grip loosened, but she still caught sight of his displeased frown. “Emery? What’s got you so sluggish, dear?” She stood near the edge of the bed, her soft eyes fixed upon him. “It’s not like you to be so weary in the morning.”
Emery’s gaze fled to her, and the memory—the reason—came crawling back to the surface of his mind as steadily as the sun had advanced upon the room. The sunlight bathed his wife just as he thought it would. It rested on her shoulders and then came to fall down the length of her familiar body in soft lines finer than any sort of cloth he could ever hope to fashion, and its colors were warmer and brighter than all the dye under the heavens.
She was marvelous, a creature devoid of blemish or fault, born as sinless as the Blessed Mother. Immaculate and perfect and divine. It was little wonder why the Devil tried so desperately to claim her, to wrap his corrupted fingers around her immaculate soul and add her to his loathsome collection of the lecherous damned.
But the Devil would never succeed in taking her—he could not. The Lord above prohibited it, and Emery would rather suffer white-hot torment for all of eternity in the agonizing pits of hell than allow such a grievous transgression.
If only she didn’t tease him so.
“What’re you gonna wear?” He sat up in the bed, but his eyes didn’t once leave hers when he moved. A coldness had settled in the pit of his stomach, chasing away the pleasant warmth that had comforted his lungs and heart, and he eyed his wife with a newfound firmness.
But a teasing smile played at her lips, and she began to move across the room, her steps light and playful. The sunlight followed her, flowing off her bare skin like a cape as she moved to the wardrobe. “Why, clothes, of course,” she replied slyly.
The chill grew colder, and it bit at his skin and sharpened the edge of his voice. “What kind?”
She did not fear the firmness in his voice, or she did not hear it, for she turned her back to him without so much as a flinch or tremor. “What else but the kind you wear, dear?” she teased, her hands moving to open the wardrobe.
He stared at her back, at her bare skin, covered only by a scattering of fading bites and bruising kisses, and highlighted by a robe of soft yellow sunlight. His teeth would fit snugly in the patterns of those paling marks, as they always should. As long as he lived, no other was to touch her in such places, least of all force such savage marks into her tender skin, just as his flesh was only hers to know, and could be neither felt nor marred by any other.
Such was the agreement—the promise. The vow, made in the presence of the Lord God Himself.
Yet he’d seen on her tender skin, in places that should be made bare only to his eyes, the mark of bites left by teeth that were not his own. He knew they were not, for he knew the mouth to which such teeth belonged and the face in which such a mouth sat. He had met the man to which the face belonged, and he’d looked upon the contract that allowed for the teeth possessed by that man to sink into and mar the skin of his wife.
“I’d like to see.” It was a proposal—it should have been a proposal—but when it climbed from his throat and curled off his tongue it sounded to the ear much sharper—much colder—than one.
Perhaps it was adultery, but it was no affair—no sin such that he could see, not in how she’d explained it. She did not engage in such licentious acts for the purpose of gratification—of gaining the benefits that he, Emery, bestowed upon her—but she continued instead so as to aid him, so as to further her poor husband’s place in their shameful, sin-ridden society.
Still, he did not like it. He never had.
She paused, then. Perhaps the chill that had seeped into his tone had finally reached her ears. He watched her hesitate—saw the muscles in her back tighten about her shoulder blades. For a moment, he thought she might deny him, but then she replied, “Of course, dear.”
Her voice was light and soft, but he thought he heard a tremble in her words—a flinch of her tongue. The robe of sunlight she wore slipped down her bare shoulder, and he departed from the bed to right it. His movements were quiet, but the floor creaked beneath him, and the bedframe spoke of his departure.
He moved just behind her, close enough to feel the heat that emanated from her skin, and he placed his hands on her shoulders. Her flesh was soft against his calloused fingers, but he could feel how the muscle just beneath was tense and firm, and so he rubbed his thumb against her skin—traced the indentations his teeth had left in a mark just above her collarbone.
He had not desired to allow her to share the pleasures of her flesh, but she had reasoned with him. He could not climb on his own. People were corrupt and cruel. They would never allow him to step outside the bounds of his caste; his merit had been decided at birth, and there it would stay.
But she could change that. For him. For their children.
“Are you coming back this evening?” he asked quietly. He stood taller than her, and he bent his head to murmur the words into her ear.
He felt her muscles relax beneath his touch, and she shook her head. “I’d assume not. It’s been nearly a week.” A small laugh then bubbled up from the depths of her chest, and he felt it crawl up her spine to shake her shoulders. “Do you know what he said in the letter?”
He stepped back, and she turned to face him, a smile, small but lacking humor, decorating her lips. Only one other had kissed them—had tasted her.
One was more than enough.
“No,” he lied, but his heart did not skip, nor did his skin prickle at the sound of his dishonesty.
Liar.
She turned back around and returned to searching through the wardrobe, and he stood back to watch her. “He said the length of my absence was outrageous. He was ‘out of his mind’ to have allowed it.”
Emery’s eyes narrowed, and he replied rather bitingly, “Dunno if he was ever in it to begin with.”
She chuckled at his words, and he released the breath he hadn’t realized he had held. She had not jumped to defend the man, though he was not worried that she would. She loved him—Emery, her husband. No other man took residence in the space of her heart.
“He must be comfortable enough to test the line,” she replied. Her voice grew muffled as she dressed in the clothes she'd found. “He’s an entrepreneur, after all.”
He hummed, but he truly couldn’t care what the man called himself. He was a man—a lord—and Emery struggled enough in remembering to call him such.
He was a man who found some strange, depraved delight in fucking women who were not his wife. A man his own wife now entertained and embellished with her company. Only her company; never her love.
She did not love him.
She could not.
“A little help, dear?” Her voice broke him out of his stupor, and he moved forward again to help her with the ties of her corset, and then the buttons of her dress. His fingers had grown nimbler, more adept at working with the finer fixings of her clothes. Or perhaps he’d just grown familiar with the way in which the buttons fit into their holes, and how tight he was to lace the corset.
When he was finished, she thanked him, and then he stepped back again to gain a better view, but though he stared, and stared and stared, a thought had slunk its claws into his mind, and it distorted his attention like light through a shard of warped glass.
She watched him watch her, and she tried for a light smile, but the grin looked uncertain. Worried.
What was she worried for?
“Well?” she prompted him.
The sunlight fell like a veil about her head and shoulders, and her wide, cautious eyes stared up at him through it. She was clothed modestly, and yet her beauty was not bound by the material that covered her skin. He could shake his head, but it would not matter. Her attire was not the true source of his displeasure.
Had it ever been?
For a moment, he was silent, but when he did speak his voice was quiet, but calm—soft, but sure. “Do you love me?” The words fell from his lips in a smooth murmur, but she had heard him. He could see it in her eyes.
They grew wide with a bright surprise, but then quickly narrowed as the meaning of his question sunk into her skin. She was quiet for a moment, and a softness bled into her flesh. “Is this…Is this about Lord Dupont?” she replied after a short pause, her voice quiet.
Something tightened around his chest, or perhaps it was his chest itself that grew tight. She hadn’t answered right away; she hadn’t said yes.
“You didn’t answer.” His voice was a little louder now, a little firmer—tighter, like the feeling in his chest.
She stared up at him, and the look in her eyes was soft and shining, but he couldn’t read it. He didn’t know what it was she saw when she gazed upon him. Then, quiet and sure, she bridged the distance between them and brought her warm hands to his cold face. The heat was comforting and pleasant, as pleasant as her touch.
Her eyes did not leave him, and a warm, rich emotion shone in her gaze. He recognized it, but he waited to name it. He was a commoner, but he was no fool. No greater one than that which he might be proven to have been, should his wife—the object of his affections and receiver of any and all adoration and love and prosperity he may possess—have failed to care for him as he thought she did.
“My dear, you needn’t ever worry the depths of my love.” Her voice was but a murmur, soft and sweet, smoothing his aching heart with a kind, comforting touch. “There is only one man I have ever loved, or ever will love. My heart belongs to no other.”
The tightness fled, and a deep, soft breath filled Emery’s lungs. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him as though he had not seen her in years, his grip firm and sure and flush with adoration.
She loved him.
It was all he needed—her love. The world with its binding restrictions and superfluous rules could just off and fuck itself.
He kissed her, her lips, so soft and familiar. He tasted her and melted into her and tried to drown in her, in the shape of her and him and what came of them coming together. He let his eyes fall closed, and in the darkness, he recovered a firmness to the comfort.
Then, after a moment, he pulled himself out from the place in which he had fallen just enough so that he could open his eyes and embrace her. He held her to his chest, then. Simply held her, until sound could form in his throat, and his tongue could fit it into the shape of letters.
As the words left his lips, his eyes fell upon the space behind her. A cloth of shimmering golden sunlight gleamed atop the floor, just beside her feet. Her veil had fallen.
“I love you.”
ᴛʜᴇ ᴅʀᴀᴘᴇʀ.