Constance Penrose

Ch 7: Wants and Needs

Constance woke up to another nightmare, except this time it had gone awry.

It was still young Walter, housing the face of a demon. He leaned forward, a scant hair's breadth between their lips. Walter didn't hide the smell of Colonial rum on his breath, sweet and biting. "You want me here and now."

When these first started, she'd wake up screaming not long after this.

But now? Constance ran her hands up his chest, taking in the hard warmth that strained against his ever-formal habits. Slowly, she rubbed her hands across his thick neck. The yearning feeling led to coiled fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. She grumbled a frustrated "yes" against pulling him in closer.

Soft, hot warmth teased against her mouth. A spike of excitement trailed along with his tongue. The texture, both coarse and soft, coaxed her into a dance as vulgar as Walter's waltz: too intimate, too close, too needed.

She sat up awake, with a stifled shriek, but not in fear. Not this time. It was rage at being abandoned when she wanted more.

Now she understood the dangers of her early morning teas with her cousin by her side. Knowing how bereft she felt, if she went down there alone right now, she'd demand he ravish her and fulfill the ache that settled into her soul.

And he was a bad boy in a sea of propriety—he would willingly satisfy her curiosity. If he stirred anything like this former nightmare had today, she'd marry him and not escape.

What a damned nuisance to wake up in complete and immersive lust with her own relative on the day she intended to end this fate.

She dressed herself under the grip of the mocking fear that Aunt Lettice had been right all along. She was as coarse as her mother, willing to leave a potential scholar's life for a man.

~~~

Constance stilled her erratic heartbeat before she stepped into the dining room. This would be her last breakfast with her family before becoming working-class. People would think her mad to enter the workforce if she could find other support as a poor relation. Perhaps she was mad, but she'd be damned if she let her whole life be balanced on the blade of a knife.

She had been asked to meet the head librarian around 10 a.m. Supposedly, that was a slow hour for the matron.

Downstairs, Aunt Letitia was missing, and Uncle hid behind his paper. Mother sat next to a seat saved for her, as her father had left for business earlier that morning.

Better than sitting across from her parents, thigh to thigh, with that bastard.

Speaking of bastards, Walter sat across from the women with an overflowing plate. He practically growled at his meat with his carefully unkempt hair that she ran her fingers through in her dream.

It wasn't attractive watching him chew. It wasn't bad enough to stop her from remembering the dream quite vividly. She wished it was. Her feelings were a mixture of disgust at his table manners and a heart-pounding curiosity about how well his lips could apply that coarseness to her flesh.

Suddenly, Constance was disappointed her father wasn't here, so she could touch this man in secret.

She felt overheated but didn't dare fan herself. Not with her mother right there.

Then the beast looked up and held her gaze. It took a moment, but knowledge of the state she was in finally flashed in his eyes.

For a brief moment, young Walter's face lit up with innocent wonder. Constance blamed it on her imagination, for her sanity. No way could he still be that...perfect.

It soon swept behind the facade with a knowing smirk that stared her down. His gaze wandered, taking in the whole sight of her, making her feel naked at the breakfast table. As much as she hated it, she didn't dislike it.