Chapter Text
It is late afternoon before the realities of the world intrude on the two in bed.
Golden light warming to carmel, shadows deepening to violet, Constantin traces the pattern of Winifred’s linen chemise with his fingertips, the colors of the day painting across them both.
“What is on your mind?” Her voice may be drowsy and warm with sleep, but she sees every nuance in his expression from where she lays beside him.
“Your offer of the island, of freedom.” He tries to smile, but she can see the hesitation, the flicker of something beneath the surface.
“Why do you feel guilty, Constantin?” She smooths her thumb against his cheek in quiet comfort.
The corners of his eyes crease in mirth, “You read me like an open book, dearest. There are no secrets from you.”
When she says nothing, he continues.
“It was not so long ago that I promised that I would do my duty and stay away from you...from the promise of this .”
His lips brush a butterfly soft kiss to the tips of her fingers before he sighs, “Unsurprisingly I have failed to follow through. I imagine you are quite disappointed in me.”
Winifred is silent for a long moment before her gentle touch guides his eyes to her own, her tender expression a contrast to the fierceness of her words, “I have never been disappointed in you, Constantin. And I expect that I never will be.”
The sentiment makes his eyes sting, and the pain is so raw that his voice shakes, “You are perhaps the only one. My father made it clear he did not expect me to succeed, and now-”
What a strange thing it was, to watch maturity burden a man that so many believed lacked the courage to shoulder it. Winifred could never quite understand how so few people could recognize Constantin’s strengths for what they were.
But then, kindness and genuine feeling were in painfully short supply amongst the courtiers of Serene.
She respected him enough to ask, “Would you prefer that I return you to the Palace?”
It was an option, in truth it was the only one that propriety would allow.
But she had told Blanche the truth. She would not force Constantin to do anything he did not wish.
The choice was his.
And yet, she cannot quite prevent the words from tumbling from her lips.
“I desire for you to be safe.” Winifred finds that the strength of that need is enough to tighten her throat with emotion, “But I wish for your happiness above all else.”
He smiles boyishly, his cheeks warming with color as he acknowledges that truth, ““I am safest and happiest when I am in your care.You hold the key to my every contentment.”
Drawing her towards him, he sighs as he settles her in his lap, so close that their noses almost touch. His eyes, fathoms deep and dark with emotion, meet her own. “I’d sacrifice my father’s good opinion of me forever if it meant we could be together.”
“Then our plan is made.” Sealing their plan with a tender kiss, Winifred’s happiness blooms like a flower, “I look forward to enjoying your company on this adventure.”
“And I, you.”
And with those words, the tension melts into something else entirely, brought about by their proximity and their fledgling physicality with one another.
Fingers flexing on the silkiness of her stockings, Constantin amuses himself with the steady trek of his hands up Winifred’s legs. Slow and unhurried, he brushes her filmy gown higher by degrees. And with each quiet motion, the warmth between them builds, until he spies the lace and ribbon that keep her modesty neatly tied above her knee, and that heat turns to burning.
Teasing the first little loop, and then the next, he tugs them loose a moment later, skimming the fabric down until there is nothing between them. And though he allows his hands to return, to rub slow circles in the softness of her thighs, he does not dare move higher. Not when his control has been tested so recently and his desire remains sharp as a blade.
“Constantin.” He can hear the strain in her voice, the wanting that matches his own.
“I fear you have ruined me for other women.” He admits softly, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck with a sigh, ”You are a sensual woman, just as I suspected you might be.”
Winifred blushed prettily, looking away as color flooded her face, “You mustn’t speak so boldly of such things.”
“No?” His eyes watch her with unabashed masculine interest, his hands inching ever so slightly higher.
”And why is that, my darling Winifred?” The question is idly asked, as if he is unaware of how she shifts against him, how she bites her lip to prevent the sweet sounds from escaping her.
Smile broadening to a grin, Constantin watches as her eyes flutter in pleasure, “I almost think you like my naughty, ungentlemanly words.”
She made a soft sound in protest, refusing to look at him, but her bosom heaved with the effort to take measured breaths, and her hands had anchored themselves on his shoulders so that they were wound around one another.
“It feels dangerous.” She admitted as last, looking at him from beneath long lashes and flushed cheeks. “Such good fortune is too rich a reward for any one woman to be allowed. I fear someone will come to take it away, or that I will awaken from this moment to find it all a daydream.”
Shifting to press their joined hands over her breast to where her heart beat so frantically, Constantin was surprised to find an awkward smile on his lady’s lips when she turned to return his gaze. The expression one of rare self consciousness.
“Being in your arms makes me feel as though I should burst from happiness.” She admitted quietly.
And for once Constantin found himself at a loss for words. Struck by tenderness amidst a maelstrom of lust, he was so very aware of the vulnerability she had revealed, the gift of truth that sat between them now.
“You knew I loved you.” Winifred said after a time, filling the silence with the quiet melody of her voice, “Are my words such a surprise?”
Unsettled by the forcefulness of his own emotion, Constantin swallowed hard, struggling to find the right response.
Clearing his throat roughly, he tried. “You spoke the words once, when you were cutting out both of our hearts in the name of duty. You called it love then.I thought that we must have meant different things.”
Turning back to her, his expression grows rueful, “Imagine how stunned I am to hear your affections described in such perfect symmetry to my own. I am in awe of your strength to have sent me away.”
“Constantin-”
He shakes his head, intent on finishing his thought, his confession.
“I am aware that I can speak of affection more readily. I have never been one for restraint. But I swear to you, my adoration for you is equal to your regard for me. I may be disappointingly shallow in other avenues of life, but you are the well from which my emotions are deepest drawn.”
Her lips found his in a wordless but perfect agreement.
XX
It should not feel so good, to be so wicked.
The thought crossed Winifred’s mind as though carried on the breeze that danced through the trees.
After a lifetime of mindfulness, the ease with which she now stood outside shook her. To take such pleasure, and enjoy it with such little guilt seemed almost unthinkable. And yet, her experience with Constantin seemed to be an awakening of the senses.
Closing her eyes, she reveled in the sensual brush of the wind through her unbound hair, the caress of broad ferns on her bare legs, the cool brush of Constantin’s linen tunic against her skin.
All of it was easy, the world ripe with new experiences to be indulged and enjoyed with abandon.
Perhaps with time, shame would return, or maybe she would find enough guilt to craft into a hammer, one she could wield as a tool to force herself back into the mold of the lady she had once been.
But even as she wondered at the possibility, she knew it was no longer truly an option.
She was different now. Fundamentally changed by the happenings inside.
There would be no going back.
It was contentment that grew in her breast with each hour, a tranquility that came from finding such a compelling peace, from finding such love.
Such a feeling was not likely to relinquish its hold on her easily, and like a hardy wildflower she could already feel it touching so many other aspects of who she was.
Opening her eyes, Winfred saw no well tended garden beds nor manicured topiary. The villa was too far, and with it, the trappings of fine society, of expectation and the court.
All that remained was the land, the wildness, and the strange hum of something beneath her feet. It called to her, that fierce power she did not yet understand. It sang in her blood like a song.
“Winifred?”
She spied him at the top of the stone steps, strong and beautiful in the dying light of day. There was a flutter in her heart, a warmth that grew from his appearance, from the knowledge of how completely they care for one another.
Raising her hand, she waited for him to join her.
Slowly. Steadily.
She could read every shift in his body as he drew near. And when she captured his larger hand into her two smaller ones, she smiled at the roughness that had worn itself onto its surface. His badge of honor, a sign of his hard work and dedication.
Winifred did not need to speak the words of praise for him to understand, but when her thumb traced the line towards the heart of his hand, she found his eyes fixed on her, his cheeks flushed.
“Dance with me?” She asked softly, knowing she was asking him to partner for more than just a single waltz.
Lifting her hand to his lips as he bowed, Constantin pressed a kiss to the backs of her fingers, hearing the question beneath the words.
“Always.”