Lady Ines Scandalous Hobby-Chapter 53 - Fifty Three

The question hung in the air, a stunning, scandalous, and utterly, bravely foolish thing.

Carcel was very, very still. He was a statue, carved from granite, his face a mask of pained, rigid control. He was staring at her, this small, absurdly brave creature, crouched at his feet like a supplicant at an altar, asking not for blessings, but for knowledge.

Ines, having asked the most terrifying question of her life, did the only thing she could. She squeezed her eyes shut. She could not bear to see his face. Another rejection or disgust, or even horror—she could not, would not, look at it.

She was still crouched on the floor, her hands now pulled back, clenched tightly in her lap, her robe pooling around her.

I must seem like a mad woman, her mind shrieked, a high-pitched, silent wail against the inside of her skull. A depraved, lunatic. He might think I’m going too far and would stop his lessons. And he would be right.

But... the other, quieter, more insistent voice argued... if not now, when? When will I ever get the chance to see it in person? I am twenty-one. I have never even seen a... a statue... of one. Not a proper one. I am so curious.

Her writer’s-brain, her most faithful, treacherous friend, took over, its voice a low murmur.

I wonder what it looks like? What color would it be? Would it be the same color when it’s aroused and when it’s not? That seems unlikely, from a biological standpoint.

How does it look when it’s hard?

I keep hearing about its ’tip.’ The books were obsessed with the tip. I wonder how it looks? Would it be pointed, like the tip of a quill? Or... or round, like the tip of a bottle?

Argh!!! she screamed internally. So many questions! So many details! A single view... just one ... would be able to answer everything!

She was so lost in her spiral of inquiry and abject terror that she almost missed the sound of his voice.

She was expecting a shout or a gasp of horror but it was none of that. It was a low, strained, and utterly resigned groan.

"If that’s what you want, Ines."

Her eyes flew open.

He was still looking at her. His face was pale. He looked... he looked like a man who was walking, with a slow, dreadful certainty, off a very high cliff.

He’s... he’s agreeing? she thought, her heart stopping.

He completed his words, each one a separate, painful, surrendered thing.

"Do it yourself."

Ines just... sat there. She was still on the floor, in a small, velvet heap. She looked at him. She looked at his face, pale and strained. She looked down, at the front of his trousers, at the object of her research, which was still, as she had noted, impressively prominent.

Then she looked back at him.

Do it... myself?

He was not going to help. He was not going to stop her. He was, she realized, daring her.

She could back down. She could stand up, apologize, and run from the room. Her reputation, her innocence, her simple, quiet life, would be saved.

She took a shaky breath. She was, as she had told him, a woman with claws. If this is the only way to feed her curiosity then so be it.

Her hands, which were trembling so hard she was surprised she could control them, moved. She shuffled forward, on her knees. She was now, to her profound terrified mind, at the perfect level of her research.

Her hands went to the band of his trousers.

She touched the fabric. It was warm. Underneath, his waistline was hot, and hard as a rock.

Her fingers found the first button. It was a small, flat, innocent-looking thing.

She began to struggle.

Her fingers, which could fly over a page with a quill, were suddenly clumsy. Useless. They were shaking. The button was small, and the buttonhole was tight.

"Why... why isn’t this... unbuttoning?" she muttered under her breath, her brow furrowed in concentration. This was a mechanical problem. A flaw in the design.

A sound, a strange, strangled, high-pitched noise, escaped from Carcel.

Ines looked up.

He was laughing.

His eyes were squeezed shut, his head was thrown back, and he was laughing. It was not a happy sound. It was a sound of pure, hysterical despair. It was the sound of a man who had lost his mind.

"Why are you laughing?" she demanded, deeply, deeply offended. This was not amusing. This is a serious matter.

"It’s just..." he gasped, his voice cracking. He opened his eyes. They were wet. He was weeping with laughter. "The sight... the sight of you... struggling... to take off my trousers... in the middle of the night... it is, without question... the most absurd, ridiculous... and...amusing... thing I have ever witnessed."

Ines pouted. Her annoyance, her pure, single-minded, frustration, overrode her embarrassment. She was not amusing. She was a professional, being thwarted by poor tailoring.

She left him. She ignored his half-mad, half-hysterical laughter. She focused, with a terrifying, single-minded intensity, on the task at hand.

"Why isn’t it coming off?" she grumbled, her fingers fumbling, yanking at the button. "Why did you button it like so? It’s hard to..."

She gave one, final, furious yank.

RRRRRIP.

The sound was not a ’pop.’ It was a rip. The button did not come undone. It was ripped, clean off the thick fabric, taking a small piece of the material with it.

It clattered, loudly, onto the polished, hardwood floor.

And then...

Sproing.

The fall-front of his trousers, its one, brave, button-based defense now gone, flew open.

And lo and behold...

It... sprung out.

It was... there. No longer an abstract, fabric-covered shape. It was a real, actual, thing bathed in the warm, golden, and suddenly very, very bright light of the lamp.

They both, in that one, profound, clock-stopping, world-ending second, stared.

They were both completely, utterly, stunned into silence.

The laughter died in Carcel’s throat.

His mind, which had been lost in a haze of hysteria, formed one, single, crystal-clear, furious thought:

"Did she just... Did she just ruin my... my favorite, Savile Row, six-guinea, bespoke trousers?

Ines, for her part, was also frozen. She was staring at it. At it. She was... seeing it. She had read the books. She had written the scenes. She had imagined... a lot.

But her mind, in that one, first, initial, shocking moment of observation, had only one, single thought:

"Is... is this ...it?"