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The first night on which Frances Crawford of Lymond visited the Ostrich Inn since being pardoned by the Queen Mother had the place alight like it hadn’t been in ages. That was according to Molly, at least though Willa Scott found it much the same as she had when they’d stayed there as outlaws. Ever a scene of some debauchery, the two women entered it without shame, dressed in fine doublets and hose, and its proprietress congratulated Lymond on her freedom by kissing her squarely on the lips and embracing her. Willa, flushing scarlet by the time they were seated in a deliberately inconspicuous corner for food and drink, was quickly reminded of that night she’d spent here with the outlaws. Now muddled in a blur of alcoholic fervor, she remembered against her will the mix of desire, hope, and painful embarrassment which had come with a certain false assumption about precisely why Lymond was calling her to her room alone. At least the recollection of her own foolishness couldn’t make her face any redder than it already was.
Lymond noticed, of course. When Molly brought their meals—personally, of course—Lymond was the one to peck her cheek, lips still tinged red from the paint Molly wore on hers. She glanced sideways at Willa as she did so, and raised an eyebrow slyly. To her credit, Willa managed not to avert her eyes; if it wasn’t an invitation (of course it wasn’t), she did not mistake it for a taunt, as she might have some months earlier. The coup de grace, however, did not come until after Molly had left. Presently, Willa prepared to eat, but Lymond held up a hand in a gesture which arrested her spoon midair, and raised her cup instead. “To health,” she said with a smirk, “and normalcy.” Willa Scott laughed out loud in a way very reminiscent of her father. She laughed loud and long, and then found quite suddenly that she was crying. The glass held aloft in her hand wobbled and she set it down quickly, then scrubbed furiously at her eyes. Even through the blur of tears, she could tell that Lymond’s face had fallen, and struggled mightily to master herself.
“Willa?” She took a long, shaky breath as she forced herself to meet Lymond’s cool gaze, which struck her as more open than it often had in the past.
“I’m sorry, I,” she started, clambering for the words. “It’s… he was the first.” When the truth fell into place, and escaped her lips in the same moment, she was briefly stunned to silence by it. The general din of the other patrons filled the space she left, but it was a cloak for her words rather than an intrusion; she realized they need not fear being overheard. “Henry Lauder,” Willa clarified, “Is the first person to ever suggest out loud that…” how to put it? “That you and I are alike.” In service, she did not add, of Lymond’s downfall. He’d had no sense of whether it was true that Willa loved women, only that an easy charge of having corrupted her might be laid on the head of Frances Crawford, whose reputation as a creature of voracious lusts preceded her.
As usual, Lymond spoke as quickly as Willa thought. “And Wat refuted it, for the sake of his daughter’s reputation.” Willa swallowed and nodded once. “I apologize. It was Lauder I intended to make a fool of, not you.” Even coming on the heels of her near-death and unraveling revelations, Willa found herself shocked at how baldly Lymond spoke lately; she had, she supposed, learned to anticipate a layer of uncertainty obscuring everything. Now it was plain meaning from Lymond’s mouth which had become difficult to puzzle out, and it left Willa feeling strangely unguarded. Already raw and wrung out with the bout of crying, she took a long drink to steady herself. Mulled wine warmed through the late fall’s chill in a way that was more than satisfactory, and for that short span Lymond’s apology rested undisturbed between them.
At last, she gathered herself and said, “You were kissing Molly on purpose.”
Lymond raised her eyebrows. “I should certainly hope it wasn’t an accident.”
“I meant that you did it so that I would see you. It appears we are speaking frankly; why?”
“On occasion,” Lymond said lightly, “you may have seen a lady take up an offer to begin a dance with a man not quite to her liking, while she casts an eye upon another whom she prefers. Her object, my dear, is to arouse a little passion in him—a pleasant spark of jealousy, perhaps—which might encourage him to take further initiative later on, and thereby clarify the point between them.” Willa’s throat bobbed convulsively, but she said nothing. The room had narrowed to just the two of them. “The gamble, of course, is that she may simply frighten the subject of affection out of speaking to her at all.” She reached out across the table, and laid her hand over Willa’s. “In which case, she begs forgiveness for any confusion or distress she has caused.”
Such confirmation of Willa’s suspicion did not precisely come as a surprise, but the weight of it pinned her sense of logic and the better nature of her tongue down quite firmly. Base instinct replied in lieu of higher faculties. She spluttered, “There are far simpler ways to flirt!” and Lymond laughed aloud, delightedly.
“Have I learned nothing this past year? Willa Scott is far too important to be treated as simple.” For an instant, Willa saw a hint of sadness flicker across the smile which was warming her chest just to look at. “I’ll grant you, sweetheart, that I haven’t made things easy for you.”
“Were such a thing even possible,” Willa sighed, though humor crept into it in spite of the riot of other emotions bubbling fiercely within her.
“It would take an effort most valiant, but I’m feeling quite gallant, all things considered… so would you like me to?”
Willa bit her lip, her hand twitching involuntarily beneath Lymond’s. “I believe… that you offered to share accommodation tonight?”
“There are a number of things,” said Frances Crawford, “that I am willing to share.” Then she lifted Willa’s hand and declined her head to kiss the back of it. That gentle press of lips, a teasing hint of warmth, sent a shock through Willa’s whole being. Intertwined with the words Lymond spoke, she could feel its gravity, the earnestness she had craved for so long. That it was for her seemed almost beyond belief. Though the gesture was subtle and did not linger, passing unnoticed by the inn’s other patrons, the echo of the touch stayed with her for the rest of the meal, and the heat in her belly was not due only to the wine.
Some time later, following a rather extensive conversation on the subject of lately-published poetry which Lymond in her years of outlawry had missed, they had finished eating, and drained their cups to the dregs. Willa was buzzing with all of it—the wine, the promised seduction, the very fact of Lymond talking happily of art and the invitation to the game of words which she now played with Willa as an equal. Laughter not struggling in the grip of sarcasm or desperation rang clear in the hall, unabashed. So it was when Lymond rose, took Willa’s hand and led her up the staircase towards the room she’d purchased.
The heavy wood door had barely clicked shut before Lymond turned on her, beaming devilishly, and clapped her on both shoulders, holding her at arm’s length from herself. “Marigold, you are radiant—it would be a shame to leave such a vibrant blossom untouched.” Though a part of Willa was still mortified to find herself so directly under the attention of Lymond, she glowed under the praise and smiled back. What was more, when Lymond removed her hands and dropped them to Willa’s waist, it was Willa who leaned forward first and kissed her. At first, it was like the brush of Lymond’s lips against her hand: exceedingly gentle, more of a promise than something followed through on. But then Lymond smiled against her mouth and let her fingers drift up to the back of Willa’s head, and Willa found herself plunging deeper into the kiss until it was something far less innocent. Lymond held her through it, and though she was smaller Willa felt safe enough in her arms to relax. A scrape of teeth over her bottom lip, and the sensation of Lymond’s mouth opening for hers made Willa whimper, and she let herself be coaxed into slipping her tongue inside. There was a pleased hum in response, and when Willa finally drew back to breathe, Lymond looked up at her with those heavy-lidded blue eyes and Willa felt heat rush through her.
She was almost surprised at herself that she was the one to break the silence — and not with her own words, at that. Her desperation for something more would have been inarticulate should she have attempted to compose, but Lady Luck was kind enough that the memory of one of Jenny Fleming’s books rose up in her mind, and she did not stumble in reciting,
“Dant chevalier, vous amez moult beaulz ditz,
Mais je vous pri que mieulx amiez beaulz faiz.
Au commencier estes un pou tardis,
Mais encor vault trop mieulx tart que jamais.”[1]
Lymond, amused, cocked her head and raised her hands to the collar of Willa’s fine doublet. “You are quite right; thanks to you, there is plenty of time for all the words we could wish for. Privacy for the physical, however, is more difficult to come by.” She toyed with the top button with an amused smile, then finally undid it. “I will try your patience no more, my lady-knight.” With that, she made good on it. Of course, in the time it took to remove, meticulously, each layer of Willa’s clothing, she was not silent. As her hands worked on knots and buttons and finally laces in turn, Lymond whispered languorously in her ear,
“Thow may nocht have ane more excellent blis
Than ly all nicht in-to min armis plet,
To hals and brais with mony lusty kis,
And have my tender body be thy side.”
[2]
Willa hummed, and answered her tremulously between little gasps as Lymond’s hands palmed her breasts through the thin linen of her shirt,
“Thair is na pleseir in this eird so gret
As quhen ane luffar dois her lady meit.”
[3]
With doublet shed and kirtle-bodice unlaced, Lymond fell to one knee, and as if she were a lady of the bedchamber, offered herself to remove each of Willa’s shoes in turn, to loosen the velvet ribbons of her stockings, and at last draw down her hose. Briefly, Lymond laid her cheek against Willa’s bare thigh, nuzzled against the soft hair on her legs. From that vantage, she said, “I believe that I owe you a number of kisses.”
“Yes,” Willa breathed, and as Lymond stood, helped her pull the shirt off and over her head. She led the way to the bed, and laid herself down on it; uncertain as she was of what would follow, this at least seemed fairly self-explanatory, and the flush of Lymond’s cheeks as she looked over every inch of her lanky, well-muscled body told her she had done the right thing. The slight chill of the room could not touch her when faced with the sight of Lymond climbing over her, where she delivered another exquisite kiss and then trailed her lips and tongue down Willa’s neck. She was methodical and insistent, nipping at the shell of her ear, scraping over the soft skin where her neck met her shoulder with teeth, and laving her tongue over her collarbone.
When she reached one of Willa’s small breasts and sucked the skin there, Willa could just see her face again. The sensation of her taking one nipple into her mouth, coupled with the view of Lymond’s desire flashing in her cornflower eyes was enough that Willa had to slap her hand over her mouth to stifle a moan. Her hips moved under Lymond’s body, and she was suddenly keenly aware of how wet she was. It would have been mortifying, but being touched this way distracted her from any real semblance of embarrassment or shame. Instead she gave in to the overwhelming reality of the present sensations, and went pliant under Lymond’s mouth and hands to let her spread her legs apart. She understood what Lymond had meant by offering kisses, but still, feeling warm breath on her inner thigh, over her center and then the wet heat of Lymond’s tongue on her sex caught her off-guard. Willa’s body jolted, so Lymond held her hips down with both hands; that single gesture, at once sure and possessive, unraveled her. Letting her hand fall away from her mouth, she moaned openly, unthinking, and surrendered herself to the pleasure that was offered her.
Without denying her anything, Lymond took her time. Her clever mouth built Willa up gradually, winding tight the coil of arousal within her, until finally it snapped. Willa shook, her head tossed sideways on the pillow, as Lymond gentled her tongue and eased her through the waves of her peak. For a span, Willa lay staring up at the ceiling just trying to catch her breath. When at last she pushed herself up on one elbow, Lymond was looking up at her from between her legs, the lower half of her face shining wet. She smiled so sweetly that Willa almost felt like crying again. Instead she flopped back on the bed and said raggedly, “Come up here, please. I want…” she didn’t know what, really. Closeness, perhaps—that approximated a more profound desire which she could not properly gauge the scope of, for the moment anyway. Lymond did as she was bid, and soon she lay at Willa’s side, kissing her with a pleasant languor.
It might have lasted for some minutes, Willa thought; she did not immediately recover her faculties, though her body seemed perfectly capable of more. Between the kisses, Lymond’s hand played between her legs teasingly. Willa only stopped her when an idea came to her. “Your clothes,” she said, “Would you take—”
Lymond hummed against her mouth by way of answer. “Shall I do it myself, or would you prefer to?”
With a deep inhalation, Willa licked her lips, which now tasted of herself, thoughtfully. “I’d like to,” she said. “And if I want to touch you… will you teach me how?”
“As you please, Marigold,” she murmured, and pressed a kiss to Willa’s jaw. “I know that you take to your studies most rigorously.” Folding a hand over Willa’s, she brought it up to her doublet. In no need of coaxing now, Willa moved on her own to strip the clothes from Lymond’s body. After that the lesson, in poetry and prose, began in earnest, and lasted some hours longer into the night.