Do try to take into account that I punched this into my phone in the middle of the night over the last two nights. :( So, it may be completely insane. Hopefully, it has remained tasteful. My thanks to J who read this even after I warned her off.
I gleaned inspiration from the youtube vid "Bleak House- You are Loved" by wedge0102, stopping it, of course, before the torturous end where Dickens and the BBC have Jarndyce releasing her from their engagement.
I do feel better now that I have set the world straight on what to do with a yummy Jarndyce.
This takes place after Esther (who is secretly engaged to Mr. Jarndyce) has received a proposal from that inconstant Alan Woodcourt.
Esther came to Mr. Jarndyce in the library he jokingly called his 'Growlery.' Her head down for a moment, she seemed unsure at first.
He watched her as she walked to him, and with a palpable ache, he found the evidence of her crying was still obvious around her eyes. He had heard her the night before. And while he had wanted to go to her, he had found he hadn't had the heart for it. He had returned to his room and had lain awake that night, convinced that he was the the most ineffectual of men, past his prime. Past his usefulness.
Her tears, he told himself, were most certainly over her predicament. And he was convinced now that their engagement would not last.
He had feared such a thing from the beginning. So he had resisted setting a wedding date, and he had held her to silence on the matter.
Meeting Mr. Woodcourt again had made Esther anxious to settle things with Mr. Jarndyce, to move forward. Her tears were for the affections she had wasted on the younger man and for that man's imperfections.
Seeing the doctor for the mutable soul he was made her appreciate how constantly her guardian had loved her. With things finally clear, she saw how easy it was to love Jarndyce. She felt guilty now that she had not insisted he set a date before. She was anxious that morning to reassure him and to start that promised life.
So the meeting began tensely with his worry. And to his surprise, it ended with them agreed, with something like awkward determination, to marry in a month's time.
He squeezed her hands reflexively, heartened by her decision, wanting more contact and yet, somehow, not daring.
She was the one who dared, rising on her toes and moving her hands to his arms. It needed to be her who was bold. He would not throw himself at her. He did not have the courage. He did not expect that she had made that transition she claimed to have begun, one that would allow her to see him as a potential lover.
She lifted her chin then and met his lips quite inexpertly. He floundered as well. After the fleeting contact, he dropped his head, looking, should there be anyone to witness, more like the shy virgin of the two.
She caught him unaware then when she leaned in again. She was his determined, practical Esther, moving to correct the kiss. Working to make it that thing suitable of marking their agreement to marry in one short month.
This time, pushed by Esther's insistence, their lips met more fully. The kiss lingered, fueled then by the depth of emotion he could not hide.
"Esther, I would make no demands," he told her as he faded back. She could tell he was sadly prepared for there to be a limit to what she would want from him. And his words seemed in obvious counterpoint to what he was feeling. He made them in apology for what he was thinking, she believed.
And that made her smile, the way the world's women have each smiled on seeing that power they command over the man who returns their love.
"I would," she stressed. "I would make demands. I'll not marry you if it is to be half a thing. That isn't what you intended, was it?"
"I intended only what you would want," he told her gently.
"Then meet me here every morning and every evening from now on," she said with a small smile. "And kiss me. Like that?"
/
They sat on a bench outside a few days later, a tad closer than they were previously accustomed. They were discussing Richard and Ada and the topic had her worried.
"I face these things better with your arms around me, please." Her head fell to his shoulder as he wrapped her up. And as she closed her eyes and breathed him in, she felt the unaccustomed touch of his lips on her neck.
She had enjoyed their previous kisses. They were warm and stirring. But this? She could not stifle the moan of pleasure that rose from her. She suddenly felt liquid and limp. She let her head roll back so that he could trail those kisses further down. They were only on her neck, she knew. But, strangely, she felt them all through her.
Conversation forgotten, he stood and led her by the hand to the stand of trees behind their bench. Their actions had made him wary of being seen, although there was no one about.
Standing with him now, she heard the way he was breathing. She ran a hand over his face as she studied his strange, unfocused gaze.
She thought, perhaps, she had something of that look herself.
"Am I truly the right man for you?" he wondered.
"I believe it, yes. Or I would not feel so completely unsettled," she imparted at a whisper. Her words seemed a touch confused, even to her. Her mind flew to the books she'd read that concerned those things that passed between men and women. She wondered at herself that she was now in a situation she had only ever read about.
"We should go back to the house." He cleared his throat. "We should get ready for dinner."
She looked between them and saw their hands entwined. "I don't know that I want to let go," she confessed.
"I hadn't hoped that it could be like this," he told her shakily.
"I love you." She smiled. The smile turned a tad impish. "I'm happy to be engaged to you."
"I'm glad of it, Esther. So glad."
"But I think, we will find it a relief to be married," she said, head down, with a meaning he did not miss.
He tugged his temptress with him then as he backed the few feet to lean against a tree. He cast his arms around her again and had her head settle at his chest.
Relief was something they could perhaps negotiate as this month progressed.
/
In his Growlery, she indulged the tradition of requesting a kiss each morning and each evening.
Ada, when she was at Bleak House, had come to laugh about this practice once she discovered it, which only made the old suitor more self conscious.
He had dismissed the idea of meeting Esther when Ada discomforted him by bringing it up at table. After the meal, he had busied himself, therefore, in any occupation he could find that kept him from the Growlery.
Ada excused herself for the night. Esther was no where to be found, he then discovered. "Most likely already in bed," Ada joked, "feeling scorned."
"Don't tease an old dog, please," Jarndyce begged wearily.
He would just find that ledger in the library and then retire himself. Perhaps, he would risk a knock at Esther's room to discover if she was upset with him.
He opened the door to find that she was in his Growlery. Esther was curled up with a book on the small settee.
"I take my assignations quite seriously," she pretended to chide him.
"I'm sorry, it's just. ..
"...Ada made things difficult."
"Yes," he said as he sat beside her.
"Kiss me and I am off to bed," she smiled forgivingly.
But he didn't kiss her yet. They sat instead forehead to forehead.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply like a man taking his fill of peace. "How long till we are married?"
He knew, of course, but asked anyway.
"One week."
"One week," he echoed.
"Kiss me?"
"Soon enough, dear woman. What happens once we are married? Will we still meet here?"
"Of course not. I'll take my kisses in the dining room, if I choose, then."
The kiss he gave her then was slow and tremulous. And she admitted to herself that she would never let him kiss her like that in the open dining room, no matter how alone they seemed. She ran her hands over him before pushing them inside his coat. She gripped now at his waist coat.
Quickly, this was becoming unlike any kiss they had ever shared. She leaned back as he pressed forward. She tugged lightly at his clothing to welcome his weight against her.
Suddenly, he enforced a distance between them, even as she sought to draw him closer.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"I'm becoming too invested in our activities," he hedged.
He wanted to take her to bed, she believed. It was an idea that she found more and more to her liking despite every virgin's trepidation.
He was ill at ease about being pressed up against her any longer. She had registered his desire, felt its evidence, and she believed this left him feeling ashamed. But she did not want him to suffer any self reproach for it. She stood and moved in front of him, preventing his easy escape.
"I've made you uncomfortable," she said. And as he tried to formulate a reply, she lifted her skirts enough to settle into his lap astride him.
"We are very nearly married," Esther told him earnestly while she watched his face adjust to the shock of her actions. "I'm yours already, as I see it."
"No, Esther." He knew what she was offering and why.
His kind eyes, his gentle touch. The way this physical state did not rule him. She knew then how well she had chosen when she had accepted this man.
Perhaps it was her age or her inexperience that made her admire his restraint, because she knew she did not have so much of it. She felt torturously controlled by this desire.
"I want it, too," she admitted lowly.
The truth in her words was written on her countenance. Her lips, he saw, were full with kissing him and the skin at her chest was flushed. He loved that she was open with him. So honest in these moments.
Still, he knew he had delayed too long already. He should send her off to bed. Alone. The thought however nearly made him groan. She would go if he told her to. But she was leaning in now, her mouth parted, begging to be kissed. And he couldn't resist.
She wanted him to touch her. She pushed against him. The instinct in her was begging for more contact. Embracing as they were now, they were both profoundly aware that there was precious little between her intimate parts and the evidence he had sought before to hide.
"Nothing to make our wedding night any less than it should be," he forewarned her.
He paused and slowly as his eyes held hers, he slid his hands under the skirts of her simple dress. He passed his palms over her stockinged thighs until he reached the stockings' edge. A sharp intake of breath from them both marked his fingers travels across the skin at the limit of her undergarments.
She trembled.
"I never dreamed I could make you happy," he told her.
"I want to make you happy." The words were heavy with meaning, and he found her hands were at his hips then, but they stalled, unsure. She meant to touch him, he was nearly stunned to realize.
He shushed her and began to move one hand across the fabric of her camisole. Beneath her skirts, he ghosted from hip bone to hip bone, his thumb tantalizing her on every pass.
But she had her agenda. "Please?" she wondered. And he could hear her teasing voice in his head. "Please, my long suffering, Mr. Jarndyce."
She found his other hand and placed it at his buttons. And bravely, she rested her hand on his, at that spot which he had sought to hide before from embarrassment. She would take her part in undressing him; he saw her determination in her eyes. Together they would pull at his stays, opening his trousers.
He kissed her rather than endure the weight of her gaze on him, as he took the final step loosing those binds.
He turned his attentions to her pleasure then. Watched her head fall back with his quickening touch. His other arm tightened around her now to support her. And she let out her short, needy sobs.
They pressed closer still, although they remained uncoupled. Her hand passed over him, holding him to her warmth. She listened to hear what pleased him. And repeated that.
It was not as frenzied as he had worried. It was simply their touches working in unison. Her release came quickly and beckoned his. And with gasps and heavy breaths finally spent, they stilled and clung together.
"I love you," he assured her, worried that regret would fill the spaces now. But she didn't back away from him or seem less content with him in her happy, sated state.
"John. Oh, John." And her words and her hold on him were wonderfully possessive.
/
The next morning Jarndyce dressed early to meet her at her room door. He felt sheepish. But young. He was hopeful that she would not feel distaste for their actions the night before.
Esther smiled to see him waiting in the hall. The creases in her face signaled only her honest joy. There was no regret, he saw with relief.
"Six days," she told him, clasping his hands.
He raised her hands to his lips. Theirs would be a blissful, fortuitous marriage of equal regard, he could see at last. He had not dared to think it weeks before.
"Please? Please, John," she murmured two years hence. She pulled at his shoulder. "Can't you hurry?"
He smiled as he leaned over his wife then. How many women begged their husband to just finish. Quickly. While his always needed him to hurry to begin?