The Loves of Leopold Singer by L. K. Rigel Page B

of her childhood forever and rode to the plain and unmysterious Lutheran church to be transformed into a new person.
    In celebration of the marriage, the servants had the full day off. When Leopold brought Marta home from the boisterous reception Wolfram hosted, the house was silent. In her new room, she began to detach the mantilla.
    “Let me help you.” He set it aside and unbuttoned the tiny buttons that ran from her hairline to the base of her spine. She stepped out of the dress, trembling. Gabrielle had given her a gruesome talk about men’s physical appetites. She was prepared to do her duty. More than that, she looked forward to a feast of Leopold’s kisses. She bent to remove her shoes.
    “Let me,” he murmured, kneeling.
    She felt ungrounded. Steadying against the back of a chair, she studied the wallpaper; if she looked at him she would faint. He slid one stocking from her leg. A small, strange noise escaped her throat when she felt his lips warm on the inside of her thigh. She gripped the chair.
    He removed the last of her undergarments, and she felt the relief of her breasts coming unbound and the sting of cold—but wasn’t she warm? Did she fall? Or did he sweep her into his arms? He laid her on the bed and undressed himself. She didn’t recognize his expression—a look of hunger, purpose, desire, license. He bent over her, and she braced herself, but he did not enter her. He kissed her neck and stroked her breasts and her stomach. He kissed her belly, and she ran her fingers through his hair. His mouth on her skin was all she knew, then a shock of delight as his lips found a nipple. She grew hot with the ache of desire. Gabrielle had not said it would be like this.
    Then he was inside her. Pain, and then not pain. He was filling her, surrounding her, blinding her to everything but him, and binding her to him, her husband, her friend. Then another unexpected thing happened: she felt him shudder as he lost himself inside her and surrendered to her. This was the mystery she had barely guessed at when Oktav kissed her in the shrubs on the cathedral road.
    “I love you,” he said, and she understood.
    And then it was over. The full weight of him was upon her, his head between her breasts, his breath heavy. She floated into sleep, happier than she thought possible on earth. The most important question had its answer: Who was she? She felt as if her self—the self out of which she had lived, breathed, and seen the world—had evaporated, yet all its particulars had come into sharp focus to animate this new person, made real by the love of this man. Marta Singer now knew her name; everything else would follow.

Let Me Die
     
    Susan left Gohrum House while the duke was away on his wedding trip. She had the excuse of her mother’s worsening illness, but she couldn’t have stayed in any event. She wasn’t in Bath six weeks before the landlady had made it a habit to shake her head sadly and look sideways at Susan’s expanding belly.
    Mrs. Bead met Susan one morning at the bottom of the stairs. “Is that for the post?” She nodded at the letter in Susan’s hand.
    “The doctor has told me to write to my brother,” Susan said. “My mother may not last the night.”
    John was eighteen now and married, to Susan’s regret. He arrived the day after she buried their poor mother, took one look at Susan’s swollen shape and said, “My Meg is in about the same way as you.”
    “Oh, John. You are so young.” This was too much to bear. “Is there no hope for our family?”
    “None, I think.” John laughed. He had been a kind and sweet boy, and he looked to become a generous and good man. “Come home and meet my bride. She’s a good girl, and we’ve got a nice little farm on Gohrum’s land with an extra room that will do for you two.”
    She hesitated. Carleson Peak was the last place she wanted to see again.
    He said, “Don’t worry about Morgan Baker. Yes, I know all about that rascal. You think I