Summer is Summoned
At
The House of Four Seasons
by Atonia
Part 3
Sometime later after a careful examination of his room and a change of clothes he found in his wardrobe, leather pants and a soft tunic, he left his room and entered hers. He stopped, it smelled of lilies and he looked around the room finding it serene and neat. She was on her balcony leaning over watching the shadows grow on the grounds below, it was late afternoon and the sun was on the other side of the house casting shadows.
“My lady,” he said in way of greeting and then thought, “should I not be in your chambers?”
“Well…you are.” She looked him up and down quickly and then out toward the sea. “You look much more comfortable.”
“Aye, I am…its very peaceful here…quiet.”
“Yes,” she thought it was much more so before he came. He disturbed her. He was so undeniably…male. She had a few male friends back home, someone to go to dinner or to a concert with but none that she took home. None that affected her as the one beside her was beginning to. She was very aware of the fact that they were alone in this place…together…alone.
It was as though he had inhaled a thousand lilies he could not get the scent out of his lungs and he wondered how it could be so strong out here in the open air until she moved, the scent was coming from her. He was a drunken fool he thought and fought the urge to touch her, to fold her in his arms. He could not do that as he was her companion, her protector…but who would protect him from himself. Indeed who would protect her from him. He fought control of himself and left her balcony and went downstairs.
She wondered if she had offended him in some way, he’d left so abruptly. She pulled the light shawl around her shoulders and went downstairs, she saw he was in the library and she left him there and went into the conservatory. She set her large sketch pad on her easel and began roughly sketching, not really paying much attention to what she was drawing until Macbeth joined her and she looked back at the pad, she’d been sketching him from memory, his eyes stared at her from the paper. She turned the pad over and left the room going out to the bluff and sitting in the grass. The wind was cooler out here and she wished she’d brought a sweater as she hugged her arms around her body.
At this rate she would never get anything on canvas, he hadn’t been here for a full day and it was though she was becoming obsessed with him. She hadn’t wanted him here…but he was here. She tucked her long blue cotton skirt around her ankles and watched the gulls at dinner down on the shore.
Robin had been pouring over the atlas for some time and noticed the room was becoming dark he looked about for a candle and a lamp came on and then another light on the desk where he’d been sitting. Magic again? He looked carefully over the lamp on the desk and shook his head. It was truly a magical place. Again he wondered why he was there, what force had brought him from his time into this one. How could such a thing be possible?
The woman, Jemma, if it was true as she said there was no danger here why did she need a protector, why had he been brought to this place. He closed the book and left the library. He wanted to talk to her again perhaps something would rise to the surface.
“Hi,” Jemma was ladling out soup into bowls, a plate of assorted meats and cheeses on the table.
“Hi,” he repeated, “that smells good what is it?”
“Potato soup, a light meal tonight.” She placed the bowl before him and a basket of breads already sliced into chunks for dipping and thinner slices for sandwiches.
He was concentrating on his meal, the different flavors on his tongue but his eyes kept straying to her hands across the small table, long and slender fingers with oval nails, her skin was delicate and fair. He chanced a look up and met eyes for a moment, he blinked and spoke.
“Tell me…Jemma, if there is no danger to you here…why is it you need a companion…someone to protect you?”
Jemma did not know the answer to this, “I’m not sure a protector is what I need, there is nothing here to protect me from.”
“I have been brought here for some reason I cannot fathom. You do not need servants and I would not be a servant to anyone. I can see no reason for my presence.”
“I can’t saddle a horse,” she offered breaking up a piece of bread.
He looked up, “How often do you ride?”
“I haven’t yet. You might could do that for me.” Jemma was grasping now, Andy’s words were coming back to her…the magic of love. She thought she knew why he was here but she could not tell him…did not want to know it herself.
“I think you know more than you will tell me. It vexes me to no end.” He roughly tore a piece of bread in half and dipped it in his soup.
Jemma’s eyes were wide when she looked at him, “I’m not trying to vex you, I did not ask for a companion but that seems to be the way it is here. The magic that controls this place insists on a companion called a season. Three months with a season and then it’s over. I don’t want to go there, don’t want to get involved, I’m not looking for a…” she stopped herself.
Robin dropped his bread in the soup bowl it was dawning on him, “looking for a…lover?”
Jemma got up from the table and left the room, she went into the living room and turned on the CD player, classical music began to play. She was embarrassed that her being here had brought him here. Neither of them wanted to be here with the other, she didn’t know what to do. She could leave…but then the summer had just started there was so much she wanted to do, all the pictures she’d taken, she wanted to paint. It had all been so perfect…until he came.
Robin got up angrily from the table and walked out of the back door. He’d been brought here to be a whore for some woman he did not know. Taken from battle, where he knew who he was and what his duty was to this place…for three months. This was not white magic it was black, he suspected again she was a witch. He paced, kicked stones with his boot and stood on the bluff his brows drown down. Angry.
After a while he cooled down and thought about what she’d said, she did not want him here, had not wanted a companion. Perhaps there was some way to breach this magic, some way to escape, he would try and find a way out. It was not the woman’s fault he was here. He gave up and went back inside and stopped in the hallway listening to the music, he had never heard such beautiful sounds and he went to the doorway into the living room and stood quietly and listened. The music moved him, touched him deeply. The woman, Jemma was on the sofa with her legs tucked up beneath her, her eyes closed, head back leaning on the back of the sofa. Again it must be the magic for there were no musicians visible.
Quietly he let himself into the room and sat in one of the striped chairs and he too closed his eyes and let the music wash over him, taking away his anger. This was good magic he thought…good.
The music came to an end and Jemma opened her eyes to see Robin across the room in the chair. He opened his eyes and another movement began to play. They sat looking at each other for a moment and he moved rising and taking her hands pulling her from the sofa. He held her hands shoulder height and began to dance with her, no known steps just moving with the music. He danced her out into the hallway and back again to the living room. She was entranced.
The tempo slowed and he pulled her in closer his arms enveloping hers, moving her around and around until the music was over. She looked up into his bright eyes, his scent surrounding her and knew she’d lost the battle with herself. He released her hands and her arms and bowed deeply.
“Thank you my lady.”
“That was lovely Robin…lovely.”
“Aye…it was. What magic is it that makes such a sound?”
Jemma showed him the CD’s and the player, “I will check into concerts in Boston, the symphony orchestra does something special in summer I believe. I think you would enjoy it and it would be live not recorded music as we have here.”
“I know not of what you speak but if such sounds exist in Boston I would like to hear them.” He handed her back the CD. An awkward moment where moments before it had been almost intimate between them.
Jemma took her time sheaving the CD and turning off the machine, “would you like a drink before you go to bed?”
She found a nice bottle of wine and opened it pouring them each a glass. He looked down into the glass, “Only Kings drink this, I am but a yeoman.”
“Here…you are a king.”
He tilted his head smiling when she touched his glass and swallowed the drink of kings.
The house was not totally pleased with itself, surely it could have done more to bring them together. It tidied up the downstairs and they went up to their separate bedrooms. However, he had danced with her and it had indeed been lovely. Perhaps all was not lost, it had been a gamble pulling him out of a movie that was not yet finished, he was not known at all…no, not at all. Only that he was Robin Hood and she being an artist and a bit fanciful herself it seemed to the house like a good match. There had been no time to explain things to him before he got here and all in all he was handling it as well as could be expected.
It had been a fitful night for both of them, Jemma reliving the dance and the feel of him close to her, Robin tossing in the unaccustomed luxury of a bed and thinking of lilies and soft hands. Though he’d not held her and her loose fitting clothing disguised her body, he’d felt her breasts against his arms when he danced with her. He buried his head in the soft down pillow, would becoming her lover be such a bad thing.
The next morning they set out for a walk, she took him past the pond and through the woods and they came out into a meadow that ended with a sharp drop to the sea below. Jemma carried her bag with her camera and sketching tools and had been randomly picking wildflowers in the meadow as they passed through. Finding a spot she liked she indicated they should sit for she would like to sketch the meadow as it dipped down toward the sea.
She had on her usual long flowing cotton skirt and a loose fitting Indian cotton shirt in lavender that reflected in the gray of her eyes. Robin lay down in the grass beside her and picked up the handful of flowers she’d picked. He began an elaborate weaving of their stems arranging the little bouquet as he worked. Jemma noticed he was doing something with them but was busy sketching. When he finished he laid the little bouquet by her side and turned over on this back watching the sky and the clouds float by.
Jemma took a picture of the area she was sketching and then turned and took one of Robin, his eyes were closed but at the sound of her camera he opened them to a slit. She noticed the bouquet then and picked it up bringing it to her lips she smiled and tucked it into her bosom. It was a lovely thing and she hoped it would dry well for she meant to keep it.
“You would treasure such a little thing?” he asked softly.
She jumped believing he’d been sleeping, “yes, it’s beautiful…thank you.”
He rolled over on his side propping himself up on his elbow, “you should have fine flowers from your garden not some meadow weed.”
“I don’t need fine things to make me happy.”
He looked down lacing his fingers through the grass, “but you are a lady and should be accustomed to fine things.”
“I’m not a lady in that sense Robin, there is no class system here, I just am who I am, an artist in residence.”
“You do not have a husband…no?”
“No…no one special.”
It was a delicate subject he suspected he should not ask of a lady but he did anyway, “Have you ever had a lover?”
Jemma quirked a half smile, “aren’t you nosey…I have. It’s been a long time…I’m very picky you know, not that I couldn’t have had lovers. I don’t go to bed with just anyone.” She fingered the bouquet tucked in her blouse.
He noticed the gesture but opted not to attach too much meaning to it. “Why have you not married?”
“I haven’t found anyone I’d want to spend the rest of my life with, I don’t know that I ever wil,l besides I like not having to answer to anyone, do as I please when I please. I make my own living and spend it as I see fit. I like being independent.”
He rolled back over on his back, ”you have a good spirit, a strong spirit one I think could not be kept in a cage.”
“You’re right about that, don’t cage me in. How about you are you married?”
“Aye I am, but like you I will not be caged.”
“I never really thought about you being married…” She lay back on her elbows that kind of put a wrench in the works.
“Perhaps I am not in this place”
“How could you not be you either are or you aren’t?”
“Why would the house summon me to be your companion if it were so?”
“Questions, questions and no answers. Have you had lovers since you married?”
“Questions, questions,” he sat up. “yes.”
“You’ve been unfaithful.”
“I was gone for ten years in King Richard’s army, that’s a long time to be celibate.”
“I suppose it is for a man,” she lay down looking up at the sky wondering exactly where this conversation was headed.
“Would be for anyone.”
“It’s been nine years for me.”
“Truly?”
“I told you I was choosy.”
He looked at her wondering what was beneath that cool exterior, what was inside of her that she kept to herself and would not share. Perhaps he was not to find out…she was…choosy. He lay back in the grass again and they lay there, head to foot in silence for awhile.
Jemma rolled over on her side, “Robin…do you want to be my lover?” she held her breath.
“Would you have me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I would be honored to be your lover.” He rolled over on his side and met her eyes.
“I’m not sure how one goes about this, I’ve been too bold.”
“I would have made the same request of you…three months is a long time to be living in the same house with a woman and not know her in that way. Especially when one is as lovely as you are.”
“But I made it,” she turned over on her back again, “I’m a bit embarrassed, what if you’d said no.”
“I did not say no.”
“I know but now…you’re too much of a gentleman to refuse me. I’m beginning to feel a little foolish an old maid asking for sex.”
“You are not an old maid,” he moved around so that he was lying beside her face to face, “you did not ask for anything I would not freely give to you or for anything that I do not want for myself.” He lowered his face to hers and kissed her. A gentle kiss that turned into something more. Her arms went around him and she felt his weight on her crushing the bouquet to her breast, he rolled her over so that she was on top of him and ran his hands down her body feeling her through her thin cotton clothing. She kissed him and tasted his lips with her tongue.
He moaned and turned her again his hands now beneath her skirt touching her mound silencing her with his lips. “here in this meadow…” she gasped.
“Here…now.” He said against her lips and fumbled with his clothing. He took her roughly in the grass.
She lay watching his chest rise and fall with the deep breaths he was taking in the aftermath, nine years and it had been worth the wait. She kissed his neck and sat up reaching for her panties and smoothing out her rumpled skirt. The crumpled bouquet was between them and she picked it up, his eyes were open now.
“I’ll make you another.” He said softly.
“No, I shall keep this one for the rest of my life. It has deep meaning for me.”
He smiled at her and sat up adjusting his leather pants and pulling his tunic down to cover himself.