From the Baroness’s Diary II

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

The Morning After

Mon Chèr Journal,

When this morning I woke, it was with a sense of change in myself which I neither care nor seek to analise. I was feeling excited, light, and all I wanted was to dance.

I threw open the French windows of my bedroom and surveyed the mess that is the garden in front of them but I can already see it taking form.

I can never see flowers too many times. I never tire of their sweet fragrance. And there is something about their beauty…

Each one is a delicate bloom, no matter if it is in a formal garden or a wasteland. Their petals are delicate works of art and their hues are medicine to the soul.

Women are compared to flowers all the time: unfurled petals, fragile blooms.

Frankly, I think it is a…load of stinking cow manure if you ask me.

Women are not just delicate flowers waiting to be coddled. We are also strong and unyielding.

I guess it’s not just me that feels that way though I struggle to find a woman who feels the same—not that I have been able to meet many women, imprisoned in this golden cage as I am.

People bring flowers into the hospitals and graveyards, people send them to express their love, people plant them in their yards though they bear no edible fruits.

Flowers are never called strong and I have yet to feel that way in my life.

There was nothing strong about my life, nothing that I have found pleasure in, yet as I look at the flowers in the morning sun, I start to believe that I have found that pleasure.

What had started as a mere whim to plant roses because I was bored became a daily necessity to partake in. Without the flowers, the landscape in front of my window would only be a pool and concrete. Well, right now, it’s a mess of upturned earth surrounding the pool still, but in a few months it will be a welcoming sight.

In Salvatore de Luca’s opinion—my husband’s gardener and since yesterday my lover—a perfect garden should not only be a planned space, set aside for display of ornamental beauty, but mostly a place where one finds the beauty inside oneself. I find this idea not only soothes my soul, but also my heart, and I gladly anticipate the day when I open my windows to blooming flowers.

Oh, a lover, you ask?

Oui, I am certain this is the correct word for paramour.

It is funny, I assume, to think I have taken on a lover now, laughable even, yet I do not find myself just laughing about the thought. Oh non, my mouth has been otherwise occupied with delightful moans and surprised gasps in that regard and happily so. My husband’s gardener has brought a joy to my life that I did not know I was missing.

A wild passion has asserted itself in my character since I met the Baron’s gardener. The s****l emotions my husband had awakened but did not fullfil have been kindled by Salvatore’s attentions and flirtations—and has also been gratified by him.

Of course it might be considered as grossly taboo to take on a lover since I am a married woman.

I imagine the shock, the horror of les soeurs—the nuns—if they learned of my…hmm…indiscretion. And the dowager’s friends? They would label me an adulterer and my precious husband would be a pariah to have married such a trollop.

But do I merit such harsh judgement?

Turning my back to the garden, I looked at my lavishly appointed bedroom, the rumpled bed still warm from my lounging. I should be ashamed from betraying Joseph, but I was far from that feeling.

He is guilty of leaving me alone for days and only using me as a receptacle of his sperm. He was the one who dug into me, leaving me an empty hole of longing, of need, which had driven me into Salvatore’s arms.

Oh, well. Enough rant…for now.

This morning, I took my breakfast in the gardens by the lake with my mother-in-law as company.

She chatted non-stop about her friends’ constant ailments and how much she misses her adored and oh-so-perfect son—who is again traveling on business—and I nodded distractedly, inserting a oui and a non when she paused to catch her breath. Even if I could manage to pay attention to her annoying and repetitive gibberish, I was feeling—I’m still feeling—such an ebullient happiness inside myself that I had to control my urge to jump and run and laugh and scream.

“And you, poor thing, less than two years a bride, I’m sure it’s hard for you with him away so often.”

With lascivious thoughts of Salvatore’s glorious manhood flickering through my mind, I twisted a smile into a pout and said, “I can’t tell you how hard it is when Joseph is away. I really can’t.”

She sniffed and picked up her delicate teacup. “Well, his hard work does allow you this lavish lifestyle. One must endure the sacrifice of daily intimacy to be swathed in silks.”

I pursed my lips, thinking of my sacrifice. I would happily continue to sacrifice on behalf of my husband’s absence, if it meant experiencing the awesome feelings I have felt in Salvatore’s arms. “And I do love silks.”

My mother-in-law looked over, her eyes narrowing. “Are you overheating, my dear? Your cheeks are becoming quite red.”

I held in my laughter as I shook my head, my carefully arranged hair bouncing against my cheeks. “I am perfectly fine.”

She clucked her tongue as she set her teacup back on its saucer, her eyes flitting over me like she were assessing a stud to breed.

Really, even my poor thoughts were traitorous to my newly found s****l appetite.

“I believe that once my Joseph returns, he will find it difficult to leave his wife’s side. You must make yourself available to his every whim, Chloé, no matter how disturbing they might be.”

My eyes surely widened on their own accord as I heard the displeasure in her voice. “Whatever do you mean?”

She shook her head, a little laugh escaping her lips. “La, you are so young, so inexperienced! I forget what that was like sometimes.” She then leaned forward, her voice low even though there was no one near the two of us. “You must pleasure him, Chloé, whatever it takes.”

I nearly laughed aloud as I thought of how Joseph was in bed—never expecting any pleasure from me and rejecting any overtures I made—and the pleasuring I had experienced thus far with Salvatore. “I will endeavor to do my best.”

She barely heard my words as she cooed sympathetic words at me and resumed rambling about her own interests.

I have long since given up my dreams of wedded bliss and have adjusted to my plight, as it is. At least for the short term.

I am young and so unhappy…oh, but that seems so ridiculous when put into words. I am young and I have no great reason to feel unhappy. I live in a luxury mansion, I have new and expensive dresses, I can eat as much as I want. I have many books to read and…and…

Well, I live totally alone, surrounded by my husband’s loyal employees, who watch my every step and report to him. Not that they are impolite or rude to me. No, they are all gentle and they obey my orders concerning the running of the manor, but still, if I fail to go on my morning walks, for example, my husband will know about it.

Before you say I don’t live alone, I admit the dowager baroness and her widow friends are also a constant in my life. And they are lovely ladies, but they are old and antiquated. The dowager is now sixty-four years old and she lives for her reminiscences, afternoon teas, and card games, as all her friends do. And to give advice.

Oh, Mon Dieu! How she loves to give advice to her poor, innocent daughter-in-law. While I somewhat appreciate her companionship—her too constant companionship, rather—I long for someone closer to my age, someone in whom I can confide these dark desires and feelings and not worry about being judged harshly.

And my husband? Well, that’s the worst part of it all.

I have no clue why le baron doesn’t like me. I’ll go further and say he merely tolerates my presence around him. He has never said that, of course. Joseph is an English gentleman—a real lord—with impeccable manners. When he is home—which is not very often—he greets me, asks me about trivial things, such as the day’s menu and if I need a new dress. He tells me—non, that’s not quite right—he informs me about his traveling plans and he always compliments me on my dedication to household affairs. If I try to engage him in a—how can I qualify it? Maybe as…intimate conversation?—he immediately opens a book, or the newspaper, or leaves the room with the excuse that he has work to do.

And even when we are are intimate he fails to be…well, intimate.

As I have told you already, we have s*x three times a day, around eigthteen to twenty days per month. But it’s just an obligatory act performed for him to ejaculate his semen inside my womb in his unending quest to produce an heir. I may as well be one of the hired help—a womb-keeper.

Ha, even I make myself laugh at some of the witty phrases I have come up with. A womb keeper. I am akin to a brood mare waiting for her stud to mount her in hopes that this would be the time that my womb would accept his semen and give him that heir he desperately wants.

Why he wants so desperately an heir I still do not know. As I said before, we do not have ‘those’ conversations. I’d have to be a mind reader with my own husband to understand him: a man who scrambles out of bed as soon as l’act is finished and he disappears for the rest of the day—and night.

Rarely, and I mean rarely, does he even take a breath after he finishes before he runs to the sanctuary of the bathroom, and then back to his bedroom.

But I digress.

As I was telling, I feel happy and young and ready to enjoy what life has brought to me in the form of a glorious Italian gardener. He does not run at my sight, he does not make what is supposed to be a glorious time between a man and a woman feel like a duty.

Since Joseph is not at home—because I am not in my fertile period—after breakfast today, I went to the hothouse where Salvatore works.

I crossed the well-manicured green lawn of the manor at a lady-like, sedate pace, even though I wished to run at full speed to meet my lover. That would be wanton of me, of course, to hurry toward him.

A bead of sweat ran down my spine and I wanted to blame the heat and the sun. Mais non! The heat that was spreading through me was arousal. I could feel a frisson run through my body and settle on my belly and below. Just thinking about Salvatore made me delirious with need and want; made me wet.

As the hothouse appeared in the distance, I caught myself worrying my lip between my teeth.

How would Salvatore greet me this morning?

How should I greet him?

And if Ricardo, the assistant gardener, was there? And…Dieu! And if Ricardo knew?

I hadn’t considered the fact that Salvatore could have bragged to his friends about what we have done and suddenly I was feeling sick. I considered turning around back to the main house and feigning illness instead of presenting myself to work with Salvatore.

It would be horrid if the entire manor discovered my indiscretion and reported it to my husband, though I was not sure how he would react at the news. Would he be angry? Or more or less relieved that I was taking my need for companionship elsewhere?

The choice was taken away from me when the glass door opened and out came Ricardo carrying a large pot of Trachelospermum jasminoides, which now I know is simply star jasmines.

“Buon giorno, Lady Beardley,” he greeted me with his shy, endearing smile.

“Bonjour, Ricardo,” I replied, nervously twisting my hands together in an effort not to run away. “Is…is Salvatore in?”