Janice Gentle Gets Sexy by Mavis Cheek Page B

said, 'I could never leave it; London is my home.'
    He was still astonished that, appare ntly , their love had changed her impassioned need for the capital, though when she first made that statement they were sti ll only acquaintances. He had fallen for her straight away, keeping the secret to himself, certain that one so dashing and vital would never return such feelings for him, a mere underling on the baby slopes of Synod. She had been so pretty, so bright, so alive. Was still so pretty, but the sparkle, the joy, seemed to have gone out of her, just died overnight back in the London days, long before he declared himself and brought her to Cockermouth. Growing up, she had called it, Alice Grows Up. And it was sad to see how her dazzling eyes had grown dull.
    Perhaps she missed the high life? She never once said that she did. When they met, she was private secretary to a distinguished politician - travelling with him, entertaining for him, important. Cockermouth could hardly compete with that. Indeed, it was a source of some amazement to him that she had showed such alacrity, such eagerness, when he first nervously suggested they attend a concert together - she being so pretty with her red-gold hair and her merry blue eyes. He had thought himself far too dull compared with the exciting life she led within and without the House of Commons, but appare ntly he was not. And how proud he had been, despite his church's edicts on the subject of deadly sin number one, and humbled too, by her instant, almost desperate, attachment to him. Indeed, he had expected that a great deal of wooing would be required to win her, had consulted books on the subject stealthily at the library, but in the year of their courtship and the subsequent years of their marriage very little had been asked - in fact nothing had been asked - of him in that line at all. He rather wished it had. He rather liked that sort of thing, a little courtliness, a little gallantry, the tokens of love and desire.
    Once she got quite upset when he brought her a small gift, a powder compact with her initials entwined; she said such things were unnecessary, that she had hardly expected it of him, that in future he really should not bother, for in the compass of their marriage such things meant very little , and she hoped she was above that kind of indulgence now. She did not need tokens, nor gifts that were useless. She did not contemplate using face-powder ever again.
    Disappointed and confused, he said he thought the whole point was their being unnecessary, but he had complied — just bought slippers or secateurs or some such for Christmas and birthdays and turned away from the pleasing foolishness. He had chosen a good wife, he felt, and one who had thrown herself into the pastoral role quite as fully as he had. And if he sometimes wished that he could do something silly, like have champagne in bed with her or brush her glowing hair, he forbore. She had never denied him her body, their marriage was still real in that sense. Only sometimes, sometimes, he felt that in their lovemaking her body was all that she did yield to him, that there was another dimension, somewhere far away, denied . . .
    He no longer sought it. It was likely that he was merely being romantic. She called him that. When he suggested brushing her hair or having champagne, she said, half smiling, that it would not be seemly for a vicar. He demurred, she mocked him playfully but with underlying rigidity, saying that he had better beware or she would insist on their only using the missionary position, which, she believed, was the correct and only way for God's intended. He laughed, acknowledged the superficial joke, registered the determined underpinning - and bought the secateurs. Then he bought lambswool slippers and moved tentatively on to records - she liked opera in the old days. Der Rosenkavalier, Turandot, Tosca pleased her but did not move her. Then he bought Faust, which had brought tears to those