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| A day of Relax |
Part 3
(The keyboard passes to Bradamante)
Andr� took the jacket and tied it around his waist, while Oscar looked away, not really persuaded.
�Done.� he said.
They looked at each other, embarrassed. Andr� felt uneasy, even because of the soreness he felt at the part that had been trapped. Oscar noticed the look on his face and she asked him:
�What's the matter? Do you feel pain?�
He hesitated a bit then answered: �Yes... a bit of soreness, I think it is normal.�
�It is necessary to restore the circulation of the blood.� Oscar said.
Andr� looked at her with astonishment.
�Yes, I have just finished reading a book that doctor Lassonne has lent me. Don't worry, you need just to have a cold bath and then pass to a warm one.�
Andr� recalled Oscar's passion for medical books. From time to time he caught her with some book belonging to Doctor Lassonne, that she was reading behind her father's back.
�Hem... if you say so... anyhow, yes, I think it could give me some relief. Turn around and do not look.�
Saying that, Andre put the jacket down and headed for the river, to have a cold bath.
�I am certainly not going to look, I'm not interested at all!� Oscar lied, piqued, thinking that she already had the chance to see everything.
She admitted to have appreciated very much the show that was played under her very eyes and the considerations she had thought while she was looking for the axe came back to her mind. She turned her head for a moment to look furtively at Andr� while he was bathing in the river. Sure, she will never get tired of looking at him. The situation now was clear to her. She loved him and she desired him. To hell the upbringing, the social conventions and everything! All right, she had made a decision: she will have him, now and at once!
The problem was how to get him to realize the thing. Here she was really in trouble, she was completely lacking in any artifice and feminine weapon. In a few words, she had no idea of how to seduce him. In short, how to approach him without making it look like a military attack!? She took a deep breath, trying to calm the beating of her heart that suddenly began to race again in her chest, without good reason, she thought.
�Come on, Oscar... it is just Andr� after all... what's the matter with you?� she said to herself, resuming the initial position and feigning indifference, because Andr� had finished his bath and was coming closer to tie up again the jacket around his waist.
Quickly! She had to think up an attack plan, he, no, a seduction plan.
Perhaps being herself could be sufficient... after all Andr� fell in love with her the way she was, well, in her natural state... and he still loved her, despite what Alain told her. �You are the woman I love� he told her while she was trying to free him. Very well, at least this was fixed. He too loved her. He still loved her.
Andr� interrupted the flow of those lucubrations: �Well, now I really need to get into the warm, the water was even icier than before!�
Oscar turned towards him, who had covered himself in some way: �I have seen a stone fireplace in the hut. Maybe we can light a fire to get you warm and heat up some water.�
�Okay, let's go.� he replied and together headed for the hut.
They got in and discovered a little wood provision and some straw piled up in a corner. Oscar inspected the hut to see if by chance there was something useful, like a bedsheet or any piece of fabric, but nothing, there was just an old saucepan.
�Well, there isn't very much, I'd say� Oscar said with disappointment �but at least we can light the fire and spread the straw on the floor, so as not to be too much in the cold sitting there. And then we can heat up some water. When you will feel better I will go look for other clothes for you.�
Andr� lit the fire, while Oscar was spreading the straw before the fire place, so as to cover the floor. Then Oscar went out to take the water with the saucepan, so as Andr� could have a little warm bath for the �damaged part�.
In short they found themselves sitting before the fireplace, on the straw. A strange atmosphere rose up between them, both didn't know what to do. Andr� shivered with cold, the air in the hut wasn't yet reheated: Oscar was seeing him like that and didn't know what to do. She won't certainly let him freeze to death. She got up and knelt down behind him, encircling his shoulders with her arms.
�It is just to warm you up a bit.�
�Ah... thank you, Oscar.� Andr� replied, swallowing.
There, she was embracing him, he felt her chest against his back and clearly, her curves, that pressed against him. Yes, it was working, he felt decidedly warmer... now he wouldn't need to have a warm bath, in fact, all the opposite...
The water heated up. Reluctantly Andr� said: �I must use the warm water, hem...�
Oscar moved aside. �Take my handkerchief, use it.� and saying that she turned her back. Andr� wetted himself with the warm water, seeing that everything seemed to have got back to normal.
�All right?� Oscar asked.
�Yes, it is all right...� Andr� answered, and seized by an uncontrollable desire of making a bit fun of her he added: �I am flattered that you care about �their� condition.�
Oscar answered back angrily: �Not at all! I was asking just to be kind!�
�Strange, when you were touching me before you seemed very interested!�
�I had just a merely scientific interest!� she retorted, not at all credible, calling herself stupid in her mind at the same time. This wasn't certainly the best way to seduce him!
�Ah, yes, your medical studies...� Andr� said, disappointed... thinking: �Valet, squire, soldier, guinea pig... the vivisection is for when?�
Again silence grew up between the two of them. Andr� put back the jacket around his hips and told her: �You can turn, I am done.�
Oscar turned with a grunt and sit closer to him. The silence was weighting like a stone.
Oscar was thinking. What a fine result: by behaving in a �natural� way she will never get him to understand anything. In fact, Andr� was far from suspecting she returned his love feelings and that she even lusted for him. On the contrary, his half naked body had an effect on her, indeed. And she had adored hugging his shoulders in her arms. Oscar threw another block of wood in the fireplace and lit up the fire. The glares of the flames emphasized Andr�'s complexion and for a moment Oscar stood as if spellbound, staring at the light's reflection flashing on his muscles.
Andr� heaved a sigh... �Phew, I'm hungry...�
Oscar roused herself. Of course! The way to a man�s heart is through his stomach, or something like that: wasn't Nanny always saying that? Anyway, she recalled the basket full of food provisions.
�Andr�, I�ll go out to pick the basket I brought for you. I left it attached to the saddle.�
Andr�, surprised, turned towards her. �He? A basket?�
Oscar nodded, smiling. �Yes of course, I came here just to bring you your lunch. The stolen basket was practically empty, the cook told me.�
And saying that she came out, so as to pick the basket. Naturally, she was not going to say anything about the cook and her intentions: in love and war everything is allowed. Andr� was hers, that's it. Certainly, until now she never thought he could attract other women. Besides, she had never seen Andr� together with other women, and how could he? If he wasn't stuck to her, she was stuck to him. Always together. Actually, it was a bit as if they had been married for twenty years. Only the wedding night was missing. She felt blushing. She took the basket from the saddle and quickly retraced her steps.
�Here is your lunch, even if a bit late.�
�Thank you, Oscar, I was really starving.�
Andr� took the basket and opened it. The cook had provided to fill it with the best she could find in the barracks pantry. Bread, salted meat, an apple. She didn't have of course at her disposal the pantry of Jarjayes' mansion, but Andr�'s hunger wasn't certainly picky. Oscar sighed looking at the poor meal: she could do nothing, this was the best she could offer to her soldiers.
Andr� offered her some bread and meat: �Eat something you too, Oscar.�
Sitting in the tailor position next to him, Oscar shook her head, replying: �No, thanks, I am not hungry.�
Andr� put on an expression of reproach: �But you must eat something, do not believe I didn't notice it, you don't eat enough. Come on, take at least this apple.� he said, throwing it at her.
Oscar caught the apple and sank her teeth into it. Andr� smiled at her and she stood charmed for a moment. Nothing escaped him. Actually, she lately hadn't much appetite and she was neglecting her health. The words her Nanny always used to say to her sisters came back to her mind: �If you don't reach 50 kilos you aren't a woman.� Of course, men like women who are plump in the right spots... she instead... nobody ever had worried about her weight. Maybe Andr� found her too slim?
She couldn't keep herself from asking him, while he was chewing the salted meat with application.
�Do you find me too slim?�
Andr� failed to choke with the bite. What the hell of a question was it? Oscar was really behaving in a strange way!
�He? No... I find you as usual... it's only that lately you tire yourself out and you don't have regular meals and this it isn't good for you.�
Andr� behaving like a solicitous mommy: she couldn't stand him when he was acting like that! Even if she must admit that he was always right, damn him! Well, at least apparently, he liked her the way she was. Problem solved... she didn't have to fear the cook's bosom. Maybe.
While she was lost in those thoughts, her eyes staring at the fire, biting and chewing sweetly the apple, Andr� looked at her furtively. She was beautiful and he adored looking at her in every occasion, but now, in such a strange situation, he couldn't refrain from considering that blond hair lighting up with reflections, her cheeks slightly reddened by the fire's heat and that rose mouth, those lips he knew soft and sweet. He would have liked to be in place of the apple, just to feel her mouth. And to be nibbled by those little white teeth and... and maybe it was better stop with the fantasies or he risked not to be able to restrain himself anymore.
And she instead trusted him: she was there calmly sitting beside him, a lambkin close to the wolf. Yes, he must hold back his predator instincts, but how difficult it was... especially after that hug. Of course she did it only to warm him up, however she didn't warm up just his body, but his heart as well. She cared about him, and she showed a real tenderness towards him. It wasn't love, but... Andr� closed his eyes: since he joined the French Guards to follow her, she never had sent him away, on the contrary, she looked for his presence. And it wasn't to get protection, no, she coped very well on her own. So... his heart hoped... maybe with stupidity.
Oscar had finished her apple. While she was eating, she had lost herself in her thoughts, trying to find a mode, a way... she recalled to her mind to have seen thousands and thousands of times, in the halls of Versailles, the impudent Court's ladies rituals of seduction. All things considered, perhaps she could try, as well, something of similar. What did they do? Well, yes, now she remembered. Not that she paid much attention to it, but it was impossible not to notice it, having them under her nose all the time. When a lady wanted to attract a man's attention she donated him a little handkerchief. Hey, she already gave him this, and for a decidedly practical purpose: so, ruled out.
Then... ah, yes, they raised slightly the hem of the dress to show the ankles. Yes, of course, she only had to take her boots off. Oscar began taking off the boots, under the questioning look of Andr�.
�But what are you doing?� he asked.
�I am taking off my boots, can't you see?� she grunted, evidently in trouble.
�Wait, I'm helping you...� and Andr� moved to help her: as often happened, it wasn't certainly something new he helped her taking her boots off. Snorting, Oscar took off also the socks, throwing them close to the fireplace without paying attention. Andr� looked at her, restraining himself with difficulty from asking her what the hell she was doing.
Very well, the ankles were uncovered. Now she had to show them. How those coquettes were doing it? Ah, yes, they crossed and uncrossed their legs several times. There!
Oscar performed the movement in such a strange way that Andr� this time couldn't keep himself and asked her: �Have you pins an needles in your legs by chance?�
Oscar understood that her attempt failed and that Andr� was not sensitive to the charm of a uncovered ankle. So she grumbled a �Yes, it is so.� cursing the fact that Andr� had always had access to her ankles as a valet and now obviously they had no effect on him!
This wasn't the way things really were but Oscar already had passed to another attack plan, while Andr� began decidedly to feel uneasy, without knowing the reason why.
Another seduction trick she saw being performed was fluttering the eyelashes behind the fan, while talking pleasantly about nonsense. She didn't have a fan, but she could blink anyway. And talk pleasantly about nonsense.
So she decided to ask him the most banal thing on the world: �Hem, so, how did you spend your day of relax, before, hem, the incident?�
Andr� resigned himself to answer: �Ah... well, I had the intention of having a bath and reading a bit and so I did...�
Meanwhile Oscar began fluttering her eyelashes.
�... I had found that damned chair and I thought it could be comfortable to read the book I had brought...�
Oscar kept blinking her eyelashes.
�... but then I fell asleep and...�
Oscar's eyelashes looked like hummingbird's wings.
�...and... but why are you blinking like that?� Andr� said drawing closer to her. �Did something got into your eye? Let me see, I'll help you.� he said, while he gently raised one of her eyelids looking for the foreign body.
Oscar drew back, completely reddened on her face because of the anger and the frustration.
Andr� noticed her colour and told her: �What's the matter? You are all red! Do you have a fever by chance?� putting a hand on her forehead, so as to feel her temperature.
�I don�t have a fever!�
And Andr� innocently: �But you are all flushed...�
�It isn't because of a fever!�
�So what do you have?�
Oscar couldn't stand it anymore and exploded, yelling:
�I love you, idiot!� she growled.
�What? What did you say?� he said, stunned.
�Idiot.�
�No, before that.�
�...I love you...� she said in a whisper.
Notes:
Thanks to Anon for the medical information.
Thanks to Tillias for some seduction ideas (the ankle, the ankle!). ^__^
Wink to nisi whose Oscar studies medical books in her fanfic "White wedding�.
�If you don't reach 50 kilos* you aren't a woman.� it's the sentence my great-grandmother used to say to my grandmother, while she was serving her a zabaione (eggnog: it is a kind of custard reinforced with Marsala wine) and that my grandmother used to tell me, when I was a little girl.
Dear grannies, you two must be satisfied, now! ^___^;;
* 50 kilos = 110.3 pounds
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