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There’s a bouquet of flowers on her front porch when Clara opens the door just after the sun’s risen.
Even though there's no note, there isn't a doubt who had sent them. Nicholas has been trying to court Clara for the better half of the year, desperate for some sort of reciprocation for her love of him. It's not there, she doesn't feel anything for him: so much to the fact that she's stayed up countless nights worrying about what this means for her, for Nicholas.
She thinks on it, and really, she's not sure if she's ever felt any attraction for any man. She's at the age where she really should be off getting married, moving out of home to stay with her husband and starting a family. Instead, she's living near the center of town with her sister, working hard making clothes not because she has to, but because she wants to.
Her family has money, partly the reason as to why she could afford to move out of home with her sister as early as she did. The moment Emmeline was of age, Clara asked her parents if they could leave. Their youngest sibling would still be living with them, and just like her brothers had, it was time for Clara to spread her wings. And she wouldn't be alone, she'd have Emmeline there to catch her if she fell.
Realistically, she wanted to move in with her best friend, Georgiana. It wasn't heard of for friends to move in together, only family and marital partners. It wasn't fair: she spent most of her day with Georgiana anyway, living together would save so much time traveling to and from her small house on the outskirts of town. Georgiana was a baker, and she spent most of her time doing exactly that, while feeding the burnt parts of cookies and offloading loaves of bread to Clara as she sat with her as she worked. Clara would sit on the wooden chair in her dining room that's just for her, and keep her company as she worked, chatting about anything and everything in between poking her thumb with a needle as she sews away at her current pieces.
She sighs as she kneels down, picking up the flowers and turning them over in her hands. Another reason why men, or maybe just specifically Nicholas, are useless: they have no idea what is considered a good flower. Clara loves roses, even with the presumptuous implication that's tied to them. But Nicholas could have given her lilies, or peonies, or even a bunch of the daffodils that grow down by the river. Instead, he'd given her these— small white flowers clumped together in clusters. She knows the use of them, the hidden medicinal properties they carry, but surely Nicholas hadn't thought that deep into it. Maybe his mother helped him pick them out. Regardless; they weren't pretty. Not a good pick if he's trying to woo her into starting a life with him.
Maybe Georgiana would like them. She knows that the larger petaled flower, with the yellow pollen, was used in tea. Her mother used to make her some when she’d been at school all day. Maybe Georgiana could use them in her next lot of sweet cakes for the market? Maybe the meadowsweet could be used as some sort of sugar glaze, just like the violet swirls she puts on the oat cookies.
It’s unfathomably hot for this time of year, the already wilting flowers to attest to that. Clara has barely left her house and she’s already sweating beneath the layers upon layers of cotton that swathe her body. She looks good, though. Only last month did she sew this dress, with Georgiana by her side choosing the color of the fabric. It’s this gorgeous sage green that’s to her ankles and the sleeves are tight around her arms, par the small societal required puff at her biceps. Her dress tapers into a more fitted style at her waist, blending in seamlessly with the long skirt adorned with a long side slit (from Georgiana stealing the last of her thread to bake with) that’s been closed off with delicately hand-sewn green bows. There’s a ribbon hemline across her bodice, and at her neck is this sheer white scarf that lays across her shoulders as the slightest pop of contrast, fashioned into a tie that connects to her breasts, the center decorated with a small metal brooch, one that she’s sure Georgiana had given her the year prior for her birthday. Her feet ache in the small flats she wears, too busy and too uncaring to go and get a pair more suitable for her walk to the town center. She takes the flowers and puts them on the kitchen table, leaving them to deal with whenever she gets home. Maybe by the time she’s finished at the market stall and walked Georgiana back to her house, it’ll be dark and the flowers would have sat in the heat too long and she’d have to throw them away. Any excuse to not have something that Nicholas has given her in her house.
Clara’s house is only a few minutes walk to the town center, a circular park dotted with market stalls during the week. At the end of last month, Clara convinced the jeweler to swap shop fronts, so she could set up next to Georgiana instead of watching her from across the garden. Now, they’re free to talk between customers and careful eyes making sure there aren’t any thieves scurrying around.
Clara scuffs her feet as she walks down the dirt path down the side walls of the town. She’d chosen to walk this way to avoid any possible interactions with Nicholas, as he’s only recently discovered that Clara works at the market stalls. He’s trying to steal any point of interaction by themselves, anything he can get before he has to work in the Gentlemen’s club up near the church. Clara hates that she avoids him, truly, but she doesn’t want to be with him, much less go against courtship rules and see him without a chaperone.
Georgiana and Clara have been friends for years, peaking glances at each other from over the center garden when selling things at their stalls. Really, Clara was sure she’d seen her before, when she was younger on trips to the main goods seller of the town. Georgiana would sit on a table too big for her behind the counter and roll her eyes as her father, the salesman, would ask her to sweep the floor or help out with the cleaning her mother was doing. Clara introduces herself after three months of stolen glances and spending a bunch of money on loaves of bread because yes, she really had run out even when it’s just her and her sister eating the loaf they bought the day before.
“Georgiana,” she said, before Clara had even braved the courage to ask her her name. “And you’re Clara.”
She said it like it was fact, there was no room for mistake. She knew of her. For some reason this made the acid in Clara’s stomach bubble, and she dismissed it as if she had eaten something spoiled.
“You’re correct,” she said, smiling to increase her chances of friendship. She tilted her head to the side and tried to appear soft, not like the rough more masculine woman her siblings laugh at her for. “How did you know?”
“Nicholas comes by and asks about you if you’re late.” Georgiana shrugged and adjusted the basket still full of cookies on her hip. It must have been heavy; Clara asked to hold it and Georgiana let her. She continued, “He really seems to be interested in you. Is he trying to court you?”
“Key word: trying,” Clara laughed.
That was the first and last time they talked about boys. Not that Clara even really wanted to talk to Georgiana about boys, but she told her about everything else, why would this be any different? She feels as if there’s this unspoken rule between them, to not mention Nicholas or any of the other men who have tried to court either of them since they were teenagers. Clara doesn’t have any other friends; she doesn’t know who else she’d talk to about everything that’s going on in her head.
There’s something wrong with her. There has to be. Nicholas is a wonderful man with a stable job and steady income, he’s charming and her parents love him, he should be the one Clara marries. She can’t stand the fact that he smells like sweat, and not rose and lavender water like Georgiana does. He always wears blacks and browns, never soft, feminine creams or blues like Georgiana’s gowns are. Clara had fashioned him a blue tie once, made in the same fabric as one of her nicest summer dresses. He still hasn’t worn it. Georgiana comes to Clara every time she needs a new dress, gives her full creative freedom to make whatever she thinks she would look good in.
Clara hums as she enters the main town, reminding herself to stop by the Church after the day is over. She needs to address these thoughts she’s having, receive some help from God to rewire her brain so she can start replacing all the things she loves about Georgiana to be about Nicholas. Georgiana isn’t trying to court her, Nicholas is. She should arrange a meeting to find out why her heart hurts when she cements that fact to mind. She shouldn’t love Georgiana, they’re best friends and more importantly, she’s a girl.
Georgiana isn’t at her stall when Clara walks up, which is unusual. Georgiana is usually the one of the two of them who’s over-organized: always arriving at Clara’s house way before she’s needed, attending appointments ten minutes early. Maybe she was needed in her father’s shop, and she didn’t have time to tell Clara beforehand. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Clara tries not to think too deeply about it as she sets up her stall. On top of working for one of the top dressmaking companies in the neighboring towns, she hosts the market for quick alterations and other small odd bits that might be needed to enhance the towns-womens’ outfits. Shawls and collars, bows and ties; a collection of different threads line the side of her table and she sits on a chair she’d brought from her own house as she waits for the rest of the town to wake up and flood the center. With the heat, she isn’t expecting many customers, but at least Georgiana should be there. And if she isn’t, it’s just something to look forward to: once three rolls around she can pack up her things, pop into the general stall to have a quick chat, then go to the Church before she’s back home.
The day is slow; the first hour passes like it’s a full day in itself. With a quick check at her wristwatch, Clara sighs when she realizes that there are still many hours left for her to sit and wait for people to approach her with work to do. The way the town center is constructed, Clara and Georgiana’s stalls are right next to each other, and there’s a stall-sized gap between them and the next row of stalls. This means that Clara is by herself when Georgiana isn’t here. It’s whatever; she doesn’t worry about it too much. She kneels down inside Georgiana’s stall to reach some of the violet swirl cookies she keeps in an emergency: the emergency is always Clara being hungry to the point of annoying her.
Clara is staring off into space when someone new enters the quad, and her heart melts at the sight of the flowery straw bonnet she knows belongs to her friend. As she comes closer, Clara just sits and smiles and takes her in. Her hair is curled in those face-framing ringlets as it always is, perfect in its chocolatey color. It’s half hidden in her bonnet, but it’ll come tumbling out the moment she removes it. Georgiana is wearing her favorite dress, the strawberry cream one with little rose decals covering it. Clara had spent weeks gathering the fabric to make it as beautiful as possible, making sure the sleeves were puffed to Georgiana’s preference, the neckline low enough not to irritate her throat.
She’s missing her parasol, something that Clara knows Georgiana loves to carry with her so her skin doesn’t tint that angry red. Maybe she’s just left it at her father’s store: only leaving to quickly say hello and then dash back. She comes closer, now close enough so Clara can see her, really see her, and something is wrong. She’s not wearing the usual pastes and powders on her face, and her skin at her neck isn’t the usual soft pink from her perfume, and she’s as pale as the white ribbon that decorates the neckline of her dress. The plaid fabric of her dress usually drags the color out of her, but even when she doesn’t wear makeup it isn’t this bad. She’s stumbling too, her footfalls precarious on the stoned pathway.
“Clara!” she calls, hands splayed out to catch herself if she falls. She smiles, wide and unfiltered, still saccharine sweet like nothing is wrong. She doesn’t have her baskets of baked goods with her, and upon closer inspection, her bonnet is tied tighter than usual, her hair not as perfect as her typical preference. She also either hadn’t bathed this morning or had forgotten to add rose oil to the water: Clara could only smell the unmistakable scent of Georgiana and the diluted flaxseed soap from her dress.
When she reaches the front of the tailoring stall, she leans her full weight on the palms of her hands on the desk, lurching forward and panting heavily like the walk from her house took all her energy. It seems to have, judging by the thick sheen of sweat adorning Georgiana’s forehead, beginning to drip down her neck.
“Clara, hey,” she says in between pants, tilting her head while she breathes. The sleeves of her dress aren’t as carefully puffed out, like she hadn’t spent the morning completing her daily rituals, one of which is spending at least ten minutes making sure the fabric balloons on her elbows and smoothly falls into the tapered wrist cuff. “How are you doing?”
“I think I should be asking you that,” Clara replies, eyes wide. She steps out from behind her stall and walks up next to Georgiana, tenderly placing a hand on her shoulder. “You look horrible.”
“Thank you, ever so sweet, Clara Watson,” Georgiana chuckles, then sends herself into a coughing fit. She leans her full weight onto Clara’s chest, making her freeze.
Ever since Clara started experiencing these unnatural thoughts about her best friend, she’s been distant. Less touchy, less affectionate. She used to refer to Georgiana as dear, beloved, darling. Now, it’s just Georgiana, no matter how many times she asks to be called her new favorite name, George. ‘George’ changes everything, even when Georgiana insists she doesn’t want to change anything else about her. There’s something about a name that feels so life-changing. Clara can’t bring herself to call her anything but Georgiana. She stays feet away too, like coming in contact will bring everything that she’s been fighting forward at full force. Like the smallest amount of skin on skin will have her falling to her knees with love-addled confessions tumbling from loose lips. When Clara was still a teenager, she would lay in Georgiana’s bed for hours, just talking with her about everything and anything while they waited for her family to get back home from the store. Even back then, Georgiana smelt of sugar and rosewater and her skin would glow in the moonlight from where it was exposed from her stay. Georgiana doesn’t like the gowns they wear, even if they’re crafted from her favorite fabrics and her preferred style, made from the hands of her best friend. She much prefers to lounge around her home in her chemise; stay and drawers removed for moveability. Clara has to avert her eyes and pretend she isn’t looking intensely whenever Georgiana is reading a recipe book.
Georgiana leaning on Clara now is probably the most contact they’ve had in the last two years. It’s crazy to say, but it’s true. Clara’s fingers shake against her shoulder like she’s unsure where to put them. “Georgiana.”
She hums, turning her head into her neck so close her lips press against Clara’s jugular. She feels them move against the skin when she speaks. “I forgot the food for the stall. I’m so stupid, I’m sorry to ask, but can you get them, please? I…. I think they’re on the kitchen table.”
“Georgiana, stop talking,” Clara replies, finally placing a shaking hand flush against her shoulder. It seems to mold to the shape of her palm. Georgiana’s breath is almost as hot as her skin when it fans across her neck. Clara can feel uncoated eyelashes brush against her clavicle when Georgiana’s head drops, like she can’t keep herself awake. How she got dressed this morning is beyond Clara. “Are you sick?”
Georgiana laughs; it sounds like bells. “I’m just—” she cuts herself off to cough “—feverish. I’ll be fine. Wait, is there any of the Violet Swirl left in there? I’ll just sell those today.”
“No, Georgiana,” Clara huffs, looking around at the townsfolk entering the quad and looking over at them. Most of them know about Nicholas’ fruitless attempts to try and court her; what will they think when they see her cozying up to her best friend like this? With Georgiana’s head on her shoulder, the interpretation is up to anyone’s thoughts, this could break them. “We’re going home.”
“What?” Clara can feel Georgiana’s lips tug down into a frown. “I came here to see you. I need more drawers but I don’t have enough money so I was going to sell some things so I could afford them.”
“Georgiana, you know I would just make you some if you asked.” Clara swipes the hand that’s not wrapped around Georgiana’s shoulders across the market stall’s bench, collecting all the goods she’d placed down into one section, and she haphazardly starts putting them back into the basket she brought with her. She’s sure she’ll get pricked by a needle the next time she tries to find anything in there, but it’s worth it. “That’s beside the point. We’re going. You can rest at my house.”
“I still need money for food and things though—”
“I will give you the money for that, okay? Just— just come with me. Stop being stupid.” Without her parasol, Georgiana’s hands are free to hold the basket full of sewing equipment so Clara can support her as she walks. She smiles softly and lopsidedly up at Clara and Clara can’t help but melt. She looks ill, so, so ill, but still as angelic as always. “Come on, do you want to take off your bonnet?”
Georgiana hums in disagreement, already turning to start walking in the direction of Clara’s house. Clara hates that she lives uphill at this moment: how are they going to navigate all the stairs when Georgiana can barely keep herself upright? “I don’t want anyone to see my hair.”
I only let you see my hair, is hidden beneath those words but Clara pretends she can’t hear it. She walks behind Georgiana with her hand hovering above the small of her back, ready to catch her the second she falls. She can feel the heat radiating from beneath her dress, her petticoat, her stay, her chemise. There are so many layers and even though they are breathable, when she’s running what feels like one hundred degrees, she can’t be comfortable.
“Did you feel unwell this morning?” Clara asks as they stop climbing the stairs and are on the high plateau of the town. If she squints, Clara can see Georgiana’s small house on the very outskirts of town, near the walls. She double-checks that her door is closed, a thing that is commonly forgotten. The front garden seems to still be blooming roses, she reminds herself that she should pick some up for her bathwater when she takes Georgiana home. Whenever that will be.
She’d be happy if she never had to take her home. She yearns to live with Georgiana, even if she can’t will herself to touch her the way she wants to. Maybe if she sees her raw and unfiltered, she will lose these feelings for her. Are they even feelings? It just feels… more than she remembers a friendship being. She doesn’t know.
“Not overly. Just a little,” Georgiana exhales as she trips up one of the lifted pavers. One of Clara’s hands reaches in front of her stomach to grab her if she trips the entire way. She doesn’t, but the burning in her hands remains all the same. She sighs and stops, breathing heavily. They aren’t far from Clara’s place, maybe only a couple of houses away. “I didn’t expect it to come on so much so quick.”
“Is it—” Clara lowers her voice. “—is it your monthlies?”
Georgiana lets out a loud laugh and looks back at Clara. Her face is wetter than before, and the fabric at her collarbones is beginning to dampen. “No, Clara. I would have said something if it was. I think I’m just…. I think I’m just sick.”
A group of men walk past them and Clara remembers them as being some of Nicholas’ friends, the guys that frequent the gentlemen's club he works at. She recognizes them well from their frequent passings, when they’re smoking cigars outside the club when Nicholas has requested to meet her at the back door with their chaperone.
She goes against all courtship rules as she braces herself and presses her hand against Georgiana’s stomach. She has half a mind to go against everything she’s put between them and place her hands on either side of her waist, press her lips to the clammy skin of her temple just to prove a point. Maybe if the men see that she’s having homosexual relations with someone else, they might think she’s crazy and tell Nicholas. That would stop him from trying to court her. It would stop her from doing a lot of things, as well, so she doesn’t.
Georgiana hums, pleased, at the contact. Clara’s hand is resting on her uterus, and even if she’s not on her monthlies, the contact must feel nice. She hasn't noticed the men, hasn’t seen how they’re looking at them with distaste. Clara makes a noise with her tongue and her teeth to tell Georgiana to keep moving. They can rest in the comfort of Clara’s home.
“Why did you leave if you’re ill?” Clara asks, braving another hand to rest upon the center of Georgiana’s back. Like this, she has to walk sideways, which is already difficult, but even more so when she has to worry about her foot placements so she doesn’t trip up her floor-length gown. “Why did you come to town if you weren’t feeling well? Wouldn’t that make you feel worse?”
“I wanted to see you,” she says like it’s words from God. Something about her tone sparks something in Clara’s chest. “And don’t worry I already checked for like, bumps and scars and everything.”
Clara’s heart sinks a little, but she clears her throat and tries to act like it didn’t affect her. She knows that Georgiana’s house is in the worst possible place for illnesses to form, but they have to ignore it. They can’t move in together, they can’t even advertise the thought of them being anything other than friends, so Clara ignores it.
If there are no visible indications of her illness, just the fever and the pains, she should be okay. Clara will take anything she’s given.
They approach the front door of Clara and Emmeline’s house and Clara removes her hand from Georgiana's stomach to reach into a hidden pocket and pull out the key, unlock the door, and then her hand is back as she kicks the door open, helping Georgiana hoddle through the threshold and into the kitchen. The flowers from Nicholas are still on the table and there’s a half-loaf of bread that Clara had bought yesterday still out, left uncovered from Emmeline’s haste to leave in the morning. Georgiana steps forward and leans against the kitchen table, seemingly uncaring that her hands are crushing the long stems of the white flowers. She doesn’t comment on them: she knows who they’re from.
At night, when she should be sleeping and she should be thinking of literally anything else, Clara likes to think that maybe Georgiana and her don’t talk about boys, or Nicholas for that matter, because she wants something with her. Georgiana is so… free. She loves with every blood vessel in her body. She gives and gives and wants everyone to feel loved and welcomed. She’s cold when Nicholas is brought up, when his mother stops by Clara’s stall to discuss dinner arrangements or pre-proposal parties. Clara ignores it, she doesn’t really know how to bring attention to it, but she notices every single small smile Georgiana gives when Clara declines her offers of wedding dress fabric shopping.
Thinking that Georgiana wants to be more with her, thinking that Georgiana is having the same unnatural thoughts about Clara when she should be sleeping sends fear and joy through her bones. Just last month a couple was killed because they were unashamed in themselves, what does this mean for them? How are they supposed to get past this? Georgiana doesn’t seem to care, she never does, not when she leans into Clara’s embrace and undresses in front of her just so she can laugh at the blush that covers the highs of Clara’s cheeks. Clara clears her throat and presses her palm against Georgiana’s delicate hand where it’s white-knuckling the tabletop.
“You need to cool down. Do you want to sit in the bathroom, or my room?” Emmeline’s room is closer, but she doesn’t know of them like this. She can’t. “Wherever you want. I’ll prepare the water for a bath and something to drink, how does that sound?”
Georgiana smiles, tilts her head back and looks up into Clara’s eyes. They’re filled with love, so palpable Clara wants to lean down and consume it directly from her lips. Her heart squeezes and she doesn’t want to succumb to it, but she doesn’t know how to keep moving forward with this within her. She’s spent so, so long staring at the straw ceiling thinking about how she considers Georgiana. They’re more than any friendship she’s ever had, and it’s not age to attest to that. Anyone she’s spoken to in the last few years hasn't amounted to Georgiana. Maybe they were never friends, maybe they were always something more. That could explain why she’s never felt that sparky shift people claim they’ve had when they started falling for someone they were being courted by. Then again, Georgiana isn’t trying to court Clara; should she be? Is that even allowed?
She needs to stop thinking about hypotheticals, not when there is something so tangible here in front of her. Without courting, Clara can touch Georgiana as much as she allows herself, and she proves her own point with a half circle rubbed into her shoulder blade.
“Your room? Presumptuous, Clara.” Georgiana’s head tilts forward again and she pushes herself up from her hunched position over the table, falling back into Clara’s chest. There’s this silence settling over the house, all Clara can hear is the rustling of Georgiana’s dress and the subtle tune of the well running outside.
Clara rolls her eyes, adjusting her hand to sit in the center of her back. Her waist looks so small in her dress, so grabbable. She wants to, God, does she want to wrap her hands around it and stroke the soft skin and see the reaction it would give, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Georgiana isn’t George, as much as she says she wants to be.
They take a few steps forward, stumbling their way together down the hall past the bathroom and further into the house. Georgiana braces her hands against the walls as her knees start to give out, and Clara doesn’t know what to do as her hands hover around her skin.
“What’s happening?” she asks, rushed. Her hands shoot out in front of Georgiana’s front as she gathers handfuls of fabric into her fists.
“Just— weak, Clara. I’m weak like this when I’m sick, you know this,” she says gently. Clara doesn’t know this. The last time Georgiana was sick Clara didn’t hear from her, and on the second day of that illness, Clara had posted Georgiana in her bed while she slept in Emmeline’s. There is something so intimate, so heartbreakingly beautiful about letting someone see you when you’re sick. Clara doesn’t know if she can handle that bridge in their relationship. She doesn’t know how she could control herself from letting half-confessions tumble from her mouth when the other is vulnerable.
Clara exhales harshly through her nose, hands moving around Georgiana’s torso like they’re in orbit. “This would have been much easier if you had just stayed home.”
Georgiana makes an annoyed sound, sends a half-assed glare back at Clara. “Just, I don’t know, carry me or something. Let me use you as a crutch or something.”
Clara pauses. “No, I didn’t— I can’t—”
“I get it, I’m too heavy, I know, you don’t need to make me so acutely aware of it.”
“No! It’s not that— you know it’s not that,” Clara huffs again, closing the gap between her hands and Georgiana’s stomach. It’s better than nothing but it’s still awkward, it’s not really helpful. “I just…. I don’t want to touch your waist.”
It’s the closest thing to a confession, to an admittance of there being something that Clara is trying so desperately to hide. She doesn’t know if she likes the feeling of relief bubbling in her throat.
“Why?” Georgiana asks, gently, not poking the bear. One of her own hands lets go of her dress and the fabric cascades down and covers her feet again. The hand holds Clara’s instead, over her stomach.
“I’m not allowed. With like— I don’t know and— and you haven’t given me permission and—”
“You have permission. You always have permission. You have to know that by now, Clara.” Georgiana says and her voice drips with honey and sugar cookies. Something shimmers behind her eyes when they meet, and there’s a novel's worth of understanding hiding in there. Clara often forgets that Georgiana is four years her elder, it’s easy to do when she acts like she’s even younger than the blonde. When her demeanor breaks like this, she’s wiser, more mature. She’s lived a lot in those four years where Clara hasn’t. Maybe this is part of the reason why Clara can’t bear to see her when she’s sick like this.
Clara makes a soft noise, trying to sound like she’s sick of Georgiana's shit but it comes out a lot softer than intended. Really, everything she tries to say does. She finally places both hands on the sides of her waist. It’s so small under her fingers, she doesn't know what to do with the pleased feeling she gets in her stomach at the fact. Georgiana is a woman, but she feels so… so right beneath Clara’s hands.
“Thank you,” Georgiana sighs, and grabs onto one of Clara’s wrists with a tight grip. It’s almost as if she’s taking everything she can while she’s like this, too. Clara scolds herself for thinking like that.
Her palm is clammy against Clara’s wrist and it doesn’t seem to be any better than her touch when they first met up. As soon as it was placed there, a hand is removed from Georgiana’s waist and pressed flush against her forehead, pushing back some of her curls that were getting crushed beneath her bonnet. She should have taken it off when they first entered the house. She’ll have to take it off when they get to her room; she doesn’t want to leave random pieces of Georgiana’s clothing strewn around the house when her sister could come home and imagine whatever she’d like about it all.
In her room, the sun shines small rays down onto her bed through the open window. The weights sewn into the bottom of the lace curtains tap against the wall in a rhythmic pattern, soft and soothing. If she were alone, it would be enough to lull her asleep, the combination of the soft heat basking into her skin like a cat and the ambience of their little town. She hopes it can do the same for Georgiana when she can rest.
“I forgot you had this,” Georgiana mumbles, gesturing loosely to the hat bathtub placed in the corner of the room. It wasn’t common in their town, but where she had lived before she moved here, all of Clara’s friends had some sort of tub in their bedroom for their morning baths in addition to the one in their bathroom. She needed the soft ambience of a calm room to complete her morning rituals, and morning baths were less for cleaning anyway, more for scent and freshening up. She’d mix rose water and lavender petals into the water so they could seep into her skin and she would smell like Georgiana’s favorite bouquet of flowers. “Is it any good? I just have the tub in the bathroom.”
“Well, you’re about to find out,” Clara responds, carefully reaching up her hands— both of them pointedly ignoring the way they shake— so she can undo the bow keeping her bonnet secured on her head. It’s intimate, too intimate. Georgiana looks into Clara’s eyes like she’s trying to say something, but Clara is looking everywhere but. “Can I bathe you? It’ll make you feel better.”
“Yes,” Georgiana answers in a gasp. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back, moving her neck around in a circular motion, wincing when it clicks at certain points. Clara’s eyes zero in on her neck, she knows she can excuse it for looking for rashes if Georgiana says anything. “Please.”
Clara nods and takes her bonnet off her head completely, carefully placing it on the foot of her bed so the flowers don’t get crushed. She takes off her own and places it next to it, running her fingers through her hair quickly to undo the tightness in her curls. The bow from her hat floats with the force of the wind, and Clara is sure the slight altitude difference will do Georgiana good, with the breeze and the slightly cleaner air. She turns around and Georgiana is toeing off her shoes, kicking them to the foot of Clara’s bed, and making herself at home. She’s eyeing the hat tub, looking in at the slight residual water left in the bottom from Clara’s own bath this morning, but she doesn’t step in.
Clara breathes, long and deep, and then, “Do you want help undressing?”
Her heart tries to attack her from the inside, with its arrhythmic beats and its squeezing and tugging and Clara is a second away from clutching at her chest and asking Georgiana to give her help.
Georgiana flushes, and it’s the reddest she’s ever seen her. Clara can’t remember the last time she’s had a reaction like that.
She tucks her chin into her chest, glances away, and tries to make herself seem small. “Yes,” she replies, soft and quiet. She pulls her shoulders in on herself. “The stay is hard to undo by myself.”
It’s not, she can do it every day just fine and Clara knows Georgiana laces and relaces it at least twice in the mornings before she’s happy with how it’s sitting. She agrees because she’s not sure when she’ll have this again: Georgiana knows she’s doing all this because she’s sick. Clara will touch and indulge and let her do everything she wants to make her feel better: she’d take off her blouse and lay it across the floor just for Georgiana to walk across if she asked.
“Okay,” Clara breathes and glances at her feet then back at Georgiana. She has her arms wrapped around herself now, and she’s shivering. Her fever is beginning to take full effect. “Do… do you want to get undressed now and stay here in just your undergarments while I ready the water or do you want the water first?”
“Water first.” Georgiana’s hands fumble around to her back, reaching for the concealed hooks and eyes that close her blouse. When they created the dress, Georgiana had waxed poetic about the usefulness of a blouse and skirt combination instead of a complete dress. Something about it being easier to take off and better for airflow when it gets as hot as it has today.
“Leave it,” Clara says, stepping forward to place a hand on her shoulder, stopping her movements. “I’ll help you take it off later. Let me get the water.” She picks up the bucket by Georgiana’s feet. Georgiana sits on the foot of Clara’s bed, staring ahead at the hallway.
Clara doesn’t waste any time, she leaves the house through the door in the bathroom to the well outside, starting the fire on the way. She fills the bucket up halfway with water before hanging it on the hook attached to the iron poke that’s used for exactly that. While she waits for the water to boil, she goes back inside to the kitchen, taking the slightly wilted flowers that Nicholas had given her, and begins tearing off the petals and pistils. She grinds them down so they become paste-like, and adds some black tea leaves she’d had in her cupboard to make it taste more like tea than flower water.
Strong meadowsweet and feverfew tea would be beneficial for Georgiana. The stronger the better, Clara thinks, but really she doesn’t know. Anything to make her fever go down and give her bones a little more strength.
Clara takes the bucket of boiled water once it’s done to the kitchen, ladling out a small amount to cover the tea mixture enough to steep it. She fills the rest of the bucket up with more cool water from the well and then she meets Georgiana back in her room.
She’s still sitting where she’d left her, staring ahead like she was waiting for Clara to come back. She smiles sweetly when she places the mug of tea onto her bedside table, and winces when the bucket makes a heavy noise against the floorboards when placed near the hat tub. If she wasn’t so pale, Clara would think there was nothing wrong.
“How are you doing?” Clara asks, extending a hand out to her so she can assist in lifting her from her seated position. Georgiana takes it gracefully, with her delicate hands, and grips it firm while standing up. She stumbles, but Clara is there to catch her with a carefully placed hand under her armpit “Woah, you okay?”
“‘M fine,” Georgiana mumbles, looking up at Clara sheepishly. Clara isn’t that much taller than her, but with her back hunched over like this, Georgiana seems so small, so different from the lady Clara knows. “Help me?”
“Of course,” Clara agrees and straightens them up. She takes a deep breath as she circles behind Georgiana. Her hands reach up to her hair, her less-than-perfect chignon sagging from the exertion and lack of preciseness this morning. There were fewer pins than usual holding it up; when Georgiana would get unready with Clara still in her room, she would count the pins as they clattered against her bedroom table. Clara collects the pins in her hand, deposits them next to the mug of steaming tea, and untwirls the back of Georgiana’s hair. It’s long and soft and this shade of brown that Clara sees everywhere, constantly being reminded of her. From the bun, her hair has a slight curl and bounces down beneath her shoulders. Clara runs her fingers through it, raking through her bangs too, and unraveling the tight ringlets there. It’s easy to get lost in the smoothness of her hair, slightly greasy from the sweat of her illness. Sometimes, Clara is reminded of how human Georgiana really is.
She parts her hair over her shoulders, exposing her back to Clara. The skin between her shoulder blades seems to be begging to be kissed, and if it were Clara who was sick, she would have done so already. Clara’s hands shake as her fingers snake beneath the fabric, carefully undoing the hook and eyes that hold her blouse together. Once undone, she holds her breath as she slides it off Georgiana’s arms, leaving them bare and prone to gooseflesh that’s already bubbling up.
“So pretty in your dress,” Clara whispers, her resolve only able to be avoided for so long. Clara’s nails trace up from Georgiana’s elbow to her shoulder, tapping against the softly colored freckles and sunspots that adorn her skin. She drags her hands down to sit on her waist, and they both ignore the soft gasp Georgiana lets out. Clara is going to fall, she’s going to drop the facade she’s been keeping up for years. She tells herself it’s just because Georgiana is sick, but deep down she knows that Nicholas is planning on asking to wed her, and she doesn’t know how to deal with that when her love, her real love, is standing in front of her desperate for anything she’d give her.
So, she falls.
“Always so pretty,” she whispers like it’s her biggest secret. The tone suggests that it is, her heart laid out, butterflied, ready to be carefully prodded at. She can’t say it verbatim, Georgiana knows that she can’t, but this will have to do. Georgiana has to understand. “You even match your stay to your skirt, and the roses match your eyes… God, you’re gorgeous, Georgiana.”
“Really?” she looks back, and her cheeks are colored. Clara knows better than to think it’s the fever. “Thank you, Clara. I think the same of you.”
Clara hums, desperately trying to cover up the fact that her insides are alight. Maybe she’s the one who’s ill, taking advantage of this soft moment just because she’s a filled bottle of emotions ready to explode all over the place.
Clara’s hands slide down from Georgiana’s waist and rest on her hips for a moment, before moving to the center of her back where the ribbons are tied to keep her skirt together. She loops the muslin around her fingers and pulls until the waistline of the skirt becomes loose.
“I wanted to see you,” Georgiana says, more like breathes, as the fabric is dropped to the floor. She grips onto Clara’s forearms as she steps out of it, lets Clara kick it out from beneath her. “I couldn’t bear another day without you.”
“I saw you before the week ended,” Clara giggles, picking up Georgiana’s skirt and laying it over her bed, next to their hats and Georgiana’s blouse. Georgiana runs her hands over her forearms, rubbing away the gooseflesh that’s forming. “You couldn’t have missed me too much.”
“I did,” she answers, turning slightly so she can make eye contact. Her eyes are drooping, like she’s tired, and Clara can’t blame her. “I always do.”
Clara doesn’t know how to respond to that, too overwhelmed with the immense emotions of some sort of reciprocation that she just stands up behind Georgiana again, hands poised and already undoing the thin cotton strings that keep her bustle around her waist. She lets go of one side and it swings, like a pendulum, to her other hand, and Clara tosses it next to their hats. Her hands reach for the similar neat bow of her petticoat. In a moment, it’s dropped to the floor and Georgiana steps out of it, leaving her in just her stay, drawers, and chemise.
The stay is to be removed next. Clara hovers her hands above the lacing, mapping out her back from top to bottom. She doesn’t say anything when Georgiana shivers, or when she leans back to force their skin to touch. Clara grabs at her waist and sighs, taking in the thinness of it beneath her hands, how perfectly it seems to have been crafted. Georgiana ties her stay too tight, way too tight for what it’s needed for, and there’s a long line in the center of her back pinching her skin together, but Clara looks at that chasm like it’s the cutest thing in the world. She squeezes her waist one last time.
“Breathe for me, dear,” she whispers, biting her tongue at the pet name. She isn’t sure how far she can go, how much she can take before they both freak out over the implications of what they’re doing; of how they’re being. “I’m going to unlace you now.”
Georgiana hums, breathing deeply while Clara undoes the loops, carefully loosening the fabric encasing her torso. Every time she inhales, Clara stops, waits, and at the exhale she loosens the fabric a bit more. Although it’s not terribly uncomfortable, Georgiana sighs in relief and relaxes when the thick piece of wood is removed from her front, her waist able to move around freely again. Once it’s loose enough, Georgiana lifts her arms and Clara slips the stay off over her head, throwing it to the floor next to her petticoat.
Georgiana leans forward and side to side, stretching her aching muscles from the constriction, and when she’s done, she leans back, fully supported by Clara’s hold. Against her chest, Clara has no choice but to wrap her arms around Georgiana’s stomach. Their window is too wide open for them to be in a position like this, but at this moment, she really doesn’t care.
With her stay gone, Clara can feel the soft plush of Georgiana’s stomach, can feel how her whole chest expands when she breathes, can feel how her skin moves and morphs as a human. She’s sweaty, causing her chemise to be translucent in some places which makes Clara blush and avert her eyes. Has another woman been so perfect? Although she’s sick, she’s standing in front of her, leaning against her person, wearing clothes that were fashioned and hand-stitched by Clara herself.
Even if she wasn’t aware of it, Georgiana was always hers.
“Let me close the window,” Clara mumbles, begrudgingly pulling herself away from Georgiana. She squeezes her waist and she leans with her, not wanting to break the contact. Clara feels like a starved man. As if because she’s never allowed herself this luxury of truly being herself with Georgiana, now that she has, she’s ravenous for more. She doesn’t know how she’s spent so long denying herself of this.
“Do you have to?” Georgiana whines, wobbling slightly as she supports herself without Clara to help her.
Clara turns back and raises an eyebrow. “What? Do you want the whole town to see you naked?”
Georgiana flushes. Clara keeps the window open but pulls the curtains across the length of the window. They cover the majority of sight, but the lace fabric allows the breeze to still enter the room regardless. Georgiana mumbles something that if Clara were delusional, she’d think she’d said ‘only you’.
She hums in question as she turns back around, stuttering for a second when she sees that Georgiana’s drawers have joined the pile of her other undergarments. All that covers her modesty now is the sheer chemise that Clara had only sewn two weeks prior. She needs to avert her eyes, but Georgiana is looking at her and there’s something hidden in the gloss of them, that sweet chocolate brown simmering with unbidden affection.
“Really, I don’t care if anyone sees me,” she says carefully, not breaking eye contact. Clara knows what she means, and she frowns.
“They were at home and it still happened. I don’t… I don’t want it happening to you. To us.”
Georgiana joins in her frown, but nods. She picks up the hem of her chemise in her small, frail hands. Clara is happy she doesn’t try to meet her eyes again, she’s sure she’d die if they had to stare at each other while she was taking off her last layer of clothing.
“Take your dress off,” Georgiana adds her chemise to the pile of undergarments and takes a precarious step over the lip of the hat tub to sit on the designated shelf. The metal must be cold against her bare skin, but she doesn’t complain. “I don’t want it to get wet.”
Clara opens her mouth to reply, to deny that she’d need to, but closes it quick. She doesn’t have a proper excuse not to, and Georgiana is right; she probably will get wet. She turns her back to Georgiana as she reaches behind her to undo the hook and eyes closing the top of her dress, and grabs the fabric from her shoulder blades to pull it over her head. She makes quick work of her stay, unlike Georgiana, Clara underlaces hers as she finds the more structured constriction to cause all her skin to itch. With the stay off, she’s just in her chemise. She turns back around to Georgiana and tries to not seem so embarrassed when she catches her staring at the spots that are the sheerest.
“Pretty,” Georgiana mumbles, as if in a trance. Clara’s heart squeezes.
“That’s you,” she replies, matching her tone. She kneels next to Georgiana and dips a sponge into the bucket of water. It’s warm, not scalding or cold or lukewarm, but the right temperature to wash away the sweat and hopefully all the aches that she’s letting get to her. At first contact, Georgiana sighs, closes her eyes, and lets her head loll back. Clara just smiles and continues scrubbing softly at her skin, wringing the sponge out against her back and letting the water cascade against her shoulders.
The moment is intimate, soft, and quiet. Clara would live in it forever, if she could, with all those half-confessions laid out for them to ponder about. Clara wonders if they can fully indulge with the curtains closed, if she can dive in and taste her skin and lips. Clara wants to fall asleep with Georgiana beside her and wake up just the same. Why does she feel so selfish and so wrong for what she wants?
“Would you like rosewater?” Clara asks, tenderly picking up one of Georgiana’s hands to scrub softly with the sponge. She collects some water in her hand and touches every single finger, stroking across every knuckle so her struggles can leak from every part of her they can. “It will make you smell better.”
“Are you saying I smell?” Georgiana laughs softly, twitching her hand in a way that allows them to interlace their fingers together. Clara’s heart swells in her chest, beats faster than it should.
She screws up her face in faux denial, thankful Georgiana isn’t looking at her to catch her out on her lie. “No, idiot.” She squeezes her hand and tries not to think about the softness of her palm. She tries not to think about when the next time she’d be able to hold her hand would be. “It might make you feel better to not smell like sick. Does your head hurt?”
“Yeah,” Georgiana leans backward and turns her head to the side so she can press her forehead against Clara’s chest. Clara sneaks a hand around to hold flush at her skin beneath her bangs, and it’s still warm from her fever. “And I just— I don’t know— I ache, Clara.”
“Okay, that’s fine, that’s— wait here a minute, I’ve got some tea for you.” Clara drops the sponge into the bottom of the hat tub and pushes against the floor to raise to her feet. The mug on the bedside table is no longer steaming, but one grab at the handle indicates that it’s still hot. She turns around and offers it to Georgiana. “Here, drink up.”
“What… what?” Georgiana looks up at her with her eyebrows furrowed. She’s still really pale, even more so with her hair out around her body. Hopefully, the tea makes her feel better. She takes it and cradles the mug with both hands. “You don’t even like tea. What is this?”
“I…” Clara trails off, scratching her arm and looking away. She grabs the small bottle of rosewater from her bedside and kneels back down beside the tub, starts wringing the sponge into Georgiana’s hair before answering. It’s a difficult subject to approach. “I keep black tea leaves here for you. Emmeline and her partner like them too, but it’s mainly for you.”
“That’s not just it, though.”
“There’s also meadowsweet. And feverfew. Um— Nicholas brought it over this morning.”
The silence is weighted. Georgiana’s face sours slightly as Clara runs her fingers through wet hair. She takes a sip, though, so not all hope is lost.
“Are these what the flowers in the kitchen were?” she asks, keeping her back straight as Clara scratches her scalp. She’s trying to appear unaffected, but one of the main reasons they can’t have this is being spoken about: it’s all she can do to prevent the conversation from going further. They don’t talk about boys, and they don’t talk about Nicholas. This time, they have to. Why? What makes this different? Clara’s fingernails dig into a spot behind Georgiana’s ears that makes her breath hitch.
Everything must come to a point.
“Yeah,” Clara replies, coating her hands in a thin layer of rosewater and she begins running them through Georgiana’s hair. There’s no tangles or knots anymore; really, Clara is just touching because she’s allowed to. “I don’t— I didn’t see him, this morning,” she adds, because she has a feeling it will make Georgiana settle. It does; she leans back into Clara’s chest. “He left them at the doorstep. I almost stepped on them when leaving.”
“Why would he bring meadowsweet? Of all flowers,” Georgiana tuts, taking another sip before placing the mug on the floor beside Clara’s knee. “You don’t even like meadowsweet. You like roses.”
Clara’s heart simmers. “I think he’s just a man and these looked ‘good’.”
Georgiana laughs, a real and true laugh that sends her coughing into the crook of her elbow. She looks so unashamed in her laughter, filterless and so, so fond. Fuck society and fuck what everyone else has to think about Clara, she wants this moment with Georgiana for the rest of her life.
“Well,” Georgiana says, once she’s calmed down and taken another gulp of tea to soothe her throat. “Personally, I think he’s a witch.”
Clara joins in her laughter, leaning her forehead against Georgiana’s back to support her as her shoulders shake. Only Georgiana would feel comfortable making jokes about that, only Georgiana would feel comfortable talking about anything that’s caused them harm in the past.
Clara giggles under her breath when she goes back to massaging Georgiana’s head. She collects more rosewater and runs her fingers through the ends of Georgiana’s hair. She twirls them into ringlets with her fingers, smiling at the childlike joy bubbling within her.
Georgiana sighs, and she sounds at peace. “Dream.”
Clara hums in question, peeking her head around Georgiana’s shoulder to look at her face. It’s pretty even up close, with old teenage spot scars and exhaustion hanging beneath her closed eyes. Her pale, sick complexion is more beautiful than anyone she’s seen before. “Hmm? What did you say? What did you dream about?”
Georgiana huffs in decline. “No, you’re Dream.”
“What? How?” Clara laughs, scrunching up her face.
Georgiana opens her eyes and just stares, smitten affection written all over her face. She tilts her head a little, like she’s asking for something. “You’re my Dream.”
Clara feels like her heart could stop and it would be okay. Her blood bubbles in her veins like celebratory champagne and she wants to wave her hands in excitement. She doesn’t; she just smiles coyly and hides her blush by moving behind Georgiana to continue washing her hair. She scoots forward, her knees screaming in protest against the hard wooden floor, but more of her arm rests against Georgiana’s shoulders if she’s just that little bit closer.
With the contact, Clara finally feels a sense of peace that she’s not sure she ever has. Skin on skin that still smells a little like her lover— she can admit to herself that that’s what this is. All the feelings, all the emotions that have been building up over the years of their friendship have all amounted to this. All she needed to do was indulge for just a little, just for a few minutes before everything falls over the edge of unbidden affection, so big and palpable it needs to spill out between heavy breaths.
How can she accept this, though? How can she allow herself to think about Georgiana this way after everything they’ve witnessed over the years, after knowing what their town thinks about people in homosexual relations? There’s something there, between them, Clara isn’t completely blind: she knows how Georgiana reacts when Nicholas is brought up and she knows how she reacts when Clara touches her. It might not be enough for a full-blown relationship, one that requires traditional courting and chaperones and marriage, but it’s enough for her to feel the motions that everyone talks about. She can’t stay in denial of her feelings anymore, she doesn’t know who she is if she does. Clara needs to be truthful, as much as she can.
Clara makes a noise, one she doesn’t mean to, and it gives away all the thoughts she’s been stuck on. Georgiana hums in intonation, questioning the sound. Clara kneads her fingers softly into Georgiana’s scalp. “I don’t know how to…” she trails off, stuck on terminology.
She hasn’t had to navigate this before. She hasn’t discovered and she doesn’t know how to do all this. Georgiana, the angelic beauty she is, waits. She breathes slower, like she’s trying to calm Clara down. She knows she’ll eventually find the words she needs to say what she’s stuck on: she always knows when to wait. Clara is Georgiana’s favorite book.
“You’re so…” she sighs, trailing off again. She bites her lip and twirls Georgiana’s hair in a tight coil before letting it go. The hair, and the gates. “You love with, with so much— and, and you’re so unapologetic about it. I don’t know how to give you that. I don’t— you’re—” she huffs, dropping her head.
Time stretches. Georgiana sips quietly at her tea while she waits for Clara to collect herself. There isn’t anything she can say to comfort her: she can offer her support in silent accompaniment.
“I don’t want to be like them. But I need to be like you.”
Georgiana hums, clears her throat and puts the mug down. She turns her head so she can look at Clara square on. “If you’re worried about Nic—”
“Why the fuck would I be worried about Nicholas?” Clara can’t conceal her disgust. Georgiana doesn’t misunderstand her ever, why is this the time she does? Everything feels wrong and it’s not just because of the implication. She doesn’t care if she’s supposed to be fawning over him, she doesn’t care if she’s the fated one to marry him: she only cares about the wonderful woman in her bathtub looking at her with wide, sad eyes. “I don’t—listen to me; I don’t want him. I’m asking how you can just— I don’t know, feel so much and be okay with it. Like, how do you allow yourself to feel like this, it’s not normal, you know what they think about it.”
Georgiana places a hand on Clara’s knee. The other, rests upon her jaw. Their eyes lock and something shifts behind those eyes, something changes that hadn’t been there before. “It’s normal for me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Clara says, putting her hands atop both of Georgiana’s. “I don’t— I don’t know how to—”
Her voice is rushing, her breathing picking up. This is the most she’s allowed herself to feel since she was a child.
“I just—Georgiana.”
“George. You can call me George, dear,” Georgiana says and her brows pitch up and she’s trying to pour every emotion into her face so Clara can trust her, can accept her supplies as answers.
“You’re not, though. You aren’t George. You aren’t and—”
“Wouldn’t that make it easier?” Georgiana asks and silence ensues. Wouldn’t that make it easier? Clara can’t contain herself. Her bottom lip wobbles and she can’t look at Georgiana anymore without sprouting a leak. Her fingers rub soft circles against their points of contact.
Her fingers are soft, and she smells like rosewater, and her hair is long and gorgeous. She wears dresses and bonnets and stays tied too tight, and she wears petticoats and chemises handsewn by Clara herself. Georgiana is not George and Clara doesn’t want her to be.
Clara surges forward and presses her lips against Georgiana’s. As if she was waiting for it, she kisses back immediately. Clara kisses like she’s trying to convey every love confession, every admittance to liking her into her lips, hoping they can articulate the words in a way she can’t. Georgiana kisses like she’s making up for lost time, and both her hands touch either side of her jaw and it feels so right, Clara doesn’t care if this is the end of her life, it would be the best fucking way to end it. Clara doesn’t even care that Georgiana is sick, and that she’ll most likely be the same way tomorrow. She would fall ill a thousand times over just to hold her in her arms like this.
When Georgiana pulls away, Clara chases after her, kisses her closed lips and her teeth and the quirked line of her mouth. She could swallow her whole, if she’d allow her to. She wants this. She wants this so, so bad. Clara kisses her once more, ignoring the fact that they’re in her bedroom with the window half open, and she just lets herself love.
“Georgiana,” Clara says, emphasizes the word because that is the truth. She breathes, looking through her eyelashes at the woman in front of her. “I don’t know how to do this. I want to, with you, but I don’t know how.”
“Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks. Just be you, just be us.” Clara opens her mouth to protest but Georgiana speaks again before she gets a chance to. “Don’t think about them. We can be careful, and we’ll be safe. This town is different.”
Clara nods, dropping her head down so her forehead presses against Georgiana’s. This is the closest she’s ever allowed herself to come. “I’m scared.”
“Darling,” Georgiana’s fingers swipe against her skin like they’re rewiring her heart. “We can get through this. We can navigate it, everything. Together.”