Give Satisfaction

Your mind races as you look down at the object in your hands. You are doing some very vigorous wrestling with an ethical dilemma (you have a somewhat…atypical relationship to traditional morality, so you find yourself doing so with greater frequency than most).

- Reading other people’s diaries without their permission or knowledge is wrong.
- But all’s fair in love and war!
- But this isn’t love yet.
- But it’s got to get to that point somehow or another!
- But not through the flagrant violation of the sanctity of another’s innermost privacy.
- But those big blue eyes!

It is this last point that clinches it.

You take a furtive glance over your shoulder, but you are quite alone in Bertie’s bedroom. He, like the rest of the guests at Chokingham Abbey, is downstairs at dinner. Even his all-too-observant manservant is there helping with the service, so there is little chance of you getting caught. Jeeves has blue eyes, too, you’ve noticed, ones that roam about the place at all times taking in little details that others overlook and storing the information for some future manipulative machinations. You have a little bit of that tendency yourself, so you see him as something of a competitor, even though 1. you have no dispute with him and 2. he’s a valet while you are an aristocrat’s daughter. Not that that makes you better than him or something, not at all; it just means you have different privileges and different problems, with different stakes and different solutions.

For example, you are free to excuse yourself from the dinner table and sneak upstairs, while Jeeves has to stay downstairs and be available to assist at all times. That’s certainly a perk of your status, especially at this very moment.

You hold your breath and crack open the diary. You start skimming, but he has been keeping this diary for a long time and you’re doubtful that entries from three years ago will be useful to your current quest. You flip forward all the way to the latest entry, written only yesterday, as you can tell from the date atop the page. You start reading and your eyes begin to slowly widen. Your heart goes from woodpeckering to jackhammering.

Now that is unexpected.

*

Bertie has money. That is not why you’re so interested in him; your family has money, too, and although you’re accustomed to a certain lifestyle, you’re not particularly materialistic. You’re interested in him despite his money. You never spare second glances for the other men in your social stratum, who are, without exception, dull, dim, self-absorbed, and shallow. Most of the women are too, but at least with them you have the chance of stumbling across the occasional personality or intellect. Plus, the women are generally better-looking, and of the surprising number who are game for it, they’re generally better at certain other pastimes of which you shan’t speak in polite society…

But despite Bertie’s unfortunate affluence, he’s been stuck in your mind lately because he’s got those blue eyes, and much more than that, he’s got that something else, that je ne sais quoi that you usually only find in other aristocrats’ daughters, the ones who stay out late, seize any chance for adventure, and are too irrepressibly independent to conform, settle down, and marry like they’re expected to. In his own way, Bertie is rebellious. He’s not an egghead or a stud, a tycoon or a magnate. But he’s unique. He’s alive. He’s a troublemaker, and lately you can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to make some trouble with him.

The problem is, he hasn’t been at all receptive to your advances. You can hardly blame him, as it’s well-known that his insufferable relatives are constantly trying to marry him off to the first eligible adult female who will stand still long enough to bung her into the white dress. Your family is nowhere near as bad, but as you progress through your 20s, the pressure to marry has risen steadily. You’re confident you won’t be forced to do anything you don’t want to, but it would please them rather, as well as take the heat off of you, if you picked someone just for the sake of appearances and at least had a sort of marriage of convenience. From the outside it would appear to be a traditional arrangement, but you wouldn’t impose on each others’ lives or freedom or have any expectations of fidelity or the like. Consummation of marital relations would be…an option.

So Bertie thinks you’re sniffing about, and he’s right because for once you actually do have marriage on the mind, just not in the way he thinks. You suspect he may be interested in what you have to propose, if only you could get him to listen. But he’s been skirting your attempts to parley like ant avoids anteater.

Hence, the diary scheme. You’re looking for something, anything that could aide you in your seduction efforts. That’s why you snuck away to ransack the room as quickly and thoroughly as you could, until you stumbled upon this jackpot.

And what a pot! You flip backwards, through months, years, pages and pages of…

Jeeves.

The man is in secretly love with his manservant. Not just familial, fraternal, chummy love, but rather, romantic, passionate, physical love, expressed floridly in such detailed, explicit prose that some passages make even you blush.

Well, well, well.

You shove the diary back into its hiding place and scurry out of the room. You close the door silently and have taken a step away when you hear a quiet cough. You whirl around and see Jeeves himself, damn him, coming around a corner. You’re pretty sure he didn’t see you exit the room but still, you hope he doesn’t see you standing in front of Bertie’s door and the guilty look on your face and put two and two together. He stands respectfully at attention.

“Good evening, miss. Are you in need of any assistance?”

“Oh, er, no, Jeeves, just stepped away to powder my nose, and—no, thank you, Jeeves.”

He inclines his head. “Very good, miss.” He floats away, as inscrutable as ever.

How did he even manage to get away from dinner? You watch him go, feeling a mixture of irritation and admiration. You could really learn a thing or two from that man.

*

“Bertie! So glad I stumbled upon you! Talk a stroll with me this evening, won’t you?”

“Oh, well, ah, er. Jolly good!”

Your supposedly “accidental” meeting the next night was far from such. You had stalked him like a dratted private eye, employing a few of your own characteristically nimble wheezes to arrange for the two of you to be alone in the sitting room late after dinner. Now, you slip your arm into his and steer him toward the most deserted wing of the giant manor. You can tell the physical contact increases his nervousness, but it must be borne.

You start with some small talk. You bond over your shared disdain of your hosts, an ancient, dreadful old couple who are mutual friends with both of your families, and that relaxes him a bit. You ask him a few questions about Jeeves which he is all too eager to answer, and he launches into improbable but entertaining accounts of adventure, peril, near-misses, and last-minute rescues. You eventually end up telling him the story of the last time your equestrian team went out drinking after the big tournament, and soon he’s grinning, then chuckling, then by the end, outright howling. It really is a cracking story, though unfortunately there’s no time to tell it here.

“That really is a cracking story!” Bertie says, wiping away a tear. You can’t recall seeing him enjoy himself this much since…well, ever, in fact. Although he has a reputation for frivolity and gaiety, he is actually somewhat standoffish. He often seems preoccupied, wary. After what you read, you think you know why. Much of what he wrote was about how hard it is to carry such a heavy secret alone.

By this time, your stroll has brought you back to the corridor where the guests’ bedrooms are located. You pause outside his room and turn to face him as the sound of his laughter fades. Your arms are still linked together loosely and you stand a little closer than is strictly necessary. You can smell his fragrant cologne. You have to tilt back a bit to look him in the eye because he’s quite a bit taller than you, and when you do, you see that a shy little blush accents his handsome face. He has terrific cheekbones, a little too sharp for some people’s tastes perhaps, but perfect for your own. His shyness, his angular features, his lofty height, his chestnut hair, his blue eyes of course…he’s quite a charming package, all wrapped up for you in a dapper suit, which was no doubt laid out for him by his valet. You feel a little envious of Jeeves, getting to be the object of his affection. If Jeeves doesn’t return the sentiment to some degree, then he’s not half as intelligent as he’s supposed to be.

Bertie holds your gaze; you can tell he’s on edge, but he doesn’t back down, and you begin to think the man has more nerve than you might have guessed.

“You know, [Reader], you must be the most intriguing filly I’ve encountered in quite some time. Not just fillies, colts, too. Anyone.”

“Thanks awfully. I must say the same about you.”

“Me?” he scoffs. “No, I’m afraid to say there’s nothing too remarkable about this Wooster. I’m about as unique as a doppelgänger. You, though, you’re quite exceptional.”

“I disagree,” you say, moving imperceptibly closer. “Well, not that I’m not exceptional. That I am. But there’s more to you than it appears, I can tell.”

He fidgets, unable to accept the compliment. “There’s just me. I’m all I am.”

“And I couldn’t ask for more,” you say, reaching out to his shoulders. He flinches slightly at the contact but places his hands lightly on your waist. He looks surprised by himself even as he leans in.

As you come together, you feel a thrill that you can tell is mutual. The kiss is quite lovely. Your lips and his move slowly, synchronously, your hands clutching at one another. You fit together splendidly.

This is all going much better than you had hoped based on what you had read. He may have the tender pash for his man, but it seems he has the capacity for some tenderness toward this woman, as well.

Without breaking the embrace, you push open the door with a foot and pull him into his room. Blindly, you kick the door shut behind you and deepen the kiss.

Even though this was all part of your plan, you’re still startled by Jeeves’s gentle cough.