The Other Side

Bettina moved the chair and sat down again, doing her best to hide her anxiety. Harry thought this could be simple? Simple was the last word she would use. Insane. Impossible. Horrifying. The list of words only made her feel worse. What if this change was permanent? She would neither contemplate nor mention that possibility.

As usual, they sat in silence for a moment, for her part, trying to decide where it had begun. “We went to Ellsworth’s musicale.”

“You could have waited for me. I was not being frivolous. The first dress I put on had a tear in the hem.”

She could see they were already poised on the downhill slide into their usual argument of who was at fault.

“I had to speak to Lord Osterman about my vote for his bill,” Harry explained, “and I knew he would leave early. He only attends those events to do Parliament’s business. His interest in music is nonexistent.”

Bettina was not going to start an argument by calling her husband a liar, yet she was almost certain Lord Osterman was not the only reason her husband had been in such a hurry.

“We should have left the musicale when he did,” Harry said. “That first performance was abominable. You would think the young man would be over his nerves by now.”

“Oh, that’s right, I’m you now, aren’t I.” Harry raised a hand to pat her hair and spoke in a voice too high to be hers. “He will be a wonderful musician. He only needs more practice. I will admit, my lord, that his play was tentative, like a babe afraid of his first steps.”

Bettina sat back and folded her hands. Did he have any idea how hurtful it was for him to mock her so? She never spoke in such a shrill voice, and the boy would do better once he was accustomed to an audience.

“I’m sorry, dearest,” Harry said quickly. “I can be a fool when things are not going as I would like.” He reached for her hand but stopped. Bettina looked down at the hand that responded to her commands: dark hair about the wrist, a smattering of lighter hair around the knuckles ending in the blunt nails of Harry’s very manly fingers. Harry looked away. Ah, so he, too, was having a hard time adjusting to the change of body.

“I am sorry,” he said again. “I must remind myself that you are in my body, wearing my clothes, but you are still very much my Bettina. Even now I can tell I have hurt your feelings by the way you move back and become so formal as though I am preparing to strike you.”

She did always move back. “That was something else I learned from my brothers. If I wanted them to stop teasing me, or otherwise being mean, I would pretend that what they said did not bother me at all. How odd that I do that even now.” Bettina laughed. “I wish—”

She bit her lips, pressing them together, and nodded. They were silent a moment. This time he touched her wrist, covered by shirt and coat.

“Continue with your memory of the evening. Where could we have been given the coin? Someone must have slipped it to us.”

“The butler when he handed us our hats and things? No, Harry, someone put it in this room while we were out. There is no sense in asking Freeba. She will insist she knows nothing if it might mean trouble for her.”

Bettina could tell he wanted to send for Freeba this minute but restrained himself. “You can try, but you will have to question her with my sensibilities and not with your inclination to browbeat her for the answer you want.”

“Yes, you do. Last week you left the footman in tears when you found him chatting with one of the serving girls while at his post. And just yesterday you practically gave a sermon on honesty when the youngest groom admitted he said he had checked the horses and was caught in the lie.”

“Both of them are lucky to still have their positions, but we will discuss the subject another time, Bettina. Right now we are supposed to be talking about what happened last night so we are not faced with another night in each other’s bed.”

“Please do go on, Harry,” she said with all the hauteur she could summon and forbore to mention that his mattress was much too soft for her liking.

“Very well,” Harry said and thought for a moment. “We left Ellsworth’s before supper, and when we arrived back home, you suggested that we have a glass of champagne here in your bedchamber, and I hoped that meant we would end up together in bed. Instead, you brought up an affair with Patricia Melton and were thinking the worst of me.”

“Patricia Melton lives to tempt and tease, Bettina.” The edge in his voice made it clear this was a subject he had no desire to discuss.

“I was so angry with you last night.” And still am, she thought. “I was about to tell you to leave my chamber when I was distracted by the coin.”

“Because I didn’t recognize it, and I wondered how it came to be on my night table.” She could see it still, glinting as though demanding her attention. “Then we made those misguided wishes.”

They stared at each other, her anger and his frustration replaced by the memory of the hideous moment of their transformation. The silence was long. Bettina had no idea what was going through Harry’s mind, but for her part, she was praying, praying, praying that this would end soon.

“Bettina, we have to pray that this ends tonight and prepare for the fact it may not. But we cannot give up trying to find a solution.”

“Of course not, but Harry, please, we have to teach each other how to go on. If this continues, we may well be sent to Bedlam. This morning, Roberts looked at me askance when I told him that he could choose my clothes.” Bettina shrugged. “I had no idea what your calendar called for.”

Bettina went on. “I’m sure Freeba thinks something is terribly wrong. We never spend this much time together in the morning. Cameron is most likely missing his mama, and Lord Osterman is wondering why you are not in Parliament.” And tonight we both know that Patricia Melton will wonder at your absence.

“Do you not think that we should take a few days to teach each other what we need to know? Besides, you will not want to be in society this week.”

“It seems that while we are in different bodies, our minds are very much our own.” Harry waited for her nod before he went on. “Looking at myself when I look at you is not all that different from looking in a glass.”

“Oh, yes, it is. I’ve noticed it as we’ve been talking. Look at the eyes, Harry.” She moved from the chair to sit on the bed opposite him. “The color might be correct, but when I look into yours, I see you. You must surely see me.”

They sat still a moment, staring intently at each other. He smiled, that rakish smile that was the first thing about him that fascinated her. It might be her lips, but it was his smile.

“Just a little kiss. I do not feel like any more than that. A kiss of comfort. Close your eyes. Let’s see if it feels different.”

Tentatively, Bettina moved toward him. She closed her eyes as she felt that first brush of lips. His lips were soft. So soft and full. Opening her eyes, she stared directly into him and forgot reality.

She opened herself to him. His tongue felt delicate as it swept into her mouth, then Bettina moved, taking over the kiss. She was in the bed beside Harry, fitting her mouth to his or his to hers.

It was so confusing, but then she forgot all about pronouns as sensation flooded her body.

Bettina had never felt this need before; anticipation raced through her, pushing all thought from her mind, arousing her so that all she wanted was to join together and find the pleasure that the kiss tortured her with.

She wanted more than the feel of his lips. She needed more than his tongue teasing her. Her body was barely within her control but not for much longer. She pulled her mouth from his. “I want you now, Harry.”

His words sobered her. “What’s wrong?” she asked and then recalled him asking the same question with the same edge to his voice in their first days of marriage.

“I wanted only a kiss of comfort. Do you think I am trying to seduce you? Who would want to have sex feeling as I do?” His hand swept down to his lower abdomen. “Nor do I think that you would want to have sex while I am in this condition. All I wanted was a little soothing kiss.”