Disclaimer: Characters belong to Jane Austen. No profit is being made.

Notes: Since Austen never gave us a first name for Colonel Brandon, I'm choosing to use Christopher, as per the 1995 film.

Spirit

She is an abundance of light, and he is constant. The opposite of him in age and temperament, Marianne is the embodiment of what he should surely not desire. That he could believe in such things again—again!—with another young woman… why, this is indeed folly, but he has long been lost to it.

The flashes that are her concentration, when her eyes are narrowed and the object of her attention becomes the centre of her very world… it is a blessing, he thinks, to lose oneself in such a way. And Brandon wishes to have her like this, with her spirit, and her earnest mind. Indeed there have been times in his memory that she has gifted him with such a sight for him alone: her eyes watching him, every part of her body and senses attuned to the words slipping from his lips. Poetry and music and drawing – all of this brings her to his side, and she is attentive and enraptured. To think—to think!—that he has her now, seemingly for all of their days…

Even in his bed, her skin gold in the firelight, he finds himself reaching out with one careful hand lest he wake her from her sleep. He touches her bare shoulder with one fingertip and presses down; is this but a dream? It must be – how else has she come to be here, her body under his blankets, and her hair spilling over his pillows? It is inconceivable. Her hands—with those delicate, finely-boned fingers—are folded under her cheek and the gold band on her ring finger seems a mirage, like those in lands far from this warm and peaceful bedroom.

He draws away slightly and allows his gaze to rest upon her back. Nay, not peaceful, he considers with a secretive smile that she shall never see: for this woman carries the same passion for the flesh as she does for her creative pursuits. She was artless, yes, but Brandon now remembers her enthusiasm with a quiet astonishment. She explored his body without shame or timidity; her hands smoothed their way over his chest, tugging lightly at the dark hairs there before she—before she—oh, he cannot think of it without touching her again.

Cautiously he lays his palm between her shoulder-blades as he remembers how she rubbed her cheek on his chest, feeling the soft hairs for herself. It wrought a groan from his mouth when she touched him so, and now in the darkest hour of the night, he cannot quite fathom that it did, indeed, occur.

"Christopher?"

He removes his hand and looks at his new wife, feeling his spirits warm as her lips stretch into a smile. "Marianne. Did I wake you?"

"No, no," she whispers; her lashes flutter as she yawns. "But I missed you."

His breath catches. "Even in your sleep?"

"Oh," she breathes, sliding ever closer to his body. He watches with disbelief as her arms wind around his waist and her head of errant curls rests upon his chest. "Even in my sleep."

His first impulse is to deny this profession: he has thought of her for months, and she was lost to another, before she turned to him with her smiling lips and earnest conversation that lacked any moderation. He rises above her so as to reach her ear, and he murmurs, "Do you speak the truth, my love?"

She tenses as his breath reaches the soft, downy hairs at the nape of her neck. Trembling, Marianne raises her head; her cheeks are flushed, and her lips are the colour of the roses in his garden. He has not noticed this before, but now that his intentions do not need to be so reserved, he traces a line around her lips with his finger, knowing that he will not visit the garden now without thinking of how she kissed him, of how her tongue slid so shyly into his mouth.

"I do," she replies, bringing her hand to his cheek. "'I say: 'tis so, 'tis true'!"

Brandon closes his eyes and sighs. "It is more than I could ask for—more than I could wish for."

She is silent, but then she begins to drag her fingertips over his chest. "I should like to ask something of you…"

"Ask anything: I am at your disposal," he declares without the slightest hesitation. "Anything at all."

"There was something you said," says Marianne, "when I was taken ill. Elinor confided in me, and made me swear not to tell you that I knew of it, but…"

"Anything," he repeats, and daringly, he returns her embrace and gathers her body entirely against his. Her hands are quivering now; heat spreads over his skin.

"It is your voice, husband, you see… and I should like to hear it with my own ears… I should like it ever so much… Perhaps it was an innocent remark, but I greatly desire to hear it…"

Innocent? About her? Brandon is sure that he has never had purely innocent thoughts about Marianne since he saw her singing so sweetly. For even then, his hands ached to hold her, and his heart burned to have her. "What did I say?"

"You said…" she is whispering again, and her breath on his bare skin is the greatest of pleasures. "You said that you needed an occupation… something to do…"

"Ah." His searching hands pause on her skin. He is troubled; he sees her behind his lids, her face gaunt and paper-thin as she tosses and turns like the fever-ridden, storm-tossed maiden that she was… "I did not…. It was not to endear myself to you, or to your sister. Marianne, I was near to despair…"

"Then let us give it new meaning!" she exclaims, pushing up from the bed, careless of the image she makes: her naked breasts, the dip of her belly, the curve of her waist. She is kneeling on the bed now, and he cannot even begin to assemble thought or speech. "It is not unlike our ages, don't you think?"

He blinks, puzzled. "Speak plainly, wife. I admit that I am lost."

"Oh," she laughs, her smile widening to a grin that he decides is beautiful beyond compare. "I meant only that we, you and I, have changed the meaning of our ages. There is a difference between us, yes, but what does that matter when it is our very souls that are meeting? Our souls that are… that are… oh—"

And suddenly her lips are pressed to his, and she is in his arms, kissing him with an ardour that leaves him breathless with desire. Only a heartbeat later, her mouth breaks away and he groans in disappointment. She blushes again, her cheeks a deep rosy pink. "Our souls kiss, do you not see? Our age does not matter – we have changed its meaning. It is our souls that matter now. And we can change the meaning of anything that we like, husband. Anything."

"'With gentle yet prevailing force, intent upon her destined course'," he quotes slowly, finally agreeing, and she sighs, pleased.

He smiles, taken in by her ardent display of passion. She gives this to all of her endeavours, and now she is giving it to him. Emboldened by her words, Brandon coaxes her back to his chest so that he may whisper to her, for she confessed only hours before that his voice, the tone and timbre of it, can make her shiver on the warmest of days.

"Wife…" he says, and he delights in the way she trembles in his arms. He is sure to speak with silk and honey and the finest of wines: "…give me an occupation, or I shall run mad."

Notes:

* 'With gentle yet prevailing force, Intent upon her destined course.' – William Cowper, from 'A Comparison, Addressed To a Young Lady'

* 'Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'' – William Shakespeare, sonnet. 85.