The Palace of Curiosities. Rosie Garland

said he would be, but he shaved and kept it secret. Now he had me, he would no longer need to do so for I would throw away his razor, tie up his wrists with his handkerchief and feed him soup as I waited for him to sprout the bristles hidden in the gift-wrapping of his skin. Days would pass, and he would sigh, Oh, untie me, do. Set me free, my love, but not angrily, and each day with less conviction.

      I imagined his hair set free from the confines of his clothing: wandering up and down his breast from navel to neck, spreading its paw-prints over his shoulders and down his back to the sweet damp crease of his buttocks. He would be my faun, my Pan, the Lord of my Woods, and I would be his maenad for he was the strange prince Donkey-Skin had told me to look out for. He must be.

      The handle of the door turned; my heart leapt. I looked into my lap, I looked at the bedspread, at the ewer, the bowl, the wallpaper, the window-shutters. At last I looked at my husband. The dark rug between us seemed the width of a continent. He smiled.

      ‘My dear wife!’ he said. ‘Dear little wife!’

      He crossed the space in three strides. He was dressed in a smoking jacket which reached past his knees, his oiled-down hair catching the light from the candle. His chin was smooth.

      ‘Dear little wife!’ he said again. ‘Or should I call you Mrs Arroner?’

      ‘Wife is a very good word.’

      ‘Is it not? A capital word! To me you are wife; to the world you are Mrs Josiah Arroner. What status! What gravitas!’

      ‘Yes, my dear.’

      I thought it a little overwrought, but tonight I could allow him any of his fancies.

      ‘Come now, Mrs Arroner.’

      He took my hand and patted it; I lifted my golden wrist to his chin and he pecked at it with dry lips.

      ‘My name is Eve, dearest.’

      ‘It is indeed. The sweetest of names to my heart from the day I met you.’

      He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the velvet of my forehead. A deep thrill swept from that spot down to my inmost parts until I was running over with richness, churning instantly from milk to cream.

      ‘Oh, Josiah,’ I breathed, and snatched at his coat, pulling him towards me.

      The weight of his breath warmed the crook of my neck, perfumed with coffee and tobacco. I wrapped my arms around him and we rocked backwards and forwards. I rubbed myself against him, purring. Unsheathed my claws and dug them into his back, chewing on his neck.

      He shoved me hard; my eyes sprang open to find him breathing in short bursts, his collar awry where I had torn it. He staggered to the mirror where he examined the spreading wine-stain of my mouth on his throat, and began to tie his cravat very high, to cover the dark spot. I watched the way his fingers slipped the silk over and about until he was satisfied with his handiwork, devouring his every gesture. However, I was confused, for I would be proud to have his mark on me – would parade our passion without shame. Then I understood: he did not want to share our secret. I giggled.