Sharing...

Sharing this scene I'm working on.  It came as inspiration when I was trying to get Marcus to understand that there might be something else going on with Platt than just her rejecting him.  Jessica saved my butt and has become quiet the muse.

"She doesn't know your intentions."  Jessica was talented at knowing the answers to questions and making them statements.  Somehow it was a relief to let her control the conversation.

"You would do anything for her?"  Jessica looked at him in a way that told him she already knew the answer but wanted him to say it anyway.

"Within my power."

"Is it within your power to speak to her?"

Marcus blanched at her in answer.

Jessica set her hands to her hips.  "You would fight for her?  You would lay a king's ransom at her feet?  You would bed her and claim her above all others?"

He didn't know what kind of mind trap she laid and said nothing.

"You would do all that, but you wouldn't do the most difficult thing of all.  No you would leave her to do that, all you men leave the most frightening of terrors up to women."

Marcus growled at her implication of calling him a coward.  He did not hide behind women's skirts.

"Prove to her that you are brave then.  Prove to her that you above all others can withstand what most men can't and won't."

"And what pray tell would that be?"

"Hand her your heart at the risk of her destroying it."  Jessica's small frame trembled.  "Lay yourself bare and tell her how you feel."

Horror surfaced and the words made Marcus sweat.  Could he literally hand Platt his heart instead?  That would be less painful and safer to bear. 

Jessica pointed at his nose.  "That is what women give with no reserve and with everything we have.  It's no less devastating when a man shows nothing in return."

"She refused."  Marcus whispered.

"Did she refuse you or the temptation of your body?"  Jessica scowled.  "One does not equal the other and the pressure is on her to give the both of you what you want."   

Marcus was breathing hard.  He remembered Platt turning away from him in her room.  Platt's words were precise and guarded.  He missed something or didn't understand her.  There was something she needed from him but the customs of humans were not like anything he knew. 

"I've tried to show her."  Marcus gritted his teeth.

"Oh I'm sure you'd show her a wonderful time under silk, but so have you with me and set off without a word.  If that's how you plan to show your feelings for an unmarried maid then no wonder she refused."