Chapter 8
There had always been lively debates between Crispin and Elizabeth. And laughter and discourse.
What they had never suffered from, however, was silence.
Until now.
A thick, tense, uncomfortable silence hung in the air and grew with every passing instant.
Since their embrace, the never-shy Elizabeth had avoided his eyes.
With their belongings being taken up to their shared room and a bath being readied by the tavern keeper, Crispin and Elizabeth sat across an uneven oak table amidst a quiet taproom, two plates between them.
Elizabeth pushed her fork around her dish, attending her skirret pie with the same intensity she’d bestowed on every tome he’d sneaked from his family’s libraries and turned over for her research.
Which, after a day of traveling and with this being her first fare, would not have been unusual… if she hadn’t grown squeamish whenever her own mum had cooked with skirrets.
Crispin tightened his fingers around the pewter tankard in his hands.
Her discomfiture was now as great as it had been the last time they’d kissed. That previous meeting of their mouths had wrought havoc on his senses and haunted his six-and-ten-year-old self’s dreams.
That exchange, to him, had been magical and wondrous and—
Yuck. That was as pleasant as a raw skirret. Can you determine what all the fuss is about?
That had also been the moment he’d had his pride badly beaten by the truth that the feelings he’d carried for the slightly younger girl had been wholly one-sided—and humbling for it.
In the past, he’d bolted shortly after their first kiss, too much of a coward to face any more of her grimaces, but now he sat across from her, studying her bent head over the rim of his glass.
The pursed-lipped distaste she’d worn as a girl had, this time, been replaced by a woman’s desire. Her breathless moans echoed around his mind even now, her entreaties quiet as she’d clung to him like ivy. Unlike before, she’d wanted him as much as he hungered for her, and that realization steadied him.
Leaning back in his seat, Crispin stretched his legs out, the tips of his boots colliding with hers.
She stiffened but made no move to pick her head up.
“You’ve changed in many ways, Elizabeth,” he noted, deliberately husking his tone.
Her fork scraped across the plate, knocking a boiled potato over the edge and onto the table. She battled herself. It was a fight she wore in the tense set of her narrow shoulders. She was no coward, though, and Elizabeth raised her head slowly, daring him with her eyes to go on.
Crispin curled his lips up. “You’ve developed a taste for”—her thin red eyebrows shot above her spectacles—“skirrets.”
She didn’t blink for a long minute, her impossibly large eyes forming perfect circles.
He winked.
Elizabeth’s brows fell, returning to their proper place.
Crispin nodded at her plate of carved, but otherwise uneaten, pie. She followed his stare. Muttering under her breath, she grabbed her knife and carved one of the already cut pieces into several, smaller, minuscule bits.
His lips twitched. “What was that?”
“I like them just fine,” she mumbled. Still, she made no move to raise the fork to her lips.
He winged an eyebrow up.
She uttered something that sounded very much like infuriating spider brain.
“It’s really an unfair charge, you know,” he said, and she paused, a forkful of pie halfway to her mouth. “It’s all a matter of proportion, really.”
“What?” she ventured, lowering her utensil.
“The spider,” he elucidated. “Given their size, they are, in fact, mostly brain.”
She blinked wildly, and the contents of her fork tumbled onto the table. “Indeed?”
He sat back, encouraged by her interest. “Albrecht von Haller—”
“The Swiss naturalist,” she interjected with such excitement glittering in her eyes that it lit her face and bathed her cheeks in a delicate flush.
All the breath lodged in his chest.
She is magnificent…
Elizabeth cocked her head, knocking her spectacles slightly askew and bringing him back from his woolgathering.
“He wasn’t just a naturalist,” he said, clearing his throat. “His accomplishments also included anatomy and physiology.”
She opened her mouth and then stopped. Suspicion darkened her gaze, and she held her fork out menacingly. “We never read any evidence outside of his works on herbaria.”
Crispin gave her a pointed look. “No, we didn’t.” They could have, though. There was so much they could have shared.
Elizabeth faltered as understanding marched across her expressive features. She slowly lowered her fork to the table.
His fingers curled hard around his tankard. He didn’t want to shatter the fragile bond with talks of their broken past. “His son, Gottlieb Emanuel, came to speak extensively at Oxford, offering lectures on his father’s works.”
The animated spark was lit once more within her clever gaze. She sat forward. “Which topics did he speak on?”
How he’d missed these exchanges. Crispin nodded and set down his drink. “Haller believed that as body size goes down”—he held his hands apart and shrank them together until the palms nearly touched—“the proportion of the body taken up by the brain increases.”
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Which would not mean greater brain function,” she pointed out.
“No.” His grin widened. “It does, however, go to the relativity of size.”
“Hmm.” She chewed at the tip of her index finger, her gaze contemplative. She abruptly stopped. “Have there been studies performed?”
“On whether or not I’m spider-brained?” he asked, pulling a laugh from her, the bell-like expression of mirth earning stares from nearby tables. He joined in, his chest rumbling from amusement he’d not felt in so long.
“On the spider,” she needlessly clarified, wiping the mirth from the corners of her eyes.
Crispin shook his head. “Not that I’ve been able to discover.” He winked again. “I just took the liberty of applying the principle to your insult.”
Her lips twitched. “Fair turn.”
They shared a smile, and just like that, they were restored to the same pair who’d spoken for hours about topics that had horrified his parents. When was the last time he’d enjoyed himself this much? None of the company he’d kept these years had cared a jot about anything outside of their own pleasures: balls, soirees, scandalous masquerades with the lone friend he’d made in Elizabeth’s absence.
As quick as it came, however, her smile slipped, and reality forced itself upon them once more.
As if it could ever truly be gone. As if they could simply move past her abandonment. And how he despised himself for being shredded by her betrayal still. He swiped his drink off the table and took a long swallow of the vile, bitter ale. “I’ll allow you to your skirrets, madam.”
She lowered her crimson brows. “Is that a challenge?” She gave a toss of her disheveled coiffure, and several still errant curls bounced, bringing his attention briefly to the high neck of her hideous gray gown.
In his mind, he stripped away that coarse fabric and replaced it with a shimmering satin that molded to her slender frame with her every movement. Lust bolted through him, replacing all earlier brevity and ease, as he was filled with the hunger to taste her once more. The fires of his desire blazed all the stronger as she tipped her chin up at a defiant angle, parted her lips ever so slightly, and popped that small flake of crust into her mouth.
A trace of powder lingered on her full lower lip. She darted her tongue out, that pink flesh trailing over the seam, and he fought back a groan.
“Sir?”
Crispin dragged a reluctant stare over to the serving girl standing beside their table, and he silently cursed the interruption.
The plump beauty sauntered closer and flashed a smile that served as a bold invitation. “Is there anything more you’ll require?” she purred, angling her body in a way that dismissed Elizabeth.
From the corner of his eye, he caught the frown that turned Elizabeth’s lips. “Nothing,” she snapped. The serving girl blinked. “We do not require anything.” Fire shot from his wife’s gaze.
Surely she wasn’t… jealous?
Pursing her lips, the servant dropped a quick curtsy and sauntered off.
Just like that, the moment he and Elizabeth had shared was shattered.
His wife shoved back her seat with such alacrity that it toppled back slightly and then righted itself.
He quickly climbed to his feet.
“It was a long day. I am going to seek my room,” Elizabeth said tightly. She hesitated, and for a moment, she looked as though she’d say more. For the span of that endless instant, he wanted her to ask him to accompany her.
But then, with a slight bow of her head, Elizabeth turned and did what she did best—she left.