Chapter 9
It was too hard.
There had been a certainty on her part that being with Crispin would be difficult.
But she’d never expected it would be this impossible.
Her skin flushed from the heat of her bath and rid of the grime of a day’s travel, Elizabeth lay sprawled on her back, staring up at the mural a rudimentary artist had attempted on the ceiling.
Slapping her palms over her face, she groaned long and loud, letting the frustration boiling within all day free to bounce off the stucco walls. “Albrecht von Haller,” she moaned, the name muffled by her palms. “Haller’s rule on proportion and anatomy.”
She shook her head, and her damp, loose curls splattered droplets of water over the white coverlet.
Then there had been the damned serving girl. Buxom and beautiful and blonde and all the things Elizabeth was not, nor had ever been, nor would ever be. Long, long ago, she’d accepted that some women were born stunning, and others… common and as plain as tea in England, as Elizabeth was.
And yet, seeing another so boldly throw herself at Crispin, Elizabeth’s husband, who not even two hours ago had had his mouth upon Elizabeth’s and had explored her like she was one of those mythical sirens who lured weaker men out to sea. The moment had served only as a reminder of the scoundrel’s reputation Crispin had earned himself in the gossip columns and among the most scandalous widows in London.
The same jealousy that had roiled within her in the taproom reared its unwanted head once more. Fierce, sharp, and biting, it made a mockery of her attempts at indifference, for the fact remained that she’d never been indifferent to Crispin Ferguson. As a girl, she’d been in awe of him and his wit. And then, as a young woman, she’d fallen more than half in love with him for those very reasons.
“And now?” she whispered to the too slender cherub above her with his slightly fanged teeth.
She wanted him now, all these years later.
A long, miserable groan spilled past her lips. Elizabeth flung her arms wide, wrinkling the aged coverlet. Tiny motes of dust danced overhead, and she followed one speck’s winding trail down until it disappeared over the side of the bed.
It was the height of foolishness to desire a man who had never truly wanted her and who, in her absence, had lived quite contentedly without her.
Elizabeth chewed at her lower lip.
Except, even as the buxom serving girl had invited him with everything but words, Elizabeth had searched Crispin for a hint of interest—an encouraging smile, a wink, even an appreciative eye. There had been nothing.
That disinterest, coupled with the scholar who’d discussed anatomical principles, didn’t fit with the man she’d so closely followed in the papers who eventually found his way to Mrs. Belden’s.
“Enough,” she muttered, pushing herself upright. She was a creature of logic, and she clung to that very reason now to keep herself from descending any further into this madness. “You don’t want him or l—” Her mind balked, and she tripped over that word, unable to so much as breathe it into existence, lest it be transformed into truth.
Elizabeth hopped up, the cold of the wide, planked floors penetrating her feet. She ignored the chill as she began to pace, ticking off on her fingers as she went.
Fact: She and Crispin had a shared history. They’d been loyal friends long before they’d become outraged spouses.
Fact: She admired his intelligence and scholarly pursuits, but she would appreciate anyone who had a like skill.
Fact: What she felt or did not feel for him was irrelevant in the scheme of their future.
There was nothing more between them. Anything she felt for him was natural, born out of admiration she would have felt for anyone.
The walls of her chest ached, making it hard to draw breath. Elizabeth abruptly stopped, and the hem of her white cotton night shift whipped about her ankles.
The assurances rolling around the chambers of her mind were nothing more than lies she told herself.
She stared blankly at the corner of the room where two trunks rested, those two material possessions as different as their owners. One had been handmade with love, time, and skill by her father’s hand. The other was a French wooden piece with rosewood rods and brass studs and railings that still wore the gleam of newness.
Of their own volition, her legs carried her over. She sank to the floor and rested a palm upon each trunk. One coarse. One smooth. Similar in some ways and yet so very different.
Just as she and Crispin had always been.
“What is the alternative?” she whispered. That you confront feelings you’ve long denied? What good could come in that?
At no point had Crispin indicated any desire for anything with her beyond this brief sojourn to London, a presentation before Polite Society.
It is essential that Polite Society sees I am, married, that you are real, and then? You may go back to living your own life.
No, those words hardly bore any hint of undying devotion or an everlasting need to be with her.
“Because he didn’t want to be with you, you ninny,” she said aloud, the reminder ripping open a wound that would never truly heal. His life would carry on without her, whereby he was free to live the bachelor’s life, without worries about matchmaking mamas, or young ladies scheming for the title of duchess.
They would become strangers once more.
But he did not seem different. Not in the ways that mattered.
Elizabeth bit her lower lip hard.
Her gaze fell to Crispin’s trunk.
She hesitated, staring at the gleaming rosewood lid.
It was the height of wrongness to even consider it.
Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder to the doorway as the need to know and explore shifted to Crispin’s belongings. She warred with herself for another brief moment and then caught the bilateral clasps. The smooth hinges gave a satisfying click. Lifting the lid, she peered inside.
Her breath caught loudly.
She’d gone to heaven.
A blissful, glorious, never forgotten, but still distant heaven.
He traveled with books.
He always had. Even when making the journey from his family’s ancestral estate to her family’s modest cottage, he’d had a text in hand.
Leaning in, she surveyed the volumes all resting in piles in the corner of the trunk.
Her gaze flew over the gold, embossed titles.
Henry Thomas Colebrooke’s Essay on the Vedas, A Guide Through the District of the Lakes, Conversations on Chemistry, an Anonymous Work. Elizabeth stopped.
Her heart missed a beat. Unable to breathe, or move, she simply stared at the frayed and aged text that was more pamphlet than anything. So very familiar… and forgotten.
With fingers that shook, Elizabeth picked up the cherished little copy of The Child’s Natural History in Words of Four Letters. She caressed her palm over the pair of children painted on the front cover, the little girl staring intently over the shoulder of a little boy.
“It is us, Crispin. You must have it. I want you to have it, to remember me when you go to Eton.”
The day she’d handed it over and watched the Duke of Huntington’s carriage draw him away had been the most heartbreaking moment in her lonely, young life.
And the day she’d found him returned for good had been the happiest. It remained so, even all these years later. He, a duke’s son, had managed the impossible—he’d persuaded his father to allow him to study in Oxfordshire under the tutelage of leading tutors.
A wistful smile played at her lips.
Of course, it hadn’t really been impossible. Nothing ever had been truly beyond Crispin, the Duke of Huntington. With the skillful way in which he wielded words, he could have brought Lucifer and the Lord himself ’round to a truce.
She hugged the frayed book close, cradling it tenderly against her breast, mindful of the age and wear of it. And he’d kept it. All these years later, he’d not only held on to the child’s volume, but he traveled with it, as well.
“Why would he do that?” she whispered. Why, if he didn’t care? Even in some small way?
Footfalls sounded in the hall.
She glanced up, momentarily frozen.
The steps drew closer, confident, measured.
Bloody hell, she mouthed. Elizabeth yanked the top of the trunk closed, wincing at the damningly loud click as the lid fell into place. She scrambled to her feet just as the steps came to a halt outside her rented room.
Bloody, bloody, bloody hell. Elizabeth curled her fingers tight around the small children’s book she still held, and horror went through her.
She briefly contemplated the trunk.
The faint rasp of a key sliding into place propelled her into movement.
Elizabeth dived for the bed, the rumpled mattress groaning loudly as she struggled under the covers. She stuffed her book—nay, his book—under the pillow and flopped down on her back, squeezing her eyes shut just as the door opened.
Eyes closed as they were, she still felt Crispin’s gaze upon her like a physical touch. It lingered, hovering on her person sprawled in the center of the bed.
She made her tense lips go slightly slack, forcing the muscles of her face to relax.
The ungreased hinges groaned as Crispin shut the door behind him and moved about the room.
Alone.
They were alone.
Granted, she was sleeping, albeit pretending, and they’d been alone in other bedchambers when no one in the world had known.
But they’d been children, and he, the master of sneaking about, had found his way into her room so they could read by the candle’s glow some scientific text he could not wait until the next day to show her.
Now, they were man and woman, who just a handful of hours ago had explored each other’s mouths with a greater enthusiasm than they’d shared for any scientific topic.
At the absolute stillness of the room, Elizabeth forced one eye open ever so slightly.
With his broad back presented to her, Crispin stood beside the English oak settle bench. He rolled his shoulders, his muscles rippling the fabric of his riding coat. Crispin’s hands came up, and she stared on, unable to look away, riveted, as he slipped the buttons free.
Shrugging out of the garment, Crispin laid the wool article neatly over the back of the settle bench and stood before her in only his shirtsleeves, trousers, and boots.
She swallowed hard. Breathe. Breathe.
Evenly. Deeply.
Because that was what sleeping people did.
Her attempts were futile. She was transfixed by the sight of him in dishabille. There was something so very forbidden about watching Crispin while he was unawares and shedding each article of clothing.
Crispin tugged his white lawn shirt from the waist of his trousers.
Oh, sweet Lord in heaven.
Hers was a silent prayer whispering around her muddled mind.
Crispin drew the garment over his head. The fire still dancing in the hearth bathed his body in a soft glow, and her mouth went dry.
Don’t be a ninny. You’ve seen him in a state of undress countless times. Without a shirt. Without boots. Why, you even swam naked with him.
Granted, she’d been five years to his then eight, almost nine.
But naked was naked was—
A lie.
For she’d never seen him like this.
His back was a display of raw power and masculinity, all corded muscles and strength, with a proudly erect spine. He was such a study in contoured, chiseled perfection that an artist would ache to memorialize him in stone.
Crispin stretched his arms out before him and, gripping his bicep, drew that olive-hued limb toward his opposite shoulder.
Oh, my goodness, she silently mouthed.
No man, nay, no person had a right to be in possession of such beauty that it made mere mortals weep and stare. And there could be no doubting that, with her slender hips and even more slender waist and bosom-less frame, she epitomized the words common and unremarkable in every way.
While Crispin was… clear?
Elizabeth stared unblinkingly at the shadows dancing along his back.
He was too clear.
Bloody damn.
Holding her breath so tight her chest ached, Elizabeth inched one hand up slowly. Not taking her eyes from Crispin, she plucked the damning glasses from her nose and…
She angled her head, staring with blurred horror at the wire-rimmed spectacles.
Now, what was she to do with them?
And he’s already seen you sleeping here, ninny.
Mayhap he’d not noticed her. Elizabeth jammed her glasses into place, and the bed squealed at the abrupt movement.
She rolled onto her side and drew in a false, shuddery snort. Silence fell, safe and reassuring, and she counted the passing seconds.
The wide-plank floorboards groaned, indicating Crispin had moved.
Do not be silly. He’s hardly paying any attention to you sleeping here—albeit pretend sleeping.
And why should he? When she’d left him, the buxom beauty had been making eyes at him, one of the scandalous sorts his name had been tangled with through the years. With her back to him, Elizabeth abandoned her pretense of sleep and stared blankly at the shadows dancing on the walls. She had left him and had no right to any resentment—or any feelings, really—about the manner of women he kept company with.
And yet, she hated that a man who’d reveled in books and higher learning had filled his days and evenings with empty pursuits.
What would you have rather it been? That he’d found another peculiar bluestocking with whom he shared something even more meaningful?
She caught her lower lip.
She was as selfish as the day at Mrs. Belden’s was long. For she wished there’d never been anything between him and… any woman. She wished there hadn’t been roguish friends for him to keep company with in depravity and that he’d missed Elizabeth as much as she’d missed him.
And that isn’t your only wish. Scandalously, you yearn to know him in the same way those faceless beauties have.
The urge to flip over and steal another peek at his masculine physique gripped her.
Of course, why shouldn’t she casually roll over onto her opposite side? It would only make the illusion of her slumbering state all the more real. Concentrating on drawing in steady breaths, Elizabeth turned over.
She snored lightly.
Through her lashes, she peeked over. Seated on the oak bench, Crispin tugged off a black boot trimmed in a chestnut leather; the pair of them worth more than all the shoes she’d ever pulled onto her feet at Mrs. Belden’s.
He set the boot parallel to the bench and then reached for his other foot.
She let her eyes open, and wistfully, Elizabeth studied him as he bent his head over his task.
All the ladies at Mrs. Belden’s had tossed their garments or articles haphazardly about their chambers. They’d littered the floors and left the tidying to the respective maids. And if the chambers weren’t set to rights in a manner to please the impossible headmistress, it hadn’t been the young ladies who’d been chastised, but the servants. Too many of them had paid the price with the loss of their position.
Because that had been the world Mrs. Belden had striven to maintain, one where lords and ladies didn’t even have the responsibility of looking after their own garments.
Crispin removed his other boot and rested it neatly beside its mate.
Just then, he glanced up.
Heart racing, Elizabeth slammed her eyes closed.
And snored.