by Tessa Dare
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.
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 on
ly 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.
Th
e 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.