by Edith Layton
She had to be strong, she couldn’t break down in front of the world. She had no more claim to being a lady, and now her pride was the only thing she had left to prove her gentility. But the look in Magnus’s eyes made her feel weak tears start in her own. She glanced away from him, unable to see his pain for her.
He knew. “Cristabel,” he implored her, “please don’t lock me out. I know what she said, but she spoke from her own hurt. Give her time. We can stay here; maybe seeing you around town will change your mother’s mind.”
“Aye, mebbe,” Cristabel said, as she stared stonily at the wall. “Likely she’ll be so thrilled at what she sees, she’ll regret having left me like a bundle of dirty wash over two decades ago; oh aye, there be a real possibility. No, m’lord, I see it clear now. Captain Whiskey took her like a pirate takes any pretty thing he sees and likes. He had her for his own pleasure, and filled her belly with me. Likely then, like all men, he soon found another and left her alone with his folly. So she flitted off soon as she could, leaving me like an accident she had in the night, something dirty she left in her bed ’cause she couldn’t help it. So be it, and good fer her, I say.”
“Cristabel,” Magnus said, taking her in his arms. She offered no resistance, but was stiff and unyielding in his embrace, He offered no more than she allowed; one of his big, warm hands made slow circles on her back, the other held her close. “That’s not likely how it was,” he said gently, “but what difference does it make? We can never know. He may well have loved her in his way. He may have been faithful to her too. But he may have raped her, or hurt or deceived her too—the point is, we’ll never know. It doesn’t matter. One good thing came from it, one good, radiant, pure thing that made it all worthwhile: you.”
She laughed, or sobbed; he couldn’t tell which because she buried her face in his chest. “Aye, such a good thing, she can’t bear to look at it,” she mumbled.
“She doesn’t matter, not really,” he said, rubbing his cheek against the soft, fragrant curls piled high on her small head. “She did once, but that part of your life is over. You are loved now, Cristabel.”
“I be wanted now, m’lord,” she said in a gruff little voice after a second’s silence. “’Tisn’t the same. I expect me mother knows the difference if you don’t.”
She felt his body stiffen. He tensed and drew back from her, holding her away from him at arm’s length, and she knew he would have shaken her if he dared—his anger was clear to see.
“I’m not a pirate, I’m not a rapist, and I am not a liar, Cristabel,” he said in a deadly cold voice. “Have I ever given you reason to think so? If you do think it—even for a minute—then leave me now.”
She swallowed hard. “No, you haven’t,” she admitted, and then tried to explain, “but every man I ever knew—”
“You never knew me,” he said, and now he did give her a gentle shake so that she would look up at him. “You came to England so you could know a new life. I’m part of it, but…damn it, Cristabel, if you don’t trust me, then nothing I say matters. If you do, then I don’t have to say anything more. Marry me, and soon. I’ll be your new family. We’ll make one, we’ll share one. I want you, not your mother. There are dozens of girls I could wed with the most charming mothers you can imagine; I don’t want any of them.”
“But why do you want me?” she asked plaintively, and now the tears began.
He wanted to kiss her, but he knew that was the answer that would frighten her most. She understood lust; it was love she didn’t know.
“Because you need me,” he said honestly, and could have bitten off his tongue when he heard the words and saw her eyes widen. “But it’s more than that; no man marries for that reason,” he said quickly, “else I’d have married ten times over, years ago. I want to marry you for many reasons, needing is only one of them. You please me, Cristabel, you please me mightily. No woman has ever pleased me as much as you do. Your family doesn’t matter. Why don’t you ask me if I’m marrying you for your body? It’s beautiful. Or your wit? It’s considerable. Or your fortune? It’s vast enough to embarrass me.
“Cristabel,” he said a little desperately, his hands tightening on her shoulders, losing his usual calm confidence as he saw her downcast eyes, “Don’t think of me. Think of yourself. Do I please you? Do you like my conversation, my sense of humor, spending time in my company?”
She nodded.
“Does my person offend—is there anything amiss with the smell or feel of me?” he asked, “It’s possible. I’ve known women I’ve liked until I got a whiff of their perfume and realized it was something in their very scent I’d never be able to tolerate. Once the pitch of a fair lady’s giggle made me want to run for my life, when a moment before I’d fought off ten other suitors to have a dance with her. Sometimes a small thing can ruin the whole. Is it that way with me?”
“No, of course not,” she said, embarrassed that he might think there was anything about him that repulsed her.
“Then do you react to me the way I do to you?” he asked. “Does my face please you? My scent, my voice? My body? Do you think I can bring you pleasure with it?”
She blushed, but being pirate born, she was honest about passion. “There’s nothing amiss with you. Quite the opposite, and ye know it well,” she managed to whisper.
“Ah. So then it’s not my person or my conversation. So then, Cristabel, what could it be? Is it that you don’t trust me?”
She cocked her head to the side as she considered her answer. “I don’t know. It’s not you,” she said hurriedly, “it’s just that I’m not in the habit of trusting men, do you see? I think—I think I do trust you, Magnus. I want to, that’s sure. But it’s too new a thing for me. I can’t say that I do. But y’see, I can’t say that I don’t neither.”
“You need time,” he said.
“Aye, because…ah, Magnus, she were terrible to me. I cannot bear it. I dreamed of having a fine family that you could be proud of. I feel so small in your eyes.”
“Small? Oh, Cristabel, you are so large in my eyes, I can’t see anything else.” He cupped her head in his two hands and stared at her, love in his eyes, and brought his lips to hers. He was unable to say all he felt. But his kiss said it all and more. At first his kiss was solemn, almost chaste. Then he deepened it, and she followed where he led. He let his mouth court hers, his tongue pledging things he was unable to voice, promising a taste of everything that could follow. But he kept his hands deep in her hair on either side of her head. It was both frustrating and gratifying to feel the soft surrender of her mouth under his and yet deny his desire to feel more. The best and worst part of it was that he knew, from the small shudder that ran through her slight body, that she felt exactly the same way.
“To London then,” he said with a sigh as he stepped back from her. “Your mother knows where I live; it may be that she’ll change her mind.”
“Aye,” Cristabel agreed with a brave little smile that made his heart turn over, “when me father takes to flying ’stead of sailing.”
*
Their return trip was both slow and silent. Sophia and Martin were still not speaking to each other; Martin was brooding, and Sophia refused to talk to anyone except her maid, and then only when she wanted or needed something. Cristabel hardly noticed, she was so lost in her own thoughts. Magnus tried to cheer her up, but his every remark produced only absent smiles, and he gave up. Instead, he passed his time watching her.
She suffered now that the shock was over. He suffered with her, because there was nothing he could do to help. He couldn’t challenge the Baron Batsford to a duel because it wouldn’t help matters even if he could fight a crippled old man, nor could he fight or browbeat Cristabel’s unnatural mother. There was nothing he could do but yearn to ease her pain. His fierce protectiveness towards her surprised even himself. That, and his equally fierce longing for her, body and soul. The wait to gain her trust was something he could bear. The longing for her body was another matter.
He loved making love to women and had made such pleasures a natural part of his life since he’d become a man, but these feelings for Cristabel transcended anything he’d ever felt. There wasn’t even the possibility of slaking some of his lust with some other willing woman, for Cristabel was the only object of his desire, now and forevermore. There might be more beautiful women, but none for him. As they traveled back to London, he pleased himself by simply watching her as much as he tormented himself by doing so: slender and yet lush, with a spirit that burned bright as her radiant hair; he was wholly captivated by her.
It astonished him how such a valiant spirit could be cased in such a delicate structure. He found himself noting her slender neck and delicate wrists as other men might ogle a woman’s shapely ankles; he remembered the feel of her narrow waist as much as the swell of her high, firm breasts. He marveled at the vulnerability of her, and yet he knew women and knew that such delicacy could accommodate even a man as large as himself—more than accommodate. His fragile little lady could satisfy and be satisfied in turn by him. He knew it with a delight that fed his desire.
He rode with her each day and dined with her each night, speaking with her when she seemed aware of him, keeping his own counsel when she was looking too far inward to see him by her side. He gave her the chaste kiss of a friend on her lips each night when they parted. And then he lay awake each night, schooling himself to patience for the next day.
Still, he was almost sorry when they finally arrived at London’s gates. Now the grace period was over. Now he would have to make her give up her mourning and accept the facts. And himself. Because he couldn’t wait much longer.
The first thing Cristabel did, of course, as soon as Magnus delivered her to Martin’s house, was to ask to leave again. He’d been expecting that.
“…In fact,” he finished telling her the minute she mentioned it, “you’d make matters even worse if you left now. Martin and Sophia have to maintain some semblance of a marriage while you’re here. Leave, and I suspect their marriage will fall apart. Of course, if you don’t care…?”
“You’re as good at getting people to do your bidding with words as my father is with his cutlass,” she complained. “You’re likely right. But I want to get on with my life.”
“So do I,” he said seriously.
She had no answer to that comment. She thought that her mother’s reaction to her would have ended the matter for him. She was ready to go on alone with her life and live quietly somewhere in England, the way she’d originally planned to do. But somehow, in some magical way, he’d turned the tables and she found herself closer to him than ever. She still didn’t think such a marriage was good for him, but she knew he disagreed, and she began to believe him. She didn’t want to be a slave to any man, but she began to suspect it was already too late. Still, her independent soul strove for freedom—or was it her cowardly soul? she wondered now. Whatever it was, she couldn’t leave him just yet.
“So,” Magnus said as he prepared to leave Martin’s house for his own, “dinner, tomorrow tonight? Not here; Martin’s glum looks would poison the wine, and Sophia’s tongue might sour the dessert. But somewhere where we can drink and be merry without feeling as though we’re disturbing a funeral?”
“But if we meet friends of yours?” she asked quietly.
“We’ll ask them to join us. Nothing has changed. You are still Mistress Cristabel Stew, from the Indies. Your father is still anything you want to say he is. And your mother is still lost to you, isn’t she?”
That much was certainly true. She nodded.
“Wear something bright,” he said, smiling. “We’ve had a long enough winter, I think.”
*
Cristabel wore a yellow and gold gown, and threaded a bright gold ribbon in her curls. No powder for her hair, but a dusting of it on her face and dab of color for her cheeks and lips. A touch of flowery scent on the inside of her elbows and between her breasts, and a more liberal splash on her wrists so it would seem like a breeze from the tropics when she used her fan. In some corner of her mind she knew she was dressing like a pirate lass out on the prowl, down to the dagger in her garter above her knee. But tonight she didn’t care. He was right; her soul was weary of winter. This was a wonderful land, but she couldn’t get used to the gray of it; it was time for spring. She wanted to be glad again. She wanted laughter. She wanted his approval, she wanted to be happy.
She sat down and stared into her looking glass, amazed as the enormity of the situation struck her. All at once she knew the whole truth—it had crept up on her and waited in her reflection, staring back at her. She wanted joy, she wanted pleasure, she wanted comfort after a long, cold time. In short: She wanted him.
She might have always feared a man’s domination, but now she admitted she’d also always wanted to know what gave a man that power over a woman. She’d never thought to experience it, but now there was one man in her life who might show her what it was. She’d admired other men, she’d seen more handsome ones, but never one who made her laugh so much or promised to be able to make her cry so much either. She’d only known him a matter of weeks, and yet she already felt incomplete without him.
He’d asked if there was any little thing about him that offended her. She couldn’t count the small things about him that delighted her, from the way her hand felt swallowed up in his warm, wide palm, his long fingers locked over hers, to the way his soft, long hair looked drawn back behind his powerful neck. She loved to look at his eyes, and when he caught her staring, she lowered her lashes and watched the slow, steady beat of a pulse in his throat instead. She loved to breathe in his scent: lemon and shaving soap and something bittersweet that was essentially Magnus. There was no way to list it all. She wanted him, in every way. She’d lived with the awareness of passion all her life, and had always been able to channel it elsewhere. But not with this man. This yearning, this trembling in her limbs when he touched her, this shivering and puckering of every sensitive part of her body when she simply thought of him—if it was only the prelude, what must loving be like?
If she let him love her, he would never let her go. She knew it, and knew she’d never be able to go either. The only question that remained was whether she was willing to risk everything for something she’d sworn to avoid. His proposal of marriage was nicely done, but marriage lines meant little to her. She’d seen how little marriage meant to everyone else she knew. If she gave him her body, she would give him her heart, and it would be for an eternity. It was the way she was made.
She didn’t know what to do now that she accepted the intensity of her feelings. It might be best to cut line before too much harm was done. Wanting and not having was the story of her life, after all. If she tasted love and then gave it up, she didn’t know if she could bear it. And if that love produced a child—she knew too well the pain of being raised by one parent. No, she had to weigh the desires of her heart and mind and body before she would know what to do, because whichever she chose, it would be an irrevocable decision. He was giving her time to make up her mind, and whatever she decided would take courage. But she had plenty of courage.
She smiled at herself in the mirror, feeling naked and vulnerable and daring. And good. As bad as indecision and fear were for her, she knew she was at her best when faced with a challenge. She rose, snatched up her cape, and went out to face the night with a high heart.
*
What still amazed and delighted Cristabel about London was how it defied the night. Of course, the days were both brighter and longer in the tropics. But when night fell there, it did so literally, with a sudden splash of black. The sun dipped into the sea as if the water extinguished the light. Night fell as day ended in the tropics; it was as simple as that. Bonfires might be lit on beaches and there were taverns where the oil burned late, but late in the Islands was not the same as it was here in London. Here men and women stayed up until all hours, gambling, drinking, and dancing, and there was enough light to
do it in. Every great house was lit with chandeliers that blazed with galaxies of candles; and the restaurants, theaters, and taverns glowed with candles, lamps, and torches far into the night. Linkboys carried their flaring pitch torches high as they guided adventuresome ladies and gentleman through the streets. Even sober citizens did their bit to repel the night: By law, each house had to have a candle burning brightly by its front door.
But little could be done about the cold. She hadn’t gotten used to that yet either, and didn’t know if she ever would.
“Cold?” Magnus asked as he felt her shiver. “My grandmother would say you haven’t been eating right. Mangoes and bananas and fish make for weak blood; you need good red wine and beef to prepare yourself for an English winter. Won’t you let me call a sedan chair?”
“I don’t like being carried like an old woman,” Cristabel said. “It’s only a few streets. I wonder that English ladies still have use of their legs.”
Besides, she thought, glancing up at him, when I sit in a sedan chair, you must walk alongside and I can’t hold your arm. She could swear she felt the warmth and strength radiating from his side as she stepped along close to him. English society had few ways a lady could innocently touch a man; now that she found one, she wasn’t going to give it up.
He felt her shiver again, looked down at her and frowned. He paused, held out one arm so he could wrap his cloak around her, and then drew her closer to his side so that she nestled there beneath his cloak. She felt its soft folds envelop her, and sighed. There were great advantages to an English winter, after all.
Magnus was big, well-armed, and skilled enough to protect her from any lurking villains, and they were walking in a popular district of taverns, restaurants, and clubs. Still, as they paused at a corner, they formed a small parade. A linkboy led them, and a sweep plied his broom for them at the crossing so that they didn’t have to tread in mud, manure, or ordinary offal.