by Amelia Hart
Perhaps also rude, though she was not sure about that. Who knew what the rules were about interconnecting doors between married couples? Not she. It could not be called outright disobedience because he had not forbidden her precisely; only pushed her out that one time. Once was enough, so she never wanted to do it again.
Yet the status quo was wrong. This strange distance between them was nothing like marriage was supposed to be. It was a peculiar limbo, and something must be done to fix it. If he would not do it then it must be she.
But oh, she did not want to open that door.
She sat huddled in her bed, knees drawn up to chest, blinked in the darkness and stared at his door. Soon he would blow out his candles and the opportunity would be lost. Another day or days would go by and still they would stand at arm's length from each other, awkward and strange.
He with his sad eyes and his frown, the way he sat at his desk, shoulders bowed, and clasped at the roots of his hair as if desperate. It made no sense. She had brought a rich portion, which must be more than enough to set the estate to rights. It would only take time, and some hard work. Yet still a cloud hung low over him, dark and melancholy.
No, she could not let fear control her a second longer. She must act. She threw back the covers and swung her feet to the floor, found her thin slippers and padded to the door. She paused there, one hand on the doorknob, the other laid flat on the wood, took a long slow breath until her lungs were full and her chest high, and pushed it open.
She winced at the groan of the hinges, then stepped around the door and into his room.
He stood by the bed, one hand on the sash of his robe, his chest bare beneath it. His eyebrows were raised, and there was a tightness around his eyes. Still, he was not frowning at her as he did so often. She drew courage from that.
Not sure what she would say, or how she would say it, she crossed the chamber, kept walking until she was too close to him, barely two feet away. Her heart was beating hard enough to shake her, and faint nausea churned her stomach. "My Lord. Christoph-Chris."
"Elizabeth."
The sound of her name spoken in his deep, cool voice made her tremble. "I-Did your day go well?"
He tilted his head slightly to one side. "The great north pasture was plowed and sown."
"That is the common field, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Were the farmers pleased?" She kept her tone light, friendly. He seemed confused but answered as civilly as if they did not stand so close, dressed and half-undressed for bed.
"I believe so."
"Did they protest your planting plan?"
"Nothing was said to me, if they did."
"You must be pleased. To have that done."
"It is solid progress."
"And what next? What is your goal for tomorrow?"
Despite the fire in the grate the room was still cold and she shivered. His gaze dropped to her chest then flashed back to her face. The muscles around his jaw clenched and he swallowed hard. "The . . . the bog must be drained. There will . . . a ditch will be dug from the . . . ah . . . the corner of Three Oaks field."
The way he looked at her - intense and strained - made her quiver down low in her belly. One hand crept to her collarbone, and his eyes followed the motion, strayed lower, then went up to the ceiling. He took a deep breath through flared nostrils.
Before she could think of another question he spoke, his voice tight. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?
"Oh. I-that is, It is only that I-Ah . . . I had not seen you today. I missed you at dinner."
"We did not finish until full dark."
"I know. I saw the lanterns coming back through the park."
He searched her face. After a moment he said, "Were you looking out for me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"The fields are so rough, in places. A man might trip and fall in the dark, might injure himself. Mrs Harrow said not to worry-"
"You were worried?"
She raised her chin. "Yes."
"Why?"
"You think it peculiar I should worry for your safety?"
One corner of his mouth quirked up in a faint, ironic half-smile. "Yes. I am not used to it."
"Do you think no one cares for you?"
"Say rather I am assumed to be competent at such basic skills as walking."
"Or out in the field, in the dark, still working. I have seen that plow. It is very sharp. I know you throw yourself into the physical labor-"
"I suppose you think I shouldn't."
"I think you should do as you please. Though it does seem to me there are enough men that you may be spared-"
"It puts heart into a man to know the one who leads him will pull for a common goal. I will get more done faster if these people are behind me."
"They will do as their lord commands, surely?"
"Possibly. Probably. But these people are poor, and some are desperate. I don't want rioting if I introduce some unpopular change. They can see I too am invested in their success."
"I thought an earl should maintain a proper distance-"
"Yes, yes of course, and all that claptrap," he said, suddenly impatient. "Yet the populace has changed, and we must change with it. These old ways belong to feudal society. A tenant farmer does not expect to be a vassal to his lord. Even these men - poor and broken down as some are by the hardship of scratching out a living when rents are so high - even they deserve a lord whose vision encompasses their humanity."
He had gone to some other place in his mind, drawn himself up, his eyes distant and a quiet passion behind his words.
"This is not common," she said.
Now his gaze met hers, and he said very firmly, "But it should be. Every man should possess this dignity. They are not animals."
"I'm not disagreeing with you. It is only I had never thought of it before. But you make sense. I agree."
His eyebrows went up. "You do?"
"Of course. I can see if you pull together in this way you are like a team of horses where the lead horse has a postilion on his back. All are guided, with no coachman to sit behind at a distance and crack the whip over their heads. Yet they go the right way, well and calmly. It does seem more-" she hunted for the right word, "respectful. It hadn't occurred to me a farmer might want respect from his lord, but of course any man wants respect."
"He does."
"So you do not drive them, but lead them."
"Yes."
"It is interesting to me you don't fear to lose your dignity by manual labor. I had always pictured earls as above effort. I thought that was how you must be; that ease would be an essential part of your nature."
He spread his hands to either side. "I am only a man."
She examined him by this new perspective. "It's hard to see you that way, my lord. I try to think of you as Chris, for I mean to be on your level if I can manage it. Yet always I forget. In my mind you are first Lord Carhampton, and it's difficult to see beyond that. But I try."
He hesitated, then said with an air almost of confession, "It is a cloak that does not yet fit. I wear the title and feel a fake. It is too new, and I was never raised to expect it."
"I forget how recently you came into the title," she said, surprised. "And yet you don't hide behind it and stay aloof, terrified of being found out."
His smile widened a trifle, and his eyes warmed. "Terrified? Not I."
She returned his smile. "That is courage, I think. To remain true to your beliefs even when your circumstances change."
"Oh yes. A true test of my convictions, to be thrust will he, nil he into the nobility."
"You may laugh at the notion," she said with mock sternness, "but sudden changes in fortune may shake a man's sense of self to its foundations. A stratospheric rise is not an unalloyed blessing. For what do we have if we do not know who we are?"
Now it was his turn to look surprised, one eyebrow quirking sharply upward. "What is this? Such wisdom from one so youn
g."
"It's best not to patronize me."
"I beg your pardon. Only I had not realized you are a philosopher."
"Nothing so grand. But Papa thinks a lady should be an interesting conversationalist. We have had many debates."
"So you regurgitate his opinions."
"Now you will offend me. Of course not. I only say I have been trained to think for myself. Which you will discover if you bother to talk to me."
"Is this a reprimand?"
"If you like, though I don't mean it that way. Or perhaps I do," she reconsidered, as the truth of his comment rang within her. "It does not occur to me to reprimand an earl."
"But Chris may be reprimanded?"
She grinned. "I believe he may." Then, emboldened by his teasing, she took two steps forward and stopped a breath away from him. "He might also be invited," she said, the terror of her own courage almost choking her, so her voice quavered. She tried to appear calm, to hold on to that saucy grin as with her proximity she offered him her body, unspeakably bold.
The atmosphere between them crackled with sudden tension. She could smell soap and under that the scent of his body, masculine and attractive.
He put one hand up to touch her jaw, a whisper of contact that shook her to her toes.
"You invite me?"
"I do."
His eyes glittered with a strange expression that seemed almost like recklessness, and then suddenly his mouth was on hers, so swift she gasped. He instantly took advantage of her open lips to swirl his tongue between them, an intimacy that shocked her. His arms wrapped round her in a grip of urgent hunger, so she was enveloped by him, hard and hot against her body.
Her hands were against his chest, trapped there, and beneath her palm was the opening in his robe, the compelling texture of his furred chest. Yet those were tiny flashes of sensation next to the lightning storm that was his demanding mouth on hers, smooth and wet, lush and commanding.
It melted her, made her boneless, her head falling back on a weak neck. The power of him called for surrender and she gave it to him, heart beating madly, thought suspended. Oh, the burn of it, the fire, the madness.
Her fingers curled in the edge of his robe and dragged on it, wanting him closer. Then her arms fought to wrap around him but he held her too tight, plundering her soft mouth. He groaned, a guttural sound from deep in his throat that sent a quiver through her.
"God!" he said, fervent and profane. Then his hand was on her breast, too hard yet just right. Her back arched to thrust it further into his palm, and his mouth slid to her neck. He sucked her tender flesh and she cried out in wonder.
His arm around her waist was so tight, tighter still, and then he half lifted her the two steps to his bed and went down with her onto it, their bodies welded together with no air between them. His torso was between her parted legs, pushing them wide, and it shocked her to feel him there, his weight so solid and real.
He moved, and it was a grinding friction against her through the delicate barrier of her nightshirt as he slid far enough to take the tip of her breast in his mouth and suck on it through the cambric, his mouth so hot, his swirling tongue creating fierce tremors of pleasure through her. She writhed, strove to be closer, wanting more, soles flat on the bed and hips raising less than an inch against his immovable weight but straining, accepting.
He reared back and worked feverishly on the buttons at her throat, down her chest, growled with impatience, then when he had them free, engulfed her breast with a greedy, sucking mouth. She clutched at his head, her eyes closed against the white heat of sensation, bucked and moaned, an ache rising from deep within her.
Heavens! Oh, so good. So incredibly good. Beyond anything.
Then his hand gripped the outside of her thigh, under her nightshirt, hard fingers on her soft flesh and now all her focus was there, on the extraordinary intimacy of it, the touch where no one had touched her in all her memory. She stilled, waited to see what he would do, quivered with tension as his palm massaged her in circles, moved inward stroke by stroke. She guessed his goal, fearfully imminent, breathed tremulously once then held her breath. Waiting.
For all his urgency the first contact was light, a question. Still she gasped at the intensity of it, the newness. His fingertips glided over her secret flesh, slick as satin, smooth and slippery and she realized she was wet. How? Why? Would this dismay him?
But no, he only murmured in wordless, husky delight, and his approval lifted her on a cresting wave of relief. Her fingers dug into the breadth of his shoulders, and she clung tight as he found a place with those fingers that stopped all thought, all knowledge, every part of her shaking mindlessly with each small flicker of his movement.
"Elizabeth." He said it explosively.
She was so lost it took her long moments to realize he had stopped. With extraordinary effort she lifted her head to see him, and he looked down at her.
His expression was anguished. With desperate slow motion he lifted his hand from between her thighs, eased back to the edge of the bed and rose. His gaze swept over her once, over her body lying revealed by the disarray of her nightdress, her pale skin gleaming in the candlelight, and then he closed his eyes, his forehead furrowed as if the sight was torture.
Her hand flashed to her neck, clenched the fabric there together in a tight fist, the other shaking hand shoved the hem of her nightdress down her thighs. She could not fill her lungs. The room seemed to darken.
He spun. He strode out. The door swung wide behind him. He was gone.
The wet material over her nipple was cold. Her whole body was cold; chilled to the core. Frozen. She hunched on the mattress, battered within, her breath coming in small gasps then jerky sobs.
What had she done?
The fire crackled in a mockery of good cheer. Stiff, moving like an old woman, bent almost in half with the constriction in her chest, she climbed off the mattress and shuffled to it, reached out for the heat of it to drive out this gut-deep shiver. She leaned her face against the warm mantelpiece.
What was wrong with her? Why had he left?
She had been so far from thought in those final few minutes, she had lost all self-awareness. Somehow she had repulsed him. What had she done?
She crammed a fist in her mouth and bit down hard to keep from wailing in shameful despair.
She had destroyed it, turned him from the potent urgency of his desire. She had failed.
In the silent night, she wept.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She sat on the hill with her knees drawn up to her chin. It was hardly perfect comportment. She probably looked like an urchin, but it was impossible to make herself care when for an hour she had watched Lord Carhampton slop about in the mud, digging a ditch beside half-a-dozen burly farm workers. His clothes were ragged and torn.
Yet at the same time, knowing what he believed about the power of this to sway his tenants, it was difficult to watch him and think what he did was truly wrong. He was so compelling, his whole body thrown recklessly into his labors. He strove like a fiend, as if to drive out demons, and it gave her a secret thrill down deep in the secret places of her body to see him like this. Which was very primitive of her, no doubt.
Physically powerful, filthy, ragged, and sometimes with his marred shirt clinging to him, damp from a passing shower or from sweat, he was a primal creature. Had any Earl ever looked as this one did? He made her shiver.
She should be embarrassed, was embarrassed, and yet she could not stop following him about. He probably found her tiresomely transparent, an eager little lapdog. Sometimes she caught him staring at her with a frustrated frown on his face. Though he never said it she sensed he would prefer her absence. He could prefer as much as he liked. She was lonely, and bored, and if he refused to let her be useful - maybe not so useful as he, wallowing in the mud, but useful in a more pleasant way - then he could expect her to malinger-He was walking towards her. Her breath caught and her heart started to beat too hard. A good
countess did not pass out because a dirty, bespattered man climbed a hill with his eyes fixed on her. Even if that man was her Earl. She certainly did not pant or squirm. She was composed and in control.
"Elizabeth," he said.
"Chris."
"You look cold."
"It's damp and squelchy up here, and since the wind started to blow I'm turning into an icicle."
"Time to go back to the house?"
"Will you go with me?"
"There's still a great deal to do here."
"I don't want to go back by myself."
"Then you shouldn't have come out at all. You knew I had hours of work to do-"
"Yes. As you always do. Though you don't bring me your schedule and consult with me, it's true, I have learned what I can expect. Which is to say, your absence. I'm lonely. Won't you come home with me, and spend a few hours together? We could sit by the fire and talk-"
"Elizabeth, it's not my task to amuse you. You're an adult; old enough to understand this must be the priority. Our future prosperity is based on the estates running properly-"
"I don't need a lecture about priorities. I understand perfectly well my happiness is not your priority. I can also see you don't care about the future of our marriage, which also needs time for plowing, reaping and planting."
His eyebrows shot up, his eyes widened, and he stared at her. After a moment she caught her own innuendo, and blushed furiously. She opened her mouth, not certain what she would say, and her true heartbreak tumbled out. "Time spent on it! On me. Do you love me at all, that you ignore me as you do? Did I misunderstand you completely, when I said I'd marry you?"
"I expect with time love may grow-"
"With time! Yes! Only you won't give me that. Even as you mouth those words they sound like a platitude. Do you even believe them?"
"I'm sorry." His face closed, and he half-turned away from her to look out over the fields, lifted one hand to shade his eyes. "I can't give you what you want right now. Maybe, in time - don't rip up at me - but we shall find common ground and build something together. But for now, this is as much as I can manage. Getting through each day is the best I can do."