by Amelia Hart
Would he have felt the same for Sophia? She had always been an equal, fierce and independent, never likely to consult another. She said she loved him but he never felt needed by her.
But Elizabeth was very different. She turned those big, trusting eyes to him and raised her brows and smiled and waited for him to speak, or chattered confidingly with every thought on her tongue. There was no concealment about her.
She was not truly made for this life. Left alone in society, that glowing nature would be tarnished and dulled. The calculating machinations and subterfuge would destroy something in her. Already she was bewildered by it all.
No, he should not have left her alone. She needed a strong arm to take, a bulwark against harm. She trusted too easily, and if she would not guard her tongue - and that was a lesson he was strangely reluctant to teach her, for he liked her openness - then she needed someone with her to filter her companions and make sure those she chose were indeed worthy of her trust.
Look at that Seton fellow. Every time he thought of the scoundrel he felt his fists clench, wanting to pummel him again. Her eyes had been so wide with distress, that when he remembered her expression he could cheerfully have choked Seton.
Luckily for the boy's survival, he had not really registered her expression or thought of it until later, when he was cooler. After-After he had disillusioned her about the activities of the marriage bed. Now that had been a debacle.
One he could not forget.
The memory haunted him nearly as effectively as Sophia, and the guilt was nearly as bad. Some protector he had been then.
He was no doubt a particularly vile specimen, that stronger than his guilt was the desire to haul her away to a bedroom and make a better job of it.
Gazing at her across the table, at that lush cleavage, and remembering, was quite enough to make him hard as iron and glad the table hid his lap. Her breasts. Those glorious, full breasts, unbound, in his hands, with his mouth on them. Ah, heaven. He toyed with the food on his plate but barely ate.
Those breasts. Those soft lips. They had been very eager against his. Her hands, that descriptively shaped the air as she spoke to her dinner companion, had clutched him nearer. Would she be like that again? Had he spoiled it for her too thoroughly? He itched to find out. He could almost imagine sweeping her up in his arms, saying 'excuse me, I just have to find out if my wife is as receptive as the last time we were out together,' and then carrying her off to a darkened room or the carriage or any flat surface, really.
It was hard to think straight, once he began to imagine such things. With an effort of will he tore his attention away, picked up a carving knife and sawed at the hog's head in front of him. He passed a slice to each of the women next to him, then served a sliver to himself as well, and poked at it. All a subterfuge. All a pretense that he could sit and look at Elizabeth and still function as he was supposed to.
This was only the beginning of the evening. They still had the rout, and the ball. He hoped he could make it through the night with his willpower still holding.
He had renewed his promise to himself - to Sophia - to be true to her memory and not touch Elizabeth that way again. Yet this was only the first evening of this vow, of a series of evenings that stretched endlessly ahead. If he was to stay by her side for days, or even the weeks and months he knew she needed to be familiar with every person of the ton, to know whether each was to be trusted or not, he would never survive with honor intact.
Sanity told him he must eventually surrender that honor. It was inevitable. And truly, when he looked at her, when he remembered how it had felt to slide into the ecstasy of her soft body, honor seemed an empty, hollow thing.
_____
He was very quiet. He seemed preoccupied, which was not unusual for him, of course, yet he was not sad. He watched her very closely. Was he afraid she would embarrass him? But he did not seem apprehensive either. Instead he was charged with some sort of vitality, so he almost vibrated with tension.
The rout had been a huge success, as such things were judged. Tomorrow during morning calls her hostesses would say it was a dreadful squeeze, where one was barely able to move, and she would nod and agree. Routs were her least favorite social event. If only she could avoid them all. Yet if she was to be part of fashionable London, she must take part, must be seen in the right places.
But balls? Oh, who did not love a ball?
The Hastings' ballroom was decorated with great swathes of fabric hanging from the ceiling, swooping out to the walls. It was meant to imitate a circus tent, encircling the whirling dancers.
She squeezed Christopher's upper arm, pressed it to her chest and said, "Isn't the effect interesting? So evocative."
He looked dazed for a moment, then blinked and gave her a vague smile. "Have you ever been to the circus?"
"Every year, when it comes to Covent Gardens"
"Would you like some champagne?"
"Actually what I want is to dance. Just think, we may stand up together as often as we please, without making everyone condemn us."
"Relief indeed."
"I know you're teasing me. I see your smile. Very well. You needn't dance with me at all. I'm sure I can attract plenty of partners."
"I shall start you off, certainly." He bowed very gallantly, as if he had not just held her arm all the way in. Then he took her hand and they went to join the sets in the center of the chalked floor. It was a country jig, one she knew well. Delightful.
It was a peculiar thing to dance with him. To meet his gaze and hold it, and wonder what he was thinking. To not make polite conversation as one must when dancing with a stranger, but connect and part and connect again, in silence, eyes locked, until it seemed every touch was hugely significant. Where was friendship in this? How was she to joke and laugh and distract him when he looked at her that way and she felt breathless and spinning? Oh, what was he thinking? His expression reminded her of those long minutes alone with him on a stranger's bed. She was overheated, and not only from the dance.
When the piece ended and a waltz immediately began, he did not let go of her but simply changed his hold and swept her out to the middle of the dance floor. His hand clasped her waist and the warmth of his touch pulsated through her body. He was so tall and broad compared to her, so masculine, she felt delicately feminine next to him.
"I don't know what to say to you,” she said, and heard how breathy her voice sounded. “When you hold me this close, I am so distracted I can barely talk. I didn't intend to be boring."
"You may be certain you don't bore me."
"When I think of all the lessons I received about proper topics of conversation with a man, it's very lowering to think I must be silent because nothing comes to mind. I can't complain to you about this wet weather we've had, because if I do I will remember you standing in a cold, boggy field with mud to your waist and rain hammering down. Too ridiculous then to make a fuss over these paltry London showers."
"I see what you mean."
"And I've spoken about the crowd and the decorations already. I suppose I could go on about the supper but I haven't eaten it yet so it would all be speculation. And then I look up at you and-Oh, see. So quickly I forget what I was going to say. Perhaps it is your eyes. They are such a pretty color, it's hard to look at them and think straight."
"Is that what does it? Then I will say yours are a very pretty color too."
Did he mean he found her eyes distracting? She was not brave enough to ask. "I know so little about you. Of your life before we met. Tell me what it was like."
His eyebrows went up, but he answered easily enough. "Nothing very exciting. I studied law at Oxford, practiced as a barrister, and was active in politics. I intended to eventually run as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons."
"So, a life of public service?"
"That was the plan."
"Why politics? Do you like power?"
"Not unduly. Only as a means to an end. There's much to be done i
n this country. Reform is sluggish. I planned to put my shoulder behind that and push it forward as much as I could."
"But your plans have changed."
He looked away, over the heads of the other dancers. "It is not so much that they have changed. More that-It is hard to believe in the rightness of my choices when-One of the reasons I refused to give up the title for Sophia was because as a member of the House of Lords I already have what it would have taken years, if not decades, to achieve. With a seat in parliament I have a voice, a chance to make change. I weighed up the good I could do against a life with her, and she lost. Lost more than I realized. I did not know the strength of her feelings for me."
"So you must give up politics now, as expiation?"
"It's not quite that. Doing so is meaningless. It's more that the unrelenting pursuit of it seems so wrong in the face of her death."
"I thought it was concern for the estate that made you give her up. So you could be free to marry for advantage." She said it steadily, and pretended it did not hurt.
"That also. Two perfectly compelling reasons, I thought."
"I don't think they would have been, if you truly loved her."
He closed his eyes and breathed hard through flared nostrils, and she instantly regretted saying it aloud. Her wretched tongue! Why did she poke and prod at him like this, when she had meant to be only kind and gentle?
"I'm sorry. I should not have said-"
"I begin to think you are right. I'm not sure I really understood love. Yet when I hear the words the shame-It almost unmans me. I could wish the earldom had never come to me - that I was still the man I once was. Then I stood on solid ground."
She heard what he did not say: that then he would not be married to her. She ducked her head. "And Sophia would still be alive."
"Yes. I promised her I would not speak of her to you. So far I have done an appalling job of keeping my word."
"I think you blame yourself too much. I wish you wouldn't. Is it such a crime to be happy?"
"It feels that way."
She squeezed his hand, where it held hers. "You could be kinder to yourself. Nothing is served by your suffering. And it hurts me to watch it."
"Does it?"
"Yes."
"Such an unfortunate time you've had."
"Pretend, just for a few hours, that we've met and made friends, that there is nothing more for us to think about than our own enjoyment. Pretend you are happy. Just a few hours. Please."
He looked down at her, his face still, and she waited, breath suspended. Then one corner of his mouth quirked up in a reluctant half smile. "Very well. A few hours. If you'll consider it a poor sort of apology for all I've done to you."
"Oh," she laughed up at him, "for that you'll need to be happy for days. But we can start with this. So tell me what is your very favorite thing to do, and why."
So she teased and cajoled him, and now he had given himself permission, it was as if a weight had gone from his shoulders. He smiled, talked, even laughed twice. She fancied when he looked at her he saw her without the screen of guilt he had named, because for once he truly listened to her. He drew her out in turn, and they chatted, their waltz long finished, on a settee in a corner of the ballroom, their heads bent together, voices low.
As she leaned in, her shoulder almost touched his, and she was aware of the proximity down to the soles of her tingling feet. His sleeve brushed her upper arm and a quiver went through her, so her neck lengthened and flexed in a subtle stretch. So close.
She thought she could smell him, over the scent of beeswax candles, perfumes and pomade. She liked the smell of him. It was more than just the sandalwood and cloves, something else difficult to describe, not like anything she knew, but it beckoned her in so she wanted to put his arms around her shoulders, snuggle in and wear him like a coat. So masculine. So delicious.
He talked to her softly of trout fishing - of all things - and his voice was deep and gentle, and when his hands lifted to describe in gesture the flick of a rod, she looked at them and hungered to have them on her skin. It was easy to slip into a daze of imagination, just sitting here and listening to him talk, so compelling. Yes, he would be a great politician. He spoke well, and he was so charismatic.
It had been hard to see, really. Oh, he had always impressed her. But now she suddenly had some sense of the man he truly was, behind the grief. There was an energy he had subdued, as if he tried to snuff life out of himself. She wanted to hold him tight and pull him back from that edge, to say no, he must not deny life.
Why?
Because she needed that man. She needed for that to be her husband. Not the half-alive, stoic laborer. Not the martyr. She must have the vital, living, thinking man, whole and present. It was instinct that told her it was so. Instinct that said he was essential to her, and the strong sense of it was confusing.
Had she not just said to him her marriage was a mistake, and should never have happened - would not, if he had only told her the truth of his circumstances?
How could her heart then lurch and bound, and her whole being tingle with yearning, when all he did was smile and talk to her?
Was this all in her head?
She put her gloved hand on his, where it lay on the settee between them, and he paused and glanced down, then met her gaze. His pupils were very dark, the green only a slender rim around them.
She should say something. She should rationalize the contact, or speak of something else, to break the tension. But for once she had no words, nothing to say. Only this desire to connect with this man, this Chris, who she had never truly met, never known, who might be gone tomorrow, once again victim to self-denial, but who sat and confided in her now like her friend. Like her husband.
His nostrils flared. His eyelids lowered halfway. "You should not look at me like that. Not here."
"Then take me somewhere else where I can look at you like that."
"It is not wise."
"Sometimes being wise is very foolish. Come." She took his hand in a firmer grip, stood and tugged him up. He came without resistance and stood over her, so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze.
He shook his head slightly. "Not wise at all," he murmured, more to himself than to her. Then his face set in resolve, and it was she who was pulled through the crowded room.
The other guests were a blur, and their hostess a meaningless, smiling face as they made their farewells. Then they were away. The sharp night air slapped her cheeks and she huddled into the wrap Chris had fastened at her throat with fingers that fumbled a little.
There had been no time to summon the carriage to the door, so she skipped along at his side as he strode down the pavement, the edge of every paving slab harsh against the thin material of her slippers. Her hand was in his, hot even through their gloves.
There was fear there, too, of what would come, of pain. But even that was not worse than if he returned to his cold distance. Anything was better than that.
He was not cold now. No, he was urgent, and it excited her. He was her compelling stranger.
Here was their carriage, and he wrested the door open. The startled coachman jolted from his hunched doze under a rug, and peered down at them.
Chris commanded, "Home, Harris. And don't spare the horses."
"Right you are, my lord," said Harris, and as the door snapped shut behind them and they were enclosed in the cool, leather-scented darkness, the brougham lurched into motion. The whip cracked over the horses' heads and now they clattered over the cobbles, the brougham rocking so Chris braced himself against the wall and dragged her into the circle of his arms for protection.
She came without protest, leaned on him and breathed him in. Her stomach clenched. Thank heavens the Hastings lived so close to their London house. He must not have time to change his mind. Not when this urgency drummed through her like a heartbeat, one with life. Crazy to want him like this, when he had hurt her. Crazy to smell the man scent of him, look at his wide
hands, press up against his hard body and forget to think. So she was crazy. Let it be so. He had said he would never hurt her again. Let it be true.
The carriage had barely halted when he had the door open and was halfway to the ground, hand extended for hers. She took it and let him pull her out, so fast she fell against his chest and he caught her up and swept her straight up to the door. He unlocked it one-handed, his other arm tightened around her chest, and she laid her head on his shoulder. Her head whirled as he carried her into the house and up the main stairs. He took them two-at-a-time so she clutched him, half-panicked. She was not such a lightweight.
He breathed heavily at the top, but did not stop, only strode to the master bedroom and thrust open the door. He slammed it behind them and let her slide down the front of his body.
"I have tried. God knows I have tried. But you-You are a more potent lure than I have the will to resist." He seized her, plunged his fingers deep into her hair and held her head still so he could plunder her mouth.
She lifted her arms to twine them around him and pull herself in closer, her curves sinking into his hard shape. Passion was a thunder in her blood, dark and rolling over her. His tongue in her mouth was urgent and reckless and she sucked on it and moaned, her knees softening so they barely held her up.
He took her weight, his forearms hard bars around her ribs, half-lifted her to the bed and sprawled on it with her on his chest. His hands shifted and shaped her, dragged her close, then he rolled so she was beneath him, arched over her and devoured her, fierce with masculine possession.
She whimpered with the force of it, confused and needing, wanting his skin on hers, wanting more of him, everywhere. Her body twisted beneath his, trying to get nearer, to clutch him and pull him in, to burrow closer to that fervent heat. She fumbled with the buttons at the front of his shirt, mangled his cravat and moaned with frustration.