Everything But the Earl

by Willa Ramsey

  Yes, she decided. Time could definitely be allowed to stand still, here and now. At least for a moment.

  She pushed her hips against him then, as hard as she could. And something about the dark, the proximity of others, and the possibility of a servant stumbling upon them at any moment, drove her to signal to him as clearly as possible that, like him, she was primed for more than an exchange of promises.

  Adam responded to her boldness with a surprised growl, and leaned over her until his mouth found hers in the dark. He went for her lips with such force that her head hit the wall behind her, but when he pulled back and caressed her crown, she did not care for the pause; indeed, she grabbed his hair and pulled him roughly back to her mouth. She was glad for the wall; it gave her the ability to receive the full pressure of the kiss. She opened her mouth wide to him and he responded in kind, kissing all of her, with all of him.

  He gripped her waist and slid her up the wall, so that her head was closer in height to his own. She thrashed with her legs, trying to free them from beneath her long skirts so that she could wrap them around his waist. Soon, she felt Adam’s fingertips grabbing fistfuls of fabric at the top of her thighs, tugging them upward and, eventually, after a slight ripping sound from God knew where, her legs were freed just enough for her to encircle him as she wished.

  She gripped him with all her might, stilling him exactly where she wanted him.

  This was the sort of reckless intimacy she had imagined, a hundred times or more, in the nights—and some of the days—since she and Adam had first met, in the portrait gallery. And now that it was happening she found it did not disappoint. She had read every tome on intimacy and relations that Mrs. Hellkirk’s small library had to offer, and her expectations were high. And even so, these seconds with Adam in the flesh—oh, God, the flesh—exceeded those oft-imagined rewards. And again, that screaming voice inside her said, Do not let this end. Make this go on and on and on. You need this, like you need nothing else.

  Adam’s hands had gone back on her waist, and his thumbs, which had been resting low on her tummy, curved downward now, and engraved a sweeping arc in the seam where her thigh met her torso. When she had first kissed Adam, she had mistaken the feeling that occurred in her extremities for tingling or numbness, but now she knew it was not the absence of feeling; it was the opposite. His touches filled her with sensation, as if everything inside her were rushing all at once to the place where his hands had most recently traveled. It left the rest of her feeling emptied and dizzy.

  He continued his agonizing exploration of her groin with one hand, and the other he brought slowly upward, along her side, grazing her breast with his thumb.

  “You know, none of my books dwelled much on the erotic properties of thumbs,” she said as she broke away from his kiss, thrilled to her bones when she felt the deep vibrato of his laughter as he pressed his cheek against her neck.

  “God, I have missed you.” The higher of his hands abandoned the side of her breast in favor of tracing, with several roughened fingertips, the bare skin along the top of her gown.

  She lifted her chin, allowing him all the skin he could wish. “I have missed you, too—you have no idea how much. I am sorry I could not see you these past weeks.”

  “But you can see me. You could see me all the time, if you wanted to. My feelings have not changed. If you will have me, Caro, I would—”

  “Stop! Please, Adam—you must stop. Do not say it,” she interrupted, the frissons between them abating quickly as she slid her hands from his neck and rested them on top of his shoulders.

  “I know what you will say,” he murmured, his lips resting on, and still heating her skin. “You worry about Edie’s marital prospects, if we should marry. And a general…lowering in society for our family.”

  Pleasure and gratitude gripped her like a vise; he had referred to all of them—Edie, his mother, himself, and her—as a family. But she wrenched herself free of it at once; such things couldn’t be.

  “I refuse to abandon this happiness,” he continued, “for a future that may not come to pass. And as for how society might treat me? They can go hang for all I care. I love you, Caro.”

  They heard sounds from the studio above—a door closing, several sets of footsteps on the hardwoods, and muffled voices.

  “You must go back, Adam. I will duck out this door.” She wriggled, trying to undo her legs from around him, but with his arms tangled in her skirts and no light to guide them, she struggled.

  “Tell me you do not want this, Caro. Tell me you do not want this for all time.”

  “Of course I want this!”

  “If you want this, then do not push me away—”

  “You must let me go,” she said more urgently as she pushed at his arms, trying to remove them from her legs so that she could come off the wall. She felt herself becoming panicked. It was too dark, too small and stuffy and hot, and the memory of Chumsley grabbing her and touching her against her wishes too fresh in her mind.

  They finally untangled themselves, and Adam moved his hands to her waist again to support her while she regained her footing.

  “Don’t you see?” she said, her voice breaking. She was frantic, now, from the inability to free herself, yes, but also because she was irritated beyond all reason at having to deny her own feelings—at having to push Adam away, both in that moment and as a suitor, when all she wanted was to pull him close and accept him. Her blood ran hot at these uncertainties and contradictions, and from the helplessness that seemed to govern her new life. She pushed some damp hair back from her forehead, and decided right then and there that she must sever her ties with Adam in as permanent a way as possible. She had to force him to leave her—for his own sake, and for Edie’s. And she would have to be cruel to do it.

  At least then, one of her uncertainties and contradictions would be over with. “Don’t you see, Adam? I want your hands on me because I am a whore. I cannot help myself around gentlemen, just as Strayeth and Chumsley said. And that’s the only reason I am here on this landing with you. I am flawed, and fallen, and weak.”

  As soon as she was steady on her feet, Adam stepped back, and the sliver of light coming from above made a diagonal slash across his face. She could make out all of his features, now, from the fine lines around his furrowed right brow to the downturned left corner of his mouth. All of him looked still, and forsaken.

  “That’s not true, Caro. I am not just any gentleman. And this is not just any assignation.”

  “It is going to have to be,” she snapped back at him. “There can be no more.” She wiped the back of her hand across her face and let herself into the cooler air of the corridor, leaving Adam to return upstairs on his own, and to explain his mysterious foray into the servants’ stairwell for himself.

  One of the many advantages to being an earl was that people, especially those outside the ton, rarely questioned your behavior. So when Adam emerged from the back stairwell looking hurt and flummoxed and disheveled, he murmured something about getting lost on the way to the water closet, and no one raised an eyebrow. It helped that Mr. and Mrs. Crispin needed extra time to gather their materials and, if anything, seemed to appreciate his extended absence.

  They did not seem to miss their daughter, either, which he had come to realize was the normal way of things in this family. But who was he to judge? Heaven knew his own family was chockablock with flaws and foibles; and if Caro adored her mother and father, they were good enough for him, too.

  There he went again: thinking of her as his “intended.”

  If she wanted to push him away, she was going to have to do more than brand herself a whore and him just another assignation.

  He knew her refusal was about Edie’s prospects, and nothing more.

  As the Crispins continued to move about the studio, gathering rolls of paper and directing the one pupil who had joined them, he took the seat they offered him and rested an elbow on the table, then his forehead in his hand. His knee p
umped furiously under the table, trying to keep pace with his thoughts.

  He had been stupid—utterly stupid. He had been so damned excited to kiss Caro that he’d missed the opportunity to have a proper conversation with her—and didn’t know when he’d have one again. He’d forgotten to tell her, among other things, that he believed the damage to her reputation was reparable. And it was because there had been four or five things on her person that he found more pressing, or at least worth pressing. And caressing, and biting, and generally lavishing the better part of his attention on.

  And the distress she’d shown, when she tried to pull away from him? It had pained his heart, quite literally, and now sat heavily on his mind. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head slowly. He had done his best to help her free herself, but they’d been tangled up like a pair of abandoned fishermen’s nets.

  “Are you unwell, Lord Ryland?”

  He looked up at Mrs. Crispin, who was standing at the table, just around the corner from him. He had not noticed her there, clutching sheets of tracing paper to her chest.

  “How is your daughter, Mrs. Crispin? Is she unwell?” he replied.

  “She is…” she began before stopping herself. She peered into his face, as if checking in its corners and crevices for any insincerity that might be hidden there. Apparently, she did not find any. “Miss Crispin is not quite herself, my lord.”

  Her lack of surprise at his question led him to believe that she had some inkling of his relationship with—or at least interest in—her daughter. His earlier disappearance, his lagging with Caro on their first tour of his home, their cheerful and excessive letters to one another regarding his renovation? They had done little to conceal their affection from their families.

  “I miss seeing her, Mrs. Crispin. And I want more than anything to help her.”

  Her lips parted, then—whether in surprise or concern, he couldn’t say. She looked over her shoulder where her husband and Mr. Davies approached, the latter with a tray of refreshments.

  By the time she turned back, he had decided to continue down the path of naked honesty. “I’ve spent these past weeks trying to devise a way—or many ways—to help Caro,” he whispered. “I am at her service. But without knowing her mind, it is impossible to know how to act.”

  “What do you mean by that, Lord Ryland?”

  “I mean that I will do whatever is in my power to restore her spirits, and to give back to her the opportunity to do as she wishes.”

  “My lord—”

  “Please, call me Ryland.”

  “—Ryland, I will speak with her.” She shook her head, and for the first time, he read not only sadness but worry in every line of her face. “I cannot imagine what it must be like for her. To be the subject of gossip columns? To be talked of so widely, and so scurrilously, in drawing rooms across all of England? It is quite beyond me.”

  His head snapped up, just as the others arrived at their table with a clatter, dropping armfuls of rolled-up drawings and boxes of writing implements. And after clearing a space amidst this new detritus, Mrs. Crispin unrolled the most evocative set of drawings he had ever seen.

  But he could not focus on them at all, because he had just realized what he needed to do. It was as if the pieces of a broken mechanism he had struggled to make out had suddenly come together on their own, right before his eyes.

  “Forgive me, but I must leave you at once.” He flew out the door and barreled down the stairs, as fast as he could go.

  As he recalled, the last day of the Harvest Festival was coming up soon—it was either the very next day or the day after. Thankfully, it was just a ten-mile ride to the Village of Beauton, and about the same to Quillen’s beloved Banmoor.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Caro was looking down and putting on her gloves when she nearly crashed into a darkened figure in the entrance hall, standing just inside the front door.

  It was her mother.

  “Mama? What are you doing here?”

  She looked at the door, then back at Caro. “This is the way to the street, is it not?” She gave her a sly smile.

  Caro squinted back at her. Betsy Crispin did not linger in doorways—or give sly smiles. She was entirely too busy for such things. “What is going on here, Mother? Are you feverish? Do you need me to write a letter to the Prince Regent, explaining once more why you cannot build him an underwater drawing room?”

  Mama finished putting on her gloves. “Can’t a mother wish to join her daughter on a stroll to the work site?”

  “She can wish it. But will she do it?”

  “She will indeed. Now—where do you keep Toby’s leash?”

  Caro held it up.

  “Perfect. Let’s go, then.”

  “How have you been these past few days?” Mama asked when they stopped to wait for Toby to sniff at a tall, flowering weed in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “What can I say?” Caro sighed. “I’ve had to cancel Edie’s birthday party, which makes me despondent, but I also find myself feeling sorry for Chumsley, if you can believe that. I’m glad that the newspapers have begun reporting on his debts and the lies he’s told about them, but it remains to be seen whether these facts will serve to repair my situation at all. My heart is everywhere all at once, and I can’t make sense of any of it.”

  Mama put her arm around Caro’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Would you like to know what I’ve been doing?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you recall how the owner of White’s wrote to Papa last month, to commission a series of paintings for the entrance hall of his club?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I now have two of the loveliest oil paintings you’ve ever seen, well underway.”

  “That’s wonderful, Mama. What are they of?”

  “Recall, if you will, that he did not specify what the paintings should be of…”

  Caro turned and looked her in the eye. “Mama? What are they of?”

  “One is of a balloon, and the other is of a snake.”

  She nearly doubled over, hooting with laughter.

  “So Strayeth and Chumsley will be reminded of their promises to you, each and every time they go into their favorite haunt.”

  They both laughed heartily for several moments, and when they’d finally caught their breath, Caro said, “Edie said something not long ago that I thought was very interesting. She said that Chumsley and Strayeth were never the real villains in all this; she said I’ve been up against something bigger—something that harms women all throughout England. It’s certainly consistent with Mrs. Hellkirk’s teachings, but what do you make of it, Mama?”

  Her mother walked with her arms crossed in front of her, pinning the corners of her shawl against her chest.

  “The whole thing makes me feel hopeless,” Caro continued. “The entire English way of life doesn’t seem like something I can work on.”

  “You’ve taught Strayeth and Chumsley their lesson, Caro. An important—and rare—one, and you’ve done it in memorable fashion. I believe they will remember it, and even impart it one day to their sons. By teaching them to respect the ladies all around them.”

  “Or by telling their daughters they can stand up for themselves when they’ve been wronged.”

  “Precisely. And that, my dear, is how you change a way of life.”

  Her mother looked up then, the early-morning light setting her bourbon-colored eyes aglow. It occurred to Caro how little she took notice of such things about her mother: her extraordinary eyes; how slight her shoulders appeared, wrapped in her black lace shawl; the elegance of her long neck. The two of them seldom lingered like this over a personal matter, or out in the fresh air, or without Papa. And they never lingered without the presence of their fourth family member—their never-ending work.

  Caro closed her eyes and savored the feeling. “Speaking of standing up for oneself, I have sometimes wondered: Looking back, would you take a di
fferent course, if you could?”

  Mama tucked a curl behind her ear, and Caro saw herself in the gesture. “What do you mean? Would I decline the opportunity to learn architecture?”

  “No, Mama. I’m asking if you would decline Papa’s proposal.”

  “Heavens, no! Marrying your father was…well, it was my escape. Twice over, in fact.”

  “How so?” She shielded her eyes from the blinding sun as she watched her mother step carefully around Toby, who had stopped again, this time to stare down an insect.

  “My mother was a lady’s maid, as you know, to a very generous lady who paid for my schooling. I was fortunate that my school taught drawing, and that I had a knack for it. But the road to becoming a painter goes through the Royal Academy, and that institution does not admit women.

  “My accomplishments would have ended there, Caro, had I not fallen in love with a man who was about to become an architecture pupil. So marrying your father kept me from going into service, and it gave me an opportunity to take up a profession that I never would’ve dreamed of pursuing otherwise.”

  They continued their walk, Caro staring at the ground. “But he receives all of the accolades, Mama, whilst you’ve been hidden and silenced. If you were able to pursue your artistic talents as your own, with or without public acclaim, then perhaps you wouldn’t be sad so often.”

  She was quiet for several seconds as they walked. “I suppose it’s been rather obvious to you that my situation pains me, at times.”

  “I don’t desire to be ignorant of it, Mama. I’ve often wished I could help you, and have taken some comfort in the fact that I am able to carve out a life with greater freedom—and a louder voice—as a result of your lessons and your efforts.”

  “Is that true, though? I’ve been worried that my peculiar mothering has caused you more harm than benefit.”

  Caro’s mouth became a tight line. “Undoubtedly, there are those in society who believe that my freedom and my tongue are to blame for my current predicament. There was a moment or two when I believed that, too. But no—I wouldn’t trade the trust and confidence you and Papa have always given me, for a better reputation. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”