by Darcy Burke
What would happen to her?
Chapter Sixteen
WHEN CONSTANTINE AWOKE the next morning it was to realize three things: he’d never had a liaison as intense as the previous night’s, he was starved, and Elizabeth was gone.
Smugness and a touch of embarrassment flowed through him at the realization that he could hear her in the next room seeing to Oliver and Mrs. Dalton. Without a doubt, the sound of their lovemaking had drifted through the inn.
Of all the places to have finally succumbed, when in London she let a house with a dozen private rooms…
He was grateful Lord Wyndham had chosen to leave.
There was nothing to do for it but to pack his things, have a hearty breakfast and move on before he encountered anyone else he knew. A glance around the room showed it hadn’t been disturbed since the night before. No fire, no tray of cold, untouched dinner, no trunk with his fresh change of clothes. That must have been delivered to Elizabeth’s room. He grinned. If there’d been a knock at his door, he certainly hadn’t heard it. But he very much doubted any servant would have had the gall to even attempt entry.
Pulling on his shirtsleeves, he tucked the tail in halfway and tied the strings at his neck. Then he ran his hand through his hair and left his room to knock on Elizabeth’s door.
After an initial scuttling, he was met through a six-inch crack by the blushing face of Mrs. Dalton.
“Good morning, Mrs. Dalton,” he said in a teasing tone, and enjoyed the way her breath expelled in soft, reprimanding tsk. “Lovely day, is it not?” He was feeling rather pleased with himself this morning. Yes, he was. He supposed he ought to be discreet, and not bandy his conquest about like this, but Elizabeth had paid him to make it public, had she not? And he wanted his success to be recognized. He’d made Elizabeth his last night and he had no doubt in his mind that Elizabeth knew it. Given the thinness of the walls, everyone must know it.
What would happen between them next, he couldn’t say, but then he’d never been one to think too far ahead. It ruined the surprise.
Mrs. Dalton cleared her throat. “It is, my lord.”
He did like making Mrs. Dalton blush, but there was no call to be boorish, and if he was making her truly uncomfortable then he must stop. He gifted her with a perfectly bland smile instead of the beaming, cocksure one he wanted to flash. “Is my trunk in there?”
Relief relaxed her face. “It is, my lord. Would you like me to bring it over?”
As if he’d let her! He’d sooner have her darning his stockings. “It’s far too heavy. I’ll fetch it myself—” He braced a hand against the door to push it open, but she held fast. He lifted an eyebrow. “Mrs. Dalton?”
She didn’t budge. “Madam is occupied at the moment. If you’ll wait but a quarter hour, I’ll have the trunk brought over.”
There was nothing Elizabeth could be doing that involved parts of her that he hadn’t engaged with last night. He stepped forward and Mrs. Dalton instinctively stepped back. The door slipped open another few inches, just enough to give Constantine a view of Elizabeth reclined against the bedframe with Oliver snuggled against her shoulder. She looked up. Her eyes caught his and she smiled.
A wave of possessiveness socked him hard. It fair knocked his breath out. She looked nothing like the siren he’d seduced last night. She was a benevolent, adoring mother in perfect harmony.
An emotion he’d never felt before filled him so full he felt as though he might burst with it. She looked so beautiful, like the Madonna. Morning sunlight even shined upon her from the open window.
If any woman had ever made him want to protect her more, he couldn’t remember it.
Mrs. Dalton swiveled her head back to look aghast at him. “My lord, please! She’s still abed.”
His first attempts to reply were nonsense syllables. He felt a need to cross the room and sit beside Elizabeth, to become a part of the magical painting she and Oliver created. His son and his mistress. But he realized the inappropriateness of his intrusion and the lack of right he had to insert himself and he retreated a few steps into the hall. With an abrupt nod, he tore his gaze from the surreal image and turned back to his room. “Send it as soon as you are able.”
He returned to his room grudgingly. It had changed since he’d seen it last. It was cold. A room and a bed for a man who’d needed little else. Now it felt like his purpose was in the next room.
Impatient to return to her—and still decidedly hungry—he paced while he waited for his trunk to be brought over. Finally, a rap on the door ended his misery. He performed his ablutions quickly and donned a new set of clothes, then gave his boots a cursory wipe with an old polish rag and set back for Elizabeth’s door.
This time, she answered it herself. It took all his control not to gather her in a tender embrace and cover her lips with a sweet good morning kiss. He would stop to wonder at this sudden rush of feeling, but it was too heady, and her gray eyes too soft and adoring, for him to want to ruin it with an exploration of why.
“Good morning.” His voice sounded rough. Was he nervous? Ridiculous. Yesterday he hadn’t even wanted to talk to her. What a difference her yielding to him made. “Have you taken breakfast?”
“They brought it up earlier. I imagine you were still asleep.” Her eyes twinkled. She knew he’d been, because she’d left him sprawled across the narrow mattress, the minx.
“I’m not quite awake even now,” he admitted. In fact, he’d very much like to slide under the covers with her…
She made a moue. “Is my lord a slugabed?”
“Until I’ve had my morning dish of coffee, yes.” He attempted to peer around her. “You wouldn’t by chance have a leftover slice of toast?”
“If we did, it would be an impenetrable crust by now. Perhaps you should take your breakfast downstairs in the main room while we complete our packing.”
The thought of leaving her again, and while she toiled no less, didn’t sit right with him. “Why don’t you join me and I’ll have one of the maids sent up to help Mrs. Dalton.”
Elizabeth’s features seemed to soften even more, until her adoration transformed into a glowing approval that made him feel both ten feet tall and terrified at the same time.
What was he doing?
She apprised Mrs. Dalton of their plans while he kicked his heels in the hallway. Then she stepped out with him, drew the door closed behind her and looked up into his eyes. “Thank you,” she said softly, and came onto her tiptoes to brush a kiss along his jaw. That sweet gesture stole his heart, for finally, finally, she’d appreciated him, instead of seizing back control.
He offered her his arm and led her to the carpeted stair. When they came to the first landing, she laughed, a giddy, delightful sound, and he raised a brow in question. She shook her head. “I don’t recall any of this, though we must have come by here on the way to your room.”
Her bold way of speaking should have cemented her place in his head as less than a lady. Instead, he’d grown inured to her frank language. His Lady Elizabeth had a brazen way of speaking. He liked it.
It didn’t hurt that he didn’t remember any of the wall hangings or polished banisters, either. The red carpet runner beneath their feet might as well have been rolled out that morning. “I fear my memory isn’t what it used to be, either,” he said, looking to continue her easy, flirtatious tone. “I can hardly recall anything from last night at all.”
She tapped his hand playfully. “Then I shall have to help you remember. Where would you like me to start? I have it etched in my mind quite clearly.”
He stopped one step lower on the stair than she and turned to her. He took her mouth in a deep, languid kiss. She smelled like flowers and baby and buttered toast. She kissed him back with the same fervency he felt, even lifting her hands to his hair and cupping both sides of his head until he had a mind to turn them around and let breakfast become a distant thought.
But he pulled back. Despite being breathless, glassy-eyed, and hard as
a rock, he couldn’t take her back to his room. He’d feel sordid. Actually, now that the moment had passed and she was watching him with inquisitiveness and that same hopeful worship he’d waited so long to see, he felt rather like a cad for accosting her on the stair where any passerby might have seen.
“Forgive me,” he said, turning back, his hand instinctively reaching for hers and placing it again on his arm, “it appears I do remember certain events after all.”
He caught her smile, but she said nothing more. In the dining room, two plates were set before them almost immediately, along with a pot of tea and his blessed coffee. He tucked into his meal. It would be hours before their next stop, and then another half day of travel until they reached Devon.
He didn’t think that was at all the reason he was famished.
Elizabeth ate in dainty bites compared to his shovelfuls of eggs and kippers, but when he looked up again, her plate was clear. She sipped at her tea. Over the rim, her eyes traveled around the room. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she’d enjoy watching strangers go about their morning. Londoners like themselves were naturally drawn to people. Certainly, he spent enough time at Will’s doing the exact same thing that he couldn’t help but feel a kinship with her for it.
“Anyone of interest?” He set down his fork and took up his coffee. Bliss.
“That depends on who you find interesting.”
“Maybe I want to know who you find interesting.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She smiled, not taking her eyes from whatever had caught her attention. He looked over his shoulder and immediately saw a young mother attempting to feed two unruly children at a trestle table in the corner of the room.
“It looks like she could use some help,” he observed, and didn’t miss the flash of approval Elizabeth shot him. He sat taller in his seat. He might never know why she’d finally unbent for him, but by God, it felt good to see her appreciate him at last.
She suddenly became intent upon the act of pouring out another cup of tea. “What are we about today, my lord?” she asked without looking up at him, for spooning sugar into her tea was apparently too absorbing to share her attention with him. “More driving, I suppose.”
He savored the satisfaction of her being shy around him. She saw him. As a man, not a pawn. “We have a full day of driving left. I trust you’re up to it?”
Her tea must be syrup by now. She sipped from it and he laughed when she pulled a face. “What?” she asked.
He grinned and shook his head. “Nothing. Today will be a dull day indeed, but you may look forward to tomorrow. We’ll ride out to the canal then and see what there is to see.” He didn’t divulge his skepticism with that. If her solicitor thought he should see the project himself, then he would go, but in all truthfulness, he didn’t feel the least optimistic about it.
She took another sip of tea, grimaced, and topped off her teacup from the pot. “Have you decided where we’ll stay?”
“Now that I don’t know. There is an inn in Brixcombe, the Hound and Hen, but…” He didn’t like the idea of taking Elizabeth to such a public place, where she would be vulnerable to the open stares and scandalized judgment of his neighbors. Just like here, but with people he knew.
“If I might make a suggestion,” she said, and he almost laughed aloud. Since when had she been bashful about offering her opinion? Did she see him as a partner now, rather than a hired mercenary who could be ordered around?
He gestured for her to continue. “Please do.”
“Lord and Lady Trestin have a small cottage on the outskirts of town. I believe it was once the vicarage. We may be able to stay there, with only a small inconvenience to Lord Trestin.”
Ah, there was the wily Elizabeth he’d come to esteem.
“The vicarage, you say? You don’t mean the old Amherst property? Isn’t that a crumbling ruins of a place?”
An emotion he couldn’t quite identify flashed across her face. Sadness? Anger? Disappointment? “It was, but not anymore. Lady Trestin and I put it to rights earlier this year.” Another vulnerable flicker of melancholy. “I believe we’d be welcome there. Lord Trestin might even be persuaded to send down a few servants, if you asked it of him.” She regarded Con expectantly.
He couldn’t possibly afford the upkeep of an entire cottage even for a few days, with personal servants, too, but she looked so hopeful that he set aside his apprehension. “I’ll send a runner ahead of us. I suppose we should kick on, then, if we’re to arrive before dinner. Lord Trestin is notoriously fixed on taking his meal at six of the clock, if I recall correctly.”
Her answering laugh crawled along his spine and reminded him too well of the previous night. “Trestin has improved in many ways since marrying my friend, but he hasn’t changed that much.”
Con rose and went around to help her with her chair, then turned back and flipped the innkeeper a coin. It felt like it lightened his pockets by half, but he tried to put it from his mind. Lord Trestin was a good sort, if Con recalled correctly. He might even accept an IOU if it came to it. But in the back of Con’s mind played the knowledge that she could afford to open a cottage for a week. Money was like air to her, a commodity she used without thinking about.
As she regaled him with a picturesque description of a place he remembered as barely more than a crofter’s hut, he realized that it wasn’t just her gobs of money that made her richer than he. She lived life, while he’d only been passing through. Had he ever done more than accept what was given to him? Her tale of the cottage restoration left him wondering. He’d tried to be useful, what with sinking his money into the schools and making the odd investment, but he’d never done more than draft a bank note.
She seized opportunity. She lived. Her situation wasn’t one most women would want, but she had friends, and even a purpose. She’d made the best of her lot and established herself at the top of her profession. What had he done, but dragged himself from one day to the next?
He wanted to be part of her vivacity. But he couldn’t, so long as he felt like a hanger-on, as he did whenever the topic of money came up. He could almost feel the handful of coins in his purse rubbing together like dry kindling.
Last night had been an aberration. He’d felt like a king for a time, but he should have known his lack of consequence would catch up to him. Her newfound adoration only magnified his shortcomings.
If she had any indication of his maudlin thoughts, she didn’t show it. She touched his hand to punctuate her sentences and granted him warm looks when he remembered to make noises at the appropriate places. Montborne’s fear that she’d been manipulating him looked ridiculous in light of her new adulation of him.
No, she wasn’t the problem. He was. If he was to continue on with her—and by God, he meant to—he must do two things to be worthy of her: find a way to be self-sufficient and prove to her that he had as much purpose in life as she did. That she could count on him…even if such a promise sent icy chills through his veins.
But that was how he’d come to be unworthy of her in the first place. He was eight and twenty years old, for God’s sake. It was time to act like a man, or else he would end up alone like his oldest brother—and despite Montborne’s protestations to the contrary, the last few months of his moping about the house belied his professed love of being unfettered.
All Con had to do was convince Elizabeth that he was more than the convenient, insolvent clod she’d needed between Captain Finn and herself. Then she’d keep looking at him with that trusting gaze and he wouldn’t feel like such a confounded fraud.
He estimated he had until the end of their holiday to improve himself. If Montborne’s experiences were representative of the whole, women were only blind to one’s faults until the novelty wore off.
He grimaced. He’d have to do better than “best his blockhead of a brother” for his sense of purpose. That was a low bar, indeed.
***
After another long day of being jostled, they reached
Brixcombe only an hour before dinner. Elizabeth closed her pocket watch and tucked it into her reticule. Lord Trestin wouldn’t be enthusiastic about their tardiness, but it couldn’t be helped. This late in the year, the roads were in poor shape from all of travelers escaping London’s insufferable heat.
She pressed her back against the squab and brushed aside the window hanging. From his rear-facing seat across the carriage, Con watched her with open interest. She paid him no mind and craned her neck to see beyond the window. In the few months since she’d left, Brixcombe hadn’t changed a bit, but then this sleepy village nestled just beyond a horseshoe-shaped ring of surging cliffs likely hadn’t changed in four hundred years.
A commotion from the top of the carriage lasted just long enough for her and Con to exchange worried glances. Then the horses drew up suddenly and Elizabeth reached her arm across Mrs. Dalton’s chest, as if she could stop the force of a grown woman and four-month-old being catapulted across the carriage.
Luckily, they weren’t tossed from their seats. Con threw the door open and jumped out. Moments later he returned, bounding into the carriage with the easiness of a man born a dashing rake.
Elizabeth didn’t pause too long to admire his agility. “What’s the matter?” she asked before he had time to settle.
“James, the runner I sent ahead, waved down your coachman. Lord Trestin has extended an invitation for us to stay at Worston rather than at the cottage.”
Elizabeth did her best to hide her disappointment. “That’s very kind of him.”
Con nodded and tapped his knuckles on the coach ceiling. The horses pulled forward and once again, Elizabeth whipped her arm across Mrs. Dalton and Oliver. Con shot her an odd look but then, he couldn’t truly understand the innate need she felt to protect her child, even when her attempt would be futile if put to an actual test. “I take it you’d rather stay at this cottage you spoke of this morning,” he guessed.
