Don't be a ninny. This is Crispin. Formerly a friend. Briefly a husband.
Except, the human body cared not for logic. They were all primitive beings. It was an understanding recorded since the beginning of time. That evidential understanding did nothing to dull the heat settling low in her belly. "It is not?" she prodded, her voice throaty to her own ears, sultry in ways she'd believed a bookish bluestocking such as her incapable.
As if burned, Crispin jerked his hand back, the imprint of that accidental caress lingering still. "Simple," he croaked. "It is not that simple."
Elizabeth fought through the daze he'd cast. "And why not?"
Crispin unfurled to his full height and began to prowl at a steady pace on the ancient floral Aubusson carpet. She narrowed her eyes. Pacing had forever been the telltale gesture of his unease.
"I might have earned something of a reputation," he muttered, avoiding her eyes when his forward pace brought him back to where he could make direct contact with her stare.
"Indeed?" She well knew what was written about Crispin. Even though she'd left him, she'd picked through those scandal sheets, aged by the time they reached Mrs. Belden's, about tales of Crispin's exploits. And each blasted piece had struck like an arrow to the chest, because he'd taken a vow to her, and their friendship had been one where pledges had meant something.
She feigned wide-eyed innocence. "Tell me, Your Grace, what manner of reputation is that?"
Chapter 4
Elizabeth Terry-Brightly, or whatever surname she now went by, was nothing like the girl he remembered... and yet, at the same time, she was everything like her.
One thing, however, was very clear--the minx was having a deuced good time at his expense.
She may have become a master of dissembling in the time that had passed, but the glee she found in his discomfort was there in each well-placed barb she cleverly masked as a question.
He forced himself to stop, facing her once more.
More than a foot shorter than his own six feet, four inches and seated as she was, she still managed to stare down the length of her slightly too-long nose. Challenging him. Daring him. And somehow, also, teasing him. Such had always been her way.
"I've earned the reputation of a rogue," he confessed bluntly. Another gentleman would likely feel a modicum of remorse or regret at making that admission to his wife. For all the gossip, however, Crispin had not a jot to feel guilty over.
Elizabeth gave no outward reaction to his admission. "Have you?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Why do I think, Elizabeth, that you already knew that detail about me?"
A pretty blush stained her cheeks. "How would I know anything of the sort?" She countered with a question of her own, her pitched voice marking her a liar.
Why... it was true. The longtime friend and brief bride who'd left in the dead of night had followed mention of his name.
Elizabeth watched him with suspicion-laden eyes. "What?"
With a slow smile, Crispin resettled himself onto the seat opposite her. Her betrayal had ripped him up. But knowing she'd followed his goings-on meant he'd mattered to her, too. "Why, you've followed me in the papers, haven't you, love?"
She shifted in her chair. "Merely to determine that you were nowhere near Mrs. Belden's."
His earlier and all-too-brief triumph faded. She'd left him. He'd given her his name and offered her security, and she'd simply abandoned him. As such, there could be no doubting her feelings for him. Or rather, lack thereof. "I see," he said evenly. That understanding had dawned long ago, and yet, something in hearing her speak so casually about hiding from him stirred the turbulent emotions within his breast, a swirl of anger, hurt, and shock that he'd thought he'd mastered, but they remained deep within.
Elizabeth sat upright, her spine going erect, as though a metal rod had been inserted. The girl she'd been would have shot out question after question. This new, more controlled, somber version of her younger self remained stoically silent.
Crispin went on with his reasons for seeking her out. "The reputation I've... earned"--he stumbled over that word--"has cast doubt on the veracity of my claims of marriage."
Elizabeth puzzled her brow. "They believe you've lied about being married?"
"Indeed." Stretching his legs out, Crispin looped them at the ankles. "Young ladies determined to have the title of Duchess of Huntington suspect that I, in my desire to carry on my roguish existence, have fabricated a wife."
She made a tsking sound. "If only you'd had such an idea ten years ago, you would have found yourself unburdened with a wife."
He blinked slowly, and it took a moment for those words and the implied meaning to sink into his mind. Was that what she believed? That all this time, he'd spent regretting the arrangement they'd struck as friends? One that had not only been mutually beneficial, but had formed a bond far greater than any cold, empty union of the ton because of the friendship between them?
Anger rooted around his chest, severing the thin thread of his patience. "I'm not the one who ran," he snapped. That leached the color from her cheeks. His chest rose and fell with the force of his fury, and he leaned forward in his chair, shrinking the distance between them. "You were. So do not play the wounded party, Your Grace," he shot back, turning the title they shared on her. Mindful that any busybody could be about, he lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. "You left, Elizabeth. You did. Not me." And in doing so, she'd turned her back on a bond that went back to the earliest days of their youth.
Crispin waited, braced for her response.
She clasped her hands primly on her lap. Her death grip drained the blood from her fingers and made a mockery of her calm. "So you need me to act as your wife," she said quietly.
"Yes, for Polite Society."
What did you expect? An apology? Any hint of regret or shame?
And would any of it have made a difference, either way?
"How long would you require I serve in that capacity?"
They might as well have spoken of a hired servant and not a woman who, with her veneered title, could command any ballroom or household throughout England.
He fisted his hands so tight, his signet ring bit into the bottom crease of his finger. "As my wife," he repeated, needing her to hear it and acknowledge it, for she wasn't a housekeeper or parlor maid. She was the woman whose name was eternally attached to his own. "I must introduce you to the world, as my wife."
"For how long?" she repeated.
At what point had such a relationship with him become so anathema to her? And why should it bother him still, all these years later? Hadn't he accepted her betrayal and built an existence without her in it? Except, her indifference made a mockery of that very thought.
To give himself something to do, Crispin pulled out his gloves and beat them together. "I'll require your presence for a handful of days. We'll host a formal ball for members of the ton. Nothing more." There had never been anything more. But there could have been. There almost had been. And not for the first time since she'd left, he thought briefly about what these years would have been like had she stayed. Fighting back the useless, maudlin musings, he fixed on the task at hand.
Her frown deepened. "Planning a ball requires far greater circumspection." She proceeded to tick off on her fingers. "There is the menu to consider and musicians. And, of course, because of your station"--your, not our--"invitations must be handwritten and delivered."
Ah, Elizabeth. She spit forth each detail the way she had her findings about a butterfly flitting through his mother's prized gardens. As a girl, and then woman, who valued research, Elizabeth, however, didn't have the logic required for the nonsense of societal functions. As she continued her accounting, he sat back and studied her. "Of course, you'll no doubt already have candles, but you'll require those that burn for eight hours." She furrowed her brow. "I'd venture three hundred candles, and they'll cost upwards of..." Her lips moved as she completed her silent tabulations. "Fifteen pounds."
He opened his mouth to interject, but she continued. "And there are floral decorations--hothouse and those taken from your private gardens."
Setting down his gloves, Crispin picked up the small leather volume that rested on the table between them. He briefly studied the gold lettering etched along the spine and then flipped through the tome. As he fanned the pages, section headings drifted past.
Deportment...
Propriety...
Conduct...
Butterflies are polymorphic, you know. A useful skill and all to evade their predators. You'd be wise to employ a bit of that strategy at your mother's next picnic...
"How very different your reading and knowledge content is now," he murmured.
She avoided his gaze, training it instead on the dull bit of literary nonsense best used for kindling in his fingers. "Given the reason for your sudden visit, it appears there is, and always was, more relevance to that information"--she motioned to that title he still held--"than any useless fact about butterflies."
A pang struck in his chest. Is that what she truly believed? Or was that what the clever young woman who'd pored over scientific journals and periodicals told herself to ease the loss of those topics that had so fascinated her? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask as much, but something in the strain of her lips called back the questions.
Crispin redirected them to safer territory. "The ball has already been planned, Elizabeth." His mother, one of Society's leading hostesses, had leaped at the opportunity to plan a ball, until she'd learned the reasons for it. "The moment I secured confirmation of your whereabouts, I took the liberty of having the event organized and invitations sent out."
Fire flashed in her eyes. "You assumed my accompanying you was a given, then?"
No. He'd never known precisely what Elizabeth Brightly, as unpredictable as an autumn leaf winding a path to the ground, intended to ask... or do. That unpredictability was one of the first things that had so captivated him as a young boy meeting a girl with her head buried in a tattered copy of The Aurelian, the coveted text about moths and butterflies by Harris gifted to her by her father. "I had"--hoped--"expected you would join me."
"I see." Elizabeth stood and wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling window streaming in sunlight through the well-shined lead panels. She directed her gaze to the grounds below.
How could she see anything when he himself had been flipped upside down the moment he'd set foot inside this slightly out-of-mode parlor and found her here? All at once, a friend and a stranger.
She glanced briefly back. "You trusted you could simply order me back." Her voice rang with bitterness and regret.
Not for the first time, anger swirled in his chest because of this woman. She thought so little of him, when he'd always held her on a pedestal above all. She'd been his only friend, the one person who hadn't given a jot that he'd one day become a duke. Mayhap that was why her betrayal had most stung. Why it still did.
"No," he confessed in somber tones as he climbed to his feet. For the reputation of scoundrel that dogged him these years, he'd never been one to prevaricate or practice in the art of deception. "I won't order you. I'd ask you for your help, Elizabeth."
She sank her slightly crooked front teeth into her bottom lip, troubling that plump flesh, bringing his attention to her mouth.
A mouth he'd joined with his but once, and then when they'd been mere children conducting an experiment on "the kiss." It had been a quick meeting, over too quick for him, coming long before she'd been his briefly betrothed and even more briefly his bride.
Now he stared, transfixed, his throat dry, as he imagined her lips under his, not as part of any scientific study between children, but for reasons that had only everything to do with learning each other in every way. She'd be explorative and unabashed. As a woman, she'd kiss with the same abandon as she'd chased him as a child through the Oxfordshire countryside.
With a distracted pucker between her red brows, Elizabeth turned, and he swiftly schooled his features.
"Very well." She ran her palms along the front of her skirts.
It took a moment for those words to register. "Beg pardon?" What in blazes had they been discussing? It was all jumbled in his mind.
"I'll accompany you to London." Elizabeth paused. "And then, I have your word, I am free to return?"
"This is where you want to be?" he countered.
There was a minute pause he might merely have conjured from wounded male pride. "Yes," she murmured.
He folded his hands behind him. As a duke with a fortune to rival Prinny's, five country seats, two seaside properties, and jewels to bestow upon her that dated back to Henry VIII's first wife, it was humbling to find that the woman he'd married preferred a life of drudgery--in a place rumored to crush young girls' spirits, no less.
"As you wish." Needing some distance from the one who'd betrayed him, Crispin quickly rose. "Accompany me back for one ball, and you'll be... free." As she'd always wished. Pain sluiced through him, as cutting as a knife. "We leave tomorrow."
Before she might change her mind and withdraw yet another promise made, Crispin left.
Chapter 5
The following morn, Elizabeth and Crispin had come almost full circle, in an unexpected way.
Now they made a different journey than the one they'd taken to elope to Wilton before returning to his family's Oxfordshire ancestral estate. This time, they found themselves traveling onward, not to greet his regally powerful parents... but all of Polite Society.
Elizabeth's stomach flipped over. It was one thing instructing the ladies of London and sending them on their way, never to be seen again. It was altogether different to join their ranks.
"Enough," she muttered to herself. "You are no less than they are."
Reminding herself of her own worth did little to settle the pitch of her belly.
A moment later, the well-sprung black carriage with gold velvet seats sprang into motion, drawing Elizabeth away from the place that had been a home to her these past years.
And the place that would be a home to her in the years to come.
It was a fate she'd long accepted as fact, although logic said this reunion had been coming, that it had been overdue. A couple could not simply marry and then... part. Not without consequences and not without some closure. Especially when it involved a ducal heir.
Only, he was no longer a ducal heir. Crispin Ferguson was very much a duke, born and bred to the role. He exuded that masterful confidence and strength managed only by kings and those closest to him in rank and privilege.
But not all dukes were doddering, and in their time apart, Crispin had... changed. He'd added muscle to his once lanky physique and radiated a primal power that she didn't know what to do with.
Drawing back the intricately tailored curtains, she stared out at the modest country manor house where she'd served as a finishing school instructor. The gardens and greenery surrounding the perimeter of the stone structure provided a bright splash of color amidst an otherwise dreary scene.
Eventually, the nestled-away school faded from view and left only the rolling countryside in its wake.
Nay, that was not the only sight outside her window.
Elizabeth squinted, searching for a better glimpse of the figure riding ahead.
Her heart did a little jump.
Crispin sat tall and relaxed with his broad shoulders back, a masterful rider wholly in command of his mount. His gaze pointed forward, past the chestnut gelding's ears, and he maintained an expert focus and ease in the saddle.
That, however, had always been Crispin.
From archery and fencing, to every athletic pursuit in between, he'd been accomplished in any and every endeavor. And yet, when the village boys and those visiting his family's estates had been more engrossed in physical pursuits, Crispin had preferred to have an essay in hand. He'd fluently spoken Latin and Greek and debated the complex concept of metaphysics in those respective languages with the same
ease with which he'd mastered other skills.
Whereas Elizabeth had always been rot at riding or swimming, he'd excelled in... everything, really.
She dusted a finger over the window, tracing a counterclockwise circle upon the sun-warmed pane, spiraling left of that central line. Her gaze fixed on the circular smudge left there.
"Give me your palm, Elizabeth."
She hesitated before holding it out. Wordlessly, Crispin bent over her ink-stained palm and traced a delicate backward circle. She giggled at the faint brush of his fingers. "Th-that tickles." When he continued, attending to that pointed task, she leaned forward. "What are you d-doing?"
"It's an ancient spiral. It speaks to the winding journey we must take if we are to truly know and love ourselves. And in that"--he completed the circle--"we return with more wisdom and power."
Elizabeth abruptly dropped her hand to her lap. Aside from her parents, Crispin had been the only person to never see her as just an oddity and nothing more. He'd engaged with her in discussions that would have scandalized Polite Society for the sheer intellect of them.
And because of it, she'd elevated him to a level no mere mortal could reach.
That was why she'd fled. That was why she'd hidden.
No. She dug her fingertips into her temples and rubbed. That hadn't been the only reason. There'd been so many more that, when tangled together, the only true course presented was her leaving.
As such, she'd not truly thought of it as hiding from him. Hiding suggested that another person wanted to find you. Ultimately, Crispin hadn't truly wanted to marry her. He'd done so out of friendship...
"It was a mistake marrying her. I know that, but there can be no undoing it."
Elizabeth's fingers curled into reflexive fists, noisily crinkling the fabric of her dull gray skirts. Odd that a handful of words could hurt so, even all these years later. Particularly ones she'd played and replayed in her mind in the hope that the familiarity of them would remove any sting.
But it wasn't just about the pain caused by his regret.
She again found Crispin with her gaze.
She'd left for him. She'd gone so he wouldn't have to be reminded daily of the mistake he'd made--and so regretted.