That green serpent slithered around inside, poisoning her with her own jealousy.
Crispin smiled slowly. "Ah, but we're not speaking about any embraces I've shared with others." He dipped his head. Their breath stirred puffs of white in the cool night air, the little wisps tangling and dancing together. "I'm discussing the ways I haven't yet known you."
"Y-yet?" she urged, barely recognizing the sultry quality of her query. For the word he'd used suggested far more.
Crispin's gaze darkened, and he palmed her cheek.
Their eyes locked, their chests rose and fell in a like rhythm, and then, with a groan, Crispin claimed her lips.
Heat--sizzling, electric, and as dangerous as the lightning currents she'd studied as a girl--burned her from within.
Elizabeth moaned, and then gripping the lapels of his cloak, she angled her head to receive his kiss, this union of their mouths unlike the hasty one they'd shared as children. Now, only a raw, unadulterated passion blazed between them.
"Elizabeth," he groaned. Her name, a plea, a hungry, desperate rumble, only stoked the flames of yearning that now spread through her. He licked her lips, tracing the seam, silently pleading for entry, and she let him in.
His tongue brushed hers like a brand, marking her, and she moaned, matching his movements.
Never breaking contact with her lips, Crispin guided her back until she lay prone upon the smooth surface of the weather-beaten boulder, laying her under him like a primitive offering to the gods.
His mouth left hers, and she keened at the loss, that incoherent plea giving way to a groan as he trailed his lips everywhere, from the corner of her mouth and lower to the lobe of her right ear. He caught that delicate flesh and lightly suckled, drawing another earthy moan from deep within her throat.
"So beautiful," he breathed against her neck, and with a long, wanton moan, she tipped her head sideways, allowing him better access to that place where her pulse beat wildly.
He placed his lips gently to the spot, nipping at it lightly with his teeth, like a stallion marking a mare. So primal, so raw that the ache at her center grew sharp.
As he worshiped that flesh, Elizabeth tangled her fingers in the lush strands of his neatly clipped chestnut waves, holding him close.
All the while, Crispin worked his hands over her, exploring her. Through the fabric of her skirts, he found her hips, sinking his fingertips into the flesh.
"Crispin," she moaned. Of their own volition, her legs fell open in an invitation as old as Eve. His shaft, thick and hard with his desire, prodded her through her skirts, and the ache at her center grew. Panting like he'd run a great race, he dropped his elbows on either side of her head and reclaimed her mouth, thrusting his tongue deep and mating with hers in a primitive dance.
He wants me.
It was a heady, unlikely truth, and yet, every stroke of his tongue against hers and every rasp of his breath bespoke of a like hungering.
He drew her skirts up slowly. The cool night air slapped at her skin, a balm to the fire he'd set. Crispin stroked her bare leg, as if familiarizing himself with the feel of her, a glorious massage that pulled incoherent, garbled entreaties from her throat.
Suddenly, Crispin tore himself away.
"No," she whispered.
Breathing hard, he stared down at her through heavy lashes.
He touched a fingertip to his lips.
In quick order, he had her on her feet, and as her skirts fluttered into place, he righted the loose tendrils, tucking them back behind her ears with an ease only a rogue could manage.
What? Why had he stop--?
Someone cleared his throat.
Oh, blast.
The sting of mortification burned away the chill left by the night air, and Elizabeth shrank behind Crispin. Of course, as one with a scoundrel's reputation, he'd be a master at assignations.
A lad with tired eyes and a heavily freckled face stared baldly at them. "Can I help you?" he offered, alternating a curious stare from Elizabeth to Crispin several times before ultimately settling on the more well-attired and influential of their pair.
Crispin straightened, and gone were all traces of anger from moments ago. In their place was the smooth, even, ever-charming gentleman. "My mount is injured and in need of care and a stable." He tugged out a purse and tossed it over. The boy easily caught it. "I'll need to stable him here until I can send someone to retrieve him. We'll also require two rooms."
The child paused in midstudy of the velvet sack's contents. "Don't have two rooms, sir. Me mum and da have only one room for the night."
Elizabeth curled her toes into the soles of her boots. Blast. Of course there was only one room.
"We shall take your remaining room."
The boy nodded and then, collecting Copernicus' reins, led the mount to the stables.
After he'd gone, Crispin glanced over. "This isn't done," he promised on a husky whisper.
As they started toward the inn, dread twisted in her belly.
For, God help her, Elizabeth proved how very weak she truly was. She didn't want to be done with Crispin Ferguson, and that truth sent terror clamoring inside her.
Chapter 8
There had always been lively debates between Crispin and Elizabeth. And laughter and discourse.
What they had never suffered from, however, was silence.
Until now.
A thick, tense, uncomfortable silence hung in the air and grew with every passing instant.
Since their embrace, the never-shy Elizabeth had avoided his eyes.
With their belongings being taken up to their shared room and a bath being readied by the tavern keeper, Crispin and Elizabeth sat across an uneven oak table amidst a quiet taproom, two plates between them.
Elizabeth pushed her fork around her dish, attending her skirret pie with the same intensity she'd bestowed on every tome he'd sneaked from his family's libraries and turned over for her research.
Which, after a day of traveling and with this being her first fare, would not have been unusual... if she hadn't grown squeamish whenever her own mum had cooked with skirrets.
Crispin tightened his fingers around the pewter tankard in his hands.
Her discomfiture was now as great as it had been the last time they'd kissed. That previous meeting of their mouths had wrought havoc on his senses and haunted his six-and-ten-year-old self's dreams.
That exchange, to him, had been magical and wondrous and--
Yuck. That was as pleasant as a raw skirret. Can you determine what all the fuss is about?
That had also been the moment he'd had his pride badly beaten by the truth that the feelings he'd carried for the slightly younger girl had been wholly one-sided--and humbling for it.
In the past, he'd bolted shortly after their first kiss, too much of a coward to face any more of her grimaces, but now he sat across from her, studying her bent head over the rim of his glass.
The pursed-lipped distaste she'd worn as a girl had, this time, been replaced by a woman's desire. Her breathless moans echoed around his mind even now, her entreaties quiet as she'd clung to him like ivy. Unlike before, she'd wanted him as much as he hungered for her, and that realization steadied him.
Leaning back in his seat, Crispin stretched his legs out, the tips of his boots colliding with hers.
She stiffened but made no move to pick her head up.
"You've changed in many ways, Elizabeth," he noted, deliberately husking his tone.
Her fork scraped across the plate, knocking a boiled potato over the edge and onto the table. She battled herself. It was a fight she wore in the tense set of her narrow shoulders. She was no coward, though, and Elizabeth raised her head slowly, daring him with her eyes to go on.
Crispin curled his lips up. "You've developed a taste for"--her thin red eyebrows shot above her spectacles--"skirrets."
She didn't blink for a long minute, her impossibly large eyes forming perfect circles.
He wi
nked.
Elizabeth's brows fell, returning to their proper place.
Crispin nodded at her plate of carved, but otherwise uneaten, pie. She followed his stare. Muttering under her breath, she grabbed her knife and carved one of the already cut pieces into several, smaller, minuscule bits.
His lips twitched. "What was that?"
"I like them just fine," she mumbled. Still, she made no move to raise the fork to her lips.
He winged an eyebrow up.
She uttered something that sounded very much like infuriating spider brain.
"It's really an unfair charge, you know," he said, and she paused, a forkful of pie halfway to her mouth. "It's all a matter of proportion, really."
"What?" she ventured, lowering her utensil.
"The spider," he elucidated. "Given their size, they are, in fact, mostly brain."
She blinked wildly, and the contents of her fork tumbled onto the table. "Indeed?"
He sat back, encouraged by her interest. "Albrecht von Haller--"
"The Swiss naturalist," she interjected with such excitement glittering in her eyes that it lit her face and bathed her cheeks in a delicate flush.
All the breath lodged in his chest.
She is magnificent...
Elizabeth cocked her head, knocking her spectacles slightly askew and bringing him back from his woolgathering.
"He wasn't just a naturalist," he said, clearing his throat. "His accomplishments also included anatomy and physiology."
She opened her mouth and then stopped. Suspicion darkened her gaze, and she held her fork out menacingly. "We never read any evidence outside of his works on herbaria."
Crispin gave her a pointed look. "No, we didn't." They could have, though. There was so much they could have shared.
Elizabeth faltered as understanding marched across her expressive features. She slowly lowered her fork to the table.
His fingers curled hard around his tankard. He didn't want to shatter the fragile bond with talks of their broken past. "His son, Gottlieb Emanuel, came to speak extensively at Oxford, offering lectures on his father's works."
The animated spark was lit once more within her clever gaze. She sat forward. "Which topics did he speak on?"
How he'd missed these exchanges. Crispin nodded and set down his drink. "Haller believed that as body size goes down"--he held his hands apart and shrank them together until the palms nearly touched--"the proportion of the body taken up by the brain increases."
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. "Which would not mean greater brain function," she pointed out.
"No." His grin widened. "It does, however, go to the relativity of size."
"Hmm." She chewed at the tip of her index finger, her gaze contemplative. She abruptly stopped. "Have there been studies performed?"
"On whether or not I'm spider-brained?" he asked, pulling a laugh from her, the bell-like expression of mirth earning stares from nearby tables. He joined in, his chest rumbling from amusement he'd not felt in so long.
"On the spider," she needlessly clarified, wiping the mirth from the corners of her eyes.
Crispin shook his head. "Not that I've been able to discover." He winked again. "I just took the liberty of applying the principle to your insult."
Her lips twitched. "Fair turn."
They shared a smile, and just like that, they were restored to the same pair who'd spoken for hours about topics that had horrified his parents. When was the last time he'd enjoyed himself this much? None of the company he'd kept these years had cared a jot about anything outside of their own pleasures: balls, soirees, scandalous masquerades with the lone friend he'd made in Elizabeth's absence.
As quick as it came, however, her smile slipped, and reality forced itself upon them once more.
As if it could ever truly be gone. As if they could simply move past her abandonment. And how he despised himself for being shredded by her betrayal still. He swiped his drink off the table and took a long swallow of the vile, bitter ale. "I'll allow you to your skirrets, madam."
She lowered her crimson brows. "Is that a challenge?" She gave a toss of her disheveled coiffure, and several still errant curls bounced, bringing his attention briefly to the high neck of her hideous gray gown.
In his mind, he stripped away that coarse fabric and replaced it with a shimmering satin that molded to her slender frame with her every movement. Lust bolted through him, replacing all earlier brevity and ease, as he was filled with the hunger to taste her once more. The fires of his desire blazed all the stronger as she tipped her chin up at a defiant angle, parted her lips ever so slightly, and popped that small flake of crust into her mouth.
A trace of powder lingered on her full lower lip. She darted her tongue out, that pink flesh trailing over the seam, and he fought back a groan.
"Sir?"
Crispin dragged a reluctant stare over to the serving girl standing beside their table, and he silently cursed the interruption.
The plump beauty sauntered closer and flashed a smile that served as a bold invitation. "Is there anything more you'll require?" she purred, angling her body in a way that dismissed Elizabeth.
From the corner of his eye, he caught the frown that turned Elizabeth's lips. "Nothing," she snapped. The serving girl blinked. "We do not require anything." Fire shot from his wife's gaze.
Surely she wasn't... jealous?
Pursing her lips, the servant dropped a quick curtsy and sauntered off.
Just like that, the moment he and Elizabeth had shared was shattered.
His wife shoved back her seat with such alacrity that it toppled back slightly and then righted itself.
He quickly climbed to his feet.
"It was a long day. I am going to seek my room," Elizabeth said tightly. She hesitated, and for a moment, she looked as though she'd say more. For the span of that endless instant, he wanted her to ask him to accompany her.
But then, with a slight bow of her head, Elizabeth turned and did what she did best--she left.
Chapter 9
It was too hard.
There had been a certainty on her part that being with Crispin would be difficult.
But she'd never expected it would be this impossible.
Her skin flushed from the heat of her bath and rid of the grime of a day's travel, Elizabeth lay sprawled on her back, staring up at the mural a rudimentary artist had attempted on the ceiling.
Slapping her palms over her face, she groaned long and loud, letting the frustration boiling within all day free to bounce off the stucco walls. "Albrecht von Haller," she moaned, the name muffled by her palms. "Haller's rule on proportion and anatomy."
She shook her head, and her damp, loose curls splattered droplets of water over the white coverlet.
Then there had been the damned serving girl. Buxom and beautiful and blonde and all the things Elizabeth was not, nor had ever been, nor would ever be. Long, long ago, she'd accepted that some women were born stunning, and others... common and as plain as tea in England, as Elizabeth was.
And yet, seeing another so boldly throw herself at Crispin, Elizabeth's husband, who not even two hours ago had had his mouth upon Elizabeth's and had explored her like she was one of those mythical sirens who lured weaker men out to sea. The moment had served only as a reminder of the scoundrel's reputation Crispin had earned himself in the gossip columns and among the most scandalous widows in London.
The same jealousy that had roiled within her in the taproom reared its unwanted head once more. Fierce, sharp, and biting, it made a mockery of her attempts at indifference, for the fact remained that she'd never been indifferent to Crispin Ferguson. As a girl, she'd been in awe of him and his wit. And then, as a young woman, she'd fallen more than half in love with him for those very reasons.
"And now?" she whispered to the too slender cherub above her with his slightly fanged teeth.
She wanted him now, all these years later.
A long, miserable groan spilled past her
lips. Elizabeth flung her arms wide, wrinkling the aged coverlet. Tiny motes of dust danced overhead, and she followed one speck's winding trail down until it disappeared over the side of the bed.
It was the height of foolishness to desire a man who had never truly wanted her and who, in her absence, had lived quite contentedly without her.
Elizabeth chewed at her lower lip.
Except, even as the buxom serving girl had invited him with everything but words, Elizabeth had searched Crispin for a hint of interest--an encouraging smile, a wink, even an appreciative eye. There had been nothing.
That disinterest, coupled with the scholar who'd discussed anatomical principles, didn't fit with the man she'd so closely followed in the papers who eventually found his way to Mrs. Belden's.
"Enough," she muttered, pushing herself upright. She was a creature of logic, and she clung to that very reason now to keep herself from descending any further into this madness. "You don't want him or l--" Her mind balked, and she tripped over that word, unable to so much as breathe it into existence, lest it be transformed into truth.
Elizabeth hopped up, the cold of the wide, planked floors penetrating her feet. She ignored the chill as she began to pace, ticking off on her fingers as she went.
Fact: She and Crispin had a shared history. They'd been loyal friends long before they'd become outraged spouses.
Fact: She admired his intelligence and scholarly pursuits, but she would appreciate anyone who had a like skill.
Fact: What she felt or did not feel for him was irrelevant in the scheme of their future.
There was nothing more between them. Anything she felt for him was natural, born out of admiration she would have felt for anyone.
The walls of her chest ached, making it hard to draw breath. Elizabeth abruptly stopped, and the hem of her white cotton night shift whipped about her ankles.
The assurances rolling around the chambers of her mind were nothing more than lies she told herself.
She stared blankly at the corner of the room where two trunks rested, those two material possessions as different as their owners. One had been handmade with love, time, and skill by her father's hand. The other was a French wooden piece with rosewood rods and brass studs and railings that still wore the gleam of newness.