Crispin had changed greatly. But as he faced her now, smiling so calmly, revealing no sign of what he had discovered last night, he showed how much he retained of Mr. Burke. He was the consummate tactician, his skills superlative.
“To us,” he said, holding out his champagne flute. “To a partnership that proved victorious.”
She tapped her glass against his. But her throat was so tight that if she tried to swallow, she would choke. She mimed sipping, and then lowered her glass, untouched.
“So,” he said.
The house seemed very still around them, her breathing too loud. As though the pale upholstery, the silken walls and thick rug, swallowed all noise save their own. A singer onstage at the opera must feel this self-conscious. The acoustics all designed to amplify her alone, so that even the temptation to clear her throat would seem risky.
She could not play this game. “You looked through the room.”
“I did,” he said—readily, neutrally, with no show of surprise. The subject had been broached, of course, as soon as he’d stepped inside. It had entered with him like a shadow.
“And?”
“And I thank you for discouraging me from sending for the police.”
She looked down into her champagne. Bubbles rising, causing the liquid to seem to sparkle. This was a drink to mark a joyous occasion, not a reckoning.
She set the glass aside. “You must wonder how I knew what you would find.”
He took another measured sip. His wedding ring gleamed in the lamplight. “No, in fact. It was quite clear, in retrospect, that you had taken my measure thoroughly. You had been doing me a kindness by failing to divulge the whole of it. But I did find myself wondering about you, Jane. All along, I’d imagined I was the mystery. But you are not a woman to wed the man whom I discovered in that room.”
It was not a question. He did not try to make it one. He regarded her, his dark eyes opaque, his face in unstudied repose: the ascetic beauty of his brow, his glacial cheekbones, the sharp stark angle of his jaw. He was not trying to leash some inward emotion. He was perfectly calm, and she was . . . not.
How tired she was of feeling strung thin. Of feeling her heart hammer, lurched by every new twist. Of wanting him and then fearing him; of lying and then hoping, hoping with a sick, desperate feeling in her gut that he did not discover the whole of it. Lying awake yearning for him, and hating herself for doing so. For being so much more foolish, so much more girlish, than she had ever been as a girl.
“I have lied to you,” she said.
He nodded once. Casual, unhurried. As though she had just told him, I slept until ten o’clock, or, It looks likely to rain.
It angered her. She was in a fever of misery. She had built the courage at last—to bare her own throat, to let him release the rope, so the blade finally cleaved her.
And he merely looked at her and drank again from his glass.
“Is this some technique of yours?” she asked. “Some art of interrogation you perfected on your enemies?”
He blinked. At last, she had startled him—but not badly enough, not as violently as she wanted. “So. We’re enemies, then. I wasn’t certain.” He laid aside his champagne flute. “Perhaps this was my technique,” he said. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember your enmity, either. I don’t think I’ll ever wish to recall that. I see no cause to try.”
She thought of the map. Of the name he’d once asked her to listen for. Of the mysterious intruder. “All the papers you looked through. Did any of them mention Elland?”
“Elland? No, I don’t believe so.”
Then those were the files the intruder had come for.
“I know no one by that name,” he added.
“It’s not a man’s name.” She had made the same mistake. Mr. Burke had corrected her.
He nodded again. And asked nothing.
She clenched her fists in her lap. She had worked to bury her suspicions about Crispin’s attackers. She had tried to focus only on her own goals. Her father’s money. Her freedom.
But she did not have the blessing of amnesia to help her forget. And worse . . . she could no longer think only of herself.
Even if her uncle had some miraculous change of heart and released her funds tomorrow—even if the money were in her hands by dusk—she would not go to the pier. She would not leave this house. She would not leave with the knowledge that Crispin might be in danger because of what she had hidden from him.
“I think I must explain it to you.” She barely recognized her own voice. It scraped like steel against stone. “I think, perhaps, that the intruder wanted to know about Elland.”
He looked at her directly. He did feel, after all. His face was alive with tension, his mouth taut.
“Yes,” he said. “Ghosts do not lie down on their own. He will rise again, I am sure, and so will she. But not tonight.”
He. For a moment, she’d thought he still misunderstood, that he was referring to Elland. Then he said she, and she realized he was referring to himself and to her. Their old selves. The ones they had been.
The breath left her on a long, slow wave. This reprieve—it was not part of her punishment. It was his gift to them both. He wanted it as much as she did.
“Then . . . what?” she asked in a whisper.
He rose, looking down at her.
“Give me a night,” he said, “with my wife.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Could a truth emerge from lies? Like a lotus from mud, say. What existed between them was built on falsehood. Yet it had just changed the course of the nation. It had saved lives and prevented future misery. It was great and powerful. Yes, it was built on falsehood—but was it false?
Besides, weren’t there other forms of honesty? Honesty too raw to be fitted into words? That was what she saw in Crispin’s face as he held out his hand. That was what she gave him when she took it.
They climbed the stairs in a silence that seemed to change as they walked, softening, growing lush and anticipatory. A pillowy silence that promised a safe place to fall—but not to speak.
Jane said nothing, then, as Crispin led her into his bedroom, but each of her lesser senses, those that she neglected by habit, senses that had nothing to do with logic and abstraction and things that could not be touched—sight and hearing, smell and taste—they seemed to blossom and expand, revealing a new world to her.
The sunset light through the uncurtained window, illuminating motes of dust.
The gilded planes of his face as he stopped in the middle of the carpet and faced her.
The champagne that lingered on his breath, and beneath it, the musk of his skin.
The brush of his lips on hers, rough and slightly cracked. These lips had spoken much today, to great affect, but they moved over hers like a discovery: this, too, was their purpose. There was skill and fluency in the way he kissed her, for this was a language, too. Her body was learning it.
She kissed him back, not closing her eyes. Vision, more often used to look for reasons, for chances at escape, also had this talent: of beholding without evaluation or judgment. She saw a man, his own eyes closed, kissing her with an earnestness that, as his tongue came into her mouth, took on a desperate edge. Kissing her as though to consume her. As though taking her inside was the only way to keep her with him.
He was gripping her face, this beautiful man. She could be honest with him now, here, only. The future had no place for her honesty. The past was a lost cause. She took his hand and spoke in this new language, more real than any framed by words. She moved his palm to cover her breast, and let her kiss explain it.
He made a guttural noise in his throat, low and approving. His thumb stroked over the thin wool of her gown, making promises to what was concealed. She felt his other hand at her back, setting her free of all the small tokens of decency, which great factories in the north pressed into buttons, clasps and hooks that women fastened dutifully, knowing their place, knowing their role. Covered, bound, lac
ed, wrapped, bundled away from the world like objects to be kept on a shelf. Put away from this kind of honesty and the revelations it might bring.
She bit his lower lip as a message: she did not require care. She drank his startled breath, then smiled into his mouth as he nipped her in reply. He used both hands now. Fabric parted, layers unfolded and peeled away. Strings snapped as her corset loosened. The air was so still, faintly fragranced by citrus and linseed. Clean. Tapes undone, crinoline falling, metal creaking into collapse. His palms gripped her waist, her hipbones, reminding her of her own solidity. Her feet felt so firmly planted, as though the world tilted to meet the soles of her feet, and nothing could unbalance her. His hands smoothed around her hips, a reverent touch, and then palmed the fullness of her buttocks, speaking to her of substance, of her own power as he made another animal noise.
Off came her chemise. The air greeted her, small cool touches, calling her back to nature’s intention for her, never to have been rendered a stranger to the feel of the air on her skin. She took a long breath, lungs flexing, freed of constriction. He went to his knees, his fingers trembling over the ribbons that fastened her stockings. He drew them down inch by inch, his mouth tracing the skin he bared, his lips feeling for his success. With his large, warm hand he gripped her ankles, one by one, lifting each foot to slip her stockings free. And now came her drawers, his lips on her navel, her belly, which startled and contracted, so new to what it deserved—the honesty of the light and his reverent, fierce regard.
She stood naked before him, shaking with the force and amazement of it: the honesty of the body. A body undisguised, unprotected, not requiring protection. Her shoulders straightened; she felt taller, her neck longer, her spine straighter and more limber, as he slowly rose, beholding her in her fullness. She felt . . . at home in herself.
He was still clothed. It seemed a mistake, a sweet one, an oversight so clumsy and easily remedied that it stirred indulgence in her, a tender unrecognizable fondness. She stepped into him, the cool, crisp edges of his clothing another delicious shock against her nakedness. She felt the starched edges of his cravat, wilted now from the work he had done today. It had not only been words that had won the victory. Every fiber in his body, the athletic confidence in his long, fine-muscled limbs and the forcefulness of his dark eyes, had brought the world briefly to its knees in submission.
She fitted her fingers beneath his cravat, feeling the warmth of his throat, the slight roughness of his skin. The sharp jerk as he swallowed. Her fingers had their own wisdom; she watched them in fascination as they unwound the stock. They slid over his broad chest, which contracted as though by instruction, and then shoved the jacket off his shoulders, smoothing her palms over the bunching bulk of his upper arms. She squeezed, and then accepted his kiss against her ear, the hot flick of his tongue, the touch of his teeth, as tribute.
His waistcoat. As soft as the fur of a diligent cat. Her fingertips caught the subtle groove of the patterning, the shaded stripes of pearl and dove gray. They led her hands downward, to a button of winking gilt. She flipped it open easily. Men’s buttons were not designed as armor. They wanted to be loosened. Up, up, up her fingers trailed, the buttons yielding eagerly. He shrugged off the waistcoat, and his suspenders as well.
White shirt. Cut expertly, sewn with great care. She yanked it free of his trousers, the undervest as well. Slid her hands up the hot, muscled expanse of his abdomen. He was kissing her ear again, gripping her buttocks to pull her directly against him. Body to body. His hand brushed the side of her breast, his thumb lingering, reaching between them to find her nipple. As he touched it, she felt her skin contract, a pulse between her legs.
She unfastened the placket of his trousers and let them drop to the ground.
His hands offered help. She shoved them away. A new logic guided her. She sank to her knees as he had done. She unveiled him as he had done to her. His belly was tight, his navel a neat inward knot, underneath which a narrow trail of dark hair led downward, a path over segmented bands of muscle. She laid her lips to it. Far above, he made a restless noise, and his fingers threaded through her hair, dislodging pins, which scattered like pebbles past her shoulders.
The cool mass of her curls came down around her bare shoulders, causing her to shiver. Her own body, unrecognizable to herself. Native pleasure, so long denied.
His hips were narrow. She placed her thumb on the blunt point of his hipbone. Beneath it, a stark line of division, mirrored at the other hip, angling downward in a vee. She traced this angle, to the point where his penis rose, obscuring the path. Thick and heavy, impossibly soft skin. She learned it with her palm, taking guidance from the strained rhythm of his breathing, his sharp exhalation as her grip tightened. The skin, such an impossibly soft sheath for the unyielding hard length.
She slowly lowered her mouth. Kissed the very tip.
“Jane.” He took her by the arms and raised her to her feet, kissing her feverishly as he walked her backward, then lifted her onto the bed. She lay back and he climbed over her, his hair in his face, dark ends ragged around his hot eyes. She pushed her fingers through his hair, took it in great handfuls to pull him down for a kiss. Then he broke away, licking and nibbling down her body. His mouth brought her alive, kiss by kiss, waking each spot which it touched. Her collarbone. The valley between her breasts. The straining points of her nipples, which, as he suckled them, seemed to draw on some tightening cord that ran deep through the core of her, through her belly to the place between her legs: quivering, empty, alive.
He placed his hand there. His hard palm closed over her, pushing and then rolling, concentrating and tightening everything in her, her hips thrusting against him. “Yes,” she heard him growl, and he did it again, and a strange noise broke from her, urgent, pleading, encouraging. The bed creaked; he moved in one long, leonine stretch, and then his mouth was where his hand had been, his tongue . . . He licked into her, gripping her thighs and widening them when they forgot briefly that this was the truth, this was the honesty, that the other world and the before and after did not exist now. He held her to the vow she had not spoken but had made and that his body understood. He held her open as he licked and sucked on her, and she threw her arms over her head and felt the wall pushing back and forcing her to it as well. Unyielding, forceful, his rough grip on her thighs, his adamant, driving mouth—
It came violently through her, the seizure. She cried out; she locked his head between her thighs and shuddered beneath him. His grip was gentle suddenly; he petted her to soothe her, kissing his way back to her, taking large, gentle bites of her fleshy hips, her rounded belly, his tongue tasting her nipples again, his lips finding her own.
She reached down to grasp him. The hard pulsing force of him. It fitted against her; it caused her private flesh to quiver again. Impossibly hard. She could not—
He seated himself inside her in one slow, steady push. No pain, but a slight burning, a stretch—he began to move. His hips gentle, his mouth languid on hers, his tongue stroking the same slow rhythm as his pelvis. Her body loosened. She opened her eyes, looked into his tight, focused face, traced with her thumb the fringe of his dark lashes, the tracery on his closed lids, so delicate. A breath flowed from her, and it filled every corner of the room. She was larger than this room. She held everything.
His hips made some subtle adjustment—her breath caught. His eyes came open, darkest blue, riveted on hers as though nothing else existed to be seen. He cupped her cheek, a whisper’s touch. His hips moved again, and she gasped.
A slow smile. It twisted on his mouth—one moment like pain, and then, as she shuddered again, like triumph. So deep inside her—filled and overflowing. She turned her head, moaning, and his arms tightened around her, crushing her to him, his own cry mixing with hers as she felt him join her in this pleasure that undid her sinews and left her complete.
* * *
Crispin woke slowly. It felt carnal, how voluptuously sleep clung to him, caressing and
coaxing him to stay in the deep. His limbs felt loose, humming with the deep relaxation that followed extended exertion. His eyes opened.
Darkness showed through the curtains. He had no notion of the time. The light from the fire, softly crackling across the room, threw odd shadows across the top of the bed canopy. The embroidered figures, mounted huntsman returning to a castle, women in wimples awaiting them, seemed to come alive. The women held out flowers, fruits. The men raised their hands in greeting. A bugler called his tattoo.
Tasteless. Something embarrassing about acquiring a piece that had probably been stitched in some dark workshop by miserable children three years ago but pretended to be centuries old. Laura had never given thought to such considerations. She was so easily lured by the outward flourishes.
A sigh from his side. The mattress creaked as his wife turned toward him in her sleep, carrying a dark curl over the joint of his elbow. He stroked it very lightly, wonder purling through him again, cleansing him of dark thoughts.
The way she had felt beneath him . . .
The miraculous look on her face, the hunger in her touch . . .
This bed felt to him like hallowed ground now. He would have the canopy replaced. Jane deserved to sleep beneath some more innocent piece of fabric, untainted by pretensions or suffering.
He eased very slowly onto his elbow to study her. There was a childlike abandon in the scissored sprawl of her legs, the way she tucked her hands together so neatly beneath the pillow. Her full lips parted on each breath. Her cheeks flushed with slumber. The wild sprawl of her glorious hair.
Who would guess that this woman beside him had routed the Commons? What a secret to keep. A man might live his entire life in greedy contentment, knowing such a secret. Crispin had grown up aware of such possibilities, of marriages in which great men drew their strength and brilliance from the women at their side. But he had thought it a distant myth for himself.