Page 46 of His Illegitimate Duchess
“I am,” he nodded resolutely, and she gently returned her little head to its rightful place on his strong shoulder.
Talbot felt like his chest was swelling from too much feeling, and he feared he was in actual peril of losing his life over a bundle of curls and a fine-boned skull whose weight felt like a little bird was perched on his shoulder.
When he finished playing, the room was silent and motionless.
Has she fallen asleep? He wondered.
He didn’t dare move. Elizabeth lifted her head and gave him a sleepy smile.
“It was wonderful, thank you. You were not exaggerating your proficiency.”
“I never do.”
She stood up and pressed her right ear to her shoulder before wincing in pain.
“Why didn’t you move if you were uncomfortable?” Talbot chastised her as he got up from the bench as well.
“I was comfortable!” she protested, then averted her eyes, adding, “not physically.”
Colin understood what she implied and was inordinately pleased by it, not that one could tell from his stern face.
“Let us go to bed before you further injure yourself.”
“I’m nowhere near injured, Talbot, stop treating me like an invalid.” She smiled as they walked side by side, her impertinent little ungloved hand brushing against his again.
“You’ve strained your neck, and the nights are draughty, especially in old manors such as this one. You might suffer a spasm.”
“Oh, do you know what one of the dairy maids told me?”
“When and why did you converse with a dairymaid?”
Lizzie stopped in her tracks.
“Yesterday. I was curious.”
“Hm,” he said, stepping closer to her and winding one of the curls that had escaped her hairdo around his index finger, “you do act like a curious little kitten. Did you know that you also tend to touch things a lot?”
Her eyelids fluttered, and she took a small step back.
“Will you let me tell you?”
Talbot smiled and held out his palm to indicate that they should proceed upstairs.
“Her name is Susan,” Lizzie continued excitedly as they walked on, “and she told me that her father’s aunt froze to death coming home from the market one night, twenty-five years ago! Can you believe that?”
He nodded gravely. “I, too, have heard such stories, and I’ve experienced several winters here myself, so I fully believe her account. As a child, I’d wake up and the water in my washbasin would be frozen, despite having gone to bed with a blazing fire in my room.”
Lizzie shuddered.
“Let’s not stay here for the winter, then.”
Talbot smiled as they entered her room. He wondered at what else Elizabeth had learned from the dairymaid.
He’d never seen anyone who was so genuinely interested in other people’s lives.
He believed himself to be a fair and kind master of his estate, but he was never so generous with his concern or affection, so open or unrestrained as to inquire about every single child his tenants' wives had brought into the world.
The things women talked about had never interested him much – he was always more interested in art, history, and society than in the minutiae of common people’s lives – yet whenever his wife considered it essential to inform him of some little detail she’d heard or observed during the day he found himself utterly captivated by her accounts as he watched her walk around the room while unpinning her hair or unlacing various items of clothing.
Who would have thought that there were entire lives being lived around him, lives touched by sorrow and joy, illness and death, betrayal and intrigue, all etched in the lined, sun-kissed faces of the villagers who he’d never thought about as more than numbers in his ledgers, but who were, thanks to his title, his responsibility.
“So I told Mrs. Harrington that, when I had typhus, Mrs. Barlow used to -,” she said, and the words snapped him out of his poetic musings.
“When did you have typhus fever?” he sat up in bed, agitated at the thought of her suffering, but even more frightened by the idea that she could have been lost to it like so many had been.
“When I was about seventeen,” she replied and then cocked her head to the side, “a few months before I attacked you in the street,” she added with a grin.
No wonder she looked so young and frail , he thought as he revisited their first meeting with even more self-reproach.
As Elizabeth continued telling him about Mrs. Barlow’s homemade typhus cure, Talbot tried to memorise every little detail, expression, and gesture on her face, feeling as if some catastrophe could at any moment take her from him.
He wanted to hold onto her, protect her from whatever outside forces might attempt to hurt her – and they were always outside forces in his mind, for he didn’t allow himself to consider that he could ever be the cause of her unhappiness. He loved her!
Spurred on by that thought, he got out of bed and stepped in front of his wife as she had both hands lifted while she worked on her hair. Her breasts were poking through her thin nightgown and looked very inviting.
Colin noticed the exact moment Elizabeth’s hazel eyes darkened with desire and, as always, her response ignited a storm of pride and passion inside him, but, above all, it caused him to want to bring her pleasure – in bed and outside it.
Their coupling that night was tinged with desperation on his part – he wanted to make her writhe and moan as much as possible to reassure himself that she was there, with him, and that she was alive and well.
He bit and sucked and licked her tender white thighs, her shoulders, and even her breasts, strongly enough to leave marks, secret little signs that told the tale of their pleasure.
Lizzie’s face was contorted and her brow was furrowed in concentration as she moved underneath him with increasing urgency, but when she opened her eyes just as she reached her peak, there was a longing in them so strong that it almost made him lose tempo.
It seemed to him that she was just as desperate as he was, but for what, he had no clue.
When they were both spent and satisfied, he kissed her eyelids and rolled onto his side of the bed.
“Colin, you trapped me,” she said in a hoarse voice, and his breath was knocked out of his lungs.
No one said anything for what felt like eternity. She then gently pushed his shoulder.
“You’re lying on my hair, move.”
Colin wordlessly helped her free her hair and watched her braid it. For once, he wished there were fewer candles burning in the room, for he was sure his face would betray the absolute terror he had just experienced.
“Good night,” she said with a small smile, and he even managed to respond.
You are your father’s son, he thought, and that damning verdict echoed in the darkness of the night for hours and hours until Colin finally managed to fall asleep.