Not Quite Darcy (12 page)

Chapter Thirteen

The night had been unkind, as Eliza knew it would be, and had only granted her a few hours of sleep just before sunrise. She dressed groggily in the thin dawn light. It was chilly in the room, so she slid her uniform over her head before bothering with the confusing split-crotch pantaloons.

“Bessie, come here!” Mrs. MacLaughlin shouted, alarmed.

Eliza buttoned up her dress as quickly as she could and dashed into the hall, expecting to face an angry housekeeper. The hall was empty, though there were sounds coming from the front of the house. Eliza raced toward Mrs. Brown's room. Halfway there, she noticed that she still had her underwear in one hand and quickly balled them into an unrecognizable wad.

When she entered, William and Mrs. MacLaughlin stood by Mrs. Brown's bed. Their expressions betrayed grave concern. William's face was ashen and the dark purple smudges beneath his eyes told of a sleepless night that had little to do with the hangover he must be nursing.

Mrs. Brown lay very still, her breathing especially labored, eyes closed. She seemed so small, like a child lost in her parent's bed.

“The missus has had a very difficult night.” Mrs. MacLaughlin's usually commanding voice held no bite at all. “The mister's been with her for the past few hours. He's going to take her to the sanatorium in St. Albans now that it's light.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Eliza asked.

“If you could please pack a few things for my mother, Eliza.” William's voice was a monotone. “Nightclothes and toiletries. Dr. Hill has made all the arrangements for admittance, so they should be prepared for her.”

Eliza opened the wardrobe and found a large satchel on the top shelf. She quickly filled it with nightgowns, a robe, slippers and assorted toiletries that Mrs. Brown might require. As an afterthought, she tossed in a copy of
Sense and Sensibility
and a small tintype of William that had been at Mrs. Brown's bedside.

In the flurry of activity, Eliza hadn't noticed the others had already gone downstairs. She looked out of the window to see William carrying his mother across the front garden toward the waiting carriage. She rushed out of the room and down the stairs, fastening the satchel on the fly.

When she reached the yard, William stood in the drizzle speaking with Davy, who was in the driver's seat. Not wishing to disturb him, she opened the door of the carriage to place the bag inside. Mrs. Brown lay propped up in a corner. Her breath sawed out of her in a wheezing gasp. Her eyes were still closed.

Eliza felt a hand touch her shoulder lightly and looked back to see William. Even in his panic, so unassuming in his touch. She stepped back so he could enter the carriage.

“Thank you, Eliza.” He watched his mother solemnly.

Davy made a “tsssk” sound as the horse pulled away. Eliza and Mrs. MacLaughlin stood mutely in the rain until the carriage faded from view.

The rest of the day was a blur. Eliza went through the motions of housework, but the gray drizzle of the sky matched her state of mind. She beat the dirt out of rugs, poured oil on wooden floors, filled the lamps. The physicality of it was distracting and helped pull her thoughts away from her worries.

She heard nothing about Mrs. Brown's condition. Though the household seemed content not knowing, Eliza, a child of the age of texting, found the wait painful. Dora chattered a lot about Mrs. Brown. This wasn't the first of this type of incident. In the past, she'd fallen ill to this degree and had been admitted to a sanatorium for several days. Dora spoke glowingly of Mr. Brown's determination to give his mother the best care possible for her remaining time.

Following a somber dinner, the day staff departed and Eliza was left alone in the silent home. As exhausted as she should have felt after a day of slave labor and a sleepless night prior to that, Eliza and sleep were not getting along.

By ten o'clock she'd slipped back into the library. There was something about the room that always made her feel a little less lonely. She lit a candle and placed it on the table beside the wingback chair, but she was too agitated to read. Instead, she spent her time pacing across the length of the room. It would be so much easier to sleep if she knew how Mrs. Brown was doing—how William was doing.

She knew she should keep her mind on her mission, but every time she thought about it, she thought about William. And every time she thought about William, a thousand conflicting thoughts crowded her mind. The one that loomed largest was guilt. She kept thinking of the Repairmen's rules—especially the one that said to form no lasting attachments. If she'd had any doubts about breaking that rule, they'd all shattered last night upon hearing his sweet confession.

She paused and reached over for the candle, then opened the doorway to his room, the one that always remained closed. She stepped inside.

Though she'd been in the room before, it gave her a small comfort tonight—just to be amongst his things. It was a very nondescript room, really. Austere. A bed, an upholstered chair, a few tables and a wardrobe. The only hint about the person it belonged to was the books of poetry stacked neatly on the end table. She briefly considered looking around but didn't have the heart for it. Snooping through his things after the kind of day he'd endured would be too unkind. She couldn't.

She backed out of the room and returned to the wing chair. Nestling her head against the back, she sighed. She felt so powerless. His mother was dying and there was nothing anyone could do about it. She couldn't even ease his pain. Even if she did know a way to soothe him, she wasn't sure she should.

The candle guttered, but she did not stir. Miserable and confused, she watched shadows move across the room. Sometime near midnight, sleep and exhaustion finally claimed her.

Eliza awoke slowly to faint sounds coming from the direction of Mrs. Brown's room. Her heart leapt in her throat at first, then she identified the footsteps as belonging to William.

Though the candle was out, the moon shone brightly enough in the darkened room to illuminate the clock in the corner. It was just nearing one in the morning.

She felt relieved he was home, but was as clueless as ever about which path to take. Should she try to comfort him? Should she say nothing and let him sleep? Eliza stood and walked quietly across the room toward the door, unsure of what to do even as she went.

William's footsteps sounded down the hall. He paused in front of the closed library door, then passed by and continued down the hall toward his bedroom. Eliza's breath caught in her throat as she glanced toward the door she'd opened earlier. The door to his bedroom. The door that should be closed.

It was too late to do anything about that now. She gulped. Since the door opened into the darkened library, there was a good chance he'd not notice it at all. Besides, she needed to catch a glimpse of him, in order to tell if she should talk to him or simply leave him alone.

She bit her lip nervously and stepped back into the shadows.

His bedroom latch clicked, and his footsteps clicked across his bedroom floor. Her field of vision of the room was narrow. It allowed her to see most of the bed and the upholstered chair next to the window. She couldn't yet see William.

Eliza waited and breathed as quietly as she was able. Gradually, the idea of lurking near an open door in the dark was beginning to seem a little less brilliant and a little more stalkery. Too late now. Any movement would alert him to her presence. Her only option at this point was to watch and wait.

He didn't bother to light a lamp, but with the bright moonlight, he didn't really need to. She watched as his suit coat sailed through the air and landed on his bed. How unlike usually tidy William. On the rare occasion she'd entered his room for cleaning duties, his things were always neatly folded.

As he walked over to the window, he came into view. Even in the dim light, she could see he was exhausted. His hair was a tousled mess, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes.

Her feet started toward him before her brain reasserted command and stopped them.
Stupid feet.
It would be a very foolish thing to do. Being surprised by a semi-stalker maid was the last thing he needed. Her only course of action now was to linger in the shadows until he was asleep and it was safe to slip away.

She stepped back into the darkness and waited. And watched because, well, she was already there. No harm in watching.

In one hand, he carried a tumbler full of amber-colored liquid. In the other, he held some kind of white clothing which she couldn't identify in the dim light. He set the whiskey and clothing on the end table and placed his eyeglasses neatly beside them.

When he began to undo the fastenings of his vest, she felt a twinge of guilt. She should look away, she knew. But she kept watching all the same.

He shrugged off his vest, and tossed it on top of the jacket that he'd shed earlier. His hands deftly unfastened the buttons of his white linen shirt, which quickly joined the clothing pile on the bed. This was followed by his undershirt. When he turned, she had to admire his chest, tightly muscled beneath his pale skin that glowed softly in the moonlight. The boxing lessons had sculpted the body of someone who wasn't quite a shy mama's boy.

Then, instead of doing what she'd expected and climbing into bed, he sank down in the chair. His hand reached up to the items he'd placed on the table earlier. His fingers bypassed the whiskey, however, and picked up that white bit of clothing. She watched as he slid his fingers over the folds of the fabric, almost caressing it.

The light was brighter next to the window, and Eliza took a quiet step closer to see what it was that William was holding. Realization slowly dawned. It was something that was familiar to her—intimately familiar. It was something he'd just picked up while in his mother's room. Something she'd left behind in her panic of the morning.

Her pantaloons.

Oh dear god.

Mortified, she couldn't bear to watch. But then, she couldn't bear to look away either.

Did he know they were hers? She was familiar enough with laundry to know that even in underthings, the classes were strictly separated. Hers were a simple white muslin while those belonging to his mother were of another category altogether. But just because she knew that these were her what-passed-for-panties, didn't mean that William necessarily knew.

“Eliza.” His voice was a sigh.

She jerked her head up in a panic, only to see him still seated, still in profile, and gazing at her underwear in the moonlight.

Apparently, he knew.

Well, this was not how she expected her day to end. Helpless to do anything else, Eliza watched in the darkness.

He brought the muslin garment closer to his face, almost reverently. Leaning in and touching the fabric to his cheek, he closed his eyes and inhaled.

“Has your scent, Eliza.” His voice was low, yet it carried perfectly in the silent house.

Eliza swallowed.

“This is wrong. I know it.”

The fingers of his right hand continued to toy with her gauzy underwear, while his left hand slid down the front of his bare chest until it came to the waistband of his trousers. Almost leisurely, he began to unbutton his fly.

Sweet merciful Zeus.
Was this going where she thought it was going? And why couldn't she look away? She was supposed to look away, wasn't she? She wasn't supposed to want to watch this.

Even in profile, she could see the bulge in his trousers as his fingers worked the buttons. He tugged aside the waistband, working the fly of his underwear to slide his fully erect cock through the opening of the material.

Her heartbeat thundered up her throat and into her ears.

She pushed her gaze away from his groin to check his expression. His eyes were still closed, lips slightly parted. He wasn't even touching his erection. He'd just freed it, then leaned back against the upholstered chair, toying with her knickers by the light of the moon.

In the moonlight like this, eyes closed, he reminded her of Michelangelo's David. His expression was…beautiful. There was no other word for it. And, at the same time, he appeared terribly vulnerable. What an erotic combination.

He brought the gauzy material close to his face again, and she could see his lips move. He murmured something, but so quietly that even in the still house, she couldn't make out what it was. He kept his right hand on his bare chest, over his heart: a strangely endearing thing to do.

Involuntarily, her feet carried her a few steps closer to the door. Her brain didn't stop them this time.
Couldn't
stop them this time.

Slowly, William pulled the underwear away from his face and toward his crotch. Holding the knickers a few inches above his groin, he gently dragged the soft material across the length of his erection. He made a soft
hsss
sound as he did so.

He opened his eyes and glanced down at the underwear as it teased his engorged cock, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Who is she turning me into?” he asked quietly, but the smile didn't leave his lips.

With one hand, he dragged the underwear along the length of his shaft while the other hand searched through the folds of the garment.

Then, deft fingers found the slit that opened up the part of the underwear where the crotch
would
be if it hadn't been made in this strange Victorian manner. His finger traced the edge of the slit as he closed his eyes and sank back into the chair.

With a sigh, he tugged his erection through the crotchless part of the underwear, teasing the soft material against the tip. The voluminous garment settled around his groin, his engorged cock jutting out of the center. With his left hand, he began to trace teasing patterns down his length, gentle movements that soon gave way to a firmer grasp and longer strokes.