Teaching the Earl (11 page)

But no, he only murmured in wordless, husky delight, and his approval lifted her on a cresting wave of relief. Her fingers dug into the breadth of his shoulders, and she clung tight as he found a place with those fingers that stopped all thought, all knowledge, every part of her shaking mindlessly with each small flicker of his movement.

"Elizabeth." He said it explosively.

She was so lost it took her long moments to realize he had stopped. With extraordinary effort she lifted her head to see him, and he looked down at her.

His expression was anguished. With desperate slow motion he lifted his hand from between her thighs, eased back to the edge of the bed and rose. His gaze swept over her once, over her body lying revealed by the disarray of her nightdress, her pale skin gleaming in the candlelight, and then he closed his eyes, his forehead furrowed as if the sight was torture.

Her hand flashed to her neck, clenched the fabric there together in a tight fist, the other shaking hand shoved the hem of her nightdress down her thighs. She could not fill her lungs. The room seemed to darken.

He spun. He strode out. The door swung wide behind him. He was gone.

The wet material over her nipple was cold. Her whole body was cold; chilled to the core. Frozen. She hunched on the mattress, battered within, her breath coming in small gasps then jerky sobs.

What had she done?

The fire crackled in a mockery of good cheer. Stiff, moving like an old woman, bent almost in half with the constriction in her chest, she climbed off the mattress and shuffled to it, reached out for the heat of it to drive out this gut-deep shiver. She leaned her face against the warm mantelpiece.

What was wrong with her? Why had he left?

She had been so far from thought in those final few minutes, she had lost all self-awareness. Somehow she had repulsed him. What had she done?

She crammed a fist in her mouth and bit down hard to keep from wailing in shameful despair.

She had destroyed it, turned him from the potent urgency of his desire. She had failed.

In the silent night, she wept.

She sat on the hill with her knees drawn up to her chin. It was hardly perfect comportment. She probably looked like an urchin, but it was impossible to make
herself care when for an hour she had watched Lord Carhampton slop about in the mud, digging a ditch beside half-a-dozen burly farm workers. His clothes were ragged and torn.

Yet at the same time, knowing what he believed about the power of this to sway his tenants, it was difficult to watch him and think what he did was truly wrong. He was so compelling, his whole body thrown recklessly into his
labors. He strove like a fiend, as if to drive out demons, and it gave her a secret thrill down deep in the secret places of her body to see him like this. Which was very primitive of her, no doubt.

Physically powerful, filthy, ragged, and sometimes with his marred shirt clinging to him, damp from a passing shower or from sweat, he was a primal creature. Had any Earl ever looked as this one did? He made her shiver.

She should be embarrassed,
was
embarrassed, and yet she could not stop following him about. He probably found her tiresomely transparent, an eager little lapdog. Sometimes she caught him staring at her with a frustrated frown on his face. Though he never said it she sensed he would prefer her absence. He could prefer as much as he liked. She was lonely, and bored, and if he refused to let her be useful - maybe not so useful as he, wallowing in the mud, but useful in a more pleasant way - then he could expect her to malinger-He was walking towards her. Her breath caught and her heart started to beat too hard. A good countess did not pass out because a dirty, bespattered man climbed a hill with his eyes fixed on her.
Even if that man was her Earl. She certainly did not pant or squirm. She was composed and in control.

"Elizabeth," he said.

"Chris."

"You look cold."

"It's damp and squelchy up here, and since the wind started to blow I'm turning into an icicle."

"Time to go back to the house?"

"Will you go with me?"

"There's still a great deal to do here."

"I don't want to go back by myself."

"Then you shouldn't have come out at all. You knew I had hours of work to do-"

"Yes. As you always do. Though you don't bring me your schedule and consult with me, it's true, I have learned what I can expect. Which is to say, your absence. I'm lonely. Won't you come home with me, and spend a few hours together? We could sit by the fire and talk-"

"Elizabeth, it's not my task to amuse you. You're an adult; old enough to understand this must be the priority. Our future prosperity is based on the estates running properly-"

"I don't need a lecture about priorities. I understand perfectly well my happiness is not your priority. I can also see you don't care about the future of our marriage, which also needs time for plowing, reaping and planting."

His eyebrows shot up, his eyes widened, and he stared at her. After a moment she caught her own innuendo, and blushed furiously. She opened her mouth, not certain what she would say, and her true heartbreak tumbled out. "
Time
spent on it! On me. Do you love me at all, that you ignore me as you do? Did I misunderstand you completely, when I said I'd marry you?"

"I expect with time love may grow-"

"With time! Yes! Only you won't give me that. Even as you mouth those words they sound like a platitude. Do you even believe them?"

"I'm sorry." His face closed, and he half-turned away from her to look out over the fields, lifted one hand to shade his eyes. "I can't give you what you want right now. Maybe, in time - don't rip up at me - but we shall find common ground and build something together. But for now, this is as much as I can manage. Getting through each day is the best I can do."

"Why? I don't understand. Is this all about your cousin? Did his death truly hit you that hard?"

"Not my cousin. There is another." He took a breath and she struggled to her feet, chilled and stiff but certain this moment was too important to miss a word in the windy air between them. "I was secretly engaged. When I inherited I felt duty-bound to jilt her." He massaged his temples, still not meeting her eyes. "My inheritance was a millstone of debt, of retainers and dependents.
Hundreds of people depending on me, on whatever wealth I could create. You saw them. You saw how they were living, the next thing to starving to death. And there are many more than just here.

"I needed money to do the work, to haul us all back from the brink. She came with nothing but herself, so I gave her up." What she could see of his face was twisted with self-loathing. "I thought she would understand the necessity of the sacrifice. I thought-" He paused, almost panting, and then finished very low, so she could barely hear him. "She killed herself."

Her hand flew up to cover her mouth and she made a strangled sound of denial. He closed his eyes. The cold wind swirled around them, tugging at their clothes.

What could she say? The enormity of it defied understanding.

She wanted to go to him, to hold him, but his rigid stillness refused connection.

Yet she could not let him carry this alone. She trod the few steps that separated them, and wrapped her arms around him. He was shuddering, fine tremors running the length of his body, and she rubbed his back, trying to press comfort into him.

For a long moment he stood quiescent. Then he broke away. "I don't deserve-I can't do this. It's wrong. I betrayed her trust. I can't simply turn to another."

"Chris-"

"No! It's wrong."

"If she truly loved you she would want you to be happy-"

"She begged me to be faithful. She hated the thought of me in the arms of another. To touch you is to break faith. No matter how I want-It's wrong. I can't-"

"But you must. You can't dig yourself into her grave. Forgive me for saying it, but you are still alive-" but she stopped as he raised his face to look at her, his eyes glittering with rage.

"You have no right to speak of her, of what I owe her. You will not challenge me on this."

"You aren't rational. I am your wife," she said, but her voice was small and frightened.

"I don't need a wife." His jaw was set, his eyes glazed, and the snap of his voice was a brutal whip. "I needed your money, and now I have it. I never wanted you."

She staggered back, her hands opening and closing by her sides as if to grasp a handhold that was not there.

"Go. Get out and just go, far away, where I don't have to look at you, think of you, and remember what I did to her. To the woman who should have been my wife."

She could not draw a breath. Her chest was grasped, squeezed, and she choked on the pain of his words. She took one step backward.
A second. She broke, whirled, and stumbled away over the pits and furrows of the blank earth.

CHAPTER F
OURTEEN

Elizabeth stepped out of the carriage. She was weary down to her bones. Everything ached. That was truly a dreadful road. As soon as there were funds for it, the coach needed to be refurbished or replaced. Dreadful, smelly thing. Even standing on firm ground, she still felt as if the whole world rocked nauseatingly.

She put a hand on the stable archway, closed her eyes and stood still, taking deep breaths of the cold night air. When she had mastered her gut, she walked to the back entrance of the London townhouse of the
Alexanders. A servant stood waiting to let her in, candelabra in hand. Elizabeth did not recognize the woman of course, but she would soon learn all their names.

"Please have my baggage carried up. Is my suite ready for use?"

"Begging your pardon, Ma'am, but no. We had no word you was coming."

She sighed.
"Very well. Please see it is dusted and swept, and the linens are replaced with well-aired fresh ones. The bed will need warming. I'd also like a supper and a pot of tea, please."

"Where shall I bring those, Ma'am?"

"The dining room, I suppose. Have someone light the fire there."

"Yes, Ma'am.
If I may show you the way?"

Elizabeth followed her, raising a hand to cover a yawn.
Food and drink, then bed. The bedroom would hopefully be in far better state than the one at Hensleigh Park. Though possibly that was too optimistic. She had no idea when this house had last possessed a mistress. Perhaps her suite would have been allowed to decay. Not that she would take over the master suite instead, though it was tempting. She would not make more of a nuisance of herself-She tilted her head back, looked at the ceiling and took another deep breath. She would
certainly not think such things here, in front of witnesses. She had cried enough tears in the coach on the way from Devon. Now she must be the countess, and show all the servants their mistress was worthy of respect, despite her common background. They would be watching, ready to judge her and find her lacking.

Well, it would not happen. Even exhausted, she could still manage this. She must fixate on the meal to come, and the warm bed. No more than that.
The meal and the bed.

She repeated these words to
herself as the servant lit candles all around the room and set alight the fire that stood waiting in the grate. It was a moderate-sized space, with walls of deep burgundy, a rich tone. The heavy furniture was not something she would have chosen, but it was perfectly respectable.

She stood by the fire and warmed her cold hands. This was where she had met his family, all those weeks ago, before their marriage.
A small, mis-matched collection of elderly cousins and aunts, all on his mother's side. Odd to think that was all his family. To her the word encompassed such a great collection of noisy people. She would see her own family tomorrow.

What would she tell them? Could she pretend happiness with her new marriage? It seemed an impossible task. Mama would perceive her misery at once, and be very distressed. Papa would frown and shake his head, concerned and disappointed he had chosen poorly for her.

Lord Carhampton had tricked them all.

The serving woman came in with another, a girl who set down her burden of teapot, cup and saucer, then stood rubbing her eyes and yawning. Obviously she had been woken to serve. Elizabeth waited while cutlery was fetched from the sideboard and everything
laid out properly on the table. Despite her turmoil, she was ravenous, and while the cold cuts of meat, the pickles and the cheese were hardly extravagant, they would do very nicely.

When they were gone, she ate, and as her stomach filled, her head drooped. Such a long and weary journey, alone and with nothing to look forward to but making her family sad.

Still, once she had done that, there was all of London to enjoy in her new position. There might be little money to spend, but she had extravagant dresses in plenty, all made up for this season. She would attend balls and routs and soirees and levees and every other entertainment devised by society's matrons. There was no need to be lonely or withdrawn.

Her family would see although she had made a mistake choosing Lord
Carhampton, still her life could be busy and happy. No one needed to grieve for her, least of all herself.

And if there was a sad small place inside her that remembered the hate on his face, and wanted to cry at the ruin of her dreams, it would be ignored.

_____

He should get back to work. His emptied plates lay before him, the plain meal consumed without attention. Outside there was always another task, and another, the endless procession of menial, back-breaking labor that was his penance for all his mistakes.

And when it was done? What then? Would he achieve redemption, and find all was forgiven? Would life ever again be as it should be?

Or was that eternally beyond him, out of reach?

He leaned back in his chair. All his muscles ached, though he barely noticed that these days. He had washed his hands at the kitchen pump before he sat down to eat, but as he took a moment to look at them now he saw dirt was a cuff at his wrist and crusted under his ragged fingernails.

He began to resemble the beast he felt inside; a senseless, shambling creature reeling through life. He paused with his hand halfway to his head, then went ahead and rifled through his hair. No doubt it was as filthy as the rest of him.

If he took the time to stand back from his work he would see a great deal was accomplished. Any man who worked as hard as he had these past weeks - nearly two months now - could expect to carve changes into the earth. And these days he was no mere man working alone. He was an Earl, with work teams,
laborers and tenant farmers ready at hand.

Ironic that after years preparing for the task of leading men into a better life, the opportunity was handed to him and it was as bitterly hollow as this. He was not fit for any man to follow. He could barely lead himself.

Still, those men were hardly critical peers. Willingly or unwillingly, grumbling or silent, they mostly did as they were told, generations of servitude behind them. Desperation honed their spades and axes more keenly. They had walked very close to destitution, most of them, scratching out a bare living on depleted soil but with no one caring to teach them crop rotation or fertilization. Their new Earl - peculiar and driven - gave them more hope than they had possessed in a lifetime.

So they followed him, even if the only leadership he offered was to climb off his horse and start digging. Tons of earth had been shifted, mountains of manure from ancient
middens spread where it could be of use. Seeds were in the ground, seedlings shooting up from them with a vigor that would have pleased him under other conditions.

Nothing pleased him now.

His guilt was a living thing. It sat on his shoulder, a weight that rode him everywhere. Everything he had was paid for by Sophia's death. He could not enjoy any of it. Pride had gone from him and there was nothing but weary work as he fulfilled the duties of his position.

Even his young wife - he looked at her empty chair beside him - was sacrificed. A different
guilt, that, laced with temptation. It hurt to remember the expression on her face as she stood before him on that windy hill.

Betrayal.

She had every right to it. He had deceived her, pretended to be whole, implied he had a heart to give in marriage. All lies.

Yes, it was better she knew the truth, knew the shape of the ground under her feet. Only right to give her that much if he could give her nothing else.

But when he saw that stricken look in her eyes he wished he had it in him to woo her with pretty lies and deceive her into happiness. She did not deserve any of this. The feeling of her soft body wrapped around him as she tried to comfort him, the sweet scent of her rising to his nostrils, lingered still. If he shut his eyes he could remember it, imagine she held him nowHe stood abruptly, shoving his chair across the floor with a loud scrape. He did not deserve even that comfort. It was time to get back to work.

Yet he stayed where he was, and stared at her empty chair. She was in London, in the townhouse, alone. She would still be lonely. Had society welcomed its newest countess? Did she have callers and invitations? What if she was ignored, the jumped-up heiress who had bought a title with the profits of Papa’s trade? Perhaps she sat at home every night. He could picture her, with head bent, tears dripping onto idle, folded hands.

His gut churned at the thought, and he clenched his fists as if he could somehow protect her from unhappiness. But he could not. Not while he was here. If he was in town he could help establish her, see that she had the connections she needed, introduce her and get her started.

She was a sweet, genteel creature. People would welcome her once they knew her. It was only that first step that was difficult.

He should have thought of that earlier. Why had he not? He had been so careful not to think at all, about anything but the estate and his plans for it. He had shut her out of his head, as much as he could. She lingered on the edge of awareness because of guilt, a consciousness of what he owed her and how he had failed her. It was nothing to do with her gentle beauty, or those dimples in her glowing skin. Nor her soft curves, that ripe bosom or the ripples of her golden
caramel hair.

Yet those sparkling eyes haunted him. He remembered them as they had been at
Almacks, shining with excitement and happiness. There were few moments that stood out of the dull fog of his wife hunt in London, and it occurred to him most were of her. He could recall her eyes clearly, as they had been on that first meeting, and again when he proposed - brimming with hopeful dreams. Or on their walks together, filled with an adulation that made him uncomfortable, for he did not deserve it.

Since their marriage, he had seen that light dim. Bewilderment took its place, disappointment and hurt.

Oh, she tried. She was a courageous young woman, not exactly the quiet, submissive creature he had first thought her. She persisted with him, niggled at him, first gently and then with firm indignation.

Yes, she deserved better.

He should have established her properly in the city, to be sure she was well launched. Reprehensible that he had not.

But he could fix that, of course, if he wanted. It would only take a week, perhaps two. He had planned to order quantities of seed, but he could go to the city to inspect it for himself, since the initial seed stock had been partially spoiled by damp before it arrived. He could compare suppliers rather than rely on a proxy. Visiting the capital would allow him to buy more tools, now he knew precisely what was needed on the estate. The funds were there now, Elizabeth's dowry clear and waiting in his accounts.

It might even be more useful to his plans to be in London than on the estate at this moment. He had learned a great deal these past weeks, and he could put it to good use consulting with experts at the Royal College of Agriculture. He knew what questions to ask. He could buy books on farming and crop rotation to extend his knowledge.

His absence need not cause harm. The men he had worked with in the fields understood his methods now. Repairs on the cottages were well underway, the first of them complete, and the workmen could be trusted to carry on as they had begun. Construction was not due to begin on the new farm buildings until all the crops were planted.

In fact, now he thought it over, it was a necessity he go to London.

To London, where Elizabeth waited, alone and lonely, longing for companionship.

Yes, he would go.