The Secretary (22 page)

But as they walked back to the carriage, he couldn’t resist asking, “What next? Elves and wizards?”

Clarissa stretched out her legs and rested her feet on the bench across from her, where Anders was dozing. He looked years younger when he slept, she realized. All the cares that weighed him down seemed to lift. And it was an added bonus that when he was asleep, he could not tease her about druids and fairies.

She had made quite a cake of herself at Stonehenge, she thought. But it had been inevitable. All throughout her childhood, she had been discouraged from believing in magic. When her father had discovered the game she and Cynthia played, about their mothers having been spirited away to some magical realm, he had become quite angry—perhaps angrier than Clarissa had ever seen him in his life, except for the day when he had broken with Roger Endersby. Enlightened young ladies, he said, did not believe in fairy princesses. They believed in making their own fortune. So the game had ended, and that little piece of magic had left her life.

But she had indulged her desire for a small, sparkling dose of something irrational in secret, hiding copies of Wordsworth and Mary Robinson and Malory under her mattress. Once, when both of their fathers had been down in London and Clarissa and Cynthia had been alone in the house, they had staged their own dramatic interpretation of the life of King Arthur, complete with appearances by Morgaine le Fae and Lancelot.

But everything had changed when her father had decided to stand for Parliament. Suddenly the duties of secretary and personal aide had fallen to Clarissa, and there had been no time for magic and wonder. So she had given it up, shoved it aside and forgotten that there could be such things in the world. And then her father had died and it had seemed at though all the magic
had
vanished.

She had been too embarrassed to say it to Anders, but as she had stood in the center of that ring of stones, she had felt her father’s comforting presence. She
knew
it was him. It wasn’t like the dream she had had. It had felt
real
. And she had kissed Anders there to show her father that she was not alone, that there was still love in her life.

That
was the true magic.

As the carriage rattled through Wiltshire and into Berkshire, Anders slept on. Clarissa dug in her case until she found the book she had borrowed from the library at Ramsay, reasoning that she would bring it back when they returned. It was Shakespeare’s
Much Ado About Nothing
, another perennial favorite. It had been so covered in dust that she had imagined it had sat unread on the shelves for many years. But when she opened the cover, she saw that there was an inscription on the flyleaf.

To my Benedick, from your devoted Beatrice, on the day of our wedding.

         BAR to FGR May 1, 1801

She ran her fingers over the fading ink. FGR was Anders’s Uncle Frederick, of course. She wondered what his wife’s name had been. And she wondered at the meaning of such a gift. Had Frederick and his young wife squabbled like the main characters of the play? Clarissa had always admired Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship, rocky though it was, because it was honest and true, and they did not hide their thoughts and feelings from one another. Perhaps it was that honesty that Uncle Frederick’s wife had cherished. Clarissa knew that it was one of the things she valued most about her bond with Anders.

As she settled back against the bench and turned the page, Anders put his hand out in his sleep and rested it on her shin. Then he sighed and turned his head a little, not waking but drifting deeper into his slumber. Clarissa smiled to herself and began to read.

Anders woke late in the afternoon to find that Clarissa had drifted off to sleep with a book in her hands. Leaning across the carriage, he saw that it was another volume of Shakespeare.

As the carriage jostled them along, the book fell from her hand and onto the floor. Anders scooped it up. It was
Much Ado about Nothing
, another play he had never read. He opened the book.

There, on the flyleaf, was an inscription from his Aunt Beatrice to his Uncle Frederick. Anders read it over a few times.

He had always been told that his uncle had loved his wife to distraction. In his youth he had considered Uncle Frederick rather foolish to allow himself to malinger over a long-dead spouse. Later, when he had seen how much falling in love again had changed his mother, he had come to understand a little more what Uncle Frederick must have gone through when Aunt Beatrice died.

But he had never really thought about whether she had loved her husband just as much as he loved her.

Where had Clarissa gotten the book? She must have found it in the library at Ramsay. He chuckled to himself to think what she would say when she realized he had discovered she had borrowed it. In the dimming light of the afternoon, he opened the book and began to read.

TWENTY

The carriage rolled to a halt, jostling Clarissa awake. “Are we in Reading already?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“We are,” Anders answered, and he got down out of the carriage and went to find them rooms. Clarissa stepped out, too, and stretched her back a little. There were times when it was good to be a man, and this was one of them. Ladies were not permitted to stretch in public. “Bad news,” Anders said. “There’s only one room available. I’ve taken it, but you’ll have to sleep on the sofa,” he added, and then he winked.

Clarissa flushed to the roots of her hair. “Of course, My Lord,” she said.

They went into the taproom and had supper. Clarissa actually took a few sips of ale, though the taste was not much to her liking. Anders did not drink very much either, she noticed. All around them, people laughed and talked, ignoring them.

“We will not be able to sit like this again,” Clarissa said. “In a public taproom.”

He smirked. “Perhaps we will have to keep the wig,” he said. “It has come in useful thus far.”

She returned the grin. “Perhaps,” she agreed.

They went up to the single room, which was apparently the bridal suite. There was, indeed, a sofa, and the innkeeper had thoughtfully laid a blanket across it. But once the door was closed and locked behind them, Anders made it perfectly clear where she would be sleeping.

“Take off your jacket and waistcoat,” he said.

She obeyed. “Are we dispensing with pleasantries, then?” she asked.

“No,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the bed. He laid her down onto it and then grabbed her waist and rolled her over onto her stomach. “We are not. But I cannot have you wincing through another day in the carriage.” Using his strong hands, he began to massage her shoulders. She let out a sigh of relief as the tension in her back eased. His hands moved lower, working the tight muscles of her lower back.

“That feels so good,” she moaned.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, tugging her shirt loose and reaching up to undo the knot that held her binding in place. Then he pulled the fabric out from under her shirt, winding it as he went. He slid his hands under the waist of her trousers and continued to massage her aching muscles. But the lower he went, the less she was able to relax. “Clarissa,” he said after a few moments, “stop squirming.”

She giggled against the coverlet. “I can’t help it. You can’t touch me there and not expect me to respond.”

“I suppose not,” he said, leaning down and pressing his lips to the smooth skin of her lower back. She gasped as he blew on the wet spot he had made. Her back arched. He slid his hands back up and under her shirt, lifting it away from her skin and over her head. When she moved to sit up, he said, “Stay where you are.” Then, he lifted off her wig and cap and began to remove the pins from her hair, dropping them onto the nightstand. When every last pin had been removed he pressed his fingers to her sore scalp.

“Mmm,” she said into the pillow.

“Forget what I said about keeping the wig,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss the skin behind her ear. As his tongue moved against her neck, he slid his hands down and unbuttoned her trousers, his legs straddling her body.

She wondered if he meant to take her from behind as he had in the summerhouse. Trying to show him what she wanted, she lifted her bottom and ground it against him.

“Oh, God, Clarissa,” he groaned. “Do you want me to lose control entirely?”

“Yes,” she said, and she moved against him again.

He made a sound deep in his throat and pulled her trousers and drawers down. His hands moved away for a moment and then he was pushing into her, hard and hot. She moved with him, matching his thrusts. He grasped her hips and pounded into her, filling her and then drawing almost completely out before thrusting in again. She braced her hands against the mattress and rose up a little so that he could reach even deeper. A little mewling sound escaped her lips as he rode her, and then his fingers slipped between her folds and she felt the world explode around her. With another quick thrust he joined her, lifting her off the mattress and pulling her up against his chest as he came. Then he sat back, holding her in his lap, still buried deep inside her. He dropped his lips to her shoulder. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” she replied.

“Sometimes,” Anders said a while later when they were both lying in the bed, her body pressed against his, “I don’t understand you at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take this morning, for instance,” he said. “At Stonehenge. I thought you didn’t believe in magic and fairies and druids.”

“When did I say that?” she asked.

“You didn’t. But you’ve always seemed so...practical to me. And then you go and tell me that there’s magic in the air and we’re communing with the souls of everyone who has ever lived or ever will live.”

She rolled onto her back so that she could look at him. “Let me ask you this: why do you care about human welfare?”

He stared at her. “I suppose...I suppose I care because it’s wrong for people to harm each other. I want to stop them.”

“But why? Why is it wrong?”

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with a naked woman,” Anders said.

“Just pretend I’m not naked. Or a woman.”

“I don’t think my imagination is quite that powerful.”

“But you see, that’s exactly it! Imagination. It’s the one thing we have that all the rest of the world’s creatures lack. You care about other people because you are able to imagine yourself in their position, to feel what they feel, to touch a little piece of their soul. That’s what makes us human. Don’t you think that’s magical?”

Anders considered it. Was this the sort of thing they taught at Oxford? If so, all their sons were going there, tradition be damned. “I suppose it is magical,” he agreed.

“You see,” Clarissa said, “I think that’s what my father didn’t understand. He taught me to be logical and rational. He taught me to read Shakespeare only so we could analyze his dramatic techniques. He never thought about why the thing
mattered
, why we should
care
. To him, everything was academic. And to you, too. You’ve never stopped to consider that there’s a larger purpose, a larger value to the things we do.”

Anders felt himself grinning. “I’m amazed you haven’t had ten or fifteen proposals already, Miss Martin,” he said, “with talk like that.”

“You know,” she said, “sometimes I wonder if that’s why my father trained me to be an academic like him—so that I would never marry.”

“Well, if that’s the case, then I thank him for it,” Anders said. When she gave him a quizzical look, he explained, “It meant that you had to wait for me to come along.”

Clarissa woke from a rather strange dream. She had dreamed that she and Anders were sitting in the summerhouse with her father, who had been reading to them from a book of Parliamentary speeches. All of a sudden, a little girl in a white dress had burst into the summerhouse. “Papa, papa!” she had called, rushing over to Anders. “Come quick! I found a fairy!” Then Clarissa’s father had said, “Foolish child, there’s no such thing as fairies,” and his book had turned into a huge cage that had reached out and trapped the little girl. Clarissa could still hear her sobs as she opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” Anders said as she stirred against him.

“Is it morning already?” she asked.

“It is, and we will have to be on the road soon,” he grumbled, sitting up. She slid out of the bed and collected her hairpins from the nightstand. There was a little dressing table in the corner, and she sat down and began to pin up her hair. He watched her from the bed. “I’m glad it’s you who has had to do that every morning and not I,” he said after a few minutes. “I would have given up three days in.”

“Well, in a few more days I won’t have to do it any more.”

“No. I’m going to hire you the finest ladies’ maid in the kingdom, and she’ll see to it that you never have to touch a hair on your head again if you don’t want to.”

“You’re going to hire me a ladies’ maid?”

“Well, I’ll have Phelps do it.”

“I’ve never had a maid,” she said thoughtfully as she slipped on her cap and wig. What would she do with a maid? Of course, the Countess of Stowe would have gowns much finer than hers and would need to look perfect in each one. “I only have one condition,” she said.

“What is that?”

“I want a maid who doesn’t disapprove of a lady who doesn’t wear corsets.”

Anders laughed, and Clarissa could understand why. It was nearly impossible to imagine staid, stoic Phelps asking potential maids if they approved or disapproved of corsets. Still, he said, “Done. Now, get dressed and let’s be off.”

Clarissa went to her case and pulled out a fresh pair of drawers and a shirt. It was only when she bent to retrieve her shoes that she realized something was missing. The book. She looked under the sofa and in her case, but it was gone. Had she left it in the carriage?