“These are not murderers, of course,” Elijah said.
“The murderers have already been hanged, with their cheerful audiences. Murderers do not find themselves in the hulks. These prisoners are the poor, those who stole.”
“Robbers,” Stibblestich said, the word exploding off his tongue. “They beat and they rob. Generally the elderly. They will rob an old woman as soon as look at her!”
“Londoners will watch from the shores, no doubt,” Elijah continued. “They will hear the screams.”
Cheever-Chittlesford’s eyes flared, just slightly.
“The men will be trapped below, as the smoke begins to creep down. I imagine it will be something like the burning of witches, that happened back in uncivilized times…say in the realm of Queen Mary, she who is now nicknamed Bloody Mary. I’m afraid that history does tend to dwell on this sort of event.”
Stibblestich said, “I doubt—”
But Elijah spoke straight over him. “The men will begin to scream. The flames will lick onward. And every person on the shore will know someone who knows someone on that boat. The mothers will likely try to throw themselves into the water at this point. They will begin to shriek.”
Cheever-Chittlesford’s mouth was a thin line.
“Oh yes, they’ll scream,” Elijah said, folding his arms over his chest. “I expect that the ship burning will be the one event that marks the entire reign of King George III. No one will ever forget it. No one on that shore, who watches that wholesale slaughter, will ever stop talking of it, not in his or her lifetime.” He turned sharply on Cheever-Chittlesford. “Does the king realize that he stands to create his legacy by this single act?”
The question of Pitt’s legacy hung in the air, not to mention Cheever-Chittlesford’s.
“I doubt it,” he replied.
“Well, I doubt it would be anything near as dramatic!” Stibblestich blustered. “You’ll have us all in tears, talking of mothers and such. But the reality is that Londoners like a good hanging!”
“That they do. A man who’s been fairly caught and confessed—for they always appear to have written their confessions, even the ones who can’t sign their own names—London does enjoy a good hanging of that nature. But men chained to the walls, forced to die slowly, in terror and excruciating agony, for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread?”
Cheever-Chittlesford cleared his throat. “I am sure another solution will present itself.”
Elijah knew better than to show the slightest sign of satisfaction. He’d lost arguments, after winning them, by exhibiting pleasure in the outcome.
Cheever-Chittlesford’s eyes looked like old metal coins, dull and impenetrable. But Elijah knew he had him. Cheever-Chittlesford would not allow the firing of the hulks. Elijah looked deliberately at Stibblestich, and then back at Cheever-Chittlesford. “Statesmen are likely to be judged by those they have around them. Men of the highest integrity are a bulwark against depraved decisions.”
“Nothing depraved about it!” Stibblestich said. His voice was quieter now that he’d lost. He looked disappointed. He, for one, would have enjoyed standing on the riverbank and watching the ship burn.
“I suggest you investigate sending such petty criminals to Australia,” Elijah said. “It’s a large country, and far away.” Cheever-Chittlesford didn’t look convinced, so he added, “In years to come, it may be a thriving colony, capable of being taxed.”
That made Cheever-Chittlesford look even more thoughtful.
Suddenly Elijah wanted nothing more than for these men to be out of the house, with their ability to discuss burning men alive, as if such a thing could ever be a reasonable proposition. As his rage receded, exhaustion followed in its wake.
He bowed. “I’m afraid you must forgive me, gentlemen. I have a previous engagement.”
“Of course,” Cheever-Chittlesford murmured.
Finally, they left the library and were in the entry. Elijah heard Stibblestich’s voice, sharp and scornful. “Of course Bawdy Beaumont has an appointment. I hear he’s caught the whore’s disease. And you know where he caught that. Like father, like son. I always said it.” His voice faded as he and Cheever-Chittlesford walked out the front door.
Elijah didn’t even care.
There was a sound in his head, like that of a stream rushing downhill. He was so tired that his legs felt like bars of lead. He had to go back to bed.
But the distance between himself and the bedchamber upstairs seemed insurmountable.
Jemma could not see him like this. He forced himself to move, feeling his heart thump angrily in response. The only thing his body wanted was to lie down, to slip into the blackness that waited at the edges of his vision.
He walked up the stairs steadily, by an enormous effort of will. At his door, he slipped through and closed it behind him, leaned back, head against the wood. Something was wrong with his vision, though, and the walls seemed to undulate.
The thought crossed his mind that he might not wake up this time. He had felt this terrible only once, after fainting in the House of Lords a year ago. A wash of regret went through his mind, but he pushed himself upright. He had had one wonderful night with Jemma.
He put a foot forward, and then another. It wasn’t so far to the bed. The walls were turning gray and foggy, as if the solid wood were dissolving. He could feel his heart stuttering, dropping a beat, another beat.
He pushed himself forward. If he were going to die now, it would be decently in his bed. He could have been climbing a mountain, given the effort it took him, but he finally was at the side of his bed. He put his hands out and allowed himself to fall forward.
Then he thought about turning over for what seemed like a long time before he managed to do it.
It was only when he was lying there fully clothed, and the familiar darkness was gathering and billowing around him, that Elijah thought of his father. He had spent the greater part of his life hating his father for dying in the manner he did, for living his life in such a wayward fashion. The facts of his father’s death had shaped his life.
Yet if his father had not been immoral in such a flagrant fashion, would he himself have become a person whom statesmen visited for advice when they were considering a leap into cruelty?
He would have been merely another duke, trundling from his country estate to his town house, marrying the woman designated to be his duchess, going from cradle to grave without considering the impact of his own words, of his own life.
With that thought came a feeling of peace. Because his father had died young, Elijah had always felt time at his shoulder. And that drove him to work hard. It allowed him to sometimes intervene before a great injustice was served on the weak and needy.
It even drove him to bring Jemma back from Paris, to give them the indescribable joy they had shared the night before. His father had never found the love that he and Jemma shared.
The late duke had lived in a house full of portraits of beheaded men. Whereas he had lived, if only for a year, in a house graced by Jemma.
He slipped into the darkness, smiling.
Chapter Twenty-two
Elijah was rather surprised to wake up, but not surprised to find Jemma standing at his bedside, her eyes huge in her stricken face.
She said his name on a sob.
“It’s all right,” he said, the words coming with difficulty. “I’m back.”
“I thought the attacks came–I was a fool,” she said, clutching his hand. “I put it out of my mind. Was it because we—”
“No!” he said quickly. “Stibblestich visited this morning.”
She swallowed, and he could see her make a visible effort not to renew her plea that he leave the Parliament. “Give me some time,” he murmured. “I’ll have that potion Vickery doubtless has ready-made, and take a short nap.”
Jemma’s lips were trembling, but she set her mouth and put down his hand. An hour or so later he was up, his headache gone, just the ache of regret in his ches
t.
He found Jemma in the library, staring at an empty chess board. He didn’t think she was playing a game in her head. He dropped a kiss on her hair. “Would you like to take a walk with me?”
She looked up. Her eyes were glazed with tears. “I’m so sorry,” he said helplessly.
“I’d like a walk, but not here. I don’t want to see Lady Lister next door, or anyone I know.”
“How about the gardens of the Roman bath?” he suggested. “We said we would go back, someday.”
The truth of that stood between them silently. If they didn’t go now, they might never go.
Servants have a way of knowing when it’s the right time to be invisible. Without meeting anyone’s eyes—not Fowle’s, not a footman’s—they were in the carriage. Jemma huddled under his arm like a wounded bird. And then they were at the baths.
It was raining: not hard, just enough to make spring look even greener. Every leaf appeared new, as if its paint was not yet dry, the color still vivid and glossy. Even the light looked green.
The little monk let them in, incurious as ever. He wore his hood over his face so all that could be seen was his nose. The nose nodded when Elijah said they would walk in the gardens, and the man hurried away, disappearing between the broken pillars.
“Who is he?” Elijah asked, breaking the silence. “Do you have any idea why he tends the baths?”
“There are five of them,” Jemma said. Her voice was too controlled. She needed to cry, he guessed. “Caring for the baths is all they do.”
“They certainly don’t bother with the grounds.” The gardens were as dilapidated as the baths themselves. They wandered down a path lined with overgrown shrubs. Flowering vines hung like horse blankets over the low walls, dragging down stones and tumbling them to the pavement.
The tree trunks were shiny black with rain, their leaves reflected in puddles at their feet.
“I believe they spend their time in prayer,” she said, when so much time had passed that he had forgotten the question.
“Prayer to Apollo?”
“The God of Healing.” Her hand curled suddenly around his. “Oh, Elijah, would it be madness to ask them to pray for you?” She started to turn about.
He dropped a kiss on her nose. “Yes, it would. I don’t think people ask Apollo to grant favors. He gave humans the art of medicine, but he didn’t promise to cure Lord Piddleton’s gout.”
“You’re not suffering from a mild case of gout,” she said tensely.
“Well, you can always ask.”
But she was thinking about it now. “The problem is where does one stop? If I ask the monks here, I’d have to ask someone in the church.”
“The archbishop, at least,” Elijah suggested. Against all odds, he was starting to feel oddly happy.
She scowled at him. “How dare you smile at me!”
“I didn’t die today,” he said cheerfully. “I’m walking with you, and you don’t have gloves on, so I am feeling a pleasantly irresponsible wish to kiss your fingers.” Which he did. “And your mouth.” Which he did.
“You have the most lovely mouth, Jemma,” he whispered sometime later. “It’s soft and full. It makes me want to bite you.”
Her smile was so beautiful that he kissed her again, and then because a man can’t kiss a luscious woman and simultaneously feel despair, he started to feel something quite otherwise.
Jemma had her arms wound around his neck and didn’t seem to take it in when he unbuttoned her pelisse and ran his hands inside.
He almost groaned aloud. The lush weight of her breasts, plumped in his hand, made him feel mad. It was the work of a moment to pull down the delicate pleated material hiding their beauty.
The gardens were utterly still. They had walked long enough so even the baths were out of sight. He couldn’t hear a sound from the road, just the high clear song of a lark, rejoicing in the end of the rain shower.
If there was ever a moment since the world began in which a man ought to play Adam, and make love to his own Eve, this was it. Without further ado, Elijah spun Jemma to the side and plumped her down on a narrow bench at the edge of the path. She let out a little shriek that might have had something to do with the rain glistening on the marble seat.
But Elijah fell to his knees before her, ignoring her protest. He traced the curve of her breast with his hand and then followed that caress with his lips. She certainly protested: she even tugged at his hair. But he felt primitive and alive, suckling his wife with a passion bred by grief and joy intermingled. He knew her body, knew her soul, and so he wrapped his hands around her waist at the very moment Jemma surrendered. Her head fell back and a ragged cry came from her throat.
The smooth skin under his tongue tasted like milk and honey, like the most delicious food the world has to offer. He gave her a little bite; she gasped and the sound stoked his belly, sent fire raging up his legs.
“Sweetheart,” he said, wrenching her bodice even lower so that he could give the same ministrations to her left breast, “you’re killing me.”
Her body went rigid.
He gave her another little bite. “Not literally, you fool.” And licked her to ask forgiveness for his offense.
“Don’t you dare call me names,” she said, but her voice was syrupy and he knew he had her. He wasn’t dead yet. He wasn’t dead yet.
He stroked and nibbled until her whole body was trembling and she was clutching his shoulders closer, rather than trying to push him away—and then he stood up. “Time to be on our way, sweetheart.” He caught her hand and brought her to her feet, loving the look of her. The contrast between her lush skirts and bare breasts, between her dazed eyes and ruby mouth.
“Wh-what?”
He loved it when his sophisticated Jemma got that look in her eyes, as if she were bereft because he had stopped touching her. As if her need for him was so great that she couldn’t think about chess pieces or logic or any of those other things she did so well. So he kissed her again, just to make sure she was agreeable, and then pulled her down the path.
There was mist hanging in the air from the morning’s shower, but he could see that the path ended in a little circle with a statue. Perfect. He couldn’t give her time to think, so it was the work of a moment to have Jemma flat on her back, cushioned on his coat and her pelisse. He threw off his boots too, though she hadn’t quite noticed.
“Just a kiss,” she said, starting to wake up. “I don’t mind kissing, Elijah, though this is terribly—”
He had to move quickly so he put a hand under her skirts. She was soft and wet, and the little noise that came from her mouth replaced all those anxious words she was trying to say. Every time she started again he changed his touch from light to deep, from a brush to a stroke. She did manage to gasp ridiculous things in between pants. Like “We shouldn’t,” and “Is that rain?” and “No!”
But he took his time, his fingers dancing, his mouth stealing her moans until she started bucking against his hand, twisting from side to side.
Still he waited…waited…moved his fingers in the kind of languid stroke that his own sweet Jemma could not resist, could not fight.
It started to spit rain again, just enough to cool them both off. She had stopped saying no, and was breathing his name over and over, like a song. There was something in the sound of it that made him feel such a wave of tenderness that he instinctively shook his head. Rather than say something foolish, he threw up her skirts and slid down so that he could feel with his fingers and his mouth every shudder that raked her body. Her hands wrapped into his hair and she gave a little scream, a cry of pure pleasure.
“Elijah!” she cried. “I—” and she came with a force that shook her body from her toes to her fingertips.
It was his moment. He wrenched down his pantaloons and eased into her. She was swollen and silky, like milk wrapped around him. A thick groan broke from his lips.
But: “I’m worried about your heart,” Jemma said. He looked down and
her eyes were wide open, anxious—terrified.
He brushed her lips with his own. “I’ve never been better. Do you know what I love, Jemma?” He moved slowly forward, sliding into her, stretching her. She squeaked. “You didn’t think you’d be naked today.”
“Of course not.” She arched up against him so that he nearly lost his train of thought. “We shouldn’t be naked,” she pointed out. But there was no real conviction in her voice.
“You wear perfume when you think you’re going to be naked.”
“Yes,” she breathed, pushing back against him at just the right moment.
“I love it when you don’t wear perfume. You smell so good,” he whispered, nuzzling her. “You smell like clean rain, and hot woman.”
“Elijah!” She was trying to sound scandalized, so he ignored her.
“Now I’m going to—“He lowered his mouth to her ear again and told her in detail what he meant to do. And then because his language had been thrillingly rough, he followed it up with kisses so sweet that he felt another pulse of nervousness. Making love wasn’t supposed to be so—so loving.
He shook the thought away, threw his head back, and pumped. But even as Jemma squeaked when he filled her, her hands clutched his shoulders, and her moan was of fear.
He opened his eyes. “Jemma?”
“I’m afraid for you,” she gasped. There was rain on her nose, and shining in her curls, and she was so beautiful that it took everything he had to stop the movement of his hips. Even so, he couldn’t stop himself, and nudged forward just a bit. Just enough to make sure that she was with him.
She was, because she took a quick breath and her fingers bit into his shoulders.
“I’m covered with sweat,” he observed, stilling again.
“Is that bad?” Her eyes went wide again.
“No! It’s good. Remember, I told you that regular exercise has helped my heart?”
“Yes, but this isn’t—”
“It is. If you stop me now, it’ll be a terrible shock to my body,” he offered.