Chapter Twenty-Two
Hattie dozed for a time, long enough that the sun had begun to sink down below the crest of the hill that held the house up and change the color of the room around them.
She woke still wrapped around Elias, their legs tangled and his weight still eased onto the side of her body, his head resting on her shoulder.
She felt him holding her hand, the one that now had a beautiful ring upon it, turning and examining her fingers and knuckles and palm and heel, unaware that her eyes were blinking open again, until she gave a little chuckle, a smile spreading over her lips.
He glanced up at her, those eyes so very blue in the low light, and sheepishly smiled back. “There’s no scar,” he said, running his thumb along the line of her hand, where she had burned herself in the moment before they’d first met. “It’s strange; I could’ve sworn there was one.”
“There was, for many years,” she said sleepily, stifling a little yawn. “It faded eventually.”
“‘Faded,’” he repeated thoughtfully. “Then it was never a scar in the first place. Just a very slow-healing wound.”
“I suppose not,” she said, her hand curling up to tangle in his hair. “You are right. A scar would have stayed forever.”
“Not a scar,” he said with a soft smile. “Not a scald.”
“Well, it wasn’t a scald,” she said, laughing again, this time enough that her chest shook and shook him with it. “I thought the cook was going to strangle me.”
“So did I,” he said, marveling and bringing the hand up to kiss the place where the burn had once been. “I was amazed that you didn’t look more afraid. Resentful, even. How dare a girl be braver than I? A new baron.”
“How dare, indeed,” she said, stroking those dark, silky locks, her fingernails trailing along the back of his neck until his eyes fluttered shut with a sigh. “I was afraid. I’m just often bad at showing it.”
“There’s power in that deficiency,” he told her without opening his eyes. “I assure you.”
“Yes, well…” she said with a snort. “It seemed to always infuriate you that I couldn’t emote properly. Perhaps I am simple.”
That got his eyes open again, his hand coming up to stop her ministrations and a frown tugging at his lips. “You are not simple,” he said, pushing himself up onto his elbow to loom over her. “You are remarkable.”
“One can be both,” she said teasingly.
“And yet you are not,” he replied, a little firmer than Hattie thought strictly necessary, but that had always been his way, hadn’t it?
“Hm,” she said, reaching up to trace the line of his face with her fingernails.
“I sent your pig away for the night, by the by. I couldn’t reckon with the idea of traumatizing that sweet creature with a forced audience to our consummation, but now I realize it was unnecessary.
She would have remained innocent, sequestered in the master suite while we were depraved here, a floor below. ”
He watched her for a moment, those dark-blue eyes flicking back and forth over her face. “Who said we aren’t going to defile the master suite as well?” he asked, raising his brows. “It is still early.”
“It is still early,” she agreed, glancing at the setting sun. “Isn’t it?”
He sighed, leaning into the palm of her hand and nodding. “Yes. And I would wager our absence has been noted. And commented upon. And perhaps rendered in pantomime.”
“The posh one and the pantomime,” Hattie echoed, giggling, though in doing so, she remembered the context in which those words were spoken. “How … erm …”
“How did I fare against my parents?” he asked, his lips twisting in dry amusement as he sighed and pushed himself back to sitting. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. They shan’t be incarcerating Mr. Harcourt tonight, in any event.”
“Well,” she said, scooting backward and pulling herself up as well. “That is something.”
He shot her a look and she flattened her mouth in response, which did, at least, have the effect of making them both laugh.
She shook her head, reaching down to tug her bodice back into place, which took some doing, as it had become rather twisted and bunched after the abuse it had endured.
She had to reach inside to reposition her stays and her body within so that the fabric would lie as intended and when she glanced up again, Elias was watching her with an intensity that immediately made her regret preparing to leave this room at all.
“Your stockings,” he said, his voice gone a bit hoarse as he held up the two slips of silk. “Shall I put them back on you?”
“Do you think that wise?” she asked, a mild note of hope in her voice that it wasn’t, and that he would do it, anyway.
He gave her a slow, predatory smile, his face half in shadow from the setting sun, teeth gleaming from the final flashes of light. “No.”
She sighed at the sound of voices in the hall, her head turning toward the door with a furrowing of her brows. “No,” she agreed, frowning.
“Hattie!” came Libba’s voice, carrying down the hall as though she’d used a cone to amplify it, though Hattie knew very well she had not. “Are you down here?”
“Yes!” she called, scrambling to her feet in a panic and snatching the stockings from Elias’s playful grip. “I’m coming!”
“Well …” he said, making her whirl around and slap her hand to his mouth, which grinned again, behind the skin of her palm.
“Hush,” she said, stuffing the stockings into his pocket and shoving her bare feet back into her slippers. “Follow in a few moments. I don’t fancy the commentary.”
“You don’t?” he asked, muffled and taunting.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t.”
She pulled her hand away and kissed him once more, harder than she really needed to, and gave him a light smack on the cheek at the way he was laughing before spinning and fleeing the room to intercept Libba before she could come any farther down the hall.
“Ah, there you are,” said Libba, crossing her arms. “I can’t believe you vanished like that. He’ll be back when he’s back. He’s handling it.”
“Yes, yes,” said Hattie, taking the other woman’s arm and steering her toward the ballroom. “You’re right. I just get anxious, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Libba said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as she glanced over her shoulder back toward the bedroom. “Hattie …”
“Is there any cake left?” Hattie asked, knowing she was going shrill. “I wanted to save him a slice.”
“Of course there’s not.” Libba was still trying to see behind Hattie but did give up once they had turned the corner, much to Hattie’s relief.
It did not mean, of course, that Libba wouldn’t bring it up later.
“Is that the pianoforte?” Hattie asked, marveling. “Who is playing?”
“Oh,” said Libba, brightening. “It’s Mr. Harcourt. Monica is beside herself over it.”
“He’s playing with his injured hand?”
“Mm, I think perhaps because of his injured hand,” Libba said cryptically, turning Hattie back into the festivities with a cheer of welcome.
Her absence, she was forced to acknowledge, had indeed been noted.
“Still no sign of Elias?” Malcolm asked, trotting up to them in cadence with the march his best friend was currently coaxing out of the old instrument in the central ballroom. “He’s been gone a bit long, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, I’d say so,” Libba said, cutting her eyes to Hattie, who immediately flushed.
“He’ll be along shortly, I’m certain,” she said, flushing further as Mal’s eyes fell to her bare feet with a raise of his arched brows. “What did I miss?!” she asked, louder, which did at least get his attention back up to her face.
“Oh, not much,” he said. “Some dancing. Miss Boswell danced an extremely contrary-looking waltz with Rhys. It was marvelous.”
“And odd,” Libba said, shaking her head. “They are so odd.”
“Well, that’s all right,” Hattie replied, still mired in her own panic. “Sometimes things are just a bit odd and that’s the way of it.”
Mal and Libba both stared at her for quite a while after that, until, with great mercy, Elias appeared at the ballroom doors.
Then everyone cheered for him instead while Hattie curled her bare toes against her slippers and prayed for the evening to speed along with no further uncomfortable observations.
“Well?” said Mal as Elias arrived at her side, the warmth of his hand sliding along the small of her back. “Did you read it?”
“What?” said Elias. “Oh, the letter.”
Mal’s face crumpled in like a wad of discarded paper. “Yes, the letter!”
“I haven’t had a moment,” Elias said soothingly. “I was dealing with my parents and the constabulary. I will read it, Lennox. I promise.”
“I read mine,” Hattie said, still a bit frantic to say anything that might diffuse suspicion.
It made both Lennoxes stare at her again, which was the opposite of what she had intended.
“Yes?” said Libba. “And what did it say?”
“Oh,” said Hattie, blinking. “Many things.”
Mal sighed loudly.
“Do you want to dance?” Elias asked her, amusement clear in his tone, though the offer was pure benevolence. “Do you dance, Miss French?”
“I am not Miss French,” she said without thinking.
“No,” he agreed, grinning. “You are not. Who are you now?”
She paused, an odd bashfulness rising in her throat. “I am Lady Selwyn,” she said, smaller and quieter than she’d been before.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Mal threw his hands up and stalked away.
“And will you dance with me, Lady Selwyn?” Elias asked again, smooth and low, while Libba watched with great interest.
Hattie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I will.”
And he led her away, into the spinning chaos of music and motion, languages she trusted him to speak, because she never had.