Chapter Sixteen
Sunlight dappled El’s shoulder, dancing over the skin he had kissed that peeked through strands of the hair he’d earlier had wrapped around his fist. They lay tangled together in the bed that was to be his, Caraney House still empty of anyone other than them.
With no servants he had brought bedding, making their bed each time before she arrived.
His brother’s upstairs maid had been surprised when he’d asked her to show him how—actually, it was fair to say she was astounded—but she had done so and now they lay in the bed he had made. For her.
He trailed his fingers up her arm and she smiled, turning her head to press a kiss against his chest. He loved these quiet moments, loved that they had spent most of the afternoon together in this bed.
When they had been children, they had often lain side by side under a summer sky, comfortable in silence or picking shapes out of fluffy clouds.
Sometimes, at night, he’d crept from his bed and travelled by moonlight to El’s treehouse.
They would spend the night sharing secrets and seeing who could scare the other more with tales of ghosts and gore.
There had been that one time when El had told a story so disgusting he hadn’t been about to stop laughing, his stomach hurting.
Even now, thinking of it, he stuttered a laugh.
El stirred. Reaching up, she traced his grin with her fingers. “What is this for?”
“Do you remember when we were in your treehouse and you told that story about the ghost who carried a scythe and ripped out people’s souls?”
Her lips quirked. “The one who would spread gore and viscera for miles?”
He laughed. “Yes, that one.”
She smiled. “My goodness, I was a vicious little thing, wasn’t I? What made you think of that?”
“Your skin in the sun. It reminded me of summers in the country, and nights in your treehouse.”
Her smile faltered. “Oh.”
“I still cannot believe no one caught us. How many nights did we sleep in the treehouse, El?”
She averted her gaze. “Perhaps too many.”
“I should think not enough. It was always so fun to stay with you all night and then…” He trailed off. El was tense, her hand still on his chest. “El?” She would not look at him nor would she answer. He stared down at the top her head. “Are you well?”
“I am well.”
Why did she even attempt to fool him? “El, I know how you are when you are well and you are not it. What troubles you?”
She was silent so long he thought she would not answer. “Do you know why I spent so many nights in the treehouse as a child?”
“Because it was fun?” he said as, Christ, he hoped to God that was the reason.
She was silent a moment. “Do you remember my mother and father?”
“I do not remember them well.” They had died when he and El were eleven, and he remember El being pale and silent, and Lady C telling him not to pester El to speak of it, even as she grew paler and sadder and he only wanted to make it better.
Pulling herself from his side, she wrapped the sheets about herself and then her arms about her legs. Apprehension tightening his belly, he drew himself to sit too, crossing his legs under the covers pooled in his lap.
“I would stay in the treehouse when my mother and father returned from town.” She hugged herself tighter and stared at nothing.
“They did not much like each other, my mother and father.
By all reports, they spent as little time as possible together.
I only know when they were not at our estate, I was happy, and when they were, I was not.
“Their arguments would echo through the halls, they would yell and scream and they…” She broke off, her eyes shiny. “I did not much like it. In the treehouse, though, I could not hear them.”
“What did they argue about?”
“Everything. Nothing. It… Sometimes there was glass shattering and thumps and the next day, the servants would clean the room and say nothing.”
“I did not know, El.”
She shrugged. “I did not tell you.”
But he had known she had been quiet sometimes, he’d known something was wrong but not what.
He’d done his best to cheer her, and he’d snuck out at night and stayed with her in the treehouse and he’d invited her to family dinners, and Lady C had taken them both under her wing.
Slowly, her smiles had become more frequent, and she’d spent more time with his family than hers, and then her mother and father and died, and she had been sad and he’d done his best to help her with that too. But he’d never known…
The mouth he had kissed a hundred times turned down. “Do you know why my parents married?”
The way she would not look at him told him it was not a happy tale. Taking her hand, he said, “Tell me.”
She stared down at their joined fingers.
“They married because my grandfather wished it so. He decided on my father for my mother and nothing would sway him from realising the match. My father was bribed into the union while my mother was ordered to it. Neither were happy, and indeed they were determined not to be.”
Her eyes had dried, her tone clinical, but he could see the hurt beneath. Christ, he wished he could take her pain. He wished he could make this better, but he could not. He could only hold her hand, his thumb rubbing her skin gently, and listen. “How do you know this?”
“How could I not? None were particularly interested in keeping it from me. It formed the basis of many a screaming match. I may not have fully understood what it was when I was a child but I certainly did once I was grown.” She was silent a moment.
“My mother was with child three times before me, and she lost the babes three times. Once I was born, she never let my father near her again. I am an only child through fear and spite.”
He had known none of this. How had he known none of this? Why had she never told him? Why had he never asked? “Christ, El.”
She didn’t seem to have heard him, though. “When I was seven, my grandfather told me he had made a match for me.”
“What?” He vaguely remembered she had been affianced, but it was never mentioned and so it was something he had not truly ever thought on.
Now, though…He’d known her since they were barely from the nursery room and he could not recall a marriage mentioned after her parents had died.
Why had he never thought on what that meant?
“It was with the son of a business associate, someone who sought a rich aristocrat for his family,” she continued, still in that strangely hollow voice. “He told me once I turned sixteen, we would be wed.”
Horrified, he stared at her. “That is too young, El.”
“Is it?” she said, and the lack of inflection in her tone chilled him to the core.
“Some girls marry that young. I did not want it. I did not want a marriage such as my father and mother had. I dreaded it, every day. My grandfather, though, he knew what was best. Always, forever, what was best.” Here, her words turned bitter.
“The boy I was to marry visited us a few times, dragged there by his father, no doubt. He was older, seventeen perhaps, and resentful of the match. He would taunt me and pinch me, and then he would tell me all the things I could not do once I was his wife, because I liked running through the grass and climbing trees and—” She took a breath.
“I liked you,” she said almost inaudibly.
His hackles rose. If that pissant had tried to take El from him, he would have ended him.
El didn’t notice his tension. “He also said… I did not know at the time, but now, thinking back on it, he…said things one should not say to a child.”
Christ. Christ. “Who is he?” He’d bloody kill him.
She shook her head. “It does not matter.
It bloody did. “Tell me.”
“It never happened, so it does not matter.”
He flexed his clenched fists. He could not allow his emotion to drown out El’s. She was the one who had lived this. That he wanted to beat this boy bloody was his own damn problem. She was confiding in him. He would listen, even if it bloody killed him. “Why did it not happen?”
“My father refused to give his permission. His great act of defiance against my grandfather, I suspect. Then, grandfather died before he could convince my father otherwise and that was that.”
“How long did it hang over your head?”
“Three years.” She was silent a moment. “I do not think it is solely worry for my wealth as to why I do not wish to wed,” she finished, her voice breaking.
Brushing his lips over her temple, he didn’t know what else to do but to hold her closer.
She burrowed into him. “They should never have married, Benedict.”
His arms tightened. Perhaps not, but if they hadn’t, El would not be here and he…he would not know what he would do if she were not here.
Exhaling, she rubbed her nose against his chest. “However, it is of great luck for us I am not wed, and even greater that I never will be. Imagine, we would not be here if not for that, so all is not lost. I am here, with you.”
The teasing tone of her words were meant to lighten their conversation but he could not quite so easily let it go just yet.
Her eyes pleaded with him, to go along with the fiction she was well, that the actions of her parents, of her grandfather, of that bloody cretin who was not long for this world, had not devastated her
“Benedict?” Her lip trembled.
He could not cause her more pain. Forcing a grin, he lifted a brow. “Have I thanked you this day for how very glad I am you are here?”
Relief lit her. She shook her head, a smile blooming on her face.
“Well, remind me to do so,” he said, flopping back on the bed.
She hit his chest and then lay her head upon it. He put his arms around her and they lay in the hush.
“We will remain friends after this is done, will we not, Benedict?” she said.
Friends. The word stabbed at him. How could he only be her friend when he knew what it was like to have this?
“Benedict?” She raised on her elbow. “We will, will we not? You must promise me.” Her eyes pleaded with him.
What else could he say? “Of course, El. Always. But in the between then and now, should I show you how much I appreciate you?” He didn’t wait for her agreement, instead giving loud smacking kisses to her neck.
She squealed, half-heartedly pushing him away even as she arched into him.
The sheet fell, her bare breasts pressing into his chest. He drew in his breath, lust taking hold.
Every time. Every time she did this, made him want her so immediately.
Already his cock had thickened, need and hunger beginning a beat inside him. “El, shall I show you?” he rasped.
A wicked smile lifted the corner of her mouth as she nodded, and he proceeded to show her how very much he appreciated her. How much he loved having her in his world.