Chapter Thirteen
Before he’d married, Hugh had been able to enter his library of an evening, drink a glass of brandy, and relax with a good book—perhaps with Sadie, the ancient gun dog, at his feet.
Now, however, when he entered the library, he found Chris there. And not just occupying the space—she dominated it.
Instead of setting up at the table, which was there for this very purpose, she had moved the furniture aside so she could sit on the floor, surrounded by a ring of lamps and books.
A notebook sat beside her, and she was writing feverishly in it, her fingers ink-stained and her mouth screwed in concentration.
She had not yet noticed his arrival.
For a long moment, he stood and watched her. Oblivious to, and very clearly not vying for, his attention, she was dressed simply, her hair loose about her shoulders. Her glasses slid down her nose the way they always did, and her brows were furrowed as she worked.
The sight of her like this was oddly appealing. He looked at the curve of her neck, just visible from the way her hair fell forward in chaotic waves. She would be the first to claim there was no elegance about her, but he saw it here. The dip and jut of her collarbones. Creamy, soft skin.
All except for her fingers. Those hands had seen hard work, and he had the absurd urge to take them in his and soothe them somehow.
As though his hands were any better.
What a pair they made, his unconventional wife and him.
He cleared his throat, finally alerting her to his presence, and she jumped so high, she almost knocked a lamp over. With lightning reflexes, she caught and righted it.
“Hugh,” she gasped, looking up at him with wide eyes, her glasses so far down her nose, he wondered if she could see him properly. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting my library. The question is, what are you doing here?”
She pressed a hand to her chest, not seeming to notice the smear of black she left across the skin there from her fingers. “You startled me.”
“So it would seem.” He glanced at the books surrounding her. “Latin primers?”
“St. Mary’s did not see fit to teach it.” She yawned and stretched. “I was also doing some reading on advanced mathematics.”
“Naturally.” Ignoring the aching in his limbs, he lowered himself to the floor beside her, pushing a few books to the side. “Is this a frequent pastime of yours?”
“Only when I have the books to study. Are these yours?”
“My father’s. He enjoyed an intellectual challenge.” As, it seemed, did Christiana.
“Ah,” she murmured, her eyes glassy behind her spectacles. “That would explain it.” She rubbed at her face, and he wondered how long she had been here, doing precisely this.
“Explain what?”
“They smelled as though they had not been read in some time.” She offered him a distracted smile, her mind clearly elsewhere. “You are not interested?”
“I confess mathematics does not come naturally to me, and I do not have time in my daily routine for study.”
“Try being a lady,” she said with some of that wry, self-deprecating wit he was coming to enjoy immensely. “Then you would have countless time on your hands and very little to do with it.”
“Aside from advanced mathematics, of course.”
“And astronomy.” She reached across him to heft a rather large volume onto her knee. “This is Connaissance des Temps, published in 1784. Also your father’s?”
“It’s not mine, so one would presume so.” He peered at her. “What do you find so fascinating about it?”
“My nurse always said I had a curiosity for everything I should not care about,” she said, tracing her fingers down the page.
“She thought my interests were things men alone should care about. But women’s supposed interests always struck me as rather dull.
It’s why I have no accomplishments to speak of, despite my finishing school. ”
“You have other accomplishments. Such as riding astride.”
That made her laugh, and he took it as a victory of sorts. “Precisely. Yet another thing ladies ought not to be doing.”
“What else?”
“How much time do you have?” She huffed a small laugh, intent on the page before her.
“It seems everything I have an interest in is something a lady shouldn’t be doing.
And everything ladies should be good at, I tolerate at best. Playing the pianoforte, embroidery or, heaven forbid, singing.
I’m afraid that, I do not tolerate in the slightest.”
“Then it’s fortunate singing is not a requirement of being married to me.”
“What an agreeable husband.” She left another smear of ink on her nose as she pushed her glasses up again. “I do have another request, though.”
He tapped a finger on the open page of her primer. “As I’m in an agreeable mood, let’s hear it.”
“I had hoped, now that I am a duchess with some influence, I might make a contribution to William Herschel’s work. If money is an object, I could win it at the Lyon’s Den—that is what I did as a girl, before I knew how dire things had become with my father.”
“Absolutely not.” Hugh had barely thought before he’d spoken; all he knew was the thought of her, his wife, traveling to London—alone, mark you—so she could win a small fortune at the card tables to donate to this Herschel fellow was untenable.
“If you have a desire to be a patron of the arts, of course you may. But you will do so with my money.”
The frown in her eyes didn’t ease. “You are already purchasing my father’s estate for me. Even in its current state, that will be no insignificant cost. I can’t ask more from you.”
“Even so. I won’t hear of anything else, Chris.”
She ran a hand through her hair, dislodging more uneven curls. All the other ladies he had met would have been self-conscious, but she paid it no mind at all. That small fact seemed oddly charming to him. He could not forget the way her small body had felt against his hands.
It had become a sorry state of affairs that such a small moment of contact now burned in his mind like a candle in the dark.
Without thinking through the motion, he licked his good thumb and rubbed at the bridge of her nose.
“You keep wiping ink across yourself,” he said, concentrating on his task more than her expression.
It was only when the mark had largely faded that he glanced up to find her watching him, her entire body tensed as though she feared something.
Like he would kiss her.
Before he could help himself, his gaze dropped. Her lips were thin, slightly parted, and the most appealing mouth he had seen in all his years. If things were different—
But they were not.
“My apologies,” he said, leaning back.
“You shouldn’t dirty yourself for my sake,” she said, handing him a handkerchief. “Here. For your fingers.”
There was the merest smear of ink on his thumb, mostly worn away, sunk deep into the lines of his fingerprint. Even so, he accepted the handkerchief, noting the initials marked in the corner. C. N. Christiana Nightingale—her maiden name. He would have to have new ones made up for her.
This possessive feeling was new, too. She was his, and the world would know about it by the time he was done.
“I’ll return all the books to their proper places,” she assured him. “And I’m not neglecting my duties as mistress of the house. I know my obligations, and—”
“Chris.” He cupped his good hand over her mouth to stifle whatever she was going to say next.
“You aren’t my servant; you’re my wife. If you wish to read books about—” Here, he hesitated, not knowing precisely what Connaissance des Temps was about.
“Mathematics and astronomy and Latin, then go ahead.”
Her breath flowered across his hand, and she met his gaze with something approaching curiosity in the depths of her eyes.
She seemed so very different here, suffused in soft light, from the young woman he had first met in Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s study.
There, she had been defensive and prickly, prepared to pick a fight, determined to protect herself with the assumption that no one else would.
Here, although she still defended her right to do what she chose, she felt comfortable enough to dream.
Unsettled by the sensation, he dropped his hand and rose awkwardly to his feet.
“I’ll leave you to your studies,” he said, bowing, then taking refuge in first book he could find: a somewhat fantastical tome on the history of the Danes.