Hot Earl Summer, page 30
In no time at all, the Wynchesters were packed and ready. The hired carriages to cart all of Stephen’s other creations and supplies wouldn’t arrive until morning. Which left him nothing to do but stand there on the side of the road to wave goodbye.
And hope his broken heart didn’t show on his face.
Elizabeth was the last to climb into a carriage, pausing just outside the open door.
Stephen gave up on being stoic. He sprinted to the carriage before it could swallow her whole. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his frantic lips to hers, telling her without words that she was the most exquisite berserker he’d ever known. His favorite person, whom he would miss more than he’d missed anything else in his life.
She squeezed him back. And kissed him.
And then she let him go.
44
Elizabeth could not stand being cooped up in a carriage for this many hours.
Not because of her exhausted joints, which pained her. Or her aching hip, which hated her. Or even the endless monotony of bumping over rocks and ruts again and again, mile after godforsaken mile.
It was because the carriage was taking her away from Stephen.
Philippa’s furtive, commiserative glances made Elizabeth feel like her heretofore unknown emotions and barely constrained hysteria weren’t ridiculous at all. That it might, in fact, be understandable, were Elizabeth to leap from the moving carriage and crawl back to Castle Harbrook on her knees if that was what it took.
But Philippa was a romantic. She spent her free time with her nose in some star-crossed lovers saga or another. When Philippa wasn’t actively practicing romance with Tommy. Or performing both tasks at the same time, as she was now, with her head on Tommy’s shoulder and an open gothic novel on her lap, and her eyes… on Elizabeth, damn it, and not on the pages of romantic melodrama at all.
“Um,” said Philippa.
“I’m fine,” Elizabeth snapped preemptively.
The only thing worse than being seated across from a pair of snuggling romantics… was sharing the other seat with an even worse romantic. Jacob’s sad-puppy brown eyes had been oh-you-poor-thinging her for the entire journey back to Islington.
Only Tommy wasn’t acting like Elizabeth’s inner turmoil was visible all over her face like an outbreak of measles. It was worse. Tommy was acting like she believed Elizabeth’s bravado and bought her nonchalance at leaving behind the sole non–family member who had ever made Elizabeth feel truly at home.
“Bet you’re glad to be rid of that tinker,” Tommy said cheerfully.
“Mm,” Elizabeth managed noncommittally.
“A full month with a stodgy professor type must have been torture,” Tommy continued.
Elizabeth kept her gaze firmly out the window. “Torture.”
“Once you’re back to your real life, you can resume your search for the warrior of your dreams, just like you’ve always wanted. Someone who swashbuckles at your side, rather than peers down from a turret like a princess locked in a tower.”
“Shut up, Tommy,” Elizabeth whispered desperately, then risked a glance her sister’s way.
Tommy was gazing at her with an expression of such innocent, absolute blankness that Elizabeth knew then and there her sister had been needling her on purpose.
“I liked Stephen,” said Philippa.
“I liked him, too,” said Jacob.
Elizabeth loved him. And she’d walked away rather than say so. Chose safety rather than risk and romance.
Because admitting she cared meant giving the universe the power to hurt her. Elizabeth never gave anyone that power, if she could help it. She hurt enough on her own. The rest of her body might fall apart, but her heart was the one thing she could protect.
Even if right now, it felt more like it was breaking.
“Bah,” said Tommy, keeping her obnoxiously blank face pointed straight at Elizabeth. “Our sister has sworn for years never to settle for less than a warrior or warrioress. ‘Must love swords’ is requirement number one. Requirement number two is a personality characterized as ‘a remorseless killing machine with a love of unnecessary bloodshed.’ Then something about hulking muscles—”
“Stephen has surprisingly defined muscles,” Elizabeth mumbled.
“Does he? Well, that’s hardly enough to tempt Beth the Berserker. What else can a scholar so insipid have to offer?”
“He’s methodical,” Elizabeth said.
Tommy shuddered. “You hate anything methodical.”
“He’s a thinker.”
“Your least favorite activity,” Tommy said with authority. “You always say there’s no sense wasting time thinking, when you could be impaling someone with your sword.”
Stabbing someone like Tommy.
“He’s careful and deliberate,” Elizabeth said.
“Two more words that don’t describe you.”
Elizabeth thought about the joy Stephen took in his machines. “He loves anarchy.”
“That one’s a good match,” Tommy allowed. “The rest of his so-called accomplishments—”
“—seem like they balance you,” Philippa said softly.
Elizabeth didn’t respond.
“Sounds like a fairy tale to me.” Jacob stretched out his feet and crossed them at the ankle. “Stephen settles you down when appropriate, and unleashes you as necessary.”
“He’s Pandora, and Elizabeth is what’s in the box,” agreed Philippa.
“Stephen would never keep me in a box,” Elizabeth said. “He likes me unrestrained.”
It was true, she realized. Stephen had never once tried to change her. If anything, he had gone out of his way to enable her to be the most Elizabeth-est Elizabeth possible. He’d offered her the space to be her true self, whatever that looked like.
Others saw weakness, and pitied her. Or made teeth-grinding comments about how she inspired them to feel better about their own perfect lives.
Elizabeth’s life was perfect. She was happy to be a cane-wielding berserker. Stephen never doubted her. She was the one who had doubted him. But she’d been wrong. He did not see her as something that needed to be fixed. He saw her as someone who should be allowed to run wild.
“His fine qualities don’t matter,” she forced herself to say. “The case is finished.”
“Mm-hm,” murmured Jacob beside her. “The case certainly is.”
Meaning, if she admitted that the most romantic interlude of her life was over, then… She had no one to blame but herself.
“Well,” said Tommy. “I’m sure you told Stephen very clearly how you feel about muscular, methodical, anarchic tinkers like him.”
Elizabeth swung her gaze back outside the window and blinked rapidly to clear her eyes.
She didn’t share her feelings with anyone. She claimed not to have any, save for uncontrollable bloodlust and a soft spot for her favorite hedgehog. Of course, that was before she’d walked away from the handsomest, kindest, cleverest, sweetest, and quirkiest person she had ever known.
What was she supposed to have done, rip off his cravat and say, I love you? Re-creating Buckingham House out of feathers and grains of sand would be easier. She’d rather fight Napoleon’s actual army with a wooden sword at ten percent capacity than make herself vulnerable on purpose. The best shield of all was the Wynchester castle back home.
Wasn’t it?
Philippa placed her hand on Elizabeth’s knee. “How are you doing?”
“Still fifty percent,” Elizabeth responded automatically.
Her voice cracked on the final syllable. No matter how her body waned and waxed, now that she’d left Stephen, Elizabeth would be stuck at fifty percent forever.
One solitary, lonely half of what might have been.
45
Stephen hauled himself up from his comfortable padded chair that lately felt like a bed of nails. He trudged down the hall and into his workroom. He’d been here for days, and still hadn’t opened a single box after returning home from Castle Harbrook.
Three days of staring sullenly at an unlit fireplace while the forgotten tea cradled in his hands grew cold.
Three days of press-up after press-up after press-up. Anything to relieve his anxiety. None of it worked.
Three days of wishing he were still standing in for his cousin. That Reddington was still a puffed-up peacock determined to lay public siege on someone else’s castle. That Elizabeth were there at Stephen’s side, on the battlefield and in his bed.
Three days was an eternity.
It normally took Stephen less than three hours to unpack after a trip, no matter how many crates of new supplies he’d bought. He adored unpacking. Each item that passed through his hands sparked inspiration for a new contraption, a new trigger, a new outcome.
The problem was, he didn’t want a new idea. He wanted the fantasy in his head to become real. Elizabeth was the one thing Stephen didn’t want to build up or tear down or alter. He wanted to install her in this very room and keep her exactly as she was, forever and always.
But he didn’t have her. He’d never truly had her. She wasn’t a thing a man could have. She was someone who had to give herself willingly, who had to choose him, again and again, not just as a temporary diversion but as a permanent installation in her life.
But there had been no sign. No visit. No letter. Not even a messenger crow.
She’d made her choice. And the answer was no.
In defeat, he turned to the pile of boxes shipped home from the castle. He lifted a chisel from his worktable and forced himself to pry the lid from a wooden crate in a civilized manner, rather than take a hatchet to it as he’d prefer. There were no berserkers here. Only a reclusive tinker. He’d lost himself in his machines before, for decades at a time. He could do so again.
The contents of the box conspired against him. The wooden crate was not full of planks and pulleys and interlocking gears as he’d anticipated, but rather, the broken pieces of Elizabeth’s sweetly hilarious attempt at making a machine for him as a gift. Her contraption had never worked. It had fallen apart at the first touch.
Much like Stephen felt now.
He dropped to his knees before the open crate and lifted out the topmost nonsensical piece. What had this crooked bar been for? Who knew? Did Elizabeth even know? A choking laugh garbled in his throat. He couldn’t bear to repurpose the parts in some other machine. Nor could he bring himself to attempt to fix her creation himself, and make a working contraption of it.
The thing had barely been standing when Elizabeth presented her design to him, yet it was perfect just as it was. It wasn’t her invention’s function—or lack thereof—that meant so much to him. It was the intent to give him something that he did not have. Something he might like. He had filled the empty spaces in his heart with machines before. Her logic was sound. But it was not a lifeless wooden structure that he needed most.
He craved Elizabeth.
Slowly, Stephen removed each piece from the box and placed it in a row along the floor. If he was careful, perhaps he could rebuild it exactly as she’d had it. It wouldn’t be quite like having her back—and if he so much as hiccupped, it would fall apart all over again—but it would make him feel like he still had some connection to her, no matter how gossamer.
Then again, it was a kiss-delivery machine. No matter how perfectly Stephen managed to reassemble it, without Elizabeth here… There would be no more kisses.
The empty room seemed to whisper, What did you think would happen?
Yes. A fair question. What had he thought would happen? A woman like that… A man like him… It had been foolish to fall in love. Of course she wouldn’t stay. She was a transitory tempest, and he the empty land laid waste in her passing.
One could not reason with a tempest. One could love it from afar, and one could not blame it for its trail of destruction. He was the architect of his own loneliness. Always had been. Hanging back, holding his tongue, hiding himself away.
And then came Elizabeth. She had smashed her way past his barriers just like she’d done to the castle. And once his defenses were breached, to Stephen’s surprise he discovered that he liked her there. That life with her was infinitely better than life without her.
So what was he going to do about it?
Stephen pushed to his feet. He wasn’t just about to try something new. He was going to try his hardest. Prepare his best argument, in the event she ever actually did attempt to communicate with him in the future. He’d have the perfect gift on hand for the woman he hoped would be his bride.
Roses? Bah.
Stephen had a berserker to woo.
46
Elizabeth crouched in total darkness. She was awaiting the sound of approaching footsteps before she sprang from the shadows. Elizabeth hated waiting. Springing up and slicing down were second nature, but biding her time was an absolute nightmare.
To distract herself, she took inventory of her body. Despite holding an uncomfortable position for what felt like weeks, she was still a solid seventy-five percent. Possibly it was the return to the warmth and safety of home that had invigorated her after a month in a drafty castle. Or perhaps it was the new mission, which had consumed her thoughts from the moment she stepped foot back in Islington.
She enjoyed infiltrating unknown territory, at least. That part was fun.
The waiting, on the other hand… Lurking in the shadows alone with no sounds but her own breaths, no smells but dust, nothing to see but blackness—well, it gave a skulking interloper plenty of time to think.
And all Elizabeth could think about was Stephen.
One more hour with him wouldn’t leave her satisfied. She wanted more than that. She wanted to spend every hour with him. Clothing optional. Even swordplay optional. What mattered was not the activity, but whom she shared it with. And the person she longed for most was Stephen.
She was glad his cousin was a complete disaster. If the Earl of Densmore had been competent in his duties, Stephen would not have been at Castle Harbrook.
She was grateful her siblings had all been busy, and had therefore been forced out of pure necessity to send Elizabeth 120 miles southwest to Dorset all by herself. If they had come with her from the beginning, or if Jacob or Graham had been sent instead, Elizabeth would never have spent that blissful time with Stephen. Or discovered she indeed had the capacity to fall in love.
Elizabeth apparently also had a limitless capacity to bollocks it up. Not only had she walked away from the person she most wished to keep close, but had also wasted the past few hours of her life hunched in an extremely uncomfortable shed despite it becoming increasingly obvious no one was going to come and open the door.
With a sigh, she rolled back her shoulders and eased around the sharp edges of dozens of jutting wooden boxes and pushed open the door.
Well, pushed anyway. The door did not budge.
Elizabeth pushed harder. The hinges squeaked and the door moved only slightly, but it was enough to rattle heavy chains against the outer side.
No one was coming. She was locked in!
The dust in the musty air now tasted a bit like panic. She didn’t mind dark spaces, and even now had gained an affection for wooden boxes, but this was not the moment to stand around waiting to be rescued. She was the one who intended to do the conquering.
She certainly wasn’t going to let a locked door stop her from trying. Not with Stephen on the other side.
Elizabeth unsheathed her sword with a flourish. Or tried to. It was a semi-flourish, interrupted by the sharp edge of a wooden crate, and twenty full seconds of swearing as she picked splinters out of the skin of her hand. Swashbuckling in an enclosed space sounded dramatic, but in practice it was bloody near impossible.
She was going to do it anyway.
Once her sword was free, she positioned herself halfway between the locked door and the hulking crates and swung her sword with all her might.
A satisfying crack exploded into the wood before her, and a stream of dust-filled sunlight dazzled her eyes. Without waiting for her vision to adjust, she swung her sword again and again, concentrating instead on dislodging one of the individual panels that made up the door.
At last it popped free, and sunlight poured into the storage shelter. One skinny panel might have been wide enough for Tommy to slip through, but wouldn’t do for Elizabeth. So she pried at the next one, fully expecting footsteps to come running at any moment to investigate the destruction unfolding in the rear garden.
Nothing. No one. Not even a maid, a footman, a gardener.
The security in this place was absolute rubbish.
She squeezed out through the hole she’d carved into the door and brushed dust and splinters of wood from her dress. She’d looked nice when she’d left the house this morning, but now she looked like she’d spent the day wrestling with a wooden crocodile. Bites were missing from her skirt, and her hands were pricked with blood.
Elizabeth shook the extraneous shards from her hair and turned her gaze toward the house. A short wooden ramp connected the storage shed to a rear door that might have been a servants’ entrance. Tall hedgerows blocked the house from the neighbors’ view. Out front, an imposing stone wall with a thick iron gate indicated no visitors were welcome.
Luckily for Elizabeth, she wasn’t a visitor. Not in the traditional sense. She’d been delivered inside a wooden crate, hidden amongst a dozen other such crates. A Trojan horse, if you will.
Which she’d specifically warned Stephen to check for.
She was tempted to chop down the next door out of pure disgruntlement that her advice had gone unheeded, but Marjorie had provided her with a special lock-opening key. Besides, Elizabeth was tired of picking splinters from her skin. It was on to the next contingency plan.
She removed the special key from the hidden pocket Tommy had sewn in Elizabeth’s skirt, and inserted it into the lock. After twisting it a few times and banging the end with the hilt of her sword the way Chloe had shown her, the mechanism sprang open, and Elizabeth gained access to the interior of the residence.
