Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

C ora had fallen asleep two or so hours after the sun had risen and snored through the next two hours of travel. Liam welcomed the adorable little snorts and grunts. They kept him from wallowing in his new reality. She started to stir after they stopped in a village, then rolled forward again with more precise directions to Whitwood Manor, Lord Escher's estate. Though, apparently, it was not his estate yet. Viscount was a courtesy title for the man who would one day be Earl of Whitwood. Jacob, the coachman, had discovered much on their directionless journey toward Whitwood Manor, a destination Cora found by scouring through Debrett's.

God, she was clever.

The snoring stopped, and Liam missed it.

"Did someone die?" Cora's voice curled against his skin, groggy and sleep-roughened, yet offering comfort he refused to take. How could he take anything else from her? Liam's heart tripped, ached.

He knit his ribs closed to contain it.

"Yes," he said. "Liam Fletcher died." He had every right to still be upset. He could wail and curse all he wished. He had almost thirty years of a life to rearrange, the new shape of himself to figure out, to fit into the world. Somehow.

"Quite dramatic. I shall have to model a hero after you." She grabbed her satchel and pulled out her manuscript, thumbed through it, then placed it safely back in and pushed the satchel to the side. She looked out the window, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight. "Are we there? Are we close?"

"We should be. Jacob stopped in a nearby village to ask directions. But there was some hesitation in the road earlier, as if we might go another way. We did not. And here we are."

"Very good. I apologize for sleeping. It is quite boring to watch someone read. Usually. But it was more that it was an agony to watch you read what I'd written. Better to sleep and ignore it entirely." She began to fiddle with the folds of her skirt. She would not look directly at him, only every now and then glancing his way.

"You want to know if I read it," he said.

Now, finally, she met his gaze, her own gathering currents of energy as if she might strike him, anyone, down with a mere look. He must choose his words carefully because if her eyes held danger, the softness of her cheeks and jaw, the pink blush stealing across her cheeks held fear. Soft yet strong, vulnerable but always fighting, her face like an open sky, containing multitudes.

A lightness bloomed inside him he had not thought possible this morning. It opened up his ribs, allowing him to breathe a little better than before. How could she do that to him? Lift him up out of the darkest place.

He scooted out of the corner so he sat directly before her, then leaned into the space between them. It seemed too vast, yet a small hinge at the waist brought them so closely together. He took a deep breath, filling in that new space between his ribs with the scent of Cora. "It was lovely."

Her lips twitched. "Lovely."

He nodded.

"Merely lovely ?"

"I mean no insult. It was quite entertaining."

"Entertaining." Now her entire face appeared to be twitching. "This is the poem I will give to the world, the one they will all know me by, love me for. And—" Her mouth snapped shut. She tilted her head to the side.

"And?" he prompted.

"Nothing." No more twitching. She rested her hands calmly in her lap.

"It was really rather good, I promise. It is only that I missed the one scene."

Her brow furrowed, then arched up in a quick bounce. "Oh. That scene. With the throbbing and the lightning rods. You know it could never happen. My personal poems are secret, but this poem is meant for everyone to read. But… you are right. I missed it, too. It felt wrong, untrue to myself to leave it out. It's a shame, but"—she sighed—"being exiled sounds like such a bother. I suppose there is all that time alone I could look forward to."

The little liar. She'd miss her friends, the Merriweather sisters, the library ladies, if not her family. "It is a shame. The throbbing and the quivering are my favorite parts. I'd like to attend one of your midnight readings. What are they like?" If he could keep her talking about herself for the rest of their lives, he would. Then he would not have to think about himself.

"They are, have been… necessary. When all the women gather in the darkness to hear me speak, it is not a gift I give to them. It is for myself. Because for half an hour or more, with every heart beating to the meter I set, I feel… loved. I pretend I do not need affection, that it is trivial, and I am above it. But… that is as far from the truth as the sun is from the place where we stand upon the earth. I do need love. And I need to believe there's joy in my future. No matter how much I roll my eyes and seem to scorn such ideas. I fear my soul is shaped by that very need."

She pulled the fingers of her gloves until they stretched out flat, and then she tugged the wrist of the glove to tauten them against her fingers once more. "It is just when you do not think something is possible, you harden yourself against it, pretend it is not necessary for survival. It is a bit of a blind way of living. I chose to be blind for a long time. But when I agreed to share a bed with you, I gave you a… a key, and you unlocked the bit of me that longed for love. Now I am raw with need, and it has nothing to do with my also very real desire to have your lips all over me. I find… now… I need you to love me."

The expression on her face, which looked a little bit like she was doing something incredibly difficult that needed all her concentration, shifted into a glare she aimed at him. "I'm quite annoyed with you for doing this to me. It is not fair . I had well protected myself, and then you came along, and now everything feels… more than before. I feel so very open and un protected. Before your grandmother came along and broke you into pieces, damn her, I felt that openness without the fear. Because you were there as"—she huffed a laugh—"my knight of the Sun, protecting me. I knew you would not allow me to get hurt. But now I worry you've opened the door and will simply walk away. You will not stand sentry in any number of assaults attempting to drag down my soul."

How could simple words do everything to him all at once? Speechless with admiration because this woman sitting before him knew how to turn a phrase. He'd read her work and found each word and imagine stark and simple and true. God but he wanted her to read to him in a dark room filled with candlelight just as she had read to all those women for all those years.

He felt amazed, too, that she had shared her words with him in the sun, no hood to cloak her face. She had let him love her in the fierce burning light of day on a boat swaying with their need as much as with the wind and water. Everyone else she asked to love her in the dark while hidden.

What was he to do? His duty to his family or his duty to her happiness?

"What's happening?" she asked. The coach had begun to slow, and he'd not even noticed. She stuck her head out the window. "Is something wrong, Jacob?"

"I'm not sure where we're at, my lady," he called back. "But there are some folks just up the road, and I thought I might ask them."

"I'll do it," Cora said, jumping out of the coach as soon as it stopped. She spared Liam not even a glance as she shut the door. Clearly, she wished to distance herself from him. And why not? She'd laid her soul between them as neatly as she laid words on paper, and he'd given her nothing but silence so far.

He stepped out of the coach and followed her down the rutted dirt road. Ahead of them to the side was a field bordered by a rock wall. And at its end stood two figures. A woman stood on top of the wall, her skirts rucked up to reveal her stockings and half boots and somehow knotted between her legs, leaving her freer to move about than she would have been with her skirt swinging between them. A man stood on the ground at the end of the rock wall. His hands were on his hips, and he scowled up at the woman. She rested her hands on his shoulders and laughed down at him.

"Perhaps we should not interrupt them," Liam whispered as he caught up with Cora.

"It's only a small question." Cora raised her hand and picked up her pace. "Pardon me!"

The lady on the wall snapped upright, wobbled a little bit, and the man's hands came around her hips, steadying her, his scowl becoming thunderous.

The woman on the wall waved. "Good afternoon."

"Come down, Sarah," the man said. "I told you we'd be caught."

The woman—apparently named Sarah—placed her hands on his shoulders again and jumped, and he guided her safely to the ground. She bent over at the waist and unknotted her skirts. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, you can," Cora said. "We're looking for Whitwood Manor. For Lady Escher."

"You're on the wrong road," the man said. "But I can put you right. He's our neighbor. I am Lord—"

The woman hit him on the arm, silencing him. "We are Mr. and Mrs. Brown."

He scowled. "We are not."

"Yes, but, Xavier, they do not know us. And since you're so fearful of being caught on the road, I thought you might prefer hiding our true identities."

His scowl disappeared, and his lips quirked to one side, quivered. "Damn, you're clever. No wonder I married you."

"And you're quite adorable when you realize that. I am lucky it happens several times a day."

His scowl returned, but it was accompanied by a deep blush sweeping across his cheeks as he lifted his hand to rub his knuckles up and down the back of her arm.

Liam cleared his throat. "Would you be very irritated if I asked you what you were doing? On the rock wall?"

"Yes," the scowly Xavier said.

"I was going to ride on his shoulders," the cheery Sarah said at the same time.

"There are a million other places you could ride on my shoulders. Why did you have to pick a wall near a road?"

"Because if there's no one there to see, if there's no risk of being caught, it's not as daring." She patted his cheek. "You know that."

His mouth couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to scowl or smile, and ultimately, he seemed to tame all expression whatsoever by flattening it into a line and turning to Liam. "You must go back the way you came for a bit. At the other end of this wall, you'll see the road forks. The other road is more difficult to see. That's why you missed it. Looks as if you're about to drive into a wall of trees. It's a road, though. And it will veer off from this one and take you to the right place." He wrapped an arm around his wife's waist.

"Thank you," Liam said.

The man and woman nodded and returned to the end of the wall as Liam and Cora returned to their coach. He opened the door and looked back at the odd pair. The woman once more knotted her skirts and climbed atop the wall. The man stood below her. She made a little circle motion with her finger, and he turned around and offered her his hands. She took them, gave a little hop, and landed on his shoulders. They wobbled, then righted themselves, and when the man faced the coach, he looked as if he'd never scowled a day in his life, didn't even know how to. Their laughter echoed up into the sky. Hers, a chirpy lightness and his, a deep booming. They fit well together.

Liam stepped up into the coach and shut the door behind him. As he settled across from Cora, he tried to find the right words to give her after the ones she'd given him earlier. That man and woman, clearly not Mr. and Mrs. Brown, clearly a bit worried about being recognized. The man, at least. They were clearly not who they pretended to be. Their clothes had been fine, well-made, and their voices cultured. Quality, educated. Likely members of the ton . If he'd actually been raised to be viscount, he'd know them.

But he hadn't and so he didn't. He suspected they had been raised to their positions. And yet they stood on walls, tied skirts between legs, and played circus acrobats in a wide, open field. They'd made a story for themselves different, likely, from the one they'd been given at birth. Could he?

When they finally found Whitwood Manor, Cora rather wished they hadn't. A shadow had begun to loom over her, and if she could only see what cast it, she might not be quaking with fear. But she was quaking as the coach door opened, and she and Liam stepped onto the ground. Still the shadow loomed, following her like a monster in the dark. The door of the large house gave way like magic, and they were standing inside, the shadow standing with them. Then there was a butler eager to bring them to Lord and Lady Escher, and Cora should not have felt as she'd rather jump into a lion's mouth. They were a viscount and his viscountess, no different from Liam and Cora, except Lord Escher would one day be an earl and his viscountess a marchioness. But what did it matter? Wasn't Cora trying to show Liam that those things—the birth things one could not control—did not matter in the face of intent, defiance, purpose.

Yes!

Yet still—if a lion had appeared, she might have jumped right between his teeth. Here are my bones, good sir—chomp away!

The butler opened the door at the end of a set of stairs and a long hall and a turn or two, and Cora just saw the soft fall of blue skirts close to buff riding breeches and boots.

She stepped back. The shadow loomed in her heart. She must face it and could do nothing else until she had.

When she did not enter the room, the butler blinked at her, kicked his head to the side.

Liam mirrored his expression, and thank God, he was still capable of an emotion other than gloom, defeat, bitter anger. She stumbled backward. Liam followed, a hand reaching out until it wrapped around her wrist.

"Cora," he said, "are you unwell?"

"Yes. We must leave." She raised her voice and found the butler's tight-lipped face. "Apologies. Please do give my regards to your lord and lady and—"

"No! No, no." Liam spoke loudly, too, and to the butler, though he looked nowhere but at Cora. "Wait a moment, please. No apologies yet." He pulled Cora into an alcove. Sunnier there. All windows and sunlight and Liam peering down at her with not anger, but worry. "What is wrong?"

"This." She held her arms out wide. "All of this. Horrid idea. To march up to someone's home when you've only met them once? To shove a manuscript into a lady's face to prove a point? Even this"—she patted the satchel slung across her shoulder, the manuscript within it—"is not right."

Ah. There. Light cast upon the shadow at her back, in her heart. She could see now. She understood. And the shadow dispersed, leaving only light.

"I told you," Liam said, "it's lovely, remarkable. Everyone will love it."

"Yes, they will, and that is all I've ever wanted, for everyone who hears my words to love me through them, but… I do not think I need that any longer." What a revelation to happen between one breath and the next. No, not so quickly and unexpectedly. The truth had been rising to the surface since Liam had read her poem, since she'd seen the way Mr. and Mrs. Brown looked at one another as if no one else existed, as if no one else was needed. Oh. She must say it again. Out loud. "I don't need that any longer." She laughed, she smiled, she kissed her husband. "It's not even right. I don't want to."

"You've lost me, I'm afraid. It's all you've wanted. What about Daisy and—"

"You love me." And it was all she truly needed—the rare gift of shared love, another heart to build an entire world with. She no longer needed the anonymous adoration of thousands. She had Liam. Needed only his heart adoring her and hers adoring his.

A silence stuttered between them during which she held her breath. He'd not said it, but she felt it, even now when he was dour and sulking and broken. She placed her hand on his chest, over his heart, and felt the firm beating of his heart. It beat for her. She knew it. A real love, too. Not one that lasted only until she extinguished a candle. She had no need for the love of strangers when she had this man's heart.

"I do," he said, gently pushing a lock of hair away from her face. "I love you." He kissed her. The softest touch of lips against lips as his hands cupped her cheeks. His thumb rubbed along her cheek bone. And his eyes, green as moss, held something she'd not seen from him since learning the truth—confidence, cheer, passion.

"I love you so much it's like a physical thing, heavy in my chest when you are sad and full of light when you are happy. I love you so much I hate myself for not being who I should be."

"It does not matter."

"It does. But we will not discuss it now. Now is for you. Your choice. Are we taking your poem to Lady Escher or not?"

"No. We're not."

"I beg to differ."

Cora jumped into Liam's arms at the strange man's voice, and Liam pushed her behind him, standing tall and with a broad chest to face the newcomer. Two newcomers.

A man with an affable grin and Lady Escher.

"I rather like poetry," the man said. "Who are you, by the way?"

The butler cleared his throat. "Viscount Norton and the Viscountess Norton."

Cora curtsied, Liam bowed, and the other couple mirrored them.

"Lady Norton," Lady Escher said, "this is my husband, Lord Escher. I must say, this is certainly a surprise. What brings you here?"

"I love a good surprise." Lord Escher bounced his heels up, then back down.

"I…" The strap of the satchel holding her manuscript dug into her shoulder, heavy as a

boulder. "I finished the manuscript you asked for, but I have decided not to publish it."

"Oh." Lady Escher blinked. "Did I do something to upset you? I know you were wary of a happy ending."

"No," Cora said. "Nothing like that. In fact, I've rather changed my mind about those, too. I have simply… changed my mind."

"May I still read it?" Lady Escher, it seemed, could look as impish as her husband.

"Not yet. I must make some additions. Once it is ready, though, I will invite you to the reading."

Lord Escher shuffled closer to Liam and elbowed him in the arm. "Married to a lady of literature, are you? Me, too. We're lucky, you and I."

The corner of Liam's lip quirked up. "I agree."

Lord Escher examined Liam from top to bottom. "By any chance, do you fence?"

"I do."

Lord Escher rubbed his hands together. "When we are next both in London, we must meet at Angelo's."

Liam sized up the other man. "Indeed. Do you prefer—"

Lady Escher leaned closer to Cora, cutting off the men's conversation. "I am sorry you have changed your mind, but I look forward to your recitation. And since our husbands seem to have taken a shine to one another, perhaps we might meet as friends while they slash at each other with pointy sticks."

Cora laughed. "I should like that very much."

"Will you stay for tea?"

"I'm afraid we must leave." There was still a tangle at Norton Hall, and no number of kind smiles could unravel it. Only Cora and Liam could do that. Together.

They held hands as they left Whitwood and climbed into the coach. Liam sat next to her, draping his arm around her shoulders as the vehicle lurched into movement. They rode in silence for several minutes. Each one seemed to pull him further away from her, deeper into his sour mood once more. She wanted to run to London, to anywhere but Norton Hall, but they must return. Everything felt unfinished.

They must return together, ready to tackle the mess they'd left behind. How could she rouse him? How could she give him the courage he'd given her?

Ah. Yes. She knew.

"Liam?"

"Hm?"

"I love you. Entirely too much for my own good, I'm sure." She'd told him earlier that he loved her, not quite the same as what she'd just said.

"I had begun to suspect something of the sort." He kissed her forehead.

And it was not enough. She needed more. She needed to celebrate this small victory between them. And, remembering the brothel, she lifted her skirts and straddled his lap. Without words, she kissed him. And he kissed her back, no hesitation, their lips moving in sync, finding a natural and immediate rhythm of giving and taking, asking and knowing.

His hands found every spot she liked him touching her the best—her neck, her hip, her breasts—and did exactly what she needed to arc her desire higher than ever before. He raked her skirts up her leg as he consumed her with a hot kiss, deeper than before. She needed him now, so she fumbled with his fall, ripped at it really, as her fingers lost all ability to move when he nipped at her earlobe, sending spirals of pleasure right to her core.

But there—done. Fall open and his shaft in hand, and his jerking beneath her touch as he kissed her harder, even harder, than before. She welcomed every demanding kiss, every demanding touch. She demanded, too, tangling her hands in his hair as he shifted her in his lap so her legs ran alongside his, spread wide, and his chest pressed against her back, and his hands slid first down her thigh, then up, then between her legs to cup her sex. He remembered the brothel, too. His shaft was caught between them, and he grounded it against her arse.

More. She needed more. He needed more, too, and they worked without words until her legs were folded beneath her on either side of his body and he was slipping inside her, filling her. Perfection. Perfection, too, how she rode him, how they found a rhythm. No fighting and learning this time, no fumbling and figuring out. Instead, the rolling measures of two bodies in harmony, reaching… reaching for release as he reached around to cup her breast with one hand and tease her nub with the other. Flames licked through her as she slid up and down his length, as he met her movement every movement as if he could read her mind. As if they shared one mind.

And when his thumb thrummed over her clitoris with a thrust of his cock, she cried out, cried his name, cried her joy. Only three things left of her as her body disintegrated into pleasure—happiness, pleasure, and Liam.

But he did not care if she'd come. He whispered in her ear, "Again." A growl, a demand as his hands continued to play her body like a pianoforte.

She could not come again. Too exhausted. Too heavy with satiation, but—"Oh! Liam." She hissed with renewed pleasure.

He curled his hand in her hair and pulled her head back to kiss her neck, the underside of her chin and jaw. Then he devoured her mouth and demanded once more, "Again," before thrusting faster and harder, and she arched into his movements and—an unexpected delight that nearly killed her—shattered once more as he cried her name and found his own release. "I love you," he said, shuddering beneath her with his own release. "I love you."

She laid her head on his shoulder to whisper into the rough skin of his jaw the words to a poem she'd never understood before.

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

Why not I with thine?

He rested his chin on the top of her head. "And what's that supposed to mean, clever one? You can't throw poetry at a fellow after you've muddled his brain. Possibly forever."

"It means I love you. Possibly forever. Muddled brain or not."