Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

E liza was still coming down from the high Fitz had taken her to as they lay on her bed and she stared dreamily at the ceiling, her eyes lazily following the intricate gold-leaf flower and vine motifs that covered the wooden beams.

"Tell me something about you," she said dreamily.

"Like what?"

"Anything. Something no one else knows."

Fitz paused, rubbing a hand over his forehead as he seemed to consider her question. "How about my name?"

"Your name?"

"My Christian name," he said, flipping over onto his stomach to stare at her, a large grin widening over his face. "Do you know it?"

She bit her lip. She must know it. How could she not? But the more she considered it, the more she realized that he was right – she had no idea what his name was.

"Very well," she said. "You are right. I don't know it."

"Christian."

"Yes, you said that. Your Christian name."

"No." He laughed, and she couldn't help noting with a sigh just how handsome he was. "That's my name. Christian."

"Truly?" She had no idea why she found that so hard to believe. "You do not look like a Christian."

He laughed even louder. "I know. That's why everyone calls me Fitz – even my mother. I know it is not custom to be called by one's title while one's father is alive, but, when I was a young boy, my father said that I looked nothing like a Christian. He began to call me ‘young Fitz,' and soon enough the name shortened and stuck. So, Fitz I am."

"It's perfect for you," Eliza said, her voice softening as she appreciated that he would share such a story with her. "Your father sounds like he was a wonderful man."

"He was," Fitz said ruefully. "I wish I'd had more time with him."

"How old were you when he passed?"

"Twenty. It was sudden. I was… otherwise occupied when I should have been learning from him."

Eliza nodded, caught between wanting to know more about Fitz and his emotions and wondering if she should try to bring back the jovial Fitz. She sensed, however, that he needed to speak about this. Perhaps he never had before.

"That would have been hard for your mother and your sisters," she said. She hadn't known his family well then and couldn't remember what the previous Lord Fitzroy had been like.

"It was," he said, his lips firming into a line. "I should have been there for them."

"I'm sure you did all you could."

"I didn't," he said, his voice fierce and dripping with self-doubt. "I was caught up in something else entirely. Something I had no business being involved in."

"Do you wish to speak of it?" she asked, hesitant, for she wondered if she was going to like what he had to say.

"It had to do with a woman," he finally said, no longer meeting her eyes. "A woman who was nothing more than a liar, who wanted to use me for my title."

"I see," she said quietly, longing to know more but also not wanting to seem desperate to know that part of him. It wasn't her business, after all, not if he only wanted to spend time with her in bed and nowhere else. "You are making up for it now, Fitz. You're a good brother. Trust me. I know how much your sisters love you."

"That's good to know, even if I don't deserve it," he said before falling silent.

Eliza waited for him to say more, but when he didn't, she decided to try another tactic. She trailed her fingers down his body, beginning at his collarbone and slowly inching her way down, over the springy hairs of his chest to the muscles of his abdomen, until they finally played with the edge of his breeches.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice thick.

"I think I'm ready for lesson five."

"We don't have to."

"I want to," she said, biting her bottom lip. "If you feel up to it."

He let out a snort that she knew was him coming back to her and the present moment. "I can't imagine a time I wouldn't be."

He wrapped his arms around her back, flipping them over so that he was lying on the bed with her on top of him. He unfastened the fall of his breeches, shimmying them down his legs, until Eliza grabbed them and threw them to the floor beside them. Her eyes went wide as she stared at him, wondering how he had possibly fit inside of her, before she went to her knees before him, her hands bracketing his legs.

"Use your hands if you'd like," he suggested, but she shook her head. She had seen this in the book and had always been curious about it. Now that she had experienced what Fitz had offered her, she was ready to do the same for him.

She did wrap one of her hands around the bottom of his member, but then slowly lowered her head until she was hovering right over top of him. She grinned to herself before she leaned down, taking just the tip of him in her mouth. He groaned as he arched his back in supplication toward her, and finally, she took pity on him, leaning down and taking him fully in her mouth.

Not entirely sure what she was doing, Eliza decided that her best option was to experiment. Recalling how Fitz had played with her, she used her lips, her tongue, and her hand to fully explore him and stroke him, paying attention to what caused the greatest reaction from him and resolving to do more of it.

She began to stroke the underside of his cock with her tongue as she used her hand to squeeze him up and down as she had in the past, and he cried out her name as he began to pulse beneath her.

"Eliza," he said. "You can come off now. I'm?—"

But Eliza remembered what the book had said and resolved to stay with him. She shuddered slightly at the shock of the sensation when he came inside her mouth, but she kept her mouth around him, taking all of him in, and he quickly provided her with a handkerchief to clean up.

"Are you all right?" he said quietly. "I'm sorry, I?—"

"Did you like that?" she asked eagerly, and his eyes widened.

"Like it?" he repeated. "I loved it."

"Good," she said, practically bouncing toward him and throwing her arms around him. "I'm so glad."

They fell to the bed together, wrapped in each other's embrace. It was warm and comforting, and Eliza stilled, wondering if she liked this far too much. But his body was heavy around her, and she found that instead of backing away, it felt much better to burrow into him. Soon her eyes grew heavy and while she knew she should say goodnight and suggest he leave her room, she figured she could relax with him for just a few moments longer.

The next thing she knew, it was morning and he was gone.

What bothered her the most was how much she already missed him.

The next few weeks passed by quickly.

Between spending time with Henrietta, Sloane, Dot, and the rest of Fitz's sisters during the day and sneaking into Fitz's room or he to hers through the night, Eliza was enjoying herself more than she had in quite some time. She missed Siena, whom she had grown used to seeing nearly every day for the past few years, but she knew that she was going to have to become accustomed to being without her. Siena was married now, and soon enough would have a family of her own.

The thought of her closest friend in the world not having time for her caused sadness in her heart, but there was nothing to be done about it. It was how the world worked.

Eliza had a much more significant – and pressing problem, anyway. One she wasn't aware of until dinner that evening.

"Fitz, have you heard from the detective in London?" Lady Fitzroy asked.

"I've heard from him, but nothing promising," Fitz said, laying his fork down as he looked over the rest of them. "As I am no longer in London, there doesn't seem to be much to investigate. As for the previous attempts on my life, the trail to the source has grown cold. Whoever planned this was careful — if this was even a true plan."

"What does that mean?" Dot asked, her nose crinkling.

"Maybe I overreacted. Maybe there was nothing to run away from," he said. "What if it was just a coincidence that the two events occurred? What if I was mistaken for another? I am just another lord. Who would have anything to gain by being rid of me?"

"It's not worth taking the risk," his mother said firmly.

"It's been over four weeks since we left London," he said, splaying his hands out in front of him. "How long are we to wait here in the country for nothing to happen?"

The conversation continued around the table, but Eliza suddenly found that it all became background noise.

Four weeks.

Four weeks since Fitz's family had been in the countryside. She and her mother had arrived a week later, and she had Fitz had come together just a few days after that. She hadn't had her monthly courses since she had been in London. About a week before she had left, if she remembered correctly, for she recalled her mother wanting her to accompany her to the Rutherfords' ball and she had declined for she had been feeling rather poorly.

She was so regular, they should have started at least a week ago.

Oh no.

Heat rushed into her cheeks as she began to fan her face, the overwhelm suddenly washing over her.

"Eliza? Eliza are you all right?" Her mother's voice broke through her thoughts as Eliza hurriedly pushed back her chair.

"Excuse me a moment," she said and, ignoring all of the shocked stares that followed her, she rushed out the door blindly. She didn't know where she was going.

She just knew she had to get away.