HerOutlandishStranger (16 page)

“Mr. White, you are a marvelous surgeon.” She smiled
blearily up at him. Even the worst of her melancholia evaporated.

He gave her a smile and nod, but seemed preoccupied. He
cleared his throat. “Eliza, er, would you mind being Mrs. Peasnettle for a bit
longer? It will be a few days until we get you back to your uncle. I think we’d
better let you stay put a bit before setting off on any more travels.”

She sighed with relief at the thought of spending days
resting in one place. “No, I have no objection. I could be Mrs. Peasnettle for
the rest of my life.”She grabbed his hand. “I would, too, Jas. If you would be
Mr. Peasnettle. I need no more than that. Give me an imaginary name and I will
keep it as faithfully as any real one.”

He held her hand between both of his, but shook his head
slowly. “I would, I swear by…by whatever it is I hold sacred I would marry you
and stay with you. But I know that it can’t happen. For a few weeks perhaps, we
can share a name, but you must go to your uncle unmarried and you must marry a
man in London. Another man.”

It couldn’t happen. She still felt too miserable and weak or
she would have once again begged or bullied him to explain exactly what that
meant.

Near them, the busy sailors unloaded the ship. The creak of
the pulleys, thumps of cargo on the wooden docks, bellows of commands, and
occasional shouts of laughter filled the air. Wrapped in their own silence,
Eliza paid attention to none of it. Her face felt frozen with chagrin as she
stared into his sad eyes.

But she was finished with self-pity and refused to sulk. She
pulled away from his grasp and slid off the barrel. When her still wobbly legs
caused her to stumble, she refused Jas’ help. She took several sharp swipes at
a muddy spot at her bedraggled, stained skirt and avoided his eye. “That makes
twice I have unbecomingly proposed to you and have been rejected. Ha! And that
last I offered was not even a decent proposal of marriage. I swear if I had a
jot of sense or self-respect left in my heart I would walk away without looking
back, Mr. Strange White. No! If you mention that you know I must marry someone
else because of your infernal piece of wood, I warn you I shall scream until
the watch comes and drags you away.”

“Eliza.” He caught her elbow and firmly pulled her around to
face him. “If by some chance I am wrong—if you are still unmarried in, eh, say,
twelve months, I promise… I swear that I will come be with you in whatever
capacity you wish. Will that be enough to keep you from loathing me?”

She exhaled an impatient gust of air. “I could not hate you
if you dragged me to my uncle and never looked back. And have I not told you
that you owe me nothing? Yes, yes, Jas. If you come to me in twelve months I
will marry you at once. Do you see? I put on no show of pride. Quite the opposite
in fact.

“But…” She hesitated and then continued haltingly. “But I
should warn you that you would have to agree to take on another, for lately I
cannot see going to the country and having one of those six-month illnesses
young misses sometimes get. I thought long about this when I thought I would
expire on that wretched ship. There has been so much death in our world lately
and here,” she patted her hard, slightly swollen abdomen, “is a bit of life, no
matter who—or even what—the father might be. I knew on that ship that if I lost
the baby my heart would hurt.”

She felt slightly abashed as she admitted, “I think my
answer will be to masquerade as a widow with her orphan.”

“Good plan,” he said heartily.

She considered boxing his ears. “
Pshaw
. It is a dishonest
and dreadful ruse, Jas. But I fear I truly have lost all interest in my womanly
honor and only want to keep my baby and my sanity. You are so clever with the
forgeries, perhaps you could give me a husband who died a soldier in Spain? I
shall be a widow.”

“It is a very good plan.” He spoke firmly and looked as
pleased as if she’d promised him a rare treat.

He held out his crooked arm, the formal method she’d once
shown him, should he ever need to lead his dance partner to the floor. Arm in
arm, they walked into England.

Chapter Thirteen

England

The small inn was clean, warm and everything civilized they
hadn’t experienced for what felt like years.

They were given one room because they decided to save money
and besides, they were used to sharing space. But this small space felt
different. After the time on the hillside when they’d made love, something had
shifted back and Eliza knew he had been trying to keep his distance. She wished
she had the bravado to overcome the awkwardness, demand a return to intimacy,
but she’d never felt more like a minister’s daughter. Oh, she’d give a thousand
pounds to have the strength of a brazen hussy.

Jas cleared his throat. “I shall go down to order some food
and tea, shall I?” He stopped and looked at her. He must have recalled the last
time she’d been alone in an inn with a man who’d left the room for food.

“No,” he said with horror. “Liza, I’m not your awful Brian
Whatshisname.” Their laughter started at once and they were comfortable again.
Until she stroked his arm and he started as if she’d struck him. She’d been
about to speak, but the craving she felt—and even more arousing, the hunger she
saw in his face—charged the air and made words difficult. Thick desire made her
knees weak.

“No, you’re not Brian,” she whispered. “I know that what we
do is far more wonderful.”

He grabbed her up into a kiss that penetrated every bit of
her senses. She smelled the peppermint on his breath, the delicious male scent
of him. He groaned. “I’m going. I must leave.”

“But then you’ll come back?” she asked.

He pushed his hand through his hair, as if the thought
pained him. “Of course.”

She considered asking him straight out why, if it hurt to be
around her, did he bother, but she was not at all sure she wanted to hear the
answer. “All I want,” said Eliza to break the peculiar new tension, “is a bath.
I have been dreaming of a good hot bath for what must be months. I doubt they
will have a hip bath but I’ll happily make do with a simple wash basin.”

Jas looked relieved. He nodded and looked around the small,
tidy room. “Where’s the water? Near the fire?”

She smiled. “We must order it.”

“Right. I’ll go down and ask them to give you some then,
shall I?” He closed the door gently behind him.

Liza feverishly ripped through her sack, hoping to find some
piece of clothing not covered with mud or shredded beyond recognition. Her
father had thrown in some odd garments she had not worn out, including a
light-blue muslin frock that would be suitable for a summer tea party, but
hardly an early English spring. She held the dress up and felt a rush of love
as she recalled her father’s oblivious attitude about women’s clothing and her
sister Jane’s comical frustration as she tried to get him to admire some bit of
ribbon.

When her searching fingers found the bar of sweetly scented
soap her father had thrust into the bag, she felt gratitude as well as love.
Her father must have fetched it and the reticule from the box under her bed
where she kept her tiny stash of frivolous luxury items. The inn provided perfectly
acceptable soap, but she laid it aside and scrubbed vigorously with the soap
her father had packed. Buckets of water later, she at last felt as if the dirt
had been stripped away.

Her skin prickled with the unfamiliar sensation of
cleanliness. Her head seemed to float, for her hair felt pounds lighter. When
Jas knocked at the door, she sat in front of a mirror and combed out her damp
curling hair, grimacing at the snarls. She threw a grubby knit shawl over her
shoulders. Pity the shawl wasn’t cleaner, but suddenly her demure pink tea gown
struck her as too low cut.

Jas had found a barber as she’d washed. She caught sight of
him and gasped. Without the golden beard, and with his hair clean and trimmed,
his face appeared much younger and almost obscenely handsome. He leaned against
a wall and examined her for a few silent moments. “I, er, asked about another
room. But the innkeeper said the private parlor thing is taken. Do you think
it’s safe for you downstairs?”

She stopped gaping at him. Good Lord, her mouth had been
hanging open. “Why do you ask?”

“I need a good wash too.”

Her face burned. “Of course, how silly of me. I shall simply
take a stroll outside.”

“Five minutes,” he promised. “I’ll be done in five minutes.
This is not the seediest place I’ve ever seen, but I’m beginning to catch on to
the rules for females. Don’t wander far. I think it best if we eat in the room,
don’t you?”

* * * * *

The minute he finished washing, he jammed himself into his
least dirty clothes and bounded down the stairs. Jazz reflected that he’d
probably have felt ill at the reek of ale, smoke, cooked meat and live horse if
this had been the first place he’d alighted in this world. Now it smelled
delicious.

The dusty street outside the inn was empty except for a
sleeping dog stretched out in the sun. He went back inside to order a steak and
kidney pie and wait by the door, drumming his fingers nervously on the table.
Where had she gotten to? And where was Steele?

Eliza soon returned, peeling off her gloves. “Shall we?” she
asked, and her too-cheerful manner told him she must be nervous too. He slowly
mounted the stairs with a bottle of wine and a glass in his hand. He knew all
about alcohol from the CR and learned that natives had used it to help relieve
tense situations. Good. He needed all the help he could get about now.

She sat down on the chair by the mirror. He leaned against
the window frame. They waited in silence. A few blessed minutes later, the
innkeeper’s daughter showed up with a tray containing their food. They sat down
on the rickety chairs pulled up to the small table and carefully divided the
rich, steaming pie.

Even food failed to dispel the uncomfortable air, but Jazz’s
table manners did the trick. To Liza’s obvious amusement, he held a knife and
fork in what he knew was a peculiar manner.

He caught her watching him, a gleam he knew well in her eye.
“Eliza,” he said with a sigh. “I know you have some new impertinent question
you’re dying to ask me. Go on. You have my permission. I might not answer,
though.”

She giggled. “It is true. I have noticed before, you eat as
if you are unfamiliar with the implements. I suppose you employ sticks at a
table in your country as the Orientals do?”

“Hands, mostly,” he said. “But that’s just me. I eat alone
most of the time.”

She tilted her head and looked at him. “Will you at last
tell me more about this life you lead? How can you be alone so often?”

“That’s just the way I live.”

“And what do you do the live long day?”

He frowned. “Work. Communicate with friends. I like to ride
too.”

“Horses?”

He made a face as he recalled the stench and flies of the
large animals. “No. A kind of hobby horse.” He wondered how he’d describe a
bike if she asked for more details. They were antiques in his time, and not
invented in hers.

She didn’t ask about that but she had more questions. “You
told me once that you work alone inside your home. You live alone too. How
often do people call upon you?”

“Once a day at least.” He only partially lied. Often he
could go for weeks, even months at a time without coming face-to-face with
anyone, but he did see people every day through CRs. He wondered if this era
knew the word
hikikomori
. Hermit, that was the word they’d use. He was a
city hermit. “Eliza, you are a pest. I said you could ask one question. Don’t they
teach you young ladies basic arithmetic in this country?”

“No, only the gentlemen learn maths.” She grinned, ate a
mouthful, then continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t even know how
ambitious you are. What are your grand plans for your future? That is if I do
find this man I’m to marry?”

That was an easy one. He shook his head. “I suppose someday
I’ll end up there again. I mean at my old habits. I never had much need for
excitement.” As he said the words, they struck him as indescribably bleak. No
big mystery there, he realized. In his future, she would truly only exist in
his memory.

He thought of living in a world that didn’t even hold her,
and was filled with an ache as enormous as if it had already come to pass and
she’d turned to dust before his eyes. His eyes began to sting. At least he
recognized the early warning signs of the stupid tears now. He took a breath
and held it. That seemed to do the trick. But perhaps this would be a good
opportunity to see if the local suppressant of alcohol could help. He poured
himself a glass. The taste and smell threatened to overwhelm him, but he
managed to down about half a glass.

Within minutes he understood that wine did not work—at least
not as Nulif, the suppressant he knew well. No, in fact wine could be called
quite the opposite of a suppressant. Some things seemed suppressed. Like his
ability to look anywhere but at Liza. Or think about anything else. He felt
dizzy with the need to touch her, a familiar sensation, but somehow even more
paralyzing at the moment. And he wasn’t going to lay a hand on her.

Silence fell again. Another awkward silence.

She seemed uncomfortable under his steady gaze so he looked
down into the glass of wine instead.

“I have not asked you for at least an hour. How are you?” he
asked in a valiant effort to find a suitable subject. “Do you suppose you will
feel sick less often now that we are back on your native soil?”

“Now that I am off that horrid ship I shall be fine
forever.” She put her hand on her belly. “I worry somewhat. I know I am growing
larger but ought I feel the baby by now?”

He sighed. “No, not until sixteen weeks. I imagine you are
about nine weeks pregnant.” Uh oh. Mention of the baby didn’t help him.
Memories he’d spent weeks trying unsuccessfully to delete from his mind floated
up. Liza on the ground with him. Liza in the cave, her arms around him, her
mouth on his, moving with him. All of her warmth in his arms and it wasn’t
until later, when he knew her better, that he thoroughly understood what a
treasure he’d held. And then the one other time on the hillside…

He gulped down the rest of the wine distastefully, poured
another glass, then leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. Old
habits die hard. As always, uneasiness made him instinctively hide the scar the
best he could.

“Why do you frown?” she asked faintly. “We were almost
jolly, you and I, and then it was as if some old sorrow came over you. What is
wrong? Do you miss your home?”

“I find it hard to be here with you, Liza.” When he saw the
seared look of hurt in her eyes he had to add, “Because I care about you too
much.”

She put down her fork, stood and walked over to him. Her
finger skimmed a lock of his hair that lay across his forehead then cupped her
hands on the sides of his face. Her slender fingers felt light and cool on his
sensitive newly shaven skin. She leaned forward and very slowly and
deliberately put her lips against his.

A few minutes later, when she pulled back, breathless, he
could feel his heart thudding against his ribs. She stood before his chair,
wedged between his thighs, the warm soft length of her pressed against him,
from his already throbbing erection to his chest. Somehow the fingers of one
his hands had slid through locks of her loose, silken hair to cradle her head.
The other hand rested on the small of her back, just above the curve of her
bottom.

“Eliza. You are—” He stopped and looked away.

Eliza knew Jas wanted to say something important and held
her breath. No, he only finished with a lame, “You are a remarkable person.”

He gave her a lopsided, sheepish grin. “Eh. I wondered if I
might eventually die of frustration if I didn’t get to hold you again. I don’t
seem to be able to think of anything else.” His words faded.

He slowly pushed his chair back and stood. When she stepped
into him, he grabbed her and for a long moment held her tight against him. He
loosened his hold, perhaps waiting for her next move. Good, she would not let
him off just because her body thrummed for his touch.

But the way his hands at her waist kneaded her hips reminded
her that she was starved for him. When she pushed closer, she could feel his
breath falter in that very interesting way that told her he wanted her. Oh, and
how she wanted him. She wrapped her arms around him and tilted her face up for
a kiss.

He gently brushed his mouth against hers.

She parted her lips, an invitation that proved enough. He
tightened his hold and deepened his kiss. The sweet taste of him filled her
with dizzying need. She wanted him to fill her mouth, her body. If only she
could let her fill herself with every inch of him, embrace his broad shoulders,
slide her hands over his long, muscular legs. Already his arms held her so
close she could never be lonely again.

Perhaps if she could wrap herself in Jas, she’d understand
him. At least she could have so much of him the craving would be fulfilled.
She’d taste his skin, and give into all the terrible, bottomless hunger again
at last.

“Come to bed,” she said between panting breaths. “Take off
your clothes.”

Jazz pulled her to the bed and down, hard, on top of him. He
kissed her mouth, her neck and pulled up her skirts to get at her skin. Oh damn
the layers she wore. Too many layers. But he couldn’t let her go yet. He had to
kiss her and lick the skin he could taste.

His waistcoat was gone. She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed
at it until her warm, searching hands smoothed over his chest, and then her
mouth too. He groaned as she straddled him, pressing herself to his cock,
rubbing.

“Oh.” She gave a small gasp and her eyes widened. She tried
to move away, but he put his hands on her bottom and pushed up to her. Just
another moment like this and then they’d get back to shedding the useless
clothes, getting to the delicious fruit beneath the peel. He couldn’t wait to
see her entirely naked. Yes, he could, because now he had to kiss her some
more.