The Husband Plot Page 14

  Adrian laughed against her skin. Leave it to Lisbeth to introduce the topic of books while her husband nuzzled her.

  “It is now evident to me why that man was so adamant that the book was for males only,” she continued.

  “Oh?” Adrian managed to say as he strayed from her neck to the delicate cage of her collarbone.

  “Yes.” Her breath hitched. “Each chapter is a different adventure, and it seems these adventures are primarily sexual in nature.”

  When his brain caught up to her words – some seconds later, as his focus was primarily elsewhere – Adrian finally saw the silky darkness in her eyes.

  “They’re rather explicit, too,” she said.

  “Are they?” was all he could come up with, his blood caught up on the way she looked so ready to be ravished.

  She smiled, the cat who ate the canary. “I’ll fetch it, and you can tell me what you think.”

  Lisbeth – his wife – crossed into her room stark naked. Adrian soaked in the view, first of her bottom rippling with each step away and then of her breasts jiggling merrily as she returned, the book thick in her hands.

  He prayed that one day he would be so confident in life that he, too, could walk around the house without a stitch of clothing.

  Lisbeth leapt onto the bed with a little giggle. Adrian pulled her close, one arm around her shoulders while his other hand crept back onto her stomach. She positioned it lower, resting his fingers on her damp curls, and then opened the book.

  The first page of the chapter was illustrated, a careful watercolor of Captain Bigsby in his sailor outfit with a woman on her knees before him, her breasts spilling out of her dress, her pink lips turned up toward him.

  Adrian’s cock stiffened. “I see what you mean.”

  “Would it be very wicked of us to read it together?” Lisbeth’s voice lowered, but this time, Adrian sensed it was not simply from arousal. Her words tripped over each other in hesitation. “To read it and act from it?”

  There it was again: the glimmer of insecurity behind her eyes. This confident, opinionated, perfect woman somehow wasn’t headstrong enough to have complete faith in herself. Adrian could scarcely credit it, when just a few hours ago she had been strong enough to breeze into a coffeehouse.

  He drew her in for a kiss. “Does it matter whether it is wicked when it is just you and me and it is what we want to do?”

  Adrian wanted to always put such a glow on her face. He took the book from her hands.

  “Shall I begin?”

  Nineteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  The days disappeared in their bedroom. Oh, Adrian went off in sunshine to take care of this or that matter, and Lisbeth received visitors and attended salons, and occasionally they even returned to the theater or made appearances at dinner parties. But those all seemed like interludes between the moments when Lisbeth was truly alive: when Adrian held her in his arms.

  They followed Captain Bigsby’s adventures religiously. When he encountered a native woman wearing nothing but a grass skirt, Lisbeth presented herself with only a shawl hanging at her waist. When a visiting princess genuflected before the captain to take his cock in her mouth, Lisbeth dressed in her finest jewels to kneel before Adrian. When a vengeful widow imprisoned Captain Bigsby and punished him with endless intercourse, Lisbeth lashed Adrian’s wrists to the bedposts and rode him until they both collapsed in exhaustion.

  “Do you find it remarkable that every woman who encounters the captain is consumed with the need to fuck him?” Adrian asked after one of their exploits. The book had made them both more comfortable with the language of sex, too: Adrian’s member was his proud and pulsing cock, Lisbeth’s nether regions was her wet and dripping cunny, and the act itself was fucking.

  The words alone could zip Lisbeth into a frenzy.

  To Adrian’s comment, she laughed. “His adventures wouldn’t be very interesting if the women spurned him.”

  “Yes, but a man might read this and begin to think every woman wants to fuck him, too.”

  “It is a book of fantasy. No one could read this and think it is how the world actually works.” Lisbeth turned onto her stomach, propping her chin on her palm to take stock of her husband. He had one arm triangled behind his head while the other hand stroked idle circles on her skin. “Or am I to understand that you have begun thrusting your cock at every lass who crosses your path, presuming yourself to be Captain Bigsby?”

  Adrian grinned. He had been doing that so much more lately, and every time, it took her breath away.

  He rolled to press her into an embrace. “You’re the only lass at whom I thrust my cock.”

  They didn’t always follow Captain Bigsby’s strictures. They invented their own episodes, too. In Adrian’s study, with Lisbeth bent over the desk and her skirts thrown up to reveal her lily white bum to him. Against the bookshelves, with Lisbeth suspended only by Adrian’s arms as his cock moved inside her. In the carriage, every time they went anywhere. Once in the breakfast room on the servants’ day off, climbing onto the gleaming polished table and feasting on each other instead of the cold meats on the buffet.

  Lisbeth had imagined herself a love affair, but she had never imagined this – the keening desire so strong to overcome all good sense.

  She devoured every second of it.

  There were only three doubts that nagged her, even six weeks on. The first was that neither of them had confessed to loving the other. She did not dwell on this too much. Lisbeth knew she loved him from the way her body protested as he left the room, from the way she hung upon his every word, from the way she smiled every time she thought of him. Whether he felt the same or not, she loved the way he treated her, and so there was no reason to risk upsetting the perfect balance they had found.

  Of greater concern was the fact that every day drew them closer to the inevitable summons from Bartholomew Hathorne, when Adrian would sail to Jamaica. Lisbeth had known this plan since the beginning. It was even referenced in their marriage contract, as he committed to providing her with a home in London and the English countryside equal to or better than his residences in the colonies. Before, she had yearned for that moment when her no-face husband would disappear on a sailing ship, leaving her free to an unfettered London lifestyle.

  Now, she couldn’t imagine drawing air into her lungs if Adrian were not within an hour’s reach.

  But her biggest concern was the moments that spilled between their sexual adventures. When they pressed against each other, sweaty and satisfied, Lisbeth always tried to fill the air with conversation. Sometimes it was idle chatter, but mostly, she was hungry for meaningful discussion. She wanted to know Adrian’s thoughts on whether the abolition of the slave trade had been more hurtful than helpful, on how he thought they could win the fight to abolish slavery altogether. She asked his opinion on the writings of Granville Sharp and Olaudah Equiano. She wondered what his mother had been like and whether his parents had loved each other, or whether Bartholomew Hathorne had imagined himself a Captain Bigsby while Adrian’s mother had in fact turned away.

  Adrian was not interested in such discussions. If she asked a direct question, he batted it away with a monosyllabic reply. He changed the subject or distracted her with kisses. After a week or two, he had even learned to take charge of the conversation before she could introduce such topics. He did it well, flaming a debate about the realism of modern art with the fantasy of Baroque classics or asking what she thought of the recent play they’d attended or inquiring about what book she would read next.

  Ordinarily, Lisbeth loved nothing more than a good debate about artistic endeavors, and she derived a certain erotic thrill from mingling such conversation with fiery sex. Yet she couldn’t help feeling that Adrian still didn’t trust her with his true opinions, not on matters of political consequence, and every time they didn’t discuss abolition, her heart bruised a little deeper.

  After one particularly languorous morning, Lisbeth spiked into a pa
rticular kind of despair when Adrian rolled out of bed without so much as a by-your-leave. She simply couldn’t stand the sight of him covering his majestic legs with cotton drawers. “Where are you going?”

  He turned back to her in surprise. It was a sign of how he didn’t sense her feelings that instead of tensing, he was almost smiling. “Robert is waiting for me at Carroway’s. I told him I would be there a quarter hour from now, but it looks as though I will be late.” This he laced with a wink.

  A wink like that would normally erase all her thought, or at least convince her to drop the subject in favor of a dozen more kisses. But this time it didn’t work. “What do you and Robert do at Carroway’s all day?”

  “We discuss Hathorne Shipping business.” Adrian had not stopped dressing, and now he shrugged on his shirt, hiding the great expanse of his chest from her view. He tugged a finger along the collar for positioning. “I’m afraid I’ll need Mr. Adkins to finish dressing.”

  And there he went, putting her off again. “I don’t understand what Robert could find interesting about Hathorne Shipping. Surely he finds commerce beneath him.”

  As if part of his toilette, Adrian drew his face into the impassive mask Lisbeth had so grown to hate. “He is heavily invested in both Hathorne Shipping and Hathorne Sugar. Even lords of the realm find it interesting to track how their money is doing.”

  “Does he know about how you plan to run Hathorne Sugar once you inherit?”

  “No.” This Adrian said quickly and darkly. Then he leaned forward, stealing a kiss from her before she could lean away. “What of you, Mrs. Hathorne? What do you plan to do this afternoon?”

  It was so typical that he should avoid the topic. Lisbeth slid out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown. “I have my own adventure planned.”

  “What sort of adventure?” Adrian asked. “Music, painting, or writing?”

  Any other moment of the day, Lisbeth would revel in the fact that her husband knew her so well, and that he levered the knowledge with such a gentle, almost loving smile. In the heat of his departure, however, Lisbeth only felt petulant. “Are those my only three options? How dreary.”

  Adrian looped a cravat around his neck and tried helplessly to tie it. “I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that. There are no limits to your options. Let me guess: you are sneaking into White’s for a game of whist.”

  Lisbeth drew in a breath, willing her lips to cooperate by staying in a flat line instead of twitching into a smile. “Gambling is a waste of such efforts.”

  “Ah.” Abandoning his dressing, Adrian pulled her by the hips to stand close. “Perhaps you are sneaking into the House of Lords, then.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Or into an ale house to get thoroughly swilled.”

  “Or into Gentleman Jackson’s for a round of pugilism.”

  She didn’t want to play this game. She didn’t want to forget her anger – again – simply because Adrian was touching and teasing her. She wanted him to tell her what was in his heart. And so she said something far too heartless. “Or perhaps I am going to a courtesan’s house to audition lovers for the winter.”

  At her waist, Adrian’s fingers stiffened. For a moment, he couldn’t seem to summon his diffidence, and so Lisbeth saw something – confusion? – flicker across his eyes. Then he found his composure. “In which case we both have places to be.” Releasing her, he stepped backward, then across the room to his bell pull. “I had better get Mr. Adkins up here before Robert sends out a search party.”

  The room filled with a terrible, awkward silence as Lisbeth raced to find a way to take back her words. She couldn’t think of anything, other than to follow him, wrap her arms around his perfect torso, and – when he resisted her kiss – lay her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m going to Mr. Levi’s portrait exhibition on Pall Mall.”

  Adrian linked his arms around her. He still smelled salty of sweat and sex, and Lisbeth wished he would tumble her back onto the bed. She wished she could take back all her frustration and simply enjoy this husband who would hold her on an April afternoon.

  “Will you be back for dinner?” he asked, his voice thrumming through his chest and into hers.

  “Yes. We are having pigeon pie.” It was one of his favorites. Lisbeth had never cared one way or the other for pigeon meat, but Adrian always ate double when Mrs. Siswell prepared it, and so Lisbeth made sure it was on the menu at least once a week.

  “Then we had best get on with our afternoons, so that we can sooner rejoin for our meal.” He said this softly, kindly, and dotted her head with a kiss as a final reassurance that he had forgiven her. Lisbeth would have clung to him even a moment longer, had Mr. Adkins not appeared.

  “Give my best to Robert,” she said instead, and then she retreated to her chambers.

  The distance between them still felt too great. She could hear Mr. Adkins’s incessant chatter yet had to strain to guess whether Adrian responded. By the time Hannah arrived with a bucket of hot water for Lisbeth’s wash, Adrian was exiting, the corridor resounding with the sound of his door closing, and he didn’t poke his head in for any final farewell. He simply descended the stairs, out of Lisbeth’s earshot.

  It put her in a cross mood for what was supposed to be a pleasant afternoon. Mr. Levi was displaying a collection of his more interesting portraits at the home of a well-to-do merchant; Lisbeth had been promised dozens of artists who would have nothing better to do than sip wine and tell her about their careers. She had planned on wearing one of Aunt Vivienne’s gowns and spending the afternoon in a fit of tipsy giggles. Now, she dressed in a conventional muslin day dress and climbed into the carriage feeling rather like she was on her way to a funeral.

  Her outlook improved only slightly when she arrived at Pall Mall. Mr. Levi himself rushed down the steps to help her out of the carriage, and he took her about the main gallery personally. It was the repurposed front drawing room of the house, with plenty of natural light to display the portraits. Yet the paintings did nothing to inspire Lisbeth; they were all giant canvasses spilling with hackneyed symbolism to display the sitter’s wealth and status. For Mr. Levi’s sake, she leaned into each one, admiring his brushwork or the way he drew the eye to the glittering diamond on the subject’s hand. But her heart wasn’t lifted or transported or any of the other transcendent reactions she so relied on from art.

  She stayed anyhow, peeling away from Mr. Levi to find a glass of claret. She met a few other artists – all portraitists hoping to find their next commission – and chatted with them about their sensibilities. All the while, however, her mind returned to Upper Norton Street. She wished she could take back her words, or even unspool time enough to hold in her questions and simply kiss Adrian goodbye.

  Surely a husband had every right to spend the afternoon away from his wife. If she turned into such a shrew each time it happened, he would gasp in relief over sailing to Jamaica.

  Yet even as she had the thought, Lisbeth banished it. Surely a wife had every right to know where her husband was going, when he threw off the covers as he did. It was simply a matter of asking without throwing out poisoned words while doing so.

  She was just trying to focus her thoughts back on the conversation at hand – which seemed to be a questionably appropriate story of a French portrait model – when Lord Brabourne appeared at her side.

  “Mrs. Hathorne, what a pleasure to discover you here.”

  It was a startling place to discover the earl. For one thing, Lisbeth had never suspected Lord Brabourne the type to condescend to a mere merchant’s home in order to see portraits. For another, he was so closely linked in her mind with Adrian that in the first brief instant of discovering him, Lisbeth feared she had conjured Lord Brabourne by thinking too hard about her husband.

  “Lord Brabourne,” she greeted. “May I introduce you to my companions?”

  He dissented by bowing his head. “I would much prefer to converse with you, Madam. Permit me to escort you about the room.”
r />   He didn’t frame it as a question, and therefore Lisbeth almost said no. If not for Adrian, she would have said no. But she remembered just before she opened her mouth to do so that Lord Brabourne was a pawn in Adrian’s chess game. “How kind of you.”

  He offered his arm, which meant she had to hook her gloved hand through his elbow. He smelled of moustache wax.

  “I haven’t seen enough of you, Mrs. Hathorne. Whenever I call upon Upper Norton Street you are away from home, and whenever I am out, you are at home.”

  Lisbeth had seen him visiting Adrian a few times, spotting his carriage on her way in or shutting herself in her room when he arrived. Adrian always mentioned it with a light, never-say-care tone, yet she knew he didn’t welcome Lord Brabourne’s condescensions. Still, she aimed for Adrian’s glibness in her response. “Had I known you were so eager to find me, my lord, I am sure we would have met much sooner.”

  “You are the great improvement to Mr. Hathorne’s household. Why should I not want to find you?” Lord Brabourne did not wait for her reply. “Will you be staying in London when Mr. Hathorne sails for Inglewilde Plantation?”

  Of course, he would touch on the one subject that felt like a dagger in Lisbeth’s heart. She smiled through it. “Yes, I believe so, although Their Graces have been kind enough to invite me to winter at Maidenheath House should I so choose.”

  “You must let me escort you whenever you so desire. A butterfly such as you should not be at home for want of a present husband.”

  It was a strange response, given that a married lady could come and go as she pleased. Lisbeth wondered if there were code beneath his words, a secret meaning she was supposed to understand. “Are you not sailing for Jamaica as well, my lord? I was given to understand you prefer to spend the winter at your home there.”

  “Not every year. If I should be so blessed with a wife to take with me, perhaps. For now, I will stay among you beauties here in London.”