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by
Elisa Braden
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October 25 - October 28, 2024
“Husband,” he murmured. “I shall never be that.” “Well, you are one. And I would like my hand back, if you please.” His tremors now shook her arm, transferred from his leg to hers where they touched. “Does this mean I am entitled to fuck you?”
“I want only two things—a drink and a fuck. Unless you plan to give me either or both in great abundance, I suggest you keep your distance.”
Perhaps he had sought to offend her sensibilities. But he forgot that humiliation had been a near-everyday occurrence during her five seasons. His small jabs and insolent vulgarities were little more than temporary stings. What remained of their interlude, lingering like a stain on her skin, was his touch.
He liked that she was slow to anger and quick to forgive. With Esther. With Booth. With him. He liked that he could feel her eyes on him in odd moments, and when he met her gaze, she would smile instead of looking away.
“Why would you help me?” Peter’s eyes moved from the horizon to Chatham. There was no subservience in his expression, nor defiance, nor pity. He looked … calm. As though he was rooted in something deeper than the earth, and no wind could shake him. The farmer donned his hat and started toward his plow, calling over his shoulder, “Better view, I suppose.”
“Charlotte.” She ignored him to retrieve the broom. “Charlotte.” This time, his voice was a menacing snap. “Touch that broom, and I will use it to paddle your backside.” She stopped, her eyes going wide. “You would not.” “Try.”
He was forty and wished for a fertile goddess. She was nineteen and wished for a title with overflowing pockets. A perfect match.”
“There is nothing wrong with you. If you do not fit, perhaps it is England that is the problem.” She sighed and gave him a watery smile. “This is why I like you so much. Beneath your cruelty and cynicism is a man who understands … everything.”
“Always. Even when I close my eyes, you are burned into me. I see nothing else.”
He’d been stripped of everything he’d once been, left raw and exposed and wanting. Wanting her as he’d never wanted anything. Whisky. His father’s respect. His mother’s love. Nothing compared. He resented the wanting. Resented her.
She had shattered him, fired the pieces, and forged a new man. She was his wife. His Charlotte. And he could not bear to let her go. Not now. Not ever.
“If it is possible to have a deeper dislike of someone, I have not yet discovered it. To be clear, I dislike many people.”
“He enjoys fishing. So I made him a handkerchief with a trout embroidered on the corner.” “A trout? Is that the—er, purple bit?” “I ran out of silver thread.” “And the green stem is a … tail?” “I also ran out of purple.”
“You misunderstand. I am not sorry for my suspicions. I am sorry I have failed to convey the magnitude of lust you inspire in me.”
Upon my honor, I swear it.” “You haven’t any honor.”
She was going to leave him. She was going to fuck him for nine more bloody months and draw every ounce of pleasure from it, and then she was going to board a ship and sail to a different fucking continent. And leave him standing up to the tops of his Hessians in fucking Northumberland mud.
Like most women, Charlotte wished to use him. For her pleasure. For her projects. For her purposes. The same as Mrs. Knightley. The same as his mother. The same as every last conniving one of them. He’d thought her different, but she was not. She was the same.
could be nothing, she thought. Perhaps Papa wishes to provide additional funds. Perhaps he was struck by conscience. Perhaps a dragon will appear and swallow Mr. Pryor and his lofty hat then spit them into the sea.
The man was clearly lacking the sense of the common goose.
“This clay is too slick for someone of your calamitous tendencies.”
“Complacency, dearest Humphrey. The presumption that all is well and shall remain so—this is the signature weakness of mankind.”
“You are a sensible man, James. I trust you will reach the correct conclusions on your own. Eventually. Perhaps even before it is too late.”
Eventually, a man learned the truth about love—that it was the worst sort of pain when it was not repaid in kind. That most people would inevitably prove a disappointment, and that one was wise not to become attached.
She had crept up while he lay in bed listening to her laugh, and she had claimed his heart as though the black thing had been hers all along.
He gasped for air, his hand clawing at his knee. “I love you,” he said to the rocks and the dirt, the words wrenched free of him, breaking his hold. “I love you, Charlotte. So bloody much.”
“He is a man. One must expect to be frequently disappointed. Consider yourself fortunate if he occasionally recognizes his own folly.”
