John ran a hand through his hair. They had proved his technology worked. They’d installed a telegraph at the Hornsworth estate as well as every store in the village, with the wires crisscrossing the county a full twenty feet above the ground.
The signals operated as they should. Charlotte could press a button on her end and a sound could be heard at the other. The challenge was that it took so long to convey a message. Charlotte had become a quick telegraphist—the fastest in the house—but speedy fingers did not entirely solve the problem.
Lady Hornsworth might have agreed to have it installed, but she’d yet to have a single conversation through it given it was “tiresome” and “unnecessarily lengthy” and “inferior to a house call.”
To add salt to the wound, Charlotte suspected that the only reason the butcher and baker and greengrocer continued to accept orders through the telegraph was because none of them wanted to disappoint the enthusiastic Countess of Clayfield. Once she and John left for London, Daphne would no doubt recommence placing orders by written note.
“But I think there is a solution,” Charlotte said.
John dropped a kiss on the top of her head and then crossed to the bed, where he started to unlace his boots. “You always think there’s a solution. That is one of the reasons I love you. Let’s hear it.”
Charlotte shifted the chair around so that she faced him. “I’ve been exchanging letters with your friend Samuel Morse since he came to visit, and I do really think we’ve hit on something.”
“That’s excellent. How is he?” One by one, John’s wide network of scientific peers across the globe had found their way to England, specifically to John and Charlotte’s home, eager to accept the invitation to come and stay with the newly titled Earl and Countess of Clayfield.
It had become a truth universally acknowledged that Lady Clayfield’s drawing room was the epicenter of scientific innovation. Invitations to her dinner parties had become London’s most highly sought-after item.
While John’s interactions with his houseguests were still focused on the work they were doing, Charlotte formed relationships with them based on their lives, drawing the network closer than it ever had been. Over time, Charlotte had developed the understanding of science that she’d feared she was incapable of. Not only could she understand the conversations at her soirees, she contributed a unique perspective to them.
“I told Mr. Morse that we needed a new alphabet, which sounded like a ridiculous notion when the thought first came to me, but he’s taken the idea and simply run with it. It’s really quite remarkable.”
John raised his eyebrows as he unbuttoned his waistcoat and shucked it. “Morse has invented a new alphabet? As in, an entirely new language?”
As usual, Charlotte’s attention wandered as her husband undressed. Thank goodness it took no effort at all to keep talking, despite the somewhat lurid direction her thoughts were traveling in. “It’s not quite a new language,” she said as John pulled his shirt over his head. “It’s more like a code. I really do think it’s exactly what you need in order to make the telegraph more palatable to impatient people.”
“Show me,” John said, coming to take a seat next to her. He smelled so good. His skin radiated warmth, and she found herself less interested in explaining this potential solution than she was in not talking at all.
With Morse’s most recent letter next to her as a reference, she quickly tapped out a series of long and short tones.
“What did that say?”
She ducked her head and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “You look good without a shirt.”
John raised an eyebrow. “I’m certain that when Morse imagined the news of his code spreading, he did not anticipate it being used for such flirtations.”
Charlotte walked her fingers up his chest, until they reached the base of his neck, where they twirled in the curl of hair that was usually hidden by his cravat. “I’m certain that mankind has been flirting since language first developed. Perhaps facilitating love stories will be your telegraph’s legacy.”
He tucked an arm around her hips and yanked her against him, his fingers pressing into her thigh. He bent down and kissed her before pulling away just a fraction to say, “I’m fine with that. As long as their love stories turn out as well as ours did.”
She raised a hand to his cheek, thumb brushing against his smooth, sharp cheekbone. “Perhaps with a little less loss of property.” William had escorted her things back to England without issue; he’d been unable to locate John’s belongings.
“I could hide away with you forever,” John murmured, reaching for the buttons of her dress and flicking them open one at a time. As the fabric loosened, he turned his attention to her neck, his tongue trailing across her collarbone.
Charlotte shivered. At this moment, with John half naked and the bed right there, she had to agree. Hiding away was divine. She dropped her head back, her hands going behind her to keep from falling.
John tugged her fichu from her neckline, tossing it to the floor, and crossed her décolletage with lines of light, hot kisses. Her shivers intensified, internalized, until the core of her was rioting.
“Let’s go to bed,” she whispered.
“As you wish.” John scooped her into his arms, and her hands twined around his neck. His emerald eyes sparked with intensity, and he bit his lip as he crossed the room—a quiet promise of all the things he was about to do with his teeth, his lips, his tongue.
***
An hour later—both fully sated, their muscles loose, their bodies sinking heavily into the mattress—John was tracing circles over her stomach. “I know we agreed to return to London next week, but I wonder if it’s best we leave tomorrow instead. It would be nice to spend some time with the others before the demands of parliament start.” He looked up from her stomach to gauge her reaction.
Charlotte couldn’t help beaming. She had enjoyed her time in the country. The quiet had given her and John time together that was different from the time they spent together when in the city—deeper, more intimate. When they didn’t have guests visiting, she’d used these months to return to hobbies that she’d enjoyed but had cast aside in her quest to be more useful. Her watercolors would never hang on the walls of the National Gallery but they brought her quiet joy.
That said, she was desperate to return to the hustle and bustle of city life. The season was almost upon them and she was more than ready to see her friends. She was going to be the busiest of bees this season. She had to be. Who knew what life would look like next season? It would certainly have changed.
