Page 58 of Aurelia

Chapter 12

Six Weeks Later…

Aurelia settled into her life and the days and weeks sped past in a blur.

Without the earl’s presence, one day was much like another—not boring, necessarily, but without any… texture. She told herself that she was glad Lord Crewe was staying away.

She told herself that often.

Life in the castle was almost suspiciously calm and peaceful. Lady Celsa had stopped goading her governess, which—thankfully—meant that Miss Hatchet had ceased paying late-night visits to Aurelia’s bedroom to complain about her charge.

At least four afternoons every week Aurelia went on rides with Celsa. To say they had become friends would have been an exaggeration, but they had settled into a truce and Aurelia learned a great deal about the island while Celsa got to enjoy time with Helios, her horse, and the one living thing in all of Christendom that she did not argue with.

Aurelia’s work progressed apace and she had produced a truly impressive number of paintings. At least Arthur seemed impressed. She was hopeful that the earl—if he ever returned—would be pleased with her output, as well.

Between her work, the time she spent with Celsa, and her own artistic endeavors, her days were full. But just because she tried to stay busy did not mean she didn’t spend plenty of time dreaming—at night and often during the day—about her employer.

She had pondered that last afternoon they’d spent together so often that the memory should have become threadbare. Instead, she had embellished it as the days and weeks passed, until Lord Crewe had not stopped with kissing. His hands, which had scarcely grazed her nipples, had gone further, stripping her bare right out in the open where all the world might see.

Why on earth the thought of such a public seduction would arouse her Aurelia did not know.

But it did.

In her imagination, he continued once he’d laid her bare. Aurelia knew a great deal about the fundamentals of intercourse and she had felt the way his body had responded when she’d kissed him. He had hardened and thickened and his breathing had become ragged and fast. He had liked it when she’d been the aggressor. That sort of initiative was probably what he wanted in a lover. He would want women who were capable of bestowing as much pleasure as he knew how to give.

All her life Aurelia had been a responsible, obedient good girl and had kept herself pure and untouched. As her mother’s oldest daughter, the same message had been drummed into her since girlhood: her maidenhood was her most prized possession. Without it, she was irreparably damaged, like a once valuable vase that was now cracked.

It was her duty to guard her virtue with her life, because once it was gone, so was her chance of enticing the right man to marry her.

Looking back on her younger days, it was painful to recall just how religiously she had followed her mother’s instructions, to the point that she had rejected or actively repelled almost all the young men who had admired her during her one Season, too restrained and inhibited to ever allow herself to enjoy even mild flirtation except for those two pitiful kisses. It would have been laughable if it were not so tragic. Taking advice about love and sex and men from a woman who had one of the unhappiest marriages in England; what a fool she had been.

And what had being a good girl yielded? Aurelia still had her virginity and—at five-and-twenty and banished from her family and any good society—she was unlikely to ever marry. Indeed, it was probable that she would die a virgin spinster.

And then Lord Crewe had come along…

To be honest, it had not taken kissing and touching him to become fascinated by him. There had been something irresistible about him from the first day she’d set eyes on him. While it was true that she never would have instigated anything if he’d not done so first, something had changed inside her now, some barrier had been breached—she was not unaware of the irony of her choice of metaphor—when he had touched her, setting fire to something that could not be extinguished.

It had been humiliating when he had rejected her. Not because he had not wanted her—Aurelia had felt proof of his desire in both his hot gaze and pressing against her belly—but because he was a gentleman, and gentlemen did not debauch their employees. It had been easy for him to stop as he had not been as besotted as she had been.

Besotted was too tame a word. She had been insane with desire for the man, throwing aside common sense and everything she had always lived by just to touch him.

It was mortifying, but what surprised her was that it wasn’t more mortifying. Part of her was embarrassed, but a greater part of her was… proud that she had not only experienced such powerful desires but had—for the first time in her life—behaved impulsively, allowing her emotions free reign.

Aurelia knew, without knowing how, that if Crewe had believed she’d had lovers before, they would have consummated their passion that day. Quite possibly right then and there on that beach. Or even before then on that night in the library when he had first kissed her.

But they had not consummated anything. Instead, he had twice pulled himself up short and then left without a word.

By the time six weeks had passed, Aurelia was truly beginning to believe that the earl was not planning to return to Crewe until she had finished her job and departed.

But then—six weeks and one day after Lord Crewe had departed—Arthur made an announcement at breakfast.

“Crewe is coming home today. I just received his letter saying to expect him this afternoon,” Arthur said.

Aurelia’s coffee cup hovered halfway to her mouth, and she lowered it without drinking. “That seems sudden.”

Arthur grunted. “He sent the letter from London several days ago, but it was torn and badly stained with mud, so I think something must have delayed it.” He looked up at her, his gaze sharpening. “By the way, this came for you this morning. It was mixed in with my mail.” He slid an envelope across the table, his expression curious.

Aurelia’s heart leapt at the sight of her sister Hyacinth’s spidery handwriting. She squinted at the frank that was scrawled across the corner of the envelope and understood Arthur’s curiosity. It was signed by the Duke of Chatham.