Truce: The Historic Neighbor from Hell

Chapter 30

“What are you doing?”

Elizabeth chewed on her bottom lip as she dropped her hairpin and picked up the small nail she’d found lying on the floor near where Robert’s jacket hung and proceeded to stick it in the keyhole, uncaring that the owner of the chest was now standing over her, looking amused.

“Stealing your chest,” she said, even though she felt it should be more than obvious what she was doing.

“Do you do this often?” Robert asked, placing the cup of tea that he’d promised her over a half hour ago on the small table to the right before he gently pried the nail from her hand and handed over a small, simple, but still somewhat stunning key.

“No,” she admitted, “but I’ve decided to make an exception in this case.”

“So, you like the chest?” he hesitantly asked, sounding a little nervous.

“I wouldn’t be stealing it if I didn’t,” she pointed out as she slid the key inside the lock and with a satisfied sigh, unlocked the chest that she’d decided was rightfully hers twenty minutes ago when two footmen had carried it into the room.

It was the most beautiful chest that she’d ever seen in her life. She’d never seen a piece of furniture that she’d gladly kill for before. The chest was made from the finest wood, which had been polished to perfection. Black metal strips lined the edges and corners perfectly, making it appear as though the metal and the wood were one instead of constructed together. The design in the wood was leveled, standing out in a way that complimented the black metal to perfection.

She was sorely tempted to beg her father to buy her a matching bedroom set, something that she never would have done before, but she couldn’t. Not only would her father try to use her request against her to manipulate her into ending her marriage with Robert, but she would also be insulting her husband’s pride if she did that. He’d not only forgiven her for lying to him about the baby, offered to give her pin money when she’d brought nothing to the marriage, but he’d also turned down forty-thousand pounds to be with her. Well, so she hadn’t exactly given him a chance to turn down that money, but he could have said something.

“It’s yours,” he said, kneeling beside her.

“I’m glad that we agree,” she murmured absently as she raised the cover and looked inside, surprised to see what appeared to be two doors at the top, acting as another cover.

He chuckled as he reached past her and opened the two doors, revealing two sections; the left half held a small deep tray at the top with three small drawers beneath it and the right half of the chest was lined with what appeared to be light pink silk on the bottom and three sides.

“This is for your slippers,” he explained as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pointed to the tray at the top, “and these drawers are for your hair ribbons, handkerchiefs, books, whatever you wish to place inside them.”

“This is really for me?” she asked, touched beyond words that he would buy her something so beautiful.

“Mmmmhmm,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before he continued to explain the chest. “The silk will make sure that your dresses don’t get snagged on the wood and the doors will prevent them from being bounced around and wrinkled when the box is moved.”

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered, tracing her fingertips along the silk material.

“You haven’t seen the best part yet,” he said, sounding quite pleased as he gripped the center divider of the tray and pushed it to the side. A small click caught her attention. She watched as the entire left side shifted to the right, sliding over the silk bottom of the right side without touching it and revealing a hidden section of the chest.

“You can hide your money, valuables and anything else that you don’t want to be found in here,” he explained as he once again pushed the small divider, but this time towards the left. With another soft click the entire section slid back in place.

“Oh my God,” was all she could manage, because she’d never seen anything like it before.

“It was supposed to be your birthday present, minx, but since we’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks I thought that you should have it now. I wanted to be here when it was brought to the room, but you weren’t feeling well and I didn’t want you to have to wait for your tea,” he said, rambling on nervously for the first time since she could remember.

“You bought this for me?” she asked, not missing the part where he’d admitted that he’d planned on giving this to her for her birthday. Since he hadn’t left the house since they’d married or her side for that matter, she realized that he’d bought this for her before he found out about the baby.

“No,” he said, confusing her until she realized that perhaps he’d bought this for another woman. If that was the case she didn’t think that she could stomach seeing a reminder that he’d wanted another woman no matter how much she loved the chest.

“This was made for you, minx,” he said, taking her by surprise.

“It was?” she asked, feeling ridiculously happy that he would do something so wonderful for her when he’d professed to hate her. It made her wonder if it was possible that-

“I made it for you.”

“You made this?” Elizabeth asked, shooting him a questioning look before returning her attention back to the chest.

“Yes,” he said with dread as Elizabeth looked over the chest, taking her time and studying everything more closely.

“When did you learn to do this?” she asked, running her fingers over the silk.

“When I was fourteen,” he said, exhaling slowly as he sat down on the floor and leaned back until his back was pressed against the foot of the bed.

“I don’t remember you doing this sort of thing when we were children,” Elizabeth murmured, picking up her tea and taking a small sip as she continued to examine the chest.

He shook his head. “My parents would never have allowed me to take up this hobby,” he said, not bothering to mention the reason why since they both knew.

Women weren’t the only ones that were restricted by the rules of society. Men were as well. Even though it was very unlikely that he would ever inherit the title, he was still the son of an earl and expected to carry himself as one. He could own land, run an estate, invest and even join the army if his father bought him a commission, but there were things that he wasn’t supposed to do, never mind like.

Carpentry was one of them.

No man of his station was supposed to work in trade, to be a laborer, but he loved it. He loved working with his hands. He loved creating something beautiful from a pile of wood and nails. It kept him focused and allowed him to calm down when most days all he wanted to do was to drive his fist through something. It had been the only thing that had saved him from doing something truly foolish when he’d been a child.

“Will you tell me?” she asked, placing her cup back on the table.

He shook his head as he looked away. “I’m not sure that you want to hear this story.”

When she gently cupped his face in her hands to pull his attention back to her, he allowed it. “Please tell me,” she said, settling down to kneel next to him on the floor so that she was facing him.

He didn’t know where to start, wasn’t sure that he could share this with her. Knowing that there was a good chance that she would try to run away from him once he started, he took her hands in his and gently pulled her towards him. When she was close enough, he picked her up and placed her so that she was sitting across his lap.

Once she was comfortable, he wrapped his arms around her, pleased when she laid her head against his shoulder so that he wouldn’t have to look at her when he told her what she wanted to hear.

“You turned my life into a living hell,” he began hollowly, allowing himself to remember just how bad his life had been.

“What?” she asked, moving to turn in his arms, but he tightened his hold on her just enough to stop her.

“I can’t tell you this story, minx, if I have to look at you,” he explained, sighing in relief when she stopped trying to move.

She settled back against him and whispered, “Okay.”

“Did you know that my parents had originally refused to let me attend school?” he asked, deciding that the only way that he was going to survive this was to ease into it.

“No, I didn’t know that,” she answered softly.

He shifted against the bedframe, getting comfortable as he pressed a kiss to Elizabeth’s forehead, more for his benefit than hers. When she took one of his hands into hers and entwined their fingers, he knew that she understood.

“They were afraid that I wouldn’t be able to control my problem and that the other boys would find out. They didn’t want me to be humiliated and thought it would be best if I were to work with a tutor until I outgrew my problem.”

“What made them change their minds?” Elizabeth asked, shifting so that she could rest her head against his chest.

“James,” he said with a smile, remembering how his older brother had fought for him. “He was always so damn protective of me.”

“I remember,” Elizabeth murmured with what sounded like a smile.

“He didn’t want me missing out or picked on for being coddled by our parents. He worked on my parents every chance he got until they finally had enough and agreed to allow me to go,” he said, dropping his head back against the frame and closing his eyes as he remembered the day that his parents told him that he could go. It had been one of the best days of his life.

James had taken him fishing to celebrate. They hadn’t caught a damn thing, but it was one of the best fishing trips he’d ever had before or since. His brother had shared stories of all the mischief he’d pulled in school, given Robert tips on how to sneak out after hours and even on how to sneak in sweets so that he wouldn’t starve. When they came home his parents made sure that the cook had made all of his favorites and, for the first time in his life, they hadn’t said a word when he reached for more food. His father had ended the night by giving him his grandfather’s pocket watch, the same watch that was stolen only a few months later by a couple of boys who’d broken into his room to soak his clothes in vinegar.

“Sometimes I wish that he hadn’t been such a good brother,” Robert admitted on a sigh.

“No, you don’t,” Elizabeth said with a soft laugh that had him smiling despite his mood.

“No, I don’t,” he admitted, because he wouldn’t change a damn thing about his brother.

“After the incident in the park,” he said, deciding to just get it over with, “he refused to help me. I begged him to help me convince our parents to let me stay home, but he wouldn’t budge. He was convinced that if I let them push me around, that they would never stop. When I ran away he came after me and gave me the thrashing of a lifetime. It was the first and last time that he’d ever hit me.”

“When my parents realized how miserable I was, they started to reconsider sending me, but James wouldn’t have it. He dragged me to school and made damn sure that I stayed. He told me that it would be okay, that things wouldn’t be that bad, but he was wrong.”

“None of my friends wanted to have anything to do with me, which left me on my own. It wasn’t a good place to be in a school full of spoiled boys with nothing better to do then make each other miserable. Every day for about two years I was beat up, my books were stolen, my classwork trashed, my room ransacked and soaked in vinegar. They made a game of making my life a living hell.”

“Robert, I’m-”

But he didn’t give her a chance to apologize. That wasn’t the reason why he was telling her this story, he realized.

“When I was fourteen, I’d had enough and started to fight back. I wasn’t much of a fighter, but I was angry, so goddamn angry all the time that my temper soon became unpredictable. One day they’d pushed me too far and I snapped, really snapped. I flipped out in the middle of class and threw a desk through a window.”

“What happened next?”

The headmaster had beaten him within an inch of his life, but he wasn’t going to tell his wife that. So instead he told her the only part that mattered to him. “I was given a choice by my instructor, fix the desk or pack my bags. I actually packed my bags and was ready to leave when I found the parting gift the other boys had placed in my bag.”

“What was it?” Elizabeth asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“A lemon,” Robert simply said, remembering the rage that he’d damn near gave into the moment that he found the fruit stuffed in his bag.

He’d wanted to tear the school apart, to beat the hell out of every boy that had taunted him, to make their lives a living hell the way they had made his, but he couldn’t do that if he let them win, he’d realized.

“I decided not to let them win. I wasn’t going to let them push me out, because I’d realized that James was right. Every morning before class and every evening after class I walked down to the village and worked with John, who was the town carpenter, to fix the desk that I’d destroyed. When it became obvious that the desk was beyond repair, he taught me how to make one from scratch.”

“I didn’t think that I’d enjoy it, but I did. I loved it. Long after the desk was done, I kept showing up and he never told me to leave. It kept me focused and probably kept me out of a lot of trouble. I still got into fights, but not as many and whenever John heard that I’d been in a fight he worked me until I could barely walk back to the school. He helped keep me in line and gave me something to look forward to each day.”

“It sounds like he was a good man,” Elizabeth said around a small sniffle.

“He was,” Robert agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

He held her in his arms for a long time. When the fire started to die out and she hadn’t said anything, he realized that she must have fallen asleep in his arms. Carefully, he adjusted her in his arms and picked her up. He carried her to the bed and gently lay her down. Before he could manage to stand up, she grabbed his hand and gave it a gentle tug.

Not one to argue with his wife, he climbed in bed with her and curled up behind her when she shifted onto her side. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tightly against him.

“I’m sorry, Robert, for what I did to you,” she said, taking him by surprise as she said the words that he’d been waiting half his life to hear. But instead of yelling at her or rubbing her apology in her face like he’d always imagined he would at this moment, he pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and said the words that would set them both free.

“I’m sorry too, minx.”