“I thought something was wrong with me. I felt so lost all day,” she replied, and he shook his head.
“I’ve felt the same way.”
He felt her small arms squeezing his waist and took a deep breath, savouring the smell of her soap combined with the unique fragrance of her skin. He gently lowered her back to the floor.
“I missed you today,” she murmured into his chest.
Even if I burn in hell for how I tricked her into this marriage,he thought,it will have been worth it for this moment alone.
No more sadness, he vowed to himself,she will only be happy from here on out.
And the Duke of Norwich, like always, imagined his will to be stronger than anything else in the world.
Chapter 23
“Wake up, kitten.” A deep voice in her ear broke through the fog of sleep.
“No,” she mumbled when she took a peek and saw that the room was still dark. “Night.”
“We have a long day ahead of us, the carriage is ready, we’re just waiting for you.”
Never one to inconvenience other people, Elizabeth sat up at his words.
When Colin had learned that Elizabeth had never seen the sea, he immediately arranged for the two of them to drive to the shore and stay there for two days. She’d been so excited that she'd had trouble falling asleep the night before.
“I’ll get dressed as quickly as I can,” she promised.
“I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
Lady Burnham had gone to stay with her brother and would drive back to London with him and his family in late October. Mary was feeling unwell, so Elizabeth insisted that she stay behind.I can manage on my own for two days,she’d told herhusband, who had then decided to give Stevenson two days off as well.
“I miss the days when Mrs. Clark cared about my preferences,” her husband said in his most mournful voice, and she laughed softly.
They had just opened the basket the cook had put together for their trip, and it was filled with Lizzie’s favourites. Since Lizzie suspected it had been done under Colin’s orders, she enjoyed his teasing.
“I like being in carriages with you,” he said pensively. “I don’t know what makes it different from all the other times I’m with you. Perhaps it is the feeling of being enclosed in such a small place, like having a separate world that is just ours.”
Elizabeth didn’t know how to respond to that observation, aside from telling him that she could smell his perfume (mixed with some faint tobacco) whenever they were in a carriage and that she greatly enjoyed that, so instead, she said, “Tell me about Cromer.”
Her husband linked his hands on his stomach and leaned back, instantly accepting the change in topic.
“I’ve chosen Cromer not because of its proximity – although it does lie close, only twenty miles from Norwich, but because it is a rather popular sea-bathing place. I don’t know whether you’re aware, but bathing in seawater, and even drinking it, is said to be a remedy for many ailments.”
“I wasn’t aware of that,” Lizzie replied. “How does one bathe in seawater? Do they fill the hotel tubs with it?”
“No,” he said. “People rent bathing machines. Those are types of carts that you enter while on the beach. They are completelyclosed, so you can change into your swim clothes inside them, and then the cart is rolled into the water, where it protects you from being seen as you bathe.”
Elizabeth was once more struck by the different levels of experience they had, for she’d never dreamed of the existence of such a device.
“Isn’t that dangerous? I assume most ladies don’t know how to swim.”
“They don’t need to swim, nor go deeper into the water. You simply exit from the bathing machine into the water and… wash yourself,” he explained.
“What happens to my regular clothes? How do I prevent them from getting wet?” Elizabeth frowned.
“There is a raised compartment where you store them to keep them dry. We shall purchase a swimming shift for you at the hotel.”
“What shall you bathe in?”
