The thumps are impossible to mistake, even from the other side of the hallway. The soft groaning of bedsprings, the creak and bump of wooden frame… she has heard them all before, more times than she can even begin to count. She knows them all, just as she knows how long they will last, how loud they will get, and when the moaning will both begin and become muffled.
Any hurt she feels from the knowledge that it is someone else in that room, someone else's hands and lips that caress skin she should be touching has long since been relegated to a back corner of her mind, a dusty reminder that only shows itself in the dark moments when her thoughts turn inward.
She loves Ciel far too much to let it ever show.
That she is the only one among her circle who knows is small comfort, but at least it means that she is not constantly bombarded with censure…with questions that Elizabeth Phantomhive knows they would not understand the answers to. Her mother would be horrified, but she doesn't even know which portion of this scandalous situation would offend the stern woman more; that her son-in-law chooses to comport himself with another man in such a way, that the man of his choosing is a servant… or that he does such things beneath the nose of his wife, knowing that she cannot still be ignorant of the affair.
Sometimes Lizzie ponders to herself exactly which of those notions would be the one to send her mother into an apoplexy. The thought is an occasional amusement amidst a rather depressing reality.
Perhaps it would be different if he were a poor husband to her, disinterested and cold as the partners of so many of her friends are. Swept up in that busy and complicated world of men and finance and things that those of her delicate persuasion are not supposed to understand, and Lizzie counts herself quite lucky that HER husband is more intelligent than that, that Ciel both knows and expects her to contribute, to be his counsel as well as his wife. That she is friend and advisor as well as mother and home-maker to the children they will eventually have.
But he is not like that. Despite the preferences that she knows he has likely always carried within, Ciel is a tender and attentive husband, lavishing her with gifts and trinkets, carefully making time in his busy schedule to spend hours sipping tea and listening to anything she wishes to share with him. He is never cross with her, never dismissive or harsh as so many who know him casually often assume him to be. Perhaps it is his way of making up for the things in their marriage that he and she both know will never be, a silent apology for what he feels is his failure to be everything that she ever wanted.
In spite of that, she has never complained, never given him any indication that she is anything but happy in their marriage. He sees to her needs in all aspects, even the ones that she wondered if he'd be capable of; the child that right now grows in her belly is testament enough of his ability to perform. And in so many ways, their life appears a perfect picture on the surface. A gilded veneer hiding the truth of his infidelity and his divided heart.
It might have been easier, she tells herself on those nights when the thumping begins again, had she discovered the truth in a different way. At a different time, or in a different setting. But any time that she ponders whether to confront him with the knowledge they both know she possesses, it is not the hurt feelings and indignation of his affair that Lizzie feels in her mind. It is pity. Pity for him and his situation as she recalls that one night when she was seventeen; a mere 8 months shy of their wedding and still filled with girlish dreams of happy endings and perfect futures. The night that something drew her from sleep, some soft sound or abnormality in the night that woke her and refused to allow sleep to reclaim her.
She realizes now that it was probably the thumping then as well. Or perhaps the moaning, though the innocent girl that she was then would have taken such sounds for nightmare-induced cries rather than what they truly were. Clad in her nightgown, feet bare against the cold floor and golden curls in a tumbling tangle around her shoulders, she had cracked the door to peer out into the hallway just in time to see the butler's tall form slip from Ciel's room. The sight had been normal at first, an understandable end result to what had likely been her fiance's nightmare; the man who had become guardian and friend soothing away the terrors of remembered trauma.
If only she had ducked back inside then, rather than staring for an instant more. If she had, then she would have never seen the door crack open again, seen that slim pale hand with its sapphire ring snake out to grab a tight hold of black jacket. She would never have been witness to the tender, almost desperate kiss as Ciel pulled Sebastian back to the doorway for just another moment, the butler cupping his face and returning the gesture with a look of such profound love on his face that the ache in her heart could have easily been for either herself or the two of them at that moment.
That night had changed things, though she had kept the same smiling mask as always while she sorted it out. She could have done so many things; perhaps should have done others. Called off the engagement, confronted her cousin about the affair and forced him to choose between them. Unmasked him as the perverse, adulterous deviant that society would doubtless consider him if it became known, and make him pay for the affrontery of such a thing. Yet…she hadn't. She couldn't.
He deserved that love. A love that she could not give him, no matter how strong her desire to do just that, and Lizzie cannot see it as a weakness in herself to be unwilling to rip it from him. He has seen so much cruelty, so much loss already.
And so she had remained quiet, kept it to herself. Smiling on their wedding day, tears in her eyes that were half happiness and half sorrow as she wondered if it were truly her that he meant those vows for…or if he was imagining repeating them to the black shadow on the sidelines, garnet eyes never leaving Ciel's face. Kept it to herself that night, when she allowed herself to forget for a time that someone else had already touched him this way, brought those sighs and moans from him as he taught her the meaning of pleasure. And she continued to keep it to herself. To not question his need for a separate bedchamber or the excuse he gave her that he had no wish to disturb her sleep when he worked late. To never ask why the butler always accompanied him everywhere, though there were more than enough duties around the house to keep the man busy and so much of Ciel's business travels seemed outside the tasks expected of such a servant.
And most of all…to never mention the soft thumping from the other room, or do anything but feign sleep when he would slip into her bed later on in the night and curl up against her with the faint traces of tears still wet on his cheeks as he pressed face against her shoulder and whispered apologies. Because to roll over, to take him into her arms and whisper back that she understood…would have destroyed the fragile balance he worked so hard to keep.
And he deserved that peace, even if it broke her heart to give it to him.