Author's Note: Aaaaand part 3! And now, after a long battle against the dreaded block, the wild writer returns to her cave for a much-needed rest.
March 1815 - part 3
It had taken her body only a single night to remember what it was like to sleep beside a man; and so, when Georgiana rolled over onto nothing more than pillows, she woke, suddenly and completely, heart pounding long after her eyes had opened and she saw him sitting at his desk, a candle lit beside him.
She sat up slowly, holding the covers tight to her chest more out of a desire to slow her quick breaths than out of any modesty. "John?"
He jumped, turned, saw the expression on her face, and stood to come and lean across the bed and press a kiss to her forehead. "I'm here," he murmured against her skin.
She placed a hand on his cheek, running her thumb along the coarse hair that lined his jaw, then letting her touch trail down his neck and chest, if only because she could, admiring the way the night made his pale skin look less stark beneath her dark hand. "What were you working on?"
He shook his head. "I was only thinking."
"You'll think better in bed with me," she purred, reaching for his hand to pull him closer, but he smirked and put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her, far too chaste for her desires now that they were both awake here together, both naked here together.
"I will not," he said with a smirk, and turned from her to grab something from the desk. "But the puzzle I'm thinking on cannot be solved by me alone, I fear."
She'd planned to get him back in bed, to kiss him until he stopped talking, but she did like puzzles, especially Childermass puzzles. More than that, she liked that he would want her help to solve something. "What is it?" she asked, taking his fist in both her hands as he sat back down on the bed beside her. She pried his fingers open against only a little resistance, and then went very still.
In his palm was a ring.
"This was my mother's," he told her, his voice scarcely more than a whisper. "Given her by my father, she claimed, and all she had of him but me. She sold it off when I was young and it broke her, so I stole it back, but I was foolish and caught and punished."
Georgiana shuddered, thinking of the thin, faint scars that crossed his back, the old hurts she'd found on his body last night, the deep pains she'd done her damnedest to kiss away.
"They took it back from us, and my mother broke again. When I grew older, I helped ruin come to the family that took it, and I bought it back from them, and they thanked me for it." He shook his head, turning away from her, his gaze landing on the candle still burning on his desk. "Last night," he said, his voice breaking over the words, "I thought I knew, for the first time, what to do with it. But this morning, when I tried to speak to you of promises, you fled from me."
"John," she breathed, and his eyes dropped from the candle flame to their hands, still together, and the little circle of gold.
"I know I have not come from much, Miss Erquistoune—"
"No! That is not—"
"Do not feign ignorance, Ana, not with me. Your position may be strained, but I am a servant. I cannot marry you—"
She snatched the ring from his hand and placed it on her finger, and they both froze. It fit her far too well, as though made for her hand alone, the gold band and Whitby jet sparkling in the candlelight, glittering against her brown skin. Fingers trembling, he reached across and touched it there, brushing against her hand, as though to prove to himself that it was really there. "Who says you cannot marry me?" she breathed, her own hands shaking now, her body trembling in his bed. "It was not any such thoughts that frightened me this morning, but the strength of my own feeling. You know more truths of me than anyone else; more than my sisters, my cousin, nor even my Gavin. You know me better than I have ever been known, John Childermass, and it terrifies me."
He crept onto the bed beside her, and pulled her into his arms, and she rested her head on his shoulder. He took her left hand in his right, running his thumb along the ring on her finger. "There is no part of me that would wish you harm, Georgiana."
"I know." She kissed his neck, his jaw, his lips as he turned to meet her, and then pulled away with a sigh. " You will not be a steward forever; even your obtuse Mr. Norrell can see that. You will be free to lead your own life, with me at your side if you would but have me. And until then; give yourself to me, in word and in deed, and I shall be yours. By Scottish law, that is enough—and it would be enough for me."
"It is unworthy of me to ask this of you."
"I offer it all the same."
"If you were to come with child—"
"I cannot," she admitted. "I cannot. The fire within me burns too hot. It is a price this life has made me pay."
He looked down at her, his eyes large and dark and adoring, and free of pity, and she loved him all the more. "Were I free or not, my Ana... You deserve a better life than any I could offer."
"But a life without you would not be worth living," she rasped. "Not anymore. Can you not see? Do you not know how I love you?"
He put his hands on her cheeks, and when he spoke, his hands and voice trembled. "I have always seen you, Ana. As I have always loved you. I hold no delusions that I would make a worthy husband to you, nor could any man. But if you will have me—"
"I will."
He laughed, weaving his fingers into her hair. "Then I take you as my wife," he breathed. "In word and in deed."
They saw no more of Sleep that night, speaking words of trust and promise, with deeds to commit the truth of them. She kept the candle on his desk burning that she might see him better, might commit his face to memory, as they told each other the truths of themselves no one else had ever known. It felt as though they had been there forever, in the little attic room at Hanover-square; it felt as though no time had passed at all.
Still, the world turned around them, and sooner than possible the sun began to travel past the bounds the night had set for it, and she would be made to leave him.
She was curled up against him again, half in his lap, skin to skin to skin, fingers buried in his wild, hair and his in hers. She wanted never to leave this bed, this room, again, and she told him just as much.
"They would never think to look for me here," she said softly, only half joking. "I could hide away, and the Stranges would leave without me."
His smile, and the ease with which it appeared, thrilled her—she would forever cherish the knowledge of the sort of man he could become in bed with her: how easily her affection surprised him, how readily his laughter came at her teasing, how clever his tongue (in so many ways) when there was no one around to impress or frighten. He smiled, and kissed the tip of her nose. "You would die of boredom the minute I had to leave you here."
"True," she murmured thoughtfully, winding a lock of his hair between her fingers, admiring the way the ring peeked out from behind it to catch the light. "But you could sneak books to me here, far more easily than in Soho-square. And after some time had passed, you could bring me downstairs and hide me behind an apron. Norrell would never recognize me, I'm sure."
The contentment fled his eyes at her words, replaced with the deep sorrow she was also learning to recognize in him, and he pulled her hand free of his hair and held it tightly, the ring gleaming between them. "These hands will never toil in servitude, Mrs. Childermass, not even as a disguise. This I swear to you."
She trembled in his arms—at the words he said, and how he'd said them, and the thing he'd called her, and all that it now meant. She blinked back the tears she had been keeping at bay these past days—there would be plenty of time for grieving soon, but she would not waste this she had with him—and touched her fingers to the golden band and the dark stone set upon it. "I will not be free to wear this," she breathed, "once I leave this room."
He did not say anything, but kissed her, and slid out from beneath her and up from the bed to retrieve something from the drawer in his desk before returning to her side. In his hands, he held a fine gold chain.
She did not wish to take it off; but she let him slide the ring from her finger, and thread it onto the chain, and place it around her neck. The metal was cold against her skin, a shock against the many round, dark marks he had left upon her neck and collar and chest; but he clasped it securely, and rubbed his hand down her back, and murmured against her hair, "I thought this might help you keep it secret, and safe."
She touched her fingers to the chain, already warming to her skin, and ran down to the ring, hanging beside her heart, and had to close her eyes for a moment to keep from losing herself. When she opened them again, he was watching her with a smile on his face, with misery in his eyes.
Outside, the birds were starting to sing again, the night and her chances of getting home unseen slipping through their grasp, and Georgiana extricated herself from the blankets and his arms alike, and went to stand before his empty fireplace (for what need had he of a fire, with her to keep him warm?), staring into it as though there might be a solution hidden somewhere deep within, something that would keep her here with John for as long as she would like and nothing less.
Again, he moved so silently, and crept up behind her, and draped something heavy and warm upon her bare shoulders, and she looked down and saw his coat—not the one she had mended, enchanted, but the other with the buttons that claimed no allegiances but, perhaps, to wood.
"Take this with you," he murmured into her ear, and she both saw and felt the rippling darkness around her, the shadows he could conjure at a word, his magic woven into the very fibers of the coat to keep her safe. "I know you have no need of more protection, but please, for my sake, keep it with you."
"I will," she promised, meaning every word, knowing well that Jonathan was likely to recognize it and that she would wear it all the same. "I will. I love you, John, I do," she blurted, and the tears came despite her best efforts, and he held her through them and told her of his love for her until, finally, the golden light of dawn stole its way into his room, and she had many choices laid before her but the only one she could truly choose was to leave, to step into the hearth and let the Fire loose, let the heat and flame and magic consume the bounds of her body and reshape her into something new.
