Nicholas

Thirteen





When Nick knocked on her door, Leah was dressed, thank the gods, and sitting at a vanity, plaiting her long hair. He watched in silence as she wound the coil at the back of her neck, jabbed pins into it, then rose, a faint smile on her face, making her look tidy, capable, and self-contained.

Just as she’d looked when he’d first met her, when she’d been steeling herself for the prospect of marriage to Hellerington.

“Are you sorry you married me?” The question came out of Nick’s mouth without his willing it into words, and he saw Leah was as surprised by it as he was.

“I am not,” Leah said at length. “Not yet. I think in any marriage there are moments when husband or wife or both succumb to regrets, or second thoughts, but you were very clear on what you offered, Nicholas, and what you did not. I am not at all sorry to be free of my father.”

“That’s… good.” What had he expected her to say? Leah wasn’t vicious, and she’d had few real options. “May I escort you downstairs?”

“Of course.” Leah smiled at him, but her smile was tentative, and Nick’s silence as he led her through the house was wary, and their marriage had indeed begun the way Nick intended it to go.

He pushed that sour thought aside as he introduced Leah to each maid and footman, the senior staff, and the kitchen help. From there, they moved to the stable yard, where the stable boys, grooms, and gardeners presented themselves. When the staff had dispersed, Nick led Leah through the gardens, where the tulips were losing their petals, the daffodils were but a memory, and a single iris was heralding the next wave of color on the garden’s schedule.

On a hard bench in the spring sunshine, they decided to tarry for two weeks at Clover Down before presenting themselves at Belle Maison. The earl had sent felicitations on the occasion of Nick’s nuptials, and yet Nick felt an urgency to return to his father’s side.

“He has asked you to join him at Belle Maison?” Leah’s hand was still curled over Nick’s arm, though they sat side by side.

“He has not, and he has told me on several occasions not to lay about the place, long-faced and restless, waiting for him to die. He’s sent my sisters off to various friends and relatives, all except Nita, that is. George and Dolph are similarly entertained, and Beckman is off to Portsmouth to see to my grandmother’s neglected pile.”

“What does Nita say?”

“I hadn’t thought to ask her. I’ll send her a note today, but I think I should also consult with my wife. How do you feel about going to the family seat when death hangs over it?”

“I have no strong feelings one way or the other,” Leah said. “When your father dies, there will be a great deal to manage, and I suspect Nita will appreciate some help then. It might be easier to help if everything were not a case of first impression for me.”

“True,” Nick said, realizing he hadn’t thought matters through from the most practical angle—the angle the women would be left to deal with when Bellefonte went to his reward.

“Two weeks then,” Leah said, “and you’d best let Nita know that as well. We’ll likely leave here before the neighbors start to call, and that might be a good thing.”

Which meant what? Nick didn’t dwell on her comment, but instead drew her to her feet.

“I’ve something I want to show you.”

“I am at your disposal, Nicholas.”

As they made their way through the stables, the feed room, and the saddle room, to a space tucked against the back wall of the barn, Nick reflected that he liked it better when she called him Husband.

“This is a woodworking shop,” Leah said, scanning the tools hung neatly along the walls and the wood stored and organized by size along another. “This is yours?”

“It is. I have one in the mews in Town, and another at Belle Maison.”

“Your hands.” Leah picked up Nick’s bare hand and peered at it. “I’ve wondered what all the little nicks and scratches are from, and this is why you have them, isn’t it?”

“Mostly.” Nick eased his fingers from hers. “I like to make birdhouses.” He pulled a bound leather journal down from a high shelf. “I can show you some of my designs, if you like. You take the stool.” He pulled it up, and Leah had to scramble a little to take her seat. Everything in the room was scaled to Nick’s size—the stool, the workbench, the drafting table, even some of the tools were proportioned to fit Nick’s hands.

And yet, she looked as if she’d been made to fit in this room with him, on this fine mild morning, sharing a little of himself he hadn’t shown to anyone else.

“This is one I made for my stepmother,” Nick began, opening the book. He’d drawn sketches, and then colored illustrations all over the pages. She studied each one, asking questions as if birdhouses mattered.

“This is lovely.” She traced the lines of the birdhouse on the page. “It looks like a garden house, a little hanging gazebo, with trellises and flower boxes. How could you even see to make such things?”

“I wear magnifying spectacles,” Nick said. “The next one was for my papa, though a birdhouse is hardly a manly sort of present. I was eight, though, and had found my first personal passion.”

“Eight is a passionate age,” Leah murmured as she followed his castle with a finger. “Was this for your papa?”

“I only had illustrations in my storybooks to go by, but it was my version of Arthur’s castle. My father loomed in my awareness with all the power and mystery of the legendary king, of course.” And now his father lay dying, and Nick’s birdhouse had weathered to a uniform gray where it hung outside the earl’s bedroom window.

He would repaint Papa’s birdhouse when they repaired to Belle Maison.

They spent most of the morning in Nick’s shop, the time passing easily and pleasantly. Nick showed her sketches of the current work in progress, the birdhouse design intended for Ethan, then suggested they repair to the house for lunch.

As she slid off the high stool, Leah linked her arm through his. “Do you ever miss your mother, Nicholas?”

“I never knew her, but yes. I wish I’d known her. Do you miss your mother?” Nick posed it as a question, but any woman would miss her mother at the time of her own wedding.

“I did,” Leah said. “When I went to Italy, I missed her terribly, but it was her idea that I go. And as to that, she proved prescient. When I left England I didn’t realize I was carrying a child. I was twenty and figured my body was just upset, which it was. Darius guessed before I did, and thank God he was his usual blunt self about it, or I might have done something stupid.”

“Something stupid?” Nick stopped short in their progress past the single iris and stared down at her as her meaning sunk in. “You would have taken your own life?”

“Young people can be dramatic when they think they are in love.” Leah regarded the iris as she spoke.

“Irises symbolize messages,” Nick answered her unasked question. “You would really have taken your own life, but for your pregnancy?”

“I don’t know, Nicholas.” Leah watched the iris as if it might change from purple to white while she stood there. “My father had killed my husband, and there was to be no recourse. I could not prove we had married, because Aaron had taken charge of all the formalities. I was alone, disgraced, deflowered, and not even afforded the status of widow or access to such funds as a widow enjoys. Then too, my mother’s health had failed, and I foresaw the rest of my life, alone in that house, with Wilton’s criticisms and castigations my daily fare.”

Nick’s hands slid to either side of her neck, and he leaned down to rest his forehead against hers. He showed her a few birdhouses, and she trusted him with her darkest memories.

“Promise me”—he gripped her gently but quite firmly—“promise me no matter what happens between us, Leah, you won’t let this marriage make you so miserable you think of taking your own life.”

She laid her hands on his and peeled his fingers away. “I was young, feeling sorry for myself, and grieving. I promise you, I will not contemplate such measures, not as a function of being married to you.”

“Not as a function of anything,” Nick shot back. “You are too… You just… It wouldn’t be right.”

“I agree,” Leah said, resuming their progress. “I saw that, when my son died. Life can be difficult, but death is difficult too. Had I taken my life, all of my brothers’ sacrifices and risks would have been for nothing. My mother’s heart would have been broken, my sister disgraced by my suicide. I had no right to hurt the people who loved me like that. Worse, at least at the time, taking my life would have proved Wilton’s assessment of my flawed nature all too true, and that, more than anything, dissuaded me.”

“And who raised this most convincing argument to you?” Nick asked, letting her draw him along beside her.

“Darius. Sometimes his ruthless streak is really a strength.”

“May I ask you something?” And, please God, change the subject?

“Of course.”

“Has your brother ever given you the impression that he has unusual personal tastes?”

A moment of considering silence followed, in which Nick congratulated himself for at least shifting the topic.

“Not exactly,” Leah said, “but it’s as if Darius associates with a fast set despite his own preferences.”

“A very fast set,” Nick concurred. “The question is, why?”

“To disgrace my father? Or because that’s all Darius feels he merits in this life? Because it’s a way to be different from Trent, who can be a dull boy indeed? I don’t know, and it’s not something a sister should know about her brother.”

“Maybe not in your family,” Nick said as they gained the back steps. “My sisters seem to know every lady to whom I’ve given a handkerchief.”

Leah fell silent, and just like that, they were surrounded once again by a marital bog, one enshrouded in a fog of hurt feelings and miscommunication.

And yet, Nick had to try. “I didn’t mean that I’d… I meant, literally, a clean handkerchief. I always carry at least two, you see, and… you don’t believe me.”

“I believe I have enjoyed spending time with you this morning, but it’s past noon. Luncheon probably awaits us as we speak.”

“Excellent point,” Nick said, wanting to kick himself. “Shall we go in?”

They ate companionably enough, the conversation turning to which neighbors lived where in proximity to Clover Down.

“What will you find to occupy you this afternoon?” Nick asked as he topped off Leah’s teacup.

“The rest of my things have arrived,” Leah said. “I’ll see them situated and start exploring the house.”

“Sounds productive. I’m going for a ride. The trusty steeds in yonder stable are getting fat on spring grass, and this I cannot allow. I’ll be back by teatime, and look forward to seeing you then.” He rose, brushed his lips across her forehead, then took his leave.

Leah would notice that her new husband hadn’t invited her to join him on his ride. Nick knew that, hated it, and headed off to the stables at the most decorous pace he could manage. Once there, only a gentleman’s unwillingness to spook the horses stopped him from slamming both fists into the wall, repeatedly.

***

So that’s her.

Leah had taken herself out walking in the afternoon sunshine as soon as her meager wardrobe had been set to rights. The weather was lovely, and Leah had had little opportunity to move around the previous few days, so she’d struck off through the gardens and aimed for the hill behind the estate.

The acclivity was crowned with trees at the top, a pretty copse that was leafing out nicely, the occasional patch of lavender-blue wildflowers dancing at the foot of the trees, as if laughing in the dappled sunlight.

Leah took a seat among flowers nearly the color of her husband’s eyes, intent on enjoying the view of the surrounding neighborhood. Clover Down, neat and tidy, its back gardens awash in color, spread before her to the left. On the right, another estate, just as tidy and even more generously dressed in flowers, graced the view. Whoever lived there was also unwilling to waste the lovely afternoon, and was moving into their garden. Leah made out a man and a woman, both blond, their arms linked while they looked for a spot to make use of the sketch pad the man carried under his arm.

She was struck first by the companionability of the couple. Though the lady was tall, the man’s head was bent to catch her every word, and when he seated his companion, he settled in right beside her, still listening intently. Even seated, though, the man was quite a bit…

Taller—Leah’s heart lurched in her chest, a painful, aching dislocation that did not ease as her eyes confirmed what her mind had already deduced: That was Nick, that tall, blond, so-considerate escort down there in the distance. That was her husband, kissing the woman’s temple, hugging her… Oh, God.

As Leah sat in abject misery amid the flowers and the dancing sunlight, Nick made his companion laugh frequently, and each time the lady laughed, Nick smiled down at her.

Leah was too far away to see details of Nick’s expression, and the breeze blew in the wrong direction to carry their words to her, but she knew from the angle of his head and the worshipful way the young woman beamed back at him, that he loved her and she loved him. Still, Leah could not bring herself to leave until Nick had escorted his hostess back inside.

He’s going to ride home and take tea with me, asking about my afternoon and pretending to care. He won’t be honest, but he’ll be as kind as he can be.

And sitting alone on the hill, Leah hated him for it.

For all of about three minutes. Sustained ill will toward him would have been quite handy, except Nick had been honest when it counted. He’d never lied to Leah about his availability as a husband, never tried to convince her she held his heart or he wanted to hold her heart. Nick was as much a victim of circumstance as she was, and there was nothing to be gained by dramatics.

There never had been.

Leah had no recollection of returning to Clover Down, but as she made her way down the aisle in the stables, petting velvety equine noses and carrying a fat yellow tomcat purring against her middle, she heard Nick’s voice in the yard.

“Hullo, Wife.” Nick handed the reins off to a groom and strode over to Leah’s side. He bent down to kiss her, but Leah shifted to let the cat go at the last instant, so Nick’s lips landed on her cheek rather than her lips.

***

“Hullo, Husband.” They were prosaic words, and Nick’s wife uttered them in the most unremarkable tones, but still, Husband… He was a husband, and being labeled as such left an odd ache in Nick’s chest. And he wasn’t just any husband, he was her husband. Leah Haddonfield’s husband.

“Did you have a pleasant afternoon?” his wife asked.

“It’s a pretty day, but I ran into some neighbors,” Nick said. The warmth in his chest died as he eyed her profile. He knew women, and his instincts were warning him something about her was off. Then again, he’d also just told a half-truth, and the guilt was no doubt making him jumpy.

A quarter-truth, he corrected himself, then sighed.

He’d misrepresented entirely.

“What did you find to do in my absence?” Nick asked, wishing his conscience would just shut the hell up.

“I hung up my dresses and poked around the house,” Leah said, letting Nick take her arm and steer her down the barn aisle. “I also established menus for the next week with your housekeeper and put my seal of approval on the organization of the pantries. Very impressive staff you have, Lord Reston.”

Her voice had taken on a brittle quality, not quite ironic, but not… Not his usual Leah.

“Lovey?” Nick peered over at her. “Are you feeling all right?”

“No, actually.” She paused in her progress toward the house. “I did not sleep as well as I would have liked last night, Nicholas, and think I might be developing a headache.”

“Understandable,” Nick said, wanting to be relieved, though she’d slept like a new recruit after a forced march. “Della pulled me aside at one point yesterday morning and told me surviving the wedding is harder than surviving the marriage. Shall I escort you up to bed?”

“That might be for the best,” Leah said, relief lacing her tone even to Nick’s ears.

“I want you to feel comfortable here, to consider any residence of ours your home,” he said as he held the back door for her. “You needn’t soldier on for my sake when you’re in pain, and I certainly won’t be putting on airs before you, of all people.”

Lying though his teeth, frequently, but never putting on airs.

“I’ll…” Leah paused, and while he watched, swallowed and looked away. “I’ll try to recall that, Nicholas.”

“I can have a tray sent up later, and I’ll check on you before I turn in.” He brushed a kiss to her forehead, wanting to touch her, though he didn’t deserve to.

“You might consider getting to bed early tonight yourself, Nicholas.”

Nick lifted a hand to her shoulder, contemplating adding an embrace to that prosaic, stolen kiss. An embrace intended to comfort a new wife in a new house—and to comfort a new husband too.

But Leah whirled before he could get his arms around her and left Nick standing alone in the corridor.

***

Leah found over the next few days that the ache did not abate. It got worse as Nick insisted on showing her his progress with Ethan’s birdhouse, and walking with her in their garden, and asking her to help him with French correspondence. Leah tried to think of Nick as some benign, charming cousin or brother-in-law. A man she might know fairly well, and whose company she could enjoy, but not like that.

And her self-deception worked adequately, until Nick would touch his thumb to her lower lip and ask her, “Why so grave, Wife?”—his expression likely the same worried, tender gaze he’d turned on their blond neighbor.

Or until he’d bring Leah breakfast on a tray, then sit on her bed and feed her as he asked her about her plans for the day or her correspondence from her siblings.

Or take her hand and lead her to the kitchen, there to share a cup of tea and a scone pilfered from the pantry. Leah bit into her scone then watched as Nick brought it to his mouth and nibbled off a bite from the same spot.

Nick put the scone down. “You look so forlorn I am about to cry. What can I do to please you?”

“You are a good man, Nicholas,” she said, “but it is harder to be married to you on the terms you’ve set than I ever imagined. Much, much harder.”

Nick regarded the single bite of scone left on his plate. “How is it difficult?”

“I am falling in love with you,” Leah said, “and I don’t want to.”

The kitchen clock ticked softly, the kettle on the hob gave off a low, simmering hiss, and the last of the kindling used to heat the burner shifted in the stove.

“I don’t know what to say,” Nick replied, coming around the table to sit beside her. He reached for her hand, and she closed her eyes, but made no move to withdraw her fingers. Nick was a toucher. He would not understand that what he sought to give as comfort couldn’t always be appreciated as such.

“You don’t have to say anything, Nicholas. You can’t help that you are so naturally affectionate, or that you are charming and kind and considerate. You can’t help that you are handsome and so gloriously well made. You’ve been honest with me, as honorable as circumstances allow. I’m just…”

“I’ve been trying not to hover,” Nick said, stroking the back of her hand with his fingers. “I am somewhat at a loss as well.”

Leah opened her eyes to frown at him. “Please be as blunt as you know how to be, Nicholas. I am not good at reading subtleties from a member of the opposite sex.”

“It’s hard to keep my distance from you,” Nick said on a bewildered sigh, “but I think I should. I’m not sure why I think that, when you’ve never been anything other than welcoming and accommodating, but the feeling is there, that if I’m going to be a husband only by half measures, I should leave you entirely in peace.”

Leah remained silent, and then, perhaps because he was possessed of a certain recklessness, Nick spelled it out for her. “I should leave you in peace, but I don’t want to.”

“This is a dilemma,” Leah said, closing her fingers around Nick’s hand. “How long do you think we can endure it, Nicholas, before we begin to hate each other?”

“I cannot hate you.” The words held relief, topped with a dollop of sadness. “I can hate the part of me that has no conscience and wants to pleasure itself in your body regardless of consequences, but I cannot hate the lady who consented to spend the rest of her life with me, knowing how little I can offer her.”

Heat flooded Leah’s face.

“That is impressively blunt,” she allowed, eyes straight ahead. “But, Nick, where do we go from here? We’re tied together at the ankle by this marriage and will have to spend some time together at least for the short term. I do not like feeling I’m mooning after a man who doesn’t want me, and you cannot enjoy my longing glances and girlish sighs.”

He did not smile. “Of course I can. I am a man, Leah, and all the practical considerations in the world won’t change that. Glance and sigh, and I’ll strut and paw. It’s the way the animal is made.”

Leah heard herself ask, “Do you think we would be better off apart, Nicholas?”

Panic or something like it flared in his blue eyes. Whatever it was, Leah assured herself it wasn’t relief.

“Leah, I haven’t been with another woman since I met you.”

***

In the biblical sense, Nick could tell his wife he’d not strayed. Marriage was turning him into a barrister, though, because he’d spent the entire afternoon in company with a female he never intended for Leah to meet.

And maybe Leah sensed the prevarication, because she would not meet Nick’s gaze.

He wasn’t ready to let her go. Worse, he could not envision the day when he would be ready.

Booted steps sounded swiftly above, and then on the kitchen stairs. Nick exchanged a puzzled look with his wife—his sad, cranky wife—but admitted relief that the conversation had been interrupted. Leah’s courage had towed their discussion out to deep, dangerous waters, and shoals lay all around them.

“Nick?” Ethan’s voice rang with anxiety. “Where the hell are you?”

“Down here,” Nick bellowed, rising from Leah’s side, “and I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head when in the presence of my lady wife.” Nick kept his tone teasing and his face arranged in a glad smile until Ethan gained the bottom of the stairs. One look at Ethan’s expression, and Nick’s good cheer evaporated.

“Papa’s gone?”

Ethan gave one tight nod, and for a long moment, Nick stood there in the kitchen, the reality of the moment imprinting itself on his mind: the ticking clock, the low song of the simmering kettle, the lovely spring sunshine pouring in the open kitchen windows, the breeze bringing with it the scent of garden flowers, turned earth, and the stables.

This is the moment when I become an orphan. When my brother and all my siblings and I become orphans. A chasm opened up in his chest, bottomless and yet filled with pain, sorrow, and bewilderment. Wordlessly he held out an arm to his wife, who was beside him in an instant. The other arm went out to Ethan, who joined them in an odd, strangely comforting three-way embrace.

“Let’s sit,” Leah suggested a few minutes later. “Ethan, your horse?”

“The lads are walking him out,” Ethan said as he led Nick to the table and slid onto the bench next to him.

“You probably haven’t eaten today,” Leah said, frowning at Ethan. “You will eat, Ethan Grey, and no sass. Nicholas?”

He turned to her, trying to fathom her meaning, as though plain English had suddenly become a foreign language at which he had little proficiency.

“I’m going to feed your brother and have some provisions packed for us.” Leah spoke slowly. “I’m also going to have some clothes packed and send word to my brother I’ll be leaving with you today for Belle Maison.”

Nick nodded, unable to get his voice to work. If he said something, anything, he’d… lose his composure, and he could not allow Leah to see that.

Leah knelt beside his chair. “I’m coming with you to Belle Maison—if that’s what you want?”

He managed a terse nod and barely resisted the compulsion to drag her against his chest. Leah rose and moved off. Nick was aware of her bustling around the kitchen, aware of his brother looking haggard and road weary, and aware that Papa—the earl, his lordship, the only person standing between Nick and a miserable damned title—was gone.

When Leah put a tray of sliced beef, cheddar, sliced bread, and a peeled orange before Ethan, she kissed Nick’s cheek—even her scent helped Nick breathe—then took her leave.

Nick started on the sad, predictable questions. “When?”

“Late last night,” Ethan said, making no move to eat. “He just slipped away, Nick. He was breathing one minute, and then he did not breathe again. Nita and I were there, and he was asleep.”

“You rode here from Belle Maison,” Nick observed, stupidly. Of course Ethan had ridden from Belle Maison.

Ethan’s arm circled Nick’s shoulders. “I’ll go back there with you. I promised you I would.”

“I’ll need to send word to the others,” Nick said, lowering his forehead to his folded arms. “The funeral can’t wait.”

The practicalities, Nick thought vaguely. Leah had foreseen a need to deal with the practicalities.

“We can have a memorial service next month if we can’t all be at the funeral,” Ethan suggested.

With a sigh, Nick nodded and pushed to his feet. “Eat, or Leah will know the reason why. Your horse can stay here, and you’ll travel with us in the coach.”

“If you wish,” Ethan said, regarding Nick.

“Leah did say she’d come with me?” Nick ran a hand through his hair, embarrassed to have to ask but needing the reassurance. Needing his wife.

“She did. You told her it was what you wanted.”

“I do want that,” Nick said. “Give me an hour to jot off some notes and confer with Leah and…” His voice trailed off, and Ethan waited. Eventually, Nick figured out something to say to his brother. “Thank you for bringing me this news, Ethan. I would not have wanted to hear it from anyone else.”

“Not that you wanted to hear it at all, and not that I wanted to bring it. I’ll meet you in an hour.”

What Nick wanted was to find his wife, bury his face against her neck, and let his sorrow overtake him. Instead, he went to the library and penned notes to his solicitors, to his siblings, and, after an attempt at deliberation that ended up being a spate of staring at a blank page, to Leonie.

***

Leah’s husband was being stubborn, in what she suspected was tradition for the earls of Bellefonte.

“Leah, I do not want to put you through this.”

What he clearly did not want was to burden his wife with further evidence of his grief.

“Nonsense.” Leah kept her voice down, though the corridor outside the small parlor housing the old earl’s remains was deserted. “I’ve seen bodies before, Nicholas, and I’ve also not seen bodies.”

He looked haunted, glancing up and down the carpeted hallway. “What does that mean?”

“My Charles wasn’t buried until I’d had a chance to hold him one last time,” Leah said, “though Aaron was taken back to his father’s house after the duel. I was not permitted to see him before they buried him. Both are equally dead, and I felt equal sorrow to lose them.”

Nick grimaced and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I have unpleasant associations with this sort of thing. When Ethan’s mother died, and my stepmother, and…”

He was not only stubborn and grieving, Leah suspected he was also… intimidated by the role he expected himself to fulfill. The idea that Nicholas, the most singularly self-possessed man she’d ever met, should face such a moment alone was untenable.

“What lies in the parlor is not your father, Nicholas. It’s a body that houses no life. You need not go in there.”

He searched her gaze, probably looking for tacit judgments. He would find none, not about this. He shoved away from the wall. “I’m his son. His heir.”

She took his hand, as he’d so often taken hers, and willed him all the reassurance and support within her. When Nick escorted her through the door, she saw that the parlor was rife with lilies, though thank God somebody had also opened the windows.

Nick’s grip on her hand was tight, probably tighter than he knew.

“He’s… dead,” Nick observed softly after a few silent moments. “There is no mistaking that pallor and that stillness.”

“He’s at peace,” Leah countered. “His body is dead.”

Nick’s grip eased, but she did not allow him to drop her hand.

While Nick made his final farewells to his father, Leah stood beside him and took courage from sharing the moment with him. For all their problems, they were man and wife. If Nick allowed her to remain by his side now, perhaps it boded well for their future.

“He would not want to be seen like this,” Nick said. He sounded so sad, so lost.

“He is disporting with his wives and mistresses, or so you told me.”

A ghost of a smile passed over Nick’s mouth. “Come, else I shall weep like a small boy missing the only person who could ever make me feel like a small boy, regardless of evidence to the contrary.” And yet he didn’t move and he didn’t give up Leah’s hand. “I don’t want to be Bellefonte,” Nick said softly. “I never wanted to be the earl.”

And maybe there was guilt here, for not wanting what his father would bequeath to him. That would be utter male nonsense, of course, but because it was Nick’s male nonsense, Leah shifted to embrace him.

“No loving son wants his father’s title, Nicholas, unless it’s to spare his father a greater sentence to a painful existence.”

Nick’s arms came around her slowly, maybe reluctantly. “Papa didn’t want the title either, and yet he was a fine earl, all things considered. A very fine earl.”

That was not nonsense. That was something Nick could hold close, as Leah held her husband close.

He shifted, so his arm was draped over her shoulders. “Come upstairs with me?”

As if she’d drift away from him now? “Of course.”

And yet, “upstairs” held a curious development. Being newly wed, Leah and her husband had been housed in Nick’s bedroom. Both of their trunks were empty and sitting open at the foot of Nick’s enormous bed. Well, they were married—and the earl’s chambers would require airing and possible redecoration.

Perhaps it simply hadn’t occurred to Nick to direct that Leah be quartered elsewhere. He was that distracted by his bereavement.

Leah sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the late earl.

“I’m of a mind to take a nap,” Nick said, sitting down and tugging at his boots. “If you’d join me, I’d appreciate it.” Leah glanced at the bed and then back at Nick, but she couldn’t fathom the motivation for his request.

Maybe it was as simple as Nick being tired and unwilling to be alone.

Or perhaps he was aware, as Leah was, of how close they had come to declaring their marriage over before it had begun.

“A nap sounds fine.” Leah crossed the room and sat beside Nick, turning her back only when he’d finished with his boots. His fingers made short work of the hooks and eyes on her dress and the laces of her stays, but then he slid his arms around her waist and held on, a shudder passing through him, then a sigh.

“Off to bed with you,” Nick said, rising and drawing her to her feet. “I’ll be along shortly.”

Leah stripped down to her chemise while Nick undressed himself, but when she saw he intended to come to bed naked, she paused. What was this, and what did she want to do about it?

“I’m just getting comfortable,” Nick said, climbing onto the bed. “You could fill this bed with naked women, Leah, and at present, I could do justice to none of them.”

He was both rejecting her—not that she’d offered anything—and accepting her. She decided to focus on the acceptance, whipped off the chemise, and joined Nick on the bed.

Though that left at least five feet of cool mattress and bedding between them.

“Meet me in the middle?”

He was asking her for something, or maybe admitting that in these circumstances, he was entitled to the comfort of having a loyal wife. After a moment’s hesitation, Leah crab-flopped herself over a couple of feet and lay back, letting Nick take her hand in his.

“Let me hold you, Nicholas,” she said. “I just… I don’t want you to be alone in this bed, not today.”

He was in her arms in a heartbeat, his cheek resting against her breast, his thigh hiked over her legs. He let out the sigh to end all sighs, and closed his eyes, his lashes sweeping against her skin.

“How will I last until Friday, Leah?” Nick asked softly. “The neighbors will swarm, as will the well-meaning friends. The house will be full of people, when all I want is to be alone with my family. I comprehend now why there is always libation at wakes and viewings and funeral buffets.”

Leah tightened her hold on him, feeling the kind of ferocious protectiveness she’d directed previously only toward her son. He might not know it, but Nicholas trusted her the way a man ought to trust his wife. With painful certainty, Leah realized she did not want to lose him. Whatever their marriage could become, she did not want to lose this trust and closeness.

“You’ll be all right. Nobody will stay for long, or your countess will make them sorry.”

Nick raised his head, his expression guarded. “You’ll stay?”

A thousand retorts circled in her brain: I’ll stay as long as you need me. Why wouldn’t I stay with my husband? And then: Nicholas, you need not be always so alone.

He’d leave the bed if she said that.

“Of course I’ll stay.” For as long as he’d allow it, she’d stay, and hope that the painful, impossible topic they’d raised in the kitchen at Clover Down was never, ever raised again.





Fourteen





“The kitchen isn’t keeping up with the guests at the buffet.” Nita drew a black handkerchief from her sleeve, a warning to any of the nearby neighbors thronging the house not to approach.

“I’ll get the footmen moving,” Leah said. “Nick’s in the parlor with your sisters, and probably passing around his handkerchief.”

“Oh, my poor Nicky.” Nita bustled away, her expression determined, which left Leah wondering where Ethan had gotten off to. She found him in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea, effectively hiding in plain sight. Her first task was to find the head footman and put the fear of hungry neighbors in him, and then she made directly for Ethan.

“How’s Nick doing?” He moved over as Leah sat beside him.

“He did not enjoy seeing his father’s corpse,” Leah said, stealing a sip of his tea. “And he’s resting more than I’ve ever seen him rest, actually spending time in his bed. But other than that, I think he’s managing. He’s glad you’re here, but why are you dodging your sisters, Ethan Grey?” Leah stole another sip of his tea. “Gracious, that is good. Is the kettle on the hob?”

“Cook is keeping a pot going for the servants,” Ethan said. “I pinched a cup by special dispensation.”

“Nick will appreciate a cup. Shall I send your sisters down here for you to receive them?” She rose, determined that this day should pass with a minimum of difficulty for Nick.

“I…” Ethan dropped his gaze to his nearly empty teacup. “I haven’t seen them for years, Leah. My brothers, I’d run into in Town, but the girls… there’s such a crowd up there, all curious, no doubt, and I don’t want the girls to have to…”

“All right,” Leah interrupted. The late Earl of Haddonfield’s sons were a surprisingly shy bunch—shy and considerate. “I’ll send them to you in the music room, how’s that?”

When she half expected him to bolt, he set his teacup aside. “That will serve.”

Leah eventually shooed the siblings who were present into the music room, and had a tea tray sent to them laden with all manner of appealing food, as well as a brandy decanter. She was directing the restocking of the buffet when the head footman found her and drew her aside.

“Lord Reston…” The man paused, cleared his throat, and started again. “The earl is asking for you, my lady. He’s in the music room, and he said to tell you…”

“Yes?”

“You need to take a break, my lady, and get off your feet for a few minutes. His lordship’s exact words.”

She did not need a break, but his lordship just might need her by his side. Leah gave a few more instructions and found her way to the music room. She slipped inside and saw the family was assembled, seven tall blonds bearing a strong resemblance, and their youngest, Della, petite, dark haired, but still bearing the stamp of the Haddonfield family in her features. Because Ethan was in the middle of a story about Nick as a child, Leah took a quiet seat at Nick’s feet. His hand settled on her nape, and his brandy glass appeared before her eyes. She took a sip and passed it back to him, enjoying the smooth burn of the alcohol and the smoother heat coming from Nick’s fingers caressing her neck.

When Ethan finished, Nita spoke up, reminding them of an occasion when the earl had been spectacularly in error and held accountable by his second wife. Leah felt a draft and looked over to see that another handsome, strapping blond had slipped into the room.

As discreetly as she could, Leah caught Nick’s eye and nodded toward the door.

Nick rose and crossed the room. “Now we are complete.” He drew the fellow to the center of the room and slid an arm around his shoulders. “Our Beckman has come home.”

Beckman was not as tall as Nick, or quite as handsome. He had something of Ethan’s sharper features, and yet in his height, blue eyes, and blond hair, he was unmistakably a Haddonfield. He scanned the room as Nick’s arm slid from his shoulders. “We’re all home, every one of us, and it’s about damned time.”

The room went silent as Beck’s gaze fastened on Ethan, who was blinking at a portrait of a young blond man in old-fashioned regimentals.

Young Della held up her brandy.

“Here’s to family,” she said, “reunited, and isn’t Papa just laughing his harp off to know he’s the reason.”

***

Thank God and all his angels, Della’s toast had broken the ice, because Nick hadn’t known what to say. Nothing and everything. Love for his siblings swirled through his grief, through his marital woes, through his dread of assuming responsibility for the earldom, and all of it seemed to impair both his ability to speak and his ability to think.

As Beckman wedged into a place beside Ethan, the room once again settled in to storytelling, reminiscing, the occasional teary aside, and more frequent laughter. When Nick resumed his seat, he arranged a leg on either side of Leah’s perch on the floor, and drew her back to lean against his chair. His hands caressed her neck and shoulders, not idly, but because it soothed him to touch his wife.

Nick leaned down, his lips near her ear, his nose nearly buried in the lily of the valley fragrance of her hair. “Your behind has to be getting numb,” he whispered. “I’ll trade you.”

A man could say such a thing to his wife, and watch for the way she tried not to smile.

“Why don’t we shoo the last of the guests away and arrange for a late supper on trays in here for the family?”

“You shoo, Wife. I’ll get word to the kitchen.”

Leah shook her head. “You’re the earl, and I’m sure your letters patent spell out very clearly that you are in charge of shooing on all occasions of state. Come along like a good earl, lest I report you to the Regent.”

Oh, how he loved her, Nick mused as he trailed her from the room. Then his steps slowed and faltered as he realized exactly what he had admitted.

God in heaven, what he’d tried to characterize as fondness, protectiveness, and sexual attraction was much worse than all those combined. All odds to the contrary, he loved his wife, and he’d not even truly become her lover. Nor could he, ever.

“Nicholas?” Leah eyed him curiously. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, lovey.” Nick took her hand and linked his fingers through hers. “A-shooing we will go.” They passed the family parlor, and Leah paused to close the door. Across the hall, neighbors were still eating, drinking, and visiting the day away, leaving Nick to frown in consternation.

“How exactly does this shooing work?” Because Leah would know.

“You find the vicar or the mayor or the local magistrate,” Leah said, “and ask them to clear the room as politely at possible. Their consequence will demand they see to it with all dispatch.”

“I did not learn this at university,” Nick muttered, his eyes lighting on the vicar. In five minutes, the crowd was thinning, his neighbors and friends offering final condolences, until he, Leah, and the servants were the only ones left.

“God’s hairy b—beard.” Nick looped his arms over Leah’s shoulders and drew her close. Time enough later to ponder the disaster looming for a man in love with a wife he could not have. “This has been a long, long day.”

“You’re managing wonderfully,” Leah murmured against his chest, “but the brandy is catching up with me.”

“Was that you who sent the decanter to the music room?” Nick asked, his cheek against her temple. “Little Della was in alt to be taking spirits, but George surreptitiously snitched most of her portion.”

“I am the culprit. Ethan did not want to greet his sisters in public, and the best part of any funeral is the stories.”

“I wasn’t aware funerals had a best part,” Nick said, though the memory of Leah curled at his feet while his siblings laughed and cried together was precious, if not without pain. “Nita was wise to put the actual… service off for a day. We’re going to want tomorrow to recover from today.”

“Can we have the body sealed into its coffin now?” Leah asked, stifling a yawn.

“We can. You are so matter-of-fact, using words like body, coffin, and burial. I did not know I married a woman of such ferocious courage.” And she would need more courage yet, given his feelings for her. “There’s still some daylight. Will you walk with me?”

“Of course.” Leah slipped her arms from his waist. The head footman was smiling at them, the maids were trying to look interested in packing up the food, and the junior footmen were trying to look as busy as the maids.

Nick walked with Leah through the gardens, knowing he had to deal with his marriage and the unexpected turn of his emotions for his new wife, but knowing as well, resolving that situation was beyond him until his father’s death rituals were complete. For now, Leah at his side and in his arms at night was too great a comfort to give up.

He knew he was in particularly dangerous waters when he woke up in the middle of the night, wrapped around her and content simply to stay that way.

“Go back to sleep, lovey.” He kissed her neck and tucked her against him.

“Did everybody else trundle off to bed when you told them to?” Leah asked, her lips brushing his forearm where it lay across her collarbone.

“I made sure Nita got to bed,” Nick replied. “And Ethan has sought his bed. The rest of them are in need of a good visit without the elders around.”

“You’re an elder?”

“Head of the family, God help me.”

Leah scooted over to her back and considered him by the waning firelight. To accommodate her change in position, Nick threaded her arm under his neck, hiked one of Leah’s legs over his hips, and shifted up to prop his head on his palm.

“You have been head of this family for several years, I think.” She brushed his hair back from his forehead. “You’re going to have to say the eulogy.”

“I’ve worked on it some.” Nick’s hand smoothed down her sternum and rested on her belly. So smooth, her skin, such a delight to stroke. “It doesn’t seem natural, to publicly praise a man who was in truth very private, but I suppose it’s expected.”

“There are the rituals, and then there is the grieving, the real mourning, which is god-awfully miserable work.”

“We’ll mourn.” Nick leaned down and kissed her shoulder. “Nita said it was Papa’s wish we not observe deep mourning for more than six months, and then only on formal occasions. He’d buried two wives, two mistresses, and two babies, and didn’t see the sense in all the ritual and display.”

“Two children?” Leah’s hand drifted up the column of Nick’s throat. The touch was soothing and quite… personal.

“Between Nita and George,” Nick said. “A boy and a girl, both of whom died in infancy. He wanted to stop trying at that point, but my stepmother was desperate for more babies.”

“Everybody grieves differently,” Leah said. “Why don’t you want children, Nicholas? The real reason, if you please.”

Nick rolled slightly and buried his face against Leah’s neck. He had not seen this coming, not now. “There is risk to you, Leah. Honest-to-God risk, no matter what medical assurances are given, no matter how safely you bore your son.”

“You still think you killed your mother? I was certain you were bruiting that about as a mean sort of jest.”

“I would never jest about a woman’s death, much less my mother’s,” Nick said, his words muffled against Leah’s neck. His tongue slipped softly along Leah’s jaw, just taking a taste of female sweetness and warmth—to distract her, to comfort him.

“But you had nothing to do with your mother’s death, Nicholas. If anybody was to blame, it was your father.”

“I respectfully disagree.” Nick’s hand slid over Leah’s stomach, coming to rest on her opposite hip. “He was a third son inheriting a title later in life, and intent on doing his duty, and he succeeded, as yours truly lives and breathes.”

“But you were being weaned,” Leah said. “It was your father’s fixation on producing a spare that cost your mother her life.”

Nick abruptly pulled back and stared down at her. “I have the sense we are talking at cross purposes.”

“As do I.”

“My mother died as a result of complications following childbirth, and I am the only child she bore.” He knew this; he’d known it all his life.

“You were shy of a year old, Nick,” Leah said gently. “Della told me Sara had conceived again and was weaning you at your father’s insistence. Losing that second child before the pregnancy was full term is what led to her eventual death.”

Silence, filled only by the hiss of the last of the embers in the fireplace.

“Nana told you this?” Nick said slowly, rolling to his back.

“She most assuredly did.” Leah propped herself on his chest and peered at him. “You had nothing to do with your mother’s death. Not. One. Thing.”

He lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to fathom the sense of her words. There was loss in what she said, but loss of a burden as well as loss of a dearly held belief. Leah tucked a leg across his body, folded herself down over his chest, and slid an arm behind his neck.

Did she seek to anchor him physically while his entire world went tumbling?

“You honestly thought you killed your own mother. Oh, Nicholas…”

His arms came around her, carefully, slowly. “How did Della convey this… information?”

“We’d finished fitting my wedding dress,” Leah said, “and I asked her if you’d killed your mother.”

“You were afraid?” Of course she’d be afraid. Nick was afraid.

“Curious,” Leah clarified, her cheek over his heart. “Your heartbeat is steadier than the beat of a clock. I love that you are so tall that your heart lies right under my ear when you hold me.”

That simple little compliment, coming on the heels of unexpected absolution for his mother’s death, sliced at Nick’s soul. She thought he was handsome, when most women of her station thought he was a freak. She was protective of him—all seventeen damned stone of him—when by any sane lights, protecting ought to be his exclusive domain.

“Leah…” But he had no words, so he kissed her. He meant to express things beyond words—gratitude, wonder, relief, and tenderness—but Leah surprised him. When his lips pressed against hers, she groaned softly and fitted her mouth over his. Tentatively, her tongue seamed his lips, asking entrance even as her hand moved over the contours of Nick’s shoulders.

He let her tempt him, assuring himself he was equal to the self-restraint needed to enjoy the kiss without letting it go too far. In careful increments, Nick felt Leah exploring the limits of a passionate kiss between spouses naked, in bed, in the privacy of deepest night. She sampled the heat of his mouth, the pleasures and textures of his tongue, and the soft fullness of his lips.

Without Nick wanting it or willing it, his wife was also learning how easily a well-kissed man became aroused.

“Lovey, we have to slow down.”

“You’re wrong,” Leah muttered, taking his hand and fitting it over her breast. “You were wrong about your mother, and you’re wrong about this too, Husband.” She closed his fingers over the fullness of her breast, and Nick felt a flash of heat from his hand to his groin. Leah’s head fell back, and her back arched, begging him to repeat the caress.

She had every right to expect pleasure of him. Nick marshaled his self-discipline, despite the hard throbbing in his cock. He brought his free hand up, framed Leah’s other breast with it, and urged her closer to his mouth.

“Nicholas…” His name was a hiss of pleasure and longing, and Leah’s nails digging into Nick’s forearm only confirmed the intensity of her passion. Gently, he laved her nipple with his tongue, knowing he could not deny her satisfaction, not on one of the last nights they would spend together. He was condemned to please, and take little for himself, just as he had been so often in the past.

Leah didn’t know of his devil’s bargain, though, and when her fingers feathered over Nick’s nipples, Nick felt pleasure buck through his body. His cock leaped at her sex, longing coursing through him with an ache he felt in his soul. The ache turned to torture when Leah eased her body over him, caressing his length with the slick heat of her sex.

“Leah…” Nick rasped, pressing his face to her chest. “You can’t…”

She did it again, and desire coiled more tightly in Nick’s vitals.

“We can,” she retorted in a fierce whisper.

“No.” Nick grabbed her wrists, but she used her body weight to push her hands apart and spread his arms out on the bed. With unerring instinct, she positioned herself so the head of Nick’s cock was nudging at the opening in her body.

“Leah… you must not.”

“You did not kill your mother, your reservations are groundless, and I need you.” As she captured him with her body and shifted that first, exquisite half inch downward, Nick went utterly still. Leah’s head dropped forward on a gusty exhale, and she eased her hips forward.

“Easy,” Nick cautioned, resigned to yet greater self-restraint. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

“You couldn’t,” she whispered, rocking her hips in a small, slow pattern of thrust and retreat. “You feel wonderful to me, absolutely, gloriously… Ah, Nicholas…” He lay beneath her, letting her have complete control as she took him more and more deeply into her body. His hands eased away from her wrists and moved gently over her face, then her neck and shoulders. He stroked her breasts, her belly, and her arms, and all the while watched her expression in the last of the firelight.

“I want…” Leah opened her eyes to plead with him silently.

He wanted to cry, to weep with the knowledge of what could not be his.

“I know,” Nick replied. “But slowly, Leah, and gently. I will not forgive myself if I hurt you.”

She shook her head. “You are lovely inside me, so sweet and full and unbearably… God… All I want is more of you. More and more…”

Her words hammered at him, hammered at the place inside him that said he was not entitled to take pleasure from a woman, not ever, for surely it pleased him to hear her sighs and her lavish compliments. It pleased him, warmed his soul, and aroused his body. He was already fighting the tightening up behind his balls that signaled his own impending orgasm, and the feel of Leah slowly hilting him in her body pushed his control to the limits.

“Nicholas?” Leah settled herself slowly and completely onto him then folded down onto his chest. “You aren’t moving with me.”

“I don’t dare,” he whispered, finding her mouth with his. “But you can move, Leah.” His hands caressed her back then gripped her hips, encouraging her into a slow, languorous rhythm. “Come like this for me.” He trailed one hand up to cup her breast and tease her nipple. “Take your pleasure of me.”

Torture me so this one memory, at least, will be mine.

He knew she couldn’t help herself. He intended that his voice, his hands, his kisses, the throbbing fullness of his cock lodged deep in her body, and the need to be as close to him as life on earth allowed converge. As soon as Leah withdrew and pressed forward again, he felt her silently shatter. Nick did move then; he rocked himself inside her, prolonging and intensifying her pleasure with slow undulations of his hips and glancing caresses to her breasts. When her passion ebbed, Nick brushed his thumb against the top of her sex and drove her up again, more forcefully still.

“Nicholas… oh, Nicholas…” She breathed his name so softly Nick felt it more as exhalations against his chest than words. His arousal clawed at him, and yet he let his hips fall still and cradled Leah against his body.

“You are all right?” he whispered.

“I am… utterly replete,” Leah whispered back. “But you are not. You touch me so carefully, Nicholas, so caringly, but you haven’t found your pleasure.”

“Leah, I can’t…” He didn’t know how to tell her what he needed, but any minute—any second—it would be too late. With a soft groan, he rolled them and lifted himself out of her body, then lay himself over her, tightly seaming his wet cock between them.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, thrusting against her belly until pleasure radiated through him and he spent his seed between their unjoined bodies. “I’m just so… damnably sorry.”

He lay between her legs, physical repletion warring with self-disgust, while Leah’s arms went around him and her hands threaded through the hair at his nape.

The haven she offered was precious and never to be his. If he allowed the embrace, then he might allow the confidences such embraces engendered.

The thought inspired him to lever up, taking his weight on his forearms and knees.

“Don’t go.” Leah tightened her grip. “I like your weight on me.”

Confound the woman. “You can’t breathe,” Nick answered, more harshly than he’d intended. “And I’ve made a mess of you. Let me go, Leah. Please.”

Her arms slid from his neck, and she let her legs fall open. He extricated himself from her, crossed the room, and fetched the basin and towel kept near the hearth. As he sopped one end of the towel in the water then rubbed it briskly over his flat stomach and his genitals, all he could think was: What have I done? What have I done?

“Say something,” Leah prompted, her voice catching, as if tears threatened.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said flatly. “That should never have happened.” He used the towel on her as impersonally as he could, when what he wanted was to bury himself in her again and again and again.

“Why shouldn’t it have happened?” Leah asked, bewilderment coming to the fore. “It was beautiful, and ordained by God, and one of the few pleasures any married person is entitled to expect of his or her mate.”

Beautiful—and potentially tragic.

“But not us,” Nick said, firing the towel across the room with unnecessary force. “We’re not entitled to that. I am not entitled to that.”

“But, Nicholas, why not?”

“I could get you with child, even if I don’t spend inside your body,” Nick said wearily. “I wish it were not so, Leah. I desperately wish it were not so, but I was honest about my terms when you agreed to marry me. I am profoundly sorry to have breached my word to you as far as I have, and I can only hope there won’t be consequences we both regret.”

“I do not understand you,” Leah said in quiet misery. “You are a sumptuous lover, Nicholas, and I will not, not ever, regret what has passed between us here tonight. I will instead resent until my last day that you deny us both what is our right.”

She flopped back down to the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.

He had hurt her, hurt her in the one area a spouse’s trust and protection ought to be inviolate, and the need to comfort her was a living, writhing misery in Nick’s soul.

He hadn’t the right. He also hadn’t the right to stalk from the bed and leave her even more alone than she felt now.

And he hadn’t the courage to ask her if she wanted him to leave.

So he waited until Leah fell asleep then carefully folded himself around her once more, and like a thief in the night stole what consolation from her he could, while darkness hid his anguish.

***

“Is it time to rise?” Leah asked, blinking.

“Not yet,” Nick said. “There’s tea on the hearth. Shall I fetch you a cup?”

He was polite, at least. They’d spent the previous day being so polite Leah’s teeth nigh ached with it, and then last night in his sleep, Nick had held her desperately close.

“Fetch us both a cup.” Leah pushed her braid over her shoulder and wrestled the pillows behind her back. “How are you on this day, Nicholas?”

He rose from the bed, naked—at least he wasn’t going to deny her that much. “I feel like I felt when Ethan was sent north to school: bewildered, powerless to stop someone I love and rely on from being taken away.” He brought the whole tray to the bedside table and sat on the mattress, his back to Leah.

“You have known a bucketload of loss,” Leah said. She wrestled the bedclothes aside and knee-walked over to Nick, wrapping her arms around his shoulders for a brief hug. He tolerated it, closing his eyes on a sigh.

“Let’s drink this in bed,” Nick suggested, maybe by way of an olive branch. “Soon enough we’ll be up and about, dressed in sobriety and grief.”

“Maybe at first, but you grieve in proportion to how you loved, and eventually, the love pushes back through the loss.” She knew this. If it was all he’d allow her to give him, she’d offer it freely.

Nick settled back against his pillows and sipped his tea.

“You speak such eloquent words, Wife. Nonetheless, I am royally out of charity with my papa, and that is hardly worthy of me or the life he lived.”

Of course he’d be angry, and Nick was not comfortable with anger in any sense.

“You think I wasn’t wroth with my mother for leaving me so soon after my child died? It frightens us to be without our parents, whether they were doing much parenting before they died or not. Nicholas?”

“Wife?”

Wife—that was something.

“For today, don’t shut me out. I know you are displeased and upset over what passed between us in this bed, but you bury your father today, and that must take precedence over our troubles. Your family will need to lean on you, and…” She looked away, self-conscious, yet unwilling to back down. “I am inviting you to lean on me.”

“I have leaned on you.” Nick reached out a long arm and let the backs of his fingers drift over her cheek. “And, Leah, I am so damned sorry about the way I spoke to you the other night. You are not to blame.”

And then she was angry. Angry at the big, noisy family who assumed Nick would take on every difficulty and see to every problem. Angry at the mother who’d died and left him with such a load of guilt, even his broad shoulders should not have to bear it alone.

And she was angry at him, so stubbornly determined to keep every burden ever thrust upon him.

“We can deal with all that later, Nicholas, agreed?” She studied her teacup lest she start shouting at him.

“We’ll deal with it later, and you have my thanks for your understanding.”

“I am your wife, and I would be your friend.”

Nick turned to set his teacup aside and spoke to Leah over his shoulder.

“Will you let me hold you? I know I should not ask this of you, but I can behave, Leah. I promise you that, it’s just…”

“Of course.” Leah passed him her teacup and scooted over. She settled against his side, where she fit as if God had made her just for that cozy location. Nick’s hand fell to her shoulder, brushed her braid aside, and began drawing slow patterns on her arm and her back, until she was dozing contently in his arms, his chin resting on her temple.

A soft tap on the door heralded the arrival of breakfast. Nick brought the covers up to Leah’s chin and bade the serving maid enter, then dismissed her after she’d built up the fire.

Before he could leave the bed, Leah climbed over to straddle Nick’s lap. There were mounds of bed covers between them, softly compressed between their bodies. She batted them aside until she got her arms around Nick’s neck, hugging him close at the start of this most trying day.

“I know, Nicholas, we have dreadful difficulties ahead, sad things to say to each other, but one grief at a time is more than enough. For today, I am your devoted wife, if you’ll allow it.”

“I’ll allow it.” Nick pressed his face to her throat. “I don’t deserve it, but I’ll allow it.” Unspoken between them hung two words that held back a wealth of foreboding and misery. Nick would allow her support—for now. Only for now.

***

“Leah?” Nick poked his head into the ladies’ parlor—the Squealery, according to the late earl—the day after the burial in the late afternoon, and found his wife surrounded by all of his sisters, addressing replies to cards of condolence.

“Nicholas?”

“A word with you, if you can spare me a moment,” Nick said, purposely not letting even one sister catch his eye. “I’ll meet you in the gardens.”

Nick waited for her on the same bench they’d occupied after the viewing, feeling more solemn than even at the burial.

“You look very serious, Nicholas.” Leah took her seat beside him, her fingers twining with his. In just a few short days, this had become their habit—to hold hands, regardless of the company or the hour.

“I am serious,” he said, his gaze tracing over each of her features. She was tired and probably didn’t even realize it. “I asked you out here to let you know I have considered your suggestion that we separate, and find myself agreeing to it.”

Leah’s fingers went limp in his. Nick had never hated himself more.

“I see.” Leah’s voice held no more life than her fingers. “Is this to be a permanent separation?”

“If I were less selfish,” Nick said, “I would tell you that yes, this is permanent, except for those unavoidable family occasions when we must be seen together, or the periodic meeting we schedule for business purposes. Then too, you’ll be expected to attend my investiture. But I am selfish, Leah, and so I will say I do not know how long we will need to live apart, and I regret this development, because it hurts you.”

“What about you, Nicholas?” She withdrew her hand from his and regarded him with an appearance of dispassion. “Does this development hurt you as well, or will you be relieved to be shut of me?”

“It is not what I’d wish for either of us,” Nick said. “Particularly not what I’d wish for you. You have to know, Leah…” He raised a hand to touch her face, but at her utterly contained expression, he never connected with her cheek.

“Know what?”

“I cannot trust myself to behave around you as I promised I would and I can see no other means of keeping my word,” Nick offered stiffly. “You deserve better, but I cannot undo our marriage, and for the sake of your safety, I will not even try.”

“My safety?” Leah hissed incredulously. “I wish…” She rose to her feet as Nick saw tears gathering in her eyes. “I wish I could hate you, Nicholas. I cannot understand this decision you’ve made, to dwell in the loneliest form of hell imaginable, and to fashion a cell for me there as well. You are a lovable man, intelligent, kind, and decent. Your decision makes no sense to me, not now, when I see what potential we have together.”

She stalked off, skirts swishing madly, leaving Nick to sit in the dying sun and curse his fate.

When he came to bed that night, Nick found Leah doing a credible impersonation of sound sleep, though she was given away by the speed with which the pulse in her throat leaped and the fact that her mouth was closed. In sleep, Leah’s lips parted the barest fraction of an inch. Still, Nick didn’t blame her for avoiding him. He shifted and climbed naked onto the mattress, hating the ache in his chest and knowing she likely felt something similar.

Which was entirely his arrogant, presumptuous fault. He’d thought he could be a sexual convenience for her, within the limits of his self-imposed marital celibacy. He’d planned on being her, what? Her sexual friend, as he’d been to so many other women? And her husband, entitled and bound to protect her, and her social escort when duty required it.

He’d never, ever planned on seeing the depths of her courage, her humor, her tenacity, her loyalty to family. Her passion for him, and not just for the pleasure he could give her.

On a sigh, he shifted across the bed and reached for her. She surprised him by meeting him and cuddling into his arms as if they’d been married for twenty good, happy years. But when Nick leaned down to rest his cheek against hers, he felt the lingering dampness of her tears.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Leah said nothing, but lacing her fingers through his, drew his arm securely about her waist.

Which left him feeling, as impossible as it seemed, yet sorrier still.





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