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
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.
“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
