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.
“
“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
