Nicholas: Lord of Secrets

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