duty required it.
He’d never, ever planned on seeing the depths of her courage, her humor, her tenacity, her loyalty to family. 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.
“So how do we do this, Nicholas?” Leah was sharing a glass of brandy with Nick in the Clover Down library, their evening meal concluded and the rain making a steady, battering downpour against the mullioned windows.
“How would it be least trying for you?” Nick asked, staring at his drink. Leah had chosen to sit beside him on the sofa, a generosity on her part he both treasured and detested.
She should hate him, for he most assuredly did hate himself, and his life.
“I found my years in Italy were made bearable by my brother’s companionship, and that of the people who lived around me. But I had the anticipation of Charles’s birth, and then his presence, to bring cheer to the whole experience.”
Nick closed his eyes at the practical way she delivered that blow.
“Shall we hire you a companion?”
“We shall not. I’ve made do without before, but I would like a riding horse of my own.”
“That’s easy enough to accomplish, but, Leah”—Nick risked a glance at her—“I don’t want you to feel you’re confined here. If you want to spend time at Belle Maison, or if you need the town house, send word. I’ve a number of places I can stay.”
Leah’s hands tightened on her glass, and Nick realized she was likely tormenting herself with thoughts of all the beds he’d be welcome in.
“Is there something wrong with me, Nicholas?”
“Wrong with you?” He speared her with a puzzled look. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“You are a man who enjoys the ladies. You made that plain when I accepted your proposal, but now, it seems of all the ladies in all the beds in all the towns of England, mine is the one bed you won’t share. I must conclude the fault lies with me.”
Nick felt gut-punched as he saw the flickering uncertainty behind the studied composure in Leah’s eyes, and yet, she had her finger on the difficulty: the difficulty was that she was his wife, his countess, and the only woman who could bear his legitimate heirs.
“The problem is that I do not want to have children with you, Leah,” Nick said slowly, staring at his glass. “I’ve been honest about that much from the start.”
“Do you dislike children, Nicholas?”
“I love children,” Nick said on a harsh exhalation. He wouldn’t lie to her about that, but the truth had him so frustrated, he had to set his drink down before he hurled it at the hearth with all the considerable strength in him.
They sipped their brandy in miserable, jagged silence, until Leah laid a hand over Nick’s.
“I have an imposition to ask of you, Husband.”
Nick’s relief that she was changing the subject was pathetic. “Ask,” Nick said, meeting her eyes. “Ask anything.”
“You have offered to pleasure me,” Leah said, a blush heating her cheeks as she spoke. “I would avail myself of your kindness in this regard.”
“My kindness…” Nick closed his eyes. He would love to pleasure her, love it. If she’d allow him that… Even this one last time, he would adore the privilege and pain of it. But he’d proven unequal to the necessary restraint, and so her imposition was an accurately aimed dagger thrust into his floundering self-respect.
“We will not share a roof again,” Leah said, “and you cannot think to leave for London in this downpour, at this hour. Stay with me tonight, Nicholas, please.”
That last word, offered with such longing and sadness,
Nick was an expert on good-bye sex and the comfort and condolence it could offer. He knew about the tenderness and gratitude an intimate parting could convey, and he knew how to make the experience dear and memorable, and the very best way to slip away from a liaison. He knew all that only because, in the past, he’d been the one to decide the timing of each final encounter, and now Leah had taken the initiative from him.
Leah deserved that at least. She deserved to torture him, and she deserved to have her pleasure of him. Within reason.
“I will need some privacy first, Leah.”
She started to nod, then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said with soft menace. “You will not ease yourself in private then come to me spent and safe, Nicholas. You will show me how to pleasure you and what you had envisioned for us were we not to part. That, or we sleep apart.”
She had him, and Nick knew it. He surrendered with good grace. “Come to bed then. It shall be as you wish.”
The nights at Belle Maison had given them a certain practical ease with each other that served well when they’d closed the bedroom door. Nick unfastened Leah’s dress; Leah relieved him of cravat pin, watch, and boots. He took down her hair; she untied his cravat and fetched his robe while he stripped off his riding attire. She brushed out and rebraided her hair while he used the wash water, then he took Leah’s robe from her so she could follow suit.
The only variation in their nocturnal routine was that Nick tossed the used wash water out a window then refilled the basin and set it on the night table. He also put both of his handkerchiefs on the table beside the basin and towel.
“You’re not going to blow out the candles?” Leah asked, climbing across the bed before taking her robe off again.
“Soon,” Nick said, shrugging out of his robe and settling on the bed, his back against the pillows. Leah drew the covers up to her chin and only then eased off her robe. “You are having a sudden attack of modesty, Wife? Not five minutes ago, you were naked and washing between your legs.”
Leah scowled at him and tugged the covers up higher. “Five minutes ago
He was going to miss her until his dying day. “So I am naked, and you must cover up. Interesting.”
A silence fell while Nick considered his next step. Just watching Leah disappear behind the screen with the basin and towel, knowing she’d invited him to be intimate with her, had set his blood galloping around in his groin.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Leah muttered, flopping over onto her side, her back to Nick.
“It was a fine idea,” Nick said, “one of your best, but you’re going to have to come here, Leah, for matters to get under way.”
“Oh, very well.” Leah tossed the covers up and scooted closer to Nick, then settled back down on the pillows. “Now what?”
“I think we need to talk a little more,” Nick said, revising his first set of plans for the evening.
“Talk?” The notion apparently did not comport with her plans. “About what?”
“Come here, lovey.” Nick held out an arm. “And I’ll tell you.”
Leah visually measured the distance to him, her frown deepening. Then she seemed to come to some internal decision and laid herself down along Nick’s side, letting his arm encircle her shoulders. “I’m here.”
