Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
“ T his is your favorite place,” Lucien noted as they entered the stone-walled flower garden deep within the main gardens.“I have seen you come out here often.”
“Montgomery Manor’s garden once flowered beautifully, and I spent a great deal of time there when Nicholas was gone, either chasing laudanum or off at war. The fresh air and scent of flowers always helped calm my mind. Lavender, in particular.”
“Like the scent packets in your wardrobe at Montgomery Manor.”
“You know the flower in my scent packets?” Edwina laughed.
“I was given access to your room to assess what needed to be renovated.”
Lucien cleared his throat, hoping she would ignore that he had committed that detail to memory. That, and how she particularly liked rose and jasmine oils. Those scents drove him so wild with want that he could barely contain himself.
Even now, his body still shook slightly with how hard he had taken her in the drawing room. Every fiber of his being had begun to fray at his cousins’ presence and had snapped completely at Allan’s inane jokes.
Of course, Allan wouldn’t have known about Nicholas’s addiction, but Lucien had taken one look at the fear on Edwina’s face, only there for a moment, and quickly made his decision.
Every ounce of anger he’d felt was funneled into thrusting into his wife—not because he was angry with her but because he simply wanted to give in to something else that consumed him. And from the way she had cried out for him, he had trusted her to tell him if it had been too much.
“Not by me, you were not,” she teased as they settled onto one of the four stone benches facing the small pond in the center that had a low wall built around it.
Apparently, Lucien’s father had been a troublesome child, and the wall had been commissioned by Lucien’s grandfather.
Silence settled between them until Edwina glanced at Lucien, and he felt the oncoming question. Already, he bristled.
“May I ask you what happened? Why you are so cold towards your cousins?”
“It is not being cold,” he told her flatly. “I—yes, it looks that way. I understand. But… my relationship with them is difficult to explain.”
“Then I shall listen.”
As gentle as the offer was, Lucien knew he couldn’t allow himself to speak about what had happened. But he could give her something—an extension of understanding.
“My mother died in childbirth,” he began, shrugging. “I never knew her apart from my father’s paintings of her. He adored her and did not remarry, for his grief was too great. He had apparently always said that even for duty, he could not replace his wife. He had his heir; he did not need a woman replacing his wife. Mrs. Galley told me that when I was young. When I was seven, my father passed. There were terribly romantic stories about it throughout Stormhold.
“They said that he could not help death’s call, his soul subconsciously pulling him to the love of his life, unable to be parted from her for so long. I do not believe in such things, and I know the truth of his death, but I admit that the stories comforted me back then. Every Christmas, Mrs. Galley would take me out to their graves to place a single rose on each of them, and she would tell me how in love my parents were. I suppose everyone thought I would grow up to be a gentle, romantic soul like they had been. And perhaps I would have, but my uncle and aunt—my father’s brother and his wife—moved into Stormhold Hall immediately.
“My uncle’s wife… Aunt Katherine and I did not get along.” He gritted his teeth as he spoke his aunt’s name.
He pictured her face, well into her fifty years, her hair white with age, and lines grooving the edges of her features. Yet, she had never let her age tamp down her arrogance. If anything, it had made it worse.
“That is all?” Edwina asked, frowning. “You do not entertain your cousins because you and their mother did not get along?”
“Precisely,” he said.
His wife couldn’t know the full truth—that it went so much deeper, that there was a reason why he had often made angry comments about being stuck in a trap not of his own making.
A wave of nausea washed over Lucien as he briefly recalled the shakes and the tremors, the stomach cramps, and the hours he had spent bent over a chamber pot, emptying his stomach. The dizzy spells and general weakness.
He pushed it all down.
“Lucien,” Edwina said, utterly unconvinced.
“Do not push it,” he pleaded gently. “I find myself losing patience because of my cousins.”
“All I wish to say is that your uncle may not have shared whatever made her jealous and resentful towards you. You mentioned he had written to make amends, although I cannot believe you did not attend a relative’s funeral.”
If you only knew what she had done .
That trauma dug into his mind, tugging him far from his wife, and he fought to recenter his thoughts back where they belonged. There, in the present.
The home that was his . Not his aunt’s, nor anybody else’s. A home now free of her venomous touch.
“I did not attend her funeral because I do not have any respect to pay her,” he told Edwina finally.
“What if he wishes to settle the disagreements between you? Perhaps you should give him a chance.”
“Why do you wish to be involved?”
“Because I am your wife,” she stated firmly. “And my brother is getting better thanks to you. I… well, part of me was ready to grieve him, whether he was deceased or not. But you started building a road for us to return to one another. I only wish to do the same, even if you think it is hopeless as I did with Nicholas. I never gave up on him, but some part of me thought I would have to accept it sooner or later.”
Grimly, Lucien nodded. “Speaking of such a man, I have received word that he is ready for a visit. His physician has reported that it is time for Nicholas to see us if we can keep him calm and relaxed. Word is that your aunt is keeping his spirits high and that some additional company and perhaps a walk through the gardens might do him good. I thought you would wish to be the one to do that with him.”
Edwina’s face lit up, and a quiet part of Lucien thought that he would have endured his past several times over if it led to meeting Edwina, to seeing such a bright expression on her beautiful face.
He hid his thoughts by clearing his throat sharply. “I am going to the village to meet with a few tenants. You may join me or stay here.” He paused, moving away from her. “Actually, I must ask you to stay here. I will get no work done when you are wearing such a stunning dress. You are most distracting, and I am sure I will chafe if I do not slow down soon.”
It took Edwina a moment to catch his joke, and the laughter that burst from her lips was music—soft and melodic, a symphony that Lucien would commission a whole concert of.
“Heavens, whatever will we do if you chafe?”
“I believe you must tend to it with tender kisses and careful licks.”
She sidled up to him, trailing her fingers down his chest teasingly. “I am sure that can be arranged. But do not shirk your duties. Your tenants value you, and I shall not be the one to make you fall behind on your work.”
He caught her around the waist and sucked on a sensitive spot on her neck. “You are the worthiest distraction, my Duchess,” he growled.