Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
All in all, it had been a trying day. First, his plans had been thwarted by the weather, and his cravings had been worse still. He had felt like a caged bear, prowling the house in search of an escape.
Then this ridiculous dinner with his wife.
Bad enough that he had entered the room to find her bent over, her plump derrière in the air, the material of her dress clinging to its every rounded curve.
He was but a man, and when she turned, he had not yet succeeded in banishing the inevitable thoughts that sprang from the image.
After Helena, he had vowed never to have interest in another lady, but the years of abstinence had only made him increasingly acquainted with his hand—and now, it seemed, lust.
A poor choice of direction for his mind to take, considering she was not only his wife, but soon to be his estranged former wife.
Then had been the dinner itself—an unmitigated disaster. Neither of them, he suspected, had truly wanted to dine with the other, and she had been so obviously angry with him.
Now this. Her face in his neck, her breasts plastered across his chest, and her arm closing instinctively around his neck.
He closed his eyes and prayed the pain in his hand would prevent his body from reacting.
“Oh,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
He inhaled again. “It’s all right.”
She leaned back, which had the unintended result of shifting her backside rather closer to his manhood.
Think of anything but that.
“What were you saying?” she asked.
“Sorry?”
“Before I fell.”
“I—” He shook his head. If he had been about to say something, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was now. Nothing important, no doubt. Nothing as important—or pressing—as her body against his.
It had been far too long. That was the trouble. While his mind remained promised to Helena, his body had other ideas. Damn his libido. And damn her for being so beguiling, all without knowing she was.
That was the worst of it.
She peered at him now with an expression of confusion and concern, as though his lack of engagement with her question was a reflection of his mental state and not the fact that he had a soft woman in his arms for the first time in seven years.
“Lydia,” he said, his voice a little strained. Despite his best efforts, there was a situation unfolding underneath her beautifully rounded derriere, which he was utterly incapable of preventing. “May I suggest you get off?”
“Get off?” For a second, she just blinked at him, as though she had forgotten—entirely—where she was. How she was.
If only he could be so lucky.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened—a rather glorious hazel green in that moment—and her cheeks fired as she scrambled back. “I am so sorry!”
“Stop apologizing,” he grumbled.
“I mean it. I had no intention of—well, I hadn’t thought I would fall, but if you had just let me examine your hand, none of this would have happened.
” She raised the back of her hand to her burning cheek, and the gesture was so thoughtlessly sweet that he reached up to grasp her wrist with his good hand.
“Don’t shrink from me,” he murmured, attempting to keep his voice gentle.
That was not something he’d had much practice with.
Helena had been the gentle one, and she had brought out the gentle side in him.
After her death, all those parts had frozen over, eroded away, or simply melted in the face of his overwhelming grief.
But Lydia, he knew, did not deserve to pay the price of that cruelty.
“I am not a monster,” he uttered.
She looked down at where his fingers wrapped around her wrist. “I never thought you were,” she replied, but her voice was subdued.
“No?” He raised both brows. “Let us be clear. You do not want to leave this house.”
“It has become my home,” she said immediately.
“And you view me as the rogue about to divest you of said home, even though it was the agreement we came to when we married.”
Her bottom lip jutted out, though she said nothing.
“But as terrible as that makes me, I have no wish to make you unhappy, as far as it is in my power to prevent it.”
Those glass-green eyes, no brown to be seen, raised to meet his again. “Is that so?”
“I will not maintain this marriage for your sake,” he said.
“And I’m afraid my reasons are not up for discussion or debate.
But as I’ve said, I will gift you one of my houses to live in until the very end of your life—and if that life is past the end of mine, my heir will treat you just as I will have.
I will give you a handsome jointure. You will want for nothing, Lydia. ”
“I see.” Although he thought the terms were generous, she seemed unmoved. She tugged her hand from his. “Thank you, Your Grace. I should retire now.”
Finally. He’d been wishing for a moment alone all evening. And yet, as she walked to the door, he realized he didn’t want her to go quite like this. Why were women so difficult? And why had she gotten under his skin so quickly?
“Wait.” He rose from his chair, thankful that the situation in his trousers had fully resolved itself. “Is there anything I can do? To make your stay more comfortable until the weather ends?”
She spun, looking at him appraisingly, then glanced at the table, which they had both abandoned. “Well…” she began slowly, “there is one thing.”
What had begun as a disaster of a dinner had turned into something else entirely.
Lydia half wanted to laugh as she picked up a forkful of food and eyed him.
To her surprise, when she had offered to make amends by helping him eat the remainder of his dinner, he had only protested a little, and had capitulated far more quickly than she could ever have imagined.
Now here she was. Feeding her husband. At a romantic dinner. In which she had also sat on his lap.
Admittedly, that had been an accident. And it had been rather less sitting than falling.
But once she had been in his arms, she could admit in the privacy of her own thoughts that it had been rather nice.
A male body against hers. His thighs had been so hard and strong underneath her, and she had even thought she’d seen something in his eyes—a flare of heat, perhaps. Something that warmed his icy exterior.
Nothing to make her like him, of course. But it was entirely possible to separate the man from the physical experience of him holding her. And, for a brief moment, he had held her.
Close.
It had been an entirely pleasant experience.
The very same man eyed her and the fork that hovered before his lips. “I do have one functional hand, you know.”
“Consider it an apology.”
“A better apology would be doing me no more physical harm.”
She smiled sweetly. “I shall take that under consideration.”
He sighed heavily. But then, to her surprise and delight, when she nudged the fork against his lips, he opened his mouth. She had the privilege of watching his lips close around the metal of the fork, and although nothing about the gesture seemed even remotely seductive, it made her cheeks warm.
He frowned at her as though he could sense her every thought. “Is there a question?”
“Were you busy in London during our year apart?” she asked to distract him.
He shrugged. “As busy as any duke might be. There were a number of social and business obligations.”
“And they took up all your time?”
For the first time, he glanced away, refusing to meet her gaze. “A portion of it.”
“What else occupied you?”
“Does this matter to you?”
“Call it curiosity,” she shrugged a single shoulder as she cut the meat. He looked as though he would rather take his fork back, but she refused to let him. “I contrived to be busy here.”
“So I’ve heard,” he said wryly. “The servants seem to have taken a shine to you.”
“For a long time, they were my only companions.”
“What of your friends from yesterday?”
“Oh, they discovered I was here and called one morning, and it was…” She paused, thinking back.
Then, she had been so lonely, and her friends—particularly the vivacious Eliza—had made her feel as though she had a place in the world again.
“It was as though the world burst into color,” she finished quietly.
His brows drew down, but he said nothing, merely taking the fork from her. “I can take it from here.”
“Don’t you—”
“I find myself without the desire for my apologies.”
At the sharpness in his tone, she sat back. Although he had recovered his cutlery, his hands still trembled so violently, he had to pause. His jaw gritted, and she watched it. When she had first met him as an adult, she had assumed he was nothing but cold.
And he was.
When he pinned her next with that arctic stare of his, she felt as though he had stripped her raw. But behind all that—betrayed by the jumping muscles in his jaw, the tightness around his eyes—she saw pain.
Pain intrigued her.
It made him feel somewhat more human than he sometimes appeared.
She sat back in her chair, determined not to be afraid of him even when his size and demeanor veritably intimidated her. She would not be the girl he first met—either the one in the pond desiring escape, or the fragile wisp of a girl he met nine years later, devastated by her father’s death.
After a second, he rubbed his eyes, then glanced at the darkness outside the window. Even from where they sat, the vicious snap of ice against the glass was unmistakable.
“It seems your wishes have been granted,” he murmured, not looking at her. “We’ll be trapped here tomorrow, too.”
“Trapped,” she mused, gathering her skirts as she stood. “Is that how you see it?”
“How else? This may be your home now, Lydia, but it is no longer mine.” He snapped his teeth together in a vicious movement, as though he had said too much, then said, “If you are done with your meal, don’t wait for me on my account. I think I would rather be alone.”
Incensed, though she had intended to do as much, Lydia swept toward the door.
“Goodnight, Your Grace,” she said in tones just as frigid as the expression in his eyes, and left the room.
Alone once more, Alexander dropped his head onto his hands.
Cramps racked his body from the cravings, and the pain in his head grew until he could hardly think past it.
With an effort, he forced the contents of his stomach to remain in place.
No doubt the servants suspected something, but he intended to keep his weakness under wraps as far as possible.
No one could know how far he, the Duke of Halston, had fallen over the past few years.
Especially not his helplessly optimistic, na?ve, surprisingly resilient, and unexpectedly attractive wife.
She had reason enough to hate him—he could not offer her another.