Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Making a resolution was one thing; achieving it was entirely another.
To Lydia’s dismay, especially considering how carefully she had dressed, she didn’t find Alexander at the breakfast table. Nor was he in his study when she went in search of him.
In some dudgeon, she stalked to the library and was at last rewarded with the image of Alexander sitting in the giant, cozy armchair by the fire, a breakfast tray beside him and a newspaper open on his lap.
For a long moment, the quiet domesticity of the sight disarmed her. The fire crackled, newly hit and eager, and Alexander’s hands for once seemed to have stopped shaking. He seemed at peace here, his brow clear and his mouth relaxed.
In this version of the man, she saw the boy she had met all those years ago. And, foolish as it was, she had the absurd hope that she might be able to reach that boy again.
He glanced up as she approached, the tension reappearing by his mouth. His gaze traveled over her dress, which she wore without a chemise underneath, and which had been carefully wetted to hug the curves of her body—a trick used by many a young lady in search of a husband.
Lydia already had a husband, but she couldn’t be certain she would keep him.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
“Lydia,” he started, low and rasping.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you here?” She came to perch on the edge of the armchair, peering over at his newspaper. “I always find the news rather dull, although I suppose it has its uses.”
He inhaled, and she tried not to ignore the idea that he was enjoying her scent. “Was there something in particular you wanted?”
“Just you.” She glanced down at him, enjoying his shock. After her ministrations the previous night, her body still buzzed. Desire, that was the name for it. “I found I missed you yesterday.”
“You got to know me rather well yesterday,” he said dryly.
“And yet not well enough.”
“Lydia…” he pressed, his voice low and tortured.
Was she pushing too hard? Fine. She slid off the arm and plumped herself into the opposite armchair. Outside, the rain splattered, promising another dull day. Trapped in the manor—except here, it was not trapped.
“Tell me something about you,” she began. “We are husband and wife, if only temporarily. I have sat in your lap and fed you and kissed you. And,” she added, casting a rueful glance at his hand, now unbound, “accidentally hurt you more than once. But I know very little about you.”
“I tell few people about myself.”
“Why?”
He folded the newspaper with precise, deliberate movements. “Because the stories are not very pleasant.”
“And you would rather not discuss unpleasantness?”
“When it comes to myself, yes.”
Abandoning her desire to learn more about the unpleasantness, she lifted a single shoulder in a shrug. “Then tell me something else. There must be good memories. How old are you?”
“You don’t know my age?” He raised a brow. “Guess.”
“I fancy you are several years older than I am,” she frowned. “Seven-and-twenty?”
“Correct.”
“And you inherited the estate when?”
“Six years ago.”
“So you had reached your majority, but only just,” she mused. “A young age to inherit such responsibility. I suppose you felt the weight of it.”
“I know my duty,” he said, which seemed a roundabout way of saying yes.
“I always knew you were a man of duty,” she replied, chewing her lip. “After all, you married me because of my father’s dying wish, and you didn’t so much as know me at the time.”
Pain flashed across his face, and he bowed his head. “As you say.”
“What did you do during your year in London?”
He paused a long time before answering. “The usual. I went to clubs and met with my men of business and generally managed my estate as well as I could. I have several investments.” He did not expand on that. “What did you do in my absence?”
She grinned. “Drink wine.” Then, when he merely raised a brow, added, “I spent a lot of time in here, actually.”
“Here?” He looked around. “It is one of my favorite rooms in the house.”
“Mine, too. I’ve always loved books. They contain such escape.” She sighed longingly. “And I have often wished for escape.”
Alexander frowned at her, the silence between them broken only by the crackling of the fire. “Why?”
“Oh, loneliness, I suppose. After my mother died, I was a very lonely child. I did my best not to be, of course, and I had my friends, but within the house, I felt as though I was cherished in theory. In practice, I was yet another consideration for my father.” She toyed with the lace of her sleeve.
“He loved me, and we rubbed along tolerably well in the latter stages of his life, but our early years together were… difficult.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“I suppose many people suffer very similar things. And truly, it’s all right.
I was not desperately unhappy for most of my life, and what little discontent I felt, I could escape through books.
Truly, it wasn’t so bad.” She offered him a smile, but he merely watched her, something brooding in his expression.
“And once I arrived here, I found all these books. And such a delightful room to read them in.”
“Why don’t you hate me?” he asked shortly.
“Excuse me?”
“You were lonely and sad and had to take refuge in books because, as you so aptly pointed out, I abandoned you. Ergo, why don’t you hate me?”
I did. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them.
Had resentment ever tipped quite into hatred?
Perhaps, if he had not saved her as a child, it might have done, but there was always the hope within her that she would find that boy again.
And he had saved her. Saved her, moreover, with kindness. Not with duty, but with compassion.
No, she had never hated him.
So, she rose and kneeled by his feet, looking up into his face.
“Because I see you,” she breathed, taking his hand and bringing it to her cheek.
“And I know you are fighting your own demons. We all have our monsters to vanquish. I just wish, Alexander, that you would let me take arms against yours.”
He stood, abruptly, a storm in his eyes. Her hand dropped limply to her lap as he paced to the door, suddenly filled with restless energy. It burst from him in waves. Restless energy, and a self-hatred that made her sick to the core.
“You deserve far better than I,” he muttered, wrenching the library door open. “And I wish you could understand that as well as I do.”
Lydia prided herself on her patience, but as she stared out of the window after Alexander’s disappearing figure in the rain, she knew she would not be able to sit around and wait for him to return.
Philips appeared beside her. “It is my duty to recommend you remain inside, ma’am.”
“And it is my duty as his wife to go after him.”
“Let her go, Philips,” Mrs. Jones said. “But you take a coat now, Your Grace.”
“I expect he has gone to the lakehouse,” Oliver added reluctantly.
Lydia didn’t so much as wait to change into her boots before she ran out into the rain.
The lashes lanced her face, dripping immediately into her eyes, and the chill rocked through her.
But this was not merely Alexander’s domain now—it was hers.
The lakehouse was perched by the lake—though by her reckoning it was more of a pond—and she had kept her distance until now, thanks to her memory of entering the freezing water of her own accord.
Today, however, she didn’t think of the past. She didn’t even think of her resentment, her frustration, her anger. Not even her goals for the future. All she thought of was the expression of pain across Alexander’s face and the tone of his voice when he told her that she deserved better than him.
Typical of a man to think he could decide what she did or didn’t deserve.
By the time the lakehouse came into sight, her hair was drenched through, and her skirts caught damply around her legs.
Her pelisse, no matter how fashionable, had not been designed for a downpour, and she was soaked to the bone.
Shivering, she burst through the door and surveyed the wooden interior.
The room itself had been set up to be a comfortable space, but this was her first time viewing it.
There was nothing here.
She twisted, skirts catching against her legs, and she might have given up entirely if she hadn’t seen another door at the far side of the room.
Water dripped from her sodden clothes as she strode to the ajar door and flung it open.
A porch overlooking the lake greeted her, and there, standing in the midst of the rain like a supplicant, stood Alexander. His blonde hair was plastered to his face, and his wide shoulders were curved. But it was anger in his face when he turned to face her.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” he snarled.
Lydia refused to be cowed. “Why did you run?”
“That is none of your business.”
“I am your wife. Your business is mine.” She took a step closer.
“My wife in name only. You know as well as I do that we didn’t choose each other.”
The words stung, but she didn’t let it show on her face. “And so what?” she demanded. “You are determined to be cruel to me, and to end our arrangement as soon as you can?”
His eyelashes clumped above his eyes, which were the same brilliant blue as always—cut gems. “If that had been my intention, we would have traveled south by now. Instead, I’m finding excuses to keep you here, because I can’t quite seem to commit to sending you away.
” He brought his hand through the air in a sharp cutting motion.
“Until I returned here, I thought I knew precisely what my future entailed, and now I know nothing for certain.”
She approached again, braving the freezing rain and putting a hand on his chest. “You know one thing for certain,” she murmured.
“What is that?”
“That you want me.”
He shuddered, as though the thought physically pained him. Yet he could not deny it.