Chapter 23 #2
As though he understood, he raised his head and locked eyes with her, not looking away even as his body shuddered and a groan slipped from his lips. He fell apart in her arms just as she had in his, and although neither of them said the words, she knew they both felt it.
Love.
She was no expert, but she did not think this act would feel like that without it. There was purely carnal, and then there was tenderness—and the tenderness added something so much better to the carnality.
She teased her fingers through his hair. His weight pressed her deliciously into the mattress, and part of her hoped he would never leave. That they would spend the rest of their time together wrapped up like this.
“Tell me something,” she whispered at last.
He propped himself up enough that he could look down into her face. “Tell you what?”
“I don’t know. Something you haven’t told anyone before.” She ran her hands up and down his deliciously muscular arms. “What are these scars from?”
He laughed a little, more relaxed and open than she could ever remember him being. “Those are hardly a secret. When I was a boy, I was—adventurous, I suppose you’d call it. I continually escaped my nurses and got into trouble in the woods. Climbing trees and the like.”
“And falling out of them again, one supposes.”
His laughter rumbled through her. “Indeed, one should,” he agreed. “I drove my mother wild.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died many years ago, when I was young. Too young to have known her, really. Then it was just my father and me in this house.”
“Is that why you hate it?” she murmured.
He shifted, lying on his side and drawing her against him, his strong arm around her waist. “I don’t hate it here,” he said after a moment. “I used to, certainly. It reminded me of a place where I lost everything and everyone I loved. A representation of the title and duty I never wanted.”
She trailed her fingertips down the scars. “And now?”
“With you in the manor, it feels like a different place.” He hesitated. “You made it your own, and now instead of thinking about my mother, or of Helena, or of the way my father berated me in front of the servants or took me into his office to lecture me in private, I think about…”
“About me?” she prompted.
“I suppose that feels a little fanciful.”
“It feels sweet. I never had a place that felt much like home. Did you know that?” She had one final secret to reveal, and now seemed like the perfect moment in which to do that, held in the safety of his arms, confident and comfortable and secure.
Lost in the glow of post-coital bliss. “The home I had with my father stopped feeling like home after my mother died—although my father was always good to me.”
His arm tensed a little around her waist. “I’m glad.”
“And when we moved to London, I made a place for myself there… but it never felt like home. Not like this house does.” She paused to give their surroundings an affectionate glance.
It had felt like home before Alexander had even arrived home as her husband; with him now sharing her bed, it felt even more like home. “I never want to leave,” she told him.
His huff of breath stirred her hair. “Then I hope you never shall.”
Part of her wished she could tell him more---that she didn't just not want to leave, but that she had fallen so deeply for him she was certain it must be love.
But she didn't dare. And this was enough of a victory.
It had been hard-won, but he finally admitted to wanting her to remain here.
To allowing her to remain here. She would be his wife for the rest of their natural lives, and the relief she felt at such an open confession made her next admission easier still.
“You know,” she whispered, twisting in his arms so she could see his face. The sun had fully risen now, spilling past the curtains, and she could see every flicker across his expression in perfect clarity. “I spent part of my childhood not far from here.”
His fingers tightened on her hip. “In York?”
“Yes. Before we moved to London.” She traced a finger along his collarbone, feeling the steady thrum of his pulse beneath her touch. “My father's estate was only a few miles away. I spent large parts of it with my two bosom friends actually. We were inseparable as children.”
She could see the moment understanding dawned in his eyes, his brows drawing together as he studied her face with new intensity. “You lived nearby,” he murmured, almost to himself. “All this time...”
“It feels like a lifetime ago now,” she said quickly, offering a gentle smile. “I was just a girl. We left when I was still young, after my mother died.”
“I'm sorry.” His thumb brushed tenderly across her cheekbone. “That must have been terribly difficult.”
“It was. But Marie and Eliza---they made it bearable. We spent so much time together that summer before we left. I think that is why reconnecting with them this past year has meant so much to me. In some ways.” She nestled closer, feeling the warmth of his body seep into hers.
“In others, it felt like coming home, I suppose. I used to play in these woods as a girl. There is a pond not far from here where I would sit and think—” She snapped her mouth shut almost immediately.
His hand stilled on her back, just for a moment. “A pond?” he began slowly. “I wonder if our paths might have crossed back then? It is a small community.”
Her heart stuttered. For a wild second, she almost told him everything—that she knew that pond, that she had been there on the worst night of her young life, that he had saved her. That the memory of his kindness had stayed with her through every lonely year in London.
But when she looked up into his face, she saw the way he gazed at her now; with desire, with affection, with the heat of a man for his wife. If she told him about that night, would he see that little girl instead? Would he remember Helena standing beside him, helping to comfort a child?
She didn't want to be that girl to him. She wanted to be this woman. His equal, his partner, his wife.
And besides, she thought with a pang, he probably didn't even remember. It had been ten long years, and she had been just another frightened child in need of comfort. Surely that moment hadn't marked him the way it had marked her.
“Perhaps…” she said lightly, dropping her gaze to his chest. “Though I doubt you would have noticed a girl like me. I was rather… unremarkable.”
“I find that difficult to believe.” His voice was low, intimate. “I think I would have noticed you anywhere.”
The words made her chest ache with longing and regret in equal measure. Perhaps someday she would tell him. When they were older, when the shadow of Helena had faded completely, when he could hear about that night without pain.
But not now. Not yet.
“Well,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, “you certainly notice me now.”
“That I do.” He rolled them so it was her body on his. Her hair fell across his face, and he brushed it back, looking up into her eyes. “And I intend to keep noticing you for the rest of our lives.”
A smile spread across Lydia’s face, and she leaned in to kiss him again. Slowly, luxuriously, as though she was tasting him for the first time and never wanted to stop.
They could be happy together. If they had the chance to be.
“I want to spend the entire day in bed,” she whispered.
“Then let’s stay in bed,” he breathed. “But I do insist on unlocking the door.”
“Oh?”
“We’ll need sustenance.”
She giggled as she slid down his body, and as he pushed inside her, she wondered how she had ever come to be this lucky.
As promised, they spent the day in bed. Lydia discovered several new ways of making love.
Her front plastered against the wall, or bent over the bed, hands braced against the mattress.
Side by side, either facing him or away.
There were so many ways to experience intimacy, and they were uncovering them all, one by one.
Eventually, they lay together in bed, utterly spent. Alexander had been quiet most of the day, worshiping her body but saying little. Though Lydia knew they had made progress, that final distance between them made anxiety rise in her stomach.
He wanted her, yes. He no longer loved Helena. But was that enough?
She would do anything to keep him.
“I had word yesterday that Marie—that is to say, Lady Harrogate—will be hosting a ball next week,” she said as she lay in his arms, wishing he would stroke her hair the way he had once.
Sometimes, it seemed as though there was unreachable agony in his eyes.
“Do say we can attend. She is my friend, and I would very much like to go with you on my arm.”
He blinked, the distance vanishing. “Lady Harrogate,” he mused. “One of the ladies you’ve been spending all this time with, I take it?”
“Yes, she is my very dear friend—we have been friends ever since we were children.”
“They remained in the area?”
“Lord Harrogate purchased my father’s old estate.
They spend a great deal of the year there.
I expect when Eliza marries, she will spend every Season in London, but Marie has always preferred a quiet life with her husband.
” She settled more firmly against Alexander’s arm. “He is taking her to Italy, you know.”
To her disappointment, Alexander didn’t rise to the bait. “What would you prefer?” he asked, rolling a lock of her auburn hair in his fingers. “To remain here or to go to London?”
“I like Halston Manor very much,” she said dreamily, looking at the ceiling. To think, when she’d first arrived, she’d been certain she would hate it here. “I think of it as my home. But I think I would sometimes like to return to London. I have friends there—a few of them at least.”
“Lord Scunthorpe being one?” he asked, tensing underneath her.
She returned her gaze to the sharp snap of his eyes. “No, Alexander. That is to say, we are friends, and I would be more than happy to see him again, but it is not something I yearn for by any means.”
He nodded, but the tension didn’t leave his body. “Good.”
“I have no desire to belong to any other man.”
He shifted back a little so he could look into her face. “You should know how little I deserve you.”
“I doubt anyone else would agree, with you being a duke and me only the daughter of a viscount.”
“Is that the only measure of worth?”
“What else is there?”
“Kindness,” he said at once. “Forgiveness, perhaps. Loyalty. Devotion.”
“All things that you have shown me you possess in abundance.”
“If only you knew, Lydia.”
Clamping his lips shut as though he had betrayed himself, as though she didn’t know how toxic the guilt that ran in his veins truly was, he turned her over so he could make love to her ravaged body once again.
And she, knowing that patience and affection would be what healed him, offered herself to his embrace, willing to let him pull her apart if that might help him put himself back together again.