Chapter 32 #2
“And what plan is that?” Even so, she followed him, letting him guide her up the stairs to his bedchamber. Once there, despite her protests, he stripped her wet clothes from her.
“If you think—” she started, but he hushed her with a finger to her lips.
Then he withdrew a shirt and a pair of soft fawn pantaloons.
She stood still as he tenderly dressed her in his clothes, his hands gentle but not lingering.
At no point did she feel as though this was an exercise purely with the intent of putting his hands on her body.
By the end, she was dressed—albeit indecently—in his male clothes that were nearly twice her size. He even offered her a waistcoat, though she shook her head. This was bad enough.
“What will the servants think?” she frowned.
“They don’t have to see. No one has to.”
She scowled. “Except for you.”
He gave a small half-smile. “Little mouse, do you really think I would ever think badly of you? There is nothing you could do or say that would make me think less of you.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
He took a seat by the fire and folded his arms. “Go ahead.”
“I—” She took a deep breath, suddenly uncertain. “I left not knowing if I would ever come back.”
“I know.” His eyes were deep black, burrowing into her soul. Yet in them, she saw nothing but warmth and understanding. Patience. “I wish you didn’t feel that way. But now, I understand why you did. It was never about my reclusiveness or the circumstances behind our marriage.
“I had ripped you from a world you never felt you belonged in, and never had the courage to help you belong in mine. I would have deprived our future child of their parent, knowing full well what you went through. And for that, I could spend a lifetime searching for the right words, but even an eternity’s penance would make my sin less forgivable. ”
Her throat ached with the effort of holding back her tears.
“I told Lady Mary Ann everything,” she whispered.
He nodded again. “I had hoped you hadn’t gone far, and I’m glad you have someone you trust. A friend in these times is what you need—so long as she doesn’t invite Lord Redwood again.”
She shuddered. “I doubt it. She knows now what he did to me and the mean things he said. Though they were partially true.”
“To my detriment,” he said wryly. “You have not known how many times these past few hours I cursed myself for being such a blithering fool.”
Tentatively, Aurelia sat at the very edge of the bed. The storm still raged outside the windows, but inside they were safe and warm. It felt like an allegory, but she couldn’t trust her senses when Sebastian was concerned.
She might be safe now, but her feelings had still been trampled in the worst way.
“I understand why you feel the way you do,” he said now, linking his fingers and resting them against his knee.
He was still wet, she noticed. He had gone out of his way to dry her and ensure she had clothes, but he had not done the same for himself.
“And I can’t tell you not to feel that way—it would be pigheaded in the extreme.
I know I am at least partly the reason behind it, and I’m sorry.
But believe me when I say I would never cast a woman I loved from this house.
” He met her gaze squarely. “And I love you, Aurelia. Time will not be a deterrent. Nor will anything you say. If there is anything I’ve learned, it is that my feelings will never change, no matter how far you run from me. ”
She pressed the heel of her hand against her cheeks, feeling them damp with tears. “So you say now…”
“A man may spend his entire life misunderstanding, my sweet, but never his heart. And mine only knows how to endure with you near.”
“Even if I want to go out in Society sometimes?”
His brows came together. “Even knowing that people will be cruel?”
“People will always be cruel. But I will not let their cruelty force me into hiding. I can’t change their minds about me from one appearance, but I am a duchess, and you are a duke. All I want is for us to leave our mark on the world.”
He made a small scoffing sound. “You say this as though it’s easy.”
“Not easy,” she pressed softly. “Necessary. For my happiness and yours. It is what I want, Sebastian. Not to cower away in this house with no other choice in the matter.
“If we decide to stay here most of the time of our own volition, then that’s all very well, but I will not be forced into hiding.
And if that is the only life you can see for me, then cut me free.
” She gestured at the window. “My things are already packed, Sebastian. Do you think I can’t leave you?
You already pushed me away once; I have one foot out of the door already. ”
His eyes seemed very dark as they watched her. “Those are the conditions of your staying?”
“You say you have discovered the conditions of your happiness—well, so have I.”
“And I am not the condition.” A smile twisted his mouth. “The irony that I am more beholden to you than you are to me.”
Guilt wracked her briefly, but she would not be silent now. “I want you in my life, Sebastian. You have become unspeakably precious to me. But…” She reached for the words. “You hurt me. My father had hidden us away. And you want to hide me away. I can’t allow it.”
He reached out a hand. After a moment, she went to him and placed her fingers in his palm.
His hand curled around hers. “It is not that I want to hide you away,” he murmured.
“I am not embarrassed by you, my shepherdess. I want to protect you. The world has been nothing but cruel to me, and I cannot bear to watch it do the same to someone I love.”
“Then let us face it together. Can you promise me that?” She looked pleadingly into his face.
It wasn’t that she wanted to subject him to unpleasantness—but they were two prominent members of society now, or at least they ought to be.
She couldn’t bear to sequester him to a life of isolation simply for choosing the wrong bride in the eyes of the ton.
He gave a tired sigh, but a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “It seems, my shepherdess, I can deny you nothing. If I could attach conditions to remaining married to you, then I suppose it is only fair for you to do the same. And I can do nothing but yield.”
“Sebastian…” She brought his hand to her mouth, kissing his knuckles.
The relief had begun to set in now, and she felt tired and shaky.
After all that fear, he was here. Alive.
Whole. “I will always be married to you. I just can’t bear the thought that being married to me might be a burden to my husband or our future children someday. ”
“Then how about a fresh start?” He gazed up at her, still with that small smile. “Let’s forget all that came before and the mistakes we made, the things we said. Let’s pretend you have just arrived here as my wife. And let us start anew.”
For a moment, the idea shimmered before her like something precious. Wipe the slate clean. Pretend the hurt had never happened. Begin again without all the jagged edges between them.
But no.
She had not fallen in love with some imaginary perfect version of Sebastian. She had fallen in love with the real man. The one who made mistakes. Who had hurt her and been hurt in return. Who had walked to a lighthouse in a storm because he carried his guilt like stones in his pockets.
She did not want to forget that man. She wanted to love him anyway.
But… perhaps they could still pretend to have been married for the first time.
“Stay here,” she rasped, squeezing his hand before letting it go. “I have something I must do first.”
“What—” He broke away as she opened a drawer, pulling out a fresh shirt. Then, after some more searching, she found some breeches. That would do for now, especially before a roaring fire.
A married couple entering life together for the first time did certain things, she was fairly sure. But first, he would have to be warm and dry.
“You saw to my needs,” she said in answer to his silent question. “Now, let me see to yours.”
He said nothing as she undressed him. Her fingers worked the buttons of his waistcoat, peeled the soaked shirt from his shoulders.
His skin was cold, mottled red where the wind and rain had battered him.
She fetched a towel and began to dry him, slowly, carefully.
His chest was solid beneath her hands, muscle and warmth gradually returning under her touch.
She worked in silence, let her hands say what words could not. That she loved him. That she wanted this to work. That the hours without him had been unbearable, a loneliness so profound it had felt like drowning.
She had finally found somewhere she belonged, and he had made her feel as though her place there was conditional.
“Why did you stay out in the storm?” she asked quietly as she dried his hair.
“Because I couldn’t face the thought of coming to a place you were not,” he whispered with a new flush in his cheeks.
“I would have done, later. After. In time. But watching you leave was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced, Aurelia.
” He caught her wrist, fingers wrapping around her gently.
“I respected you too much to force you to stay, but loved you too much to let you go. Thank you for coming after me.”
She shook her head, feeling oddly self-conscious. So much for her grand leaving—she had run back after him mere hours later. “You shouldn’t have stayed out,” she chided gently.
“You shouldn’t have come for me.” His fingers tightened.
“Here.” Partially to distract herself from the intoxicating golden hue of his skin, and the muscles that lay underneath, she passed him the shirt she had found. “We ought to have dinner. And then—” Then she ought to send a note to Mary Ann, apprising her of what had taken place here.
Though she would not send a servant out in this weather—so it would have to be delivered later. Heavens above, Mary Ann would probably be worried sick.
Sebastian pulled the shirt and breeches on, finally something approaching decent again. Then he rose, pulling her into his arms. “We can have dinner delivered to us. But I’m not going to be letting you out of my sight for the next few hours, shepherdess.”
As it always did, her body responded to his proximity, and the slight growl in his voice when he mentioned not letting her out of his sight.
She ought to be horrified that he was laying down the law in such a way, especially in light of everything that had happened between them, but behind the possessiveness, she saw love. And, more to the point, she rather thought she didn’t want to be separated from him, either.
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he reassured, gathering her against his body.
She felt the pounding of his heart against her own.
“We can talk if you’d like. Or you can berate me some more.
Perhaps you would like to bloody this nice clean shirt of mine?
I can hand you a few cravats to ruin, too, if you are of such a mind. But I will keep you here.”
She wilted against him, letting him hold her. “I would not go anywhere else.”