Chapter Eight #2
“Somehow, I believe you will puzzle it out.” Childs clapped Cecil’s shoulder, grasped it in camaraderie. “Besides, your second anniversary is coming ever closer. Why not lean into that and romance your wife again? Win her back so completely both of you will harbor no more doubts about each other.”
Slowly, he nodded. “Do you think I’m worthy of her as I am now? When I asked for her hand, when we made promises to each other before I went to war, I was a different man, in both body and spirit.” And he would never have that version of himself back.
“You have always been worthy of her, my friend, and you always will be, no matter what happens to either of you, for that is what love does, and when a person is lucky enough to find that?” He shook his head.
“Hold onto it with all your strength, because when you have that, you have the potential for… everything.” Then his eyes brightened.
“It seems as if I’ll be cutting our walk together short. ”
Cecil frowned. “Why?”
“Look there.” The valet gestured with his chin. “What a sight to see in the snow, hmm?”
As he followed Childs’ gaze, a shock went through his person to spy Emma coming toward them, a red cloak about her form, dazzling in the wintertime landscape. “Damn.”
“Indeed.” The valet chuckled again, and when Emma reached their location, he gave a slight bow from the waist. “Good morning, Your Grace. Lovely to see you out and about.”
“Hullo, Mr. Childs.” A ready smile curved those kissable lips. “It’s been an age since I’ve seen you. I hope you are well.”
“I am. Thank you.” He grinned. “Well, I am due back at the manor. Duties don’t stop, you see. Your Grace,” he said as he addressed Cecil, “I’m having your evening clothes pressed today in the event you wish to take dinner with the duchess tonight in the dining room.”
“Most appreciated, Childs. Thank you.”
Then the valet winked at Emma before he took his leave.
Once alone, tendrils of hot panic twisted through Cecil’s gut, for he didn’t know what to say to her. She never joined him for his morning walks. And still surprise held him captive. “Ah, it is good to see you, but what are you doing out here?”
“I thought to join you.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because walking with you guarantees us a bit of privacy. Additionally, you and I need to talk, don’t you think?” There was no judgment in her dulcet tones, only determination. It matched what was reflected in her eyes.
The panic in his gut twisted again. Would this be when she told him that she’d had enough and didn’t wish to continue on with him? But he nodded anyway. “I’m delighted to have you accompany me.” And he offered her his arm.
“Good.” When she slipped her gloved hand through the crook of his elbow and the warmth of her touch invaded his senses, he inhaled sharply. What was it about this woman that could completely imbue him with the thinking that he could do anything?
Since they were about a quarter of a mile away from the manor house, he set them off in that direction.
Much of the walk was accomplished in silence, but it wasn’t one of those bothersome kinds fraught with tension.
It was just easy and welcoming with the security of knowing the person next to him wanted nothing from him except his company.
Then eventually Emma broke the quiet. “I have been thinking about the reasoning behind your need to leave me after only two months of marriage.”
Christ, he’d hope they’d moved past this, but apparently, she still felt insecure with his explanations. Or perhaps he’d mucked them up too much that he hadn’t explained anything. “Go on. I am willing to tell you as much as you’d like to know.”
“Thank you.” She nodded. “I suppose the whys of it don’t matter anymore since I’m with you now.
However, part of me wishes to for some answers.
” Pausing, she tightened her fingers on his arm slightly, and that little tell went directly to his heart like a dart.
“Did you no longer wish to be with me? Was there something wrong with me? Was I not good enough to be your duchess? Did I say something that angered you so much you couldn’t bear to look at me anymore?
” The tiny catch in her voice at the end allowed some of the walls about himself to crumble a bit.
“Damn, Emma, none of that is true. How could you even think that?”
“How could I not, when you left without a word or even a letter?”
Why hadn’t he thought to put words to paper and give her something that might bring her peace before he’d come running to the country? He cleared his throat. “I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
“Of hurting you. Of losing you. Of discovering that I wasn’t the man you wanted after all.” There was no sense drawing it out.
Her brow furrowed. “But you hurt me with your defection, and in doing that, you lost me. Don’t you understand that?”
“I do, of course, but by then, it was too late. It had been well over a year, and what could I have said that would have tempered the anger you held for me?” As he spoke, the rush of his words tumbled out, tripped over themselves in an effort to make her see life from his viewpoint.
“The last thing I wanted was to harm you while my mind was lost to nightmares and memories of my time in the war. I suffered them last night, and I wondered if I shouldn’t just take myself away from this world so you wouldn’t need to see like that. ”
God, he hadn’t meant to admit that, but he cast a glance down at her. Unfortunately, the hood of her cloak obscured her eyes.
“Yet you took the chance away from me to help you, or to see if I can.” The fingers on his arm tightened again.
As a warning, a chastisement? “And if you think offing yourself when times are bad is the solution, if you think I won’t be more furious with you at that point than I am now, you are sadly mistaken. ”
And she would probably haunt him long into the afterlife, that’s how fierce his Emma felt about things. It was one of the things that drew his regard in those letters.
He swallowed around the ball of emotion lodged in his throat. “Yet I feel that I’m no longer worthy of your love because I’m not the whole man you originally fell for. And what is more, there is nothing I can do to change that.” It wasn’t as if he could suddenly take away his scars.
“How dull life would be if none of us grew or changed as we went along.” As they approached the manor house, she slowed her steps, forcing him to do the same.
“Whether we change through maturity or from something horrible that happened to us through circumstances we can’t control, it doesn’t matter.
At your heart, at your soul, you are still the man I came to know through letters, the man I married with the hope that we would go through life side by side and meet every challenge together.
” Her voice caught once more. “But you fled in fear and left me alone to figure out a new path, one I never wanted, one that didn’t include you. ”
“How can you want to love me as I am?”
“How can you ask that I don’t? You are my husband. For better or for worse, remember?”
Oh, her words were assuring enough, and though he wanted nothing more than to throw himself on his knees and beg her forgiveness, he quelled the urge.
“I want you to be proud of me, Emma, proud to show me off to your friends. How can you do that when I have the image of a monster, and at times the temper to match?”
“That is because you’ve chosen to go at it alone, without even asking me what I wanted.”
He shook his head. “If we should have children, will they run from me screaming as if they’ve seen an ogre?”
“Yet each time we’ve coupled recently, you’ve ensured a pregnancy will not happen. Why is this a worry if you keep such control on the outcome?”
Fair point, and one he couldn’t answer straightaway.
Eventually, they reached the terrace at the back of the manor.
In the flower beds around that area, gardeners were working to clear out the old detritus from last year’s flowers, and since a few early spring flowers were already making an appearance, he had the decided sense that spring wouldn’t be far off.
A new beginning. A time for renewal. Would that apply to his marriage as well?
“Come with me.” As she tipped her head back, the hood fell away. An expression of wickedness filled her face, and desire danced in her clear, gray eyes. “If my words won’t reassure you, perhaps my actions will have a more immediate effect.”
He frowned. “Where are we going?”
“Onto the terrace.” She slid her hand down his arm, and when she grasped his hand, she tugged him around to the steps and led him up them until they stood on the length of smooth flagstones damp from the beginnings of melting snow.
On the other side of the three pairs of double French-paned doors, the ballroom rested.
A maid currently worked to clean the inside of one of the doors.
“Why?” Yet a shiver went down his spine, for she had that look he remembered from the beginning of their marriage.
“Because this time, I want something from you, and if you know what’s best, you’ll oblige me.” Without another word, Emma tugged him close. She lifted onto her toes, and with a gloved hand to his scarred cheek, she kissed his lips.
There was a moment’s hesitation, but then Cecil slipped his arms around her and returned her embrace.
How could he not? The heated connection between them was alive and well, but that had never been a part of the challenges facing them.
Alone on that terrace, he kissed his wife as if the world was ending soon and he wanted to get in one last kiss.
He chased and bossed her tongue with his own, showed her again and again what he wanted to do to her if she continued to tease him like that.