Chapter 10 #2
“Making a table,” he said, throwing his coat across a tree branch.
Milo couldn’t hide his surprise. “Since when do you know carpentry?”
“Since forever. What do you think I do when I travel around? Sit in ale houses and drink myself insensible all day and every night?”
“Well, yes,” Milo admitted. That was what he’d done fairly often—until he’d reconsidered marriage and noticed Amelia’s potential.
“I promised my wife a home, and I failed her while she lived. Now, I intend to put my time and knowledge to practical use. Use the skills I possess to build the things that I need for my sons.”
“What you need to do is come back to the manor and explain this decision of yours to Father. He is worried.”
“Father should worry about you more.” Samuel was suddenly right next to him.
“You are the one who married without love,” he hissed.
“But I know you better than anyone, brother. You swore never to make another rash decision based on emotions but it seems you have.” He glanced toward Amelia.
“But it’s her I feel most sorry for. She doesn’t know what you did, does she? ”
Milo froze. There were some things in his past that Amelia didn’t need to hear about. Especially the drunken confessions of an event that Samuel had been privy to.
He glared at his brother to silence him. “You hold your tongue.”
Samuel scowled.
Milo glanced toward Amelia, but she was leaning down to hear Adam.
“Yes, dear,” Amelia said, patting his back. “It is almost time to go back to the manor to get you something to eat.”
Milo exhaled in relief that his wife had been preoccupied just then.
She glanced his way and smiled. “Chatham, the children wish to return to the manor.”
“Of course,” he said. “You go ahead and I’ll catch up in a moment.”
He wanted a few words in private with his brother first.
Amelia and Adam turned away. “Come along, my dears.”
Milo let out a relieved breath as Lucy rushed after them a moment later, calling for Adam to wait for her.
Milo held his tongue until they were all far enough away not to hear him speak. “Come back or don’t. But if you’re going to stir up trouble for me, stay the hell out here in the woods for all I care.”
“For God’s sake, Milo. You can’t go on like this.”
“Go on like what?”
“Pretending you were always a loving husband,” Samuel warned.
Milo stiffened. “I did my best, just as you did.”
“My conscience is clear, unlike yours,” Samuel said. “You hated her by the end. You talked to me about divorce. Then your wife conveniently fell to her death, and no one else saw how it happened but you,” Samuel noted, one brow raised. “What am I supposed to think?”
“It was an accident,” Milo swore, but he broke out into a sweat just the same.
Samuel pressed his lips together a moment then shook his head. “She’s prettier than I remembered. You always did prefer blondes.”
“Her looks are not why I married her.”
“Are you sure? You chose your first wife based on looks alone. She was lively and popular and pretty, had the dowry you wanted, and she made your head spin with the impossible dream.”
Amelia hadn’t done that for him. But it was true—for his first wife, he had made a great many rash decisions where she was concerned. He had not done so with Amelia. “I was in love then,” Milo said firmly.
“But not this time? For some, attraction alone isn’t enough to make a marriage work. Be careful, she could look for affection elsewhere. If I hadn’t seen you two together, I would have laughed at the idea of you marrying again.”
“What difference does it make, seeing us together?”
“I saw that possessive, suspicious gleam in your eye when I said we spent a night together. You hang on her every word.”
Milo scoffed. “Her words are new to my ears, that’s all. We have only just begun to get to know each other. Yesterday, we argued. Brother, this will never be like my first marriage.”
Samuel frowned. “Are you sure you don’t want more?”
“No, I don’t and nor does she.”
“A pity. She suits you better than your first wife ever did.”
Samuel turned away, disappearing into the woods and leaving Milo quaking in his boots, full of anger and dread. It had been an accident, his first wife’s death, but there’d been more than one moment when Milo had wished he could escape the misery of their marriage by any means.
“I never wanted her dead,” he told himself…but the moments following her fall, he’d felt a surge of relief that there was an end to the torture of a failed love and ongoing betrayal.
He shook off the bad memory and hurried after Amelia and his children. He found them waiting a short distance away. The sight of Amelia steadied him, cut through the chill and made the future seem not so bleak.
“My apologies for keeping you waiting.”
“I was happy to wait.” Amelia looked around one last time. “This place could be so pretty if the gardens were brought to life. It would be a great deal of work—but the reward would be limitless. I can see why Samuel chose to stay here and not take up residence in an ale house.”
He nodded. Concern about Samuel had lessened considerably after their conversation. Staying at Stapleton had lost much of its appeal for him, too, thanks to Samuel’s reminder of his failure.
Amelia heaved a heavy sigh. “I can also understand why he’d like nothing better than to have a place like this for his own. But after your brother spends more time alone, I’m sure he will crave to share his life with someone he can care about again.”
“I hope so, too. Devon will feel like home soon enough for you. But I want to discuss something my brother hinted at.”
She glanced at Adam pointedly. “Adam, could you run ahead? I think I see a gardener picking flowers. Would you like to give some to the duchess today?”
Adam nodded quickly and ran off to pester the gardener to cut flowers. Milo was relieved that Lucy followed him immediately.
Amelia glanced up at him. “You don’t have to discuss your first marriage anymore.”
“I should explain—”
“No one in your family expected you to marry a second time,” she said. “I understand, and I’m not offended by their lack of enthusiasm for my company. Your brother lashes out because his heart is still healing. I cannot hold a grudge against him.”
“Well, I will. I have no regrets about you.”
“Nor I, you.” She moved closer, eyes suddenly skimming down his body. “None at all.”
His senses came alert in a way he found disconcerting at first. He knew that look, but had not expected to see it from his new wife. “Lady Chatham?”
She wet her lips. “There is something I wish to ask you that might be considered scandalous.”
“You can ask me anything,” he promised.
She put her hand on his arm, then touched his chest. Her fingers trembled. “Are you as well built as your brother under all this finery?”
He covered her hand with his own. Amelia had not yet seen him naked. He’d not wanted to shock her. “I suppose so.”
“I thought you must be. You seem of similar proportions.”
Milo shivered as her eyes skimmed down his body again, her gaze speculative but shy. He was flattered by her interest. “Would you like to see me like that?”
“Yes. I’ve seen my share of young men out in the fields, covered in sweat. But it’s you that interests me. I married you, and I want to know more about you.”
He drew her close, pleased to feel she trembled at the discussion of further intimacy, and when she dragged her fingers down his chest, he felt the stirring of desire. “What would you think if you saw me like that now?” he whispered. “Naked and covered in sweat.”
She looked up at him slowly. “I think I would like it, but I won’t know for sure until it happens.”
The warmth in her gaze drowned out the chill of his brother’s unpleasant reminders about the past. He surrendered his caution and let his hand touch her hip—and then he stepped closer and moved it lower still, and around to cup her derriere.
Amelia was no longer a virgin. Was this the second chance he desperately needed with his wife? Only a fool would refuse her second seduction, if that were so.
Desire flooded him when she clenched his shirt front and her breath sped up. This was his life now, living with a woman he could enjoy without expecting foolish emotional games to be played. He respected Amelia, and desired her, too. And he wanted her underneath him again.
He gulped at how much he wanted that right now, in fact. But the children were not far away.
He lowered his lips toward her ear and whispered, “Lady Chatham, could you bear intimacy with your husband tonight?”
Her breath caught. “I could very easily. I want to bear your child very much.”
He wet his lips. “I wasn’t sure if you would welcome me so soon after my recent behavior.”
“It is difficult to know what to do or say to you. I want things that a woman in love might expect from her husband, even though…”
He understood exactly what she meant. “Shall we make a pact—that if we have needs unfulfilled, then we can have each other and discuss desire openly. Unless it is an inconvenient time of the month, of course.”
She exhaled quickly. “I would like that. So, you’ll come to our bed tonight and…?”
“Yes.” His first wife hadn’t liked him to stay in her bed for long and had demanded her own chamber. But this was Amelia, and she was different in the best ways, and they shared a bedchamber. A place where they could undress and then…
He tugged at his cravat.
He did not want to wait until tonight to see her shatter in his arms again. “I have a better idea. How about we leave our children in the care of the servants for what remains of the day and retire to our room now?”
She drew back, eyes wide with shock. “Now?”
Milo nodded slowly as he brought his hand back around and gripped her hip tighter. Amelia shuddered. She was warm, and her breath came so fast. The rush of desire was evident in the heightening color of her cheeks and the parting of her lips.
He smiled slowly, glad to know he wasn’t the only one affected when they were near each other. The other difficulties they faced didn’t seem important anymore. “We can have each other any time of the day or night,” he assured her. “It is expected that newlyweds disappear at odd times.”
“Papa, what are you doing to her?” Lucy called.
Milo removed his hand from Amelia’s body slowly, chastened because he had been caught seducing his own wife by his children.
Their children.
Yet he did not want to distance himself from Amelia because of their presence or Lucy’s disapproval. He was doing nothing wrong other than forgetting they had an impressionable audience.
He took hold of Amelia’s hand and wrapped it around his arm. But it was all he could do not to run away with her to somewhere private there and then, where they could be alone—and be intimate once more.