Chapter One #4
As he left the library, Raven couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d missed something important in their exchange.
But the shipping venture demanded his attention, and he pushed the nagging sensation aside.
Ashley was perfectly capable of entertaining herself for one evening.
As he trotted up the stairs to get changed, guilt sat on his shoulders.
She’d been entertaining herself most nights.
Alone in her bed. She must find it strange that he’d not come for his husbandry rights, but she’d not said a word.
After all, she’d managed three years of social exile before their marriage. Perhaps she didn’t desire his attentions. He did need an heir, so he would eventually have to bed her. That scared him more than not begetting an heir.
Raven stood before Ashley’s bedchamber door, his hand frozen on the brass handle. Three months. Three months they’d been married, and he’d never once crossed this threshold. What kind of husband was he?
Taking a breath, he turned the handle and stepped inside.
This room was for a lady. That was what frightened him.
He had particular tastes when it came to his pleasure and the thought of requiring his wife, a refined, delicate lady, to please him made his stomach crawl.
But so did the idea of simply bedding her in the dark like a performing stallion.
The room was awash in afternoon sunlight, and the first thing that struck him was how utterly feminine the bedchamber had become. When this had been his mother’s bedchamber, it had been decorated in muted greens and golds—handsome but impersonal. Now it had been transformed.
Soft lavender and cream silk draped the windows, and the heavy furniture had been replaced with more delicate pieces.
A vanity table near the window held an array of silver brushes and crystal perfume bottles that caught the light like tiny stars.
Books were stacked on the nightstand beside the bed—novels, by the look of them, and a volume of poetry.
The bed itself made his breath catch. It was draped in the finest linens he’d ever seen, cream-colored with intricate lace edging that must have cost a fortune.
He had money. The pillows were numerous and inviting, arranged just so, and the coverlet was turned down as if she’d only just risen. Purity sprang to mind.
But it was the personal touches that undid him.
A miniature portrait of her family sat on the mantelpiece.
A silk shawl was draped carelessly over a chair, still holding the faint scent of her perfume—something light and floral that he’d begun to associate with her presence.
Slippers peeked out from beneath the bed, small and delicate, a reminder of how petite she was compared to his own large frame.
This was Ashley’s sanctuary, her private world, and he was intruding.
Worse, it was a world meant to be shared.
The bed was more than large enough for two, the room designed for a wife to submit to her wifely duties with her husband.
But he was frightened he’d disgust her with his dominatrix needs.
He could probably simply mount her and get it over with until she got with child.
Perhaps take a mistress for his real needs… Why didn’t he?
The familiar ache of grief rose in his chest, but this time it was accompanied by something else—guilt. Sharp, cutting guilt that made him want to flee back to his study and lose himself in ledgers and investment papers.
Kitty.
He could see her so clearly still—wild red curls, green eyes full of life and laughter, skin that smelled of her scent. Kitty understood his needs and never judged.
She’d loved him without reservation, without thought of titles or fortune. For only a handful of days, she’d been pampered in the house he’d bought for her before she was killed there. He had yet to dispose of the property because he couldn’t bring himself to enter it.
But Ashley wasn’t Kitty. Ashley was everything Kitty had never been—refined, educated, born to this world of silk and privilege. She deserved a husband who could love her as she ought to be loved, not a man who hid his dark desires and pretended he was someone he wasn’t.
He moved closer to the bed, drawn despite himself. The pillow still held a slight depression where her head had rested. Without thinking, he reached out to touch the fine linen, imagining her fair hair spread across it, her face peaceful in sleep.
The thought sent an unexpected jolt of heat through him, followed immediately by self-loathing. What had his father called him? An abomination….
Yet he couldn’t deny that his wife was beautiful.
In the garden that night, when grief had stripped away his defenses, he’d felt the softness of her lips, the warmth of her body against his.
She’d tasted of tears and hope, and for one impossible moment, he’d forgotten everything but the comfort she offered.
He was well aware she was unlikely to be a virgin; she had been taken advantage of by a man. But just how innocent was she?
The sound of footsteps in the corridor sent panic shooting through him. If she found him here, how could he explain? What possible reason could he give for invading her privacy?
He moved quickly toward the door, then stopped. On her nightstand, partially hidden beneath the volume of poetry, he glimpsed the corner of what looked like correspondence. Without thinking, he stepped closer.
It was a letter, and he could see enough to make out the feminine handwriting, the intimate tone. A friend, perhaps, or… his jaw clenched. Another man?
The thought hit him like a physical blow.
Of course, Ashley might seek comfort elsewhere.
He’d given her no reason to remain faithful to a marriage that existed only on paper.
She was young, beautiful, passionate—he’d felt that passion in their single kiss.
Why shouldn’t she find someone who could offer her what he could not?
But he had to know any child she had was his. She could hardly fool him until he bedded her. He refused to face the reason why the idea of her having a lover upset him. He would have to find out if she had a lover and put a stop to it.
The footsteps were closer now. He forced himself to move, slipping from the room via the adjoining door to his room, closing the door softly behind him. But the image of that feminine bedchamber, of the life he was denying his wife, followed him through his dressing room and into his bedchamber.
She deserved so much more than he could give her. The knowledge sat in his chest like a stone, cold and immovable. Ashley deserved a husband who would share that beautiful bed, who would hold her through the night, who would love her with the passion she was clearly capable of inspiring.
Instead, she had him—a man, according to his father, too broken to love, too full of self-loathing and secrets to engage in passion with her. He couldn’t bear to disgust her. She was trapped in this life with him.
Kitty was dead, and nothing would bring her back. But Ashley was vibrantly, beautifully alive, and he was wasting her life along with his own.
The thought should have spurred him to action, should have sent him back to her room to begin the marriage properly. But today was not the right time, if what she told him about ladies’ issues was true.
Instead, he tossed his jacket on his bed, called for his valet and walked to pour himself a brandy as he tried to forget the scent of lavender and the image of cream silk pillows that would never know the weight of his head—at least for now…