Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Laura savaged her thumb, appalled by her lapse of control around Nash. For heaven’s sake, she’d kissed him, started undressing him, and would have gladly been made love to by him in that blasted orange grove.
She could still feel the rush of arousal coursing through her veins after an hour away from him, too. Thank God he had not followed her, expecting more. The need for fulfillment and the frustration of denying herself satisfaction was the frosting on top of a terrible day indeed.
Now Nash knew that she felt attracted toward him still. Knew that if he crooked his finger, she might go running into his arms and his bed once more. This is not how she should behave. Hadn’t she told him she was done with husbands and making babies?
The discussion of his proposal had been her undoing, and the devastated look on Nash’s face when she explained why she’d chosen to marry him. That hadn’t been the only reason she’d said yes, though. She’d grown to care about him before his proposal, and thought she’d gotten to know him from their secret meetings. He was sweet and always respectful toward her. He’d talked to her and never once attempted to take liberties. He hadn’t even kissed her until after she’d agreed to marry him. Their first kiss had been in front of their shocked parents.
And then they were married and nothing was as she’d expected. They no longer needed to meet in the orchard, and he became reserved, especially around others.
The only time he seemed comfortable with her was alone in their bedchamber, where they had learned to be intimate together. They were good at making babies…and practicing making them as well.
She glanced across at Thomas and Liam and sighed, her heart filling with love and pride.
The boys took after their parents. Thomas too serious and Liam bound for mischief, like she had been. Isabelle she wasn’t sure about but she loved to laugh.
Now and then, when Nash looked at their daughter, he seemed so sad. She didn’t think his sadness was over Isabelle’s existence, though, but for all the things he’d missed in her life so far. He’d been present for the birth of their sons, but not Isabelle’s. He’d been considerate and concerned about Laura’s welfare during and immediately after her first pregnancies.
But as soon as she proved herself fit and healthy, the demands of the duke had taken him away from her repeatedly. That hadn’t entirely been his fault. She understood better now the pressure he’d been under. The torment his father had inflicted still had a hold over him from the grave.
She raised her face to the heavens and cursed under her breath. Her decisions had been easily made at a distance from Nash. She had imagined her attraction to him would go away. Yet, she still wanted him to make love to her today, even with the risk of bearing him a fourth child. But that went against all logic and sensibility. If she gave in to passion, she would never be free of her husband or their marriage. She would be bound forever to this place.
Nash might never change, and she no longer expected he would try.
Not for her.
Not for them.
Not even for himself. He was satisfied with the way he was.
“Mama?”
She turned to look at her oldest child. “Yes, Thomas.”
“What are you thinking about?”
A lost cause. “I thought that it’s high time we got out of here.”
“Where can we go?”
Far away. Somewhere they could play without rules and objections. “I don’t know. Where would you like to go?”
“To find Papa,” Thomas announced. “I want to show him my new drawing.”
Laura’s smile became difficult to maintain. She couldn’t see Nash yet, she was not fully in control of herself. She hadn’t the faintest idea what to say to him to ensure he wouldn’t take advantage of her lapse.
“Your papa is here,” Nash said, strolling in with his arms full of a tea tray. He set it down on the floor and the children squealed with delight, rushing over to see what he’d brought for them.
“I had the cook prepare a surprise for everyone,” he murmured, going to their daughter and lifting her up high. Isabelle laughed, and he brought her down to cuddle, and then looked into her eyes with utter adoration shining in his own. “Let’s see what your favorite might be, little one.”
Nash sat down on the floor before the tray, long legs crossed under him as if he did it every day. He looked so odd and large beside the boys, but he plopped Isabelle onto his lap, acting as if nothing had happened between them earlier. “Mama, will you join us?”
She was too stunned by Nash and his nonchalant behavior to answer immediately, of course. But she soon found her tongue. “Of course I will.”
“Good.” He made a space at his side for her to sit and poured her a cup of tea. On the tray was an assortment of little cakes and five oranges.
He spoke only with their sons while he tried to tempt Isabelle to eat cake more daintily. The boys laughed at the mess their sister made, and Nash kept smiling, too, but kept trying to instill some manners in the girl. He soon gave up put Isabelle down on the floor beside him, letting her crawl away to find a toy that had caught her eye.
He watched their daughter with a captivated expression on his face and absently reached for an orange. “She’ll grow up to be as quick as your mother, and Mama can run fast when the occasion calls for it.”
He did not look her way as he peeled the oranges, but she knew he was talking about her earlier flight from the orchard.
She was not amused by his teasing. She saw running away as yet another sign of her weakness about him. If she didn’t care for him, she should have walked away, not run. Yet when it came to Nash, her emotions were always too close to the surface.
But she did care about him, and what he thought of her, too. It annoyed that, despite being unwilling to live with him, she was desperate to prove his power over her desires had waned in the years they’d been apart. The push and pull of her attraction and conflicting desire to leave him was giving her quite the headache.
She rubbed her brow.
Nash held out the orange to her, peeled and ready for her consumption. “I recall you used to like these best of all.”
“I still do, but I’m not hungry.”
A tiny smile appeared on his lips, but Isabelle returned, and he devoted himself to offering her a segment of orange. Their daughter spat it out, and Nash laughed, setting that piece aside. He pursed his lips, perusing the remaining choices on the plates. “How about we try my favorite, then? See what you think of shortbread instead.”
Isabelle gobbled that up, humming, and reached for more. Nash chuckled. “A girl after my heart. Always after the sweetest treat on offer.”
His eyes flickered toward Laura, and she felt an answering blush warm her cheeks. Thankfully, Nash looked away again and devoted himself to eating and talking with their three children like the doting parent she’d always wanted him to be.
His hand suddenly settled on her leg, just above her knee, and then just as swiftly disappeared. Her breath caught at the contact between them.
She wanted to move away but couldn’t seem to uncurl her legs from beneath her.
Eventually, the tea ended and the children went back to their own interests. Nash turned Isabelle to face him. “You know, despite your atrocious lack of manners, you are exactly like your mother. Adorable.”
“Wait till she screams at you or cries all night long,” she warned.
“Something I look forward to, given all I’ve missed already.” He handed Isabelle to her and rose to his feet in one smooth motion. When he reached down for the girl again, their hands brushed, but he didn’t offer to help Laura up.
He took Isabelle away to find her a new toy to play with, leaving Laura sitting on the floor alone, watching them all.
Isabelle wriggled to be let down from Nash’s arms, and he obliged but stood leaning against a wall, watching her with a fascinated expression on his face. He seemed quite taken by their daughter. He also seemed to want to get to know her in a way he had not with their sons at first, and that pleased Laura. She’d not expected him to display any affection for the girl so quickly. She had expected him to ignore her for quite some time.
When his expression turned brooding, Laura felt guilt. She had robbed Nash of an important part of the girl’s life. If things had been different he would have been there for the birth and the first to hold their new child. She could never make that up to him. After a moment of consideration, she got to her feet, excused herself and slipped from the room.
In her chambers, she found the journal she’d kept of her pregnancy, through the third month of Isabelle’s life. She hadn’t known why she’d written everything down. She had not thought to keep a journal when she’d carried her sons. But she’d been lonely and living with near strangers, in a strange place, so she’d taken to writing her thoughts about the small events in her days.
She’d started off angry with herself and Nash, and full of regret too, without knowing why or who she was writing for. But she thought she knew now who might want to read her journal. She would give it to Nash now. It might help him deal with his shock and answer some of his questions about becoming a father again.
She held it close and glanced at the door to the hall.
No, she couldn’t put it in his hands in front of the children, because she’d have to explain. It might be cowardly, but she would leave it on his bed for him to find later tonight, after he’d retired.
She steeled herself and approached the connecting doorway to his room. She’d spent no significant time in his chambers. She’d not been invited, and she’d never asked why. Nash had preferred to come to her room, and he’d always been out of bed at first light, much earlier than she had liked to rise.
She put her hand on the latch. It swung open silently.
Nash’s room was of similar proportions to hers, but much more masculine. Dark wood paneling, rich dark blue curtained bed. Neatness everywhere.
She walked toward the bed and placed her journal on a pillow. Overwhelmed by the scent of his cologne on the air, she trembled and turned on her heel to leave, only to stop when she saw her own face. It wasn’t a reflection, but a small drawing hanging on the wall between their two chambers.
Laura didn’t remember posing for any drawings during her marriage. Had never known Nash to have commissioned one, either. As far as she knew, there had never been an image of her created by anyone in his family, or even her own.
But it was a remarkable likeness, catching her in an unguarded moment seated by a window. The setting was indistinct, and she appeared quite young, so it must have been done some time ago. But why hadn’t Nash told her about the drawing? Shown her? Why hang it there?
Well, she supposed she didn’t know about it because there was so much they’d not talked about still.
She couldn’t take her eyes from it as she left the room though. Nash had kept a memento of her, hung it opposite his bed, where he had seen it every day…and unlike his wedding band, had still not removed it?
Laura rubbed her brow, feeling her headache worsen. She could not understand why Nash did the things the way he did them.
Coming home and demanding a divorce was not going at all as she’d expected. She was seeing a side of Nash she’d never seen before. He wasn’t as reserved as he’d once been with the children. Their talks with the duke had scratched open old wounds and revealed he was vulnerable to sentiment, but he had kept secrets about his life that a wife should have known about long ago.
She left his room, still pondering why Nash would keep a drawing of her in his room when he claimed to want to divorce her. She glanced down at her bare finger and grimaced at the absence of the only gift he’d ever given her that had mattered to her.
She curled her fingers into a fist, determined not to regret removing her wedding ring. Though there had been advantages to wearing one on her finger all these years. People assumed her husband was never far away, or traveling, and she had allowed them to think so for her protection.
But she’d never really been protected from the genuine danger—the late Duke of Ravenswood’s. He was gone though, and she was no longer in fear for her life.
But she would be cut adrift from the family soon though and had to depend on herself for protection in the future. Yet where once that might have gladdened her heart, now it only made it beat faster with a sense of dread.
Nash would remarry, of course.
He did nothing without reason, and the most likely one was to take a second wife with another fortune to share with his family. He was far too young to spend his remaining years as chastely as she planned to spend hers.
A knock sounded on her door, and she hurried into her room, quietly shutting the door to Nash’s chamber before she answered her own.
A servant was waiting. “The duke wishes for your company again, my lady.”
She nodded, resigned to yet another turning of the hourglass, as she fought this time to ignore her nervousness about what the future held in store.