Chapter 6
Lillian and Alaric were seated in the drawing room before a roaring fire.
The room was festooned with decorations, the scent of pine was in the air, and she found herself, for the first time, looking forward to Christmas.
She would miss her parents, her friends, and the familiar.
But perhaps she would forge new traditions with her husband.
Husband.
Already, the word held a different meaning now that Alaric was in residence. No longer poisonous. No longer strange. But a word that, perhaps, could be filled with promise, much like the festive season itself.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and while she and Alaric had spent much time together, they still had yet to fully consummate their marriage.
They had kissed. Shared stories of their childhoods.
Spoken about what they liked to read, what they preferred to eat, about their hopes and dreams for their joined future.
Alaric wanted children, including an heir to continue the ducal line.
Lillian longed to be a mother as well, though she hadn’t been certain how that would take shape, given the early weeks of their union.
But there was a renewed sense of promise in the air, giving her hope.
She had discovered that Alaric was an excellent singer, while she exceled at playing the piano.
A charming sense of humor resided beneath his cool exterior.
She had made a game of earning his smiles and laughs.
His touch was gentle. His thoughts were complex.
He was clever and witty, and she never wanted this little idyll at Wentworth Abbey to end, even though she knew it inevitably would.
Just as inevitable as her feelings for him were. Because she wasn’t just falling in love with her husband. She had already done so. This newfound vulnerability frightened her, but there was no way for her to change it now.
They had spent many of their days making up for lost time, riding about the estate, Alaric showing her all the most-beloved corners of Wentworth Abbey, regaling her with tales of his contented youth.
She felt very much as if he had given her a rare glimpse into the man he truly was, the one he had kept locked away from her behind a mask of polite indifference.
This evening, she had a sketchbook in hand and was working on a charcoal rendition of him as he sat on a chair, a book in hand.
But it was no use. She frowned down at her work, thinking she couldn’t manage to get the angle of his jaw just right, nor the handsome protrusion of his nose—such perfect symmetry and she could do his masculine beauty no justice.
“What has you looking so grim on this fine evening?” he asked.
Lillian glanced back in his direction to find his warm, brown stare upon her, searching. She had believed him quite engrossed in the volume he had chosen to read.
“I am despairing at my attempts to sketch you, if you must know,” she admitted.
“You are sketching me?” He looked startled.
Her cheeks went warm. “I had intended to sketch the fire, but my eyes were drawn in a different direction. I decided to try to capture you, but I fear I lack the skill.”
“Will you show me?”
She sighed, glancing back down at her efforts, which failed to capture the heat in his gaze, the riveting masculine beauty of his face. “Promise me you won’t laugh.”
“I would never laugh at your sketches,” he said seriously. “I’m affronted you believe I would. Am I that dreadful?”
He had proven himself rather the opposite of dreadful, but Lillian still wasn’t certain what to do with this new Wentworth. With Alaric.
“Of course not.” Steeling herself, Lillian turned the sketchbook so that it faced him.
“Ah,” he said slowly. “I see the problem.”
“You do?”
“Yes, you haven’t made my nose nearly long enough.”
Lillian laughed. “But your nose isn’t long.”
“And you’ve made me look far too brooding and mysterious.”
“But you are brooding and mysterious,” she countered.
Indeed, so much of him remained a mystery that she dearly longed to unravel. More now than ever.
“What is so mysterious about me?” he asked, sounding curious.
“Everything.”
He cocked his head at her. “In what way? I fear that to me, I am quite uninteresting and predictable.”
She struggled to explain. “I feel as if I still don’t know who you truly are. We have known each other for months, and yet I don’t know much of you, aside from what you shared with me today.”
“What else would you like to know?”
“What are you reading?” she asked, settling upon the easiest question.
“A volume of poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”
“Not a book about sheep farming, then?”
He chuckled. “Should I be reading about sheep farming?”
“There were rather a lot of books on the subject in the library.”
“I carry this particular volume along with me. You’ll not find a great deal of poetry here at Wentworth Abbey, at least not on the shelves in the library.”
“Why not?”
“Poetry was my mother’s favorite. I had her books packed away when I began selling off the most valuable books in the libraries at my estates. I didn’t want to risk any of them accidentally being sold or taken away.”
Her heart gave a pang.
“Was the book you’re reading one of hers?”
He nodded. “It seemed an excellent choice in present circumstances.”
“Why?” she dared to ask, needing to know whether she was ascribing too much to his words.
“Because many of these poems are about emotions. They convey what it feels like to love.”
“And how does it feel, love?”
“Love is an ache deep in one’s soul, particularly when it is unreturned.”
He spoke with the certitude of someone with experience.
“Have you loved before?” she found herself blurting.
She didn’t want to know, and yet, she did.
Was Alaric in love with someone else? Perhaps he’d had a mistress and that had been the reason for his defection.
He could have gone to Scotland to see her.
Was his love for another woman the reason he’d yet to consummate their marriage?
A flurry of questions rained down on her mind, her fingers gripping her sketchbook tightly.
“I have.”
Lillian tried to strike down the disappointment that filled her like flood waters threatening to overwhelm. He’d never made a secret of his reasons for marrying her. What had she expected from him?
She swallowed down emotion. “Do you still love her?”
“Yes, I do.” His gaze slipped to her mouth. “I think more now than ever before.”
Why was he staring at her lips when he spoke of another?
Lillian’s spine stiffened. “You needn’t fear that I will be jealous. I have no illusions about our marriage and the reasons for it.”
“But I think that perhaps you do, and I suspect it is also time for me to explain something that I should have seven months ago.”
“Seven months ago?” Her brow furrowed. “When we became engaged?”
He rose from his chair and crossed the drawing room, seating himself at her side on the settee where she was perched. His scent washed over her, familiar and tempting. She watched as he gently took the sketchbook from her and laid it aside. He reached for her hands next, holding them in his.
“Do you remember when you asked me to kiss you after we signed the betrothal contract?” he asked.
And once more, heat rushed to her cheeks. It had been dreadfully forward of her then and the reminder now felt almost like a reproach. She was raw, her emotions bubbled up too closely to the surface, like a pot of boiling water on a stove.
“It was far too daring of me, and I shouldn’t have done so.”
“Yes, you should have. I was happy that you did.” He gave her fingers a soft squeeze.
“I’m still happy that you did so. But afterward, when you ran from me, I realized that some books had fallen to the floor.
A letter had slipped from where it must have been tucked between the pages of one of them, and I picked it up. ”
Her heart sank, foreboding sweeping over her. The letter from Monsieur Dupont. She had hastily slipped it inside a book and forgotten its existence until now. The expression on her husband’s face suggested that it was indeed the letter he had discovered.
“Did you read it?” she asked, dread making her stomach tense.
“It wasn’t my intention to do so. But when I retrieved it from where it had fallen, a few words caught my eye. I realized it was a love letter of sorts, from a gentleman to you.”
What a fool she had been.
“Alaric,” she said urgently, “I can explain the letter.”
“You needn’t. What happened before we were married is the past.”
“But I must,” Lillian insisted, taking a deep breath before launching into her explanation.
“The letter was from my painting instructor, Monsieur Dupont. When I first learned from my mother that I was expected to marry you, I was rebellious and angry. I foolishly wrote him to see if he had feelings for me, but I quickly learned that he didn’t and that any interest he paid me was because I was Lillian Penrose and not because he truly cared.
” She paused, searching his gaze for censure and finding none. “It was a mistake, all of it.”
“Do you still love him?”
She shook her head. “I never loved him. I know that now. But when I wrote to him, I was desperate. You and I were not yet engaged. I had only just met you for the first time and I was angry with my parents for arranging our courting and meeting without my permission. I was being rebellious, and then I…” Her words trailed off as realization hit her.
“You said you found the letter after we kissed. Is that why you became so distant afterward, why you went to Scotland alone when we arrived in London? It wasn’t just because you needed to meet with the architect my father had chosen, was it? ”
“Yes, that is why I went alone,” he admitted softly. “I thought you needed more time to adjust to the notion of marrying me whilst you had feelings for someone else. You were so miserable during the voyage, and then you seemed no happier after we disembarked in London.”