Chapter 26
The first drop of rain struck the top of Vincent’s head just as he descended from the carriage and started for the front steps.
Pausing, he looked up at the grey clouds crawling in from the horizon. Thunder grumbled somewhere beyond the parkland, and he judged they had an afternoon of rain ahead of them. Likely the night too.
When do I ask her about Windham?
Another drop hit his cheek.
Do I ask her about Windham?
Devil take it, he needed to stop circling the matter like a debtor about a gaming hell and simply ask.
After handing his coat off to Weston, he asked, “Where is Her Grace this morning?”
“Perhaps you can try the blue drawing room, Your Grace,” Weston replied. “Welcome home, sir. Shall I have anything sent up?”
“Not at the moment,” Vincent nodded and headed for the stairs.
He checked the morning room first, as Emma had developed a fondness for it while spying on him taking his morning swims over the last week—but found it empty.
Her desk was neatly arranged, with opened letters, unopened cards, clean pens on the blotter, and a letter sanded and stuck under a paperweight to dry.
A swift look over it told him it was a letter to her grandmother, and while he hated the words Brookstone had sunk under his skin, he riffled through the remaining stacks to find none were from the marquess.
He left the room and checked the blue drawing room next, then her chambers, then his own.
Nothing.
Where is she?
A whipcrack of thunder jolted through the house a hair before the rain burst down, battering the windows hard enough to make the glass tremble.
Fear cut through him then.
Where was Emma in this storm?
Knowing he could search the house for an hour and miss her entirely, Vincent headed down to the kitchens next, hoping to find Mrs. Roan.
He took the stairs two at a time and stepped into the small room to find the housekeeper stacking plates. “Mrs. Roan, a moment, please.”
“Your Grace,” She rose to her feet, curtsying. “How may I help?”
“Have you seen the duchess?” he asked.
“I believe she took a picnic basket earlier this morning and went out to the grounds to have a day outside…” the housekeeper trailed off, her now concerned gaze turning to the windows. “Oh, dear.”
Vincent’s stomach sank.
Emma was out there. Somewhere. In this maelstrom.
“Damnation!” he bit out, already marching for the coat closet, and hefting out a thick coat and hat, he headed for the veranda. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”
“Since your absence, she has taken to the east garden in the mornings—” Mrs. Roan said to his back as he opened the door.
The rain came down in frothy white sheets, swallowing the east garden in its tempest and blinding the path beneath a black-bellied sky. Vincent darted out into it anyway.
Almost instantly, he was drenched to the bone. Thunder cracked deep enough to tremble his innards, and the thought of Emma alone in this weather, soaked through her thin dress and quaking in silk slippers, sent ungodly terror raking through him.
A fork of lightning split the grounds and gave him the path for one blessed second.
There.
Just beyond the edge of a hedge, a woven basket, held in the lap of a bowed red head by two small, bloodless hands. And tucked inside, a sodden grey kitten she was shielding with her whole body.
He sprinted.
By the time he reached her, Emma was crouched into a ball over the basket. Without preamble, he hauled her against his chest. She cried out, and the sound went through him like a knife. Her teeth were chattering, her dress plastered to her body, her hair dripping down her face in wet ropes.
With a swift dip, he had her in a bridal hold and hurried them both back to the house, and the moment he stepped inside, relief washed over him. Mrs. Roan and two maids were waiting for them with towels and dry robes.
Setting her on her feet, he demanded, “What in God’s name were you thinking?”
She lowered her gaze to stare at her hands, and guilt burned through his chest at once. Blast. She was shivering hard enough to break apart, and he was yelling.
To her credit, she lifted her eyes back to his. “I… I n-needed a place to think. The-the rain came down so suddenly, and I c-could hear the mewling from the k-kitten after it escaped the stables, s-so I went to rescue it a-nd…”
“Your Grace,” Mrs. Roan put in calmly, drawing his attention away from Emma. “It is best that you both dry off and get into the baths we have drawn up.”
Vincent swallowed over his pride, irritation… and the last ugly tendrils of fear. If he had not found her, would anyone else have done so before she took ill? Hell, she still might.
But I did find her. She is my wife. But what if she wasn’t and she was trapped in the rain alone…
Groaning, he shrugged out of his sodden coat and took a towel from one of the maids, “Attend to her first.”
“W-what about y-you?” Emma demanded through chattering teeth. “You’re d-drenched and c-c-cold too.”
“I’ll deal with that later.”
“Are you sure, Your Grace?” Lilian asked.
“Y-yes,” Emma murmured, clutching the dressing gown tighter around her freezing body. “I n-need a few minutes to myself.”
Lilian still looked worried, but she curtsied regardless. “If you need me, please don’t hesitate to call.”
The moment the door shut, Emma pried the wet skirts clinging to her legs and shucked the ruined dress off in a heavy heap.
Vincent was angry with her; that much was plain.
But beneath the sharpness of his voice, beneath that terrible look he had given her in the foyer, she hoped there had been worry. Worry, she could manage. Anger made her feel small, foolish, and much too close to tears.
Surely he understood that I was trapped?
Donning her robe, she heard a hard thump from the door that led into his chamber. After drawing in a bracing breath, she crossed over and opened it.
Vincent stood turned away from her, clad only in his trousers. His soaked shirt lay discarded on the floor while he rifled through a trunk, every line of his back drawn tight.
“Vincent,” she called.
He stilled, but did not look over his shoulder. “Yes.”
“Come and join me,” she asked. “It makes no sense for you to risk illness as well.”
She half-expected him to flat-out refuse. But then his shoulders slumped as if the steel in his spine melted away, and her heart gave a painful little turn. Rising, he gave her a guarded look. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” A shudder caught her before she could stifle it, a draught slipping in from the window across the room. “I would not have you fall ill because of me.”
He rubbed his face with both hands and sighed, “It’s not… I’m sorry, it’s not because of you, Emma. You were only trying to rescue that grey furball. I should’ve just let you keep it inside. It’s in the kitchens now, Cook has adopted it already.”
The apprehension seeped out of her so quickly she wilted against the doorframe for a second. Then, turning to the waiting tub, she left the door wide open.
She undid her robe and sank into the bath, the water nearly to the brim and blessedly warm. A breath punched from her lungs as heat closed around her chilled skin, chasing the ache from her fingers and toes until they tingled almost painfully.
This strange distance between them felt worse than the cold had.
She wanted his affection. Pathetic as that sounded, she wanted it at a time like this.
A hand at her cheek, a murmured endearment, some small sign that he wasn’t retreating behind ‘duty’ again.
Had she known it would come to this, she would have gathered every scrap of tenderness from him over the past week and hidden it away like James hiding his coins beneath the pillow.
Vincent padded into the room.
Emma looked up just as he shoved his trousers down his hips, apparently caring little for modesty or the fact that the damp fabric nearly fought him for possession of his legs.
Then he was bare.
All taut golden skin, sinewy splendor, and masculine beauty that made the warm bath feel suddenly scalding.
She had never heard of a husband and wife bathing together. The thought alone should have scorched her ears clean off. Yet, as scandalous as their arrangement was, Emma sensed no wickedness in it at first, only the bruised need for comfort after fear had made a wreck of them both.
“Shift down,” he ordered.
The tub was large enough for her to obey, though her knees bumped the curved end before the water sloshed over the rim.
She felt him step in behind her, the bath rising around them, heat and water and Vincent’s towering body closing in all at once. His legs bracketed hers, hard thighs brushing her softer hips, and when he lowered himself, the whole bath gave a reckless little surge with her.
His arm came around her waist.
Not indecently. Not yet.
But his forearm rested beneath her breasts, and the heel of his hand settled against the soft swell of her stomach, claiming. Beneath the water, his body was everywhere: hard chest, firm abdomen, the unmistakable ridge of him resting behind her.
Emma went still.
“How was Parliament?” she whispered.
“Horrid,” he muttered near her ear. “But in the end, we scraped out a small victory.”
She bit her lip as his proximity and the sensation of his wet skin against hers caused a rush of heat to her core. Her nipples tightened above his arm, exposed to the cooler air, and she prayed he wouldn’t notice.
“That’s good,” she managed. “Not every victory must be massive.”
“I have little faith it will stand,” he went on, though his voice had changed. “The rich industrialists must get richer, naturally, and the poor must be taxed until they have nothing left but bones and patriotic gratitude. But that is a battle for another day.”
“Mm,” she answered, having lost the thread of politics somewhere between his thighs bracketing hers and his thumb now resting dangerously close to the underside of her breast.
As comforted as Emma felt, she belatedly realized that Vincent was not touching her as she expected from him. He was holding her, but not holding her.
Perhaps he is still trying to regulate his emotions. He must be tired as well.
“Do you get ill easily?” he asked.
He could be worried about me getting ill.
“Not unless I’m exposed to the elements for an overlong time,” Emma explained with a slight twist of her neck to look at him; his gaze was shrouded. “I don’t think I will get ill from this.”
“I’ll make sure to have draughts ready if you do,” he said.
The distance in his tone made her heart hurt. This was not only the storm. She knew it then, felt it in the way he held himself away from her, though his body was close enough to crush hers. And he never hesitated to before.
“Vincent…” She dithered, her fingers curling beneath the water. “Are you upset about something… aside from the storm?”
Instead of replying, Vincent slung one of his legs over the side of the tub and easily slid out. Startled, Emma made to follow, but he told her to stay put. Grabbing a towel off a shelf, he dried himself briskly and left the room.
Emma’s shoulders sank as another strain of worry took her, and she stepped out as well soon after, not sure what to make of this sudden turn. She was dried and dressed in her robe when she thought to head to her rooms—but spun on her feet to Vincent’s rooms instead.
She found him as he was dragging on his trousers. Folding her arms, she asked, “Is there something you need to tell me?”
He straightened, fastened the falls of his trousers, then pulled on a loose shirt. Only when the linen was settled over his shoulders did he turn to her.
“Have you been writing to Marquess Windham?”
Emma rocked back on her heels. Eyes wide and heart pounding, she asked, “H-how did you know?”
His jaw tightened at once. “Does it matter how I know? I know it now. It is true, is it not?”
“It is, but there is nothing scandalous about our correspondence,” she said quickly. “He wrote to me out of nowhere, and I-I didn’t know how to respond at first as I remembered you pressing me on how you wanted for me to marry after this, and—”
His face was a slab of stone, “And you did not think to wait a few weeks? Windham has been bragging about your love letters to hither and yon—anyone in London willing to listen now has your names in their mouth. You have made me a laughingstock, Emma.”
His words had the effect of what Emma imagined a pistol shot might feel like.
A laughingstock.
He had said it so cleanly, as though her foolishness had been a stain on his greatcoat instead of a mistake made by a woman trying to understand the half-life of a marriage he himself kept insisting was temporary.
She staggered back. “I—I… that wasn’t my intention. I admit the timing was careless, and perhaps I should have been more prudent—”
“You should have been,” Vincent said while crossing the room to pull on a pair of boots. “And now we have another scandal sitting on our doorstep.”
Emma swallowed past the thickness gathering in her throat. “A-are you going somewhere?”
“Back to London,” he replied flatly. “I need some space to think.”
Her stomach dropped to her feet, “This house is enormous, Vincent. Surely you have places to think.”
“I also promised Tomstrong a boxing match,” he added while tugging a bag from a shelf again and shoving it with clothes. “Once we return to London, your family can get you an annulment.”
“Vincent!” Her voice quivered, but she forced herself to hold his gaze. “Surely this cannot escalate to that already.”
“We could argue the consummation never took place.” He shoved another shirt into the bag. “You would be a free woman. You are young and have a whole life ahead of you. It was what we had agreed to anyway.”
“Vincent, please, see sense!” She took his wrist and stopped him. “We can mend this. What if we meet with Windham and—”
“And what?” he cut in, finally turning. “Give you my blessing?”
“No, but I will explain my error, and whatever nonsense he is spilling about these ‘love letters’ might stop,” Emma tried. “I have not spent much time with him, but I have the impression he can be reasoned with. Don’t just—don’t just run away.”
“I am not running away,” he said firmly. “I simply need distance to think, and I am damned sure I cannot do that if I am around you for too long. Besides, it is not healthy for spouses to live in each other’s pockets all the while.”
Wrapping her arms around her middle, Emma was silent for a long time, only watching as he stuffed clothes into the bag. Her suspicions were growing teeth, though surely—surely—they couldn’t be right.
“You cannot be jealous…” she said slowly. “Are you?”