. . . the glory of your hair.
He drew a breath and let it out audibly.
“Why are we up so late?” he asked her. “Tomorrow is going to be busy, and you will be exhausted. May I weary you a little longer, though?”
A smile flitted across his face like a shadow and was gone.
She ached within, longing for him. “Yes,” she said.
11
Yes, she had said when he asked if he could weary her a little while longer. Yet when he set his mouth to hers, she did not kiss him back. And when he mounted her on the bed a few minutes later, she lay quiet beneath him, as she always did. The dutiful wife, upholding her end of their bargain. Wanting a child as much as he did, he supposed, if for different reasons. She would love any children they had. He did not doubt that—just as he did not doubt that she would keep her promise and never love him. Had she spoken merely to reassure him, then?
He lay beside her on the bed, as he usually did after sex. But, not as usual, he had slid his arm beneath her shoulders as he moved off her and had brought her with him, so that she was on her side against him, his arm about her. Her nightgown was still bunched about her waist. Her legs, smooth and slim, were against his. Her head was resting on his shoulder, her hair over his arm and down his chest. He could not see its color in the darkness, but he could feel its silkiness and smell the faint fragrance of the soap she used to wash it. He did not think she was sleeping. Her breathing was too quiet.
Was this more than she had bargained for? Was he being unfair to her? Was this more than he had bargained for? But was a man not entitled to the comforts of the marriage bed?
He needed her tonight—ghastly admission. He needed the comfort of her in his arms. He was reminded of the times during the past four years when need had driven him to engage the services of a courtesan. Was this no different from that? But on those occasions it had been just physical need that had driven him—oh, and perhaps a touch of loneliness too. His need tonight was not just for sex and not just for a female companion. It was specifically for his wife. And it was not just sexual, though it was that too. It was not just loneliness either. How could he be lonely, surrounded as he was by his family and friends? It was . . .
It was grief.
Grief for his grandfather, who had been gone for almost a week, but to whom he would say a final goodbye tomorrow amid all the public pomp of a ducal funeral. Grief for his grandmother, who had become even more birdlike in the past days, brave and gracious and lost. Grief for Rowland and Max and Tom, all of them eighteen years old when they died in a shower of blood and dust and guts. And grief for their families, who had resisted their going to war. Grief for himself and all the wrongs it was too late to put right. Grief for the loss of innocence and dangerous idealism.
It would be so easy to let himself slide all the way back to those early days at Penderris, grief turning to depression turning to self-pity turning to self-hatred turning to despair turning to . . . He had thought himself over the worst of this.
“Turn onto your stomach.”
“What?” he said.
Chloe’s voice had brought him back from the edge of some abyss.
“Turn onto your stomach,” she said again, moving away from him. “I’ll rub your back.”
He almost laughed. I’ll rub your back. That was one cure the physician at Penderris had never thought of. But he rolled obediently over onto his front, pushed his arms beneath the pillow, and turned his head toward Chloe. She was kneeling up on the bed beside him, her hair loose and tousled.
His own wakefulness had kept her awake too. He ought not to have held her. Her days this past week had been every bit as busy as his. Tomorrow would be both busy and stressful for her. She was going to have to meet some of the very highest sticklers of the ton, and she must be anticipating it with dread.
She rubbed his back lightly with one hand at first and then scratched it. Her touch felt exquisite. Then she leaned farther over him and worked both hands over his back, pressing and rubbing and kneading until he could feel knots loosening and muscles relaxing all the way down to his toes.
“Where did you learn to do this?” he asked her.
“I did not,” she admitted. “But I can feel where you are tense. I am trying not to press on any of your old wounds. I hope I am not hurting you.”
“I did not know,” he said, “that a pair of magic hands was being brought into our marriage along with the rest of you. I think I may have got the better half of our bargain.”
“Not so,” she said. “You brought a few titles and enormous wealth with the rest of you.”
He heard himself laugh softly with genuine amusement and felt the strangeness of it. The heels of her hands moved hard over his shoulder blades and for a moment he moved with them. Then her touch softened and he relaxed even more deeply. He did not believe he had ever in his life felt so contented.
He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke, it was dawn. He was still lying on his stomach, his arms crossed beneath his pillow, and he was still warm and relaxed and comfortable. He lifted his head. It was almost half past six according to the clock on the mantel.
Chloe was on her side facing him, asleep. She looked very different from usual, without her cap, her hair in a riot all about her head and face and upper body. And now, in the early light of day, he was fully aware of its color. He felt an instant and quite intense desire for her and despised himself for it. It was not the necessary desire of a husband wishing to impregnate his wife. It was the raw desire of a man for a beautiful woman. It was without the respect he had promised her and given for the first week of their marriage.