There was something about her tone that was almost pitying, and Abigail shook her head. “Oh?”
“That was what he did, isn’t it? Erasmus.”
Abigail bent her head, trying not to let all the memories come back. “Yes,” she admitted once she had controlled her breathing. “If he left the room during an argument, then I didn’t see him again for days. And when he came back, he was never sorry. He wanted my apology, but I don’t think he ever gave one to me.”
Celeste shook her head. “I’m so sorry. He and I weren’t close. He never made me care for him or pretended to care for me, but I can imagine how painful and frightening that uncertainty must have been.”
“Everything was the edge of the end,” Abigail whispered. “Why shouldn’t I believe it is the same now?”
Celeste caught her hands. “Because Gilmore is different. He isn’t even close to being the same man.”
“He is ten times the man,” Abigail said immediately. Then she frowned. “Don’t ever tell him I said that—he will be insufferable.”
Celeste laughed softly and then leaned forward. She rested her forehead against Abigail’s and whispered, “Erasmus Montgomery took enough from us. Don’t let him take your future, too.”
Abigail flinched. She might have come up with some pithy remark to diffuse the emotion of those words, but before she could, Owen’s butler, Cookson, stepped into the room. “I’m sorry to disturb, Mrs. Gregory, Your Grace, but His Grace, the Duke of Gilmore, has arrived and is asking to see his wife.”
Abigail jerked to her feet. “He is here?”
“Yes, madam.”
She glanced down at Celeste. Her friend’s expression was only one of support. She found a little strength in that and nodded. “You may bring him,” she whispered.
The butler stepped away to do just that, and Abigail gripped the arm of the settee. Celeste covered her hand. “There now. He has come to find you—that does not sound like he doesn’t care or he intends to disappear from your life.”
“I have no idea what it means,” Abigail said.
She said no more because Cookson returned with Nathan behind him. He motioned her husband into the room, and for a moment it felt like the world stopped. Nathan stared at her. She stared back, searching for anger in his dark eyes.
She saw none. How could that be true, considering they had quarreled? Was he just hiding it in mixed company?
“Gilmore,” Celeste said, rushing to him. “Welcome.”
“Celeste,” he said softly, forcing his gaze to her. “I am sorry to interrupt your meeting. I just needed to see my…my wife.”
Abigail tilted her head. There was something in his tone that she didn’t understand. “Well, I am here,” she said.
He nodded. “And are you ready to come home? My mount could be returned by a servant and we could ride together in your carriage. If you would join me.”
Abigail glanced at Celeste and her friend nodded slightly, an encouragement to go with him. And she could think of no way to refuse, in truth. She worried her hands before her and then nodded.
“Of course.” She reached for Celeste and the two women squeezed hands. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Celeste smiled first at her, then at Gilmore, but did not insert herself as Abigail walked away to him. He didn’t take her hand or offer her his arm, but he did walk beside her as they went from the foyer back to her waiting carriage. He motioned the footman away and opened the door for her himself. She stared at his outstretched hand. She had been so upset when she left that she wasn’t wearing gloves. He had removed his, as well and so when she took that rough, strong hand, it was skin on skin.
She hissed at the sensation and released him as soon as she was in the vehicle. He joined her, sitting across from her. He did not speak until the carriage rolled from the drive and onto the street.
“You’ve been crying,” he said softly.
She bent her head. “I…I would be a fool to deny it. I’m sure I look terrible.”
“You are beautiful always, Abigail. But I’m sorry that you were in pain. That I caused it.”
She glanced up at him. “You—you didn’t. I caused it.”
He arched a brow. “I pushed you when you were not ready to be pushed. And when I became frustrated, I walked away. I can own my part in this.”
She blinked. Here she had been telling Celeste that Erasmus had never apologized to her for their quarrels. That she couldn’t expect as much from Nathan. But he surprised her, as he was constantly surprising her. Even more significant was that he seemed like he meant the apology.
She cleared her throat. “I will also own my side. I have been…distant from you, as you said. I thought that when we married I would settle in and we would just know what to do. But my life has changed a great deal and perhaps I am not managing it as well as I could. I’m not a person who adapts easily, I suppose. A failing.”
“Not a failing,” he said.
She sat in the quiet for a moment, staring at him. “When you…when you walked out of the room, I had this moment of panic that you might not…ever…walk back in again.”
He tilted his head and his expression twisted as if that thought gave him a deep and abiding pain. “I will promise you that even if I walk away to gather myself, there will never be a time that I won’t return. I—” He cut himself off and shook his head. “This was a small argument, Abigail, brought on by exhaustion on both our parts after the overwhelming circumstances of the past few weeks. It wasn’t the end of the world.”
Relief washed over her like a cool rain after a blistering heat, and she nearly melted in it, sagging against the carriage seat.
“Perhaps we can try to…to talk about where we go from here,” she suggested softly. “And I will try to be a little more open minded about what it was you asked me earlier.”
He smiled at her before he shifted to her side of the carriage. “Perhaps later. Later we can talk about all those things. For right now I would just like to…” He slid a finger along her jawline and she shivered at how close he was. How gentle he was.
He bent his head and his mouth found hers. The kiss was just as tender, a repair of a breach, a welcome back, a reminder that he was not the same as Montgomery. That he was a thousand times better, a million times.
And that she very much wanted him in her life, even if she never let him past the barriers that protected her.
He traced her lips with his tongue and she opened with a shuddering sigh, grasping at his biceps to hold herself steady as the kiss grew deeper and more passionate and more possessive.
He would have had her there on the carriage seat. She felt it in the desperation of his touch, but before they could move to that next wicked moment, the vehicle slowed as they turned down their own drive.
He pulled back. “Come upstairs with me?”
She nodded. In that moment, she wanted more than his touch. But she couldn’t have that, so she shoved those desires aside and instead focused on the passion she would allow. It would bind them again, make things safe again. That was all she wanted. That was all she could ever hope to have.