Yet.
The thought came unbidden, and he pushed it away almost as quickly. He didn’t want to think about falling in love with her or her falling for him. Too late, he reminded himself he had wanted to keep the marriage platonic—separate bed chambers. Fat lot of good separate bed chambers did if he came into hers and performed cunnilingus on her.
Now she’d want more, want this again, and then he would want and when his guard was down, she’d be reminded of what he really was. She wouldn’t want him then and it would be too late for him to put his feelings back in the hat box and stow them away. Better to never open that box and keep the hat safely on a shelf.
He stepped out of her arms. “You must be freezing,” he said.
“I’m perfectly warm,” she insisted. “Come lie beside me.”
Already she was asking for things he couldn’t give. “You’d better put on a robe before you catch a chill.” There was one hanging precariously off the corner of the bed, and he stepped to the side and lifted it. “Here.”
He handed it to her, and she stared at it for a long moment before finally taking it. Nicholas stepped away, turning to give her privacy as she pulled the robe on. It had been only a few seconds before he heard quick footsteps outside the door. A quick tapping sounded, and he glanced back at Amelia. She had the robe on but the color in her cheeks and the wildness of her hair made it quite clear what they had just been doing.
“What is it?” she called.
“My lady!” The voice belonged to O’Malley, and it had the high pitch of excitement which was uncharacteristic for the veteran lady’s maid. “They’ve found your pig.”
“Sweetie!” Amelia practically leapt off the bed and, hand holding the robe closed, raced to the door, and yanked it open. “Is she well? Is she hurt?”
The maid took one look at her mistress then darted a gaze to Nicholas behind her, and her cheeks colored. “I’m so sorry to interrupt.”
“O’Malley, you were saying they found Sweetie,” Amelia said, grasping the servant’s arm before she could step away. “Where is she?”
“Oh, that.” The maid seemed to try and not look at Nicholas. “It seems she had never left. She’d found a way to open the door to the tack room and had curled up in a pile of horse blankets there. Bowen said they might not have found her so soon, but she was snoring so loudly one of the grooms went to investigate.”
“I should go and see her,” Amelia said.
“Er—” The maid looked at him again. “Should I help you dress?”
That was his cue to go. “Yes,” he said. “And make sure she wears something warm.” He moved back toward his chamber. “Good day,” he said, closing the door between them.
So much for that declaration of feeling.
Twelve
“Now, isn’t this better than sitting in your chamber all day?” Amelia asked her mother as they sat on a bench near the fountain.
Mrs. Blackstock patted her hand. “It’s lovely, but it’s exhausting. I’m ready to go back inside.”
Amelia bit back a sigh. They had only been in the garden a quarter hour, and it had taken her at least an hour to cajole her mother out of bed and then another half hour to help O’Malley dress her. She had to remind herself that though the progress might be slow, this was progress.
Amelia patted her mother’s hand. “Let’s sit five more minutes, then I promise I will accompany you inside. We can both have a nap.”
Amelia did want a nap, though it was only eleven in the morning. Even though Sweetie had been found and was hale and healthy, Amelia hadn’t slept well the night before. No wonder, considering what had happened between Nicholas and herself yesterday morning. That interlude alone might have kept her awake and thinking, but the fact that she hadn’t seen her husband the rest of the day had not helped.
She’d been so happy after he’d brought her in from the rain. Amelia had thought it might take weeks or months to break down his barriers and convince him they could be more than polite strangers. And then he’d stripped her naked and pleasured her on her bed and—
She dug her fingers into the wood of the bench and stared, unseeing, at the greenery around her.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted him to touch her until he was touching her. And then once his mouth was on her neck, her breasts, her belly, she couldn’t get enough of him. She’d heard some of her friends who were young wives hint at what Nicholas had done to her, and she’d thought if a man ever put his mouth between her legs, she would be mortified.
But she hadn’t been mortified at all. He’d made it seem like the most natural thing in the world and that her reaction was exactly what he’d wanted. It wasn’t until later that she’d thought back to her reaction and second guessed it. In the moment, she had just reacted. She’d liked the way he made her feel, and she embraced the pleasure. But perhaps he wanted a wife who was more modest and less...er, enthusiastic. He knew he hadn’t married a virgin, but perhaps he wanted her to behave as one?
These were the thoughts that kept her tossing and turning until the wee hours of the night. Those thoughts and the desire to sneak into his chamber and beg him to do it all again.
More than five minutes had passed as she and her mother sat in companionable silence on the bench, and Amelia finally took her mother’s arm. “Shall we?” she asked.
They rose and started back toward the house. Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia thought she saw a glint of a golden head, but when she turned, no one was there. Where was Nicholas? In the stables? Should she go to him or let him come to her? Would he come to her?
She had to believe he would. She didn’t think he would have pleasured her as he had if he didn’t feel anything for her, if he didn’t want her. And she suspected he wanted her quite a lot to have taken the time and care that he did because he hadn’t just brought her to climax. He’d teased and tortured her until she was practically begging for it. The end result had far surpassed her quite limited experience. Her body had thrummed for hours afterward. It was still humming, reminding her that she wanted him to do it all, and more, again.
Her mother was far more compliant returning to her chamber than she had been leaving it, and it took very little to coax her back into bed. She fell almost immediately into a light sleep, and Amelia sat and watched her with worry. Though she had improved the last few days and the doctor had been pleased with her recovery, Amelia still didn’t understand why she should be so weak and lethargic. She was still a young woman, just over fifty, and yet she acted as though she were thirty years older. Amelia was beginning to wonder if she would ever again glimpse the person her mother had been before her father’s death.
She yawned and decided she would take the nap she’d promised herself. But as she approached her bed chamber, she saw that Florentia was waiting for her outside. And she was holding a letter.
“There you are,” Florentia said. “I was hoping you might come this way. Look what arrived.”
Amelia took the card reluctantly. It was another acceptance to the house party and this one was from Lieutenant-Colonel Draven and Mrs. Draven. Amelia realized where she had seen Draven’s name most recently. One of the letters the vicar had given her had been addressed to him. She remembered the name because she’d seen it in the local papers before. Colonel Draven was a hero from the war, and he’d been Nicholas’s commanding officer. Being that Lord Nicholas was considered one of their own, all of Hungerford had known Draven’s name and often gathered to discuss the exploits of Draven’s troop and speculate on the role their own Lord Nicholas of Battle’s Peak might be playing.