The soft hollow of her throat jerked, and he gathered her pulse was racing.
“No, of course not.”
“Thunder rumbles, and rain is falling, albeit lightly, the perfect ambience to be sleeping. Yet you are here outside, crying,” he said gruffly.
She cleared her throat delicately. “I did not mean for anyone to see.”
“Do you come out here often…and cry alone?” An idea that felt unfathomable to him. He could not know for certain what sort of man he had been. What had been his cares? His worries?
Daniel frowned. Whatever did crying solve? Yet he did not say this to his wife, sensing he would injure her pride. Still, he wanted to know what bothered her and fix it. “Tell me, why do you cry?”
“It is silly,” she said with a shaky laugh, seeming mortified.
“Silly things do not scare me,” he said drolly. “If you are of a mind to share, Mrs. Stannis, I am here.”
“Sometimes…sometimes I feel the weight of my responsibilities, and I get scared,” she said softly. “I cannot show my sisters that I feel doubt…and fear because they would then become worried. I do not want that for them.”
“I see.” From his observations, his wife had been alone for a while, doing everything in her power to see to her family’s welfare. Whose shoulder did she cry on when the burden became too much? Who did she share her fears and doubts with? “Husband and wife overcome difficulties together.”
She shifted to face him, her eyes wide…and perhaps a bit desperate. “You wish to share my woe?”
How appalled and guilty she sounded. “It is my duty.”
The rain was starting to increase, her dress turning alarmingly transparent.
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. “Until your memory has returned…do not worry much about me, please.”
An impossible request, but Daniel only asked, “What do you fear?”
Her throat worked on a swallow. “I dream of a life that feels like it moves further away the more I try,” she said softly, digging her toes into the earth and pushing the swing. “There are times I feel as if I stumbled through yesterday and today is just as muddled.”
Those words cut through him like a knife, and befuddlingly, Daniel wanted to promise her the world. Using his strength, he pushed the swing, allowing them to soar.
Holding on to the rope, she lifted her face upward. “Perhaps my dreams are as far away as the stars in the night sky. If I do not do everything possible to achieve them, these dreams will disappear like wisps of smoke.”
“Smoke eventually rises and reaches the sky,” he murmured, unable to tear his gaze from her face.
The swing slowed, and she pressed her feet into the earth to stop it. Georgianna lowered her gaze to him, staring as if she did not know what to make of his reply. “Are you saying you believe in me?”
This was asked with such incredulity, a rush of amusement went through him. “Is the idea so astonishing to you, wife?”
She leaned against the rope to study him, her expression solemn. “You…you do not know me… You do not remember me.”
“I have seen enough to know that you have a determined and unflinching spirit.”
She smiled, and it lit up her entire face with an alluring prettiness. Daniel reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. She did not pull away, subtly leaning toward his heat.
By God, he would kiss her, perhaps tug her into his lap and…
The sky chose that moment to break, dumping rain on them. She laughed, jumping from the swing and dashing toward the main house. He watched her run, smiling at how ungraceful she seemed. His wife skidded to a halt and looked over her shoulders.
“I am waiting for you,” she cried, pushing a few tendrils from her forehead.
A knot of warmth unraveled just inside his chest. Another peculiar sensation whispered through Daniel’s heart, but it vanished before it shaped into a sense of tangibility. He rose, jogged toward her, his heart lurching when she slipped her hand in his, tugging toward the house in a mad dash.
Her laughter curled around him, soft and sweet and alluring. His wife slipped, and he caught her about the waist, lifting her into his arms while deftly holding on to his package of books. She gasped, clutching at his shoulders and peering up at him with wide, shocked eyes. Daniel bit back his smile and hurried inside the house. Her nails sank into his shoulders when he did not set her down upon entering. He padded with her along the hallway and up the stairs. Tension visibly threaded through his wife, and he lowered his gaze to the uneven rise and fall of her breasts.
Once at her bedchamber, he lowered Georgianna to her feet. She leaned back against the door and peered up at him. Desire trembled through him with stunning force, and he briefly looked away from her prettiness. Daniel handed her the books, and she took the package, pressing it against her chest like a shield.
