He seemed winded, his chest moving like bellows under his partially open waistcoat and shirtsleeves. He tugged at his neckcloth.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked roughly, in a tone he’d never taken with her before.
His eyes were sharp and hard. Something must have enraged him. But what?
“I…was being playful,” she said, searching the bookcase behind his chair. Anything to avoid looking at him. “You usually like it when I make little jokes. Girls and boys in my village would call their fathers that. I didn’t intend to upset you.”
“I like it,” he said. “Of that, have no doubt.”
She turned to go, and he gently caught her arm again.
“Have no doubt.”
Amy looked into her husband’s eyes at last. Always soft and a little sad, there was something new there that made her mouth feel dry.
He stood up from his chair, looming before her. Amy’s eyes landed on the exposed skin just below his neck. She smelled the remnants of sweat from this morning’s haymaking, mixed with soap and the sweet scent of freshly mowed grass. He seemed so warm and steady.
She felt his hand tentatively rest on her spine, prompting her to tilt her head back. His other hand found her waist and gave a small squeeze, reassuring her.
Amy knew how not to bolt under the ardent gaze of a man, so she didn’t pull away or cry like a gently bred lady might. But her face must have betrayed her deep discomfort with the intimacy all the same. And Erasmus, being Erasmus, didn’t let his own heated blood cause him to overlook the distress she’d somehow allowed to show.
“Amy,” he whispered. “You can tell me. Give your troubles to me.”
How did he know she was haunted by things in the past? Was she so transparent? But then, unmarried young women didn’t give birth to babies in Oxfordshire barns unless something had gone truly wrong.
She nodded no. One thousand times no. What would he think of the woman he slept beside if he knew? More devastatingly, would he hold Phineas so tenderly if he had any knowledge of his abominable origins?
“Amy, Amy,” he begged, bringing his fingertips to her cheeks and letting them feather to her ear. She’d seen him gentle Phin — and even animals on the home farm — this way, and she resolved not to crumble at the onslaught of sweetness. She wasn’t Venetia the Lamb or George the Crow!
Her skirts got trapped between his legs and the desk, and they were pushed back into the recess. It should have been too much, far too much pressure on her unquiet soul, but it felt like an embrace.
“Amy, my girl,” he said, his voice hoarse. “In this, let me take care of you.”
Her eyes connected with his just a moment before she burst into tears and sobbed against his chest, his waistcoat gathered in one hand to keep him close. His hand tentatively stroked her hair, careful not to disarrange the snood that kept her rolled hair tidy. He didn’t pull back or press her further, simply letting her take what she needed and stoically watching over her.
At last, she spoke. His shirt was wet where she’d sobbed against him, and he deserved an explanation for her hysterics. She didn’t want him to think she was unreasonable; she knew she wasn’t.
“Like so many people, I am an orphan,” she started. “My mother died some three years ago. My father five years before her.”
Erasmus hummed, giving her time to tell her story as she wished, and signaling that he heard her.
“I had no other living relatives. At least, not any known to me. I never trained in a trade. Thus, I was seventeen years old, and owned little more than the clothes on my back. I was admitted to the parish workhouse and told I must earn my keep as a laundress.”
Erasmus’s hand drifted over her hair, seeking to offer comfort while not interrupting her tale.
“No man asked about marrying me,” she said with a snort.
“Fools,” replied Erasmus, drawing her down with him to the chair behind his desk. Somehow, without awkwardness, he’d seated her on his lap, her head still tucked under his chin. He let her get used to their position.
“Yet you came to be with child,” he said, prompting her to continue.
“There was a workhouse master,” Amy said at last, her throat closing. “Each day he’d make his rounds and see that we were laundering properly. Soon, he came more frequently and seemed to watch me in particular.”
The words tumbled forth now.
“I was newly eighteen when it started. I suppose I could have said no, but I had nowhere to go. The workhouse is already the end of the line. I was desperate, you understand? I didn’t want—”
She was sobbing when Erasmus pressed her closer and rocked her gently, using his firm body to convey the depth of his understanding and sympathy.
