When she was satisfied that he was spent, she rose to her haunches, pleased to see the relaxed lines of his handsome face, the glazed pleasure in his vivid eyes. “And then?” she could not resist asking.
“And then he knew he had somehow found the only duchess in the world who could ever suit him,” he said softly.
It was not a declaration of love, but it was enough.
pencer had a problem.
A large and unexpected and most definitely unwanted problem.
He spurred his mount into a gallop, feeling the wind and early morning mists in his face, hoping it would rattle something loose inside him and send the problem flying into the atmosphere. But the problem remained lodged in his chest, stubborn, refusing to go away.
The problem was a sensation, a physical ache. But it was also something far more imprecise, the stirrings of something terrifying. Something he did not believe in. Something he would not feel.
He had woken that morning, his wife nuzzled against his chest, her auburn hair unfurled across him in silken curls. And he had felt it then, gazing down at her slumber-softened face, the pink lips he loved to kiss, the ethereal dusting of freckles on her nose, the beauty mark he could see in his sleep. It had struck him, in one swift and breathtaking rush.
Something was shifting, changing inside him. It was a change he did not need. And so he had disengaged from her, taking care not to disturb her sleep, dressed for riding, and left without her. That in itself had felt almost like a betrayal, for he had not ridden without her since that first day. She was an accomplished horsewoman, and her enthusiasm for his Arabians pleased him.
But he had gone anyway, hoping that the separation would do his addled mind some good. It was the sixth day of their honeymoon. Tomorrow would be the last, and they would return to Boswell Manor, his mother, his brother, his endless string of duties, and the onerous weight of the past he had managed to shake during their idyll. Every minute of the last week had been spent wrapped up in each other, and he was loath for their time together to come to an end. When they weren’t riding, they were making love. It came as no surprise that Boadicea was an eager, passionate, and bold lover. She was everything he had never dared to want.
She scared the hell out of him. The feelings she roused within him frightened him witless as well. He pounded across the park, his horse’s flying hooves taking him farther and farther from the sleeping wife he had left behind. But not the problem. The problem remained, burrowed too deep to remove, inescapable and all-consuming. The problem was a part of him now, and he must deal with it somehow. It would not be ignored or excised. It would not be avoided or silenced.
It was there, beating beneath the surface of every waking moment.
It was there, beating like a bloody heart.
Because it was a heart. It washisheart. And it was feeling things it had no right to feel. Everything was changing. He had changed.
He was falling in love with his wife.
There, he had allowed himself to think it, to entertain the hideous word in his mind for the first time in relation to Boadicea.Love.He had not believed it possible, not for him, at least. He had thought the past had inured him to any such superfluous complication.
But the problem, the damnable emotion swelling in his chest, was insistent. It burned, growing each time he kissed her, each time she looked at him with such open affection, each time he sank inside her body and lost himself until they became one.
It was like a wound that must be cauterized, and he had to stem the bleeding to prevent further loss. He leaned low over his horse’s neck, urging her on, needing the speed and the thrill, the wide-open distraction. The mere thought of loving Boadicea made his mouth go dry and his hands tremble as they gripped the reins.
Yes, loving her was a big, bloody problem. Because as it was, the strength of emotion surging within him whenever she walked into a chamber nearly knocked him on his arse. What he felt for her was a different world from the way he had felt for Millicent.
Their marriage had been arranged by their families, an alliance rather than a love match. But he had nevertheless grown to care for his former wife, and even when the madness had taken her and she had betrayed their vows, even as she’d trained the pistol upon him with every intent to commit murder, he had not stopped caring. He knew that the person she was before, the innocent, mild-mannered lady he had wed, would never have done what she did.
No, that came later, after the grief of their only son’s death.
He rode harder, forcing himself to recall the sight of his infant in his arms, pale and still and perfectly formed. Born without taking a single breath. He could still remember every detail of the death mask, though he had buried it alongside Millicent. He made himself feel, once again, the bitter agony of losing his flesh and blood, of the babe that never lived, of the abject despair of watching his wife’s lucidity slip away.
Darkness roared through him, and he embraced it, allowing it to infect him like the disease it was. He stared into the horizon and saw Millicent’s flat, dead eyes. Heard again her voice, tinged with unhinged desperation.
Say it. You killed our baby.
The pistol, rising before him. His own mortality staring him in the face.
You are the devil, Bainbridge. You murdered my son, and now I must murder you.
And then his own voice, feigning a calm he did not feel.
I did it, Millicent. It is my fault, all of this. Please, give me the pistol.
The final fury of her scream rang through his brain, mingling with the pounding of his mount’s hooves into the earth. He held his breath now as he had in that moment, certain his life was over. And then the pistol had gone off, its bullet tearing through her temple with such eerie precision.
Blood, so much of it.
