He was telling her, once more, all he desired from her was her body beneath his, pliant and ready, his to take. All he wanted from her was physicality. Not her heart, not her mind, not her caring. He did not want her to be his comfort or his source of strength.
Disappointment stung her, but she was not surprised. What truly shocked her was his willingness to seek her out after she had eschewed breakfast, and not just that but his quiet, pensive demeanor as he had approached her, the lightness of his darkness shining through until he had ruthlessly squelched it once more.
“I am yours,” she told him, refusing to be the first to break the connection of their gazes. “It is you who sent me away last night.”
His gaze became shuttered, his lips firming into a forbidding line. “I will be brutally honest with you, Leonie. I am not myself, or at least, I am not the man I was before I purchased my commission and left for the Continent. I will never again be the lighthearted, careless gentleman of my youth, quick to love and slow to hate. It is not in me to be the husband you deserve.”
She disagreed, for there were glimpses of the husband she wanted. But thus far, their connection had been physical. She wanted more from him than mindless pleasure. She longed to be his source of solace and comfort, his joy and hope. She longed for him to be the sort of husband who would allow her to love him.
Because she did.
Love him, that was.
The realization hit her with a blinding, terrifying bolt of clarity tinged with undeniable finality. She loved the Marquess of Searle, the austere, cold, damaged man she had married. The veritable stranger who made her body come to life and kissed her with such tenderness, the man who called her Leonie and massaged her strained muscles when she was in pain.
And because she loved him, she had to believe itwasin him to be the husband she deserved.
“I understand better than most how something horrific can change a person,” she said quietly. She did not often speak of her accident—for years, she had been terrorized by nightmares of her own, in which she fell all over again from the banister—but time had given her both distance and perspective. “I did not know you before you left for war, and I scarcely know you now. But I would like the opportunity to know you better, my lord, for this is the onlyyouI have.”
He stared at her, his countenance inscrutable, for an indeterminate span of time. It could have been seconds or minutes, and yet it seemed somehow like forever, rife with a meaning she could not even yet comprehend.
“We never had a honeymoon,” he said at last, startling her with the abrupt statement, seemingly unrelated to what she had just said. “I wish to rectify that. I want to take you to my country seat, Westmore Manor. Surrey is not far from town, and we can remain there a sennight, if not longer. What say you, Leonie?”
When he called her Leonie, there was only one answer she could give him.
Doing her best to tamp down the hopeful smile longing to break free, she inclined her head. “I say yes.”
Chapter Eleven
Morgan had tohave taken leave of his senses.
Madness was the only explanation for why he had seized upon the foolish notion to bring his wife on a honeymoon, why he had swept her away from London and returned to his ancestral home for the first time in years. Sheer lunacy was the only explanation for his presence at a bloody picnic on the bank of the gently meandering stream that curved its way through Westmore Manor’s immense park.
He was seated on a spread blanket, opposite Leonie, clusters of Forget-me-nots sprouting from between lush grasses surrounding them, the sweet cadence of the gently gurgling stream the only sound in the stillness of the exquisitely sunny day. She was smiling at him as if he had personally requested today’s sunshine and gorgeous white clouds.
It was a smile that could make a man happily attempt to conquer nations for her.
It was a smile that madehimcatch his breath and forget why he was such a fool for entertaining the weakness he possessed for her, this accursed vulnerability within him which made him want to be the source of her every happiness rather than her every disappointment.By God, how had this rare beauty with the heart of an angel remained unwed long enough for him to snap her up in his vindictive, lecherous claws?
Whatever the reason, he was grateful for it.
“Thank you,” she told him softly then, echoing his sentiments of appreciation and tearing him from his warring ruminations.
He neither wanted nor deserved her gratitude. One day soon, she would discover the truth behind his reasons for wedding her, and when that day came, he doubted he would ever see another willing smile from her beautiful lips. The notion should not send a pang of extreme sadness cutting through him, and yet it somehow did. By the time they returned to London, Rayne would have most certainly returned, and from that moment onward, Morgan’s plan would unfold.
He cleared his throat. “I have done nothing which requires gratitude, my lady.”
Her smile deepened, her eyes a shade to rival the sky above them. She wore a fetching bonnet he had been fantasizing about plucking off ever since he had first handed her into the carriage that brought them to this secluded, serene area of the Westmore Manor park. But it was the softness, the unguarded intimacy and admiration in her expression that stole his breath.
“Nevertheless,” she said, “I appreciate your efforts to make amends with me.”
Was that what this was? Had he decided to bring her here on a honeymoon to do penance for the manner in which he had treated her the evening he had returned from The Duke’s Bastard? He did not want to believe himself capable of such consideration. He wanted to believe he had brought her here so he would be removed from the temptations of town, so he could ravish her as often as possible and preferably get her with child before Rayne returned.
That had been his course of action, all along. Ruin the Earl of Rayne in every possible way before ending him.
What had changed?
Him.He had changed, and he answered his internally posed question with ease. Something inside him was shifting, altering, much as it had upon his initial days as a soldier.
