I love you, Morgan.
The words his wife had sweetly and innocently whispered to him by the stream after he had made love to her would simply not bloody well leave him. They were a litany, repeating in his mind.
A devastating and unwanted litany, running without end. Making him wonder whether or not the path he had chosen was wise. Lodging a stone of guilt within him that had begun as a pebble and turned into a veritable boulder as the days had passed.
Yes, damnation and holy Hell. His wife had fallen in love with him. Ordinarily, such a discovery would no doubt please a husband. Perhaps even be cause for celebration. For Morgan, however, it only filled him with dread, misgiving, and doubt.
Because he wanted her love. He wanted her love with a selfish savagery that left him ashamed of himself, because he knew he was not worthy of that love. He knew he had done nothing to deserve it. He also knew his ultimate goal of dueling with Rayne would destroy the way Leonie felt for him. Especially when the duel ended, as it must, in her half-brother’s death.
He did not want to destroy the way she felt for him. He was a heartless scoundrel because he liked the sound of her voice, lilting and lovely, husky and feminine as she read to him. He liked her fingers in his hair, the manner in which she gave herself and her caring to him so freely, so willingly. He liked the way she kissed him as if he were beloved to her, the way she held him in her arms after they made love. He even liked the little mongrel she had bought him. At the thought, he gave Caesar’s silky head a scratch.
He liked the life they had begun, tentatively, to build together. For a man who had spent so much of his recent life in darkness, Leonie was a source of great, blinding brightness. She made him long for that which he ought not. She made him never want this false idyll he had begun with her to end.
For a moment, the most absurd notion occurred to him. They need never return to London. He had no wish to take his seat in Parliament. Instead, they could remain here, tucked away in the country. He could become a country gentleman, and she would be at his side, and he would never have to watch as the naked adoration in her gaze withered and turned to hatred. He could allow the Lord to mete out justice to the Earl of Rayne one day instead of himself…
He knew he could not. He could not abandon his plans for retribution. His unexpected feelings for his wife had rendered him maudlin, but they could not erase the determination that had seen him through the long days of his imprisonment and torture. He owed it to himself to see Rayne punished for his misdeeds.
“Morgan?” Leonie’s dulcet voice cut through the bitterness of his musings. “You are growing tense. Is something amiss?”
Damnation.This too rocked him, the manner in which she knew him almost better than he knew himself. Everything is amiss, he wanted to say. The urge to unburden himself to her rose within him, but he brutally forced it down.
“I was thinking of George,” he said instead, and it was not a lie, for he had been reminded of the times he and his brother had hidden here in the library.
“Your brother.” She closed the book and set it aside, using both of her hands to gently massage his scalp. “You must miss him very much.”
“I do.” This too was honesty, torn from him. “Sometimes I feel lost without him. This life—becoming the Marquess of Searle—was never meant to be mine. He died when I was away, while I was at war. Part of me still expected to find him waiting for me when I finally returned home.”
“But he was not.”
“No one was,” he said, bitterness lacing his voice, curdling his gut. “I am the only family I have left. But I do miss him. Returning to Westmore Manor has been more difficult than I supposed it would be, for my memories of him are everywhere.”
“Even here?” she asked carefully.
“Even here.” He swallowed against a sudden, unwanted sting of tears. “We hid here from our father when he was in a rage. Our mother adored reading, and he loathed books. He could not abide by this library, which made it an excellent place of escape, especially since there were so many books to be read here…though most of them boring old Latin tomes.”
“It is fortunate indeed I brought my own books to entertain you, though I fear The Silent Duke was rather disturbing you this evening instead of distracting you.”
He sighed. What could he say without revealing himself to her? “I am beholden to you, wife.”
And in more ways than she knew.
“You have me now, Morgan,” she told him suddenly, continuing her tender ministrations, soothing him with her touch, her nearness, her compassion. Soothing him in the way only Leonie could. “You need not feel as if you are the only family you have left. I am your wife, and it is my dearest wish for us to have children of our own.”
Children with Leonie.
The notion sent a fresh burst of warmth unfurling within him. He swallowed against a rush of emotion, some of it foreign, all of it wild. “You want to have children?”
“I have always wished to be a mother,” she admitted.
He turned his head in her lap so he could see her, having been too long deprived of her countenance. She was smiling, her eyes glistening, and she looked…happy. There was no other word to describe it. The way she looked made him feel so small. So wrong.
Morgan caught one of her hands in his and brought it to his lips for a reverent kiss. “You will make a wonderful mother, Leonie.”
And he had no doubt she would. She was the most giving woman he had ever known. Selfless and courageous, bursting with love. How no one had snatched her up before him was a mystery. A mystery for which he was grateful anew.
“It was a silly hope for a spinster wallflower,” she said then. “I am grateful to you for giving me that chance now.”
He could not bear to dwell upon her misplaced gratitude, for it made him ill.
