Laughter.
For a moment, she could do nothing but stare. Drink in the sight of him so unbridled and unrestrained, his lips curving with mirth. She did not even mind he was laughing at her, or that he had married her and then announced his intention to live separately.
At last, his amusement subsided. They were still parked outside Haddon House, the door to the carriage hanging open, the sunshine of the day illuminating the shadows of the interior.
“You called me a muttonhead,” he said at length.
“You deserved it.” She paused. “And you laughed.”
He rubbed his jaw, his expression turning rueful. “I do not recall the last time I laughed. Derbyshire, I think.”
He did not need to elaborate. Derbyshire meant that he was speaking of their time together at Coddington Hall. That sun-drenched summer when they had fallen in love until Longleigh had intervened, tearing them apart.
She would not allow Adrian to maintain further distance between them now. They had their future to consider, their son.
“I am not getting out of the carriage,” she told him. “Not until you agree to live here with me.”
“That I will not do.”
“Then I suppose we both shall be forced to remain here in this carriage forever.”
“Duchess.”
“Tilly,” she snapped. “We are husband and wife now. I insist you cease referring to me as Duchess.”
She had never cared for the title, and it seemed more of an insult now than it ever had. If she was going to be the one to break down the walls keeping them apart, she would do it. Brick by brick, day by day, hour by hour.
Something shifted in his expression. Not a softening, perhaps. But a change.
He was staring at her, immobile, unspeaking.
She began to fear they would spend the remainder of the day thus, locked in mutual stubborn insistence.
“I do not have any of my possessions here.”
That he was the first to break the silence seemed promising.
“We will take the carriage to Northwich’s home and retrieve them,” she suggested. “Or send a servant to oversee the packing. Which do you prefer?”
“I prefer to remain at the home of my friend, whom I trust.”
Again the specter of trust emerged. She had done nothing to deserve his doubt. But how to make him see that? How to convince him when she had no proof?
“What if I want you to stay here with me?” she asked softly instead of attempting to persuade him. “It will be far more convenient for you to see Robby whenever you wish.”
And me.
She refrained from adding the latter, however.
“This ishishome.”
Ah, she began to understand his objection far more.
“It is our home,” she countered. “Mine and Robby’s and yours. Do not forget it is the birthright you were denied.”
“It is Robby’s birthright far more than mine.”
She wanted—with a ferocity that surprised her—to give him what he should have been afforded from the moment he had been born into the world. What had happened to him was a travesty. It had been through no fault of his own that he had been born illegitimate. Through no fault of his own that he had been born to a man so cruel and incapable of caring for the life he had brought into the world.
