Arms dropping to his side and then swooping behind his back, the man paced a little, like a bowlegged swan, then he handed me a handkerchief. “The duke visits quite often?”
“He’s taken to his town residence.”
“Parliament is not in session.”
After wiping my eyes with Felton’s cloth, I returned to my table and blended a deeper blue, midnight blue, to paint the jaguarete Tramel’s eyes. That seemed appropriate, him stalking and waiting to protect his family. Yet, how I’d drawn it, the beast in the painting was set to eat the soldier.
“You continue to capture his attention.”
“If one has two residences, each as fine as the other, why not stay at either?”
“He never cared for Town.” Felton bit his lip for a moment. “I’m glad that he has interceded and has kept you company. Tramel loves his art.”
“That he does. He has a painter’s soul.”
“You sure he has a soul? I thought it missing.”
Felton bore no easy smile, not even the one he dangled to feign agreement. The bad blood between him and dear Tramel seemed silly, but his reasons must be another of those things I was never meant to know.
Head down, he came to my side, lightly massaging the crook in my neck. “The girls have been no trouble whilst I was away? They refuse to chat with me too. Do they know you want to end things?”
“I’d never tell them something like that, not without you here. Amelia is a dear. So full of curiosity. Agatha, well, she’s warmer. I reminded her once more that I only wanted to be her friend. It’s taken these two years for her to believe my intentions.”
“You’re their stepmother.” He spun me to him, then set his hands to his side. “In time you’ll win them as you’ve won me.”
“That sounds depressing. How can you admit to winning when we are only in accord in bed?”
“No wonder we’re arguing. We’re standing.”
My husband looked at me with that restless glance where I could feel his caress, his fingers undoing my laces.
My desire for him, for what we shared in the quiet of the night, hadn’t left.
I hated my weakness for a man who put everything else above us and our unlikely union . . . like I had.
Guilty.
For the want of Felton, I was here without my sister, without allies, and had to invent one in Tramel.
“Cecilia, what are you thinking?”
“Fatherhood, my lord. For three months while you were gone, I thought I was with child.”
His cheeks bloomed red. There was joy in his wary eyes. “Are you? Is that why you’re upset?”
“Would things change if we had a child of our own?”
“Yes, I’d hand-feed you all the cheese and marmalade and chocolate you wanted. I’d rub those feet. I’d—”
“I’m not with child. And I’m not sure that I want a baby merely to secure my husband’s cheese.”
His palm cupped my elbow. My thin sleeves heated. He was the warmest man, with permanently fevered skin. “Now that I’ve returned and told you the secret that I’ve carried, I can begin set things right. Then if we are blessed with a babe, you ‘ll have no doubts in our marriage.”
His arm wound about my middle and drew me to him. “What if we all go on a holiday to Bath, better than Warwick’s cliffs of Ballard. The coasts are impressive.”
“Another broken promise, my lord. For me? You shouldn’t have.”
Color warmed his cheeks, and he offered a sheepish gaze. “That’s the past. I want to go, and you’ll be so pretty painting in the sun. I’ll watch and admire.”
