CONFUSED AND STUNNED, Rose only managed to stare at him. The James before her was an entirely different man than the one she left five days ago. She didn’t understand him. Didn’t understand this change or what brought it about. There were two different Jameses in front of her—one relieved she lived but wasn’t angry and paranoid, and the one she left in London, the one who locked her in their home.
They’d screamed at each other before she left. It hadn’t changed his mind about locking her in the house or having her movements followed.
Now, mere days later—four days without her—he’d completely changed.
Clearly he hadn’t slept in those days. Rose thought that lack of sleep might only escalate his desperation. However, the man standing before her wasn’t angry or desperate. Rather, James was tired and relieved.
James nodded as if in agreement of her thoughts then turned to leave.
“Wait!” she called.
Clearly he did not understand her thoughts and took her silence to mean rejection.
“I don’t want you to go,” she admitted in a soft voice.
His entire face transformed with the brilliance of his smile, and it tugged sharply at Rose’s heart. James took a step forward and she held up a hand, stopping him immediately.
“But,” she cautioned. She licked her lips and swallowed, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t want to return to London now. Not yet.” She took a deep breath and spoke from her heart. “Let’s see what life is like outside the townhouse.”
What our life is like, she meant. What it was like just the two of them and no homage to Scotland or to the past or to anything of his. Just this cottage, with none of their personal items and only the two of them.
Rose swallowed again and nodded. James’s smile didn’t waver and, if possible, widened. His eyes lightened, and Rose swore she saw a weight being lifted from his shoulders.
“I’m only home when I’m with you,” he told her, his voice soft and loving. It wrapped around her heart and squeezed.
She closed the distance between them. It was easy to walk into his arms and pull him close, easier to tangle her fingers in his hair and kiss him.
Rose didn’t care they were in the front parlor with the curtains wide open to any who walked by. All she cared about was James in her arms. Even if he’d been traveling for days. His unshaved cheeks scratched against her sensitive skin, and she shivered at the contact.
“I missed you,” she mumbled against his mouth. But she pulled back. “Even as I was angry with you.”
“I missed you, too,” he said. But he paused and swallowed the rest of his sentence. “Rose,” James whispered, his voice so sincere against hers. “Rose…”
She had a feeling he wanted to say more, wanted to tell her what he’d done to find her and the frantic worry he felt. He didn’t have to; she saw it in his eyes, in the way he held himself. More importantly, in the way he agreed to give her space now he knew she was safe.
The knock on the front door startled Rose.
“What?” James growled. He looked over his shoulder as if he could see whoever stood at her front door. “I’ll chase them off,” James said in that carefree Hamilton way he affected.
“No,” she said and stepped back, her heart wild in her chest. “I shouldn’t have kissed you so easily.”
Rose smoothed her hands down the front of her gown, though nothing untoward happened save that single kiss. She breathed deeply and looked at him with a critical eye rather than the eye of a woman who wanted her husband.
“Make yourself presentable,” she told him, gesturing to his mussed hair. “These are potential servants for the cottage.”
He looked at her, stunned, but she ignored him. Standing before the door, Rose took a moment to compose herself before opening it. Drat. She never did make it to town to buy ink.
* * * *
ROSE NODDED TO the newly hired housemaid. It’d been an easy choice to make, and both she and the cook had been told to report tomorrow. Rose had absolutely no desire to deal with new servants on top of a newly arrived husband.
James made himself scarce during the interviews, hopefully making himself presentable. Now, as she searched the cottage for him, Rose wondered what the rest of the day might bring.
Nerves danced in her belly as she climbed the stairs. Honestly she was a little surprised he hadn’t sat in on the interviews. He spent the previous days searching for her; now that he found her, Rose expected him to at least stay in the same room as her. But he hadn’t, and she hoped that was a sign he meant what he said.
“Have we a cook now?” he asked from where he leaned against the bedroom doorjamb.
“Yes,” Rose agreed with a nod.
Dressed only in his trousers and shirt, he looked so casual and so approachable. Not the wild man she left in London. Not even the desperate man who entered the cottage mere hours ago.
He looked calm. Composed. He looked like the James she’d fallen in love with.
James pushed off the doorway and approached her, his eyes dark and intent. His look sent a flutter of anticipation through her belly, but she stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest.
Rose licked her lips; she wanted to taste him, wanted to kiss him until she lost herself. But not yet.
“Let’s walk in the gardens,” she said, her voice low and husky.
Rose cleared her throat and stepped back. Tearing her gaze from his, she turned and went back down the stairs and into the gardens. He closely followed, his footsteps echoing behind her.
The sun had moved high overhead and cast shadows along the stone path. The light danced through the trees and onto the various flowers, swaying with the leaves in the wind. Rose eyed the bench she’d enjoyed earlier, but did not sit on it.
She wanted to stand for this conversation. Wanted to look at James and have him realize she wasn’t the sort of woman to blindly agree to her husband’s wishes.
“When Strathmore married,” James began slowly, “he turned into a housebound bore. And when Edmund found the woman he married, he risked everything to be with her.”
He shook his head and grimaced ruefully. “Apparently I’ve lost all sense and reason.”
Rose nodded. She didn’t smile or try to alleviate his words in any way. “You have.” She stopped and gathered her thoughts. “From what I know of you now, your sense and reason vanished the day you saw me.”
She swallowed and sighed. “I wish it had not. The man who lived with so much fear, who lived haunted by something that is not real, not true, isn’t the same man I’ve come to know in our private moments. Those moments when we don’t think of others but just in the here and now.”
James nodded. He looked like he wanted to speak then stopped and sighed. He ran a hand over his face and nodded again. “I admit, I was lost to a belief. And may still be. Right now, Rose,” he said and stopped. When he spoke again, it was softer, less tightly wound. “I admit, right now I don’t feel the same threat as I did days ago. I don’t want to believe you’re in harm’s way—”
Rose brought a hand to his arm and squeezed, effectively stopping him. “Can you let it go?” she asked. “Can you put it aside now?”
He slowly nodded. And though his eyes begged her forgiveness, her understanding, he didn’t rush to speak, to agree with her, because he knew that was what she wanted to hear.
Instead he said slowly and as honestly as she ever heard him speak, “I can try.”
Shifting her hand from his arm to his hand, she held on tightly. Rose only nodded, too choked with emotion and love, understanding, and hope to form words.
A comfortable silence settled over them and Rose refused to move, refused to break it. She’d stand there all afternoon, despite skipping luncheon, if it meant keeping this warm, easy silence between them.
“What made you choose Kingsnorth?” he finally asked. But his voice was low as if he, too, feared breaking the silence. “If I were to abscond into the night, I’d likely choose Brighton or Bath.”
She resisted a knowing laugh—of course he would. Either of those towns would be so very James.
“I have a friend who lives here,” she said and fully relaxed. “She and her husband are cobblers in town. I already promised to purchase slippers from them.” Rose grinned. “Again.”
Rose tilted her head and gestured to the path. The garden wasn’t large, but she wanted to move, to walk in it with her husband.
“Have you been to Kingsnorth before?”
James shook his head. “I’ve not had the pleasure.”
“Ah, yes.” She laughed. “You usually abscond to the duke’s wine cellar.”
James only smiled at that as they slowly continued along the path. “We have weeks here,” he said, and she felt his eyes on her.
Rose looked up and met his gaze and felt that spark of love and arousal, and that giddy feeling she’d felt in the weeks before he locked her in the house.
“Perhaps we can have a bit of a honeymoon here,” he finished.
He stopped and looked around. She didn’t know what he saw; it certainly wasn’t to his standards, but it was lovely and very well maintained, and far from London and memories. Far from the cloistered townhouse they’d shared the first months of their marriage.
Maybe this was the place to truly know each other, to put the past where it firmly belonged.
“I’d like that,” Rose agreed softly. “Time to properly get to know my new husband.”