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We’ve started anew, and I’m finally brave enough (on paper) to admit how much I adore you. Why is it easier to express myself through ink than my voice? You know well enough how direct I am in all other matters.
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NIGHTS WERE LONG AND days short as weeks passed in relative peace. With a truce declared and the intimacy at the fair lingering in their minds, Owen and Lily spent the evenings relearning each other. Slow and sensual. With the other’s care uppermost in their mind.
A vast difference from their original coupling at his mother’s ball, and a hindrance to their current situation of not having reached a complete consummation of their marriage yet. Thus, he enjoyed morning breakfasts with his wife where she regaled him with her latest dreams—vivid and outlandish, courtesy of the baby, she insisted—and evening suppers filled with his explanation of the latest work being done on the estate.
However, the snail-like pace began to wear on him.
Owen had no idea how to approach his wife about his need. After all, if the situation didn’t bother her, it shouldn’t bother him. Like a good husband, he should keep letting her lead in the bedroom. They could continue in the current vein, content and amiable—if not fully sated.
Rubbing tired eyes, Owen cursed the ledger in front of him for the fifth time as he reread the numbers. Focusing was becoming more difficult by the day, it seemed, because distractions abounded around every corner.
Lily’s favorite scent lingering in the hall.
A pair of languorous silk gloves forgotten on a table.
Or the yellow piece of ribbon he kept hidden in his desk, stolen from his wife’s vanity after their day at the fair.
She surrounded him without any effort at all, yet a distance remained.
“Excuse me, sir. Mr. Michael Stilt, the land agent, is here to see you.”
“Of course. Let him in.” Owen stood to wave a stout man inside the study, directing him to the leather chair across from him. “How may I help you, Mr. Stilt?”
Removing his cap and nodding his head in respect, the man took a seat and began, “My lord, I’m afraid we have trouble on the southern parcel, near the Filcher’s farm. A retaining wall has crumbled, allowing the river to flood the fields. Proper drainage is paramount, though their harvest in the fall will most likely suffer.”
“I see.” A nerve pinched in his jaw as his teeth ground together. Accidents like this happened all the time through no fault of anyone, but Owen felt like he was somehow responsible for the failing. Especially with all the incidents lately. First, the Henley beam falling on Garrett, which, thankfully, he survived. Now, a flood at the Filcher’s.
Perhaps he should’ve checked the strength of the wall at regular intervals instead of trusting its steadfastness. Perhaps he should’ve foreseen a flood and invested in whatever equipment would be necessary now to fix the problem.
Perhaps.
Maybe.
Should have.
Stilt continued speaking, explaining next steps, requesting permission for certain purchases while Owen’s mind retreated behind a gauze of self-recrimination. His father’s warning leaping to the forefront.
Do better for the family. Improve the family legacy.
Which means not allowing distractions of your wife to interfere with estate work.
Surreptitiously, he opened the drawer to his right and drew the yellow ribbon into his lap, winding the silky fabric between his fingers. The repetitive act calmed him, grounded him in a way nothing else could have at that moment.
When Stilt stared as if waiting for a response, Owen briskly nodded and stood to shake the man’s hand. “Yes, I agree. Please see that everything is done as hastily as possible. Good day.”
After the man’s departure, Owen followed at a sedate pace, needing fresh air to blow away the cobwebs in his brain, but a familiar tied scroll caught his attention in the entryway. Why hadn’t Marvin notified him of a second message?
He’d almost forgotten the first one in the intervening weeks. Stuffing Lily’s ribbon in his coat pocket, he ripped the missive open and scanned the scribbled writing.
Your tainted marriage brings your father shame.
Who the bloody hell had the gall to send him such tripe? When he discovered the author, he promised they’d rue the day they decided to play this game. Though what its end could be, he had no clue.
Clearly, they had some relationship with his father. Or at least knew their family history well enough to guess a joining of the former earl’s son and their neighboring daughter wouldn’t have been ideal.
This is exactly what I needed to top off the afternoon.
More ammunition added to his fear of never living up to his father’s standards. Of letting him down with his poor decision-making.
“My lord, do you need something?” A passing maid paused in her chore to question him, curiosity coloring her cheeks. He must look like a right dolt standing in the hallway, still as a statue, fist clenched around the ugly parchment.
“Do you know where the countess is?”
After learning of his wife’s whereabouts, his booted feet unerringly headed upstairs—a craving for the comfort of her presence spurring him forward.
***
THE QUIET CLICK OF the door signaled someone’s arrival, and Lily prayed the intruder wouldn’t disturb Zinnia, who lay curled up by her side on the bed. She kept butting her head against Lily’s arm, eyes closed, still napping, yet searching to be closer.
“I don’t think she can get any nearer.” Owen whispered, coming into view. Sunlight gilded his auburn hair with a golden halo as he shrugged out of his jacket, ruffling the velvety layers.
“It’s adorable and sweet how close she wants to get.”
“When you love someone, you can never get close enough.” Lily and Owen’s eyes met over the napping feline—a wordless understanding passing between them—and a pleasant heat seeped into her bones, like the last rays of summer soaking the earth, rooting deep underground.
“Shouldn’t you be resting, too?” Boots removed and shirt loosened from its mooring at his waist, he looked tousled and oh-so-touchable—to the point where Lily’s fingers twitched in their previously languid position.
“I’ve tried, but I can’t resist watching her. Whiskers twitching and nose burrowing into me.”
Owen rounded the end of the bed before the mattress dipped, and his body mirrored hers across from Zinnia, chest to chest, with a ball of fur in between.
Breathless at his unexpected nearness, she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Helping you rest, too. Maybe it’ll be easier to sleep if someone’s cuddling and petting you, as well.” His arm covered hers, fingers tracing over the bare skin, gently scratching Zinnia’s ear, before returning to mark a soothing path from Lily’s neck to shoulder, all the way down to her fingertips.
“You’re going to disturb her with all this movement,” she warned, despite yearning for more of his touch.
“She doesn’t look perturbed in the least. You, on the other hand...” A sensual twinkle entered Owen’s gaze as he continued to caress her. Massaging the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Circling her temple with his thumb. Like the sleeping feline, Lily felt like purring under his undivided attention. “Look positively disheveled,” he finished with a groan.
His hand tangled with her loose braid before closing the gap between them. Questing lips glided over hers—once, twice—molding perfectly to the lush curves. Their breaths mingled in the quiet, humid and heavy with each drawn-out kiss, an intimate convergence that slowed the blood in Lily’s veins to the viscosity of molasses. Cinnamon melted on her tongue, and she moaned at the familiar spice.
Owen and his sweets, she thought fondly.
“I missed your kisses while I was gone.” The confession sent her heart skittering into an awkward gallop of skipped beats as she secretly admitted the same. “Thankfully, we created a stockpile of them to remember all those times at the gazebo. You’ve no idea how often I carried those with me, warming myself with their heat, even during the dead of winter in the Swiss Alps.”
Tracing the bold line of his nose before tapping his mouth with a fingertip, Lily said, “I’m surprised I featured in your mind at all. Weren’t you trying to escape everything from Shoreham? Your father’s death and my betrayal?”
“You underestimate how much I loved you.”
An arrow buried itself deep in her chest at his use of the past tense. Loved. Not love.
Of course, he doesn’t harbor love for you. It’s been years, and the two of you are only just coming to terms with friendship again.
“Despite what you thought of me? It couldn’t have been a favorable opinion,” she pressed.
“No, it wasn’t.” He said it without rancor, but that didn’t lessen the shame she felt. “But I also couldn’t shut my heart off so easily. One indiscretion apparently fails to eclipse eighteen years of familiarity and affection.”
“I’ll remember that in another eighteen years when you try reminding me of something from this year.”
Sighing, his hand traveled down to her belly, more pronounced these days. “Eighteen years. Can you imagine? We’ll have an adult on our hands.”
“Barely.” She winced, recalling the terrible mistakes she made at that age.
“Have you thought of a name yet?” As if hearing its future being decided, the baby kicked at Owen’s palm, causing them both to jolt. Zinnia didn’t like the sudden movement and stretched her four legs before sauntering down to the end of the bed, away from the disturbing humans.
“How long has that been happening?” Awe colored Owen’s tone as he shifted forward, placing his hand here and there, trying to feel the kick again.
“Not too long. Every time it happens, I’m about to call for you when it stops. But she must want a say in her name.”
“Ivy. Petunia. Maple.” Owen spit out the litany of names. No kicks. “Rose. Tulip. Chrysanthemum.”
“Chrysanthemum?” Lily giggled at the outrageous suggestion.
“In keeping with the Garden Girl tradition, of course.”
Impulsively, she pressed a light kiss to his mouth in gratitude. It was sweet how he wanted to honor her family’s naming conventions. “What if it’s a boy? Perhaps, that’s why you’re not getting a positive response.”
“Hmm, you may be onto something... William, Henry, Christopher.”
“All’s quiet on the baby front.” She patted his hand in consolation. “But don’t worry, four months lie between us and parenthood, so there’s plenty of time to figure it out.”
“I suppose you’re right.” He tightened an arm around her, shortening the empty space between them. “How are you feeling about that?”
Lily considered his question. Should she tell him the truth? Would he be as ashamed of her as she was of herself?
Afraid to learn the truth, she lied. “I feel as every expectant mother does.” Vague but good enough for Owen, it seemed, as he pressed another kiss to her lips. This time she grabbed the back of his neck and held him there, worried he’d try to continue the line of conversation.
And because you can’t get enough of his touch.
Yes, because she craved her husband’s kisses for as long as he’d give them to her.