“Morning,” she replied automatically and allowed him to help her to her chair.
“I trust you slept well?”
“Yes, I—” Alaina’s words died in the air when she caught sight of the small crystal vase on the table between their chairs. It was stuffed with fat, glorious peonies in various shades of fragile pink.
Sterling spoke beside her ear when it was clear she could not find her words. “They’re your favorite flower, are they not?” His warm breath on her naked neck made her shiver.
“How did you—” She stopped speaking again when she caught sight of his confident smile mere inches from her face. The man was full of surprises. If he’d taken the time to figure this out, then perhaps he did care.
Perhaps he was telling the truth about all of it and spoke from his heart.
And, even if he hadn’t expressly explainedwhyhe’d left her in the first place, maybe he had told the truth about his activities when he’d been away.
It was nearly impossible for her to swallow past the growing lump in her throat. She couldn’t tear her eyes from his because she saw hope there for the first time in a very long while.
Alaina spent therest of the day agonizing over the advice Lady Juliette and Viscountess Sommerfeld had given her. Sterling had made himself scarce following that morning’s meal—whether because he had actual business to attend, or he wanted to leave her alone to stew and contemplate the appearance of the peonies at the table, she wasn’t sure. Either way, that is precisely what he did.
And this suited Alaina just fine because the last thing she needed was a witness to her racing mind.
If her friends could have come to such a conclusion—that she and Sterling had already wasted far too much time—even without knowing the full extent of Sterling’s confessions and this morning’s efforts, then did that mean the answer was right in front of Alaina the whole time? Was her stubbornness preventing her from seeing the reality of the situation? Was she perhaps missing out on what could possibly be a future of contentment and wedded bliss if she could only climb over this hurdle? Could she truly forgive the last eight years and allow herself to admit there was more to Sterling than she’d believed? Could she accept the words he offered her and consider penance paid?
She spent hour after hour torn between desperately wanting to be left alone with her thoughts and wanting to face her husband to see if she still felt the same when confronted once more with his beautiful face. Only after a solitary supper in her rooms when Sterling sent word that he’d been held up in a meeting did Alaina find herself standing before the door adjoining their chambers. She’d listened to the now-familiar sounds of Sterling returning, the murmur of his baritone as he and his valet conversed, and the ensuing silence as, she presumed, her husband settled in for sleep.
Only this one barrier stood between them, and yet, it felt like the largest of chasms. Could she possibly consider setting aside her pride, taking the initiative, and moving to cross that void?
Her nerves were uncharacteristically powerful as she forced herself to turn the polished brass knob with clammy fingers. Unlocked, the door swung open on silent hinges. She didn’t believe she’d made a sound, but Sterling immediately stirred nonetheless. He abruptly sat up, the deep blue coverlet slipping down his naked torso. The only light in the room was cast from the banked coals in the fire; the orange glow cast his angular features in mesmerizing shadow and relief. Her eyes drifted downward from the sharp lines of his face to the muscular planes of his bare chest, the defined ridges of his abdomen, the corded muscles of his arms as he propped himself up and ran a hand through his tousled chestnut hair burnished and glowing in the dim room.
“Alaina?” Her name in his husky voice sent an unexpectedly pleasant chill traipsing up her spine. “Are you well?”
She could only nod, unable to speak over the pounding of her heart when faced with her first naked man…her husband of nearly a decade.
Alaina hesitated another moment before entering the room and pressing the door closed behind her with a snick of finality, never removing her eyes from Sterling’s face. Though his features were immobile, Sterling swallowed so hard that she could see the bob of his throat even in the flickering light.
“Alaina…” he whispered as she approached the bed; it might have been a curse or a prayer. Perhaps a little of both.
“How did you know about the peonies?” she asked more steadily than she felt. She’d mulled over the options off and on throughout the day. He could have easily enough learned the information from her maid or even one of her friends. If he paid attention, he’d have noticed she wore peonies affixed often enough to her bonnets.
His response, however, was nothing Alaina could have anticipated.
Rather than immediately respond, his hazel eyes burned into her for several prolonged seconds. Just as she was about to repeat her query, he rolled to the side, giving her a spectacular view of the flexing muscles of his expansive back, and reached for a pile of papers lying in an open wooden box set atop the small table beside the bed. He held out the stack to her but still said nothing. Alaina stepped close enough only to retrieve the papers and skim them in the flickering firelight. It took her less than a second to recognize her own handwriting, to be yanked back in time to the days she’d once been a young, naïve girl writing to her husband and hoping each day would be the one he’d return to the doorstep of Morton House.
Her letters.
He’d kept them.
All of them, judging from the heft of the stack she held, and what remained still in the box beside his bed.
“Your grandmother’s garden was filled with peonies…but your favorites were always the ones so pale pink they were nearly white.” His voice was at once soft and deafening. Her throat grew tight with unshed emotion, silencing her. “You used to collect the enormous blooms by the armful.”
She looked up to see a faint, rueful tilt to his beautiful mouth just before her vision grew watery and blurred.
Her husband missed nothing.
It may have taken him time to figure things out, but he’d done it.
She heard him curse beneath his breath, and then the hasty rustle of fabric as he gathered the coverlet around his body and rose from the bed to close the gap between them in two long strides. Clutching the fabric around his waist with one hand, he gently pulled her to him with the other, cradling her against the warmth of his chest, his hot skin pressed to her cheek. The papers fell heedlessly from her fingers and fluttered to the rug at their feet like leaves in autumn. Her palms pressed against the hardness of his stomach, but not to push him away. Not this time.
“What did I do?” he asked, sounding both pained and baffled. “Please, tell me how to fix it.”
