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Adel burst into mortified tears. “Oh, forgive me; I’ve been such a watering pot lately.” She swiped at her face angrily. “Did he ever tell you how we met? I snuck into his bed at Lady Gladstone’s house party. It was quite by accident I assure you, for I’d only intend to comprise Mr. Atwood. Edmond insisted we wed to avoid scandal. Before I even said yes, he told me all the love he had to give was bu…buried with his wife. He avoided my bed with a single minded purpose that even I had started to admire, and the only reason I am with child now is because he had been drunk,” she ended on a sob. “He does not want me…no gentleman has truly ever wanted me, for I have nothing to offer! Can there be any other opinion?”
Embarrassed at her emotional outburst she marched away. Edmond loved her? As she loved him? Adel faltered.
You are beautiful.You taste sweet…I could feast on you forever.
There are days when I shudder in dread at the thought, of what might have happened if you had not climbed into my bed, because I would now be wed to another. I’ve never desired another woman as I do you, Adeline.
The heated and sometimes tender words he’d expressed wafted through her mind. It probably should not have, but the memory quieted some of the pain pricking at her heart.
What if he truly loved her? Would he really have felt such fear if he only felt mild affections?
Oh!
Lady Harriet regarded Adel for a lengthy moment. “Come, let us retire to the parlor and ring for tea.”
Adel glanced toward the lawns. “And what of Squire Wentworth?”
“He’ll keep,” she said on a light laugh. “He knows I will not be long, and he may do a spot of fishing in the lake.”
A few minutes later they entered the main house, and Adel rang for tea and cakes. They entered the warmth of the parlor and sat on separate sofas. A footman arrived in short order with a tea tray and several pastries.
The dowager duchess faced her. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for weeks now,” she said softly.
Adel lifted startled eyes to her. “I have done nothing.”
“Since your marriage to my son, he has laughed.” This last bit was said so wistfully Adel’s heart ached.
She had thought his icy reserve had only been for her. Had he always been like this? “Is Edmond not a man to laugh?”
“Hardly.”
Not even with his first wife? Adel ached to know. “I take no credit for it, but I thank you for the sentiments.”
“My son abhors grief,” she said, surprising Adel.
Lady Harriet retrieved the cushion she had been embroidering earlier and resumed her task with dazzling skill. “I witnessed something in my eldest son I had not observed in years. Peace. It made me feel hope and fear for my sweet boy in equal measure.”
A small smile curved Adel’s lips to hear Lady Harriet refer to a man so virile and ruthless with his power as sweet. “I have yet to uncover this sweetness.” Though if she admitted it, there had been nothing experienced in her life as heavenly as the sweet bliss of his kisses. The way he watched her sometimes, the intensity in which he loved her had given her hope. The mere memory was enough to make the flesh between her thighs ache. Heat crawled up her neck, and she hastily poured tea into a cup and raised it to her lips, praying Lady Harriet would believe it was the steam from the tea that would account for her flushed appearance.
“Edmond lost his father, a man he idolized, at the tender age of twelve. I was selfish in my grief.” She lifted pain eyes to Adel. “I almost lost my son because I was caught up in my own despair.”
A drop of blood stained the cushion, and with a gasp, Adel clattered the teacup onto the table and rushed over to the dowager duchess. Adel gently withdrew the cushion and the needle from her.
“Please do not speak of it, for it causes you pain.”
Adel understood, it had been four years since her mother had passed, and she could hardly think of her without her throat burning from the need to hold back the tears. There were days where her heart seemed to split in two, and she wondered when the void would ever be filled. Reading had only delayed the inevitable return of dreaded grief. Though since her marriage, life had been mostly pleasing, and she had thought little about the loss of her mother.
“Sit my child,” Lady Harriet said gently. “Though it pains me, I wish to speak of it, for I want you to win.”
Win? “I was not aware I was vying for a prize.”
The dowager duchess’s intensity finally penetrated, and Adel’s heart beat an alarming thud. She sank to her knees beside her, uncaring of the unladylike position. “Then tell me, quickly.”
Lady Harriet closed her eyes and spoke in a clipped voice. “I was so lost in my own grief I did not realize Edmond was wasting away. He’d cried himself to sleep every night, and was barely eating. I’d given orders for his tutoring to be paused, and for his friends to give him space. I did not help him, I allowed him to create a haven in which he could grieve and rail unrelentingly. And he did so for weeks, months. When I came out of my own stupor my boy was skin and bones. I called for the doctor and he gave me the alarming prognosis that Edmond’s heart had been weakened from the weight loss, and he needed special attention to encourage eating. A few days later he contracted a fever, and in his weakened state it was a brutal battle. The fear I encountered I never wanted to endure again.”
She took a shuddering breath and Adel squeezed her arm. “He recovered. I wanted to cosset him, wanted to keep him close, but he refused. It was as if something had died in him when his father passed. My sweet boy hardly laughed and played. The joy in him had been dimmed. He had been close to his younger brother Jackson, and he pulled from him. Edmond even insisted on returning to boarding school, instead of his tutors coming back to the estates. It was as if he wanted to flee the memories. Then he returned on his eighteenth birthday and met Lady Maryann.”
Lady Harriet smiled. “Maryann was beautiful and demure, and she lit something insi
