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To make matters worse, this morning she gathered no strength in her to resist his nearness. The want of him a fiery acuteness overpowering everything else. She stood no chance; she just followed that uncontrollable pull. And, goodness! The way he took her! Intense, fervent, passionate. There had been a sharp incandescence bordering desperation she never perceived in him. Impossible not to have dissolved in him, with him. The whole thing frightened her. It could get her… attached very easily. Too easily, in truth. If this happened, she would be the joke of the year. She, falling again for a husband who did not inspire a shred of security. How brainless would that be?
Their early morning, though, caused her body to go fluid like melted chocolate even now. She would surely not forget it. Ever. One of those precious moments that would remain imprinted in her body and soul.
Her eyes fell on the manor already approaching. Fortunately, Conrad had respected her silence. If he had kept a conversation going, she did not know if she would be able to hold herself from giving in to her emotions.
The moment they reached the manor’s front steps, she descended from his stallion, lest he carried her to his chambers to tempt her to continue the morning’s interlude. With a bath request, she climbed up to her dressing room and hid there, though hiding from her tangled feelings would be a tad more difficult.
Aurelia remained busy all day running her usual tasks around the manor, even though she did not go out in the fields these days. Her mind, however, raced with the recent episodes, drawing her to a decision.
Late afternoon, she saw Conrad had come back to the manor and had headed to the study. She walked to it and knocked on the door. He responded, and she strode into it.
He sat on a leather armchair, a book on his hands. He dressed breeches and his usual white shirt open at the neck, his hair ruffled by the horse ride. The view of him evoked their early morning interlude, causing her to blush as her body revived the drenching pleasure it had experienced. She inhaled deeply, summoning the strength she would need now.
“I would like to talk to you.” Her words formed bricks on her tongue.
“By all means.” He responded as he gestured her to sit across from him.
Stiff, she sat, ramrod straight. “I have been pondering about what has transpired of late.”
With utter calmness, he closed his book on his lap, staring her directly in the eye. “I never doubted you would.” His matter-of-fact stance did not surprise her.
“I want you to leave the manor.” The dryness on her throat made it constrict, her palms humid, heart accelerated.
He put his book on the table beside him and sat up with an obdurate stance. “We have discussed it already, I believe.”
Of course, they had, she remembered only too well. “Yes, I recall, naturally.” Her hands joined together on her lap pressed one another tense. “I am not asking this time.” Which implied she demanded it.
A flash of vexation shone in his dark eyes. “What gives you the impression you can do it?”
“Your former… friends parading the manor is unacceptable.” She stated, without answering his question. “I consider it harmful for my child.”
“Our child!” He sprang from his seat, hands sinking in his pockets. “I agree with you. It’s not going to happen again.”
She looked up at him, their eyes skirmishing. “You cannot guarantee it.” She stood up to talk on his level. “I want you gone at any rate. It will be better for everyone.”
His face designed with evident irritation. “I told you I am going nowhere!” He paced the worn carpet. “In case you have forgotten, this manor is entailed to my title.”
“You have the house in London where I am sure you would find more diversions.” She rebutted.
“If you had a minimum of perception, you would realise I am not interested in any diversion in town or otherwise.”
This was what he stated now. What would happen when he got bored with playing the careful husband? Because it would happen without a shadow of a doubt. “You will. I am sure.”
“Don’t be.” His eyes pierced hers. “You must allow for the possibility that people change, mature! This is what happened to me!”
She heard him, watched the steadfastness of his stance. It sounded too good to be true. It probably was. “You will not leave, as I request?”
“No!” His finality rang sharp in her ears.
“I will do it, since you won’t.” She lifted her chin defiant.
Irritation burned in Conrad’s guts. He understood the visit of the previous day had affected her to the point of her forgetting herself and getting lost in the rain. Albeit she showed a nasty recalcitrant tendency. Would she not admit he meant what he just said about changing? If she could not, he would have to take action. He had no wish to recrudesce, but he sensed he would have to resort to that if need be.
“As your husband, I own the right to keep you and the baby under my protection.” He neared her to assess the exact effect of his words on her.
Her eyes widened with sparks of defiance in them. “I will be no prisoner of yours!”
Prisoner? He became her prisoner, for pity’s sake! He was tragically unable to stay away from her. Her suggestion he go to town took him out of his mind for her suspicion.
