Page 38 of Truly, Madly, Daring

“No,” she said, and suddenly her chest was tight, and it was hard to breathe, let alone speak. “No, it wasn’t the least bit romantic, and yet here I am, despite every notion of good sense that told me I ought to run a mile, because I was horribly infatuated with you, and I would have done anything you asked, you great l-lummox!” Emmeline snapped her mouth shut as her voice quavered and tears pricked at her eyes.

There was an electric silence.

“Emmeline?” he said, his voice soft. “You… You don’t mean it?”

Emmeline smothered the desire to scream and stamp her foot and instead contented herself with one final exclamation. “Oh, go to the devil, Wrexham!”

Chapter 11

My Lady,

Please allow me to congratulate you on your recent nuptials and introduce myself. I am Lord Kilbane’s man of business. If I understand correctly, you will take charge of the properties that come with the marquisate. This, I must assure you, is most welcome news and a great weight from my mind. It is a very long time since the properties had anything resembling a chatelaine. Please accept my heartfelt thanks and be assured of my willingness to aid you in whatever capacity I may. I am at your service.

Yrs etc,

―Excerpt of a letter from Mr Archibald Bright to The Most Hon’ble Lady Catherine ‘Cat’ St Just, Marchioness of Kilbane (daughter of The Most Hon’ble Lucian and Matilda Barrington, Marquess and Marchioness of Montagu).

16th of February 1845, between Scunthorpe and Lincoln.

Wrexham felt behind him for the thick wooden post of the four-poster bed and moved until he could sit down on the mattress. He felt oddly winded, and utterly confused and… a smile tugged uncertainly at the corner of his mouth. She was furious with him. Why that pleased him quite so much was a mystery. Except, she would not be so furious if she were playacting. If she had been using her wiles, hoping to control him and bend him to her will, she would have cajoled and flattered and pleaded her innocence. Instead, he felt very lucky not to have been beaten about the head with the nearest heavy object. He would have deserved it, too.

Emmeline Knight was sweet and honest and trustworthy. It’s why he had chosen her, because she was too kind for her own good and probably the only woman alive prepared to sacrifice her own happiness to keep him safe. He’d told himself she was doing it for her own reasons, for security and status and wealth, because it had made him feel less guilty, but he never could swallow that story. It simply did not fit. His Miss Milly did not have an avaricious bone in her body and didn’t give a snap of her fingers for his title. Instead, she had been horribly infatuated with him and ready to do anything he asked.

He sucked in a shaky breath. Of course, she had also called him a blithering idiot, a great lummox, and wished him to Timbuktu, or the devil. He didn’t think she was fussy at this point. Wrexham shook his head. He had assumed his blindness and the likelihood of his imminent descent into madness would be enough to put off any woman who wasn’t in it for money or status. It had been so clear to him that this manner of woman was his only option, but trusting such a creature with his future had always made his blood run cold. Anyone with such mercenary priorities would surely have no qualms about locking him up in an asylum the moment he became hard to deal with. Yet, he had known at once Emmeline would not do that. He had felt instinctively that here was a woman who would keep her word, no matter what.

He had persisted in viewing her in the same light though, a woman who was marrying for practical reasons, not romantic ones. Not that he had blamed her for it but now he needed to rethink. He rubbed a hand over his face to hide his smile, not wanting to provoke her into railing at him again, because no matter how gratifying the knowledge that he had not entirely lost his appeal, he had just put his bloody foot in it and ruined everything.

There was a soft knock at the door and Wrexham heard her maid enter, no doubt to help Emmeline undress for her bath. Aware he was in disgrace, Wrexham busied himself by taking his coat off and then yanking off his own boots, an endeavour which left him hot and irritable. He sorely missed his valet, who was a loyal fellow and had stuck by him, despite the change in Wrexham’s circumstances. Lennox could have found himself a place with most any wealthy man of fashion, having been a source of envy for Wrexham’s erstwhile friends when Rex had still been amongst the best dressed and most sought-after bachelors of the ton.

Wrexham settled himself against what felt like a mountain of pillows piled before the bedhead and closed his eyes with a sigh. He was about to set his mind to the thorny problem of what to do about his wife so that she might deign to speak to him again instead of committing murder, when he heard it. The soft sound of water sloshing as Emmeline stepped into the bath.

She was naked. In the bath. Right in front of him.

His eyes snapped open, and he cursed fate all over again for stealing his sight. Except, it occurred to him then that if he hadn’t gone blind, Emmeline wouldn’t be here. He waited for his brain to do the usual calculation and dismiss this argument as irrelevant, because nothing could make up for losing his sight. Except it wasn’t irrelevant. She was not irrelevant, and not easily dismissed. He liked her very much, liked her all the more for the way she had torn him off a strip and not been shy in speaking her mind.

“Thank you, Janet. You may go now. I can manage the rest,” his wife said, sounding perfectly calm, whereas Wrexham was feeling decidedly agitated.

“Are you sure, my lady?”

“Quite sure. You must be tired too. I am quite capable of getting myself to bed.”

“Thank you, my lady. I’ve left your nightgown by the fire to warm, and the towels are right there.”

“Oh, pass me my soap before you go.”

“Such a pretty scent,” Janet said with a sigh, having apparently lifted the soap to her nose.

“It is, yes. There’s a lovely little shop on Bond Street that sells all manner of soaps and lotions, with the loveliest perfumes, but this is my favourite. Thank you, Janet, and goodnight.”

Wrexham heard the maid leave the room, the door closing behind her, and then it began. The tormenting sound of water moving, caressing his wife’s silken skin. The delicate scent of orange blossom reached his nose, tantalising his senses. Rex imagined the soap in her hand, and the way she might rub it against her body, smoothing the subsequent bubbles over her splendid breasts until her skin was slick and wet. He swallowed a groan and shifted on the bed, his trousers suddenly feeling too snug.

Hell and damnation. He wanted her, and she was right there, and he’d been a complete pillock and bollocksed everything up. She was right. He was a blithering idiot.

“Emmeline,” he said cautiously, alert for the sound of flying missiles.

There was a brief but pointed silence.

“Yes, my lord?”