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“Yes, Lady Candleton. The quietest of discernible purrs, that is what carries through the door between us.”
Lifting her nose in the air, she knew it was unladylike to comment further, but so long as he was on the topic… “I’ll have you knowIhad difficulty sleeping without the nighttime symphonyyouusually produce! Not the purrs of a kitten, but the growls of a bear.”
He raised a dignified eyebrow. “Bear growls? Never.”
“Always! Including last night! Without you, there were only a few creaks and groans at Candleton Hall at night, and the quiet was… disconcerting. I suppose I’ve grown used to your bear growls. They—they comfort me.”
A muscle worked in William’s tight jaw and when he spoke, his voice was choked with emotion. “When you joined my household over a decade ago, I couldn’t believe a lady so dainty—never mind. But soon enough, I not only adjusted to your quiet purrs, I—I needed them. I missed them, for their absence meant my beloved was far away.” He set the piece of parchment aside before reading the rest of it. “That is what I wrote. That I would have done anything to hear those sounds again.”
At once touched and piqued, Bea sniffed. “Then I suppose you rested rather well last night, reunited with your Marchioness cat.”
He took her hand and tugged playfully, smiling at her consternation. “I welcomed being near you. But I’ll be thirty-five soon. In my old age, I need to be closer to hear you.”
The air in the room thickened until she choked. “You can’t mean…”
“Sharing a bed. Sleeping next to one another.”
Bea covered her mouth.
“Have I scandalized you?” he asked.
“Oh, William, it’s not that. I—I can scarcely believe what I’m hearing. Even when I know the words are real, I wonder how long you’ll mean them. You can’t say these things to me if you don’t truly intend them. If you’re going to change your mind and—”
“I won’t,” he said fervently, pulling her closer. “Iwon’t.”
She closed her eyes against the sight before her—her husband gazing upon her with unfettered devotion. “I want this more than anything, William. Don’t you see? But if you were to take it away again…”
His sharp intake of breath was one of pain, and she looked at him.
“I’m sorry for rejecting you, Bea. For taking it—myself—away from you. I have, haven’t I? Well, it’s not in those letters, for it was Augustus who helped me make the realization on the way here, but I have something to tell you. I must be clear. It’s not an excuse for hurting you. But I hope it might help ease the hurt to know it had nothing to do with you. That it was…my brokenness.”
Bea’s mouth parted, and her brow gathered as he rubbed his arm, over the spot of his childhood injury. “Is your scar paining you?” Her hand covered his.
William rotated his palm so he held her hand—and her gaze. “Not this scar, no.”
By the end of his story about his mother removing caregiver after caregiver, Bea held him in her arms tightly, aching for the child he had been. For Augustus. As a mother of two growing boys, she had no doubt that within this strapping man was a hurt child, one who probably looked very much like their son Benjamin.
“I had thought the Dowager Marchioness neglectful,” she said, shaking. “Nasty at times. But she was worse. Cruel. She was so cruel to you, William.”
He sat up and shook his head. “Yet it’s no excuse for my cruelty to you. I’m sorry, Bea. What you were offering me—I wanted it so much. But it’s as you said. I couldn’t bear the thought of having it—of having all of you—and you being taken away.”
Her shoulders bowed under the weight of the tragedy. For many years, she had carried the burden of terrible beliefs. That her husband didn’t desire her. That he was disgusted by her deepest wishes. That at times, he even hated her for tempting him to break decorum.
William gripped her hand and together they sat for a while. At first, her feelings toward the Dowager Marchioness transformed her into an incandescent cloud of white-hot fury. Bea hadn’t ever been fully taken in by Lady Sabrina’s genteel ways, no, but she had not fully appreciated the extent of the harm the woman had wrought not only on her husband, but her and William’s marriage.
Gazing at him, she drew some strength. Sadness and anger lurked in his expression about his revelations, but she saw the quiet resolve that was always part of him, too.
“We’ve made mistakes with our children at times, William. With each other. Yet look, too, at our family. Our children’s lives…they’re night and day from our own childhoods. That’s what we set out to do together, isn’t it? It’s nothing short of a miracle.”
“It’s no miracle. It’s you, Bea.” With a rueful laugh, he glanced at the open walnut case. “There’s a document there.Vision, I wrote at the top.”
“Vision?”
He paused after reaching toward the box and turned to her instead, cupping her face. “We can read every letter eventually, but I won’t hide behind them. I need to tell you this, looking into your eyes. Yes, vision.”
Bea held her breath while he leaned over and pressed a worshipful kiss to her forehead. No matter the intimacies she hoped they would indulge in the future, this tradition held a special place in her heart, and she reveled in it.
“The evening we met, you appeared like a vision of loveliness and goodwill, an angel swooping in to help that poor chit on the floor. But you alsohavevision.Youhave clarity about what is right and how to achieve it. That night of the ball? When you offered not just heirs, but a family? I hadn’t sought a wife for that. How could I, when I couldn’t have imagined it for myself? But you said it and…I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. I knew you could see it. Would create that for us. And you have.”
