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He shrugged. “I have lived for years attempting to appear the ideal, and I have given it up. The list of names whose opinions truly matter is very short, and yours is at the top of it.” He touched my cheek, tenderly stroking. “Promise you will tell me if anyone abuses or insults you. It is not to be borne. All the footmen have been given instructions to eject Wickham from the premises on sight. Richard and I hired more men today, to keep watch. I do not want him stealing onto the grounds again.”
I only nodded. I thought of asking him, then, how Anne had died, or even his reasons for going to London. I believed he would answer me truthfully. But the fact was, she had abused him throughout their married life. While I had determined he was incapable of murder, I had also discovered that I might be. And most of all, I no longer felt like discussing her, or any other conflict, especially within the bed we shared together.
“Do you know what I wish?” I asked him.
He appeared slightly wary in the firelight. “What do you wish? If it is within my power, I will see it done.”
“It is very much in your power,” I replied. “I wish you to kiss me now, and hold me, and make this day…go away.”
Something in his expression changed, his intensity sharpening, his weariness fleeing. “I can do that,” he said, and it sounded like a promise.
A frisson of answering excitement shivered through me. Our earlier encounter was a flaring conflagration. This was a slow, simmering burn that heated as it built, a spark he nourished and nurtured until it kindled into a blaze.
And, as promised, the trials of the day were consumed by its flame.
