the green terrain of Hampshire had seen most of her childhood years. Not the sterile, tense atmosphere of the earl’s town house, and not even Italy, where she’d known some happiness and much pain. She thought maybe she missed her mother, but in truth, that lady’s life had become so circumscribed by bitterness and disappointment, her death had been a blessing.
“I am tired of being an outsider, Nick,” Leah said, raising her face from her knees. “You do not want to let me in. You want to keep me at arm’s length in this marriage.”
“I want to keep children at arm’s length,” Nick replied, unwrapping the towel from her hair and taking up the brush. “Have you set your heart on children, Leah? Is that why my conditions are so unbearable?”
“One cannot set one’s heart on children,” Leah observed wearily. “They come, or not, as God wills.” They also left, as God willed. “But yes, given my preferences, I’d present my husband with his heirs.”
Nick sighed mightily behind her. “I do not give one goddamn which of my nephews inherits. I love all my brothers and will be proud to call any of their sons my heir.”
“Fine for you, Nick,” Leah said, feeling honesty about to gallop past her common sense. “While I gain significance from what, exactly? Running into all the Society ladies you’ve taken to your bed in my place? Not asking where you go when you are from home night after night? Not allowing myself to drive past the house where I’ve been told you keep your current mistress? I watched my mother suffer torment upon torment at Wilton’s hands. She went into her marriage hoping for the best, offering that man her heart. She ended up bitter, hurt, and as mean to him as he was to her. And supposedly, at one time they cared for each other.”
He drew her hair over her shoulders in a slow, soothing caress, proof positive men had more courage than brains. “I can promise never to take a mistress.”
“Nicholas,” Leah said in weary disgust, “you said you’d never taken a mistress—you prefer variety, remember? Don’t think to fence with me then ask that I, alone, be honest.”
Memories of Nick plucking a sprig of arbutus jabbed at Leah’s composure. Perhaps the lady was something beyond even a mistress to him.
“You don’t want us to end up hating each other,” Nick said, his tone aggravatingly reasonable, “and you do want to bear my children. I don’t want you to hate me, either, but neither do I want to think of you naked, handcuffed to a bedpost, while some deranged old man takes a riding crop to you and beats out of you what self-respect you have.”
Leah shuddered at his graphic description. There were rumors about Hellerington…
“I’m sorry. That was not helpful.” Nick fell silent again, and Leah felt him dabbing at a handful of hair with the brush. He was suited to the task, working his way slowly, slowly up each lock, dealing patiently with each little tangle until her hair was drying in smooth, shining waves. He’d do the same with her arguments, parse them one by one, until her resistance to his offer was obliterated.
“What would help?” he asked, putting the brush down and drawing Leah back against his chest. “What would make marriage to me less unattractive to you?”
Less unattractive. He did not know what he asked. She remained against him, holding herself away from him even as their bodies touched.
“You use the word attraction,” she said, “but you don’t want to be attracted to me, and you want to pretend I am not attracted to you. That is the problem in a nutshell, Nick. I need you to protect my very life. You need me merely for the sake of appearances. Our stations are unequal. In any marriage, a man and woman are of unequal station, but an earl’s daughter—even under Wilton’s roof—is raised to expect her consequence, her household skills, and her willingness to secure the succession can even the balance and allow her to hold her head up. Those assets allow her to expect her husband’s protection, respect, and affection.”
“You have those things from me,” Nick said. “And I am attracted to you.”
“Nicholas,” Leah said with pained patience, “the first time you kissed me, you couldn’t even see me. How can you be attracted to someone you can’t see? And yes, I comprehend that when we are… affectionate, your body responds. I am not a virgin,