by Laura Martin
Stop it, he told himself firmly. He would not start fantasising about his wife. Earlier he’d been worrying she would get the wrong idea if they shared a bed together, but her cool reserve was showing him up. Annabelle was holding up her side of their bargain of what was expected from the marriage. She had quite sensibly suggested seeing if they could become friends, companions in life. Never had she once hinted she wanted anything more. Yet here he was, thinking about that strip of creamy white skin on her back and what it might be like to slip into bed next to her.
He’d been too long without a woman, that much was clear. After Emily he hadn’t wanted to get close to anyone else, including a mistress, but perhaps that option would be safer than desiring his wife.
With a growl of frustration he stood and began pacing around the room. It was wholly unsatisfying, his strides interrupted by the furniture and the small size, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sit still. Nor was it an option to go out for a walk now the sun had set. It was completely dark outside, the rural location meaning there wasn’t a light for miles.
Maybe he should just go upstairs and join Annabelle in bed. That way he would prove to himself it was just the thought of having her so close to him that was unsettling. In all likelihood as soon as his head touched the pillow he would realise her presence in his bed was not something to make a fuss about.
He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, but then blew out his candle and made his way up. A good night’s sleep was exactly what he needed. The last few weeks had been busy and he was still recuperating from his feverish illness. Things would seem a lot more normal in the morning.
He slowed as he reached the top of the stairs, listening to Annabelle’s steady breathing. Wondering if she were asleep already, he peered into the darkness, but it was impossible to see anything without a candle to light his way. Leo was used to getting undressed in the dark. He often dismissed his valet before dinner, preferring to see to his own clothes at the end of the night rather than have Michaels waiting for him.
Quickly he undressed, hesitating as he stepped out of his breeches. Normally he didn’t wear much to bed, but tonight he would have to make a change to his night-time wardrobe. Annabelle was outwardly serene about them having to share a bed, but he doubted that would continue if she woke up next to a naked or near-naked man.
He didn’t have anything suitable for his top half, but he fastened a pair of cotton drawers around his waist before slipping into bed. He collided with Annabelle’s body with a loud exclamation and she mumbled something before rolling over. It would appear they both liked sleeping on the left side of the bed.
As he circled the bed and got in on the right side he felt Annabelle shift and wriggle in her sleep. He hadn’t woken her, but he had definitely disturbed her, and he stiffened as she burrowed into the side of his body. Her body was warm and inviting and he felt something he hadn’t for years as she flung an arm across his body.
For a long time he lay there, listening to his wife’s breathing, not wanting to move, not wanting to disturb her. So much for hardly knowing she was there. The bed might be big, but they were still very close, very intimate. When she did finally roll away, leaving a few inches’ gap between them, he almost rolled with her, wanting to preserve the closeness. Instead he closed his eyes firmly and turned over in the other direction.
* * *
Annabelle awoke early, drifting out of sleep as the birds began their dawn chorus in the trees and the pale first light started to filter through the window. She felt warm and contented, as though she had slept better than she had in quite a while.
For a long moment she kept her eyes closed and her head on her pillow, not wanting to disturb her sister in the bed beside her. Finally she turned over and let her eyes flutter open, only to let out a suppressed exclamation of surprise as she remembered it wasn’t Beth she was sharing a bed with.
Slowly she backed away, shuffling across the bed to put a more decent amount of room between her and her husband. Really she should get up and leave him to sleep, but she’d never been one to jump out of bed in the morning and even the knowledge that she was sharing that bed wasn’t enough to force her out yet.
He seemed to be sleeping peacefully, lying on his side with one arm flung above his head, claiming the pillow as his own. At some point in the night he had kicked off most of the sheets, revealing a muscular torso which was surprisingly tanned for a man she couldn’t imagine ever being shirtless in public. She had the irrational urge to reach out and run her fingers over the dark hairs on his chest, to feel the smoothness of the skin beneath.
Annabelle swallowed hard. She had always known her husband was a good-looking man, attractive in all the conventional ways. When he was awake, and often scowling, he seemed more formidable, but asleep he lost much of that sternness and looked younger somehow.
‘I wonder...’ she murmured, wondering what sort of man he would have been if he hadn’t lost his parents and been separated from the brother he loved so dearly. Likely he would still have been serious—she’d always thought a person’s character was ingrained from birth, but the events of their life did have an impact. If Leo had grown up in a loving family, with the parents and brother he had such fond memories of, she doubted he would be so keen to hold everyone at arm’s length.
He shifted in the bed, flinging a leg over the covers and rolling a little further towards her. Annabelle gave a little gasp of surprise as he shot out an arm and pulled her against him. They were lying face to face, only an inch or two between their lips, and Annabelle could feel the tickle of his breath on her cheek. Their bodies were even closer, his arm exerting a gentle but firm pressure on the small of her back, holding her flush against him.
Annabelle felt something unfamiliar blossom inside her and for a moment she had the urge to lie there with him, to enjoy his touch, and not pull away.
‘I missed you,’ he murmured in his sleep, his hand slipping down to her buttocks. Annabelle froze as he began caressing her, knowing she should roll away, but her body was asking for one more second, one more touch. She hadn’t realised how much she craved being touched, how much she wanted human contact, and Leo’s fingers were doing something wonderful in the way they were tracing small circles down her back and across her buttocks.
‘God, I’ve missed you, Emily.’
Annabelle stiffened and then felt the flood of shame rip through her. It wasn’t her that Leo wanted, of course it wasn’t. It was the woman he was still in love with. Someone beautiful, someone he desired. Not the wife he had chosen because she wouldn’t expect much from their life together.
Unable to suppress a sob, she pulled away, leaping up from the bed so violently she knew it would wake Leo, but in the moment not caring. She just needed to get dressed and get out of the room.
Quickly she grabbed a garment from the wardrobe and, refusing to look at the bed, slipped it over her head.
‘Annabelle,’ Leo said, his voice thick with sleep.
Ignoring him, she pulled the dress down, not caring that she still had her nightgown underneath. Then she grabbed a bonnet with a veil attached and fled down the stairs.
‘Annabelle,’ she heard him call after her.
She paused downstairs to sort out her dress, wriggling out of the nightgown and rudimentarily fastening her dress so she didn’t look a complete state. When she heard Leo start to move around upstairs she jammed her bonnet on her head, pulled the veil down over her face, slipped on her boots and ran out of the door.
The grass was still wet and the morning cool and she wished she had stopped to grab a shawl or a wrap for her shoulders, but she wasn’t going back now.
Walking quickly to warm herself up, she headed away from the cottage and towards the sea. The tears felt hot on her cheeks and she didn’t want to examine the mixture of shame and disappointment that was raging inside her.
‘Stupid, stupid
girl,’ she told herself. Of course Leo hadn’t been reaching for her this morning. He had never once indicated he found her attractive—how could he when her face was marred by such ugly scars? Again and again he had reminded her theirs wouldn’t be that sort of marriage, from allocating a room far from his at Five Oaks, to his over-the-top reaction to seeing there was only one bed at the cottage. Even so, when he’d pulled her towards him she had felt as if it were right, as if it was how they were meant to be. ‘You don’t even like him.’
It was a lie. She was growing fond of her husband. He still could be cool and formal sometimes, but she was beginning to see that was a façade to keep people distant. If you got to see the real Leo underneath, he was different.
She didn’t stop walking until she reached the cliffs, forcing herself to stop thinking and instead appreciate the stark beauty of the bay. The cliffs were about twenty feet high above a rocky beach below. The bay curved in a shallow crescent and the cliffs at the back were dark and layered. There were a few paths down over the rocks to the beach that looked well trodden and she could see why it was a favourite of locals and visitors alike.
Later she would go down to the beach and paddle her toes in the water, but right now the water would be icy where it had cooled overnight. Instead she picked a spot on the cliffs on a soft patch of grass and sat, watching the sun rise higher in the sky and the gulls swooping over the water searching for their breakfast.
* * *
She had been sitting for about half an hour when she heard Leo approaching from behind her. Her legs were feeling a little stiff and she had been planning on returning to the cottage soon anyway, much of her shame and upset having drained away as she sat in the stillness of nature.
‘Annabelle,’ Leo said softly, coming to sit next to her. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
She shook her head and he sat down next to her, close but not quite touching. Wordlessly he handed her a napkin wrapped around one of the sticky buns they had remaining from the provisions left in the cottage for them when they arrived. He had another in his hand and bit into it, eating it slowly and in silence.
‘I thought you might want some breakfast,’ he said once he had finished his, looking out at the sea rather than at her.
‘Thank you.’
‘You took off at quite a speed this morning.’
She pressed her lips together, wondering why she felt angry with him. He hadn’t even been awake when he’d pinned her with his arm and mistaken her for another woman.
‘Did something happen?’
‘You were talking in your sleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘Did I say something to upset you?’
Closing her eyes, she considered for a moment. Her instinct was to reassure him, to tell him nothing had happened. Always she had been driven to put other people’s comfort over her own, but she was fast realising she needed to stand her ground in her marriage or it would end up like her other limited relationships. Both her mother and her father had taken advantage of her docile personality in many ways and if she wanted her future to look different from her past she was the one who would have to change it.
‘You reached out for me in bed and called me Emily.’
‘Ah.’
‘You were half-asleep, so I know I cannot be angry with you.’
‘And yet...?’ He let the question hang, but Annabelle didn’t rush to fill the silence.
They sat side by side for another minute, then Leo turned to her with purpose.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, waiting for her to look at him before continuing. ‘Emily was the only person I have shared a bed with before. I suppose in my half-asleep state I felt a presence in the bed and my memory filled in the blanks.’
She nodded, acknowledging the apology. He really hadn’t done anything wrong, not consciously. It was just her wanting something that wasn’t going to be.
‘I don’t know why it upset me so much,’ she said quietly.
‘I can’t imagine being called someone else’s name in bed by your husband is pleasant for anyone, no matter the circumstances.’
‘But ours are not normal circumstances and I know you must love Emily very much.’
He looked at her as if he was considering her words for a while and then shook his head.
‘You think I’m still in love with Emily?’
‘Yes. It’s not a problem, of course, not even really any of my business.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘It really doesn’t matter, Leo. I think I was just surprised by what happened this morning, that is all.’ She was starting to feel uncomfortable, as if she were prying somewhere she had no right to be.
‘I’m not still in love with Emily,’ he said quietly. ‘I loved her and lost her, but it was many years ago.’
‘What happened?’ The question slipped out before Annabelle could stop it. She was curious to know about the woman who had meant so much to her husband even if it had been years ago.
He stood and Annabelle thought he was going to leave without saying anything more, but then he reached out his hand and when she placed her fingers in his he pulled her to her feet.
‘Do you mind if we walk? I find it easier to talk if my body is moving.’
Chapter Twelve
Dear Josh,
I never told you about Emily, did I? I suppose I was ashamed of my behaviour.
‘I spent much of my youth alone,’ Leo said as they strolled along the cliffs. The area was deserted, with no one else in sight, and it seemed a fitting setting for their conversation.
‘Your great-aunt wasn’t present?’
He grimaced. ‘She took me in, provided me with somewhere to live, an education, but she didn’t consider it her duty to spend time with me. From the age of eight until I went away to school I was mainly cared for by servants.’
Sometimes he still woke up with the all too familiar dread in his stomach, thinking he was still an eight-year-old, alone in the house, frightened and desperate for love. It had been an awful time. He’d been reeling from the loss of his parents and the separation from Josh and, instead of having someone hold him close and tell him everything would be all right, he’d been met with coldness and indifference.
‘My great-aunt was more interested in me when I had grown a little, when I was a young man she could mould into the sort of person she thought would be fit to inherit the title.’
Next to him Annabelle remained silent, but he could feel her eyes on him, pitying him. He didn’t want her pity but, given what had happened this morning, he felt he needed to explain about Emily, to show her there wasn’t another woman in their marriage, not even the phantom of a dead person.
‘I was twenty, in my second year of university. I had friends at school, friends at university, but no one close. I had become accustomed to holding everyone at arm’s length. Then I met Emily.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember exactly how they had met. ‘At first I didn’t really notice her. She was married, a little older than me, and quiet. We were at a small gathering and I just ended up sitting next to her.’
‘You started talking?’
‘Not at first. I remember sensing the sadness in her, without her ever saying a word. She sat there not speaking to anyone and the longer we sat side by side the more intrigued I became.’
‘You saw a kindred spirit?’
‘Perhaps.’ He paused and looked out at the view and then motioned to one of the little paths leading down to the beach. ‘A while later we both found ourselves out on the terrace, keen to be away from the noise of the party.’
Carefully he took Annabelle’s hand and helped her over a rocky patch, releasing it as they got down level with the beach. It was low tide and there was a great expanse of rocky beach ahead of them, but he knew from experience the tides here changed quickly and befo
re too long there would only be a narrow strip by the cliffs they could walk along.
‘We talked a little, she was very easy to confide in. I told her of my restlessness at university and then as the night wore on about my parents and the loneliness I felt. She hinted at her unhappiness in her marriage.’ He shook his head—from so little they had dreamed so much. ‘She lived close to where you are from, just on the outskirts of Eastbourne. Her husband owned a small estate. I was in Cambridge, it seemed impossible that we would ever see each other again.’
Impossible, but somehow it had happened, three times that summer and a fourth just before Christmas.
‘But you did,’ Annabelle said quietly. She was a good listener, unobtrusive, letting him know she was listening without feeling the need to interject with comments or experiences of her own.
‘But we did. She had an awful marriage. Her husband was a drunk, he hit her, humiliated her. I hated it, but she begged me not to say anything, not to do anything. It would just make things worse. I would travel to Brighton and rent a set of rooms and when her husband was in London she would make the trip to stay with me for a few days.’ He ran his hand through his hair. They had been intoxicated with one another, young and foolish, not able to see that one slip, one wrong move, and Emily’s life would become even worse than it already was. ‘I was selfish. I loved her, but I didn’t think of what was best for her. I told myself that I was making her happy, giving her hope, but I should have stayed away. She was married and I couldn’t change that. Her only hope of survival was to keep her husband happy and hope he mellowed towards her.’
‘What happened?’
‘He found out. Of course he did. He beat Emily badly and locked her in her bedroom for three days without food or water. Eventually one of the servants took pity on her and let her out and she ran.’
They paused, halfway down to the sea, and Leo glanced at his wife, wondering if this would make her think less of him. He still felt ashamed by the way he had acted, the way he hadn’t thought through the consequences of their affair.