by Nicholas
“Easy,” Nick cautioned, resigned to yet greater self-restraint. “Don’t let me hurt you.”
“You couldn’t,” she whispered, rocking her hips in a small, slow pattern of thrust and retreat. “You feel wonderful to me, absolutely, gloriously… Ah, Nicholas…” He lay beneath her, letting her have complete control as she took him more and more deeply into her body. His hands eased away from her wrists and moved gently over her face, then her neck and shoulders. He stroked her breasts, her belly, and her arms, and all the while watched her expression in the last of the firelight.
“I want…” Leah opened her eyes to plead with him silently.
He wanted to cry, to weep with the knowledge of what could not be his.
“I know,” Nick replied. “But slowly, Leah, and gently. I will not forgive myself if I hurt you.”
She shook her head. “You are lovely inside me, so sweet and full and unbearably… God… All I want is more of you. More and more…”
Her words hammered at him, hammered at the place inside him that said he was not entitled to take pleasure from a woman, not ever, for surely it pleased him to hear her sighs and her lavish compliments. It pleased him, warmed his soul, and aroused his body. He was already fighting the tightening up behind his balls that signaled his own impending orgasm, and the feel of Leah slowly hilting him in her body pushed his control to the limits.
“Nicholas?” Leah settled herself slowly and completely onto him then folded down onto his chest. “You aren’t moving with me.”
“I don’t dare,” he whispered, finding her mouth with his. “But you can move, Leah.” His hands caressed her back then gripped her hips, encouraging her into a slow, languorous rhythm. “Come like this for me.” He trailed one hand up to cup her breast and tease her nipple. “Take your pleasure of me.”
Torture me so this one memory, at least, will be mine.
He knew she couldn’t help herself. He intended that his voice, his hands, his kisses, the throbbing fullness of his cock lodged deep in her body, and the need to be as close to him as life on earth allowed converge. As soon as Leah withdrew and pressed forward again, he felt her silently shatter. Nick did move then; he rocked himself inside her, prolonging and intensifying her pleasure with slow undulations of his hips and glancing caresses to her breasts. When her passion ebbed, Nick brushed his thumb against the top of her sex and drove her up again, more forcefully still.
“Nicholas… oh, Nicholas…” She breathed his name so softly Nick felt it more as exhalations against his chest than words. His arousal clawed at him, and yet he let his hips fall still and cradled Leah against his body.
“You are all right?” he whispered.
“I am… utterly replete,” Leah whispered back. “But you are not. You touch me so carefully, Nicholas, so caringly, but you haven’t found your pleasure.”
“Leah, I can’t…” He didn’t know how to tell her what he needed, but any minute—any second—it would be too late. With a soft groan, he rolled them and lifted himself out of her body, then lay himself over her, tightly seaming his wet cock between them.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, thrusting against her belly until pleasure radiated through him and he spent his seed between their unjoined bodies. “I’m just so… damnably sorry.”
He lay between her legs, physical repletion warring with self-disgust, while Leah’s arms went around him and her hands threaded through the hair at his nape.
The haven she offered was precious and never to be his. If he allowed the embrace, then he might allow the confidences such embraces engendered.
The thought inspired him to lever up, taking his weight on his forearms and knees.
“Don’t go.” Leah tightened her grip. “I like your weight on me.”
Confound the woman. “You can’t breathe,” Nick answered, more harshly than he’d intended. “And I’ve made a mess of you. Let me go, Leah. Please.”
Her arms slid from his neck, and she let her legs fall open. He extricated himself from her, crossed the room, and fetched the basin and towel kept near the hearth. As he sopped one end of the towel in the water then rubbed it briskly over his flat stomach and his genitals, all he could think was: What have I done? What have I done?
“Say something,” Leah prompted, her voice catching, as if tears threatened.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said flatly. “That should never have happened.” He used the towel on her as impersonally as he could, when what he wanted was to bury himself in her again and again and again.
“Why shouldn’t it have happened?” Leah asked, bewilderment coming to the fore. “It was beautiful, and ordained by God, and one of the few pleasures any married person is entitled to expect of his or her mate.”
Beautiful—and potentially tragic.
“But not us,” Nick said, firing the towel across the room with unnecessary force. “We’re not entitled to that. I am not entitled to that.”
“But, Nicholas, why not?”
“I could get you with child, even if I don’t spend inside your body,” Nick said wearily. “I wish it were not so, Leah. I desperately wish it were not so, but I was honest about my terms when you agreed to marry me. I am profoundly sorry to have breached my word to you as far as I have, and I can only hope there won’t be consequences we both regret.”
“I do not understand you,” Leah said in quiet misery. “You are a sumptuous lover, Nicholas, and I will not, not ever, regret what has passed between us here tonight. I will instead resent until my last day that you deny us both what is our right.”
She flopped back down to the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.
He had hurt her, hurt her in the one area a spouse’s trust and protection ought to be inviolate, and the need to comfort her was a living, writhing misery in Nick’s soul.
He hadn’t the right. He also hadn’t the right to stalk from the bed and leave her even more alone than she felt now.
And he hadn’t the courage to ask her if she wanted him to leave.
So he waited until Leah fell asleep then carefully folded himself around her once more, and like a thief in the night stole what consolation from her he could, while darkness hid his anguish.
***
“Is it time to rise?” Leah asked, blinking.
“Not yet,” Nick said. “There’s tea on the hearth. Shall I fetch you a cup?”
He was polite, at least. They’d spent the previous day being so polite Leah’s teeth nigh ached with it, and then last night in his sleep, Nick had held her desperately close.
“Fetch us both a cup.” Leah pushed her braid over her shoulder and wrestled the pillows behind her back. “How are you on this day, Nicholas?”
He rose from the bed, naked—at least he wasn’t going to deny her that much. “I feel like I felt when Ethan was sent north to school: bewildered, powerless to stop someone I love and rely on from being taken away.” He brought the whole tray to the bedside table and sat on the mattress, his back to Leah.
“You have known a bucketload of loss,” Leah said. She wrestled the bedclothes aside and knee-walked over to Nick, wrapping her arms around his shoulders for a brief hug. He tolerated it, closing his eyes on a sigh.
“Let’s drink this in bed,” Nick suggested, maybe by way of an olive branch. “Soon enough we’ll be up and about, dressed in sobriety and grief.”
“Maybe at first, but you grieve in proportion to how you loved, and eventually, the love pushes back through the loss.” She knew this. If it was all he’d allow her to give him, she’d offer it freely.
Nick settled back against his pillows and sipped his tea.
“You speak such eloquent words, Wife. Nonetheless, I am royally out of charity with my papa, and that is hardly worthy of me or the life he lived.”
Of course he’d be angry, and Nick was not comfortable with anger in any sense.
“You think I wasn’t wroth with my mother for leaving me so soon after my child died? It frightens us to be withou
t our parents, whether they were doing much parenting before they died or not. Nicholas?”
“Wife?”
Wife—that was something.
“For today, don’t shut me out. I know you are displeased and upset over what passed between us in this bed, but you bury your father today, and that must take precedence over our troubles. Your family will need to lean on you, and…” She looked away, self-conscious, yet unwilling to back down. “I am inviting you to lean on me.”
“I have leaned on you.” Nick reached out a long arm and let the backs of his fingers drift over her cheek. “And, Leah, I am so damned sorry about the way I spoke to you the other night. You are not to blame.”
And then she was angry. Angry at the big, noisy family who assumed Nick would take on every difficulty and see to every problem. Angry at the mother who’d died and left him with such a load of guilt, even his broad shoulders should not have to bear it alone.
And she was angry at him, so stubbornly determined to keep every burden ever thrust upon him.
“We can deal with all that later, Nicholas, agreed?” She studied her teacup lest she start shouting at him.
“We’ll deal with it later, and you have my thanks for your understanding.”
“I am your wife, and I would be your friend.”
Nick turned to set his teacup aside and spoke to Leah over his shoulder.
“Will you let me hold you? I know I should not ask this of you, but I can behave, Leah. I promise you that, it’s just…”
“Of course.” Leah passed him her teacup and scooted over. She settled against his side, where she fit as if God had made her just for that cozy location. Nick’s hand fell to her shoulder, brushed her braid aside, and began drawing slow patterns on her arm and her back, until she was dozing contently in his arms, his chin resting on her temple.
A soft tap on the door heralded the arrival of breakfast. Nick brought the covers up to Leah’s chin and bade the serving maid enter, then dismissed her after she’d built up the fire.
Before he could leave the bed, Leah climbed over to straddle Nick’s lap. There were mounds of bed covers between them, softly compressed between their bodies. She batted them aside until she got her arms around Nick’s neck, hugging him close at the start of this most trying day.
“I know, Nicholas, we have dreadful difficulties ahead, sad things to say to each other, but one grief at a time is more than enough. For today, I am your devoted wife, if you’ll allow it.”
“I’ll allow it.” Nick pressed his face to her throat. “I don’t deserve it, but I’ll allow it.” Unspoken between them hung two words that held back a wealth of foreboding and misery. Nick would allow her support—for now. Only for now.
***
“Leah?” Nick poked his head into the ladies’ parlor—the Squealery, according to the late earl—the day after the burial in the late afternoon, and found his wife surrounded by all of his sisters, addressing replies to cards of condolence.
“Nicholas?”
“A word with you, if you can spare me a moment,” Nick said, purposely not letting even one sister catch his eye. “I’ll meet you in the gardens.”
Nick waited for her on the same bench they’d occupied after the viewing, feeling more solemn than even at the burial.
“You look very serious, Nicholas.” Leah took her seat beside him, her fingers twining with his. In just a few short days, this had become their habit—to hold hands, regardless of the company or the hour.
“I am serious,” he said, his gaze tracing over each of her features. She was tired and probably didn’t even realize it. “I asked you out here to let you know I have considered your suggestion that we separate, and find myself agreeing to it.”
Leah’s fingers went limp in his. Nick had never hated himself more.
“I see.” Leah’s voice held no more life than her fingers. “Is this to be a permanent separation?”
“If I were less selfish,” Nick said, “I would tell you that yes, this is permanent, except for those unavoidable family occasions when we must be seen together, or the periodic meeting we schedule for business purposes. Then too, you’ll be expected to attend my investiture. But I am selfish, Leah, and so I will say I do not know how long we will need to live apart, and I regret this development, because it hurts you.”
“What about you, Nicholas?” She withdrew her hand from his and regarded him with an appearance of dispassion. “Does this development hurt you as well, or will you be relieved to be shut of me?”
“It is not what I’d wish for either of us,” Nick said. “Particularly not what I’d wish for you. You have to know, Leah…” He raised a hand to touch her face, but at her utterly contained expression, he never connected with her cheek.
“Know what?”
“I cannot trust myself to behave around you as I promised I would and I can see no other means of keeping my word,” Nick offered stiffly. “You deserve better, but I cannot undo our marriage, and for the sake of your safety, I will not even try.”
“My safety?” Leah hissed incredulously. “I wish…” She rose to her feet as Nick saw tears gathering in her eyes. “I wish I could hate you, Nicholas. I cannot understand this decision you’ve made, to dwell in the loneliest form of hell imaginable, and to fashion a cell for me there as well. You are a lovable man, intelligent, kind, and decent. Your decision makes no sense to me, not now, when I see what potential we have together.”
She stalked off, skirts swishing madly, leaving Nick to sit in the dying sun and curse his fate.
When he came to bed that night, Nick found Leah doing a credible impersonation of sound sleep, though she was given away by the speed with which the pulse in her throat leaped and the fact that her mouth was closed. In sleep, Leah’s lips parted the barest fraction of an inch. Still, Nick didn’t blame her for avoiding him. He shifted and climbed naked onto the mattress, hating the ache in his chest and knowing she likely felt something similar.
Which was entirely his arrogant, presumptuous fault. He’d thought he could be a sexual convenience for her, within the limits of his self-imposed marital celibacy. He’d planned on being her, what? Her sexual friend, as he’d been to so many other women? And her husband, entitled and bound to protect her, and her social escort when duty required it.
He’d never, ever planned on seeing the depths of her courage, her humor, her tenacity, her loyalty to family. Her passion for him, and not just for the pleasure he could give her.
On a sigh, he shifted across the bed and reached for her. She surprised him by meeting him and cuddling into his arms as if they’d been married for twenty good, happy years. But when Nick leaned down to rest his cheek against hers, he felt the lingering dampness of her tears.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Leah said nothing, but lacing her fingers through his, drew his arm securely about her waist.
Which left him feeling, as impossible as it seemed, yet sorrier still.
Fifteen
“So how do we do this, Nicholas?” Leah was sharing a glass of brandy with Nick in the Clover Down library, their evening meal concluded and the rain making a steady, battering downpour against the mullioned windows.
“How would it be least trying for you?” Nick asked, staring at his drink. Leah had chosen to sit beside him on the sofa, a generosity on her part he both treasured and detested.
She should hate him, for he most assuredly did hate himself, and his life.
“I found my years in Italy were made bearable by my brother’s companionship, and that of the people who lived around me. But I had the anticipation of Charles’s birth, and then his presence, to bring cheer to the whole experience.”
Nick closed his eyes at the practical way she delivered that blow.
“Shall we hire you a companion?”
“We shall not. I’ve made do without before, but I would like a riding horse of my own.”
“That’s easy enough to accomplish, but, Leah”—Nick risked a glance at
her—“I don’t want you to feel you’re confined here. If you want to spend time at Belle Maison, or if you need the town house, send word. I’ve a number of places I can stay.”
Leah’s hands tightened on her glass, and Nick realized she was likely tormenting herself with thoughts of all the beds he’d be welcome in.
“Is there something wrong with me, Nicholas?”
“Wrong with you?” He speared her with a puzzled look. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“You are a man who enjoys the ladies. You made that plain when I accepted your proposal, but now, it seems of all the ladies in all the beds in all the towns of England, mine is the one bed you won’t share. I must conclude the fault lies with me.”
Nick felt gut-punched as he saw the flickering uncertainty behind the studied composure in Leah’s eyes, and yet, she had her finger on the difficulty: the difficulty was that she was his wife, his countess, and the only woman who could bear his legitimate heirs.
“The problem is that I do not want to have children with you, Leah,” Nick said slowly, staring at his glass. “I’ve been honest about that much from the start.”
“Do you dislike children, Nicholas?”
“I love children,” Nick said on a harsh exhalation. He wouldn’t lie to her about that, but the truth had him so frustrated, he had to set his drink down before he hurled it at the hearth with all the considerable strength in him.
They sipped their brandy in miserable, jagged silence, until Leah laid a hand over Nick’s.
“I have an imposition to ask of you, Husband.”
Nick’s relief that she was changing the subject was pathetic. “Ask,” Nick said, meeting her eyes. “Ask anything.”
“You have offered to pleasure me,” Leah said, a blush heating her cheeks as she spoke. “I would avail myself of your kindness in this regard.”
“My kindness…” Nick closed his eyes. He would love to pleasure her, love it. If she’d allow him that… Even this one last time, he would adore the privilege and pain of it. But he’d proven unequal to the necessary restraint, and so her imposition was an accurately aimed dagger thrust into his floundering self-respect.