Chapter 20
Ambrose sat behind his desk in his study and stared unseeingly at account books. There were numbers in them, which was as much as he could discern. The rest was gibberish. His eyes caught on one word: tenants. Yes, he had those. Tenants. Responsibilities. Estates to manage.
His gaze flicked to his disregarded cravat, carelessly cast aside over a stack of books, evidence his wife had been present not so long ago.
And what impact her presence had on him.
If desks could talk . . .
He looked over the ledgers again and sighed.
He could not even spare a thought to the people that relied on his quick-witted brain for their livelihood at the moment.
It was as if he was back at Cambridge again, staring cross-eyed at papers after a night of heavy drinking. Only today, he suffered no such after-effects. But he was drunk. Heavily intoxicated, in fact, walking around the halls of his home and over-imbibing on the scent of his wife.
His mind was filled with Willow, with images of her naked body writhing beneath him. And his mind had plenty of images to call upon. After their exploration in the library three nights ago, they’d since taken advantage of cloakrooms, darkened conservatories, and once, a linen closet.
And now, desks.
He couldn’t get enough of her. The way she returned every touch with the same enthusiasm overpowered him.
He wanted to marvel in those moments forever.
He never wanted them—or this—to end.
Which was why it came as a chilling blow that it would, indeed, end. Soon.
Twenty minutes ago, he had received word from his men that they’d found Holly Middleton and were returning her to London.
Bloody, bloody, bloody hell.
The timing could not have been worse.
He ought to be gloating. After all, he had been right—there was nowhere his wife, or anyone else, could go where he could not find them. He had won. This should have been a victory for him. And yet it did not feel like a victory.
What it felt like was a devastating loss.
Ambrose pushed the books away with disgust. The choice ought to have been easy. Demand justice for the slight against him. Regain control over the chaos Holly Middleton had caused. Show everyone that rules—that agreements—could not be broken without consequences. And there needed to be consequences or everyone did as they pleased. At which point, society crumbled.
His brother’s words came to mind: You got what you wanted—a wife.
Yes, he had gotten a wife. And technically he hadn’t been jilted or deserted. Some might argue no slight had been made. But it had. And his pride had sought justice for that slight, his honor had demanded it, and his need for control had pressed for it.
But now another word had wormed its way into his mind.
More.
He wanted more. More of Willow. More of her smiles. More of her touches. More of this life he’d glimpsed with her over the last week.
No more fear. No more rules. No more resentment.
A dangerous bloody word, that “more,” but it was also a word filled with promise.
Ambrose scowled down at the ill-fated letter he had tossed aside. How to deal with his sister-in-law?
Low and behold, as if fate had spoken, his brother sauntered into the room, his usual sunny self.
“Don’t you look all flustered and out of place,” Jonathan said, dropping into a chair. He stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Tell me it’s not your reluctant duchess that has darkened your mood so?”
“I would hardly call my bride reluctant. She practically sprinted down the aisle.”
“A gross exaggeration, I’m sure,” Jonathan said, his eyebrows lifting when he spotted Ambrose’s cravat. “Though, I am not here to discuss your duchess, but rather an update on her sister.”
“What about her?”
“Where to start?” Jonathan pondered aloud. “Oh, yes, are you still planning to marry me off?”
“What do you suppose?”
“You know, as the second son, I always thought myself above arranged marriages.”
“Have you now? You can go into hiding as Miss Middleton has done. Perhaps don a wig for disguise?”
“Don a wig?” Jonathan lifted his hand to his hair. “On this hair? I’d rather pencil my eyebrows. And you really ought to work on your attempts at humor.”
Ambrose snorted.
“I’ve received a letter from mother,” Jonathan informed Ambrose. “She is still quite put out about the horror of your wedding.”
“She’ll get over it.”
Just as he got over it. Which, he realized in a moment of divine clarity, he had. Fully. Explicitly. Unequivocally.
“Perhaps you ought to join her in Bath and try the healing waters for yourself?”
Ambrose did not dignify that with an answer.
He glanced over to the damned letter, which held the power to snuff out his peace, and realized he held no true ill will against Holly Middleton. The pride, the need, that had driven him to pursue justice against her affront had all but drawn its last breath.
Furthermore, if not for her abandonment, he wouldn’t have married Willow. And he could not imagine being married to anyone else. A part of him, in fact, deep down, may have been rooting for Holly all along.
Not that he would ever admit that aloud. Wild horses could trample him before he uttered those words.
But he could do something else.
Like, say, let his pursuit go. That, he found, was no hardship at all. Not anymore. Because damaging the ground he had gained with his wife by administering a consequence to soothe his pride would bring him nothing but misery.
“Your wife seems truly taken with you.”
Jonathan’s comment drew Ambrose out of his thoughts. He looked up from his desk to see his brother eyeing him with interest.
Ambrose sat up straighter. “She told you that?”
“No, but I see how she looks at you.” Jonathan leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “I see how you look at her.”
Ambrose narrowed his eyes. “Your point?”
“Just that I’d hate for you lose such a precious gift.”
Ambrose smirked. “That will never happen.”
He would make sure of that, looming catastrophe or not.
“So you have given up dwelling in the past?” Jonathan crossed his arms behind his head. “To dwell on the past is to dwell on destruction,” he finished merrily.
“Thank you, Aristotle, but I do not dwell where I do not belong, and I do not see how that has anything to do with why you interrupted my work.”
“Seems to me I’m not the first one to interrupt you.” Jonathan cracked a grin, nodding to the neglected cravat. “Decided to have more fun, did you?”
“That is no business of yours.”
“I’ll take that as an affirmative.”
“Please don’t.”
“Loosen up, brother. Let past grievances go and live your life free of strictures.”
Fate, indeed.
“Strictures are there—”
“To prevent your wife from suffering the same fate as our beloved sister, yes, I gathered.”
Ambrose sucked in a breath. The pain stabbed him, sharp and quick, at the mention of Celia.
“Your wife will not suffer the same fate,” Jonathan murmured softly. “There was no way for you to save Celia any more than I could. She was ill.”
“We have been over this,” Ambrose said quietly, darkly. The guilt he carried over his sister’s death was his burden. For years it had served as a reminder of what happened when there were no strictures in a person’s life. But it had been wishful thinking that Ambrose could breathe the force of his will into his wife. He couldn’t. And he didn’t want to.
“I thought it deserved another mention. Like I said, I’d hate for you to lose your wife because of our loss.”
“But if Celia had lived a healthier life—”
“She would have died anyway.” Jonathan shook his head. “She had a bad heart, Ambrose, and your wife doesn’t. That woman’s heart is as strong as her backbone. But you already know that. That is why you haven’t forced your little rules down her throat.”
Aye, that was the same conclusion Ambrose had arrived at. Celia’s death aside, Willow did not have a bad heart. She had a strong spirit, a good heart, in more ways than one.
Ambrose knew that the day Celia died he had shut himself off from emotion, seeking shelter in cold, hard control. He’d done so because he never wanted pain to darken his door again. And so he had compiled those rules the day he proposed to Holly. They had been drawn up to ensure his wife lived a healthy, non-tiring lifestyle.
Jonathan’s gaze fell to the letter on his desk, his eyes widening as he snatched it up. “You found her. You found Holly Middleton.”
Ambrose cursed. He should have tossed the damn letter in the fire as his wife had done with his rules. And, admittedly, he should have called his men off days ago—only he’d been preoccupied enjoying his wife’s touches and hadn’t thought enough about how his pursuit for justice would affect their truce.
To force this marriage was the quickest way to make his wife loathe him. And it suddenly became important that his wife not loathe him.
“The men I had searching for her found her.”
“And now you don’t know what to do?” Jonathan guessed.
Ambrose glanced to the ceiling. “I know exactly what to do.”
“A role of an eye. Have the heavens fallen? Or has your wife already rubbed off on you?”
“She is my wife; there was bound to be some rubbing.”
Jonathan’s eyes flew wide. “More humor? It cannot be!”
“I’m not a complete bore.”
“You were.” Jonathan continued before Ambrose could object. “But that is not my point. My point is that you do care for your wife. Maybe even love her. I can see it, old chap. So consider adhering to my warning and abandon those rules of yours.”
Love?
Ambrose cared for Willow a great deal. But love?
“I can see you are bowled over by the revelation.”
“Sod off.”
Jonathan held up hands in surrender. “Only if you promise not to do anything remarkably foolish to scare off your lovely wife,” he cracked a grin, “at least not without me to bear witness.”
Ambrose had always admired his brother’s carefree, passionate nature, but at that moment, he wanted to bash his skull in. But he didn’t have time for that just now.
His eyes dropped back to the letter on his desk. At the moment, he had to figure out how to convince his wife that, though he’d kidnapped her sister, he was letting go of his grievance in order to keep hold of something else altogether more important.
Namely, her.
“Your cheeks are bright.”
“What?” Willow asked, her eyes flicking to Poppy. She’d been staring off into the distance, fingering the rim of her teacup in thought.
“Your cheeks are bright,” Poppy repeated.
Willow lifted her hand to cup her cheeks. “They are not.”
“How would you know? Can you feel how bright they are?” Poppy said dryly.
“Don’t be ridiculous. But I’m sure they aren’t bright.”
“They are practically glowing,” Poppy said, her blonde brow knitting in a frown. “Also, you look airy.”
“Airy?” Willow laughed. “One does not look airy. What does that even mean?”
“It means,” Poppy said in mild aggravation, “You have the appearance of someone walking on clouds.”
“I do not!” Willow exclaimed, almost spilling tea all over her pink muslin dress. Or perhaps she did. It certainly felt as though she was walking on air. Her eyes skittered to the sofa on which her sister was seated. She and Ambrose had thoroughly enjoyed that sofa. More than once.
This time she felt her cheeks pinkening.
Poppy quirked a brow. “And I am sitting in your drawing room.”
“I don’t see how that’s related. I invited you for tea.”
“Well, it’s just another interesting observation. Have you forgotten whom you married? I keep expecting St. Ives to barge into the room and drag me off. Though how it is that you look so,” she waved her hand in the air, “airy when your husband is hunting our sister and plans to marry her off to his brother, I’ll never know.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Willow said with absolute confidence.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because . . . things are different.”
Steamy different. Doting different. Airy different.
“I’d certainly say so,” Poppy’s voice was laced with skepticism. “Starting with that swooping kiss at Gunter’s.”
Willow opened her mouth to reply, but Poppy waved a hand at her. “No, no, you cannot tell me that was nothing. I’m still astonished Scotland Yard did not haul you away for indecent behavior.”
“It was just a kiss,” Willow defended, her face flaming.
“It’s never just a kiss, and that, dear sister, was no mere kiss, that was a burst of fireworks and stars all at once.”
Willow’s hand lifted to cover her heart, and she forced herself to say, “It was a spur of the moment kiss, between husband and wife. Nothing to be so concerned with.”
Liar.
If only Poppy knew what that kiss had led to and what Ambrose and she had been doing at every opportunity since. And that sofa she was seated upon . . .
Poppy made a disbelieving sound. “I’d have found it romantic had it not nearly killed two ladies craning their necks so much they nearly got trampled by a vegetable cart.”
“That was hardly the case, and back to the matter at hand. Lord Jonathan has also assured me he has no intention of wedding Holly. He is on our side. All will be well.”
Poppy snorted, but her eyes took on a renewed interest. “I cannot believe I missed him at the ball. Is he handsome? Tall? Muscular? Does he have a wicked reputation?”
“Honestly.”
“Give me some morsel, a tiny scrap even. I’m starving over here.” Her lips pulled into a pout. “With you romping in public and Holly off on a scandalous adventure, I’m bored out of my mind!”
“Oh, very well,” Willow said with a laugh. “He is handsome, but not as handsome as his brother. He’s tall, and I cannot speak for his muscles, but he does seem to be a charming rogue.”
“Not as handsome as his brother?” Poppy said with glowing eyes. “I knew it! You have fallen under the duke’s spell!”
Willow rolled her eyes.
“Yes! Do not deny it! I knew there was something different about you and that’s it. You’re in love.”
“First doting and now in love? Honestly, Poppy.”
But Willow could not help but be jolted by the thought. Poppy had been right before. Was she right this time? Willow was certainly doting on her husband and may even be considered in lust, but love?
“You must be imagining things,” Willow offered, not ready to confirm or deny the claim.
“Well, you haven’t put on any weight, so your glow must be love,” Poppy murmured with a ponderous expression.
“Goodness! Why would I put on weight?”
“Well, when a woman is with child, she gains weight. You haven’t gained any, but you’re glowing. Must be love,” she paused, then asked, “You haven’t missed your courses, have you?”
“Would you shush?” Willow hissed, glancing at the door. “One does not speak of courses at tea.”
Poppy snorted. “I don’t see why not. Where else would we speak of them? It’s the natural course of a marriage.”
“Well my courses are just fine.”
Speaking of which, when had motherhood become the furthest thing from her mind? A doting mama was all she’d ever wanted to be. Instead she was doting on her husband.
A startling thought.
Children were the very reason she had married Ambrose. And yet, at the moment, the longing, the constant yearning had subsided. She still wanted to be a mother, but she was enjoying the intimacy she shared with her husband. Which might very likely lead to her being enceinte.
All was good with the world.
She sat stunned, teacup tightly clasped in her hand, marveling.
All was good with the world.
The only thing that remained was to ask her husband to let go of his disgruntlement, for her, for them, which she was certain he had already done, and the world would be perfect.
Something magical had exploded into her life.
Something much like love.
Maybe Poppy was right.
Maybe there was something different about her, after all.