Page 84 of Secrets of the Marriage Bed

Julia raised her head, and regarded him with a sleepy gaze. ‘Alistair, is something wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ His tone sounded harsher than he had intended, colder.

She frowned.

‘It is all right, Julia.’ He stroked her hair back from her face, where it had stuck to her cheek. He gave her lips a brief kiss. ‘Everything is lovely. You are lovely.’

A smile and her eyes slid closed. If only he could believe she would not betray him the way everyone else had. He couldn’t. In the end, they all did. Bitterness filled him. And loneliness.

He rose from the bed and dressed. For a moment he gazed down at her lovely face. Drank in her expression. Inhaled her scent.

The sight of the rubies tangled with the bedsheets made him smile sadly. He picked them up, arranged them on the dressing table, and went downstairs to his study. To work.

* * *

Two days later, Julia went in search of the husband who had set her about with footmen, then set about avoiding her by riding out in the morning with his steward and sending apologetic notes about being unable to get home in time for dinner each evening. And when he did arrive home, after dinner he promptly went off to play billiards or chess with some neighbouring Squire, the same way he had avoided her in London.

She’d had quite enough. They needed to talk.

If not for Grindle whispering in her ear, she would not have known to find him in his estate office this morning.

He looked up from a pile of papers that looked higher than when she had been in here the last time. For a second or two a smile of welcome hovered on his lips. It disappeared so fast she wondered if he’d been expecting someone else. His face was thinner than it had been. His eyes were shadowed and weary.

‘Julia. How unexpected.’ He looked as if he’d lost a sovereign and found a penny.

Reaching for calm, she forced herself to gaze past him to the desk. ‘No word from Mr Lewis?’

‘Not as yet.’ He remained behind his desk, keeping distance between them.

‘I see Jaimie McPherson has returned,’ she ventured. ‘I assume Mrs Robins is settled.’

His lips flattened. ‘She is. How are you?’

‘Well enough for anything.’

He raised a brow. ‘How may I be of service?’

The vision his words conjured in her mind caused a pulse of pleasure that had her squeezing her thighs together. A flicker of the muscle in his jaw made her think he had noticed her response.

She inhaled and straightened her shoulders, moving away, seeking courage. ‘I wanted to discuss our marriage.’

His fair brows drew down. ‘In what regard?’

‘The lack thereof.’

He gestured for her to sit. ‘Shall I call for the tea tray?’

‘Perhaps afterwards.’ She wanted this over with. She perched on the edge of the chair in front of the desk. ‘Alistair, I cannot blame you if you think marrying me was a mistake, but we are stuck with it.’

He frowned. ‘I am not sure I understand your meaning.’

‘For one thing, you are now avoiding my company as if I have the plague.’

His expression became more remote. ‘There has been a great deal of business requiring my attention. Things that Lewis—’

‘Even you do not work all night.’ Oh, there were the longings again pressing to the fore. Heat scalded her face. ‘I hear you late at night.’ Through doors he now kept locked.

His lips thinned. Deep lines bracketed his mouth. ‘You have been ill. I thought it best—’