Page 30 of The Etiquette of Love (The Academy of Love #7)

F reddie tried to speak to her husband several times on the half-hour ride back to Sweet Clover, but the duke seemed to have retreated to someplace deep within himself and did not respond to her questions.

The only time he said anything was when she tried to walk from the stables to the carriage.

“I will carry you.”

He spoke in a tone that brooked no argument.

Mr. and Mrs. Benson already had the door to the foyer open and were hovering, confused but aware something awful must have happened.

“Have a bath prepared in Her Grace’s chambers immediately and summon her maid to attend her,” Plimpton ordered sharply, marching past them and up the spiral staircase without pausing.

Compton was already waiting in her room, which had meant there was no opportunity to speak to Plimpton in private. He deposited her on the bed, turned to Compton and said, “Do not let her walk. Help her to the bath when it is ready. Do not allow her out of your sight,” he added. And then he turned and strode from the room without a word to Freddie.

Freddie and her maid locked eyes, the younger woman’s brimming with questions—and something that looked like shock.

“I sprained my ankle.” Freddie attempted to smile reassuringly but did not do too well judging by the maid’s expression.

Only when Freddie glanced in the mirror a moment later did she understand the Compton’s distress; her neck was a raw, angry red and her temple and cheek were swollen and mottled. In short, she looked as if she had engaged in a mill and lost.

By the time she had finished soaking, and Compton had dried her and carefully applied a botanical smelling unguent to her scrapes and bruises, almost three hours had passed. And still Plimpton had not returned to her.

There was a soft knock on the door, and she looked up eagerly. But it was only a housemaid with a bowl of gruel. “His Grace said you were to eat this,” the maid said, looking discomfited at giving her mistress orders, even if they were not her own.

“Thank you,” Freddie said, and quickly ate the food even though she was not hungry.

“Is the duke in the house?” she asked Compton after she’d given her the empty bowl.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Is he alone?”

“I believe the constable just left, but I think Mr. Cocker is still with him.”

If the constable had been and gone, Plimpton would have answers.

“You may go, Compton.”

“But His Grace said—”

“I know what he said,” Freddie said, not unkindly. “And I know you will have to go and tell him I have disobeyed him. When he asks, tell him that I sent you away. Go on,” she urged.

The maid gave her a last, reluctant glance before leaving.

Freddie stared at the clock on the bedside table. Not even a minute elapsed before she heard the staccato drumming of bootheels coming down the hallway.

Her door flew open and her husband glared at her, eyes blazing. “I gave a direct, explicit order and you countermanded it.”

“I did.”

He was momentarily nonplussed, but his face quickly hardened. “If I have to tie you to the bed, I—”

“You will not have to do that if you get in bed with me.”

He blinked, his surprise so complete that Freddie chuckled.

It was a terrible idea.

He stalked toward the bed. “Do you think it is amusing to defy me and almost end up dead?” he thundered.

She immediately stopped smiling. “No, Your Grace. I do not.”

Again, he was stopped short.

Freddie lifted a hand toward him.

He stared at it as if he had never seen it before.

“Please,” she murmured.

His jaw hardened, but he reached out and took her hand. Despite the abruptness of his movements, his touch was gentle—the way a man might pick up a piece of spun glass. Well, Freddie could not have that.

She squeezed his fingers and pulled him closer.

He resisted. “You are hurt. I should not—”

“It is not my ankle you will be touching.”

For the first time in their acquaintance, his lips parted in surprise.

Freddie struck while he was wrong footed. “Please, Wyndham. Get into bed with me.” She patted the mattress beside her. “I need to be held.” Remarkably, it was the right thing to say.

He sat, leaned against the pile of pillows, and slid his arm around her, holding her close.”

Freddie smiled into his shoulder. He was still fully garbed for riding, butter soft buckskins stretched over his ridiculously muscular thighs. His feet were sheathed in fine leather riding boots with wide white tops, which she found stimulating in a way that should have embarrassed her.

“I was hoping you might get undressed and get beneath the covers,” she said, her voice muffled against the wool of his coat.

Rather than chuckle or comply, he carefully held her away from him and stared down at her. Hard.

Freddie sighed. “You want to scold me, and I deserve it.”

“You gave me your word.”

“I did.”

“You broke it.”

“Yes.”

“In fact, you gave it to me knowing you would break it.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot trust you.”

“You can.”

“How?” He crossed his arms.

She opened her mouth, but then closed it and shook her head. “I cannot say anything that will make you trust me, Wyndham. You will just have to do it anyway.”

He looked profoundly confused by her answer.

Well, he was a gentleman, and a gentleman’s word was as important to him as his life. More so, given that many of them were willing to duel to the death to protect it. He simply could not comprehend ever breaking it.

“You will need to trust me; I promise I will never lie to you again.”

His brow furrowed and a struggle raged in his normally shuttered eyes. “You might have died ,” he accused.

Any humor she had been feeling about the situation dissipated at the raw terror on his face. How had she ever believed he was incapable of deep emotion? His behavior in that nightmare room today had told her everything that he had not said with words. He cared for her. And the thought of losing her had turned him into a maddened, baying beast.

A goodly part of his fear was undoubtedly for the child she carried, but Freddie knew some was for her, too.

She had scared him—badly—and a man like Plimpton probably did not have much experience with that emotion.

Freddie set her hand on his thigh and squeezed. “I am truly sorry I did not ask you to go with me.” She paused. “Would you have?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitating.

“Even though you believed that Piers was guilty?”

“Yes. I would have done whatever you asked not because of your brother’s guilt or innocence. But because you asked it of me.”

Freddie was humbled. “I beg you to accept my apology.”

“I already have. But I am not sure I can trust you again—at least not when it comes to your safety.”

“I know. You can keep me close. Will that help?”

He stared broodingly at the wall, as if he could not bear to look at her. “I do not know. I have not felt this—this—”

“Love?” she blurted before she could lose courage.

His gaze sharpened and focused on Freddie, but he did not speak, going so still and motionless he might have been a statute if not for the streaks of red on his cheeks.

His reaction struck Freddie like a proverbial lightning bolt: Plimpton was not purposely withholding his love from her to seize the upper hand in their marriage; he simply did not know how to manage the emotions shaking his well-ordered world from its foundations.

He might not even know that love was what he was feeling.

But Freddie knew. And there was no excuse for keeping her feelings to herself anymore—if there ever had been. “Because that is what I feel for you: love . I love you, Wyndham—with all my heart.”

***

Plimpton had only been this emotionally wrought three other times in his life. And all three of those other days had been when one of his children had died.

In those situations, there had been no words. Not then nor any day since. What could a person possibly say?

But today was different. Perhaps as different as it could possibly be.

Plimpton had almost reached the age of three-and-forty and had never heard the words Winifred had just spoken. At least not directed at him.

Not until his brother’s marriage had he heard the words spoken aloud between a man and a woman. Indeed, Simon and Honoria said them often and with seeming ease.

Why couldn’t Plimpton?

Could it be that he believed what his father drummed into him? That love was a woman’s emotion and a sign of weakness that no real man would succumb to.

Every day, year in and year out, his father had pounded that same message into him, like a human mallet with one stubborn peg that refused to be driven into its hole. The old duke’s notion of what made a man was warped and twisted and—Plimpton had eventually decided—just plain wrong.

His brother Simon—who had faced bullets and artillery and torture without flinching—was more of a man than anyone Plimpton had ever met, and he loved his wife and son with an openheartedness that made Plimpton’s knees weak. That was strength.

He looked down into Winifred’s patiently waiting face. This woman—this clever, strong, resilient woman— loved him.

The choice at that moment was crystal clear. He could either remain in a cage of his father’s construction, or he could push open the cell door and let himself out.

“What is it, Wyndham?”

“You have the most mesmerizing eyes I have ever seen,” he said, his voice strangely raw, almost as if he had been shouting.

It wasn’t what he’d expected to say, but her soft, full lips turned up at the ends. “Thank you.”

“I do not mean the color—although that is stunning—I mean the expression in them. The kindness and warmth and compassion.” His jaws flexed, as if to halt the fatuous words from pouring out. But they would not be stopped. “I have never told a woman I loved her. Until these past weeks, I did not believe I was capable of the emotion. With my first wife, I mistook infatuation for love. How I thought it could be anything else when I did not know her”—he shook his head. “Well, I was young and stupid. It took years to discover my error and when I did, I took comfort in the fact it had never been love. Because the alternative would have been…devastating.”

Plimpton picked up her hand and smoothed the palm with his thumb while he sought the words he needed. “Cecily hated me from the day we married until the day she died.” He gave an unamused laugh. “That is not accurate; she hated me well before we married, but I only learned the truth on our wedding night. You see, she was in love with somebody else.”

“Oh, Wyndham,” she murmured, caressing his cheek with her free hand.

He pressed his face into her palm, seeking the comfort of her touch and not caring that the reaction was one his father would have sneered at.

“I daresay an older, more self-aware, man would have noticed something amiss in his bride-to-be even with the small amount of time we spent together. Or perhaps because of how carefully we were kept apart.” He shrugged. “But I wanted her too much to care about anything but my own desire.” He was ashamed by his admission, but he also experienced a sense of liberation. He had never told anyone about his disastrous marriage, although many people would have guessed the truth. His mother certainly had. And probably Simon. He hoped to God that Becca was too young to understand how loveless her parents’ marriage had been, although that was probably wishful thinking.

“Cecily told me she would do her duty, but otherwise begged me never to come near her.” He laughed bitterly. “She needn’t have wasted her breath; the last thing I wanted to do was force myself on a woman who loathed me. Unfortunately, I had a duty, as well. And that meant I went to her bed for a handful of miserable nights until she was breeding. Then we did not have to see each other again until after the child was born. She lived her life—one of self-imposed isolation—and I lived mine.” He met her open, loving gaze. “What I am trying to say—very, er, wordily —is that our marriage is already utterly different than my last one. So different, in fact, that it has taken me until today to admit something very important. And that is that I love you, Winifred. I love you with a ferocity that terrifies me.”

Her lips parted, her expression one of wonderment.

“Why do you look so stunned? Surely you must have guessed?”

“I hoped, but I did not know. You hide your emotions well.”

“I do not want to hide them from you, Winifred. Today, when I thought I might be too late to save you, I realized that such love has a steep cost.” He squeezed her hand until she winced. But he did not apologize. “I never want to feel that fear again.”

“I am so sorry, I—”

“I know you are.” Plimpton released her hand and gently lifted her by the waist until she was sitting on his lap. He wanted her close for this last part, so he wrapped his arms around her. “There is more I need to tell you. And it is…ugly.”

She nodded.

“After the death of our second child the doctor came to me. He said part of the reason our babies had been so weak and ill was Cecily’s use of arsenic.”

Winifred winced. “For her complexion?”

Plimpton nodded, his eyes sliding over her beautiful skin.

“I have never used it,” she said. “On occasion I have used powdered rice, but never anything else, Plimpton.”

He nodded, relieved she had not made him ask.

“Did—did she stop using it?”

“No.”

Winifred squeezed her eyes shut, but a tear escaped. “I am so sorry.”

He kissed her lightly and continued. “Unlike her first two pregnancies, I did not go my own way for the third one. I stayed at Whitcombe the entire time she was breeding, and I paid attention. I saw the effect the arsenic had—it was not difficult to notice if one actually looked at one’s wife every day. I forbade her to use it, but she defied me. I had her chambers searched and seized the substance. But she kept getting more.”

“Her maid?”

Plimpton nodded. “I threatened the woman, but she continued to obey her mistress. So, I dismissed her. The maid had been with her since Cecily was only a girl and she was distraught. Matters became even more… unpleasant when Cecily stopped eating. The doctor said she was already so thin the baby would be starving. He said she must be made to eat, or she would lose the child. He recommended several methods.” He saw her shocked look. “No. I could not do what he suggested, which was to restrain her and force feed her. Instead, I told her I would bring her maid back if she would give her word not to use the arsenic.”

“And did she?”

“She promised, but I was too cowardly to have her rooms checked.”

“That is not cowardly. What else could you have possibly done?”

“I could have done what the doctor said. If I had valued my child’s life above my wife’s freedom and sanity, I could have had her locked up, forced food down her throat, and kept her away from anything harmful.”

“That would have been barbaric.”

“That is what I told myself. And when Becca was born and survived—although she was never strong—I thought perhaps the doctor had overreacted. Or that Cecily had kept her word and stopped.”

Plimpton’s mind unwillingly traveled back to the day his daughter was born. “Cecily was furious when she found out Becca was only a girl—those are her words—and she raged at me, becoming so violent that even her maid said she should be restrained before she hurt herself.” He briefly closed his eyes. “The last time, we waited two years before—” he swallowed down the words and said, “After our son Edward was born—he would be our last child—Cecily took pleasure in telling me that she had used arsenic during her entire pregnancy. Edward was so much healthier than any of the others, even Becca, that I thought maybe the doctor had been wrong, after all. But the birth had been difficult and the doctor said she was too fragile for more children. We were both relieved. Edward was doing so well—” he broke off and shook away the memory of the soul-destroying day the nurse had come to him, weeping and holding his son’s lifeless body.

“I cannot imagine what you must have felt,” Winifred said, stroking his arm.

“I hope you never have to experience that feeling, Winfred. I hope neither of us do. It would have been unbearable under any circumstances, but perhaps—had we been able to draw comfort from each other—it would not have been quite as devastating. But Cecily did not grieve. Or at least she claimed she was glad. And she never once held Becca or showed any interest in her.” He met Winifred’s gaze. “How could a mother hate her own child so much?”

“I cannot believe that she did, Wyndham. She must have been suffering greatly and simply did not have enough strength to spare for anyone else.”

“I want to believe that,” he said. “I truly do.” But he didn’t. Not that it mattered any longer.

After a moment she said, “Compton said the constable was here?”

Plimpton felt a rush of gratitude that she had changed the subject. “Yes. He told me they had to restrain Luton to get him out of there.”

“I am surprised the fall did not kill him.”

“He did suffer a broken leg.”

“And the chess pieces?”

“They were down there. Evidently Luton kept them in a shrine that dated back to the days when the building had been an actual priory.” He snorted. “It gives new meaning to false idols.”

“He looked like a religious zealot when he talked about the set—as if the pieces were alive and needed his care. He killed his father over them.”

Plimpton stared at her. “Good Lord! He told you that?”

“He said he did so to stop him from selling the pieces.” She shook her head. “His obsession drove him mad and turned him into a murderer just like his father. And all for pieces of stone.” She gave him a curious look. “You saw the set?”

“I saw them all those years ago and the constable brought them with him today. They are currently down in my vault.”

“What do you think of them?”

Plimpton shrugged. “They are chess pieces, that is all. I certainly did not think they were worth killing for.”

“Nothing is.”

He took her chin between his fingers. “You are, Winifred,” he said, and then he kissed her. He had intended it to be a gentle, light kiss, but she wove her arms around his neck and shifted closer until her nightgown rode up to her thighs.

Plimpton slid his hands around her bare legs and leaned back to see her. “Your poor face, darling… And your neck and ankle. I do not want to hurt—”

“You will hurt me more if you stop touching me,” she promised, rubbing her unbound breasts against his torso in a way that immediately got his attention. “I—I need you, Plimpton. Something about almost dying has—” she broke off and shrugged, blushing.

“Are you sure, sweetheart?”

“Yes.” She lowered her hands to his fall.

He chuckled. “Wait, I need to remove my boots before—”

“No. I want you to take me with your boots on.”

Plimpton groaned, almost ejaculating in his breeches. “My naughty wife has hidden depths,” he muttered, unfastening the first few buttons on her nightgown. “I want this off you first. Arms up,” he ordered, carefully easing the bunched fabric around her bruised temple and then tossing it to the side.

He sucked in a breath when he saw her throat. Without any material in the way he could actually see the indents left from Luton’s fingernails. “That must hurt like—”

“I hardly notice,” she said, and then grabbed the flap of his fall, which she had been fumbling with, and yanked.

He gave a startled laugh at the sound of tearing seams.

“I am sorry,” she said, not sounding it. She grabbed handfuls of buckskin and yanked his breeches down, snagging his erection in the process.

Plimpton hissed and lifted the fabric away from his prick. “Mind the jewels, darling.”

She paused just long enough to laugh and say, “The jewels?” And then she grabbed his stiff shaft and pumped him hard, making him forget about everything else. “I want you, Wyndham.”

He forced himself to still her magical fist. “Then you had better stop that right now.” He glanced doubtfully down at his breeches, which imprisoned him at the thighs. “If I could remove—”

“No,” she barked, and then she did something utterly, erotically shocking and turned away from him, positioning herself on her hands and knees.

Plimpton stared in awed stupefaction.

Winifred twisted around and scowled at him. “What are you waiting for?” And then she leaned lower, until her shoulders and head were on the bed, presenting herself to him.

“My God.” He slid a hand between her spread thighs and thrust a finger deep inside her.

She hissed and pushed her bottom against his hand in counterpoint to his thrusting. “I want you inside me,” she said, her voice muffled by the bedding.

“What a tyrant you are turning out to be.” Plimpton reluctantly released her so that he could ungracefully struggle to his knees. “Are you sure I need to keep all this on? You cannot even see—”

“Wyndham!”

He bit back a grin. “As you command, darling.” He positioned his crown at her entrance and filled her with a thrust powerful enough to drive her body up the bed. “Is that what you wanted?” he asked harshly, keeping her tight sheath full and flexing inside her.

She wiggled her hips. “Move.”

He laughed and slid one arm around her waist, circling and stroking her slick nub while he fucked her with deep, steady strokes.

She groaned and then gasped, “Yes, please, just like that.”

Plimpton did not work her long before her body stiffened and convulsed around him. He ceased his thrusting to relish her contractions, buried deep inside her as the waves of her orgasm crested and then ebbed.

Once passion released its grip on her, he withdrew with a reluctant grimace, and flipped her onto her back.

She blinked up at him, her breasts rosy from chafing against the bedding, her hair a tangled, glorious mess.

Her brow furrowed when she saw his still hard prick. “Why are you stopping? You didn’t—”

“No, I didn’t. But I thought you had a reason for keeping me clothed?”

She stared, adorably dazed.

“My boots?” he reminded her.

“Oh. Yes, please.”

“So polite,” he teased, awkwardly getting down off the mattress before taking her hand. “Get on your knees, darling.” She hesitated for only a second before hurrying to obey. “Take hold of my shoulders,” he ordered, sliding his hands beneath her lush buttocks once she had complied. He lifted her with a soft grunt, holding her up high while he lined his aching cock up with her entrance.

“My God,” he muttered as he lowered her slowly, not stopping until she took every inch.

“Why are you standing?” she asked, squirming in a way that was sure to hasten his pleasure.

“Look to your right,” he said, his breathlessness reminding him that he was sorely missing his weekly sessions at Angelo’s and Jackson’s.

Her jaw dropped. “Oh, Wyndham,” she cooed, staring at the image in the mirror while his eyes were riveted on her face.

Plimpton rolled his hips, spreading his feet wider to keep his balance, but not too wide since his bloody breeches hobbled him.

And then he proceeded to fuck her while standing, something that was not as easy as he had hoped, although Winifred’s rapt expression made it more than worth the effort.

“I like this,” she said, her breathing almost as labored as his own.

He barked a laugh. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he said tightly. “Which won’t be long.”

A smile of wicked delight spread across her face. “Let me help,” she said, and bounced against him in counterpoint.

Well, that was the end of that.

***

Plimpton laid her out on the bed with a groan.

“That was lovely,” Freddie said.

“Lovely, but far too brief,” he agreed wryly.

Freddie could not help admiring the way his chest swelled his coat with each labored breath.

Plimpton began to undress, his hands shaking from either the effort of their recent coupling or as a result of his orgasm.

“Could you put your boots back on after you remove your breeches?” she asked when he dropped into the nearest chair and began struggling with his footwear.

He raised his head slowly and gave her a look of stunned disbelief. “You cannot be serious.”

Freddie laughed. “But I am .”

He groaned. “Let us leave that for another day, shall we, darling?”

It was not a direct no , so she did not press him.

An amusing four or five minutes ensued as he struggled out of the last of his clothes. Finally, he joined her on the bed.

“On top of me,” Freddie said.

He frowned.

“Please, Wyndham.”

Freddie smiled to herself as he grumbled but did as she bade him, gingerly lowering his naked body over hers. She reached around him and pulled him close, until they were touching from ankles to shoulders.

“I must be crushing you,” he said into her hair, and began to roll off her.

She tightened her arms. “No. Stay.”

“A compromise,” he said, and then raised up onto his elbows.

Freddie smiled up at him. “Your hair is a mess.”

“Not as messy as yours.”

“No, probably not,” she conceded.

He frowned as he looked at her neck. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” she lied.

“Yes it does.”

“Just a little.”

“How the devil did it happen? Was he—was he choking you?”

Freddie did not care for the dark look that crept into his eyes. “I do not want to talk about it.” She caressed up and down his upper arms; the muscles were attractively taut from holding his weight.

“Of course, darling. What a brute I am to make you relive it.”

“Oh, it does not upset me to remember it.”

“Then why—”

“Because I can see what it does to you .”

He opened his mouth, but then closed it and nodded.

Freddie was glad he decided not to deny it.

“You should have seen yourself when you came through that door.”

“What door?”

“Into Luton’s study.”

He looked blank.

“You don’t recall his study?”

He shook his head, a subtle flush spreading over the chiseled angles of his face, softening them. “I remember saddling up Thunder myself and riding full out. The next thing I recall is setting you in the gig Cocker brought to bring you home.” He frowned pensively. “How odd that I cannot remember anything else.”

“You were not yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were baying.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Baying?”

“Yes. It was most unnerving. In fact, it was enough to frighten Luton into dropping his guard, which is when I was able to hit him with my head.”

“Baying?”

“Baying. And when you burst into the room you broke the hinges off the door.”

He gave her a skeptical look.

“You did,” she insisted. “And you picked up Luton as if he weighed no more than a feather and threw him down the hole. That is the truth, Plimpton.”

He stared unseeingly at her. “I recall nothing.”

“I think you must have gone berserker.”

He laughed.

“I am serious,” Freddie said. “I could see in your eyes that it was not you. And you have no recollection of it, so—”

“Berserker,” he repeated.

She reached up and smoothed her palms over the rounded caps of his shoulders. “I am sorry I caused you to be so afraid.”

“It wasn’t fear that I felt,” he corrected. “It was terror.”

“I will never forgive myself for putting our baby in such danger.”

“It was not fear of losing the baby that drove me to the brink of madness, Winifred. It was fear of losing you .”

Her pulse sped at the raw look in his eyes.

“I know we married because of our child, but I wanted you when I believed you were barren. I wanted you. I am delighted you can have children, but it is you I want. For the first half of my life, I had one goal—one driving reason to get up each morning and go on living, even when I was so empty of everything except duty that it was a burden to open my eyes.” He held his weight on one arm and reached out to trace her eyebrow with one finger, the love in his eyes stealing her breath. “I’d been attracted to you since Avington’s ball—the first one—but I knew I had to have you that night at the Chorley ball—it struck me like a cudgel to the head.”

She laughed. “That sounds pleasant.”

“It was bloody terrifying. I had lived for so long not wanting anything for myself that I felt as if I were leaping off a cliff into the great unknown.” His lips twisted. “When I saw Piers approach you that night, I wanted to strangle him for even daring to look at you. I wanted you all for myself, but every time I got near you, I managed to put your back up about something or other.”

Freddie caught his hand and kissed his palm. “I have a confession to make; I put my own back up because I was far too attracted to you for my own comfort. I had been living my life as the Ice Countess”—she nodded at his look of surprise. “Yes, I know about that name. I cultivated it for years. Those first months with Sedgewick made me realize that intimate relations could be fulfilling and enjoyable. But he did an almost thorough job of destroying that opinion over the three and a half years that followed. I knew it was not the act of physical love that was bad, it was Sedgewick. Even so, I did not meet any man worth taking a risk over until you. Whenever I was around you, I felt…things I had not felt in years. I wanted no part of those feelings, even though I knew you were nothing like Sedgewick.” She smiled. “I think I fell half in love with you when you took charge of the mess we found at Torrance Park, throwing out Wareham’s awful mother-in-law and the grim nurse without blinking an eye. I fell a little bit more in love when I discovered you kept a miniature of Rebecca close to your heart. But the more I liked you, the more frightened I became. And so I behaved like a fool and hid our child from you.” She kissed his hand again. “For years I thought the only person I could rely on was myself—even my friends were all struggling too hard to help save me if I truly stumbled into trouble. But today—when you roared into that house and rescued me you make me feel loved and cherished and protected. You are the sort of man who will always sacrifice your own needs and think of me first—even when I do not deserve it.”

Plimpton kissed her. “It is no sacrifice, my darling wife. It is a labor of love. And one I will gladly shoulder every day of my life, if it means I get to live it with you.”