Page 33 of The Lyon Whisperer (The Lyon’s Den Connected World #79)

C hase vaulted into the carriage and settled beside her instead of taking his customary position on the bench opposite her.

Of all the nights he might choose to show affection, it would have to be tonight when she wanted nothing so much than to curl into herself and shut out the world—starting with him.

The carriage lurched into motion.

To her surprise, Chase took her gloved hand between his large palms. She somehow did not flinch or pull back. He had removed his kidskin gloves. He had such beautiful hands. Long fingered and slightly tanned, nails cut short and neatly trimmed.

She turned her head and feigned interest in the passing scenery, though the long line of carriages exiting the property meant they traveled at a snail’s crawl.

“What did you wish to tell me?” she asked. She’d meant to broach the subject burning through her, Millicent’s revelations damning Chase and her father, but, coward that she was, the words would not come out.

“Lady Frommer came looking for you, but, in typical Amelia fashion, you were dancing.” He drew her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her wrist. “She told me she had discussed my notions for aiding the veterans with the Earl of Claybourne, no less, and Viscount Randall. Do you know of them?”

“Of course. The Claybourne earldom hails from Derbyshire. Theirs is an old and distinguished bloodline, with close ties to the Crown. Viscount Randall also commands much respect. Congratulations, Chase. You’re well on your way to success.”

“Thanks to you. Thanks to your diligence in planning, your hostess skills…”

She snorted at that, charmed despite her misery.

“…your generous and kind nature.”

She looked at him, then, searching his face in the night-dark carriage.

Chase stared at her, intent and somber. “She also intends to take two of the puppies off of your hands.”

Another palpable blow—despite the fact she’d known all along the day would come when she would have to let them go. “I see.”

“Evidently, she has twin grandchildren whom she intends to entertain with the mongrels.”

She lowered her eyes to her free hand, fisted in her lap. “Another of your goals, nearly achieved. You must be pleased.”

Momentary silence greeted her words.

He released her fingers to lay a warm palm on her belly. He smoothed it over her midriff in a gentle caress. “It occurs to me I did you a disservice, madam wife. I stole you away without taking you in to supper. You must be famished.”

She shook her head. “In truth, I could not eat a thing.”

“And why is that?” he asked softly.

Amelia turned her gaze pointedly outside as the carriage turned onto a relatively deserted street and picked up speed. Soon they would reach the highway for home.

Home. It had seemed such a welcoming place. Almost a haven—before she understood the true basis of her marriage.

“I spoke to Tully,” he said.

She snapped her head in his direction, unable to stop herself. “Lady Tully?” she asked in a too-loud voice.

“Her, too, later, and she was certainly in an odd frame of mind.”

“Oh?” Blood rushed in her ears.

“But I refer to Lord Tully. He claimed to have no notion of the fires. I believed him.”

“Excellent. No doubt you’ll make the extended deadline for the shipyard order.”

“No doubt.”

She sent him a chilly smile. “That gives you more time to wait on my tight-fisted father to release my dowry, does it not?”

He frowned and looked out his own window. “It is not for you to worry over, Amelia,” he said in a low voice.

“How silly of me. Of course not.”

He crooked a finger under her chin and guided her face toward him.

She met his searching stare with her own unblinking gaze.

“You are my wife. I will take care of you.”

His wife by the luck of the draw.

She should confront him now. Perhaps Millicent had gotten some of her information wrong. She had come by everything through gossip and conjecture, after all.

But what if she had everything exactly right?

An unbearable ache welled up inside her. She could not hope to get the words out without dissolving into a puddle at his feet. That she would not do. Tomorrow was soon enough to discuss all the sordid details.

He traced her cheek with his fingertips, and lowered his head, clearly intent on kissing her.

As always, everything in her went weak with desire. At the last moment, she turned her head, and his lips grazed her cheek.

“I am very tired, my lord. I wish to close my eyes until we reach Warren House.”

“Of course,” he murmured, clearly confused by her rebuff. Still, by some miracle he accepted her lame explanation.

She huddled in the corner, pressing herself as far from him as she could in the confined space. She stared out the window, seeing nothing but black shapes under a moonless sky, feeling more alone and miserable than she ever had.

She must have dozed, because Chase awoke her to tell her they’d arrived.

She allowed him to hand her down from the carriage then started up the front steps.

He kept pace beside her.

When she would have turned for the kitchens, he stayed her with a hand to the small of her back. “You’re exhausted. I’ll check on the dogs. You go up,” he said.

Without a word, she turned for the stairs.

“I’ll wait for your maid to leave before joining you.”

Not glancing back for fear of what he’d see in her eyes, she forced out the bitter words of denial before her weakness for the man could overrule her sense. “Not tonight, Chase. I have a…headache. I should like to sleep alone if you do not mind.” They had not slept apart since they first shared a bed overnight.

She waited, barely able to draw a breath over the pain in her chest.

“Are you unwell? Should I…what can I do?”

The concern in his voice tore at her insides. “I just need sleep.”

“Very well. Good night, Amelia. Sweet dreams.”

Chase lay in the big, empty bed, arms folded beneath his head, and stared blindly up at the ceiling. He’d given up trying to sleep as a pointless endeavor as it had evaded him for the last hour, maybe longer.

In the connecting room, Amelia slept. He knew because he’d listened for signs of movement and heard dead silence. That made sense.

She was tired. She had a headache, and wanted a night’s rest apart from her husband who likely took up too much space in the bed.

Husbands and wives slept separately all over England, in different rooms. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

So why did he have the sense something was very wrong between them?

It wasn’t just that she’d chosen to sleep alone. She’d seemed off from the moment he rejoined her in the ballroom.

He replayed the moment in his mind. Saw her face as she exited the carriage. Her perfectly expressionless face.

Hell. He was a fool. He knew by now Amelia went blank when she wanted to disguise her true emotions. But what hadn’t she wanted him to see? Had something or someone upset her during the brief time he’d left her, or was she simply over-tired as she claimed?

Could she be with child?

A fierce wanting ripped through him like a hot knife through butter.

He flung off the bedcovers and stalked to the adjoining door. He gripped the door lever, twisting it slowly, sliding the door open on silent hinges.

He didn’t want to wake her. He simply wanted to look on her sleeping and hear her soft, steady breaths.

He stood motionless in the archway. Having laid awake, his eyes had long since adjusted to the dark, allowing him to make out Amelia’s form, huddled under the bedcovers.

When she did not stir, he padded to her bedside and gazed down on her.

She lay on her side, one fist partially unfurled beneath her chin. Her night cap had come off at some point and rested atop her pillow beside her head. Her long, black hair spilled over one shoulder.

His wife. One day, God willing, the mother of his child.

He would take care of her, and that meant dealing with that damned bet.

He could not, would not, ask her to change to appease her father or society or the bloody Prince Regent himself. He would not alter her sweet, giving nature, her inquisitive mind, her occasional outspokenness for all the money in the world.

But what if, by flouting Fallsgate, he lost everything? Would she still want him, penniless and disgraced? Could he ask that of her?

Better they’d never married in the first place.

Not that he’d give her up, selfish ass that he was. Never .

He couldn’t even curse the fate that had landed him in this position. Had it not been for the bet his uncle had lost, she may very well never have agreed to be his.

It was all a bloody mess.

With one last torturous look, he turned away and started for his own chamber.

Amelia’s sleep scratchy voice stopped him cold. “Chase?”

“Go back to sleep, Amelia. I came to check on you, nothing more.”

“ Chase .”

At her choked plea, he swiveled to face her.

She emitted a small sob and sat up.

He vaulted to her bedside, his heart racing. “What is it, sweetheart? Are you all right?”

She reached for him.

He had her in his arms, cradled against his chest before he drew another breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Her body was warm and soft against him. Tiny tremors vibrated through her. “I had the most horrible dream,” she said, her voice tight. “I was in my father’s house, and you were there, somewhere. I searched and searched and couldn’t find you.”

He smoothed his hands over her back. She felt so good in his arms. So right. “ Shh , darling. It was only a dream.”

His words did nothing to alleviate her distress. “I finally realized you had left me there because you no longer wanted me as your wife. I went to your townhome on St. Richard’s Street to beg you to take me back and you laughed. You wouldn’t even let me past the front door. You said it was all a game. You said you never wanted me as your wife and left me standing on the stoop.

“All around the square, people stared and laughed. Lady Tully was there, and Lord Selbie. Even Mr. Hoby pointed and laughed.”

“Listen to me, Amelia. It was only a dream.”

She fisted her hands to gently pummel his chest. “But it’s true. You never chose me as your wife. You never wanted me. Not really.”

He grasped her shoulders and held her away from him.

Even in the deeply shadowed room, he read the stark expression on her face. He gave her a gentle shake. “Where is this coming from? You are my wife, now and forever more. Do you hear me?”

She drew a shuddering breath, then nodded.

He couldn’t help himself. He lowered his head and took her mouth in a tender kiss meant to convey the truth in his words. “You are mine, Amelia,” he breathed.

She nodded again, her tremors subsiding.

It was time for him to return to his own bed.

“It’s late. You need your rest,” he forced himself to say. “Shall I leave?”

She shook her head.

On the cusp of profound relief, a primitive need to show her just how much she belonged to him rose up inside him. Tamping the latter down with a will of steel, he swept the bedcovers aside. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

After she lay down, he moved to the far side of the mattress and stretched out atop the night-chilled bedcovers. He had told her long ago he would never enter her chamber uninvited to claim his husbandly rights, and he would keep that promise if it meant he suffered with a state of semi-arousal all night.

Amelia did not cooperate. She reached for him, kicking the sheets down to her ankles, and clung to him like a second skin. Whether by accident or design, her nightshift had ridden up and she twined her bare legs with his.

He groaned as his manhood, already half engorged, swelled to life. Perhaps he should have donned drawers.

She nuzzled the underside of his jaw with the cold tip of her nose, pressed kisses to his throat, toyed with the hair at his nape and shifted her torso against his so her breasts grazed his chest in a tortuous, steady rhythm. The thin lawn of her nightshift did nothing to disguise the pucker of her nipples.

He lost the battle with himself. Dragging her close, he took her mouth in a voracious kiss.

She whimpered and parted her lips beneath his, hooking one sinewy leg over his hip to lock him to her.

“I didn’t mean to…never intended…”

She shushed him, pressing her mouth to his. Just as well, as he was beyond words.

He reached between them to explore her soft curls and the tantalizing secrets they guarded. A groan he could not contain sounded in his throat when he found her already hot and swollen and slick with feminine arousal. He reveled in the welcoming, silken flesh, in the heady knowledge he had evoked her sensual response.

She clung to him, her hips undulating, and pressed her sex into his touch in an urgent demand for release.

Somehow he resisted to draw out her pleasure, caressing her gently, circling her relentlessly, heightening her desire as his own insides tangled in a mass of longing and lust for the siren in his arms.

Without warning, she exploded under his touch.

In the midst of her climax, he took her, hardly able to breathe as the walls in her channel pulsed, squeezing around him.

“ I love you, Chase, I love you ,” she choked.

It was his undoing. He shouted an exultant cry as his own release crashed through him and he spilled his hot seed into her.

They lay, bodies entwined, breaths mingled, for a very long time.

When dawn broke, Chase awoke with his warm, soft wife still in his arms. From nowhere, a puzzle piece he hadn’t known was missing clicked into place.

Of course. Of course.

How had he missed the signs?

No matter. He could use this, would use this to solve all their problems. It was so simple, he nearly laughed aloud. But he resisted the urge. He could not share his revelation with Amelia, not without explaining a great deal more that she never needed to know.

He extricated himself from her and rose, somehow managing not to wake her. He padded to his chamber and closed the door.

He had preparations to make before riding into London later today.