Page 35 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

R eturning home to Cavendish Square and going up to check on the children, they found Mrs. Green in her chair with Charlie in her lap.

“What is wrong?” asked Emrys sharply but keeping his voice low. His heart was hammering fast.

Mrs. Green patted the sleeping child and spoke softly over her head. “She had a nightmare, poor lamb, and wouldn’t settle.”

“What was it about? Did she say?” He had the occasional nightmare himself, and they were horrible. It would be terrifying for a little girl.

“Hard to tell—something about a monster and her mother, but it was garbled. She asked for you, my lord. It took me quite a while to quiet her.”

Emrys heart clenched, and he held out his arms for Charlie. “I’ll take her,” he said, his voice thick. Annis, beside him, touched his arm in sympathy. He could feel her silent support without even looking at her.

He gathered Charlie in his arms, getting a nose full of her natural scent and the honeysuckle soap her hair had been washed with.

She moved in his arms. “Papa?”

“Yes, sweetheart, I’m here.”

“Oh, Papa!” she flung her small arms round his neck and clung to him. “I had a bad dream and was frightened!”

“I know, darling, but it’s all right. Nothing can hurt you, I promise.”

“You weren’t here,” she said, blinking at him.

“I know, my precious. I’m sorry.”

“How can you know I’m safe if you’re not here?” Her big blue eyes looked glassy in the candlelight; her soft lower lip pushed out in distress.

“Because I wouldn’t leave you if it weren’t safe,” he said quickly, his heart thudding.

“The monster got Mama! How can you know it won’t get me, too?” Charlie frowned, one hand clutching a curl and twisting it nervously.

“Oh, my love!” he said his voice cracking. He squeezed her tight and pressed kisses against her curls. “There’s no monster, darling. Mama was in an accident. Sometimes things like that happen if—if people aren’t very careful, but I won’t let that happen to you.”

“Weren’t you careful with Mama?”

Oh, God! His heart was going to crack. “I wasn’t there, sweetheart. I couldn’t prevent the accident happening.”

“So how can you prevent an accident happening to me?” she asked, her face pressed against his jacket.

“Because I will take very good care of you. And Lizzie and Ewen.” He rubbed her back comfortingly.

“How can you do that if you’re not here?” she asked again, pulling back to look up at him, her eyes wide in consternation.

“I’m never very far away, sweetheart. And if leave you it will be with people who can look after you and keep you safe. Like Mrs. Green or your new mama.” He nodded at Annis, who smiled reassuringly at Charlie.

Charlie swallowed, her little mouth setting in a hard line. “Then why couldn’t you protect Mama?”

The knife in his heart twisted further. “She was too far away, sweetheart. In another country.” He blinked the tears from his eyes and sniffed.

“Why was she there?”

“She—she was visiting a—a friend.”

“Why did you let her go?” Charlie grabbed his lapel and tugged at it as if to emphasize her words.

“She wanted to go. I couldn’t have stopped her.” He swallowed and sniffed again. “Mama was a grown-up, darling. Grown-ups get to decide what they want to do.”

“So, it was Mama’s fault?” She went back to twisting her curl again.

“I—” He stopped helplessly.

“The driver of the carriage made a mistake, Charlie. Mistakes happen sometimes, but that wasn’t your mama’s fault,” said Annis gently.

“Do you make mistakes, Papa?”

“Yes, sweetheart, all grown-ups do. None of us are perfect,” honesty compelled him to say.

Then he hastened to add, “But I won’t make a mistake with you.

” He squeezed her tight. “You and Lizzie and Ewen are the most precious people in the world to me. I love you with all my heart, and even if I’m not right here in the house with you all the time, I will always love and keep you safe. ”

Lizzie was sitting up in bed by now, watching this. Ewen seemed to still be asleep.

“Papa won’t leave us, Charlie. Even if he’s gone for a little bit, he will come back. He always does. Papa is re-lia-ble!” she said, annunciating the long word slowly. He caught a smile from Annis at this. Had she taught Lizzie that word?

“What’s that mean?” asked Charlie.

“It means he will always be here when we need him.” Lizzie grinned at him, and her confidence in him almost made his knees buckle.

“Thank you, Lizzie,” he husked. “Yes, I will always be here when you need me. Maybe not always in the exact instant, but not long or far away.”

Charlie sighed and hugged him. “I love you, Papa.”

“I love you too, Charlie-mine,” he said, his voice choked. He walked over to the bed, depositing her beside her sister, and she crawled back under the covers.

Lizzie gave her a hug. “I’m here, Charlie,” she said. “If you have a bad dream, I’ll fix the monster for you. No monster is going to hurt my little sister.”

“Thank you, Lizzie!” Charlie hugged her.

He hugged them both. “My precious girls!” he murmured. “Lizzie, I’m so proud of you!”

He tucked them both in and sat with them until they settled, Annis by his side.

When they finally left the nursery and repaired to their bedchamber, a wave of fatigue hit him like a wall.

He sank down on the bed and put his head in his hands. Annis came to him and put her hands on his shoulders. He pressed his face into her belly and wrapped his arms round her.

“God,” he said finally, “she just tears me apart. They both do!”

“They are extraordinary girls, both of them,” said Annis, stroking his hair.

“It’s moments like these that I am so angry with Caro!

” he said hoarsely. “That is what I can’t fathom.

How could she do this to them ? Me, yes.

I understand her wanting to leave me . But not them .

They’re innocent . They didn’t ask for this, and they don’t deserve it!

” He swallowed. How much of it is my fault?

If I had done something differently, would Caro have stayed?

Not fallen in love with Greathouse? How could I have stopped it?

He shook his head, choking back a sob. He didn’t know, and the pain tore a hole in his chest. An unaccustomed anger took possession of him.

She had hurt his precious little girls, and he didn’t think he could ever forgive her for that or understand it.

“How can a mother leave her children?” he asked, bewildered. “How can I have been so wrong about her?” His rage and confusion burst out of him. Tears trickled down his cheeks, and he wiped them away impatiently.

“I don’t know, my dear,” murmured Annis. “I don’t know how she could leave any of you.”

He clutched her close, burying his face in her belly fighting for composure.

“Thank God for you,” he murmured, after a bit. “You always seem to know the right thing to say.”

He was stifling in these clothes.

“Come to bed—I need to hold you.” He sat back and ripped off his neckcloth and tore off his jacket.

Rising, he flung them away and tore off the rest of his clothing.

Turning to Annis, he helped her off with hers, flinging things left and right, careless of where they landed.

Annis let him, helping him to get rid of her clothes as fast as possible.

They fell into bed in a tangle of limbs, and he pulled the covers over them, hauling her close.

“You,” he muttered. “You are my sanity.”

“Oh, Emrys!” She buried her face in his chest as his hands roved all over her.

“Lift your head, I want to kiss you,” he growled in her ear.

When she did, he pushed her back into the pillows and kissed her, a devouring, deep, desperate kiss.

This woman is my everything. After so much betrayal, her support, her patience, her kindness.

.. what would I do without her? Will she leave me, too?

Grow tired of me? Panic skittered along his nerves.

She responded to his kiss by wrapping her arms round him, her hands clutching at him, a whimper in her throat as his fingers slid along her slippery channel and plunged inside her.

Reassured that she wanted him— she couldn’t fake a response like that!

—he pulled her leg over his hip and finding her entrance with his cock pressed inside her with an easy, deep thrust. His hand between them rubbed her furiously. I need to feel her come.

His thrusts were steady, firm, and deep as he pushed her toward a rapid climax. This was not one of those moments to savor. He needed to come and quickly. Panting in her ear, he said hoarsely, “Come, Annis! Fuck, I need you to come now!”

She jerked and cried out. Thank fuck! He felt the flutter of her climax in her body, and a groan was ripped from him as her response ignited his own.

A spike of pleasure, a rush of sizzling heat, and he was coming hard.

Gripping her hips, he rode it out with repeated grunting thrusts.

The wavelets of pleasure slowly receded, and his body lost its tension, going lax and floaty warm.

His breathing and heartbeat slowly sinking back to a normal pace.

“Thank you,” he murmured, wrapping his arms round her. He was still inside her, and he stayed that way for some minutes until his softening flesh slipped out of her. He rolled onto his back, and she arranged herself on his chest.

“I’m exhausted,” he murmured.

“Hm, sleep,” she said softly.

“Hm...” He let his breath out on a soft exhalation. They would talk about Charlie in the morning.

*