Page 68 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
As promised, they spent the day in bed. Lydia discovered several new ways of making love. Her front plastered against the wall, or bent over the bed, hands braced against the mattress. Side by side, either facing him or away. There were so many ways to experience intimacy, and they were uncovering them all, one by one.
Eventually, they lay together in bed, utterly spent. Alexander had been quiet most of the day, worshiping her body but saying little. Though Lydia knew they had made progress, that final distance between them made anxiety rise in her stomach.
He wanted her, yes. He no longer loved Helena. But was that enough?
She would do anything to keep him.
“I had word yesterday that Marie—that is to say,Lady Harrogate—will be hosting a ball next week,” she said as she lay in his arms, wishing he would stroke her hair the way he had once. Sometimes, it seemed as though there was unreachable agony in his eyes. “Do say we can attend. She is my friend, and I would very much like to go with you on my arm.”
He blinked, the distance vanishing. “Lady Harrogate,” he mused. “One of the ladies you’ve been spending all this time with, I take it?”
“Yes, she is my very dear friend—we have been friends ever since we were children.”
“They remained in the area?”
“Lord Harrogate purchased my father’s old estate. They spend a great deal of the year there. I expect when Eliza marries, she will spend every Season in London, but Marie has always preferred a quiet life with her husband.” She settled more firmly against Alexander’s arm. “He is taking her to Italy, you know.”
To her disappointment, Alexander didn’t rise to the bait. “What would you prefer?” he asked, rolling a lock of her auburn hair in his fingers. “To remain here or to go to London?”
“I like Halston Manor very much,” she said dreamily, looking at the ceiling. To think, when she’d first arrived, she’d been certainshe would hate it here. “I think of it as my home. But I think I would sometimes like to return to London. I have friends there—a few of them at least.”
“Lord Scunthorpe being one?” he asked, tensing underneath her.
She returned her gaze to the sharp snap of his eyes. “No, Alexander. That is to say, we are friends, and I would be more than happy to see him again, but it is not something I yearn for by any means.”
He nodded, but the tension didn’t leave his body. “Good.”
“I have no desire to belong to any other man.”
He shifted back a little so he could look into her face. “You should know how little I deserve you.”
“I doubt anyone else would agree, with you being a duke and me only the daughter of a viscount.”
“Is that the only measure of worth?”
“What else is there?”
“Kindness,” he said at once. “Forgiveness, perhaps. Loyalty. Devotion.”
“All things that you have shown me you possess in abundance.”
“If only you knew, Lydia.”
Clamping his lips shut as though he had betrayed himself, as though she didn’t know how toxic the guilt that ran in his veins truly was, he turned her over so he could make love to her ravaged body once again. And she, knowing that patience and affection would be what healed him, offered herself to his embrace, willing to let him pull her apart if that might help him put himself back together again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next few days passed in a rhapsodic haze. Alexander knew he shouldn’t be this happy, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Even knowing that it would hurt worse than ever once he told Lydia the truth, the truth about her past, he opened himself to the pain—the joy—of being with her.
If only to at least experience the highest of highs before the lowest of lows.
With every passing hour, he came to the conclusion that he could not simply leave her. Not just because she clearly relied so heavily on the prospect of him being with her as they marched into the future, but because he himself knew he did not have the strength to walk away now.
If ever he had wanted to, he should have done it before spending the day in bed with her, learning so much more about her than he had ever foreseen.
If he had ever wanted to leave, he ought to have done it before he had claimed her so utterly as his wife.
That had been his mistake, his undoing…
