23

Jeremy trod very carefully over the next few days. He felt that things were starting to mend, slowly but surely, after his horrendous blunder earlier in the week. He had not dared to check if the connecting door between their bedrooms was still locked but other than that, he spent every night sleeping beside his wife in her bed.

Emmeline had seemingly picked up on his fascination with her nighttime routine and did not appear to object to his observing them. Indeed, she seemed most willing to gratify him in this, something he was wildly grateful for, though he did not really understand it himself.

They established a new routine, where he joined her every evening after dinner and Teddy was put to bed. She would wait for his arrival, and he would watch her brush her hair and then they would sit in bed together, side by side, reading the latest novel they had settled upon.

He enjoyed it, he really did, though he felt strongly compelled to treat his wife as though she were made of glass and he frequently had to reread a page or two when his attention wandered to dwell on her profile.

His attentiveness was amply rewarded, for day by day he could see Emmeline growing more relaxed in this arrangement until she scarcely paused before joining him under the covers and he could take her hand in his or even kiss her cheek without startling her.

He had not taken it further than that though. He felt he had no right to. Not after…everything he’d put her through in the past and present. He kept her rosewood box, stashing it in his wardrobe next to his dressing case. When he was feeling particularly masochistic, he would lift the lid and even handle those tragic remnants of their past.

They never failed to overwhelm him, so he could only imagine what effect they must have had on Emmeline over the years. He was both touched and appalled she had kept them all this time. She could not have treasured such items, so why had she kept them? As objects to reproach herself with? As a lesson to herself, never to care for anyone so undeserving again?

Presumably, she would want it back at some point, if only for the mementoes of her parents, but in the meantime, he felt he had a right to custodianship. He deserved that they should bring him pain.

He was still struggling quite a bit with his own feelings when it came to his wife. He wanted simultaneously to worship her, to share his life with her, and, ultimately, to lay his head in her lap and ask her to please love him. It hurt to know they might never be on such terms.

It was all his own fault, he knew, and he had no right to focus on the little ball of self-loathing that felt like a hard stone inside his chest, not when she had conceded him so much already. It was just that, without her forgiveness, he felt like it would grow bigger every year until it eventually consumed him and choked him to death.

But that was all nonsense, of course. He was just being selfish again, expecting her to make everything right with his world. Emmeline had been more than honest with him about her own feelings. She did not want to hear his confession. She wanted the past to remain where it was, dead and buried.

She did not trust him with her heart, and he could not say as he blamed her. He was a man, frankly unworthy and undeserving of her in every way. The only thing he could do at this point was watch his step and look to improve significantly in the future. Building an amphitheater really seemed the least he could do to make up for his shortcomings.

Should he cancel the conservatory he had hired Wimble to build? A couple of days previously he had the idea to make it an orangery instead. Would that be sufficiently removed from Emmeline’s painful memory to make it acceptable to her?

Emmeline cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about my duties,” she said one evening as they sat side by side in Emmeline’s bed, propped up with pillows and reading their latest novel, The Haunting of Jennings Hall .

Jeremy lowered his book and considered her blankly. “Oh yes,” he said, as his brain scrambled to catch up with her words.

“The things you require from a wife,” she prompted. “You remember?”

“Committees,” he murmured. “Something about getting along with my neighbors?” The details were rather foggy now in truth.

“Yes. Well, you remember I told you I met with the vicar’s wife?”

“Yes,” he agreed cautiously. “You said she seemed nice.”

“She did. She said she would put my name forward to someone called Lady Sharpe, in connection with her Good Works committee.”

Jeremy shuddered. “Lady Sharpe!” he repeated. “Lord preserve us!”

“Who is she?”

“A regular old tartar!” Jeremy replied roundly. “If you’ll take my advice, you’ll avoid her like the plague!”

She sat up in surprise. “I thought you would be pleased with my progress!”

“Oh yes,” he said hastily. “I am, of course.”

“Well…good,” she said uncertainly before returning to her book.

Jeremy read half a page but found he had retained none of it. He lowered his book again. “Emmeline?” She looked at him enquiringly. “That discussion we had. Remind me, did it even occur to me to enquire what it was you required from a husband?”

“Well, yes, I mean you asked my terms. Don’t you remember? I told you about severance pay for my father’s clerks and—”

“Oh yes, your terms for marriage,” he said, waving this aside. “I don’t mean that. What I should have asked you was what you desired from a husband.”

She eyed him thoughtfully. “Well, at the time I suppose my expectations were not at all high. You see, Humphrey and I”—Jeremy braced himself—“spent so little time together. The business appeared to have so many demands on him, and then I moved away from London, of course, but even when I lived there, we were rarely together. Once I knew his, well, his situation , the lack of courtship made perfect sense, but over the years I had become accustomed to feeling a fiancé was something quite distant from my everyday life. I suppose that will sound strange to you,” She sounded almost apologetic.

“Yes and no,” he admitted truthfully. “Amanda and I led almost completely separate lives under the same roof for many years.”

“Did you—?” She hesitated, plucking at the coverlet.

“What?” He turned more fully toward her, adjusting his pillow. “Ask me. I promise I won’t take offence.”

“Were you ever…like this?” she asked, gesturing vaguely between the two of them. “With your first wife.”

“Never,” he admitted at once. “We shared very little intimacy even in the early years of our marriage. Certainly nothing remotely like this. Neither of us desired it, you see.”

“Oh.” He thought another question hovered on those pretty lips, so he waited. “But you do want this with me?”

“Very much so.”

She smiled at him, and he had to catch his breath. “Good,” she said. “If I had known anything about it, that morning at Hutton’s, then I would have asked for a husband who would act as friend and companion to me.”

A friend and companion? Jeremy swallowed, feeling horribly conflicted all of a sudden. He nodded, rolling onto his back so she would not see this reflected in his eyes. This was good, he told himself firmly. You trusted a friend and companion. Mina said his wife needed to learn to trust him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see she was still watching him, a faint look of concern on her face. He cleared his throat. “When I said that about joining committees, I did not appreciate quite how busy you would be. If you think it will be too much for you, then—”

“Oh no,” she said quickly. “I think it will be a good thing. Since Pinky moved out, I have been missing female society a good deal.”

Jeremy frowned. He had no idea how she could be missing Miss Pinson when she had seen her every day since her move. “You said she was settling well in her cottage?”

“Oh yes, she adores it. She has all her rooms laid out so nicely now, with all her things around her. I think that spinet of your mother’s is her favorite piece, and that dining set you gave her is her pride and joy. All her new neighbors have visited to admire her front parlor. Only she thinks she might need a dog,” she rattled on. “She has been offered first choice of a puppy from a litter two doors down. Not the Ennises but the family next to them, the Thomases.”

“A dog, really?” he asked. “For some reason, I imagine Miss Pinson owning a cat rather than a dog.”

“Well, in the day she is perfectly happy and content in her home, but at night, poor Pinky is rather nervous. She imagines tapping on the windowpane, or someone moving about in one of the rooms downstairs. If she had a dog, she thinks that would calm her nerves considerably.”

Jeremy felt a strange pricking of his conscience at the idea of Miss Pinson’s nameless nighttime dread. “Likely the noises are merely her neighbors,” he said uneasily. “It will just be the Ennises moving about next door, or else a tree branch tapping at the window.”

“Yes,” Emmie agreed, “and Pinky knows that really.”

“I hope this book we chose is not giving her bad dreams,” he said, indicating The Haunting of Jennings Hall , although in truth he was finding it far from hair-raising so far. Alas, none of the characters were proving as dynamic as Count Stefano. “We could always swap it for another.”

“She had not actually started it when I saw her today,” Emmie admitted. “She has not had time, what with entertaining calls from all her neighbors. You know, she has been enjoying herself excessively. She even baked a seed cake from her great-aunt’s recipe. She is most looking forward to our taking tea with her tomorrow. She asked me quite particularly what sort of sandwiches you prefer.”

“What did you tell her?” Jeremy asked with interest.

“I told her egg and cress, or ham,” she said a little self-consciously, “because I know she has a plentiful supply of both. The Ennises keep chickens and gave her a dozen eggs as a welcome gift, and Mrs. Cheviot gave Teddy and me a hamper of things to take along today to fill Pinky’s cupboards. There was a large cured ham in there.”

“I hope she has saved some of her seed cake for me,” Jeremy said. “I’ve never tried it. Or should we take some of our wedding cake with us?”

“There’s none left,” she informed him promptly. “It has all been sent out. Mrs. Oxley is making us a small celebration cake to take with us tomorrow.”

“You think of everything.”

“Incidentally, what is your favorite sandwich? A wife should know these things.”

“Can’t you guess?”

“You’re tricky,” she said, tapping her chin. “You’re a man, so I might guess salted beef, but you are very refined so you might prefer cucumber.”

He laughed. “As a matter of fact, you almost had it right to begin with. Ham and tomato, but the tomatoes aren’t ripe yet.”

“Aren’t you going to guess mine?”

“I already know yours, Ballentine. I’ve watched you nibbling daintily on them at least half a dozen times. Cheese and chive.”

“You are very observant.”

“Not really,” he answered with a shrug. “Only when it comes to you.” He allowed his eyes to roam over her a little too warmly and had to turn away, clearing his throat. “Now,” he said briskly, “are we going to read this book, or aren’t we? For all we know, Miss Pinson might sit up all night and read the whole thing cover to cover.”

Emmeline’s dimple flashed out and she picked her book back up, furrowing her brow. As soon as she was absorbed in the story, he let his thoughts wander back to his current predicament. This was all good progress, he assured himself.

She was growing comfortable and relaxed around him, even when he strayed into her personal rooms. She no longer seemed to resent him rehoming her friend. She wanted to know his favorite sandwich. That had to count for something, surely?

Inadvertently, he found himself wondering if her courses were over and done with by now. His eyes strayed from the page to wander over her shapely legs, currently obscured by the bedcovers.

Giving his head a quick shake, he returned to the plight of the tenants of Jennings Hall and suppressed his less noble thoughts. What was it his sister had urged him to employ? Patience and tact. Something along those lines anyway. Surely to God, he could maintain this equilibrium until Emmeline could learn to trust him a little.

The trouble was, he did not think she had ever trusted him much in the first place. How could she? He had never given her cause.