The Reluctant Duke (A Seabrook Family Saga)(88)

Thomas climbed beneath the covers and rested his head back upon the pillows. When he remembered the look on Emma’s face as he informed her he was bedding down with the animals, he almost laughed out loud.

Emma, his beautiful wife, was indeed naive if she really thought he would bed down in the barn with the servants. A groan escaped his lips. He desired to bed down with her, and soon. Then he made a decision; the next day he would begin to seduce her into his bed. He had to.

He refused to contemplate losing her. Once back at Wentworth House, he would put all his energies into being the perfect, attentive husband until she melted in his arms.

As sleep overtook him, he dreamed of just how he would seduce his beautiful, innocent wife into giving herself willingly to him, heart, body, and soul.

***

The rest of their journey to London was spent in near silence. He thought he would explain things to Emma, but she wanted to read her papa’s letter first. Then she would give him a chance to explain his actions. So Thomas resigned himself to staring out the window and looking down at his feet. The unsettledness he felt puzzled him. The closer they got to London the more his insides quaked with panic that Emma would really leave. Never in his life had a lady caused him to doubt his ability to win her over. Part of his mind tumbled back to when he was a youth of ten-and-six.

Thomas had experienced his second taste of carnal pleasures with a young widow of five-and-twenty who was a tenant at his family’s country estate. The affair lasted several months, and there was nothing he did not know about the art of lovemaking after the lusty widow seduced him.

Bloody hell, his stomach pained. Even at ten-and-six he never questioned his prowess in the bedroom. Yet now, at nine-and-twenty, he questioned his ability to seduce his aggrieved wife.

So Thomas had to use the few hours left to plan. He could not leave this to chance. There could be no mistakes. He did not think he would survive the loss. Damn it all to hell and back. He was in love with his wife and he would not lose her, could not lose her.





CHAPTER TWENTY



Emma sat at the desk in the room she had previously occupied at Wentworth House. She refused to stay in the room adjoining her husband’s. And it was difficult to be back in the place she first admitted to herself she’d fallen in love with him. Emma might even have fallen in love with Thomas the moment she saw his arrogant, snobbish self that long-ago day at Miss Beauregard’s. She didn’t admit it to herself, however, until she had arrived in London.

Now that she was back in London, she needed to plan her return to America in case it came down to that. However, she could not bring herself to make the list of what she needed to do. Later, there would be plenty of time to take care of the details.

Dressed in a lovely pale green morning dress with embroidered white flowers scattered here and there on the skirt, Emma made her way to the breakfast room. Her spirits were high as she anticipated seeing Thomas. She chastised herself for hoping to see him. Though she knew the ugly truth now, leaving him, if it came to that, would be harder than she’d planned. But how could she stay with him, or even want to stay with him, after what she’d found out? Perhaps it was because she’d heard that hate and love were strong emotions and linked to each other. Because as much as she hated what had transpired between Thomas and her papa, her love would not be silenced. It kept crawling into her heart and nudging her whenever she let her guard down.

And now that they were here, in his London home, would Thomas produce the evidence of his innocence that he said he had. And if it meant so much to him, as he stated in his missive to her, why had he not rushed to show her his proof last night during their meal together?

Perhaps he did not want her to stay. Perhaps he was glad to get rid of her and be the carefree bachelor once again so he could prowl the drawing rooms and salons with his friends, Myles and Amesbury.

“Oh, Dear God,” she thought, sinking down into a chair at the table, her knees weak as a babe’s. Emma envisioned her husband dancing and laughing with a beautiful, dark-haired lady with flawless skin and perfect features.

As she sat there, shaking her head to clear the image, he found her.

“Is something wrong with your head? Because if you keep shaking it as you are you will rattle your brain. Of course, that’s assuming you still have one.”

“I beg your pardon? Are you questioning my intelligence?” Anger seethed through her veins, taking over the longing she had felt only moments before.

“Take it however you wish.” He wanted their meals dished out, so he signaled the servant standing at attention against the wall. Once seated across from her, he barely gave her the time of day, intent on drinking his coffee and filling his face with what she could only assume was delicious food. The food she put in her mouth had no taste. How dare he ignore me?