Page 92 of Wedded to the Beastly Duke
His breath rushed out of his lungs, and he pressed his lips to hers, an urgent, wordless affirmation. “I never once doubted that we would make it through this together,” he said as he pulled back. His eyes shone with emotion.
This man could not have been further from the Duke she had first met, but she was unspeakably relieved to have met him then, to have had an opportunity to learn what lay behind the cold, harsh exterior.
And now she loved him.
“You were so calm in there,” she murmured. “I thought for certain you would strike him.”
He stroked her hair. “I pushed him against the wall.”
“Yes, well, considering the circumstances, that was very restrained.”
He laughed against her cheek. “If I had watched myself, I would not have called myself restrained.”
“Then perhaps you ought to change your definitions.” She stroked her fingers along his jaw. “You were wonderful, my darling. It must have been hard to hear.”
He paused, and his fingers paused on her skin as he thought. “It was,” he said at last, “but not as much as I thought it would be. Knowing what happened—an argument, of everything—hit hard. But I already knew William was dead, and I already suspected Nicholas was involved. Knowing just means I have an answer to an open question.”
“Perhaps now you can heal,” she suggested.
“Perhaps.” A smile touched his mouth, although his eyes were sad. “I wish he could have met you.”
“As do I, but if you had not been obliged to marry as Duke, you would never have approached my father, I would never have volunteered, and we would never have married the way we did.” She let her fingertips rest on his lips, so soft when the rest of him was so hard. “I think often things happen for a reason, and we are given the tools to help us along the way. Not that your brother died for a reason,” she hastened to add. “But because he died, you were able to find me. And I can help you get through it.”
“My beautiful wife.” This time, his smile reached his eyes. “I thank my lucky stars every day that I found you.”
“And I you.”
* * *
The next few days passed slowly. Emmeline could see the way that Adam was coming to terms with the reality—that William was not coming back. A hope he hadn’t even known he had, dashed.
Still, there was no wound that time could not eventually heal. He opened up to her in bits and pieces, confessing about the fire that had broken out when he was little more than a boy—and the way he blamed himself for it. They went through the east wing together, and he talked her through all the different portraits and the memories associated with them.
Slowly but surely, she could see he was coming around to the idea that he did not have to bear responsibility for the damage caused in his past. The fire was an accident, and he saved William. His mother’s death was tragic, but not his burden to bear.
Sometimes, he even smiled when he spoke about his mother. She must have been a wonderful person, Emmeline reflected as she gazed into the face of a woman she wished she could have met.
“I would have loved her,” she said, linking her fingers with his.
“She would have loved you.”
She stared at a portrait of the former duchess with her two sons. There was a soft smile on her face, and on each of her son’s faces. Emmeline looked at William and wondered what he would have been like. Very different from Adam—impulsive and gregarious, fond of music and dancing and cards.
All those debts.
His frustrated, helpless love for a man who could never truly commit to him in any meaningful, public manner.
His boyish smile was open and wild, and she wondered how life had changed him, changed that. Or whether it had always been inside him and he had always had a smile like that.
For all that, she thought she would have liked him, too, if she had met him.
Adam looked down, a pensive expression on his face, and she smiled up at him, her eyes shiny with tears. “We should put this portrait somewhere prominent, so everyone who comes to the house can see it.”
He squeezed her shoulders. “And we should have a portrait of us, too.”
“Two families. Two generations.” She rested a hand on her stomach, wondering about the possibility of having children of their own. He didn’t miss the gesture, and his eyes widened. “Not yet,” she hastened to add. “But perhaps one day.”
“Hopefully soon.”
