Page 125 of Wild Lily
She sat up, the linens crumpling around her naked body. Blushing at the memory of how Julian had kissed her minutes ago, she shivered and shook off the thrill of it. She responded to his ardent lovemaking so naturally, so freely.
But his actions weren’t love, were they? Passionate, yes. Erotic, certainly.
Without the full ardor she gave him. Without the regard she wanted from him.
She rose from the bed to walk to the window. In the July sun, she soaked in the warmth. Her skin absorbed the heat, the glow baking into her bones. This was what she missed, the intensity of the earth in her soul. In south Texas, for ten months of the year, you couldn’t escape the sun. It burned your skin, your blood, and if you were not smart and stayed too long outside, it could burn your brain. Your reason gone.
She’d been so cold here, especially here at Broadmore, that her brain hadn’t melted, but frozen.
She could stay so long that her heart would, too. And what then would happen to her love for Julian…or any children they might bear? An icy fear gripped her. Could she turn as cold as his mother? As forbidding? As bitter?
Would he turn against her as his father had his mother?
She pushed back the draperies, the shock of her thoughts acid in her mouth.
She couldn’t let that happen. Not when they’d begun together so well. It was the death of his father that had changed their lives so radically. Julian’s new responsibilities and the virulence of his mother’s attacks against her ate at her confidence.
She couldn’t allow it any longer, lest she lose her own self-worth. But what could she do to change any of it?
She couldn’t change the dowager. She was who and what she was.
She couldn’t change Julian, nor did she care to. She loved him as he was. But she could help herself. The best she could do would be to accept the fact that he might not change. He might not ever love her. Not fully.
Tears welled behind her eyes. She forced them back. She would not cry. What good would it do?
He didn’t love her. Not as she did him.
She had bargained that he would. That he would come to that easily. But it would take longer and she questioned if she had the patience to wait for it. Even now, as she did, she lost a bit of her own integrity day by day, night by passionate night.
She put a hand to her eyes and dug deep inside herself for courage. Whenever she’d been faced with a problem in the past, she had sought solitude. She’d ridden out on the ranch by herself. Society here proclaimed she needed a cursed maid or a groom or a footman ready to hand. She needed or wanted none of them. And because she had married into this strict society, she been compliant. Agreeable. Too much so.
But now she would not be.
She’d take what she wanted for herself. And what she wanted was time to think and time to rediscover the patience and fortitude she’d need to live with a man who wanted her for her money and her grace and her good humor and her body, but who might never reciprocate her deepest love.
She must accept that or live forever in the shadow of her own sorrow.
Turning, she spied her peignoir. Julian must have picked it up from the floor this morning and put it on her chaise longue.
She heard a rustle in her sitting room. Her lady’s maid, most likely, had arrived with her breakfast tray.
“Nora?”
Something shattered to the floor.
Her maid stuck her head around the door jamb. A blush colored her cheeks at the sight of Lily naked. She seemed surprised, on edge. “Yes, ma’am. It’s me.”
Suddenly shy of the woman who examined her body too intently, Lily reached for the silk robe and pulled it on.
She picked up her hair brush, a prickle of unease running up her spine. “What broke?”
“Oh, your ring dish.”
“I see.” The maid was not usually clumsy.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll pay for it from my wages.”
“No matter. I’m sure we have others, don’t we?”
