Startled and ashamed, Sophie’s eyes slipped from his. He knew how she felt? After all the pretending and masquerading, he’d known all along that she was in love with him? She felt a sickening pulse of humiliation, but then she bit her bottom lip and sank back against his shoulder. What else could she do? She did love him. She was frantically, hopelessly in love with her husband.

For his part, Patrick felt as if daggers were piercing his heart. After all the time he had thought he wanted to hear those words, he found he didn’t want to hear them after all. He didn’t want love that was really gratitude, based on his promise to father another child. He didn’t want the tenderness that had blossomed between them since the babe was lost—or at least, he didn’t want that labeled “love.” He wanted her to feel the same fierce burning love as he felt, the raging certitude that he would go mad if anything ever happened to her.

“Sophie,” he said into her hair, his throat suddenly tight again. Sophie waited, but Patrick didn’t say anything else, just kept kissing her hair and her ear. When he finally spoke, it was on an entirely different subject.

“Do you still want to leave for Downes today?”

Sophie glanced at the window. Miraculously, even though she felt as if they’d been talking for hours and hours, the sun was still shining. She took a deep breath.

“Yes, please.”

“I’ll make arrangements,” Patrick said quietly. There was a moment’s pause. “May I come in a few days, Sophie?” Patrick’s voice was humble.

Sophie buried her face in his neck. “Come now, Patrick.” Her voice trembled. “Come with me.”

Patrick couldn’t stop himself from capturing her soft lips again. “I’ll come with you. I’ll always come, anywhere you ask me to.”

When Sophie woke up a few days later, tucked in a large bed at Downes Manor, she felt as if a breath of grace had poured healing balm over her heart. Her baby—their baby—was gone, but there would be other babies. And there was her husband, sprawled next to her on top of the covers. He was wearing a silly lace-trimmed nightshirt that his brother insisted he wear, for some unknown reason. Patrick’s face looked lean and exhausted, and stubble darkened his chin. She thought he’d never looked more beautiful in his life.

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Someone was tickling her nose. With a flower, Sophie found as she opened her eyes. Then she smiled drowsily.

“How long did I sleep?”

“Around an hour,” her husband said, leaning over her, his smoky eyes caressing her face.