“I wish he had come home with us. Wellington knows something terrible with that bastard Bonaparte is imminent. And the allied forces are scattered, undermanned, undersupplied—”
“Adam couldn’t be safer than under our exalted Field Marshal’s eagle eye, you know that. Besides, he wanted to stay…damnation these st-streets are b-bad.”
“Take your bloody laudanum like the surgeon said.”
“No. Hand me that whisky,” said Richard hoarsely, clumsily snatching the bottle and taking several gulps, his shuddering inhalations after each swallow demonstrating the potency of the liquor, before passing it back. “Now finish it. Looks like you could use a little fortifying too.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been avoiding Emma for three years, Cal. Have you even told her you’re returning home for good? That she’ll soon be a baroness?”
“That is too much to put on paper. It needs to be said face to face.”
“Yet you turned down five leave passes.”
“I was needed in battle! Wellington—”
“Come on. The duke is a goddamned genius. A military leader of the ages. He hardly required a young major to hold his hand. Look, everyone knows he truly held you in high regard, damn it, he actually deigned to talk to you, but here is where you’ve been needed. You have a wife and are about to inherit a title. London is your future, not the battlefields of Europe.”
Caleb lifted the whisky bottle and drank deeply, eyes watering even as he welcomed the burn of the amber liquid on frozen insides. He’d been dreading this since the day his godfather finally ordered him to return to England and take up the waiting barony. In the British Army, the world made sense. He was a military man, damn it, what the hell did he know of being a lord? And how could he explain that he’d rather face a battalion of French soldiers than Emma’s brave smiles as yet another attempt to give her a child proved unsuccessful? A horde of Spanish rebels than his father’s bewildered questions at his prolonged absences and his mother’s constant sniping at an unsuitable marriage?
Abruptly the carriage came to a halt, and his fists clenched at the sight of the imposing, three-storied cream stone facade of the Montclair townhouse.
Home.
In double-quick time his long-time valet McGregor leapt down from his perch next to the driver and organized footmen to carry Richard inside on a makeshift stretcher, as well as their luggage. Then taking a long breath, Caleb strode inside and made his way to the parlor.
“Cal,” a voice shrieked, and seconds later his arms were full of blue-ruffled hellion.
“Steady on, Goose,” he said gruffly as he hugged Lucy tightly, all at once glad and acutely disappointed that it was his little sister laughing and sniffling into his shoulder and not his wife. It at least gave him a moment to pull himself together. Emma stood silently to one side, even more beautiful than he remembered, her ability to snatch his breath without a word infinitely stronger than before.
“Gah, I’m much too old for that nickname,” giggled Lucy. “Where is Richard?”
“He’s coming, give him a moment to catch his breath. It’s been a long journey from Brussels.”
“Well! Hurry up and shamelessly kiss your wife senseless, so you can tell us all the news!”
Gently putting Lucy down, he then walked to where Emma waited in a very becoming dark green day dress, her hands clasped and expression oddly unreadable.
“Hello, Emmy,” he said quietly. “I…”
I missed you. I’m sorry. The nights were the worst, remembering your voice, your laugh, the mind-numbing pleasure of being deep inside you…
She hesitated for a long moment then stepped forward. “Welcome home, Caleb.”
That voice, the husky, sensual tone that spoke of long, hot nights and tangled sheets, tipped him over the edge. Hauling her into his arms, he buried his face in the side of her neck, inhaling the blessedly familiar scent of lemon soap and reveling in the press of lush curves against him. Even with good reason, he had been a fool, a bloody damned fool to stay away from her so long. But he was home now, and all would be well.
Until he realized his wife wasn’t squirming to get closer, but fighting to get free.
Tensing, Caleb let her go, the collar of his scarlet regimentals abruptly a noose. “Emma?”
She stared back at him, her cheeks flushed, emerald eyes haunted. “We’ll speak later. Go and greet your parents.”
And something like a boulder lodged in his chest.
Sweet heaven, she was going to fail utterly.
One glance into Caleb’s piercing blue eyes, one moment enveloped in his battle-hardened arms and the faint scent of whisky and sandalwood, and she had nearly lost her wits. It seemed no matter where things stood between them, rational thought would forever be impossible when he held her close.
Quickly Emma stepped back, firmly ignoring the pangs of regret as her husband’s warm smile faded to an impassive mask. This was for the best. He deserved more than a barren, gauche woman, and she deserved the kind of serenity found in her carefully planned future.
Caleb inclined his head, every inch the born aristocrat.
“Later, then—” he began, but before he could continue, she gasped.
“Sir Richard! What on earth…”
Desperately relieved to put some space between her and Caleb, she hurried forward to move a small side table as four footmen carried Sir Richard Freeman into the parlor on a makeshift stretcher of wooden planks.
“Afternoon, Emma,” Richard replied, attempting a genial smile, but from his hunched shoulders, pinched features, and perspiration-slicked temples, it was horribly clear what the handsome blond-haired soldier suffered was no superficial leg injury. This was a man in dreadful pain.
A shriek sounded behind her, and Lucy shoved her out of the way, face starkly pale.
“Richard! Why are you being c-carried? Cal said a minor…”
“Got into a spot of bother with some French mercenaries and took two bullets to the thigh. But it’s all right, Goose, looks worse than—”
“My name is Lucinda,” Lucy snarled, then she turned to Caleb and jabbed a finger into his chest, her whole body shaking with anguished fury. “How could you let this happen? You were in charge! You’re the worst Major in the world, and the worst friend, the worst brother…and a damned liar. I hate you.”
Emma winced at the cruelty of her sister-in-law’s words, and the way her husband stoically accepted them. Silence hung like a shroud over the parlor, then abruptly several loud voices began talking simultaneously as Lord Hugh Montclair strode forward to gently usher his daughter to a high-backed chair while Lady Hugh (her mother-in-law had never permitted the more familiar Jemima) fussed with embroidered cushions.
Hugh eventually looked up.
“Here now, Emma dear,” he said too-heartily while Lucy sobbed into his shoulder. “Why don’t you take Caleb and get him settled, I’ll wager you have much to, er, talk about! We’ll see to Richard and expect you both down for dinner at eight sharp, hmmm?”
“Certainly,” she murmured, wanting to refuse and run with every fiber of her being. Naturally today, the one person she could usually count on to wrench them apart remained silent. “Cal?”
Back ramrod straight, her husband offered his arm, and after he pressed a hand to Richard’s shoulder, they silently made their way upstairs to the large bedchamber she had used since their wedding night. It was beautiful, decorated in shades of cream trimmed in maroon, with a large Aubusson rug thick enough to sink into. An oversized, carved four poster bed stood in the middle, with Caleb’s civilian clothing in a small adjoining room to the left, her dressing room to the right, and the writing desk holding all her secrets under a wide bay window that allowed in plenty of natural light.
Once upon a time, this chamber had been a place of
joy, of heated midnight promises and exquisite pleasure. In the last three years, it had witnessed naught but an ocean of tears.
Caleb dropped onto the edge of the bed and removed his scarlet jacket, then undid the top few buttons of his starched linen shirt and rolled up the sleeves. His arms were bronzed, the neck she had always loved to stroke and kiss was too. When naked, was his six-foot, muscular frame the same color all over?
“You’re so tanned,” she blurted, heat rising in her cheeks at the wayward and most unwelcome thought.
“The sun in Spain and the south of France is far harsher than here,” he replied politely, his expression guarded. “It will soon fade to the respectability of vanilla pudding. Is this what you wanted to talk about? My skin tone? Does it revolt you so thoroughly you cannot bear my touch?”
Emma stiffened. “Of course not.”
“Ah, you also hate me for misrepresenting Richard’s injury?”
“No,” she whispered miserably, her hands twisting in the folds of her gown.
“Then what?” he said roughly, and in a lightning fast move one hand circled her wrist and tugged her between his splayed thighs, the other trailing a path of fire over her belly and breasts to cup her cheek and tuck a stray auburn curl behind her ear.
She sucked in a harsh breath as her nipples immediately peaked, hating the power he held over her with the merest touch, hating her body for its shockingly rapid betrayal. If she surrendered to chaotic passion, all would be lost. “Caleb—”
“Say it, Emmy. Tell me what is wrong. I know it’s been…a while…since we talked properly, but you said nothing in your letters, so help me understand. Is it Mother? If she is still causing trouble, I will speak to her. Everything will be different now.”
“How?” she asked carefully, his expression far too determined for her peace of mind.
“I’m home to stay. We can start over. Take our rightful place in society and build a new life here in London.”
Reeling in shock, she wrenched away, unable to look at him. Home permanently? A London ton marriage?
No!
“Caleb…” she said shakily, desperately afraid she would collapse before getting the essential words out. “I don’t want that life. I want…I need…a separation.”
Chapter Two
Emma wanted a separation.
Staring hard at her rigid back, Caleb forced himself to breathe evenly, to remain resolute against the sucker-punch, to not allow the roar of fury and disbelief and hurt to escape from his lips. As if Adam hating him, Richard maimed forever, and Lucy’s curses ringing in his ears wasn’t enough, his wife had just announced she wanted to continue her life without him.
He cleared his throat. “Excuse me?” he said woodenly, as if he had somehow misheard her very clear and concise words.
After a heavy, silent minute, like the fraught moments just before two armies charged, Emma finally turned around.
“I want a separation,” she said quietly, her face pale but resolute. “We are entirely wrong for each other, you know that—”
“I know nothing of the sort,” he snapped, rising from the bed while his fatigue-fogged mind raced to process what the hell was going on. How had he wandered into the world’s worst play where every single thing was back to front and upside down?
“Oh, please. It’s been three full years since you last came home. And before that it was no more than once annually. What does that say about us? About me and you?”
“I wasn’t a goddamn travelling circus performer, Emma.”
“Don’t swear at me!”
He strode forward, planting himself mere feet from her.
“My sincerest apologies. I’m shamefully unschooled in the niceties governing polite conversation when a wife asks her husband for a separation twenty minutes after he returns home from serving King and country on foreign battlefields.”
She flinched. “Cal…”
“I am…was…a soldier. And in the event it slipped your notice, there was a trifling disturbance called the Peninsula Wars occurring. A Frenchman by the name of Napoleon captured then escaping the island, and now leading tens of thousands of men who are cutting a swathe across Europe. Perhaps you’ve heard about some of this? I’m sure I included the odd detail in my letters. Tis true, I did place a fair amount of trust in the Army postmaster’s ability to get letters back to England, maybe you didn’t receive them.”
“No, I got the letters,” she said starkly, her gaze unbearably direct. “Took them with me everywhere and re-read those scraps of paper until the edges tore. Held them tightly while listening to other military wives in transports over the weeks or even a month they were gifted to talk, dance, dine and make love with their brave husbands. Now I feel sorry for them, all those poor ladies who smiled sympathetically and patted my shoulder. They were so shockingly unaware their majors and colonels weren’t nearly as important and necessary as you in that, er, trifling disturbance.”
Caleb’s fists clenched.
She knew.
“Why now?” he said instead, firmly ignoring the entirely reasonable accusation in her words. “Why not six months…a year…many years ago if you were so damned miserable here in London with a grand house, loving family and a generous allowance?”
His wife’s cheeks pinkened, and a terrible foreboding churned his stomach.
“Emma?” he said in the tone that had reduced many a cocky ensign to a quivering mess, then stepped even closer to whisper in her ear. “Do you have something you wish to confess to me?”
She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away. “It’s time, Caleb. I know there will be some scandal—”
“Some scandal? The Montclair name dragged through the mud, the entire ton gossiping about the circumstances, Lucy’s marriage prospects threatened and you call it some scandal?”
Emma winced.
“The thought of hurting Lucy…your father…it breaks my heart. But I simply can’t do this anymore. I can’t be the woman you need or deserve. I’ll live quietly in the country, and won’t make any fuss over m-mistresses.”
“You won’t? How perfectly generous.”
“I thought you’d be pleased! With your—” she broke off, left cheek now fiery red.
“My what? Ungovernable manly urges? Shockingly, it was you who invoked them and you never shied away, not once. Now you’d have me believe my passionate, sensual wife wants to live like a cloistered nun?”
Caleb paused expectantly, but instead of a tart reply or rueful head shake, she stood rigidly, her entire stance a brick wall between them, and his uneasiness increased tenfold.
Abruptly another reason lodged in his mind, one he could scarcely process, and the words tore from his lips. “Unless your decision is encouraged by something, or should I say someone else?”
She said nothing, her gaze remaining fixed on the window until his finger under her chin forced it back, his rage barely contained at the misery in her eyes.
“How far?”
“Wh-what?”
“How far,” he enunciated coldly, so furious he could hardly speak, “have matters progressed? Has this man written you letters? Touched you? Kissed you?”
“Caleb, stop,” she said, attempting to look away again and conceal those beautiful, honest eyes, but damned if he would let her dissemble.
“Further than that? He’s had you? Bloody hell, you’re with child? Some unscrupulous bastard put a babe in your belly and the entire country will know there is no way it could be mine and that is why the country beckons—”
Hot pain exploded across his cheekbone. He looked down in astonishment as Emma cradled one bright pink palm, no doubt stinging from the resounding slap she had just delivered, and pure relief flooded him at the naked outrage on her expressive face.
It seemed the nameless hell-bound bastard with a genuine death wish fo
r tip-toeing in another man’s garden still awaited his heart’s desire. He had not yet been replaced with someone who could give Emma what she so desperately wanted. And that entirely out of character slap surely meant her feelings for him were still far more than calm indifference.
Caleb flexed his jaw as his fury ebbed from boil to simmer. “Quite a blow there, Mrs. Montclair.”
“You deserved it! How could you think for a moment I…oh, this is ridiculous. The time for discussion is long past. Let us both move—”
A knock to the door interrupted her words.
“Yes?” he barked over his shoulder.
“It’s Mac,” replied a muffled male voice. “I have hot water, sir. And Susie is here to dress Mrs. Emma for dinner.”
Before he could instruct them to leave and never return, Emma darted over to the door and yanked it open.
“Come in, come in,” she said over brightly, ushering in his valet and her maid.
Caleb inclined his head at his wife’s telling retreat, but his eyes met hers for long enough to let her know in no uncertain terms, the conversation had paused rather than finished.
Indeed, the time for discussion had not passed.
Not by a long way.
Any moment now, she would unleash a bloodcurdling scream.
Halting their conversation in the bedroom had been a foolish mistake. The tension between her and Caleb had trebled, to sit through a family dinner painstakingly arranged to celebrate the men’s homecoming promised to be nothing short of an unmitigated, never-ending disaster.
From the moment they entered the formal dining room, all was askew. Richard’s seat at the oversized rectangular oak table was conspicuously empty, the small space more like a gaping chasm. Lucy wore a military-issue buckled belt on her head, Lady Hugh enough diamonds to sink a rowboat, and Lord Hugh was already three-quarters through a decanter of brandy.
Firmly suppressing a shudder of disquiet, Emma managed to smile at the footman who pulled out her chair, smooth the skirts of her ruby-red gown and sit down without incident. Yet seconds later, her spine and stomach turned to stone as instead of doing the correct thing and sitting opposite, Caleb slid into the high-backed chair beside her.
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