“I fear it may be too much, so that is why I need to know what we can afford before I make any plans.” She took the notes back from him, now biting her lip. “Is it too much? Shall we start with something small instead?”
“Frederica!” he had to call her name a little loudly to get her attention. She halted, staring at him with her notes now plastered to her chest. “I will talk about all of this with you, but first…” he gestured to the chair beside him. “… would you sit with me and eat breakfast?”
“But…” she paused, holding up the notes. “… there is much to do. I’m also going to sit down with Mrs. Long and talk about the running of the household —”
“And that can wait until after breakfast.” He pointed to the chair yet again. She didn’t appear to be listening though. She was looking through her notes once more.
Allan sighed and rubbed his temple.
He wished to be close to his wife. God damn it, he wanted love from his wife. Wasn’t everyone around him fortunate enough to have that? Stephen and Gerard had it. Before he came, his parents had it too. Was it so wrong to hope that, with a little patience, he and Frederica could have something akin to love? Such a hope was useless though if she would not even sit with him.
Let down your walls, Frederica.
He stood from his seat, and she looked up in surprise from her notes. As gently as he could, he prised the notes from her hands and placed them on the table beside him.
“How about we make a deal?” he said plainly, his frustrations bubbling to the surface. She swallowed, and he hated that look of nervousness in her.
Be bold with me as you were before. Let me see that, Frederica.
“You can make any changes you like to this house,” he said slowly. “The money doesn’t concern me; we have plenty of it. I’d be very happy indeed to see this place under careful care and management — better than I could give it. My time is much taken up with the tenants and the estate.”
He nodded to the window.
“Truly?” She smiled. There was such excitement in her now that something jolted in his stomach. It was a happy feeling, a bit like the one when he had first ever seen Frederica and thought much of that pretty face.
He had to clear his throat in an attempt to shift that memory from his mind.
“Truly,” he said again. “On one condition.” He held up a finger. “If you sit and start having your meals with me.”
“If that is your wish, but must it start now?” she murmured in surprise. “There is much to do. I have to write to my aunt, too. She doesn’t yet know I am even married.”
She is looking for excuses not to be with me.
Any semblance of happiness vanished from within Allan. He returned to his seat and proffered her notes up to her.
“Very well. Escape if it is your wish.”
She took the notes carefully from him. Was it in his mind or was she taking special care not to touch him?
He remembered the way he had touched her the day before at the wedding ceremony. When he had kissed her hand, he thought he had seen a flash of excitement in her eye, a spark of warmth, but perhaps that had been his hope creating something that had never been there in the first place.
“I shall share dinner with you,” she promised as she took the notes and left the room.
He stared after her, hurrying to eat his food though he no longer had much of an appetite. As he stared at the doorway through which his wife had just left, the sadness spread through him.
“You’re keeping me at arm’s length, Freddie,” he whispered, adopting a nickname for her in his own mind. “That will have to change.”
CHAPTERELEVEN
Allan burst into the sports room of Stephen’s house, moving so quickly that the door ricocheted off the wall behind him.
“Good Lord!” Stephen cried from the other side of the room in alarm. “What’s got into you? I asked you around to my house, not to break down the door to get in.”
Allan came to a halt, his eyes falling on Stephen and Gerard who had broken off in the middle of their fencing match. As usual, Stephen was dressed formally for his fencing, with padding over his chest and bearing a thin foil at his side.
In contrast, Gerard hadn’t bothered with the padding. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he carried a much broader sword. At a glance, it was obvious that he hadn’t had the formal fencing training that Stephen had, having grown up outside of the ton.
“Who’s winning?” Allan asked, knowingly.
