Page 75 of A Necessary Wife

“You were going upstairs, I believe.”

“I am.”

“Go now,” he suggested. “Dunstan and I have things to discuss.

Amelia took that as her cue to leave and fled up the stairs, head held high until she heard a loud grunt followed by another. She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder afraid her husband and Dunstan had come to blows over her.

Amelia risked a glance over the railing but found the pair gone.

She was disappointed Chatham had gone and returned to her room slowly, pondering her suspicions. It meant something that he might have defended her honor with his fists.

She loved Chatham but her marriage was an endless confusion to her senses. She wanted a husband who would protect her honor from scoundrels like Dunstan. Someone who would wrap her in his arms, hold her tight, and keep her doubts at bay. Someone who never had to say she was important to them because their actions proved she was uppermost in their mind. Perhaps she was being selfish, but she’d only felt that way once, and it was brief. Never to return.

Chatham never wanted to care about her that way.

She let herself into their room and pressed her back against the door. She was in an impossible situation. But perhaps her feelings would go away if there was more distance between them.

They had with her first love.

Surely, if she tried hard enough, she could keep those feelings hidden from him.

Of course, she wouldn’t abandon the promises she’d made to him when they had wed. Her vows were important to her. She would not betray Chatham for the world.

She would not do that to someone she cared about.

And she did care about him very much despite the bargain they’d made. Her breath caught again, accepting the truth that wouldn’t go away. She had developed deep feelings for her husband and they would only grow the longer they were together. The pain would be worse than she’d ever experienced before, too.

She would have to distance herself from him—and the sooner the better.

He was too perceptive not to notice, of course. So she had to find a way to make him believe her indifferent to love so she could keep to their bargain.

Tell him she did not have to continue sharing the same room, the same bed, if she was with child already.

She needed space, distance, and time.

Although her belly roiled yet again. Intimacy only made her crave his attention more.

Amelia closed her eyes, steadying herself at the thought of lying in bed longing for his arms about her at night. His breath ringing in her ears, telling she was no longer alone. “Oh. This is going to hurt.”

She was about to break her own heart.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Milo hadn’t been able to concentrate on a single damned thing Phillipa said at breakfast, or that anyone else did for the rest of the morning.

Every time he thought of Amelia, trapped by Dunstan, his blood boiled savagely. Amelia was his.

He was jealous, possessive, two things he’d vowed never to be again with a wife. It was the only explanation for slamming Dunstan into a wall and threatening further violence on him if he so much as glanced at Amelia that way again.

And when he considered the past few days, he knew it was not a new sensation.

When Amelia entered a room, he sensed her before he saw her. Her light step, her gentle voice, the faint scent of rose water she favored always set him at ease. And each time she glanced his way, he lost the thread of whatever he was supposed to be talking about.

That level of preoccupation went against everything their marriage was meant to be.

It was infuriating for a man of his age and experience to be fumbling for words around others like some besotted fool. He had spent years taming his emotions, meeting the world and women with rigid detachment. Now, though, one soft sigh or word or smile from Amelia and his equilibrium was utterly shattered.

Especially so when she was speaking with a male guest.