The Lord Who Adored Her and Other Love Songs: A Steamy Historical Romance (Art of Love Book 5) by Charlie Lane

Author:Charlie Lane [Lane, Charlie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

December 22, 1822

In the far corner of the room, no pillows and quilt offered a pitiful makeshift bed for a giant. Clara rubbed the sleep from her eyes and swung her feet to the floor. Never any trouble leaving her warm bed these days. It wasn’t Atlas warm, after all, and that seemed to be the only kind of warmth she cared to lounge in any longer. Besides, she needed to flee a dream. Of him. Calling her “little mouse” as he kissed the aching, pulsing parts of her body between her legs. Little mouse. An insult. Why did it make her weak-kneed?

Because everything about him made her weak-kneed. Weeks of separation should have dulled her fancy for him. Those weeks had heightened it, magnified it a thousandfold so that her body screamed for his touch, rejoiced when he barely brushed against her.

She blamed him. He was so very good at playing his part.

Pretending would drive her mad.

On tired legs she stood, her body wavering just a bit, staring at the empty corner.

Where had Atlas gone? She did not remember him coming in last night after dinner. Had he slept at the dower house? Sometimes he did so. Good. He’d be more comfortable there, and in a few days, a week at most, she’d no longer have to gather Atlas’s sleeping materials after waking, return them to the bed so the housemaid would not discover their truth.

She peeked behind the curtain dividing the room. He did not sit humming at the pianoforte.

She attempted to dress without worry, but concern for his absence followed her into the hallway and to the room where the family broke their fast. Matilda and Fanny were bright cheeked and cheery, planning for Christmas. Raph tried to hide his grins behind a book. But no Atlas sitting amongst them at the table, one large hand wrapped around a chipped cup of coffee.

“Where’s your husband?” Franny asked, chewing a bite of toast.

Clara waited a moment to see if Raph answered for her, but when the silence stretched too long for comfort, she had no choice but to lie.

“At the dower house already. Working. He wished to get an early start.” She hoped.

“He works much too hard.” Franny sighed, but there were no more questions.

“He’s fine, Mother.” Raph waved a point of toast in the air. “If he needed rest, he’d take it.”

Would he, though? She’d been married to the man a little less than two months and felt she knew him better, sometimes, than those gathered round this table.

“Have you considered the mistletoe, Clara?” Franny asked.

She had. Almost nonstop. Alfie wanted it badly. And Atlas had perked up at the mention of it as well. Only Clara had felt like melting through the floorboards. Hunting for mistletoe, gathering greenery—things real families did together. But her little family was fake, and she must protect her son.

“We’ll need greenery as well. I would drag Raph along to get it, but”—Matilda shivered, pulled her shawl more tightly about her—“I hate the cold.

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