The Seduction of His Wife by Tiffany Clare

should give him plenty of time to win his wife over, at least in a small way.
    He led her over to the picnic and helped her sit.
    “So much food for only the two of us, Richard.”
    “I didn’t know what you favored, so asked for a little of everything.”
    She glanced at him, her head tilted to the side as she studied him. He sat across from her and filled a plate with some cheese, bread, sliced ham, and fresh-picked raspberries, then made up his own plate.
    “Is it not to your liking?” He noticed she only nibbled at her food.
    “It is.”
    “You’re quieter than normal.”
    She gave him a small smile. “Tell me more about your travels. Where you’ve gone, what you’ve seen.”
    “I’ve been everywhere on the Continent and through the northern tip of Africa. I had a house in India at one point, and have traveled to the farthest reaches in Asia. Which interests you most to know about?”
    *   *   *
    Emma wanted so many more details than he was providing. She wanted to know what had kept him in foreign lands. What had fascinated him so much that he’d never craved to come home?
    Dare she ask those questions? It was her opportunity to understand her husband better. He’d set out to have this day with her. Away from prying eyes, away from familial interruptions.
    “Did you prefer living abroad?”
    Did he understand what she was really asking? If he preferred to live away from his home, his father, her.
    Richard set his plate down and tossed the remainder of his bread into the pond for the ducks to eat.
    “My father and I never saw eye-to-eye. I had great plans for adventure. He had great plans for me in Parliament.”
    “Your father showed me nothing but kindness.” She couldn’t comprehend why Richard would avoid his duty as earl.
    “I don’t expect you to understand. But my father and I never got on well. We fought incessantly. We disagreed just to disagree with each other. He wanted me to be like him. I was a disappointment when I turned out completely different from his choosing.”
    “He was always proud of you. He told me on many occasions.”
    Emma picked up a raspberry and rolled it between her fingers hard enough to color them with the juices. Him staying away had hurt her profoundly. Painting took away the sadness. Allowed her to focus on something different.
    “I don’t doubt your words. I will be the first to admit that I was acting no better than a child when I left. I hurt you in the process.”
    “Because you didn’t want to marry me.”
    “My father had picked you as my bride before either of us could understand what that truly meant. When we married … I felt like I was being dragged into a life I wanted no part of. I craved travel. I craved carving my own path, making my own money, money not from the workers on my father’s land.” Richard leaned back on his elbows and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. He took a deep inhalation. “My father threatened to cut my allowance if I didn’t wed you. He thought marriage would keep me here when I had expressed my interest in travel.”
    “Why did you marry me if you planned to leave?”
    “Wholly selfish reasons. Rash reasons from a man who wasn’t yet a man, but thought he could prove a point in doing one final thing to snub his father. The follies of youth sometimes haunt us eternally.”
    He had only been nineteen when they’d wed. A man who didn’t understand that he was ruining a young woman’s life.
    “If you stayed away so long because of your father, why didn’t you come home when he died?”
    “It was three months after his death that I received that letter. It felt too late to come home, yet not soon enough. I was in the process of breaking down another part of my business and selling it off. Too busy to come rushing home to a wife I didn’t know and hadn’t bothered to ever try to know.”
    He stood suddenly, holding his hand down to her. “Would you like to walk? We can feed the remainder of the