At breakfast, he’d poured cream into his juice without even noticing his error. Sophie had only barely managed to warn him in time. They’d gone riding in the park afterward where she made several attempts at conversation, but gave the effort up when he failed to answer her after the third try. Then, to her annoyance, she caught him mumbling to himself instead.
Now it was late afternoon, they were in the library, she was reading aloud, and he was clearly not paying the least bit of mind to what she was saying.
He was just staring at her.
Sophie closed the book with a decisive clap. “I do wish you would tell me what is wrong,” she said impatiently.
He blinked twice. “Wrong?”
“Yes, wrong. You’ve been behaving as if you’re…I don’t know…distracted.”
Alex rubbed the palms of his hands on his trousers. “Likely because I am.”
“Care to tell me why?” she asked in a more sympathetic tone. Alex was more than distracted she realized, he was nervous.
“I’ve been meaning to…that is to say, I should like to tell you something, but it seems getting the deed done is somewhat more difficult than I anticipated.”
Now she was nervous. “What is it?”
He stood abruptly and hauled her to her feet.
“I love you,” he said clearly, albeit quickly.
Sophie heard herself make an audible gulping noise.
No. No. No.
Alex must have been feeling rather optimistic because he seemed to take her response as a good sign and continued in a more confident voice.
“I could give you a million different reasons for why I love you, or how I love you. I could even tell you when I began loving you, and when I finally came to my senses long enough to realize I love you, but it all seems inconsequential next to the simple fact that…I just do. I am completely, madly, deliriously in love with you.”
Sophie opened her mouth, let out a small squeak, and ran.
Alex watched her go in stunned amazement.
Over the last twelve hours, he had mentally played out every scenario he thought might occur after professing his undying love to his wife. Sophie laughing with joy followed by passionate lovemaking. Sophie crying with joy followed by passionate lovemaking. Sophie being struck mute with joy followed by passionate lovemaking—although he rather thought this one to be the least likely. Not once, however, had it occurred to him that she might become upset and run away, completely forgoing the joy and lovemaking the situation warranted.
Eventually, he regained the use of his muscles and took the steps two at a time.
“Sophie!”
Damn it, why had she run?
He reached the door and tried the handle. It was locked. He pounded on the wood.
“Sophie! Open this door!”
“No,” came the answer from the other side. “Not yet. I need to think.”
He could hear her pacing the floorboards. “You can damn well think while I’m in the room, and after you explain to me what this is about.”
She didn’t answer. Alex raised his fist to pound some more, but stopped midswing, a horrible thought occurring to him.
“Sophie?” he called through the wood. His voice sounding a great deal less confident than it had a minute ago. “I…you don’t owe me anything, you know.”
She stopped pacing, so he forged ahead. “What I mean is, while I should like to think that you care for me, and perhaps might one day love me in return, I didn’t tell you of my own feelings with any expectation that you return them.” Hope, yes. Lots and lots of hope. And perhaps even a touch of suspicion, but not a definite expectation.
“That isn’t it,” she replied, and he could tell she was standing on just the other side of the wood.
“Well then, what the bloody hell is it?” Alex roared, losing patience.
She moved away from the door.
“Sophie, will you open this door, or I will have Mansten bring the key? Either way, I—”
“Who is Mansten?”
“The butler,” Alex ground out. “Either way, I am coming in, the choice is yours.”
He heard the lock slide on the door. “That’s no choice at all,” Sophie muttered as he shouldered his way past her to stand in the center of the room.
“Tell me what is going on here,” he demanded.
Sophie closed the door and turned to look at him. “I don’t know how to explain it, Alex.”
He leveled one long cold stare at her. “I just informed you that I love you, to which your reaction was to look horrified, run away, and lock yourself in our room. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, Alex’ is not an acceptable response.”
Sophie winced. That had been more than a little badly done. “I am so sorry,” she murmured guiltily. “I panicked.”
“Shall we go through your entire repertoire of lame excuses to night?”
“I said I was sorry and I meant it,” she said a little indignantly. “You have every right to be hurt and angry with me, but don’t throw my apology away as if it means nothing.”
“I accept your apology,” he said in a slightly more conciliatory voice. “It’s the reason for its necessity I find hard to swallow.”
“Well, I did panic,” she pointed out reasonably. A deaf and blind man would have been hard pressed to argue with that.