1
"If you want me, you can have me."
How those words played in his mind, often at the most inconvenient times. Only this morning he'd been surprised to find himself pouring juice for his lordship; he'd been jolted out of a reverie concerning his bride by a mundane question from one of the ladies.
He'd given the matter a great deal of thought. Of course he had. He'd planned, meticulously, their first kiss, their first evening as a married couple, their first night together. He'd wondered if he'd not got the wrong end of the stick when she began putting him off, but he put it down to nerves. He hadn't considered the situation from her point of view. Odd, really, for a man who spent a lifetime putting the needs of others above his own. He selfishly imagined her delight at their impending marriage and all that it would entail. When Mrs. Patmore confronted him on behalf of Mrs. Hughes, he'd been well and truly shocked. How could Mrs. Hughes, who knew him better than anyone, doubt the sincerity of his intentions? How could she failed to have realized how awfully he did want her? But she had, and in her distress she'd sent an emissary to discover the nature of their impending marriage.
In that split second between extreme embarrassment and anger, he decided to be honest. Painfully so. She should know what she was getting herself into. He could smile now at the memory. He had touched her, kissed her, as he had longed to do, and she had kissed him back. The delightful little sigh she uttered had not escaped his attention.
He sighed and shifted about in his cramped bed, which hadn't felt quite so cramped in many a long year.
TBC