Read Online Desire Me Always by Tiffany Clare - Free Book Online Page B

growing more as the days went by.
    Lady Burley stood from the table and pulled on the cord to call for the kitchen servant. “I wouldn’t want to waste the day indoors when there doesn’t appear to be a raincloud in sight. Let us arrange for our lunch to be packed, Mrs. Riley.”
    Amelia set down her teacup that was still half full. “That sounds like a perfect plan. I can meet you at the stables in twenty minutes.”
    Amelia had to change into her riding habit. Thank goodness she’d packed one for this trip and only because Nick had advised they would be attending the manor house on horseback.
    Both husbands stood as she and Lady Burley pushed away from the table; Nick assisted Amelia by sliding out her chair. How had they gone from intimately familiar to near strangers on the short walk from their room to the dining room? Perhaps Lady Burley would share some of the peculiarities of marriage with her on their afternoon ride.
    Then again, maybe distance was all Nick and Amelia needed to better understand the new coldness that grew between them. They both needed time to adjust to the momentous changes that had happened in their lives over the past few weeks. It was no lie that everything had happened quickly. The thought that they were married, even now, was incomprehensible to the woman she’d been a few weeks ago.
    Amelia kissed Nick’s cheek. Though she didn’t slip out of his grasp before he could take her hand to kiss the inside of her wrist. She pulled gently away, blushing something furious. It would make her monumentally and deliriously happy if she could stop blushing altogether.
    â€œGood day to you, Lord Burley.” Amelia looked back to her husband before they parted company. “I will see you later this afternoon.”
    Nick’s gaze smoldered with something akin to desire. They’d just sated their appetites; surely she was reading his expression wrong. She couldn’t help the shiver that chased through her veins. Then again, perhaps she was reading him correctly.
    â€œCan I help you ready?” he asked, his voice low and tempting her to take up the offer.
    She swallowed hard, her heart picking up in pace. That would not be a wise decision. Delectable, yes, but she had an appointment to keep with Lady Burley.
    â€œI can manage,” she said with a wink and turned from the room before she changed her mind—or Nick could convince her otherwise.
    â€œD o you suppose they are still sitting in the dining room, wondering why they were left behind?” Amelia asked, drawing her horse to a stop at the top of a hill that overlooked the village behind them.
    The day was typically autumn cool; the lands were a pleasurable sight, not as green as they would have been during the summer, but a rolling wave of grass that beckoned you to sit and stay a while.
    â€œIt’s hard to say,” Lady Burley replied. “I know they have other matters to discuss aside from the manor house. I believe they will parcel out the land between them, and they’ll have to work through the paperwork and legalities of dividing those particular assets.”
    â€œI hope you don’t mind if I’m forward, but Nick said Lord Murray disliked your husband and wouldn’t allow the leases to be taken over by anyone else aside from Nick.”
    â€œMurray lets petty jealousy rule his actions. He only despises my husband because my husband is a better man.”
    Amelia quirked a brow. For some reason she didn’t believe she was getting the full story.
    â€œTruth be told, there is bad blood between them. I don’t know the particulars, only that they once gambled together, and the game in question did not end well for Lord Murray.”
    â€œI imagine your husband came out ahead,” Amelia said.
    Lady Burley nodded. “Men are truly a peculiar sex.”
    They were, but Amelia had a different kind of experience—she was sure—than Lady