Confessions of a Royal Bridegroom(134)

He gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s good news. And Mr. Langton said he would return to check on Stephen early this evening, so I’m sure we won’t have long to wait.”

Her wavering attempt to smile back sliced through him like the sharpest of blades. It practically killed Griffin to see how she suffered, and it frustrated him to realize there was little he could do to relieve it. If he’d learned one discomforting fact from this crisis, it was that he would do whatever he could to make Justine’s life easier. What impact that knowledge would have on his future plans was something he wasn’t yet prepared to think about.

They spoke little, and Griffin was content to watch her. She gave him a shy, grateful smile once or twice but kept her attention on her plate, clearly forcing herself to eat. When the small clock on the fireplace mantel rang out the hour, she glanced anxiously at the nursery door and came to her feet.

“Don’t even think about it,” Griffin said. “Cook will stay with Rose until the surgeon arrives.”

Justine propped her fists on her hips and scowled. “And what am I to do?”

He rose and came to her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “You might try lying down for a bit.” He lowered his head and touched his nose to hers. “You must be dead on your feet.”

She allowed herself to lean against him. “I am, but I’m too nervous to rest.”

He urged her close, circling his arms around her back, relishing the way her sweet curves fit so perfectly against him. “What can I do to help?”

“If you won’t let me back in there, then you can talk to me. That might distract me.”

“Talk about what?”

He felt a sudden spooling of tension in her body, and all his senses came to alert.

She turned her face into his waistcoat, and the words came out muffled. “About you. About your past.”

He automatically rejected the suggestion as he eased her away from him. “I never talk about that.”

“Don’t shake your head at me, Griffin Steele,” she said. “I’m your wife. I have a right to know.”

“I thought you wished to be wife in name only,” he said drily. “And yet now you want to claim your privileges?”

She stood her ground, staring back at him with a challenge in her eyes. “I think we both know I’m your wife in more than just name, Griffin. It seems to me we have both claimed our privileges.”

He couldn’t gainsay that, although he didn’t necessarily agree that she—or anyone—had the right to root around in his past.

She sighed. “You have asked me more than once to trust you. Can you not learn to trust me? Just a little?”

He didn’t respond. He’d spent too many years building high walls around his life, and they wouldn’t come down easily.

“I’m not asking simply out of curiosity,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of time to think these last few days. About us, about our life together. What that will be like.”

“And what conclusions have you reached, Madame Wife?” he asked, taking refuge in sarcasm.

“That I have the same right to ask for your trust as you have asked for mine,” she said quietly. “And if we can’t trust each other, then there’s no hope for us to be anything but polite strangers who occasionally share a bed.”

He wandered over to the window to escape her perceptive gaze. He had asked her to trust him—on the day he’d asked her to marry him, and on the day he’d taken her as his bride. He wanted her to trust him enough to leave England, a leap of faith that would take her far from the only life she’d ever known. Could he ask that of her and yet not give her something of the same in return?