Thunderclouds erupted on Trenton’s face. “I can just imagine how he presented his case.”
“That makes absolutely no difference.” Ariana rose, going to stand beside her husband. “Did you think I’d take Baxter’s word over yours, especially after I’ve offered you my love and my trust?”
Trenton turned to face her. “No,” he denied instantly. “But if Baxter didn’t send me the book, who did?”
“I don’t know. Another enemy, perhaps?”
“An enemy with very precise timing, wouldn’t you say?”
Ariana assessed the torment on her husband’s face and ached for his anguish. “Everyone knows you’ve been away from Broddington for years,” she reasoned gently. “Baxter’s rumors riled many people after Vanessa’s death. … You said so yourself. Perhaps your emergence re-ignited someone’s ill feelings. … Why, just think of poor James Covington, whose daughter Suzanne is probably still wailing over the betrothal to Baxter you forcibly severed.” Ariana attempted a smile, determined to ease Trenton’s ominous thoughts. “As you can see, you are not the most beloved man in England. In fact, you are quite a bear. Fortunately for you, I see beneath that brutal exterior.”
Trenton stared into her eyes, desperate to believe her, incapable of doing so. “What about the bookseller’s description?”
“Whoever is responsible for this obviously went to a great deal of trouble to upset you.” She stroked his cheek. “I won’t let them succeed.”
Trenton drank in Ariana’s tenderness, a balm to his raw nerves. Sifting his fingers through her hair, he murmured, “Who would ever have believed that a slip of a girl would be giving me her strength? … Or that I would be needing it?”
Relief flooded through Ariana as she sensed the tension ebbing from her husband. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his chin. “Girl? And here I thought I had graduated from girl to woman weeks ago.”
Fervently, Trenton clasped her to him. “You did. You have.” Waves of emotion clogged his chest, and Trenton expressed them in the only way he knew how. “Come to bed with me.”
Smiling, Ariana nodded against his throat. “The perfect place for me to exhibit my great strength and stamina.”
“Ariana …”
His wife leaned back in his arms. “I love you too, Trenton,” she said softly.
Slipping her hand in his, she led him to the door.
Ariana slept peacefully, her hair a bright copper waterfall across Trenton’s chest.
Smiling tenderly, Trenton gathered his wife closer, feeling her warm, even breaths against his skin.
In response, Ariana murmured something unintelligible and snuggled against him, deeply asleep in the aftermath of their soul-shattering passion, secure in the shelter of her husband’s embrace.
Rubbing his chin absently over her satiny tresses, Trenton wondered who he truly sought to comfort by holding his wife so tightly in his arms: Ariana, or himself. Candidly, he acknowledged the blessed relief of feeling her warm, soft body pressed against his. It was almost as euphoric as the exaltation he experienced when he exploded inside her, poured his entire being into hers.
Lord, he loved this woman.
The realization, instant but absolute, elicited only wonder and joy, rather than doubt or reservation. The feeling was not a new one, regardless of Trenton’s cowardice at assigning it its proper name. He’d loved Ariana for weeks: perhaps from that first moment he’d made his way through the mist of the Covington maze, only to lose himself all over again in the melting beauty of her eyes; certainly since their wedding night, when he’d joined his body to hers, made her his wife in every way.
Pressing his lips to Ariana’s forehead, Trenton felt a wave of gratitude that God had seen fit to bring her into his life. In a mere month this extraordinary young woman, with her fundamental love of nature and her unconditional faith in a man that had long since ceased to exist, had broken through Trenton’s rigid walls of isolation, surrounded him with her goodness and her love, and penetrated deep into his heart.
A heart he had thought would never thaw again.
Thanks to Ariana, Trenton could actually visualize himself as the man she believed him to be; and he wanted to be that man, desperately, for her.
Vengeance suddenly seemed a poor substitute.
Tre
nton frowned. At a time when he could actually consider burying the past, looking ahead rather than back, someone was making certain that the past remained very much in the present.
Who?
Staring at the ceiling, he contemplated the possibilities. The most likely, of course, was Baxter. Unlike Ariana, Trenton regarded Baxter not only as a greedy, selfish man, but as a heartless one, as well. He’d never forgotten the bastard’s odious pleasure at refusing Trenton’s request to spare Richard further grief, and the perverse satisfaction Baxter had taken in evicting Trenton from Winsham.
The man was indeed capable of cruelty.