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She couldn’t stop giggling. She didn’t even remember how they got on the topic.

Not until a week and endless carriage rides later...

Chapter Ten - Amy

(Sunderland House, Wallingford. Jan 27, 1814)

The funeral was harder than Amy expected. Nicholas kept her well distracted on the trip from Clarendel—he was an absolute fiend about keeping her thoughts on more immediate feelings—but at Sunderland House, she found herself suffocating among too many memories and too many lawyers and solicitors and tradesmen.

Her stepmother drifted through the halls like a pallid ghost carrying a flask of laudanum, but Aunt Leah and Portia were quietly overjoyed, and half the servants looked like they’d just escaped a firing squad when Amy presented them with a small gift of money and unconditional good references. The whole lot was so rough that she finally had to ask where the housekeeper had resorted to hiring them from.

That was when Nicholas walked in and started laughing. “From the remnants of the army and the brothel, by the looks of that second kitchen maid.” Which then sent Aunt Leah into vapors and the housekeeper into a blushing horror.

“Oh, Mia. You know I’m always honest, my love.” He swept Amy up to his side, making it into a scandalous waltz. She smelled brandy on his breath and laughed, letting him bear her away, out of the salon and off to a ride through the woods. They came back two hours later with Amy’s hair quite tumbled and grass stains all over her gown. She assured everyone she’d had a fall and retired early to a hot bath. All the better to savor being ravaged in the shadow of a ruined monastery.

****

Nicholas

(Sunderland House. January 29, 1814)

Sorting out the Sunderland estate was going to take another month. Though it turned out, in the working of some infernal demon disguised as a solicitor, that the estate was a lot bigger than anticipated. Sunderland’s intended heir—the deceased brother Amy still mourned—had made some quite intelligent investments, and Sunderland had by some miracle been too preoccupied (chasing his now-widow in between beating Amy senseless) to ruin all those accounts. Unfortunately for the new dowager, the baron had already poured a shocking amount of his new bride’s marriage settlement into unneeded improvements of Sunderland House.

In general, the news could’ve been worse (unless one counted the widow, who’d be stuck in genteel poverty with her brother until she could find a new husband). With some care and only a very little more capital from the sale of his commission, he wouldn’t need to work his stock and trade much. But each passing day at Sunderland House, he worried more for Amy’s nerves.

He wasn’t sure he enjoyed just how desperate she was getting to throw herself into her Mia games, which unnerved him enough that he’d insisted on a sexless existence for the last three days running. But they couldn’t run off to a hotel—he needed to be available to the various tenants and leaseholders while paperwork got changed over.

Then he found Amy hiding in the far corner of the Sunderland library, under a table, shaking like a leaf. “What happened?” Nicholas got down on his knees, throwing the tablecloth up out of his way. “Amy?” No response. Her glassy eyes stared into the distance. “Amy. Sweetheart? Look at me.” She didn’t look up. He frowned at his last idea. Any port in a storm.

“Mia?” he whispered the name, and her head came up. “Mia, we’re alone. It’s all right. Come out here. Now.”

“S—sorry I...” She fell silent again as she got her out from under the table. “Th—there was ... something fell. And it broke. Th—the last time—”

“I know,” he said before she could torture herself through another sentence. “It’s all right, my love. But I’m here now. And what are the rules, hm?” He turned her chin up to make her look at him. “Nobody’s going to hurt you like that again. Or I kill them.”

“N—Nicholas...” Her face crumbled into a sob, and she buried her face against his chest. “I w—want to go home.”

“Love, this house is a good deal less of a death trap than ours. And I cannot conduct all the accounts and such from there. Not yet.” Once the messy disentangling of Amy’s inheritance from what was entailed to her brother was complete, it would be easier to remove it somewhere else.

“I k—keep s—seeing h—him.”

His heart ached unpleasantly, and he held her tighter. “Oh, mia dolcezza. I know.”

“It w—won’t stop—”

“Shh. Breathe deep. Let yourself calm down.” He chafed his hands along her arms. A game formed in his head. They’d played simple scenarios in inns along their travels and at home, and she enjoyed them both. He tipped her chin up, kissing her tears away. “Mia. Would you like to play a game with me while we’re here? It’ll be very, very wicked. You’ll have to play it every day. From now until we leave.”

“A ... game?” She sniffled, but her eyes met his, shining with curiosity behind the tears.

“Mm. But you’re going to have to let me push your boundaries. And if the game doesn’t help you feel a little better over the next few days, I’ll have enough of the funds freed up to send you to Bath for your health, all right?”

She nodded, her breathing slowing. “Tell me what to do, my lord.”

“I need you to be my good, obedient girl.”

“Always, Nicholas,” she said with absolute sincerity, her eyes taking on a familiar, eager glow. He stroked her chin and basked in her attention.

“You’re going to do anything I say, Mia. Whatever it is. However much it makes you squirm and squeal and beg me for mercy?”