Forever Yours. Charlotte Featherstone

room carrying their blankets and bears and Lord knew what else.

      “It will only take a minute to settle them,” she tried to assure him, “and I’ll send them back to Nanny.”

      “If Nanny had any brains, she would have kept them in their room to begin with,” he snarled.

      “Christian!”

      He saw Elizabeth’s horrified expression in the moonlight, but he didn’t care. He was tired of this. This marriage. This wife. He wanted more. Something more than what his life had become.

      “You know the children are frightened of thunderstorms.”

      “And everything else that goes bump in the night,” he said with disdain. “And we mustn’t overlook Richard’s nightmares and John’s bed wetting. And let us not forget how arduous a task it was to get Jamie weaned from your breast.”

      Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. “They’re only children.”

      “Richard is eight. He shouldn’t need to come to his mama’s bed because of a little thunder.”

      She shot him a disapproving glare. “They are just children, Christian. You are a grown man.”

      “Well, I have needs, too. What about mine? What about yours, or do you not need me inside you anymore? Are you just a shell of a woman now that you’ve born children? Is that it, Elizabeth, you can’t fuck anymore because you’re a mother?”

      He looked away from her and wiped his hands along his face as he fought for some measure of control. This was his wife, he reminded himself, who he had once loved more than anything—whom he still loved. These were his children, his own flesh and blood—yet he swore he almost felt hatred for them as they flung the door open and ran into the room crying and sniffling.

      “Darlings,” Elizabeth cooed, opening her arms and allowing their dark-haired “darlings” to crawl into their bed. Their youngest, Jamie, who was not yet two, struggled to climb up the tall bed. Christian hefted him up and watched as Jamie scrambled out of his hold in order to cuddle up to his mother. His four children were now nestled against Elizabeth’s generous breasts, their faces pressed into the starched linen of her gown, which concealed the sweet scent of her flesh.

      His children were exactly where he longed to be. A place he hadn’t really been since the birth of Rachel, their third child. Christ, had it really been three years since Rachel had been born? Three years since their marriage and sex life had begun to dwindle, then all but grind to a halt? Three years of living with someone he no longer knew or felt close to.

      “Papa, your knee is against my back and it’s hurting.”

      That was John, their second child. He was only six, but tonight, for Christian, he was much too old to be running to his mama because of a little thunder and lightning.

      As John grunted and shoved him away, Christian swore beneath his breath. Snatching the sheet covering his waist he tore it from the bed. Elizabeth glared at him.

      “I’m sick to death of this,” he blurted. He saw the blue gaze of his oldest son peeking out at him from the protection of his mother’s arm. Unable to help it, he glared angrily at him—a frightened eight-year-old boy—then turned his back, hating himself for what he had just done to his son.

      “Christian,” Elizabeth sighed, the sound so full of confusion and disapproval. “What is it you want?”

      A fucking wife! But he could hardly say that in front of his children. So instead he said nothing, only sighed, knowing she would understand exactly what was wrong. Their marriage was over. It had been for some time now. It was well past time they admitted it to themselves — there was nothing left. Nothing except resentment, distance and emptiness.

      “Where are you going?” she asked as he stalked to the connecting door to his chamber.

      “I’m leaving.”

      Silence followed him. There was no plea for him to stay, no tears and whispered words of love. Nothing that showed him she cared a thing for him.

      Did she give a damn? Did she care that there was nothing left of their marriage, or was it merely a relief for her to know she no longer had to put up with him?