Lessons from a Scandalous Bride

Page 25

She nodded, not bothering to point out that she wasn’t cold. On the contrary. Heat swam beneath her skin, hummed through her like a charged current.
His next boot hit the floor. She watched as his hands went to his jacket, the long fingers deftly shedding it with strong, sure movements. Nothing hesitant or nervous. And why should he be? He’d probably done this hundreds, thousands, of times.
The notion that he undressed before countless females filled her with an unjustified sense of outrage. He’s mine! As quickly as the thought entered her head she banished it.
Of course there’d been others. And there was nothing to say there wouldn’t be more. What could she expect? It was only fair. She’d banned him from her bed. She couldn’t expect him to lead a life of celibacy. Just because that was what she’d chosen for herself, she could not demand it of him.
Her mind drifted to the stunning redhead from earlier. Had she shared his bed? Was she even right now weeping into her pillow?
Firelight danced off the sculpted flesh of his n**ed torso.
“Is this necessary?” she blurted.
He froze, looking up at her with an arched eyebrow. “What?”
She motioned in a small circle. “This . . . this chamber. You.” Deliciously, temptingly naked. “Me. Sharing a room together.”
Something in his expression tightened. The gray of his eyes seemed chillier, frozen ash. “We’re married now,” he reminded.
“Yes, but not in the truest sense.”
His gaze drilled into her, hard as iron. “And you want the world to know that? That you’re a wife eschewing her duty? Her responsibility to the marriage bed?”
The skin of her face grew prickly hot. The merry toasts and well wishes of earlier tonight echoed in her head. The faces of the happy villagers flashed through her mind. “No. I don’t wish for the nature of our marriage to be public. It’s our concern.” Our secret.
“Agreed.” He continued to undress. As if the matter were settled.
“Would you please explain?” she persisted, unable to let the matter drop. Self-preservation forced the words from her. “How would keeping our own rooms alert the world that our marriage is a—” She stopped herself just short of saying a farce. Their union wasn’t a farce. It meant something. Even without consummation, it was real. It mattered to her.
Moistening her lips, she finished, “Spouses often keep separate rooms.”
He sighed deeply, the sound weary. “Life is different here. This isn’t the ton. Where spouses practically lead separates lives. Both the Lord and Lady McKinney have always occupied this bedchamber. It’s tradition. And tradition weighs heavily here.”
“Can you not ever break with tradition?”
He stared at her stonily. “I did marry an Englishwoman. That’s sending a few ancestors tossing in their graves.”
“Well. What’s one more?” She attempted for lightness, but the look in his eyes told her he was quite finished with the discussion.
“Everyone knows I would share my wife’s bed. Unless there were something wrong with her . . . unless our marriage is a contentious union.” He stared at Cleo rather pointedly. “Is that what you prefer everyone conclude?”
She shook her head, shoulders sagging. She had to live here for . . . well, forever. Her siblings, too. She needed Logan’s people to see her as one of them so they’d welcome her siblings with open arms. In short, she needed to win them over and not come across as some shrew who barred her husband from their bed.
But isn’t that what you are?
She shook her head at the insidious little voice, and searched for the memories that had driven her for so long.
“No,” she answered through numb lips. “I don’t want them to think our marriage contentious.”
“Good.” His hands moved to his trousers. She commanded herself to look away, to move. She couldn’t just stand here watching him slack-jawed as he removed the last of his clothing. She already knew he preferred to sleep naked, and in the fire’s glow, she’d see every bare inch of him. That was more than she could bear.
She swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat and scanned the room, spotting a wooden screen etched with a hunting scene. Her nightgown already happened to be draped over it—the wisdom of her maid, Berthe, no doubt.
She could change behind that with relative privacy. With luck, Logan would be tucked out of sight beneath the covers by the time she emerged.
Strategy in mind, she strode across the room and positioned herself behind the screen. Within moments of straining her arms behind her back, she realized she could not undress herself unassisted. Blast it! She should have considered this sooner.
Face flaming, she bowed her head in misery for a long moment. Inhaling, she gathered her nerve and stepped out from behind the screen once again. He was in the bed. Just as she’d hoped. And feared. He’d have to rise to assist her and then she’d see every bare inch of him.
She cleared her throat unnecessarily. He was already looking directly at her from where he was propped against the pillows in the bed, the coverlet pooled around his waist, leaving that enticing bare chest of his exposed.
She couldn’t help notice that he had positioned himself squarely in the middle of the bed, with no thought, evidently, for granting her any space of her own where she wouldn’t brush against him.
“I can’t quite manage the buttons on my gown.”
“Come here,” he said and she didn’t think she imagined that his voice was rougher than usual, the burr deeper, more gravelly.
She stepped closer, briskly at first and then slower, her steps dragging as she neared the bed. He remained where he was. She stopped near the edge, her fingers bunching the skirts of her gown.
“Turn around,” he instructed.
She turned, fixing her gaze straight ahead. There was a slight rustling and her pulse kicked against her throat as she imagined him pushing back the covers . . . his n**ed body moving toward her.
She waited. Nothing happened. She glanced over her shoulder. He loomed behind her, his bare shoulders smooth and vast, the flesh rippling over tightly corded muscle. She quickly faced forward again. But it was too late. The image was permanently branded on her mind. Just as his clean, woodsy scent was fixed in her nostrils.
At the first touch of his fingers, she gasped. Even though she was waiting for it, expecting it, even though he was only actually touching the top button of her dress. Her bodice loosened as he undid more buttons. And then she felt him—his hand inside her dress, the backs of his fingers brushing her back, grazing her spine as he worked free the last of the tiny, satin-covered buttons.
Her dress sagged, only her arms holding it up, covering her br**sts. She couldn’t command her legs to move. Could only feel his fingers on her back, the spark of heat where their skin connected. The air had ceased to flow in and out of her. He didn’t move either and she wondered if she stood there long enough would he move and take the choice away from her? That would make it blessedly simple.
Marguerite’s scandalous advice whispered through her head. She’d been shockingly candid, explaining how Cleo might pleasure both herself and Logan without engaging in actual . . . relations.
Even with the advice swimming through her, leaving nothing to the imagination, one question still remained. How did she go about initiating the advice Marguerite had given her?
“There. All done.”
Rustling behind her indicated his return to the bed. Clutching her gown to keep it from falling to her feet, she scurried behind the screen. Stepping free of her gown, she flung it over the screen, angered at her cowardice. Her undergarments soon followed. Slipping the nightgown over her head, she emerged again, her gaze immediately flying to the bed. He was still there, square in the middle, naturally.
Only he no longer sat upright with pillows propped behind him as though he were waiting for her. He was lying on his side. She squinted, unable to even make out his face. He appeared to be . . . sleeping.
She lowered onto the stool before the vanity table and quickly removed her hairpins, sending the glossy dark mass tumbling to her shoulders. She quickly ran a brush through her tresses, inspecting herself critically.
Perhaps if she looked more like that curvaceous redhead she’d seen weeping in the village, he’d be more inclined to stay awake.
With decided vigor, she slammed the brush on the table. Now she was just being ridiculous. She’d ordered him to leave her be. That’s what he was doing. Even on their wedding night. She wasn’t about to nurse some wounded feelings because he took her request seriously. She wasn’t that fickle.
She moved to the bed, flinging back the covers, her movements agitated and excessive. In the back of her mind she knew she was trying to deliberately gain his attention. Like a child throwing a tantrum, she wanted to rouse him from sleep. She frowned, recognizing the bad behavior in herself. And yet she couldn’t stop.
She glared at the shadowy shape of his broad back peeking out from the covers. Even lying in the middle of the bed, there was plenty of bed left for her to occupy without touching him. She saw that now—and felt a stab of disappointment.
Turning, she beat her pillow loudly, as though getting it in the right condition for her head was of critical importance. At the very least, it was an excellent exercise in frustration.
She flopped back on the pillow with a loud sigh, her hair billowing all around her in a floating dark nimbus. She sent one last baleful look at his back. His shoulder moved the barest amount, a slow rise and fall matching his even breathing. He slept. The cad.
Rolling to her side so she did not have to endure the sight of him, she tucked her hand beneath her cheek. She doubted she would sleep a wink.
This was her last thought before drifting away.
Chapter Twenty-two
Logan didn’t move until he heard her breathing shift into that rasping cadence that marked sleep. Only then did he roll over to observe her, admiring the softness of her features relaxed in sleep.
She’d been spitting mad at his seeming indifference to her. It had taken every ounce of will inside him not to do more than unbutton the back of her gown. He’d had to force himself not to strip her gown all the way off and touch her, caress her as he longed to do. She was his wife now . . . and he couldn’t even lay a finger on her. The absurdity of it galled him. It was a situation beyond his imagining a month ago. He had envisioned himself married to a female. Perhaps one he didn’t want or crave with the intensity that he wanted Cleo, but a tolerable wife. Someone he could stomach, who could in turn tolerate him. He’d assumed she’d at least be willing to share his bed. That she would even expect it—desire it.
Cleo had moved about in a huff, clearly offended about something, before she succumbed to sleep. What did she expect of him? To attempt seduction after she’d already laid forth the terms of their marriage? No. He hardened his resolve. He’d wait for her to come to him. She was a passionate creature. He had proof of that—memories that left him aching with need.
He had to believe that she couldn’t spend night after night in this bed with him and not cave, not surrender to even one kiss. One kiss that could open the door to so much more . . .
He intended to make it as difficult as possible for her. Despite what he told her, he could have taken a chamber down the hall. His staff and siblings would have speculated, but he didn’t care. More than likely they would have thought it her English ways . . . a haughty Sassenach simply desiring her own chamber. Or they might think he was giving her more time to acclimate to her new role as his wife.
Reaching out, he slid a dark tendril back from her cheek and wrapped it around his finger. Honestly, he didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. He cared only about making Cleo his wife in the truest sense. And he’d use all his cunning to make that happen.
Cleo’s eyes opened slowly, and she blinked, trying to shake free her groggy thoughts. The cloudy vestiges of a dream pulled on her consciousness like cobwebs clinging to the skin.