She made her way to her dressing room, feeling his eyes on her back as she went.
***
It was a prim nightgown, as he had fully expected. It was not inexpensive—none of her clothes were. Neither was it new—none of her clothes were. And it had certainly not been made to excite a man’s imagination or lust.
It did both anyway. It covered her to the ankles and the wrists and the neck. What was left to dobutimagine and lust after what was hidden from sight?
Her hair was in a single neat braid down her back and drawn smoothly over her head and ears. She was standing by the window of her bedchamber, though he did not believe there was much of a view beyond it. It faced the hill and the wilderness walk, and there was not much moonlight tonight. She was looking back over her shoulder at him, her face wiped of all expression. Like a martyr headed to the bonfire. Or was it witches who were destined for that particular fate? She looked bewitching enough to be one. She could give the most experienced courtesan a few hints.
He had tapped on the door and waited for her summons. He advanced into the room now after closing the door behind him.
“Have you ever seen such an opulent bedchamber?” he asked her. “It is a good thing the w-window does not face east. We might be blinded by sunlight on all the g-gilding in the morning.”
“I wonder if the prince and his princessdidstay here,” she said. “It must have seemed like a horrid waste if they did not.”
“We will have to make good use of it t-tonight,” he said. “And then every farthing spent on it will have been worthwhile.”
It was a good thing his valet had dug up a nightshirt from somewhere in his baggage, he thought—perhaps from the same remote corner his knee breeches had occupied. She might have been disconcerted to discover nakedness beneath his dressing gown.
“How l-long did it take you to braid your hair?” he asked her.
“Two minutes?” she said as though she was not sure. “Three?”
“Let me see if I can unbraid it in one,” he said.
It took him longer because he stood in front of her to do it instead of behind, and he was distracted by her eyes, which were on the grayish side of blue and looked slightly smoky in the candlelight, fringed as they were by lashes that curled slightly at the ends and were a darker shade than her hair. Then he was distracted by her mouth, which no one would never compare to a rosebud, for which fact he was thankful. Wider mouths were far more kissable. And he was distracted by the smell of her hair or her skin orher. It was a scent beyond description and certainly came from no bottle or even entirely from any bar of soap. It was a scent that would be worth a fortune if hecouldbottle it, but he was far too selfish to share it, and why have it in a bottle when he had her?
He was distracted by the tip of her tongue, which took its time about moistening her lips, though it was perfectly obvious she did it with no intention whatsoever of causing a tightening in his groin.
She caused it anyway.
She had never had a come-out, because her father had used the money set aside for it to secure his divorce. Would she have learned feminine wiles if she had? He was glad she had not learned any. He liked the ones that came naturally and were not real wiles at all, for the very word suggested something deliberate.
It was like being married to a nun. Though he had not discovered yet what bed skills she had acquired during her previous marriage. He would be willing to wager, though.... No, he would not. A wager had to be made with another person.
He hoped she had no skills.
Strange thought. He had on occasion paid exorbitant prices for skills, as well as mere access to a female body.
She did notlooklike a nun after he had unraveled her plait and spread her hair over her shoulders. It was almost waist length—unfashionably long.
“It is neither dark nor blond,” she said. “Just a nondescript brown.”
“I would not l-like you with dark or blond hair,” he said. “I like you withthiscolor hair.”
“Well, that is very gallant of you,” she said.
She looked at least five years younger with her hair unconfined. Though he did not at all mind her the age she was.
He kissed her, threading the fingers of one hand through all that heavy, silky hair and drawing her whole slim length to him with the other while he plundered her mouth. It was wet and scorching hot. She clutched his shoulders, and there was a tension in her that had not been there during previous embraces. Perhaps because she knew this time there would be no stopping.
“It has been a long time,” she said a little breathlessly, a little apologetically, when he raised his head.
She did not mean since he last kissed her.
“Howlong?” he asked.
“Oh, five or six years.”
