His eyes laughed at her, and he reached across the table and took one of her hands in both of his.
“I believe, Sammy,” he said, “you are jealous.”
“Jealous?” She tried to withdraw her hand, but he tightened his hold on it. “How perfectly ridiculous. And how dare you call me that name when I have specifically asked you not to?”
“I think you want me,” he said.
“Nonsense.”
His eyes were laughing, but her stomach was clenched into knots. It was not true. Oh, of course it was true. He did not believe what he was saying, though. He was just teasing her. He was deliberately trying to make her cross—and was succeeding.
“I believe,” he said, “you want to prove that youaregood in bed after all.”
“Oh!” She gaped inelegantly and jerked her hand from between his as she got abruptly to her feet. “How dare you. Oh, Ben, how dare you?”
Somehow she remembered to keep her voice down.
“You may have lost respect for your late husband,” he said, “and you may have refused to allow his infidelity to break your spirit, but he hurt you more than you realize, Samantha. He was a fool. And one day you will be given proof of your desirability. But not tonight. You are quite safe from me, I promise, despite the situation in which we find ourselves. I will not take advantage of you.”
She was almost disappointed.
“Go on up to our room now,” he said, “since you appear to have finished eating. I will stay down here for a while.”
She went without a word of protest, even though it could be said that he had issued a command.
He was a fool.
You will be given proof of your desirability.
I believe you want to prove that you are good in bed after all.
I think you want me.
And they were to spend the night together.
Not only ought he to have written to Hugo, Ben thought as he drank his port, but he ought also to have written to Calvin at Kenelston. And probably to Beatrice. No doubt she would soon learn that Samantha had disappeared from Bramble Hall and that he had left Robland very early on the same day. He wondered if she would make the connection. But if she did, he did not believe she would share her suspicions with anyone.
Would anyone else make the connection? He doubted it, since he had taken care not to be seen with Samantha. No one would know that he had had more than a passing acquaintance with her, and itwasknown that he was about to leave Robland anyway.
He could still write the letters, of course. He could call for paper and pen and ink and write them now before he went upstairs. But he was reluctant to do so. There was something rather seductive about the idea of simply disappearing without a trace for as long as he chose. He could go where he wanted and do what he wanted without having to account to anyone. That was always the case, of course, but…Well, he wanted to be quite free to allow this adventure to develop as it would. He did not want friends and relatives murmuring in the background with either encouragement or disapproval.
Samantha was still up when he returned to their room, though he had lingered in the dining room long enough to give her the chance to be under the bedcovers and at least pretending to be asleep if she so chose. He had been hoping she would take that option.
She was sitting on the bed in her nightgown, her legs tucked to one side, only her bare feet visible beneath its hem, her arms raised to remove the pins from her hair. It was not a deliberately seductive pose. Nevertheless it did something uncomfortable to his breathing.
“I thought you would be asleep,” he told her.
“Or feigning sleep, I suppose,” she said, “curled up in a ball, breathing deeply and evenly, so that you could crawl by me and ease yourself in on the other side and do likewise?”
He shut and locked the door.
“I did consider it,” she confessed, “but you would have known I was not really asleep, and then I would have known thatyouwere not and we would have lain awake all night, each of us hoping that we were doing a better job of faking it than the other.”
He laughed.
“Let me help you do that,” he said, moving closer and propping his canes against the foot of the bed before sitting beside her. “I might say you are making a bird’s nest of your hair, but I believe that would be insulting to the bird in question.”
“Well,” she said, lowering her arms, “you make me nervous, Ben, and I cannot for the life of me disentangle the last few pins. I believe they are lost in there forever.”
