A hurricane brewed in his belly and he began to feel nauseous. “Don’t be so mean, dear. I am incapacitated.”
“Sorry,” she said, softening. He must’ve been pathetic to garner such sympathy. Her touch was almost sweet as she unfastened his waistcoat, collar, and cuffs. He arched his hips, allowing her to tug his trousers down his legs.
Giles recalled her curiosity that afternoon when she had watched him dress. Louisa had marveled at the man beneath the clothes. She’d touched his bare skin, and he had delighted in what a quick study she’d proved to be, making his heart race with only the press of her palms.
His breath hitched at the thought of her hands on him now. Had anything so innocent ever been so arousing?
Louisa undressed him to his drawers, but she daren’t remove that last scrap of cotton. “Let me fetch your nightshirt.”
He grabbed her hand, groping for an anchor, desperate for any port in the storm. “Never mind the nightshirt.”
“You cannot sleep in your clothes…and it’s far too cold to sleep without them.”
He might’ve been trembling, but not because of the chill. He felt like hell as his head and heart tumbled in a tempest of his own making. He’d got carried away at dinner, growing jealous of Louisa and all her fresh modernity. She moved with the times, while he’d been stuck in the past for far too long. It was true he’d drunk himself squiffy and danced with Madame de Roubernon, yet the waltz had been innocent. His arms were ruined for any woman but Louisa.
He’d wasted precious time resisting his pretty wife. “Bundle me up in the bedcovers,” he told her. “I shall be dead by morning.”
She placed her hand on his forehead, as if to soothe him. “No, you’ll only wish you were dead. I’m afraid you’re pickled, my lord.”
“It is all your fault. Your performance tonight was all anyone spoke of. They thought it an act. They couldn’t see the truth in it.”
He screwed open his eyes, watching both bleary versions of her blush.
“I behaved immaturely,” she admitted.
Perhaps, yet she had captured the attention of every passenger in the assembly room as she’d put him in his place. If he hadn’t spent six months trailing her down Fifth Avenue, he might’ve been surprised, but—as the belles had warned him—Louisa Thurston Reid had ‘snap’.
“You were brilliant,” he told her. After a long, swaying moment, he asked, “Can you ever forgive me?”
His wife’s brows pinched. “For what?”
“Forgive me,” Giles said, releasing her hand and allowing his own to fall limply onto the mattress, “for breaking your heart.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lord Granborough snored when he was drunk. He groaned and shivered beneath the bedcovers, yet he perspired as though he fought a fever. His head would be reeling whenever he awoke.
Louisa hated to see him suffer.
Usually, they kept to separate sides of the bed, rarely bumping a knee in the night, yet Louisa couldn’t leave him to face the morning alone. She kept the covers pulled over his hips and straightened his pillow when he’d thrashed it out of place. She soothed him with soft words, stroked his hair, and offered him support that he did not deserve.
Last night, he’d returned to their stateroom stinking of stale champagne. Bitter memories brought images of her husband flirting with Madame de Roubernon while Louisa had cried out for his affection.
She feared losing him before she’d truly made himhers.
Louisa dared not resign herself to failure when everything she’d ever wanted lay within reach.
Nestled against His Lordship’s back, Louisa marveled at the comforting warmth of him. She touched his shoulder, his bicep. She was so curious about his body, as she’d only caught glimpses of him when they’d made love, and when she’d accidentally walked in on him dressing.
That peek at his bare backside had been a treat. She curved against him now, feeling the firm mound of his bottom through his underclothes. She clasped his hips, taking pleasure in this secret perusal of his physique.
What of that stiff, male member pushing insistently against His Lordship’s drawers? Louisa longed to explore it, too. His erection had caused her anxiety on their wedding night, even though he’d concealed it from her view. It had altered the chemistry of her body, and soon—she suspected—her waistline.
She did not wish to be an ignorant, pregnant, forgotten woman, banished to his country seat. She wanted a partner. She needed a lover. Above all, she desired her husband.
Louisa pressed her lips to his spine, kissing each vertebra. He stirred and snuggled against her. Mumbling, he guided her hands around his chest where they cuddled beneath the blankets. She thrilled at his big, manly body flattened against her smaller, softer self.
Lord Granborough was lost in slumber, seeking affection from a faceless lover. In that moment, she could be anybody to him—as worldly and experienced as Madame de Roubernon, or as genteel and sophisticated as the ladies he’d known in London.
