Isolde was quite sure she watched mathematical volumes on attraction and desire write themselves in his eyes.
And then, he leaned toward her, touching his lips to her ear and whispering so closely his syllables brushed her skin—
“If you ever believe anything I say, Isolde Gilbert, please believe this: You are a remarkable human being. You are the flash of a bluebird’s wing in winter that steals my breath.” He said the words gruffly, fiercely, as if he resented having to draw them from his lungs. “You are draped in bravery and grace. No pampered English miss would have donned aselkie’s skin and saved my hide yesterday. And instead of crumbling under the unknown of our current situation, you made soup from lentils and kneaded our bread. You scream down the wind of challenges, and I admire you all the more for it.”
He dropped her chin, returned his hand to her leg, and stared at the fire.
As if he hadn’t just said the most lovely thing imaginable.
As if his words didn’t reverberate in her bones.
Surely this lyrical poeticism originated in his Italian self.
Isolde stared at his profile—the blade of his nose, the twin arch of his lips—trying to command her riotous thoughts into order.
“For someone who has never wooed,” she swallowed, “ye are proving surprisingly adept at it.”
He spared her a sideways glance before looking back to the fire. “It is no idle flattery, Wife. I recognized your strength the moment we first met in Montacute’s garden.”
Again, he said the words on a growl, as though their tenderness angered him. It was an echo of his prior way of speaking—as if she irritated him beyond reason.
Loathe and admire, he had said. Perhaps this was how it manifested.
“You seem . . . upset about that. About my supposed loveliness . . .”
“No.” He shook his head, still not looking at her. “I am merely struggling as I always do when in your presence.”
“Struggling?”
“Yes. Resisting the urge to kiss you.”
Oh!
The air left her lungs in awhoosh.
“And given how still you’ve gone,” his voice remained gruff, “you have not arrived at the point where my kiss would be eagerly welcomed.”
Eagerlywelcomed? Perhaps not.
Curiously allowed? Of a certainty.
But, of course, now she was back to staring at his lips and wondering.
Would she feel more than curiosity, were she to kiss him . . .whenshe inevitably kissed him?
She had kissed several gentlemen over the years. Jarvis had been the last, however—a cautionary tale, if ever she needed one.
And though some of those kisses had been lovely—decidedly lovely, in fact—they had never left her wanting more.
Closing his eyes, Tristan rested his head against the back of the chair, his thumb reverting to its maddening caress of her thigh.
She should kiss him . . .
And yet, Isolde hesitated.
His abrupt change still left her wary.
Less than forty-eight hours ago, he had hardly been capable of uttering a civil sentence in her presence.
