Indeed, the sole benefit of his unexpected brush with death was the sea change it worked upon his lovely American bride. She’d been furious with him yesterday after discovering his intentions. But her ire seemed to have faded in the face of his near-demise. She’d been hovering at his side, seeing to his comfort, checking his brow for sign of fever. Christ, she’d even taken charge of his rapscallion sisters and his sadly disreputable household.
Perhaps she didn’t dislike him quite as much as she wished she did. Perhaps she wasn’t as impervious as she pretended.
Suddenly, he wanted everyone who wasn’t Clara gone from the chamber.
“That will be all,” he informed the maid and footman dancing attendance on them. He sincerely hoped that wasn’t the maid who’d been frolicking in his library, but he kept his silence as the two took their leave, despite a strong urge to warn against their impending fornication anywhere else in his home. Ah, he would freely admit that his household badly needed a woman’s touch.
The door closed, leaving Julian and his wife decidedly alone. If only his bloody head would stop thumping and the room would cease spinning at the most inopportune moments. Clara stood a few paces from the bed, hands clasped at her waist. She couldn’t have slept much during the night. Thrice, he’d shuddered awake to find her sleeping in the chair at his side.
But looking at her now was akin to gazing upon the verdant beauty of a summer day. She was like sunshine. Necessary. Life giving. Glorious.
Jesus, where was this maudlin tripe originating from? One blow to the head was all it took, apparently, but he couldn’t look away from her. How lowering to be thus affected by such a small, fine-boned creature. He’d never imagined the like.
“Will you take your breakfast now, my lord? You do need your strength.” Courtesy steeped her tone.
Damn it, back to the impersonal and circumspect form of address. Too impersonal for his taste. With Clara, he wanted anything but. He wanted familiar. Intimate. He wanted to know every inch of her, from her golden head to her dainty toes, and everywhere in between.Especiallyeverywhere in between.
But not now. Not yet. For the moment, all he had in his arsenal was words. “I’m your husband. You may call me by my given name.”
“Very well.” She bustled to the table where the breakfast tray lay abandoned and gripped its silver handles, notably avoiding the use of his name. “Where would you have me put this?”
He wasn’t hungry. The smell of food made his stomach queasy. “Leave it. I find I’ve lost my appetite.”
“But you must eat, for how else will you get well again? Have a care for yourself, if you please.” The drawl she took great pains to hide was more pronounced than usual.
“Darling, I haven’t had a mother in many years, and I certainly don’t require one now.”
She flushed, her lush lips flattening into a line of displeasure. “Do you ever take anything seriously, sir?”
He’d spent the last decade or so of his life taking nothing seriously. A man who’d lived as he had couldn’t afford to turn the sober eye of scrutiny to himself. And so, his years had been a swirl of decadence, drink, pleasure, and ruin.
Not any longer, however. Once, he’d thought that nothing changed. That life was an endless cycle of misery that only hedonism could diminish. Once, he’d thoughthecould never change. And then, a beautiful Virginia girl had walked into his study wearing the ugliest hat he’d ever seen.
The chamber stopped spinning about him. He took her in with perfect clarity, meeting her gaze. “I takeyouseriously, Clara.”
His words seemed to take her aback. She swallowed, biting her lower lip before releasing it. “Sometimes, I’m not certain that you do. Sometimes, I feel as if I’m your entertainment. A joke you keep to yourself.”
How little she must think of him to feel that way. Emotions were not his forte, not for some time. Feeling anything at all had become as foreign to him as that land she called home. But he didn’t wish for her to misunderstand. Julian took everything about her as seriously as he had ever taken anything in his dissolute life.
He sat up and swung his feet to the floor, mustering his strength. “You’re anything but a joke to me, little dove. If I laugh at anyone, it’s myself.”
For she made him weak. Weaker than blood loss or a blow to the head. She made him long for her. She’d captivated him and held him in her thrall from the moment she’d stepped into his dark world.
He braced his hands on the bed to leverage himself into a standing position. But she was quicker than he, flying to him and staying him with palms pressed to his shoulders. Her face hovered over his, undisguised worry hardening the soft planes.
“Please. You must rest.” Her tone was gentle, cajoling.
He could almost believe she cared. Damn it, he needed to believe she cared.
“What am I to you that you should so concern yourself with whether or not I heal?” He shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t press her for more than she’d already given, but he was a greedy bastard. He wanted to hear it from her lips. If she wanted to be his wife in every way, there would be no more barriers between them.
She startled him by caressing his jaw. Just a fleeting swipe of her fingers over his skin before she placed her hand back on his shoulder. She treated him as if he were a wild creature she didn’t dare trust to pet for longer than a moment.
“You’re my husband.”
Her dulcet admission undid him. His cock surged against his trousers at the combination of her small surrender and her touch both, his ballocks tightening. But he would not attempt to bed her now, not when he was weak and couldn’t take his time and bring her the sort of prolonged pleasure she deserved. When the time was right, he would lay siege, batter down her every defense.
“Yes I bloody well am. I’ll not let you forget it.” His voice was gruff and low with suppressed desire.
