A full smile curved his lips, and though he appeared exhausted—purple crescents bruised the tender flesh beneath his eyes to attest to how much his body had recently endured—he was so handsome her breath caught and a familiar pulse flared to life between her thighs.
“I would not have it any other way.”
Nor would she. But before they engaged in any more banter, and before he caressed her arms with any more maddening finesse and she lost her ability to resist him entirely, she knew she must change the subject. “You are certain you want me here?”
His expression sobered, dark eyes burning into hers. “I have never been more certain of anything.”
“Then you must assist me in removing my garments,” she blurted through lips that had gone dry.
Excellent change of subject, Bridget, she chastised herself. It seemed as if the connection between her rational mind and her mouth had been completely, hopelessly severed. How was requiring his assistance in disrobing a safer choice?
His eyes gleamed. “With pleasure. Turn ’round, if you please.”
He released her wrists at last, and she spun about as he asked, her full skirts whirling around her like a bell. She steeled herself against temptation, took a deep, calming breath and held it as she felt him go to work on the line of buttons concealed on the back of her gown.
One by one, they slid from their moorings, starting at her lower back and traveling all the way to the last button at the top. She was short enough he could reach it without difficulty. Still questioning the wisdom of her decision, she nevertheless shrugged her shoulders, allowing the gown to fall to the floor in a murmur of silk. She removed her corset cover and petticoat before allowing him to pluck the laces of her corset free. They loosened, and she removed it too.
Clad in nothing more than her chemise, stockings, and drawers, she hastily gathered up her garments and laid them upon a chair in tidy fashion. When she turned back to him, he was watching her with a strange expression.
She felt suddenly awkward. Though it was certain there was nothing inappropriate about a wife sharing a bed with her husband, the undeniable truth remained that they would inevitably annul their union and go their separate ways. All of this—each moment of tenderness, all the emotions, every word, glance, and touch—would eventually be erased.
Why did that thought bother her so much?
Leo seemed to sense her conflicting emotions. “You need not be shy with me, Bridget. Come to bed where you belong.”
Did she belong there? Lying at his side? Breathing in his scent, absorbing his heat?
Nay.She could never. She could not change who she was any more than she could change who he was. They were two people who had never been meant to be together. Two people who had been brought together by extraordinary circumstances. And those same circumstances would also tear them apart.
But despite all that, her feet were moving. She was crossing the chamber, going back to him. She turned down the gas lamps, bathing the chamber in darkness. Knowing her way by rote, she found the side of the bed opposite him, and she made hasty work of removing her stockings and drawers, and plucking the pins from her hair, allowing it to fall heavily down her back.
“I hear rather a lot of fabric rustling, wife. Could it be that you are getting naked in spite of all your protestations toward maidenly modesty?” he teased through the heavy silence that had descended.
“Removing my stockings.” Her face went hot even in the darkness. She did not dare to refer to her drawers aloud. Too many cumbersome fabrics beneath the bedclothes rendered it impossible for her to sleep. But she was attempting to avoid falling deeper into ruin than she already had, so surely there was no reason to mention any of that.
“Christ,” he muttered. “You should not have said that. I thought it was the bedclothes, but now I am cursed with imagining what I dearly long to see.”
“I am finished now,” she said, throwing back the blankets and settling in. She rolled onto her side, facing away from him. All the better for her to resist him, she reasoned.
But in the next breath, a large, warm body was pressed against her, radiating heat into her. An arm went around her waist. He pressed a kiss to her nape. “Good night, wife.” His lips grazed her ear as he spoke.
She should have felt more trapped than she had in the duchess’s apartments when she had been locked within. But instead, she felt…at home.
There was no other way to describe it. Something about Leo at her back, his large body curling against hers like a shield, his arm over her as if she were his in truth, flooded her with the sense of absolute, undeniable rightness.
There was nowhere else she belonged in this world, in this moment. She was certain of it.
“Good night, husband,” she returned to him softly, staring into the velvet darkness of the night.
All that met her was his slow, even breathing. He had already fallen asleep.
She bit her lip against the sudden sting of tears. How safe and comforted he must feel with her in his arms. How very wrong he was. Hating herself for what she must do, she reached for the hand that rested lightly over her belly. She laced her fingers through his.
“I am sorry,” she whispered into the night, knowing this was all they could ever have. Wishing there could somehow be more. Knowing there could not.
Unburdened as best as she could be, she fell into a deep, comfortable sleep, wrapped in the arms of the man who was meant to be her enemy, but who was fast turning into her savior.
Chapter Fourteen
