Even as she recalled he did not want her. That he had been pretending she was someone else as he had made her body come to life.
The heart wants what it wants.
If only his heart wantedher.
She struck the thought away at once. For it was foolish. Unworthy. And she was doomed for disappointment if she continued in such a reckless vein.
He joined her on the bed, his expression solemn as ever. He looked like a man who had just received his sentence rather than a man who was newly married. And though it was small of her, and though she was ashamed of her instinctive reaction, Catriona knew a burst of fierce jealousy toward the woman who had come before her.
“Will you allow me to tend you?” he asked.
She stared at him, uncertain. “What do you mean, my lord?”
His nostrils flared, his expression hardening, almost as if her formality had caused him a great offense. “Alessandro.”
“What do you mean,Alessandro?” she asked, emphasizing his name.
Irritated with him. He had taken her to the heights of ecstasy, and then he had allowed her to plummet, like a star burning through the night sky.
“You are bleeding,” he bit out, looking distinctively uncomfortable. “I have never before taken a virgin, and I am trying to aid your discomfort as best as I know how.”
Little did he know, her discomfort was not caused by what he had done to her physically.
Not at all.
And then the rest of what he had said occurred to her. He had revealed much in his simple statement, perhaps more than he had realized. His first wife had not been a virgin. Had she been a widow? Something else? Questions multiplied within her, clamoring to be answered.
Catriona was reminded, once more, of how little she knew of her husband. And of how little he knew of her in return.
“Catriona,” he said again. “Will you let me?”
Ah, yes.He had claimed she was bleeding, and perhaps she was. A different sort of blood than her monthly courses. Her mother had been informative, but not descriptive. Indeed, her mother had led her to believe her sharing the marriage bed with her husband would be a chore, when it had been nothing of the sort.
But she did not want any more of her husband’s attentions today. She was confused, her heart a hodgepodge of emotion, her mind stubborn as ever.
Catriona sat up in bed, careful to keep the bedclothes pinned to her chest, resting just beneath her chin, held there firmly by a clenched fist. With her free hand, she reached for the cloth and basin. “I can tend to myself, my lord. You need not concern yourself with me.”
He allowed her to take both from his hands. But still, he made no move to leave. And still, he showed no evidence of recalling his nudity.
So blatant.
So arresting.
She inhaled slowly, then exhaled. The cloth and basin were in her hands. She settled the basin in her lap and rested the cloth over its lip.
“Catriona,” he prodded, lingering when she wished he would just go.
That he would just take his endless love for his first wife and leave, for she had so little to offer him. Nothing but her body, really. She was the house for his heir. She was offering him freedom in the same way he offered hers. An even exchange.
If only she could think of their arrangement in such cool, passionless terms.
“Do we not have a long day of travel ahead of us, Lord Rayne?” she asked him, making certain to refer to her husband by his title.
If he wanted distance between them,by God, she would give him precisely that.
“Sí,” he clipped, his countenance turning stony once more. “We do.”
“I will prepare myself,” she told him. “You may go.”
