Chapter Eight
Ash took Pru’shands in his, trying to ignore the surge of pure, unadulterated need rushing through him at the mere touch of her bare skin to his. For this was not about seduction at all. Rather, this was about tending to her. Taking care of her.
Apologizing for his blockheaded proposal with deed rather than words. Perhaps she would find those more useful. Christ knew he always had.
He drew her to a standing position once more, and then he made short work of her pelisse. His fingers navigated the familiar path of the buttons lining the back of her modest bodice.
“Lord Ashley, this is beyond improper,” she remonstrated, but her tone lacked conviction.
It was deuced difficult to sound angry when one was shivering. And she was certainly doing that. He had been the one stripped to his shirtsleeves out in the biting wind and sleet, but her tumble into the snow had wreaked its havoc upon her.
Her minimal resistance was proof of that.
“The time for fretting over what is proper and what is not is long gone between us, Pru,” he told her, intent upon his course.
There was no desire to woo in him now. This was not the manner in which he had believed—in all his naïve suppositions on his morning ride—he would seduce Pru Winter into becoming his wife. Not once had he imagined his bungled proposal, her refusal, her flight and subsequent fall, and then his rescue of her.
He was not accustomed to playing Sir Galahad.
But for her, he was beginning to discover, he would gladly undertake any number of firsts. For her—to win her—he would go to greater lengths than he had ever gone for another.
“You will not cozen me into marrying you no matter what you do,” she warned, teeth clacking together.
“I have no wish to cozen you,” he said truthfully, wondering just how many damned buttons she had on this cursed gown. It had not seemed so many earlier, when his lips had been all over her beautiful skin.
“No more lies, my lord,” she said, half plea, half command.
He stilled in his task, meeting her gaze once more. “No lies,” he agreed.
And he meant those words, oh, how he meant them.
Because the strangest realization had hit him, rather with the force of a lightning strike, in the moment after she had run from him. He had discovered her book—The Tale of Love—of course, just as he had expected all along. Finite proof: Pru Winter had a wicked side. She was curious. Curious enough to have such a forbidden, bawdy book in her possession. Curious enough to be reading it.
And a new fire had ignited within him.
But the fire had not just been passion.
Rather, it had been—and here, he would have once shuddered with disgust—love. Only now, there was no shuddering. There was only acceptance. Shocked acceptance, but acceptance nonetheless.
How strange, how foreign that unwanted emotion seemed now as he faced a rather bedraggled-looking Pru in the wake of her fall. She was coated in a dusting of snow and ice. Her brunette locks had drips of water clinging to them like tiny stars. She was pale, her lips pale too, shivering.
Gorgeous.
Unlike any woman whose acquaintance he had ever made. She was tall and lovely, fierce and feisty, proper yet wicked. She matched him, wit for wit, kiss for kiss. And there was no other word to describe the strange feeling, deep in the darkest pit of his stomach, whenever he was in her presence. Whenever he thought about her.
He was in love.
But he could hardly tell her that now, because he had already done such a poor job of proposing that he had sent her running as if she fled a burning building with her hair on fire. He was responsible for the nasty fall she had taken. And if he did not take action, she was going to take ill with a lung infection before he could even bother to make his grand declaration.
“I am not removing my gown,” she announced around another shiver.
“You are correct, sweet,” he said, as he began to pull her arms from her sleeves. “I am removing it for you.”
“You are not removing it either,” she argued, ever prideful.
This time, he could hear her teeth chattering together.
Blast.
