But she did not heed her own advice, for she stopped, bare feet on the grass, turning back to him. “What do you want, Jack?”
“You, Nellie.” He stood, towering over her with his broad shoulders and masculine strength. “Only ever you. Always you.”
His words affected her. How could they not?
“You had me, and you gave me up,” she reminded him. “You left. For three years.”
“Your choice, not mine. Why must you be so stubborn?”
“Why did you hide my things?” she shot back.
“I will make you a trade,” he proposed then, ignoring her demand.
Her eyes narrowed. She did not trust him. Not one whit. “What manner of trade?”
“Your garments and slippers in return for an hour of your time when we return to Needham Hall.”
“Blackmail,” she scoffed, but her wretched pulse sped up, quite erratically. To say nothing of the ache between her thighs, reminding her she still stood naked before him.
“An hour, that is all I ask, and I will not do anything you do not want. I swear, Nellie.” His expression was solemn.
She should tell him no.
Swallow her pride and return to Needham Hall naked as the day she was born.
“Half an hour,” she bargained.
“An hour.”
She scowled at him. “Forty-five minutes.”
“One hour, wife.”
He was immovable, and she was nude. What choice had she?
“An hour,” she relented finally. “You, sir, are a scurrilous villain.”
“And you, darling, are insufferably stubborn.”
Fair enough. “My belongings, if you please?”
He gave her his half grin. “I thought you would never ask.”
He released her wrist and turned away, retrieving her slippers and folded clothing from beneath a nearby tree.
He would pay for this, she vowed inwardly. Oh, yes he would.
Chapter Eleven
JACK HADNELLwhere he wanted her.
In his chamber.
For the next hour.
But the devil of it was, they both stunk of the lake.
They needed a bath. Fortunately, his father, whilst an old-fashioned clod in some senses, had been astoundingly foresighted in others. Needham Hall was one of the few manor houses of its age that had been outfitted with running water with heat on demand and special bathing chambers to accommodate the former marquess’s fastidious habits.
