“Oh, darling. You ought to know by now that there is nothing kind about me.” He slanted her a dark look. “Not one fucking thing.”
“Pray watch your language, Shelbourne.” She glowered at him, feeling equally vicious. “I will not have our daughter learning your despicable propensity for vulgarity.”
He puckered his lips and blew her a kiss. “You object to the word fuck? Or to the act of fucking? You did not seem to be burdened by any such qualms last night, I confess.”
He was being an utter cad.
And even her ears had gone up in flame. Because she was thinking of what had happened last night. And she was wanting more.
But she was stronger than that. She had succumbed to her desires once, but she would not do so again. There was her future, and Emily’s to consider, to say nothing of another child, should there be one.
She reached for a new plate, deciding to thwart him. But that plate too was summarily plucked from her hands. “Shelbourne!”
“Last night, you called me Sidney.” He sauntered to the table, depositing the plate he had filled for her at the table setting before returning to the sideboard and amassing his own breakfast.
“Last night was a mistake,” she said, deeply perturbed that there were only two plates and he had filled both of them.
“Four mistakes?” He slanted her a wicked look that was laden with sensual heat and memories.
So many memories. Not just of what had happened last night but what had happened before. What would happen again and again if she did not take care and assemble her armor.
She ignored his taunt. “You are presumptuous.”
“Indeed?” He raised a brow, then turned his attention back to the bacon he was piling upon his plate.
“Thinking you should know what I want for breakfast. I am not the same girl I once was.”
More bacon. He topped off his plate with poached eggs. She wondered where in heaven’s name he could store so much food in his lean frame.
“You do not like pineapple?” he asked.
She loved it.
“That is not the point.”
He strode away from her, setting his own plate down and gesturing for her to join him at the table. “Whatisthe point, Julianna?”
She was not entirely sure of that herself. He had her confused, wavering as he did between cool anger, potent sensuality, and gentlemanly consideration. How could he say such wicked things to her and then calmly fill a plate with everything she would have chosen for herself? How did he know her so well when she had been convinced he had never known her at all?
Why did she care?
She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her silken skirts. “The point is that I am perfectly capable of choosing my own breakfast. I do not need you to make decisions for me. You are my husband, not my jailer.”
His lips thinned with annoyance. “This is our first breakfast as husband and wife. I was attempting chivalry.”
His notion of chivalry was suspect. Julianna was reasonably certain most husbands did not speak of bedchamber matters at the sideboard. She supposed she could ask Hellie, but that discourse would undoubtedly prove awkward, given that Julianna’s husband was Hellie’s brother.
“Forgive me for failing to note how verygentlemanlyyou are.” She could not keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“Are you going to spend all breakfast frowning at me from the sideboard, or are you going to eat?”
Her stomach rumbled. Loudly enough for him to hear for the second time in as many days.
“You see?” He flashed her a grin that hit her in the heart. “Even your stomach thinks you are being a stubborn fool,chérie.”
She made a noncommittal noise and relented, joining him at the table. He held out her chair and she seated herself before the mouthwatering plate he had assembled for her. Not one thing she would not wish to eat on it.
He sat, his gaze searing her, and she wondered why they were seated so close together. Would not a great deal more distance between them be more civil? Mayhap she could sit at the opposite end of the table. Or in another room altogether. There was something potent, masculine, and maddening about him.
