Prim ran her hands over Jamie’s arms and shoulders and pressed a kiss against his chest before scooting out from beneath him. She was too restless to lie there, her mind too unsettled. A thick velvet robe lay across the foot of the bed, and she slipped it on, smiling slightly as the arms dangled far over her hands and the hem dragged the floor. Crossing it over her bare breasts, she buried her nose in the collar, inhaling his masculine scent.
As she tied it, Prim walked around his bedchamber. Tastefully decorated in reds and blues with wood paneling, it was a lovely space but, she imagined, more to Mrs. Preston’s taste than Jamie’s.
It wasn’t his. It wasn’t him.
There were few personal possessions lying about. A couple of books stacked next to a chair before the fireplace that might have easily come from the Preston library. On the table next to it, sat another book with a bookmark past the halfway point.
In his dressing room, she saw a jacket flung over the open drawer of a dresser. On top of it, a wooden box sat open with a few sets of cuff links lying about, several stickpins scattered around it. On the washstand, a brush and shaving kit sat. Other than his clothes, that was it.
Was it any wonder he so often conveyed such loneliness when he didn’t even have a true home?
Idly, Prim wandered back to his chamber. James had flopped over onto his stomach and was snoring softly, a deep resounding rumble that brought a smile to her lips. His bare back and backside bronzed by the soft light. Moving to the chair, thinking to sit there and sort through his books and see what reading materials interested him, Prim’s toe caught on a book half under the front of the chair.
Curious, she pulled it out. Then moved closer to the fire for a better look. It was a photo album, the silk cover shiny at the edges and frayed at the corners. It was well worn. Prim turned the cover, browsing through the photos. The first, old and faded, was of a young couple with three young boys surrounding them and a baby in the woman’s arms. The next had the same couple with eight boys. The next, ten.
There were no large family portraits after that, but there were several more photographs filling the book. James as a younger man in a Cambridge sweater. Again in a suit. A picture of a lovely young woman who looked enough like James for her to guess it was the sister he’d mentioned. The headstrong one all his brothers still insisted on coddling.
Pictures of young couples filled the other pages. Some in wedding clothes and others with small children in them as well. She recognized one with Evelyn Preston, though she hadn’t seen her for some years. In the picture, she was next to a man who bore a startling resemblance to James.
Page after page, Prim studied the pictures, seeing women who were all lovely, feminine. None of them were as frumpy as she’d imagined, given James’s description of them as headstrong, intelligent women.
Was that what she’d imagined herself doing? Convincing everyone how capable she was by dressing as dourly or primly as possible? To make a point?
If James were right about them, being feminine took nothing away from them.
Plus they all looked happy. Loved. Just as he’d told her.
And James carried this book with him, when there were so few personal possessions around him. By the condition of the album, he opened it often. He loved them all, obviously missed them.
Why would he be so reticent in talking about them?
Prim jumped as strong arms encircled her waist, pulling her back against a hard, warm chest.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” he asked huskily, nuzzling her neck. Goose bumps raced down her arms as his whiskered jaw grazed the sensitive skin.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed, stroking his arm with her free hand. A wave of contentment washed over her as he hugged her close.
He chuckled, low and gruff. “I must have not done my duty too well then.”
Leaning back, Prim smiled up at him. His dark hair was shaggy and tousled, his rugged jaw covered with the prickly growth of his beard. “You did. All too well.”
James grinned down at her before his gaze shifted to the book she still held in her hand. “Where did you find that?”
“It was under the chair, as I’m sure you know,” she told him. “I stubbed my toe on it.”
“Hmm.” James took it and tossed it onto the chair as if it meant nothing. “Come back to bed.”
Prim resisted, holding firm when he tugged at her hand. “Won’t you tell me about them?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“You realize you’re becoming a tad tiresome,” she shocked herself by saying.
James looked surprised as well, his sleepy eyes widening before they narrowed. A frown furrowed his brow.
“Am I?”
“You are.” She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest.
