“How do you usually accomplish it?” he demanded.
“My lady’s maid assists me. But you sent her away. Remember?” She blinked once at him, and if he wasn’t so tired, he might have sworn that her gaze bore a glint of stung pride and—and the light ofbattle,by all that was holy.
“You will have to call her back, then.” Damien’s mind refused to consider the alternative. Nay, he could not venture there.
Alissende gazed at him, not speaking. But those eyes…blast it, as always she spoke volumes with them, only this time the message he read there pricked at his masculine honor.
“What?” he growled.
She paused, seeming as if she might answer, but then that horribly placid expression swept over her face again, and she gave a tiny shrug. “As you wish.”
“Stop saying that.”
Her lips pursed, but she remained silent.
“Tell me what you intended to say,” he demanded, not the least bit mollified by her seeming cooperation.
“I cannot.” She gave him a look of pure innocence. “You’ve forbidden me speaking it again.”
Damien restrained another growl, clenching his teeth to mutter, “Not the cursed ‘as you wish.’ Tell me what you were going to say in response to my suggestion that you call your lady’s maid back to this chamber.”
“Oh.”
“Well?” he demanded after another pause.
“I thought you might wish to reconsider how it would look.”
He glared at her in exasperation. “Explain.”
She pinned him with her gaze, clearly relishing the opportunity he had opened with his command for her to speak. “It is supposed to be our wedding night, and yet after sending everyone away, it will appear that you are not up to the challenge of removing your bride’s garments for what would usually follow the retreat to the marriage chamber.”
Her tone held an edge that belied her continued calm expression as she continued, “When word of that spreads, the people of Glenheim will either think you unskilled in a way most unflattering—or else anything you may have accomplished with your zealous display of kissing me in the great hall will have been for naught, as the gossip over the honesty of our union will erupt anew.”
Damnation.
Damien scowled, unable to refute her. He met her gaze, hoping to intimidate her with his own, to make her realize that she was playing with fire in this, logic be damned.
She did not flinch.
Very well. No one could ever say he was the kind of man to back down willingly from a challenge. He fisted his hands, his jaw tightening.
“Turn around.”
Her eyes widened a bit, but she did as he commanded; however, he noted how stiffly she held herself. Ah, could it be that this woman, who seemed to have turned into a creature of veritable stone since they’d entered this room,wascapable of feeling, then, and perhaps fires similar to those which were burning him from the inside out at the thought of this?
The idea filled him with a sense of grim satisfaction that helped bolster him for what was to come. It still took him what seemed a full minute to steady himself before he reached out to touch her hair, pushing it forward over her shoulder to reveal the laces. The lustrous weight felt silken against his palm, and a hint of fragrance wafted up, teasing his senses with unmerciful power.
His hand began to shake, and he was forced to clench it into a fist and then release it again before he could trust himself to begin with the laces and three buttons that would need loosening.
“Is aught amiss?”
She spoke quietly and half-turned her head toward him, the movement exposing the graceful length of her neck more fully to his gaze.
In response, something deep inside him twisted in painful pleasure; he felt an overwhelming urge to brush his lips over that smooth skin, and it was all he could do to hold himself back from it. She had loved that, once, to have him kiss a sweet path along the side of her neck as he embraced her from behind. Lavishing gentle kisses that became more compelling caresses when she’d arch into him, murmuring and then making soft sounds of need before she twisted around to lift her mouth to his for a fiercer kind of loving…
Sweet mercy.
“Just keep still,” he choked out, swallowing hard. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of anything—the blood and sweat of battle, the monotony of swinging his blade in training, the dismal effort of trudging in full armor through the heat of a summer’s day—anything to distract himself from what he was about to undertake.
