Her hand wrapped around his, causing him to start and open his eyes. The brown of her eyes shimmered. Were there tears there? If so, she blinked them away before they were able to brim over her lower lid. “It is not that I feel nothing for you, Robert. In fact, it is my fear that I might begin to that scared me enough not to kiss you. And it’s why I picked the fight earlier. It was easier than speaking my own truth aloud.”
“And the truth is you do not want love in our marriage.”
She didn’t speak, only pulled her lips into her mouth as she nodded her head, looking at the space between them.
He shook his head, staring unseeingly at the bed. “So where does this leave us, Duchess?” He stroked her fingers as his heart thudded dully in his chest. He heard a small sniff, and he dared not look up and meet her eyes.
Louisa cleared her throat. “I think we need only set some boundaries.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I think a good start would be to limit all physical matters between us to only the bedroom.”
Not surprising after her reaction earlier in the carriage. He glanced up at her. “Very well. Anything else?”
She looked up toward the ceiling as she swirled her finger over the stitching in the quilt. “No, not as of now. That should be sufficient.”
He stared at her, the soft light illuminating her beauty in a way that mesmerized him. And truly, according to her rules, he could kiss her now. But it made him feel horrid. He wasn’t sure how he would separate his feelings from something that would surely elicit deep emotions and a connection between them. And while she was protecting her heart, in a sense, he had to protect his own as well. If he allowed himself to fall in love with her, truly and deeply, how much heartache would he incur every time she visited his room, only for her to keep her distance the next day?
“Why did you agree to marry me?” The words almost startled him as they slipped from his lips, but his heart had to know. Why did she agree if she had such a fear of love?
“You already asked me that,” she said, a sad smile pulling on her lips. The lips he had earlier hoped to kiss, yet now that dream seemed too far away to hope.
“But I have a feeling you did not tell me the true reason.” His grip on her hand tightened as if she might suddenly pull away. They were still in his room. According to her specifications, he could at the very least hold her hand.
She dipped her head. “It wasn’t a complete lie. The proposal you offered me seemed perfect.”
“Ah. And then I changedthe rules,as it were.”
She lightly bit her lip, nodding as she looked at the small space on the blanket between them.
“But you asked to be my friend,” he said.
She scoffed as a disbelieving smile lit her face. “What? And being friends necessitates romance?”
“Well, Iamyour husband.” He forced a smile as he reached forward, gently folding a lock of hair behind her ear. “You know, if you told me these things sooner, it could have saved us some trouble.”
Her eyes fluttered closed as his fingers curled the hair about her ear, but she shook her head as soon as his touch was gone. “You are correct again. But I had not thought there would be a need. You said this was for convenience only. And it’s difficult for me . . . to be forthcoming.”
His eyes traced her face. The golden amber that peered out when the light hit her eyes at a certain angle, the slight tilt to her mouth that was hardly ever absent, and her lips—he stopped his thoughts. “I suppose I underestimated the power of your spell.”
Louisa’s hand came to her mouth, pressing against her lips as she closed her eyes. “You say the sweetest things. I do wish you would stop.”
His smile softened. “I will not promise to stop saying kind things to you. But Iwillmake an oath to never kiss you if you do not want it.”
“Thank you, Robert. You are too good a man for me.”
He held his hand out. “Still friends?”
She laughed, taking it with a shake. “Still friends.”
“Now you best leave before your feminine wiles drive me to the end of myself.”
“Well, one day I will stay in this room, will I not?”
Ah. An heir. “Let us not discuss that just now.” He ran a finger under the collar of his shirt, eliciting a laugh from his wife. “I do not know if I can manage that. We can cross that road when we get there.”
Louisa leaned on her palm, relaxing into his bed further. “I did not say we would never kiss. Just not outside of these walls.” She glanced about, her eyes taking it all in before returning to settle on him. “It would not be a burden for me, Robert.”
