He gave her a shocked look. “Pounce? I never pounce. I have far more sophistication than that.” He pulled his shirt off, then started to undo the buttons at his waist.
“What are you doing?” She felt as tense as a violin string.
“Getting undressed. I’m not sleeping in my trousers.”
“Are you wearing drawers?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“Then leave them on,” she ordered. She lay down and squeezed her eyes tight shut. She could get through this. It was a few hours, no more. It was just sleeping, nothing else. And it would make Nicky safe. All she had to do was keep herself safe from her husband. And the only way to do that was to keep him at a distance.
She could hear him removing his trousers. She sneaked a peek and saw him padding around the room in nothing but a pair of light cotton drawers, blowing out candles and turning out lamps.
He bent and put some more coal on the fire. Firelight turned his hard-muscled body to bronze and gold and ebony. He was lean and hard and beautiful.
All she had to do was keep him at a distance.
The bed creaked as he slipped into bed beside her.
The fire hissed softly. Flames caused shadows to dance on the ceiling. Callie lay on her back, stiff as a board, her arms crossed over her chest, wishing she was wearing the thick pink flannel nightgown Mrs. Barrow had lent her that first night.
“It was a very nice wedding, wasn’t it?” he said conversationally.
“Yes. Good night,” she said tightly. She didn’t want to talk to him, not like this, sharing a bed with the fire dancing. It was too intimate.
“You looked a bit upset at the number of people in attendance at the service.”
“Yes, I was. But Nash explained afterward. I don’t know why nobody told me before. But now is not the time to discuss things. I would like to sleep, please. Good night.”
“Yes, good night. And sweet dreams, Mrs. Renfrew.”
Callie’s eyes flew open. Mrs. Renfrew. Nobody had called her that before. At the wedding breakfast everyone had addressed her as Princess. Mrs. Renfrew. She liked the sound of it. It was ordinary. Normal. Nice.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Sleep. She almost snorted aloud. It was like lying down in a tiger’s cage for a nap.
After a moment he said, “I thought Miss Tibthorpe looked unexpectedly pretty in that blue dress, don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, she did.” Callie was pleased with the comment. She’d talked Tibby into accepting that color and it really suited her. She lay there thinking about Tibby. “You know, before I saw her again—before I returned to England I mean—I thought she was quite old. But when we met after nine years, I realize she must have been the same age then, when she was teaching me, that I am now. I thought she was old, or at least middle-aged, and yet, she must only be about five-and-thirty now.” She broke off, realizing she was chatting when she was supposed to be keeping him at a distance, physically and metaphorically. “I am going to sleep now,” she announced in a definite voice.
She lay there listening to him breathe, listening to the low sounds of the fire, to the distant rumble of some vehicle rattling over cobblestones, to a dog barking.
He wriggled to get more comfortable and she felt something brush against her.
“Mind your hands!” she snapped.
“Why?” His voice was pure, mellow, wine-dark provocation.
“I don’t want them wandering.” She could see his head on the pillow, turned toward her, watching her. His eyes gleamed in the firelight.
“Don’t worry,” he said with a smile that would have melted her bones had she not been so determined to resist. “My hands may wander…but they never get lost.”
She swallowed.
“I always know exactly where they are…”
She squeezed her eyes shut and wished that ears could shut at will, too.
“And they always find their way home in the end,” he finished in a velvet tone.
