Ariadne’s lips pushed up. “You’re mocking me.”
“I am,” he replied. “I have no desire to make us man and wife, mouse. If you want, I can fashion one of the blankets on the bed into a wall down the middle. Consider it the border between England and Scotland, a barrier between two sovereign countries.”
“Scotland isn’t sovereign,” she said.
“Oh, it is, England just has not noticed it yet,” he shrugged, while pushing away from the table and tugging the blanket off the bed and finding the second one, folded it in two before rolling it into a long tube.
He rested it in the middle of the bed and stepped away, “Satisfied?”
She gave him an unsure look but nodded, “I suppose it is fine.”
“Good,” he covered his plate, stroked the fire higher, and went to a side, “I am going to retire.”
As he rested his head on a pillow, he waited, counted for Ariadne to join him. He realized his action was a dare for her to brush her girlish naivety away and embrace her womanhood.
When he felt the bed dip, a small, satisfied smile curled his lips. He would bet his last shilling that she did not know what to do in a bed with a man.
He heard her shallow breathing and felt how she nervously pulled the blanket atop her. Cedric did not think she’d fall asleep quickly… but neither had he expected that it would take her half the night to settle down. She tossed and turned in the soft feather mattress as if it were a bed of nails.
Muttering a curse, utterly annoyed and sleep-deprived, Cedric had no choice but to shuck the blanket wall and haul the restless girl against him.
“Settle down,” he growled. “You’re driving me mad.”
Fully expecting her to protest, he was surprised when she leaned into him like a needy kitten. The rounded curves of her bottom rocked against his groin, forcing him to pull away. There was no way she understood what she was doing, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to think it over. All he wanted was to sleep.
“Go to sleep,” he ordered.
Chapter Nine
Hair tickled his nose, and Cedric moved away, grumbling only to press his nose into soft skin. Lily and rose water. Pressing his nose in the crook of her neck, he breathed.
Such soft skin….
A round backside pressed right in his groin managed to wedge his erection into the crevice of her arse, caressing his turgid length between her pert curves.
He bit back a groan as her innocent movement forced him to think of the last time he had felt pleasure with a woman— and it was far too long.
She wiggled again, and devil and damn if it did not test the limits of his self-control. To his eternal damnation, he was hard. Christ, she had perfect hips, the kind a man could hold onto as he plowed her from behind… No.
He pulled away and stepped out of the bed, heading to the washroom to take care of his inconvenient situation.
Inside the washing room, his arousal pressed against the fabric of his loose trousers with an aching persistence that made walking damned inconvenient. Ignoring the pull, he filled the basin and splashed the icy water onto his face.
The reaction was purely physical— of course it was. After years of celibacy, his body was starved of any sexual connection.
“Of all the times to make a resurgence, it had to be now,” he grunted while reaching for a dry towel. “Of course, now is the day it happens because god forbid my life begins to be easy.”
Bracing his hands on the basin, he forced himself to think of the next few days beyond the journey back to London. How would he have to mobilize half of Fleet Street to track down Leander, and how to go about explaining to Emily about her new, unexpected stepmother?
“Which reminds me,” he rubbed his forehead. “I need to get the marriage agreement drawn up as soon as possible.”
A demure knock on the door had him turning and letting Ariadne in. “Try to be as timely as you can, we have a schedule to keep,” he brushed past as she settled a towel—or was that a dress—on the shelf. “I’ll be in the dining room below.”
She kept her head bowed, eyes averted as she closed the door behind her. Maybe she was half asleep, or maybe she realized he had held her half the night and felt his reaction to it—and could not look him in the eye.
Maybe it is for the best. I have no use for a buttoned-up wallflower with no spark inside.
With the many years of self-reliance, he dressed, knotted his cravat with ease, and checked his timepiece. The hours were flying away faster than he’d liked, and his eyes slipped to the door to the bathroom. Was she ill? Gathering the courage to face him… or sneaking out the window?
