He reached out and grabbed one of her gloved hands between his. She was always covered up, always shielded, always protected from the gaze of others.He wanted to see her naked in the light of day, and although now was neither the time nor the place, he gave a moment or two of thought to it.
“I didn’t have the chance to tell you how exquisite you looked, standing there in our bedroom. Your legs are magnificent, your waist and hips perfect. May I say, Lady Sarah, that you have a magnificent derriere.”
“You said that.”
He was both amused and pleased to see the flush on her cheeks.
“You smiled,” she said.
“Is that why you went back to the cot, because I smiled? I was delighted, enchanted, overjoyed. Why shouldn’t I smile? I’m surprised I didn’t dance a jig.”
She looked startled again.
Slowly, he began to remove the glove, one finger at a time. She didn’t protest, remaining compliant. His gaze was on their hands, and when he glanced at her, it was to find that she was doing the same.
The air around them was still, a summer silence, as if nature itself were waiting. Not even a cricket chirped.
He turned her hand over and unbuttoned the button that stretched across her palm. One by one, he extracted her fingers from the silk. When her fingers were finally free, he removed the glove from her wrist, tossing it to the other side of the blanket. Now their hands were joined, palms touching. Hers was warm, warmer than his, as if an inferno burned inside her body, and it was only expressed secretly like this.
“It’s perhaps not fair,” he said. “You, a proper and virtuous duke’s daughter engaged in a liaison with an adventurer.”
“We aren’t engaged in a liaison,” she said. “We’re married.”
“Until the day we consummate this union, Lady Sarah,” he said, “this is nothing but a dalliance.”
“And once we have, you will treat me with the decorum I have come to expect of men in my presence?”
He lifted his head to look directly at her.
“Do you mean will I cease embarrassing you? Will I never speak of your breasts again? Or your bare back? Or the texture of your skin?”
“I really wish you wouldn’t say such things,” she said.
“Perhaps once we lie together, Lady Sarah, I will have other things to mention. The gasp of surprise as I enter you, for example. Or how your nails cling to my shoulders when you take your release. Or how your nipples harden into little pebbles as if they’re seeking my tongue to soften and warm them.”
“Did you not hear me?” she asked.
He leaned closer to her. “Understand this. You’re free to say anything you wish to me. I’m as free to disregard it.”
Slowly, she withdrew her hand from his and clasped her two hands together. She stared down at them fixedly, not at him.
He put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her head up.
“Instead of a dalliance, Lady Sarah,” he said, “I think you and I shall have a love affair. If it goes no farther than my skin needing the touch of yours, and your body craving mine, then so be it.”
She looked away, then back at him. He could feel her tremble beneath his fingers and wanted to smooth his hand over her cheek. In actuality, he wanted to do more, to pull her into his embrace and warm her as he placed both hands on her back, pressing her closer. Hewould croon to her, soft syllables that meant nothing other than to convey comfort. He would ease her into passion and away from fear, until passion became more commonplace and fear only rarely felt.
He sat back, reached for some cheese and a jar of ale, and smiled at Sarah, unsurprised when she looked away rather than smiling back at him.
“Tell me about your grandfather.”
She prepared a plate for herself, then finally answered. “I don’t know anything about him. Donald Tulloch. Is Tulloch a common Scottish name?”
“Around Perth it is,” he said. “Was there a great deal of antipathy between your mother and her parents?”
“I’m not sure it was antipathy,” she admitted. “Occasionally, I think my mother was very sad about their rift. She never commented upon it, but more than once she said that two people can make a family. She and I were as much a family as any large group.”
“There’s every possibility that your grandfather won’t see you. Are you sure he’s even alive?”
