He rubbed his jaw and started to sit, pushing a pillow behind him. She prayed the corner of the sheet did not shift. She did not want to see his oyster bits.
“The chair is behind the screen,” he said, and yawned.
“I require you toleave.” She spoke softly, but firmly.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Did you not hear me say I desire a moment ofprivacy?”
“You can have it,” he replied, a touch irritably. “Behind the screen.”
Willa truly needed relief...however—
“I can’t do anything with you here.”
“I’m not leaving,” he answered, and crossed his arms as if to show he could be as stubborn as he thought she was.
She could have stamped her feet. “I want myownroom.” It was not an unreasonable request.
“Well, you can’t have it. In my family, husbands and wivessharethe bedroom.”
Willa narrowed her eyes at him. “Funny, I overheard your sister Kate inform you that in your family, husbands loved their wives, and you informed her that you didn’t love me. Why are you standing on tradition now?”
If she’d slapped him, the response would have been little different. “You overheard that?”
Willa responded with a haughty shrug, not trusting the edge in his voice. “What does it matter?” she managed. “We aren’t a love match.” She almost choked on the words. She remembered everything from last night now—from the sheer bliss of his touch, to the knife-edged pain of his invasion of her body. What people had said was true. He had almost ripped her in half. She could never be a wife to him. She could not imagine what would happen if she carried his child. Why, there would be nothing left of her.
She forced herself to say clearly and distinctly, “We don’t have to be together in this room. We are free to do whatever we want.”
Matt’s jaw tensed as if he wanted to speak and yet held back the words. Instead, he rose from the bed, heedless of his nakedness.
Willa tried not to look.
He picked up his breeches and put them on with quick, efficient movements. “Better?” The word dripped disdain.
“Much,” she answered, surprised she could speak past the lump in her throat.
“But I’m not leaving this room,” he said. “I won’t,” he answered her unspoken protest. “You will have to become accustomed to me.”
“Why?” she ground out.
“Because we are married,” he said. “You might already be carrying my child.”
Willa thought she would be sick.
A knock sounded on the door. He moved past a tray of covered dishes that she was certain had not been there last night. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Answering the door. Or do you wish me to yell, ‘Come in’?”
“You should put on more clothes.”
He glared at her as if that had been the most priggish of statements. “I would, but you are wearing my shirt.”
She was.
And she did not want anyone to see her in it. Furthermore, she could hold herself no longer. Her mind hurling every foul insult she could imagine at him, she dashed to the privacy screen, hoping that whoever was at the door would keep him from hearing her. With movement came an uncomfortable awareness of deep muscles she’d not known she’d had before.
And just the slightest hint of pain.
