While she was doing that, he was going about his ablutions in a loud and unruly way. It was as if he wanted her to know what he was doing. When he started to pass water, she sniffed. He’d thought to embarrass her. She was a country girl. She’d heard people relieve themselves before.
Although, she would prefer him to be a bit more discreet.
By the time he came out from the screen,she was in bed with the sheets up to her neck. He’d been right. This was a very big bed. Four people could sleep in it without touching.
She tried not to look below his shoulders, because she didn’t want any temptation.
He came to a halt. “What is that?” He pointed to the bed and the divider she had fashioned out of pillows to separate her side of the mattress from his.
“It is a wall. Between us.”
“It is a flimsy wall.” He walked—no, hestruttedaround the bed to claim his side. Clarissa was not immune to his strong, long legs and broad chest. The man could have been carved out of stone.
She also had a problem. She realized she needed to duck behind the privacy screen as well. He’d know what she was doing.
Then again, a woman could not be faint of heart and married to Marsden.
Without a word to him, she slipped out of the bed and ran for the screen. She attempted to be discreet, and was happy to see that Nelson had placed a few of her personal items on the washstand as well.
Feeling much refreshed, she blew out the candle in a sconce there, came out from the screen, and then stopped. Mars had removed her “wall.” He waited for her, his head propped on one hand, a triumphant grin on his face, and the sheet just barely covering his “bits.”
But then he sat up in surprise, the smirk vanishing. “What the devil are you wearing?”
“My nightclothes,” she said.
“A nun’s habit is what it is.”
The frown on his face gave her immense pleasure. Clarissa made a little curtsey. “I wish to keep us both honest to our agreement.” She picked up a pillow that he had thrown on the floor and crossed the room to the desk with its upholstered chair large enough for a man of his size. It would do well enough for a bed for her.
“Oh, Clarissa, no,” he said as he understood her intent. “Come back and sleep here. I’m not an ogre. I can control myself, especially since you appear swathed from head to toe in a sail’s canvas.”
“I’m fine here,” she said primly. But she wasn’t. This would be an uncomfortable way to sleep, and, in truth, she was tired.
“What is it?” he asked in exasperation. “I’m not a terrible man. You like kissing me. There was something there between us, Clarissa. I felt a spark when we were dancing.”
He was right.
“Explain to me why we can’t be man and wife the way we should be. Doesn’t the Church have some sort of teaching that you are honor bound to obey?”
“One you would know if you attended services?”
He almost roared his frustration at her jab. “Clarissa, this is not natural. Or are you just afraidyoumight not be able to resist me?”
Now she was the one to make a maddened sound. “All right, you are correct. I find you handsome. You are a most attractive man.”Especially when compared with Warner Emsdale. She’d seen his bits, too. “And what you are doing for me is generous. However, I’ve spent my life beholden to others and being expected to do all the right things. Is it wrong that I need time to understand exactly how I feel about our marriage? To learn to trust you? To know that you are not just one more person who believes I should be grateful that I’m under your roof?”
For a second, they both seemed surprised by how passionate she’d sounded, how frustrated, and yet she’d not call a word back. It was all true.
Clarissa threw her hands over her face. She wished the chair would close around her. It was never good to be so emotional. Or brutally honest. However, he’d taken her to the wall.
And now what would he do? She didn’t know.
There was a long moment of silence and then he spoke, his deep voice measured and quiet. “You can rebuild your wall of pillows, Clarissa. Just come back to bed. I promise I won’t touch you, not unless you ask me to. I want you to believe that you are safe with me. No matter how much I tease you.”
She lowered her hands. Was he serious?
As if recognizing she didn’t trust him, he shrugged one shoulder, then said, “Good night.” He blew out the room’s only candle, lay on his side, giving her his back, and there he stayed.
Clarissa sat, her eyes adjusting to the moonlit shadows in the room. Today had been full of surprises when it came to Lord Marsden. There had been his empathetic acceptance of her mother’s death and now this.
