She rose up to see if he slept. His face was turned away from her. He was on his back. She gathered the pillow under her head and watched him breathe until she fell asleep.
The next morning, Clarissa woke to find herself snuggled in beside him, her arm boldly across his chest. He had gently been trying to wake her.
“We must be on the road.”
She sat up, embarrassed and a bit disoriented at discovering she’d set the boundaryandhad been the first to break it. “I—”
He shushed her, placing his fingers on her lips. “It is fine, Clarissa. You may be uncomfortable with my touch, but I do not mind you touching me.”
She opened her mouth, ready to tell him that she was not uncomfortable, except a new thought struck her. “You are deliberately keeping a distance from me?”
He frowned as if she was silly. He rolled out of bed, reaching for his breeches.
For once, his nudity didn’t faze her. No, she had a new idea. “What have I done? Does this mean—?” She stopped, not knowing what she wanted to ask. Then said, “You don’t like me.”
He’d been on his way to the privacy screen but stopped. “What?” He was by her side of the bed in an instant. “No, Clarissa, that wasn’t my thinking.”
“So, you are avoiding me.”
“I’m not avoiding. We are in the same coach.”
She shook her head, all of her uncertainties rising. He grabbed her hands and held them together, kneeling on the floor. “Clarissa, I want you to be comfortable with me. If that means waiting, then I will.”
Waiting?
“For intimacy.” He let go of her hands and exasperatedly raked a hand through his hair. “Remember, you said no intimacy.”
She had. “But we kissed.”
“Yes,” he drawled out. “And then I thought a bit better of it. It is hard to be so close to you and not be able to—”
His voice broke off.
He wanted her?
“You like me?” she asked the question hesitantly, afraid of the answer either way.
He surprised her when he said, “What is not to like? To admire?” He shrugged. “I just want you to know you are safe. Besides, you are obviously naïve about all of this.”
“All of this? Do you mean a ‘shag’?” she asked, daring him with that crude word he’d used on her. “I’m not that naïve.”
“Oh, you are terribly naïve or else you would have understood what a rough night I had. Or how throwing such a word around is an invitation to most men.”
“Most men?”
“Save for me. I’m a bloody gentleman,” he replied, grabbing his shirt and throwing it over his head. “And we must be on the road. Hop up and dress.” He tucked his shirt in his breeches.
But he had sparked Clarissa’s curiosity. “But do you want to kiss me?”
His response was to throw her dress in her face. “Now you are being a minx. Dress, Clarissa. You are tempting me and that isn’t fair since I’ve decided to be a paragon of virtue. Isn’t that what minister’s daughters want? Paragons? Virtue? Well, I warn you, I’m no bloody saint.” He said all this while sitting on a side chair and pulling on stockings and boots.
“I’m not certain what I want,” Clarissa answered, and then said with complete honesty, “I did like our kisses.”
He groaned. “You are killing me, woman.”
Mars had called her a woman. The title rather thrilled her . . . becausehesaw her as one.
Tugging on his last boot, he looked over to her. “You are chewing on what I said. I can see it.”
