It landed with a soft whooshing sound atop her head. Jessie snatched it quickly, burying her face into it, soaking it with tears.
“Thank you!” she sobbed, swearing to herself that she loathed him still, and despising herself for the lie. After a time, his husky snores filled the cabin, and hours later, still unable to sleep, Jessie lay shifting uncomfortably in the darkness.
She stood finally, clutching Christian’s pillow to her breast, and approached the dark pit that was his bed. She stared at his moonlit features for a long moment, gathering her courage. God, he wore a scowl even in his sleep. He was a fiend—so why did she love him so? Why?
She was cold.
And she was desperately miserable.
And he had the bed.
Lord, but he was rude and ill bred not to have offered her the bed!
Mustering her courage once and for all, she lifted the coverlet carefully and slipped within, making certain to stay as far from him as possible.
The beast never stirred.
He was sound asleep, she acknowledged resentfully. And he had fallen so very easily. How, when her own body lay burning so fiercely, kindled merely by his presence? It was as though the very air were filled with him, making her yearn... She shouldn’t feel such a wanton longing for his kisses… and more. Only, when she tried not to recall that day beneath the elm tree... her body seemed to have a will all its own, demolishing her resolve.
“I never did betray you,” she whispered softly into the pillow beside him. She rocked herself consolingly, gently, so as not to wake him. How could he have believed she would?
Oh, God, how could he sleep?
He really didn’t want her.
He didn’t care. A tear slipped through her lashes.
The moon’s glow illuminated the stained glass with an uncanny light. Eve’s eyes seemed lucid, melancholy almost, and so very damning, for those eyes were the mirror to her own soul.
She was lost to him, and he didn’t trust her, and he didn’t love her... and he didn’t even seem to want her.
The tears she’d been fighting so long spilled from her eyes, coursed shamelessly down her cheeks.
“I did not betray you,’ she swore again, her whisper soft and full of pain. “It was you, Christian, who betrayed me!” She gazed longingly at the exquisitely depicted figure of Adam, his face unreadable, his eyes as blue and fathomless as the sea.
“I did not tell my brother—he knew already.” Though she knew he slept, she felt compelled to go on, “It was your brother, Philip, who told my father. Not I,” she swore softly. “Amos told me so later.” She continued to rock herself, eased by it, and she wept softly.
“Butyou...”
The single word was filled with overwhelming grief.
“You came to seduce me—and you let him—” She choked away a broken sob. “Oh, God! You let my brother pay you to wreck my heart and my life! How could you? Yes, you came to make me love you... and to tear my soul to tiny, wretched shreds—and God curse me, for I let you!”
She turned away from him to lie upon her side in a devastated heap, unable even to accept his presence next to her upon the bed, for she wanted nothing more than to turn in to his arms and be comforted by him.
She was weak... oh, so weak.
“But it is my fault... I let you hurt me,” she whispered brokenly. And then her sobs came full force and she muffled them with the feather pillow that bore his musky male scent, allowing her anger to become a balm for her pain.
As though he’d heard her somewhere deep in his slumber and meant to comfort her, Christian’s weight shifted. His arm reached out and wrapped about her waist.
Jessie stiffened, thinking she’d inadvertently awakened him, but he made some sleepy sound before snuggling closer to her. His breath was as smooth and even as before, and she knew then that he slept on, that he’d never awakened at all. In his dreams, he probably thought her some tavern wench warming his bed!
Still, in the darkness, just this once... Jessie dared to be comforted by his embrace—no matter whether he mistook her for another.
Just this once, she swore to herself.
No one need know.
