“No,” she said, giving a little cringe. “I couldn’t find the nerve. But I think they liked me. I believed they saw that I knew some small part of what I was asking about.”
“I’ve no doubt they liked you very much,” Joseph said.
And they’ve no idea that their lives are about to be forever changed,he added in his head.
And so, I hope, is mine.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Perry insisted upon brushing out Tessa’s hair and dressing her for bed like a proper lady’s maid, and for once, Tessa did not resist.
For the night rail, Tessa wanted the right balance of special but not... overwhelming. The forthcoming evening felt overwhelming enough without a showy, provocative gown that promised something that Tessa, quite possibly, could not deliver. She finally agreed on a simple night rail in the softest pink and a burgundy dressing gown with matching pink trim. It was sweet but not girlish, fine without being overdone.
Be calm, be calm, be calm,Tessa chanted in her head as Perry brushed the creases from her long, unbound hair.
Calmness was the last thing Tessa felt. She was nervous and jittery and desperate to get her hands on Joseph. He’d been so helpful with the baby at dinner and Christian’s bath. She laughed at the memory of the flowers and sweets and, God forbid, original poetry that she’d once enjoyed as gifts from men. They now paled in comparison to Joseph holding the baby while Perry made up the crib and Tessa went to the other room to wash her hair.
Now the women had been on their own for more than an hour, and Tessa insisted on ten more minutes to rock the baby to sleep. When Christian’s eyes finally slid closed, Tessa bid Perry a good-night and slipped from the room.
She paused before Joseph’s door, wondering if she should knock. He’d said this was her room too. Was she meant to knock at her own door? What if Joseph was inside half-dressed? This possibility appealed to her and she reached for the door handle. In that same moment, the door whipped open. Tessa yelped and skittered back, and Joseph gave a shout.
“Bloody hell, you scared me,” he breathed. “I was just coming for you.” He looked right and left down the corridor. “Get inside,” he breathed and scooped her from the corridor into the room.
“Sorry,” she laughed, allowing herself to be scooped.
“This is why I didn’t journey with you in the coach,” he grumbled, locking the door. “I would expire with lust and jealousy if I had to watch you glide from room to room in your dressing gown for ten nights.”
“Glide? I wasn’t gliding. I don’t glide.”
“You were bloody floating. And your hair is glorious. You are... iridescent. Youradiatein that thin silk and unbound hair and your... face. I’ve endured the tight bun and brown dresses for a month and now you’re dressed like a goddess.”
She laughed, looking down at herself. “You are... agitated.”
“I am agitated,” he agreed. “Excellent turn of phrase. And I need a drink.” He went to a drinks trolley crowded with bottles. “One for you? Can’t hurt.”
He poured two glasses of amber liquid and held one out. She took a tentative sip, the liquor was warm and fiery. She considered him. He also wore an ivory dressing gown with gold brocade. It should have been lordly and stuffy but he looked very handsome. He still wore his buckskins beneath the dressing gown, but his feet were bare.
“Tessa,” he began, downing his drink, “I’ve given a lot of thought to the way we should proceed. I want to embark on this in the most measured, cautious way. We should set out some boundaries, someintervals, so that we are careful to manage things slowly.”
“And what if slowness only heightens my anxiety?”
“It’s so very easy to leap ahead, trust me, but it can be more difficult to slow down.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, and it was true, she wasn’t afraid of him. She was afraid of spoiling this moment by discussing the life from it. She was afraid of having a cursory, diluted version of her wedding night because she’d panicked before.
But the panic had beenbefore, when she’d not enjoyed the incredibly freeing experience of telling him what happened on the night with the tree. That was before he told her he loved her.
There was nothing cursory or diluted in the way she felt about Joseph.
He glanced at her, allowing his eyes to linger on the clingy silk of her gown, the loose fall of her hair over her shoulder. “There is pleasure in going slowly,” he said. “We have a lifetime of pleasure at every pace.”
“I’m not opposed to slowness,” she ventured, wishing to sound agreeable. She wasn’t fighting his technique, she was simply impatient with discussing it.
“For example,” he began, “we might—”
Tessa cut him off by launching herself at him.
She’d not planned it—well, perhaps she’d planned a small part of it. It was one way, she thought, to redirect a thoughtful, long-winded prelude. She understood his desire to “pause” for her own good; but was there a less romantic phrase than “pause”? She couldn’t bear to embark on lovemaking with the threat ofpausing.
