He cleared his throat.
“May I read them again?”
He handed them to her, the movement jostling them closer in the bed.
After a moment he said, “I cannot determine what Wrest thought to gain from having me killed. I’d not acknowledged the claim of his solicitor that he was my father. I’d not even written the man back. I never corroborated his claim, even verbally, and certainly not in some document he could show at the reading of my will. I thought he was a charlatan—you saw my shock when I realized that he was likely my actual father. He had no proof. There is no record of my birth. I don’t even know my birthday.”
Sabine gasped and set down the letters. “You don’t,” she said.
He shrugged.
“We shall pick a day. What day would you like?”
“I have survived this long without a birthday. I see no direct need to fabricate one at this late date.”
“Think on it,” she said, taking the letters up again. She began to read. She could feel him watching her. She raised a few questions, asking about details that confused her, and they discussed the duke’s motive until his bedside candle was nearly gutted. It was the same discussion they might have had if he’d been in the bed and she curled up in the chair; only now they enjoyed the intimacy of entangled legs and shared warmth.
He was tenser than normal. He paused before answering her questions, speaking haltingly as if they held the conversation underwater or on the moon—somewhere requiring careful balance and no guarantee of the next breath.
When she tossed the letters onto the floor and yawned, he said, “I’m careful not to drop my correspondence in piles around the room, if you don’t mind.”
She yawned again. “It will still be there in the morning, I assure you, and you may whisk it away to your fastidiously filed order.” She turned to face him. “You may kiss me good-night.”
“You are killing me,” he said gravely, all trace of teasing gone. He sounded as if he truly believed she was doing him harm.
She ignored the agony in his voice, ignored the pang of guilt in her own chest, and leaned in to kiss a playful nip on his lips. He clamped a hand down on her waist, and Sabine felt a jolt of anticipation. But he merely tipped her forward to meet his lips and kissed her again, a more thorough, closed-eye kiss, and he rolled her back. He released her and blew out the struggling candle on the table beside the bed. The room went dark.
“Good-night,” she whispered.
Stoker let out a belabored sigh as if she’d said, “Enjoy the dungeon.”
Some hours later, the dawn sky just pinkening through the break in the curtain, Sabine awakened to Stoker’s hand rubbing up and down her arm. She blinked at the ceiling and turned on the pillow.
“I’ve awakened you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“What’s happened? Is your wound—?”
He laughed a wicked sort of laugh. She squinted at him. “Did you sleep?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I have you in my bed.”
“It is still a bed, despite my presence.”
“Sabine?” he breathed. A question.
“Oh,” she said, her heart rate picking up.
She felt for his hand between them and took it up.
He said, “In view of what we discussed after we—”
He swore.
He started again. “What we discussedafter, I should like to have another go. That is, I can only guess you would not have crawled into this bed if you were not amenable to—”
