“I am ready for an enormous breakfast,” she said and went to the window and peered through a crack in the drapes. “It’s still snowing. And it’s still cold.”
Then, as if she were a girl of ten, she picked up her long nightdress and ran back to the bed and scrambled in and was under the covers in a flash and curled next to him.
“Let’s stay in bed until the snow melts,” she said and put her hand on the collar of the banyan, just as she had held his coat lapel in her cottage in Dunburn.
“I’m sure that yer friend’s lady’s maid will be here soon,” he said, “and I should be dressed.”
And then with a groan, he got up and left the bed.
Arabella sat up. She wanted him to stay in bed with her, of course. But if he would not, she would wait for him to be ready. She had been and, she told herself, she could continue to be patient.
And at least she would see him undress and dress now. Unfortunately, he had his trousers on already, so not all of his secrets would be revealed to her this morning. He took off the banyan and the nightshirt and she could see his narrow waist, a smooth back where muscles flexed as he picked up his clothes, his straight, strong shoulders.
But she was greedy.
“Alasdair?” she called out.
He turned and faced her as he tried to find the armholes in his shirt.
“Yes, Miss Lovelock?”
She said nothing but she sighed in appreciation as she lay back on the pillows. He was beautiful. Like one of the statues in the museum. Carved from marble, but with some soft, coppery fuzz across his chest and a little at his navel. Flat abdomen and a lovely swell of some muscle on the chest and in his shoulders and upper arms. And his skin a little rosy, maybe from the heat of the bed he had shared with her.
“Miss Lovelock?” He had the shirt on now and was tucking it into his trousers.
“I just wanted to see the front half of you.”
The rosiness at the neck hole of his shirt now deepened to a dark flush that rose up his throat and spread across his face. Even to his ears. She wondered where the redness started and how far it spread. The next time she made him blush, she would make sure he still had the shirt off. Or everything off.
“Is that flirtation?” he mumbled and sat down to put his stockings on.
“No,” Arabella said. “It’s just wanton lust.”
“Women dinnae have that.”
She thought he must be joking so she sat up to see his expression. He had no dimples. He seemed serious.
“What?” she said.
“Well, not lust.” He got his boots on. “Not like men. Women inspire lust, they dinnae feel it.”
He was using his doctor’s voice, the one he had used in the carriage when he had told her that she had not been ruined. But now his arrogant surety was not comforting or reassuring. It was infuriating. Arabella felt her temper flare. Immediately. This was intolerable. How dare he dismiss her, her wants and needs—no, the wants and needs of half the human race—like that?
“Your knowledge of women being so extensive,” she said, clenching her fists by her sides.
He had walked over to a looking glass to tie his cravat. But now he paused and his shoulders went back. He looked at her.
“I may not have much practical experience in the matter, Miss Lovelock, but I am a physician. I have read hundreds of treatises and texts on physiology. I have treated hundreds of women as my patients. I assure ye that women and men dinnae experience the same need.”
She jumped out of the bed.
“Since I will never be a man,” she said, struggling to keep her voice low and losing the struggle, “and you will never be a woman, neither of us is in a position to say that! And who wrote those medical books and treatises you are speaking of?” She did not wait for his answer. “Men! Men, that’s who. And why would a patient tell you what she feels, what she desires when she is ill or scared or in pain?”
His mouth hung open now.
She went on, recklessly, loudly. “You think that Giles took me against my will? No! I wanted to be touched, to be kissed, to be taken. I wanted ecstasy. He was not the man to give it to me, and he was a liar, but my want was not a lie. The want was real! For days now, I have restrained my own desire for you in order to shield you, to allow you time, to make you feel that you were leading. To let you be sure of me. Even though I have waited for you a very long time, Doctor, I steeled myself to wait longer. I did not want to do to you what Giles did to me and force you to go too quickly. But I see now that that was a mistake. I should have seduced you, I should have done what I wanted with you! So you would know—”
She was crying through her rage now and she wasn’t sure how that had happened.
