Blinking, she glanced up at James. He was holding one of the glasses toward her and frowning. “Forgive me. I must have been woolgathering.” She took the glass and set it to her lips.
“I thought a sherry might suit you best,” he said.
“It’s very tasty,” she agreed and took another sip. “Sweet and delicious.”
Something in his eyes shifted and darkened until it turned positively molten. Her skin heated in response and her heart beat faster. Her need for him was as real as her reluctance to let him touch her. She hated being like this and tried to think of something to say, but then he turned away and strode to a cabinet. When he returned, the brief desire he’d shown had been thoroughly quashed and replaced by a welcoming smile.
“You mentioned chess,” he said. Placing a wooden set on the table before her, he claimed the chair opposite hers. His smile transformed to a smirk and his eyes lit with a new kind of passion. “Perhaps I should have told you, I’ve yet to meet a player experienced enough to beat me.”
“I dare you to try,” Abigail replied dryly as she moved the pawn in front of her king one step forward. He took a moment to consider, then moved the pawn in front of his bishop. She immediately countered by putting her knight into motion.
“Is that a spider crawling over your backrest?” James asked half an hour later.
Abigail instinctively turned, saw nothing, and returned her attention to the chess board. Her eyes narrowed. “Did you move my bishop?”
“What?” He pressed one hand to his chest and gave her a pitiful look. “I’d never do something like that.”
And yet she knew...she just knew the piece had not been where it was now before she’d turned away. “There never was a spider, was there?” Of course there hadn’t been. The maids would never allow such a creature to survive inside the house. And since this was the case, she moved her knight two places forward and five to the left to claim James’s rook.
“Hey!” He stared at her in disbelief. “You can’t do that. It’s one step forward and two to the left if you want to go in that direction, which puts your knight right here on this vacant square.”
She gave him a smug little smile. “If you can cheat at this game, then so can I.”
“Oh, really?” His lips twitched with a hint of the laughter to come. “Well, in that case, I’ll just move my bishop over here and declare the game over. Checkmate!”
Abigail pulled a throw cushion into her lap and tossed it directly at his head. “I would have beaten you fair and square, you know.”
“In your dreams,” he replied, tossing the cushion right back.
Dodging it, Abigail turned in her seat. And came face to face with the biggest spider she’d ever seen. “Ahhh!” She leapt up off the sofa, banging her knee in the process and knocking over most of the chess pieces.
“Told you,” James said with a laugh as he went to collect the arachnid. “I’ll be right back.”
“So, you didn’t move my bishop?” she asked when he returned to the parlor.
He eyed her for a second, then rocked back on his heels and shrugged his shoulders. “Well...”
“You scoundrel!”
He just stood there grinning at her. And before she knew it she was grinning as well. “I want a re-match,” she finally said when she managed to catch her breath.
“Very well. Perhaps after dinner?”
She agreed. And when they played again later that evening she won, though she rather suspected this was not a very fair game either. But whether or not it was, she didn’t really mind because she’d had fun, though she vowed to one day catch her husband red-handed as he meddled with the pieces.
After packing the game away together, he escorted her up the stairs to her bedchamber door. There he bid her good night in much the same manner as the previous evening, allowing her to avoid her marital duties for the second day in a row.
And so it continued for several days, until it made more sense to count the weeks. She knew he was being incredibly generous. By law, he had every right to demand she let him into her bed. But he didn’t. Instead, he gave her friendship, understanding and an overwhelming amount of patience. He walked with her, rode with her, told her of his childhood, and listened when she spoke of hers. And it occurred to her one day that the man, who’d been so incredibly handsome he’d once made her fear being sick in his company, had become something more than a person to whom she was strongly attracted. He’d become her entire world, and she loved him more fiercely than she’d ever loved anyone else.
