Page 50 of An Inconvenient Vow

“I am sleeping with the dogs on the blanket!” she choked out, flinging the blankets from her.

“Like hells you are!”

She had no sooner set her foot to the floorboards when she found herself seized about the waist and hoisted back onto the bed. Sabina found all the breath squeezed out of her as he followed her down onto the mattress, practically on top of her, pinning her beneath his much bigger body.

Sabina gave a muffled squeak and lay stunned beneath his encroaching bulk. Jeffree blinked down at her as though similarly taken aback by their position. He did not move away though, just remained very still, the only sound in the room their mingled, labored breathing. Sabina was just steeling herself to say something, anything, when he broke the silence.

“Tell me what you want to know and have done!”

Sabina considered him with wide eyes as she lay panting on her back beneath him. Both of them were breathing hard. She felt acutely aware of the fact she was clad only in her thin shift and he had stripped down to his braies. “Pray, don’t put yourself out on my account!” she huffed and would have tossed her head if not for the confining circumstances. She should tell him to get the hells off her. Why wasn’t she?

Jeffree continued to stare down at her, his eyes very blue, his gaze hot and intense. “I told you I am under a vow,” he ground out. “I want to be released from it. I want to—to move on from the past. To concentrate on the future.” His gaze suddenly turned evasive. “With you,” he added raggedly, a flush mounting his cheek.

“The future with me?” she repeated blankly as a hot flush climbed up her neck. Of course, he did not want to build a future with her, she scoffed inwardly! All he wanted to do was scratch a momentary itch. She could hardly blame him at this point in truth, her own limbs feeling strangely languorous against the press of his. There were a couple of places where no clothing separated them, and those spots tingled with new awareness.

Sabina shivered, though not with the cold. She had the strangest impulse to lift her arms and circle them about him. How would Jeffree react if she did just that? she wondered, half thrilled and half horrified by the notion. Would he try and break free from her embrace? Or would he succumb to her seduction? Seduction? Sabina swallowed. Wait, what was her plan again?

Her thoughts had scattered to the four winds at the feel of all his hard, bunched muscle against her. Had the plan been to seduce him? Was she even capable of such a thing? Looking at the way he was gazing down at her now made her feel strangely capable of such a task.

“I did not make the vow to the lady herself,” he said at last. His voice was terse. “It was a… private matter between myself and my god, but…” He hesitated.

“But?”

“I did make the vow in her presence,” he admitted, looking shamefaced.

Sabina’s mind scrambled over this. Was he splitting hairs now? Strange to say, she did not think Jeffree would lie to let himself off the hook. “How did it happen?” she wheezed. “Will you tell me that at least?”

He sighed heavily and then rolled off her to lie at her side. Sabina quelled the strange disappointment that overwhelmed her. He was silent a moment, and when his voice did come, it was scratchy and hoarse. “Meliora requested a meeting betwixt us, and at this meeting, she told me of her growing religious conviction that she must enter holy orders. She expressed her regret at disappointing me but begged that I would release her from our betrothal contract.”

Sabina digested this. “And you not only released her but felt compelled to make a holy vow of your own?” she asked slowly. “You must have been very disappointed.”

Jeffree turned his head to look at her. “I was young,” he said awkwardly. “I was very disappointed and… somewhat rash.”

Sabina caught her breath. She thought this might be the first time she had heard him express anything remotely self-critical. “I suppose youth is the time for such wild conviction,” she murmured. “No doubt you thought your heart would never recover from the blow.”

He frowned, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “What of you?” he asked, his voice still gruff.

“Me?”

Again, he hesitated. “You also made a vow,” he pointed out. “Did your… heart”—he almost choked over the word—“recover from the blow?”

Sabina narrowed her eyes. From his glacial tone, she would imagine he was baiting her, but the expression in his eyes told a different story. Strangely, it seemed he wanted to know the answer.

She considered a moment before making a reply. “Any affection I thought I bore for Miles died a thousand deaths over the short span of our marriage. Our circumstances are very different, Sir Jeffree. My vow was not made from admiration like yours but from a wealth of bitterness.”

Her throat closed over the last word, and she tried to turn her head away, but suddenly, his hand was at her jaw, preventing her from breaking eye contact. “Those tears in your eyes had better be of self-pity,” he said grimly, “and not for him.”

Sabina could not catch her breath for an instant. “I—I assure you they are,” she replied at length, half-choked. “I mislike being so… full of burning regret and self-reproach. It is no way to live.”

He released her face, shrugging a muscular shoulder. “From what you told me, it is your father who should bear the weight of regret, not you. He arranged the match, did he not?”

Sabina nodded. “Yes.”

“So, then it is his burden to bear. Not yours.”

Sabina could do no more than stare at him. After a moment, she cleared her throat. “Very well,” she answered lightly. “I will try to think of it that way.” They lay silent, side by side, for a moment. Collecting herself, Sabina reached for the covers, pulling them up to make herself decent. After the briefest of hesitations, she tugged them up about Jeffree’s waist too, feeling ridiculously self-conscious about it.

“I have decided,” Jeffree said heavily, “to forgive you.”