Page 58 of An Inconvenient Vow

“You could make a good rope out of it.”

“A good rope?” Sabina echoed, incredulous. Really, she could make no meaningful response to that.

“The color too… is pleasing to my eye.”

As the light brown shade of her hair was entirely commonplace, Sabina’s mind scrambled to make sense of this. That was when a sudden suspicion dawned. Was he trying to pay her a compliment? She was so astonished by the notion that she simply lay there while he turned his fist about, seemingly admiring the way her hair looked wrapped around it.

“I can plait hair,” he said suddenly. “I learned the trick from a groom.” When she continued to look blank, he added, “In the stable.”

“You mean,” she ventured cautiously, “you have plaited a horse’s tail or two in your time?” He nodded. “Well,” she answered lightly. “Mayhap that skill will come in useful sometime if I should ever sprain my wrist and need assistance.”

She had meant to be humorous, but Jeffree nodded in all solemnity. “You should let me weave a ribbon through it. To match your gown.”

As Sabina’s gowns were all faded and entirely lacking in ornamentation, she cast a quick, suspicious glance at him. Was he making sport of her? There was not so much as a glint in his eye. “Th-thank you,” she stammered and, to her own horror, felt her cheeks start to grow red. She was not used to compliments, if that’s what this even was.

“So will you?” he persisted.

“Will I what?”

He tugged her hair again, drawing her face closer to his own. “Will you let me plait your hair, Sabina?” Their faces were so close now, she could feel his breath mingling with her own. Oh, my gods, what was happening? She felt her expression waver. Was he seducing her now? Her throat grew dry. Seeing his interrogative look, she recalled he had asked something of her.

“If you wish it,” she quavered, sounding half-strangled to her own ear. His firm grip on her braid prevented her from pulling back even if she wanted to. Her every instinct was warning her this man was about to kiss her. His expression was so… intense, and the blue of his eyes so very, very blue. Sabina swallowed and Jeffree blinked, jerking his head back and unwinding her hair from his hand.

Sabina felt a ridiculous wave of crushing disappointment wash over her as he dropped back onto the mattress. He had been about to kiss her; she just knew it! Then at the last moment, he had pulled back. Why?

“Jeffree,” she said before she could grow chicken-hearted. “Do you want to kiss me?”

“Yes,” he growled at once.

“Why don’t you then?”

“My vow,” he reminded her tersely, and she could hear the frown in his voice.

“Your vow?” she repeated blankly. “Your vow to remain chaste?”

“Aye.”

“That includes kissing also?” she asked incredulously. He closed his eyes and huffed out a breath before nodding. “You mean you have never kissed a woman in your twenty-eight years?”

“Of course not!” he answered crossly. “I am a man of my word.”

Sabina considered this a moment in stunned silence. “You kissed the Lady Meliora though,” she ventured uncertainly, “before committing yourself to lifelong chastity in her honor.” When he said nothing, she fidgeted with the edge of the bedspread. “I suppose if you could not have her kisses, then you wanted no one else’s.”

The forlorn sound to her own words appalled her. Of course, she was meant to be acting as though she hankered for Jeffree’s affection, but it was quite another thing to be getting wistful over the man!

He gave an exasperated huff. “Of course, I did not kiss her! We were formally betrothed, and she was nobly born, not some… some village girl.” He spoke the last two words with such a wealth of contempt that Sabina felt winded. Had she managed to forget for one moment what an arrogant pig he was? Averting her gaze from his affronted profile, she stared up at the ceiling instead.

Anywhere was better to direct her gaze at than the handsome swine lay in her bed. He was such an ass,she seethed. She felt more like kicking him than kissing him. Perhaps that was a good thing after all. She was blatantly ill-equipped to put him in his place; she must have been mad to have such a notion. Hitching the covers up to her neck, she rolled onto her side away from him, rapidly blinking.

“Goodnight,” she muttered darkly, squeezing her eyes shut. He made no reply for a full minute and then he rolled into her back, making her eyes spring open.

“I was not comparing you to a village girl!” he said in a furious undertone that tickled her ear. “For gods sakes! You are a Burrell of Tipton Hall. Why must you always be so… so prickly?”

Sabina struggled a moment to catch her breath. It was odd how his physical proximity affected her. “I am sure I have more in common with a village girl than your former betrothed!” she hissed, sucking in a breath when his hand covered her hip. For some reason, the fact he deigned to remember the name of her father’s house had affected her strangely.

The clasp on her hip went from tentative to firm. “Oh really?” His voice was low and tense. “What does that mean?”

“It means that we Burrells are nothing like the high and mighty De Crecys!” she burst out, then paused suspiciously. “What did you think it meant? That I had spent my life sporting on the village green with all the lads and lasses?” When he did not answer immediately, she snorted. “You have already shown yourself to be well-acquainted with parish gossip. You know full well that I am considered naught but an ill-tempered shrew!”