“I shall consider your silence a resounding no,” she said, and the disappointment in her tone was undeniable.
Did he trust her?
She had tirelessly nursed him back to health. His own manservant Richland had attested to that fact when he had arrived to ready the bath, and Bridget had briefly returned to her own chamber to freshen up. She could have fled. Or even smothered him with his own pillow.
“You may consider it a reluctant yes.” If he sounded unwilling, as though the words had been torn from him, it was because he was and they had.
Also because he could scarcely believe it himself. But it was undeniable. Try though he might to ignore it, to suppress it, to avoid it, something had shifted. What he felt inside was akin to the same burst of surprise he’d had as a lad when he had risen in the morning to find the landscape newly covered in a fresh skin of white snow. The same brief moment of breathtaking appreciation filled him now as he held her eyes.
Her face, so lovely, so often guarded and closed off, changed. Smoothed and softened. Her smile reached the glittering depths of her gaze. “I am glad of it, Leo.”
Damn it all to hell.
The strangest thing about it was, he was too. As wrong as he knew it was, the deep, abiding bloom of rightness in his chest refused to be denied. He trusted Bridget O’Malley.
May the Lord have mercy upon his soul.
The Duke of Carlisle trusted her.
Bridget ought to be filled with smug eagerness. Plotting the ways in which she would dupe him. How easy he had made it for her. How simple it would be to use his words and the knowledge against him. And yet, doing so was not even on her horizon.
Something unspoken and undefined existed between them. She felt it as he completed his ablutions while she watched, because he had told her he wanted her company. She felt it as his strong body rose from the tub, rivulets of water licking down his lean back and his buttocks. It simmered beneath their companionable silence as she helped to towel him dry and handed him a nightshirt to don. It hummed through her as she guided him back to his bed, their arms linked, his tall, broad form leaning into hers, searing her with heat.
It burned a path straight to her heart when she settled the bedclothes around him and glanced up from her task to find him watching her with a molten look. She stilled, palms frozen in the act of smoothing the counterpane over his chest. That gaze undid her. Confused her. Set off a fresh flurry of warmth inside her.
“I should return to my chamber now,” she told him, though in truth she hated to leave his side. Leaving meant their truce would be over, and she would meet him again in the morning with all their demons and ghosts keeping them apart. “You need to rest to regain your strength.”
He startled her by taking both her wrists in a gentle grip. “Don’t go.”
Her heart thudded. “I should.”
“I should let you go,” he agreed.
She licked her lips, willing away the ache deep inside her. A most troubling ache, because for the first time it was not just the burn of her desperate attraction for him but something far more true and deep. “Yes, you must.”
“I cannot.” His thumbs rubbed in slow, maddening circles over her inner wrists, tempting her with his words every bit as much as with his touch. “I am loath for our truce to end so soon. Stay with me?”
It was the most exposed she had ever seen him, including when she had seen his naked arse earlier. Bridget could not shake the feeling this was a time of reckoning for them. She could refuse him and leave, erect the necessary barriers once more. Or she could give in to what they both so clearly wanted. Perhaps even what they needed.
For tonight.
Just one night.
What could be the harm?
In the morning, she would wake, return to her side of the demarcation line. Fortify herself for what she must do. Prepare to leave him, betray him, and save her brother.
The reminder gave her pause.
Since when had carrying out her original plan become betraying the Duke of Carlisle?
She was wading into treacherous flood waters, and she knew it. At any moment, they were likely to sweep her to her doom, and yet here she stood, lingering, hating to leave him. “I ought to return to my chamber. Do you not wish to lock me in there once more?”
He shook his head slowly. “I told you, Bridget, that I trust you. I’ll not be your jailer again.”
The statement was a stunning one, particularly coming from him. If only he knew how little he should trust her. The knowledge was acid, churning in her stomach. “Thank you, but all the same, I cannot stay. It would not be wise. We are not husband and wife in truth, and no good can come of my remaining in your chamber, now you are mending.”
But he did not release her wrists, nor did his thumbs stop their tender travels, and neither did his gaze allow her to look away. “I am too tired to be anything less than a gentleman. You have nothing to fear in staying here.”
“In your bed?” She was more tempted by the invitation than she cared to admit. She had eaten a hasty dinner in her chamber while his manservant had attended him, and though the hour was early, she too was weary from the grueling days of tending him and fretting over him. There was nothing to stop her from settling into bed alongside him and surrendering herself to the bliss of slumber.
Nothing except for ration, reason, and all the instincts within her screaming she could not afford to get too close to this man. She must guard her heart. Remain impervious.
Too late for that, mocked her heart.
“My bed is large.” His voice was husky, a decadent rumble that made her ache and long for that which she must not want. “You are small. There is ample room. Please, Bridget. Your presence calms me.”
She could not believe it was so. “How can I calm you? You loathe me.”
“No.” His hands explored higher, moving over her forearms, which remained exposed from assisting him with his bath. It was too much. She wanted to tear away from him. She never wanted him to stop touching her.
“I tried, wife. Believe me, I tried. You are the one vice I cannot seem to deny. Everything else, I can control. You are the only lure that dogs me, and I am too weary to fight you now.”
She wondered at his comment about vices, recalling he had been thoroughly soused the first evening she had met him at Harlton Hall. Yet, he had not smelled of spirits, nor seemed as if he tippled in all the subsequent weeks she had spent in his presence. Something told her he had hidden facets she had yet to see.
Something else told her she wanted to see them.
And not to find weaknesses she could use against him, but because she…why, she cared.
There it was, the realization as jarring as it was unwanted.
She, Bridget O’Malley, cared about the Duke of Carlisle.
Which was precisely why she needed to deny him his request, extricate herself from his gentle grasp, and put some much-needed distance between them.
“I too am weary,” she conceded. It was perhaps the most honest she had ever allowed herself to be with him, emerging from some place deep inside herself that refused to be stifled. It was the part of her that had been lonely and fearful, desperate and hungry, the part of her that had belonged to no land, to no man. Wild and restless, the rawest recesses of her spirit.
It was her heart.
“Stay with me,” he said again. “Just for the night.”
“Very well,” she found herself relenting against everything she possessed—aside from that willful weakness that called itself a heart, that was. “For the night. But you must give me your word that nothing untoward will occur.”
“I give you my word,” he said easily.
Too easily. But she could hardly argue the matter. “And only on account of our temporary truce. I do not want you to think I am getting soft for you, Duke.”
The ghost of a smile flirted with his lips. “Only one thing about you is soft, banshee, and we both know what that is.”
T
he wicked man. Somehow, in the ease that had fallen between them, the casual intimacy, banshee lost its bite. Instead, it sounded rather like an endearment. Heaven help her, but she liked it more each time he spoke it. “You are a difficult man to deny.”
A full smile curved his lips, and though he appeared exhausted—purple crescents bruised the tender flesh beneath his eyes to attest to how much his body had recently endured—he was so handsome her breath caught and a familiar pulse flared to life between her thighs.
“I would not have it any other way.”
Nor would she. But before they engaged in any more banter, and before he caressed her arms with any more maddening finesse and she lost her ability to resist him entirely, she knew she must change the subject. “You are certain you want me here?”
His expression sobered, dark eyes burning into hers. “I have never been more certain of anything.”
“Then you must assist me in removing my garments,” she blurted through lips that had gone dry.
Excellent change of subject, Bridget, she chastised herself. It seemed as if the connection between her rational mind and her mouth had been completely, hopelessly severed. How was requiring his assistance in disrobing a safer choice?
His eyes gleamed. “With pleasure. Turn ’round, if you please.”
He released her wrists at last, and she spun about as he asked, her full skirts whirling around her like a bell. She steeled herself against temptation, took a deep, calming breath and held it as she felt him go to work on the line of buttons concealed on the back of her gown.
One by one, they slid from their moorings, starting at her lower back and traveling all the way to the last button at the top. She was short enough he could reach it without difficulty. Still questioning the wisdom of her decision, she nevertheless shrugged her shoulders, allowing the gown to fall to the floor in a murmur of silk. She removed her corset cover and petticoat before allowing him to pluck the laces of her corset free. They loosened, and she removed it too.
Clad in nothing more than her chemise, stockings, and drawers, she hastily gathered up her garments and laid them upon a chair in tidy fashion. When she turned back to him, he was watching her with a strange expression.
She felt suddenly awkward. Though it was certain there was nothing inappropriate about a wife sharing a bed with her husband, the undeniable truth remained that they would inevitably annul their union and go their separate ways. All of this—each moment of tenderness, all the emotions, every word, glance, and touch—would eventually be erased.
Why did that thought bother her so much?
Leo seemed to sense her conflicting emotions. “You need not be shy with me, Bridget. Come to bed where you belong.”
Did she belong there? Lying at his side? Breathing in his scent, absorbing his heat?
Nay. She could never. She could not change who she was any more than she could change who he was. They were two people who had never been meant to be together. Two people who had been brought together by extraordinary circumstances. And those same circumstances would also tear them apart.
But despite all that, her feet were moving. She was crossing the chamber, going back to him. She turned down the gas lamps, bathing the chamber in darkness. Knowing her way by rote, she found the side of the bed opposite him, and she made hasty work of removing her stockings and drawers, and plucking the pins from her hair, allowing it to fall heavily down her back.
“I hear rather a lot of fabric rustling, wife. Could it be that you are getting naked in spite of all your protestations toward maidenly modesty?” he teased through the heavy silence that had descended.
“Removing my stockings.” Her face went hot even in the darkness. She did not dare to refer to her drawers aloud. Too many cumbersome fabrics beneath the bedclothes rendered it impossible for her to sleep. But she was attempting to avoid falling deeper into ruin than she already had, so surely there was no reason to mention any of that.
“Christ,” he muttered. “You should not have said that. I thought it was the bedclothes, but now I am cursed with imagining what I dearly long to see.”
“I am finished now,” she said, throwing back the blankets and settling in. She rolled onto her side, facing away from him. All the better for her to resist him, she reasoned.
But in the next breath, a large, warm body was pressed against her, radiating heat into her. An arm went around her waist. He pressed a kiss to her nape. “Good night, wife.” His lips grazed her ear as he spoke.
She should have felt more trapped than she had in the duchess’s apartments when she had been locked within. But instead, she felt…at home.
There was no other way to describe it. Something about Leo at her back, his large body curling against hers like a shield, his arm over her as if she were his in truth, flooded her with the sense of absolute, undeniable rightness.
There was nowhere else she belonged in this world, in this moment. She was certain of it.
“Good night, husband,” she returned to him softly, staring into the velvet darkness of the night.
All that met her was his slow, even breathing. He had already fallen asleep.
She bit her lip against the sudden sting of tears. How safe and comforted he must feel with her in his arms. How very wrong he was. Hating herself for what she must do, she reached for the hand that rested lightly over her belly. She laced her fingers through his.
“I am sorry,” she whispered into the night, knowing this was all they could ever have. Wishing there could somehow be more. Knowing there could not.
Unburdened as best as she could be, she fell into a deep, comfortable sleep, wrapped in the arms of the man who was meant to be her enemy, but who was fast turning into her savior.
Chapter Fourteen
In the seductive glow of morning sunshine spilling in behind the window dressings, Leo was beautiful. Rest, sustenance, and his bath had restored the color to his skin. Bridget told herself she was dreaming as he devoured her with his intense stare and stroked her unbound hair with a gentle hand.
“Good morning,” she said as a test. For surely, if she were still sleeping, he would not answer. Or she would wake herself from this false world of promise and tenderness and sweet, blossoming need.
“Morning, banshee.” His voice sent a trill of pure pleasure through her, down her spine, settling between her thighs as a pulse of want. His hand continued to stroke her hair slowly, maddeningly.
She loved the way it felt, passing over her scalp, down her cheek and throat, to rest above her breast, then moving to start the journey all over again. Bridget felt like a cat. Part of her wanted to purr her contentment.
He seemed pensive by morning light. Different somehow, as if something within him had changed unalterably. How she wished she could remain here, in this charmed moment forever, warm beneath the cocoon of his blankets, her body nestled against his, his face relaxed of its ordinary tension, his touch that of a lover’s.
Dear God, she was in dreadful danger of losing her heart to this man.
She knew it the same way she knew her name was Bridget Mary O’Malley.
“Why do you frown?” His fingertips grazed the furrow between her brows in a gentle touch.
“No reason,” she lied.
“Your tell is giving you away, banshee.”
Drat.
She expelled a breath, bit her lip, weighing the wisdom of confessing.
Did she dare?
In one exhalation, she did it. “I am afraid I like you too much.”
There.
Done.
Except, his hand stilled. Then he moved to cup her cheek instead. That touch, so simple and innocent, burned her with the force of a brand. She tingled. Came to life. Part of her could not resist nestling her cheek more fully into his palm. It was so hot and reassuring. His touch, when freely given in tenderness, was her panacea.
His thumb stroked over her lower lip once. Twice. His expression turned pensive. “The first day I saw you at Harlton
Hall, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”
She smiled sadly, all too aware of their disparities. “And then you realized who I was, and everything changed.”
“No.”
His thumb was back upon her lower lip. Pressing gently. No longer stroking. And it was maddening, for part of her wanted to open her lips and suck that thumb into her mouth and part of her wanted to nip it with her teeth.
“What then?” Her question emerged as a breathless whisper.
Here, in the early morning stillness, the rest of London—and everything that would conspire to keep them in their separate worlds—fell away. How easy it was to pretend they were husband and wife, two people who had fallen in love. Two people who belonged in each other’s arms rather than at each other’s throats.
“I realized you are also the most dangerous woman I have ever known,” he said then, his tone as solemn as his expression. Those fathomless eyes burned into hers. “Because you make me forget everything but wanting you. When I look at you, I see a woman who can strip me of loyalty and duty, of everything and anything but you. When I look at you, you are all I need, all I hunger for. You make me weak. So damn weak.”
His confession stole the breath from her lungs. To think she could hold such power over the Duke of Carlisle was both thrilling and terrifying. Thrilling, because knowing she affected him so deeply pleased her on a feminine level which had nothing to do with their clashing ideologies.
Her hands framed his face, and his whiskers prodded her palms like reminders. A pointed aide-mémoire that she had no right to be here with him, to be touching him so freely, to allow herself to feel such tenderness toward him. To want to kiss him as desperately as she did now.
“You make me weak too,” she confessed, going against her every instinct. Certainly against reason. Flouting her promises to John, the loyalty she owed Cullen and the cause, her promises to herself. This was a mistake, and she knew it. She was selfish and she was greedy, and she was weak.
She had spent all her life tending everyone else. She had borne the responsibility, shouldered the duties from her mother, from Cullen.
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