‘I would have thought that was obvious.’ Spencer’s voice was low, his words slightly blurred at the edges with what Grace suddenly suspected was one too many glasses of something. ‘I’m coming to bed.’
Grace’s eyes flew wide as she watched him wrestle to pull off his long leather boots. His movements were imprecise, slower than usual, and she swallowed down a sudden powerful sense of regret she had ever suggested such a thing. What was he expecting? Would he want to—to—? She couldn’t finish that train of thought, a frightening combination of dread and, to her everlasting shame, tentative anticipation beginning to run through her veins. Her maidenly sensibilities baulked at such a notion, of course, but something hidden away much deeper, in some feral part of her she had never even known existed, slowly lifted its head to wonder if sharing Spencer’s bed and all it entailed might not be so unthinkable... Perhaps maybe even the answer to the secret desires that murmured to her, creeping in beneath the shutters she had so firmly fastened around her heart?
Her pulse, already quickened by his entrance to the room, picked up even more, bounding so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear it—but he merely squinted at her through the semi-darkness and shook his head at the rigid set of her face.
‘No call to look like a frightened rabbit.’ His voice was curt, although Grace thought she detected a note of blunt reassurance that caused a sudden flurry of goosebumps to rise on her skin. ‘I’m not here to impose on you. I like a woman to lie with me out of desire, not duty.’
A flustered denial sprang to her tongue, but it died in her mouth as Spencer moved round to the side of the bed with uneven steps and unceremoniously sat down mere inches from where Grace leaned, propped up against snowy pillows.
She looked away hurriedly as he began to loosen his cravat, the beat of blood in her ears increasing to a thunderous roar. Was he truly going to undress in front of her? It was unbelievable, unthinkable—and so horrifyingly exciting Grace was lost in a world of self-reproach so vigorous she didn’t notice the small package Spencer drew from his pocket until it landed in her lap with a soft thud.
Blessedly distracted from her own worrying thoughts, Grace blinked at Spencer in unfeigned surprise. ‘What’s this?’
He didn’t answer straight away, instead taking a moment to recline against the pillows with his long legs stretched out on the pristine covers. His shoulder was almost touching hers, close enough for Grace to feel the steady warmth of his skin through the shirt he still—thankfully—wore.
‘I bought it for you today. Given your dissatisfaction with me earlier I thought it might please you.’
He brought both hands up to rest behind his head and watched as Grace cautiously, as though wary it might be some kind of trick, opened the little box.
For a moment she simply stared down at the delicate wedding band inside with nothing running through her mind aside from pure wonder. In the dim candlelight the gold gleamed like buried treasure, smooth and perfect against black velvet, and when she reached for it with hesitant fingers its coldness contrasted jarringly with the sudden burst of heat that swirled within her chest.
A wedding ring. He’s bought me a wedding ring?
No other words came to her and she could only blink at the unexpected treasure in her hand with mute wonder.
‘As I understand it, women place a lot of importance on this kind of thing,’ Spencer muttered, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Given what you said this morning, I thought it might please you to have proof of your new status.’
Grace nodded slowly, still unable to fully comprehend what was happening. The ring was beautiful, engraved with a pattern created with great skill, but it was what the golden surprise could possibly represent that gave her such wordless pause. Spencer had listened to her fears after all, taken heed of them despite his apparent disregard, and then found a way to ease her worries more thoughtfully than she ever would have thought him capable. It was such a sweet gesture, even if the delivery was brusque and determinedly unsentimental. Could it be the ice he had so resolutely built up between them might be thawing at last, even a little?
‘It’s beautiful. Thank you.’
If it was possible for a man to sound simultaneously terse yet satisfied, Spencer managed it. ‘I hope it isn’t too big. I told the jeweller you had slender fingers.’ He turned fully towards her, propped on one elbow to bring himself level with where Grace sat with her legs curled beneath her. ‘Let me see if it fits.’
The touch of his fingers against her palm as he took the ring sent a thrill of pure feeling through Grace’s body and she gave an involuntary shudder at the primitive sensation. There was something almost animalistic about the uncontrollable way she reacted to even the smallest touch, and when he took her left hand in his own and gently slipped the band on her third finger, it was all Grace could do not to gasp aloud. The warmth of his skin was intoxicating—she felt as though she burned with a fever when he softly moved her finger back and forth to watch the gold gleam in the candlelight, the dancing flame seeming a pitiful thing in comparison to the blaze Grace was sure must be scorching her from within.
He didn’t release her hand. Instead Grace felt all the air leave her lungs as he inspected it, holding it inside his much larger grasp as carefully as one might cradle a child. What he was searching for as he gazed down at it Grace couldn’t say, but eventually the taut silence between them was fragmented by Spencer’s sigh.
‘I fear I’ve drunk too much again, Grace. I never intend to and yet...’
She blinked, the spell between them broken by the pain in his voice and the concern that rushed up within her to meet it.
‘Why don’t you stop?’ She spoke softly, eyes finding his in the gloom and seeing the sudden agony barely contained. Spencer’s hand still held her own, her nerves still tingling with shameful delight, but she drove the maelstrom of her thoughts back with new vigour. Spencer seemed on the cusp of opening up to her, of sharing with her what nightmares caused him to behave as he did—nothing should distract her. ‘Surely you can see it does you no good?’
‘You wouldn’t understand. I have my reasons.’
It was so tempting to ask the question she already knew the answer to—Because of whatever happened when Will died, you mean?—but she stopped herself just in time. ‘I’m sure I would, if you would only tell me.’
It was a gamble—he could so easily decide she’d gone too far. If she pushed too hard, made him feel she was prying, he might slam shut the drawbridge on his feelings once again. She waited in the short silence with bated breath; but he merely shook his head slowly.
‘All I’ll say is this: it helps me forget and it helps to numb my pain.’ He looked away for a moment; but just a moment, and then when his eyes met hers again Grace saw something in them that made it suddenly difficult to think. ‘Even if it does sometimes cause me to make mistakes I might regret when I’m sober. Would you allow me to make one now, Grace?’
Grace had thought Spencer a passionate man, quick to anger and with a glint in his eye that told of dark thoughts and even darker deeds, so it was a surprise his lips were so gentle when they came down on her own, a soft brush of skin against skin that stole every breath from her scorching body and then wanted more.
He asked permission?
The unlikely thought skipped through her blank mind like a pebble across a still pool.
So he has at least some manners left?
But then all such things were swept away by the movement of Spencer’s mouth against hers and all she could do was allow her eyes to drift closed as she surrendered to mindless sensation she had never known could be so intense.
There was no power on earth that could have torn Grace away from Spencer’s touch as he held her against him, the pattern of her breathing slowing to match the steady rhythm of the man who so gently, more than she ever would have thought him capab
le of, reached up to cup her cheek in one rough hand. He stroked the soft skin of her face in a tiny movement of his thumb that sent a shower of sparks glittering through Grace’s every nerve, igniting her to burn with a flame she had never felt before. He didn’t break away for even a moment, keeping his lips firmly slanted across hers with tender yet insistent pressure that ebbed and flowed with the skilful dance of his kiss.
A blistering conflagration blazed across Grace’s skin, hidden beneath the thin cover of her prim nightgown. Some far-off part of her consciousness barked a sharp rebuke at her shocking lack of decorum, but she didn’t seem able to break away from the delightful feeling of his mouth on hers, or resist the too-powerful temptation to shyly move her hand up the formidable shape of his arm, to feel the strange contours of sinew and muscle so unknown to her innocent understanding. The warmth of his body surrounded her, heating her blood past boiling point as she traced the hills and valleys of his bicep and heard the growl torn from Spencer’s throat at the feel of her wandering fingers. It hardly seemed real, more like a dream Grace had been powerless to stop as she lay alone in the bed Spencer now shared with her, and the sudden truth of their embrace reared up to drag Grace from her feverish bliss.
He’s been drinking and he said himself he might regret his actions once he’s sober. I ought to stop this—now.
With more reluctance than she ever could have imagined Grace moved a hand to Spencer’s chest, allowing herself the briefest of moments to appreciate the solid breadth she felt beneath her palm before pushing him away. He withdrew slowly, his eyes seeking hers with a questioning look that made her want to abandon her sensible restraint and wind her arms around his neck once more, but she forced herself to sit up and smooth down her rumpled nightgown with shaking hands.
‘I’ve offended you.’ Spencer’s voice was low, the regret in it fleeing to Grace’s chest to touch her racing heart. ‘Catching you up like some blundering oaf...’
Grace shook her head, privately dismayed by the crease between Spencer’s brows.
He thought I didn’t like it?
If his thinking was too hazy to realise she hadn’t pulled away out of horror, it was definitely a sign she had done the right thing—even if the desire to return to his arms gnawed at her insides with a hunger that wouldn’t be satisfied by anything other than the feel of his lips on hers once more.
‘It isn’t that. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea to do this when you’ve had too much to drink. The last thing I want is for you to wake tomorrow and feel distress for what the port made you do tonight.’
The husband that caused her so much confusion was quiet for a moment before he nodded thoughtfully, turning to lie flat on his back and stare upwards at the canopy above them.
‘Thinking of my well-being again. I don’t look forward to the day you realise I don’t deserve your kindness.’
Any argument Grace could have made was stolen by the troubled look in his eye, an uneasy gleam that dulled gradually until all that was left was flat darkness.
‘You’re a good woman, Grace. Earls must be feeble-minded to have—to have let go...’
He tailed off, his voice fading into an indistinct murmur that she couldn’t quite catch as he relaxed further into the downy mattress, tension leaving his limbs.
‘To have what? Feeble-minded to have let what go?’
Again the voice from the pillows, even more muffled than before. ‘Foolish. A simpleton. Entirely...entirely undeserving.’
Grace frowned to herself in the semi-darkness, the single candle barely shedding any light as it burned lower, before her eyes flew wide, glittering like stars in the dying glow.
Surely not. Surely he couldn’t mean—?
‘A simpleton to have—let me go? Is that what you’re saying?’
She could hardly believe it; her breath, already coming hard in a heady mixture of shock and confusion, sped up a fraction more. What could be his meaning? Surely not the delicious suspicion that began to wend its way through her nerves as she waited for his reply—
But Spencer’s eyes had closed and he gave no answer besides the easy breathing of a man finally claimed by restful sleep.
Chapter Seven
It was the unpleasant sensation of pins and needles in his left arm that woke Spencer from the deepest sleep he had enjoyed in months.
No nightmares had plagued him, no river of sweat slicked the tight muscles of his back and he surfaced gradually without the racing heart and bursting lungs that so often hauled him panting into wakefulness.
With his eyes closed against the light that tried to sneak between heavy curtains, he wondered absently why his arm was so numb. An exploratory wriggle of the offending limb was met with no success, instead feeling as though something lay across it that pinned it to the mattress with a warm, soft weight... That warmth spread across the whole front of his body, combined with something else, a clean-scented something just close enough to gently tickle his nose—
Spencer froze as he opened one eye to see confirmation of his suspicions. An unruly jumble of blonde curls obscured almost all of his vision and that agreeable feeling of softness and warmth radiated from the woman curled up against his chest, facing away from him with her breath coming slow and steady in the depths of sleep. His left arm lay beneath her and his right draped loosely across her waist in a position dangerously close to an embrace; their bodies seemed to fit together seamlessly, as though they had been created as two halves of a whole, each made complete by the presence of the other.
What? How?
Spencer’s mind raced as he tried to make sense of the entirely un-sensible turn of events. What had brought him to this, trapped in his own bed by one arm beneath his sleeping wife, whose delightfully tempting frame now lay in his grasp? It was one of his most secret dreams come to life, his guiltiest desires made real, but now it was actually happening all he could think of was how to extricate himself as quickly as possible.
He remembered now, with a sudden thrill of dread, the series of steps that had resulted in his current predicament. A few glasses too many after returning home from the lawyers’ office; coming to sleep in their marital chamber; fairly flinging the wedding ring at her, and then...
If he hadn’t been so desperate not to wake his sleeping bride Spencer would have covered his face with his hand. Instead all he could do was groan in quiet regret as he remembered—hazily, through the heady fog of port—Grace’s gasp as he had leaned down to kiss her and the feel of her soft lips moving against his own.
You kissed her, you fool. See what trouble your drinking has got you into now?
It was supposed to help him stem the tide of his worries, not add to them a layer of confusion he could have done without. Having disgraced himself and no doubt mortified Grace with his advances he had then gone the extra mile of drawing her to him as they slept, fitting her against him as though they were married for love and not two people thrown together by chance and circumstance. If she awoke to find herself in his hold, the secret, warm lines of her figure agonisingly obvious to him beneath the thin material of her nightgown, would she not be horrified beyond measure?
The thought was not one on which Spencer wished to dwell. Somehow freeing himself from his delicate dilemma was the only thing he allowed himself to think about as he gently slid his right hand beneath Grace’s waist in an awkward attempt to roll her off his arm. Unfortunately the movement only served to highlight even further the feminine geography of her body, the undulation of waist to hip so tantalising he didn’t dare allow himself to acknowledge it. The fuzzy memory of that kiss was already more prominent in his mind than was strictly comfortable, the sensation of Grace’s hand tracing the muscle of his arm and her eyelids fluttering closed only adding to the whirl of feeling Spencer tried manfully to dismiss as he gritted his teeth in concentration.
She made a little noise as he carefully, inc
h by painstaking inch, withdrew his arm; a sound halfway between a sigh and a sweet murmur of protest that shot through Spencer’s defences like an arrow. The sudden terrifyingly strong urge to abandon his better judgement and return to cradle Grace once more burst upon him, but he steadfastly ignored it, sliding warily across the bed until he reached the edge and stepped to freedom.
Smoothly done. Of course it would have been better if you hadn’t had to slip away like a thief in the first place.
Shoving the unwanted truth aside, Spencer glanced back at the mound beneath the bedcovers. The back of a flaxen head was all he could see and he silently congratulated himself on his escape before moving across to his armoire. Sleeping in one’s clothes wasn’t particularly dignified, he had to admit—yesterday’s shirt and breeches would need to be exchanged for fresh—and the call of a hot bath purred seductively. That would have to wait, of course, until Grace had vacated their rooms; her stumbling upon him bathing would be the absolute cherry on the cake of his discomfort and bad judgement.
The thought was enough to distract Spencer somewhat as he swiftly pulled on clean breeches and absently unbuttoned his shirt. The cold air hit his skin, making him wince as he shrugged the garment off and hunted through his drawers for another. It was too risky to call for his valet: the bell might wake Grace, and he wanted more than anything to slip from the chamber before she woke and felt the full force of the embarrassment he hoped to save her. Shaving was out of the question, but the thought barely crossed Spencer’s mind as he found what he was looking for and shook it out with a crisp snap, flapping like a white flag of surrender.
A gasp made him look up sharply, pausing for a moment in threading his arm into the safety of the clean linen shirt.
Grace sat up in the rumpled splendour of his bed—their bed, he reminded himself in reflexive disbelief—her hair tumbling about her shoulders and her cheeks flushed rosy with warmth and sleep. She looked like a startled angel, some ridiculously romantic part of him whispered, resplendent in her snowy nightgown and her curls framing her face like a golden halo of light.
Scandalously Wed to the Captain Page 11
