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But he hadn’t returned. Ever.
Eventually, Penelope had stopped expecting him.
“I’m sorry. ”
Tinder flashed; straw ignited.
He stood, turning to face her. “You’ll have to do with firelight. Your lantern is in the snow. ”
She swallowed back her sadness, nodding. “I will be fine. ”
“Don’t leave this room. The house is in disrepair, and I have not married you yet. ”
He turned and left the room.
Chapter Five
She woke in the dim light of the fire with an unbearably cold nose and an unbearably warm everything else.
Disoriented, she blinked several times, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings before the glowing embers in the fireplace and the rose-colored walls brought clarity.
She was lying on her back in the nest of blankets she had arranged before she’d fallen asleep, and she was covered with a large and warm one that smelled wonderful. She buried her frigid nose in the fabric and inhaled deeply, trying to place the smell—a blend of bergamot and tobacco flower.
She turned her head.
Michael.
Shock flared, then panic.
Michael was asleep next to her.
Well, not exactly next to her. Against her, more like.
But it felt like he was all around her.
He was turned on his side, head on one bent arm, his other arm draped across her, hand firmly clasping the far side of her person. She inhaled abruptly as she realized just how close his arm was to certain . . . parts of her . . . that were not to be touched.
Not that there were many parts of her that were open for reasonable touching, but that was not the point.
His arm was not the only problem. He was pressed to her quite thoroughly, his chest, his arm, his legs . . . and other parts as well. She couldn’t decide if she should be horrified or utterly thrilled.
Both?
It was best that she not explore the question too thoroughly.
She turned toward him, trying to avoid unnecessary movement or sound and unable to ignore the feel of his arm stroking across her midsection in a steady caress as she rotated beneath it. When she faced him, she let out a long, careful breath and considered her next course of action.
It was not, after all, every day that she awoke in the arms of—well, under the arm of—a gentleman.
Not much of a gentleman anymore, was he?
While awake, he was all angles and tension—the muscles of his jaw were strung tight as a bow, as though he were in a perpetual state of holding himself back. But now, in slumber, in the glow of the fire, he was . . .
Beautiful.
The angles were still there, sharp and perfect, as though a master sculptor had had a hand in creating him—the tilt of his jaw, the cleft of his chin, his long, straight nose, the perfect curve of his brows, and those eyelashes, just as they were when he was a boy, unbelievably long and lush, a black, sooty caress against his cheeks.
And his lips. Not pressed in a firm, grim line at the moment, instead lovely and full. They had once been so quick to smile, but . . . they had become dangerous and tempting in a way they’d never been when he was a boy. She traced the peak and valleys of his upper lip with her gaze, wondering how many women had kissed him. Wondering what his mouth would feel like—soft or firm, light or dark.
She exhaled, temptation making the breath long and heavy.
She wanted to touch him.
She stilled at the thought, the idea so foreign and still so true.
She shouldn’t want to touch him. He was a beast. Cold and rude and selfish and absolutely nothing like the boy she’d once known. Like the husband whom she’d imagined. Her thoughts flickered back to earlier in the evening, to imagining her plain, boring old husband.
No. Michael was nothing like that man.
Perhaps that was why she wanted to touch him.
Her gaze lingered at his mouth. Maybe not there, on his tempting, terrifying lips . . . maybe she wanted to touch his hair, dark and curly the way it had always been, but devoid of its youthful unruliness. The curls behaved now, even as they brushed against his ears and fell against his brow, even as they recovered from a day of travel and snow and caps.
They knew better than to rebel.
Yes. She wanted to touch his hair.
The hair of the man she would marry.
Her hand was moving of its own volition, heading for those dark curls. “Michael,” she whispered, as her fingertips touched the silken strands, before she could think better of it.
His eyes snapped open, as though he had been waiting for her to speak, and he moved like lightning, capturing her wrist in one strong, steel hand.
She gasped at the movement. “I beg your pardon . . . I did not mean . . . ” She tugged at her hand once, twice, and he let her go.
He returned his arm to where it had been quite inappropriately draped across her midsection, and the movement reminded her of every place where they touched—his leg pressed distractingly against her own, his gaze, a mosaic of color that hid his thoughts so very well.
She swallowed, hesitated, then said the only thing she could think to say. “You’re in my bed. ”
He did not reply.
She pressed on. “It’s not . . . ” She searched for the word.
“Done?” Sleep made his voice rough and soft, and she could not stop the shiver of excitement that coursed through her at the word.
She nodded once.
He slid his arm away from her, all too slowly, and she ignored the pang of regret that flared at the loss of the weight. “What are you doing here?”
“I was sleeping. ”
“I mean, why are you in my bed?”
“It’s not your bed, Penelope. It’s mine. ”
Silence fell, and a shiver of nervousness slipped down Penelope’s spine. What did she say to that? It did not seem at all appropriate to discuss his bed in detail. Nor hers, for that matter.
He rolled to his back, unfolding the long arm that had been under his cheek and stretching long and luxurious before he turned away from her.
She tried to sleep. Really, she did.
She took a deep breath, studying the way his shoulders curved, pulling the linen of his shirt taut. She was in a bed. With a man. A man who, though he would soon be her husband, did not yet hold the title. The situation should have been devastatingly scandalous. Wickedly exciting. And yet . . . no matter what her mother would think when she heard of it, the situation did not seem at all scandalous.
Which was a bit of a disappointment, really. It seemed that even when she was face-to-face with the prospect of adventure, she couldn’t get it right.
It did not matter how scandalous her future husband was . . . she was not the kind of woman who compelled him to scandal. That much had been made clear.
Even now, alone in an abandoned manor house, she wasn’t enough to capture a gentleman’s attention.
She exhaled audibly, and he turned his head toward her, giving her a view of one perfectly curled ear.
She’d never noticed anyone’s ears before.
“What is it?” he said, his voice a low gravel.
“ ‘It’?” she asked.
He rolled to his back again, jostling the blanket and baring one of her arms to the cold air in the room. When he replied, it was to the ceiling. “I know enough about women to know that sighs are never simply sighs. They indicate one of two things. That particular sigh represents feminine displeasure. ”
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