“First, you imply that my brother might mean me harm, and now you’re talking as if he’s a functioning earl, ready to assume every responsibility. Which is it, Michael?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We will find out who wants to harm you, then we’ll deal with what comes after.”
“I know how I want to deal with what comes after,” she said, trying to sound like she had everything figured out. “You have a career in the army, and I’m here. I can’t risk the livelihood of everyone on all the Appertan estates by abandoning them.”
“And I can’t abandon my family without a source of income,” he answered, sighing. “I have some small shipping investments just beginning in India. Perhaps sometime in the future ...”
“And you’d just give up on your career, what you’re best at?” she asked pointedly. “Or do you think I’d blithely follow you to India? I won’t, Michael. That country was the death of my brother and mother, even my father. It tore apart our family. I won’t be second place again.”
They stared at each other, and she tried to keep composed, but for some reason, her eyes were stinging, and she knew her nose was getting red.
And then a knock sounded at the door, startling her. “May I answer my own door? I don’t imagine a villain would ask permission to enter.”
“If it’s the easiest, most unexpected way to get to you, he might.” He raised his voice. “Who’s there?”
“Nell, milord.”
“We still have much to discuss about your current situation,” Michael said, pulling his shirt over his head and tucking it into his trousers.
His choice of words was almost amusing. She found it easier to breathe without staring at all his flesh, remembering where she’d pressed her lips, how she’d licked the salt from his skin. It was as if she were a different person in the night. “Please allow me to dress first. I’ll have Nell send up breakfast, and we can eat here in privacy, where no one will overhear us.”
“Very well.”
“Come in, Nell,” Cecilia called, trying not to sound relieved.
As the maid bustled in, Cecilia knew her own face was bright red. The counterpane was in a pile near the chaise longue, and to her horror, her nightgown was in a discarded heap nearby.
“I’ve a bath on its way, Lady Blackthorne,” Nell said, nodding politely to Michael. “Milord, Tom tells me he’s seein’ to one for you.”
“My thanks, Nell,” he said.
Then, to Cecilia’s surprise, he took her hand and brought it to his lips. She wanted to pull away, to furiously ask if he’d heard anything she said.
“Until breakfast, Cecilia,” he murmured, and in his eyes was a promise that their discussion wasn’t over yet.
She couldn’t help but stare after him as he started to leave the room.
Suddenly, Nell called, “Wait, milord, I’ve a message for ye. In the commotion of Lady Blackthorne’s scare yesterday, and then dinner, Will forgot to let ye know he returned with a letter from yer family.”
“Returned?” Michael said blankly.
Cecilia winced. “Because of yesterday’s ... upheaval, I forgot to tell you that I sent a letter to your family first thing in the morning inviting them for a visit.” He frowned at her, and she hurried on. “I felt bad that you’d delayed visiting them, and I didn’t want your mother to think that a woman of poor manners had married her son.”
When he narrowed his eyes, it was obvious that he didn’t believe her explanation for even a moment.
But he turned to Nell. “And where is the message?”
She removed a sealed envelope from a pocket in her apron and handed it to him. Without looking at Cecilia, he left the room.
She stared after him, feeling both guilty she hadn’t told him and irritated that he had chosen not to share the letter with her. But, of course, she would hate it if he’d gone behind her back in the same manner. Her actions seemed ... underhanded.
She heard Nell moving about the room, humming even as she picked up the nightgown. There was nothing normal about this situation, though Nell pretended otherwise. When the maid began to remove the bedsheets, Cecilia groaned and closed her eyes, remembering that there might be evidence of her “wedding night.”
“Now there’s nothin’ to be shy about, milady,” Nell said matter-of-factly. “I knew the moment you were left to die in that hole that his lordship would never let you sleep alone. And such a virile man as hisself? O’ course he would never be able to keep his hands from his own wife, beauty that ye are. And I say it’s about time. Everyone could see how fascinated ye both were with the other.”
“Everyone but me, apparently,” Cecilia said grumpily, sitting down at her dressing table and glancing at the mirror. She stared in horror at her wild hair, her bare throat, the gaping dressing gown that showed far too much of her breasts. “Good lord!”
“That’s what a man likes to see in the mornin’,” Nell said with satisfaction.
