“I’ll be ready at dawn,” she assured him.
They climbed the stairs to their little bedchamber in silence. Bella was tired and feeling a little defeated; she’d failed to rescue her sister, and even Perlita’s act of stealing the pearls for her, and the knowledge of Luke’s return of Bella’s fortune failed to cheer her. She wanted to fling herself into her husband’s arms and make love with him.
He might have told Bella not to expect love from him, and he might agree with her mother that love was a curse, but when he made love to Bella with that slow, sensual intensity of his, it dissolved her worries as well as her bones, and she forgot everything.
Even that he did not love her. Especially that he did not love her.
Luke had married her, he’d protected her, he’d risked his life for her, and he’d made her a rich woman. He gave so much and took so little. It sounded like love… if you didn’t know the whole story.
Bella feared it was all for honor.
On entering the bedchamber, the first thing Luke did was open his portmanteau, take out his nightshirt, and lay it on the bed.
Bella eyed it sourly. She’d dreamed of love, but he wouldn’t even give her a little bit of trust.
She opened her own portmanteau and took out the shirt that she’d worn the night before. A shirtly declaration of war. Sometimes you had to fight for what you wanted. Especially with a stubborn untrusting man.
He eyed her shirt and sucked in his cheeks thoughtfully. “I think I’ll get another brandy.”
“You do that,” she said as she started unfastening her dress. “I’ll be here, in bed, waiting for you.”
He returned about half an hour later. Bella sat up in bed waiting for him, as promised.
She’d left a candle burning on the table on his side of the bed. He glanced at her and blew it out.
Without a word he shrugged off his coat and as usual hung it up. He untied his neckcloth and unbuttoned his waistcoat. Bella counted every button.
She was sure he was going to wear his nightshirt again, but she couldn’t help herself: she was the hopeful type. Maybe in the last half hour he’d changed his mind. Maybe the brandy had given him that little extra encouragement he needed to trust his wife with whatever it was that he’d kept hidden all this time.
She couldn’t imagine what it could be. He acted as if he were ashamed of it, but a war wound was not something to be ashamed of.
She ached for him to trust her.
She ached for him.
He sat to remove his boots, then his stockings. He shoved his breeches down his legs, taking his drawers with them. He folded first the breeches, then the drawers and placed them on the chair.
In the soft light spilling from the fire she could see the elegant line of his hard, horseman’s thighs, his lean, masculine flanks.
He sat back on the bed and pulled the shirt over his head. She could see the broad expanse of his back, the powerful shoulders, the ridged line of his spine.
Bella wanted to scream as he carefully separated the shirt from the undershirt, shook out each garment one by one, and placed it on the chair.
He was naked, wholly naked, for the first time in their marriage.
She waited for him to reach for the nightshirt.
Some coals shifted in the fireplace, and he made a small sound of irritation and, naked in the dark, padded across to the fire. He bent and stoked it with some cut logs. In the firelight he was all bronze and gold and shadow, lean and hard and beautiful.
Bella watched, her mouth dry.
She could not see his chest, but oh, the long, strong line of his back and those magnificent shoulders. And the firm masculine buttocks…
How could he possibly think scars would make a difference to her? Did he not understand what a fine specimen of manhood he was? Scarred or not, he was perfect, in her opinion.
She longed to run her hands over his firm, manly flesh, feel the corded muscles of his arms, the deep chest, the perfect shoulders. Who knew that a man’s shoulders could be so beautiful? She wanted to touch him everywhere, see all of him, as he had seen and touched her.
He padded back to the bedside, a dark silhouette limned by firelight, and…No!she exclaimed silently, as he pulled his nightshirt over his head.
