“I... I realize that when I accepted your generous proposal of three weeks, you did not intend to have that time stolen by my work.”
“You’re a doctor, Abigail. With an important patient living under your very roof. In spite of whatever your opinion of me may be, I am not so inconsiderate that I would ask you to deny Her Grace the care she requires to ensure a healthy delivery.”
“Iama doctor, but during these past three weeks, I was supposed to be a wife.” Her lashes lowered, dipping into the pools of pink. “Unless you’d prefer to send me back to London at the end of the week, I should like to stay at Summerwind House to the end of February. For the sake of fairness.”
Prefer to send her away?
Preferto send her away?
Was she mad?
There were a hundred places he’d prefer to send her instead of London.
Onto his lap.
Against the wall.
Into his bed.
. . . to name a few.
“NO.” He all but shouted it, the tight rein he had on his control slipping a precarious inch as his mind continued to conjure any number of decadent alternatives to Abigail leaving. “No,” he repeated, more calmly, when her beautiful green irises widened behind her spectacles.
“No, you’d like me to leave, or—”
“Stay,” he said hoarsely.For the love of God, stay.“I want this marriage to work, Abigail. I’ve wanted it to work from the beginning, and I’ve made no secret of that. As I said before, I won’t force you to stay. Not when it would only result in misery for us both. But for as long as you’d like to be there, I will never ask you leave.”
She nodded, then stood. “I... I should see how Mara is feeling this morning.”
“Wait.” Pushing his chair back, he went to her. The urge to gather her in his arms and lower his mouth to hers was nearly unbearable. Having finally gotten a taste of what he’d yearned for these long three years in the carriage, he desired more. He desiredeverything. To slide his tongue between her lips. To feel her tremble when the rough pads of his thumbs ran across the sensitive peaks of her nipples. To touch between her legs and find her wet and wanting.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Your spectacles,” he said gruffly. “They’re dirty.”
With the precision of a surgeon, he removed them from her face and cleaned the lenses with a monogrammed handkerchief pulled from the inner lining of his waistcoat. When the glass was spotless, he carefully placed them on the bridge of her nose and slid the temples behind the curved shells of her ears.
“There.” With infinite regret, he lowered his hands. “That’s better.”
Her tongue skimmed across her bottom lip, and was shetryingto kill him?
“Th-thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome.”
“I... I should go.” Lifting her skirts, she spun around and bolted from the room.
*
Abigail’s heart poundedin her chest as she leaned back against the wall in a narrow, rarely used hallway and closed her eyes.
Why hadn’t she kissed Stephen?
She’d wanted to, but she’d lacked the courage to initiate the deed. Which was utterly foolish, as they’d kissed before... and done a great deal more than that. But for some reason, it now felt as though it meant something else. Somethingmore. As if by kissing him, she would be agreeing to stay. Not just for another month, but for a lifetime. And she wasn’t ready to commit to that. Nor was she ready to commit to ending her marriage. Instead, she found herself trapped in the hazy gray of in-between. The place where doubts festered and there were more questions than answers.
“Oh, do make up your mind,” she said aloud, stomping her foot in frustration.
“Make up yer mind about what?” a voice asked from the shadows, and Abigail’s shriek of surprise was shortened to a strangled gasp when a familiar face peeled itself away from a portrait of some long forgotten relative.
