She glowered at him.“I am glad you find this subject so amusing!”
“Are you?”he mused.“Then I would appreciate an answer from you, if you please.”
She lifted her chin.“The subject of how or where we will sleep, if we ever do marry, is a question for us both to consider before we agree to share a house, let alone a bed.”
His smile was rueful.“Well, while you continue to think about it, you really should get beneath the bedcovers.Before the chill has time to replace the warmth of the sheets.”He patted the side of the bed he had recently vacated.
The warm side of the bed, Julia acknowledged.Because Nicholas’s body heat had made it so.
It seemed so…intimate to just climb into bed with him, even if it was for the purpose of warming herself.
“There are things I need to tell you, Julia.”Nicholas’s expression was no longer teasing or mocking but was instead lined with a seriousness she had not seen in him before now.
“What things?”she prompted cautiously.
His mouth quirked.“If you get into bed with me, I will proceed to tell you.”
It was daring for her even to think of doing such a thing.
Outrageous.
Shameful.
And yet Julia could not deny that shewasthinking about it.Never, in all her nineteen years, had she ever seen a gentleman who was not related to her in his nightshirt, let alone been invited to share a bed with him.
“I intend to tell you things I have not shared with anyone else,” Nicholas cajoled.
And Julia was tempted, very much so.But… “If they are so private, perhaps you should not share them with me either if they will compromise you.”
His expression sobered.“I believe I must if we are to have any possibility of proceeding further with a betrothal and marriage.”
Julia had now gone well past curiosity and was into the realm of desperatelyneedingto know what Nicholas wished to share with her.“I do not keep secrets from my cousin Amanda.”
He frowned his impatience.“And is she able to keep the secrets you have told her in the past?”
“Always.”
“Very well.”He nodded abruptly.“I will trust her as you do.Now will you join me?”
“I will,” she decided, standing abruptly before moving to sit awkwardly on the side of the bed.
“You will need to be underneath the covers if you are to feel any benefit from the endeavor,” Nicholas encouraged softly.
Julia’s movements were stiff with nervousness as she swung her legs up onto the bed before slowly lying back against the pillows.Nicholas immediately threw the bedcovers across her stiff-as-a-board body, wrapping her in the residual warmth they carried from him.
She froze, her fingers gripping the top of those covers, in the realization of how close she now physically was to the man himself.So close she could feel his heat down her left side and feel the soft caress of his breath against her cheek.
Disconcerted did not even begin to describe how she was currently feeling.
“You may now begin to tell me your secrets.”She kept her gaze fixed rigidly on the painted ceiling above her.
Not because she was in the least interested in the nymphs and shepherdesses depicted there, but because she simply dared not turn her head and look at Nicholas himself.
“They are not just my secrets,” he stated softly.“Which is why, before I speak of them, I must have your promise that you will not discuss what I tell you with anyone else but your cousin Amanda, who you assure me can be trusted not to relate this information to anyone else.”
Julia did turn and look at him then.Only to once again be struck by how close Nicholas now was to her as he leaned up on his elbow, looking down at her with his dark and shadowed eyes.She quickly turned away from that searching gaze.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.“Your secrets, once you have told them, shall remain exactly that.Whatever they might be.”
