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‘My beard?’ He blinked, both at the request and the jolt of excitement that shot through him. ‘If you want.’
‘Thank you.’ She stood up and moved slowly around the table to perch on the edge of his chair. ‘Although it’s hard to know where to begin...’ She leaned close enough for one of her breasts to brush against his shoulder, making his breath catch and then quicken. ‘There’s just so much of it.’
‘If there’s one thing I excel at, it’s growing hair.’ He tried to swallow, but his face muscles felt unusually taut.
‘Maybe here.’ She skimmed her fingers across his cheekbone and down to his jaw. ‘It’s softer than I expected.’
‘Is it?’ Because the touch of her fingers was making another part of him quite the opposite. ‘Not scratchy?’
‘No.’ Her eyelashes fluttered as she bent her head and laid her own cheek against his, rubbing back and forth gently. ‘Not at all.’
Sebastian shifted in his chair, ordering himself to get up and go outside to cool down, but his legs seemed unable to move. Apparently only one part of him was still capable of movement and that wasn’t obeying his commands either. Meanwhile, Henrietta’s fingertips were trailing a path across his chest, making his body temperature soar even higher.
‘You know...’ she murmured, her cheek still pressed against his, ‘you never kissed me after our wedding. Isn’t the groom supposed to kiss the bride?’
Sebastian thought about flags. Naval flags. National flags. Any kind of flags... Maybe if he concentrated hard on remembering those then he could ignore the warm caress of her breath against his ear. It made his skin tingle, not just there, but all over, like ripples on a pond spreading outwards. He gritted his teeth to repress a shiver of pleasure, glad that she couldn’t see his face. Or vice versa. If she looked at him just one more time with those big blue eyes, then he had a feeling he might lose his resolve completely. He felt as if he might go mad if he didn’t touch her soon, but she was sick, she was recovering, she was...kissing his ear?
He couldn’t have identified a single damned flag if his life depended on it.
‘The bride was sick.’ Somehow he pushed the words out.
‘But she’s not any more.’ Her tongue touched his earlobe. ‘Or are you afraid of catching my fever?’
‘No.’ He turned his head slightly, catching a glimpse of her pulse at the base of her throat, just above the buttons of her nightgown. It appeared to be pounding almost as fast as his. ‘If I were going to catch it, I think I would have done so by now.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Her lips curved against his skin as if she were smiling and he swallowed a groan. One of his hands was clenching the arm of his chair so hard he was afraid of snapping the wood, the other was lying in his lap, itching to curl itself around her waist and pull her fully into h
is lap. He could do it so easily, too. It would only take a second.
‘You still need to rest.’ It was actually becoming painful to talk.
‘I’m not tired.’
‘Henrietta...’ He tipped his head to one side, dragging his ear away with what surely had to be the last ounce of his self-control. Men had received medals for less. ‘We can’t do this.’
‘Oh.’ She sat back on his chair-arm, digging her teeth into her bottom lip.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to.’ His heart wrenched at the look of hurt on her face. ‘I just don’t want you to overexert yourself.’
‘I only asked for a kiss.’
‘It might become more than a kiss.’
‘I know.’ She released her lip again. ‘But...would that be so bad?’
Every muscle in his body seemed to go into some kind of collective spasm. ‘Do you know what that means?’
‘Yes.’ Her cheeks darkened as she nodded. ‘My sister-in-law told me.’
‘Ah.’ His chest heaved as his mind raced. If she knew what she’d be letting herself in for, then it wouldn’t be so bad, would it? But then knowing in theory was very different from knowing in practice...
‘You didn’t answer my question.’ She was holding her bottom lip between her teeth again. ‘Would it be so bad?’
‘Not bad.’ He swallowed. ‘In fact, I think it would be very good, but it’s just not a good idea at the moment. I think I should go down to the taproom and you should go back to bed.’
‘I’m not an invalid!’ She jumped up, taking a few steps away before whirling around again, arms folded around her waist. ‘You said that the past few days hadn’t affected how you saw me.’
