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Given that he’d decided that women, the whole pack of them, weren’t worth bothering with, it shouldn’t be difficult at all.
Besides, that friend of hers had probably bullied her into wearing something that actually revealed the hitherto unguessed-at fact that she had a beautiful body, small but perfectly proportioned, and forced her into shopping for a so-called trousseau. And Mattie would have gone along with it because she would have had little option, because no one but they knew that this forthcoming marriage was one of mutual convenience, a total sham.
Once she was settled into his home—and he’d already told her she could choose any room she liked as her private work space—she would revert to being herself. Without the pressure coming from Dawn, who obviously thought a wedding in the offing was an excuse to get dolled up to the nines, good old Matts would bury her nose in her work and bury her body in the shapeless, mud-coloured things that comprised her normal wardrobe.
The status quo would be restored, and that he could handle. No problem.
No problem at all.
CHAPTER FOUR
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‘THE way we conduct our marriage is no one’s business but our own,’ James stated as repressively as he could manage through throat muscles that were becoming so restricted they were in danger of seizing up completely.
‘Yes, I do know that.’ Mattie smiled sweetly, lifting the silver covers from the dishes on the heated trolley, the sleek wings of her hair brushing against her slightly flushed cheeks. ‘But think about it, James. I’m sure Mrs Briggs is a treasure, and discreet, and very loyal—but she is only human. I managed to put her mind at rest over our separate bedrooms—I told her it was the modern way. She did look a bit bewildered but I think she swallowed it. Then you chose to spend all day at the office—the first day of our marriage—and I know she found that very odd. So what could I do?’
Again that smile, slanted in his direction. This time warmly conspiratorial. Her mouth was a glossy scarlet tonight. Lush. Made for kissing. James ran a finger beneath the pristine white linen collar of his shirt. Was the central heating way too high, or was he coming down with something? Like a bad case of lust?
‘I said what a pity it was that something so important had come up, making it imperative that you tied yourself to your desk all day, asked her to prepare dinner and then take the rest of the night off. Then I made sure she saw me dressed like this.’
Like a walking invitation to get between the sheets!
A diaphanous piece of black nonsense, tiny straps that looked as if they would snap if touched supporting a scooped-out top that clung to two pert and perfect breasts, skimming a tiny waist to cling to delectably curvy hips, ending in a fluttery hem just above her knees.
Amazingly pretty knees.
He swallowed convulsively.
‘So she believes we’re now enjoying a romantic dinner for two and are on no account to be disturbed,’ she said with a disarmingly husky giggle which sent his blood pressure into orbit. ‘Which should put paid to any suspicions she might be harbouring about the state of our marriage. As I said, she is only human, as prone to speculation and gossip as the rest of us.’
She was transferring dishes from the trolley to the table which had been laid in the velvet-curtained window alcove. Gleaming mahogany set with silver, crystal, a small vase of sweetly scented freesias, candles—the whole caboodle.
She moved beautifully. Gracefully.
Had the sloughing of the smothering things she normally wore liberated her body, freed it up, so to speak? Or had her movements always been so elegant and he hadn’t noticed?
‘We don’t want people gossiping about us and our marriage, do we?’ she asked him earnestly, pointing out, ‘It might suit us perfectly, but that’s between the two of us. If it became known, or even suspected, that ours is a marriage in name only, you would have no protection whatsoever from the droves of females who throw themselves at you—which is what you wanted. And I don’t want to be sneered at because I’m married to a man who doesn’t fancy me in the least.’
Didn’t fancy her? Was she winding him up? he thought irately. Did she dress and put on her make-up without looking in a mirror!
Dammit, what man wouldn’t fancy her, take one look at her and imagine how it would be to slide those fragile straps from those creamy white shoulders, slip the filmy black fabric slowly away from those rounded breasts, dip his head to taste—?
Gritting his teeth, he forced his thoughts from that dangerous path, forced himself to look deep into her eyes, then slowly exhaled, reassured, deeply contrite for his initial unspoken flare of anger.
The golden irises were Mattie’s, his Mattie’s. Wide, trusting, innocent. No hint of teasing. Definitely no hint that she’d been winding him up. And she did have a point. Of course she wouldn’t want to be a source of sniggering speculation. She didn’t deserve that. And she almost certainly wasn’t aware of the deplorable effect she was having on him.
And hadn’t she just said that the type of marriage they’d entered into suited her perfectly?
‘So let’s eat,’ he suggested lightly as he walked across his elegantly furnished drawing room to join her at the table where she was cradling an unopened bottle of wine on her exquisite bosom.
Somehow he was going to have to explain about the way men were. Delicately. That went without saying because, despite the way she looked, Mattie was still wet behind the ears in the matter of sexual behaviour.
‘Would you open the wine? Somehow I always seem to make a mess of it.’ She sounded strangely breathless, still clutching the bottle to her body, her gaze wide and ingenuous. James slanted one dark brow upwards, his mouth softening. She was still the vague, impractical Matts he had grown fond of over the years. How could he have imagined that she’d suddenly transmogrified into a siren?
‘Of course.’ He reached for the bottle. Big, big mistake. Inevitably, given the way she was clinging to the wretched thing, the backs of his fingers grazed the underswell of one exquisitely formed breast. The shock of feeling the firmness, the warmth of the lightly scented flesh through the insubstantial barrier of fabric, sent deep shudders rocketing through the length of his body.
Ye gods! If they were to stick to the sort of marriage that she herself had said, only minutes ago, suited her perfectly, then the lecture he was about to give her couldn’t start soon enough.
