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“Half an hour.”
“Yes.” She led him a few more steps and then she glanced at him sideways, with a suddenly playful smile. “You got my name right,” she said.
He’d forgotten that game. Never mind. He was running out of names anyway.
Besides, he had a new game now. Annoying his father was getting tedious. Teasing his wife would be much more diverting.
“You see?” he said. “You can achieve all manner of things with the right inducement.”
Chapter 8
Later that night, after her maid had helped her dress for bed, Cassandra sat in her bedchamber and ignored the connecting door to Joshua’s room. She ignored it so hard that it was a relief when his knock finally came.
She put aside the handkerchief she was pretending to embroider and moved forward to greet him. Really, this was like receiving a regular morning call in her drawing room.
Yet no morning call in her drawing room had left her so warm and nervous.
“Come in,” she called, her voice too high.
In he blew, his red silk banyan flapping about his bare ankles as he charged toward her. He was halfway across the room when he pulled up, staring as if he had never seen such a creature as her in his life. She felt curiously exposed, even though nearly every inch of her skin was covered. Mercifully, his robe was tied shut, revealing only a triangle of skin below his throat.
“Whatareyou wearing?” He prowled closer. “Are you dressed for bed or for a three-day hike in Scotland?”
Cassandra realized that she was cuddling herself. She straightened her shoulders and clasped her hands at her waist.
“This is warm and comfortable,” she said.
“It would want to be, since there’s so bloody much of it.”
“Whatever do you mean? ’Tis only my nightshift, my bed jacket, and stockings.”
He flicked the ruffled brim of her nightcap. “What the blazes is this thing?”
“It’s a nightcap. It’s warm and keeps my hair from getting tangled during the night. Which saves me time the next day. It isefficient.”
“Oh well then, if it’sefficient.”
“If you wanted me dressed for—for—for seduction, you should have provided clearer instructions.” A smile began to spread over his face. She folded her arms over her middle, remembered herself, and stood straight again. “For example, am I meant to be in the bed? Does this…activity take place there or…”
“This activity can take place wherever we please.” His eyes flicked over her again. “I feel underdressed,” he said cheerfully, and leaned forward confidentially to add, “As I am completely naked under this robe.”
Good heavens.
He waggled his eyebrows and pivoted away. He ran at the bed, leaped, and, in a blur of wine-red silk, he wound up lounging on the far side like an emperor in a painting she had once seen. The robe stayed closed around his middle, although the lapels fell open to reveal that wretched chest again and the hem gathered around his knees.
He patted the mattress beside him meaningfully, and somehow she was standing by the bed, willing herself to climb on.
She had made a promise, and she was his wife, and as they were leaving the rout Arabella had winked and said, “The answer to your question is ‘yes’,” so it could not be that bad, but it would not make babies, and what was the point if it did not make babies?
But her husband did not like babies, so perhaps that was the point.
She hated him, then, wished him far, far away.
“You’re looking fierce,” he said, disarmingly gentle now. “Do you want me to go?”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And yet…What if this led to other things? What if he did eventually bed her properly? What if she got with child? That would make this unpleasantness worth it. She had gone about this all wrong. She should have prepared for seduction. She surreptitiously wiped her palms on her bed jacket and tried to think of something seductive to say.
