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“Bloody hell,” he went on. “There are more ties.”
“Yes, they hold the jacket closed. They’re very useful that way.”
“No, they are entirely unsatisfactory.”
His nimble fingers plucked at another tie, and another, and another. Each time he tugged on a bow, he tugged at her breath, tugged a little more desire to the surface of her skin. She hauled back her wayward mind.
“And to think your sister was only four the last time you saw her,” she went on. “Miriam—that’s such a pretty name.”
“You do realize I am aware of all this information.”
“You might have forgotten it. You have a selective memory.”
“There.”
His hands slid over her shoulders to part the bed jacket, and lingered, heavy and warm. His eyes burned as he looked her over, with a heat that had nothing to do with the fire, a heat that coursed through her body. She shifted uncomfortably and glanced down, uncertain. Her nightgown was not immodest, but its upper edge rested on the swell of her bosom and the fabric was thin, which meant…Oh dear. She moved to fold her arms over her chest, but, swift as always, he captured her wrists, holding them loosely at her side.
“No, no,” he said, his eyes roaming wickedly over her. “I’ve decided I like your bed jacket a lot better when it is undone.”
When his eyes met hers again, they were playful and intense all at once. She licked her suddenly dry lips and tried to speak again.
“Um. As I was saying…”
“Were you saying something? I didn’t notice.”
“I think Isaac is feeling lost and alone.”
He released her wrists and dropped his eyes again. “Actually, no, your bed jacket still offends me.”
“He was in the Navy for more than half his life and he is only twenty-four.”
“I think it would look better on the floor.”
Oh heaven help her. “And now that he has been discharged, he does not know what to do with himself.”
“Definitely needs to be on the floor.”
He used only his fingertips to chase the bed jacket down her arms and over her hands, a touch so slow and delicate and tantalizing that she bit her lip to avoid crying out.
He knew what he was doing to her, curse him. But what she had gleaned from Isaac mattered too.
“I know what you’re doing, Joshua.”
“Rescuing you from this ugly garment. I am very heroic.”
“You’re avoiding talking about your brother.”
The bed jacket slithered down her body, pooled at her toes. His fingertips rested on her hands like butterfly feet.
“I am alone with my wife in my bedchamber,” he said. “Of course I don’t want to talk about my brother. You know, your nightshift is ugly too.”
“He said you tried to keep them all together.”
Her words hit a mark that she did not know was there. His expression turned cold and hard, like steel; his shoulders tensed and he dropped his hands. Already she missed him, missed his teasing and his sensuality, but she had to say this. She had to understand. She had to make him understand.
“That when Papa came to help you, you wanted you and your brothers to stay together but they wanted to leave. You tried to stop them from going, you said your family had to stay together, but it was what they wanted, the Navy and India, but that’s no reason to turn your back on him now.”
A tick of a clock, a beat of her heart, a pop from the fire—then he moved so quickly she did not know his intention until she was already tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her chin bumping his back, his arm an iron band around her knees.
