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A pale blur showed as her mouth curved into a smile and his hands twitched. That smile was attached directly to an inner core of heat and here in the darkness, after a very unfruitful attempt not to sink into equally unfruitful fantasies, his defences were especially weak.
He could see her more clearly now, the oval of her face and the deeper shadows of her eyes. He was as tense as if a wild animal searching for shelter had just prowled into his tent. No, Sam bent on testing him to his limits was more dangerous than any desert predator.
‘That is hardly the point. Surely this can wait until morning?’
‘No it cannot. It requires a degree of privacy. For heaven’s sake, Edge. I shan’t pounce on you, you know.’
Oh, hell. I wish you would.
‘Very well. Just be quick about it. I would rather not be discovered entertaining you here.’
‘You aren’t entertaining in the least at the moment, Edge. Though you might be entertained yourself once I tell you why I’m here.’
He frowned. Her voice was high and raspy. She was nervous; very nervous. She kept shifting her weight, too, as if preparing for a bout of pugilism.
‘I have a proposition, Edge.’
A proposition.
His body felt fractured—heat pulsed from his stomach muscles while a cold weight pressed at his lungs and shoulders like a mantle of snow. He didn’t like the feeling. He was tired, worried, confused. He wanted to recapture that pleasant numbness he’d worked hard to attain since Jacob’s death.
But... A proposition. From Sam.
The words echoed through his mind, intermingling with the thoughts that had been keeping him from sleep—memories of her taste, the feel of her in the darkness. Her scent—even arm’s length from her it engulfed him. It was like standing in a garden in mid-bloom. Spring. She smelt of spring and he was as hard as the rock formations she’d admired.
And why not? They were both widowed and had no ties. The physical attraction was undeniable and Sam was clearly no stranger to such encounters. He’d been isolated from gossip after Jacob’s death, but he’d heard enough about Sam’s many flirtations before her marriage in Venice. The Sinclairs were always newsworthy and Dora and her mother delighted in gossip even when it was being played out in foreign climes. The fact that it involved an Austrian prince, a Russian count, and the very dashing Lord Ricardo Carruthers all vying for the attentions of the scandalous Sinclair sister had pushed it to the forefront of London gossip that summer.
So why not assent to a proposition? Perhaps it would finally put to rest the foolish fantasy she’d planted in his mind all those years ago and the hunger she’d fanned since he’d seen her on the Howling Cliffs. There was nothing wrong with acting like the animals they were. These sensations might be the only things that were right in his life at the moment.
‘You think too much, Lord Glower-from-the-Hoity-Toity-Ledge,’ she’d told him often enough. Well, she was right. For the moment he should stop thinking. It was hell on his libido.
‘Edge?’
He dragged himself out of his thoughts.
‘What?’
‘All I ask is that you listen to me before you say no or call me mad. Because it is a little mad, well, more than a little. But I think, perhaps, it could benefit us both. Well, benefit me more than you, but perhaps it might offer some...oh, the devil, I’m blathering. No, don’t say anything yet, please. Just listen. Please.’
Her hands rose, two pale smudges, fingers spread wide, as if warning him to keep his distance. He took a deep breath, his body tingling with far greater disappointment than he wanted to credit. This did not sound like the proposition he’d begun to imagine.
‘Very well. I am listening.’
‘I know you have more important matters on your mind, but all I ask is that you consider it. And I mean truly consider it, not just be your proper self and say you will consider it while you tell yourself inside that this is only Sam being foolish Sam...’
‘Sam, tell me what it is you want. If it is something I can do, within reason, then I shall.’
She laughed and dropped her hands.
‘Within reason. That is a matter of opinion...’
‘Sam!’
She breathed in sharply and almost exhaled the words.
‘I want you to marry me.’
She might have struck him right in the sternum with a cannonball and had less of an impact. He even pressed his hand to his chest as ice-cold shock burst through him. The closest he’d felt to this was when the unseen French voltigeur’s shot caught him in the shoulder that day at the foothill of the Pyrenees. Disbelief and denial had been as powerful as the pain. As if by a force of will he could unmake those fateful moments.
