Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (20 page)

She was silent, either because she was intent on her braiding, or because she was still trying to sort out what he’d just said, or even because he was right.

He folded his hands behind his head. “So, until you ask me or even order me to stop watching you, I will continue to watch you. Perhaps you should refrain from watching me.”

She lifted her gaze to the mirror, looking not at herself but at him. “I am not watching you.”

“You are now.”

“No, I am merely looking at you because I’m talking to you. ’Tis considered quite rude not to look at someone while you’re talking to them.”

“Then stop talking to me. If you want me to go to sleep and plague you no further, then just ignore me. Really, is that so hard to do?” Never mind that he, for his throbbing part, was starting to find it hard, and in more ways than one, to ignore her.

She shook her head as she looked down at her braid. Nathan pursed his lips to suppress a smile. She glanced up again, catching his reflection. “There you go again. Why do you persist in watching me?”

“Because you keep talking to me.”

“That’s not why.”

“So that isn’t
the
satisfactory answer you require, either? I can’t be looking at you because I’d rather not look at the less interesting ceiling, nor can I be looking at you because I’m talking to you, or because you’re talking to me. No, you are quite convinced that I have some other, more sinister, ulterior motive for doing something that’s little more than good old-fashioned human nature. Why don’t you just tell me to stop looking at you, or watching you, or otherwise acknowledging your existence? As I said, I believe you want me to look at you.”

She fastened the end of her braid. “Why would I want you to look at me?”

“Because you’re talking to me. You said yourself it’s rude to do otherwise.”

“Yes, but I stopped talking and still you continued to look at me. Why, if I’m not talking?”

“You stopped talking for all of two seconds. Why can’t you ignore me? Think about it. If you ignored me, you wouldn’t see me looking at you. Or for that matter, watching you while I entertain wicked thoughts about what I see.”

She picked up an article of clothing from the floor and dunked it into the washbowl. “Dare I ask what sort of wicked thoughts you’re having?”

“I’m admiring the shape of your legs.”

She spun around, clearly incredulous. “You—you’re
admiring
them?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I? They’re lovely. ’Tis a pity women must keep them covered.”

She turned back to the washbowl. “I think I’m beginning to understand why we must.”

“I’m also fascinated by your hair. It’s beautiful, Katherine.”

He’d purposely spoken just above a whisper, just so she would twirl around again to ask, “What did you say?”

Her silver-green eyes were wide and luminous in the candlelight. Nathan felt something strange and light, like a shimmer in his heart. “I said your hair is beautiful. I almost wish you hadn’t braided it. I love seeing it down, flowing all over your shoulders and back. But I suppose it’s just as well you did plait it, otherwise I might have been tempted to spend all night running my fingers through it, finding out for myself if it feels as silky as it looks.”

She stared at him for a moment, quite speechless.

He couldn’t resist. “Why are you staring at me?”

“I’m looking at you because you’re talking to me.”

“You look as if you can’t believe a word of what I’m saying.”

She did not respond but only returned her attention to the article of clothing she was soaking in the washbowl. She picked it up, wringing out the excess water before spreading it out and hanging it over the screen.

For a long moment she stood in the very narrow space between the folding screen and the bed, keeping her back to him. The honey-colored braid hung straight down the middle of her back. All she did was stand there.

“That’s why I’m watching you,” he said. “Do you find that explanation satisfactory?”

“Maybe.” Though he couldn’t see her face, he thought he heard a smile in her voice.

Still,
maybe
was hardly an unequivocal
no.
From his experience with women,
maybe
was what they said when they wanted to say
yes
but didn’t think it would be proper to do so.

“Then I take it you have no objection to my watching you, as long as I’m able to provide a satisfactory reason? Why else would you continue to stand there when you could just as easily blow out the candle and come to bed? At least then it would be too dark for me to see anything—assuming, of course, you don’t want me to watch you. You have yet to say you don’t.”

Dear God, what was wrong with him, that he was now babbling like an idiot?

Yet without a word or backward glance she blew out the candle, plunging them into darkness. Did that mean she didn’t want him to see her anymore tonight?

For a long moment there was silence. Nathan heard no rustling, no footsteps, nothing but the sound of his own breathing. Was she still just standing in the dark?

Finally, he heard her footsteps tentatively approaching the bed. As the room was quite small, there weren’t that many footsteps. The mattress suddenly listed on his side as she climbed over his legs, pressing one hand on his chest while her knee—

“
Oww
!”
he yelped, as she flopped over on the other side of him.

“I’m sorry, did I hurt you somewhere?”

“You hurt me somewhere, all right,” he ground out, wincing in agony. “I daresay you needn’t fear I might try to take advantage of your proximity, since you’ve just effectively squelched any evil inclinations I might have had.”

“And here I’d finally decided, after your explanation of why you’d been watching me, that perhaps you didn’t have a—oh, how did you put it? A sinister, ulterior motive.”

“What?” His voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched as he said that, and he hoped to God it was from disbelief and not because she’d crushed his testicles with her knee, which he feared she’d done.

“Perhaps I’d thought at first that you did have a sinister, ulterior motive for watching me.”

Her voice was soft and seductive, the voice of a siren luring him to his doom—though judging from the anguish between his thighs, he felt as if he’d already crashed groin-first into sharp, jagged rocks.

Tears smarted his eyes. Oh God, what had she done to him? “Is that why you may have just smashed the ducal jewels?” There, that didn’t sound so high-pitched now. It must have been the disbelief that she’d do such a thing out of some petty retribution.

“No, that was an accident. Where precisely did I put my knee?”

“Surely you know,” he growled through his teeth. “
There
.”

“Perhaps you could show me? Take my hand and place it over the spot where I hurt you.”

Good God.
“You really don’t know where you hurt me, do you?”

She fumbled around for his hand, picking it up and holding it in hers. He loved the feel of her slim fingers entwined with his, for her warm, soft palm curved into his as if their hands fit perfectly together.

He wondered if they would fit perfectly together in other ways. After his testicles recovered, of course.

“Please show me where it hurts.” Her voice was now a gentle, soothing whisper.

“Why?” he whispered back.

“So I can make it feel better.”

This was too good to be true. And when something was too good to be true…“How?”

“I can stroke the sore spot and make it feel better.”

Ah, yes. When something was too good to be true, it was usually a trap.

“Or I can kiss it and make it feel better.”

He must have fallen asleep already and was now dreaming. She couldn’t really be saying these things!

“Or I can put a cold compress on it.”

If indeed he’d been asleep, those words blasted him wide awake. “Don’t do that!”

“Well?” Now she held his hand against her chest—between her breasts, if he wasn’t mistaken—and she brushed her fingers down his forearm to his elbow then back up again.

He closed his eyes and sighed, savoring the light teasing of her fingertips up and down his arm. He’d never dreamed that a mere touch on the arm could be so delightfully erotic. It all but eased the pain in his groin.

“I truly didn’t mean to hurt you, Nathan,” she murmured. “Won’t you please tell me where you’re in pain?”

“What you’re doing right now is just fine,” he assured her.

“Do you mean it was your arm that I hurt with my knee?”

How tempting to tell her the truth! But something told him if he did that, and guided her hand or even her lips to where her knee had really been, that she’d only inflict further agony on him, thinking that he still meant to take advantage of her, even though he didn’t think he could if he wanted to now.

At least not tonight. Still, he enjoyed what she was doing. So he replied, “Yes, it was my arm.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured and brushed her lips over his skin, from his wrist down to the inside of his elbow, planting little kisses all the way.

It was like being nibbled by a butterfly.

Then he felt something else. Something tickling and grazing his arm. Something that was neither her fingers nor her lips. He reached up to brush it, and to his amazement it felt like hair.

Thick, loose strands of wavy, silken hair.

He wove his fingers into it, letting it slip and spill over the back of his hand as he glided it to the nape of her neck. Now his hand was covered by a waterfall of honey. “You unbraided your hair,” he whispered. “Why?”

“So you could do what you’re doing,” she murmured. “You said you wished to do it.”

She was granting his wish. Would any of those debutantes in London do that? He didn’t care anymore. Right now, he cared only about her. He slid his hand from her nape and with his fingers traced the outline of her jaw, cupping his hand on the side of her throat. “You know, this is the sort of thing Driscoll should have done to his bride this evening.”

She laughed softly. “You certainly don’t hear me screaming.”

He fingered the collar of her borrowed shirt, wishing he could pull it over her head and explore her from head to toe. “I did promise to tell you what happens between husbands and wives who are the exact opposite of the Driscolls.”

“So you did.” She bent over him, and now he felt curtains of her hair dangling into his face. “But I think I’d like you to show me instead.”

Kate couldn’t believe she’d just said that. Just as she still couldn’t believe what he’d said after she finished braiding her hair.

“I said your hair is beautiful. I almost wish you hadn’t braided it. I love seeing it down, flowing all over your shoulders and back. But I suppose it’s just as well you did plait it, otherwise I might have been tempted to spend all night running my fingers through it, finding out for myself if it feels as silky as it looks.”

He’d also confessed to
admiring
her legs.

No one had ever admired any part of her before. Oh, they admired her ability to play the pianoforte. They admired her fine embroidery.

But not much else.

Until Nathan, a duke she could never hope to have, came along and turned her head, opened her eyes…and touched her heart.

Now she wanted him to touch her everywhere else. She’d unbraided her hair not only to grant his wish to run his hands through it, but because she longed for someone to stroke her, caress her, and maybe even love her.

Did that mean she was looking for love? If so, she was bound to be disappointed.

But what if she’d already found it?

As she clutched his hand against her thudding heart, with nothing between them but the thin fabric of his shirt, she thought of lifting the shirt and pulling it over her head, leaving her naked but still protected by the dark.

His smooth, warm baritone slid into her delightfully wicked thoughts. “You have no idea how much I long to show you. But…”

Here it came. The rejection Kate had known for most of her life. Behind the spectacles—even though she wasn’t wearing them at the moment—and under the tangled fall of thick hair, beneath her borrowed man’s shirt, she was still a plain spinster better suited to be the governess of some desperate, old widower, not the bride of a young and dashing duke who could have any beauty he chose.

She let go of his hand and dropped his arm. She could still taste the saltiness of his skin from where she’d kissed him from his wrist to the inside of his elbow. Plain
and
wanton.

Still toying with her hair, he continued, “But I’m afraid I may need the rest of the night to recover from your lethal knee.”

Kate now had some very strong suspicions about where exactly she’d put her knee, and that it wasn’t on his arm. “I apologize again for that. It truly was an accident.”

“I know.”

“I can’t see a thing in the dark, so how could I know precisely where I put my knee?”

“You couldn’t,” he assured her. “But as I said, it’s probably just as well.”

“Why? And by the way, I think I know where I really crushed you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

A pause, and then, his tone rueful, he said, “Because you offered to stroke me and even kiss me where it hurt to make it feel better. And I thought if I told you the truth about where I really hurt that you would—well, maybe you would hurt me even more.”

She couldn’t help laughing. “Why would I do that?”

Now he sounded quite sheepish. “Well, I was afraid you might think I was bamming you about where I really hurt, that I was only claiming injured man parts to get you to touch me there so one thing might lead to another and then I could do what all men want to do, which is to take advantage of you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. No man wants to take advantage of me. Not even you.” A sharp pain suddenly pierced her heart, and tears stung her eyes as she flopped down on the mattress next to him.