Page 29

WITH THE CURTAINS DRAWN, MY WORLD WAS DARKER,but not without visibility. Not completely. The opening above the bed staved off total darkness.

I sat up and inched back until I bumped against the headboard and could go no farther. My heartbeat filled my ears in a whooshing pulse. One of my hands stretched above me. My fingers curled into the smooth-worn wood, hanging on as though I were caught up in a storm—or bracing for an impending one.

He crouched at the end of the bed, watching me, reminding me of the Beast he was purported to be. Not just in name, but in fact. A great, coiled animal on the verge of springing, attacking his prey.

I took a gulp of air, marveling at how I could feel so warm even in the uncommon chill of the chamber. Not a sound reached us from outside the bed. We were sealed inside our own little cocoon, tucked away from the rest of the world, and I was grateful for that. Dread gnawed at me as I thought about all the people out there. I absorbed that fact in a way I couldn’t before, not until this moment, and a surge of bile rose in my throat thinking about them just beyond the drapes, listening to us, straining for a peep or a glimpse beyond the curtains, relishing in my suffering. Because that was what they wanted. They didn’t want silence.

They wanted to see. They wanted to hear. They wanted drama.

The air inside the curtained bed was murky and soft. Of course it was less murky for him. A veil didn’t cover his face.

We remained poised as we were for several moments, frozen in a standoff, not moving or speaking, and I wondered if he had in fact lied to the king. Perhaps he had no intention of consummating and making this marriage between us real at all.

I was sifting through that possibility in my mind when he finally spoke. “We best get to this, hmm?”

So not a possibility. A certainty.

We would do it, then.

Swallowing, I nodded. It was for the best. Not doing it presented a whole host of complications.

He pushed off and crawled on his hands and knees toward me. “Do you lack a voice along with a face, lass?” he asked, his voice a husky scrape on the air. Evidently he, too, preferred not to be overheard. At least we were in accord on that.

I commanded myself to relax and eased from my position huddled in front of the headboard. “I am ready.”

As ready as I will ever be.

Apparently my agreement was all he needed to hear. One of his big hands circled my ankle and dragged me down the bed onto my back in a single smooth move. I gave a small yelp, aware that the motion swept the voluminous folds of my nightgown up to my knees.

His gaze rested on the prim laces tied at my throat. “They did not dress you for enticement.”

I recalled his dormant manhood and wondered if he was finding it difficult to get up the nerve to bed me.

He braced a hand on either side of my head and leaned over me, all that nakedness radiating heat like a stove, flushing me with warmth, and I sucked in a lungful of air.

“Who is in there, hmm?” The words fanned directly over my lips, and I felt the scald of them through the gossamer fabric.

I trembled—partly from the effect of his proximity and partly because the question sent a bolt of panic through me.No one he wants.

Shoving that aside as a problem for later, I moistened my lips and replied, “I am your bride, my lord.”

A faint cough from outside the bed curtains reminded me that dozens of people were just beyond. Listening. Waiting in anticipation. I sent the drapes a baleful glance.

He followed the turn of my head. “Ignore them.”

I shuddered. “I will try.”

The warm fall of his breath ruffled the thin veil against my cheek. Our faces were so close. His features were vague and obscured, but I recalled them distinctly. The deep-set eyes beneath slashing eyebrows. The square jaw. The wide, unsmiling mouth.

His hands went to the laces at the throat of my modest nightgown, and I tucked my hands under my hips, quelling the impulse to slap at his questing fingers.

He made short work of the ties, his deft ministrations pulling them loose, peeling my nightgown open, exposing me to his gaze.

He went still.

I tensed, forcing my reticence aside. This was the obligation of a wedding night, and I always fulfilled my obligations. Not that the open vee of my nightgown fully displayed my assets. The opening wasn’t wide enough, and, at any rate, I had always thought myassetsrather underwhelming. No bigger than peaches. My breasts would scarcely fill his big hands.

And yet the way he stared, holding himself very still, I felt utterly naked, stripped down to my bones, and my peaches grew heavy, tingling with sensation. I was laid bare to the center of my torso, only a hint of my breasts visible, the inner swells vibrating from my labored breaths.