Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)(54)

Her mind drifted to the stunning redhead from earlier. Had she shared his bed? Was she even right now weeping into her pillow?

Firelight danced off the sculpted flesh of his naked torso.

“Is this necessary?” she blurted.

He froze, looking up at her with an arched eyebrow. “What?”

She motioned in a small circle. “This . . . this chamber. You.” Deliciously, temptingly naked. “Me. Sharing a room together.”

Something in his expression tightened. The gray of his eyes seemed chillier, frozen ash. “We’re married now,” he reminded.

“Yes, but not in the truest sense.”

His gaze drilled into her, hard as iron. “And you want the world to know that? That you’re a wife eschewing her duty? Her responsibility to the marriage bed?”

The skin of her face grew prickly hot. The merry toasts and well wishes of earlier tonight echoed in her head. The faces of the happy villagers flashed through her mind. “No. I don’t wish for the nature of our marriage to be public. It’s our concern.” Our secret.

“Agreed.” He continued to undress. As if the matter were settled.

“Would you please explain?” she persisted, unable to let the matter drop. Self-preservation forced the words from her. “How would keeping our own rooms alert the world that our marriage is a—” She stopped herself just short of saying a farce. Their union wasn’t a farce. It meant something. Even without consummation, it was real. It mattered to her.

Moistening her lips, she finished, “Spouses often keep separate rooms.”

He sighed deeply, the sound weary. “Life is different here. This isn’t the ton. Where spouses practically lead separates lives. Both the Lord and Lady McKinney have always occupied this bedchamber. It’s tradition. And tradition weighs heavily here.”

“Can you not ever break with tradition?”

He stared at her stonily. “I did marry an Englishwoman. That’s sending a few ancestors tossing in their graves.”

“Well. What’s one more?” She attempted for lightness, but the look in his eyes told her he was quite finished with the discussion.

“Everyone knows I would share my wife’s bed. Unless there were something wrong with her . . . unless our marriage is a contentious union.” He stared at Cleo rather pointedly. “Is that what you prefer everyone conclude?”

She shook her head, shoulders sagging. She had to live here for . . . well, forever. Her siblings, too. She needed Logan’s people to see her as one of them so they’d welcome her siblings with open arms. In short, she needed to win them over and not come across as some shrew who barred her husband from their bed.

But isn’t that what you are?

She shook her head at the insidious little voice, and searched for the memories that had driven her for so long.

“No,” she answered through numb lips. “I don’t want them to think our marriage contentious.”

“Good.” His hands moved to his trousers. She commanded herself to look away, to move. She couldn’t just stand here watching him slack-jawed as he removed the last of his clothing. She already knew he preferred to sleep naked, and in the fire’s glow, she’d see every bare inch of him. That was more than she could bear.

She swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat and scanned the room, spotting a wooden screen etched with a hunting scene. Her nightgown already happened to be draped over it—the wisdom of her maid, Berthe, no doubt.

She could change behind that with relative privacy. With luck, Logan would be tucked out of sight beneath the covers by the time she emerged.

Strategy in mind, she strode across the room and positioned herself behind the screen. Within moments of straining her arms behind her back, she realized she could not undress herself unassisted. Blast it! She should have considered this sooner.

Face flaming, she bowed her head in misery for a long moment. Inhaling, she gathered her nerve and stepped out from behind the screen once again. He was in the bed. Just as she’d hoped. And feared. He’d have to rise to assist her and then she’d see every bare inch of him.

She cleared her throat unnecessarily. He was already looking directly at her from where he was propped against the pillows in the bed, the coverlet pooled around his waist, leaving that enticing bare chest of his exposed.

She couldn’t help notice that he had positioned himself squarely in the middle of the bed, with no thought, evidently, for granting her any space of her own where she wouldn’t brush against him.

“I can’t quite manage the buttons on my gown.”

“Come here,” he said and she didn’t think she imagined that his voice was rougher than usual, the burr deeper, more gravelly.

She stepped closer, briskly at first and then slower, her steps dragging as she neared the bed. He remained where he was. She stopped near the edge, her fingers bunching the skirts of her gown.

“Turn around,” he instructed.

She turned, fixing her gaze straight ahead. There was a slight rustling and her pulse kicked against her throat as she imagined him pushing back the covers . . . his naked body moving toward her.

She waited. Nothing happened. She glanced over her shoulder. He loomed behind her, his bare shoulders smooth and vast, the flesh rippling over tightly corded muscle. She quickly faced forward again. But it was too late. The image was permanently branded on her mind. Just as his clean, woodsy scent was fixed in her nostrils.