Her Missing Marquess (Wicked Husbands #5) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,33
I shall come to you.”
“No.”
This was rather becoming a pattern between them.
“We need to speak,” he pointed out, attempting to appeal to her sense of reason. “I gave you the time you requested with Sidmouth earlier. The least you can do is return the favor and give me your ear.”
The door opened, revealing Nell in another dressing gown, this one pale-pink silk accented with blonde lace ruffles. Her hair was unbound around her shoulders, a riot of flaxen curls tumbling down her back.
She frowned at him. “Say whatever it is you wish to say, Needham. I am weary.”
She was not going to dismiss him that easily, the stubborn minx.
He dropped his gaze to her feet, which still bore the bandages he had tied around them this morning. “I need to check on your wounds.”
She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture that only served to plump up her delectable breasts. “Did you become a physician in your travels?”
So suspicious, this new Nell.
“No,” he said calmly, “but I am a man who cares about his wife.”
She laughed, but the sound held little, if any, levity. Nor did the laughter reach her eyes. “Save your lies for your next wife.”
He had forgotten how beautiful her laugh was, had forgotten the way it made her scrunch up her nose, the manner in which her eyes glistened. He longed for it now, with a desperation that took him by surprise.
“There will be no next wife, Nellie,” he said, bracing his arm on the doorjamb and leaning forward. “I already have the only wife I have ever wanted.”
Her lips thinned. “Pity she does not want you.”
“Pity I do not believe you.” He studied her, taking note of the freckles, the sun-reddened flesh now visible. “You washed your face.”
Her brows snapped together. “How do you know?”
“Your pearl powder is gone.” He reached out, gently tracing the curve of her proud cheekbone with his thumb. “Still no aloe, my love? Why do you insist upon being so stubborn?”
She swallowed, and he absorbed the vibration of it. “For all I know, your concoction will make the burn worse.”
Did she truly believe him that much of a heartless villain, or was she just attempting to nettle him? He could not tell.
His eyes settled back upon hers. “I would never want to hurt you, Nellie.”
She made a sound of distress. “I told you not to call me by that name.”
“Why?” He could not resist caressing her cheek before tucking a wayward tendril of hair behind her ear. “You are still Nellie to me. You will make me wild with wanting you.”
Her lips parted, and the jet discs of her pupils grew larger. “Cease this madness.”
But she did not move away, in spite of her words. Instead, she remained still. He traced his thumb over the whorl of her ear, then gently caught the plump lobe and rubbed it. “Do you remember when I would play lady’s maid for you?”
Remembrance flared in her eyes. He saw it, and he knew she recalled, just as he remembered. After an evening’s revelry, he would go to her chamber, take down her hair, brush it out. Remove her earbobs and necklace, strip her bare. It had become a sensual game of theirs.
“My feet ache and I am tired,” she snapped, then jerked away from his touch.
But she did not fool him. Each day he spent back in her presence brought with it a waterfall of remembrance. Memories he had tucked away because carrying them close had been too painful. Being together again did the same for her.
Their marriage had never been cold, nor chaste.
It had been a blazing, passionate fury.
Little wonder they had nearly burned each other down, like flaming houses.
“I need to check on your feet, Nellie.” This time, unlike the others, his pet name for her emerged all its own.
His defenses were scattered around his feet. It occurred to him that this was one of the reasons he had remained abroad for so long: being near her made it impossible to forget.
“Why?” she whispered.
And he knew her question referred to so much more than merely his need to tend to her blisters.
“Because you are a part of me,” he told her, giving her the raw truth. “You always have been, and you always will be. Because I want to make certain you are healing properly. Because you are mine. Because I love you.”
There. He said it again. Those three, terrifying words.