Her Missing Marquess (Wicked Husbands #5) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,51
him. “You left. For three years.”
“Your choice, not mine. Why must you be so stubborn?”
“Why did you hide my things?” she shot back.
“I will make you a trade,” he proposed then, ignoring her demand.
Her eyes narrowed. She did not trust him. Not one whit. “What manner of trade?”
“Your garments and slippers in return for an hour of your time when we return to Needham Hall.”
“Blackmail,” she scoffed, but her wretched pulse sped up, quite erratically. To say nothing of the ache between her thighs, reminding her she still stood naked before him.
“An hour, that is all I ask, and I will not do anything you do not want. I swear, Nellie.” His expression was solemn.
She should tell him no.
Swallow her pride and return to Needham Hall naked as the day she was born.
“Half an hour,” she bargained.
“An hour.”
She scowled at him. “Forty-five minutes.”
“One hour, wife.”
He was immovable, and she was nude. What choice had she?
“An hour,” she relented finally. “You, sir, are a scurrilous villain.”
“And you, darling, are insufferably stubborn.”
Fair enough. “My belongings, if you please?”
He gave her his half grin. “I thought you would never ask.”
He released her wrist and turned away, retrieving her slippers and folded clothing from beneath a nearby tree.
He would pay for this, she vowed inwardly. Oh, yes he would.
Chapter Eleven
Jack had Nell where he wanted her.
In his chamber.
For the next hour.
But the devil of it was, they both stunk of the lake.
They needed a bath. Fortunately, his father, whilst an old-fashioned clod in some senses, had been astoundingly foresighted in others. Needham Hall was one of the few manor houses of its age that had been outfitted with running water with heat on demand and special bathing chambers to accommodate the former marquess’s fastidious habits.
In the low light of his chamber, he faced his wife now. Her hair was wet, and there was a green scrap of some manner of vegetation poking from her locks.
“What is it you wish from me, Needham?” she demanded, pursing her lips and taking on that look of prim agitation that never failed to make his cock swell.
Then again, when did she ever make an expression that failed to harden his prick?
He was a slave to her and his desire for her, after all.
He reached out and plucked the bit of vegetation from her hair, holding it aloft for her inspection. “A bath.”
She frowned at the greenery. “No.”
“I will draw it,” he told her calmly, as if she had not spoken. “No need to rouse the servants at this hour of the night all because Lady Needham wanted to swim naked in the lake.”
Her lips tightened. “I am not having a bath, Jack.”
“You are correct,” he agreed, keeping his tone amicable as he sauntered to the bath chamber in his dressing room. “You are not having a bath. We are having a bath.”
“I am not having a bath with you!”
He smiled at her outrage, keeping his silence as he went about filling the oversized porcelain tub with warm water. A few drops of scented oil, and the sweet smell of citrus perfumed the air.
“Jack.”
She had followed him, of course, still protesting. He closed the bottle of oil and turned to her. Her dressing gown was buttoned to her throat, hiding the glory of her figure from him. But that would not last long. Her hair had begun to dry, and it was a mass of wild curls, tumbling over her shoulders.
“Nell.” He raised a brow. “Need I remind you of our bargain?”
She pinned him with a glare. “I agreed to an hour of my time. Not to getting naked in a tub with you.”
He shrugged. “You failed to ask what we would be doing with our hour. That was an unfortunate misstep on your part. Need I remind you of the many occasions upon which you were naked in a tub with me in the past? Or how much you enjoyed it?”
Her cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink at his words.
Their gazes held.
And he knew she was being beset by the same onslaught of memories of their shared baths that he was. Right here, in this very tub. In this room. He had delighted in washing her, his fingers inevitably finding their way to her cunny so he could make her spend.
“You are insufferable,” she told him now.
“We smell like a marsh,” he told her. “I am doing the both of us a favor.”