They sipped their brandy in miserable, jagged silence, until Leah laid a hand over Nick’s.
“I have an imposition to ask of you, Husband.”
Nick’s relief that she was changing the subject was pathetic. “Ask,” Nick said, meeting her eyes. “Ask anything.”
“You have offered to pleasure me,” Leah said, a blush heating her cheeks as she spoke. “I would avail myself of your kindness in this regard.”
“My kindness…” Nick closed his eyes. He would love to pleasure her, love it. If she’d allow him that… Even this one last time, he would adore the privilege and pain of it. But he’d proven unequal to the necessary restraint, and so her imposition was an accurately aimed dagger thrust into his floundering self-respect.
“We will not share a roof again,” Leah said, “and you cannot think to leave for London in this downpour, at this hour. Stay with me tonight, Nicholas, please.”
That last word, offered with such longing and sadness, please, it stole under Nick’s defenses, tempted him to folly, and brushed aside rational processes.
Nick was an expert on good-bye sex and the comfort and condolence it could offer. He knew about the tenderness and gratitude an intimate parting could convey, and he knew how to make the experience dear and memorable, and the very best way to slip away from a liaison. He knew all that only because, in the past, he’d been the one to decide the timing of each final encounter, and now Leah had taken the initiative from him.
Leah deserved that at least. She deserved to torture him, and she deserved to have her pleasure of him. Within reason.
“I will need some privacy first, Leah.”
She started to nod, then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said with soft menace. “You will not ease yourself in private then come to me spent and safe, Nicholas. You will show me how to pleasure you and what you had envisioned for us were we not to part. That, or we sleep apart.”
She had him, and Nick knew it. He surrendered with good grace. “Come to bed then. It shall be as you wish.”
The nights at Belle Maison had given them a certain practical ease with each other that served well when they’d closed the bedroom door. Nick unfastened Leah’s dress; Leah relieved him of cravat pin, watch, and boots. He took down her hair; she untied his cravat and fetched his robe while he stripped off his riding attire. She brushed out and rebraided her hair while he used the wash water, then he took Leah’s robe from her so she could follow suit.
The only variation in their nocturnal routine was that Nick tossed the used wash water out a window then refilled the basin and set it on the night table. He also put both of his handkerchiefs on the table beside the basin and towel.
“You’re not going to blow out the candles?” Leah asked, climbing across the bed before taking her robe off again.
“Soon,” Nick said, shrugging out of his robe and settling on the bed, his back against the pillows. Leah drew the covers up to her chin and only then eased off her robe. “You are having a sudden attack of modesty, Wife? Not five minutes ago, you were naked and washing between your legs.”
Leah scowled at him and tugged the covers up higher. “Five minutes ago you were not naked or regarding me with that… anticipatory look in your eyes, and I was behind a privacy screen.”
He was going to miss her until his dying day. “So I am naked, and you must cover up. Interesting.”
A silence fell while Nick considered his next step. Just watching Leah disappear behind the screen with the basin and towel, knowing she’d invited him to be intimate with her, had set his blood galloping around in his groin.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Leah muttered, flopping over onto her side, her back to Nick.
“It was a fine idea,” Nick said, “one of your best, but you’re going to have to come here, Leah, for matters to get under way.”
“Oh, very well.” Leah tossed the covers up and scooted closer to Nick, then settled back down on the pillows. “Now what?”
“I think we need to talk a little more,” Nick said, revising his first set of plans for the evening.
“Talk?” The notion apparently did not comport with her plans. “About what?”
“Come here, lovey.” Nick held out an arm. “And I’ll tell you.”