China and I were in India. Join me in India, if you will.”
“Done,” he said. He was still holding her against him. He could feel the warm, slender shapeliness of her from the shoulders to the knees. The soft femininity of her. He could smell the same subtle perfume she had worn when they sat together on the pianoforte bench at her cousin’s party.
“There are two bedchambers,” he told her. “Will you come with me to mine? Will you allow me the pleasure of brushing out your hair and unclothing you?”
He watched the color deepen yet more in her cheeks as her teeth sank into her lower lip, leaving the upper to curl upward very slightly—and very enticingly. He watched her consider her options and glance briefly at the window, through which the sun was beaming from a clear blue sky, still very far from sinking over the horizon.
“Yes,” she said, and even in speaking the one word she sounded breathless. But quite decisive.
“Come.” He took her by the hand and led the way.
Jessica had imagined a nighttime consummation with darkness and bedcovers and the white silk and lace nightgown, only very slightly daring, which she had purchased for the occasion. She had imagined Ruth getting her ready and leaving her room a discreet five minutes or so before the appearance of her bridegroom in his nightshirt and brocaded dressing gown belted at the waist. She was eager for the experience. She was hardly nervous at all except for a bit of anxiety that she would be awkward and not know quite what to do. But that was a foolish fear. Though she did not know for sure, she would be very surprised if Gabriel did not have a good deal of experience. She hoped he did, though she did not—thank you kindly—want to know any details.
But now it was to happen in the daytime with bright sunshine beaming through the rather large window of the bedchamber into which he took her. He did not even cross to it to draw the curtains.
It was a large square room with another door. But that must lead into a dressing room only large enough for essential private functions. There was a dressing table in here as well as a great marble washstand.
The masculinity of the room struck her immediately. Two pairs of large boots—riding boots and Hessians—stood neatly beside the wardrobe. There was shaving gear spread out on the washstand, a set of man’s brushes on the dressing table as well as a neat pile of starched neckcloths. The room smelled faintly and enticingly of something distinctly male—his shaving cream, perhaps, or his cologne, which was in a dark glass bottle on the dressing table. It was something she smelled whenever she was close to him—something that always made her want to burrow closer. There were three leather-bound books on one of the bedside tables, a handkerchief folded in the top one, presumably to keep his place.
There was no sign of any of her things. They must be in the other bedchamber. Ruth probably had everything laid out ready in there.
There was no Ruth either, she thought, not until half past nine tonight. She had left the suite with Gabriel’s valet.
There were just the two of them and this room and bright daylight. And a large, high bed.
She was still wearing her gloves, Jessica saw, looking down. And her bonnet. And her wedding dress.
She drew off her gloves and looked around for somewhere to put them. He took them from her, dropped them—oh dear—on the floor, and came to stand directly in front of her. He pulled loose the bow beneath her chin and removed her bonnet, using both hands. He looked into her face the whole while, those dark eyes of his roaming over it. He dropped the bonnet. Her hair must be squashed.
“My hair must be squashed.”
His eyes came directly to hers. “I will give myself the pleasure of withdrawing the pins and brushing it out,” he said. “The first part may not be as easy as it sounds. It is a work of art.”
“Ruth is good with hair,” she told him.
“We will have to see,” he said, “if I am better.”
His voice was low. She seemed to hear it less with her ears than with some location low in her abdomen. What a foolish thought to be having. And now something down there was aching and pulsing and she swallowed.
“Perhaps,” she said, “I ought to have hired you as