to me first.” He stared at Taffy, his eyes wide and sad. “Will you help him undress?”
“Master Rafe, I don’t think–”
“Please.” He squirmed in her arms as she tried to undo his shirt front. “And you won’t need to help him with his nightshirt. He doesn’t wear anything to bed.”
She fell into a fit of coughing.
The marquis slept naked?
Cough. Cough. Cough.
“Blessed saints. Lass, ye canno’ think I’d…”
She knew he would not remove his clothes to sleep tonight. But that did nothing to calm her down. Cough. Cough.
She heard the clinking of glass. In the next moment, he was once again kneeling beside her, but this time he had one arm around her waist and had drawn her up lightly against his big, muscled body so that she felt a splendid, masculine heat radiate off him. “Here, Taffy. Drink this.”
He put a glass of wine to her lips and gently urged her to sip it. “There. Feeling better?”
Had he taken complete leave of his senses? No, she was not feeling better now that she was pasted to his hard body. Was this man forged of steel?
She nodded. “Yes, I must have swallowed the wrong way. It is nothing.”
He cast her a knowing grin, before turning to his son. “Rafe, can ye put the nightshirt on by yerself?”
“Yes.”
He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Good lad. Hop into bed afterward. What if I read ye a book and we give Taffy’s voice a rest tonight? She can sit beside ye and I’ll read to both of ye. That is, unless she has something else she needs to do. She’s a busy lass and canno’ always pay attention to us.”
He still had his arm around her.
This was not good.
He was throwing her senses completely off kilter.
How was she to remain alert when her thoughts grew wooly whenever he was near? No, no, no. This cannot be.
Fortunately, he released her soon after and strode over to the bed to tuck his son in. “Which story would ye like me to read to ye, lad?”
“The one about the boy and the sword in the stone. His name is Arthur but Taffy called him Rafe.”
The marquis nodded and drew a chair over to the side of the bed. “Then I shall call him Rafe, too. But don’t ye wish to hear a different story?”
“No, Papa. I like that one. And we didn’t finish it.”
He drew the covers up to the boy’s chin to tuck him in. “Verra well, King Rafe it shall be. I’ll pick up where Taffy left off.”
“No, start at the beginning.” Rafe popped up to a sitting position when Taffy tried to quietly retreat to the sitting alcove. “Aren’t you going to join us?”
“I’m a little worn out, Master Rafe. I was just going to curl up on the settee for a little while. You won’t miss me while your papa is reading to you.”
The marquis rose with a frown.
Now what had she done to irk him?
“Lass, how are ye going to get any rest on that stiff thing? I’ll be awake for another several hours. Take my side of the bed. Is it no’ important that ye get a decent rest?” He regarded her meaningfully, knowing she would be up all night to guard them and needed to be at her best. She could say with utter certainty that she was presently at her worst. This is why she’d begged Mr. Barrow to relieve her from night duties.
How could she protect this man when her legs were too wobbly to hold her up? How could she think with cool determination when her blood was so fiery, it was volcanic?
And now the marquis was striding toward her, his crystalline gaze capturing her own dumbfounded one. “I’ll no’ hear of it. Use the bed. I’ll wake ye when I retire.”
Rafe was already patting the mattress beside him, so starved of a mother’s affections, it broke her heart. He needed a woman’s soft touch. She understood what he was feeling, understood it to the depths of her soul. “Very well. But please wake me no later than midnight. Promise me, my lord.”
“Aye, lass. Ye have my oath.”
He said no more because neither one of them wished to alarm the boy. While they both had their hearts in their throats, dreading what might transpire over the next twenty four hours, the boy himself was having the best time of his life.
How could any child not enjoy the constant attention from his loving father? Even from her, although she