‘This is going to be damned awkward,’ he grated, before turning sideways to slide through the drunken excuse for a barn door.
And then he stopped again.
And cleared his throat.
Though she could scarcely hear it over the thunder of her heartbeat.
‘Right, this is what we’re going to do,’ he said. ‘I’m going to use my valise for a pillow, then spread my jacket over some of the hay. That is if you don’t mind taking it off.’ He glanced down at the row of buttons, then at her face, then into the gloom again, his jaw tightening.
‘I don’t mind at all,’ she said. In fact excitement fizzed through her at the prospect of undressing in front of him. Even if it was only his jacket he’d asked her to remove. And she would still be wearing her modest kerseymere gown. ‘Hay is very prickly,’ she added hastily. ‘It is a very sensible notion to use your jacket as a barrier.’
‘Sensible,’ he repeated, suddenly breaking into a stride that took them all the way to the back of the barn. ‘I will use my coat to cover us, as another barrier against the hay. I shall pull it over the top of us both.’
‘A very practical notion,’ she said.
One of his eyebrows shot up. ‘Really?’ He pulled it down. ‘I mean, naturally. Eminently practical. So,’ he said, ‘you will remove my jacket while I will divide up the hay, and so forth, to make our bed.’
Our bed. The words sent a flush to her cheeks. And, by the feel of it, to other parts she ought never to mention.
‘I give you fair warning,’ he said gruffly, ‘that if it gets really cold, in spite of all the hay, I shall put my arms around you and hold you close.’
Her heart skipped a beat. But that beat sank to her pelvis, where it set up a low, insistent throb.
‘Will you?’ Was that really her voice? All low and husky and breathy?
‘Yes. But I swear, on my honour, that I shall do nothing more.’
‘I know.’ She sighed.
‘How can you possibly know?’
‘I have told you already—I know what kind of man you are.’ And she wasn’t sure why she’d forgotten it, even for those few exhilarating seconds when he’d been standing there talking about taking her to bed. Wishful thinking, she supposed.
‘How can you? We only met this morning. Can you stand for a few moments if I set you down?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And that question only goes to prove what I was saying. You are still going out of your way to tend to my comfort. A lot of men wouldn’t bother. They wouldn’t try to reassure me that my virtue would remain unsullied, either. In fact, I think a lot of men—’ most men, from what she’d seen of masculine conduct so far ‘—would turn this situation to their own advantage.’
‘Oh?’ He bent to pick up his valise and held it before him like a shield while she unbuttoned the jacket he’d lent her. As she slid it from her arms he turned swiftly and buried the valise under a mound of hay.
‘Yes, indeed,’ she said as he turned back and took the jacket from her outstretched hand. He dropped it onto the makeshift mattress quickly, as though it was burning his fingers.
‘I have told you all about my fortune,’ she said. ‘Other men have paid court to me to get their hands on it. You could, at any time today, have started to pressure me into marrying you under the pretext of saving my reputation, and then the money would have been yours. As my husband. But you haven’t.’
‘Perhaps I am not a marrying kind of man—had you thought of that?’
‘No. For one thing you have looked at me once or twice as though you were thinking about kissing me. And you said that thing about my hair.’
‘Hmmph,’ he said, swinging her into his arms again and setting her down gently onto the makeshift bed.
‘For another,’ she said as he reared back and began stripping off his coat. ‘You have already been married.’
‘Perhaps that is what has put me off ever getting married again,’ he said bitterly, before coming down beside her and whisking the coat over them both.
‘Is it?’ She watched through lazily lowered lids as he reached for the hay, pulling bunches of it up and over them until it really did feel as though they were lying in a sort of nest. ‘You looked so unhappy when you mentioned your wife. I wondered...’
‘Wondered what?’ He lay down, finally, next to her, though he kept his arms rigidly at his side.
‘Well, why you looked so unhappy. You pulled a sort of face.’
‘Pulled a face? I never pull faces.’
‘Well, you did. And it wasn’t the sort of expression a widower makes who loved his wife and misses her. It looked as though...’
He made a low growling kind of noise, as though warning her not to proceed any further. She ignored it.
‘And anyway, now you have as good as admitted that you weren’t happy. What went wrong?’
He sighed. ‘I never speak of my wife,’ he grunted. ‘She and I... We...’
Somewhere close by an owl hooted.
Gregory folded his arms across his chest.
She rolled onto her side and curled up a bit. Just until her knee touched his leg.
Which was warm. And solid.
‘There was never any we,’ he said, with evident irritation. ‘The match was arranged by our families. I thought she was happy with it. She seemed happy with it. And I was...content to go along with the arrangement. She was pretty. Very pretty, if you must know. Which I thought was better than being saddled with a woman I would struggle to bed.’
Somehow it seemed rather brazen to be snuggling up to him, hoping he might snuggle up to her, while he was talking about having marital relations. She stealthily straightened her leg so that her knee was no longer nudging his thigh.
But she hadn’t been stealthy enough.
‘If you didn’t want the sordid details,’ he snapped, ‘you shouldn’t have pressed me for the confession.’
She hadn’t pressed. Not really. But perhaps it was the strangeness of the day, the enforced intimacy they’d shared and were still sharing, that made him feel compelled to tell her all about it. Or the fact that they were lying in the dark, in a barn, feeling extremely awkward, and it was better to talk of something completely unrelated to themselves.
Besides, if he truly hadn’t spoken of his miserable marriage ever, to anyone, he probably needed to unburden himself. He’d obviously never felt close enough, or safe enough, with anyone to do so.
She reached out until she found his hand in the dark, and clasped her fingers round it.
‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ she said. ‘But if you want to talk about it...’
He gripped her hand hard.
‘She didn’t like me touching her in bed,’ he grated. ‘She would never have curled into me the way you have just done, or held my hand, or smoothed my brow when I frowned. Or hugged me because she was pleased to see me.’
The poor man. She ran the fingers of her other hand over his. Squeezed it. The poor, lonely man. No wonder his face had settled into a permanently severe expression. No wonder he glowered at people in such a way that they kept their distance. He must find it easier to keep people away than let them get close enough to hurt him. As his wife had done.
‘I was only seventeen when I married her. Not very experienced. And she, of course, was a virgin. It wasn’t... The consummation wasn’t