The stairs creaked and John looked up. His eyes widened.
“Are you still working?” she asked. She tightened the shawl in front of her, her lack of clothing making her want to turn tail and run back up the stairs. She swallowed hard and forced her feet down another step.
She’d left her hair unbound instead of braiding it as she normally would before bed. She’d scrubbed her skin pink and pulled the cotton nightgown on without her corset or shift.
This was the course she’d set, to marry and be a wife to this man. The Fates were cruel to put her with the one man who would never understand and never forgive her if he knew what she’d done. She just couldn’t let him know about her baby.
He closed the ledger and stood, his body unfurling to a height that forced her gaze up and made her breath catch. “I was just waiting for the ink to dry.”
That wasn’t true. He was avoiding her or he’d never have risked smudging the ink by putting his elbows on the book. His store was neat and orderly, his clothes were free of stains that carelessness with ink would have wrought, and his movements as he filled customers’ orders were precise and economical. He was a man who noticed details and carefully managed them. Or at least that was what she thought so far. Not a man given to flamboyance or grand passion—after all, he’d ordered up a bride with probably the same painstaking care that he ordered a sack of flour. But his very steadiness appealed to her.
The passion of her former fiancé had very nearly destroyed her.
“Will you come to bed, soon?” Her voice quavered as she asked the question. She should be smiling and encouraging, but she just couldn’t manage it with the coldness of his unwitting condemnation of her hanging over her.
He turned away and his voice was gruff. “I should make a pallet down here in the storeroom.”
A herd of butterflies stampeded in her stomach. Was he already thinking the marriage a mistake? Would he ask her to leave at first light? No, he didn’t know, she told herself.
She forced herself to weave forward through the maze of burlap sacks, barrels and crates. “Unless you are upset with me—” She couldn’t bring herself to say unless he didn’t want her. That much bravery was beyond her. “—there is no need.”
She’d been fairly certain from the sour expression on his face after he’d offered to give her time that a delay was the last thing he wanted. He’d wanted to have marital relations. Men wanted her in that way. They just didn’t see her as anything more than a plaything, as if she were deficient on the inside in some way.
Or had she repulsed him with her inquiries into the circumstances of his birth?
He stood and folded his arms. “You said you needed time.”
Her face heated. “No. I thanked you for making the offer. I wasn’t expecting it.” She tightened her arms across her chest. His offer had seemed incredibly considerate. “I’m sorry, my response should have been clearer, but I was surprised.” She dropped her chin and looked at him through her lashes in what she hoped was a come-hither look. “And touched.”
His eyes bored into hers and his nostrils flared.
Her heart was beating so fast she could scarcely hear her own thoughts. She should hold out her hand to John, but she’d never had to seduce a man. Clarence had pursued her, kissed and cajoled her, then claimed she didn’t love him until she let him take her virginity in an alley against a brick wall. Or rather she had just stopped fighting him. Then he’d blamed her for being too tempting. Not virtuous enough to be a wife.
She never would have done it if she hadn’t thought she needed to give him what he wanted in order to keep him. She’d thought his complaints about her resistance meant she was losing him. Fool that she was.
“Are you certain?” John asked as he moved around his desk.
She nodded. “My mother always said it is better to just do whatever you are dreading, rather than let your fear of it grow in power.”
He stopped a good five feet from her. His lips twisted to the side. “Dreading?”
“Perhaps that is not the right word.” Selina rubbed her arm, her body cold, her face hot. She attempted a smile, but was too nervous to pull it off. It was the right word, but not one she should have spoken aloud. She should try to make John believe she desired him. “I want you to make me your wife,” she said in a breathy whisper. “Tonight. If that is what you want.”
He stared at her a long second, then gently asked, “Do you understand what I want to do with you?”
A shudder rolled through her. She couldn’t hold his gaze any longer. Her toes curled against the floorboard and a strange energy flooded through her, making her want to fling off the shawl. “I understand.”
His gaze dipped to her feet, then rolled back up to her face. Goodness, had he noticed her bare toes? Somehow that made her feel more exposed.
His brows drew together. “I can explain how it works, if that will make you less fearful.”
He was a man aware of little things. She didn’t know how she could fool him. Perhaps she shouldn’t have admitted to any knowledge, but if she was found out later that would only make her seem more of a liar. “I know what is to happen, but I don’t know if I will like anything beyond the kissing.”
“Trust me, you’ll like more than the kissing,” he said in a low voice.
A shudder rolled through her, but he was wrong. She certainly hadn’t enjoyed relations with Clarence, and it had hurt. He’d been rough and groping, twisting and shoving her corset until the whalebones stabbed her. But in the early days, when he’d simply held her hand and kissed her, she’d liked that.
That time with Clarence seemed so far away and so long ago. She’d been far more enamored with falling in love and getting married than she’d been certain he was the right man for her. And she shouldn’t be thinking about him now. John was her husband, and he’d offered to explain, which Clarence had never done.
She needed to focus on John. He seemed kind. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such an unpleasant undertaking with him. The tingling way she’d felt when he kissed her in the church was what she should be thinking about. His lips had been warm and coaxing, not demanding, as if he just wanted to take from her. But perhaps she had read too much into the kiss. Perhaps she wanted him to be caring and kind so badly, she’d seen what she wanted to see. “I just hope you will be gentle with me.”
“Of course.” His voice was rough.
She wanted to examine his face to see if he lied, but all her organs danced when she looked directly at him.
Why wouldn’t he close the space between them? Her knees were tapping together.
John tilted his head to the side. “Go on up to bed, and I will join you as soon as I close the safe.”
Behind the desk a thick black metal door stood open. So perhaps it was not an excuse to delay. Or was it? “I didn’t mean to anger you earlier.”
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t have asked so many questions,” she offered.
“You have the right to know about my past.” He shifted and folded his arms.
An arrow of remorse shot through her. He had the right to know about her past, too. Only as she risked looking at him, she couldn’t force the truth past her lips. Not with the way he felt about his mother’s abandoning him. It was too risky.
Turning back toward the stairs, she put one hand over her churning stomach. It still pooched out a bit. The dark line that had formed below her naval had faded, but the red welts where her skin had seemed to break beneath