Page 36 of My One and Only Duke
Quinn had not touched a woman beneath her skirts for years. What allowed him to exercise that familiarity now was Jane’s utter indifference to the intimacy. She was exhausted, uncomfortable, and desperate for rest.
“If we have a daughter,” she said, as Quinn untied the first garter, “I’ll not tell her the fairy tales.”
Quinn’s mind tripped over the first part—if we have a daughter. As a father, he expected to write out bank drafts and pay bills, though Jane’s ideas about parenting apparently involved something more.
“I thought children liked fairy tales.” Quinn wouldn’t know, having had no one to tell him pretty stories when he’d been a child.
“Some children do. I’m referring to the pernicious falsehoods told among women: When you hold that new baby, you’ll forget the misery you endured for nine months, and the hours or even days of travail that brought the child into the world. That fairy tale. Our daughters will know that conceiving a child opens the door to indignities without number, and they go on forever.”
Quinn draped two worn, mended stockings over the battered boots. “Let’s get you into bed.”
He hauled Jane to her feet, and watched while she wiggled, twisted, and muttered her way out of the aubergine dress. Something like panic rose inside him as she handed him the frock.
She wore neither stays nor jumps, but stood in only her shift, the slight protuberance of her belly obvious beneath the worn linen.
“We must have an awkward discussion, Mr. Wentworth,” she said, climbing the step to the bed, “about conjugal intimacies.”
They were up to three awkward discussions in less than a day, doubtless a record for newlyweds. “Must we have that conversation now? I was under the impression your sole objective at the moment was sleep.”
She threw back the covers on Quinn’s side of the bed—he always slept closest to the window—and scooted beneath the sheets, then snuggled down into his pillow with a great sigh.
“We are man and wife,” she said. “I will accommodate you if you insist on consummating our vows now, though I will be fast asleep all the while. I don’t require awkward professions or pretty words, which we both know you cannot sincerely offer. I love this bed.”
She looked small amid the pillows and covers, like a hedgehog burrowing in for the winter.
“I will not trouble you now in the manner you refer to.”
She regarded Quinn from amid a sea of pillows, snowy linen, and soft quilts. “You’ve had a trying day. Your neck has to be sore. Why not take a nap? This sumptuous abundance of a bed has room for half a regiment.”
She was in love with his bed—or his shaving soap—while mention of Quinn’s neck reminded him of a constant, burning ache.
“I typically sleep on the side of the bed you’re occupying.”
She thrashed to the other side of the mattress, a beached fish determined to reach the waterline.
“Now will you come to bed? Your siblings won’t intrude or I’ll swoon on them—or worse—and you probably haven’t had a good night’s sleep for weeks. We’ll face your family again at dinner.”
And at breakfast, and again tomorrow evening. Abruptly, Quinn was ready to drop. Mentally, physically, and in every other regard, he’d hit the limit of his reserves, the end of his tether.
“You won’t mind if I grab a nap?”
“I’ll be asleep. I promise you, Mr. Wentworth. I’m asleep now, in fact.”
Jane might be comfortable with marital familiarity, but Quinn needed the modesty afforded by the privacy screen. Because Jane had said the scent of his soap soothed her digestion, he gave himself an extra wash in a few obvious locations, and got a wretchedly stinging neck for his troubles.
Better a stinging neck than a broken one.
Jane lay on her side, her breathing slow and regular, as if she’d settled in until the next change of season.
Quinn locked the parlor door and the bedroom door, opened the bedroom window, and climbed beneath the covers. He was aware of Jane, but she was so still that her company was more of an idea than a presence.
He hadn’t shared a bed with a woman in years. Hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t seen the need. He was married, though, had spoken vows and taken a wife. They could sort out the details later. For now, Quinn gave himself up to the miracle of sleeping once again in his own bed.
His and Jane’s.
* * *
“She’s pretty,” Stephen said. “Leave it to Quinn to find a wife in prison who’s not only proper but pretty.”
