Page 36 of The Duke's All That
It was the lightest of touches, something without any meaning, a mere caress. Yet it touched Seraphina in a very visceral way. She felt it from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes and every inch in between. Was she so starved for touch, then, that such an innocent contact of skin could affect her so deeply?
Shaking, confused, she pulled her hand from his. He released her immediately, not a hint of pressure in his fingers to keep her trapped in his grip. Which should have brought her relief. And itdidbring her relief.
Yet there was also a hint of disappointment as well. Why? She chewed on her lip as he hesitantly held out the slice of apple to Phineas, who took it without hesitation. She didn’t want anything to do with Iain, after all. They were on this trip to secure a divorce, to legally end whatever it was they had shared all those years ago, and to go their separate ways. And that was all.
Wasn’t it?
Chapter 16
The remainder of the evening was spent in silence, each of them keeping to themselves—not an easy thing in so small a room—some seemingly insurmountable wall having gone up between them at that innocent touch of their hands. And, as baffling as it may be, Iain found that he missed Seraphina.
Not that she wasn’t there just feet away from him. No, there was no escaping her physical presence in this cramped space. But after that short moment of connection, when they had talked and laughed together in a faint echo of what they used to have, he was left feeling strangely bereft when it abruptly ended. Which was probably why he had forgotten what was to come when the time to sleep was at hand.
Seraphina, who had been interacting with her bird in a sweetly intimate way that had him simultaneously liking and feeling jealous of the creature, suddenly cleared herthroat and stood. “I suppose it is time to sleep if we’re to get an early start tomorrow,” she said pointedly.
Sleep. Which meant sharing the single bed. Which was suddenly looking much smaller than it had when they’d first entered the room. Iain, who had pulled one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs as far across the room as he had been able and had been pretending to read for the past hour—when all along he had been watching Seraphina and her pigeon out of the corner of his eye—swallowed hard. “I’ll leave you to change then, shall I?” he asked as he rose. Then, before Seraphina could reply, he was out the door, closing it firmly behind him.
The hall was dark and narrow, yet for the first time since closing himself in that room with Seraphina, he felt he could breathe. He dragged a breath in, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall. Though as the sounds of her moving about the room drifted out to him, making him realize just what she was doing in there—and how close he would be lying next to her in a short while—his chest began to close up again. And when he recalled, quite against his will, the scene from just that morning when he had woken to her over him, her luscious body pressed to his, his cock against her thigh, he found himself gasping to force air into his starved lungs. Perhaps it would be better if he were to sleep on the floor. Yes, the boards were rough and bare. Yes, it would be incredibly uncomfortable, and he would no doubt rise in the morning with aches in places he did not even know he possessed.
But he would be no better lying next to her, that was certain. In fact, he rather thought he would be much worse off after a night of holding himself stiff as a board—in more ways than one—afraid to move an inch or evenclose his eyes lest he find himself tangled in her arms once more.
By the time Seraphina opened the door to let him back in the room, he had convinced himself that sleeping on the floor was quite possibly the best decision he had ever come up with. And apparently Seraphina was of the same mind, if her relieved expression was any indication when, without a word, he stripped the bed of half its pillows and blankets and began forming a makeshift pallet on the floor.
Even so, she was not without politeness—albeit grudging politeness. “Are you certain you do not wish to share the bed?” she asked, in a tone that said loud and clear she hoped he would refuse.
“Nae, I’ll be fine; I’ve slept on worse,” he mumbled, trying not to notice how delicious she looked in her prim nightgown, a plain thing with nary a bow or flounce, that covered her from neck to toe yet made him all too aware of what was underneath.
So saying, he lowered himself to his sad excuse for a bed. Should he remove his kilt? Perhaps. But there was no way on God’s green earth he was going to strip in front of Seraphina.
That woman, after speaking to her pet in that husky voice of hers that had parts of him stirring to life, put the bird away in his cage before, hurrying to the bed on bare feet, she quickly climbed beneath the covers. There was much fussing as she adjusted her blanket and pillow, the bed creaking beneath her the whole while. Iain pressed his back molars together until he was certain they would crack from the pressure, closing his eyes tight, holding himself as still as possible. She would soon settle, he told himself. And once she did, he could pretend she was notthere and finally fall asleep and put this whole horrible night behind him.
But once she quieted, once he could no longer hear her body shifting on the mattress, he was in for another type of torture. It began as a low murmuring, someone from one of the adjacent rooms no doubt talking, an occasional laugh breaking through. He focused on the sound as if it were a lifeline, something to concentrate on instead of the sound of Seraphina’s soft breathing. That soon backfired in a spectacularly horrendous way, however, as the murmurs transformed into low moans. When those moans grew louder, then were quickly accompanied by a rhythmic creaking and thumping, his fears that they were to be the unwitting auditory audience to a vigorous bout of lovemaking were realized.
And then, to make matters so much worse, he instinctively glanced at the bed—only to find, in the dim light of the low fire, Seraphina’s wide eyes on him.
They stared at each other for a long, agonizing minute. All the while the sounds on the other side of the wall continued, growing in enthusiasm.
When a particularly energetic bout of moaning ensued, Seraphina sat upright in bed, as if shocked with a jolt of electricity, fumbling her spectacles back onto her face and hugging her knees to her chest.
“Talk to me,” she demanded, the words quick and frantic.
Iain leveraged himself up on one elbow, desperately glad for the distraction. Even so, he could not seem to form a coherent-enough thought to figure out what he could talk about that was not centered around the noises bombarding them. “About what?”
“I don’t know. Something. Anything.” She waved animpatient hand in the air, her voice rising as the moans on the other side of the wall gained in volume. “Tell me how you made your fortune.”
Relief coursed through him, as well as a healthy wish to tease her from her anxiety. “Are you admitting that I did not take money from your father then?”
He was rewarded with her dark frown. “You know very well it would be stupid of me to continue believing his lies. Now, are you going to tell me or not?”
He fought back a smile. “Very well,” he said, lying back down, pillowing his head in his hands and looking up at the ceiling with its dark beams and thick plaster. “After I was told you betrayed me, I was quite heartbroken, as you can imagine. But I did nae allow the heartbreak to remain for long. I had my pride, after all. And so my mind turned to revenge. But I was a nobody, with nae money or power over an English peer.”
The bed creaked as she shifted, making him pause. And then her voice, soft and husky from the shadows, drifted to him. “You were never a nobody to me.”
He exhaled a soft breath at the confession. When he glanced her way, he expected her to blanch and declare she had misspoken. Instead she stared steadily and somberly at him. Clearing his throat, more affected than he could admit, he continued.
“With revenge against your father out of the question—or, at least, immediate revenge—I set my sights on using what few skills I had against other English usurpers, those bastards who had swooped in like vultures and taken possession of the homes of good Scots families simply for the crime of defending their country. I was always good at cards, you may recall.” He grinned her way.
She smiled, fond remembrance in her eyes. “Yes, I recall. You won my pin money off me more times than I can count.”
