Page 49 of Lady, Behave
Addy went on. “She said it was disconcerting to find that they constantly looked not at her eyes but at the points of her nipples.”
Gyles choked on his drink. “Terrible.”
“Men were always going on about my skin or my hair. Men don’t love women…truly love any woman…for her hair.”
“Never.”
She sat up a little and looked him straight in the eyes. “You don’t love my hair, do you?”
“It suits you.” Bright. Full of sunlight, the essence of her cheerful character. “But no, I’m not in love with your hair. You could go bald, and I’d never notice.”
She shivered. “That’s a truly frightening picture.”
He shook his head and pointed to hers. “I love what’sinyour head, my darling.”
“Oh, good.” She settled back into his arms.
“More than that,” he whispered as he placed his palm between her breasts, “I love what’s in here.”
“Show me.”
*
Addy wanted himto make love to her. She wished to be taken, possessed as her husband’s true and loving equal. Certainly, she’d seen no hint in his eyes or words from his lips that he feared Fellowes had ruined her. But she worried.
Oh, yes, last night she had examined her clothes that she’d worn yesterday when that horrid little man abducted her. The bodice of her walking dress was intact. The skirts of her gown and petticoats were not torn. The hems of both were soiled, showing no greater signs of use than her walk to the Lanes. Indeed, the garments bore few marks for the way he had manhandled her. They were wrinkled. A few bits of hay had worked their way into the warp and weft of her cotton dress and muslin petticoats. But her drawers were intact. No blood marked the fine fabric.
She was not sore. She was not marked on her breasts or her intimate places. Her fear that he had raped her in the stables abated but still lived as a possibility. She wished to be whole for her husband.
“Marchioness!” He grinned at her, driving her sorrows farther away. “Where do you go without me?”
She must not stay here to say this. She pushed up and away to walk toward the fireplace. She had to face him—and spun. “I am afraid we might discover I am not whole.”
Alarm did not crease his brows. He was cool, centered, focused on her expression.
“Do you have evidence of this?”
“None.”
“Why then are you apprehensive?”
“I do want to be perfect for you.”
“We all want to be perfect, my love. But that is a fine ambition and a life-long process.”
She frowned, catching up the silk of her nightclothes and rubbing the gossamer in her nervous fingers. He was being obtuse when, surely, he knew what she meant by her need for perfection. “I did nothing to encourage him.”
“I know that.”
“In fact, I was rude.”
He gave her a crooked little smile. “So I assumed.”
“He was insulting to you, too. And saw us…” She could not look at Gyles any longer.
“Come to me.”
She considered the Aubusson rug and shook her head.
