Page 110 of Bride By Mistake
She scrunched herself down into the bed.
He slid into bed and pulled up the bedclothes. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Civilized people didn’t quarrel, she told herself. Civilized people said polite good-nights and went to sleep as if there weren’t a huge gulf between them.
She hit him.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
“You know what for,” she muttered.
“I don’t.”
She hit him again.
“What the devil is the matter with you?” He sat up.
“I won’t have you teasing me!”
“Teasing you?”
“Yes! Walking around naked, making me believe that at last you might trust me a little—but all the time you were just teasing me. Making me want you!”
He stared at her, his face unreadable and shadowed against the firelight.
“Making you want me?”
“Yes, it’s not fair. How would you like it if I pranced around the room fiddling with logs, stark naked and bathed in firelight—”
“I’d like it very much.”
“—and then I come back and shove myself into a huge, ugly nightshirt, covering every inch—”
“Not every inch, surely.”
“Stop teasing me! Yes, every inch that counts.”
“Every inch counts, believe me,” he murmured. “And the inches that count most are not impeded by the shirt.”
She would have hit him again, only she didn’t want to make a habit of it. “It’s not a joke, Luke.”
“I never thought it was,” he said in quite a different tone. “And if you cannot accept me as I am, I will go else—”
She grabbed him by the arm as he rose. “Don’t you dare walk out on me again, for if you do, I warn you Luke, I will follow you—in my shift if I must!”
He sat back on the bed, and she released his arm.
“You say I cannot accept you as you are, but it’s you who cannot accept yourself, who thinks he must hide himself from me. It’s not modesty, so don’t try to pretend it is. You took off your shirt without a thought when I was thirteen. I remember.”
She waited for him to say something, but there was no sound in the room, only the fire hissing gently and the sound of his breathing.
“I saw you then and you were perfect,” she said softly.
Still he said nothing.
She swallowed. “I have been thinking a lot about that day… and, and what came after it. It’s my fault you couldn’t get an annulment. I didn’t realize what my aunt was asking me. She knew the man had cut all my clothes off me, and that I was naked, and she asked if he hurt me and I said yes, because he did. And, and then she asked me if there was blood, and I said yes, because therewas, only… only not the blood she meant.”
