Page 35 of The Viscount and the Vixen
“You don’t have to go to that bother.”
He didn’t want her to be considerate, damn it. He needed her to demand spoiling. “As you no doubt discovered this morning, the bathing room stays chilly.” Pressing his thumb to her chin, he rubbed at the dirt, wondering why it fascinated him, why he liked seeing her in such a disheveled state. “Mrs.Barnaby wants her keys returned.”
“Of course. I’ll see to that immediately.”
He moved his thumb up to her lower lip, stroked it, considered nipping at it, but if his mouth got anywhere near hers, he was likely to toss her on top of that piano she seemed rather fond of and possess her then and there. That would certainly give it a polishing. But she needed a bath. He needed food and drink. And he didn’t want to take her quickly or roughly. Not the first time anyway.
Every other aspect of their relationship might be stiff and awkward, but he wasn’t going to tolerate it in the bedchamber. That required patience on his part. He would live with the torment of not possessing her for now. But before the night was done, he would claim her body as his own.
As he escorted her from the room, Portia was a bit surprised—based upon the way his eyes had darkened as he’d rubbed her chin—that he hadn’t tossed her on a nearby sofa and hefted up her skirts.
Once outside, she locked the door, already dreading the encounter she would have with Mrs.Barnaby regarding the keys in the morning. She was going to reclaim the room whether Locksley liked it or not. When he wasn’t around, she would entertain herself by playing the piano. She understood it was his house and his rules, but some were in need of breaking.
Carrying on down the hallway, she became very aware of her uneven gait, her slipper whispering along the floor, his boot clomping.
“How are you managing to keep my boot on?” he asked.
“I stuffed newspaper into the toe and around the sides filling up the space around my foot. A trick I learned from my mother, who always bought our shoes a bit large so we could grow into them and they’d last longer.”
“Ourshoes? You had siblings?”
She grimaced. The less he knew about her, the better things would be for her. While she’d been ghastly disappointed that he had no interest in her playing the pianoforte for him, she found some solace in his merely wanting her body. He wasn’t likely to ask questions or delve into her past. But she wanted to limit her lies, because the truth was always easier to remember. “Two sisters and a brother.”
“Last night, you said you had no family.”
Because I don’t.
“Are they dead?”
It would be so much simpler to say yes. “No. But they did not approve of Montie. So I had to choose him or them.”
“You chose him.”
She nodded.
“But surely after he died...”
“They want nothing to do with me.”
“Even though you are now married to a peer?”
“I could marry a prince of England and they wouldn’t forgive me.” She could feel him studying her. She’d said too much. He was going to continue to question, and when he learned the truth the annulment he’d suggested earlier would become a reality. What was she thinking to be so careless with what she revealed?
“This way,” he said, turning down a hallway.
Confused by the direction, she stopped, pointed toward another corridor. “That way leads to the kitchens. I’m fairly certain of it.”
“We’re taking a detour.”
“For what purpose?”
“It’s not a woman’s place to question her husband.”
Or any man for that matter, she was well aware. If she’d questioned Montie she might not have found herself in this unconscionable position. But she wasn’t going to make the mistake of trusting blindly again. “You did not strike me as the sort who would want a sheep for a wife.”
“As you’re well aware I didn’t want a wife at all.”
There was that, she supposed. So when he started off again, she followed. She’d opened the doors in this hallway earlier in the day. She knew they contained nothing nefarious, nothing that should give her cause for worry. “But you require an heir, so eventually you would have wanted a wife.”
