“Which part was pleasant?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Which part”—he crawled closer—“was pleasant.”
“I . . . Well . . .”
His face took on a wolfish expression. “Was it when I kissed you?”
“Well, yes, but—” Damn it. She did not want to admit any of this to him.
“Was it when I touched you . . . here?”
She slapped his hand away before he could stroke the side of her neck. “I don’t want you,” she said.
“Liar.”
“Fine. I don’t want to want you.” She tried to twist away, but he had inadvertently pinned the damask bed covering around her when he’d moved closer. She yanked at it, with little success. “And I certainly don’t want you tonight.”
This seemed to amuse him. “You don’t want me tonight, or you don’t want to want me tonight?”
She shook her head. “You’re mad.”
He let out a grim laugh.
Charlotte finally managed to loosen some of the bedclothes and scooted a few inches away. “You can’t just promenade into my bedchamber and expect me to do my duty.”
“If I recall, you enjoyed your duty. And also—promenade?”
“Don’t be pedantic.”
“I don’t promenade.” He sat back on his haunches with an expression of disbelief. Maybe disgust. “I don’t have time to promenade.”
“And how could I know that since I never see you?”
He rolled his eyes. “There are things I have to do.”
“What things?”
“Private things.”
She rolled her eyes.
“There are things in my life that have nothing to do with you.” His voice began to rise in volume, and he started doing that funny thing he did with his hands when he was nervous.
Oddly, it was one of the things she liked best about him—that he, too, sometimes felt nervous when they were together. It made her feel less alone.
“You may be my wife,” George said, “but that does not grant you access to every corner of my existence.”
“Then you don’t get access to every corner of my existence, either.” She didn’t care that she sounded childish; she had to make her point.
“Charlotte, this must be done.” He motioned to the bed. They both knew what he meant.
“I don’t want to,” she said in a very small voice. Because she was lying. She knew she was lying. She did want him. She wanted her husband. She’d been evicted from her homeland and sent overseas. Alone.
She wanted to feel close to another human being.
But she wanted that human being to be the George she’d thought he was. Just George.
Just George was kind and funny and when he kissed her, she lost all reason.
This George—the one who called her a duty and reminded her that “this must be done”—could probably also make her lose all reason with a single kiss.
But her heart would remain untouched.
And yet still, she could not stop thinking about him—the way his head tilted when he smiled, or the exact sound of his laugh. She could not stop thinking about their kiss in his observatory at Kew, and how he’d told her he’d been aching to touch her. But most of all, she couldn’t stop thinking about their one, perfect night. When he’d licked his way down her body, and—
“Arrrrrrrrgh.”
“Did you just growl?” he asked.
“No.” Dear God, this was mortifying.
“Well, move over, it’s time to do this.”
“And I told you. I do not want to.”
He practically bounced along the mattress until he was barely a foot away. He grinned. “I do not believe you.”
“So you would force me?”
He smiled. Like a rogue. “It would not come to that.”
“Well, I won’t have you.”
“Kiss me,” he said abruptly.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Kiss me. Once. If you still do not want me, then I will go.”
She scoffed at that. “Don’t be absurd.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Afraid? Of course not. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Good,” he said. “I never thought you were. You’re afraid of yourself.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“I am not.”
“You sound like a child.”
She did, and she blamed him. He was the only person who brought out such truculence. With everyone else, she was a sparkling conversationalist.
“What day is it today?” she asked suddenly.
He blinked and shook his head, befuddled by her lightning change of topic. “Tuesday, I believe.”
“The date,” she said sharply. “I meant the date.”
“September the sixteenth.”
“Even days, then,” she said, waving her arm expansively toward the rest of the bed. “We shall do this on even days.”
“Even days,” he repeated.
“That’s what I said.” And if she sounded proud, so be it. She’d retaken control of the situation. He might get what he wanted, but it would be on her terms.
But he was still regarding her as if she were somewhat addled. “We will have a schedule for copulation.”
She shrugged. “If you wish to speak about it so clinically.”
“Given the lack of feeling between us, clinically is the only way to speak about it.”
“Obviously.”
“Well, then.” He nodded at her book, still in her left hand.
“What?”
“Get rid of it. We have work to do.”
She felt her head shaking in confusion. What was he talking about?
“It’s an even day,” he said. He took the book from her and tossed it aside.
“Oh.”
Oh.
George
It was a Pyrrhic victory, but George decided he just didn’t care.
“Not love sonnets this time?” he quipped.
“It wasn’t love sonnets last time.”
He pulled the covers aside and moved over her, still on his hands and knees. “It won’t be love sonnets right now,” he warned. It was cruel, but her rejection of him had also been cruel. He’d thought their wedding night had meant something.
It had meant something to him.
He looked down, searching her eyes for hints of fear—he did not think he could live with himself if she feared him. But all he saw was excited defiance. Her eyes glittered with energy, and her breath grew fast and shallow.
Just like his.
“It’s too bad you hate my touch so much,” he taunted, trailing his fingers down the side of her throat.
She reached right between his legs and squeezed. “It’s too bad you hate my touch so much.”
Oh, she was going to play it that way, was she? He rolled them so she was on top, grabbed the hem of her loose-fitting nightgown, and whipped it right over her head.
“No buttons,” he said approvingly.
She gasped at the swiftness of his actions, but if she felt embarrassed by her nudity, she did not show it. Instead, she squeezed harder.
A little too hard, to be honest.
But she was new to this. She did not know the border between a man’s pleasure and pain.
At least he hoped not. Otherwise, she was trying to do him serious damage.
“A little less vigor,” he said, wedging his hand between hers and his member. His dressing gown had fallen open, and for all intents and purposes, he was now as naked as she.
“Like that,” he instructed, showing her how he liked to be held and stroked. And because fair play was in order, he returned the favor.