Chapter 22
MARGARET STRETCHED, YAWNED, and sat up on the edge of her bed. She started to get up, then sat back down and didn’t move another muscle as her eyes fell on the man lying on the floor not ten feet away from her.
Sebastian had rolled himself up in the thick bedspread she’d sacrificed for his use.
She’d have to tell Edna to find some extra bedding for him—no, what was she thinking?
He couldn’t stay in her room another night.
They were going to have that conversation again, and this time she would have the last word on the subject of sleeping arrangements.
He was lying on his side, still sleeping, one arm outside the cover.
Her eyes followed that arm up to his shoulder before she realized both were bare.
He’d removed his coat and shirt! She noticed them on the seat of the chair nearest him, quite rumpled now, as if he’d just tossed them there.
And what was that with them? Oh, good God, he’d removed his britches too!
This was intolerable. It was bad enough he was even in the room, but without his clothes on? !
Margaret shot across the room to her bureau, snatched undergarments and stockings out of the drawers with barely a glance, grabbed a morning dress from her wardrobe, and ran straight to the bathroom.
With the door closed behind her, she took a few moments to regain her composure, then quickly dressed for the day.
Well, that didn’t work very well. She couldn’t reach all the bloody buttons on the back of her dress and she was wearing two stockings that didn’t match.
She poked her head outside the door to make sure Sebastian was still sleeping, then rushed to grab a shawl and her shoes.
She’d have to wait until later when Sebastian was gone to change her stockings.
She’d just reached the bedroom door to make her escape when she heard, “Open it and I guarantee you will be scandalized when I make the effort to stop you.”
Margaret dropped her forehead against the door and groaned. She understood the threat. But he was all the way across the room. Surely she could get out of there before he reached her. And then chase her down the corridor? Bloody hell. She wouldn’t put that past him.
Angry now that he was being utterly unreasonable again in trying to keep her there, she turned about to blast him with a piece of her mind and lost every thought.
He was standing there with his pants back on, thank God, but still no shirt, stockings, or shoes.
The expanse of his chest was amazing. He had seemed to be a prime specimen under his clothes, but without them, it was confirmed without a doubt.
A Corinthian body, firm muscles, not a speck of excess flesh.
A thin mat of dark hair across his chest that didn’t travel much lower than that.
Tight, firm waist that led to narrow hips before his very long legs began.
Thick bunches of muscles in his thighs rippled and smoothed out with each movement he made.
His long black hair had come undone from the tight knot where it was usually contained at his nape. It spread across his shoulders and back. Even when he tossed some of it back with one hand, it fell back to annoy him. He looked quite wild. He looked so handsome she could barely breathe.
She searched frantically for the anger she’d so justifiably felt toward him last night, found it, but still couldn’t open her mouth while he was standing there half naked.
So she crossed to her bureau to find a pair of stockings that matched, praying he’d be finished dressing by the time she faced him again.
He was, mostly. His shirt on, at least half fastened and tucked into his pants, he was sitting in the chair now putting on his shoes.
His hair was still in wild disarray, though, and he simply looked so different like that!
Not so in control, certainly not so sinister.
She had a brief urge to help him with his hair.
Actually, she just wanted to touch it, it looked so soft.
“You need a barber,” she said curtly.
“I need a drink,” he shot back, then pinned her with his golden eyes. “That was quite possibly the worst night of hell I’ve ever experienced.”
“Muscles aching from the hard floor?” she smirked.
“No, Maggie, aching for you.”
Her mouth dropped open. The fluttering in her belly that his words caused actually felt—pleasant.
But she forgot to breathe again. What a horrid habit that was starting to be.
She swung around, gulped in a deep breath, started to head to the bed to sit down to change her stockings, but quickly vetoed that idea and moved to the chaise longue instead.
By the time she had her own shoes on and stood up to glance at Sebastian, he had finished dressing as well, even had his hair clubbed back again.
Much better. At least he looked civilized.
But he was just standing there staring at her.
Waiting for her to reply to his last outlandish remark?
As if she would, she snorted to herself.
Calmly, or at least as calmly as she could manage with his eyes so intent on her, she said, “You really are going to have to be reasonable about this, Sebastian. There simply isn’t enough privacy in here for us to share this room.”
“I agree.”
“Thank God.” She went weak with relief.
“But that doesn’t solve our dilemma.”
He wasn’t going to be reasonable after all. She could see that, and it incensed her. “We don’t have a dilemma!”
“Be quiet, Maggie.”
She glared at him. “Don’t you dare start ordering me about again. If I want to chatter for a week, I bloody well will.”
“I was referring to your tone, m’dear. Flay me all you like, just do it without shouting. The walls are thick, but they’re not that thick.”
“Oh,” she said nonplussed and with a blush.
“Now, as I was saying,” he continued. “I do have another suggestion. But first, tell me, where did you get the kind of money you intend to pay me with?”
“I don’t have it, but I can get it. My family owned many properties. I’ll just sell a few.”
“Unless you’re talking about ducal estates, you won’t be getting more’n a few thousand pounds for ‘properties.’ ”
She blushed. He was probably right. But she simply hadn’t thought that far ahead.
When she didn’t answer, he added, “You could pay me off in trade.”
She raised a brow at him. “What trade? I have nothing to trade you.”
His golden gaze moved over her. “Your body will do.”
She drew in her breath sharply. “You are despicable!”
“No, just randy at the moment.”
Could her face get any hotter? She’d never in her life been subjected to the sort of things this man said, and he said them as if there was nothing wrong with saying them.
The man really had forgotten how to behave in polite society, had far too long been The Raven, uncouth, deadly, a merciless mercenary.
Stiffly, she said, “That’s out of the question. I’ll get your money.”
Was his shrug a little bit disappointed? she wondered, but he merely warned, “Don’t make me wait too long proving that you can.”
“Or what? You’ll leave? Without finishing the job?”
“A job you haven’t paid for.”
“This is your family,” she reminded him. “I shouldn’t have to pay you.”
“Ex-family. I warned you that they mean nothing to me now.”
“Liar,” she retorted, and then in an incredulous tone, “Good God, you even said it yourself, that you weren’t serious about that price.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
He started walking toward her. Margaret stiffened, but by the time he reached her, she could have been a statue for all the movement she was capable of.
She expected the worst. He was looking too damn serious.
And such close proximity to him flayed her nerves as it usually did.
And quickened her pulse. And shot her anticipation sky-high.
He ran the back of his finger across her cheek. It was the lightest touch, and yet it set afire every nerve in her body and made her feel as if she were melting. How could something so harmless nearly buckle her knees? How could this man affect her so strongly? She simply didn’t understand it.
“You do realize that no one will expect you to be a virgin after you obtain your ‘divorce’?” he said in too soft a tone. “And it will settle the difficulty we are having with a single room. Think about it, Maggie.”
She’d do nothing of the sort. He was mad even to suggest it.
But she wasn’t about to say that with him standing so close to her that she could feel his body’s heat and hear him breathing.
She had to remind herself to breathe! And she wanted to step back, she really did, but couldn’t seem to move.
Fear. That had to be it. He was terrifying her.
Yes, that was a much better conclusion to draw than that he excited her beyond anything else she’d ever experienced.
Her silence must have encouraged him because he suddenly caressed her other cheek. Really, so lightly she might not even have noticed if it had been anyone but him touching her.
“You’re soft,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting that, as hardnosed as you are.”
She blinked. Teasing her when she was so frazzled she couldn’t put two thoughts together? But it allowed her to break the trance she’d been in and stumble away from him—stupid knees still weren’t working right.
But the distance let her think clearly again and she was quick to mention, “There is another option, the most commonsense one. You simply return to White Oaks until your father recovers. Make some excuse for doing so. You can’t talk to Douglas, anyway, until he regains consciousness.
There’s really no reason for both of us to take the bedside vigil. ”
He appeared to give that some thought, then said, “No. I need to be here when Juliette gets back from London. I need to see her reaction to my return. And besides, leaving here now that I’ve gained entrance defeats the purpose of our ‘marriage.’ I can’t very well push and prod to find out what’s been happening here if I’m at White Oaks. ”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll return home, then, and you do the bedside vigil.”
“I don’t do bedside vigils. And we don’t want my face to be the first thing my father sees when he awakens. That would probably shock him back to unconsciousness. Denton was right in that regard. He’d much prefer you for his nurse.”
Margaret gritted her teeth. The man was absolutely impossible to deal with. And absolutely determined to share a room with her, apparently.
She threw up her hands and marched to the door.
“Very well, but your bedding will be moved into the bathroom. There is plenty of floor space in there for it, and don’t you dare try to insist there isn’t.
And the door will remain closed between us.
And you will knock before entering this room.
And I will not discuss it further. That is my last word on it. ”
She’d reached the door, opened it, and turned to glare at him, daring him to come up with an excuse to refute what she’d just said.
He said nothing, was giving her his usual inscrutable look.
He’d gotten what he wanted in the end, both of them “appearing” to be sharing the room.
He’d thoroughly wracked her emotions and she’d still lost the battle. Odious man.
“And I’m not the least bit hard-nosed!” she added before she closed the door on him. “I merely exercise common sense.”