Chapter 26 #3
Within the split of a second—it was astonishing what a human body could accomplish within the split of a second—she’d bolted upright and swung her legs off the bed.
Her feet had hardly hit the floor before she was frantically dashing this way and that, retrieving articles of clothing.
He’d only just sat up when his trousers hit him full in the chest, quickly followed by his shirt.
Positioned at the foot of the bed, she held a boot in each hand. “You must go, Liam—now.”
“Why?”
He hoped she didn’t plan on throwing his boots at him.
She pointed a boot toward the window. “It’s dawn.”
“’Tis.”
“You’re naked.” She looked down at herself. “And I’m naked.”
She was.
Delectably so.
Her nakedness was, in fact, the lone remaining thing he liked about the last thirty or so seconds.
“You and I are naked in my bedroom.”
“And?”
“If anyone were to discover us, there would be a scandal.”
Ah. He wasn’t sure she would appreciate his opinion on the matter of a scandal involving the two of them, but he was going to speak it, anyway. “Would a scandal be so terrible?”
Her eyebrows creased together.
She blinked.
He’d flummoxed her.
No mean feat, that.
“You know,” he continued into this rare opportunity that had presented itself, “there is a way two people naked and alone together in a bedroom can avoid a scandal.”
Her eyebrows released, and she sprang back into action, tossing his boots onto the foot of the bed. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.” She lifted another garment off the floor—his cravat. “You must leave before you’re discovered.”
For a woman who worked with words, she was certainly being obtuse to the ones he was speaking.
“Those two people could marry,” he said, to be clear.
The cravat she’d just tossed, fluttered silkily onto the bed.
Which was the only movement in the room—aside from the thundering of his heart—for she’d frozen, again. “Marry?”
A stunned beat of time ticked past, then another, as the word hung in the air between them. Into that silence, he said, “It’s the thing your characters do at the end of all your books.”
More stunned silence followed.
“Book,” she said, at last.
Now, it was his brow creasing. Book. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her next words to have been, but it wasn’t that. He reached for his trousers. Whatever lay in store for the conversation ahead, he might want to be clothed.
Saskia must’ve had the same sense for she reached for her robe. “The racing season is concluded.”
“Aye.”
“I have everything I need to complete your memoir.”
“Do you now?”
“All I have to do is write the St. Leger portion, and it will be finished.”
“Oh?” he asked. “And that’s all?”
Opaque emotion passed behind her eyes, and Liam felt suspended on the head of a pin.
He’d all but directly asked her to marry him.
And she’d all but directly said was…
No.
Still, she hadn’t directly refused.
So, he waited.
Within this indirect space yet lay hope.
She nodded, and his heart leapt.
“Yes, that is all.”
From the loftiest heights, his heart sank through him and down through the floor below his feet.
He could stand here and fight—fight for the what he knew she wanted…
fight for a them—but he’d always had a nose for the winning line and he intuited standing his ground wasn’t the way to secure a victory in this instance.
Instead, he would give her what she said she wanted.
He would leave.
Not a minute later, he was dressed well enough not to shock a passing servant.
His hand on the door handle, he hesitated.
Unable not to, he glanced back and caught one last glimpse of Saskia, looking so delectable in her woolen robe, hair tousled about her shoulders, skin yet rosy from their last bout of lovemaking.
How he wanted this woman.
How he loved her.
So…he had to leave her—and in doing so, perhaps, one day, he could have her.
He gave her a parting nod, swung the door wide, and stepped through the opening, shutting the door soundly behind him before he changed his mind.
Gutted, he took one step, then another, away from her.
A familiar voice rang out behind him, stopping him in his steps. “Liam?”
He turned to find Gemma approaching. “Good morning, sister.”
It was possibly the most morose good morning ever to pass a pair of lips. A single eyebrow lifted, she pointedly glanced behind her. “Isn’t that the door to Lady Saskia’s room that I just saw you emerge from?”
“Gemma”—no mistaking the warning in his voice—“leave it be.”
She inhaled a lungful of air and exhaled. Her feet began moving. As she rushed past him, she called over her shoulder, “Come with me to the stables. Artemis needs help with a few ponies that arrived in the night.”
“I’m hardly dressed for the stables, sister.”
She eyed him up and down. “To be fair, you’re hardly dressed at all, brother. Just put on your boots and come with me.”
And like that, Liam was conscribed into service, which was the best thing for him. Otherwise, he would do one of two things—go to his room and brood or turn right back around and knock on Saskia’s door.
Aye, the stables were the best place for him.