Chapter Six #4
No sounds trailed up the staircase, so Clara crept down to the main floor, listening for anyone else and hearing nothing.
The public room was empty, save for a fluffy ginger cat splayed out in the fading warmth of the hearth.
She frowned into the darkness and then froze when she peered behind the partition into the private corner where she and Brinley had shared their short-lived supper.
It took her a moment, but she eventually realized the lone slumped figure at a table near the fire was her new husband.
She could hear his soft snores from across the room.
The tankard cupped loosely in his limp fingers told her exactly how he’d chosen to spend the past several hours rather than join her in their chamber.
Did he find her that off-putting that he needed to drink himself into oblivion?
Unfathomably disappointed and deflated, Clara made her way back up the stairs to her chamber, feeling hollow and leaden all at once. Quietly, she shut the door, dropped her wrapper to the ground, and burrowed beneath the quilts. The tears came slow and steady after that.
Clara told herself she was relieved that she didn’t have to be subjected to Brinley’s touch, but the truth was, she’d never felt so alone in all her life.
Her curiosity really had destroyed her, forcing her to trade all the warmth and love of her family for an icy, lonely marriage bed.
*
Pearce awoke to the ungodly clang of a tin platter striking the floor.
He squinted and blinked his bleary eyes to find the cause of the disturbance.
Mrs. Robertson bobbed in a bare approximation of a curtsy and murmured an insincere apology before ducking through the doorway back to the kitchens.
He closed his throbbing eyes with a groan and cradled his head in his hands.
The bare hint of pale light filtering through the cloudy windows told him he’d spent just about the entire night in the main room of the inn.
He cracked his aching neck and tugged at his tight cravat. He was getting too damned old for nights like this one.
It took far more effort than it should have to clear the wool from his mind before he slowly began to remember where he was and why he was there.
Then, the full realization struck him all at once.
Clara.
It was mortifying to admit, but he’d imbibed a few drinks to calm himself and bolster his nerves while Clara took her rest in their chamber.
At the time, he recognized what he was doing, and it made him feel like a green lad.
That embarrassment had led to another drink.
By the time supper had ended, he’d reached the point where he looked forward to exploring Clara’s enticing, nubile body and teaching her about the pleasures of the flesh, but the remaining worm of rationality warned him his control would be more likely to slip, and he risked losing himself inside of her.
That was not a risk he would take.
As a solution, he’d remained in the inn’s public room and continued to drink until he remembered no more. What was meant to be a helpful measure had been overshot by a significant distance, and Lord, how he regretted every bit of it.
“Bollox,” Pearce groaned, then winced at the sound of his own voice.
He stood slowly; his hands trembled as he picked his way up the stairs. It took some concentration, but he found the correct room at the end of the hall and was both relieved and annoyed when he discovered that the door remained unlocked. Did she have no care for her safety? Not even a little?
Despite his heavy steps, Clara remained sound asleep in the bed, one bare leg stuck out from beneath the quilt, her nightshift riding up to offer him enough of a view of her shapely, creamy calf.
A shimmer of renewed desire shone through the haze of his mind.
His eyes traveled up the curve of her hip to the dip of her trim waist. Her arms, covered by the virginal sleeves of her white nightdress, pillowed her head that remained only halfway upon the pillow.
The evidence of her active sleeping lay not only in the torrent of covers, but the violent mass of her thick, dark hair falling in fragrant curls and loops from her ill-fated plait to spill across the mattress.
A broken groan worked its way free in his chest before he could fully smother it.
So many years of suppressed attraction and desire began to well up from the depths of his soul, and he was weak to it.
It ate like acid at his crumbling defenses and urged him to give in.
It screamed at him to take what was now rightfully his, to revel in the freedom granted by their vows.
But he could not.
He would not.
With some effort, Pearce removed his boots, slipped from his jacket, and unwound his cravat. The room was dim, but he thought he tossed the garments in the general direction of his trunk. He moved carefully to crawl atop the lumpy quilt and settle onto the bed beside Clara.
Still, she did not stir.
He sighed, breathing in his wife’s scent, and easily drifted back to sleep.