She glanced over her shoulder at him. “So until the wedding ceremony in your chapel, we’ll be chaste?”
Her smile flirted and taunted, and he marveled at how quickly Amy had learned to entice. “There is an advantage with living in a building that was once an abbey.”
“What is that, Jermyn?” She pulled on her tattered gloves.
Biggers moaned softly. “The place is riddled with secret passages,” Jermyn told her.
“But my lord! You’re not suggesting you’ll visit my bedchamber for a tryst?” She fluttered her eyelashes and tried to look shocked.
With a straight face, he replied, “Absolutely not! You’ve already proved your skill at sneaking into my bedchamber, so I thought you would come to mine.”
She burst into laughter, a full-bodied peal or merriment. Taking his arm, she scolded, “Layabout!”
“Only with you, my bride, only with you.
Jermyn’s breath stilled. He watched intently. So far, she had followed his instructions. Now he waited to see if she would follow his last, insistent direction.
In the top drawer of my bedside table, there’s a small box. It contains everything we need to make our night pleasurable . . . leave everything else behind but bring that box.
He bent his will on her.
Amy, get the wooden box. Get it. If thoughts had power, then his directive would surely be followed.
She gathered the clothes, wrapped them in a piece of brown paper and tied them like a package with a string. She thrust the package into a large cloth bag that hung by her belt and started toward the sitting room.
In frustration, Jermyn wanted to stick his fist through the wall.
Why couldn’t the girl just once do as she was told?
At the doorway, she hesitated.
Jermyn’s heart lifted. Do it, he mentally urged. Get it. She glanced toward the bedside table, then away. Jermyn could almost see the tug-of-war between her good sense and her yearning.
Had he baited the trap with strong enough desire? Had he played the meek, willing male with enough sincerity?
With a soft “blast!” she hurried to the bedside table. Opening the drawer, she pulled out the wooden box and stared at it as if it were a striking snake.
With a glance around her, she placed it on the table and raised the lid. She lifted the small, gilt-and-blue bottle. Pulling the stopper, she sniffed.
Jermyn preferred a combination of bayberry and spice, and he held his breath as he scrutinized her face, waiting for her reaction.
If she didn’t savor the scent, he had no doubt she would put it back.
But for a mere second, she closed her eyes. Pleasure placed a faint smile on her lips.
She liked it.
And he hoped she associated the scent with him, with the day she kidnapped him. That would be sweet justice indeed.
Briskly she stoppered the bottle, replaced it in the box and slid the box in her pocket.
Together the two men watched as she left the bedroom. Jermyn heard a click as the outer door closed. Guardedly he walked out, surveying the sitting room.
Empty.
Turning to the bewildered Biggers, Jermyn said, “Quickly, man. I need that bath!
Amy tossed in her bed, then froze as she heard Northcliff’s voice in her head. Do you know that when you rise in the morning, I hear your footsteps over my head? I imagine you slipping out of a worn nightgown, your body gleaming pale and sweet, and donning one of your ghastly gowns. At night, the floorboards creak as you ready yourself for bed, and I imagine you undressing. And all night long, every time you turn over in your virgin bed, I hear you. You have me imprisoned, but I am watching you.
A shiver ran up her spine at the memory of Northcliff’s words, but it wasn’t fear. It was desire. She wanted to rise from her bed and go to him. She wanted to see him. Not just his face or the expanse of his chest, but all of him. Because while he said he had been imagining her, she had also been imagining him.
In a motion so slow and cautious her ancient straw-stuffed mattress made no noise, Amy sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees.
Northcliff was awake below. She knew it; she could feel his unswerving attention, the waves of his will beckoning her to him.
If Amy had one ounce of romance in her soul, she would be sighing with gratification. Instead, she said acerbically, “All that’s missing is the love poem.”
Jermyn deposited her in a chair by the table. “I’ll order a pen and ink for you.
I won’t walk through the wedding arch with you,” she said.
“The arch is traditionally used by grooms with reluctant brides, for the arch is tall enough for a man with his woman on his shoulder.”
As they reached the door, he bent and put his shoulder in her stomach. As if she were a sack of potatoes, he swung her up and over. Amy shrieked and gave his back a good hard thump.
He dropped her down until her rear sat uppermost on his shoulder and her head dangled almost to his trousers, and kept walking.
“Miss Victorine!” she shouted.
“I’ll come as fast as I can, dears!” Miss Victorine called from the doorway.
“Shame on you for appealing to an old lady for rescue.
Why do we have to go to Summerwind Abbey tonight? Why couldn’t we have waited until I at least combed the sand out of my hair?” She heard the whine in her voice and realized she’d been reduced to petulance. With any luck at all, she’d become a nag and make Jermyn a dreadful wife.
Christina DoddBecause late night, when I made you mine—”
“Shush. You didn’t!”
“All right. Last night when you made me yours—”
She definitely heard Pom snort.
Ah, Lord Northcliff, how well you look this afternoon!”
“Thank you. I feel well indeed.”
Taking Amy’s hand, he held it in both of his. “As long as my princess is nigh.
And you’re prickly enough about being young.”
She was amusing him.
“More than ever, I feel as if I’ve robbed the cradle.”
But she knew how to puncture his mirth. “You are very old,” she agreed demurely.
He pushed her backward onto the grass.
She laughed and fought him. Within minutes he had her arms trapped over her head, and he kissed her while the world whirled around them. “I win!” he said against her lips.
“Only because you used brute force.”
“It’s better than drugs in a glass of wine,” he retorted.
“You would think so, since you hold the brute force.”
He grinned down at her. “But I did win.”
“Yes, yes, you won.” She dismissed his boasting as if it were of no consequence. “Are you ever going to forget that stupid manacle?”
“No, I think I’ll be bringing it up at inconvenient moments for the rest of our lives.”
At his ill-thought-out words, they both froze, their eyes wide with shock.
The rest of their lives?
Their gazes shifted away from each other.
Yes, I'm a man and everyone knows men are great hairy beasts scarcely tamed by civilization
-Jermyn, Duke of Northcliff to Amy, Princess Beaumontaigne
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