Emma Jensen - Entwined (15 page)

Determined to move slowly, smoothly—although his instinct was to storm forward and drape himself over her—Nathan entered. Isobel stood, framed by the blazing fire in the hearth. Like moth to flame, Nathan thought a bit hazily as he walked toward her. She was drawing him, with her soft scent and her silence, luring him as surely as if she had cast a net.

Slowly,
he commanded himself as he strode forward.
Smoothly, damn it!

He might have succeeded had he been in more familiar surroundings.

He rarely had a reason to be in this bedchamber, however, and did not know all the obstacles. The tip of his cane caught on a chair leg. His weight shifted dangerously, and before he could do more than curse, he was falling forward.

He saw a blur of motion, and decided, in the split second, that perhaps a continuously bruised ego due to his clumsiness was not such a terrible thing—especially when compared to being embraced by his wife.

Isobel did not think. She acted. Rushing forward, she managed to get her arms around him before he fell. As remembered, he was heavy enough to make her stagger. As remembered, too, the contact sent the oddest warmth coursing through her.

The first flash was like wildfire, fierce and fast. What followed, as they both went still, was like coals. The end of a fire—or the beginning. It pulsed and warmed, and made her feel far more weak than Oriel's mere weight against her.

She had intended for him to do something to find his own balance again.

At least she thought it had been her intent. He did not relinquish his hold on her, however. Instead, he settled one large hand at her hip. And she did not think to object. It was disturbing, this instant response to his touch, deeply unsettling, but she did not find it unpleasant at all.

She lifted her gaze from his loosened cravat to his face and saw something vivid in the depths of his eyes. It was a flash, a light, an emotion trapped, she thought, as a shard of life might be trapped in amber. Her nerves jittered at the sight, and she braced her hands against his chest.

Even through his waistcoat, she could feel the muscles of his torso.

They were iron hard and taut. As if by a will of their own, her fingers itched to slide under the silk and linen to find the heat. It was a crazed impulse.

Isobel knew in that instant, as her gaze held steady to his, how a doe must feel when cornered by a wolf. She was breathless, her heart pounding madly. She was mesmerized— and terrified.

She could not move, could not even flinch, when he lifted his hand from her waist to cup her jaw. His fingers rested lightly against her cheek, his thumb on the hollow of her throat where she could feel her pulse beating rapidly. His touching her face was, she realized, somehow every bit as intimate as the full press of his body against hers.

His thumb moved from her throat to slide slowly over her lips, tracing the swell and leaving her trembling in its wake. "Isobel?" he murmured.

She did not know what he was asking. Not until he spread both hands over her face. His touch was unbelievably gentle as he explored the contour of her jaw, the arch of her brows. When one fingertip ran downward from the bridge of her nose, she tried to drop her head. It was an instinctive motion, an attempt to hide what she saw as only one of her flaws.

She opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but the words died on her tongue. His hands held her face still. The touch feathered on gently, over her slightly-too-broad nose and rounded chin. His fingertips slid back to her ears, tracing the curve of her lobes. Then, as she gathered the strength to pull away, he thrust both hands into her hair.

Isobel gasped at the tug, again when pins scattered. Freed from its bonds, her hair tumbled down, covering his hands to the wrist and falling heavily over her shoulders. She felt his fingers threading through the thick mass.

The last of the neat knot uncoiled with the persistent tug of her husband's hands to flow halfway down her back. It was a heady sensation, the feeling of his fingers combing gently through the length and, unable to help herself, she sighed with the pleasure of it.

"Like silk," he murmured. His grip tightened again as he lifted a heavy skein to his face. One hand curved around her neck, the other held her hair.

Then he whispered something low and harsh, something that sounded like
"Mine."

She saw his nostrils flare as the honey and chamomile scent of Maggie's soap wafted upward. Then his mouth curved into a faint smile. Suddenly all Isobel could think of was hunter and prey, those slight feral twitches of his face reminding her of how very fierce he could be. Aye, his gentleness had all but melted her, but she could sense it slipping away. Heart lodged in her throat, she edged backward on shaky legs, half expecting him to tighten his grip in her hair as she did and bury his face in her throat.

He let her go. She watched as her hair slid through his fingers to fall over her breasts. And then he was not touching her at all.

Isobel darted a furtive glance around the room. There was nowhere to go. She did not truly understand this need to run from him, nor the faint compulsion to step back into his grasp.

Even as she struggled to speak, to say anything, she heard him murmur,

"Thank you."

Of all words, those were not what she had expected. "I-I beg your pardon?" She was still edging away and found herself trapped against the satin-draped mattress.

A new smile flitted across his lips, this one far more wry than feral. "I said thank you. For allowing me that liberty. It was impertinent, I know, but... satisfying. I have been curious."

Of course he had been. In their time together he had never seen her face.

He had trusted and married her without ever looking into her eyes. She raised trembling fingers to her warm cheeks. "I would have described myself to you at any time had you asked."

Now he chuckled. "And what would you have said, Isobel, had I asked?"

"I would have told you—"

"You would have told me that you have red hair and green eyes. They are green, are they not?"

"Aye."

"Mmm.
Yes, your father mentioned that. I suppose, had I pressed, you would have gone on to say that your green eyes are spaced too far apart, that your nose is too broad at the tip, and that your mouth is too wide. Am I correct?"

She felt her jaw go slack. Then, resigned to honesty and to his dismaying perception, she muttered, "Aye, I probably would have said just that."

"And you would not have listened for an instant had I told you it was all nonsense."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ah, Isobel. The words of a blind man... They would have meant nothing to you before, and I shall not distress you with them now." He shrugged. "It hardly matters. I have seen for myself, in my own way."

He bent over and felt about his feet for his fallen cane. Retrieving it, he gestured to the chair on which he had stumbled. "May I sit down?"

For the time being, Isobel set aside her confusion and her undiminished nervousness at his presence in her chamber in favor of propriety. "I am sorry. Of course."

He lowered himself into the delicate chair, dwarfing it and making the idea that it had all but reached out and felled him completely absurd. After a moment, he said, "I will have to rise again should you choose to remain standing, my dear, and that might prove dangerous for us both." She hurriedly dropped into the facing chair. "Thank you. It might have proven difficult to go on as I wish while standing."

Isobel's throat constricted. She knew enough of what happened between man and wife in the bedchamber. The thought that Oriel might want to do those unfamiliar, intimate things to her was every bit as terrifying as it was reasonable. "Of course. You wish to..." Her eyes were drawn unwillingly to the bed. "We are to..."

"Talk."

"I... what was that?"

Nathan was torn between the urge to laugh and to howl. He could feel the tension vibrating from her, even a good five feet away. "I though we could talk for a bit before bed." He heard her shift nervously in her seat and sighed. "Would it reassure you at all were I to tell you that I have no intention of forcing myself on you tonight?"

"It might."

He had the impression that Isobel was as taken aback by her retort as he was. Despite the awkwardness of the moment—and the persistent throbbing in his groin—he laughed. "You consistently amaze me with your candor. It is a mighty struggle for you—is it not?—the war between honesty and courtesy."

"I am sorry. I did not mean to—"

"Rot. You meant precisely what you said. It is, as I have said before, a great strength of yours."

As always, he wished he could see her face. Or, hold it again in his hands. He imagined her smooth brow was furrowed. Her voice was strained when she said, "You have every right to expect... certain things from me, my lord. And I will endeavor to be a proper wife to you."

"You have not disappointed me yet." He was disappointed, certainly, but he could not blame her for it.

"Nay? I am not sure I believe that." He heard her sigh. "This is all very new to me, my lord. And very unsettling. I would ask that you be patient."

"Ah, Isobel." Nathan leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs lest she see precisely how impatient he was. "This is new to me, too. I would ask the same patience from you."

"But our union..."

Yes, their union. He could imagine joining himself fully with Isobel, burying himself so deeply within her that he would cease to feel where he ended and she began. He knew the smile he managed was just a hair's breadth away from a pained grimace, but he knew, too, that even the worst attempt at humor was better than the primal howl swelling in his chest.

"Are you telling me you are impatient to claim your wifely rights, then?"

"Dia 'sMuire, nay!"

Oh, it hurt, that vehement denial. Not that he had expected it to be any other way, but still it hurt. "I said I would make no demands of you tonight.

I hope your fears will be allayed entirely by my vow that I will
never
force you into my bed."

"Thank you."

It was no good. Nathan could not ignore the sting. "Have some care for my male pride, my dear. There is no need to sound so relieved."

"I am relieved, my lord."

Perhaps her damnable frankness was rubbing off onto him, or perhaps it just needled at both his pride and desire, for the rest of the calming assurances he had planned melted on his tongue. "I have not said we will not share a bed, Isobel."

"But—"

"I said I would not demand that you enter it, and I will honor that. There are more ways onto a mattress than by force."

He left her to ponder that concept and turned to the reason he had entered her chamber originally. Oh, he had hoped he might be lingering for another reason, but necessity as much as desire had motivated him.

"We will be paying a call on my parents tomorrow," he announced. "I thought it best to prepare you."

"I cannot possibly meet your parents."

He could hear the distressed tone in her voice. "Whyever not? I assure you, Isobel, they will accept you regardless of your birth."

"I did not mean that." She grew still suddenly. Then, "There is nothing wrong with my birth, my lord. My father, clown though he may be, was born a gentleman."

He felt himself smiling again. His wife's pride was a fierce thing, nearly as fierce as her devotion to her family. "I apologize. That was unforgivably arrogant of me."

"Ah. Well. I was actually thinking of my appearance."

"And I have told you, Isobel, there is damned well nothing wrong—"

"You cannot see me!
Och,
I'm not referring to my face, Oriel. I'm thinking of my apparel."

"I do not understand."

"Nay, I suppose you don't. You couldn't see that I became Marchioness of Oriel wearing a gown that is faded, five years out of fashion, and has a spot on the bodice. Not that you would have seen the spot in any case.

Maggie covered it with a posy."

No, he had not seen. But he would have eagerly allied himself with the devil for eternity to have a good look at her bodice.

"And," she continued, "what little else I own is no better. I cannot meet your parents looking like, well, looking like just what I am: a poor, plain, country spinster with no beauty and no fashionable follies with which to compensate for that lack. Your mother would most likely shriek on first view, and none would blame her."

Nathan scolded himself for not considering the matter of her wardrobe before. He was an intelligent man with vast experience of the world, but it appeared he was far behind his wife when it came to the basics of social necessities.

"My mother has never, to my knowledge, shrieked at the sight of anything."

"That is not my point."

"I fully comprehend your point. And I will see to the matter. No," he said when she started to interrupt, "you will simply have to trust me. As for who you are, it appears we have vastly different ideas. You are not a poor, country spinster, Isobel. You are the very wealthy wife of a marquess, which means you are a very wealthy duchess-to-be. No one will ever see you as anything less."

He thought he heard her mutter something about
his
money,
his
titles, but let it go. She was quite right, and he did not want to argue the point.

"Now, what I wanted to tell you was that my parents might seem a bit contemptuous and priggish at first." His mouth quirked. "My parents
are
a bit priggish. But they are decent people and will, I know, welcome you readily into the family."

"Aye, so you say," she grumbled.

Despite the fact that he was still more than half aroused, Nathan felt his humor improving. Amazing what his promise not to bed her had done for Isobel's delightful spirit. If she did not kill him with unrequited desire, she would be the miracle of his life.

"I have but two warnings for you."

"The contempt and priggishness weren't warning enough?"

"That was a brief character sketch. The first warning is this: Do not ever, in their presence, ask my brother