Nina Coombs Pykare by Design for Love (lit)

Author:Design for Love (lit) [Love, Design for]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Later, when he was finished, he kept her beside him. It was rather comforting there, against his warmth. She felt something cold and hard inside her beginning to melt.

“Now you are truly mine,” he said, wrapping a curl around his finger.

Her golden feeling started to fade. “Possession of my body is no guarantee you possess my heart,” she retorted.

He laughed. “Perhaps not, my dear. But your body is here. Beside mine. Soft and warm. And quite beautiful.”

He stroked her bare shoulder and she resisted the urge to burrow against him.

“I can see your body. I can feel it. But your heart . . .” He shrugged. “I shall settle for what I can see. Can touch.”

The cold something inside her splintered, and cut into her, driving her to say, “But you shall never have my love.”

He shrugged. “Why should I want it? People don’t expect a man’s wife to love him. The fashionable world being what it is.”

Anger flared up inside her. It was so unfair. And so confusing.

A moment ago, in his arms, she had felt safe. Almost as though she’d found her homeplace. She rolled away, turning her back on him. “So. People don’t expect a man’s wife to love him. Then perhaps they expect her to love someone else.”

His hand closed around her wrist and he jerked her back into his arms with a force that drove the breath from her body. “There’ll be none of that,” he said, his voice gruff. “What’s mine is mine— alone.”

She didn’t stop to examine the strange feeling of relief this sentiment brought her, but hurried on, determined for some reason she couldn’t quite discern to taunt him.

“And what will you do?” she mocked. “Will you put me on bread and water? Lock me up in the country? Or abuse me as you just have?”

The body against her own stiffened, but he did not release her.

“Abuse?” Dreyford repeated. “Abuse?” The chit was going beyond the bounds. “Really, my dear, you’ll have to do something about this penchant for the dramatic.”

“I told you I was tired.”

Her voice was low, muffled against his chest.

“You have been ‘tired’ for several nights now. And, as I told you, I am not a patient man.”

“And so you abuse me.”

It almost sounded as if she were laughing. But that could not be possible. This was not a laughing matter.

“You should not have denied me my conjugal rights.”

Absently, he stroked her shoulder. “I am reputed an excellent lover,” he said. “You may ask . . .” He stopped, aware of the absurdity of what he was about to say. Sometimes she drove him to the most peculiar actions. “That is, you have no cause to complain.”

Indeed, she had not. He’d taken as much care with her as if she’d really been Katie. He’d used everything Kitty had taught him and all he’d learned since.

Fiona had responded to him, too. Not at first, perhaps. But later. And hers was not the staged passion of Harriette Wilson’s crowd or the violent, almost devouring coupling that Roxanne craved.

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