The Maiden Bride by Linda Needham

Author:Linda Needham [Needham, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: England, Historical Fiction, Love Stories
ISBN: 9780788795503
Google: LehD2Ra3qywC
Amazon: 0380796368
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 2000-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 13

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Nicholas knew he was in dire trouble the moment his wife's hem hit the steam. He'd meant her only to sit on the ledge and dangle her legs and hands, but now she looked like a lounging selkie, waiting for a wave to come slip her back into the sea.

His exquisitely beautiful wife.

"So you fancy yourself a doctor, Nicholas, as well as a soldier and a mason and a diplomat." She smiled blissfully as she floated, her eyes closed, her hair playing loosely in the constant current, dancing with his senses.

"I am merely your steward, milady."

"Much more than that; Nicholas. What other secrets are you holding back from me? That you are an alchemist? Or a wizard—for there is no other explanation for a place like this."

He stood at the edge of the pool, hardly able to breathe, to think beyond her chemise floating in the lapping waves, the bobbing of her breasts and her dark nipples visible in the lamplight. He wanted to join her there. To join with her.

He turned away instead and tormented himself with the sound of her splashing and torrid thoughts of her toes and his tongue.

Christ.

"I give you but a few moments longer, my lady, then I want to see your blisters and that bruise of yours." And every other part of you.

"You're right; we really should be in the office, planning the harvest campaign. But, ah, Nicholas, this is marvelous. And to think that I might have come to Faulkhurst as Bayard's bought-and-paid-for bride."

A safe enough conversation, if one that ate at his pride. "You find that so unthinkable?"

"Now, more than ever." Splash. Sloosh. A long, wispy sigh that he felt against his ear. "As entirely unimaginable as the marriage was itself. I was perfectly happy cloistered with the Sisters of Mercy."

What? He shook his head of the buzzing. "You were what, madam? Cloistered?"

"Yes."

He spun around against his better judgment, certain that he heard thunder all the way down here, a bolt of holy scorn. "Cloistered, as in a nunnery?"

"At St. Catherine's. This is far too nice, Nicholas."

Bloody hell, he'd stolen a nun. This ravishing nun, from a very jealous God.

He stomped into the pool to his thighs—his boots be damned—and straddled her legs to tip her to her knees, then bent over all that sultry, steaming bliss.

"Tell me that again, madam. You were a nun when Bayard married you? A holy sister?"

She knelt like a coy mermaid peering up at him, one pink shoulder completely bare and tantalizing, the front of her gown drooping dangerously, just covering the maddeningly dark point of her breast.

"I wasn't anywhere near holy, Nicholas." She raked her fingers through the curtain of hair that was streaming out around her. "And I certainly wasn't a nun."

His heart climbing into his throat, he knelt too and made her look at him directly with those eyes of dark amber. "You weren't even … what is it called—betrothed? Promised to God, or whatever the devil they—"

"A

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