Page 39 of His Betrothed
The exhaustion in his voice drew her out of her spell. She came toward him and realized that he was perspiring heavily, shaking as he leaned against the wall.
“What have you been doing?” she asked, reaching out to steady his arm.
“A lot of hopping.”
Thornton’s grin made her insides twist with a pleasurable sensation she’d never felt before. She wantedto step closer and explore it further—and she wanted to run as far away as she could.
She clamped down on her strange feelings and gave him a cool stare. “You will not get well if you overexert yourself.”
His chest rose and fell as he took quick breaths. “So you’ve said. But if I spend another day on my back, I’ll go mad.”
Roselyn glanced down at his broken leg. “I have seen such injuries before.It will be many weeks before you can walk.”
His grin faded. “No, it won’t.”
“Are you accusing me of lying?”
With a sigh, Thornton rubbed his face with both hands. “Let’s not start this, Roselyn; I’m too tired.”
“Let me get you back to your pallet. I have to make supper.”
“For the boys again?” he asked sardonically.
He slung his arm a little too forcefully over her shoulders.
“They are hardlyboys,” she said between her teeth.
She helped him across the room and would have eased him down onto his pallet, but he didn’t let go of her.
“You’re damp,” he murmured, his voice—his mouth—too close to her ear.
“You said that already.” Good Lord, her voiceshook, just as her hands would shake if she didn’t keep them clasped together. The heat of his body scorched her.
She knew she shouldshove him away, but she had promised herself that she would discover his secrets, understand his loyalties. Making him angry wouldn’t accomplish that, so she stood still, biting her lip, telling herself that she only allowed this contact between them for her country’s sake.
There was a silent moment of hesitation that seemed to stretch on forever. She could feel her wet skirts brush her legs,as if her skin was suddenly too sensitive. The weight of him against her body was almost pleasurable.
Why did she feel like this? She knew too well how uncomfortable her husband’s weight had been, how he’d often taken her to bed even when she was sick. Men thought only of themselves and their pleasure, and wives could only submit. Philip had never shown her kindness after she’d been disownedby her parents, never even kissed her. Was that why she was fascinated with Thornton’s mouth?
With a shudder of self-disgust, she stepped away from him, and he lowered himself to sit on the pallet.
Spencer watched Roselyn busy herself with the supper preparations. Not since he was a boy trying to sneak sweets had he spent somuch time watching someone cook. She didn’t act as if it were a choreshe was forced to do. She did it like she did everything else, with a calm serenity that annoyed him.
Naturally she could be serene, he thought bitterly. She didn’t have an executioner waiting for her arrival. For too many hours each day, he contemplated the bleak future that awaited him, what his Spanish heritage had brought him to—no wonder he was so easily distracted by Roselyn.
Well, he’ddone as much as he could today to fluster her, and he thought it was working. He took great pleasure in upsetting this balance she’d found for herself. He only touched her because he wanted her to know how it felt to be rejected in the end; he ignored the darker, disturbing thoughts in the back of his mind.
Later that evening, he hopped over to the back window and sat on the floor, listeningto the small party she made for the Heywood brothers in the courtyard. Though she laughed freely at their jokes, he began to realize that she still held part of herself in reserve, that it wasn’t just him she was reticent with.
As Roselyn cleaned up the supper plates, Thornton moved about the room, hopping from window to window, peering out the shutters. He even repeatedly practiced usinghisarms to push himself off the floor until his face shone with perspiration. She wished he would sit still, or sleep as he used to.
Finally he stood looking out over the courtyard for a long enough time that she began to relax.
“Where do you bathe?” he asked suddenly. “In the bake house?”
Her fingers froze as she set a plate in the cupboard. In her old life she would have never discussedsuch an intimate subject with a man.
“I bathe in a half barrel,” she said, keeping her back to him, waiting for his laughter.
