Page 68 of The Bodyguard Who Came in from the Cold
“Margery.” He said her name regretfully as he rubbed her arms. “You are not thinking clearly tonight. You have been frightened, and I’m here, and I’m…not so bad to look at. That is the only reason you are acting in this unusual manner.”
She took a sharp breath. “You think I cannot control myself because of your looks? Do you think—oh! You are so arrogant.” She grabbed a pillow and hit him with it.
Gareth ducked away and laughed. She came up on her knees to hit him again, then watched as he caught his towel before it fell. She had a sudden wild impulse to grab the towel away and see what he did. But he moved out of her reach.
“Do you have a spare blanket?” he asked.
She folded her arms beneath her chest and did her best to look mutinous. “In the trunk at the foot of my bed.”
She watched him make his pallet. Beneath his skin, so many muscles rippled. When the thin cloth stretched taut over his buttocks, she slid into bed and pulled the blankets over her head with a muffled groan.
An hour later, Gareth stood over Margery and watched as she slept. He had wiped most of the mud off his leather jerkin, and now wore it like armor between the two of them.
Her face was calm, no longer fearful. Although his body still protested, he was glad he had not bedded her. In the morning she would have regretted her impulsiveness. He needed her to choose him, not run to him in fear from her feelings.
But there would be no peaceful dreams for him tonight, or visions, either, he was certain. He knew exactly what he wanted, and it was she, regardless of the secrets between them. He had even begun to think only of letting himself take her, pleasure her. At the thought of his vengeful plans, he felt uneasy.
He banished such thoughts. They would be wed; they would have passionate nights, and probably many children to keep her busy. He would never starve again, or be forced to sleep in rat-infested inns.
He tried to picture her brothers, to imagine basking in their anger while he enjoyed the contentment of vengeance. Yet Margery’s smiling face had begun to replace such thoughts. Would she be smiling if she discovered the truth?
~oOo~
A sennight passed, and during the days, Gareth watched Margery keep herself busy with the harvest and the coming preparations for winter planting. Each evening he would come to her bedchamber to guard her. He knew she was still afraid to be alone, because she never asked him to leave.
Most nights she was asleep when he arrived. Then he would watch her, memorizing how she moved, the expressions on her face, the way her hair cascaded like a dark waterfall over the edge of the bed. He would imagine sliding under the cool sheets, lifting her nightclothes, and pulling her naked body against him.
Some evenings she was still awake, her eyes watching him intently as he closed the door and went to make his pallet. It was as if now that he’d rejected her, she would not approach him.
Night after night, the tension between them increased. If she just pressed herself against him, he would part her legs and take her wherever she stood. Instead he lay on his lonely pallet, listening to her breathe, his desire and his groin keeping him awake.
When he was in danger of forgetting his purpose, he prowled the room and made himself remember what her family had done to him. But those feelings were burning out beneath the lust that lay banked, waiting, inside him.
20
One day a messenger arrived, and that night Margery waited for Gareth in her room, so excited she didn’t even get ready for bed. She was no longer afraid to be alone, but she let him continue his vigil.
She was sitting cross-legged in bed, staring into a candle’s flame, when he opened the door and slipped in. He never knocked, for that might awaken someone. Instead, it was always a sudden, delicious surprise when she saw him. The pleasure that moved through her kept her warm—as did the secret that she wanted to tell him.
Gareth leaned back against the door and looked at her quizzically.
She grinned.
He walked to the trunk for his blanket, eyeing her. She crawled to the end of the bed, then flung herself into his arms, making him stagger back a step. She stared up into his intent face, and her smile died as he looked at her mouth. A shudder of pleasure, of excitement moved through her. In anticipation, she slid her hands up the back of his neck into his hair.
Yet he calmly lifted her hands away from him, and went to sit by the hearth. He didn’t seem to see the room, or her, but something far away in his thoughts.
Gritting her teeth, Margery followed him and sat in the chair beside him. She tried to imagine another man, her husband, here in this room with her, but she couldn’t. There were only images of Gareth—kneeling to make her a fire, changing his clothes behind her screen, standing beside her bed. She would have such wonderful memories to carry through her life, when her duties kept her alone. Yet she needed one final memory from him.
“Margery?” He suddenly got to his feet and came to her.
This was it. Her breathing was shallow; her heart began a wild pounding.Please, let him touch me, let him take me to bed.He leaned over her, blocking out the rest of the room, until her world was just the two of them. He lifted a hand and reached toward her.
“Margery, don’t move. Your necklace has?—”
As his fingers neared her chest, she couldn’t help but jerk. The necklace fell in a heavy loop down her body, and beads scattered everywhere.
“—broken,” Gareth finished, smiling.
