within a coaching inn provided opportunity for Farquharson, not safety from him.
Sharing a bed with Madeline had been an unforeseen complication. Lucien’s loins tightened with the memory. He tried to turn his mind to other matters, but memory persisted. No matter how damnably uncomfortable the chair, or the sweet allure of her voice, or, worse still, her soft welcoming arms … Lucien’s teeth ground firm. He’d be damned to the devil if he was stupid enough to make the same mistake twice. Take the chair, not the bed, he thought, and made his way up the scuffed wooden staircase of the New London Inn.
Surprisingly the room was not in darkness. The fire still blazed and a candle flickered by the side of the bed. The small room welcomed and warmed him. Still hanging grimly on to his determination, he made his way over to the chair and slipped out of his coat. Not once did he permit his gaze to wander in the direction of the bed and the woman that lay within it. He just kept his focus on the chair, that damned wooden chair, and started to undress.
‘Lucien,’ she said in a quiet voice.
He stilled, his boot dangling in his hand. Temptation beckoned. His eyes slid across to hers … and found that she was sitting up, watching him, her hands encircling the covers around her bent legs, her chin resting atop her blanketed knees. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, hoping that she would not notice the huskiness in his voice.
‘I wondered if you might … if you would …’ The candlelight showed the rosy stain that scalded her cheeks.
Oh, Lord! Lucien knew what it was that his wife was about to ask.
‘I thought perhaps if you were here that … that Farquharson … that the nightmares might not come …’ She glanced away, her face aflame, her manner stilted.
Lucien felt her awkwardness as keenly as if it were his own. How much had it cost her to make such a request? Hell, but she had no idea of the effect that she had upon him. She was an innocent. The boot slipped from Lucien’s fingers. He raked a hand roughly through his hair, oblivious to the wild ruffle of dark feathers that fanned in its wake. ‘Madeline,’ he said gruffly, ‘you don’t know what it is that you ask.’
She gestured towards the empty half of the bed. ‘It seems silly that you should be cold and uncomfortable on a hard rickety chair when there is plenty room for both of us in this bed.’
Better that than risk the temptation that lay in what she was so innocently offering. Lucien opened his mouth to deny it.
‘I do trust you, Lucien.’
She trusted him, but the question was—did he trust himself? The warmth of her sweet gaze razed his refusal before it had formed.
‘Madeline,’ he tried again, raking his hair worse than ever.
She smiled, and pulled the bedcovers open on the empty side of the bed, his side of the bed. ‘And it’s not as if my reputation can be ruined by our sleeping in the same bed. We are at least married.’ She snuggled down under the covers and waited expectantly.
Lucien knew that he was lost. Could not refuse her. Swore to himself that he would not touch her. Still wearing his shirt and pantaloons, he climbed in beside her.
Madeline felt the mattress dip beneath his weight. Safety and excitement in equal dose danced their way through her veins. She knew that she should not have asked. Perhaps he thought her wanton to have done so. But the need for him to be close was greater than the shame in asking. And so she had spoken the words that Madeline Langley had never thought to utter and asked a man to come into her bed. They lay stiffly side by side. Each on their backs, careful not to look at the other, determined that no part of them should actually touch. His warmth traversed the space between them, so that the full stretch of the left-hand side of her body tingled from his heat. She wondered that he could have brought himself to marry a woman that he found so … lacking. For all that she was neither his social nor financial equal, he did not despise her, for surely something of that would have communicated itself in his manner? When he touched her she felt warm, happy, breathless with anticipation. Clearly Lucien did not feel the same. He did not want to touch her. The gap between them widened. That was when a glimmer of understanding dawned upon Madeline.
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