He was her husband. She ought to be able to lean across and put a hand on his thigh. They would share a bed when they went home tonight, but she ought to be able to turn to her husband for more than warmth. She ought to be able to press her lips to his throat, to trail her fingers down his stomach, to kiss her way along his jaw and whisper in his ear.

If he thought she was beautiful, he ought to want her to do that, surely?

Mallory swallowed, half terrified by the train of her thoughts. Torr had made it clear enough that he didn’t want that. No sex, no passion, no excitement. That was what he had said. No touching other than in the interests of warmth.

But if he really did think she was beautiful…

Mallory was appalled at herself. She seemed to be in the grip of something beyond her control, so that no matter how often she reminded herself that it would be better to keep things the way they were, her imagination would simply sweep all sensible thoughts of the future aside and leave her next to him in the darkness, where nothing mattered but the longing thumping deep inside her and clenching at the base of her spine.

When Torr parked outside the pub in Carraig and switched off the engine, Mallory was almost disorientated. The sharp air helped clear her head at least, and she was able to smile and greet people at the ceilidh even though she was still quivering with awareness. She knew every time Torr smiled or shook hands, every time he so much as turned his head.

He seemed to have met a surprising number of people in the area already, which was puzzling when she remembered how grimly unapproachable he had always seemed in Ellsborough. The Scots seemed to like his austere style, though. Or perhaps, like her, it was him who had changed.

The village hall was very plainly decorated. A buffet was laid out at one end of the room, and uncomfortable-looking chairs were ranged along the walls. Dragging her mind away from Torr for a moment, Mallory did wonder if it was going to be an excruciating evening, but once the musicians started tuning, things began to look up.

The music was impossible to resist, and in spite of herself Mallory’s foot started tapping. As the first set started to form, she hoped Torr might ask her to dance, but he was talking to the doctor’s wife, and in the end it was the vet who swept her onto the floor.

‘I’ve got no idea what I’m doing,’ she warned him, and he grinned at her.

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll pick it up as we go along.’

Had Torr even noticed that she’d gone? Mallory wondered crossly, and was then even more miffed when she saw him inviting the doctor’s wife to dance.

The dancing was great fun. Mallory whooped and swung and tapped her feet along with everyone else, but she was aware of Torr the whole evening. Like her, he had a different partner for every dance, so it wasn’t as if she were jealous. It wasn’t that kind of dancing, and one of the great things about the ceilidh, she learned, was that you danced with anybody and everybody.

Still, he might have asked her, Mallory couldn’t help thinking. She was his wife, after all. Every now and then they would meet in the dance, and their hands would clasp as they passed down the line, or swung each other round, and each time his touch send a jolt of awareness through her. There was a steady thumping building up inside her, and her mouth dried whenever she looked at him.

That was what came of sharing a bed with someone, of starting to notice him. Now she was reduced to lusting after her own husband, and was unable to do anything about it, thought Mallory, mortified. Ridiculous.

And yet, was it so impossible? They were alone, and neither of them was involved with anyone else, however much they might want to be. God, they were even married! How much more justification did they need? And surely anything would be better than the charged atmosphere in the bedroom every night, lying there and not touching when all they could think about was how it would feel if they did?

Correction: all she could think about. Be honest, now, Mallory told herself. The fact was that she had no idea what Torr was thinking about in bed. He certainly didn’t seem to have any trouble dropping off to sleep. Maybe he was quite happy with the way things were. Maybe he didn’t want her at all.

But how would she know if she didn’t ask?

Mallory twirled and stepped and swung up and down the line, and wondered if she had the courage to face rejection and find out.

She danced all evening, and was hot and tired by the time the tempo changed to slow, to mark the last dance. The music was soft and haunting, and she stepped aside. You couldn’t dance to music like this with a stranger.

Suddenly Torr was there, holding out his hand. ‘My dance, I think,’ he said.

Mallory looked at his hand for a long moment, and then, with a sense of taking an irrevocable step, she put her own in it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HIS fingers closed around hers and he swung her without haste onto the floor before drawing her towards him, his palm warm against the small of her back. Quivering with tension, hazy with his closeness, Mallory stared fixedly at his shoulder and concentrated on not swaying any closer, but it was hard when the haunting music wove itself around them like twine and tangled up her senses until every nerve in her body screamed at her to give in and lean against him, to rest her face into his throat and press her lips to the pulse beating below his ear.

Torr’s fingers were tight around her hand, his mouth against her hair. The music swirled round them, cutting them off from the rest of the room so that there were just the two of them, moving so slowly together they were barely dancing at all.

Mallory’s heart was thudding, her mouth dry. The other dancers might have whirled away into a blur, silently circling the still centre where she danced with Torr, but she was preternaturally aware of everything else-the shape of the buttons on his shirt, the roughness of his jaw, the scent of his skin, the feel of his hand-and she could feel herself dissolving with desire so strong that it terrified her.

There was a last, long note and the music stopped. Around them, Mallory was vaguely conscious of a spatter of applause, but she was still swaying with Torr and she had begun to hope that he wouldn’t let her go after all when he stopped moving, dropped her hand and stepped back, his face utterly expressionless.

‘It’s time to go,’ he said.

They drove home in a silence that jangled and jarred in the close confines of the dark car. Mallory’s pulse was booming. Her hand felt as if it were burning, and the small of her back tingled where he had held her.

It’s up to you, he had said.

She could ask him if she wanted to…and, oh, she did want to! She just didn’t know how she was going to find the words or have the courage to say them. Make love to me. Heat flooded through her at the mere thought. Could it be that easy? Would she have to explain, or persuade him? And what if he said no?

It wasn’t fair, thought Mallory feverishly, shifting restlessly in her seat. She shouldn’t have to ask her own husband to make love to her.

They were almost there, she realised in a panic as the car bumped down the rutted and potholed track. She was going to have to decide. Perhaps it would be better not to say anything? She could wait until they were in bed and then make a move. Torr would get the idea without the need for a long discussion.

But what if he said no, or pushed her away? Mallory cringed at the thought. It would be mortifying. Much better to be straight. At least that way she could keep her pride intact, if nothing else.

Kincaillie was illuminated in the headlights as they bumped to a halt at last. Torr cut the engine and switched off the lights. It was a still night and the silence was absolute, and for a moment neither of them moved or spoke.

Mallory inhaled slowly. It was now or never. ‘You know our agreement?’ she began, but her throat was so thick that her voice came out humiliatingly high and squeaky.

‘The one we’ve already revised twice?’ said Torr, unclipping his seat belt.

‘Yes.’ His tone was daunting, and she eyed him uncertainly through the darkness.

‘You’re not proposing to renegotiate now, are you?’

‘Well…’ Mallory hesitated. ‘Just one bit.’

Torr had his hand on the door, but he stopped at that and turned back to her, suddenly intent. ‘Which bit?’

‘The bit about not touching,’ she said awkwardly. ‘We agreed our marriage wasn’t about sex or passion-’

‘Or love,’ he reminded her, and she swallowed.

‘Or love,’ she agreed.

‘And which of those did you want to renegotiate?’ Torr’s voice was characteristically acerbic, and Mallory was very glad that he couldn’t see her blushing in the darkness. This was awful, but she had gone too far to stop now.

If she could.

‘The first one.’

‘Sex?’

‘Yes.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I…er…I was wondering…if…if you’d think about…’

Torr let out a short breath that might have been a suppressed laugh or a snort of derision, and she bridled. Did he think this was easy for her?

‘I think you know quite well what I’m trying to ask you,’ she finished tartly.

His expression was unreadable in the darkness. ‘You want to make love?’

‘Yes,’ said Mallory again on a breath. There, it was said.

There was a sizzling pause that went on for so long that she lost her nerve after all and rushed into speech. ‘I mean, when I say make love, it’s not about love,’ she tried to explain.

‘No, indeed,’ said Torr dryly.