Mary Balogh - Then Comes Seduction

If he was at Cedarhurst now, he would have gone out for a brisk gallop on his horse, darkness be damned. But he was not there, and it would be considered more than a trifle odd if he were to abandon his bride to go cantering off into the night-he stayed here often enough that the innkeeper had realized that she was his bride.

He would not expose her to the ridicule that was bound to follow such a move. Not to mention the fact that he would be the laughingstock.

Damnation! And devil take it! He would not forgive Clarence for this even if they both fried in hell for a thousand years and the only way out was through forgiveness.

And then he stood very still.

Either she had not been deeply enough asleep when he got up or he had made more noise than he realized getting out of bed. She had made no discernible sound or movement, but there was a quality to the silence that made him realize suddenly that she was awake, and sure enough, when he turned his head to look, he could see that her eyes were open.

“The candles are still burning,” she said. “You must make a pretty sight for anyone who is out there looking up.”

There were a dozen answers he might have made. Instead he made none but reached up and jerked the curtains closed. He made no move to cover himself. And she made no move to look away.

“I suppose,” he said, “you believe there ought to be more than lust.”

It came out as a bad-tempered accusation.

“And you do not,” she said, neatly turning the tables on him. “It is a fundamental difference between us, my-Jasper. It is a difference we must learn to live with.”

It irritated him no end that his name did not come naturally to her lips, that even after marriage this morning and sex tonight she still had to stop herself from addressing him as my lord.

“Or not,” he said.

She gazed at him.

“Is there an option?” she asked him.

“If I cannot bed you without feeling the necessity of loving you first and wooing your love,” he said, “and if you cannot enjoy the aftermath of a bedding when it has been simply lust, then pretty soon we are going to be sleeping in very separate beds, Katherine. Probably in different houses since my appetites tend to be healthy ones. Though probably in your vocabulary that would be unhealthy ones. I enjoy sex.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do not doubt it.”

He sat down on the chair where she had been sitting asleep when he came into the room earlier. It was unlike him to be bad-tempered with a woman. To accuse and complain. This was a fine way to start a marriage.

He tried again.

“I find that I like you,” he said, “that I enjoy your company and your wit, that I admire your beauty and desire your body. I am even prepared to attempt affection and fidelity. But I cannot offer what you call love because I really do not know what the word means in the context of a relationship between a man and a woman. And I certainly cannot expect you to love me or even to like me particularly well. Not after what you have been forced into and with whom. This whole marriage business is looking to be impossible, in fact.”

Not a great attempt. Worse than before, except that his voice sounded less like a petulant grumble.

“I have just realized something about you,” she said. “It is something I had not even suspected until tonight, and it is a complete surprise. You do not really love yourself, do you? You do not even like yourself particularly well.”

Good Lord! He stared at her transfixed, his fingers drumming on the arm of the chair.

“What poppycock are you speaking now?” he asked her, and irritability was back in a heartbeat.

“And I never expected to hear the word impossible on your lips,” she said. “A workable marriage is impossible? Love is impossible-on both our parts? I thought, Jasper, that it was a matter of supreme pride with you to win a wager.”

“It is kind of you to remind me of the only one I lost,” he said.

“You did not lose it,” she said. “You chose a more courageous and honorable outcome-which you, of course, interpreted as a humiliation. But it is not of that wager I speak.”

He laughed softly.

“The one I made at Lady Parmeter’s ball?” he said. “That was no wager, was it? A wager of one with no takers, no prize for a win, no forfeit for a loss, no time limit?”

“Those facts did not deter you before we were embroiled in scandal,” she said. “You were quite determined to make me fall in love with you. It is why you pursued me so relentlessly after that waltz. And you do have a taker-me. And there is a prize-me. And a forfeit too-the loss of me. And a time limit-the end of the house party.”

He gazed at her, speechless for once. But he felt good humor clawing its way back into his being. Trust Katherine not simply to be tragic.

“I will wager against you,” she said. “I say it cannot be done, that you can never persuade me to love you, that it is indeed impossible. That it would be a waste of your time to try. But you are the man to whom all things are possible, especially those things that seem quite out of reach. Well, I am out of reach. Totally. Make me love you, then.”

Tempting. But there was a problem.

“I would have nothing to offer in return,” he said. “Not anything that would be of value to you, anyway. I am not a romantic, Katherine, and if I ever pretended to be I would simply make an ass of myself.”

“That,” she said, “is something for you to work out for yourself.”

They stared at each other for a long time. The candles began to flicker. They had almost burned themselves out.

He felt a smile nudge at his eyes and tug at his lips. He could never persuade her to love him, could he? It would be a waste of his time to try, would it?

“But one thing,” she said. “If the wager is to become a real one, then we will raise the stakes.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“No love,” she said, “no sex.”

“Forever?” he asked.

“Until after the end of the wager,” she said. “And then we will see.”

A month of celibacy? And a new bride only once tasted? That was raising the stakes sky-high.

But the smile took possession of him. Impossible, was it?

An impossible wager.

They would see about that!

He got to his feet and moved toward her, his right hand extended.

“Agreed,” he said.

And she set her hand in his and they shook on it.

“The couch in the sitting room had better be as comfortable as it looks,” he said.

“Take a pillow,” she advised.

He did so and then turned and walked out of the bedchamber.

The candles flickered one more time and died just as he was closing the door behind him.

The couch had been very comfortable to sit on. But it was too narrow and too short for a bed. He lay wedged against the back, his feet elevated over one arm, his head propped over the other.

It was not a position conducive to sleep even if the wheels of his mind had not been turning at breakneck speed-mostly with the same unwelcome thought.

He was, by God, going to have to offer something in return for her love, which he would, of course, win. And he very much feared that only one thing would do. Devil take it, but he was going to have to fall in love with her. And he might as well tell himself quite firmly now that it was impossible or he would never feel challenged enough to do it.

It was impossible.

There!

Now it would be done. He would fall in love.

Lord, how the devil could he ever have thought this couch comfortable?

… heart of my heart, soul of my soul…

He grimaced.

Devil take it! Were there bricks in this pillow?

He was going to fall in love with her.

His own private wager with himself.

Impossible?

Of course.

But doable?

Of course!

And then he had an inspired idea. He moved off the couch, lay down on the floor with the pillow beneath his head and his coat over his arms, and addressed himself to sleep.

Comfort at last.

His legs were cold.

“AND one more thing,” Katherine said just as if they were in the middle of a conversation, when in reality they had been traveling all afternoon in virtual silence.

He was lounging at his ease across the corner of the carriage seat beside her, one booted foot propped on the seat opposite, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed-looking indolent, but not asleep. Indeed, she suspected that he was watching her, though how he could be doing that with his eyes closed she was not sure-except that he was a man who scorned impossibilities.

He was also a man who had made no move whatsoever all day to woo her love and win his wager. She had got up this morning and steeled herself for a day of blatantly seductive wiles. Instead he had talked pointedly about the weather for a time during the morning, had remarked finally that if he could not coax a smile out of her he might as well get some sleep since he had had precious little last night, had folded his arms, and had closed his eyes.

He looked wondrously attractive, of course, all relaxed, slumberous male, though he was not sleeping. He was taking up more than half the carriage interior. She had to keep her feet and knees tight together and hold her legs rather stiff to avoid brushing his knee when the carriage swayed, as it did almost every moment.