“You can’t,” he agreed. “I already sent word to London that we’re staying awhile longer.”
She sat up straighter. “When?”
“Yesterday, in St. Andrews.”
When her silence drew out, he added, “I telegraphed Matthews, instructing him to come up to Drummuir and bring a few documents I need for my own affairs of business.”
“I see.”
“He’s also bringing a book with prints by Julia Margaret Cameron.”
“Her name sounds familiar,” she said, still coming to terms with the news.
“She was a photographer, one of the greats,” Lucian said, “one of the first and few to blend art and photography. She knew some of the Pre-Raphaelites.”
Was it a trap? A kindness? She fixed him with a distrustful stare. “Why?”
He gave a shrug. “I thought her work might interest you.”
Whatever his motivation, he had shown great foresight in anticipating her desires. I don’t want to, she thought, I don’t want to like him so. She had barely slept last night, as if his nearness beneath the blanket set all her cells alight with heated yearning. She felt a little molten inside right now; it must be her old, unbetterable self, feeling pleased that someone was pleasing her.
A man would have killed the Beast.
She wrestled with the words before forcing them out: “I would appreciate it had you consulted me before prolonging our stay,” she said. “Particularly in a place such as … this.” She nodded at the tired little room.
Lucian tilted his head. “You prefer to leave?”
“No! I still—I’d still appreciate being asked.”
One black supercilious brow went up. “Noted.”
See there. She had made her point in cold blood, and nothing terrible had happened.
Perhaps she should kiss him. Under normal circumstances, one would kiss a husband who had put thought and effort into a surprise.
Lucian’s smile was crooked. “You’re wondering if you should kiss me as a thank-you.”
She started. “What?”
“It’s what a good wife would do,” he said, and spread his knees. “She’d come and sit in my lap and kiss me.” Wicked laughter was dancing in his eyes now, and heat spread in her middle. So he possessed some humor. The darkly sarcastic kind.
His mocking smile faded when she rose and went to him. By the time she was perched on his hard thigh, his features were tense.
“Like this?” she said, her heart beating wildly. He had spent the day outside and smelled deliciously earthy. The shirt buttons at his throat were undone, low enough to reveal the dark dusting of hair on his muscular chest.
“That’s good,” he murmured. His arms were locking around her waist. She had walked into that snare with eyes wide open, in search of something, her boundaries, her powers. She kept her eyes on the V of his bare chest. A very fine chest. She put a fingertip against it. Lucian’s throat moved, the rest of him was still as a rock. She stroked, lightly, over warm skin and soft-crisp hair, then slowly trailed down toward the top button. There she lingered. Lucian broke first; he clasped her chin and kissed her full on the mouth. Need barreled through her at the intimate contact. A soft flash of his tongue against hers, and she had to pull away, needing air. The surface of her skin was hot from head to toe.
She looked out the window, where the sun was sinking in a liquid glow. “It’s so …” She shook her head. “Confusing,” she whispered.
His dark gaze traced her profile, assessing. “Perhaps because your mind is telling you one thing when your body is telling you another,” he said in a low voice. “Might be less confusing if you stopped thinking of it as a reward for me, but as taking pleasure for yourself.”
Well, that only went against every tenet of a woman’s education.
Her confusion changed direction when she recognized the spine of the book he had placed on the windowsill.
She turned to Lucian in time to see a flash of oh drat pass behind his eyes. “This,” she said, “is Wuthering Heights.”
“Aye.”
“Something on peat, you said!”
He shifted beneath her. “There’s lots of mentioning of the moors in it.”
“Where did you find this?” The book looked new, the spine just broken.
Lucian took it from her and held it against his chest. “In the bookshop in St. Andrews.”
Silence, except for the tapping of his fingers against the book’s jacket. Nervous—he was nervous for having been caught reading a novel, the silly man.