The Ravencliff Bride by Dawn Thompson Page A

could climb between the sheets and try to order those thoughts.
    Despite Nicholas’s insistence, she would not discourage Nero. Who knew but that she was the only friend he had at Ravencliff. She’d saved some of her dinner, tucked it away inher serviette, just in case, and she cracked the door—not enough to be noticed, just enough for his paw or snout to brush against and gain him entrance. She’d scarcely climbed into bed, when the knock came, but it wasn’t the animal’s familiar scratching that sat her bolt upright in the bed, and it wasn’t Nero who crossed the threshold. It was Nicholas.
    A cry on her lips, Sara leaped from the bed, turned her back, and shrugged on her wrapper before she faced him. Meanwhile, he stood arms akimbo, a striking figure in his black pantaloons and Hessians, black cutaway tailcoat of superfine, and burgundy brocade waistcoat. An expertly tied neck cloth over modest shirt points challenged the jet-black hair curling about his earlobes. It offset the cleft in his uptilted chin.
    “Are you in the habit of crashing into ladies’ bedchambers unannounced?” she snapped, feeling ridiculous for having said it, since it was his house, and they were technically husband and wife.
    “I did knock, and the door was open, Sara,” he responded. “Perhaps Nell—”
    “No,” she interrupted. She would not have the blame fall to Nell for something the girl had no part in. “I came in rather . . . quickly earlier. I thought I’d pulled it to. Evidently not, but that doesn’t matter. It was hardly flung wide, and as you can see, I am not dressed for entertaining. I was about to retire.”
    “Hmmm,” he growled, his eyebrow arched. The hooded obsidian eyes beneath, flashing red in the firelight, were raking her familiarly, and her heart began to pound. “Why didn’t you come down to dinner, are you unwell?”
    “
Unwell?
” she snapped. “No, Nicholas, I am not ‘unwell,’ I am unhappy!”
    “You’ve been crying,” he observed. “Those blotches there . . . do they often occur when you cry? Mrs. Bromley is a skilled herbalist. I shall have her concoct a remedy.”
    “Don’t worry,” Sara snapped. “I shan’t spoil my appearance and embarrass you before your guests. I do not cry often, only when I’m angry.”
    “I’ve been too blunt,” he said, his posture deflated.
    “
Blunt?
” she shrilled. “My dear man, ‘blunt’ is not the half of it. If you hadn’t been such a coward and stormed off earlier, before I’d had half a chance to recover from your insensitive . . . insulting—my God, there is no word to describe your benighted
ground rules
—I’d have told you just exactly what I think of you
and
them!”
    “Sara—”
    “No!” she cried. “No, Nicholas. How could you stand there and tell me to take a
lover?
Is that what you think you’ve bought in me—someone who will jump into another man’s bed at the snap of your fingers . . . an ornament to host your gatherings and afterward foist off on someone else to take her pleasures? There are names for women like that, and you do not have to marry them.
I
am not one. How
dare
you!”
    “I have not ‘bought’ you,” he murmured.
    “Oh? You’ve heard nothing past that, have you? And just what would you call it, then?”
    “Certainly not ‘bought,’ not in the way you put it,” he defended. “
Redeemed
, is how I see it . . . how I wanted you to see it. And I didn’t mean to disrespect you,” he went on, searching the ceiling for composure. Were those tears misting those magnificent eyes? Remorse certainly hadn’t put them there. He was cold and unfeeling, this strange man she’d married. Nonetheless, his thick, dark lashes were wet from blinking them back when he met her gaze again. “I was merely trying to offer you an alternative solution to a . . . sensitive situation that cannot be helped,” he said. “I am sorry if I have offended you, but do not damn me for it. I shan’t retract my