Fingal heard women’s voices in the drawing room and made a detour to his study, taking refuge behind his desk. Thomson had informed him that his sister and Freya came calling.
He was in no mood to talk to anyone.
Much less to come face to face with his wife.
Not after the mistake of that typhoon-like night he had with her.
A mistake for he was not supposed to touch her ever again, nor that night either. A mistake because he had married her without asking properly. A mistake because now she would be shackled to him for life.
He dared not even stay in the same room as her. There remained no forces to resist his wife. The past week had been agony, with him almost locking his study and throwing out the key. The only reason he did not do it was that he needed to work the stables next morning.
And he had been toiling like doomsday in the hopes of exhausting himself enough to numb this craving for her.
It was not working.
The more he avoided her, the more the need for her gnawed at him.
He deserved no less. It was his duty to let her be. Let her free as much as she wanted. She was doing fine, if the reports he received from Craig and Mrs Thomson were anything to go by, he comforted himself.
Still standing, he turned to the window behind his chair, not really seeing the grey weather over the greenery.
If she wished to go back to London, to her family, he would not oppose, though her absence might destroy him. It nearly did when she had finished her job here and left. Not that he would ever confess it to Drostan, naturally.
And what if a small voice inside told him he was being a coward bastard? He had a wife, he should come clean, present her the choices. Admit to the mess he made. It was not possible to give her unmarried status back—annulment being out of question. He had mucked it up, no doubt. He should admit it, and to his feelings. He had come into love with her. It must be. The swell of emotions which bludgeoned him during the meeting possessed no other name. No other face.
Given an option, would she go from him? The possibility of an affirmative turned his blood into shards of ice. He expelled tense air through his nostrils, raking his hair.
The doorknob clicked shut. Pivoting, he saw the very wife who did not vacate his mind for a single minute. She stood by the entrance with that unfailing tonnish air that barely served as a thin varnish for her very Scottish temper. Their eyes clasped, hers with a determined gleam in them.
Talk about coming clean!
Her dressing of his colours amazed him as though she did not loath what he did.
She kept her attention glued on him when her hand found the key, turned it, and dropped it between her delicious mounds; the delicate chin lifted in defiance. The sight of her caused his guts to go on overdrive.
That he had thought to lock himself in to resist her made a mockery of the fact they were now enclosed in this place by her own hands. The view of her, that defiance, set his pulse to rush faster. He imagined all kinds of ways he could extricate the blasted key from her. Not to set himself free, oh no. But to throw it somewhere no one would find it, then clutch her to him and make love together for weeks, uninterrupted.
If his delectable amazon came to do battle, he would not be the one to turn tail. That was for sure!
Had she come to tell him she would leave, he did not know if he would have enough strength to let go. Merely the sight of the lass got him twisting in his skin to take her, keep her, the rest be damned.
“Talk to me, Fingal,” she directed as if she had all the right.
And she did, damn her!
“About the weather?” he taunted.
“Yes, the freezing weather.” She certainly referred to their estrangement.
“Not yet,” he delayed. “It’s late summer, you know.”
How would she look swollen with his seed? Unbidden, unbridled, the question assailed his mind out of nowhere. The motions of making her increase caused wild fantasies to sprout in his indecent mind. This woman was just so perfect for him! Did she not see it?
She did not buy the nonsense about summer. “You’ve been…absent. I want to know why.” Crossed arms, her bosom bunched to distract the hell out of him. To slide a hand between them would make him find that key—to paradise.
“You miss my…husband’s duties. I can provide them.” He meant to shock her into silence.
Sweet delusion.