“You won’t,” he said in a voice that brooked no rejoinder. “Sit down. We must speak like reasonable adults, or I’ll spank you in truth.”
Something in that stern address made her well of emotions overflow. She couldn’t bear that he looked handsome as ever, in his finely tailored traveling clothes of buff and black. She couldn’t bear his confident stature and his direct pale blue regard. She couldn’t bear that she’d missed him so much already, that she was secretly relieved he’d pushed his way into her room.
She couldn’t bear that he seemed cool and unbothered while she felt she was coming apart.
He took her in his arms, not to put her over his lap, but to guide her to the edge of her bed where she sat in a defeated lump. He settled beside her, not too close, but close enough to support her as she dissolved in tears.
“You exasperate me,” she cried, looking up from her hands.
“You exasperate me too. Enough of this histrionic letter-writing campaign, Rosalind, and enough hiding away. If we’re to be married, we must speak to one another.”
“Speak of what? How naughty I am? How much I’m in need of discipline for my faults?”
“Darling, you’re overwrought.”
“How can I not be? You’ve hurt me. You will not listen to my concerns.”
She buried her head back in her hands and felt his arm around her shoulders. “Rosalind, I love you. There is no need for these concerns. I’ll always love you and I’ll always take care of you. I’m not an uncaring monster.”
“How am I to believe that?”
He made a gruff, exasperated sound. “All this over a couple of spankings, which you certainly deserved? I’m the same Marlow you’ve always known, the same friend you grew up with, the same man who loved you enough to risk your parents’ disdain when I asked for your hand. I’m the same man.”
But he wasn’t, not when he was close to her. Not when he held her and made her feel helpless and a little bit endangered. Certainly not when he spanked her. Her room felt too small for both of them. Why did he send her feelings into such a maelstrom? Why did he have to be a real, complicated man, rather than the perfect, dashing hero she’d created in her mind?
“I’m afraid I’ve romanticized you,” she said. “Just as Lord Byron romanticized pirates, but really, pirates do terrible things to people, and perhaps…”
“What? Finish the sentence, why don’t you, Lady Rosalind? Perhaps I will do terrible things too? Do you really believe I’m as objectionable as a pirate?” This time, his sound of disgruntlement was very loud. “You’ve come to land where your parents are, then, and your brother. You believe me to be beneath you. Not trustworthy, not a prospect to be risked.”
“I don’t know if you’re trustworthy,” she said, turning from his rising temper. “I’ve sacrificed everything to marry you but now I’m worried we won’t suit.”
“Why? Because I spanked you?”
She sniffled into her fingers. “Twice.”
“Lord, I’d like to make it three times, you little ninny. Look at me. No, don’t turn away. Look at me, sweeting.”
He took her about the waist, turned her and pulled her close so his piercing eyes gazed into hers from inches away. It made her breathless. It made her happy and terrified and mad.
“Do you know the restraint I’ve exerted on your behalf, my lady? The depth of my personal heroism as it regards your person?”
Her lower lip trembled. “What do you mean? You wished to spank me more? Harder?”
“Yes.” He gave a sharp, wild laugh. “But I don’t mean spanking and discipline. I mean the restraint I’ve shown out of respect for your virtue. Do you know how I long to kiss you every moment of every day? Not sweet kisses either, but deep, passionate kisses that would steal your breath. Do you know how much I ache to hold you and…?” He traced the edge of her black lace collar, his lips turned down in a frown. “And do things to you that one must only do with a wife? Not only that, but more…”
She could not understand his expression, the torment that tautened his aquiline features. “More?” she said softly. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t tell you. I won’t. I can be respectful and kind, darling. I’m not a pirate. Don’t accuse me of it or this control of mine will start to ebb.” He dropped his finger from her collar and fisted his hand in his lap. “I’m trying very hard every minute of every day because of my love for you. That’s me, Rosalind, being a good person. That’s me trying to be the husband you deserve. I’ve spanked you, yes. It’s a part of who I am. I can’t help that, but please… You must know that I’ll never hurt you in any other way. I can’t. I won’t.”
She realized at the end of his impassioned speech, his stern I won’t, that she was holding her breath. A wildness lived in him, it had always been in him. She had known that for years, had loved it and wished for it instead of steady Lord Brittingham, then become upset when it was directed at her.
But he held the worst of it in check for her, that’s what he was saying. Because he loved her.
“I should not have called you a pirate,” she said, touching his tightly clenched hand. She tilted her head, remembering. “My mother told me you chase dragons. That you are not settled. But that doesn’t make you a pirate, I suppose.”
He looked down at her hand upon his. She fancied that he suppressed a sigh. “Your mother is right, except that I don’t chase dragons. I chase respectability and find myself too often falling short.” He gazed at her with a bitter, ironic look. “Maybe that’s why I long for you so desperately, Lady Rosalind Lionel, and why I wish to spank you when you’re not perfect. You’re the epitome of respectability. You always have been.”
Her heart broke a little to hear his words. Respectability? He might have found it one day if she hadn’t run away to elope with him. Both their reputations were tarnished now, perhaps beyond repair.