Authors: Kristen Ashley
His hand
splayed over her stomach, wondering, as he hadn’t used protection
(either time), if they’d created a child last night. Something
stirred in him at the thought but he brushed it aside. Surely she
wouldn’t have allowed him to continue if she needed some
protection. Not, of course, that he’d given her much choice.
However, a clever woman who looked like Julia, and thus received
the amount of attention she did (judging from last night),
undoubtedly kept herself protected.
At the thought
of that attention, his hand shifted upward and he cupped her
breast.
There
would be no more of that, now she was truly his, and he vowed to
himself that would
never
change.
He used the
pad of his thumb to stroke her nipple. As he was becoming
accustomed, her body immediately responded, her nipple tightening.
Most women of his acquaintance acted coy or were overeager or were
greedy but not Julia. Julia took everything he was willing to give
but she gave everything of herself in return, honestly and
openly.
Just then, he
heard a noise in the sitting room and his body reflexively tensed,
his hand tightening on her breast and Julia grumbled sleepily, her
eyes fluttering open, her neck twisting so she could look at
him.
He released
her breast, put a finger to her lips and lifted his head to
listen.
Someone was in
the sitting room.
He was out of
the bed in flash, pulling on his trousers.
Where the bloody hell was Nick?
He thought.
No one should
be in the house. No one should be able to get through Nick.
Julia had
turned toward him and pulled herself up on her elbow. Her other
hand was clutching the covers to her breasts. Her eyes were sleepy
and curious and her curls were tumbling around her face and
shoulders. He put his finger to his lips this time to keep her
silent and she nodded, bemused, as he moved stealthily to the door.
If he needed to, he’d find a weapon in the other room and gave the
room a mental inventory deciding on his target. If it was one of
the children, however, come back for some reason, he certainly
didn’t need to go tearing into the room with a makeshift weapon
raised and threatening.
It was a good
decision.
As he yanked
open the door, Mrs. Kilpatrick jerked upright, both her hands
flying to her face.
“My lord…
sir.” She stopped and looked crazily around the room as if she was
considering diving behind an armchair to hide herself before her
eyes came back to him. “Mister Douglas,” she finished, using a name
for him she’d never used before.
Then she
gestured to an extravagant tray that lay on a table. It was filled
with plates carrying plain, almond and chocolate croissants, a
selection of marmalades and jams sitting in little china bowls, a
piece of butter moulded into a fleur de lis, a crystal bowl filled
with sliced melon and strawberries, a silver coffeepot and two
delicate china cups, two stemmed glasses filled with orange juice,
a folded newspaper and even a slim crystal vase holding a single
red rose.
“I brought a
bit of breakfast. Just croissants and…” she trailed off then
started again. “I didn’t have a lot of time. I didn’t want to
disturb you but I thought you might be hungry.”
Before he
could respond, Julia’s shocked voice sounded from behind
Douglas.
“Mrs. K!”
Douglas turned
to see her standing there, not in her dress or his shirt but,
instead, wrapped tightly in his dressing gown.
Mrs.
Kilpatrick looked at Julia, she blinked and then, he could swear,
the ends of her lips twitched upward.
“Miss Julia, I
brought breakfast,” Mrs. Kilpatrick told her.
Gone was
the stammering, Mrs. K bent and gamely made a few adjustments to
the tray, straightening some lace-edged linen serviettes
unnecessarily. “It’s not much but it’ll do in a pinch. Enjoy. Don’t
worry about the children; Roddy’s taken them off to the ice rink.
You’ve got
hours.
” She
emphasised the last word meaningfully and then threw Douglas an
encouraging look that both surprised him and made him want to roar
with laughter.
He had the
insane urge to walk up to his housekeeper and kiss her cheek.
Instead, Douglas said not a word, simply nodded. If he’d opened his
mouth to speak, he would surely have laughed.
He did,
however, allow himself to grin.
Julia, who had
turned scarlet, muttered an embarrassed, “Uh… thank you.”
Mrs.
Kilpatrick smiled at Julia and Douglas witnessed stark adoration
shining in her eyes. It struck him that this woman shared his home
for nearly the length of his life and she never looked at him in
that way. Julia had been there two months and Mrs. Kilpatrick would
have laid down her life for her.
For some
reason, this pleased Douglas immensely.
The older
woman turned to him and he nodded at her in approval and she
slowly, hesitantly, to his disbelief, winked at him.
Then she was
gone.
He turned his
eyes to Julia, who was staring at the door.
“She must
think I’m a tramp, a tart,” Julia burst out. “Oh my God, this is
terrible!”
“Do you
think,” Douglas started and Julia turned humiliated eyes to him,
“that she would bring you breakfast if she thought you were a
tart?”
Julia looked
at him, at the breakfast, at the door Mrs. Kilpatrick just exited
through, back at Douglas and then she said, “Doesn’t she bring all
your women breakfast?”
Douglas’s
lingering grin immediately turned into a scowl.
“No,” he
replied shortly, walking toward her, “she has not once, in my
debauched past, brought breakfast to a woman in this room.”
Well certainly
not unless he ordered her to do so but Julia didn’t need to know
that.
Julia ignored
his tone and his comment and skirted around him to head toward the
breakfast tray.
Douglas
sighed. He would not be amused if she was going to begin resisting
him again. He crossed his arms on his chest and watched as she sat
on the couch in front of the food and reached for the
coffeepot.
“Coffee?” she
asked, lifting the pot gratuitously and failing to meet his eyes.
He nodded and she poured, adding no milk or sugar and walked to him
to hand him a cup. He continued to regard her, wondering at her
mood, as she made her own, one sugar and a splash of milk. She
deposited the pot on the tray, grabbed the cup by its saucer and an
almond croissant and headed across the room.
To the
door.
“Where are you
going?” he demanded to know.
“To my room,
to wash my face, brush my teeth, take a shower,” she replied, her
tone carefully blasé and she continued moving.
“You can do
that here,” he told her.
She stopped
and turned to him, her mouth opening to speak when a knock came at
the door.
“Yes?” he
called before Julia could utter a word and Mrs. Kilpatrick popped
her head around the door.
“Just brought
you a couple of things, Miss Julia, toothpaste, your face wash…”
she sidled in and stood, carrying a toiletries bag. She looked
confused for a moment as Julia’s hands were full so she moved to
Douglas and, as he had a free hand, gave him the bag. “Thought you
might want an easy morning and not have to run all over the house.
You’ve been busy lately, you deserve a break.” She stopped at the
door, offered them both a cheeky smile and then closed the door
softly behind her.
Julia swung
widened eyes to his as her jaw dropped and Douglas raised his brow
at her.
He could swear
he heard her make a growling noise and she retraced her steps, put
down her cup and croissant, walked to Douglas, snatched the bag out
of his hand and tramped to his bathroom.
She didn’t
take long and when she came back, fresh faced, her hair pulled back
in a messy bundle secured with a clip, he was seated in an
armchair, sipping his coffee and reading the paper. Without access
to his dressing gown, he had shrugged on his dress shirt to ward
off the slight chill in the room but hadn’t bothered buttoning
it.
It smelled of
her perfume and he decided he liked that.
Very much.
She sat on the
couch and reached for her coffee, her movements jerky, her face
duelling between bemused and mutinous.
“Is something
wrong?” Douglas inquired, wondering how long courtesy would require
for him to give her to have her breakfast before he dragged her
back into the bedroom.
Or perhaps, he
would have her on the couch.
Julia
interrupted his pleasant reverie.
“Well, she
might have brought your other women breakfast,” she continued
doggedly with the idea of his “other women”, “but she probably
didn’t bring them toothpaste.” Julia looked from her coffee to him
and then grabbed the croissant. “It would seem she approves!” she
exclaimed as if this idea was impossible.
“Firstly,
there are no other women.” When Julia looked like she would
interrupt, he added, “Anymore. And secondly, yes, I would say her
behaviour indicates approval. Why is that hard to believe?”
Julia took a
bite of croissant and contemplated this piece of news while she
chewed. She did not, however, answer.
He folded the
paper and tossed it on the table.
She
jumped.
He sighed
again at her reaction before he said, “Julia. We need to talk.”
She swallowed
the bite of croissant as if it had the heft and width of an anvil.
“About what?”
“About last
night,” he replied.
“What about
it?” she asked, giving him a sidelong glance.
“You agreed to
marry me.”
At that, she
paled and faced him head on.
“
You
do
remember
agreeing to marry me?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing.
“Of
course!”
He felt his
body relax and hadn’t realised he’d tensed in preparation for her
response.
However, there
was something wrong, she was acting cagey and guarded. Or, more
cagey and guarded than normal.
Her last
husband hadn’t handled her well, to say the least, and Douglas
forced himself to move cautiously.
“Come here,”
he commanded gently.
She hesitated,
her eyes darting around looking for escape. He leaned forward,
pulled her coffee cup out of her hand and set it in its saucer and
then divested her of her croissant. Then he grabbed her hand and
tugged lightly. She rose to her feet with a deep, ungracious sigh
and stepped the two paces toward him. He opened his legs and
positioned her until she was standing between them, staring down at
him, his hand still holding hers.
“Is something
bothering you?” he asked softly.
Something dark
crossed her eyes and she shook her head, then nodded, then ended
with moving her head in a circle that encompassed both.
Douglas waited
patiently.
“I… well, I
wasn’t exactly prepared for what happened last night,” she
admitted.
The
realisation dawned on him what she was referring to and he felt a
strange sensation that was part expectation, part hope and part
triumph.
“Are you using
birth control?” he queried.
Her body
jerked.
“What?” she
breathed then her hand ripped out of his and flew to her mouth as
her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God.”
Apparently, he realised, she was not referring to
that
kind of preparation.
He stood which
brought him to within an inch of her. He was pleased to note that
she didn’t try to move away. He slid his hands around her waist,
settling them loosely at the small of her back, enjoying this
casual intimacy tremendously. “If you weren’t talking about
contraception…”
Her face
cleared and she lifted her hand and waved it blithely between their
two faces, nearly knocking him on the nose.
“Not to
worry,” she proclaimed. “Sean and I tried to have children for
years and couldn’t. He went to get checked and they found nothing
wrong with him. So, obviously, it was me who was unable to
conceive. Sean didn’t want to go through all the rigmarole of the
infertility clinic…” she didn’t finish but heaved another sigh,
though he didn’t know if it was of relief or resignation.
Douglas
continued to stare at her.
“Did they find
something wrong with you?” he asked, his voice quiet, finding
himself far more interested in her answer than he would have
imagined himself to be.
“Sean told me
I didn’t need to check, he was okay and –” she started to
explain.
Douglas felt
his mouth tighten. “You didn’t get checked?”
“No, I –”
“Did it occur
to you that he might be lying?”
She blinked up
at him. “Of course not, why would he do such a thing?”
That was an
excellent question.
However, there
were more questions as to Sean Webster’s behaviour.
Such as, why
would he torment and disparage a vital and intelligent woman? And
why, when he had her love and devotion, would he abuse it? And
lastly, why, when he had her legally bound to him, would he let her
go?
Douglas knew
the way men like Webster worked, he knew it intimately because his
father was one. Sean Webster was not the type of man to admit to
any failing. He preferred other people feeling they were inferior,
even going so far as making them feel that way, rather than admit
something was wrong with himself.
“Even Sean
wouldn’t be that cruel,” she scoffed.
He watched her
silently and gave her time to think it through. He saw the warring
of emotions on her face, careening from disbelief to
apprehension.
“Dear God,”
she breathed and started to tremble. She shut her eyes tight and
whispered, “I’m such a fool.”