The Winter Wife

She tried not to focus on the massive tester bed in the corner. Out

on the moors, she’d have scoffed at the idea of letting him touch her in passion, even if he wanted to. But with every moment in this room, a strange tension built between them, a tension that whispered of desire long denied.

Did Kinvarra feel this tremulous awareness too? Or was it all her imagination? Was he hoping to join her in that bed? And if he was, what would her response be? Last week, yesterday, an hour ago, it would have been a contemptuous refusal.

Now? Now, she wasn’t so sure what she wanted. She had an unwelcome inkling that she might want her husband.

She shivered, but whether with nerves or anticipation, she couldn’t have said.

Kinvarra poured a glass of claret from the decanter on the sideboard. He took a mouthful, then turned to watch Alicia lower herself gingerly into an oak chair near the fire. Frowning with concern, he strode toward her. “You told me you weren’t hurt.”

Again, that protective air. She fought to strangle the warmth curling in her heart. And failed. Heaven help her, she needed to remember the last time they’d been alone together or she risked making an awful fool of herself.

She shook her head, even as she relished the blessed relief of sitting on something that didn’t move. “I’m bruised, and stiff from cold and riding, but, no, I’m not hurt.”

“You were lucky. The curricle is beyond repair. I know the road was icy, but the going wasn’t hazardous, for all that. Was Henry driving too fast?”

“Perhaps.” She paused before grudgingly admitting, “We were arguing.”

“You? Arguing with a man?” Without shifting his gaze from her face, Kinvarra dropped to his knees before her. She guessed that he meant to help her remove her boots. It was an act familiar from their short intimacy, before everything went wrong. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Shocking, isn’t it?” Her lips curved upward in a reluctant smile as she stared down into obsidian eyes alight with sardonic amusement.

Nobody else had ever teased her. Even Kinvarra when they’d lived together had been too intense at first, then too angry. To her surprise, she found she enjoyed his playfulness. He’d been angry with her earlier, but she sensed no rage in him now. Instead, beneath his humor, he seemed watchful, waiting. Another anticipatory shiver rippled through her.

He extended his glass and she accepted it. His attention didn’t waver from her face when she raised it to her lips. Heat bloomed inside her. From the wine and from the unspoken intimacy of drinking from the place his lips had touched. It was almost like sharing a kiss.

Stop it, Alicia. You’re letting the situation go to your head.

“What were you quarrelling about?” Kinvarra asked with an idleness that his grave attention contradicted.

She returned the glass, her hand slightly unsteady. “I decided I’d been reckless to take up Lord Harold’s invitation to visit his hunting lodge. I was trying to get him to turn back to York.”

She braced for gloating, a repeat of his triumphant reaction downstairs when he discovered she was still chaste. Kinvarra mightn’t want her, but she’d always known he didn’t want her sharing her body with anyone else either.

Her husband’s regard held no smugness. How astonishing. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said quietly.

She tried to sit up and scowl at him, summon one of the sharp- tongued responses that had come so easily out in the snow, but the

effort was beyond her. Instead she tilted her head back against the chair. She closed her eyes, partly from weariness, partly because she flinched from reading messages that couldn’t possibly be true in his dark, dark stare.

“He wasn’t worthy of you, Alicia.” Kinvarra’s soft voice echoed

in her heart, as did his use of her Christian name. He hadn’t called her Alicia since the early days of their marriage when they’d both still hoped to create something good from their union. “Why in God’s name choose him of all men?”

Shock held her unmoving as Kinvarra’s bare hand slid over hers where it rested on the heavy arm of the chair. His palm was warm and slightly callused. Harold’s hand had been softer than a woman’s. She berated herself for making the comparison.

She opened her eyes and stared into her husband’s face. Into the black eyes that for once appeared sincere and kind.

And she chanced an honest answer.

“I chose him because he was everything you are not, my lord.” Even more shocking than the touch of his hand, she watched him

whiten under his tan. In all this time, she’d never realized that she had the power to hurt him. The knowledge pierced her like a blade, left her shaken.

He jerked back on his heels, removing his hand from hers. She tried not to miss that casual, comforting touch. The distance between them gaped like a chasm of ice.

“I…see.” His voice firmed. “At least I’d never leave a woman alone