Through dimness created by drawn curtains, she shot him a disbelieving look. “That’s what you always say.”
As ever when she regarded the man she was to marry, her heart twisted in an agony of love. Tall, golden-haired, charming, Viscount Kendall was like a magical prince out of a fairy tale.
A tide of self-doubt threatened to drown her, in spite of her appearance of light-heartedness. She still couldn’t believe that this superb creature had chosen her from all the women in the world to become his wife.
She was a devotee of logic, of scientific process. Miles Hartley’s partiality for a bluestocking Long Meg like her seemed completely nonsensical. She’d imagine he was mad if she wasn’t herself victim to a madness impervious to research or reason or cold, hard reality. But while she recognized her affliction as permanent, how long would his madness last? Until tomorrow? Next year?
From the moment she’d seen him across her father’s drawing room, she’d fallen under Miles’s spell. She still recalled her incredulity when he’d proposed six weeks later. Desperately she’d hoped to become more secure in his love as time passed, but with every day of the last three months, her uncertainties had burgeoned. Now, on the afternoon before her wedding, they gnawed at her like starving rats on a loaf of stale bread.
She told herself a thousand times she was a silly goose. Miles said he loved her. He said it over and over. But at her deepest level, nothing convinced her that she was worthy of his regard. He was elegant and brilliant and gifted with a vivid masculine beauty. He should choose a wife who was equally beautiful, a toast of society, instead of a drab wallflower like her. Calista was bitterly aware that with her straight brown hair and long, thin body, and strong Aston features, she was no beauty.
With his usual careless grace, Miles kicked the door shut behind him and drew her inexorably into his arms. Another shudder of love ran through her. It was dangerous to love a man as much as she loved Miles.
“It’s your fault.” He smiled at her as though she was as bright and lovely as a rainbow. “If you weren’t so delicious, I’d be happy with a mere peck on the cheek.”
“You’re a sweet-tongued devil.” The grim tenor of her thoughts lent the remark a sharp edge.
His smile turned wicked. “Let me show you.”
He kissed her and she melted into his arms. His mouth opened over hers and his tongue slipped between her lips to tease her into a fever. She was helpless against this passion. It terrified her even as she flung herself into the blaze. From the first, he’d made her feel almost painfully alive. If he ever left her, she had a bleak premonition that she’d never feel alive again.
Reluctantly she drew away. Tomorrow… Tomorrow when he kissed her, they wouldn’t need to worry about proprieties. Fear that wasn’t quite so delicious shivered through her. She wanted to lie with Miles more than she’d ever wanted anything, but she couldn’t help but worry that she’d disappoint him.
Tomorrow they’d share the carved bed that loomed behind her. The bed that was much closer than it had been. While kissing her, Miles had nudged her backward.
He caught her face between his hands. “Calista, darling Calista, if only you could see yourself how I see you. You wouldn’t torture me this way.”
“We shouldn’t be here alone,” she whispered, resting her hands on his shoulders.
She didn’t know why she lowered her voice. Something in this hushed, close room always made her want to tiptoe. Nobody else loitered on the upper floor of her father’s hitherto neglected mansion on the Norfolk Broads. The servants were too busy preparing for the festivities and readying a long-empty house to welcome the onslaught of visitors. The guestrooms on the level below were bustling centers of activity, as was the ground floor where the wedding celebrations would take place. But here, high above the bleak but beautiful countryside, she and her betrothed were isolated.
Miles stroked his hand down her cheek with a tenderness that she felt to her toes. Clawing doubt receded on a tide of need. “Of course we should.”
“Tomorrow—” she said on a fading protest as he gently pushed her back onto the mattress. When Miles kneeled above her, it sagged under their weight.
For all her pleasure in his touch, something in her didn’t want to be on this bed—and not just because Miles tempted her to impropriety. She’d believed herself immune to the house’s dark legends, but she discovered that she wasn’t quite as level-headed as she thought. A Chinese princess had cursed this bed. In the full light of day, Calista treated such superstition with contempt. Here, in this shadowy room, malevolence whispered from the very wainscoting.
“I’m not sure I can wait until then.” He rose above her, supporting himself on his arms.
She struggled to shore up the crumbling remnants of common sense. “It’s only one more day.”
“How cruelly you say that, as if my torment doesn’t signify.”
“Of course it matters,” she said unsteadily, panting with forbidden excitement.
The amusement ebbed from his face and she couldn’t quite interpret his assessing look. “I wish I believed that.”
She frowned. The gravity in his voice seemed out of kilter with their flirting. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that sometimes I feel…my passion for you outweighs your passion for me.” His voice was deeper than usual, his words more hesitant.
“No…” Shocked she stared up into the perfect planes of his face. Her eyes had adjusted to the dull light so that she saw the uncertainty that flickered in his hazel eyes. Miles Hartley, Viscount Kendall, wasn’t by nature an uncertain man. “No, Miles. You know I love you.”
“Then prove it.” His voice was harder than she’d ever heard it and his jaw set in an unfamiliar stubborn line.
Surprise held her briefly silent. She was used to his easy manner. But this man looked ready to take on the world and seize what he wanted from it.
“This time tomorrow, we’ll be married,” she said shakily. “You can’t tumble me here with the house full of people.”