*
Flint swam up from fathoms down to find Rose curled up beside him, her cheek on his chest, her arms lashed around his waist. When he moved she gave a little hum of satisfaction.
‘Are you all right?’ There was a thread of uncertainty in her voice that cut through the haze of utter satisfaction. He had never been with a woman who asked him that, sounded so much as though she cared for his feelings. For a moment his focus blurred, almost as if his eyes had filled with tears.
‘All right? No. I’m a wreck.’ Flint gave his voice a sardonic edge, armouring himself against the disgrace of letting that moisture flow. ‘I’ve gone into hundreds of fights expecting to get killed, but I never expected to be tortured to death by pleasure.’
She chuckled, and sat up, curled round so she could look at him. ‘You have the most incredible self-control.’
‘You are mine,’ he said gruffly and swung his legs over the side of the bed so his back was towards her and he did not have to meet those candid hazel eyes, so full of trust. If she told him again that she loved him, what could he say? ‘I do not hurt what is mine.’
Something hot and wet swiped at his foot. ‘The devil!’ Dog wriggled out from under the bed and sat, tail thumping, with what Flint could have sworn was a grin of fellow feeling on his whiskery face.
It broke the mood. Rose laughed and scrambled out of bed to scratch Dog’s ears as she passed on her way to the washbasin. ‘Getting under the bed was very tactful, Dog.’
Flint dropped his gaze from Rose’s body as she soaped the sponge and began to wash, relaxed and unselfconscious in his presence. What was he promising her? He would give his life not to hurt her physically, but mentally? What did he know about keeping a woman happy for months? Years. A lifetime. When a lover had become too close before he had always ended the affair. Now this was marriage he was facing.
He was going to fail her. He was a highly trained killer, an expert with explosives and in commanding dangerous scum. He was so damned insensitive that he’d tipped his half-brother into a critical condition, so tactless that he couldn’t extract his half-sister from the bedside of a semi-conscious gazetted rake and so unimaginative that he still had no plan for their future together. Was it really the honourable thing to do to tie this woman to a man like him?
Chapter Nineteen
‘Adam! Your hands.’ Rose had come back as he sat there, his hands loose and open on his knees. Now he looked down at the red-and-white grooves and ridges that had been pressed into the flesh as he clung so desperately to the bedhead. ‘Does it hurt?’ she demanded, lifting them in hers.
‘No worse than gripping a sword hilt for hours in battle.’ He rubbed them together. ‘You’ll have to tie me up next time.’
He had been joking to wipe the worry from her face, but Rose looked at him, head cocked to one side and unmistakable erotic speculation in her eyes. ‘Would you like that?’ Before he could answer, she murmured, ‘I might quite like it if you tied me up sometimes, too.’
She began to dress, apparently unaware that she had rendered him incapable of rational thought. When she shook out her skirts and slipped her feet into her shoes she looked across at him, still sitting naked on the bed. Naked and now achingly erect again. ‘Adam? Was that a dreadful
thing to suggest?’
‘It is probably the most arousing thing anyone has ever said to me,’ he admitted as he grappled for some self-control.
‘Oh, good.’ She began to fiddle with her hair, suddenly blushing as she twisted loose locks and stuck in pins. ‘Only…I know you are used to women with a lot of experience and it must be rather boring for you that I am so ignorant.’
‘No.’ Flint strode over to the washbasin and poured cold water, wishing he could go and stick his head under the pump. ‘No, I am not bored.’
Was this love, this chaotic, unsettling feeling that was stopping him sleeping, ruining his concentration, replacing all his old certainties with doubts? It didn’t seem to get any better when he was with her, it simply intensified into the need to hold her, be inside her, make her laugh, protect her. Could he say it? I love you, Rose. But he would only hurt her, do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing. All that he could promise her was that he would die before he let harm come to her and he suspected that she wanted rather more from a husband than that.
‘Good,’ she said from the doorway. ‘I will go and see what there is for luncheon. Come on, Dog.’
*
Adam was almost silent all through the meal. Rose told herself it was not anything to do with her. He was quite patently not given to inconsequential chatter so if she spent their marriage cast into apprehension every time he fell silent then she would be in despair most of the time. And heaven forbid that she should expect an exchange about topics as unmanly as feelings and emotions, she thought with a wry smile as she washed dishes and tidied the kitchen.
‘What is amusing you?’ Adam might be taciturn, but he was also observant.
‘Nothing is amusing me.’ She shook out the dishcloth and untied Maggie’s apron. ‘But I am happy.’
His lids were hooded over his eyes, the only feature she ever felt betrayed his emotions, which meant he was hiding something. Most men would counter her words with a declaration that they, too, were happy. But not, it seemed, Adam, who was not going to lie to her even to spare her feelings. The warm feeling inside vanished as she felt her smile falter.
‘I’ll find a hackney.’ He stood up and reached for his shako.
‘No, let’s walk. It is a lovely day. Adam, don’t frown at me. I might have been a helpless waif when you plucked me from the battlefield, but I am not usually such a poor creature. Some exercise would be very welcome.’
‘A poor creature was not how I thought of you.’ He clicked his fingers at Dog. ‘Come on, you need the exercise, too. Just remember you are escorting a lady and leave the cats alone.’
Rose stood by the front door as he locked it, juggling key, Dog’s leash and his portfolio of papers. Inevitably they became entangled and by the time Rose had ducked under Adam’s arm and freed the leash from his sword hanger they were both laughing. She reached up and straightened his neckcloth with a final proprietorial pat on the chest. ‘You look very handsome, Major Flint.’