The Bedding Proposal

by Tracy Anne Warren

“Oh? Which one?”

  “The duke. He was formidable to say the least.”

  “That’s Edward. Although he’s lightened up considerably since he married. Claire has a definite way about her and she doesn’t put up with his bluster.”

  “His wife sounds like an excellent woman.”

  “Yes, you would like her.”

  Thalia fell silent, aware that she and the Duchess of Clybourne would never meet; they no longer ran in the same circles. Leo looked away, busied himself with the items on the tray. She supposed he must be thinking the same thing.

  He turned and leaned over her. “This will work better if we remove your stocking.” Without waiting for her consent, he reached for the hem of her dress.

  She clamped a hand down on his arm. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Helping you off with your stocking.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort.”

  He arched a brow. “Why not? Modest?”

  “No. Just cautious. If anyone is going to put their hands under my dress, it will be me. Turn your back.”

  “Thalia—”

  “Turn your back.”

  He raised his hands up in mock surrender and did as she bade.

  She waited until she was sure he wasn’t looking, then sat up so she could pull up her skirts to remove her garter. The moment she did, pain shot through her ankle as her foot shifted sideways against the pillow. “Ouch!”

  Leo whirled around. “You’ve hurt yourself.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said through gritted teeth. “And you’re looking. Turn around.”

  He took a step closer instead. “I thought you weren’t going to lie to me, remember? Stop being obstinate and let me help you. It’s not as if I’m the first man to ever see and touch your legs.”

  No, but it had been a long time, a very long time, since she’d let a man do either of those things. And strangely enough, even that minor intimacy seemed too intense with him. As much as she wanted to refuse, though, her ankle was throbbing like she’d twisted it all over again.

  “You’re sure it isn’t broken?” she asked.

  “Quite sure. But that doesn’t mean the sprain won’t hurt like Hades. Now lie back and let me tend to you.”

  She hesitated one final moment, then gingerly relaxed back.

  She let her eyes close.

  They popped back open seconds later when she felt his hands slip under her skirt and travel up her leg with a gliding move that made her skin tingle.

  She smacked one hand over the top of his to stop him, clutching it through the material of her dress. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Searching for your garter,” he said in an innocent tone. “I’m nearly there, I believe, if you would let me proceed.”

  “Hmmph. Well, proceed with a bit less enthusiasm.”

  A grin spread over his face. “I can try, but it might be difficult. I do everything with enthusiasm, especially when it comes to undressing a desirable woman.”

  “You are not undressing me, at least not in the manner you are implying. You are . . .” She paused, her words trailing off as she tried to think of a way to describe the current situation.

  “Yes? What am I doing?” he teased, his grin growing wider.

  “Oh, just get on with it and be quick.”

  “Now, those are words a man never wants to hear.”

  She stared as his meaning sank in. Then to her consternation, she began to smile. Wiping the look from her face before he could see it, she leaned her head back on the pillow and released her grip on his hand.

  As soon as she did, his search recommenced, his big, wide palms gliding upward against her stocking-clad leg. Higher and higher he went, each new touch sending shivers through her body.

  She bit the corner of her lip and fought the urge to sigh, the pain in her ankle nearly forgotten.

  Moments later, his fingers located her garter. “Hmm, satiny,” he said. “I cannot wait to see.”

  This time she refused to rise to his verbal bait. Instead, she stared intently at a painted medallion of fruits and flowers on the ceiling.

  With what seemed a kind of slow torture, he began rolling her stocking and garter down her leg, his fingers trailing after.

  The tingles started anew.

  He ran one hand along the underside of her knee, then over her calf before he stopped, the thin silk stocking gathered just above her ankle. He slipped the now loosened garter free.

  “Pink,” he said, holding it up between two fingers. “You never cease to surprise me, Lady Thalia.”

  “What color did you imagine it would be?”

  “I had no idea. That’s what makes it doubly interesting.” He laid the garter aside, then looked into her eyes. “I shall endeavor to slip this stocking off as painlessly as possible, but brace yourself.”

  She nodded and fisted her hands at her sides.

  Fresh pain lashed her as he eased the stocking past her ankle, but it was over nearly as quickly as it had begun.

  “All finished,” he said.

  Turning toward the tray, he dropped her stocking onto it. Next, he lifted a bath towel and folded it into quarters, then eased it gently beneath her leg and foot.

  Again, he left her barely any time to focus on the pain before he carefully placed the ice wrap around her swollen ankle. “How does that feel?” he asked.

  She tested the sensation. “Lovely,” she said, sighing with relief.

  “Good.” Leo smiled down at her. “We’ll leave it for several minutes until the warm poultice arrives, then switch them around.”

  She nodded again and let herself sink deeper into the sofa cushions.

  Chapter 14

  Leo settled a second warm poultice over Thalia’s injured ankle, taking extra care not to disturb her.

  Twenty minutes earlier, he’d been seated beside her in a chair, softly reading Wordsworth aloud, when he’d glanced up to find her asleep. He’d watched her for several long minutes, the book utterly forgotten in his hands.

  Her eyelashes fanned in delicate circles above her rosy cheeks, her lips pink and slightly parted in slumber. Her hands were lax, no longer gripping the fringe of her shawl. Her breathing was deep and even, her pain eased enough to let her rest.

  When Fletcher entered the room with a fresh poultice, Leo had signaled him to be quiet, gesturing toward the sofa where Thalia slept. With deliberate silence, the older man had delivered a tureen containing the latest poultice, hot from the kitchen. Then he’d turned his gaze on Leo and studied him with a kind of unfettered curiosity. Leo had raised a brow, but the butler had merely bowed and left the room.

  She’d continued sleeping while he removed the leather bag of ice that had pretty much seen its last and laid the new poultice over her ankle, her skin now dappled by a colorful array of bruises. Once this final compress had done its work, he would bind her ankle.

  Resuming his seat, he picked up the Wordsworth again and began to read in silence.

  * * *

  Thalia awakened gradually and stared at the ceiling for a few moments before becoming aware of Leo bent over her feet. He was busy wrapping a long length of cotton around her injured ankle in a process that reminded her of a drawing she’d once seen of an Egyptian mummy. Her ankle, she realized, was still quite sore but was no longer smarting as badly as it had been earlier.

  She wiggled her toes experimentally.

  Leo glanced her way, his brilliant green-gold eyes meeting hers. “You’re awake.”

  “So it would seem.” She raised a hand to her mouth to cover a yawn. “Forgive me. It was quite rude to drift off like that.”

  And quite unusual as well. Generally, she was far too much on her guard to fall asleep anywhere but in the privacy of her bedroom.

  He shrugged. “You are not feeling well. An injury can have that effect.”

  Glancing away again, he resumed his careful binding of her ankle.

  She lay quiescent under his mini
strations, aware that it was pointless to resist. Besides, she was just too tired.

  Of worrying and struggling.

  Of arguing and pushing him away.

  But mostly she was tired of being alone, exactly as she’d been on the night she’d first met him.

  She studied Leo as he secured the last of the bindings, watching the way the afternoon light played with the golden strands in his thick brown hair and the determined set of his jaw as he concentrated on his task.

  “Would you stay to dinner, Lord Leopold?”

  She wasn’t sure which one of them was more surprised, his eyes widening fractionally at her unexpected invitation.

  “As I recall, you were desirous of having nuncheon before all this happened. . . .” She waved a hand toward her bandaged foot. “Since that hour has come and gone, it seems only fair that I offer you dinner instead. What do you say?”

  His hands dropped to his sides and he straightened, his eyes all for her. “I should very much like to say yes. But given your current malady, I suppose I ought to help you up to bed, then depart. Although if you wished to invite me to share dinner with you in your bedchamber,” he added with a crooked smile, “I might reconsider my good intentions.”

  She paused for a long moment. “All right.”

  “All right, what?”

  “Have dinner with me in my bedchamber,” she said softly.

  Her heart gave a queer thump. What have I just done? Maybe it wasn’t only her ankle she’d hurt; perhaps she’d suffered a blow to the head and just didn’t remember.

  “I have a small attached sitting room with a very comfortable divan,” she said. “I’m sure the servants can arrange something for us there.”

  A gleam came into his eyes. “In that case, how can I not accept?”

  “It is only dinner, you understand,” she said, deciding she needed to clarify the point.

  “Of course,” he agreed calmly.

  But then his smile widened—putting her in mind of a cat who has happened upon an unexpectedly plump bird—and ruined the effect.

  What am I worried about? It is dinner, nothing else.

  But deep down inside, she knew it was a great deal more.

  * * *

  A few hours later, Leo ate a last bite of plum cake with warm brandy sauce, then laid his fork across his empty plate.

  “But surely you must concede that Scott’s work is often overwrought and unnecessarily dramatic,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. “Despite his popularity, I think Scott would do well to continue writing poetry and abandon these efforts of his to write full-length books.”

  “Not at all,” Thalia disagreed, her own half-eaten dessert already pushed aside. “Waverley is a fine story. And an author has every right to be overly dramatic on occasion, if for no other reason than to entertain.”

  “Yes, but does he entertain or just annoy? I suppose you are a devotee of Mrs. Radcliffe’s as well?”

  Thalia arched a brow from where she reclined on the divan in her sitting room, her bandaged foot carefully elevated on a pair of soft pillows.

  After he’d carried Thalia upstairs, her maid had helped her change out of her day dress and into a blue wool dressing gown that was clearly made for comfort rather than style. Her dark hair was pulled back into a long, tidy braid that teased him with the need to slip it free of its ribbon.

  He’d smiled to himself at her obvious efforts to discourage any attempts at seduction, despite the fact that it was she who had invited him to join her in her rooms. From the start, he’d realized that an undemanding conversation would go a great deal further than a flirtatious one, so he’d chosen light topics that entertained rather than titillated.

  There would be plenty of time later for titillation, he decided. After all, just think of the progress he’d made. Only two days into his two-week campaign and he was already past her sitting room door. How much harder could it be to get into her bedroom and her bed?

  He shifted, aware of the half arousal that had ridden him all evening. Patience, he told himself, forcing his attention back to the conversation at hand.

  “There is no need to be unpleasant,” she chided, responding to his question about Mrs. Radcliffe and her writing. “I have read The Romance of the Forest and The Mysteries of Udolpho, just like everyone else. But you are right, there are other authors who tell a far more compelling story.”

  “Such as?”

  Her chin tilted in unconscious defense. “Jane Austen for one. Her Pride and Prejudice is exceptional, witty and amazingly insightful. I also quite enjoyed her latest, Emma. The heroine is overly spoiled and meddlesome, but the hero, Mr. Knightley, he is most engaging. A perfect gentleman.”

  “Is he?” Leo drawled.

  “Indeed.”

  An odd sensation ran through him, one he might have described as jealousy were it not so patently ridiculous. After all, Mr. Knightley wasn’t even real.

  But Thalia liked this fictional man.

  Does she like me?

  Given their prior dealings, he wasn’t certain he wanted to know the answer.

  “Have you read Miss Austen’s work?” she asked, completely unaware of his inner musings.

  Leo shook his head. “I have heard of her in passing, but have not had the pleasure.”

  Thalia smiled, her face lighting with excitement. “Then you are in for a treat. I can lend you my copy of either book, if you would like. I do not believe you will find her writing in any way overdramatic.”

  “Let us hope not, else I consign her to the same purgatory as Scott.”

  She met his eyes; then slowly her smile deepened and she laughed.

  He drank in her animated expression, warmth spreading through his chest at the sight.

  “So which fiction writers do you enjoy, Lord Leopold? Or do you not have time to bother with popular literature?”

  He reached for his wineglass and took a drink. “I do, if the story is good. Sadly, I often find ‘good’ to be a relative term.”

  “Oh dear. I had no idea you could be so hard to please. You surprise me.”

  “Really? In what way?”

  “Well, to the unsuspecting eye, you appear to be little more than a handsome, overindulged young lord, who likes sports, spirits and women.”

  Rather than take offense, Leo settled further back against the upholstery, enjoying their verbal game far more than he would ever have expected. “You should have listed women first, but do go on.”

  “The more I come to know you—exactly as you wished, by the way—I realize that you are not entirely what you seem. You have hidden depths.”

  “Really?” He swirled the wine in his glass. “I had no idea.”

  She sent him a look that said she saw right through his self-deprecating humor. “Depths that include the fact that you are obviously an intellectual snob.”

  He barked out a laugh. “Am I? I believe this is the first time anyone has ever accused me of being an intellectual anything. My professors at university would vehemently disagree.”

  “Only, I suspect, because that is what you wished them to think. Why is that? Were you merely bored or is there another reason you conceal your obvious erudition? You did promise not to lie to me, remember?”

  Some of his relaxed nonchalance fell away. It was time, he decided, to redirect the conversation.

  “And I shan’t,” he said. “But come, how did we start talking about me when there are far more fascinating subjects? Your ankle, for instance? How is it feeling? Still painful?”

  Her sable eyebrows drew close. “A bit, yes. I nearly forgot about the pain during dinner, but now that you ask, it has started aching again.”

  “Then I would advise a spirituous bedtime draught. A hot brandied milk perhaps to help you drift off into a deep sleep. Or would you prefer a buttered rum instead?”

  “Neither. I rarely drink anything stronger than wine and I have already had enough of that tonight.”

  “But you are hurting, so
a mug of something stronger won’t cause any harm. Listen to Dr. Leo and do as you are told.” He stood and crossed to the bellpull.

  “You are not a doctor,” she said in an amused voice.

  He rang the bell. “True. But you’ve been following my medical advice all day, so why stop now? Have I steered you wrong so far?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then there is nothing to do except choose. Hot buttered rum or brandied milk? My guess is you’d enjoy the milk more, but it is entirely up to you.”

  “How generous of you to give me any say in the matter at all,” she said, her words dripping with sarcasm.

  “It is, is it not?”

  She shook her head and laughed. The sound went straight to his loins, making him realize that he didn’t need anything but her to warm him up.

  “Very well, the milk,” she said.

  “With a dash of nutmeg?”

  “Most definitely.”

  Chapter 15

  More than an hour later, Thalia lay dozing against the divan cushions. Her stomach was comfortably full of warm milk and brandy, the alcohol having done its work so there was scarcely any pain in her ankle.

  A robust fire burned in the grate, an indulgence she’d allowed herself tonight because of Lord Leopold’s visit. Usually she settled for a modest blaze that died out an hour or two after dinner. Once it did, she would wrap up in a thick woolen shawl to keep away the draughts. But tonight, the room was luxuriantly warm and cozy with no need for extra clothing.

  It was so comfortable, in fact, that Hera had broken her usual rule about avoiding strangers and strolled in on silent cat feet. Rather than heading straight for her favorite chair, she’d stopped first to greet Leo, winding around his legs as Hera was wont to do with her.

  “How remarkable,” Thalia had said. “I’ve never seen her be so friendly with someone she doesn’t know. Generally she hides in another part of the house if I have a visitor. I hope she isn’t bothering you.”

  “Not at all,” he’d said as he reached down and ran a palm over the length of Hera’s back and tail.

  The cat began to purr.

  Thalia had watched, knowing something of how Hera must feel. Lord Leo did seem to have a real gift when it came to giving females pleasure.