She looked up from where she was now bent over drying her legs and blinked at him. “No, just a little muddy.” Juliet stopped toweling herself off long enough to use her right hand to gesture to her discarded gown, the bottom of it covered in mud. She sighed. “Could you please tell me what you came for so I can dress?”
“Right,” Patrick clipped with a curt nod. “I uh...” He swallowed the surplus liquid that was filling his mouth. The sight of her naked chest and shoulders glistening with a thin layer of moisture was draining all the blood from his head and channeling it down to another part of his anatomy. The part that had no business being active in her presence. He couldn’t possibly have a conversation with her until she covered herself. “Would you please wrap that confounded towel around yourself?”
Juliet looked down at the towel that was in her hand. “No, I’m not done drying off yet.”
“You’re dry enough. Just cover up,” he snapped, running his hand through his black hair.
“Why should I?” She bent her head forward and wrapped the towel around her hair as best as she could. “It would seem that when I’m in my room I should be allowed to wear whatever I wish, even if you are the lord of the manor, and I am but a mere servant.”
Her room? Lord of the manor? A mere servant? A sinking feeling settled in his gut. “Juliet,” he said thickly, his brain unable to think of what to say next, and this time his inability to think had nothing to do with the fact that she was naked.
“Yes?”
“Could you please explain your last statement to me?”
She shrugged, her creamy, pink-tipped breasts bouncing before his eyes once again. “I meant nothing by it that you don’t already know. You’re the master and lord of the manor to which I am the servant, but even as a servant I should think I should be allowed a bit of privacy in my own quarters. But I guess even that’s not meant to be. Not that I should have expected anything different from you.”
“Your quarters?” he repeated, looking around the room. His eyes grew wider with every object they landed on. A small table no bigger than one of his nightstands was cluttered with combs, brushes, and other vanity pieces, albeit they weren’t very nice vanity items, but they were usable. He shifted his gaze to a little trunk resting next to the makeshift vanity. Before he knew what he was doing, his feet carried him to the chest. He extended his nearly-numb fingers and lifted the lid of the chest. Patrick mutely stared at the chest full of the clothes he’d had commissioned for her the day after they’d married. “How long?”
She seemed to understand his question well enough. “Since the day we married. Of course you’d know that if you’d ever seen fit to visit my bed. But you didn’t marry me to make me a wife, just a motherness.”
Patrick’s mouth went dry. The hurt in her voice was utterly unmistakable. Even a fool such as he couldn’t have missed it. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered harshly. For the first time since he’d entered her room, he looked into her slate grey eyes. Though she was standing there not wearing a stitch of clothing, he couldn’t force his eyes to leave hers. He’d been able to sneak a glimpse of laughter and excitement in them when he’d watched her and the girls undetected. He’d seen what he thought was cold indifference or even irritation in them most times when she knew he was close by. But right now he wasn’t sure what was in her eyes. They looked distant...broken perhaps. No, resigned. That’s what it was. She was resigned. His chest clenched in the most unusual way as he remembered her insinuation from yesterday about him purposely avoiding hiring a suitable governess because she was around. The enormity of the situation hit him like a shot to the heart. “Will you meet me in the drawing room in half an hour?”
Juliet’s head nodded a fraction. “All right.”
Doing his best to tamp down the vast array of emotions that were threatening to consume him, Patrick quit the room and went downstairs to await Juliet, racking his brain for the appropriate words as he went.
By the time he crossed the royal blue carpeted threshold of the drawing room, Patrick hadn’t thought of a single thing to say to Juliet. But there was one thing he’d determined: tomorrow he’d be employing a real governess, even if it meant temporarily hiring the spitter.
***
Juliet had never been so uncertain of anything in her life and that included that unfortunate surprise she’d received four short weeks ago when she realized she was marrying Lord Presumptuous in truth. She grabbed her towel and clutched it tightly to her chest. Closing her eyes as tightly as she could, she willed her nerves to settle down. Her harsh command went unyielded. Her fingers clung to the plush towel so tightly her fingertips and knuckles grew white and her lower lip quivered uncontrollably. Why did he have to have this effect on her? What gave him the power to shatter her control?