“I can’t have looked much. You lay beside me and didn’t touch me wrongly.” Her cheeks flamed. “Remember?”
His dark eyes held hers with a sudden intensity. He let go of her, raised his hands to her. “Believe me, I almost had to cut these off. But I couldn’t do anything, you weren’t in your senses.” He lowered his hands again, and a corner of his mouth lifted. “You might say Satan was there. I’d say I lay with a desirable, beautiful woman.”
“Not I.” She wished her voice didn’t shake.
“Yes, you, Sister Theodosia Bertrand.”
“Sister Theodosia Bertrand used to eat cold food to keep a pure heart. Sister Theodosia Bertrand used to dream of men in that cold, horrible cell, dream of them as any young woman would, and be repenting for it for days after. Sister Theodosia Bertrand was horrified that you’d held her in your bed.” She trembled with where her words were taking her, but she couldn’t stop them if she tried. “Sister Theodosia Bertrand was a lie. I want to stop lying, be a woman, a real woman. The woman Laeticia never got to be.” She wrenched the bedcover off, exposing her shoulders, the curve of her breasts in her thin shift. “So is Satan here now?”
Benedict ran his hands through his hair. “You can’t — ”
Her fingers fumbled for the thin ribbon that laced the front. Gaze locked on Benedict’s, she slipped open the knots, loosed the top. “Now?” Softer.
“Faith, I don’t care if he is.” He brought his hands to either side of her face, drew her to him. His lips brushed her cheek, the side of her mouth. His unshaved face was a scrape on her skin that almost hurt, yet pulled a heat from deep inside her. It was the feeling from those dreams again, the feeling she’d fought down, pushed away, scrubbed away in her confession. Now she could let it loose, now she could savor every second of it.
“Nor I.” Her arms went round his neck as she pulled him yet closer to her. Her mouth found his, and his lips pressed hard, demanding, upon hers.
His wide hands went to her hips, pulled them to him as he lowered her onto the bed.
Theodosia parted her lips, let his mouth press harder, deeper, on hers as his sweetness brought an ache to her breasts, a warmth between her legs. Her breath came in a long, low moan.
Benedict broke from her.
Pulse hammering, Theodosia forced herself to look into his eyes. If she saw disinterest, disappointment there, she’d flee. Not a bit of it. He scanned her face as if she were made of pure gold. He traced the line of her face with his fingers, then her neck, the top of her breasts. “I wanted this so much the night at Gilbert’s,” he murmured. “Your body called to mine the first night I saw you.” The glide of his rough, callused skin over her smooth, untouched flesh made her gasp. With a deep sigh, he brought his hand back to her face, stroked her cheek. “But it would be wrong for me to carry on. Wrong as it would have been those other times.”
“Let me decide what’s wrong. Wrong was me fighting these feelings for years. A wrong, foolish battle. But you don’t want me, so — ”
“Forcurse it, woman.” He grasped for her hand, brought her hand to his chest, to the wide opening of his woolen shirt. “What does this tell you?” Beneath his coarse black hair, his hard muscles, his heart raced in a rapid thud that matched hers.
He did want her, he really did.
He went on. “I know full well what it’s like to keep fighting when you’re weary of carrying heavy weapons. All you want to do is stop, even if that means the enemy besting you.” He gripped her hand tight, kissed it hard. “But that’s not you. You never surrender. And neither do the best warriors until the day is done.” His arms closed around her, held her tight against him.
The King, her father. His falsehoods, Mama’s falsehoods. Her, Theodosia’s, vocation, a lie. Her fresh, raw anger tonight. Anger that had awakened desire, desire for Benedict Palmer. Sinful desire, no matter how much she ached for it. For him. “The day’s not done, is it?”
“No.”
She tipped back her head to look at him. His steadfast dark gaze soothed her anger, her pain. But not her desire, not yet. “Then at least let me have my truce.” She squirmed hard to burrow down against his chest.
“Theodosia, you should go back to your own bed.” His voice came deep, low, as she lay in his warm hold. “We can’t risk your being discovered here.”
She shook her head, the quiet joy of being held by him enveloping her. “My truce,” she said with a yawn, the edges of sleep relaxing her limbs. “A little while.”