Page 28 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
And as the light dimmed further, the quiet of the room settling fully around her, one thought remained, steady and inescapable.
Tonight, there would be no more distance between them.
And she knew he would come for her soon.
CHAPTER 9
“The hour is late,” Maxwell said as he paused just inside the doorway, his voice low enough not to carry beyond the room, though the weight of it settled easily within it.
Arabella, who had been standing near the hearth with her hands clasped tightly before her, turned at once. The fire cast a soft glow across the room, catching in the pale fabric of her night gown and outlining her figure in a way that made him still for a fraction longer than intended.
“I wondered if you would come,” she replied, and though her tone was steady, there was a tightness to it that betrayed her.
Maxwell closed the door behind him with deliberate care, the latch falling into place with a quiet, final sound. The room was warm, far warmer than the corridor he had just left, and faintly scented with lavender. The bed had been turned down. A single candle burned near the bedside, its light softer than the fire but no less present.
“You need not have waited standing,” he said, his gaze moving briefly across the room before returning to her.
Arabella gave a small, uncertain laugh. “I did not think I should receive you while already abed.”
His attention settled on her more fully then, and she felt it. Not the cold, dismissive glance she had grown accustomed to, but something slower, more deliberate. It traveled from the loose fall of her hair over her shoulders to the narrow line of her waist, to the way her fingers tightened and released against one another as though she did not know what to do with them.
Heat rose unbidden to her cheeks.
She resisted the urge to reach for the shawl draped over the chair beside her. It would have been easier to cover herself, to put some barrier between them, but something in his gaze held her still, as though movement would draw more attention rather than less.
“You are uncomfortable,” he observed.
“I am not,” she said quickly, then faltered. “Not overly so.”
Maxwell inclined his head slightly, as though acknowledging the effort rather than the accuracy of the statement. He moved further into the room then, each step measured, the sound of his boots softened by the thick rug beneath them.
Arabella’s breath caught, though she kept her chin lifted.
“I believe,” he said, stopping a few feet from her, “that it would be prudent for us to speak plainly.”
Her fingers stilled. “Plainly.”
“Yes.”
She nodded once, though she did not trust herself to speak immediately.
Maxwell’s gaze did not leave her face now, whatever earlier appraisal had passed replaced by something more controlled, more distant. “We are married,” he said. “The circumstances that led to it are understood. What remains is to determine how we proceed.”
Arabella’s lips parted slightly. “Proceed.”
“Yes.”
The word echoed faintly in her mind, far more clinical than she had expected, though she could not say what she had expected instead.
Maxwell continued, his tone even. “It is my intention to fulfill my obligations,” he said. “I assume you share that intention.”
“I do,” she replied at once, her voice firmer now, though her hands betrayed her again, tightening together.
“Good.”
The single word felt like the close of a ledger rather than the beginning of a marriage.
Arabella drew in a slow breath, steadying herself. “And what does that entail, precisely?”
