That tremendous body had been at her mercy last night. Had belonged to her hungry gaze and hungrier mouth. She’d locked every bit of his astonishing strength into a seizure of bliss.
And then he’d returned the favor with a supreme skill that had both humbled and terrified her.
She was becoming increasingly attached to the churlish Scot. There was no dancing around it. The sight of him stimulated her in every conceivable way. The scent of him enticed her.
And the taste of him intoxicated her beyond all reasoning.
What had Jean-Yves said only this morning? I don’t want to develop at taste for oblivion.
Ramsay had taught her last night the oblivion sex could offer. And it appeared she’d developed the taste for it in a single dose. She felt craven, as though he’d woken a new hunger in her body just as vital as that for food.
She had very few innate talents, but the rhythm and structure of sexual relations apparently came as easily to her as maths.
What was it about the discovery of her virginity that vexed him so? Did he blame himself for taking what she gave? Or was she at fault once again for a lie of omission?
There was only one way to find out.
Breaking away from the shadow of the house, Cecelia smoothed down the soft cotton of her robin’s-egg-blue day dress and drifted through an overgrown graveyard of what might have been a vegetable garden once.
Ramsay brought the ax down with a particularly brutal swing, embedding the blade a good two inches into the platform of the ancient trunk.
“Lovely day for it,” Cecelia called, her cheeks bunching around the rims of her spectacles as she squinted against the sun.
Wasn’t Scotland supposed to be gloomy and gray?
Ramsay’s nostrils flared on a grunt, though he didn’t look at her as he bent to retrieve the split wood and toss it on the woodpile. Instead of settling into the grooves created by the other logs, they crashed against the lean-to and clattered to the earth.
She’d thrown off his rhythm, it seemed.
Inside the lean-to, a coarse pallet was spread over straw and grass, two heavy patchwork quilts folded neatly at the edge.
Had this been the “structure” in which he’d slept? Lord, she felt awful.
“Speaking of lovely days,” she said, forging ahead. “I might remind you that it’s July, and you’ve split enough firewood to keep us here through Christmas. I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning on staying that long.”
She’d meant the teasing observation to perhaps create a crack in the wall of ice he’d constructed between them, but his frown only deepened as he snatched his shirt from where it hung on a peg of the lean-to and punched his fists into the sleeves.
“Did ye make any progress on the codex?” he asked without ceremony.
Cecelia’s smile faltered.
“Not as such,” she answered honestly, mourning the lost sight of his chest as he did up the buttons.
He barely flicked a glance her way. At least not one long enough to notice that she’d taken extra time with her coiffeur and unwrinkled her most comely summer frock that brought out the blue in her eyes and the darker shades of crimson in her copper hair.
“Did ye require something?” he asked as he did up his cuffs.
Her shoulders slumped as even the pretense of optimism abandoned her. “I feel like we should discuss … last night.”
He astonished her by shaking his head. “There is no need.”
She blinked after his broad back as he grabbed his vest and pulled it across his wide shoulders while stalking toward the house.
She willed her feet to move, jogging after him. “I have need. I want to explain—”
“Ye owe me no explanation,” he replied shortly.
Now, there was a fine turn of events for you. Cecelia puffed a little, forced to trot behind him on the brambly path. All this time he’d demanded nothing but endless explanations, and now when she was dying to give one, he’d have none of it.
They each waved to Phoebe on their way inside, pretending all was well for the darling little girl.
Cecelia’s smile died the moment she crossed the threshold. “But things have changed between us, have they not?”
“Aye.” He ran his fingers through his hair, darkened to the color of sand by sweat and dirt as he searched the small room for something, still refusing to look at her. “They’ve changed irrevocably.”
“Shouldn’t we—explore that? Perhaps come to some sort of comfortable understanding?” Please, she wanted to beg. I can’t stand the silence.
“We will.” He finally looked at her, or rather, looked through her. “Just not now.”
“Why?” she asked, trailing him still as he turned and tromped across the kitchen floor.
“There isna time.”
“Why not?”
Stopping before the fireplace, he took up his bow, quiver, and several of the arrows he’d been making the night before. “I have to hunt.”
“To hunt?” She echoed, looking back at their pile of food and sundries, both dried and fresh. It would keep them for a great while. “Hunt what?”
“Deer,” he answered gruffly. Clomping back toward the door.
“Deer?” She was beginning to sound like an annoying, monosyllabic parrot, even to herself. But he was acting strange, and her nerves were so shot she could hardly string a thought together, let alone absorb and analyze his strident behavior. “Where … where will you go to hunt deer?”
He turned around in the doorway and thrust a hand toward the forest. “In the direction of deer.” His obtuse answer combined with his impatient intonation smothered her fear with frustration.
“Why are you angry?” she demanded, doing her best to keep her voice reasonable. “What did I do?”
“I’m not angry, Miss Teague.” The harsh note in his voice belied the claim, but his features gentled from barbaric to merely austere. “Not at ye, anyway.”
Miss Teague? Why did his respectful moniker sound like a punishment? Cecelia stepped forward, reaching out to him. “Then talk to me.”
He flinched away from her touch, putting a hand out to stop her. “I am not myself today,” he offered by way of explanation. “I canna be trusted with discussions or decisions. Not now.” He looked up at her, his eyes both beseeching and bleak. “Just … do what ye can to figure out the codex so we can go back to our lives, aye?”
Cecelia pressed her lips together, biting her cheek hard enough to draw blood.
She managed a nod, and he turned away and tromped toward the tree line.
Go back to their lives. Their separate lives. Was he in that much of a hurry to be rid of them? Of course he was. He hated this place, almost as much as he detested her company in it. He might desire her, but he didn’t want her. There was a difference. He’d made no compunctions about that.
She didn’t fit into his life. Not in Scotland, and surely not in London.
However, as a man so vehemently against any moral turpitude, he must be panicking. Because he’d absconded with her, performed sexual acts with her, and if anyone were to find out about it, society would dictate they marry with all due immediacy.
They neither of them desired a spouse.
Was he so upset because he, as a self-proclaimed honorable man, was now obligated to propose?