Seven Wicked Nights (Turner #1.5)

“Come to find you.” His eyes followed her escape. “You seem intent on avoiding me.”


Avoiding him? Cat opened her mouth to deny his accusation, but, in truth, she had been doing exactly that. Taking meals in her chamber, detouring around the rooms he seemed to frequent, and spending more and more time in the village.

It pleased her that he noticed this. She looked down and shook out her skirts so he would not see the flush heating her face.

“Why are you measuring for drapes?” Jamie collected her tape from the floor and handed it to her, then looked out onto the street. “And why is Abbey Lane overrun with workmen?”

His back was to her, so she allowed herself time to reply. She didn’t know how much she could trust Jamie with her plans for the village. Not that she thought he would object. Just…she didn’t want to be vulnerable to him. Not in the least.

“You have decided to renovate the village?” Shadows played beneath the hard angles of his face as he turned toward her.

“Yes.”

“Because it was…looking shabby?”

She drew back. “Do you think that would be my only concern?”

He glanced down at her legs. “You have always had an eye for pretty things.”

So he had seen the lace on her drawers.

Still, she was no longer the girl he knew her to be. It was true, in the past she might have worried about the cottages simply because they appeared disheveled. She would have renovated them to impress visitors approaching Forster Abbey. But that girl was gone. “You have been away a long time, Forster.”

His eyes searched her face. “It seems I have.”

Neither spoke for a wide stretch of time. At least not with words. Cat felt the subtle shift as her body reacquainted itself with his presence. As the skin knows the touch of sunshine, or the nose a familiar smell, so her form knew his. Blood, bones, muscle, even her heartbeat attuned to him. He was everywhere, within every part of her.

She did not like it.

“Where are the tenants?” His face was half light and half shadow as he stood before the window. “I thought the Thompsons inhabited this cottage.”

“They’ve moved to Nottingham.” How flattering that he could remember his tenants’ names, but not his simplest duty to his wife, such as a note to let her know he was still alive. “His sons needed employment.”

Jamie glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. Her skin prickled and her heart thumped. So dramatic, this reaction of her body to his body.

“I’d like to keep these cottages full with estate workers, as is tradition.”

Was he saying the families she had chosen were not welcome? For they did not include husbands and fathers. And she had a plan to employ the women and children outside of farming. “There simply isn’t enough work in the fields, not with the threshing machines.”

He tapped his fingers idly on the windowsill. “I am increasing the farming capacity of the estate and will soon be in a position to employ more men.”

Irritation pressed into her with insistent fists. If he had need for more homes, there were other empty cottages on the estate.

Indeed, Jamie acted as if he could come back after a five years’ absence and reclaim control of her world—her plans, her womb, her future. “How ambitious you are in your return, Lord Forster. So much plowing of new fields and increasing of crop yields.”

He slanted her a sharp look, his blue eyes intent on her.

I need an heir, Catherine.

Turning to face her, he leaned a shoulder against the window and took his time considering her. Considering the shape of her face, which she kept achingly impassive, then curve of her breast and waist where he had held her. He dragged his gaze back up to hers. “I’m a very ambitious man, Lady Forster.”

The sun beat through the window, but it did not rival the heat in her blood.

Desire. Its soft fingers threaded down her spine and ripened the flesh that would welcome his.

He shifted his weight onto one foot. They stood before the large window, visible to any villager or laborer who should look their way. She could not concern herself with their impression. Certainly it was well and clear what would be seen. There were bulls and mares in the field that considered each other thus.

It was not so rare a thing.

But neither was it without a subtle persuasion.

Jamie was already her husband. She knew the feel of him within her flesh, the pleasure he could give her. She knew what it was to gasp and tremble and ache and tumble over the precipice of desire together.

Lust was not an emotion that required forgiveness.

And lust did not keep a husband. Did not bind a father to his home.

She uprooted her feet and crossed the cottage, stopping only when she reached the door and the fresh air outside. She cast her husband as impartial a look as she could manage even as her limbs trembled and her blood screamed NOW.

“Do have a care, Forster. Untended fields have a predilection for thwarting a man’s designs.”





Chapter Four