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Hugo couldn’t believe those words had just come out of his own mouth.
He’d never been this aroused in his entire life. What difference would it make if he took her? Especially after what they’d just done. They were going to be married; did it really matter if he had her maidenhood now or two days from now?
And yet…
“Hugo?”
“Hmm?”
“I have a question.”
His body stiffened, and not in a pleasurable way. Questions, in his experience, were never good.
“Yes,” he said cautiously.
“Why did you avoid me for two weeks after taking the job for Mr. Stogden and then suddenly come back?”
“I tried to stay away so I wouldn’t be tempted to do something like we just did.” He gave a harsh, unamused laugh. “Clearly I wasn’t too successful.”
“Oh.” She dropped her gaze to her body, saw she was naked, and jerked the edge of the blanket to cover herself.
Hugo wasn’t a religious man, but even he knew the Biblical story of Eve, and how she’d covered her body after making love with Adam. Something Hugo had just said had shamed Martha.
“What did I say to hurt you?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Martha, look at me, love.” Her eyes, which had been hazed with pleasure only a short time before, were now clouded with pain. “Remember what I said earlier—about me having no experience with this sort of thing?”
She gave a grudging nod.
“That means you have to tell me when I say something rude or hurtful. That wasn’t my intention, but it seems to have happened.”
Martha filled her lungs and exhaled slowly before answering. “It’s only—well, it just sounds like you didn’t want to like me.”
And that, as the saying went, hit the nail on the head.
Even Hugo—as oblivious as he was—knew he couldn’t say that.
Instead, he said, “I just believed that you would be better off with Clark.”
The furrows on her forehead deepened.
Hugo tried again. “It was not easy to stay away from you, Martha.” That, at least, was not a lie. “Can’t you just accept that I was trying to do the right thing by you?”
Emotions galloped across her pretty face like a herd of horses. He couldn’t identify the one that finally settled, but at least she nodded. And then she brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his palm.
The tender action left him breathless.
“Your poor hands,” she murmured, kissing his fingers. She lingered over the large blister on his thumb, kissing it and then—God save him—licking it with her kitten tongue.
“Fucking hell, Martha.”
She dropped his hand like it was a hot coal. “I’m so sorry—did I hurt you?”
Hugo took her hand and clamped it over his pulsing cock in answer.
“Oh.” Her plump lips parted in surprise, which of course made him even harder. “How long can you stay—”
“A long time,” he assured her. His ability to stay hard for hours—in addition to his remarkable recovery time—was but one of the things that made him so successful in his business.
Her fingers tightened around his shaft and he gritted his teeth and lifted her hand. “We need to get you back to your room at the Vicar.” For my own sanity.
“Can’t I stay just a bit longer?” She leaned into him, sighing in a way that squeezed his chest.
“Just a bit,” he said in a raspy voice.
Hugo laid down beside her and she tucked the blanket under her arms. “I feel guilty.”
“About what we did?”
“Oh, no—of course not.”
It was unnerving how much her words relieved him.
She kissed his hand again. “I adored what we did. I can’t wait to do it again. Er, and other things, too.”
His jaw sagged. This was prim Miss Martha Pringle? While his brain boggled at the words coming out of her mouth, his prick pulsed joyously; never in his entire life had he wantedto have sex with anyone so badly.
Hugo wasn’t sure if he was entirely happy about that …
“Er, what makes you feel guilty then?” he asked when he saw she was staring at him.
“Is it bad of me to want to leave Stroma?”
He snorted. “I’d say it’s a sign of intelligence.” He lightly caressed her cheekbone with his thumb. “Why did your father come here to begin with, do you think?”
“He said that he wanted to be somewhere his services would be needed.”
“Did your mother like it here?” Hugo suspected that the wife of a vicar had to go wherever her husband could get work.
“I don’t recall my mother. My father said she was never quite robust after I was born but that she was the one who wanted to come to the island. She caught a chill that became worse. The storms were terrible that winter and he could not get her to a physician in time.”
“You’ve never met any of your mother’s people?”
“My father said she was an orphan.” She hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about your family, Hugo.”
Her words sent a spike of anxiety to his chest. “Oh?”
“Won’t they want to see you get married? I mean, I know not all of them, but maybe one or two?”
He’d completely forgotten that he’d spoken of his family that night in the caves. What the hell had he told her?
“Do you want to wait to get married until they can come?”
Hugo had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing; they’d be waiting a very long time.
“They’re not exactly the traveling sort of people.” Only after he said that did he recall that he’d told her all of them had moved out of London. He really needed to get his lies straight.
“Er, we don’t need to have the banns read?” he asked, hoping to move the subject away from his family.
“No, in Scotland a willing couple can marry without such formalities.
“Well, then. The curate is coming out to Stroma for a wedding; I think we should give him one.”
Her expression was, understandably, tense.
“Or we can wait, Martha. I can always go down to London and then come back when—”
“No, Saturday is the best
