“Unfortunately, the funeral and my illness put me far behind in my work. I cannot entertain you this evening.” He took Gabby’s elbow and turned her about.

“But I haven’t even finished my sherry!” she protested.

“Please forgive me,” Quill said. His tone was oddly angry, Gabby thought. She drank her second glass of sherry.

“All right,” she said reluctantly. She thought of wiggling again, but she was afraid he might think she was suffering from an itch. And he looked so very, very uninterested.

Quill marched her over to the door of the study, but Gabby stopped there. She felt like a naughty child being ejected from the schoolroom.

“Surely you are not too busy to escort me to my chamber?” She managed to turn the question into a delicate reference to his manners.

There was a second’s pause and then he answered evenly, “Naturally, I would be most pleased to do so.” They walked silently beside each other up the curving staircase. Gabby trailed her fingertips on the satiny rail, trying desperately to think of another tactic.

Her heart was sinking. It seemed that Quill truly was busy. And she was the one who had banished him from her bed. Perhaps he’d put the whole business out of his mind, and that was why he was treating her like a nuisance. She was so dispirited that she didn’t even dip and sway as she walked before him down the hallway.

As they paused at her bedchamber, Gabby reached toward the door a fraction of a second after Quill leaned around from behind her. Since Quill had already pushed the door open, she lurched through the entrance and stumbled into the room. She caught her toe on the edge of the carpet and plummeted to the floor, landing on her left shoulder.

For a second the only sound in the room was Gabby’s heartfelt “Bloody blistering botheration!”

Only when she rolled to her back and gripped her sore shoulder—her bare shoulder—did she realize that her dress had given up its fight midway to the ground.

And only when she looked up and met her husband’s eyes as he stood frozen in the doorway did Gabby realize that she had inadvertently scored all the points necessary to win this particular round of marital chess.

She propped herself up on her elbows, quite enjoying the fact that she had, to quote Quill on their wedding night, truly magnificent breasts.

“Well,” she said, grinning shamelessly at her husband.

He cleared his throat. His eyes had gone quite black, she noted with satisfaction.

“I believe I’ve changed my mind about nudity in the confines of my bedchamber,” Gabby explained. Really, the man looked moonstruck. As if the very sight of her had turned him into a want-wit.

She was able to cherish that notion for all of two seconds. Then Quill walked into the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

Chapter 20