He leaned his forehead against hers and smiled into her eyes. “I have never doubted your qualifications, Charlotte.”

“But you don’t think I’m the perfect wife for you?”

His eyes were like blue fire burning on her tender flesh. “On the contrary, there is no other woman I would rather call wife than you.”

Hope, dampened by his refusal to be seduced, flared to life again within her breast. “Then you want me?”

He pressed his lips to her palm, sending heat skittering down her arm. He shifted his legs, then placed her hand on his groin.

“Wanting you was never in question.”

He was hard and long beneath her fingers, just as he had been in the carriage earlier. The heady knowledge that he truly did want her, that he reacted in this pleasing fashion to her, made the hope within her burn brighter.

“I don’t understand what more I can do,” she whispered, searching his eyes for the answer. “I don’t understand why it is you want me, and you know I want you, but you won’t…won’t…do it. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me.”

He brushed his thumb across her lower lip. “Did you love your husband? Your first one, I mean.”

She blinked at him. “Love Antonio? I…I…he was very handsome.”

Dare said nothing, just watched her. She looked away for a moment, uncomfortable with what he might see in her eyes. “I liked him a great deal. To begin with. Once we arrived in his home, he…changed somehow. His mother was very domineering, you understand, and she wasn’t pleased we had wed, and Antonio seemed far more interested in raising sheep than in me.”

“Did you love him?”

“He was very handsome,” she repeated. “He was tall like you, but much thinner, not nearly so broad, and he had very elegant hands and danced beautifully. I enjoyed it when he kissed me and had hoped that the other things would be as nice, but of course, we just had the once, and although it was nothing terrible, it certainly wasn’t anything I would have written a sonnet about.”

She could feel him smiling into her hair. “But did you love him?”

“No,” she said miserably, her eyes on the fine gold hairs that lay on the top of his arms.

His lips caressed her temple. She sighed and leaned into him.

“I think you are confusing a desire for a physical relationship with deeper emotions.”

“Shouldn’t one desire one’s husband?”

“Yes, you should.” His hand slid up her arm. “But in our case, it’s not enough. We’ve both had sexual relationships with partners we did not love—” He stopped her protest with a swift kiss. “Granted, in your case, it was a very brief relationship, but I’m hoping it was enough to make you understand that without something more meaningful, that without true affection, such a relationship can never be satisfying.”

She looked up at him, suddenly realizing what it was he was saying. “You want me to say I love you.”