Because the Baron Broods Wedding Night Deleted Scene

Isaac immediately asked the innkeeper to bring wine. He needed to bolster himself for what would come after dinner.

Bloody hell, Isaac did not like all these feelings. He was anxious about having sex, which he hadn’t done in its entirety since he was a lad, worried he’d impregnate Tamsin straightaway and have to face the fact that he would be a terrible father, and apprehensive that he needed to explain this to his new wife. Doing so would only cause more feelings, and he just couldn’t handle more at the moment. In fact, he would prefer to toss them all into a rubbish pile and set it on fire.

Dinner was served rather quickly, and as they were both ravenous, they ate in silence for several minutes. Pausing, Tamsin plucked up her wine glass and took a long sip. Then she smiled at him as she put it down. “I promise I don’t typically eat like this.”

“I know. I’ve eaten with you before.” They’d shared several meals at this point, starting with that al afresco luncheon at the Grove. That somehow seemed like another lifetime.

“I suppose you have,” she said. “We aren’t exactly strangers.”

“No, we are not.” He knew many things about her, and everything new that he learned only made him like her more. Seeing how she’d grown up at Penrose House and understanding the relationship between her and her father had been most illuminating. Though, Isaac was still curious as to where her eternal optimism and cheer came from. She hadn’t inherited that from either parent, and he didn’t think it was her grandmother’s doing.

They ate for a little while longer before Tamsin pushed at her plate and sat back in her chair. She surveyed him for a long moment. “You seem agitated. Is something amiss?”

Hell. She knew him well enough to detect that? “Don’t I always seem bothered? It’s part of my serious nature.” He prayed that explanation would work.

“I would say it’s something more than that, but we haven’t spent enough time together for me to be certain. Your sobriety seems—to me—to be a shield you’ve erected to guard yourself.” Her words sliced straight through him. No one had ever dared to suggest such a thing. And of course she was right. “Tonight, you aren’t brooding in the usual manner. There’s a furtiveness to your gaze. Or something.”

She saw him. Straight through that shield he’d erected. He could evade her curiosity, or he could do what he needed and tell her why he was flustered. Perhaps then he could stop being flustered and go back to brooding in his usual manner.

He would unburden himself. Somewhat. When they went upstairs.

Before he could think of a response, she said, “I’m being foolish. You’ve been traveling with hardly much time spent in respite. Are you exhausted?” Her gaze was warm with concern as she leaned slightly forward.

This was his perfect opportunity to delay everything until they reached Wood End. The truth was that he was tired. And he needed more wits about him than he had now to expose his truths to her.

“I am, actually. I hadn’t realized until you said something.”

“That’s too bad as I’d hoped we could dance.” Her eyes took on a mischievous glow. “I wish we could dance.”

He didn’t bother hiding his surprise. “You know I don’t like to do that.”

“But there’s no one here for you tread upon.”

“What about you?” he asked as a smirk finally came to him.

“I’m quick and adept. I understand the risk and I’m willing to take it.” She arched a brow at him, daring him to refuse her.

Isaac could not. What spell had this woman cast upon him?

Her suggestion also brought the cause of their marriage to mind—that night at the Weston Hotel. When he’d seen her dancing with a man old enough to be her father that her bloody father had wanted her to wed. The jealousy of that night came back to Isaac but in a different way. Tonight, he felt a fierce possession for this woman who now, inarguably and for all time, belonged to him.

He stood, the power of that possessiveness driving him. “All right. But how do we dance without music? And without other people in a line or a square?”

“Have you not waltzed?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

“No.” He’d seen it in London, but he hadn’t needed to suffer it himself.

“Because you would avoid it,” she said with a knowing nod as she rose. “Shall I teach you?”

He might not know everything about her, but he knew she hadn’t had occasion to dance often. “Where have you waltzed?”

“At Penrose House. With Pandora. She taught me last winter. Her parents hired a dancing instructor to teach her.” Tamsin smiled self-deprecatingly. “I can’t promise I’m an expert.”

“I can scarcely wait to see how this plays out,” he mused, thinking he may just smile before the evening was out. He realized his earlier tension was all but gone, wiped away by the delightful company of his wife.

Isaac held out his hand. “May I have this dance, Lady Droxford?”

Tamsin giggled. “I am not sure when I’ll get used to that. The different name is jarring enough, but to be called ‘lady’ is beyond strange. I find myself wanting to look about for whomever the person is talking to. Except in this case, I know it’s just you and I in this room.”

As if Isaac needed a reminder. He was all too aware of her proximity, her scent, her contagious joy. He suddenly knew why she was different, why he responded to her as he hadn’t to anyone else. It was because her joy was contagious. He couldn’t be around her and not feel good. Or at least better than he had before.

She put her hand in his. “Do you know where to put your hands on your partner for a waltz?”

He knew where he wanted to put them, and it had nothing to do with dancing. “Not entirely. I think I put one on your waist?”

“No. Sort of behind my shoulder.” Taking his right hand, she guided it to her left shoulder blade. “And I put my left hand nearly on your shoulder.” She rested her hand on his upper arm.

“And we clasp our other hands?”

“Yes. Like so.” She put her hand in his and looked into his eyes. “Excellent.”

“I can see why this scandalizes some people. This is hardly less intimate than the innocent embrace we shared in the Weston Hotel gardens.” Except in that instance, the air between them had been charged, and he’d been about to kiss her. Honestly, it wouldn’t take much for him to feel precisely the same. The only reason he didn’t was because he was trying very hard not to, for there was no reason he couldn’t break his vow with her this very night. Indeed, there was every reason he should.

Not every reason. For him, he clung to his vow because that was the man he’d become. He did not surrender to impulse or primal need. That way led to ruin.

“I suppose that’s true,” she said. “Would you have felt honor-bound to marry me if we’d been caught waltzing in the gardens?”

Damn. He didn’t know the answer to that, and he didn’t want to say so.

“I hope you won’t regret marrying me,” she said with a surprising amount of cheer and a half-smile. Was she teasing him?

“I can promise I will not.” He meant that completely. “It’s far more probable that you will regret marrying me.”

“Why would you say that?” She blinked. “Let us start before you answer that. We’re going to move in a sort of a square. You’ll step forward with your left foot then step to the side with your right—in parallel to your left.”

“Tamsin, this sounds devilish complicated. I am certain to stamp your foot into the floor.”

“I’ll be fine if you do, but you won’t. Just take it slow. Ready?”

“No.”

She laughed, her eyes twinkling. “Step now!”

He jerked his left foot forward, grazing her ankle as he moved too quickly. “This does not bode well.”

“My foot is mercifully unscathed. Let us continue.” She guided him to step to the right and then backward. By the time they finished the square, he’d grazed her ankle a second time and stepped on the side of her foot.

“You can’t want to go on,” he said with a deep grimace.

“One more square. Just look in my eyes and focus on me. Don’t think too hard about your feet.”

That was an awful plan. If he focused on her, he would lose his way entirely. Hell, he may even end up sweeping her into his arms and carrying her up to their suite.

“I can see you doubt me,” she said with a light scolding tone. “You must trust me. I am your wife, and I would not lead you astray.”

That he could believe. “Your optimism will not save my poor dancing skills.”

She laughed. “It might if you give it a chance.” She fixed her marvelous, magnetic gaze on his. “Now, step!”

He tried to do as she asked and put his attention entirely on her. She was so very beautiful, her face now dear to him with the pert tilt of her chin and the graceful sweep of her cheekbones. He managed to step forward and right, and then he began to count the myriad dark lashes fanning from her eyes.

It was his downfall.

He nearly put all his weight on her foot but managed to sidestep her before damaging her completely. This caused him to lose his balance. He sensed they would both go down and moved quickly to stop her from hitting the floor first. Grasping her tightly against him, he pivoted. His leg hit one of the chairs they’d been sitting in, and he collapsed on top of it. The legs wobbled, and he feared he’d brought a piece of furniture into the impending disaster.

Miraculously, the chair didn’t topple. Isaac gripped her more tightly, setting her atop his lap, her backside on his right thigh and her legs hanging over his left. His gaze found hers once more. “All right?”

Her eyes crinkled at the edges and her lips curved up. Then she laughed. Because of course she would. He’d nearly trampled her into the floor, and she was laughing.

Isaac couldn’t have helped his response even if he wanted to. He smiled. No, he grinned.

Her breath caught. “You are so handsome,” she breathed.

The air around them changed, becoming as electric as it had that night in the gardens. When fate had set them on a new path that had brought them to this moment.

Her smile faded, but there was a tempest in her eyes—an intensity he hadn’t seen before. “Why would you think I would ever regret marrying you?” she asked.

Thoughts were not coming very easily to him. Isaac had to tamp down his growing arousal and try to focus on what she was saying. “Because you’re happy and optimistic, while I am serious and cynical. We are either a perfect match or a terrible one.”

“I choose to believe we are the former. Or we could be anyway. And I am not convinced that you aren’t happy. We all have the capacity for happiness, don’t we? The joy I just saw in your eyes, in your smile—” She sucked in a breath. “I felt that deep in my soul.”

God, her words nearly shattered him. He wasn’t sure he could feel anything in his soul. Once, he had, but that was a long time ago. And the last thing he recalled feeling that intensely was self-loathing and despair.

She threatened the even life he’d curated and sustained. She would disrupt him entirely, and he shouldn’t want it. But he wanted her.

He could have her. He did have her. She was his wife.

That didn’t mean he had to open himself to her, to allow himself to feel what she felt, certainly not in his soul. If he took her to his bed, how could he keep her at arm’s length? He’d loved the only woman he’d been wholly intimate with most desperately, and he’d utterly ruined things. He’d ruined her. If he was honest, he would realize he’d also ruined himself.

What had he done inflicting himself, damaged as he was, on this perfect, joyful woman cradled in his lap? A shudder passed through him.

Tamsin put her hand on his cheek. Her gaze searched his with deep concern. “What is it?”

A hundred responses flitted through his mind. All he could say was, “I never expected this.”

The edge of her mouth ticked up. “What?”

“You.”

Isaac gripped her thigh, holding her secure on his lap, as his other hand trailed up her spine and cupped the back of her neck. He pulled her head down and captured her mouth with his.

She gasped in surprise, and he swallowed the sound as he licked along her open lips. It was probably too much too soon, but he was desperate for her.

He tried to go slowly, gently, moving his lips over hers with soft, deliberate strokes. She began to kiss him back, mimicking his actions.

White hot desire burned through Isaac like he was a dry forest in midsummer. He’d gone months without an appointment at the Rogue’s Den, where he went to ease his most basic needs, but his body knew it had been much longer since he’d had true and lasting satisfaction.

And it would be longer still. He would wait until they arrived at Wood End. But tonight, he could give her pleasure, if that was what she desired.

Isaac clutched her to his chest as he rose from the chair. The movement broke their kiss, and she twined her arms around his neck.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice husky and incredibly arousing.

“Taking you upstairs. Unless you object?” He didn’t think she would, but he still held his breath as he awaited her answer.

Her mouth curled into a smile he hadn’t yet seen—one full of seductive promise. “Not at all. There is nothing I’d like more.”

 

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