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“What in the world are you wearing?”

Lady Isabel crossed her arms over her chest. “A nightgown. Do you not like it?”

Vane blinked, completely forgetting that he had been cold a moment ago. The chattering of his teeth subsided, and now he shivered for a completely different reason. “I do not see it,” he tried to say in his usual dry manner, but his voice betrayed him.

The nightgown she was wearing was a translucent piece of cloth through which he could clearly see the outline of her curves. One leg peeked out from a slash that ran down the length of the skirt, starting from her hip.

He could only imagine what view would greet him from above her waist if her dark mane of hair wasn’t covering most of her body. For a moment, his imagination ran away from him as he saw the white, soft globes with tiny red peaks—

“Vane?”

He licked his lips—for he’d started salivating—before meeting her eyes. “Are you alone?”

Lady Isabel looked around, puzzled. “I was about to go to bed, so yes, I am alone.”

Vane surveyed the room. Perhaps he was acting like a madman, but he wanted to ensure nobody was behind the curtains or in her dressing room. Why else would she dress so provocatively just before bed and act spooked when he entered her room unannounced?

His valet’s strange behavior and insistence that Vane spent the night in his wife’s room was suspect too.

Vane walked toward the window and looked out.

“What are you looking for?” Lady Isabel’s voice sounded utterly confused.

Yes, I am acting absolutely crazy. “I see your windows are sound.” He turned to her and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning his shoulder against the windowpane.

“Why wouldn’t they be?”

“You see, apparently, my chamber is being painted, and all the windows are unlocked. Which just means that my room is freezing cold. I can’t sleep there. And my valet helpfully suggested that I spend the night in this room.”

Lady Isabel blinked, and her mouth opened as if to say something. She closed it and walked toward his room. He wasn’t the only suspicious party in this marriage, as it turned out.

“Oh my Lord! That’s how cold I imagine it is atop Mount Snowden!” Lady Isabel exclaimed from his room. “My chamber was aired out recently, but I suppose I moved in once it was already warm.”

She walked back, shivering and chewing on her bottom lip. She leaned against the door, her skirt still swishing around her ankles and giving him a delicious view of her legs up to her knees.

Damn, his wife was undeniably enticing. His insides heated, and he felt a familiar jolt in his nether region. Vane shifted uncomfortably, leaning slightly forward to hide the bulge forming in his breeches. Why was she dressed like this?

“Well, I ordered the maids to prepare a room for you, didn’t they?” she asked with a vague hope in her eyes.

Vane tried not to take offense to her skittishness. After all, he was the one who’d told her he would not grace her bed unless she supplied evidence of her not being with child. “My valet informed me that all other rooms—the ones not occupied by humans—are just as bloody cold as mine. And he said they won’t be ready any time soon either. And I was not about to tell him that the environment in my wife’s room is just as hostile.”

Lady Isabel frowned, then let out a sigh of defeat. “Most of the rooms are in the process of being redecorated. Perhaps the maids forgot to—” She frowned, not quite believing her own theory.

She paced back toward her vanity table, uneasiness evident on her face.

She really should not have been walking in the piece of silk she’d called a nightgown. The skirt swooshed around her ankles, baring her right leg up to her thigh every time she made a step.

She leaned against her vanity, and the pose just made the slit more pronounced. Her hair also moved away from her front, baring the low decolletage of her gown.

Vane blinked, not wanting to look away, although he knew he should. Lady Isabel sensed his uneasiness, or perhaps she noticed that nothing could save her half-clad form from revealing too much skin as she crossed her arms over her chest again.

“Did you say your valet insisted you spend the night in this room?”

“Not so much insisted that I spend the night here, merely let me know that there is no other place for me to occupy.”

“Hmm… apparently, every other room is miraculously occupied or being redecorated?”

“It seems so.”