LITMIR.BIZ

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well, then. I am at your disposal.’ He offered his hand to her. She accepted it and was given a manly shake. His palm was warm and dry against hers and the feeling of carefully contained power in his arm gave her a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

      When he released her hand, he had an odd look on his face, as though he’d felt something as well. Perhaps it had to do with the quality of the cooking, for they had shared the same food.

      And now they shared a room.

      Her stomach gave the same little flip. It was probably nothing more than nerves. Because Mr Hendricks showed no signs of quitting the place and leaving her in privacy. To speed him on his way, she asked, ‘And this evening?’ She glanced around the room, and then significantly at the door. ‘Where do you intend to sleep?’

      ‘Right here, of course.’

      ‘You most certainly will not—’

      He cut her off before she could object and the firmness returned to his voice. ‘There was nothing in the agreement we have made that would lead me to believe I must sleep in the stable.’

      ‘Nor was there anything about it that implied that I wish to share a room with you.’

      ‘The implication was tacit,’ he said. ‘If not, you could have announced in the tavern that our relationship was an illusion.’

      ‘I never expected things to progress as quickly as they did,’ she said. ‘Nor did I expect you to be stubborn on the point.’

      ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You think my wishing to sleep in a bed when one presents itself is a sign of stubbornness and not common sense.’

      ‘I expect you to behave as a gentleman,’ she said. ‘And as one who is in my employ.’

      ‘It is late. And it is not in my ability to aid you until the morning,’ he said. ‘My service to you will begin at first light. I expect, at that time, that I will need all my wits to keep ahead of you. And for that, I will need adequate sleep. If you were seeking a dogsbody who would lie in the hall just to ensure your modesty, then you must seek him elsewhere. In my last position, I was treated almost as a member of the family and well paid.’

      ‘And yet you left it,’ she pointed out and saw the tiny twitch of his eye at her reminder.

      ‘But even dead drunk, I had the sense to leave London with enough money for accommodations,’ he countered. ‘You did not. I have paid for this room and mean to stay in it.’ He smiled benevolently. ‘Since you are my employer, I will hardly deny you the space, if you wish to remain with me.’

      Perfectly true and annoyingly rational. ‘Then it is I who must sleep in the stable,’ she said, doing her best to look pathetic and elicit his sympathy.

      ‘Or on the floor,’ he offered. ‘Although it does not look very comfortable. Or you can take your half of the mattress, if you will leave me in peace.’

      ‘If I leave you in peace?’ she said, outraged.

      ‘I have no intention of accosting you in the night, nor do I mean to tell anyone of the close quarters,’ he said. ‘I know my own nature and feel quite able to resist your charms.’

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, a little annoyed that at the first sign of conflict she had gone back to being her easily resistible self.

      He glanced at her, as though speculating. ‘But I cannot vouch for your motives. In our first meeting, you were the aggressor. For all I know, you are the sort of woman who forces herself on to unwary travellers and robs them of their purses, or murders them in their beds.’

      ‘How dare you.’

      Then she saw the twinkle in his eye. ‘I am properly convinced. Only a lady of the bluest blood can raise that level of outrage over so small a jest. Your honour is safe from me. And as for my honour?’ He shrugged. ‘I doubt you would know what to do with it, should you find it.’ He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots, then stripped off his coat and waistcoat and loosened his cravat.

      There was no reason that his words should hurt her, for they were true. They were not even an insult. No decent girl should have any idea how to approach a strange man in her bed. But she hated to be reminded of her ignorance and to feel that he was amusing himself with her naïveté. But it was late and she was tired, and could think of no alternative sleeping arrangements if he was unwilling to move. She stared at the bed, then at him. ‘If it is only for the few hours until dawn, I think I can manage to control myself.’

      ‘Unless you are driven wild by the appearance of a man’s bare feet,’ he said, not bothering a glance in her direction. ‘I will retain my shirt in deference to your modesty. But I mean to remove my socks and dry them by the fire.’

      ‘Is there any reason that I would be inflamed at the sight of them?’ she asked, suddenly rather curious. For other than in paintings, she could not remember ever seeing any male feet.

      ‘None that I know of. But if you wish, you may assure yourself that they are not cloven hooves.’ He pulled back the covers and she caught a glimpse of them as he rolled easily into his side of the bed. They were quite ordinary, although there was something distinctly masculine about the size.

      But being able to travel with dry toes tomorrow would be rather pleasant. So she went to her side of the bed, with her back to him, and as discretely as possible removed her boots, undid her garters and rolled her own stockings down.

      Then she glanced at the bed again, trying not to look at the body already in it. To lie down beside it would be more than a careless disregard for modesty. But she was very tired, and there might not be another chance to sleep in a bed, not even part of one, between here and the end of her journey. ‘I have, in the past, been forced to share a mattress with my sister. That did not upset my sleep.’ But Mr Hendricks seemed much larger than Priscilla. And he was occupying slightly more than half of the available space. She wondered, uneasily, how much room she was likely to need.

      He rolled so that he could look at her again as she arranged her stockings next to his. His eyes flicked briefly to her feet, bare on the cold floor of the inn, and then just as quickly back to her face. He gave her a strange, tight smile. ‘But I am not really your brother.’ Then he removed his spectacles, folded them and placed them on a stool next to the bed. ‘We will manage the best we can.’ He rolled so that his back was to her again. ‘When you are ready to retire, please extinguish the candle.’

      Once she was sure that his eyes were truly closed, Dru dropped the front of her gown and loosened the stays built into it to make sleeping a little easier. She feared that the shortness of breath she was experiencing was more the sign of rising panic. She was not even a day from home, but it was farther than she had ever travelled without escort. And on the very first night, she had fallen into what the map maker might label terra incognita, a place where the rules as she understood them did not apply. She was in bed with a strange man and both of them were barefoot. Although no governess had lectured her on this particular circumstance, she was sure that the forecast would have been dire.

      She suspected that Priss would have managed the situation much better, for the girl had been so unwilling to follow the dictates of convention that she would not feel their absence.

      But Dru missed them sorely. She must hope that the man she had hired to aid her was as honest and dependable as he managed to look, in some lights at least. Once he was rested and sober, and wearing his spectacles again, everything would be all right. She remembered the flash of gold in his eyes, after he’d removed his glasses, but just before he’d closed them. Strange, deep, unfathomable eyes. Eyes that had been places and seen things. And they had been looking at her.

      ‘Here there be dragons,’ she whispered, blew out the candle and lay down beside him.

      From somewhere on the other side of the mattress, she heard a groan, and the muttered, ‘I will slay them in the morning.’ And then, there was nothing but silence.

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