“It’s me,” Linley said. “May I come in?”
He made certain the blankets covered everything they needed to, and then replied, “Just poke your head through. Since you have all my clothes, I’m not properly dressed.”
Linley pushed her face through the curtain, which served as the room’s door. “I’ve finished your laundry,” she said, trying not to look at him too closely. Trying to seem like it was completely normal for her to speak to a man with his shirt off. “Although I can’t promise it will be dry by the morning.”
“That’s fine. By now, I’ve grown quite used to wearing damp clothes.”
Linley grinned. How very like him to make jokes while sitting there with no clothes on! And oh how good he looked while doing it… “You know, I wondered where your handsome face went, but it turns out it’s been hiding underneath that beard all along.”
Patrick scratched his smooth jaw, enjoying the feel of it after so many days of coarse brown stubble. “Handsome, you say?”
“Yes, I said it. Go ahead and rub it in.”
“I would never dream of it,” he said, trying hard to hold back the smile playing at his lips. “I gladly take compliments whenever they are offered to me.”
“Then while we are on the subject, and while I am feeling so generous, I may as well tell you that I’ve missed your dimples, too.” This time there was no hint of self-consciousness in her admission.
Patrick said nothing. He only smiled up at her from his position on the floor.
“At any rate,” Linley said, feeling herself growing warm at the sight of those beautiful little dents in his cheeks. “I’ve done your laundry, and it is hanging up to dry.”
“You are an angel.”
She grinned and blushed a little deeper. Pulling her head out of the curtain, Linley resisted the urge to skip down the little narrow corridor. The lama had placed his English guests in one of the red-roofed towers of the monastery, separated from the monk’s quarters by a stone courtyard. It was not their custom to live under the same roof as a woman, or to sleep in the same room for more than three days with anyone who wasn’t a Buddhist monk. Despite these difficulties, the monks seemed a generous and understanding group of men.
If only the men in her group were as understanding, because as Linley turned to make her way down the hall, she realized her father had been standing there all along.
“You did Lord Kyre’s laundry?” he asked, arms crossed over his chest.
Linley tried to wave him off. “It’s not like the poor man could do it himself.”
“No daughter of mine is anyone else’s laundress!”
It was the first time her father raised his voice at her since she was a little girl. Startled, Linley took a step back. “Papa, don’t be ridiculous…”
Sir Bedford Talbot-Martin uncrossed his arms and raked his hands through his white hair. “I’ve been putting this conversation off for some time, but I am afraid I cannot delay it any longer.” He motioned for her to follow him down the stairs.
Outside in the stone courtyard, Linley walked with her father to a bench that overlooked the expanse of valley below.
“For years, I have played the role of both father and mother to you,” he said, sinking down onto the bench. “You remember when you got your first monthlies…”
Linley sat down beside him. “Yes, Papa. I do.”
“And do you think that was pleasant for me to explain to you?”
“No. I suppose not.”
Her father fidgeted in his seat. “Well, neither is this, so I hope you will have patience with an old man.” He paused for a long time, seeming to gather his thoughts and choose his words carefully. “Button, men are very different from women. And not just in the physical sense…”
“Yes, I know.”
“…Men want different things than women want.”
Linley nodded. “Yes, Papa, I know. I’ve already had this conversation.”
Sir Bedford scratched his head, partly relieved, and partly frightened that someone else had talked to his daughter about such things. “With whom?”
“With Patrick.”
Her father nearly fell off the bench. “You’ve been talking about this with Lord Kyre?”
“He talks to me about all sorts of things,” Linley explained. “He told me that a woman expects different things from a man when she goes to bed with him. That sleeping with someone will not make them love you.”
“Kyre told you all that, did he?”
“Yes, Papa,” she said. “Patrick is my friend.”
“That may be so, but it isn’t proper for him to be telling you about relations between men and women.”
“But who better to do so? You?” Linley asked. “You haven’t been married for twenty years. Things concerning men and women and…relations…have changed since your day.”