Mariah took lunch on a tray in the library and kept working with a dogged determination to be finished and gone before she ever had to set eyes on Brandon Haverton again.
By mid-afternoon it sounded as though the howling of the wind had lessened slightly and Mariah hoped against hope that that meant the storm was easing.
As the dinner hour approached, her stomach knotted more and more. She snuck from the library, her muscles sore and cramping from having been leaning over heavy tomes all day. She wanted nothing more than a hot bath and a long sleep, and when she rang the bell for Dora, she informed the young girl of this.
"Won't Mr. Haverton be expecting you for dinner?"
"Perhaps, but I am simply too tired," Mariah lied, exaggerating the yawning and droopiness.
Dora didn't look convinced, but she remained quiet, for which Maria was very grateful.
After a long soak, Mariah requested a supper tray in her room, and as soon as she was done she crawled into bed.
This was fine, she thought, snuggling under the heavy counterpane of her bed, if she could do this every day there would be absolutely no problems at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There was a problem.
Mariah sighed in frustration and threw the book she'd been reading onto the bedside table.
She was going stark, raving mad holed up in this house.
For three days, she'd been to the library and her bedroom, and that was it.
Mercifully the snow had eased off and though the roads were still completely impassable for her and her small gig, a footman had been sent with word of her safety and forced stay at the manor house and had returned with a few gowns. Unfortunately, the gowns were accompanied by a sermon of some magnitude on propriety and the ruination of women in society, courtesy of a letter from her mother.
But this? This self-imposed incarceration was driving her slowly insane.
Mariah stood and pulled back the curtains which Dora had drawn earlier. The sky was cloudless, the complete blackness dotted with shining stars and dominated by the pale, ice-white moon.
The moonlight illuminated the grounds lending an ethereal glow to everything. It was peaceful and beautiful, yet she felt restless.
It was not even past the usual dinner hour but she felt as though she'd been in this room for hours already.
What she needed, Mariah thought, was a drink; brandy or whiskey or some such thing, to send her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
For her sleeps had been far from deep and very, very far from dreamless. In fact, she could barely close her eyes without Brandon Haverton galloping to the forefront of her thoughts.
Mariah didn't know many compromising positions, but the ones she did know were put to good use during the wee hours of the night when her imagination ran wild and she ended up awakening feeling frustrated, hot and bothered.
This was ridiculous and it needed to stop. She hadn't even seen the man in days. Not since that last horrid conversation in the drawing room.
She was exhausted. She needed to sleep. And she certainly needed to stop thinking about Mr. Haverton.
Her mind made up, Mariah decided to brave the corridors.
From Dora she had learned that Mr. Haverton had been keeping to his room and study, no doubt with the same intentions she had in mind.
So, in theory, it should be safe to dart downstairs and sneak a drink from the drawing room, which she knew was kept stocked.
She did think fleetingly that it was rather concerning to turn to alcohol to deal with life's problems, but then she figured nobody had ever had to deal with a man such as Haverton before and if they had, they would certainly be foxed more often than not.
The house was freezing as Mariah darted through it. Thankfully, she hadn't yet changed into her night rail, so if she did get caught she would brazen it out and ask for tea.
The drawing room was mercifully empty, and Mariah heaved a sigh of relief as she moved toward the drinks cabinet. She had thought a medicinal glass of wine would do the trick but her hand stilled in the act of pouring as she eyed the amber coloured brandy that Mr. Haverton favoured.
The stuff had been vile. But, because clearly she'd crossed into complete madness, she felt herself wanting to drink it because he had been the one to provide her first taste of it.
How foolish of her.
She silently berated herself as she sloshed some of the liquid into a glass. Did she think that drinking his brandy would suddenly bring them closer together? Did she think that he would suddenly throw off his mantle of secretive sullenness and fall desperately in love with her because she stole something from his drinks cabinet?
Mariah had had some strange ideas in her time but even she could admit that seemed a little far-fetched.
It didn't stop her drinking it, however.
The first sip burned its way down her throat and she coughed and spluttered and genuinely thought for a moment that she would die. But, after the burn subsided she quite enjoyed the feeling of warmth in her belly, and she took another healthy slug.